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Title: The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3)

Author: John Ruskin

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Language: English

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Volume II

Volume III

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

JOHN RUSKIN

VOLUME VII

STONES OF VENICE

VOLUME I

VENICE
FROM A PAINTING BY

J. M. W. TURNER

Library Edition

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

JOHN RUSKIN

STONES OF VENICE
Volumes I-II

NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

NEW YORK CHICAGO

THE

STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME I.

THE FOUNDATIONS

PREFACE.

In the course of arranging the following essay, I put many things aside in my
thoughts to be said in the Preface, things which I shall now put aside altogether,
and pass by; for when a book has been advertised a year and a half, it seems best
to present it with as little preface as possible.

Thus much, however, it is necessary for the reader to know, that, when I
planned the work, I had materials by me, collected at different times of sojourn in
Venice during the last seventeen years, which it seemed to me might be arranged
with little difficulty, and which I believe to be of value as illustrating the history of
Southern Gothic. Requiring, however, some clearer assurance respecting certain
points of chronology, I went to Venice finally in the autumn of 1849, not doubting
but that the dates of the principal edifices of the ancient city were either
ascertained, or ascertainable without extraordinary research. To my consternation,
I found that the Venetian antiquaries were not agreed within a century as to the
date of the building of the façades of the Ducal Palace, and that nothing was

known of any other civil edifice of the early city, except that at some time or other
it had been fitted up for somebody’s reception, and been thereupon fresh painted.
Every date in question was determinable only by internal evidence, and it became
necessary for me to examine not only every one of the older palaces, stone by
stone, but every fragment throughout the city which afforded any clue to the
formation of its styles. This I did as well as I could, and I believe there will be
found, in the following pages, the only existing account of the details of early
Venetian architecture on which dependence can be placed, as far as it goes. I do
not care to point out the deficiencies of other works on this subject; the reader will
find, if he examines them, either that the buildings to which I shall specially direct
his attention have been hitherto undescribed, or else that there are great
discrepancies between previous descriptions and mine: for which discrepancies I
may be permitted to give this single and sufficient reason, that my account of
every building is based on personal examination and measurement of it, and that
my taking the pains so to examine what I had to describe, was a subject of grave
surprise to my Italian friends. The work of the Marchese Selvatico is, however, to
be distinguished with respect; it is clear in arrangement, and full of useful, though
vague, information; and I have found cause to adopt, in great measure, its views of
the chronological succession of the edifices of Venice. I shall have cause hereafter
to quarrel with it on other grounds, but not without expression of gratitude for the
assistance it has given me. Fontana’s “Fabbriche di Venezia” is also historically
valuable, but does not attempt to give architectural detail. Cicognara, as is now
generally known, is so inaccurate as hardly to deserve mention.

Indeed, it is not easy to be accurate in an account of anything, however simple.
Zoologists often disagree in their descriptions of the curve of a shell, or the
plumage of a bird, though they may lay their specimen on the table, and examine
it at their leisure; how much greater becomes the likelihood of error in the
description of things which must be in many parts observed from a distance, or
under unfavorable circumstances of light and shade; and of which many of the
distinctive features have been worn away by time. I believe few people have any
idea of the cost of truth in these things; of the expenditure of time necessary to
make sure of the simplest facts, and of the strange way in which separate

observations will sometimes falsify each other, incapable of reconcilement, owing
to some imperceptible inadvertency. I am ashamed of the number of times in
which I have had to say, in the following pages, “I am not sure,” and I claim for
them no authority, as if they were thoroughly sifted from error, even in what they
more confidently state. Only, as far as my time, and strength, and mind served me,
I have endeavored down to the smallest matters, to ascertain and speak the truth.

Nor was the subject without many and most discouraging difficulties, peculiar
to itself. As far as my inquiries have extended, there is not a building in Venice,
raised prior to the sixteenth century, which has not sustained essential change in
one or more of its most important features. By far the greater number present
examples of three or four different styles, it may be successive, it may be
accidentally associated; and, in many instances, the restorations or additions have
gradually replaced the entire structure of the ancient fabric, of which nothing but
the name remains, together with a kind of identity, exhibited in the anomalous
association of the modernized portions: the Will of the old building asserted
through them all, stubbornly, though vainly, expressive; superseded by codicils,
and falsified by misinterpretation; yet animating what would otherwise be a mere
group of fantastic masque, as embarrassing to the antiquary, as to the mineralogist,
the epigene crystal, formed by materials of one substance modelled on the
perished crystals of another. The church of St. Mark’s itself, harmonious as its
structure may at first sight appear, is an epitome of the changes of Venetian
architecture from the tenth to the nineteenth century. Its crypt, and the line of low
arches which support the screen, are apparently the earliest portions; the lower
stories of the main fabric are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with later
Gothic interpolations; the pinnacles are of the earliest fully developed Venetian
Gothic (fourteenth century); but one of them, that on the projection at the eastern
extremity of the Piazzetta de Leoni, is of far finer, and probably earlier
workmanship than all the rest. The southern range of pinnacles is again inferior to
the northern and western, and visibly of later date. Then the screen, which most
writers have described as part of the original fabric, bears its date inscribed on its
architrave, 1394, and with it are associated a multitude of small screens,
balustrades, decorations of the interior building, and probably the rose window of

the south transept. Then come the interpolated traceries of the front and sides; then
the crocketings of the upper arches, extravagances of the incipient Renaissance:
and, finally, the figures which carry the waterspouts on the north side—utterly
barbarous seventeenth or eighteenth century work—connect the whole with the
plastered restorations of the year 1844 and 1845. Most of the palaces in Venice
have sustained interpolations hardly less numerous; and those of the Ducal Palace
are so intricate, that a year’s labor would probably be insufficient altogether to
disentangle and define them. I therefore gave up all thoughts of obtaining a
perfectly clear chronological view of the early architecture; but the dates
necessary to the main purposes of the book the reader will find well established;
and of the evidence brought forward for those of less importance, he is himself to
judge. Doubtful estimates are never made grounds of argument; and the accuracy
of the account of the buildings themselves, for which alone I pledge myself, is of
course entirely independent of them.

In like manner, as the statements briefly made in the chapters on construction
involve questions so difficult and so general, that I cannot hope that every
expression referring to them will be found free from error: and as the conclusions
to which I have endeavored to lead the reader are thrown into a form the validity
of which depends on that of each successive step, it might be argued, if fallacy or
weakness could be detected in one of them, that all the subsequent reasonings
were valueless. The reader may be assured, however, that it is not so; the method
of proof used in the following essay being only one out of many which were in
my choice, adopted because it seemed to me the shortest and simplest, not as
being the strongest. In many cases, the conclusions are those which men of quick
feeling would arrive at instinctively; and I then sought to discover the reasons of
what so strongly recommended itself as truth. Though these reasons could every
one of them, from the beginning to the end of the book, be proved insufficient, the
truth of its conclusions would remain the same. I should only regret that I had
dishonored them by an ill-grounded defence; and endeavor to repair my error by a
better one.

I have not, however, written carelessly; nor should I in any wise have expressed
doubt of the security of the following argument, but that it is physically

impossible for me, being engaged quite as much with mountains, and clouds, and
trees, and criticism of painting, as with architecture, to verify, as I should desire,
the expression of every sentence bearing upon empirical and technical matters.
Life is not long enough; nor does a day pass by without causing me to feel more
bitterly the impossibility of carrying out to the extent which I should desire, the
separate studies which general criticism continually forces me to undertake. I can
only assure the reader, that he will find the certainty of every statement I permit
myself to make, increase with its importance; and that, for the security of the final
conclusions of the following essay, as well as for the resolute veracity of its
account of whatever facts have come under my own immediate cognizance, I will
pledge myself to the uttermost.

It was necessary, to the accomplishment of the purpose of the work (of which
account is given in the First Chapter), that I should establish some canons of
judgment, which the general reader should thoroughly understand, and, if it
pleased him, accept, before we took cognizance, together, of any architecture
whatsoever. It has taken me more time and trouble to do this than I expected; but,
if I have succeeded, the thing done will be of use for many other purposes than
that to which it is now put. The establishment of these canons, which I have called
“the Foundations,” and some account of the connection of Venetian architecture
with that of the rest of Europe, have filled the present volume. The second will, I
hope, contain all I have to say about Venice itself.

It was of course inexpedient to reduce drawings of crowded details to the size
of an octavo volume,—I do not say impossible, but inexpedient; requiring infinite
pains on the part of the engraver, with no result except farther pains to the
beholder. And as, on the other hand, folio books are not easy reading, I determined
to separate the text and the unreducible plates. I have given, with the principal
text, all the illustrations absolutely necessary to the understanding of it, and, in the
detached work, such additional text as has special reference to the larger
illustrations.

A considerable number of these larger plates were at first intended to be
executed in tinted lithography; but, finding the result unsatisfactory, I have

determined to prepare the principal subjects for mezzotinting,—a change of
method requiring two new drawings to be made of every subject; one a carefully
penned outline for the etcher, and then a finished drawing upon the etching. This
work does not proceed fast, while I am also occupied with the completion of the
text; but the numbers of it will appear as fast as I can prepare them.

For the illustrations of the body of the work itself, I have used any kind of
engraving which seemed suited to the subjects—line and mezzotint, on steel, with
mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at considerable loss of uniformity in the
appearance of the volume, but, I hope, with advantage, in rendering the character
of the architecture it describes. And both in the plates and the text I have aimed
chiefly at clear intelligibility; that any one, however little versed in the subject,
might be able to take up the book, and understand what it meant forthwith. I have
utterly failed of my purpose, if I have not made all the essential parts of the essay
intelligible to the least learned, and easy to the most desultory readers, who are
likely to take interest in the matter at all. There are few passages which even
require so much as an acquaintance with the elements of Euclid, and these may be
missed, without harm to the sense of the rest, by every reader to whom they may
appear mysterious; and the architectural terms necessarily employed (which are
very few) are explained as they occur, or in a note; so that, though I may often be
found trite or tedious, I trust that I shall not be obscure. I am especially anxious to
rid this essay of ambiguity, because I want to gain the ear of all kinds of persons.
Every man has, at some time of his life, personal interest in architecture. He has
influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter
his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge of other arts be general or
not; men may live without buying pictures or statues: but, in architecture, all must
in some way commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their money, if
they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses,
and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built, and
lived in, however joyless or inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of
us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in matters with which we
are daily concerned, and not to be left to the caprice of architects or mercy of
contractors. There is not, indeed, anything in the following essay bearing on the

special forms and needs of modern buildings; but the principles it inculcates are
universal; and they are illustrated from the remains of a city which should surely
be interesting to the men of London, as affording the richest existing examples of
architecture raised by a mercantile community, for civil uses, and domestic
magnificence.

Denmark Hill, February, 1851.

CONTENTS.

page

Preface, iii
CHAPTER I.
The Quarry, 1
CHAPTER II.
The Virtues of Architecture, 36
CHAPTER III.
The Six Divisions of Architecture, 47
CHAPTER IV.
The Wall Base, 52
CHAPTER V.
The Wall Veil, 58
CHAPTER VI.
The Wall Cornice, 63
CHAPTER VII.
The Pier Base, 71

CHAPTER VIII.
The Shaft, 84
CHAPTER IX.
The Capital, 105
CHAPTER X.
The Arch Line, 122
CHAPTER XI.
The Arch Masonry, 132
CHAPTER XII.
The Arch Load, 144
CHAPTER XIII.
The Roof, 148
CHAPTER XIV.
The Roof Cornice, 155
CHAPTER XV.
The Buttress, 166
CHAPTER XVI.
Form of Aperture, 174
CHAPTER XVII.
Filling of Aperture, 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
Protection of Aperture, 195
CHAPTER XIX.
Superimposition, 200
CHAPTER XX.
The Material of Ornament, 211
CHAPTER XXI.
Treatment of Ornament, 236
CHAPTER XXII.

The Angle, 259
CHAPTER XXII.
The Angle, 259
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Edge and Fillet, 267
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Roll and Recess, 276
CHAPTER XXV.
The Base, 281
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Wall Veil and Shaft, 294
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Cornice and Capital, 305
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Archivolt and Aperture, 333
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Roof, 343
CHAPTER XXX.
The Vestibule, 349

APPENDIX.

1. Foundation of Venice, 359
2. Power of the Doges, 360
3. Serrar del Consiglio, 360
4. Pietro di Castello, 361
5. Papal Power in Venice, 362
6. Renaissance Ornament, 369
7. Varieties of the Orders, 370

8. The Northern Energy, 371
9. Wooden Churches of the North, 381
10. Church of Alexandria, 381
11. Renaissance Landscape, 381
12. Romanist Modern Art, 384
13. Mr. Fergusson’s System, 388
14. Divisions of Humanity, 394
15. Instinctive Judgments, 399
16. Strength of Shafts, 402
17. Answer to Mr. Garbett, 403
18. Early English Capitals, 411
19. Tombs near St. Anastasia, 412
20. Shafts of the Ducal Palace, 413
21. Ancient Representations of Water, 417
22. Arabian Ornamentation, 429
23. Varieties of Chamfer, 429
24. Renaissance Bases, 431
25. Romanist Decoration of Bases, 432

LIST OF PLATES.

Facing Page

Plate 1. Wall Veil Decoration, Ca’ Trevisan and Ca’ Dario, 13
" 2. Plans of Piers, 100
" 3. Arch Masonry, 134
" 4. Arch Masonry, 137

" 5. Arch Masonry, Bruletto of Como, 141
" 6. Types of Towers, 207
" 7. Abstracts Lines, 222
" 8. Decorations by Disks, Ca’ Badoari, 241
" 9. Edge Decoration, 268
" 10. Profiles of Bases, 283
" 11. Plans of Bases, 288
" 12. Decorations of Bases, 289
" 13. Wall Veil Decorations, 295
" 14. Spandril Decorations, Ducal Palace, 298
" 15. Cornice Profiles, 306
" 16. Cornice Decorations, 311
" 17. Capitals—Concave, 323
" 18. Capitals—Convex, 327
" 19. Archivolt Decoration, Verona, 333
" 20. Wall Veil Decoration, Ca’ Trevisan, 369
" 21. Wall Veil Decoration, San Michele, Lucca, 378

THE

STONES OF VENICE.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUARRY.

§ I. Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones,
of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the thrones of Tyre,
Venice, and England. Of the First of these great powers only the memory remains;
of the Second, the ruin; the Third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their
example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruction.

The exaltation, the sin, and the punishment of Tyre have been recorded for us,
in perhaps the most touching words ever uttered by the Prophets of Israel against
the cities of the stranger. But we read them as a lovely song; and close our ears to
the sternness of their warning: for the very depth of the Fall of Tyre has blinded us
to its reality, and we forget, as we watch the bleaching of the rocks between the
sunshine and the sea, that they were once “as in Eden, the garden of God.”

Her successor, like her in perfection of beauty, though less in endurance of
dominion, is still left for our beholding in the final period of her decline: a ghost
upon the sands of the sea, so weak—so quiet,—so bereft of all but her loveliness,
that we might well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage of the
lagoon, which was the City, and which the Shadow.

I would endeavor to trace the lines of this image before it be for ever lost, and
to record, as far as I may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every
one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat, like passing bells, against the Stones of
Venice.

§ II. It would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be
derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a

history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and
disputable outline,—barred with brightness and shade, like the far away edge of
her own ocean, where the surf and the sand-bank are mingled with the sky. The
inquiries in which we have to engage will hardly render this outline clearer, but
their results will, in some degree, alter its aspect; and, so far as they bear upon it at
all, they possess an interest of a far higher kind than that usually belonging to
architectural investigations. I may, perhaps, in the outset, and in few words, enable
the general reader to form a clearer idea of the importance of every existing
expression of Venetian character through Venetian art, and of the breadth of
interest which the true history of Venice embraces, than he is likely to have
gleaned from the current fables of her mystery or magnificence.

§ III. Venice is usually conceived as an oligarchy: She was so during a period
less than the half of her existence, and that including the days of her decline; and
it is one of the first questions needing severe examination, whether that decline
was owing in any wise to the change in the form of her government, or altogether,
as assuredly in great part, to changes, in the character of the persons of whom it
was composed.

The state of Venice existed Thirteen Hundred and Seventy-six years, from the
first establishment of a consular government on the island of the Rialto,1 to the
moment when the General-in-chief of the French army of Italy pronounced the
Venetian republic a thing of the past. Of this period, Two Hundred and Seventy-
six2 years were passed in a nominal subjection to the cities of old Venetia,
especially to Padua, and in an agitated form of democracy, of which the executive
appears to have been entrusted to tribunes,3 chosen, one by the inhabitants of each
of the principal islands. For six hundred years,4 during which the power of Venice
was continually on the increase, her government was an elective monarchy, her
King or doge possessing, in early times at least, as much independent authority as
any other European sovereign, but an authority gradually subjected to limitation,
and shortened almost daily of its prerogatives, while it increased in a spectral and
incapable magnificence. The final government of the nobles, under the image of a

king, lasted for five hundred years, during which Venice reaped the fruits of her
former energies, consumed them,—and expired.

§ IV. Let the reader therefore conceive the existence of the Venetian state as
broadly divided into two periods: the first of nine hundred, the second of five
hundred years, the separation being marked by what was called the “Serrar del
Consiglio;” that is to say, the final and absolute distinction of the nobles from the
commonalty, and the establishment of the government in their hands to the
exclusion alike of the influence of the people on the one side, and the authority of
the doge on the other.

Then the first period, of nine hundred years, presents us with the most
interesting spectacle of a people struggling out of anarchy into order and power;
and then governed, for the most part, by the worthiest and noblest man whom they
could find among them,5 called their Doge or Leader, with an aristocracy
gradually and resolutely forming itself around him, out of which, and at last by
which, he was chosen; an aristocracy owing its origin to the accidental numbers,
influence, and wealth of some among the families of the fugitives from the older
Venetia, and gradually organizing itself, by its unity and heroism, into a separate
body.

This first period includes the rise of Venice, her noblest achievements, and the
circumstances which determined her character and position among European
powers; and within its range, as might have been anticipated, we find the names of
all her hero princes,—of Pietro Urseolo, Ordalafo Falier, Domenico Michieli,
Sebastiano Ziani, and Enrico Dandolo.

§ V. The second period opens with a hundred and twenty years, the most
eventful in the career of Venice—the central struggle of her life—stained with her
darkest crime, the murder of Carrara—disturbed by her most dangerous internal
sedition, the conspiracy of Falier—oppressed by her most fatal war, the war of
Chiozza—and distinguished by the glory of her two noblest citizens (for in this
period the heroism of her citizens replaces that of her monarchs), Vittor Pisani and
Carlo Zeno.

I date the commencement of the Fall of Venice from the death of Carlo Zeno,
8th May, 1418;6 the visible commencement from that of another of her noblest and
wisest children, the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo, who expired five years later. The
reign of Foscari followed, gloomy with pestilence and war; a war in which large
acquisitions of territory were made by subtle or fortunate policy in Lombardy, and
disgrace, significant as irreparable, sustained in the battles on the Po at Cremona,
and in the marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of the states of
Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk: in the same year was established the
Inquisition of State,7 and from this period her government takes the perfidious and
mysterious form under which it is usually conceived. In 1477, the great Turkish
invasion spread terror to the shores of the lagoons; and in 1508 the league of
Cambrai marks the period usually assigned as the commencement of the decline
of the Venetian power;8 the commercial prosperity of Venice in the close of the
fifteenth century blinding her historians to the previous evidence of the diminution
of her internal strength.

§ VI. Now there is apparently a significative coincidence between the
establishment of the aristocratic and oligarchical powers, and the diminution of
the prosperity of the state. But this is the very question at issue; and it appears to
me quite undetermined by any historian, or determined by each in accordance
with his own prejudices. It is a triple question: first, whether the oligarchy
established by the efforts of individual ambition was the cause, in its subsequent
operation, of the Fall of Venice; or (secondly) whether the establishment of the
oligarchy itself be not the sign and evidence, rather than the cause, of national
enervation; or (lastly) whether, as I rather think, the history of Venice might not be
written almost without reference to the construction of her senate or the
prerogatives of her Doge. It is the history of a people eminently at unity in itself,
descendants of Roman race, long disciplined by adversity, and compelled by its
position either to live nobly or to perish:—for a thousand years they fought for
life; for three hundred they invited death: their battle was rewarded, and their call
was heard.

§ VII. Throughout her career, the victories of Venice, and, at many periods of it,
her safety, were purchased by individual heroism; and the man who exalted or
saved her was sometimes (oftenest) her king, sometimes a noble, sometimes a
citizen. To him no matter, nor to her: the real question is, not so much what names
they bore, or with what powers they were entrusted, as how they were trained;
how they were made masters of themselves, servants of their country, patient of
distress, impatient of dishonor; and what was the true reason of the change from
the time when she could find saviours among those whom she had cast into
prison, to that when the voices of her own children commanded her to sign
covenant with Death.9

§ VIII. On this collateral question I wish the reader’s mind to be fixed
throughout all our subsequent inquiries. It will give double interest to every detail:
nor will the interest be profitless; for the evidence which I shall be able to deduce
from the arts of Venice will be both frequent and irrefragable, that the decline of
her political prosperity was exactly coincident with that of domestic and
individual religion.

I say domestic and individual; for—and this is the second point which I wish
the reader to keep in mind—the most curious phenomenon in all Venetian history
is the vitality of religion in private life, and its deadness in public policy. Amidst
the enthusiasm, chivalry, or fanaticism of the other states of Europe, Venice
stands, from first to last, like a masked statue; her coldness impenetrable, her
exertion only aroused by the touch of a secret spring. That spring was her
commercial interest,—this the one motive of all her important political acts, or
enduring national animosities. She could forgive insults to her honor, but never
rivalship in her commerce; she calculated the glory of her conquests by their
value, and estimated their justice by their facility. The fame of success remains,
when the motives of attempt are forgotten; and the casual reader of her history
may perhaps be surprised to be reminded, that the expedition which was
commanded by the noblest of her princes, and whose results added most to her
military glory, was one in which while all Europe around her was wasted by the
fire of its devotion, she first calculated the highest price she could exact from its

piety for the armament she furnished, and then, for the advancement of her own
private interests, at once broke her faith10 and betrayed her religion.

§ IX. And yet, in the midst of this national criminality, we shall be struck again
and again by the evidences of the most noble individual feeling. The tears of
Dandolo were not shed in hypocrisy, though they could not blind him to the
importance of the conquest of Zara. The habit of assigning to religion a direct
influence over all his own actions, and all the affairs of his own daily life, is
remarkable in every great Venetian during the times of the prosperity of the state;
nor are instances wanting in which the private feeling of the citizens reaches the
sphere of their policy, and even becomes the guide of its course where the scales
of expediency are doubtfully balanced. I sincerely trust that the inquirer would be
disappointed who should endeavor to trace any more immediate reasons for their
adoption of the cause of Alexander III. against Barbarossa, than the piety which
was excited by the character of their suppliant, and the noble pride which was
provoked by the insolence of the emperor. But the heart of Venice is shown only
in her hastiest councils; her worldly spirit recovers the ascendency whenever she
has time to calculate the probabilities of advantage, or when they are sufficiently
distinct to need no calculation; and the entire subjection of private piety to
national policy is not only remarkable throughout the almost endless series of
treacheries and tyrannies by which her empire was enlarged and maintained, but
symbolised by a very singular circumstance in the building of the city itself. I am
aware of no other city of Europe in which its cathedral was not the principal
feature. But the principal church in Venice was the chapel attached to the palace of
her prince, and called the “Chiesa Ducale.” The patriarchal church,11
inconsiderable in size and mean in decoration, stands on the outermost islet of the
Venetian group, and its name, as well as its site, is probably unknown to the
greater number of travellers passing hastily through the city. Nor is it less worthy
of remark, that the two most important temples of Venice, next to the ducal
chapel, owe their size and magnificence, not to national effort, but to the energy of
the Franciscan and Dominican monks, supported by the vast organization of those
great societies on the mainland of Italy, and countenanced by the most pious, and
perhaps also, in his generation, the most wise, of all the princes of Venice,12 who

now rests beneath the roof of one of those very temples, and whose life is not
satirized by the images of the Virtues which a Tuscan sculptor has placed around
his tomb.

§ X. There are, therefore, two strange and solemn lights in which we have to
regard almost every scene in the fitful history of the Rivo Alto. We find, on the
one hand, a deep and constant tone of individual religion characterising the lives
of the citizens of Venice in her greatness; we find this spirit influencing them in all
the familiar and immediate concerns of life, giving a peculiar dignity to the
conduct even of their commercial transactions, and confessed by them with a
simplicity of faith that may well put to shame the hesitation with which a man of
the world at present admits (even if it be so in reality) that religious feeling has
any influence over the minor branches of his conduct. And we find as the natural
consequence of all this, a healthy serenity of mind and energy of will expressed in
all their actions, and a habit of heroism which never fails them, even when the
immediate motive of action ceases to be praiseworthy. With the fulness of this
spirit the prosperity of the state is exactly correspondent, and with its failure her
decline, and that with a closeness and precision which it will be one of the
collateral objects of the following essay to demonstrate from such accidental
evidence as the field of its inquiry presents. And, thus far, all is natural and
simple. But the stopping short of this religious faith when it appears likely to
influence national action, correspondent as it is, and that most strikingly, with
several characteristics of the temper of our present English legislature, is a
subject, morally and politically, of the most curious interest and complicated
difficulty; one, however, which the range of my present inquiry will not permit me
to approach, and for the treatment of which I must be content to furnish materials
in the light I may be able to throw upon the private tendencies of the Venetian
character.

§ XI. There is, however, another most interesting feature in the policy of Venice
which will be often brought before us; and which a Romanist would gladly assign
as the reason of its irreligion; namely, the magnificent and successful struggle
which she maintained against the temporal authority of the Church of Rome. It is
true that, in a rapid survey of her career, the eye is at first arrested by the strange

drama to which I have already alluded, closed by that ever memorable scene in the
portico of St. Mark’s,13 the central expression in most men’s thoughts of the
unendurable elevation of the pontifical power; it is true that the proudest thoughts
of Venice, as well as the insignia of her prince, and the form of her chief festival,
recorded the service thus rendered to the Roman Church. But the enduring
sentiment of years more than balanced the enthusiasm of a moment; and the bull
of Clement V., which excommunicated the Venetians and their doge, likening
them to Dathan, Abiram, Absalom, and Lucifer, is a stronger evidence of the great
tendencies of the Venetian government than the umbrella of the doge or the ring of
the Adriatic. The humiliation of Francesco Dandolo blotted out the shame of
Barbarossa, and the total exclusion of ecclesiastics from all share in the councils
of Venice became an enduring mark of her knowledge of the spirit of the Church
of Rome, and of her defiance of it.

To this exclusion of Papal influence from her councils, the Romanist will
attribute their irreligion, and the Protestant their success.14 The first may be
silenced by a reference to the character of the policy of the Vatican itself; and the
second by his own shame, when he reflects that the English legislature sacrificed
their principles to expose themselves to the very danger which the Venetian senate
sacrificed theirs to avoid.

§ XII. One more circumstance remains to be noted respecting the Venetian
government, the singular unity of the families composing it,—unity far from
sincere or perfect, but still admirable when contrasted with the fiery feuds, the
almost daily revolutions, the restless successions of families and parties in power,
which fill the annals of the other states of Italy. That rivalship should sometimes
be ended by the dagger, or enmity conducted to its ends under the mask of law,
could not but be anticipated where the fierce Italian spirit was subjected to so
severe a restraint: it is much that jealousy appears usually unmingled with
illegitimate ambition, and that, for every instance in which private passion sought
its gratification through public danger, there are a thousand in which it was
sacrificed to the public advantage. Venice may well call upon us to note with
reverence, that of all the towers which are still seen rising like a branchless forest
from her islands, there is but one whose office was other than that of summoning

to prayer, and that one was a watch-tower only: from first to last, while the
palaces of the other cities of Italy were lifted into sullen fortitudes of rampart, and
fringed with forked battlements for the javelin and the bow, the sands of Venice
never sank under the weight of a war tower, and her roof terraces were wreathed
with Arabian imagery, of golden globes suspended on the leaves of lilies.15

§ XIII. These, then, appear to me to be the points of chief general interest in the
character and fate of the Venetian people. I would next endeavor to give the reader
some idea of the manner in which the testimony of Art bears upon these questions,
and of the aspect which the arts themselves assume when they are regarded in
their true connexion with the history of the state.

1st. Receive the witness of Painting.

It will be remembered that I put the commencement of the Fall of Venice as far
back as 1418.

Now, John Bellini was born in 1423, and Titian in 1480. John Bellini, and his
brother Gentile, two years older than he, close the line of the sacred painters of
Venice. But the most solemn spirit of religious faith animates their works to the
last. There is no religion in any work of Titian’s: there is not even the smallest
evidence of religious temper or sympathies either in himself, or in those for whom
he painted. His larger sacred subjects are merely themes for the exhibition of
pictorial rhetoric,—composition and color. His minor works are generally made
subordinate to purposes of portraiture. The Madonna in the church of the Frari is a
mere lay figure, introduced to form a link of connexion between the portraits of
various members of the Pesaro family who surround her.

Now this is not merely because John Bellini was a religious man and Titian was
not. Titian and Bellini are each true representatives of the school of painters
contemporary with them; and the difference in their artistic feeling is a
consequence not so much of difference in their own natural characters as in their
early education: Bellini was brought up in faith; Titian in formalism. Between the
years of their births the vital religion of Venice had expired.

§ XIV. The vital religion, observe, not the formal. Outward observance was as
strict as ever; and doge and senator still were painted, in almost every important
instance, kneeling before the Madonna or St. Mark; a confession of faith made
universal by the pure gold of the Venetian sequin. But observe the great picture of
Titian’s in the ducal palace, of the Doge Antonio Grimani kneeling before Faith:
there is a curious lesson in it. The figure of Faith is a coarse portrait of one of
Titian’s least graceful female models: Faith had become carnal. The eye is first
caught by the flash of the Doge’s armor. The heart of Venice was in her wars, not
in her worship.

The mind of Tintoret, incomparably more deep and serious than that of Titian,
casts the solemnity of its own tone over the sacred subjects which it approaches,
and sometimes forgets itself into devotion; but the principle of treatment is
altogether the same as Titian’s: absolute subordination of the religious subject to
purposes of decoration or portraiture.

The evidence might be accumulated a thousandfold from the works of
Veronese, and of every succeeding painter,—that the fifteenth century had taken
away the religious heart of Venice.

§ XV. Such is the evidence of Painting. To collect that of Architecture will be
our task through many a page to come; but I must here give a general idea of its
heads.

Philippe de Commynes, writing of his entry into Venice in 1495, says,—

“Chascun me feit seoir au meillieu de ces deux ambassadeurs qui est l’honneur
d’Italie que d’estre au meillieu; et me menerent au long de la grant rue, qu’ilz
appellent le Canal Grant, et est bien large. Les gallees y passent à travers et y ay
ven navire de quatre cens tonneaux ou plus pres des maisons: et est la plus belle
rue que je croy qui soit en tout le monde, et la mieulx maisonnee, et va le long de
la ville. Les maisons sont fort grandes et haultes, et de bonne pierre, et les
anciennes toutes painctes; les aultres faictes depuis cent ans: toutes ont le devant
de marbre blanc, qui leur vient d’Istrie, à cent mils de là, et encores maincte grant
piece de porphire et de sarpentine sur le devant.... C’est la plus triumphante cité

que j’aye jamais vene et qui plus faict d’honneur à ambassadeurs et estrangiers, et
qui plus saigement se gouverne, et où le service de Dieu est le plus
sollempnellement faict: et encores qu’il y peust bien avoir d’aultres faultes, si je
croy que Dieu les a en ayde pour la reverence qu’ilz portent au service de
l’Eglise.”16

I.

Wall-Veil-Decoration.
CA’TREVISAN CA’DARIO.

§ XVI. This passage is of peculiar interest, for two reasons. Observe, first, the
impression of Commynes respecting the religion of Venice: of which, as I have
above said, the forms still remained with some glimmering of life in them, and
were the evidence of what the real life had been in former times. But observe,
secondly, the impression instantly made on Commynes’ mind by the distinction
between the elder palaces and those built “within this last hundred years; which all
have their fronts of white marble brought from Istria, a hundred miles away, and
besides, many a large piece of porphyry and serpentine upon their fronts.”

On the opposite page I have given two of the ornaments of the palaces which so
struck the French ambassador.17 He was right in his notice of the distinction.
There had indeed come a change over Venetian architecture in the fifteenth
century; and a change of some importance to us moderns: we English owe to it
our St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Europe in general owes to it the utter degradation or
destruction of her schools of architecture, never since revived. But that the reader
may understand this, it is necessary that he should have some general idea of the
connexion of the architecture of Venice with that of the rest of Europe, from its
origin forwards.

§ XVII. All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is derived from
Greece through Rome, and colored and perfected from the East. The history of
architecture is nothing but the tracing of the various modes and directions of this
derivation. Understand this, once for all: if you hold fast this great connecting
clue, you may string all the types of successive architectural invention upon it like
so many beads. The Doric and the Corinthian orders are the roots, the one of all
Romanesque, massy-capitaled buildings—Norman, Lombard, Byzantine, and
what else you can name of the kind; and the Corinthian of all Gothic, Early
English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe: those old Greeks gave the
shaft; Rome gave the arch; the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The shaft and

arch, the frame-work and strength of architecture, are from the race of Japheth: the
spirituality and sanctity of it from Ismael, Abraham, and Shem.

§ XVIII. There is high probability that the Greek received his shaft system from
Egypt; but I do not care to keep this earlier derivation in the mind of the reader. It
is only necessary that he should be able to refer to a fixed point of origin, when
the form of the shaft was first perfected. But it may be incidentally observed, that
if the Greeks did indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then the three families of
the earth have each contributed their part to its noblest architecture: and Ham, the
servant of the others, furnishes the sustaining or bearing member, the shaft;
Japheth the arch; Shem the spiritualisation of both.

§ XIX. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are the roots of all
European architecture. You have, perhaps, heard of five orders; but there are only
two real orders, and there never can be any more until doomsday. On one of these
orders the ornament is convex: those are Doric, Norman, and what else you
recollect of the kind. On the other the ornament is concave: those are Corinthian,
Early English, Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The
transitional form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of
both. All other orders are varieties of those, or phantasms and grotesques
altogether indefinite in number and species.18

§ XX. This Greek architecture, then, with its two orders, was clumsily copied
and varied by the Romans with no particular result, until they begun to bring the
arch into extensive practical service; except only that the Doric capital was
spoiled in endeavors to mend it, and the Corinthian much varied and enriched
with fanciful, and often very beautiful imagery. And in this state of things came
Christianity: seized upon the arch as her own; decorated it, and delighted in it;
invented a new Doric capital to replace the spoiled Roman one: and all over the
Roman empire set to work, with such materials as were nearest at hand, to express
and adorn herself as best she could. This Roman Christian architecture is the exact
expression of the Christianity of the time, very fervid and beautiful—but very
imperfect; in many respects ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, childlike light
of imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores of the

Bosphorus and the Ægean and the Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as the people
give themselves up to idolatry, becomes Corpse-light. The architecture sinks into a
settled form—a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose: it, with the religion it
expressed; and so would have remained for ever,—so does remain, where its
languor has been undisturbed.19 But rough wakening was ordained for it.

§ XXI. This Christian art of the declining empire is divided into two great
branches, western and eastern; one centred at Rome, the other at Byzantium, of
which the one is the early Christian Romanesque, properly so called, and the
other, carried to higher imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is
distinguished from it as Byzantine. But I wish the reader, for the present, to class
these two branches of art together in his mind, they being, in points of main
importance, the same; that is to say, both of them a true continuance and sequence
of the art of old Rome itself, flowing uninterruptedly down from the fountain-
head, and entrusted always to the best workmen who could be found—Latins in
Italy and Greeks in Greece; and thus both branches may be ranged under the
general term of Christian Romanesque, an architecture which had lost the
refinement of Pagan art in the degradation of the empire, but which was elevated
by Christianity to higher aims, and by the fancy of the Greek workmen endowed
with brighter forms. And this art the reader may conceive as extending in its
various branches over all the central provinces of the empire, taking aspects more
or less refined, according to its proximity to the seats of government; dependent
for all its power on the vigor and freshness of the religion which animated it; and
as that vigor and purity departed, losing its own vitality, and sinking into nerveless
rest, not deprived of its beauty, but benumbed and incapable of advance or
change.

§ XXII. Meantime there had been preparation for its renewal. While in Rome and
Constantinople, and in the districts under their immediate influence, this Roman
art of pure descent was practised in all its refinement, an impure form of it—a
patois of Romanesque—was carried by inferior workmen into distant provinces;
and still ruder imitations of this patois were executed by the barbarous nations on
the skirts of the empire. But these barbarous nations were in the strength of their
youth; and while, in the centre of Europe, a refined and purely descended art was

sinking into graceful formalism, on its confines a barbarous and borrowed art was
organising itself into strength and consistency. The reader must therefore consider
the history of the work of the period as broadly divided into two great heads: the
one embracing the elaborately languid succession of the Christian art of Rome;
and the other, the imitations of it executed by nations in every conceivable phase
of early organisation, on the edges of the empire, or included in its now merely
nominal extent.

§ XXIII. Some of the barbaric nations were, of course, not susceptible of this
influence; and when they burst over the Alps, appear, like the Huns, as scourges
only, or mix, as the Ostrogoths, with the enervated Italians, and give physical
strength to the mass with which they mingle, without materially affecting its
intellectual character. But others, both south and north of the empire, had felt its
influence, back to the beach of the Indian Ocean on the one hand, and to the ice
creeks of the North Sea on the other. On the north and west the influence was of
the Latins; on the south and east, of the Greeks. Two nations, pre-eminent above
all the rest, represent to us the force of derived mind on either side. As the central
power is eclipsed, the orbs of reflected light gather into their fulness; and when
sensuality and idolatry had done their work, and the religion of the empire was
laid asleep in a glittering sepulchre, the living light rose upon both horizons, and
the fierce swords of the Lombard and Arab were shaken over its golden paralysis.

§ XXIV. The work of the Lombard was to give hardihood and system to the
enervated body and enfeebled mind of Christendom; that of the Arab was to
punish idolatry, and to proclaim the spirituality of worship. The Lombard covered
every church which he built with the sculptured representations of bodily
exercises—hunting and war.20 The Arab banished all imagination of creature form
from his temples, and proclaimed from their minarets, “There is no god but God.”
Opposite in their character and mission, alike in their magnificence of energy, they
came from the North and from the South, the glacier torrent and the lava stream:
they met and contended over the wreck of the Roman empire; and the very centre
of the struggle, the point of pause of both, the dead water of the opposite eddies,
charged with embayed fragments of the Roman wreck, is Venice.

The Ducal palace of Venice contains the three elements in exactly equal
proportions—the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It is the central building of the
world.

§ XXV. The reader will now begin to understand something of the importance of
the study of the edifices of a city which includes, within the circuit of some seven
or eight miles, the field of contest between the three pre-eminent architectures of
the world:—each architecture expressing a condition of religion; each an
erroneous condition, yet necessary to the correction of the others, and corrected by
them.

§ XXVI. It will be part of my endeavor, in the following work, to mark the
various modes in which the northern and southern architectures were developed
from the Roman: here I must pause only to name the distinguishing characteristics
of the great families. The Christian Roman and Byzantine work is round-arched,
with single and well-proportioned shafts; capitals imitated from classical Roman;
mouldings more or less so; and large surfaces of walls entirely covered with
imagery, mosaic, and paintings, whether of scripture history or of sacred symbols.

The Arab school is at first the same in its principal features, the Byzantine
workmen being employed by the caliphs; but the Arab rapidly introduces
characters half Persepolitan, half Egyptian, into the shafts and capitals: in his
intense love of excitement he points the arch and writhes it into extravagant
foliations; he banishes the animal imagery, and invents an ornamentation of his
own (called Arabesque) to replace it: this not being adapted for covering large
surfaces, he concentrates it on features of interest, and bars his surfaces with
horizontal lines of color, the expression of the level of the Desert. He retains the
dome, and adds the minaret. All is done with exquisite refinement.

§ XXVII. The changes effected by the Lombard are more curious still, for they
are in the anatomy of the building, more than its decoration. The Lombard
architecture represents, as I said, the whole of that of the northern barbaric
nations. And this I believe was, at first, an imitation in wood of the Christian
Roman churches or basilicas. Without staying to examine the whole structure of a
basilica, the reader will easily understand thus much of it: that it had a nave and

two aisles, the nave much higher than the aisles; that the nave was separated from
the aisles by rows of shafts, which supported, above, large spaces of flat or dead
wall, rising above the aisles, and forming the upper part of the nave, now called
the clerestory, which had a gabled wooden roof.

These high dead walls were, in Roman work, built of stone; but in the wooden
work of the North, they must necessarily have been made of horizontal boards or
timbers attached to uprights on the top of the nave pillars, which were themselves
also of wood.21 Now, these uprights were necessarily thicker than the rest of the
timbers, and formed vertical square pilasters above the nave piers. As Christianity
extended and civilisation increased, these wooden structures were changed into
stone; but they were literally petrified, retaining the form which had been made
necessary by their being of wood. The upright pilaster above the nave pier remains
in the stone edifice, and is the first form of the great distinctive feature of
Northern architecture—the vaulting shaft. In that form the Lombards brought it
into Italy, in the seventh century, and it remains to this day in St. Ambrogio of
Milan, and St. Michele of Pavia.

§ XXVIII. When the vaulting shaft was introduced in the clerestory walls,
additional members were added for its support to the nave piers. Perhaps two or
three pine trunks, used for a single pillar, gave the first idea of the grouped shaft.
Be that as it may, the arrangement of the nave pier in the form of a cross
accompanies the superimposition of the vaulting shaft; together with
corresponding grouping of minor shafts in doorways and apertures of windows.
Thus, the whole body of the Northern architecture, represented by that of the
Lombards, may be described as rough but majestic work, round-arched, with
grouped shafts, added vaulting shafts, and endless imagery of active life and
fantastic superstitions.

§ XXIX. The glacier stream of the Lombards, and the following one of the
Normans, left their erratic blocks, wherever they had flowed; but without
influencing, I think, the Southern nations beyond the sphere of their own presence.
But the lava stream of the Arab, even after it ceased to flow, warmed the whole of
the Northern air; and the history of Gothic architecture is the history of the

refinement and spiritualisation of Northern work under its influence. The noblest
buildings of the world, the Pisan-Romanesque, Tuscan (Giottesque) Gothic, and
Veronese Gothic, are those of the Lombard schools themselves, under its close
and direct influence; the various Gothics of the North are the original forms of the
architecture which the Lombards brought into Italy, changing under the less direct
influence of the Arab.

§ XXX. Understanding thus much of the formation of the great European styles,
we shall have no difficulty in tracing the succession of architectures in Venice
herself. From what I said of the central character of Venetian art, the reader is not,
of course, to conclude that the Roman, Northern, and Arabian elements met
together and contended for the mastery at the same period. The earliest element
was the pure Christian Roman; but few, if any, remains of this art exist at Venice;
for the present city was in the earliest times only one of many settlements formed
on the chain of marshy islands which extend from the mouths of the Isonzo to
those of the Adige, and it was not until the beginning of the ninth century that it
became the seat of government; while the cathedral of Torcello, though Christian
Roman in general form, was rebuilt in the eleventh century, and shows evidence
of Byzantine workmanship in many of its details. This cathedral, however, with
the church of Santa Fosca at Torcello, San Giacomo di Rialto at Venice, and the
crypt of St. Mark’s, forms a distinct group of buildings, in which the Byzantine
influence is exceedingly slight; and which is probably very sufficiently
representative of the earliest architecture on the islands.

§ XXXI. The Ducal residence was removed to Venice in 809, and the body of St.
Mark was brought from Alexandria twenty years later. The first church of St.
Mark’s was, doubtless, built in imitation of that destroyed at Alexandria, and from
which the relics of the saint had been obtained. During the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries, the architecture of Venice seems to have been formed on the
same model, and is almost identical with that of Cairo under the caliphs,22 it being
quite immaterial whether the reader chooses to call both Byzantine or both Arabic;
the workmen being certainly Byzantine, but forced to the invention of new forms
by their Arabian masters, and bringing these forms into use in whatever other
parts of the world they were employed.

To this first manner of Venetian architecture, together with vestiges as remain
of the Christian Roman, I shall devote the first division of the following inquiry.
The examples remaining of it consist of three noble churches (those of Torcello,
Murano, and the greater part of St. Mark’s), and about ten or twelve fragments of
palaces.

§ XXXII. To this style succeeds a transitional one, of a character much more
distinctly Arabian: the shafts become more slender, and the arches consistently
pointed, instead of round; certain other changes, not to be enumerated in a
sentence, taking place in the capitals and mouldings. This style is almost
exclusively secular. It was natural for the Venetians to imitate the beautiful details
of the Arabian dwelling-house, while they would with reluctance adopt those of
the mosque for Christian churches.

I have not succeeded in fixing limiting dates for this style. It appears in part
contemporary with the Byzantine manner, but outlives it. Its position is, however,
fixed by the central date, 1180, that of the elevation of the granite shafts of the
Piazetta, whose capitals are the two most important pieces of detail in this
transitional style in Venice. Examples of its application to domestic buildings exist
in almost every street of the city, and will form the subject of the second division
of the following essay.

§ XXXIII. The Venetians were always ready to receive lessons in art from their
enemies (else had there been no Arab work in Venice). But their especial dread
and hatred of the Lombards appears to have long prevented them from receiving
the influence of the art which that people had introduced on the mainland of Italy.
Nevertheless, during the practice of the two styles above distinguished, a peculiar
and very primitive condition of pointed Gothic had arisen in ecclesiastical
architecture. It appears to be a feeble reflection of the Lombard-Arab forms,
which were attaining perfection upon the continent, and would probably, if left to
itself, have been soon merged in the Venetian-Arab school, with which it had from
the first so close a fellowship, that it will be found difficult to distinguish the
Arabian ogives from those which seem to have been built under this early Gothic
influence. The churches of San Giacopo dell’Orio, San Giovanni in Bragora, the

Carmine, and one or two more, furnish the only important examples of it. But, in
the thirteenth century, the Franciscans and Dominicans introduced from the
continent their morality and their architecture, already a distinct Gothic, curiously
developed from Lombardic and Northern (German?) forms; and the influence of
the principles exhibited in the vast churches of St. Paul and the Frari began rapidly
to affect the Venetian-Arab school. Still the two systems never became united; the
Venetian policy repressed the power of the church, and the Venetian artists
resisted its example; and thenceforward the architecture of the city becomes
divided into ecclesiastical and civil: the one an ungraceful yet powerful form of
the Western Gothic, common to the whole peninsula, and only showing Venetian
sympathies in the adoption of certain characteristic mouldings; the other a rich,
luxuriant, and entirely original Gothic, formed from the Venetian-Arab by the
influence of the Dominican and Franciscan architecture, and especially by the
engrafting upon the Arab forms of the most novel feature of the Franciscan work,
its traceries. These various forms of Gothic, the distinctive architecture of Venice,
chiefly represented by the churches of St. John and Paul, the Frari, and San
Stefano, on the ecclesiastical side, and by the Ducal palace, and the other principal
Gothic palaces, on the secular side, will be the subject of the third division of the
essay.

§ XXXIV. Now observe. The transitional (or especially Arabic) style of the
Venetian work is centralised by the date 1180, and is transformed gradually into
the Gothic, which extends in its purity from the middle of the thirteenth to the
beginning of the fifteenth century; that is to say, over the precise period which I
have described as the central epoch of the life of Venice. I dated her decline from
the year 1418; Foscari became doge five years later, and in his reign the first
marked signs appear in architecture of that mighty change which Philippe de
Commynes notices as above, the change to which London owes St. Paul’s, Rome
St. Peter’s, Venice and Vicenza the edifices commonly supposed to be their
noblest, and Europe in general the degradation of every art she has since practised.

§ XXXV. This change appears first in a loss of truth and vitality in existing
architecture all over the world. (Compare “Seven Lamps,” chap. ii.) All the
Gothics in existence, southern or northern, were corrupted at once: the German

and French lost themselves in every species of extravagance; the English Gothic
was confined, in its insanity, by a strait-waistcoat of perpendicular lines; the
Italian effloresced on the mainland into the meaningless ornamentation of the
Certosa of Pavia and the Cathedral of Como (a style sometimes ignorantly called
Italian Gothic), and at Venice into the insipid confusion of the Porta della Carta
and wild crockets of St. Mark’s. This corruption of all architecture, especially
ecclesiastical, corresponded with, and marked the state of religion over all Europe,
—the peculiar degradation of the Romanist superstition, and of public morality in
consequence, which brought about the Reformation.

§ XXXVI. Against the corrupted papacy arose two great divisions of adversaries,
Protestants in Germany and England, Rationalists in France and Italy; the one
requiring the purification of religion, the other its destruction. The Protestant kept
the religion, but cast aside the heresies of Rome, and with them her arts, by which
last rejection he injured his own character, cramped his intellect in refusing to it
one of its noblest exercises, and materially diminished his influence. It may be a
serious question how far the Pausing of the Reformation has been a consequence
of this error.

The Rationalist kept the arts and cast aside the religion. This rationalistic art is
the art commonly called Renaissance, marked by a return to pagan systems, not to
adopt them and hallow them for Christianity, but to rank itself under them as an
imitator and pupil. In Painting it is headed by Giulio Romano and Nicolo Poussin;
in Architecture by Sansovino and Palladio.

§ XXXVII. Instant degradation followed in every direction,—a flood of folly and
hypocrisy. Mythologies ill understood at first, then perverted into feeble
sensualities, take the place of the representations of Christian subjects, which had
become blasphemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods without
power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, men without humanity,
gather into idiot groups upon the polluted canvas, and scenic affectations
encumber the streets with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the
level of abused intellect; the base school of landscape23 gradually usurps the place
of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient pedantry,—the Alsatian

sublimities of Salvator, the confectionery idealities of Claude, the dull
manufacture of Gaspar and Canaletto, south of the Alps, and on the north the
patient devotion of besotted lives to delineation of bricks and fogs, fat cattle and
ditchwater. And thus Christianity and morality, courage, and intellect, and art all
crumbling together into one wreck, we are hurried on to the fall of Italy, the
revolution in France, and the condition of art in England (saved by her
Protestantism from severer penalty) in the time of George II.

§ XXXVIII. I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards
diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting. But the harm
which has been done by Claude and the Poussins is as nothing when compared to
the mischief effected by Palladio, Scamozzi, and Sansovino. Claude and the
Poussins were weak men, and have had no serious influence on the general mind.
There is little harm in their works being purchased at high prices: their real
influence is very slight, and they may be left without grave indignation to their
poor mission of furnishing drawing-rooms and assisting stranded conversation.
Not so the Renaissance architecture. Raised at once into all the magnificence of
which it was capable by Michael Angelo, then taken up by men of real intellect
and imagination, such as Scamozzi, Sansovino, Inigo Jones, and Wren, it is
impossible to estimate the extent of its influence on the European mind; and that
the more, because few persons are concerned with painting, and, of those few, the
larger number regard it with slight attention; but all men are concerned with
architecture, and have at some time of their lives serious business with it. It does
not much matter that an individual loses two or three hundred pounds in buying a
bad picture, but it is to be regretted that a nation should lose two or three hundred
thousand in raising a ridiculous building. Nor is it merely wasted wealth or
distempered conception which we have to regret in this Renaissance architecture:
but we shall find in it partly the root, partly the expression, of certain dominant
evils of modern times—over-sophistication and ignorant classicalism; the one
destroying the healthfulness of general society, the other rendering our schools
and universities useless to a large number of the men who pass through them.

Now Venice, as she was once the most religious, was in her fall the most
corrupt, of European states; and as she was in her strength the centre of the pure

currents of Christian architecture, so she is in her decline the source of the
Renaissance. It was the originality and splendor of the palaces of Vicenza and
Venice which gave this school its eminence in the eyes of Europe; and the dying
city, magnificent in her dissipation, and graceful in her follies, obtained wider
worship in her decrepitude than in her youth, and sank from the midst of her
admirers into the grave.

§ XXXIX. It is in Venice, therefore, and in Venice only that effectual blows can
be struck at this pestilent art of the Renaissance. Destroy its claims to admiration
there, and it can assert them nowhere else. This, therefore, will be the final
purpose of the following essay. I shall not devote a fourth section to Palladio, nor
weary the reader with successive chapters of vituperation; but I shall, in my
account of the earlier architecture, compare the forms of all its leading features
with those into which they were corrupted by the Classicalists; and pause, in the
close, on the edge of the precipice of decline, so soon as I have made its depths
discernible. In doing this I shall depend upon two distinct kinds of evidence:—the
first, the testimony borne by particular incidents and facts to a want of thought or
of feeling in the builders; from which we may conclude that their architecture
must be bad:—the second, the sense, which I doubt not I shall be able to excite in
the reader, of a systematic ugliness in the architecture itself. Of the first kind of
testimony I shall here give two instances, which may be immediately useful in
fixing in the readers mind the epoch above indicated for the commencement of
decline.

§ XL. I must again refer to the importance which I have above attached to the
death of Carlo Zeno and the doge Tomaso Mocenigo. The tomb of that doge is, as
I said, wrought by a Florentine; but it is of the same general type and feeling as all
the Venetian tombs of the period, and it is one of the last which retains it. The
classical element enters largely into its details, but the feeling of the whole is as
yet unaffected. Like all the lovely tombs of Venice and Verona, it is a sarcophagus
with a recumbent figure above, and this figure is a faithful but tender portrait,
wrought as far as it can be without painfulness, of the doge as he lay in death. He
wears his ducal robe and bonnet—his head is laid slightly aside upon his pillow—
his hands are simply crossed as they fall. The face is emaciated, the features large,

but so pure and lordly in their natural chiselling, that they must have looked like
marble even in their animation. They are deeply worn away by thought and death;
the veins on the temples branched and starting; the skin gathered in sharp folds;
the brow high-arched and shaggy; the eye-ball magnificently large; the curve of
the lips just veiled by the light mustache at the side; the beard short, double, and
sharp-pointed: all noble and quiet; the white sepulchral dust marking like light the
stern angles of the cheek and brow.

This tomb was sculptured in 1424, and is thus described by one of the most
intelligent of the recent writers who represent the popular feeling respecting
Venetian art.

“Of the Italian school is also the rich but ugly (ricco ma non bel) sarcophagus in which repose the
ashes of Tomaso Mocenigo. It may be called one of the last links which connect the declining art of
the Middle Ages with that of the Renaissance, which was in its rise. We will not stay to particularise
the defects of each of the seven figures of the front and sides, which represent the cardinal and
theological virtues; nor will we make any remarks upon those which stand in the niches above the
pavilion, because we consider them unworthy both of the age and reputation of the Florentine
school, which was then with reason considered the most notable in Italy.”24

It is well, indeed, not to pause over these defects; but it might have been better
to have paused a moment beside that noble image of a king’s mortality.

§ XLI. In the choir of the same church, St. Giov. and Paolo, is another tomb, that
of the Doge Andrea Vendramin. This doge died in 1478, after a short reign of two
years, the most disastrous in the annals of Venice. He died of a pestilence which
followed the ravage of the Turks, carried to the shores of the lagoons. He died,
leaving Venice disgraced by sea and land, with the smoke of hostile devastation
rising in the blue distances of Friuli; and there was raised to him the most costly
tomb ever bestowed on her monarchs.

§ XLII. If the writer above quoted was cold beside the statue of one of the fathers
of his country, he atones for it by his eloquence beside the tomb of the Vendramin.
I must not spoil the force of Italian superlative by translation.

“Quando si guarda a quella corretta eleganza di profili e di proporzioni, a quella squisitezza
d’ornamenti, a quel certo sapore antico che senza ombra d’imitazione traspare da tutta l’opera”—
&c. “Sopra ornatissimo zoccolo fornito di squisiti intagli s’alza uno stylobate”—&c. “Sotto le
colonne, il predetto stilobate si muta leggiadramente in piedistallo, poi con bella novità di pensiero
e di effetto va coronato da un fregio il più gentile che veder si possa”—&c. “Non puossi lasciar
senza un cenno l’arca dove sta chiuso il doge; capo lavoro di pensiero e di esecuzione,” &c.

There are two pages and a half of closely printed praise, of which the above
specimens may suffice; but there is not a word of the statue of the dead from
beginning to end. I am myself in the habit of considering this rather an important
part of a tomb, and I was especially interested in it here, because Selvatico only
echoes the praise of thousands. It is unanimously declared the chef d’œuvre of
Renaissance sepulchral work, and pronounced by Cicognara (also quoted by
Selvatico)

“Il vertice a cui l’arti Veneziane si spinsero col ministero del scalpello,"—"The very culminating
point to which the Venetian arts attained by ministry of the chisel.”

To this culminating point, therefore, covered with dust and cobwebs, I attained,
as I did to every tomb of importance in Venice, by the ministry of such ancient
ladders as were to be found in the sacristan’s keeping. I was struck at first by the
excessive awkwardness and want of feeling in the fall of the hand towards the
spectator, for it is thrown off the middle of the body in order to show its fine
cutting. Now the Mocenigo hand, severe and even stiff in its articulations, has its
veins finely drawn, its sculptor having justly felt that the delicacy of the veining
expresses alike dignity and age and birth. The Vendramin hand is far more
laboriously cut, but its blunt and clumsy contour at once makes us feel that all the
care has been thrown away, and well it may be, for it has been entirely bestowed
in cutting gouty wrinkles about the joints. Such as the hand is, I looked for its
fellow. At first I thought it had been broken off, but, on clearing away the dust, I
saw the wretched effigy had only one hand, and was a mere block on the inner
side. The face, heavy and disagreeable in its features, is made monstrous by its
semi-sculpture. One side of the forehead is wrinkled elaborately, the other left

smooth; one side only of the doge’s cap is chased; one cheek only is finished, and
the other blocked out and distorted besides; finally, the ermine robe, which is
elaborately imitated to its utmost lock of hair and of ground hair on the one side,
is blocked out only on the other: it having been supposed throughout the work that
the effigy was only to be seen from below, and from one side.

§ XLIII. It was indeed to be so seen by nearly every one; and I do not blame—I
should, on the contrary, have praised—the sculptor for regulating his treatment of
it by its position; if that treatment had not involved, first, dishonesty, in giving
only half a face, a monstrous mask, when we demanded true portraiture of the
dead; and, secondly, such utter coldness of feeling, as could only consist with an
extreme of intellectual and moral degradation: Who, with a heart in his breast,
could have stayed his hand as he drew the dim lines of the old man’s countenance
—unmajestic once, indeed, but at least sanctified by the solemnities of death—
could have stayed his hand, as he reached the bend of the grey forehead, and
measured out the last veins of it at so much the zecchin?

I do not think the reader, if he has feeling, will expect that much talent should
be shown in the rest of his work, by the sculptor of this base and senseless lie. The
whole monument is one wearisome aggregation of that species of ornamental
flourish, which, when it is done with a pen, is called penmanship, and when done
with a chisel, should be called chiselmanship; the subject of it being chiefly fat-
limbed boys sprawling on dolphins, dolphins incapable of swimming, and dragged
along the sea by expanded pocket-handkerchiefs.

But now, reader, comes the very gist and point of the whole matter. This lying
monument to a dishonored doge, this culminating pride of the Renaissance art of
Venice, is at least veracious, if in nothing else, in its testimony to the character of
its sculptor. He was banished from Venice for forgery in 1487.25

§ XLIV. I have more to say about this convict’s work hereafter; but I pass at
present, to the second, slighter, but yet more interesting piece of evidence, which I
promised.

The ducal palace has two principal façades; one towards the sea, the other
towards the Piazzetta. The seaward side, and, as far as the seventh main arch
inclusive, the Piazzetta side, is work of the early part of the fourteenth century,
some of it perhaps even earlier; while the rest of the Piazzetta side is of the
fifteenth. The difference in age has been gravely disputed by the Venetian
antiquaries, who have examined many documents on the subject, and quoted some
which they never examined. I have myself collated most of the written documents,
and one document more, to which the Venetian antiquaries never thought of
referring,—the masonry of the palace itself.

§ XLV. That masonry changes at the centre of the eighth arch from the sea angle
on the Piazzetta side. It has been of comparatively small stones up to that point;
the fifteenth century work instantly begins with larger stones, “brought from
Istria, a hundred miles away.”26 The ninth shaft from the sea in the lower arcade,
and the seventeenth, which is above it, in the upper arcade, commence the series
of fifteenth century shafts. These two are somewhat thicker than the others, and
carry the party-wall of the Sala del Scrutinio. Now observe, reader. The face of the
palace, from this point to the Porta della Carta, was built at the instance of that
noble Doge Mocenigo beside whose tomb you have been standing; at his instance,
and in the beginning of the reign of his successor, Foscari; that is to say, circa
1424. This is not disputed; it is only disputed that the sea façade is earlier; of
which, however, the proofs are as simple as they are incontrovertible: for not only
the masonry, but the sculpture, changes at the ninth lower shaft, and that in the
capitals of the shafts both of the upper and lower arcade: the costumes of the
figures introduced in the sea façade being purely Giottesque, correspondent with
Giotto’s work in the Arena Chapel at Padua, while the costume on the other
capitals is Renaissance-Classic: and the lions’ heads between the arches change at
the same point. And there are a multitude of other evidences in the statues of the
angels, with which I shall not at present trouble the reader.

§ XLVI. Now, the architect who built under Foscari, in 1424 (remember my date
for the decline of Venice, 1418), was obliged to follow the principal forms of the
older palace. But he had not the wit to invent new capitals in the same style; he
therefore clumsily copied the old ones. The palace has seventeen main arches on

the sea façade, eighteen on the Piazzetta side, which in all are of course carried by
thirty-six pillars; and these pillars I shall always number from right to left, from
the angle of the palace at the Ponte della Paglia to that next the Porta della Carta. I
number them in this succession, because I thus have the earliest shafts first
numbered. So counted, the 1st, the 18th, and the 36th, are the great supports of the
angles of the palace; and the first of the fifteenth century series, being, as above
stated, the 9th from the sea on the Piazzetta side, is the 26th of the entire series,
and will always in future be so numbered, so that all numbers above twenty-six
indicate fifteenth century work, and all below it, fourteenth century, with some
exceptional cases of restoration.

Then the copied capitals are: the 28th, copied from the 7th; the 29th, from the
9th; the 30th, from the 10th; the 31st, from the 8th; the 33rd, from the 12th; and
the 34th, from the 11th; the others being dull inventions of the 15th century,
except the 36th, which is very nobly designed.

§ XLVII. The capitals thus selected from the earlier portion of the palace for
imitation, together with the rest, will be accurately described hereafter; the point I
have here to notice is in the copy of the ninth capital, which was decorated (being,
like the rest, octagonal) with figures of the eight Virtues:—Faith, Hope, Charity,
Justice, Temperance, Prudence, Humility (the Venetian antiquaries call it
Humanity!), and Fortitude. The Virtues of the fourteenth century are somewhat
hard-featured; with vivid and living expression, and plain every-day clothes of the
time. Charity has her lap full of apples (perhaps loaves), and is giving one to a
little child, who stretches his arm for it across a gap in the leafage of the capital.
Fortitude tears open a lion’s jaws; Faith lays her hand on her breast, as she
beholds the Cross; and Hope is praying, while above her a hand is seen emerging
from sunbeams—the hand of God (according to that of Revelations, “The Lord
God giveth them light”); and the inscription above is, “Spes optima in Deo.”

§ XLVIII. This design, then, is, rudely and with imperfect chiselling, imitated by
the fifteenth century workmen: the Virtues have lost their hard features and living
expression; they have now all got Roman noses, and have had their hair curled.

Their actions and emblems are, however, preserved until we come to Hope: she is
still praying, but she is praying to the sun only: The hand of God is gone.

Is not this a curious and striking type of the spirit which had then become
dominant in the world, forgetting to see God’s hand in the light He gave; so that in
the issue, when that light opened into the Reformation, on the one side, and into
full knowledge of ancient literature on the other, the one was arrested and the
other perverted?

§ XLIX. Such is the nature of the accidental evidence on which I shall depend for
the proof of the inferiority of character in the Renaissance workmen. But the proof
of the inferiority of the work itself is not so easy, for in this I have to appeal to
judgments which the Renaissance work has itself distorted. I felt this difficulty
very forcibly as I read a slight review of my former work, “The Seven Lamps,” in
“The Architect:” the writer noticed my constant praise of St. Mark’s: “Mr. Ruskin
thinks it a very beautiful building! We,” said the Architect, “think it a very ugly
building.” I was not surprised at the difference of opinion, but at the thing being
considered so completely a subject of opinion. My opponents in matters of
painting always assume that there is such a thing as a law of right, and that I do
not understand it: but my architectural adversaries appeal to no law, they simply
set their opinion against mine; and indeed there is no law at present to which
either they or I can appeal. No man can speak with rational decision of the merits
or demerits of buildings: he may with obstinacy; he may with resolved adherence
to previous prejudices; but never as if the matter could be otherwise decided than
by a majority of votes, or pertinacity of partizanship. I had always, however, a
clear conviction that there was a law in this matter: that good architecture might
be indisputably discerned and divided from the bad; that the opposition in their
very nature and essence was clearly visible; and that we were all of us just as
unwise in disputing about the matter without reference to principle, as we should
be for debating about the genuineness of a coin, without ringing it. I felt also
assured that this law must be universal if it were conclusive; that it must enable us
to reject all foolish and base work, and to accept all noble and wise work, without
reference to style or national feeling; that it must sanction the design of all truly
great nations and times, Gothic or Greek or Arab; that it must cast off and

reprobate the design of all foolish nations and times, Chinese or Mexican, or
modern European: and that it must be easily applicable to all possible architectural
inventions of human mind. I set myself, therefore, to establish such a law, in full
belief that men are intended, without excessive difficulty, and by use of their
general common sense, to know good things from bad; and that it is only because
they will not be at the pains required for the discernment, that the world is so
widely encumbered with forgeries and basenesses. I found the work simpler than I
had hoped; the reasonable things ranged themselves in the order I required, and
the foolish things fell aside, and took themselves away so soon as they were
looked in the face. I had then, with respect to Venetian architecture, the choice,
either to establish each division of law in a separate form, as I came to the features
with which it was concerned, or else to ask the reader’s patience, while I followed
out the general inquiry first, and determined with him a code of right and wrong,
to which we might together make retrospective appeal. I thought this the best,
though perhaps the dullest way; and in these first following pages I have therefore
endeavored to arrange those foundations of criticism, on which I shall rest in my
account of Venetian architecture, in a form clear and simple enough to be
intelligible even to those who never thought of architecture before. To those who
have, much of what is stated in them will be well known or self-evident; but they
must not be indignant at a simplicity on which the whole argument depends for its
usefulness. From that which appears a mere truism when first stated, they will find
very singular consequences sometimes following,—consequences altogether
unexpected, and of considerable importance; I will not pause here to dwell on
their importance, nor on that of the thing itself to be done; for I believe most
readers will at once admit the value of a criterion of right and wrong in so
practical and costly an art as architecture, and will be apt rather to doubt the
possibility of its attainment than dispute its usefulness if attained. I invite them,
therefore, to a fair trial, being certain that even if I should fail in my main purpose,
and be unable to induce in my reader the confidence of judgment I desire, I shall
at least receive his thanks for the suggestion of consistent reasons, which may
determine hesitating choice, or justify involuntary preference. And if I should
succeed, as I hope, in making the Stones of Venice touchstones, and detecting, by
the mouldering of her marble, poison more subtle than ever was betrayed by the

rending of her crystal; and if thus I am enabled to show the baseness of the
schools of architecture and nearly every other art, which have for three centuries
been predominant in Europe, I believe the result of the inquiry may be serviceable
for proof of a more vital truth than any at which I have hitherto hinted. For
observe: I said the Protestant had despised the arts, and the Rationalist corrupted
them. But what has the Romanist done meanwhile? He boasts that it was the
papacy which raised the arts; why could it not support them when it was left to its
own strength? How came it to yield to Classicalism which was based on infidelity,
and to oppose no barrier to innovations, which have reduced the once faithfully
conceived imagery of its worship to stage decoration? Shall we not rather find that
Romanism, instead of being a promoter of the arts, has never shown itself capable
of a single great conception since the separation of Protestantism from its side?27
So long as, corrupt though it might be, no clear witness had been borne against it,
so that it still included in its ranks a vast number of faithful Christians, so long its
arts were noble. But the witness was borne—the error made apparent; and Rome,
refusing to hear the testimony or forsake the falsehood, has been struck from that
instant with an intellectual palsy, which has not only incapacitated her from any
further use of the arts which once were her ministers, but has made her worship
the shame of its own shrines, and her worshippers their destroyers. Come, then, if
truths such as these are worth our thoughts; come, and let us know, before we
enter the streets of the Sea city, whether we are indeed to submit ourselves to their
undistinguished enchantment, and to look upon the last changes which were
wrought on the lifted forms of her palaces, as we should on the capricious
towering of summer clouds in the sunset, ere they sank into the deep of night; or
whether, rather, we shall not behold in the brightness of their accumulated marble,
pages on which the sentence of her luxury was to be written until the waves
should efface it, as they fulfilled—“God has numbered thy kingdom, and finished
it.”

1 Appendix 1, “Foundation of Venice.”

2 Appendix 2, “Power of the Doges.”

3 Sismondi, Hist. des Rép. Ital., vol. i. ch. v.

4 Appendix 3, “Serrar del Consiglio.”

5 “Ha saputo trovar modo che non uno, non pochi, non molti, signoreggiano, ma molti buoni,
pochi migliori, e insiememente, un ottimo solo.” (Sansovino.) Ah, well done, Venice! Wisdom this,
indeed.

6 Daru, liv. xii. ch. xii.

7 Daru, liv. xvi. cap. xx. We owe to this historian the discovery of the statutes of the tribunal and
date of its establishment.

8 Ominously signified by their humiliation to the Papal power (as before to the Turkish) in
1509, and their abandonment of their right of appointing the clergy of their territories.

9 The senate voted the abdication of their authority by a majority of 512 to 14. (Alison, ch.
xxiii.)

10 By directing the arms of the Crusaders against a Christian prince. (Daru, liv. iv. ch. iv. viii.)

11 Appendix 4, “San Pietro di Castello.”

12 Tomaso Mocenigo, above named, § V.

13

“In that temple porch,
(The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,)
Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off,
And kneeling, on his neck receive the foot
Of the proud Pontiff—thus at last consoled
For flight, disguise, and many an aguish shake
On his stone pillow.”

I need hardly say whence the lines are taken: Rogers’ “Italy” has, I believe, now a place in the
best beloved compartment of all libraries, and will never be removed from it. There is more true
expression of the spirit of Venice in the passages devoted to her in that poem, than in all else that
has been written of her.

14 At least, such success as they had. Vide Appendix 5, “The Papal Power in Venice.”

15 The inconsiderable fortifications of the arsenal are no exception to this statement, as far as it
regards the city itself. They are little more than a semblance of precaution against the attack of a
foreign enemy.

16 Mémoires de Commynes, liv. vii. ch. xviii.

17 Appendix 6, “Renaissance Ornaments.”

18 Appendix 7, “Varieties of the Orders.”

19 The reader will find the weak points of Byzantine architecture shrewdly seized, and
exquisitely sketched, in the opening chapter of the most delightful book of travels I ever opened,—
Curzon’s “Monasteries of the Levant.”

20 Appendix 8, “The Northern Energy.”

21 Appendix 9, “Wooden Churches of the North.”

22 Appendix 10, “Church of Alexandria.”

23 Appendix 11, “Renaissance Landscape.”

24 Selvatico, “Architettura di Venezia,” p. 147.

25 Selvatico, p. 221.

26 The older work is of Istrian stone also, but of different quality.

27 Appendix 12, “Romanist Modern Art.”

CHAPTER II.

THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE.

§ I. We address ourselves, then, first to the task of determining some law of
right which we may apply to the architecture of all the world and of all time; and

by help of which, and judgment according to which, we may easily pronounce
whether a building is good or noble, as, by applying a plumb-line, whether it be
perpendicular.

The first question will of course be: What are the possible Virtues of
architecture?

In the main, we require from buildings, as from men, two kinds of goodness:
first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in
doing it; which last is itself another form of duty.

Then the practical duty divides itself into two branches,—acting and talking:—
acting, as to defend us from weather or violence; talking, as the duty of
monuments or tombs, to record facts and express feelings; or of churches,
temples, public edifices, treated as books of history, to tell such history clearly and
forcibly.

We have thus, altogether, three great branches of architectural virtue, and we
require of any building,—

1. That it act well, and do the things it was intended to do in the best way.

2. That it speak well, and say the things it was intended to say in the best words.

3. That it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to do or say.28

§ II. Now, as regards the second of these virtues, it is evident that we can
establish no general laws. First, because it is not a virtue required in all buildings;
there are some which are only for covert or defence, and from which we ask no
conversation. Secondly, because there are countless methods of expression, some
conventional, some natural: each conventional mode has its own alphabet, which
evidently can be no subject of general laws. Every natural mode is instinctively
employed and instinctively understood, wherever there is true feeling; and this
instinct is above law. The choice of conventional methods depends on
circumstances out of calculation, and that of natural methods on sensations out of
control; so that we can only say that the choice is right, when we feel that the

means are effective; and we cannot always say that it is wrong when they are not
so.

A building which recorded the Bible history by means of a series of sculptural
pictures, would be perfectly useless to a person unacquainted with the Bible
beforehand; on the other hand, the text of the Old and New Testaments might be
written on its walls, and yet the building be a very inconvenient kind of book, not
so useful as if it had been adorned with intelligible and vivid sculpture. So, again,
the power of exciting emotion must vary or vanish, as the spectator becomes
thoughtless or cold; and the building may be often blamed for what is the fault of
its critic, or endowed with a charm which is of its spectator’s creation. It is not,
therefore, possible to make expressional character any fair criterion of excellence
in buildings, until we can fully place ourselves in the position of those to whom
their expression was originally addressed, and until we are certain that we
understand every symbol, and are capable of being touched by every association
which its builders employed as letters of their language. I shall continually
endeavor to put the reader into such sympathetic temper, when I ask for his
judgment of a building; and in every work I may bring before him I shall point
out, as far as I am able, whatever is peculiar in its expression; nay, I must even
depend on such peculiarities for much of my best evidence respecting the
character of the builders. But I cannot legalize the judgment for which I plead, nor
insist upon it if it be refused. I can neither force the reader to feel this architectural
rhetoric, nor compel him to confess that the rhetoric is powerful, if it have
produced no impression on his own mind.

§ III. I leave, therefore, the expression of buildings for incidental notice only.
But their other two virtues are proper subjects of law,—their performance of their
common and necessary work, and their conformity with universal and divine
canons of loveliness: respecting these there can be no doubt, no ambiguity. I
would have the reader discern them so quickly that, as he passes along a street, he
may, by a glance of the eye, distinguish the noble from the ignoble work. He can
do this, if he permit free play to his natural instincts; and all that I have to do for
him is to remove from those instincts the artificial restraints which prevent their

action, and to encourage them to an unaffected and unbiassed choice between
right and wrong.

§ IV. We have, then, two qualities of buildings for subjects of separate inquiry:
their action, and aspect, and the sources of virtue in both; that is to say, Strength
and Beauty, both of these being less admired in themselves, than as testifying the
intelligence or imagination of the builder.

For we have a worthier way of looking at human than at divine architecture:
much of the value both of construction and decoration, in the edifices of men,
depends upon our being led by the thing produced or adorned, to some
contemplation of the powers of mind concerned in its creation or adornment. We
are not so led by divine work, but are content to rest in the contemplation of the
thing created. I wish the reader to note this especially: we take pleasure, or should
take pleasure, in architectural construction altogether as the manifestation of an
admirable human intelligence; it is not the strength, not the size, not the finish of
the work which we are to venerate: rocks are always stronger, mountains always
larger, all natural objects more finished; but it is the intelligence and resolution of
man in overcoming physical difficulty which are to be the source of our pleasure
and subject of our praise. And again, in decoration or beauty, it is less the actual
loveliness of the thing produced, than the choice and invention concerned in the
production, which are to delight us; the love and the thoughts of the workman
more than his work: his work must always be imperfect, but his thoughts and
affections may be true and deep.

§ V. This origin of our pleasure in architecture I must insist upon at somewhat
greater length, for I would fain do away with some of the ungrateful coldness
which we show towards the good builders of old time. In no art is there closer
connection between our delight in the work, and our admiration of the workman’s
mind, than in architecture, and yet we rarely ask for a builder’s name. The patron
at whose cost, the monk through whose dreaming, the foundation was laid, we
remember occasionally; never the man who verily did the work. Did the reader
ever hear of William of Sens as having had anything to do with Canterbury
Cathedral? or of Pietro Basegio as in anywise connected with the Ducal Palace of

Venice? There is much ingratitude and injustice in this; and therefore I desire my
reader to observe carefully how much of his pleasure in building is derived, or
should be derived, from admiration of the intellect of men whose names he knows
not.

§ VI. The two virtues of architecture which we can justly weigh, are, we said, its
strength or good construction, and its beauty or good decoration. Consider first,
therefore, what you mean when you say a building is well constructed or well
built; you do not merely mean that it answers its purpose,—this is much, and
many modern buildings fail of this much; but if it be verily well built, it must
answer this purpose in the simplest way, and with no over-expenditure of means.
We require of a light-house, for instance, that it shall stand firm and carry a light;
if it do not this, assuredly it has been ill built; but it may do it to the end of time,
and yet not be well built. It may have hundreds of tons of stone in it more than
were needed, and have cost thousands of pounds more than it ought. To pronounce
it well or ill built, we must know the utmost forces it can have to resist, and the
best arrangements of stone for encountering them, and the quickest ways of
effecting such arrangements: then only, so far as such arrangements have been
chosen, and such methods used, is it well built. Then the knowledge of all
difficulties to be met, and of all means of meeting them, and the quick and true
fancy or invention of the modes of applying the means to the end, are what we
have to admire in the builder, even as he is seen through this first or inferior part
of his work. Mental power, observe: not muscular nor mechanical, nor technical,
nor empirical,—pure, precious, majestic, massy intellect; not to be had at vulgar
price, nor received without thanks, and without asking from whom.

§ VII. Suppose, for instance, we are present at the building of a bridge: the
bricklayers or masons have had their centring erected for them, and that centring
was put together by a carpenter, who had the line of its curve traced for him by the
architect: the masons are dexterously handling and fitting their bricks, or, by the
help of machinery, carefully adjusting stones which are numbered for their places.
There is probably in their quickness of eye and readiness of hand something
admirable; but this is not what I ask the reader to admire: not the carpentering, nor
the bricklaying, nor anything that he can presently see and understand, but the

choice of the curve, and the shaping of the numbered stones, and the appointment
of that number; there were many things to be known and thought upon before
these were decided. The man who chose the curve and numbered the stones, had
to know the times and tides of the river, and the strength of its floods, and the
height and flow of them, and the soil of the banks, and the endurance of it, and the
weight of the stones he had to build with, and the kind of traffic that day by day
would be carried on over his bridge,—all this specially, and all the great general
laws of force and weight, and their working; and in the choice of the curve and
numbering of stones are expressed not only his knowledge of these, but such
ingenuity and firmness as he had, in applying special means to overcome the
special difficulties about his bridge. There is no saying how much wit, how much
depth of thought, how much fancy, presence of mind, courage, and fixed
resolution there may have gone to the placing of a single stone of it. This is what
we have to admire,—this grand power and heart of man in the thing; not his
technical or empirical way of holding the trowel and laying mortar.

§ VIII. Now there is in everything properly called art this concernment of the
intellect, even in the province of the art which seems merely practical. For
observe: in this bridge-building I suppose no reference to architectural principles;
all that I suppose we want is to get safely over the river; the man who has taken us
over is still a mere bridge-builder,—a builder, not an architect: he may be a rough,
artless, feelingless man, incapable of doing any one truly fine thing all his days. I
shall call upon you to despise him presently in a sort, but not as if he were a mere
smoother of mortar; perhaps a great man, infinite in memory, indefatigable in
labor, exhaustless in expedient, unsurpassable in quickness of thought. Take good
heed you understand him before you despise him.

§ IX. But why is he to be in anywise despised? By no means despise him, unless
he happen to be without a soul,29 or at least to show no signs of it; which possibly
he may not in merely carrying you across the river. He may be merely what Mr.
Carlyle rightly calls a human beaver after all; and there may be nothing in all that
ingenuity of his greater than a complication of animal faculties, an intricate
bestiality,—nest or hive building in its highest development. You need something

more than this, or the man is despicable; you need that virtue of building through
which he may show his affections and delights; you need its beauty or decoration.

§ X. Not that, in reality, one division of the man is more human than another.
Theologists fall into this error very fatally and continually; and a man from whom
I have learned much, Lord Lindsay, has hurt his noble book by it, speaking as if
the spirit of the man only were immortal, and were opposed to his intellect, and
the latter to the senses; whereas all the divisions of humanity are noble or brutal,
immortal or mortal, according to the degree of their sanctification; and there is no
part of the man which is not immortal and divine when it is once given to God,
and no part of him which is not mortal by the second death, and brutal before the
first, when it is withdrawn from God. For to what shall we trust for our distinction
from the beasts that perish? To our higher intellect?—yet are we not bidden to be
wise as the serpent, and to consider the ways of the ant?—or to our affections?
nay; these are more shared by the lower animals than our intelligence. Hamlet
leaps into the grave of his beloved, and leaves it,—a dog had stayed. Humanity
and immortality consist neither in reason, nor in love; not in the body, nor in the
animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts and stirrings of the brain of it,—
but in the dedication of them all to Him who will raise them up at the last day.

§ XI. It is not, therefore, that the signs of his affections, which man leaves upon
his work, are indeed more ennobling than the signs of his intelligence; but it is the
balance of both whose expression we need, and the signs of the government of
them all by Conscience; and Discretion, the daughter of Conscience. So, then, the
intelligent part of man being eminently, if not chiefly, displayed in the structure of
his work, his affectionate part is to be shown in its decoration; and, that decoration
may be indeed lovely, two things are needed: first, that the affections be vivid, and
honestly shown; secondly, that they be fixed on the right things.

§ XII. You think, perhaps, I have put the requirements in wrong order. Logically
I have; practically I have not: for it is necessary first to teach men to speak out,
and say what they like, truly; and, in the second place, to teach them which of
their likings are ill set, and which justly. If a man is cold in his likings and
dislikings, or if he will not tell you what he likes, you can make nothing of him.

Only get him to feel quickly and to speak plainly, and you may set him right. And
the fact is, that the great evil of all recent architectural effort has not been that men
liked wrong things: but that they either cared nothing about any, or pretended to
like what they did not. Do you suppose that any modern architect likes what he
builds, or enjoys it? Not in the least. He builds it because he has been told that
such and such things are fine, and that he should like them. He pretends to like
them, and gives them a false relish of vanity. Do you seriously imagine, reader,
that any living soul in London likes triglyphs?30—or gets any hearty enjoyment
out of pediments?31 You are much mistaken. Greeks did: English people never
did,—never will. Do you fancy that the architect of old Burlington Mews, in
Regent Street, had any particular satisfaction in putting the blank triangle over the
archway, instead of a useful garret window? By no manner of means. He had been
told it was right to do so, and thought he should be admired for doing it. Very few
faults of architecture are mistakes of honest choice: they are almost always
hypocrisies.

§ XIII. So, then, the first thing we have to ask of the decoration is that it should
indicate strong liking, and that honestly. It matters not so much what the thing is,
as that the builder should really love it and enjoy it, and say so plainly. The
architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorns; so he has covered his porch with
hawthorn,—it is a perfect Niobe of May. Never was such hawthorn; you would try
to gather it forthwith, but for fear of being pricked. The old Lombard architects
liked hunting; so they covered their work with horses and hounds, and men
blowing trumpets two yards long. The base Renaissance architects of Venice liked
masquing and fiddling; so they covered their work with comic masks and musical
instruments. Even that was better than our English way of liking nothing, and
professing to like triglyphs.

§ XIV. But the second requirement in decoration, is a sign of our liking the right
thing. And the right thing to be liked is God’s work, which He made for our
delight and contentment in this world. And all noble ornamentation is the
expression of man’s delight in God’s work.

§ XV. So, then, these are the two virtues of building: first, the signs of man’s
own good work; secondly, the expression of man’s delight in better work than his
own. And these are the two virtues of which I desire my reader to be able quickly
to judge, at least in some measure; to have a definite opinion up to a certain point.
Beyond a certain point he cannot form one. When the science of the building is
great, great science is of course required to comprehend it; and, therefore, of
difficult bridges, and light-houses, and harbor walls, and river dykes, and railway
tunnels, no judgment may be rapidly formed. But of common buildings, built in
common circumstances, it is very possible for every man, or woman, or child, to
form judgment both rational and rapid. Their necessary, or even possible, features
are but few; the laws of their construction are as simple as they are interesting.
The labor of a few hours is enough to render the reader master of their main
points; and from that moment he will find in himself a power of judgment which
can neither be escaped nor deceived, and discover subjects of interest where
everything before had appeared barren. For though the laws are few and simple,
the modes of obedience to them are not so. Every building presents its own
requirements and difficulties; and every good building has peculiar appliances or
contrivances to meet them. Understand the laws of structure, and you will feel the
special difficulty in every new building which you approach; and you will know
also, or feel instinctively,32 whether it has been wisely met or otherwise. And an
enormous number of buildings, and of styles of buildings, you will be able to cast
aside at once, as at variance with these constant laws of structure, and therefore
unnatural and monstrous.

§ XVI. Then, as regards decoration, I want you only to consult your own natural
choice and liking. There is a right and wrong in it; but you will assuredly like the
right if you suffer your natural instinct to lead you. Half the evil in this world
comes from people not knowing what they do like, not deliberately setting
themselves to find out what they really enjoy. All people enjoy giving away
money, for instance: they don’t know that,—they rather think they like keeping it;
and they do keep it under this false impression, often to their great discomfort.
Every body likes to do good; but not one in a hundred finds this out. Multitudes

think they like to do evil; yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God
made the world.

So in this lesser matter of ornament. It needs some little care to try experiments
upon yourself: it needs deliberate question and upright answer. But there is no
difficulty to be overcome, no abstruse reasoning to be gone into; only a little
watchfulness needed, and thoughtfulness, and so much honesty as will enable you
to confess to yourself and to all men, that you enjoy things, though great
authorities say you should not.

§ XVII. This looks somewhat like pride; but it is true humility, a trust that you
have been so created as to enjoy what is fitting for you, and a willingness to be
pleased, as it was intended you should be. It is the child’s spirit, which we are then
most happy when we most recover; only wiser than children in that we are ready
to think it subject of thankfulness that we can still be pleased with a fair color or a
dancing light. And, above all, do not try to make all these pleasures reasonable,
nor to connect the delight which you take in ornament with that which you take in
construction or usefulness. They have no connection; and every effort that you
make to reason from one to the other will blunt your sense of beauty, or confuse it
with sensations altogether inferior to it. You were made for enjoyment, and the
world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be
pleased by them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account
than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the
most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance; at least I suppose this quill I hold in
my hand writes better than a peacock’s would, and the peasants of Vevay, whose
fields in spring time are as white with lilies as the Dent du Midi is with its snow,
told me the hay was none the better for them.

§ XVIII. Our task therefore divides itself into two branches, and these I shall
follow in succession. I shall first consider the construction of buildings, dividing
them into their really necessary members or features; and I shall endeavor so to
lead the reader forward from the foundation upwards, as that he may find out for
himself the best way of doing everything, and having so discovered it, never
forget it. I shall give him stones, and bricks, and straw, chisels, and trowels, and

the ground, and then ask him to build; only helping him, as I can, if I find him
puzzled. And when he has built his house or church, I shall ask him to ornament it,
and leave it to him to choose the ornaments as I did to find out the construction: I
shall use no influence with him whatever, except to counteract previous
prejudices, and leave him, as far as may be, free. And when he has thus found out
how to build, and chosen his forms of decoration, I shall do what I can to confirm
his confidence in what he has done. I shall assure him that no one in the world
could, so far, have done better, and require him to condemn, as futile or fallacious,
whatever has no resemblance to his own performances.

28 Appendix 13, “Mr. Fergusson’s System.”

29 Appendix 14, “Divisions of Humanity.”

30 Triglyph. Literally, “Three Cut.” The awkward upright ornament with two notches in it, and a
cut at each side, to be seen everywhere at the tops of Doric colonnades, ancient and modern.

31 Pediment. The triangular space above Greek porticoes, as on the Mansion House or Royal
Exchange.

32 Appendix 15: “Instinctive Judgments.”

CHAPTER III.

THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE.

§ I. The practical duties of buildings are twofold.

They have either (1), to hold and protect something; or (2), to place or carry
something.

1. Architecture of Protection. This is architecture intended to protect men or
their possessions from violence of any kind, whether of men or of the
elements. It will include all churches, houses, and treasuries; fortresses,
fences, and ramparts; the architecture of the hut and sheepfold; of the palace
and the citadel: of the dyke, breakwater, and sea-wall. And the protection,
when of living creatures, is to be understood as including commodiousness
and comfort of habitation, wherever these are possible under the given
circumstances.

2. Architecture of Position. This is architecture intended to carry men or things
to some certain places, or to hold them there. This will include all bridges,

aqueducts, and road architecture; light-houses, which have to hold light in
appointed places; chimneys to carry smoke or direct currents of air;
staircases; towers, which are to be watched from or cried from, as in
mosques, or to hold bells, or to place men in positions of offence, as ancient
moveable attacking towers, and most fortress towers.

§ II. Protective architecture has to do one or all of three things: to wall a space,
to roof it, and to give access to it, of persons, light, and air; and it is therefore to be
considered under the three divisions of walls, roofs, and apertures.

We will take, first, a short, general view of the connection of these members,
and then examine them in detail: endeavoring always to keep the simplicity of our
first arrangement in view; for protective architecture has indeed no other members
than these, unless flooring and paving be considered architecture, which it is only
when the flooring is also a roof; the laying of the stones or timbers for footing
being pavior’s or carpenter’s work, rather than architect’s; and, at all events, work
respecting the well or ill doing of which we shall hardly find much difference of
opinion, except in points of æsthetics. We shall therefore concern ourselves only
with the construction of walls, roofs, and apertures.

§ III. 1. Walls.—A wall is an even and united fence, whether of wood, earth,
stone, or metal. When meant for purposes of mere partition or enclosure, it
remains a wall proper: but it has generally also to sustain a certain vertical or
lateral pressure, for which its strength is at first increased by some general
addition to its thickness; but if the pressure becomes very great, it is gathered up
into piers to resist vertical pressure, and supported by buttresses to resist lateral
pressure.

If its functions of partition or enclosure are continued, together with that of
resisting vertical pressure, it remains as a wall veil between the piers into which it
has been partly gathered; but if it is required only to resist the vertical or roof
pressure, it is gathered up into piers altogether, loses its wall character, and
becomes a group or line of piers.

On the other hand, if the lateral pressure be slight, it may retain its character of
a wall, being supported against the pressure by buttresses at intervals; but if the
lateral pressure be very great, it is supported against such pressure by a continuous
buttress, loses its wall character, and becomes a dyke or rampart.

§ IV. We shall have therefore (A) first to get a general idea of a wall, and of
right construction of walls; then (B) to see how this wall is gathered into piers;
and to get a general idea of piers and the right construction of piers; then (C) to
see how a wall is supported by buttresses, and to get a general idea of buttresses
and the right construction of buttresses. This is surely very simple, and it is all we
shall have to do with walls and their divisions.

Fig. I.

§ V. 2. Roofs.—A roof is the covering of a space, narrow or wide. It will be
most conveniently studied by first considering the forms in which it may be
carried over a narrow space, and then expanding these on a wide plan; only there
is some difficulty here in the nomenclature, for an arched roof over a narrow
space has (I believe) no name, except that which belongs properly to the piece of
stone or wood composing such a roof, namely, lintel. But the reader will have no
difficulty in understanding that he is first to consider roofs on the section only,
thinking how best to construct a narrow bar or slice of them, of whatever form; as,
for instance, x, y, or z, over the plan or area a, Fig. I. Having done this, let him
imagine these several divisions, first moved along (or set side by side) over a
rectangle, b, Fig. I., and then revolved round a point (or crossed at it) over a
polygon, c, or circle, d, and he will have every form of simple roof: the arched
section giving successively the vaulted roof and dome, and the gabled section
giving the gabled roof and spire.

As we go farther into the subject, we shall only have to add one or two forms to
the sections here given, in order to embrace all the uncombined roofs in existence;
and we shall not trouble the reader with many questions respecting cross-vaulting,
and other modes of their combination.

§ VI. Now, it also happens, from its place in buildings, that the sectional roof
over a narrow space will need to be considered before we come to the expanded
roof over a broad one. For when a wall has been gathered, as above explained,
into piers, that it may better bear vertical pressure, it is generally necessary that it
should be expanded again at the top into a continuous wall before it carries the
true roof. Arches or lintels are, therefore, thrown from pier to pier, and a level
preparation for carrying the real roof is made above them. After we have
examined the structure of piers, therefore, we shall have to see how lintels or
arches are thrown from pier to pier, and the whole prepared for the
superincumbent roof; this arrangement being universal in all good architecture
prepared for vertical pressures: and we shall then examine the condition of the
great roof itself. And because the structure of the roof very often introduces
certain lateral pressures which have much to do with the placing of buttresses, it
will be well to do all this before we examine the nature of buttresses, and,

therefore, between parts (B) and (C) of the above plan, § IV. So now we shall have
to study: (A) the construction of walls; (B) that of piers; (C) that of lintels or
arches prepared for roofing; (D) that of roofs proper; and (E) that of buttresses.

§ VII. 3. Apertures.—There must either be intervals between the piers, of which
intervals the character will be determined by that of the piers themselves, or else
doors or windows in the walls proper. And, respecting doors or windows, we have
to determine three things: first, the proper shape of the entire aperture; secondly,
the way in which it is to be filled with valves or glass; and thirdly, the modes of
protecting it on the outside, and fitting appliances of convenience to it, as porches
or balconies. And this will be our division F; and if the reader will have the
patience to go through these six heads, which include every possible feature of
protective architecture, and to consider the simple necessities and fitnesses of
each, I will answer for it, he shall never confound good architecture with bad any
more. For, as to architecture of position, a great part of it involves necessities of
construction with which the spectator cannot become generally acquainted, and of
the compliance with which he is therefore never expected to judge,—as in
chimneys, light-houses, &c.: and the other forms of it are so closely connected
with those of protective architecture, that a few words in Chap. XIX. respecting
staircases and towers, will contain all with which the reader need be troubled on
the subject.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WALL BASE.

§ I. Our first business, then, is with Wall, and to find out wherein lies the true
excellence of the “Wittiest Partition.” For it is rather strange that, often as we
speak of a “dead” wall, and that with considerable disgust, we have not often,

since Snout’s time, heard of a living one. But the common epithet of opprobrium
is justly bestowed, and marks a right feeling. A wall has no business to be dead. It
ought to have members in its make, and purposes in its existence, like an
organized creature, and to answer its ends in a living and energetic way; and it is
only when we do not choose to put any strength nor organization into it, that it
offends us by its deadness. Every wall ought to be a “sweet and lovely wall.” I do
not care about its having ears; but, for instruction and exhortation, I would often
have it to “hold up its fingers.” What its necessary members and excellences are, it
is our present business to discover.

§ II. A wall has been defined to be an even and united fence of wood, earth,
stone, or metal. Metal fences, however, seldom, if ever, take the form of walls, but
of railings; and, like all other metal constructions, must be left out of our present
investigation; as may be also walls composed merely of light planks or laths for
purposes of partition or inclosure. Substantial walls, whether of wood or earth (I
use the word earth as including clay, baked or unbaked, and stone), have, in their
perfect form, three distinct members;—the Foundation, Body or Veil, and Cornice.

§ III. The foundation is to the wall what the paw is to an animal. It is a long foot,
wider than the wall, on which the wall is to stand, and which keeps it from settling
into the ground. It is most necessary that this great element of security should be
visible to the eye, and therefore made a part of the structure above ground.
Sometimes, indeed, it becomes incorporated with the entire foundation of the
building, a vast table on which walls or piers are alike set: but even then, the eye,
taught by the reason, requires some additional preparation or foot for the wall, and
the building is felt to be imperfect without it. This foundation we shall call the
Base of the wall.

§ IV. The body of the wall is of course the principal mass of it, formed of mud
or clay, of bricks or stones, of logs or hewn timber; the condition of structure
being, that it is of equal thickness everywhere, below and above. It may be half a
foot thick, or six feet thick, or fifty feet thick; but if of equal thickness
everywhere, it is still a wall proper: if to its fifty feet of proper thickness there be

added so much as an inch of thickness in particular parts, that added thickness is
to be considered as some form of buttress or pier, or other appliance.33

In perfect architecture, however, the walls are generally kept of moderate
thickness, and strengthened by piers or buttresses; and the part of the wall
between these, being generally intended only to secure privacy, or keep out the
slighter forces of weather, may be properly called a Wall Veil. I shall always use
this word “Veil” to signify the even portion of a wall, it being more expressive
than the term Body.

§ V. When the materials with which this veil is built are very loose, or of shapes
which do not fit well together, it sometimes becomes necessary, or at least adds to
security, to introduce courses of more solid material. Thus, bricks alternate with
rolled pebbles in the old walls of Verona, and hewn stones with brick in its
Lombard churches. A banded structure, almost a stratification of the wall, is thus
produced; and the courses of more solid material are sometimes decorated with
carving. Even when the wall is not thus banded through its whole height, it
frequently becomes expedient to lay a course of stone, or at least of more carefully
chosen materials, at regular heights; and such belts or bands we may call String
courses. These are a kind of epochs in the wall’s existence; something like periods
of rest and reflection in human life, before entering on a new career. Or else, in the
building, they correspond to the divisions of its stories within, express its internal
structure, and mark off some portion of the ends of its existence already attained.

§ VI. Finally, on the top of the wall some protection from the weather is
necessary, or some preparation for the reception of superincumbent weight, called
a coping, or Cornice. I shall use the word Cornice for both; for, in fact, a coping is
a roof to the wall itself, and is carried by a small cornice as the roof of the
building by a large one. In either case, the cornice, small or large, is the
termination of the wall’s existence, the accomplishment of its work. When it is
meant to carry some superincumbent weight, the cornice may be considered as its
hand, opened to carry something above its head; as the base was considered its
foot: and the three parts should grow out of each other and form one whole, like
the root, stalk, and bell of a flower.

These three parts we shall examine in succession; and, first, the Base.

§ VII. It may be sometimes in our power, and it is always expedient, to prepare
for the whole building some settled foundation, level and firm, out of sight. But
this has not been done in some of the noblest buildings in existence. It cannot
always be done perfectly, except at enormous expense; and, in reasoning upon the
superstructure, we shall never suppose it to be done. The mind of the spectator
does not conceive it; and he estimates the merits of the edifice on the supposition
of its being built upon the ground. Even if there be a vast table land of foundation
elevated for the whole of it, accessible by steps all round, as at Pisa, the surface of
this table is always conceived as capable of yielding somewhat to superincumbent
weight, and generally is so; and we shall base all our arguments on the widest
possible supposition, that is to say, that the building stands on a surface either of
earth, or, at all events, capable of yielding in some degree to its weight.

§ VIII. Now, let the reader
simply ask himself how, on such a Fig. II.

surface, he would set about
building a substantial wall, that
should be able to bear weight and
to stand for ages. He would
assuredly look about for the
largest stones he had at his
disposal, and, rudely levelling the
ground, he would lay these well
together over a considerably
larger width than he required the
wall to be (suppose as at a, Fig.
II.), in order to equalise the
pressure of the wall over a large
surface, and form its foot. On the top of these he would perhaps lay a second tier
of large stones, b, or even the third, c, making the breadth somewhat less each
time, so as to prepare for the pressure of the wall on the centre, and, naturally or
necessarily, using somewhat smaller stones above than below (since we supposed

him to look about for the largest first), and cutting them more neatly. His third tier,
if not his second, will probably appear a sufficiently secure foundation for finer
work; for if the earth yield at all, it will probably yield pretty equally under the
great mass of masonry now knit together over it. So he will prepare for the wall
itself at once by sloping off the next tier of stones to the right diameter, as at d. If
there be any joints in this tier within the wall, he may perhaps, for further security,
lay a binding stone across them, e, and then begin the work of the wall veil itself,
whether in bricks or stones.

§ IX. I have supposed the preparation here to be for a large wall, because such a
preparation will give us the best general type. But it is evident that the essential
features of the arrangement are only two, that is to say, one tier of massy work for
foundation, suppose c, missing the first two; and the receding tier or real foot of
the wall, d. The reader will find these members, though only of brick, in most of
the considerable and independent walls in the suburbs of London.

§ X. It is evident, however, that the general type, Fig. II., will be subject to
many different modifications in different circumstances. Sometimes the ledges of
the tiers a and b may be of greater width; and when the building is in a secure
place, and of finished masonry, these may be sloped off also like the main foot d.
In Venetian buildings these lower ledges are exposed to the sea, and therefore left
rough hewn; but in fine work and in important positions the lower ledges may be
bevelled and decorated like the upper, or another added above d; and all these
parts may be in different proportions, according to the disposition of the building
above them. But we have nothing to do with any of these variations at present,
they being all more or less dependent upon decorative considerations, except only
one of very great importance, that is to say, the widening of the lower ledge into a
stone seat, which may be often done in buildings of great size with most beautiful
effect: it looks kind and hospitable, and preserves the work above from violence.
In St. Mark’s at Venice, which is a small and low church, and needing no great
foundation for the wall veils of it, we find only the three members, b, c, and d. Of
these the first rises about a foot above the pavement of St. Mark’s Place, and
forms an elevated dais in some of the recesses of the porches, chequered red and
white; c forms a seat which follows the line of the walls, while its basic character

is marked by its also carrying certain shafts with which we have here no concern;
d is of white marble; and all are enriched and decorated in the simplest and most
perfect manner possible, as we shall see in Chap. XXV. And thus much may serve
to fix the type of wall bases, a type oftener followed in real practice than any other
we shall hereafter be enabled to determine: for wall bases of necessity must be
solidly built, and the architect is therefore driven into the adoption of the right
form; or if he deviate from it, it is generally in meeting some necessity of peculiar
circumstances, as in obtaining cellars and underground room, or in preparing for
some grand features or particular parts of the wall, or in some mistaken idea of
decoration,—into which errors we had better not pursue him until we understand
something more of the rest of the building: let us therefore proceed to consider the
wall veil.

33 Many walls are slightly sloped or curved towards their tops, and have buttresses added to
them (that of the Queen’s Bench Prison is a curious instance of the vertical buttress and inclined
wall); but in all such instances the slope of the wall is properly to be considered a condition of
incorporated buttress.

CHAPTER V.

THE WALL VEIL.

§ I. The summer of the year 1849 was spent by the writer in researches little
bearing upon his present subject, and connected chiefly with proposed illustrations
of the mountain forms in the works of J. M. W. Turner. But there are sometimes
more valuable lessons to be learned in the school of nature than in that of
Vitruvius, and a fragment of building among the Alps is singularly illustrative of

the chief feature which I have at present to develope as necessary to the perfection
of the wall veil.

It is a fragment of some size; a group of broken walls, one of them
overhanging; crowned with a cornice, nodding some hundred and fifty feet over
its massy flank, three thousand above its glacier base, and fourteen thousand
above the sea,—a wall truly of some majesty, at once the most precipitous and the
strongest mass in the whole chain of the Alps, the Mont Cervin.

§ II. It has been falsely represented as a peak or tower. It is a vast ridged
promontory, connected at its western root with the Dent d’Erin, and lifting itself
like a rearing horse with its face to the east. All the way along the flank of it, for
half a day’s journey on the Zmutt glacier, the grim black terraces of its
foundations range almost without a break; and the clouds, when their day’s work
is done, and they are weary, lay themselves down on those foundation steps, and
rest till dawn, each with his leagues of grey mantle stretched along the grisly
ledge, and the cornice of the mighty wall gleaming in the moonlight, three
thousand feet above.

§ III. The eastern face of the promontory is hewn down, as if by the single
sweep of a sword, from the crest of it to the base; hewn concave and smooth, like
the hollow of a wave: on each flank of it there is set a buttress, both of about equal
height, their heads sloped out from the main wall about seven hundred feet below
its summit. That on the north is the most important; it is as sharp as the frontal
angle of a bastion, and sloped sheer away to the north-east, throwing out spur
beyond spur, until it terminates in a long low curve of russet precipice, at whose
foot a great bay of the glacier of the Col de Cervin lies as level as a lake. This spur
is one of the few points from which the mass of the Mont Cervin is in anywise
approachable. It is a continuation of the masonry of the mountain itself, and
affords us the means of examining the character of its materials.

§ IV. Few architects would like to build with them. The slope of the rocks to the
north-west is covered two feet deep with their ruins, a mass of loose and slaty
shale, of a dull brick-red color, which yields beneath the foot like ashes, so that, in
running down, you step one yard, and slide three. The rock is indeed hard beneath,

but still disposed in thin courses of these cloven shales, so finely laid that they
look in places more like a heap of crushed autumn leaves than a rock; and the first
sensation is one of unmitigated surprise, as if the mountain were upheld by
miracle; but surprise becomes more intelligent reverence for the great builder,
when we find, in the middle of the mass of these dead leaves, a course of living
rock, of quartz as white as the snow that encircles it, and harder than a bed of
steel.

§ V. It is one only of a thousand iron bands that knit the strength of the mighty
mountain. Through the buttress and the wall alike, the courses of its varied
masonry are seen in their successive order, smooth and true as if laid by line and
plummet,34 but of thickness and strength continually varying, and with silver
cornices glittering along the edge of each, laid by the snowy winds and carved by
the sunshine,—stainless ornaments of the eternal temple, by which “neither the
hammer nor the axe, nor any tool, was heard while it was in building.”

§ VI. I do not, however, bring this forward as an instance of any universal law of
natural building; there are solid as well as coursed masses of precipice, but it is
somewhat curious that the most noble cliff in Europe, which this eastern front of
the Cervin is, I believe, without dispute, should be to us an example of the utmost
possible stability of precipitousness attained with materials of imperfect and
variable character; and, what is more, there are very few cliffs which do not
display alternations between compact and friable conditions of their material,
marked in their contours by bevelled slopes when the bricks are soft, and vertical
steps when they are harder. And, although we are not hence to conclude that it is
well to introduce courses of bad materials when we can get perfect material, I
believe we may conclude with great certainty that it is better and easier to
strengthen a wall necessarily of imperfect substance, as of brick, by introducing
carefully laid courses of stone, than by adding to its thickness; and the first
impression we receive from the unbroken aspect of a wall veil, unless it be of
hewn stone throughout, is that it must be both thicker and weaker than it would
have been, had it been properly coursed. The decorative reasons for adopting the
coursed arrangement, which we shall notice hereafter, are so weighty, that they
would alone be almost sufficient to enforce it; and the constructive ones will apply

universally, except in the rare cases in which the choice of perfect or imperfect
material is entirely open to us, or where the general system of the decoration of
the building requires absolute unity in its surface.

§ VII. As regards the arrangement of
the intermediate parts themselves, it is Fig. III.

regulated by certain conditions of
bonding and fitting the stones or bricks,
which the reader need hardly be troubled
to consider, and which I wish that
bricklayers themselves were always
honest enough to observe. But I hardly
know whether to note under the head of
æsthetic or constructive law, this
important principle, that masonry is
always bad which appears to have arrested the attention of the architect more than
absolute conditions of strength require. Nothing is more contemptible in any work
than an appearance of the slightest desire on the part of the builder to direct
attention to the way its stones are put together, or of any trouble taken either to
show or to conceal it more than was rigidly necessary: it may sometimes, on the
one hand, be necessary to conceal it as far as may be, by delicate and close fitting,
when the joints would interfere with lines of sculpture or of mouldings; and it may
often, on the other hand, be delightful to show it, as it is delightful in places to
show the anatomy even of the most delicate human frame: but studiously to
conceal it is the error of vulgar painters, who are afraid to show that their figures
have bones; and studiously to display it is the error of the base pupils of Michael
Angelo, who turned heroes’ limbs into surgeons’ diagrams,—but with less excuse
than theirs, for there is less interest in the anatomy displayed. Exhibited masonry
is in most cases the expedient of architects who do not know how to fill up blank
spaces, and many a building, which would have been decent enough if let alone,
has been scrawled over with straight lines, as in Fig. III., on exactly the same
principles, and with just the same amount of intelligence as a boy’s in scrawling
his copy-book when he cannot write. The device was thought ingenious at one

period of architectural history; St. Paul’s and Whitehall are covered with it, and it
is in this I imagine that some of our modern architects suppose the great merit of
those buildings to consist. There is, however, no excuse for errors in disposition of
masonry, for there is but one law upon the subject, and that easily complied with,
to avoid all affectation and all unnecessary expense, either in showing or
concealing. Every one knows a building is built of separate stones; nobody will
ever object to seeing that it is so, but nobody wants to count them. The divisions
of a church are much like the divisions of a sermon; they are always right so long
as they are necessary to edification, and always wrong when they are thrust upon
the attention as divisions only. There may be neatness in carving when there is
richness in feasting; but I have heard many a discourse, and seen many a church
wall, in which it was all carving and no meat.

34 On the eastern side: violently contorted on the northern and western.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WALL CORNICE.

§ I. We have lastly to consider the close of the wall’s existence, or its cornice. It
was above stated, that a cornice has one of two offices: if the wall have nothing to
carry, the cornice is its roof, and defends it from the weather; if there is weight to
be carried above the wall, the cornice is its hand, and is expanded to carry the said
weight.

There are several ways of roofing or protecting independent walls, according to
the means nearest at hand: sometimes the wall has a true roof all to itself;
sometimes it terminates in a small gabled ridge, made of bricks set slanting, as
constantly in the suburbs of London; or of hewn stone, in stronger work; or in a

single sloping face, inclined to the outside. We need not trouble ourselves at
present about these small roofings, which are merely the diminutions of large
ones; but we must examine the important and constant member of the wall
structure, which prepares it either for these small roofs or for weights above, and
is its true cornice.

§ II. The reader will, perhaps, as heretofore, be kind enough to think for himself,
how, having carried up his wall veil as high as it may be needed, he will set about
protecting it from weather, or preparing it for weight. Let him imagine the top of
the unfinished wall, as it would be seen from above with all the joints, perhaps
uncemented, or imperfectly filled up with cement, open to the sky; and small
broken materials filling gaps between large ones, and leaving cavities ready for
the rain to soak into, and loosen and dissolve the cement, and split, as it froze, the
whole to pieces. I am much mistaken if his first impulse would not be to take a
great flat stone and lay it on the top; or rather a series of such, side by side,
projecting well over the edge of the wall veil. If, also, he proposed to lay a weight
(as, for instance, the end of a beam) on the wall, he would feel at once that the
pressure of this beam on, or rather among, the small stones of the wall veil, might
very possibly dislodge or disarrange some of them; and the first impulse would
be, in this case, also to lay a large flat stone on the top of all to receive the beam,
or any other weight, and distribute it equally among the small stones below, as at
a, Fig. IV.

§ III. We must therefore have our flat stone in either
Fig. IV. case; and let b, Fig. IV., be the section or side of it, as it
is set across the wall. Now, evidently, if by any chance
this weight happen to be thrown more on the edges of
this stone than the centre, there will be a chance of these
edges breaking off. Had we not better, therefore, put
another stone, sloped off to the wall, beneath the
projecting one, as at c. But now our cornice looks
somewhat too heavy for the wall; and as the upper stone
is evidently of needless thickness, we will thin it
somewhat, and we have the form d. Now observe: the

lower or bevelled stone here at d corresponds to d in the
base (Fig. II., page 59). That was the foot of the wall;
this is its hand. And the top stone here, which is a
constant member of cornices, corresponds to the under
stone c, in Fig. II., which is a constant member of bases.
The reader has no idea at present of the enormous
importance of these members; but as we shall have to
refer to them perpetually, I must ask him to compare
them, and fix their relations well in his mind: and, for
convenience, I shall call the bevelled or sloping stone,
X, and the upright edged stone, Y. The reader may
remember easily which is which; for X is an intersection
of two slopes, and may therefore properly mean either
of the two sloping stones; and Y is a figure with a
perpendicular line and two slopes, and may therefore
fitly stand for the upright stone in relation to each of the
sloping ones; and as we shall have to say much more
about cornices than about bases, let X and Y stand for
the stones of the cornice, and Xb and Yb for those of the
base, when distinction is needed.

§ IV. Now the form at d, Fig. IV., is the great root and primal type of all cornices
whatsoever. In order to see what forms may be developed from it, let us take its
profile a little larger—a, Fig. V., with X and Y duly marked. Now this form, being
the root of all cornices, may either have to finish the wall and so keep off rain; or,
as so often stated, to carry weight. If the former, it is evident that, in its present
profile, the rain will run back down the slope of X; and if the latter, that the sharp
angle or edge of X, at k, may be a little too weak for its work, and run a chance of
giving way. To avoid the evil in the first case, suppose we hollow the slope of X
inwards, as at b; and to avoid it in the second case, suppose we strengthen X by
letting it bulge outwards, as at c.

Fig. V.

§ V. These (b and c) are the profiles of two vast families of cornices, springing
from the same root, which, with a third arising from their combination (owing its
origin to æsthetic considerations, and inclining sometimes to the one, sometimes
to the other), have been employed, each on its third part of the architecture of the
whole world throughout all ages, and must continue to be so employed through
such time as is yet to come. We do not at present speak of the third or combined
group; but the relation of the two main branches to each other, and to the line of
origin, is given at e, Fig. V.; where the dotted lines are the representatives of the
two families, and the straight line of the root. The slope of this right line, as well
as the nature of the curves, here drawn as segments of circles, we leave
undetermined: the slope, as well as the proportion of the depths of X and Y to
each other, vary according to the weight to be carried, the strength of the stone,
the size of the cornice, and a thousand other accidents; and the nature of the
curves according to æsthetic laws. It is in these infinite fields that the invention of
the architect is permitted to expatiate, but not in the alteration of primitive forms.

§ VI. But to proceed. It will doubtless appear to the reader, that, even allowing
for some of these permissible variations in the curve or slope of X, neither the

form at b, nor any approximation to that form, would be sufficiently undercut to
keep the rain from running back upon it. This is true; but we have to consider that
the cornice, as the close of the wall’s life, is of all its features that which is best
fitted for honor and ornament. It has been esteemed so by almost all builders, and
has been lavishly decorated in modes hereafter to be considered. But it is evident
that, as it is high above the eye, the fittest place to receive the decoration is the
slope of X, which is inclined towards the spectator; and if we cut away or hollow
out this slope more than we have done at b, all decoration will be hid in the
shadow. If, therefore, the climate be fine, and rain of long continuance not to be
dreaded, we shall not hollow the stone X further, adopting the curve at b merely as
the most protective in our power. But if the climate be one in which rain is
frequent and dangerous, as in alternations with frost, we may be compelled to
consider the cornice in a character distinctly protective, and to hollow out X
farther, so as to enable it thoroughly to accomplish its purpose. A cornice thus
treated loses its character as the crown or honor of the wall, takes the office of its
protector, and is called a DRIPSTONE. The dripstone is naturally the attribute of
Northern buildings, and therefore especially of Gothic architecture; the true
cornice is the attribute of Southern buildings, and therefore of Greek and Italian
architecture; and it is one of their peculiar beauties, and eminent features of
superiority.

§ VII. Before passing to the dripstone, however, let us examine a little farther
into the nature of the true cornice. We cannot, indeed, render either of the forms b
or c, Fig. V., perfectly protective from rain, but we can help them a little in their
duty by a slight advance of their upper ledge. This, with the form b, we can best
manage by cutting off the sharp upper point of its curve, which is evidently weak
and useless; and we shall have the form f. By a slight advance of the upper stone
c, we shall have the parallel form g.

These two cornices, f and g, are characteristic of early Byzantine work, and are
found on all the most lovely examples of it in Venice. The type a is rarer, but
occurs pure in the most exquisite piece of composition in Venice—the northern
portico of St. Mark’s; and will be given in due time.

§ VIII. Now the reader has doubtless noticed that these forms of cornice result,
from considerations of fitness and necessity, far more neatly and decisively than
the forms of the base, which we left only very generally determined. The reason
is, that there are many ways of building foundations, and many good ways,
dependent upon the peculiar accidents of the ground and nature of accessible
materials. There is also room to spare in width, and a chance of a part of the
arrangement being concealed by the ground, so as to modify height. But we have
no room to spare in width on the top of a wall, and all that we do must be
thoroughly visible; and we can but have to deal with bricks, or stones of a certain
degree of fineness, and not with mere gravel, or sand, or clay,—so that as the
conditions are limited, the forms become determined; and our steps will be more
clear and certain the farther we advance. The sources of a river are usually half
lost among moss and pebbles, and its first movements doubtful in direction; but,
as the current gathers force, its banks are determined, and its branches are
numbered.

§ IX. So far of the true cornice: we have still to determine the form of the
dripstone.

Fig. VI.

We go back to our primal type or root of cornice, a of Fig. V. We take this at a
in Fig. VI., and we are to consider it entirely as a protection against rain. Now the
only way in which the rain can be kept from running back on the slope of X is by
a bold hollowing out of it upwards, b. But clearly, by thus doing, we shall so
weaken the projecting part of it that the least shock would break it at the neck, c;

we must therefore cut the whole out of one stone, which will give us the form d.
That the water may not lodge on the upper ledge of this, we had better round it
off; and it will better protect the joint at the bottom of the slope if we let the stone
project over it in a roll, cutting the recess deeper above. These two changes are
made in e: e is the type of dripstones; the projecting part being, however, more or
less rounded into an approximation to the shape of a falcon’s beak, and often
reaching it completely. But the essential part of the arrangement is the up and
under cutting of the curve. Wherever we find this, we are sure that the climate is
wet, or that the builders have been bred in a wet country, and that the rest of the
building will be prepared for rough weather. The up cutting of the curve is
sometimes all the distinction between the mouldings of far-distant countries and
utterly strange nations.

Fig. VII. representing a moulding with an outer and
inner curve, the latter undercut. Take the outer line, and this Fig. VII.

moulding is one constant in Venice, in architecture
traceable to Arabian types, and chiefly to the early mosques
of Cairo. But take the inner line; it is a dripstone at
Salisbury. In that narrow interval between the curves there
is, when we read it rightly, an expression of another and
mightier curve,—the orbed sweep of the earth and sea,
between the desert of the Pyramids, and the green and level
fields through which the clear streams of Sarum wind so
slowly.

And so delicate is the test, that
Fig. VIII. though pure cornices are often
found in the north,—borrowed
from classical models,—so surely
as we find a true dripstone
moulding in the South, the
influence of Northern builders has
been at work; and this will be one
of the principal evidences which I

shall use in detecting Lombard
influence on Arab work; for the
true Byzantine and Arab
mouldings are all open to the sky
and light, but the Lombards
brought with them from the North
the fear of rain, and in all the
Lombardic Gothic we instantly
recognize the shadowy dripstone:
a, Fig. VIII., is from a noble
fragment at Milan, in the Piazza
dei Mercanti; b, from the Broletto of Como. Compare them with c and d; both
from Salisbury; e and f from Lisieux, Normandy; g and h from Wenlock Abbey,
Shropshire.

§ X. The reader is now master of all that he need know about the construction of
the general wall cornice, fitted either to become a crown of the wall, or to carry
weight above. If, however, the weight above become considerable, it may be
necessary to support the cornice at intervals with brackets; especially if it be
required to project far, as well as to carry weight; as, for instance, if there be a
gallery on top of the wall. This kind of bracket-cornice, deep or shallow, forms a
separate family, essentially connected with roofs and galleries; for if there be no
superincumbent weight, it is evidently absurd to put brackets to a plain cornice or
dripstone (though this is sometimes done in carrying out a style); so that, as soon
as we see a bracket put to a cornice, it implies, or should imply, that there is a roof
or gallery above it. Hence this family of cornices I shall consider in connection
with roofing, calling them “roof cornices,” while what we have hitherto examined
are proper “wall cornices.” The roof cornice and wall cornice are therefore treated
in division D.

We are not, however, as yet nearly ready for our roof. We have only obtained
that which was to be the object of our first division (A); we have got, that is to
say, a general idea of a wall and of the three essential parts of a wall; and we have

next, it will be remembered, to get an idea of a pier and the essential parts of a
pier, which were to be the subjects of our second division (B).

CHAPTER VII.

THE PIER BASE.

§ I. In § III. of Chap. III., it was stated that when a wall had to sustain an
addition of vertical pressure, it was first fitted to sustain it by some addition to its
own thickness; but if the pressure became very great, by being gathered up into
Piers.

I must first make the reader understand what I mean by a wall’s being gathered
up. Take a piece of tolerably thick drawing-paper, or thin Bristol board, five or six
inches square. Set it on its edge on the table, and put a small octavo book on the
edge or top of it, and it will bend instantly. Tear it into four strips all across, and
roll up each strip tightly. Set these rolls on end on the table, and they will carry the
small octavo perfectly well. Now the thickness or substance of the paper
employed to carry the weight is exactly the same as it was before, only it is
differently arranged, that is to say, “gathered up.”35 If therefore a wall be gathered
up like the Bristol board, it will bear greater weight than it would if it remained a
wall veil. The sticks into which you gather it are called Piers. A pier is a
coagulated wall.

§ II. Now you cannot quite treat the wall as you did the Bristol board, and twist
it up at once; but let us see how you can treat it. Let A, Fig. IX., be the plan of a
wall which you have made inconveniently and expensively thick, and which still
appears to be slightly too weak for what it must carry: divide it, as at B, into equal
spaces, a, b, a, b, &c. Cut out a thin slice of it at every a on each side, and put the

slices you cut out on at every b on each side, and you will have the plan at B, with
exactly the same quantity of bricks. But your wall is now so much concentrated,
that, if it was only slightly too weak before, it will be stronger now than it need
be; so you may spare some of your space as well as your bricks by cutting off the
corners of the thicker parts, as suppose c, c, c, c, at C: and you have now a series
of square piers connected by a wall veil, which, on less space and with less
materials, will do the work of the wall at A perfectly well.

Fig. IX.

§ III. I do not say how much may be cut away in the corners c, c,—that is a
mathematical question with which we need not trouble ourselves: all that we need
know is, that out of every slice we take from the “b‘s” and put on at the “a’s,” we

may keep a certain percentage of room and bricks, until, supposing that we do not
want the wall veil for its own sake, this latter is thinned entirely away, like the
girdle of the Lady of Avenel, and finally breaks, and we have nothing but a row of
square piers, D.

§ IV. But have we yet arrived at the form which will spare most room, and use
fewest materials. No; and to get farther we must apply the general principle to our
wall, which is equally true in morals and mathematics, that the strength of
materials, or of men, or of minds, is always most available when it is applied as
closely as possible to a single point.

Let the point to which we wish the strength of our square piers to be applied, be
chosen. Then we shall of course put them directly under it, and the point will be in
their centre. But now some of their materials are not so near or close to this point
as others. Those at the corners are farther off than the rest.

Now, if every particle of the pier be brought as near as possible to the centre of
it, the form it assumes is the circle.

The circle must be, therefore, the best possible form of plan for a pier, from the
beginning of time to the end of it. A circular pier is called a pillar or column, and
all good architecture adapted to vertical support is made up of pillars, has always
been so, and must ever be so, as long as the laws of the universe hold.

The final condition is represented at E, in its relation to that at D. It will be
observed that though each circle projects a little beyond the side of the square out
of which it is formed, the space cut off at the angles is greater than that added at
the sides; for, having our materials in a more concentrated arrangement, we can
afford to part with some of them in this last transformation, as in all the rest.

§ V. And now, what have the base and the cornice of the wall been doing while
we have been cutting the veil to pieces and gathering it together?

The base is also cut to pieces, gathered together, and becomes the base of the
column.

The cornice is cut to pieces, gathered together, and becomes the capital of the
column. Do not be alarmed at the new word, it does not mean a new thing; a
capital is only the cornice of a column, and you may, if you like, call a cornice the
capital of a wall.

We have now, therefore, to examine these three concentrated forms of the base,
veil, and cornice: first, the concentrated base, still called the Base of the column;
then the concentrated veil, called the Shaft of the column; then the concentrated
cornice, called the Capital of the column.

And first the Base:—

Fig. X.

§ VI. Look back to the main type, Fig. II., page 55, and apply its profiles in due
proportion to the feet of the pillars at E in Fig. IX. p. 72: If each step in Fig. II.
were gathered accurately, the projection of the entire circular base would be less
in proportion to its height than it is in Fig. II.; but the approximation to the result
in Fig. X. is quite accurate enough for our purposes. (I pray the reader to observe
that I have not made the smallest change, except this necessary expression of a
reduction in diameter, in Fig. II. as it is applied in Fig. X., only I have not drawn
the joints of the stones because these would confuse the outlines of the bases; and
I have not represented the rounding of the shafts, because it does not bear at

present on the argument.) Now it would hardly be convenient, if we had to pass
between the pillars, to have to squeeze ourselves through one of those angular
gaps or brêches de Roland in Fig. X. Our first impulse would be to cut them open;
but we cannot do this, or our piers are unsafe. We have but one other resource, to
fill them up until we have a floor wide enough to let us pass easily: this we may
perhaps obtain at the first ledge, we are nearly sure to get it at the second, and we
may then obtain access to the raised interval, either by raising the earth over the
lower courses of foundation, or by steps round the entire building.

Fig. XI. is the arrangement of Fig. X. so treated.

Fig. XI.

§ VII. But suppose the pillars are so vast that the lowest chink in Fig. X. would
be quite wide enough to let us pass through it. Is there then any reason for filling it
up? Yes. It will be remembered that in Chap. IV. § VIII. the chief reason for the
wide foundation of the wall was stated to be “that it might equalise its pressure
over a large surface;” but when the foundation is cut to pieces as in Fig. X., the
pressure is thrown on a succession of narrowed and detached spaces of that
surface. If the ground is in some places more disposed to yield than in others, the
piers in those places will sink more than the rest, and this distortion of the system
will be probably of more importance in pillars than in a wall, because the
adjustment of the weight above is more delicate; we thus actually want the weight

of the stones between the pillars, in order that the whole foundation may be
bonded into one, and sink together if it sink at all: and the more massy the pillars,
the more we shall need to fill the intervals of their foundations. In the best form of
Greek architecture, the intervals are filled up to the root of the shaft, and the
columns have no independent base; they stand on the even floor of their
foundation.

§ VIII. Such a structure is not only admissible, but, when the column is of great
thickness in proportion to its height, and the sufficient firmness, either of the
ground or prepared floor, is evident, it is the best of all, having a strange dignity in
its excessive simplicity. It is, or ought to be, connected in our minds with the deep
meaning of primeval memorial. “And Jacob took the stone that he had put for his
pillow, and set it up for a pillar.” I do not fancy that he put a base for it first. If you
try to put a base to the rock-piers of Stonehenge, you will hardly find them
improved; and two of the most perfect buildings in the world, the Parthenon and
Ducal palace of Venice, have no bases to their pillars: the latter has them, indeed,
to its upper arcade shafts; and had once, it is said, a continuous raised base for its
lower ones: but successive elevations of St. Mark’s Place have covered this base,
and parts of the shafts themselves, with an inundation of paving stones; and yet
the building is, I doubt not, as grand as ever. Finally, the two most noble pillars in
Venice, those brought from Acre, stand on the smooth marble surface of the
Piazzetta, with no independent bases whatever. They are rather broken away
beneath, so that you may look under parts of them, and stand (not quite erect, but
leaning somewhat) safe by their own massy weight. Nor could any bases possibly
be devised that would not spoil them.

§ IX. But it is otherwise if the pillar be so slender as to look doubtfully
balanced. It would indeed stand quite as safely without an independent base as it
would with one (at least, unless the base be in the form of a socket). But it will not
appear so safe to the eye. And here for the first time, I have to express and apply a
principle, which I believe the reader will at once grant,—that features necessary to
express security to the imagination, are often as essential parts of good
architecture as those required for security itself. It was said that the wall base was
the foot or paw of the wall. Exactly in the same way, and with clearer analogy, the

pier base is the foot or paw of the pier. Let us, then, take a hint from nature. A foot
has two offices, to bear up, and to hold firm. As far as it has to bear up, it is
uncloven, with slight projection,—look at an elephant’s (the Doric base of
animality);36 but as far as it has to hold firm, it is divided and clawed, with wide
projections,—look at an eagle’s.

§ X. Now observe. In proportion to the massiness of the column, we require its
foot to express merely the power of bearing up; in fact, it can do without a foot,
like the Squire in Chevy Chase, if the ground only be hard enough. But if the
column be slender, and look as if it might lose its balance, we require it to look as
if it had hold of the ground, or the ground hold of it, it does not matter which,—
some expression of claw, prop, or socket. Now let us go back to Fig. XI., and take
up one of the bases there, in the state in which we left it. We may leave out the
two lower steps (with which we have nothing more to do, as they have become the
united floor or foundation of the whole), and, for the sake of greater clearness, I
shall not draw the bricks in the shaft, nor the flat stone which carries them, though
the reader is to suppose them remaining as drawn in Fig. XI.; but I shall only draw
the shaft and its two essential members of base, Xb and Yb, as explained at p. 65,
above: and now, expressing the rounding of these numbers on a somewhat larger
scale, we have the profile a, Fig. XII.; b, the perspective appearance of such a
base seen from above; and c, the plan of it.

§ XI. Now I am quite sure the reader is not satisfied of the stability of this form
as it is seen at b; nor would he ever be so with the main contour of a circular base.
Observe, we have taken some trouble to reduce the member Yb into this round
form, and all that we have gained by so doing, is this unsatisfactory and unstable
look of the base; of which the chief reason is, that a circle, unless enclosed by
right lines, has never an appearance of fixture, or definite place,37—we suspect it
of motion, like an orb of heaven; and the second is, that the whole base,
considered as the foot of the shaft, has no grasp nor hold: it is a club-foot, and
looks too blunt for the limb,—it wants at least expansion, if not division.

Fig. XII.

§ XII. Suppose, then, instead of taking so much trouble with the member Yb, we
save time and labor, and leave it a square block. Xb must, however, evidently
follow the pillar, as its condition is that it slope to the very base of the wall veil,
and of whatever the wall veil becomes. So the corners of Yb will project beyond
the circle of Xb, and we shall have (Fig. XII.) the profile d, the perspective
appearance e, and the plan f. I am quite sure the reader likes e much better than he
did b. The circle is now placed, and we are not afraid of its rolling away. The foot
has greater expansion, and we have saved labor besides, with little loss of space,
for the interval between the bases is just as great as it was before,—we have only
filled up the corners of the squares.

But is it not possible to mend the form still further? There is surely still an
appearance of separation between Xb and Yb, as if the one might slip off the

other. The foot is expanded enough; but it needs some expression of grasp as well.
It has no toes. Suppose we were to put a spur or prop to Xb at each corner, so as to
hold it fast in the centre of Yb. We will do this in the simplest possible form. We
will have the spur, or small buttress, sloping straight from the corner of Yb up to
the top of Xb, and as seen from above, of the shape of a triangle. Applying such
spurs in Fig. XII., we have the diagonal profile at g, the perspective h, and the
plan i.

§ XIII. I am quite sure the reader likes this last base the best, and feels as if it
were the firmest. But he must carefully distinguish between this feeling or
imagination of the eye, and the real stability of the structure. That this real
stability has been slightly increased by the changes between b and h, in Fig. XII.,
is true. There is in the base h somewhat less chance of accidental dislocation, and
somewhat greater solidity and weight. But this very slight gain of security is of no
importance whatever when compared with the general requirements of the
structure. The pillar must be perfectly secure, and more than secure, with the base
b, or the building will be unsafe, whatever other base you put to the pillar. The
changes are made, not for the sake of the almost inappreciable increase of security
they involve, but in order to convince the eye of the real security which the base b
appears to compromise. This is especially the case with regard to the props or
spurs, which are absolutely useless in reality, but are of the highest importance as
an expression of safety. And this will farther appear when we observe that they
have been above quite arbitrarily supposed to be of a triangular form. Why
triangular? Why should not the spur be made wider and stronger, so as to occupy
the whole width of the angle of the square, and to become a complete expansion
of Xb to the edge of the square? Simply because, whatever its width, it has, in
reality, no supporting power whatever; and the expression of support is greatest
where it assumes a form approximating to that of the spur or claw of an animal.
We shall, however, find hereafter, that it ought indeed to be much wider than it is
in Fig. XII., where it is narrowed in order to make its structure clearly intelligible.

§ XIV. If the reader chooses to consider this spur as an æsthetic feature
altogether, he is at liberty to do so, and to transfer what we have here said of it to
the beginning of Chap. XXV. I think that its true place is here, as an expression of

safety, and not a means of beauty; but I will assume only, as established, the form
e of Fig. XII., which is absolutely, as a construction, easier, stronger, and more
perfect than b. A word or two now of its materials. The wall base, it will be
remembered, was built of stones more neatly cut as they were higher in place; and
the members, Y and X, of the pier base, were the highest members of the wall
base gathered. But, exactly in proportion to this gathering or concentration in
form, should, if possible, be the gathering or concentration of substance. For as
the whole weight of the building is now to rest upon few and limited spaces, it is
of the greater importance that it should be there received by solid masonry. Xb
and Yb are therefore, if possible, to be each of a single stone; or, when the shaft is
small, both cut out of one block, and especially if spurs are to be added to Xb. The
reader must not be angry with me for stating things so self-evident, for these are
all necessary steps in the chain of argument which I must not break. Even this
change from detached stones to a single block is not without significance; for it is
part of the real service and value of the member Yb to provide for the reception of
the shaft a surface free from joints; and the eye always conceives it as a firm
covering over all inequalities or fissures in the smaller masonry of the floor.

§ XV. I have said nothing yet of the proportion of the height of Yb to its width,
nor of that of Yb and Xb to each other. Both depend much on the height of shaft,
and are besides variable within certain limits, at the architect’s discretion. But the
limits of the height of Yb may be thus generally stated. If it looks so thin as that
the weight of the column above might break it, it is too low; and if it is higher than
its own width, it is too high. The utmost admissible height is that of a cubic block;
for if it ever become higher than it is wide, it becomes itself a part of a pier, and
not the base of one.

§ XVI. I have also supposed Yb, when expanded from beneath Xb, as always
expanded into a square, and four spurs only to be added at the angles. But Yb may
be expanded into a pentagon, hexagon, or polygon; and Xb then may have five,
six, or many spurs. In proportion, however, as the sides increase in number, the
spurs become shorter and less energetic in their effect, and the square is in most
cases the best form.

§ XVII. We have hitherto conducted the argument entirely on the supposition of
the pillars being numerous, and in a range. Suppose, however, that we require
only a single pillar: as we have free space round it, there is no need to fill up the
first ranges of its foundations; nor need we do so in order to equalise pressure,
since the pressure to be met is its own alone. Under such circumstances, it is well
to exhibit the lower tiers of the foundation as well as Yb and Xb. The noble bases
of the two granite pillars of the Piazzetta at Venice are formed by the entire series
of members given in Fig. X., the lower courses expanding into steps, with a
superb breadth of proportion to the shaft. The member Xb is of course circular,
having its proper decorative mouldings, not here considered; Yb is octagonal, but
filled up into a square by certain curious groups of figures representing the trades
of Venice. The three courses below are octagonal, with their sides set across the
angles of the innermost octagon, Yb. The shafts are 15 feet in circumference, and
the lowest octagons of the base 56 (7 feet each side).

§ XVIII. Detached buildings, like our own Monument, are not pillars, but towers
built in imitation of Pillars. As towers they are barbarous, being dark,
inconvenient, and unsafe, besides lying, and pretending to be what they are not.
As shafts they are barbarous, because they were designed at a time when the
Renaissance architects had introduced and forced into acceptance, as de rigueur, a
kind of columnar high-heeled shoe,—a thing which they called a pedestal, and
which is to a true base exactly what a Greek actor’s cothurnus was to a Greek
gentleman’s sandal. But the Greek actor knew better, I believe, than to exhibit or
to decorate his cork sole; and, with shafts as with heroes, it is rather better to put
the sandal off than the cothurnus on. There are, indeed, occasions on which a
pedestal may be necessary; it may be better to raise a shaft from a sudden
depression of plinth to a level with others, its companions, by means of a pedestal,
than to introduce a higher shaft; or it may be better to place a shaft of alabaster, if
otherwise too short for our purpose, on a pedestal, than to use a larger shaft of
coarser material; but the pedestal is in each case a make-shift, not an additional
perfection. It may, in the like manner, be sometimes convenient for men to walk
on stilts, but not to keep their stilts on as ornamental parts of dress. The bases of
the Nelson Column, the Monument, and the column of the Place Vendôme, are to

the shafts, exactly what highly ornamented wooden legs would be to human
beings.

§ XIX. So far of bases of detached shafts. As we do not yet know in what manner
shafts are likely to be grouped, we can say nothing of those of grouped shafts until
we know more of what they are to support.

Lastly; we have throughout our reasoning upon the base supposed the pier to be
circular. But circumstances may occur to prevent its being reduced to this form,
and it may remain square or rectangular; its base will then be simply the wall base
following its contour, and we have no spurs at the angles. Thus much may serve
respecting pier bases; we have next to examine the concentration of the Wall Veil,
or the Shaft.

35 The experiment is not quite fair in this rude fashion; for the small rolls owe their increase of
strength much more to their tubular form than their aggregation of material; but if the paper be cut
up into small strips, and tied together firmly in three or four compact bundles, it will exhibit
increase of strength enough to show the principle. Vide, however, Appendix 16, “Strength of
Shafts.”

36 Appendix 17, “Answer to Mr. Garbett.”

37 Yet more so than any other figure enclosed by a curved line: for the circle, in its relations to
its own centre, is the curve of greatest stability. Compare § XX. of Chap. XX.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SHAFT.

§ I. We have seen in the last Chapter how, in converting the wall into the square
or cylindrical shaft, we parted at every change of form with some quantity of
material. In proportion to the quantity thus surrendered, is the necessity that what
we retain should be good of its kind, and well set together, since everything now
depends on it.

It is clear also that the best material, and the closest concentration, is that of the
natural crystalline rocks; and that, by having reduced our wall into the shape of
shafts, we may be enabled to avail ourselves of this better material, and to
exchange cemented bricks for crystallised blocks of stone. Therefore, the general
idea of a perfect shaft is that of a single stone hewn into a form more or less
elongated and cylindrical. Under this form, or at least under the ruder one of a
long stone set upright, the conception of true shafts appears first to have occurred
to the human mind; for the reader must note this carefully, once for all, it does not
in the least follow that the order of architectural features which is most reasonable
in their arrangement, is most probable in their invention. I have theoretically
deduced shafts from walls, but shafts were never so reasoned out in architectural
practice. The man who first propped a thatched roof with poles was the discoverer
of their principle; and he who first hewed a long stone into a cylinder, the
perfecter of their practice.

§ II. It is clearly necessary that shafts of this kind (we will call them, for
convenience, block shafts) should be composed of stone not liable to flaws or
fissures; and therefore that we must no longer continue our argument as if it were
always possible to do what is to be done in the best way; for the style of a national
architecture may evidently depend, in great measure, upon the nature of the rocks
of the country.

Our own English rocks, which supply excellent building stone from their thin
and easily divisible beds, are for the most part entirely incapable of being worked
into shafts of any size, except only the granites and whinstones, whose hardness
renders them intractable for ordinary purposes;—and English architecture
therefore supplies no instances of the block shaft applied on an extensive scale;
while the facility of obtaining large masses of marble has in Greece and Italy been

partly the cause of the adoption of certain noble types of architectural form
peculiar to those countries, or, when occurring elsewhere, derived from them.

We have not, however, in reducing our walls to shafts, calculated on the
probabilities of our obtaining better materials than those of which the walls were
built; and we shall therefore first consider the form of shaft which will be best
when we have the best materials; and then consider how far we can imitate, or
how far it will be wise to imitate, this form with any materials we can obtain.

§ III. Now as I gave the reader the ground, and the stones, that he might for
himself find out how to build his wall, I shall give him the block of marble, and
the chisel, that he may himself find out how to shape his column. Let him suppose
the elongated mass, so given him, rudely hewn to the thickness which he has
calculated will be proportioned to the weight it has to carry. The conditions of
stability will require that some allowance be made in finishing it for any chance of
slight disturbance or subsidence of the ground below, and that, as everything must
depend on the uprightness of the shaft, as little chance should be left as possible of
its being thrown off its balance. It will therefore be prudent to leave it slightly
thicker at the base than at the top. This excess of diameter at the base being
determined, the reader is to ask himself how most easily and simply to smooth the
column from one extremity to the other. To cut it into a true straight-sided cone
would be a matter of much trouble and nicety, and would incur the continual risk
of chipping into it too deep. Why not leave some room for a chance stroke, work it
slightly, very slightly convex, and smooth the curve by the eye between the two
extremities? you will save much trouble and time, and the shaft will be all the
stronger.

Fig. XIII.

This is accordingly the natural form of a detached block shaft. It is the best. No
other will ever be so agreeable to the mind or eye. I do not mean that it is not
capable of more refined execution, or of the application of some of the laws of
æsthetic beauty, but that it is the best recipient of execution and subject of law;
better in either case than if you had taken more pains, and cut it straight.

§ IV. You will observe, however, that the convexity is to be very slight, and that
the shaft is not to bulge in the centre, but to taper from the root in a curved line;
the peculiar character of the curve you will discern better by exaggerating, in a
diagram, the conditions of its sculpture.

Let a, a, b, b, at A, Fig. XIII., be the rough block of the shaft, laid on the
ground; and as thick as you can by any chance require it to be; you will leave it of
this full thickness at its base at A, but at the other end you will mark off upon it the
diameter c, d, which you intend it to have at the summit; you will then take your
mallet and chisel, and working from c and d you will roughly knock off the
corners, shaded in the figure, so as to reduce the shaft to the figure described by
the inside lines in A and the outside lines in B; you then proceed to smooth it, you
chisel away the shaded parts in B, and leave your finished shaft of the form of the
inside lines e, g, f, h.

The result of this operation will be of course that the shaft tapers faster towards
the top than it does near the ground. Observe this carefully; it is a point of great

future importance.

§ V. So far of the shape of detached or block shafts. We can carry the type no
farther on merely structural considerations: let us pass to the shaft of inferior
materials.

Unfortunately, in practice, this step must be soon made. It is alike difficult to
obtain, transport, and raise, block shafts more than ten or twelve feet long, except
in remarkable positions, and as pieces of singular magnificence. Large pillars are
therefore always composed of more than one block of stone. Such pillars are
either jointed like basalt columns, and composed of solid pieces of stone set one
above another; or they are filled up towers, built of small stones cemented into a
mass, with more or less of regularity: Keep this distinction carefully in mind, it is
of great importance; for the jointed column, every stone composing which,
however thin, is (so to speak) a complete slice of the shaft, is just as strong as the
block pillar of one stone, so long as no forces are brought into action upon it
which would have a tendency to cause horizontal dislocation. But the pillar which
is built as a filled-up tower is of course liable to fissure in any direction, if its
cement give way.

But, in either case, it is evident that all constructive reason of the curved
contour is at once destroyed. Far from being an easy or natural procedure, the
fitting of each portion of the curve to its fellow, in the separate stones, would
require painful care and considerable masonic skill; while, in the case of the
filled-up tower, the curve outwards would be even unsafe; for its greatest strength
(and that the more in proportion to its careless building) lies in its bark, or shell of
outside stone; and this, if curved outwards, would at once burst outwards, if
heavily loaded above.

If, therefore, the curved outline be ever retained in such shafts, it must be in
obedience to æsthetic laws only.

§ VI. But farther. Not only the curvature, but even the tapering by straight lines,
would be somewhat difficult of execution in the pieced column. Where, indeed,
the entire shaft is composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the

diameters may be easily determined at the successive joints, and the stones
chiselled to the same slope. But this becomes sufficiently troublesome when the
joints are numerous, so that the pillar is like a pile of cheeses; or when it is to be
built of small and irregular stones. We should be naturally led, in the one case, to
cut all the cheeses to the same diameter; in the other to build by the plumb-line;
and in both to give up the tapering altogether.

§ VII. Farther. Since the chance, in the one case, of horizontal dislocation, in the
other, of irregular fissure, is much increased by the composition of the shaft out of
joints or small stones, a larger bulk of shaft is required to carry the given weight;
and, cæteris paribus, jointed and cemented shafts must be thicker in proportion to
the weight they carry than those which are of one block.

We have here evidently natural causes of a very marked division in schools of
architecture: one group composed of buildings whose shafts are either of a single
stone or of few joints; the shafts, therefore, being gracefully tapered, and reduced
by successive experiments to the narrowest possible diameter proportioned to the
weight they carry: and the other group embracing those buildings whose shafts are
of many joints or of small stones; shafts which are therefore not tapered, and
rather thick and ponderous in proportion to the weight they carry; the latter school
being evidently somewhat imperfect and inelegant as compared with the former.

It may perhaps appear, also, that this arrangement of the materials in cylindrical
shafts at all would hardly have suggested itself to a people who possessed no large
blocks out of which to hew them; and that the shaft built of many pieces is
probably derived from, and imitative of the shaft hewn from few or from one.

§ VIII. If, therefore, you take a good geological map of Europe, and lay your
finger upon the spots where volcanic influences supply either travertin or marble
in accessible and available masses, you will probably mark the points where the
types of the first school have been originated and developed. If, in the next place,
you will mark the districts where broken and rugged basalt or whinstone, or slaty
sandstone, supply materials on easier terms indeed, but fragmentary and
unmanageable, you will probably distinguish some of the birthplaces of the

derivative and less graceful school. You will, in the first case, lay your finger on
Pæstum, Agrigentum, and Athens; in the second, on Durham and Lindisfarne.

The shafts of the great primal school are, indeed, in their first form, as massy as
those of the other, and the tendency of both is to continual diminution of their
diameters: but in the first school it is a true diminution in the thickness of the
independent pier; in the last, it is an apparent diminution, obtained by giving it the
appearance of a group of minor piers. The distinction, however, with which we are
concerned is not that of slenderness, but of vertical or curved contour; and we may
note generally that while throughout the whole range of Northern work, the
perpendicular shaft appears in continually clearer development, throughout every
group which has inherited the spirit of the Greek, the shaft retains its curved or
tapered form; and the occurrence of the vertical detached shaft may at all times, in
European architecture, be regarded as one of the most important collateral
evidences of Northern influence.

§ IX. It is necessary to limit this observation to European architecture, because
the Egyptian shaft is often untapered, like the Northern. It appears that the Central
Southern, or Greek shaft, was tapered or curved on æsthetic rather than
constructive principles; and the Egyptian which precedes, and the Northern which
follows it, are both vertical, the one because the best form had not been
discovered, the other because it could not be attained. Both are in a certain degree
barbaric; and both possess in combination and in their ornaments a power
altogether different from that of the Greek shaft, and at least as impressive if not
as admirable.

§ X. We have hitherto spoken of shafts as if their number were fixed, and only
their diameter variable according to the weight to be borne. But this supposition is
evidently gratuitous; for the same weight may be carried either by many and
slender, or by few and massy shafts. If the reader will look back to Fig. IX., he
will find the number of shafts into which the wall was reduced to be dependent
altogether upon the length of the spaces a, b, a, b, &c., a length which was
arbitrarily fixed. We are at liberty to make these spaces of what length we choose,

and, in so doing, to increase the number and diminish the diameter of the shafts,
or vice versâ.

§ XI. Supposing the materials are in each case to be of the same kind, the choice
is in great part at the architect’s discretion, only there is a limit on the one hand to
the multiplication of the slender shaft, in the inconvenience of the narrowed
interval, and on the other, to the enlargement of the massy shaft, in the loss of
breadth to the building.38 That will be commonly the best proportion which is a
natural mean between the two limits; leaning to the side of grace or of grandeur
according to the expressional intention of the work. I say, commonly the best,
because, in some cases, this expressional invention may prevail over all other
considerations, and a column of unnecessary bulk or fantastic slightness be
adopted in order to strike the spectator with awe or with surprise.39 The architect
is, however, rarely in practice compelled to use one kind of material only; and his
choice lies frequently between the employment of a larger number of solid and
perfect small shafts, or a less number of pieced and cemented large ones. It is
often possible to obtain from quarries near at hand, blocks which might be cut into
shafts eight or twelve feet long and four or five feet round, when larger shafts can
only be obtained in distant localities; and the question then is between the
perfection of smaller features and the imperfection of larger. We shall find
numberless instances in Italy in which the first choice has been boldly, and I think
most wisely made; and magnificent buildings have been composed of systems of
small but perfect shafts, multiplied and superimposed. So long as the idea of the
symmetry of a perfect shaft remained in the builder’s mind, his choice could
hardly be directed otherwise, and the adoption of the built and tower-like shaft
appears to have been the result of a loss of this sense of symmetry consequent on
the employment of intractable materials.

§ XII. But farther: we have up to this point spoken of shafts as always set in
ranges, and at equal intervals from each other. But there is no necessity for this;
and material differences may be made in their diameters if two or more be
grouped so as to do together the work of one large one, and that within, or nearly
within, the space which the larger one would have occupied.

§ XIII. Let A, B, C, Fig. XIV., be three surfaces, of which B and C contain equal
areas, and each of them double that of A: then supposing them all loaded to the
same height, B or C would receive twice as much weight as A; therefore, to carry B
or C loaded, we should need a shaft of twice the strength needed to carry A. Let S
be the shaft required to carry A, and S2 the shaft required to carry B or C; then S3
may be divided into two shafts, or S2 into four shafts, as at S3, all equal in area or
solid contents;40 and the mass A might be carried safely by two of them, and the
masses B and C, each by four of them.

Now if we put the single shafts
Fig. XIV. each under the centre of the mass
they have to bear, as represented
by the shaded circles at a, a2, a3,
the masses A and C are both of
them very ill supported, and even
B insufficiently; but apply the four
and the two shafts as at b, b2, b3,
and they are supported
satisfactorily. Let the weight on
each of the masses be doubled,
and the shafts doubled in area,
then we shall have such
arrangements as those at c, c2, c3;
and if again the shafts and weight
be doubled, we shall have d, d2,
d3.

§ XIV. Now it will at once be
observed that the arrangement of
the shafts in the series of B and C
is always exactly the same in their
relations to each other; only the

group of B is set evenly, and the
group of C is set obliquely,—the
one carrying a square, the other a
cross.

You have in these two series the
primal representations of shaft
arrangement in the Southern and
Northern schools; while the group
b, of which b2 is the double, set
evenly, and c2 the double, set
obliquely, is common to both. The
reader will be surprised to find
how all the complex and varied
forms of shaft arrangement will
range themselves into one or other
of these groups; and still more
surprised to find the oblique or
cross set system on the one hand,
and the square set system on the
other, severally distinctive of
Southern and Northern work. The
dome of St. Mark’s, and the
crossing of the nave and transepts
of Beauvais, are both carried by
square piers; but the piers of St.
Mark’s are set square to the walls
of the church, and those of
Beauvais obliquely to them: and
this difference is even a more
essential one than that between
the smooth surface of the one and
the reedy complication of the

other. The two squares here in the margin (Fig.
XV.) are exactly of the same size, but their Fig. XV.

expression is altogether different, and in that
difference lies one of the most subtle
distinctions between the Gothic and Greek
spirit,—from the shaft, which bears the
building, to the smallest decoration. The Greek
square is by preference set evenly, the Gothic
square obliquely; and that so constantly, that wherever we find the level or even
square occurring as a prevailing form, either in plan or decoration, in early
northern work, there we may at least suspect the presence of a southern or Greek
influence; and, on the other hand, wherever the oblique square is prominent in the
south, we may confidently look for farther evidence of the influence of the Gothic
architects. The rule must not of course be pressed far when, in either school, there
has been determined search for every possible variety of decorative figures; and
accidental circumstances may reverse the usual system in special cases; but the
evidence drawn from this character is collaterally of the highest value, and the
tracing it out is a pursuit of singular interest. Thus, the Pisan Romanesque might
in an instant be pronounced to have been formed under some measure of
Lombardic influence, from the oblique squares set under its arches; and in it we
have the spirit of northern Gothic affecting details of the southern;—obliquity of
square, in magnificently shafted Romanesque. At Monza, on the other hand, the
levelled square is the characteristic figure of the entire decoration of the façade of
the Duomo, eminently giving it southern character; but the details are derived
almost entirely from the northern Gothic. Here then we have southern spirit and
northern detail. Of the cruciform outline of the load of the shaft, a still more
positive test of northern work, we shall have more to say in the 28th Chapter; we
must at present note certain farther changes in the form of the grouped shaft,
which open the way to every branch of its endless combinations, southern or
northern.

§ XV. 1. If the group at d3, Fig. XIV., be
Fig. XVI. taken from under its loading, and have its

centre filled up, it will become a quatrefoil;
and it will represent, in their form of most
frequent occurrence, a family of shafts, whose
plans are foiled figures, trefoils, quatrefoils,
cinquefoils, &c.; of which a trefoiled example,
from the Frari at Venice, is the third in Plate
II., and a quatrefoil from Salisbury the eighth.
It is rare, however, to find in Gothic
architecture shafts of this family composed of
a large number of foils, because multifoiled
shafts are seldom true grouped shafts, but are
rather canaliculated conditions of massy piers.
The representatives of this family may be
considered as the quatrefoil on the Gothic side
of the Alps; and the Egyptian multifoiled shaft
on the south, approximating to the general
type, b, Fig. XVI.

§ XVI. Exactly opposed to this great family
is that of shafts which have concave curves instead of convex on each of their
sides; but these are not, properly speaking, grouped shafts at all, and their proper
place is among decorated piers; only they must be named here in order to mark
their exact opposition to the foiled system. In their simplest form, represented by
c, Fig. XVI., they have no representatives in good architecture, being evidently
weak and meagre; but approximations to them exist in late Gothic, as in the vile
cathedral of Orleans, and in modern cast-iron shafts. In their fully developed form
they are the Greek Doric, a, Fig. XVI., and occur in caprices of the Romanesque
and Italian Gothic: d, Fig. XVI., is from the Duomo of Monza.

§ XVII. 2. Between c3 and d3 of Fig. XIV. there may be evidently another
condition, represented at 6, Plate II., and formed by the insertion of a central shaft
within the four external ones. This central shaft we may suppose to expand in
proportion to the weight it has to carry. If the external shafts expand in the same
proportion, the entire form remains unchanged; but if they do not expand, they

may (1) be pushed out by the expanding shaft, or (2) be gradually swallowed up in
its expansion, as at 4, Plate II. If they are pushed out, they are removed farther
from each other by every increase of the central shaft; and others may then be
introduced in the vacant spaces; giving, on the plan, a central orb with an ever
increasing host of satellites, 10, Plate II.; the satellites themselves often varying in
size, and perhaps quitting contact with the central shaft. Suppose them in any of
their conditions fixed, while the inner shaft expands, and they will be gradually
buried in it, forming more complicated conditions of 4, Plate II. The combinations
are thus altogether infinite, even supposing the central shaft to be circular only;
but their infinity is multiplied by many other infinities when the central shaft itself
becomes square or crosslet on the section, or itself multifoiled (8, Plate II.) with
satellite shafts eddying about its recesses and angles, in every possible relation of
attraction. Among these endless conditions of change, the choice of the architect is
free, this only being generally noted: that, as the whole value of such piers
depends, first, upon their being wisely fitted to the weight above them, and,
secondly, upon their all working together: and one not failing the rest, perhaps to
the ruin of all, he must never multiply shafts without visible cause in the
disposition of members superimposed:41 and in his multiplied group he should, if
possible, avoid a marked separation between the large central shaft and its
satellites; for if this exist, the satellites will either appear useless altogether, or
else, which is worse, they will look as if they were meant to keep the central shaft
together by wiring or caging it in; like iron rods set round a supple cylinder,—a
fatal fault in the piers of Westminster Abbey, and, in a less degree, in the noble
nave of the cathedral of Bourges.

§ XVIII. While, however, we have been thus subdividing or assembling our
shafts, how far has it been possible to retain their curved or tapered outline? So
long as they remain distinct and equal, however close to each other, the
independent curvature may evidently be retained. But when once they come in
contact, it is equally evident that a column, formed of shafts touching at the base
and separate at the top, would appear as if in the very act of splitting asunder.
Hence, in all the closely arranged groups, and especially those with a central shaft,
the tapering is sacrificed; and with less cause for regret, because it was a provision

against subsidence or distortion, which cannot now take place with the separate
members of the group. Evidently, the work, if safe at all, must be executed with
far greater accuracy and stability when its supports are so delicately arranged, than
would be implied by such precaution. In grouping shafts, therefore, a true
perpendicular line is, in nearly all cases, given to the pier; and the reader will
anticipate that the two schools, which we have already found to be distinguished,
the one by its perpendicular and pieced shafts, and the other by its curved and
block shafts, will be found divided also in their employment of grouped shafts;—
it is likely that the idea of grouping, however suggested, will be fully entertained
and acted upon by the one, but hesitatingly by the other; and that we shall find, on
the one hand, buildings displaying sometimes massy piers of small stones,
sometimes clustered piers of rich complexity, and on the other, more or less
regular succession of block shafts, each treated as entirely independent of those
around it.

§ XIX. Farther, the grouping of shafts once admitted, it is probable that the
complexity and richness of such arrangements would recommend them to the eye,
and induce their frequent, even their unnecessary introduction; so that weight
which might have been borne by a single pillar, would be in preference supported
by four or five. And if the stone of the country, whose fragmentary character first
occasioned the building and piecing of the large pier, were yet in beds consistent
enough to supply shafts of very small diameter, the strength and simplicity of such
a construction might justify it, as well as its grace. The fact, however, is that the
charm which the multiplication of line possesses for the eye has always been one
of the chief ends of the work in the grouped schools; and that, so far from
employing the grouped piers in order to the introduction of very slender block
shafts, the most common form in which such piers occur is that of a solid jointed
shaft, each joint being separately cut into the contour of the group required.

§ XX. We have hitherto supposed that all grouped or clustered shafts have been
the result or the expression of an actual gathering and binding together of
detached shafts. This is not, however, always so: for some clustered shafts are
little more than solid piers channelled on the surface, and their form appears to be
merely the development of some longitudinal furrowing or striation on the

original single shaft. That clustering or striation, whichever we choose to call it, is
in this case a decorative feature, and to be considered under the head of
decoration.

§ XXI. It must be evident to the reader at a glance, that the real serviceableness
of any of these grouped arrangements must depend upon the relative shortness of
the shafts, and that, when the whole pier is so lofty that its minor members
become mere reeds or rods of stone, those minor members can no longer be
charged with any considerable weight. And the fact is, that in the most
complicated Gothic arrangements, when the pier is tall and its satellites stand clear
of it, no real work is given them to do, and they might all be removed without
endangering the building. They are merely the expression of a great consistent
system, and are in architecture what is often found in animal anatomy,—a bone, or
process of a bone, useless, under the ordained circumstances of its life, to the
particular animal in which it is found, and slightly developed, but yet distinctly
existent, and representing, for the sake of absolute consistency, the same bone in
its appointed, and generally useful, place, either in skeletons of all animals, or in
the genus to which the animal itself belongs.

§ XXII. Farther: as it is not easy to obtain pieces of stone long enough for these
supplementary shafts (especially as it is always unsafe to lay a stratified stone
with its beds upright) they have been frequently composed of two or more short
shafts set upon each other, and to conceal the unsightly junction, a flat stone has
been interposed, carved into certain mouldings, which have the appearance of a
ring on the shaft. Now observe: the whole pier was the gathering of the whole
wall, the base gathers into base, the veil into the shaft, and the string courses of
the veil gather into these rings; and when this is clearly expressed, and the rings
do indeed correspond with the string courses of the wall veil, they are perfectly
admissible and even beautiful; but otherwise, and occurring, as they do in the
shafts of Westminster, in the middle of continuous lines, they are but sorry make-
shifts, and of late since gas has been invented, have become especially offensive
from their unlucky resemblance to the joints of gas-pipes, or common water-pipes.
There are two leaden ones, for instance, on the left hand as one enters the abbey at

Poet’s Corner, with their solderings and funnels looking exactly like rings and
capitals, and most disrespectfully mimicking the shafts of the abbey, inside.

Thus far we have traced the probable conditions of shaft structure in pure
theory; I shall now lay before the reader a brief statement of the facts of the thing
in time past and present.

§ XXIII. In the earliest and grandest shaft architecture which we know, that of
Egypt, we have no grouped arrangements, properly so called, but either single and
smooth shafts, or richly reeded and furrowed shafts, which represent the extreme
conditions of a complicated group bound together to sustain a single mass; and are
indeed, without doubt, nothing else than imitations of bundles of reeds, or of
clusters of lotus:42 but in these shafts there is merely the idea of a group, not the
actual function or structure of a group; they are just as much solid and simple
shafts as those which are smooth, and merely by the method of their decoration
present to the eye the image of a richly complex arrangement.

§ XXIV. After these we have the Greek shaft, less in scale, and losing all
suggestion or purpose of suggestion of complexity, its so-called flutings being,
visibly as actually, an external decoration.

§ XXV. The idea of the shaft remains absolutely single in the Roman and
Byzantine mind; but true grouping begins in Christian architecture by the placing
of two or more separate shafts side by side, each having its own work to do; then
three or four, still with separate work; then, by such steps as those above
theoretically pursued, the number of the members increases, while they coagulate
into a single mass; and we have finally a shaft apparently composed of thirty,
forty, fifty, or more distinct members; a shaft which, in the reality of its service, is
as much a single shaft as the old Egyptian one; but which differs from the
Egyptian in that all its members, how many soever, have each individual work to
do, and a separate rib of arch or roof to carry: and thus the great Christian truth of
distinct services of the individual soul is typified in the Christian shaft; and the old
Egyptian servitude of the multitudes, the servitude inseparable from the children
of Ham, is typified also in that ancient shaft of the Egyptians, which in its

gathered strength of the river reeds, seems, as the sands of the desert drift over its
ruin, to be intended to remind us for ever of the end of the association of the
wicked. “Can the rush grow up without mire, or the flag grow without water?—So
are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish.”

§ XXVI. Let the reader then keep this distinction of the three systems clearly in
his mind: Egyptian system, an apparent cluster supporting a simple capital and
single weight; Greek and Roman system, single shaft, single weight; Gothic
system, divided shafts, divided weight: at first actually and simply divided, at last
apparently and infinitely divided; so that the fully formed Gothic shaft is a return
to the Egyptian, but the weight is divided in the one and undivided in the other.

§ XXVII. The transition from the actual to the apparent cluster, in the Gothic, is a
question of the most curious interest; I have thrown together the shaft sections in
Plate II. to illustrate it, and exemplify what has been generally stated above.43

II.

PLANS OF PIERS.

1. The earliest, the most frequent, perhaps the most beautiful of all the groups,
is also the simplest; the two shafts arranged as at b or c, (Fig. XIV.) above, bearing
an oblong mass, and substituted for the still earlier structure a, Fig. XIV. In Plate
XVII. (Chap. XXVII.) are three examples of the transition: the one on the left, at
the top, is the earliest single-shafted arrangement, constant in the rough
Romanesque windows; a huge hammer-shaped capital being employed to sustain
the thickness of the wall. It was rapidly superseded by the double shaft, as on the

right of it; a very early example from the cloisters of the Duomo, Verona. Beneath,
is a most elaborate and perfect one from St. Zeno of Verona, where the group is
twice complicated, two shafts being used, both with quatrefoil sections. The plain
double shaft, however, is by far the most frequent, both in the Northern and
Southern Gothic, but for the most part early; it is very frequent in cloisters, and in
the singular one of St. Michael’s Mount, Normandy, a small pseudo-arcade runs
along between the pairs of shafts, a miniature aisle. The group is employed on a
magnificent scale, but ill proportioned, for the main piers of the apse of the
cathedral of Coutances, its purpose being to conceal one shaft behind the other,
and make it appear to the spectator from the nave as if the apse were sustained by
single shafts, of inordinate slenderness. The attempt is ill-judged, and the result
unsatisfactory.

§ XXVIII. 2. When these pairs of shafts come near each other,
as frequently at the turnings of angles (Fig. XVII.), the Fig. XVII.

quadruple group results, b 2, Fig. XIV., of which the
Lombardic sculptors were excessively fond, usually tying the
shafts together in their centre, in a lover’s knot. They thus
occur in Plate V., from the Broletto of Como; at the angle of St.
Michele of Lucca, Plate XXI.; and in the balustrade of St.
Mark’s. This is a group, however, which I have never seen
used on a large scale.44

§ XXIX. 3. Such groups, consolidated by a small square in their centre, form the
shafts of St. Zeno, just spoken of, and figured in Plate XVII., which are among the
most interesting pieces of work I know in Italy. I give their entire arrangement in
Fig. XVIII.: both shafts have the same section, but one receives a half turn as it
ascends, giving it an exquisite spiral contour: the plan of their bases, with their
plinth, is given at 2, Plate II.; and note it carefully, for it is an epitome of all that
we observed above, respecting the oblique and even square. It was asserted that
the oblique belonged to the north, the even to the south: we have here the northern
Lombardic nation naturalised in Italy, and, behold, the oblique and even quatrefoil
linked together; not confused, but actually linked by a bar of stone, as seen in
Plate XVII., under the capitals.

Fig. XVIII. 4. Next to these, observe the two groups of five shafts each,
5 and 6, Plate II., one oblique, the other even. Both are from
upper stories; the oblique one from the triforium of Salisbury;
the even one from the upper range of shafts in the façade of St.
Mark’s at Venice.45

§ XXX. Around these central types are grouped, in Plate II.,
four simple examples of the satellitic cluster, all of the
Northern Gothic: 4, from the Cathedral of Amiens; 7, from that
of Lyons (nave pier); 8, the same from Salisbury; 10, from the
porch of Notre Dame, Dijon, having satellites of three
magnitudes: 9 is one of the piers between the doors of the same
church, with shafts of four magnitudes, and is an instance of
the confusion of mind of the Northern architects between piers
proper and jamb mouldings (noticed farther in the next chapter,
§ XXXI.): for this fig. 9, which is an angle at the meeting of two
jambs, is treated like a rich independent shaft, and the figure
below, 12, which is half of a true shaft, is treated like a meeting
of jambs.

All these four examples belonging to the oblique or Northern system, the
curious trefoil plan, 3, lies between the two, as the double quatrefoil next it unites
the two. The trefoil is from the Frari, Venice, and has a richly worked capital in
the Byzantine manner,—an imitation, I think, of the Byzantine work by the Gothic
builders: 1 is to be compared with it, being one of the earliest conditions of the
cross shaft, from the atrium of St. Ambrogio at Milan. 13 is the nave pier of St.
Michele at Pavia, showing the same condition more fully developed: and 11
another nave pier from Vienne, on the Rhone, of far more distinct Roman
derivation, for the flat pilaster is set to the nave, and is fluted like an antique one.
12 is the grandest development I have ever seen of the cross shaft, with satellite
shafts in the nooks of it: it is half of one of the great western piers of the cathedral
of Bourges, measuring eight feet each side, thirty-two round.46 Then the one
below (15) is half of a nave pier of Rouen Cathedral, showing the mode in which
such conditions as that of Dijon (9) and that of Bourges (12) were fused together

into forms of inextricable complexity (inextricable I mean in the irregularity of
proportion and projection, for all of them are easily resolvable into simple systems
in connexion with the roof ribs). This pier of Rouen is a type of the last condition
of the good Gothic; from this point the small shafts begin to lose shape, and run
into narrow fillets and ridges, projecting at the same time farther and farther in
weak tongue-like sections, as described in the “Seven Lamps.” I have only here
given one example of this family, an unimportant but sufficiently characteristic
one (16) from St. Gervais of Falaise. One side of the nave of that church is
Norman, the other Flamboyant, and the two piers 14 and 16 stand opposite each
other. It would be useless to endeavor to trace farther the fantasticism of the later
Gothic shafts; they become mere aggregations of mouldings very sharply and
finely cut, their bases at the same time running together in strange complexity and
their capitals diminishing and disappearing. Some of their conditions, which, in
their rich striation, resemble crystals of beryl, are very massy and grand; others,
meagre, harsh, or effeminate in themselves, are redeemed by richness and
boldness of decoration; and I have long had it in my mind to reason out the entire
harmony of this French Flamboyant system, and fix its types and possible power.
But this inquiry is foreign altogether to our present purpose, and we shall
therefore turn back from the Flamboyant to the Norman side of the Falaise aisle,
resolute for the future that all shafts of which we may have the ordering, shall be
permitted, as with wisdom we may also permit men or cities, to gather themselves
into companies, or constellate themselves into clusters, but not to fuse themselves
into mere masses of nebulous aggregation.

38 In saying this, it is assumed that the interval is one which is to be traversed by men; and that
a certain relation of the shafts and intervals to the size of the human figure is therefore necessary.
When shafts are used in the upper stories of buildings, or on a scale which ignores all relation to the
human figure, no such relative limits exist either to slenderness or solidity.

39 Vide the interesting discussion of this point in Mr. Fergusson’s account of the Temple of
Karnak, “Principles of Beauty in Art,” p. 219.

40 I have assumed that the strength of similar shafts of equal height is as the squares of their
diameters; which, though not actually a correct expression, is sufficiently so for all our present

purposes.

41 How far this condition limits the system of shaft grouping we shall see presently. The reader
must remember, that we at present reason respecting shafts in the abstract only.

42 The capitals being formed by the flowers, or by a representation of the bulging out of the
reeds at the top, under the weight of the architrave.

43 I have not been at the pains to draw the complicated piers in this plate with absolute
exactitude to the scale of each: they are accurate enough for their purpose: those of them respecting
which we shall have farther question will be given on a much larger scale.

44 The largest I remember support a monument in St. Zeno of Verona; they are of red marble,
some ten or twelve feet high.

45 The effect of this last is given in Plate VI. of the folio series.

46 The entire development of this cross system in connexion with the vaulting ribs, has been
most clearly explained by Professor Willis (Architecture of Mid. Ages, Chap. IV.); and I strongly
recommend every reader who is inclined to take pains in the matter, to read that chapter. I have been
contented, in my own text, to pursue the abstract idea of shaft form.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CAPITAL.

§ I. The reader will remember that in Chap. VII. § V. it was said that the cornice
of the wall, being cut to pieces and gathered together, formed the capital of the
column. We have now to follow it in its transformation.

We must, of course, take our simplest form or root of cornices (a, in Fig. V.,
above). We will take X and Y there, and we must necessarily gather them together
as we did Xb and Yb in Chap. VII. Look back to the tenth paragraph of Chap.

VII., read or glance it over again, substitute X and Y for Xb and Yb, read capital
for base, and, as we said that the capital was the hand of the pillar, while the base
was its foot, read also fingers for toes; and as you look to the plate, Fig. XII., turn
it upside down. Then h, in Fig. XII., becomes now your best general form of block
capital, as before of block base.

§ II. You will thus have a perfect idea of the analogies between base and capital;
our farther inquiry is into their differences. You cannot but have noticed that when
Fig. XII. is turned upside down, the square stone (Y) looks too heavy for the
supporting stone (X); and that in the profile of cornice (a of Fig. V.) the
proportions are altogether different. You will feel the fitness of this in an instant
when you consider that the principal function of the sloping part in Fig. XII. is as
a prop to the pillar to keep it from slipping aside; but the function of the sloping
stone in the cornice and capital is to carry weight above. The thrust of the slope in
the one case should therefore be lateral, in the other upwards.

§ III. We will, therefore, take the two figures, e and h of Fig. XII., and make this
change in them as we reverse them, using now the exact profile of the cornice a,
—the father of cornices; and we shall thus have a and b, Fig. XIX.

Fig. XIX.

Both of these are sufficiently ugly, the reader thinks; so do I; but we will mend
them before we have done with them: that at a is assuredly the ugliest,—like a tile
on a flower-pot. It is, nevertheless, the father of capitals; being the simplest
condition of the gathered father of cornices. But it is to be observed that the
diameter of the shaft here is arbitrarily assumed to be small, in order more clearly
to show the general relations of the sloping stone to the shaft and upper stone; and
this smallness of the shaft diameter is inconsistent with the serviceableness and
beauty of the arrangement at a, if it were to be realised (as we shall see presently);
but it is not inconsistent with its central character, as the representative of every
species of possible capital; nor is its tile and flower-pot look to be regretted, as it
may remind the reader of the reported origin of the Corinthian capital. The stones
of the cornice, hitherto called X and Y, receive, now that they form the capital,
each a separate name; the sloping stone is called the Bell of the capital, and that
laid above it, the Abacus. Abacus means a board or tile: I wish there were an
English word for it, but I fear there is no substitution possible, the term having
been long fixed, and the reader will find it convenient to familiarise himself with
the Latin one.

§ IV. The form of base, e of Fig. XII., which corresponds to this first form of
capital, a, was said to be objectionable only because it looked insecure; and the
spurs were added as a kind of pledge of stability to the eye. But evidently the
projecting corners of the abacus at a, Fig. XIX., are actually insecure; they may
break off, if great weight be laid upon them. This is the chief reason of the
ugliness of the form; and the spurs in b are now no mere pledges of apparent
stability, but have very serious practical use in supporting the angle of the abacus.
If, even with the added spur, the support seems insufficient, we may fill up the
crannies between the spurs and the bell, and we have the form c.

Thus a, though the germ and type of capitals, is itself (except under some
peculiar conditions) both ugly and insecure; b is the first type of capitals which
carry light weight; c, of capitals which carry excessive weight.

§ V. I fear, however, the reader may think he is going slightly too fast, and may
not like having the capital forced upon him out of the cornice; but would prefer
inventing a capital for the shaft itself, without reference to the cornice at all. We
will do so then; though we shall come to the same result.

The shaft, it will be remembered, has to sustain the same weight as the long
piece of wall which was concentrated into the shaft; it is enabled to do this both
by its better form and better knit materials; and it can carry a greater weight than
the space at the top of it is adapted to receive. The first point, therefore, is to
expand this space as far as possible, and that in a form more convenient than the
circle for the adjustment of the stones above. In general the square is a more
convenient form than any other; but the hexagon or octagon is sometimes better
fitted for masses of work which divide in six or eight directions. Then our first
impulse would be to put a square or hexagonal stone on the top of the shaft,
projecting as far beyond it as might be safely ventured; as at a, Fig. XX. This is
the abacus. Our next idea would be to put a conical shaped stone beneath this
abacus, to support its outer edge, as at b. This is the bell.

§ VI. Now the entire treatment of the capital
Fig. XX. depends simply on the manner in which this
bell-stone is prepared for fitting the shaft

below and the abacus above. Placed as at a, in
Fig. XIX., it gives us the simplest of possible
forms; with the spurs added, as at b, it gives
the germ of the richest and most elaborate
forms: but there are two modes of treatment
more dexterous than the one, and less
elaborate than the other, which are of the
highest possible importance,—modes in which
the bell is brought to its proper form by
truncation.

§ VII. Let d and f, Fig. XIX., be two bell-
stones; d is part of a cone (a sugar-loaf upside
down, with its point cut off); f part of a four-
sided pyramid. Then, assuming the abacus to
be square, d will already fit the shaft, but has
to be chiselled to fit the abacus; f will already
fit the abacus, but has to be chiselled to fit the
shaft.

From the broad end of d chop or chisel off, in four vertical planes, as much as
will leave its head an exact square. The vertical cuttings will form curves on the
sides of the cone (curves of a curious kind, which the reader need not be troubled
to examine), and we shall have the form at e, which is the root of the greater
number of Norman capitals.

From f cut off the angles, beginning at the corners of the square and widening
the truncation downwards, so as to give the form at g, where the base of the bell is
an octagon, and its top remains a square. A very slight rounding away of the
angles of the octagon at the base of g will enable it to fit the circular shaft closely
enough for all practical purposes, and this form, at g, is the root of nearly all
Lombardic capitals.

If, instead of a square, the head of the bell were hexagonal or octagonal, the
operation of cutting would be the same on each angle; but there would be

produced, of course, six or eight curves on the sides of e, and twelve or sixteen
sides to the base of g.

§ VIII. The truncations in e and g may of course be
executed on concave or convex forms of d and f; but Fig. XXI.

e is usually worked on a straight-sided bell, and the
truncation of g often becomes concave while the bell
remains straight; for this simple reason,—that the
sharp points at the angles of g, being somewhat
difficult to cut, and easily broken off, are usually
avoided by beginning the truncation a little way
down the side of the bell, and then recovering the
lost ground by a deeper cut inwards, as here, Fig.
XXI. This is the actual form of the capitals of the balustrades of St. Mark’s: it is
the root of all the Byzantine Arab capitals, and of all the most beautiful capitals in
the world, whose function is to express lightness.

§ IX. We have hitherto proceeded entirely on the assumption that the form of
cornice which was gathered together to produce the capital was the root of
cornices, a of Fig. V. But this, it will be remembered, was said in § VI. of Chap.
VI. to be especially characteristic of southern work, and that in northern and wet
climates it took the form of a dripstone.

Accordingly, in the northern climates, the dripstone gathered together forms a
peculiar northern capital, commonly called the Early English,47 owing to its
especial use in that style.

There would have been no absurdity in this if shafts were always to be exposed
to the weather; but in Gothic constructions the most important shafts are in the
inside of the building. The dripstone sections of their capitals are therefore
unnecessary and ridiculous.

§ X. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary.

Fig. XXII.

The edge of the dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, and the capital
fails, therefore, in its own principal function; and besides this, the undercut
contour admits of no distinctly visible decoration; it is, therefore, left utterly
barren, and the capital looks as if it had been turned in a lathe. The Early English
capital has, therefore, the three greatest faults that any design can have: (1) it fails
in its own proper purpose, that of support; (2) it is adapted to a purpose to which it
can never be put, that of keeping off rain; (3) it cannot be decorated.

The Early English capital is, therefore, a barbarism of triple grossness, and
degrades the style in which it is found, otherwise very noble, to one of second-rate
order.

§ XI. Dismissing, therefore, the Early English capital, as deserving no place in
our system, let us reassemble in one view the forms which have been legitimately
developed, and which are to become hereafter subjects of decoration. To the forms
a, b, and c, Fig. XIX., we must add the two simplest truncated forms e and g, Fig.
XIX., putting their abaci on them (as we considered their contours in the bells
only), and we shall have the five forms now given in parallel perspective in Fig.
XXII., which are the roots of all good capitals existing, or capable of existence,
and whose variations, infinite and a thousand times infinite, are all produced by
introduction of various curvatures into their contours, and the endless methods of
decoration superinduced on such curvatures.

§ XII. There is, however, a kind of variation, also infinite, which takes place in
these radical forms, before they receive either curvature or decoration. This is the

variety of proportion borne by the different lines of the capital to each other, and
to the shafts. This is a structural question, at present to be considered as far as is
possible.

Fig. XXIII.

§ XIII. All the five capitals (which are indeed five orders with legitimate
distinction; very different, however, from the five orders as commonly
understood) may be represented by the same profile, a section through the sides of
a, b, d, and e, or through the angles of c, Fig. XXII. This profile we will put on the
top of a shaft, as at A, Fig. XXIII., which shaft we will suppose of equal diameter
above and below for the sake of greater simplicity: in this simplest condition,
however, relations of proportion exist between five quantities, any one or any two,
or any three, or any four of which may change, irrespective of the others. These
five quantities are:

1. The height of the shaft, a b;
2. Its diameter, b c;
3. The length of slope of bell, b d;
4. The inclination of this slope, or angle c b d;
5. The depth of abacus, d e.

For every change in any one of these quantities we have a new proportion of
capital: five infinities, supposing change only in one quantity at a time: infinity of
infinities in the sum of possible changes.

It is, therefore, only possible to note the general laws of change; every scale of
pillar, and every weight laid upon it admitting, within certain limits, a variety out
of which the architect has his choice; but yet fixing limits which the proportion
becomes ugly when it approaches, and dangerous when it exceeds. But the inquiry
into this subject is too difficult for the general reader, and I shall content myself
with proving four laws, easily understood and generally applicable; for proof of
which if the said reader care not, he may miss the next four paragraphs without
harm.

§ XIV. 1. The more slender the shaft, the greater, proportionally, may be the
projection of the abacus. For, looking back to Fig. XXIII., let the height a b be
fixed, the length d b, the angle d b c, and the depth d e. Let the single quantity b c
be variable, let B be a capital and shaft which are found to be perfectly safe in
proportion to the weight they bear, and let the weight be equally distributed over
the whole of the abacus. Then this weight may be represented by any number of
equal divisions, suppose four, as l, m, n, r, of brickwork above, of which each
division is one fourth of the whole weight; and let this weight be placed in the
most trying way on the abacus, that is to say, let the masses l and r be detached
from m and n, and bear with their full weight on the outside of the capital. We
assume, in B, that the width of abacus e f is twice as great as that of the shaft, b c,
and on these conditions we assume the capital to be safe.

But b c is allowed to be variable. Let it become b2 c2 at C, which is a length
representing about the diameter of a shaft containing half the substance of the
shaft B, and, therefore, able to sustain not more than half the weight sustained by
B. But the slope b d and depth d e remaining unchanged, we have the capital of C,
which we are to load with only half the weight of l, m, n, r, i. e., with l and r
alone. Therefore the weight of l and r, now represented by the masses l2, r2, is
distributed over the whole of the capital. But the weight r was adequately
supported by the projecting piece of the first capital h f c: much more is it now

adequately supported by i h, f2 c2. Therefore, if the capital of B was safe, that of C
is more than safe. Now in B the length e f was only twice b c; but in C, e2 f2 will
be found more than twice that of b2 c2. Therefore, the more slender the shaft, the
greater may be the proportional excess of the abacus over its diameter.

Fig. XXIV.

§ XV. 2. The smaller the scale of the building, the greater may be the excess of
the abacus over the diameter of the shaft. This principle requires, I think, no very
lengthy proof: the reader can understand at once that the cohesion and strength of
stone which can sustain a small projecting mass, will not sustain a vast one
overhanging in the same proportion. A bank even of loose earth, six feet high, will
sometimes overhang its base a foot or two, as you may see any day in the gravelly
banks of the lanes of Hampstead: but make the bank of gravel, equally loose, six
hundred feet high, and see if you can get it to overhang a hundred or two! much
more if there be weight above it increased in the same proportion. Hence, let any
capital be given, whose projection is just safe, and no more, on its existing scale;
increase its proportions every way equally, though ever so little, and it is unsafe;
diminish them equally, and it becomes safe in the exact degree of the diminution.

Let, then, the quantity e d, and angle d b c, at A of Fig. XXIII., be invariable,
and let the length d b vary: then we shall have such a series of forms as may be
represented by a, b, c, Fig. XXIV., of which a is a proportion for a colossal
building, b for a moderately sized building, while c could only be admitted on a
very small scale indeed.

§ XVI. 3. The greater the excess of abacus, the steeper must be the slope of the
bell, the shaft diameter being constant.

This will evidently follow from the considerations in the last paragraph;
supposing only that, instead of the scale of shaft and capital varying together, the
scale of the capital varies alone. For it will then still be true, that, if the projection
of the capital be just safe on a given scale, as its excess over the shaft diameter
increases, the projection will be unsafe, if the slope of the bell remain constant.
But it may be rendered safe by making this slope steeper, and so increasing its
supporting power.

Thus let the capital a, Fig. XXV., be just
Fig. XXV. safe. Then the capital b, in which the slope is
the same but the excess greater, is unsafe. But
the capital c, in which, though the excess
equals that of b, the steepness of the
supporting slope is increased, will be as safe as
b, and probably as strong as a.48

§ XVII. 4. The steeper the slope of the bell,
the thinner may be the abacus.

The use of the abacus is eminently to
equalise the pressure over the surface of the
bell, so that the weight may not by any
accident be directed exclusively upon its
edges. In proportion to the strength of these
edges, this function of the abacus is
superseded, and these edges are strong in
proportion to the steepness of the slope. Thus
in Fig. XXVI., the bell at a would carry weight
safely enough without any abacus, but that at c
would not: it would probably have its edges
broken off. The abacus superimposed might be
on a very thin, little more than formal, as at b; but on c must be thick, as at d.

§ XVIII. These four rules are all that are necessary
for general criticism; and observe that these are only Fig. XXVI.

semi-imperative,—rules of permission, not of
compulsion. Thus Law 1 asserts that the slender
shaft may have greater excess of capital than the
thick shaft; but it need not, unless the architect
chooses; his thick shafts must have small excess, but
his slender ones need not have large. So Law 2 says,
that as the building is smaller, the excess may be
greater; but it need not, for the excess which is safe
in the large is still safer in the small. So Law 3 says
that capitals of great excess must have steep slopes;
but it does not say that capitals of small excess may not have steep slopes also, if
we choose. And lastly, Law 4 asserts the necessity of the thick abacus for the
shallow bell; but the steep bell may have a thick abacus also.

§ XIX. It will be found, however, that in practice some confession of these laws
will always be useful, and especially of the two first. The eye always requires, on
a slender shaft, a more spreading capital than it does on a massy one, and a bolder
mass of capital on a small scale than on a large. And, in the application of the first
rule, it is to be noted that a shaft becomes slender either by diminution of diameter
or increase of height; that either mode of change presupposes the weight above it
diminished, and requires an expansion of abacus. I know no mode of spoiling a
noble building more frequent in actual practice than the imposition of flat and
slightly expanded capitals on tall shafts.

§ XX. The reader must observe, also, that, in the demonstration of the four laws,
I always assumed the weight above to be given. By the alteration of this weight,
therefore, the architect has it in his power to relieve, and therefore alter, the forms
of his capitals. By its various distribution on their centres or edges, the slope of
their bells and thickness of abaci will be affected also; so that he has countless
expedients at his command for the various treatment of his design. He can divide
his weights among more shafts; he can throw them in different places and
different directions on the abaci; he can alter slope of bells or diameter of shafts;

he can use spurred or plain bells, thin or thick abaci; and all these changes
admitting of infinity in their degrees, and infinity a thousand times told in their
relations: and all this without reference to decoration, merely with the five forms
of block capital!

§ XXI. In the harmony of these arrangements, in their fitness, unity, and
accuracy, lies the true proportion of every building,—proportion utterly endless in
its infinities of change, with unchanged beauty. And yet this connexion of the
frame of their building into one harmony has, I believe, never been so much as
dreamed of by architects. It has been instinctively done in some degree by many,
empirically in some degree by many more; thoughtfully and thoroughly, I believe,
by none.

§ XXII. We have hitherto considered the abacus as necessarily a separate stone
from the bell: evidently, however, the strength of the capital will be undiminished
if both are cut out of one block. This is actually the case in many capitals,
especially those on a small scale; and in others the detached upper stone is a mere
representative of the abacus, and is much thinner than the form of the capital
requires, while the true abacus is united with the bell, and concealed by its
decoration, or made part of it.

§ XXIII. Farther. We have hitherto considered bell and abacus as both derived
from the concentration of the cornice. But it must at once occur to the reader, that
the projection of the under stone and the thickness of the upper, which are quite
enough for the work of the continuous cornice, may not be enough always, or
rather are seldom likely to be so, for the harder work of the capital. Both may
have to be deepened and expanded: but as this would cause a want of harmony in
the parts, when they occur on the same level, it is better in such case to let the
entire cornice form the abacus of the capital, and put a deep capital bell beneath it.

§ XXIV. The reader will understand
both arrangements instantly by two Fig. XXVII.

examples. Fig. XXVII. represents two
windows, more than usually beautiful

examples of a very frequent Venetian
form. Here the deep cornice or string
course which runs along the wall of the
house is quite strong enough for the
work of the capitals of the slender
shafts: its own upper stone is therefore
also theirs; its own lower stone, by its
revolution or concentration, forms their
bells: but to mark the increased
importance of its function in so doing, it
receives decoration, as the bell of the
capital, which it did not receive as the
under stone of the cornice.

In Fig. XXVIII., a little bit of the
church of Santa Fosca at Torcello, the
cornice or string course, which goes
round every part of the church, is not
strong enough to form the capitals of the
shafts. It therefore forms their abaci only; and in order to mark the diminished
importance of its function, it ceases to receive, as the abacus of the capital, the
decoration which it received as the string course of the wall.

This last arrangement is of great frequency in Venice, occurring most
characteristically in St. Mark’s: and in the Gothic of St. John and Paul we find the
two arrangements beautifully united, though in great simplicity; the string courses
of the walls form the capitals of the shafts of the traceries; and the abaci of the
vaulting shafts of the apse.

Fig. XXVIII.

§ XXV. We have hitherto spoken of capitals of circular shafts only: those of
square piers are more frequently formed by the cornice only; otherwise they are
like those of circular piers, without the difficulty of reconciling the base of the bell
with its head.

§ XXVI. When two or more shafts are grouped together, their capitals are usually
treated as separate, until they come into actual contact. If there be any
awkwardness in the junction, it is concealed by the decoration, and one abacus
serves, in most cases, for all. The double group, Fig. XXVII., is the simplest
possible type of the arrangement. In the richer Northern Gothic groups of eighteen
or twenty shafts cluster together, and sometimes the smaller shafts crouch under
the capitals of the larger, and hide their heads in the crannies, with small nominal
abaci of their own, while the larger shafts carry the serviceable abacus of the
whole pier, as in the nave of Rouen. There is, however, evident sacrifice of sound
principle in this system, the smaller abaci being of no use. They are the exact
contrary of the rude early abacus at Milan, given in Plate XVII. There one poor
abacus stretched itself out to do all the work: here there are idle abaci getting up
into corners and doing none.

§ XXVII. Finally, we have considered the capital hitherto entirely as an
expansion of the bearing power of the shaft, supposing the shaft composed of a
single stone. But, evidently, the capital has a function, if possible, yet more
important, when the shaft is composed of small masonry. It enables all that
masonry to act together, and to receive the pressure from above collectively and
with a single strength. And thus, considered merely as a large stone set on the top
of the shaft, it is a feature of the highest architectural importance, irrespective of
its expansion, which indeed is, in some very noble capitals, exceedingly small.
And thus every large stone set at any important point to reassemble the force of
smaller masonry and prepare it for the sustaining of weight, is a capital or “head”
stone (the true meaning of the word) whether it project or not. Thus at 6, in Plate
IV., the stones which support the thrust of the brickwork are capitals, which have
no projection at all; and the large stones in the window above are capitals
projecting in one direction only.

§ XXVIII. The reader is now master of all he need know respecting construction
of capitals; and from what has been laid before him, must assuredly feel that there
can never be any new system of architectural forms invented; but that all vertical
support must be, to the end of time, best obtained by shafts and capitals. It has
been so obtained by nearly every nation of builders, with more or less refinement
in the management of the details; and the later Gothic builders of the North stand
almost alone in their effort to dispense with the natural development of the shaft,
and banish the capital from their compositions.

They were gradually led into this error through a series of steps which it is not
here our business to trace. But they may be generalised in a few words.

§ XXIX. All classical architecture, and the Romanesque which is legitimately
descended from it, is composed of bold independent shafts, plain or fluted, with
bold detached capitals, forming arcades or colonnades where they are needed; and
of walls whose apertures are surrounded by courses of parallel lines called
mouldings, which are continuous round the apertures, and have neither shafts nor
capitals. The shaft system and moulding system are entirely separate.

The Gothic architects confounded the two. They clustered the shafts till they
looked like a group of mouldings. They shod and capitaled the mouldings till they
looked like a group of shafts. So that a pier became merely the side of a door or
window rolled up, and the side of the window a pier unrolled (vide last Chapter, §
XXX.), both being composed of a series of small shafts, each with base and capital.
The architect seemed to have whole mats of shafts at his disposal, like the rush
mats which one puts under cream cheese. If he wanted a great pier he rolled up the
mat; if he wanted the side of a door he spread out the mat: and now the reader has
to add to the other distinctions between the Egyptian and the Gothic shaft, already
noted in § XXVI. of Chap. VIII., this one more—the most important of all—that
while the Egyptian rush cluster has only one massive capital altogether, the Gothic
rush mat has a separate tiny capital to every several rush.

§ XXX. The mats were gradually made of finer rushes, until it became
troublesome to give each rush its capital. In fact, when the groups of shafts
became excessively complicated, the expansion of their small abaci was of no use:
it was dispensed with altogether, and the mouldings of pier and jamb ran up
continuously into the arches.

This condition, though in many respects faulty and false, is yet the eminently
characteristic state of Gothic: it is the definite formation of it as a distinct style,
owing no farther aid to classical models; and its lightness and complexity render
it, when well treated, and enriched with Flamboyant decoration, a very glorious
means of picturesque effect. It is, in fact, this form of Gothic which commends
itself most easily to the general mind, and which has suggested the innumerable
foolish theories about the derivation of Gothic from tree trunks and avenues,
which have from time to time been brought forward by persons ignorant of the
history of architecture.

§ XXXI. When the sense of picturesqueness, as well as that of justness and
dignity, had been lost, the spring of the continuous mouldings was replaced by
what Professor Willis calls the Discontinuous impost; which, being a barbarism of
the basest and most painful kind, and being to architecture what the setting of a
saw is to music, I shall not trouble the reader to examine. For it is not in my plan

to note for him all the various conditions of error, but only to guide him to the
appreciation of the right; and I only note even the true Continuous or Flamboyant
Gothic because this is redeemed by its beautiful decoration, afterwards to be
considered. For, as far as structure is concerned, the moment the capital vanishes
from the shaft, that moment we are in error: all good Gothic has true capitals to
the shafts of its jambs and traceries, and all Gothic is debased the instant the shaft
vanishes. It matters not how slender, or how small, or how low, the shaft may be:
wherever there is indication of concentrated vertical support, then the capital is a
necessary termination. I know how much Gothic, otherwise beautiful, this
sweeping principle condemns; but it condemns not altogether. We may still take
delight in its lovely proportions, its rich decoration, or its elastic and reedy
moulding; but be assured, wherever shafts, or any approximations to the forms of
shafts, are employed, for whatever office, or on whatever scale, be it in jambs or
piers, or balustrades, or traceries, without capitals, there is a defiance of the
natural laws of construction; and that, wherever such examples are found in
ancient buildings, they are either the experiments of barbarism, or the
commencements of decline.

47 Appendix 19, “Early English Capitals.”

48 In this case the weight borne is supposed to increase as the abacus widens; the illustration
would have been clearer if I had assumed the breadth of abacus to be constant, and that of the
shaft to vary.

CHAPTER X.

THE ARCH LINE.

§ I. We have seen in the last section how our means of vertical support may,
for the sake of economy both of space and material, be gathered into piers or
shafts, and directed to the sustaining of particular points. The next question is
how to connect these points or tops of shafts with each other, so as to be able to
lay on them a continuous roof. This the reader, as before, is to favor me by
finding out for himself, under these following conditions.

Let s, s, Fig. XXIX. opposite, be two shafts, with their capitals ready
prepared for their work; and a, b, b, and c, c, c, be six stones of different sizes,
one very long and large, and two smaller, and three smaller still, of which the
reader is to choose which he likes best, in order to connect the tops of the
shafts.

I suppose he will first try if he can lift the great stone a, and if he can, he will
put it very simply on the tops of the two pillars, as at A.

Very well indeed: he has done already what a number of Greek architects
have been thought very clever for having done. But suppose he cannot lift the
great stone a, or suppose I will not give it to him, but only the two smaller

stones at b, b; he will doubtless try to put them up, tilted against each other, as
at d. Very awkward this; worse than card-house building. But if he cuts off the
corners of the stones, so as to make each of them of the form e, they will stand
up very securely, as at B.

But suppose he cannot lift even these less stones, but can raise those at c, c,
c. Then, cutting each of them into the form at e, he will doubtless set them up
as at f.

Fig. XXIX.

§ II. This last arrangement looks a little dangerous. Is there not a chance of
the stone in the middle pushing the others out, or tilting them up and aside, and
slipping down itself between them? There is such a chance: and if by
somewhat altering the form of the stones, we can diminish this chance, all the
better. I must say “we” now, for perhaps I may have to help the reader a little.

The danger is, observe, that the midmost stone at f pushes out the side ones:
then if we can give the side ones such a shape as that, left to themselves, they

would fall heavily forward, they will resist this push out by their weight,
exactly in proportion to their own particular inclination or desire to tumble in.
Take one of them separately, standing up as at g; it is just possible it may stand
up as it is, like the Tower of Pisa: but we want it to fall forward. Suppose we
cut away the parts that are shaded at h and leave it as at i, it is very certain it
cannot stand alone now, but will fall forward to our entire satisfaction.

Farther: the midmost stone at f is likely to be troublesome chiefly by its
weight, pushing down between the others; the more we lighten it the better: so
we will cut it into exactly the same shape as the side ones, chiselling away the
shaded parts, as at h. We shall then have all the three stones k, l, m, of the same
shape; and now putting them together, we have, at C, what the reader, I doubt
not, will perceive at once to be a much more satisfactory arrangement than that
at f.

§ III. We have now got three arrangements; in one using only one piece of
stone, in the second two, and in the third three. The first arrangement has no
particular name, except the “horizontal:” but the single stone (or beam, it may
be,) is called a lintel; the second arrangement is called a “Gable;” the third an
“Arch.”

We might have used pieces of wood instead of stone in all these
arrangements, with no difference in plan, so long as the beams were kept loose,
like the stones; but as beams can be securely nailed together at the ends, we
need not trouble ourselves so much about their shape or balance, and therefore
the plan at f is a peculiarly wooden construction (the reader will doubtless
recognise in it the profile of many a farm-house roof): and again, because
beams are tough, and light, and long, as compared with stones, they are
admirably adapted for the constructions at A and B, the plain lintel and gable,
while that at C is, for the most part, left to brick and stone.

§ IV. But farther. The constructions, A, B, and C, though very conveniently
to be first considered as composed of one, two, and three pieces, are by no

means necessarily so. When we have once cut the stones of the arch into a
shape like that of k, l, and m, they will hold together, whatever their number,
place, or size, as at n; and the great value of the arch is, that it permits small
stones to be used with safety instead of large ones, which are not always to be
had. Stones cut into the shape of k, l, and m, whether they be short or long (I
have drawn them all sizes at n on purpose), are called Voussoirs; this is a hard,
ugly French name; but the reader will perhaps be kind enough to recollect it; it
will save us both some trouble: and to make amends for this infliction, I will
relieve him of the term keystone. One voussoir is as much a keystone as
another; only people usually call the stone which is last put in the keystone;
and that one happens generally to be at the top or middle of the arch.

§ V. Not only the arch, but even the lintel, may be built of many stones or
bricks. The reader may see lintels built in this way over most of the windows of
our brick London houses, and so also the gable: there are, therefore, two
distinct questions respecting each arrangement;—First, what is the line or
direction of it, which gives it its strength? and, secondly, what is the manner of
masonry of it, which gives it its consistence? The first of these I shall consider
in this Chapter under the head of the Arch Line, using the term arch as
including all manner of construction (though we shall have no trouble except
about curves); and in the next Chapter I shall consider the second, under the
head, Arch Masonry.

§ VI. Now the arch line is the ghost or skeleton of the arch; or rather it is the
spinal marrow of the arch, and the voussoirs are the vertebræ, which keep it
safe and sound, and clothe it. This arch line the architect has first to conceive
and shape in his mind, as opposed to, or having to bear, certain forces which
will try to distort it this way and that; and against which he is first to direct and
bend the line itself into as strong resistance as he may, and then, with his
voussoirs and what else he can, to guard it, and help it, and keep it to its duty
and in its shape. So the arch line is the moral character of the arch, and the

adverse forces are its temptations; and the voussoirs, and what else we may
help it with, are its armor and its motives to good conduct.

§ VII. This moral character of the arch is called by architects its “Line of
Resistance.” There is a great deal of nicety in calculating it with precision, just
as there is sometimes in finding out very precisely what is a man’s true line of
moral conduct; but this, in arch morality and in man morality, is a very simple
and easily to be understood principle,—that if either arch or man expose
themselves to their special temptations or adverse forces, outside of the
voussoirs or proper and appointed armor, both will fall. An arch whose line of
resistance is in the middle of its voussoirs is perfectly safe: in proportion as the
said line runs near the edge of its voussoirs, the arch is in danger, as the man is
who nears temptation; and the moment the line of resistance emerges out of the
voussoirs the arch falls.

§ VIII. There are, therefore, properly speaking, two arch lines. One is the
visible direction or curve of the arch, which may generally be considered as the
under edge of its voussoirs, and which has often no more to do with the real
stability of the arch, than a man’s apparent conduct has with his heart. The
other line, which is the line of resistance, or line of good behavior, may or may
not be consistent with the outward and apparent curves of the arch; but if not,
then the security of the arch depends simply upon this, whether the voussoirs
which assume or pretend to the one line are wide enough to include the other.

§ IX. Now when the reader is told that the line of resistance varies with every
change either in place or quantity of the weight above the arch, he will see at
once that we have no chance of arranging arches by their moral characters: we
can only take the apparent arch line, or visible direction, as a ground of
arrangement. We shall consider the possible or probable forms or contours of
arches in the present Chapter, and in the succeeding one the forms of voussoir
and other help which may best fortify these visible lines against every
temptation to lose their consistency.

§ X. Look back to Fig.
XXIX. Evidently the abstract Fig. XXX.

or ghost line of the
arrangement at A is a plain
horizontal line, as here at a,
Fig. XXX. The abstract line of
the arrangement at B, Fig.
XXIX., is composed of two
straight lines, set against each
other, as here at b. The abstract
line of C, Fig. XXIX., is a
curve of some kind, not at
present determined, suppose c, Fig. XXX. Then, as b is two of the straight lines
at a, set up against each other, we may conceive an arrangement, d, made up of
two of the curved lines at c, set against each other. This is called a pointed arch,
which is a contradiction in terms: it ought to be called a curved gable; but it
must keep the name it has got.

Now a, b, c, d, Fig. XXX., are the ghosts of the lintel, the gable, the arch,
and the pointed arch. With the poor lintel ghost we need trouble ourselves no
farther; there are no changes in him: but there is much variety in the other
three, and the method of their variety will be best discerned by studying b and
d, as subordinate to and connected with the simple arch at c.

§ XI. Many architects, especially the worst, have been very curious in
designing out of the way arches,—elliptical arches, and four-centred arches, so
called, and other singularities. The good architects have generally been content,
and we for the present will be so, with God’s arch, the arch of the rainbow and
of the apparent heaven, and which the sun shapes for us as it sets and rises. Let
us watch the sun for a moment as it climbs: when it is a quarter up, it will give
us the arch a, Fig. XXXI.; when it is half up, b, and when three quarters up, c.
There will be an infinite number of arches between these, but we will take

these as sufficient representatives of all. Then a is the low arch, b the central or
pure arch, c the high arch, and the rays of the sun would have drawn for us
their voussoirs.

§ XII. We will take these several arches successively, and fixing the top of
each accurately, draw two right lines thence to its base, d, e, f, Fig. XXXI. Then
these lines give us the relative gables of each of the arches; d is the Italian or
southern gable, e the central gable, f the Gothic gable.

Fig. XXXI.

§ XIII. We will again take the three arches with their gables in succession,
and on each of the sides of the gable, between it and the arch, we will describe
another arch, as at g, h, i. Then the curves so described give the pointed arches

belonging to each of the round arches; g, the flat pointed arch, h, the central
pointed arch, and i, the lancet pointed arch.

§ XIV. If the radius with which these intermediate curves are drawn be the
base of f, the last is the equilateral pointed arch, one of great importance in
Gothic work. But between the gable and circle, in all the three figures, there are
an infinite number of pointed arches, describable with different radii; and the
three round arches, be it remembered, are themselves representatives of an
infinite number, passing from the flattest conceivable curve, through the
semicircle and horseshoe, up to the full circle.

The central and the last group are the most important. The central round, or
semicircle, is the Roman, the Byzantine, and Norman arch; and its relative
pointed includes one wide branch of Gothic. The horseshoe round is the Arabic
and Moorish arch, and its relative pointed includes the whole range of Arabic
and lancet, or Early English and French Gothics. I mean of course by the
relative pointed, the entire group of which the equilateral arch is the
representative. Between it and the outer horseshoe, as this latter rises higher,
the reader will find, on experiment, the great families of what may be called the
horseshoe pointed,—curves of the highest importance, but which are all
included, with English lancet, under the term, relative pointed of the horseshoe
arch.

§ XV. The groups above described are all formed of
circular arcs, and include all truly useful and beautiful Fig. XXXII.

arches for ordinary work. I believe that singular and
complicated curves are made use of in modern engineering,
but with these the general reader can have no concern: the
Ponte della Trinita at Florence is the most graceful instance
I know of such structure; the arch made use of being very
subtle, and approximating to the low ellipse; for which, in common work, a
barbarous pointed arch, called four-centred, and composed of bits of circles, is
substituted by the English builders. The high ellipse, I believe, exists in eastern

architecture. I have never myself met with it on a large scale; but it occurs in
the niches of the later portions of the Ducal palace at Venice, together with a
singular hyperbolic arch, a in Fig. XXXIII., to be described hereafter: with
such caprices we are not here concerned.

§ XVI. We are, however, concerned to notice the absurdity of another form of
arch, which, with the four-centred, belongs to the English perpendicular
Gothic.

Taking the gable of any of the groups in Fig. XXXI. (suppose the
equilateral), here at b, in Fig. XXXIII., the dotted line representing the relative
pointed arch, we may evidently conceive an arch formed by reversed curves on
the inside of the gable, as here shown by the inner curved lines. I imagine the
reader by this time knows enough of the nature of arches to understand that,
whatever strength or stability was gained by the curve on the outside of the
gable, exactly so much is lost by curves on the inside. The natural tendency of
such an arch to dissolution by its own mere weight renders it a feature of
detestable ugliness, wherever it occurs on a large scale. It is eminently
characteristic of Tudor work, and it is the profile of the Chinese roof (I say on a
large scale, because this as well as all other capricious arches, may be made
secure by their masonry when small, but not otherwise). Some allowable
modifications of it will be noticed in the chapter on Roofs.

Fig. XXXIII.

§ XVII. There is only one more form of arch which we have to notice. When
the last described arch is used, not as the principal arrangement, but as a mere
heading to a common pointed arch, we have the form c, Fig. XXXIII. Now this
is better than the entirely reversed arch for two reasons; first, less of the line is
weakened by reversing; secondly, the double curve has a very high æsthetic
value, not existing in the mere segments of circles. For these reasons arches of
this kind are not only admissible, but even of great desirableness, when their
scale and masonry render them secure, but above a certain scale they are
altogether barbarous; and, with the reversed Tudor arch, wantonly employed,
are the characteristics of the worst and meanest schools of architecture, past or
present.

This double curve is called the Ogee; it is the profile of many German leaden
roofs, of many Turkish domes (there more excusable, because associated and in
sympathy with exquisitely managed arches of the same line in the walls
below), of Tudor turrets, as in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, and it is at the
bottom or top of sundry other blunders all over the world.

§ XVIII. The varieties of the ogee curve are infinite, as the reversed portion of
it may be engrafted on every other form of arch, horseshoe, round, or pointed.
Whatever is generally worthy of note in these varieties, and in other arches of
caprice, we shall best discover by examining their masonry; for it is by their
good masonry only that they are rendered either stable or beautiful. To this
question, then, let us address ourselves.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ARCH MASONRY.

§ I. On the subject of the stability of arches, volumes have been written and
volumes more are required. The reader will not, therefore, expect from me any
very complete explanation of its conditions within the limits of a single
chapter. But that which is necessary for him to know is very simple and very
easy; and yet, I believe, some part of it is very little known, or noticed.

We must first have a clear idea of what is meant by an arch. It is a curved
shell of firm materials, on whose back a burden is to be laid of loose materials.
So far as the materials above it are not loose, but themselves hold together, the
opening below is not an arch, but an excavation. Note this difference very
carefully. If the King of Sardinia tunnels through the Mont Cenis, as he
proposes, he will not require to build a brick arch under his tunnel to carry the
weight of the Mont Cenis: that would need scientific masonry indeed. The
Mont Cenis will carry itself, by its own cohesion, and a succession of invisible
granite arches, rather larger than the tunnel. But when Mr. Brunel tunnelled the
Thames bottom, he needed to build a brick arch to carry the six or seven feet of
mud and the weight of water above. That is a type of all arches proper.

§ II. Now arches, in practice, partake of the nature of the two. So far as their
masonry above is Mont-Cenisian, that is to say, colossal in comparison of
them, and granitic, so that the arch is a mere hole in the rock substance of it,
the form of the arch is of no consequence whatever: it may be rounded, or
lozenged, or ogee’d, or anything else; and in the noblest architecture there is
always some character of this kind given to the masonry. It is independent
enough not to care about the holes cut in it, and does not subside into them like
sand. But the theory of arches does not presume on any such condition of
things; it allows itself only the shell of the arch proper; the vertebræ, carrying
their marrow of resistance; and, above this shell, it assumes the wall to be in a
state of flux, bearing down on the arch, like water or sand, with its whole
weight. And farther, the problem which is to be solved by the arch builder is
not merely to carry this weight, but to carry it with the least thickness of shell.
It is easy to carry it by continually thickening your voussoirs: if you have six

feet depth of sand or gravel to carry, and you choose to employ granite
voussoirs six feet thick, no question but your arch is safe enough. But it is
perhaps somewhat too costly: the thing to be done is to carry the sand or gravel
with brick voussoirs, six inches thick, or, at any rate, with the least thickness of
voussoir which will be safe; and to do this requires peculiar arrangement of the
lines of the arch. There are many arrangements, useful all in their way, but we
have only to do, in the best architecture, with the simplest and most easily
understood. We have first to note those which regard the actual shell of the
arch, and then we shall give a few examples of the superseding of such
expedients by Mont-Cenisian masonry.

§ III. What we have to say will apply to all arches, but the central pointed
arch is the best for general illustration. Let a, Plate III., be the shell of a pointed
arch with loose loading above; and suppose you find that shell not quite thick
enough; and that the weight bears too heavily on the top of the arch, and is
likely to break it in: you proceed to thicken your shell, but need you thicken it
all equally? Not so; you would only waste your good voussoirs. If you have
any common sense you will thicken it at the top, where a Mylodon’s skull is
thickened for the same purpose (and some human skulls, I fancy), as at b. The
pebbles and gravel above will now shoot off it right and left, as the bullets do
off a cuirassier’s breastplate, and will have no chance of beating it in.

If still it be not strong enough, a farther addition may be made, as at c, now
thickening the voussoirs a little at the base also. But as this may perhaps throw
the arch inconveniently high, or occasion a waste of voussoirs at the top, we
may employ another expedient.

§ IV. I imagine the reader’s common sense, if not his previous knowledge,
will enable him to understand that if the arch at a, Plate III., burst in at the top,
it must burst out at the sides. Set up two pieces of pasteboard, edge to edge,
and press them down with your hand, and you will see them bend out at the
sides. Therefore, if you can keep the arch from starting out at the points p, p, it

cannot curve in at the top, put what weight on it you will, unless by sheer
crushing of the stones to fragments.

§ V. Now you may keep the arch from starting out at p by loading it at p,
putting more weight upon it and against it at that point; and this, in practice, is
the way it is usually done. But we assume at present that the weight above is
sand or water, quite unmanageable, not to be directed to the points we choose;
and in practice, it may sometimes happen that we cannot put weight upon the
arch at p. We may perhaps want an opening above it, or it may be at the side of
the building, and many other circumstances may occur to hinder us.

§ VI. But if we are not sure that we can put weight above it, we are perfectly
sure that we can hang weight under it. You may always thicken your shell
inside, and put the weight upon it as at x x, in d, Plate III. Not much chance of
its bursting out at p, now, is there?

§ VII. Whenever, therefore, an arch has to bear vertical pressure, it will bear
it better when its shell is shaped as at b or d, than as at a: b and d are, therefore,
the types of arches built to resist vertical pressure, all over the world, and from
the beginning of architecture to its end. None others can be compared with
them: all are imperfect except these.

III.

ARCH MASONRY.

The added projections at x x, in d, are called Cusps, and they are the very
soul and life of the best northern Gothic; yet never thoroughly understood nor
found in perfection, except in Italy, the northern builders working often, even
in the best times, with the vulgar form at a.

The form at b is rarely found in the north: its perfection is in the Lombardic
Gothic; and branches of it, good and bad according to their use, occur in
Saracenic work.

§ VIII. The true and perfect cusp is single only. But it was probably invented
(by the Arabs?) not as a constructive, but a decorative feature, in pure fantasy;
and in early northern work it is only the application to the arch of the foliation,
so called, of penetrated spaces in stone surfaces, already enough explained in
the “Seven Lamps,” Chap. III., p. 85 et seq. It is degraded in dignity, and loses
its usefulness, exactly in proportion to its multiplication on the arch. In later
architecture, especially English Tudor, it is sunk into dotage, and becomes a
simple excrescence, a bit of stone pinched up out of the arch, as a cook pinches
the paste at the edge of a pie.

§ IX. The depth and place of the cusp, that is to say, its exact application to
the shoulder of the curve of the arch, varies with the direction of the weight to
be sustained. I have spent more than a month, and that in hard work too, in
merely trying to get the forms of cusps into perfect order: whereby the reader
may guess that I have not space to go into the subject now; but I shall hereafter
give a few of the leading and most perfect examples, with their measures and
masonry.

§ X. The reader now understands all that he need about the shell of the arch,
considered as an united piece of stone.

He has next to consider the shape of the voussoirs. This, as much as is
required, he will be able best to comprehend by a few examples; by which I
shall be able also to illustrate, or rather which will force me to illustrate, some
of the methods of Mont-Cenisian masonry, which were to be the second part of
our subject.

§ XI. 1 and 2, Plate IV., are two cornices; 1 from St. Antonio, Padua; 2, from
the Cathedral of Sens. I want them for cornices; but I have put them in this
plate because, though their arches are filled up behind, and are in fact mere

blocks of stone with arches cut into their faces, they illustrate the constant
masonry of small arches, both in Italian and Northern Romanesque, but
especially Italian, each arch being cut out of its own proper block of stone: this
is Mont-Cenisian enough, on a small scale.

3 is a window from Carnarvon Castle, and very primitive and interesting in
manner,—one of its arches being of one stone, the other of two. And here we
have an instance of a form of arch which would be barbarous enough on a large
scale, and of many pieces; but quaint and agreeable thus massively built.

4 is from a little belfry in a Swiss village above Vevay; one fancies the
window of an absurd form, seen in the distance, but one is pleased with it on
seeing its masonry. It could hardly be stronger.

§ XII. These then are arches cut of one block. The next step is to form them
of two pieces, set together at the head of the arch. 6, from the Eremitani, Padua,
is very quaint and primitive in manner: it is a curious church altogether, and
has some strange traceries cut out of single blocks. One is given in the “Seven
Lamps,” Plate VII., in the left-hand corner at the bottom.

7, from the Frari, Venice, very firm and fine, and admirably decorated, as we
shall see hereafter. 5, the simple two-pieced construction, wrought with the
most exquisite proportion and precision of workmanship, as is everything else
in the glorious church to which it belongs, San Fermo of Verona. The addition
of the top piece, which completes the circle, does not affect the plan of the
beautiful arches, with their simple and perfect cusps; but it is highly curious,
and serves to show how the idea of the cusp rose out of mere foliation. The
whole of the architecture of this church may be characterised as exhibiting the
maxima of simplicity in construction, and perfection in workmanship,—a rare
unison: for, in general, simple designs are rudely worked, and as the builder
perfects his execution, he complicates his plan. Nearly all the arches of San
Fermo are two-pieced.

IV.

ARCH MASONRY.

§ XIII. We have seen the construction with one and two pieces: a and b, Fig.
8, Plate IV., are the general types of the construction with three pieces,
uncusped and cusped; c and d with five pieces, uncusped and cusped. Of these
the three-pieced construction is of enormous importance, and must detain us

some time. The five-pieced is the three-pieced with a joint added on each side,
and is also of great importance. The four-pieced, which is the two-pieced with
added joints, rarely occurs, and need not detain us.

§ XIV. It will be remembered that in first working out the principle of the
arch, we composed the arch of three pieces. Three is the smallest number
which can exhibit the real principle of arch masonry, and it may be considered
as representative of all arches built on that principle; the one and two-pieced
arches being microscopic Mont-Cenisian, mere caves in blocks of stone, or
gaps between two rocks leaning together.

But the three-pieced arch is properly representative of all; and the larger and
more complicated constructions are merely produced by keeping the central
piece for what is called a keystone, and putting additional joints at the sides.
Now so long as an arch is pure circular or pointed, it does not matter how many
joints or voussoirs you have, nor where the joints are; nay, you may joint your
keystone itself, and make it two-pieced. But if the arch be of any bizarre form,
especially ogee, the joints must be in particular places, and the masonry simple,
or it will not be thoroughly good and secure; and the fine schools of the ogee
arch have only arisen in countries where it was the custom to build arches of
few pieces.

§ XV. The typical pure pointed arch of Venice is a five-pieced arch, with its
stones in three orders of magnitude, the longest being the lowest, as at b2, Plate
III. If the arch be very large, a fourth order of magnitude is added, as at a2. The
portals of the palaces of Venice have one or other of these masonries, almost
without exception. Now, as one piece is added to make a larger door, one piece
is taken away to make a smaller one, or a window, and the masonry type of the
Venetian Gothic window is consequently three-pieced, c2.

§ XVI. The reader knows already where a cusp is useful. It is wanted, he will
remember, to give weight to those side stones, and draw them inwards against
the thrust of the top stone. Take one of the side stones of c2 out for a moment,

as at d. Now the proper place of the cusp upon it varies with the weight which
it bears or requires; but in practice this nicety is rarely observed; the place of
the cusp is almost always determined by æsthetic considerations, and it is
evident that the variations in its place may be infinite. Consider the cusp as a
wave passing up the side stone from its bottom to its top; then you will have
the succession of forms from e to g (Plate III.), with infinite degrees of
transition from each to each; but of which you may take e, f, and g, as
representing three great families of cusped arches. Use e for your side stones,
and you have an arch as that at h below, which may be called a down-cusped
arch. Use f for the side stone, and you have i, which may be called a mid-
cusped arch. Use g, and you have k, an up-cusped arch.

§ XVII. The reader will observe that I call the arch mid-cusped, not when the
cusped point is in the middle of the curve of the arch, but when it is in the
middle of the side piece, and also that where the side pieces join the keystone
there will be a change, perhaps somewhat abrupt, in the curvature.

I have preferred to call the arch mid-cusped with respect to its side piece
than with respect to its own curve, because the most beautiful Gothic arches in
the world, those of the Lombard Gothic, have, in all the instances I have
examined, a form more or less approximating to this mid-cusped one at i (Plate
III.), but having the curvature of the cusp carried up into the keystone, as we
shall see presently: where, however, the arch is built of many voussoirs, a mid-
cusped arch will mean one which has the point of the cusp midway between its
own base and apex.

The Gothic arch of Venice is almost invariably up-cusped, as at k. The reader
may note that, in both down-cusped and up-cusped arches, the piece of stone,
added to form the cusp, is of the shape of a scymitar, held down in the one case
and up in the other.

§ XVIII. Now, in the arches h, i, k, a slight modification has been made in the
form of the central piece, in order that it may continue the curve of the cusp.

This modification is not to be given to it in practice without considerable nicety
of workmanship; and some curious results took place in Venice from this
difficulty.

At l (Plate III.) is the shape of the Venetian side stone, with its cusp detached
from the arch. Nothing can possibly be better or more graceful, or have the
weight better disposed in order to cause it to nod forwards against the keystone,
as above explained, Ch. X. § II., where I developed the whole system of the
arch from three pieces, in order that the reader might now clearly see the use of
the weight of the cusp.

Now a Venetian Gothic palace has usually at least three stories; with perhaps
ten or twelve windows in each story, and this on two or three of its sides,
requiring altogether some hundred to a hundred and fifty side pieces.

I have no doubt, from observation of the way the windows are set together,
that the side pieces were carved in pairs, like hooks, of which the keystones
were to be the eyes; that these side pieces were ordered by the architect in the
gross, and were used by him sometimes for wider, sometimes for narrower
windows; bevelling the two ends as required, fitting in keystones as he best
could, and now and then varying the arrangement by turning the side pieces
upside down.

There were various conveniences in this way of working, one of the
principal being that the side pieces with their cusps were always cut to their
complete form, and that no part of the cusp was carried out into the keystone,
which followed the curve of the outer arch itself. The ornaments of the cusp
might thus be worked without any troublesome reference to the rest of the arch.

§ XIX. Now let us take a pair of side pieces, made to order, like that at l, and
see what we can make of them. We will try to fit them first with a keystone
which continues the curve of the outer arch, as at m. This the reader assuredly
thinks an ugly arch. There are a great many of them in Venice, the ugliest
things there, and the Venetian builders quickly began to feel them so. What

could they do to better them? The arch at m has a central piece of the form r.
Substitute for it a piece of the form s, and we have the arch at n.

§ XX. This arch at n is not so strong as that at m; but, built of good marble,
and with its pieces of proper thickness, it is quite strong enough for all practical
purposes on a small scale. I have examined at least two thousand windows of
this kind and of the other Venetian ogees, of which that at y (in which the plain
side-piece d is used instead of the cusped one) is the simplest; and I never
found one, even in the most ruinous palaces (in which they had had to sustain
the distorted weight of falling walls) in which the central piece was fissured;
and this is the only danger to which the window is exposed; in other respects it
is as strong an arch as can be built.

It is not to be supposed that the change from the r keystone to the s keystone
was instantaneous. It was a change wrought out by many curious experiments,
which we shall have to trace hereafter, and to throw the resultant varieties of
form into their proper groups.

§ XXI. One step more: I take a mid-cusped side piece in its block form at t,
with the bricks which load the back of it. Now, as these bricks support it
behind, and since, as far as the use of the cusp is concerned, it matters not
whether its weight be in marble or bricks, there is nothing to hinder us from
cutting out some of the marble, as at u, and filling up the space with bricks.
(Why we should take a fancy to do this, I do not pretend to guess at present; all
I have to assert is, that, if the fancy should strike us, there would be no harm in
it). Substituting this side piece for the other in the window n, we have that at w,
which may, perhaps, be of some service to us afterwards; here we have nothing
more to do with it than to note that, thus built, and properly backed by
brickwork, it is just as strong and safe a form as that at n; but that this, as well
as every variety of ogee arch, depends entirely for its safety, fitness, and
beauty, on the masonry which we have just analysed; and that, built on a large
scale, and with many voussoirs, all such arches would be unsafe and absurd in
general architecture. Yet they may be used occasionally for the sake of the

exquisite beauty of which their rich and fantastic varieties admit, and
sometimes for the sake of another merit, exactly the opposite of the
constructional ones we are at present examining, that they seem to stand by
enchantment.

V.

Arch Masonry.
BRULETTO OF COMO.

§ XXII. In the above reasonings, the inclination of the joints of the voussoirs
to the curves of the arch has not been considered. It is a question of much
nicety, and which I have not been able as yet fully to investigate: but the
natural idea of the arrangement of these lines (which in round arches are of
course perpendicular to the curve) would be that every voussoir should have
the lengths of its outer and inner arched surface in the same proportion to each
other. Either this actual law, or a close approximation to it, is assuredly
enforced in the best Gothic buildings.

§ XXIII. I may sum up all that it is necessary for the reader to keep in mind of
the general laws connected with this subject, by giving him an example of each
of the two forms of the perfect Gothic arch, uncusped and cusped, treated with
the most simple and magnificent masonry, and partly, in both cases, Mont-
Cenisian.

The first, Plate V., is a window from the Broletto of Como. It shows, in its
filling, first, the single-pieced arch, carried on groups of four shafts, and a
single slab of marble filling the space above, and pierced with a quatrefoil
(Mont-Cenisian, this), while the mouldings above are each constructed with a
separate system of voussoirs, all of them shaped, I think, on the principle above
stated, § XXII., in alternate serpentine and marble; the outer arch being a noble
example of the pure uncusped Gothic construction, b of Plate III.

Fig. XXXIV.

§ XXIV. Fig. XXXIV. is the masonry of the side arch of, as far as I know or
am able to judge, the most perfect Gothic sepulchral monument in the world,
the foursquare canopy of the (nameless?)49 tomb standing over the small
cemetery gate of the Church of St. Anastasia at Verona. I shall have frequent
occasion to recur to this monument, and, I believe, shall be able sufficiently to
justify the terms in which I speak of it: meanwhile, I desire only that the reader

should observe the severity and simplicity of the arch lines, the exquisitely
delicate suggestion of the ogee curve in the apex, and chiefly the use of the
cusp in giving inward weight to the great pieces of stone on the flanks of the
arch, and preventing their thrust outwards from being severely thrown on the
lowermost stones. The effect of this arrangement is, that the whole massy
canopy is sustained safely by four slender pillars (as will be seen hereafter in
the careful plate I hope to give of it), these pillars being rather steadied than
materially assisted against the thrust, by iron bars, about an inch thick,
connecting them at the heads of the abaci; a feature of peculiar importance in
this monument, inasmuch as we know it to be part of the original construction,
by a beautiful little Gothic wreathed pattern, like one of the hems of garments
of Fra Angelico, running along the iron bar itself. So carefully, and so far, is the
system of decoration carried out in this pure and lovely monument, my most
beloved throughout all the length and breadth of Italy;—chief, as I think,
among all the sepulchral marbles of a land of mourning.

49 At least I cannot find any account of it in Maffei’s “Verona,” nor anywhere else, to be
depended upon. It is, I doubt not, a work of the beginning of the thirteenth century. Vide
Appendix 19, “Tombs at St. Anastasia.”

CHAPTER XII.

THE ARCH LOAD.

§ I. In the preceding enquiry we
Fig. XXXV. have always supposed either that the
load upon the arch was perfectly

loose, as of gravel or sand, or that it
was Mont-Cenisian, and formed one
mass with the arch voussoirs, of more
or less compactness.

In practice, the state is usually
something between the two. Over
bridges and tunnels it sometimes
approaches to the condition of mere
dust or yielding earth; but in
architecture it is mostly firm
masonry, not altogether acting with
the voussoirs, yet by no means
bearing on them with perfectly dead
weight, but locking itself together
above them, and capable of being
thrown into forms which relieve
them, in some degree, from its
pressure.

§ II. It is evident that if we are to
place a continuous roof above the line of arches, we must fill up the intervals
between them on the tops of the columns. We have at present nothing granted
us but the bare masonry, as here at a, Fig. XXXV., and we must fill up the
intervals between the semicircle so as to obtain a level line of support. We may
first do this simply as at b, with plain mass of wall; so laying the roof on the
top, which is the method of the pure Byzantine and Italian Romanesque. But if
we find too much stress is thus laid on the arches, we may introduce small
second shafts on the top of the great shaft, a, Fig. XXXVI., which may assist in
carrying the roof, conveying great part of its weight at once to the heads of the
main shafts, and relieving from its pressure the centres of the arches.

§ III. The new shaft thus introduced may
either remain lifted on the head of the great Fig. XXXVI.

shaft, or may be carried to the ground in
front of it, or through it, b, Fig. XXXVI.; in
which latter case the main shaft divides into
two or more minor shafts, and forms a
group with the shaft brought down from
above.

§ IV. When this shaft, brought from roof
to ground, is subordinate to the main pier,
and either is carried down the face of it, or
forms no large part of the group, the
principle is Romanesque or Gothic, b, Fig.
XXXVI. When it becomes a bold central
shaft, and the main pier splits into two
minor shafts on its sides, the principle is
Classical or Palladian, c, Fig. XXXVI.
Which latter arrangement becomes absurd
or unsatisfactory in proportion to the
sufficiency of the main shaft to carry the
roof without the help of the minor shafts or
arch, which in many instances of Palladian
work look as if they might be removed
without danger to the building.

§ V. The form a is a more pure Northern Gothic type than even b, which is
the connecting link between it and the classical type. It is found chiefly in
English and other northern Gothic, and in early Lombardic, and is, I doubt not,
derived as above explained, Chap. I. § XXVII. b is a general French Gothic and
French Romanesque form, as in great purity at Valence.

The small shafts of the form a and b, as being northern, are generally
connected with steep vaulted roofs, and receive for that reason the name of
vaulting shafts.

§ VI. Of these forms b, Fig. XXXV., is the purest and most sublime,
expressing the power of the arch most distinctly. All the others have some
appearance of dovetailing and morticing of timber rather than stonework; nor
have I ever yet seen a single instance, quite satisfactory, of the management of
the capital of the main shaft, when it had either to sustain the base of the
vaulting shaft, as in a, or to suffer it to pass through it, as in b, Fig. XXXVI.
Nor is the bracket which frequently carries the vaulting shaft in English work a
fitting support for a portion of the fabric which is at all events presumed to
carry a considerable part of the weight of the roof.

§ VII. The triangular spaces on the flanks of the arch are called Spandrils, and
if the masonry of these should be found, in any of its forms, too heavy for the
arch, their weight may be diminished, while their strength remains the same, by
piercing them with circular holes or lights. This is rarely necessary in ordinary
architecture, though sometimes of great use in bridges and iron roofs (a
succession of such circles may be seen, for instance, in the spandrils at the
Euston Square station); but, from its constructional value, it becomes the best
form in which to arrange spandril decorations, as we shall see hereafter.

§ VIII. The height of the load above the arch is determined by the needs of
the building and possible length of the shaft; but with this we have at present
nothing to do, for we have performed the task which was set us. We have
ascertained, as it was required that we should in § VI. of Chap. III. (A), the
construction of walls; (B), that of piers; (C), that of piers with lintels or arches
prepared for roofing. We have next, therefore, to examine (D) the structure of
the roof.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ROOF.

§ I. Hitherto our enquiry has been unembarrassed by any considerations
relating exclusively either to the exterior or interior of buildings. But it can
remain so no longer. As far as the architect is concerned, one side of a wall is
generally the same as another; but in the roof there are usually two distinct
divisions of the structure; one, a shell, vault, or flat ceiling, internally visible,
the other, an upper structure, built of timber, to protect the lower; or of some
different form, to support it. Sometimes, indeed, the internally visible structure
is the real roof, and sometimes there are more than two divisions, as in St.
Paul’s, where we have a central shell with a mask below and above. Still it will
be convenient to remember the distinction between the part of the roof which is
usually visible from within, and whose only business is to stand strongly, and
not fall in, which I shall call the Roof Proper; and, secondly, the upper roof,
which, being often partly supported by the lower, is not so much concerned
with its own stability as with the weather, and is appointed to throw off snow,
and get rid of rain, as fast as possible, which I shall call the Roof Mask.

§ II. It is, however, needless for me to engage the reader in the discussion of
the various methods of construction of Roofs Proper, for this simple reason,
that no person without long experience can tell whether a roof be wisely
constructed or not; nor tell at all, even with help of any amount of experience,
without examination of the several parts and bearings of it, very different from
any observation possible to the general critic: and more than this, the enquiry
would be useless to us in our Venetian studies, where the roofs are either not
contemporary with the buildings, or flat, or else vaults of the simplest possible
constructions, which have been admirably explained by Willis in his
“Architecture of the Middle Ages,” Chap. VII., to which I may refer the reader
for all that it would be well for him to know respecting the connexion of the

different parts of the vault with the shafts. He would also do well to read the
passages on Tudor vaulting, pp. 185-193, in Mr. Garbett’s rudimentary Treatise
on Design, before alluded to.50 I shall content myself therefore with noting one
or two points on which neither writer has had occasion to touch, respecting the
Roof Mask.

§ III. It was said in § V. of Chapter III. that we should not have occasion, in
speaking of roof construction, to add materially to the forms then suggested.
The forms which we have to add are only those resulting from the other curves
of the arch developed in the last chapter; that is to say, the various eastern
domes and cupolas arising out of the revolution of the horseshoe and ogee
curves, together with the well-known Chinese concave roof. All these forms
are of course purely decorative, the bulging outline, or concave surface, being
of no more use, or rather of less, in throwing off snow or rain, than the ordinary
spire and gable; and it is rather curious, therefore, that all of them, on a small
scale, should have obtained so extensive use in Germany and Switzerland, their
native climate being that of the east, where their purpose seems rather to
concentrate light upon their orbed surfaces. I much doubt their applicability, on
a large scale, to architecture of any admirable dignity; their chief charm is, to
the European eye, that of strangeness; and it seems to me possible that in the
east the bulging form may be also delightful, from the idea of its enclosing a
volume of cool air. I enjoy them in St. Mark’s, chiefly because they increase
the fantastic and unreal character of St. Mark’s Place; and because they appear
to sympathise with an expression, common, I think, to all the buildings of that
group, of a natural buoyancy, as if they floated in the air or on the surface of
the sea. But, assuredly, they are not features to be recommended for
imitation.51

§ IV. One form, closely connected with
Fig. XXXVII. the Chinese concave, is, however, often
constructively right,—the gable with an
inward angle, occurring with exquisitely

picturesque effect throughout the domestic
architecture of the north, especially
Germany and Switzerland; the lower slope
being either an attached external penthouse
roof, for protection of the wall, as in Fig.
XXXVII., or else a kind of buttress set on
the angle of the tower; and in either case
the roof itself being a simple gable,
continuous beneath it.

§ V. The true gable, as it is the simplest
and most natural, so I esteem it the grandest
of roofs; whether rising in ridgy darkness,
like a grey slope of slaty mountains, over
the precipitous walls of the northern
cathedrals, or stretched in burning breadth
above the white and square-set groups of the southern architecture. But this
difference between its slope in the northern and southern structure is a matter
of far greater importance than is commonly supposed, and it is this to which I
would especially direct the reader’s attention.

§ VI. One main cause of it, the necessity of throwing off snow in the north,
has been a thousand times alluded to: another I do not remember having seen
noticed, namely, that rooms in a roof are comfortably habitable in the north,
which are painful sotto piombi in Italy; and that there is in wet climates a
natural tendency in all men to live as high as possible, out of the damp and
mist. These two causes, together with accessible quantities of good timber,
have induced in the north a general steep pitch of gable, which, when rounded
or squared above a tower, becomes a spire or turret; and this feature, worked
out with elaborate decoration, is the key-note of the whole system of aspiration,
so called, which the German critics have so ingeniously and falsely ascribed to
a devotional sentiment pervading the Northern Gothic: I entirely and boldly

deny the whole theory; our cathedrals were for the most part built by worldly
people, who loved the world, and would have gladly staid in it for ever; whose
best hope was the escaping hell, which they thought to do by building
cathedrals, but who had very vague conceptions of Heaven in general, and very
feeble desires respecting their entrance therein; and the form of the spired
cathedral has no more intentional reference to Heaven, as distinguished from
the flattened slope of the Greek pediment, than the steep gable of a Norman
house has, as distinguished from the flat roof of a Syrian one. We may now,
with ingenious pleasure, trace such symbolic characters in the form; we may
now use it with such definite meaning; but we only prevent ourselves from all
right understanding of history, by attributing much influence to these poetical
symbolisms in the formation of a national style. The human race are, for the
most part, not to be moved by such silken cords; and the chances of damp in
the cellar, or of loose tiles in the roof, have, unhappily, much more to do with
the fashions of a man’s house building than his ideas of celestial happiness or
angelic virtue. Associations of affection have far higher power, and forms
which can be no otherwise accounted for may often be explained by reference
to the natural features of the country, or to anything which habit must have
rendered familiar, and therefore delightful; but the direct symbolisation of a
sentiment is a weak motive with all men, and far more so in the practical minds
of the north than among the early Christians, who were assuredly quite as
heavenly-minded, when they built basilicas, or cut conchas out of the
catacombs, as were ever the Norman barons or monks.

§ VII. There is, however, in the north an animal activity which materially
aided the system of building begun in mere utility,—an animal life, naturally
expressed in erect work, as the languor of the south in reclining or level work.
Imagine the difference between the action of a man urging himself to his work
in a snow storm, and the inaction of one laid at his length on a sunny bank
among cicadas and fallen olives, and you will have the key to a whole group of
sympathies which were forcefully expressed in the architecture of both;
remembering always that sleep would be to the one luxury, to the other death.

§ VIII. And to the force of this vital instinct we have farther to add the
influence of natural scenery; and chiefly of the groups and wildernesses of the
tree which is to the German mind what the olive or palm is to the southern, the
spruce fir. The eye which has once been habituated to the continual serration of
the pine forest, and to the multiplication of its infinite pinnacles, is not easily
offended by the repetition of similar forms, nor easily satisfied by the
simplicity of flat or massive outlines. Add to the influence of the pine, that of
the poplar, more especially in the valleys of France; but think of the spruce
chiefly, and meditate on the difference of feeling with which the Northman
would be inspired by the frostwork wreathed upon its glittering point, and the
Italian by the dark green depth of sunshine on the broad table of the stone-
pine52 (and consider by the way whether the spruce fir be a more heavenly-
minded tree than those dark canopies of the Mediterranean isles).

§ IX. Circumstance and sentiment, therefore, aiding each other, the steep roof
becomes generally adopted, and delighted in, throughout the north; and then,
with the gradual exaggeration with which every pleasant idea is pursued by the
human mind, it is raised into all manner of peaks, and points, and ridges; and
pinnacle after pinnacle is added on its flanks, and the walls increased in height,
in proportion, until we get indeed a very sublime mass, but one which has no
more principle of religious aspiration in it than a child’s tower of cards. What is
more, the desire to build high is complicated with the peculiar love of the
grotesque53 which is characteristic of the north, together with especial delight
in multiplication of small forms, as well as in exaggerated points of shade and
energy, and a certain degree of consequent insensibility to perfect grace and
quiet truthfulness; so that a northern architect could not feel the beauty of the
Elgin marbles, and there will always be (in those who have devoted themselves
to this particular school) a certain incapacity to taste the finer characters of
Greek art, or to understand Titian, Tintoret, or Raphael: whereas among the
Italian Gothic workmen, this capacity was never lost, and Nino Pisano and
Orcagna could have understood the Theseus in an instant, and would have
received from it new life. There can be no question that theirs was the greatest

school, and carried out by the greatest men; and that while those who began
with this school could perfectly well feel Rouen Cathedral, those who study the
Northern Gothic remain in a narrowed field—one of small pinnacles, and dots,
and crockets, and twitched faces—and cannot comprehend the meaning of a
broad surface or a grand line. Nevertheless the northern school is an admirable
and delightful thing, but a lower thing than the southern. The Gothic of the
Ducal Palace of Venice is in harmony with all that is grand in all the world: that
of the north is in harmony with the grotesque northern spirit only.

§ X. We are, however, beginning to lose sight of our roof structure in its
spirit, and must return to our text. As the height of the walls increased, in
sympathy with the rise of the roof, while their thickness remained the same, it
became more and more necessary to support them by buttresses; but—and this
is another point that the reader must specially note—it is not the steep roof
mask which requires the buttress, but the vaulting beneath it; the roof mask
being a mere wooden frame tied together by cross timbers, and in small
buildings often put together on the ground, raised afterwards, and set on the
walls like a hat, bearing vertically upon them; and farther, I believe in most
cases the northern vaulting requires its great array of external buttress, not so
much from any peculiar boldness in its own forms, as from the greater
comparative thinness and height of the walls, and more determined throwing of
the whole weight of the roof on particular points. Now the connexion of the
interior frame-work (or true roof) with the buttress, at such points, is not visible
to the spectators from without; but the relation of the roof mask to the top of
the wall which it protects, or from which it springs, is perfectly visible; and it is
a point of so great importance in the effect of the building, that it will be well
to make it a subject of distinct consideration in the following Chapter.

50 Appendix 17

51 I do not speak of the true dome, because I have not studied its construction enough to
know at what largeness of scale it begins to be rather a tour de force than a convenient or
natural form of roof, and because the ordinary spectator’s choice among its various outlines

must always be dependent on æsthetic considerations only, and can in no wise be grounded on
any conception of its infinitely complicated structural principles.

52 I shall not be thought to have overrated the effect of forest scenery on the northern mind;
but I was glad to hear a Spanish gentleman, the other day, describing, together with his own, the
regret which the peasants in his neighborhood had testified for the loss of a noble stone-pine,
one of the grandest in Spain, which its proprietor had suffered to be cut down for small gain. He
said that the mere spot where it had grown was still popularly known as “El Pino.”

53 Appendix 8.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ROOF CORNICE.

§ I. It will be remembered that in the Sixth Chapter we paused (§ X.) at the
point where the addition of brackets to the ordinary wall cornice would have
converted it into a structure proper for sustaining a roof. Now the wall cornice
was treated throughout our enquiry (compare Chapter VII. § V.) as the capital
of the wall, and as forming, by its concentration, the capital of the shaft. But
we must not reason back from the capital to the cornice, and suppose that an
extension of the principles of the capital to the whole length of the wall, will
serve for the roof cornice; for all our conclusions respecting the capital were
based on the supposition of its being adapted to carry considerable weight
condensed on its abacus: but the roof cornice is, in most cases, required rather
to project boldly than to carry weight; and arrangements are therefore to be
adopted for it which will secure the projection of large surfaces without being

calculated to resist extraordinary pressure. This object is obtained by the use of
brackets at intervals, which are the peculiar distinction of the roof cornice.

§ II. Roof cornices are generally to be divided into two great families: the
first and simplest, those which are composed merely by the projection of the
edge of the roof mask over the wall, sustained by such brackets or spurs as may
be necessary; the second, those which provide a walk round the edge of the
roof, and which require, therefore, some stronger support, as well as a
considerable mass of building above or beside the roof mask, and a parapet.
These two families we shall consider in succession.

§ III. 1. The Eaved Cornice. We may give it this name, as represented in the
simplest form by cottage eaves. It is used, however, in bold projection, both in
north, and south, and east; its use being, in the north, to throw the rain well
away from the wall of the building; in the south to give it shade; and it is
ordinarily constructed of the ends of the timbers of the roof mask (with their
tiles or shingles continued to the edge of the cornice), and sustained by spurs of
timber. This is its most picturesque and natural form; not inconsistent with
great splendor of architecture in the mediæval Italian domestic buildings,
superb in its mass of cast shadow, and giving rich effect to the streets of Swiss
towns, even when they have no other claim to interest. A farther value is given
to it by its waterspouts, for in order to avoid loading it with weight of water in
the gutter at the edge, where it would be a strain on the fastenings of the pipe, it
has spouts of discharge at intervals of three or four feet,—rows of magnificent
leaden or iron dragons’ heads, full of delightful character, except to any person
passing along the middle of the street in a heavy shower. I have had my share
of their kindness in my time, but owe them no grudge; on the contrary, much
gratitude for the delight of their fantastic outline on the calm blue sky, when
they had no work to do but to open their iron mouths and pant in the sunshine.

§ IV. When, however, light is more valuable than shadow, or when the
architecture of the wall is too fair to be concealed, it becomes necessary to
draw the cornice into narrower limits; a change of considerable importance, in

that it permits the gutter, instead of being of lead and hung to the edge of the
cornice, to be of stone, and supported by brackets in the wall, these brackets
becoming proper recipients of after decoration (and sometimes associated with
the stone channels of discharge, called gargoyles, which belong, however, more
properly to the other family of cornices). The most perfect and beautiful
example of this kind of cornice is the Venetian, in which the rain from the tiles
is received in a stone gutter supported by small brackets, delicately moulded,
and having its outer lower edge decorated with the English dogtooth moulding,
whose sharp zigzag mingles richly with the curved edges of the tiling. I know
no cornice more beautiful in its extreme simplicity and serviceableness.

§ V. The cornice of the Greek Doric is a condition of the same kind, in which,
however, there are no brackets, but useless appendages hung to the bottom of
the gutter (giving, however, some impression of support as seen from a
distance), and decorated with stone symbolisms of raindrops. The brackets are
not allowed, because they would interfere with the sculpture, which in this
architecture is put beneath the cornice; and the overhanging form of the gutter
is nothing more than a vast dripstone moulding, to keep the rain from such
sculpture: its decoration of guttæ, seen in silver points against the shadow, is
pretty in feeling, with a kind of continual refreshment and remembrance of rain
in it; but the whole arrangement is awkward and meagre, and is only endurable
when the eye is quickly drawn away from it to sculpture.

§ VI. In later cornices, invented for the Greek orders, and farther developed
by the Romans, the bracket appears in true importance, though of barbarous
and effeminate outline: and gorgeous decorations are applied to it, and to the
various horizontal mouldings which it carries, some of them of great beauty,
and of the highest value to the mediæval architects who imitated them. But a
singularly gross mistake was made in the distribution of decoration on these
rich cornices (I do not know when first, nor does it matter to me or to the
reader), namely, the charging with ornament the under surface of the cornice
between the brackets, that is to say, the exact piece of the whole edifice, from

top to bottom, where ornament is least visible. I need hardly say much
respecting the wisdom of this procedure, excusable only if the whole building
were covered with ornament; but it is curious to see the way in which modern
architects have copied it, even when they had little enough ornament to spare.
For instance, I suppose few persons look at the Athenæum Club-house without
feeling vexed at the meagreness and meanness of the windows of the ground
floor: if, however, they look up under the cornice, and have good eyes, they
will perceive that the architect has reserved his decorations to put between the
brackets; and by going up to the first floor, and out on the gallery, they may
succeed in obtaining some glimpses of the designs of the said decorations.

§ VII. Such as they are, or were, these cornices were soon considered
essential parts of the “order” to which they belonged; and the same wisdom
which endeavored to fix the proportions of the orders, appointed also that no
order should go without its cornice. The reader has probably heard of the
architectural division of superstructure into architrave, frieze, and cornice;
parts which have been appointed by great architects to all their work, in the
same spirit in which great rhetoricians have ordained that every speech shall
have an exordium, and narration, and peroration. The reader will do well to
consider that it may be sometimes just as possible to carry a roof, and get rid of
rain, without such an arrangement, as it is to tell a plain fact without an
exordium or peroration; but he must very absolutely consider that the
architectural peroration or cornice is strictly and sternly limited to the end of
the wall’s speech,—that is, to the edge of the roof; and that it has nothing
whatever to do with shafts nor the orders of them. And he will then be able
fully to enjoy the farther ordinance of the late Roman and Renaissance
architects, who, attaching it to the shaft as if it were part of its shadow, and
having to employ their shafts often in places where they came not near the
roof, forthwith cut the roof-cornice to pieces and attached a bit of it to every
column; thenceforward to be carried by the unhappy shaft wherever it went, in
addition to any other work on which it might happen to be employed. I do not
recollect among any living beings, except Renaissance architects, any instance

of a parallel or comparable stupidity: but one can imagine a savage getting hold
of a piece of one of our iron wire ropes, with its rings upon it at intervals to
bind it together, and pulling the wires asunder to apply them to separate
purposes; but imagining there was magic in the ring that bound them, and so
cutting that to pieces also, and fastening a little bit of it to every wire.

§ VIII. Thus much may serve us to know respecting the first family of wall
cornices. The second is immeasurably more important, and includes the
cornices of all the best buildings in the world. It has derived its best form from
mediæval military architecture, which imperatively required two things; first, a
parapet which should permit sight and offence, and afford defence at the same
time; and secondly, a projection bold enough to enable the defenders to rake
the bottom of the wall with falling bodies; projection which, if the wall
happened to slope inwards, required not to be small. The thoroughly
magnificent forms of cornice thus developed by necessity in military buildings,
were adopted, with more or less of boldness or distinctness, in domestic
architecture, according to the temper of the times and the circumstances of the
individual—decisively in the baron’s house, imperfectly in the burgher’s:
gradually they found their way into ecclesiastical architecture, under wise
modifications in the early cathedrals, with infinite absurdity in the imitations of
them; diminishing in size as their original purpose sank into a decorative one,
until we find battlements, two-and-a-quarter inches square, decorating the gates
of the Philanthropic Society.

§ IX. There are, therefore, two distinct features in all cornices of this kind;
first, the bracket, now become of enormous importance and of most serious
practical service; the second, the parapet: and these two features we shall
consider in succession, and in so doing, shall learn all that is needful for us to
know, not only respecting cornices, but respecting brackets in general, and
balconies.

§ X. 1. The Bracket. In the simplest form of military
Fig. XXXVIII. cornice, the brackets are composed of two or more long

stones, supporting each other in gradually increasing
projection, with roughly rounded ends, Fig. XXXVIII.,
and the parapet is simply a low wall carried on the ends of
these, leaving, of course, behind, or within it, a hole
between each bracket for the convenient dejection of hot
sand and lead. This form is best seen, I think, in the old
Scotch castles; it is very grand, but has a giddy look, and
one is afraid of the whole thing toppling off the wall. The
next step was to deepen the brackets, so as to get them
propped against a great depth of the main rampart, and to have the inner ends
of the stones held by a greater weight of that main wall above; while small
arches were thrown from bracket to bracket to carry the parapet wall more
securely. This is the most perfect form of cornice, completely satisfying the eye
of its security, giving full protection to the wall, and applicable to all
architecture, the interstices between the brackets being filled up, when one
does not want to throw boiling lead on any body below, and the projection
being always delightful, as giving greater command and view of the building,
from its angles, to those walking on the rampart. And as, in military buildings,
there were usually towers at the angles (round which the battlements swept) in
order to flank the walls, so often in the translation into civil or ecclesiastical
architecture, a small turret remained at the angle, or a more bold projection of
balcony, to give larger prospect to those upon the rampart. This cornice, perfect
in all its parts, as arranged for ecclesiastical architecture, and exquisitely
decorated, is the one employed in the duomo of Florence and campanile of
Giotto, of which I have already spoken as, I suppose, the most perfect
architecture in the world.

§ XI. In less important positions and on smaller edifices, this cornice
diminishes in size, while it retains its arrangement, and at last we find nothing
but the spirit and form of it left; the real practical purpose having ceased, and
arch, brackets and all, being cut out of a single stone. Thus we find it used in
early buildings throughout the whole of the north and south of Europe, in forms

sufficiently represented by the two examples in Plate IV.: 1, from St. Antonio,
Padua; 2, from Sens in France.

§ XII. I wish, however, at present to fix the reader’s
attention on the form of the bracket itself; a most Fig. XXXIX.

important feature in modern as well as ancient
architecture. The first idea of a bracket is that of a long
stone or piece of timber projecting from the wall, as a, Fig.
XXXIX., of which the strength depends on the toughness
of the stone or wood, and the stability on the weight of
wall above it (unless it be the end of a main beam). But let
it be supposed that the structure at a, being of the required
projection, is found too weak: then we may strengthen it in
one of three ways; (1) by putting a second or third stone
beneath it, as at b; (2) by giving it a spur, as at c; (3) by
giving it a shaft and another bracket below, d; the great use
of this arrangement being that the lowermost bracket has
the help of the weight of the shaft-length of wall above its
insertion, which is, of course, greater than the weight of
the small shaft: and then the lower bracket may be farther
helped by the structure at b or c.

§ XIII. Of these structures, a and c are
Fig. XL. evidently adapted especially for wooden
buildings; b and d for stone ones; the last,
of course, susceptible of the richest
decoration, and superbly employed in the
cornice of the cathedral of Monza: but all are beautiful in their
way, and are the means of, I think, nearly half the
picturesqueness and power of mediæval building; the forms b
and c being, of course, the most frequent; a, when it occurs,
being usually rounded off, as at a, Fig. XL.; b, also, as in Fig.

XXXVIII., or else itself composed of a single stone cut into
the form of the group b here, Fig. XL., or plain, as at c, which
is also the proper form of the brick bracket, when stone is not
to be had. The reader will at once perceive that the form d is a
barbarism (unless when the scale is small and the weight to be
carried exceedingly light): it is of course, therefore, a favorite
form with the Renaissance architects; and its introduction is
one of the first corruptions of the Venetian architecture.

§ XIV. There is one point necessary to be noticed, though
bearing on decoration more than construction, before we leave
the subject of the bracket. The whole power of the
construction depends upon the stones being well let into the
wall; and the first function of the decoration should be to give
the idea of this insertion, if possible; at all events, not to
contradict this idea. If the reader will glance at any of the brackets used in the
ordinary architecture of London, he will find them of some such character as
Fig. XLI.; not a bad form in itself, but exquisitely absurd in its curling lines,
which give the idea of some writhing suspended tendril, instead of a stiff
support, and by their careful avoidance of the wall make the bracket look
pinned on, and in constant danger of sliding down. This is, also, a Classical and
Renaissance decoration.

§ XV. 2. The Parapet. Its forms are fixed in military
Fig. XLI. architecture by the necessities of the art of war at the time of
building, and are always beautiful wherever they have been
really thus fixed; delightful in the variety of their setting, and
in the quaint darkness of their shot-holes, and fantastic
changes of elevation and outline. Nothing is more remarkable
than the swiftly discerned difference between the masculine
irregularity of such true battlements, and the formal pitifulness

of those which are set on modern buildings to give them a
military air,—as on the jail at Edinburgh.

§ XVI. Respecting the Parapet for mere safeguard upon
buildings not military, there are just two fixed laws. It should
be pierced, otherwise it is not recognised from below for a
parapet at all, and it should not be in the form of a battlement,
especially in church architecture.

The most comfortable heading of a true parapet is a plain
level on which the arm can be rested, and along which it can
glide. Any jags or elevations are disagreeable; the latter, as interrupting the
view and disturbing the eye, if they are higher than the arm, the former, as
opening some aspect of danger if they are much lower; and the inconvenience,
therefore, of the battlemented form, as well as the worse than absurdity, the bad
feeling, of the appliance of a military feature to a church, ought long ago to
have determined its rejection. Still (for the question of its picturesque value is
here so closely connected with that of its practical use, that it is vain to
endeavor to discuss it separately) there is a certain agreeableness in the way in
which the jagged outline dovetails the shadow of the slated or leaded roof into
the top of the wall, which may make the use of the battlement excusable where
there is a difficulty in managing some unvaried line, and where the expense of
a pierced parapet cannot be encountered: but remember always, that the value
of the battlement consists in its letting shadow into the light of the wall, or vice
versâ, when it comes against light sky, letting the light of the sky into the shade
of the wall; but that the actual outline of the parapet itself, if the eye be arrested
upon this, instead of upon the alternation of shadow, is as ugly a succession of
line as can by any possibility be invented. Therefore, the battlemented parapet
may only be used where this alternation of shade is certain to be shown, under
nearly all conditions of effect; and where the lines to be dealt with are on a
scale which may admit battlements of bold and manly size. The idea that a
battlement is an ornament anywhere, and that a miserable and diminutive
imitation of castellated outline will always serve to fill up blanks and Gothicise

unmanageable spaces, is one of the great idiocies of the present day. A
battlement is in its origin a piece of wall large enough to cover a man’s body,
and however it may be decorated, or pierced, or finessed away into traceries, as
long as so much of its outline is retained as to suggest its origin, so long its size
must remain undiminished. To crown a turret six feet high with chopped
battlements three inches wide, is children’s Gothic: it is one of the paltry
falsehoods for which there is no excuse, and part of the system of using models
of architecture to decorate architecture, which we shall hereafter note as one of
the chief and most destructive follies of the Renaissance;54 and in the present
day the practice may be classed as one which distinguishes the architects of
whom there is no hope, who have neither eye nor head for their work, and who
must pass their lives in vain struggles against the refractory lines of their own
buildings.

§ XVII. As the only excuse for the battlemented parapet is its alternation of
shadow, so the only fault of the natural or level parapet is its monotony of line.
This is, however, in practice, almost always broken by the pinnacles of the
buttresses, and if not, may be varied by the tracery of its penetrations. The
forms of these evidently admit every kind of change; for a stone parapet,
however pierced, is sure to be strong enough for its purpose of protection, and,
as regards the strength of the building in general, the lighter it is the better.
More fantastic forms may, therefore, be admitted in a parapet than in any other
architectural feature, and for most services, the Flamboyant parapets seem to
me preferable to all others; especially when the leaden roofs set off by points of
darkness the lace-like intricacy of penetration. These, however, as well as the
forms usually given to Renaissance balustrades (of which, by the bye, the best
piece of criticism I know is the sketch in “David Copperfield” of the personal
appearance of the man who stole Jip), and the other and finer forms invented
by Paul Veronese in his architectural backgrounds, together with the pure
columnar balustrade of Venice, must be considered as altogether decorative
features.

§ XVIII. So also are, of course, the jagged or crown-like finishings of walls
employed where no real parapet of protection is desired; originating in the
defences of outworks and single walls: these are used much in the east on walls
surrounding unroofed courts. The richest examples of such decoration are
Arabian; and from Cairo they seem to have been brought to Venice. It is
probable that few of my readers, however familiar the general form of the
Ducal Palace may have been rendered to them by innumerable drawings, have
any distinct idea of its roof, owing to the staying of the eye on its superb
parapet, of which we shall give account hereafter. In most of the Venetian cases
the parapets which surround roofing are very sufficient for protection, except
that the stones of which they are composed appear loose and infirm: but their
purpose is entirely decorative; every wall, whether detached or roofed, being
indiscriminately fringed with Arabic forms of parapet, more or less Gothicised,
according to the lateness of their date.

I think there is no other point of importance requiring illustration respecting
the roof itself, or its cornice: but this Venetian form of ornamental parapet
connects itself curiously, at the angles of nearly all the buildings on which it
occurs, with the pinnacled system of the north, founded on the structure of the
buttress. This, it will be remembered, is to be the subject of the fifth division of
our inquiry.

54 Not of Renaissance alone: the practice of modelling buildings on a minute scale for
niches and tabernacle-work has always been more or less admitted, and I suppose authority for
diminutive battlements might be gathered from the Gothic of almost every period, as well as for
many other faults and mistakes: no Gothic school having ever been thoroughly systematised or
perfected, even in its best times. But that a mistaken decoration sometimes occurs among a
crowd of noble ones, is no more an excuse for the habitual—far less, the exclusive—use of such
a decoration, than the accidental or seeming misconstructions of a Greek chorus are an excuse
for a school boy’s ungrammatical exercise.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BUTTRESS.

§ I. We have hitherto supposed ourselves concerned with the support of
vertical pressure only; and the arch and roof have been considered as forms of
abstract strength, without reference to the means by which their lateral pressure
was to be resisted. Few readers will need now to be reminded, that every arch
or gable not tied at its base by beams or bars, exercises a lateral pressure upon
the walls which sustain it,—pressure which may, indeed, be met and sustained
by increasing the thickness of the wall or vertical piers, and which is in reality
thus met in most Italian buildings, but may, with less expenditure of material,
and with (perhaps) more graceful effect, be met by some particular application
of the provisions against lateral pressure called Buttresses. These, therefore, we
are next to examine.

§ II. Buttresses are of many kinds, according to the character and direction of
the lateral forces they are intended to resist. But their first broad division is into
buttresses which meet and break the force before it arrives at the wall, and
buttresses which stand on the lee side of the wall, and prop it against the force.

The lateral forces which walls have to sustain are of three distinct kinds:
dead weight, as of masonry or still water; moving weight, as of wind or
running water; and sudden concussion, as of earthquakes, explosions, &c.

Clearly, dead weight can only be resisted by the buttress acting as a prop; for
a buttress on the side of, or towards the weight, would only add to its effect.
This, then, forms the first great class of buttressed architecture; lateral thrusts,
of roofing or arches, being met by props of masonry outside—the thrust from
within, the prop without; or the crushing force of water on a ship’s side met by
its cross timbers—the thrust here from without the wall, the prop within.

Moving weight may, of course, be resisted by the prop on the lee side of the
wall, but is often more effectually met, on the side which is attacked, by
buttresses of peculiar forms, cunning buttresses, which do not attempt to
sustain the weight, but parry it, and throw it off in directions clear of the wall.

Thirdly: concussions and vibratory motion, though in reality only supported
by the prop buttress, must be provided for by buttresses on both sides of the
wall, as their direction cannot be foreseen, and is continually changing.

We shall briefly glance at these three systems of buttressing; but the two
latter being of small importance to our present purpose, may as well be
dismissed first.

§ III. 1. Buttresses for guard against moving weight and set towards the
weight they resist.

The most familiar instance of this kind of buttress we have in the sharp piers
of a bridge, in the centre of a powerful stream, which divide the current on
their edges, and throw it to each side under the arches. A ship’s bow is a
buttress of the same kind, and so also the ridge of a breastplate, both adding to
the strength of it in resisting a cross blow, and giving a better chance of a bullet
glancing aside. In Switzerland, projecting buttresses of this kind are often built
round churches, heading up hill, to divide and throw off the avalanches. The
various forms given to piers and harbor quays, and to the bases of light-houses,
in order to meet the force of the waves, are all conditions of this kind of
buttress. But in works of ornamental architecture such buttresses are of rare
occurrence; and I merely name them in order to mark their place in our
architectural system, since in the investigation of our present subject we shall
not meet with a single example of them, unless sometimes the angle of the
foundation of a palace set against the sweep of the tide, or the wooden piers of
some canal bridge quivering in its current.

§ IV. 2. Buttresses for guard against vibratory motion.

The whole formation of this kind of buttress resolves itself into mere
expansion of the base of the wall, so as to make it stand steadier, as a man
stands with his feet apart when he is likely to lose his balance. This approach to
a pyramidal form is also of great use as a guard against the action of artillery;
that if a stone or tier of stones be battered out of the lower portions of the wall,
the whole upper part may not topple over or crumble down at once. Various
forms of this buttress, sometimes applied to particular points of the wall,
sometimes forming a great sloping rampart along its base, are frequent in
buildings of countries exposed to earthquake. They give a peculiarly heavy
outline to much of the architecture of the kingdom of Naples, and they are of
the form in which strength and solidity are first naturally sought, in the slope of
the Egyptian wall. The base of Guy’s Tower at Warwick is a singularly bold
example of their military use; and so, in general, bastion and rampart profiles,
where, however, the object of stability against a shock is complicated with that
of sustaining weight of earth in the rampart behind.

§ V. 3. Prop buttresses against dead weight.

This is the group with which we have principally to do; and a buttress of this
kind acts in two ways, partly by its weight and partly by its strength. It acts by
its weight when its mass is so great that the weight it sustains cannot stir it, but
is lost upon it, buried in it, and annihilated: neither the shape of such a buttress
nor the cohesion of its materials are of much consequence; a heap of stones or
sandbags, laid up against the wall, will answer as well as a built and cemented
mass.

But a buttress acting by its strength is not of mass sufficient to resist the
weight by mere inertia; but it conveys the weight through its body to something
else which is so capable; as, for instance, a man leaning against a door with his
hands, and propping himself against the ground, conveys the force which
would open or close the door against him through his body to the ground. A
buttress acting in this way must be of perfectly coherent materials, and so
strong that though the weight to be borne could easily move it, it cannot break

it: this kind of buttress may be called a conducting buttress. Practically,
however, the two modes of action are always in some sort united. Again, the
weight to be borne may either act generally on the whole wall surface, or with
excessive energy on particular points: when it acts on the whole wall surface,
the whole wall is generally supported; and the arrangement becomes a
continuous rampart, as a dyke, or bank of reservoir.

§ VI. It is, however, very seldom that lateral force in architecture is equally
distributed. In most cases the weight of the roof, or the force of any lateral
thrust, are more or less confined to certain points and directions. In an early
state of architectural science this definiteness of direction is not yet clear, and it
is met by uncertain application of mass or strength in the buttress, sometimes
by mere thickening of the wall into square piers, which are partly piers, partly
buttresses, as in Norman keeps and towers. But as science advances, the weight
to be borne is designedly and decisively thrown upon certain points; the
direction and degree of the forces which are then received are exactly
calculated, and met by conducting buttresses of the smallest possible
dimensions; themselves, in their turn, supported by vertical buttresses acting by
weight, and these perhaps, in their turn, by another set of conducting
buttresses: so that, in the best examples of such arrangements, the weight to be
borne may be considered as the shock of an electric fluid, which, by a hundred
different rods and channels, is divided and carried away into the ground.

§ VII. In order to give greater weight to the vertical buttress piers which
sustain the conducting buttresses, they are loaded with pinnacles, which,
however, are, I believe, in all the buildings in which they become very
prominent, merely decorative: they are of some use, indeed, by their weight;
but if this were all for which they were put there, a few cubic feet of lead
would much more securely answer the purpose, without any danger from
exposure to wind. If the reader likes to ask any Gothic architect with whom he
may happen to be acquainted, to substitute a lump of lead for his pinnacles, he
will see by the expression of his face how far he considers the pinnacles

decorative members. In the work which seems to me the great type of simple
and masculine buttress structure, the apse of Beauvais, the pinnacles are
altogether insignificant, and are evidently added just as exclusively to entertain
the eye and lighten the aspect of the buttress, as the slight shafts which are set
on its angles; while in other very noble Gothic buildings the pinnacles are
introduced as niches for statues, without any reference to construction at all:
and sometimes even, as in the tomb of Can Signoria at Verona, on small piers
detached from the main building.

§ VIII. I believe, therefore, that the development of the pinnacle is merely a
part of the general erectness and picturesqueness of northern work above
alluded to: and that, if there had been no other place for the pinnacles, the
Gothic builders would have put them on the tops of their arches (they often did
on the tops of gables and pediments), rather than not have had them; but the
natural position of the pinnacle is, of course, where it adds to, rather than
diminishes, the stability of the building; that is to say, on its main wall piers
and the vertical piers at the buttresses. And thus the edifice is surrounded at last
by a complete company of detached piers and pinnacles, each sustaining an
inclined prop against the central wall, and looking something like a band of
giants holding it up with the butts of their lances. This arrangement would
imply the loss of an enormous space of ground, but the intervals of the
buttresses are usually walled in below, and form minor chapels.

Fig. XLII.

§ IX. The science of this arrangement has made it the subject of much
enthusiastic declamation among the Gothic architects, almost as unreasonable,
in some respects, as the declamation of the Renaissance architects respecting
Greek structure. The fact is, that the whole northern buttress system is based on
the grand requirement of tall windows and vast masses of light at the end of the
apse. In order to gain this quantity of light, the piers between the windows are
diminished in thickness until they are far too weak to bear the roof, and then
sustained by external buttresses. In the Italian method the light is rather
dreaded than desired, and the wall is made wide enough between the windows
to bear the roof, and so left. In fact, the simplest expression of the difference in
the systems is, that a northern apse is a southern one with its inter-fenestrial
piers set edgeways. Thus, a, Fig. XLII., is the general idea of the southern apse;
take it to pieces, and set all its piers edgeways, as at b, and you have the
northern one. You gain much light for the interior, but you cut the exterior to
pieces, and instead of a bold rounded or polygonal surface, ready for any kind
of decoration, you have a series of dark and damp cells, which no device that I
have yet seen has succeeded in decorating in a perfectly satisfactory manner. If
the system be farther carried, and a second or third order of buttresses be
added, the real fact is that we have a building standing on two or three rows of
concentric piers, with the roof off the whole of it except the central circle, and
only ribs left, to carry the weight of the bit of remaining roof in the middle; and
after the eye has been accustomed to the bold and simple rounding of the
Italian apse, the skeleton character of the disposition is painfully felt. After
spending some months in Venice, I thought Bourges Cathedral looked exactly
like a half-built ship on its shores. It is useless, however, to dispute respecting
the merits of the two systems: both are noble in their place; the Northern
decidedly the most scientific, or at least involving the greatest display of
science, the Italian the calmest and purest, this having in it the sublimity of a
calm heaven or a windless noon, the other that of a mountain flank tormented
by the north wind, and withering into grisly furrows of alternate chasm and
crag.

§ X. If I have succeeded in making the reader understand the veritable action
of the buttress, he will have no difficulty in determining its fittest form. He has
to deal with two distinct kinds; one, a narrow vertical pier, acting principally by
its weight, and crowned by a pinnacle; the other, commonly called a Flying
buttress, a cross bar set from such a pier (when detached from the building)
against the main wall. This latter, then, is to be considered as a mere prop or
shore, and its use by the Gothic architects might be illustrated by the
supposition that we were to build all our houses with walls too thin to stand
without wooden props outside, and then to substitute stone props for wooden
ones. I have some doubts of the real dignity of such a proceeding, but at all
events the merit of the form of the flying buttress depends on its faithfully and
visibly performing this somewhat humble office; it is, therefore, in its purity, a
mere sloping bar of stone, with an arch beneath it to carry its weight, that is to
say, to prevent the action of gravity from in any wise deflecting it, or causing it
to break downwards under the lateral thrust; it is thus formed quite simple in
Notre Dame of Paris, and in the Cathedral of Beauvais, while at Cologne the
sloping bars are pierced with quatrefoils, and at Amiens with traceried arches.
Both seem to me effeminate and false in principle; not, of course, that there is
any occasion to make the flying buttress heavy, if a light one will answer the
purpose; but it seems as if some security were sacrificed to ornament. At
Amiens the arrangement is now seen to great disadvantage, for the early
traceries have been replaced by base flamboyant ones, utterly weak and
despicable. Of the degradations of the original form which took place in after
times, I have spoken at p. 35 of the “Seven Lamps.”

§ XI. The form of the common buttress must be familiar to the eye of every
reader, sloping if low, and thrown into successive steps if they are to be carried
to any considerable height. There is much dignity in them when they are of
essential service; but even in their best examples, their awkward angles are
among the least manageable features of the Northern Gothic, and the whole
organisation of its system was destroyed by their unnecessary and lavish
application on a diminished scale; until the buttress became actually confused

with the shaft, and we find strangely crystallised masses of diminutive buttress
applied, for merely vertical support, in the northern tabernacle work; while in
some recent copies of it the principle has been so far distorted that the tiny
buttressings look as if they carried the superstructure on the points of their
pinnacles, as in the Cranmer memorial at Oxford. Indeed, in most modern
Gothic, the architects evidently consider buttresses as convenient breaks of
blank surface, and general apologies for deadness of wall. They stand in the
place of ideas, and I think are supposed also to have something of the odor of
sanctity about them; otherwise, one hardly sees why a warehouse seventy feet
high should have nothing of the kind, and a chapel, which one can just get into
with one’s hat off, should have a bunch of them at every corner; and worse than
this, they are even thought ornamental when they can be of no possible use;
and these stupid penthouse outlines are forced upon the eye in every species of
decoration: in St. Margaret’s Chapel, West Street, there are actually a couple of
buttresses at the end of every pew.

§ XII. It is almost impossible, in consequence of these unwise repetitions of
it, to contemplate the buttress without some degree of prejudice; and I look
upon it as one of the most justifiable causes of the unfortunate aversion with
which many of our best architects regard the whole Gothic school. It may,
however, always be regarded with respect when its form is simple and its
service clear; but no treason to Gothic can be greater than the use of it in
indolence or vanity, to enhance the intricacies of structure, or occupy the
vacuities of design.

CHAPTER XVI.

FORM OF APERTURE.

§ I. We have now, in order, examined the means of raising walls and
sustaining roofs, and we have finally to consider the structure of the necessary
apertures in the wall veil, the door and window; respecting which there are
three main points to be considered.

1. The form of the aperture, i.e., its outline, its size, and the forms of its
sides.
2. The filling of the aperture, i.e., valves and glass, and their holdings.
3. The protection of the aperture, and its appliances, i.e., canopies, porches,
and balconies. We shall examine these in succession.

§ II. 1. The form of the aperture: and first of doors. We will, for the present,
leave out of the question doors and gates in unroofed walls, the forms of these
being very arbitrary, and confine ourselves to the consideration of doors of
entrance into roofed buildings. Such doors will, for the most part, be at, or near,
the base of the building; except when raised for purposes of defence, as in the
old Scotch border towers, and our own Martello towers, or, as in Switzerland,
to permit access in deep snow, or when stairs are carried up outside the house
for convenience or magnificence. But in most cases, whether high or low, a
door may be assumed to be considerably lower than the apartments or
buildings into which it gives admission, and therefore to have some height of
wall above it, whose weight must be carried by the heading of the door. It is
clear, therefore, that the best heading must be an arch, because the strongest,
and that a square-headed door must be wrong, unless under Mont-Cenisian
masonry; or else, unless the top of the door be the roof of the building, as in
low cottages. And a square-headed door is just so much more wrong and ugly
than a connexion of main shafts by lintels, as the weight of wall above the door
is likely to be greater than that above the main shafts. Thus, while I admit the
Greek general forms of temple to be admirable in their kind, I think the Greek
door always offensive and unmanageable.

§ III. We have it also determined by necessity, that the apertures shall be at
least above a man’s height, with perpendicular sides (for sloping sides are

evidently unnecessary, and even inconvenient, therefore absurd) and level
threshold; and this aperture we at present suppose simply cut through the wall
without any bevelling of the jambs. Such a door, wide enough for two persons
to pass each other easily, and with such fillings or valves as we may hereafter
find expedient, may be fit enough for any building into which entrance is
required neither often, nor by many persons at a time. But when entrance and
egress are constant, or required by crowds, certain further modifications must
take place.

§ IV. When entrance and egress are
constant, it may be supposed that the valves Fig. XLIII

will be absent or unfastened,—that people
will be passing more quickly than when the
entrance and egress are unfrequent, and that
the square angles of the wall will be
inconvenient to such quick passers through.
It is evident, therefore, that what would be
done in time, for themselves, by the passing
multitude, should be done for them at once by the architect; and that these
angles, which would be worn away by friction, should at once be bevelled off,
or, as it is called, splayed, and the most contracted part of the aperture made as
short as possible, so that the plan of the entrance should become as at a, Fig.
XLIII.

§ V. Farther. As persons on the outside may often approach the door or depart
from it, beside the building, so as to turn aside as they enter or leave the door,
and therefore touch its jamb, but, on the inside, will in almost every case
approach the door, or depart from it in the direct line of the entrance (people
generally walking forward when they enter a hall, court, or chamber of any
kind, and being forced to do so when they enter a passage), it is evident that the
bevelling may be very slight on the inside, but should be large on the outside,
so that the plan of the aperture should become as at b, Fig. XLIII. Farther, as

the bevelled wall cannot conveniently carry an unbevelled arch, the door arch
must be bevelled also, and the aperture, seen from the outside, will have
somewhat the aspect of a small cavern diminishing towards the interior.

§ VI. If, however, beside frequent entrance, entrance is required for
multitudes at the same time, the size of the aperture either must be increased, or
other apertures must be introduced. It may, in some buildings, be optional with
the architect whether he shall give many small doors, or few large ones; and in
some, as theatres, amphitheatres, and other places where the crowd are apt to
be impatient, many doors are by far the best arrangement of the two. Often,
however, the purposes of the building, as when it is to be entered by
processions, or where the crowd most usually enter in one direction, require the
large single entrance; and (for here again the æsthetic and structural laws
cannot be separated) the expression and harmony of the building require, in
nearly every case, an entrance of largeness proportioned to the multitude which
is to meet within. Nothing is more unseemly than that a great multitude should
find its way out and in, as ants and wasps do, through holes; and nothing more
undignified than the paltry doors of many of our English cathedrals, which
look as if they were made, not for the open egress, but for the surreptitious
drainage of a stagnant congregation. Besides, the expression of the church door
should lead us, as far as possible, to desire at least the western entrance to be
single, partly because no man of right feeling would willingly lose the idea of
unity and fellowship in going up to worship, which is suggested by the vast
single entrance; partly because it is at the entrance that the most serious words
of the building are always addressed, by its sculptures or inscriptions, to the
worshipper; and it is well, that these words should be spoken to all at once, as
by one great voice, not broken up into weak repetitions over minor doors.

In practice the matter has been, I suppose, regulated almost altogether by
convenience, the western doors being single in small churches, while in the
larger the entrances become three or five, the central door remaining always
principal, in consequence of the fine sense of composition which the mediæval
builders never lost. These arrangements have formed the noblest buildings in

the world. Yet it is worth observing55 how perfect in its simplicity the single
entrance may become, when it is treated as in the Duomo and St. Zeno of
Verona, and other such early Lombard churches, having noble porches, and
rich sculptures grouped around the entrance.

§ VII. However, whether the entrances be single, triple, or manifold, it is a
constant law that one shall be principal, and all shall be of size in some degree
proportioned to that of the building. And this size is, of course, chiefly to be
expressed in width, that being the only useful dimension in a door (except for
pageantry, chairing of bishops and waving of banners, and other such vanities,
not, I hope, after this century, much to be regarded in the building of Christian
temples); but though the width is the only necessary dimension, it is well to
increase the height also in some proportion to it, in order that there may be less
weight of wall above, resting on the increased span of the arch. This is,
however, so much the necessary result of the broad curve of the arch itself, that
there is no structural necessity of elevating the jamb; and I believe that
beautiful entrances might be made of every span of arch, retaining the jamb at
a little more than a man’s height, until the sweep of the curves became so vast
that the small vertical line became a part of them, and one entered into the
temple as under a great rainbow.

§ VIII. On the other hand, the jamb may be elevated indefinitely, so that the
increasing entrance retains at least the proportion of width it had originally; say
4 ft. by 7 ft. 5 in. But a less proportion of width than this has always a meagre,
inhospitable, and ungainly look except in military architecture, where the
narrowness of the entrance is necessary, and its height adds to its grandeur, as
between the entrance towers of our British castles. This law however, observe,
applies only to true doors, not to the arches of porches, which may be of any
proportion, as of any number, being in fact intercolumniations, not doors; as in
the noble example of the west front of Peterborough, which, in spite of the
destructive absurdity of its central arch being the narrowest, would still, if the

paltry porter’s lodge, or gatehouse, or turnpike, or whatever it is, were knocked
out of the middle of it, be the noblest west front in England.

§ IX. Further, and finally. In proportion to the height and size of the building,
and therefore to the size of its doors, will be the thickness of its walls,
especially at the foundation, that is to say, beside the doors; and also in
proportion to the numbers of a crowd will be the unruliness and pressure of it.
Hence, partly in necessity and partly in prudence, the splaying or chamfering of
the jamb of the larger door will be deepened, and, if possible, made at a larger
angle for the large door than for the small one; so that the large door will
always be encompassed by a visible breadth of jamb proportioned to its own
magnitude. The decorative value of this feature we shall see hereafter.

§ X. The second kind of apertures we have to examine are those of windows.

Window apertures are mainly of two kinds; those for outlook, and those for
inlet of light, many being for both purposes, and either purpose, or both,
combined in military architecture with those of offence and defence. But all
window apertures, as compared with door apertures, have almost infinite
licence of form and size: they may be of any shape, from the slit or cross slit to
the circle;56 of any size, from the loophole of the castle to the pillars of light of
the cathedral apse. Yet, according to their place and purpose, one or two laws
of fitness hold respecting them, which let us examine in the two classes of
windows successively, but without reference to military architecture, which
here, as before, we may dismiss as a subject of separate science, only noticing
that windows, like all other features, are always delightful, if not beautiful,
when their position and shape have indeed been thus necessarily determined,
and that many of their most picturesque forms have resulted from the
requirements of war. We should also find in military architecture the typical
forms of the two classes of outlet and inlet windows in their utmost
development; the greatest sweep of sight and range of shot on the one hand,
and the fullest entry of light and air on the other, being constantly required at

the smallest possible apertures. Our business, however, is to reason out the
laws for ourselves, not to take the examples as we find them.

§ XI. 1. Outlook apertures. For these no general outline is determinable by
the necessities or inconveniences of outlooking, except only that the bottom or
sill of the windows, at whatever height, should be horizontal, for the
convenience of leaning on it, or standing on it if the window be to the ground.
The form of the upper part of the window is quite immaterial, for all windows
allow a greater range of sight when they are approached than that of the eye
itself: it is the approachability of the window, that is to say, the annihilation of
the thickness of the wall, which is the real point to be attended to. If, therefore,
the aperture be inaccessible, or so small that the thickness of the wall cannot be
entered, the wall is to be bevelled57 on the outside, so as to increase the range
of sight as far as possible; if the aperture can be entered, then bevelled from the
point to which entrance is possible. The bevelling will, if possible, be in every
direction, that is to say, upwards at the top, outwards at the sides, and
downwards at the bottom, but essentially downwards; the earth and the doings
upon it being the chief object in outlook windows, except of observatories; and
where the object is a distinct and special view downwards, it will be of
advantage to shelter the eye as far as possible from the rays of light coming
from above, and the head of the window may be left horizontal, or even the
whole aperture sloped outwards, as the slit in a letter-box is inwards.

The best windows for outlook are, of course, oriels and bow windows, but
these are not to be considered under the head of apertures merely; they are
either balconies roofed and glazed, and to be considered under the head of
external appliances, or they are each a story of an external semi-tower, having
true aperture windows on each side of it.

§ XII. 2. Inlet windows. These windows may, of course, be of any shape and
size whatever, according to the other necessities of the building, and the
quantity and direction of light desired, their purpose being now to throw it in
streams on particular lines or spots; now to diffuse it everywhere; sometimes to

introduce it in broad masses, tempered in strength, as in the cathedral colored
window; sometimes in starry showers of scattered brilliancy, like the apertures
in the roof of an Arabian bath; perhaps the most beautiful of all forms being the
rose, which has in it the unity of both characters, and sympathy with that of the
source of light itself. It is noticeable, however, that while both the circle and
pointed oval are beautiful window forms, it would be very painful to cut either
of them in half and connect them by vertical lines, as in Fig. XLIV. The reason
is, I believe, that so treated, the upper arch is not considered as connected with
the lower, and forming an entire figure, but as the ordinary arch roof of the
aperture, and the lower arch as an arch floor, equally unnecessary and
unnatural. Also, the elliptical oval is generally an unsatisfactory form, because
it gives the idea of useless trouble in building it, though it occurs quaintly and
pleasantly in the former windows of France: I believe it is also objectionable
because it has an indeterminate, slippery look, like that of a bubble rising
through a fluid. It, and all elongated forms, are still more objectionable placed
horizontally, because this is the weakest position they can structurally have;
that is to say, less light is admitted, with greater loss of strength to the building,
than by any other form. If admissible anywhere, it is for the sake of variety at
the top of the building, as the flat parallelogram sometimes not ungracefully in
Italian Renaissance.

§ XIII. The question of bevelling becomes a little more
complicated in the inlet than the outlook window, because Fig. XLIV.

the mass or quantity of light admitted is often of more
consequence than its direction, and often vice versâ; and the
outlook window is supposed to be approachable, which is
far from being always the case with windows for light, so
that the bevelling which in the outlook window is chiefly to
open range of sight, is in the inlet a means not only of admitting the light in
greater quantity, but of directing it to the spot on which it is to fall. But, in
general, the bevelling of the one window will reverse that of the other; for,
first, no natural light will strike on the inlet window from beneath, unless

reflected light, which is (I believe) injurious to the health and the sight; and
thus, while in the outlook window the outside bevel downwards is essential, in
the inlet it would be useless: and the sill is to be flat, if the window be on a
level with the spot it is to light; and sloped downwards within, if above it.
Again, as the brightest rays of light are the steepest, the outside bevel upwards
is as essential in the roof of the inlet as it was of small importance in that of the
outlook window.

§ XIV. On the horizontal section the aperture will expand internally, a
somewhat larger number of rays being thus reflected from the jambs; and the
aperture being thus the smallest possible outside, this is the favorite military
form of inlet window, always found in magnificent development in the thick
walls of mediæval castles and convents. Its effect is tranquil, but cheerless and
dungeon-like in its fullest development, owing to the limitation of the range of
sight in the outlook, which, if the window be unapproachable, reduces it to a
mere point of light. A modified condition of it, with some combination of the
outlook form, is probably the best for domestic buildings in general (which,
however, in modern architecture, are unhappily so thin walled, that the outline
of the jambs becomes a matter almost of indifference), it being generally
noticeable that the depth of recess which I have observed to be essential to
nobility of external effect has also a certain dignity of expression, as appearing
to be intended rather to admit light to persons quietly occupied in their homes,
than to stimulate or favor the curiosity of idleness.

55 And worth questioning, also, whether the triple porch has not been associated with Romanist
views of mediatorship; the Redeemer being represented as presiding over the central door only, and
the lateral entrances being under the protection of saints, while the Madonna almost always has one
or both of the transepts. But it would be wrong to press this, for, in nine cases out of ten, the
architect has been merely influenced in his placing of the statues by an artist’s desire of variety in
their forms and dress; and very naturally prefers putting a canonisation over one door, a martyrdom
over another, and an assumption over a third, to repeating a crucifixion or a judgment above all. The
architect’s doctrine is only, therefore, to be noted with indisputable reprobation when the Madonna
gets possession of the main door.

56 The arch heading is indeed the best where there is much incumbent weight, but a window
frequently has very little weight above it, especially when placed high, and the arched form loses
light in a low room: therefore the square-headed window is admissible where the square-headed
door is not.

57 I do not like the sound of the word “splayed;” I always shall use “bevelled” instead.

CHAPTER XVII.

FILLING OF APERTURE.

§ I. Thus far we have been concerned with the outline only of the aperture: we
were next, it will be remembered, to consider the necessary modes of filling it
with valves in the case of the door, or with glass or tracery in that of the window.

1. Fillings of doors. We concluded, in the previous Chapter, that doors in
buildings of any importance or size should have headings in the form of an arch.
This is, however, the most inconvenient form we could choose, as respects the
fitting of the valves of the doorway; for the arch-shaped head of the valves not
only requires considerable nicety in fitting to the arch, but adds largely to the

weight of the door,—a double disadvantage, straining the hinges and making it
cumbersome in opening. And this inconvenience is so much perceived by the eye,
that a door valve with a pointed head is always a disagreeable object. It becomes,
therefore, a matter of true necessity so to arrange the doorway as to admit of its
being fitted with rectangular valves.

§ II. Now, in determining the form of the aperture, we supposed the jamb of the
door to be of the utmost height required for entrance. The extra height of the arch
is unnecessary as an opening, the arch being required for its strength only, not for
its elevation. There is, therefore, no reason why it should not be barred across by a
horizontal lintel, into which the valves may be fitted, and the triangular or
semicircular arched space above the lintel may then be permanently closed, as we
choose, either with bars, or glass, or stone.

This is the form of all good doors, without exception, over the whole world and
in all ages, and no other can ever be invented.

§ III. In the simplest doors the cross lintel is of wood only, and glass or bars
occupy the space above, a very frequent form in Venice. In more elaborate doors
the cross lintel is of stone, and the filling sometimes of brick, sometimes of stone,
very often a grand single stone being used to close the entire space: the space thus
filled is called the Tympanum. In large doors the cross lintel is too long to bear the
great incumbent weight of this stone filling without support; it is, therefore,
carried by a pier in the centre; and two valves are used, fitted to the rectangular
spaces on each side of the pier. In the most elaborate examples of this condition,
each of these secondary doorways has an arch heading, a cross lintel, and a
triangular filling or tympanum of its own, all subordinated to the main arch above.

§ IV. 2. Fillings of windows.

When windows are large, and to be filled with glass, the sheet of glass, however
constructed, whether of large panes or small fragments, requires the support of
bars of some kind, either of wood, metal, or stone. Wood is inapplicable on a large
scale, owing to its destructibility; very fit for door-valves, which can be easily
refitted, and in which weight would be an inconvenience, but very unfit for

window-bars, which, if they decayed, might let the whole window be blown in
before their decay was observed, and in which weight would be an advantage, as
offering more resistance to the wind.

Iron is, however, fit for window-bars, and there seems no constructive reason
why we should not have iron traceries, as well as iron pillars, iron churches, and
iron steeples. But I have, in the “Seven Lamps,” given reasons for not considering
such structures as architecture at all.

The window-bars must, therefore, be of stone, and of stone only.

§ V. The purpose of the window being always to let in as much light, and
command as much view, as possible, these bars of stone are to be made as slender
and as few as they can be, consistently with their due strength.

Let it be required to support the
breadth of glass, a, b, Fig. XLV. Fig. XLV.

The tendency of the glass
sustaining any force, as of wind
from without, is to bend into an
arch inwards, in the dotted line,
and break in the centre. It is to be
supported, therefore, by the bar
put in its centre, c.

But this central bar, c, may not
be enough, and the spaces a c, c b,
may still need support. The next
step will be to put two bars
instead of one, and divide the
window into three spaces as at d.

But this may still not be
enough, and the window may need three bars. Now the greatest stress is always on
the centre of the window. If the three bars are equal in strength, as at e, the central
bar is either too slight for its work, or the lateral bars too thick for theirs.

Therefore, we must slightly increase the thickness of the central bar, and diminish
that of the lateral ones, so as to obtain the arrangement at f h. If the window
enlarge farther, each of the spaces f g, g h, is treated as the original space a b, and
we have the groups of bars k and l.

So that, whatever the shape of the window, whatever the direction and number
of the bars, there are to be central or main bars; second bars subordinated to them;
third bars subordinated to the second, and so on to the number required. This is
called the subordination of tracery, a system delightful to the eye and mind, owing
to its anatomical framing and unity, and to its expression of the laws of good
government in all fragile and unstable things. All tracery, therefore, which is not
subordinated, is barbarous, in so far as this part of its structure is concerned.

§ VI. The next question will be the direction of the bars. The reader will
understand at once, without any laborious proof, that a given area of glass,
supported by its edges, is stronger in its resistance to violence when it is arranged
in a long strip or band than in a square; and that, therefore, glass is generally to be
arranged, especially in windows on a large scale, in oblong areas: and if the bars
so dividing it be placed horizontally, they will have less power of supporting
themselves, and will need to be thicker in consequence, than if placed vertically.
As far, therefore, as the form of the window permits, they are to be vertical.

§ VII. But even when so placed, they cannot be trusted to support themselves
beyond a certain height, but will need cross bars to steady them. Cross bars of
stone are, therefore, to be introduced at necessary intervals, not to divide the glass,
but to support the upright stone bars. The glass is always to be divided
longitudinally as far as possible, and the upright bars which divide it supported at
proper intervals. However high the window, it is almost impossible that it should
require more than two cross bars.

§ VIII. It may sometimes happen that when tall windows are placed very close to
each other for the sake of more light, the masonry between them may stand in
need, or at least be the better of, some additional support. The cross bars of the
windows may then be thickened, in order to bond the intermediate piers more

strongly together, and if this thickness appear ungainly, it may be modified by
decoration.

§ IX. We have thus arrived at the idea of a vertical frame work of subordinated
bars, supported by cross bars at the necessary intervals, and the only remaining
question is the method of insertion into the aperture. Whatever its form, if we
merely let the ends of the bars into the voussoirs of its heading, the least
settlement of the masonry would distort the arch, or push up some of its voussoirs,
or break the window bars, or push them aside. Evidently our object should be to
connect the window bars among themselves, so framing them together that they
may give the utmost possible degree of support to the whole window head in case
of any settlement. But we know how to do this already: our window bars are
nothing but small shafts. Capital them; throw small arches across between the
smaller bars, large arches over them between the larger bars, one comprehensive
arch over the whole, or else a horizontal lintel, if the window have a flat head; and
we have a complete system of mutual support, independent of the aperture head,
and yet assisting to sustain it, if need be. But we want the spandrils of this arch
system to be themselves as light, and to let as much light through them, as
possible: and we know already how to pierce them (Chap. XII. § VII.). We pierce
them with circles; and we have, if the circles are small and the stonework strong,
the traceries of Giotto and the Pisan school; if the circles are as large as possible
and the bars slender, those which I have already figured and described as the only
perfect traceries of the Northern Gothic.58 The varieties of their design arise partly
from the different size of window and consequent number of bars; partly from the
different heights of their pointed arches, as well as the various positions of the
window head in relation to the roof, rendering one or another arrangement better
for dividing the light, and partly from æsthetic and expressional requirements,
which, within certain limits, may be allowed a very important influence: for the
strength of the bars is ordinarily so much greater than is absolutely necessary, that
some portion of it may be gracefully sacrificed to the attainment of variety in the
plans of tracery—a variety which, even within its severest limits, is perfectly
endless; more especially in the pointed arch, the proportion of the tracery being in
the round arch necessarily more fixed.

§ X. The circular window furnishes an exception to the common law, that the
bars shall be vertical through the greater part of their length: for if they were so,
they could neither have secure perpendicular footing, nor secure heading, their
thrust being perpendicular to the curve of the voussoirs only in the centre of the
window; therefore, a small circle, like the axle of a wheel, is put into the centre of
the window, large enough to give footing to the necessary number of radiating
bars; and the bars are arranged as spokes, being all of course properly capitaled
and arch-headed. This is the best form of tracery for circular windows, naturally
enough called wheel windows when so filled.

§ XI. Now, I wish the reader especially to observe that we have arrived at these
forms of perfect Gothic tracery without the smallest reference to any practice of
any school, or to any law of authority whatever. They are forms having essentially
nothing whatever to do either with Goths or Greeks. They are eternal forms, based
on laws of gravity and cohesion; and no better, nor any others so good, will ever
be invented, so long as the present laws of gravity and cohesion subsist.

§ XII. It does not at all follow that this group of forms owes its origin to any
such course of reasoning as that which has now led us to it. On the contrary, there
is not the smallest doubt that tracery began, partly, in the grouping of windows
together (subsequently enclosed within a large arch59), and partly in the fantastic
penetrations of a single slab of stones under the arch, as the circle in Plate V.
above. The perfect form seems to have been accidentally struck in passing from
experiment on the one side, to affectation on the other; and it was so far from ever
becoming systematised, that I am aware of no type of tracery for which a less
decided preference is shown in the buildings in which it exists. The early pierced
traceries are multitudinous and perfect in their kind,—the late Flamboyant,
luxuriant in detail, and lavish in quantity,—but the perfect forms exist in
comparatively few churches, generally in portions of the church only, and are
always connected, and that closely, either with the massy forms out of which they
have emerged, or with the enervated types into which they are instantly to
degenerate.

§ XIII. Nor indeed are we to look upon them as in all points superior to the more
ancient examples. We have above conducted our reasoning entirely on the
supposition that a single aperture is given, which it is the object to fill with glass,
diminishing the power of the light as little as possible. But there are many cases,
as in triforium and cloister lights, in which glazing is not required; in which,
therefore, the bars, if there be any, must have some more important function than
that of merely holding glass, and in which their actual use is to give steadiness and
tone, as it were, to the arches and walls above and beside them; or to give the idea
of protection to those who pass along the triforium, and of seclusion to those who
walk in the cloister. Much thicker shafts, and more massy arches, may be properly
employed in work of this kind; and many groups of such tracery will be found
resolvable into true colonnades, with the arches in pairs, or in triple or quadruple
groups, and with small rosettes pierced above them for light. All this is just as
right in its place, as the glass tracery is in its own function, and often much more
grand. But the same indulgence is not to be shown to the affectations which
succeeded the developed forms. Of these there are three principal conditions: the
Flamboyant of France, the Stump tracery of Germany, and the Perpendicular of
England.

§ XIV. Of these the first arose, by the most delicate and natural transitions, out
of the perfect school. It was an endeavor to introduce more grace into its lines, and
more change into its combinations; and the æsthetic results are so beautiful, that
for some time after the right road had been left, the aberration was more to be
admired than regretted. The final conditions became fantastic and effeminate, but,
in the country where they had been invented, never lost their peculiar grace until
they were replaced by the Renaissance. The copies of the school in England and
Italy have all its faults and none of its beauties; in France, whatever it lost in
method or in majesty, it gained in fantasy: literally Flamboyant, it breathed away
its strength into the air; but there is not more difference between the commonest
doggrel that ever broke prose into unintelligibility, and the burning mystery of
Coleridge, or spirituality of Elizabeth Barrett, than there is between the dissolute
dulness of English Flamboyant, and the flaming undulations of the wreathed lines

of delicate stone, that confuse themselves with the clouds of every morning sky
that brightens above the valley of the Seine.

§ XV. The second group of traceries, the intersectional or German group, may
be considered as including the entire range of the absurd forms which were
invented in order to display dexterity in stone-cutting and ingenuity in
construction. They express the peculiar character of the German mind, which cuts
the frame of every truth joint from joint, in order to prove the edge of its
instruments; and, in all cases, prefers a new or a strange thought to a good one,
and a subtle thought to a useful one. The point and value of the German tracery
consists principally in turning the features of good traceries upside down, and
cutting them in two where they are properly continuous. To destroy at once
foundation and membership, and suspend everything in the air, keeping out of
sight, as far as possible, the evidences of a beginning and the probabilities of an
end, are the main objects of German architecture, as of modern German divinity.

§ XVI. This school has, however, at least the merit of ingenuity. Not so the
English Perpendicular, though a very curious school also in its way. In the course
of the reasoning which led us to the determination of the perfect Gothic tracery,
we were induced successively to reject certain methods of arrangement as weak,
dangerous, or disagreeable. Collect all these together, and practise them at once,
and you have the English Perpendicular.

Fig. XLVI.

As thus. You find, in the first place (§ V.), that your tracery bars are to be
subordinated, less to greater; so you take a group of, suppose, eight, which you
make all exactly equal, giving you nine equal spaces in the window, as at A, Fig.
XLVI. You found, in the second place (§ VII.), that there was no occasion for more
than two cross bars; so you take at least four or five (also represented at A, Fig.
XLVI.), also carefully equalised, and set at equal spaces. You found, in the third
place (§ VIII.), that these bars were to be strengthened, in order to support the main
piers; you will therefore cut the ends off the uppermost, and the fourth into three
pieces (as also at A). In the fourth place, you found (§ IX.) that you were never to
run a vertical bar into the arch head; so you run them all into it (as at B, Fig.
XLVI.); and this last arrangement will be useful in two ways, for it will not only
expose both the bars and the archivolt to an apparent probability of every species
of dislocation at any moment, but it will provide you with two pleasing interstices
at the flanks, in the shape of carving-knives, a, b, which, by throwing across the
curves c, d, you may easily multiply into four; and these, as you can put nothing
into their sharp tops, will afford you a more than usually rational excuse for a little
bit of Germanism, in filling them with arches upside down, e, f. You will now

have left at your disposal two and forty similar interstices, which, for the sake of
variety, you will proceed to fill with two and forty similar arches: and, as you
were told that the moment a bar received an arch heading, it was to be treated as a
shaft and capitalled, you will take care to give your bars no capitals nor bases, but
to run bars, foliations and all, well into each other after the fashion of cast-iron, as
at C. You have still two triangular spaces occurring in an important part of your
window, g g, which, as they are very conspicuous, and you cannot make them
uglier than they are, you will do wisely to let alone;—and you will now have the
west window of the cathedral of Winchester, a very perfect example of English
Perpendicular. Nor do I think that you can, on the whole, better the arrangement,
unless, perhaps, by adding buttresses to some of the bars, as is done in the
cathedral at Gloucester; these buttresses having the double advantage of darkening
the window when seen from within, and suggesting, when it is seen from without,
the idea of its being divided by two stout party walls, with a heavy thrust against
the glass.

§ XVII. Thus far we have considered the plan of the tracery only: we have lastly
to note the conditions under which the glass is to be attached to the bars; and the
sections of the bars themselves.

These bars we have seen, in the perfect form, are to become
Fig. XLVII. shafts; but, supposing the object to be the admission of as
much light as possible, it is clear that the thickness of the bar
ought to be chiefly in the depth of the window, and that by
increasing the depth of the bar we may diminish its breadth:
clearly, therefore, we should employ the double group of
shafts, b, of Fig. XIV., setting it edgeways in the window: but
as the glass would then come between the two shafts, we must add a member into
which it is to be fitted, as at a, Fig. XLVII., and uniting these three members
together in the simplest way, with a curved instead of a sharp recess behind the
shafts, we have the section b, the perfect, but simplest type of the main tracery
bars in good Gothic. In triforium and cloister tracery, which has no glass to hold,
the central member is omitted, and we have either the pure double shaft, always

the most graceful, or a single and more massy shaft, which is the simpler and
more usual form.

§ XVIII. Finally: there is an intermediate arrangement between the glazed and
the open tracery, that of the domestic traceries of Venice. Peculiar conditions,
hereafter to be described, require the shafts of these traceries to become the main
vertical supports of the floors and walls. Their thickness is therefore enormous;
and yet free egress is required between them (into balconies) which is obtained by
doors in their lattice glazing. To prevent the inconvenience and ugliness of driving
the hinges and fastenings of them into the shafts, and having the play of the doors
in the intervals, the entire glazing is thrown behind the pillars, and attached to
their abaci and bases with iron. It is thus securely sustained by their massy bulk,
and leaves their symmetry and shade undisturbed.

§ XIX. The depth at which the glass should be placed, in windows without
traceries, will generally be fixed by the forms of their bevelling, the glass
occupying the narrowest interval; but when its position is not thus fixed, as in
many London houses, it is to be remembered that the deeper the glass is set (the
wall being of given thickness), the more light will enter, and the clearer the
prospect will be to a person sitting quietly in the centre of the room; on the
contrary, the farther out the glass is set, the more convenient the window will be
for a person rising and looking out of it. The one, therefore, is an arrangement for
the idle and curious, who care only about what is going on upon the earth: the
other for those who are willing to remain at rest, so that they have free admission
of the light of Heaven. This might be noted as a curious expressional reason for
the necessity (of which no man of ordinary feeling would doubt for a moment) of
a deep recess in the window, on the outside, to all good or architectural effect:
still, as there is no reason why people should be made idle by having it in their
power to look out of window, and as the slight increase of light or clearness of
view in the centre of a room is more than balanced by the loss of space, and the
greater chill of the nearer glass and outside air, we can, I fear, allege no other
structural reason for the picturesque external recess, than the expediency of a
certain degree of protection, for the glass, from the brightest glare of sunshine,
and heaviest rush of rain.

58 “Seven Lamps,” p. 53.

59 On the north side of the nave of the cathedral of Lyons, there is an early French window,
presenting one of the usual groups of foliated arches and circles, left, as it were, loose, without any
enclosing curve. The effect is very painful. This remarkable window is associated with others of the
common form.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROTECTION OF APERTURE.

§ I. We have hitherto considered the aperture as merely pierced in the thickness
of the walls; and when its masonry is simple and the fillings of the aperture are
unimportant, it may well remain so. But when the fillings are delicate and of
value, as in the case of colored glass, finely wrought tracery, or sculpture, such as
we shall often find occupying the tympanum of doorways, some protection
becomes necessary against the run of the rain down the walls, and back by the
bevel of the aperture to the joints or surface of the fillings.

§ II. The first and simplest mode of obtaining this is by channelling the jambs
and arch head; and this is the chief practical service of aperture mouldings, which
are otherwise entirely decorative. But as this very decorative character renders
them unfit to be made channels for rain water, it is well to add some external
roofing to the aperture, which may protect it from the run of all the rain, except
that which necessarily beats into its own area. This protection, in its most usual
form, is a mere dripstone moulding carried over or round the head of the aperture.
But this is, in reality, only a contracted form of a true roof, projecting from the
wall over the aperture; and all protections of apertures whatsoever are to be
conceived as portions of small roofs, attached to the wall behind; and supported

by it, so long as their scale admits of their being so with safety, and afterwards in
such manner as may be most expedient. The proper forms of these, and modes of
their support, are to be the subject of our final enquiry.

§ III. Respecting their proper form we need not stay long
Fig. XLVIII. in doubt. A deep gable is evidently the best for throwing off
rain; even a low gable being better than a high arch. Flat
roofs, therefore, may only be used when the nature of the
building renders the gable unsightly; as when there is not
room for it between the stories; or when the object is rather
shade than protection from rain, as often in verandahs and
balconies. But for general service the gable is the proper
and natural form, and may be taken as representative of the
rest. Then this gable may either project unsupported from
the wall, a, Fig. XLVIII., or be carried by brackets or spurs,
b, or by walls or shafts, c, which shafts or walls may
themselves be, in windows, carried on a sill; and this, in its
turn, supported by brackets or spurs. We shall glance at the
applications of each of these forms in order.

§ IV. There is not much variety in the case of the first, a,
Fig. XLVIII. In the Cumberland and border cottages the
door is generally protected by two pieces of slate arranged
in a gable, giving the purest possible type of the first form.
In elaborate architecture such a projection hardly ever
occurs, and in large architecture cannot with safety occur,
without brackets; but by cutting away the greater part of the projection, we shall
arrive at the idea of a plain gabled cornice, of which a perfect example will be
found in Plate VII. of the folio series. With this first complete form we may
associate the rude, single, projecting, penthouse roof; imperfect, because either it
must be level and the water lodge lazily upon it, or throw off the drip upon the
persons entering.

§ V. 2. b, Fig. XLVIII. This is a most beautiful and natural type, and is found in
all good architecture, from the highest to the most humble: it is a frequent form of
cottage door, more especially when carried on spurs, being of peculiarly easy
construction in wood: as applied to large architecture, it can evidently be built, in
its boldest and simplest form, either of wood only, or on a scale which will admit
of its sides being each a single slab of stone. If so large as to require jointed
masonry, the gabled sides will evidently require support, and an arch must be
thrown across under them, as in Fig. XLIX., from Fiesole.

If we cut the projection gradually
down, we arrive at the common Gothic Fig. XLIX.

gable dripstone carried on small
brackets, carved into bosses, heads, or
some other ornamental form; the sub-
arch in such case being useless, is
removed or coincides with the arch head
of the aperture.

§ VI. 3. c, Fig. XLVIII. Substituting
walls or pillars for the brackets, we may
carry the projection as far out as we
choose, and form the perfect porch,
either of the cottage or village church, or
of the cathedral. As we enlarge the
structure, however, certain modifications
of form become necessary, owing to the
increased boldness of the required supporting arch. For, as the lower end of the
gabled roof and of the arch cannot coincide, we have necessarily above the shafts
one of the two forms a or b, in Fig. L., of which the latter is clearly the best,
requiring less masonry and shorter roofing; and when the arch becomes so large as
to cause a heavy lateral thrust, it may become necessary to provide for its farther
safety by pinnacles, c.

This last is the perfect type of aperture protection. None other can ever be
invented so good. It is that once employed by Giotto in the cathedral of Florence,
and torn down by the proveditore, Benedetto Uguccione, to erect a Renaissance
front instead; and another such has been destroyed, not long since, in Venice, the
porch of the church of St. Apollinare, also to put up some Renaissance upholstery:
for Renaissance, as if it were not nuisance enough in the mere fact of its own
existence, appears invariably as a beast of prey, and founds itself on the ruin of all
that is best and noblest. Many such porches, however, happily still exist in Italy,
and are among its principal glories.

Fig. L.

§ VII. When porches of this kind, carried by walls, are placed close together, as
in cases where there are many and large entrances to a cathedral front, they would,
in their general form, leave deep and uncomfortable intervals, in which damp
would lodge and grass grow; and there would be a painful feeling in approaching
the door in the midst of a crowd, as if some of them might miss the real doors, and
be driven into the intervals, and embayed there. Clearly it will be a natural and
right expedient, in such cases, to open the walls of the porch wider, so that they
may correspond in slope, or nearly so, with the bevel of the doorway, and either
meet each other in the intervals, or have the said intervals closed up with an
intermediate wall, so that nobody may get embayed in them. The porches will thus
be united, and form one range of great open gulphs or caverns, ready to receive all
comers, and direct the current of the crowd into the narrower entrances. As the
lateral thrust of the arches is now met by each other, the pinnacles, if there were

any, must be removed, and waterspouts placed between each arch to discharge the
double drainage of the gables. This is the form of all the noble northern porches,
without exception, best represented by that of Rheims.

§ VIII. Contracted conditions of the pinnacle porch are beautifully used in the
doors of the cathedral of Florence; and the entire arrangement, in its most perfect
form, as adapted to window protection and decoration, is applied by Giotto with
inconceivable exquisiteness in the windows of the campanile; those of the
cathedral itself being all of the same type. Various singular and delightful
conditions of it are applied in Italian domestic architecture (in the Broletto of
Monza very quaintly), being associated with balconies for speaking to the people,
and passing into pulpits. In the north we glaze the sides of such projections, and
they become bow-windows, the shape of roofing being then nearly immaterial and
very fantastic, often a conical cap. All these conditions of window protection,
being for real service, are endlessly delightful (and I believe the beauty of the
balcony, protected by an open canopy supported by light shafts, never yet to have
been properly worked out). But the Renaissance architects destroyed all of them,
and introduced the magnificent and witty Roman invention of a model of a Greek
pediment, with its cornices of monstrous thickness, bracketed up above the
window. The horizontal cornice of the pediment is thus useless, and of course,
therefore, retained; the protection to the head of the window being constructed on
the principle of a hat with its crown sewn up. But the deep and dark triangular
cavity thus obtained affords farther opportunity for putting ornament out of sight,
of which the Renaissance architects are not slow to avail themselves.

A more rational condition is the complete pediment with a couple of shafts, or
pilasters, carried on a bracketed sill; and the windows of this kind, which have
been well designed, are perhaps the best things which the Renaissance schools
have produced: those of Whitehall are, in their way, exceedingly beautiful; and
those of the Palazzo Ricardi at Florence, in their simplicity and sublimity, are
scarcely unworthy of their reputed designer, Michael Angelo.

CHAPTER XIX.

SUPERIMPOSITION.

§ I. The reader has now some knowledge of every feature of all possible
architecture. Whatever the nature of the building which may be submitted to his
criticism, if it be an edifice at all, if it be anything else than a mere heap of stones
like a pyramid or breakwater, or than a large stone hewn into shape, like an
obelisk, it will be instantly and easily resolvable into some of the parts which we
have been hitherto considering: its pinnacles will separate themselves into their
small shafts and roofs; its supporting members into shafts and arches, or walls
penetrated by apertures of various shape, and supported by various kinds of
buttresses. Respecting each of these several features I am certain that the reader
feels himself prepared, by understanding their plain function, to form something
like a reasonable and definite judgment, whether they be good or bad; and this
right judgment of parts will, in most cases, lead him to just reverence or
condemnation of the whole.

§ II. The various modes in which these parts are capable of combination, and the
merits of buildings of different form and expression, are evidently not reducible
into lists, nor to be estimated by general laws. The nobility of each building
depends on its special fitness for its own purposes; and these purposes vary with
every climate, every soil, and every national custom: nay, there were never,
probably, two edifices erected in which some accidental difference of condition
did not require some difference of plan or of structure; so that, respecting plan and
distribution of parts, I do not hope to collect any universal law of right; but there
are a few points necessary to be noticed respecting the means by which height is
attained in buildings of various plans, and the expediency and methods of
superimposition of one story or tier of architecture above another.

§ III. For, in the preceding inquiry, I have always supposed either that a single
shaft would reach to the top of the building, or that the farther height required
might be added in plain wall above the heads of the arches; whereas it may often

be rather expedient to complete the entire lower series of arches, or finish the
lower wall, with a bold string course or cornice, and build another series of shafts,
or another wall, on the top of it.

§ IV. This superimposition is seen in its simplest form in the interior shafts of a
Greek temple; and it has been largely used in nearly all countries where buildings
have been meant for real service. Outcry has often been raised against it, but the
thing is so sternly necessary that it has always forced itself into acceptance; and it
would, therefore, be merely losing time to refute the arguments of those who have
attempted its disparagement. Thus far, however, they have reason on their side,
that if a building can be kept in one grand mass, without sacrificing either its
visible or real adaptation to its objects, it is not well to divide it into stories until it
has reached proportions too large to be justly measured by the eye. It ought then to
be divided in order to mark its bulk; and decorative divisions are often possible,
which rather increase than destroy the expression of general unity.

§ V. Superimposition, wisely practised, is of two kinds, directly contrary to each
other, of weight on lightness, and of lightness on weight; while the
superimposition of weight on weight, or lightness on lightness, is nearly always
wrong.

1. Weight on lightness: I do not say weight on weakness. The superimposition
of the human body on its limbs I call weight on lightness: the superimposition of
the branches on a tree trunk I call lightness on weight: in both cases the support is
fully adequate to the work, the form of support being regulated by the differences
of requirement. Nothing in architecture is half so painful as the apparent want of
sufficient support when the weight above is visibly passive: for all buildings are
not passive; some seem to rise by their own strength, or float by their own
buoyancy; a dome requires no visibility of support, one fancies it supported by the
air. But passive architecture without help for its passiveness is unendurable. In a
lately built house, No. 86, in Oxford Street, three huge stone pillars in the second
story are carried apparently by the edges of three sheets of plate glass in the first. I
hardly know anything to match the painfulness of this and some other of our shop
structures, in which the iron-work is concealed; nor, even when it is apparent, can

the eye ever feel satisfied of their security, when built, as at present, with fifty or
sixty feet of wall above a rod of iron not the width of this page.

§ VI. The proper forms of this superimposition of weight on lightness have
arisen, for the most part, from the necessity or desirableness, in many situations,
of elevating the inhabited portions of buildings considerably above the ground
level, especially those exposed to damp or inundation, and the consequent
abandonment of the ground story as unserviceable, or else the surrender of it to
public purposes. Thus, in many market and town houses, the ground story is left
open as a general place of sheltered resort, and the enclosed apartments raised on
pillars. In almost all warm countries the luxury, almost the necessity, of arcades to
protect the passengers from the sun, and the desirableness of large space in the
rooms above, lead to the same construction. Throughout the Venetian islet group,
the houses seem to have been thus, in the first instance, universally built, all the
older palaces appearing to have had the rez de chaussée perfectly open, the upper
parts of the palace being sustained on magnificent arches, and the smaller houses
sustained in the same manner on wooden piers, still retained in many of the
cortiles, and exhibited characteristically throughout the main street of Murano. As
ground became more valuable and house-room more scarce, these ground-floors
were enclosed with wall veils between the original shafts, and so remain; but the
type of the structure of the entire city is given in the Ducal Palace.

§ VII. To this kind of superimposition we owe the most picturesque street effects
throughout the world, and the most graceful, as well as the most grotesque,
buildings, from the many-shafted fantasy of the Alhambra (a building as beautiful
in disposition as it is base in ornamentation) to the four-legged stolidity of the
Swiss Chalet:60 nor these only, but great part of the effect of our cathedrals, in
which, necessarily, the close triforium and clerestory walls are superimposed on
the nave piers; perhaps with most majesty where with greatest simplicity, as in the
old basilican types, and the noble cathedral of Pisa.

§ VIII. In order to the delightfulness and security of all such arrangements, this
law must be observed:—that in proportion to the height of wall above them, the
shafts are to be short. You may take your given height of wall, and turn any

quantity of that wall into shaft that you like; but you must not turn it all into tall
shafts, and then put more wall above. Thus, having a house five stories high, you
may turn the lower story into shafts, and leave the four stories in wall; or the two
lower stories into shafts, and leave three in wall; but, whatever you add to the
shaft, you must take from the wall. Then also, of course, the shorter the shaft the
thicker will be its proportionate, if not its actual, diameter. In the Ducal Palace of
Venice the shortest shafts are always the thickest.61

§ IX. The second kind of superimposition, lightness on weight, is, in its most
necessary use, of stories of houses one upon another, where, of course, wall veil is
required in the lower ones, and has to support wall veil above, aided by as much
of shaft structure as is attainable within the given limits. The greatest, if not the
only, merit of the Roman and Renaissance Venetian architects is their graceful
management of this kind of superimposition; sometimes of complete courses of
external arches and shafts one above the other; sometimes of apertures with
intermediate cornices at the levels of the floors, and large shafts from top to
bottom of the building; always observing that the upper stories shall be at once
lighter and richer than the lower ones. The entire value of such buildings depends
upon the perfect and easy expression of the relative strength of the stories, and the
unity obtained by the varieties of their proportions, while yet the fact of
superimposition and separation by floors is frankly told.

§ X. In churches and other buildings in which there is no separation by floors,
another kind of pure shaft superimposition is often used, in order to enable the
builder to avail himself of short and slender shafts. It has been noted that these are
often easily attainable, and of precious materials, when shafts large enough and
strong enough to do the work at once, could not be obtained except at unjustifiable
expense, and of coarse stone. The architect has then no choice but to arrange his
work in successive stories; either frankly completing the arch work and cornice of
each, and beginning a new story above it, which is the honester and nobler way, or
else tying the stories together by supplementary shafts from floor to roof,—the
general practice of the Northern Gothic, and one which, unless most gracefully
managed, gives the look of a scaffolding, with cross-poles tied to its uprights, to
the whole clerestory wall. The best method is that which avoids all chance of the

upright shafts being supposed continuous, by increasing their number and
changing their places in the upper stories, so that the whole work branches from
the ground like a tree. This is the superimposition of the Byzantine and the Pisan
Romanesque; the most beautiful examples of it being, I think, the Southern
portico of St. Mark’s, the church of S. Giovanni at Pistoja, and the apse of the
cathedral of Pisa. In Renaissance work the two principles are equally distinct,
though the shafts are (I think) always one above the other. The reader may see one
of the best examples of the separately superimposed story in Whitehall (and
another far inferior in St. Paul’s), and by turning himself round at Whitehall may
compare with it the system of connecting shafts in the Treasury; though this is a
singularly bad example, the window cornices of the first floor being like shelves
in a cupboard, and cutting the mass of the building in two, in spite of the pillars.

§ XI. But this superimposition of lightness on weight is still more distinctly the
system of many buildings of the kind which I have above called Architecture of
Position, that is to say, architecture of which the greater part is intended merely to
keep something in a peculiar position; as in light-houses, and many towers and
belfries. The subject of spire and tower architecture, however, is so interesting and
extensive, that I have thoughts of writing a detached essay upon it, and, at all
events, cannot enter upon it here: but this much is enough for the reader to note
for our present purpose, that, although many towers do in reality stand on piers or
shafts, as the central towers of cathedrals, yet the expression of all of them, and
the real structure of the best and strongest, are the elevation of gradually
diminishing weight on massy or even solid foundation. Nevertheless, since the
tower is in its origin a building for strength of defence, and faithfulness of watch,
rather than splendor of aspect, its true expression is of just so much diminution of
weight upwards as may be necessary to its fully balanced strength, not a jot more.
There must be no light-headedness in your noble tower: impregnable foundation,
wrathful crest, with the vizor down, and the dark vigilance seen through the clefts
of it; not the filigree crown or embroidered cap. No towers are so grand as the
square-browed ones, with massy cornices and rent battlements: next to these come
the fantastic towers, with their various forms of steep roof; the best, not the cone,
but the plain gable thrown very high; last of all in my mind (of good towers),

those with spires or crowns, though these, of course, are fittest for ecclesiastical
purposes, and capable of the richest ornament. The paltry four or eight pinnacled
things we call towers in England (as in York Minster), are mere confectioner’s
Gothic, and not worth classing.

§ XII. But, in all of them, this I believe to be a point of chief necessity,—that
they shall seem to stand, and shall verily stand, in their own strength; not by help
of buttresses nor artful balancings on this side and on that. Your noble tower must
need no help, must be sustained by no crutches, must give place to no suspicion of
decrepitude. Its office may be to withstand war, look forth for tidings, or to point
to heaven: but it must have in its own walls the strength to do this; it is to be itself
a bulwark, not to be sustained by other bulwarks; to rise and look forth, “the tower
of Lebanon that looketh toward Damascus,” like a stern sentinel, not like a child
held up in its nurse’s arms. A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a
projection, or subordinate tower at each of its angles; but these are to its main
body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its strength, and associated in its
uprightness, part of the tower itself: exactly in the proportion in which they lose
their massive unity with its body and assume the form of true buttress walls set on
its angles, the tower loses its dignity.

§ XIII. These two characters, then, are common to all noble towers, however
otherwise different in purpose or feature,—the first, that they rise from massy
foundation to lighter summits, frowning with battlements perhaps, but yet
evidently more pierced and thinner in wall than beneath, and, in most
ecclesiastical examples, divided into rich open work: the second, that whatever the
form of the tower, it shall not appear to stand by help of buttresses. It follows from
the first condition, as indeed it would have followed from ordinary æsthetic
requirements, that we shall have continual variation in the arrangements of the
stories, and the larger number of apertures towards the top,—a condition
exquisitely carried out in the old Lombardic towers, in which, however small they
may be, the number of apertures is always regularly increased towards the
summit; generally one window in the lowest stories, two in the second, then three,
five, and six; often, also, one, two, four, and six, with beautiful symmetries of
placing, not at present to our purpose. We may sufficiently exemplify the general

laws of tower building by placing side by side, drawn to the same scale, a
mediæval tower, in which most of them are simply and unaffectedly observed, and
one of our own modern towers, in which every one of them is violated, in small
space, convenient for comparison. (Plate VI.)

VI.

TYPES OF TOWERS.
BRITISH VENETIAN

§ XIV. The old tower is that of St. Mark’s at Venice, not a very perfect example,
for its top is Renaissance, but as good Renaissance as there is in Venice; and it is
fit for our present purpose, because it owes none of its effect to ornament. It is
built as simply as it well can be to answer its purpose: no buttresses; no external
features whatever, except some huts at the base, and the loggia, afterwards built,
which, on purpose, I have not drawn; one bold square mass of brickwork; double
walls, with an ascending inclined plane between them, with apertures as small as
possible, and these only in necessary places, giving just the light required for
ascending the stair or slope, not a ray more; and the weight of the whole relieved
only by the double pilasters on the sides, sustaining small arches at the top of the
mass, each decorated with the scallop or cockle shell, presently to be noticed as
frequent in Renaissance ornament, and here, for once, thoroughly well applied.
Then, when the necessary height is reached, the belfry is left open, as in the
ordinary Romanesque campanile, only the shafts more slender, but severe and
simple, and the whole crowned by as much spire as the tower would carry, to
render it more serviceable as a landmark. The arrangement is repeated in
numberless campaniles throughout Italy.

§ XV. The one beside it is one of those of the lately built college at Edinburgh. I
have not taken it as worse than many others (just as I have not taken the St.
Mark’s tower as better than many others); but it happens to compress our British
system of tower building into small space. The Venetian tower rises 350 feet,62
and has no buttresses, though built of brick; the British tower rises 121 feet, and is
built of stone, but is supposed to be incapable of standing without two huge
buttresses on each angle. The St. Mark’s tower has a high sloping roof, but carries
it simply, requiring no pinnacles at its angles; the British tower has no visible roof,
but has four pinnacles for mere ornament. The Venetian tower has its lightest part
at the top, and is massy at the base; the British tower has its lightest part at the
base, and shuts up its windows into a mere arrowslit at the top. What the tower
was built for at all must therefore, it seems to me, remain a mystery to every
beholder; for surely no studious inhabitant of its upper chambers will be
conceived to be pursuing his employments by the light of the single chink on each

side; and, had it been intended for a belfry, the sound of its bells would have been
as effectually prevented from getting out as the light from getting in.

§ XVI. In connexion with the subject of towers and of superimposition, one
other feature, not conveniently to be omitted from our house-building, requires a
moment’s notice,—the staircase.

In modern houses it can hardly be considered an architectural feature, and is
nearly always an ugly one, from its being apparently without support. And here I
may not unfitly note the important distinction, which perhaps ought to have been
dwelt upon in some places before now, between the marvellous and the perilous in
apparent construction. There are many edifices which are awful or admirable in
their height, and lightness, and boldness of form, respecting which, nevertheless,
we have no fear that they should fall. Many a mighty dome and aërial aisle and
arch may seem to stand, as I said, by miracle, but by steadfast miracle
notwithstanding; there is no fear that the miracle should cease. We have a sense of
inherent power in them, or, at all events, of concealed and mysterious provision
for their safety. But in leaning towers, as of Pisa or Bologna, and in much minor
architecture, passive architecture, of modern times, we feel that there is but a
chance between the building and destruction; that there is no miraculous life in it,
which animates it into security, but an obstinate, perhaps vain, resistance to
immediate danger. The appearance of this is often as strong in small things as in
large; in the sounding-boards of pulpits, for instance, when sustained by a single
pillar behind them, so that one is in dread, during the whole sermon, of the
preacher being crushed if a single nail should give way; and again, the modern
geometrical unsupported staircase. There is great disadvantage, also, in the
arrangement of this latter, when room is of value; and excessive ungracefulness in
its awkward divisions of the passage walls, or windows. In mediæval architecture,
where there was need of room, the staircase was spiral, and enclosed generally in
an exterior tower, which added infinitely to the picturesque effect of the building;
nor was the stair itself steeper nor less commodious than the ordinary compressed
straight staircase of a modern dwelling-house. Many of the richest towers of
domestic architecture owe their origin to this arrangement. In Italy the staircase is
often in the open air, surrounding the interior court of the house, and giving access

to its various galleries or loggias: in this case it is almost always supported by
bold shafts and arches, and forms a most interesting additional feature of the
cortile, but presents no peculiarity of construction requiring our present
examination.

We may here, therefore, close our inquiries into the subject of construction; nor
must the reader be dissatisfied with the simplicity or apparent barrenness of their
present results. He will find, when he begins to apply them, that they are of more
value than they now seem; but I have studiously avoided letting myself be drawn
into any intricate question, because I wished to ask from the reader only so much
attention as it seemed that even the most indifferent would not be unwilling to pay
to a subject which is hourly becoming of greater practical interest. Evidently it
would have been altogether beside the purpose of this essay to have entered
deeply into the abstract science, or closely into the mechanical detail, of
construction: both have been illustrated by writers far more capable of doing so
than I, and may be studied at the reader’s discretion; all that has been here
endeavored was the leading him to appeal to something like definite principle, and
refer to the easily intelligible laws of convenience and necessity, whenever he
found his judgment likely to be overborne by authority on the one hand, or
dazzled by novelty on the other. If he has time to do more, and to follow out in all
their brilliancy the mechanical inventions of the great engineers and architects of
the day, I, in some sort, envy him, but must part company with him: for my way
lies not along the viaduct, but down the quiet valley which its arches cross, nor
through the tunnel, but up the hill-side which its cavern darkens, to see what gifts
Nature will give us, and with what imagery she will fill our thoughts, that the
stones we have ranged in rude order may now be touched with life; nor lose for
ever, in their hewn nakedness, the voices they had of old, when the valley
streamlet eddied round them in palpitating light, and the winds of the hill-side
shook over them the shadows of the fern.

60 I have spent much of my life among the Alps; but I never pass, without some feeling of new
surprise, the Chalet, standing on its four pegs (each topped with a flat stone), balanced in the fury of
Alpine winds. It is not, perhaps, generally known that the chief use of the arrangement is not so

much to raise the building above the snow, as to get a draught of wind beneath it, which may
prevent the drift from rising against its sides.

61 Appendix 20, “Shafts of the Ducal Palace.”

62 I have taken Professor Willis’s estimate; there being discrepancy among various statements. I
did not take the trouble to measure the height myself, the building being one which does not come
within the range of our future inquiries; and its exact dimensions, even here, are of no importance
as respects the question at issue.

CHAPTER XX.

THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT.

§ I. We enter now on the second division of our subject. We have no more to do
with heavy stones and hard lines; we are going to be happy: to look round in the
world and discover (in a serious manner always, however, and under a sense of
responsibility) what we like best in it, and to enjoy the same at our leisure: to
gather it, examine it, fasten all we can of it into imperishable forms, and put it
where we may see it for ever.

This is to decorate architecture.

§ II. There are, therefore, three steps in the process: first, to find out in a grave
manner what we like best; secondly, to put as much of this as we can (which is
little enough) into form; thirdly, to put this formed abstraction into a proper place.

And we have now, therefore, to make these three inquiries in succession: first,
what we like, or what is the right material of ornament; then how we are to present
it, or its right treatment; then, where we are to put it, or its right place. I think I can
answer that first inquiry in this Chapter, the second inquiry in the next Chapter,

and the third I shall answer in a more diffusive manner, by taking up in succession
the several parts of architecture above distinguished, and rapidly noting the kind
of ornament fittest for each.

§ III. I said in chapter II. § XIV., that all noble ornamentation was the expression
of man’s delight in God’s work. This implied that there was an ignoble
ornamentation, which was the expression of man’s delight in his own. There is
such a school, chiefly degraded classic and Renaissance, in which the ornament is
composed of imitations of tilings made by man. I think, before inquiring what we
like best of God’s work, we had better get rid of all this imitation of man’s, and be
quite sure we do not like that.

§ IV. We shall rapidly glance, then, at the material of decoration hence derived.
And now I cannot, as I before have done respecting construction, convince the
reader of one thing being wrong, and another right. I have confessed as much
again and again; I am now only to make appeal to him, and cross-question him,
whether he really does like things or not. If he likes the ornament on the base of
the column of the Place Vendôme, composed of Wellington boots and laced frock
coats, I cannot help it; I can only say I differ from him, and don’t like it. And if,
therefore, I speak dictatorially, and say this is base, or degraded, or ugly, I mean,
only that I believe men of the longest experience in the matter would either think
it so, or would be prevented from thinking it so only by some morbid condition of
their minds; and I believe that the reader, if he examine himself candidly, will
usually agree in my statements.

§ V. The subjects of ornament found in man’s work may properly fall into four
heads: 1. Instruments of art, agriculture, and war; armor, and dress; 2. Drapery; 3.
Shipping; 4. Architecture itself.

1. Instruments, armor, and dress.

The custom of raising trophies on pillars, and of dedicating arms in temples,
appears to have first suggested the idea of employing them as the subjects of
sculptural ornament: thenceforward, this abuse has been chiefly characteristic of
classical architecture, whether true or Renaissance. Armor is a noble thing in its

proper service and subordination to the body; so is an animal’s hide on its back;
but a heap of cast skins, or of shed armor, is alike unworthy of all regard or
imitation. We owe much true sublimity, and more of delightful picturesqueness, to
the introduction of armor both in painting and sculpture: in poetry it is better still,
—Homer’s undressed Achilles is less grand than his crested and shielded Achilles,
though Phidias would rather have had him naked; in all mediæval painting, arms,
like all other parts of costume, are treated with exquisite care and delight; in the
designs of Leonardo, Raffaelle, and Perugino, the armor sometimes becomes
almost too conspicuous from the rich and endless invention bestowed upon it;
while Titian and Rubens seek in its flash what the Milanese and Perugian sought
in its form, sometimes subordinating heroism to the light of the steel, while the
great designers wearied themselves in its elaborate fancy.

But all this labor was given to the living, not the dead armor; to the shell with
its animal in it, not the cast shell of the beach; and even so, it was introduced more
sparingly by the good sculptors than the good painters; for the former felt, and
with justice, that the painter had the power of conquering the over prominence of
costume by the expression and color of the countenance, and that by the darkness
of the eye, and glow of the cheek, he could always conquer the gloom and the
flash of the mail; but they could hardly, by any boldness or energy of the marble
features, conquer the forwardness and conspicuousness of the sharp armorial
forms. Their armed figures were therefore almost always subordinate, their
principal figures draped or naked, and their choice of subject was much influenced
by this feeling of necessity. But the Renaissance sculptors displayed the love of a
Camilla for the mere crest and plume. Paltry and false alike in every feeling of
their narrowed minds, they attached themselves, not only to costume without the
person, but to the pettiest details of the costume itself. They could not describe
Achilles, but they could describe his shield; a shield like those of dedicated spoil,
without a handle, never to be waved in the face of war. And then we have helmets
and lances, banners and swords, sometimes with men to hold them, sometimes
without; but always chiselled with a tailor-like love of the chasing or the
embroidery,—show helmets of the stage, no Vulcan work on them, no heavy
hammer strokes, no Etna fire in the metal of them, nothing but pasteboard crests

and high feathers. And these, cast together in disorderly heaps, or grinning
vacantly over keystones, form one of the leading decorations of Renaissance
architecture, and that one of the best; for helmets and lances, however loosely
laid, are better than violins, and pipes, and books of music, which were another of
the Palladian and Sansovinian sources of ornament. Supported by ancient
authority, the abuse soon became a matter of pride, and since it was easy to copy a
heap of cast clothes, but difficult to manage an arranged design of human figures,
the indolence of architects came to the aid of their affectation, until by the
moderns we find the practice carried out to its most interesting results, and, as
above noted, a large pair of boots occupying the principal place in the bas-reliefs
on the base of the Colonne Vendôme.

§ VI. A less offensive, because singularly grotesque, example of the abuse at its
height, occurs in the Hôtel des Invalides, where the dormer windows are suits of
armor down to the bottom of the corselet, crowned by the helmet, and with the
window in the middle of the breast.

Instruments of agriculture and the arts are of less frequent occurrence, except in
hieroglyphics, and other work, where they are not employed as ornaments, but
represented for the sake of accurate knowledge, or as symbols. Wherever they
have purpose of this kind, they are of course perfectly right; but they are then part
of the building’s conversation, not conducive to its beauty. The French have
managed, with great dexterity, the representation of the machinery for the
elevation of their Luxor obelisk, now sculptured on its base.

§ VII. 2. Drapery. I have already spoken of the error of introducing drapery, as
such, for ornament, in the “Seven Lamps.” I may here note a curious instance of
the abuse in the church of the Jesuiti at Venice (Renaissance). On first entering
you suppose that the church, being in a poor quarter of the city, has been
somewhat meanly decorated by heavy green and white curtains of an ordinary
upholsterer’s pattern: on looking closer, they are discovered to be of marble, with
the green pattern inlaid. Another remarkable instance is in a piece of not
altogether unworthy architecture at Paris (Rue Rivoli), where the columns are
supposed to be decorated with images of handkerchiefs tied in a stout knot round

the middle of them. This shrewd invention bids fair to become a new order.
Multitudes of massy curtains and various upholstery, more or less in imitation of
that of the drawing-room, are carved and gilt, in wood or stone, about the altars
and other theatrical portions of Romanist churches; but from these coarse and
senseless vulgarities we may well turn, in all haste, to note, with respect as well as
regret, one of the errors of the great school of Niccolo Pisano,—an error so full of
feeling as to be sometimes all but redeemed, and altogether forgiven,—the
sculpture, namely, of curtains around the recumbent statues upon tombs, curtains
which angels are represented as withdrawing, to gaze upon the faces of those who
are at rest. For some time the idea was simply and slightly expressed, and though
there was always a painfulness in finding the shafts of stone, which were felt to be
the real supporters of the canopy, represented as of yielding drapery, yet the
beauty of the angelic figures, and the tenderness of the thought, disarmed all
animadversion. But the scholars of the Pisani, as usual, caricatured when they
were unable to invent; and the quiet curtained canopy became a huge marble tent,
with a pole in the centre of it. Thus vulgarised, the idea itself soon disappeared, to
make room for urns, torches, and weepers, and the other modern paraphernalia of
the churchyard.

§ VIII. 3. Shipping. I have allowed this kind of subject to form a separate head,
owing to the importance of rostra in Roman decoration, and to the continual
occurrence of naval subjects in modern monumental bas-relief. Mr. Fergusson
says, somewhat doubtfully, that he perceives a “kind of beauty” in a ship: I say,
without any manner of doubt, that a ship is one of the loveliest things man ever
made, and one of the noblest; nor do I know any lines, out of divine work, so
lovely as those of the head of a ship, or even as the sweep of the timbers of a
small boat, not a race boat, a mere floating chisel, but a broad, strong, sea boat,
able to breast a wave and break it: and yet, with all this beauty, ships cannot be
made subjects of sculpture. No one pauses in particular delight beneath the
pediments of the Admiralty; nor does scenery of shipping ever become prominent
in bas-relief without destroying it: witness the base of the Nelson pillar. It may be,
and must be sometimes, introduced in severe subordination to the figure subject,
but just enough to indicate the scene; sketched in the lightest lines on the

background; never with any attempt at realisation, never with any equality to the
force of the figures, unless the whole purpose of the subject be picturesque. I shall
explain this exception presently, in speaking of imitative architecture.

§ IX. There is one piece of a ship’s fittings, however, which may be thought to
have obtained acceptance as a constant element of architectural ornament,—the
cable: it is not, however, the cable itself, but its abstract form, a group of twisted
lines (which a cable only exhibits in common with many natural objects), which is
indeed beautiful as an ornament. Make the resemblance complete, give to the
stone the threads and character of the cable, and you may, perhaps, regard the
sculpture with curiosity, but never more with admiration. Consider the effect of
the base of the statue of King William IV. at the end of London Bridge.

§ X. 4. Architecture itself. The erroneous use of armor, or dress, or instruments,
or shipping, as decorative subject, is almost exclusively confined to bad
architecture—Roman or Renaissance. But the false use of architecture itself, as an
ornament of architecture, is conspicuous even in the mediæval work of the best
times, and is a grievous fault in some of its noblest examples.

It is, therefore, of great importance to note exactly at what point this abuse
begins, and in what it consists.

§ XI. In all bas-relief, architecture may be introduced as an explanation of the
scene in which the figures act; but with more or less prominence in the inverse
ratio of the importance of the figures.

The metaphysical reason of this is, that where the figures are of great value and
beauty, the mind is supposed to be engaged wholly with them; and it is an
impertinence to disturb its contemplation of them by any minor features whatever.
As the figures become of less value, and are regarded with less intensity,
accessory subjects may be introduced, such as the thoughts may have leisure for.

Thus, if the figures be as large as life, and complete statues, it is gross vulgarity
to carve a temple above them, or distribute them over sculptured rocks, or lead

them up steps into pyramids: I need hardly instance Canova’s works,63 and the
Dutch pulpit groups, with fishermen, boats, and nets, in the midst of church naves.

If the figures be in bas-relief, though as large as life, the scene may be
explained by lightly traced outlines: this is admirably done in the Ninevite
marbles.

If the figures be in bas-relief, or even alto-relievo, but less than life, and if their
purpose is rather to enrich a space and produce picturesque shadows, than to draw
the thoughts entirely to themselves, the scenery in which they act may become
prominent. The most exquisite examples of this treatment are the gates of
Ghiberti. What would that Madonna of the Annunciation be, without the little
shrine into which she shrinks back? But all mediæval work is full of delightful
examples of the same kind of treatment: the gates of hell and of paradise are
important pieces, both of explanation and effect, in all early representations of the
last judgment, or of the descent into Hades. The keys of St. Peter, and the crushing
flat of the devil under his own door, when it is beaten in, would hardly be
understood without the respective gate-ways above. The best of all the later
capitals of the Ducal Palace of Venice depends for great part of its value on the
richness of a small campanile, which is pointed to proudly by a small emperor in a
turned-up hat, who, the legend informs us, is “Numa Pompilio, imperador,
edifichador di tempi e chiese.”

§ XII. Shipping may be introduced, or rich fancy of vestments, crowns, and
ornaments, exactly on the same conditions as architecture; and if the reader will
look back to my definition of the picturesque in the “Seven Lamps,” he will see
why I said, above, that they might only be prominent when the purpose of the
subject was partly picturesque; that is to say, when the mind is intended to derive
part of its enjoyment from the parasitical qualities and accidents of the thing, not
from the heart of the thing itself.

And thus, while we must regret the flapping sails in the death of Nelson in
Trafalgar Square, we may yet most heartily enjoy the sculpture of a storm in one
of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of St. Pietro Martire in the church of St. Eustorgio at

Milan, where the grouping of the figures is most fancifully complicated by the
undercut cordage of the vessel.

§ XIII. In all these instances, however, observe that the permission to represent
the human work as an ornament, is conditional on its being necessary to the
representation of a scene, or explanation of an action. On no terms whatever could
any such subject be independently admissible.

Observe, therefore, the use of manufacture as ornament is—

1. With heroic figure sculpture, not admissible at all.
2. With picturesque figure sculpture, admissible in the degree of its
picturesqueness.
3. Without figure sculpture, not admissible at all.

So also in painting: Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, would not have
willingly painted a dress of figured damask or of watered satin; his was heroic
painting, not admitting accessories.

Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Vandyck, would be very sorry to part
with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; and sorry, observe, exactly in the
degree of their picturesque feeling. Should not we also be sorry to have Bishop
Ambrose without his vest, in that picture of the National Gallery?

But I think Vandyck would not have liked, on the other hand, the vest without
the bishop. I much doubt if Titian or Veronese would have enjoyed going into
Waterloo House, and making studies of dresses upon the counter.

§ XIV. So, therefore, finally, neither architecture nor any other human work is
admissible as an ornament, except in subordination to figure subject. And this law
is grossly and painfully violated by those curious examples of Gothic, both early
and late, in the north, (but late, I think, exclusively, in Italy,) in which the minor
features of the architecture were composed of small models of the larger:
examples which led the way to a series of abuses materially affecting the life,
strength, and nobleness of the Northern Gothic,—abuses which no Ninevite, nor

Egyptian, nor Greek, nor Byzantine, nor Italian of the earlier ages would have
endured for an instant, and which strike me with renewed surprise whenever I
pass beneath a portal of thirteenth century Northern Gothic, associated as they are
with manifestations of exquisite feeling and power in other directions. The
porches of Bourges, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris, and Notre Dame of Dijon, may
be noted as conspicuous in error: small models of feudal towers with diminutive
windows and battlements, of cathedral spires with scaly pinnacles, mixed with
temple pediments and nondescript edifices of every kind, are crowded together
over the recess of the niche into a confused fool’s cap for the saint below. Italian
Gothic is almost entirely free from the taint of this barbarism until the
Renaissance period, when it becomes rampant in the cathedral of Como and
Certosa of Pavia; and at Venice we find the Renaissance churches decorated with
models of fortifications like those in the Repository at Woolwich, or inlaid with
mock arcades in pseudo-perspective, copied from gardeners’ paintings at the ends
of conservatories.

§ XV. I conclude, then, with the reader’s leave, that all ornament is base which
takes for its subject human work, that it is utterly base,—painful to every rightly-
toned mind, without perhaps immediate sense of the reason, but for a reason
palpable enough when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it up
for admiration, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our own
wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God’s doings. And all
noble ornament is the exact reverse of this. It is the expression of man’s delight in
God’s work.

§ XVI. For observe, the function of ornament is to make you happy. Now in
what are you rightly happy? Not in thinking of what you have done yourself; not
in your own pride, not your own birth; not in your own being, or your own will,
but in looking at God; watching what He does, what He is; and obeying His law,
and yielding yourself to His will.

You are to be made happy by ornaments; therefore they must be the expression
of all this. Not copies of your own handiwork; not boastings of your own
grandeur; not heraldries; not king’s arms, nor any creature’s arms, but God’s arm,

seen in His work. Not manifestation of your delight in your own laws, or your
own liberties, or your own inventions; but in divine laws, constant, daily, common
laws;—not Composite laws, nor Doric laws, nor laws of the five orders, but of the
Ten Commandments.

§ XVII. Then the proper material of ornament will be whatever God has created;
and its proper treatment, that which seems in accordance with or symbolical of
His laws. And, for material, we shall therefore have, first, the abstract lines which
are most frequent in nature; and then, from lower to higher, the whole range of
systematised inorganic and organic forms. We shall rapidly glance in order at their
kinds; and, however absurd the elemental division of inorganic matter by the
ancients may seem to the modern chemist, it is one so grand and simple for
arrangements of external appearances, that I shall here follow it; noticing first,
after abstract lines, the imitable forms of the four elements, of Earth, Water, Fire,
and Air, and then those of animal organisms. It may be convenient to the reader to
have the order stated in a clear succession at first, thus:—

1. Abstract lines.
2. Forms of Earth (Crystals).
3. Forms of Water (Waves).
4. Forms of Fire (Flames and Rays).
5. Forms of Air (Clouds).
6. (Organic forms.) Shells.
7. Fish.
8. Reptiles and insects.
9. Vegetation (A.) Stems and Trunks.
10. Vegetation (B.) Foliage.
11. Birds.
12. Mammalian animals and Man.

It may be objected that clouds are a form of moisture, not of air. They are,
however, a perfect expression of aërial states and currents, and may sufficiently
well stand for the element they move in. And I have put vegetation apparently

somewhat out of its place, owing to its vast importance as a means of decoration,
and its constant association with birds and men.

§ XVIII. 1. Abstract lines. I have not with lines named also shades and colors, for
this evident reason, that there are no such things as abstract shadows, irrespective
of the forms which exhibit them, and distinguished in their own nature from each
other; and that the arrangement of shadows, in greater or less quantity, or in
certain harmonical successions, is an affair of treatment, not of selection. And
when we use abstract colors, we are in fact using a part of nature herself,—using a
quality of her light, correspondent with that of the air, to carry sound; and the
arrangement of color in harmonious masses is again a matter of treatment, not
selection. Yet even in this separate art of coloring, as referred to architecture, it is
very notable that the best tints are always those of natural stones. These can hardly
be wrong; I think I never yet saw an offensive introduction of the natural colors of
marble and precious stones, unless in small mosaics, and in one or two glaring
instances of the resolute determination to produce something ugly at any cost. On
the other hand, I have most assuredly never yet seen a painted building, ancient or
modern, which seemed to me quite right.

§ XIX. Our first constituents of ornament will therefore be abstract lines, that is
to say, the most frequent contours of natural objects, transferred to architectural
forms when it is not right or possible to render such forms distinctly imitative. For
instance, the line or curve of the edge of a leaf may be accurately given to the
edge of a stone, without rendering the stone in the least like a leaf, or suggestive
of a leaf; and this the more fully, because the lines of nature are alike in all her
works; simpler or richer in combination, but the same in character; and when they
are taken out of their combinations it is impossible to say from which of her works
they have been borrowed, their universal property being that of ever-varying
curvature in the most subtle and subdued transitions, with peculiar expressions of
motion, elasticity, or dependence, which I have already insisted upon at some
length in the chapters on typical beauty in “Modern Painters.” But, that the reader
may here be able to compare them for himself as deduced from different sources, I
have drawn, as accurately as I can, on the opposite plate, some ten or eleven lines
from natural forms of very different substances and scale: the first, a b, is in the

original, I think, the most beautiful simple curve I have ever seen in my life; it is a
curve about three quarters of a mile long, formed by the surface of a small glacier
of the second order, on a spur of the Aiguille de Blaitière (Chamouni). I have
merely outlined the crags on the right of it, to show their sympathy and united
action with the curve of the glacier, which is of course entirely dependent on their
opposition to its descent; softened, however, into unity by the snow, which rarely
melts on this high glacier surface.

The line d c is some mile and a half or two miles long; it is part of the flank of
the chain of the Dent d’Oche above the lake of Geneva, one or two of the lines of
the higher and more distant ranges being given in combination with it.

VII.

ABSTRACT LINES.

h is a line about four feet long, a branch of spruce fir. I have taken this tree
because it is commonly supposed to be stiff and ungraceful; its outer sprays are,
however, more noble in their sweep than almost any that I know: but this fragment

is seen at great disadvantage, because placed upside down, in order that the reader
may compare its curvatures with c d, e g, and i k, which are all mountain lines; e
g, about five hundred feet of the southern edge of the Matterhorn; i k, the entire
slope of the Aiguille Bouchard, from its summit into the valley of Chamouni, a
line some three miles long; l m is the line of the side of a willow leaf traced by
laying the leaf on the paper; n o, one of the innumerable groups of curves at the
lip of a paper Nautilus; p, a spiral, traced on the paper round a Serpula; q r, the
leaf of the Alisma Plantago with its interior ribs, real size; s t, the side of a bay-
leaf; u w, of a salvia leaf; and it is to be carefully noted that these last curves,
being never intended by nature to be seen singly, are more heavy and less
agreeable than any of the others which would be seen as independent lines. But all
agree in their character of changeful curvature, the mountain and glacier lines only
excelling the rest in delicacy and richness of transition.

§ XX. Why lines of this kind are beautiful, I endeavored to show in the “Modern
Painters;” but one point, there omitted, may be mentioned here,—that almost all
these lines are expressive of action of force of some kind, while the circle is a line
of limitation or support. In leafage they mark the forces of its growth and
expansion, but some among the most beautiful of them are described by bodies
variously in motion, or subjected to force; as by projectiles in the air, by the
particles of water in a gentle current, by planets in motion in an orbit, by their
satellites, if the actual path of the satellite in space be considered instead of its
relation to the planet; by boats, or birds, turning in the water or air, by clouds in
various action upon the wind, by sails in the curvatures they assume under its
force, and by thousands of other objects moving or bearing force. In the Alisma
leaf, q r, the lines through its body, which are of peculiar beauty, mark the
different expansions of its fibres, and are, I think, exactly the same as those which
would be traced by the currents of a river entering a lake of the shape of the leaf,
at the end where the stalk is, and passing out at its point. Circular curves, on the
contrary, are always, I think, curves of limitation or support; that is to say, curves
of perfect rest. The cylindrical curve round the stem of a plant binds its fibres
together; while the ascent of the stem is in lines of various curvature: so the curve
of the horizon and of the apparent heaven, of the rainbow, etc.: and though the

reader might imagine that the circular orbit of any moving body, or the curve
described by a sling, was a curve of motion, he should observe that the circular
character is given to the curve not by the motion, but by the confinement: the
circle is the consequence not of the energy of the body, but of its being forbidden
to leave the centre; and whenever the whirling or circular motion can be fully
impressed on it we obtain instant balance and rest with respect to the centre of the
circle.

Hence the peculiar fitness of the circular curve as a sign of rest, and security of
support, in arches; while the other curves, belonging especially to action, are to be
used in the more active architectural features—the hand and foot (the capital and
base), and in all minor ornaments; more freely in proportion to their independence
of structural conditions.

§ XXI. We need not, however, hope to be able to imitate, in general work, any of
the subtly combined curvatures of nature’s highest designing: on the contrary,
their extreme refinement renders them unfit for coarse service or material. Lines
which are lovely in the pearly film of the Nautilus shell, are lost in the grey
roughness of stone; and those which are sublime in the blue of far away hills, are
weak in the substance of incumbent marble. Of all the graceful lines assembled on
Plate VII., we shall do well to be content with two of the simplest. We shall take
one mountain line (e g) and one leaf line (u w), or rather fragments of them, for
we shall perhaps not want them all. I will mark off from u w the little bit x y, and
from e g the piece e f; both which appear to me likely to be serviceable: and if
hereafter we need the help of any abstract lines, we will see what we can do with
these only.

§ XXII. 2. Forms of Earth (Crystals). It may be asked why I do not say rocks or
mountains? Simply, because the nobility of these depends, first, on their scale,
and, secondly, on accident. Their scale cannot be represented, nor their accident
systematised. No sculptor can in the least imitate the peculiar character of
accidental fracture: he can obey or exhibit the laws of nature, but he cannot copy
the felicity of her fancies, nor follow the steps of her fury. The very glory of a
mountain is in the revolutions which raised it into power, and the forces which are

striking it into ruin. But we want no cold and careful imitation of catastrophe; no
calculated mockery of convulsion; no delicate recommendation of ruin. We are to
follow the labor of Nature, but not her disturbance; to imitate what she has
deliberately ordained,64 not what she has violently suffered, or strangely
permitted. The only uses, therefore, of rock form which are wise in the architect,
are its actual introduction (by leaving untouched such blocks as are meant for
rough service), and that noble use of the general examples of mountain structure
of which I have often heretofore spoken. Imitations of rock form have, for the
most part, been confined to periods of degraded feeling and to architectural toys
or pieces of dramatic effect,—the Calvaries and holy sepulchres of Romanism, or
the grottoes and fountains of English gardens. They were, however, not
unfrequent in mediæval bas-reliefs; very curiously and elaborately treated by
Ghiberti on the doors of Florence, and in religious sculpture necessarily
introduced wherever the life of the anchorite was to be expressed. They were
rarely introduced as of ornamental character, but for particular service and
expression; we shall see an interesting example in the Ducal Palace at Venice.

§ XXIII. But against crystalline form, which is the completely systematised
natural structure of the earth, none of these objections hold good, and,
accordingly, it is an endless element of decoration, where higher conditions of
structure cannot be represented. The four-sided pyramid, perhaps the most
frequent of all natural crystals, is called in architecture a dogtooth; its use is quite
limitless, and always beautiful: the cube and rhomb are almost equally frequent in
chequers and dentils: and all mouldings of the middle Gothic are little more than
representations of the canaliculated crystals of the beryl, and such other minerals:

§ XXIV. Not knowingly. I do not suppose a single hint was ever actually taken
from mineral form; not even by the Arabs in their stalactite pendants and vaults:
all that I mean to allege is, that beautiful ornament, wherever found, or however
invented, is always either an intentional or unintentional copy of some constant
natural form; and that in this particular instance, the pleasure we have in these
geometrical figures of our own invention, is dependent for all its acuteness on the
natural tendency impressed on us by our Creator to love the forms into which the

earth He gave us to tread, and out of which He formed our bodies, knit itself as it
was separated from the deep.

§ XXV. 3. Forms of Water (Waves).

The reasons which prevent rocks from being used for ornament repress still
more forcibly the portraiture of the sea. Yet the constant necessity of introducing
some representation of water in order to explain the scene of events, or as a sacred
symbol, has forced the sculptors of all ages to the invention of some type or letter
for it, if not an actual imitation. We find every degree of conventionalism or of
naturalism in these types, the earlier being, for the most part, thoughtful symbols;
the latter, awkward attempts at portraiture.65 The most conventional of all types is
the Egyptian zigzag, preserved in the astronomical sign of Aquarius; but every
nation, with any capacities of thought, has given, in some of its work, the same
great definition of open water, as “an undulatory thing with fish in it.” I say open
water, because inland nations have a totally different conception of the element.
Imagine for an instant the different feelings of an husbandman whose hut is built
by the Rhine or the Po, and who sees, day by day, the same giddy succession of
silent power, the same opaque, thick, whirling, irresistible labyrinth of rushing
lines and twisted eddies, coiling themselves into serpentine race by the reedy
banks, in omne volubilis ævum,—and the image of the sea in the mind of the
fisher upon the rocks of Ithaca, or by the Straits of Sicily, who sees how, day by
day, the morning winds come coursing to the shore, every breath of them with a
green wave rearing before it; clear, crisp, ringing, merry-minded waves, that fall
over and over each other, laughing like children as they near the beach, and at last
clash themselves all into dust of crystal over the dazzling sweeps of sand. Fancy
the difference of the image of water in those two minds, and then compare the
sculpture of the coiling eddies of the Tigris and its reedy branches in those slabs of
Nineveh, with the crested curls of the Greek sea on the coins of Camerina or
Tarentum. But both agree in the undulatory lines, either of the currents or the
surface, and in the introduction of fish as explanatory of the meaning of those
lines (so also the Egyptians in their frescoes, with most elaborate realisation of the
fish). There is a very curious instance on a Greek mirror in the British Museum,
representing Orion on the Sea; and multitudes of examples with dolphins on the

Greek vases: the type is preserved without alteration in mediæval painting and
sculpture. The sea in that Greek mirror (at least 400 B.C.), in the mosaics of
Torcello and St. Mark’s, on the font of St. Frediano at Lucca, on the gate of the
fortress of St. Michael’s Mount in Normandy, on the Bayeux tapestry, and on the
capitals of the Ducal Palace at Venice (under Arion on his Dolphin), is represented
in a manner absolutely identical. Giotto, in the frescoes of Avignon, has, with his
usual strong feeling for naturalism, given the best example I remember, in
painting, of the unity of the conventional system with direct imitation, and that
both in sea and river; giving in pure blue color the coiling whirlpool of the stream,
and the curled crest of the breaker. But in all early sculptural examples, both
imitation and decorative effect are subordinate to easily understood symbolical
language; the undulatory lines are often valuable as an enrichment of surface, but
are rarely of any studied gracefulness. One of the best examples I know of their
expressive arrangement is around some figures in a spandril at Bourges,
representing figures sinking in deep sea (the deluge): the waved lines yield
beneath the bodies and wildly lave the edge of the moulding, two birds, as if to
mark the reverse of all order of nature, lowest of all sunk in the depth of them. In
later times of debasement, water began to be represented with its waves, foam,
etc., as on the Vendramin tomb at Venice, above cited; but even there, without any
definite ornamental purpose, the sculptor meant partly to explain a story, partly to
display dexterity of chiselling, but not to produce beautiful forms pleasant to the
eye. The imitation is vapid and joyless, and it has often been matter of surprise to
me that sculptors, so fond of exhibiting their skill, should have suffered this
imitation to fall so short, and remain so cold,—should not have taken more pains
to curl the waves clearly, to edge them sharply, and to express, by drill-holes or
other artifices, the character of foam. I think in one of the Antwerp churches
something of this kind is done in wood, but in general it is rare.

§ XXVI. 4. Forms of Fire (Flames and Rays). If neither the sea nor the rock can
be imagined, still less the devouring fire. It has been symbolised by radiation both
in painting and sculpture, for the most part in the latter very unsuccessfully. It was
suggested to me, not long ago,66 that zigzag decorations of Norman architects
were typical of light springing from the half-set orb of the sun; the resemblance to

the ordinary sun type is indeed remarkable, but I believe accidental. I shall give
you, in my large plates, two curious instances of radiation in brick ornament
above arches, but I think these also without any very luminous intention. The
imitations of fire in the torches of Cupids and genii, and burning in tops of urns,
which attest and represent the mephitic inspirations of the seventeenth century in
most London churches, and in monuments all over civilised Europe, together with
the gilded rays of Romanist altars, may be left to such mercy as the reader is
inclined to show them.

§ XXVII. 5. Forms of Air (Clouds). Hardly more manageable than flames, and of
no ornamental use, their majesty being in scale and color, and inimitable in
marble. They are lightly traced in much of the cinque cento sculpture; very boldly
and grandly in the strange Last Judgment in the porch of St. Maclou at Rouen,
described in the “Seven Lamps.” But the most elaborate imitations are altogether
of recent date, arranged in concretions like flattened sacks, forty or fifty feet
above the altars of continental churches, mixed with the gilded truncheons
intended for sunbeams above alluded to.

§ XXVIII. 6. Shells. I place these lowest in the scale (after inorganic forms) as
being moulds or coats of organism; not themselves organic. The sense of this, and
of their being mere emptiness and deserted houses, must always prevent them,
however beautiful in their lines, from being largely used in ornamentation. It is
better to take the line and leave the shell. One form, indeed, that of the cockle, has
been in all ages used as the decoration of half domes, which were named conchas
from their shell form: and I believe the wrinkled lip of the cockle, so used, to have
been the origin, in some parts of Europe at least, of the exuberant foliation of the
round arch. The scallop also is a pretty radiant form, and mingles well with other
symbols when it is needed. The crab is always as delightful as a grotesque, for
here we suppose the beast inside the shell; and he sustains his part in a lively
manner among the other signs of the zodiac, with the scorpion; or scattered upon
sculptured shores, as beside the Bronze Boar of Florence. We shall find him in a
basket at Venice, at the base of one of the Piazzetta shafts.

§ XXIX. 7. Fish. These, as beautiful in their forms as they are familiar to our
sight, while their interest is increased by their symbolic meaning, are of great
value as material of ornament. Love of the picturesque has generally induced a
choice of some supple form with scaly body and lashing tail, but the simplest fish
form is largely employed in mediæval work. We shall find the plain oval body and
sharp head of the Thunny constantly at Venice; and the fish used in the expression
of sea-water, or water generally, are always plain bodied creatures in the best
mediæval sculpture. The Greek type of the dolphin, however, sometimes but
slightly exaggerated from the real outline of the Delphinus Delphis,67 is one of the
most picturesque of animal forms; and the action of its slow revolving plunge is
admirably caught upon the surface sea represented in Greek vases.

§ XXX. 8. Reptiles and Insects. The forms of the serpent and lizard exhibit
almost every element of beauty and horror in strange combination; the horror,
which in an imitation is felt only as a pleasurable excitement, has rendered them
favorite subjects in all periods of art; and the unity of both lizard and serpent in
the ideal dragon, the most picturesque and powerful of all animal forms, and of
peculiar symbolical interest to the Christian mind, is perhaps the principal of all
the materials of mediæval picturesque sculpture. By the best sculptors it is always
used with this symbolic meaning, by the cinque cento sculptors as an ornament
merely. The best and most natural representations of mere viper or snake are to be
found interlaced among their confused groups of meaningless objects. The real
power and horror of the snake-head has, however, been rarely reached. I shall give
one example from Verona of the twelfth century.

Other less powerful reptile forms are not unfrequent. Small frogs, lizards, and
snails almost always enliven the foregrounds and leafage of good sculpture. The
tortoise is less usually employed in groups. Beetles are chiefly mystic and
colossal. Various insects, like everything else in the world, occur in cinque cento
work; grasshoppers most frequently. We shall see on the Ducal Palace at Venice
an interesting use of the bee.

§ XXXI. 9. Branches and stems of Trees. I arrange these under a separate head;
because, while the forms of leafage belong to all architecture, and ought to be

employed in it always, those of the branch and stem belong to a peculiar imitative
and luxuriant architecture, and are only applicable at times. Pagan sculptors seem
to have perceived little beauty in the stems of trees; they were little else than
timber to them; and they preferred the rigid and monstrous triglyph, or the fluted
column, to a broken bough or gnarled trunk. But with Christian knowledge came a
peculiar regard for the forms of vegetation, from the root upwards. The actual
representation of the entire trees required in many scripture subjects,—as in the
most frequent of Old Testament subjects, the Fall; and again in the Drunkenness
of Noah, the Garden Agony, and many others, familiarised the sculptors of bas-
relief to the beauty of forms before unknown; while the symbolical name given to
Christ by the Prophets, “the Branch,” and the frequent expressions referring to this
image throughout every scriptural description of conversion, gave an especial
interest to the Christian mind to this portion of vegetative structure. For some
time, nevertheless, the sculpture of trees was confined to bas-relief; but it at last
affected even the treatment of the main shafts in Lombard Gothic buildings,—as
in the western façade of Genoa, where two of the shafts are represented as gnarled
trunks: and as bas-relief itself became more boldly introduced, so did tree
sculpture, until we find the writhed and knotted stems of the vine and fig used for
angle shafts on the Doge’s Palace, and entire oaks and appletrees forming, roots
and all, the principal decorative sculptures of the Scala tombs at Verona. It was
then discovered to be more easy to carve branches than leaves and, much helped
by the frequent employment in later Gothic of the “Tree of Jesse,” for traceries
and other purposes, the system reached full developement in a perfect thicket of
twigs, which form the richest portion of the decoration of the porches of Beauvais.
It had now been carried to its richest extreme: men wearied of it and abandoned it,
and like all other natural and beautiful things, it was ostracised by the mob of
Renaissance architects. But it is interesting to observe how the human mind, in its
acceptance of this feature of ornament, proceeded from the ground, and followed,
as it were, the natural growth of the tree. It began with the rude and solid trunk, as
at Genoa; then the branches shot out, and became loaded leaves; autumn came, the
leaves were shed, and the eye was directed to the extremities of the delicate
branches;—the Renaissance frosts came, and all perished.

§ XXXII. 10. Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit. It is necessary to consider these as
separated from the stems; not only, as above noted, because their separate use
marks another school of architecture, but because they are the only organic
structures which are capable of being so treated, and intended to be so, without
strong effort of imagination. To pull animals to pieces, and use their paws for feet
of furniture, or their heads for terminations of rods and shafts, is usually the
characteristic of feelingless schools; the greatest men like their animals whole.
The head may, indeed, be so managed as to look emergent from the stone, rather
than fastened to it; and wherever there is throughout the architecture any
expression of sternness or severity (severity in its literal sense, as in Romans, XI.
22), such divisions of the living form may be permitted; still, you cannot cut an
animal to pieces as you can gather a flower or a leaf. These were intended for our
gathering, and for our constant delight: wherever men exist in a perfectly civilised
and healthy state, they have vegetation around them; wherever their state
approaches that of innocence or perfectness, it approaches that of Paradise,—it is
a dressing of garden. And, therefore, where nothing else can be used for ornament,
vegetation may; vegetation in any form, however fragmentary, however
abstracted. A single leaf laid upon the angle of a stone, or the mere form or frame-
work of the leaf drawn upon it, or the mere shadow and ghost of the leaf,—the
hollow “foil” cut out of it,—possesses a charm which nothing else can replace; a
charm not exciting, nor demanding laborious thought or sympathy, but perfectly
simple, peaceful, and satisfying.

§ XXXIII. The full recognition of leaf forms, as the general source of subordinate
decoration, is one of the chief characteristics of Christian architecture; but the two
roots of leaf ornament are the Greek acanthus, and the Egyptian lotus.68 The dry
land and the river thus each contributed their part; and all the florid capitals of the
richest Northern Gothic on the one hand, and the arrowy lines of the severe
Lombardic capitals on the other, are founded on these two gifts of the dust of
Greece and the waves of the Nile. The leaf which is, I believe, called the
Persepolitan water-leaf, is to be associated with the lotus flower and stem, as the
origin of our noblest types of simple capital; and it is to be noted that the florid

leaves of the dry land are used most by the Northern architects, while the water
leaves are gathered for their ornaments by the parched builders of the Desert.

§ XXXIV. Fruit is, for the most part, more valuable in color than form; nothing is
more beautiful as a subject of sculpture on a tree; but, gathered and put in baskets,
it is quite possible to have too much of it. We shall find it so used very dextrously
on the Ducal Palace of Venice, there with a meaning which rendered it right
necessary; but the Renaissance architects address themselves to spectators who
care for nothing but feasting, and suppose that clusters of pears and pineapples are
visions of which their imagination can never weary, and above which it will never
care to rise. I am no advocate for image worship, as I believe the reader will
elsewhere sufficiently find; but I am very sure that the Protestantism of London
would have found itself quite as secure in a cathedral decorated with statues of
good men, as in one hung round with bunches of ribston pippins.

§ XXXV. 11. Birds. The perfect and simple grace of bird form, in general, has
rendered it a favorite subject with early sculptors, and with those schools which
loved form more than action; but the difficulty of expressing action, where the
muscular markings are concealed, has limited the use of it in later art. Half the
ornament, at least, in Byzantine architecture, and a third of that of Lombardic, is
composed of birds, either pecking at fruit or flowers, or standing on either side of
a flower or vase, or alone, as generally the symbolical peacock. But how much of
our general sense of grace or power of motion, of serenity, peacefulness, and
spirituality, we owe to these creatures, it is impossible to conceive; their wings
supplying us with almost the only means of representation of spiritual motion
which we possess, and with an ornamental form of which the eye is never weary,
however meaninglessly or endlessly repeated; whether in utter isolation, or
associated with the bodies of the lizard, the horse, the lion, or the man. The heads
of the birds of prey are always beautiful, and used as the richest ornaments in all
ages.

§ XXXVI. 12. Quadrupeds and Men. Of quadrupeds the horse has received an
elevation into the primal rank of sculptural subject, owing to his association with
men. The full value of other quadruped forms has hardly been perceived, or

worked for, in late sculpture; and the want of science is more felt in these subjects
than in any other branches of early work. The greatest richness of quadruped
ornament is found in the hunting sculpture of the Lombards; but rudely treated
(the most noble examples of treatment being the lions of Egypt, the Ninevite bulls,
and the mediæval griffins). Quadrupeds of course form the noblest subjects of
ornament next to the human form; this latter, the chief subject of sculpture, being
sometimes the end of architecture rather than its decoration.

We have thus completed the list of the materials of architectural decoration, and
the reader may be assured that no effort has ever been successful to draw elements
of beauty from any other sources than these. Such an effort was once resolutely
made. It was contrary to the religion of the Arab to introduce any animal form into
his ornament; but although all the radiance of color, all the refinements of
proportion, and all the intricacies of geometrical design were open to him, he
could not produce any noble work without an abstraction of the forms of leafage,
to be used in his capitals, and made the ground plan of his chased ornament. But I
have above noted that coloring is an entirely distinct and independent art; and in
the “Seven Lamps” we saw that this art had most power when practised in
arrangements of simple geometrical form: the Arab, therefore, lay under no
disadvantage in coloring, and he had all the noble elements of constructive and
proportional beauty at his command: he might not imitate the sea-shell, but he
could build the dome. The imitation of radiance by the variegated voussoir, the
expression of the sweep of the desert by the barred red lines upon the wall, the
starred inshedding of light through his vaulted roof, and all the endless fantasy of
abstract line,69 were still in the power of his ardent and fantastic spirit. Much he
achieved; and yet in the effort of his overtaxed invention, restrained from its
proper food, he made his architecture a glittering vacillation of undisciplined
enchantment, and left the lustre of its edifices to wither like a startling dream,
whose beauty we may indeed feel, and whose instruction we may receive, but
must smile at its inconsistency, and mourn over its evanescence.

63 The admiration of Canova I hold to be one of the most deadly symptoms in the civilisation of
the upper classes in the present century.

64 Thus above, I adduced for the architect’s imitation the appointed stories and beds of the
Matterhorn, not its irregular forms of crag or fissure.

65 Appendix 21, “Ancient Representations of Water.”

66 By the friend to whom I owe Appendix 21.

67 One is glad to hear from Cuvier, that though dolphins in general are “les plus carnassiers, et
proportion gardée avec leur taille, les plus cruels de l’ordre;” yet that in the Delphinus Delphis,
“tout l’organisation de son cerveau annonce qu’il ne doit pas être dépourvu de la docilité qu’ils (les
anciens) lui attribuaient.”

68 Vide Wilkinson, vol. v., woodcut No. 478, fig. 8. The tamarisk appears afterwards to have
given the idea of a subdivision of leaf more pure and quaint than that of the acanthus. Of late our
botanists have discovered, in the “Victoria regia” (supposing its blossom reversed), another
strangely beautiful type of what we may perhaps hereafter find it convenient to call Lily capitals.

69 Appendix 22, “Arabian Ornamentation.”

CHAPTER XXI.

TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT.

§ I. We now know where we are to look for subjects of decoration. The next
question is, as the reader must remember, how to treat or express these subjects.

There are evidently two branches of treatment: the first being the expression, or
rendering to the eye and mind, of the thing itself; and the second, the arrangement
of the thing so expressed: both of these being quite distinct from the placing of the
ornament in proper parts of the building. For instance, suppose we take a vine-leaf
for our subject. The first question is, how to cut the vine-leaf? Shall we cut its ribs
and notches on the edge, or only its general outline? and so on. Then, how to

arrange the vine-leaves when we have them; whether symmetrically, or at random;
or unsymmetrically, yet within certain limits? All these I call questions of
treatment. Then, whether the vine-leaves so arranged are to be set on the capital of
a pillar or on its shaft, I call a question of place.

§ II. So, then, the questions of mere treatment are twofold, how to express, and
how to arrange. And expression is to the mind or the sight. Therefore, the inquiry
becomes really threefold:—

1. How ornament is to be expressed with reference to the mind.
2. How ornament is to be arranged with reference to the sight.
3. How ornament is to be arranged with reference to both.

§ III. (1.) How is ornament to be treated with reference to the mind?

If, to produce a good or beautiful ornament, it were only necessary to produce a
perfect piece of sculpture, and if a well cut group of flowers or animals were
indeed an ornament wherever it might be placed, the work of the architect would
be comparatively easy. Sculpture and architecture would become separate arts;
and the architect would order so many pieces of such subject and size as he
needed, without troubling himself with any questions but those of disposition and
proportion. But this is not so. No perfect piece either of painting or sculpture is an
architectural ornament at all, except in that vague sense in which any beautiful
thing is said to ornament the place it is in. Thus we say that pictures ornament a
room; but we should not thank an architect who told us that his design, to be
complete, required a Titian to be put in one corner of it, and a Velasquez in the
other; and it is just as unreasonable to call perfect sculpture, niched in, or
encrusted on a building, a portion of the ornament of that building, as it would be
to hang pictures by the way of ornament on the outside of it. It is very possible
that the sculptured work may be harmoniously associated with the building, or the
building executed with reference to it; but in this latter case the architecture is
subordinate to the sculpture, as in the Medicean chapel, and I believe also in the
Parthenon. And so far from the perfection of the work conducing to its ornamental
purpose, we may say, with entire security, that its perfection, in some degree,

unfits it for its purpose, and that no absolutely complete sculpture can be
decoratively right. We have a familiar instance in the flower-work of St. Paul’s,
which is probably, in the abstract, as perfect flower sculpture as could be produced
at the time; and which is just as rational an ornament of the building as so many
valuable Van Huysums, framed and glazed and hung up over each window.

§ IV. The especial condition of true ornament is, that it be beautiful in its place,
and nowhere else, and that it aid the effect of every portion of the building over
which it has influence; that it does not, by its richness, make other parts bald, or,
by its delicacy, make other parts coarse. Every one of its qualities has reference to
its place and use: and it is fitted for its service by what would be faults and
deficiencies if it had no especial duty. Ornament, the servant, is often formal,
where sculpture, the master, would have been free; the servant is often silent
where the master would have been eloquent; or hurried, where the master would
have been serene.

§ V. How far this subordination is in different situations to be expressed, or how
far it may be surrendered, and ornament, the servant, be permitted to have
independent will; and by what means the subordination is best to be expressed
when it is required, are by far the most difficult questions I have ever tried to work
out respecting any branch of art; for, in many of the examples to which I look as
authoritative in their majesty of effect, it is almost impossible to say whether the
abstraction or imperfection of the sculpture was owing to the choice, or the
incapacity of the workman; and, if to the latter, how far the result of fortunate
incapacity can be imitated by prudent self-restraint. The reader, I think, will
understand this at once by considering the effect of the illuminations of an old
missal. In their bold rejection of all principles of perspective, light and shade, and
drawing, they are infinitely more ornamental to the page, owing to the vivid
opposition of their bright colors and quaint lines, than if they had been drawn by
Da Vinci himself: and so the Arena chapel is far more brightly decorated by the
archaic frescoes of Giotti, than the Stanze of the Vatican are by those of Raffaelle.
But how far it is possible to recur to such archaicism, or to make up for it by any
voluntary abandonment of power, I cannot as yet venture in any wise to
determine.

§ VI. So, on the other hand, in many instances of finished work in which I find
most to regret or to reprobate, I can hardly distinguish what is erroneous in
principle from what is vulgar in execution. For instance, in most Romanesque
churches of Italy, the porches are guarded by gigantic animals, lions or griffins, of
admirable severity of design; yet, in many cases, of so rude workmanship, that it
can hardly be determined how much of this severity was intentional,—how much
involuntary: in the cathedral of Genoa two modern lions have, in imitation of this
ancient custom, been placed on the steps of its west front; and the Italian sculptor,
thinking himself a marvellous great man because he knew what lions were really
like, has copied them, in the menagerie, with great success, and produced two
hairy and well-whiskered beasts, as like to real lions as he could possibly cut
them. One wishes them back in the menagerie for his pains; but it is impossible to
say how far the offence of their presence is owing to the mere stupidity and
vulgarity of the sculpture, and how far we might have been delighted with a
realisation, carried to nearly the same length by Ghiberti or Michael Angelo. (I say
nearly, because neither Ghiberti nor Michael Angelo would ever have attempted,
or permitted, entire realisation, even in independent sculpture.)

§ VII. In spite of these embarrassments, however, some few certainties may be
marked in the treatment of past architecture, and secure conclusions deduced for
future practice. There is first, for instance, the assuredly intended and resolute
abstraction of the Ninevite and Egyptian sculptors. The men who cut those granite
lions in the Egyptian room of the British Museum, and who carved the calm faces
of those Ninevite kings, knew much more, both of lions and kings, than they
chose to express. Then there is the Greek system, in which the human sculpture is
perfect, the architecture and animal sculpture is subordinate to it, and the
architectural ornament severely subordinated to this again, so as to be composed
of little more than abstract lines: and, finally, there is the peculiarly mediæval
system, in which the inferior details are carried to as great or greater imitative
perfection as the higher sculpture; and the subordination is chiefly effected by
symmetries of arrangement, and quaintnesses of treatment, respecting which it is
difficult to say how far they resulted from intention, and how far from incapacity.

§ VIII. Now of these systems, the Ninevite and Egyptian are altogether opposed
to modern habits of thought and action; they are sculptures evidently executed
under absolute authorities, physical and mental, such as cannot at present exist.
The Greek system presupposes the possession of a Phidias; it is ridiculous to talk
of building in the Greek manner; you may build a Greek shell or box, such as the
Greek intended to contain sculpture, but you have not the sculpture to put in it.
Find your Phidias first, and your new Phidias will very soon settle all your
architectural difficulties in very unexpected ways indeed; but until you find him,
do not think yourselves architects while you go on copying those poor
subordinations, and secondary and tertiary orders of ornament, which the Greek
put on the shell of his sculpture. Some of them, beads, and dentils, and such like,
are as good as they can be for their work, and you may use them for subordinate
work still; but they are nothing to be proud of, especially when you did not invent
them: and others of them are mistakes and impertinences in the Greek himself,
such as his so-called honeysuckle ornaments and others, in which there is a
starched and dull suggestion of vegetable form, and yet no real resemblance nor
life, for the conditions of them result from his own conceit of himself, and
ignorance of the physical sciences, and want of relish for common nature, and
vain fancy that he could improve everything he touched, and that he honored it by
taking it into his service: by freedom from which conceits the true Christian
architecture is distinguished—not by points to its arches.

§ IX. There remains, therefore, only the mediæval system, in which I think,
generally, more completion is permitted (though this often because more was
possible) in the inferior than in the higher portions of ornamental subject. Leaves,
and birds, and lizards are realised, or nearly so; men and quadrupeds formalised.
For observe, the smaller and inferior subject remains subordinate, however richly
finished; but the human sculpture can only be subordinate by being imperfect. The
realisation is, however, in all cases, dangerous except under most skilful
management, and the abstraction, if true and noble, is almost always more
delightful.70

VIII.

DECORATION BY DISKS.
PALAZZO DEI BADOARI PARTECIPAZZI.

§ X. What, then, is noble abstraction? It is taking first the essential elements of
the thing to be represented, then the rest in the order of importance (so that
wherever we pause we shall always have obtained more than we leave behind),
and using any expedient to impress what we want upon the mind, without caring
about the mere literal accuracy of such expedient. Suppose, for instance, we have
to represent a peacock: now a peacock has a graceful neck, so has a swan; it has a

high crest, so has a cockatoo; it has a long tail, so has a bird of Paradise. But the
whole spirit and power of peacock is in those eyes of the tail. It is true, the argus
pheasant, and one or two more birds, have something like them, but nothing for a
moment comparable to them in brilliancy: express the gleaming of the blue eyes
through the plumage, and you have nearly all you want of peacock, but without
this, nothing; and yet those eyes are not in relief; a rigidly true sculpture of a
peacock’s form could have no eyes,—nothing but feathers. Here, then, enters the
stratagem of sculpture; you must cut the eyes in relief, somehow or another; see
how it is done in the peacock on the opposite page; it is so done by nearly all the
Byzantine sculptors: this particular peacock is meant to be seen at some distance
(how far off I know not, for it is an interpolation in the building where it occurs,
of which more hereafter), but at all events at a distance of thirty or forty feet; I
have put it close to you that you may see plainly the rude rings and rods which
stand for the eyes and quills, but at the just distance their effect is perfect.

§ XI. And the simplicity of the means here employed may help us, both to some
clear understanding of the spirit of Ninevite and Egyptian work, and to some
perception of the kind of enfantillage or archaicism to which it may be possible,
even in days of advanced science, legitimately to return. The architect has no
right, as we said before, to require of us a picture of Titian’s in order to complete
his design; neither has he the right to calculate on the co-operation of perfect
sculptors, in subordinate capacities. Far from this; his business is to dispense with
such aid altogether, and to devise such a system of ornament as shall be capable of
execution by uninventive and even unintelligent workmen; for supposing that he
required noble sculpture for his ornament, how far would this at once limit the
number and the scale of possible buildings? Architecture is the work of nations;
but we cannot have nations of great sculptors. Every house in every street of every
city ought to be good architecture, but we cannot have Flaxman or Thorwaldsen at
work upon it: nor, even if we chose only to devote ourselves to our public
buildings, could the mass and majesty of them be great, if we required all to be
executed by great men; greatness is not to be had in the required quantity. Giotto
may design a campanile, but he cannot carve it; he can only carve one or two of
the bas-reliefs at the base of it. And with every increase of your fastidiousness in

the execution of your ornament, you diminish the possible number and grandeur
of your buildings. Do not think you can educate your workmen, or that the
demand for perfection will increase the supply: educated imbecility and finessed
foolishness are the worst of all imbecilities and foolishnesses; and there is no free-
trade measure, which will ever lower the price of brains,—there is no California
of common sense. Exactly in the degree in which you require your decoration to
be wrought by thoughtful men, you diminish the extent and number of
architectural works. Your business as an architect, is to calculate only on the co-
operation of inferior men, to think for them, and to indicate for them such
expressions of your thoughts as the weakest capacity can comprehend and the
feeblest hand can execute. This is the definition of the purest architectural
abstractions. They are the deep and laborious thoughts of the greatest men, put
into such easy letters that they can be written by the simplest. They are
expressions of the mind of manhood by the hands of childhood.

§ XII. And now suppose one of those old Ninevite or Egyptian builders, with a
couple of thousand men—mud-bred, onion-eating creatures—under him, to be set
to work, like so many ants, on his temple sculptures. What is he to do with them?
He can put them through a granitic exercise of current hand; he can teach them all
how to curl hair thoroughly into croche-cœurs, as you teach a bench of school-
boys how to shape pothooks; he can teach them all how to draw long eyes and
straight noses, and how to copy accurately certain well-defined lines. Then he fits
his own great design to their capacities; he takes out of king, or lion, or god, as
much as was expressible by croche-cœurs and granitic pothooks; he throws this
into noble forms of his own imagining, and having mapped out their lines so that
there can be no possibility of error, sets his two thousand men to work upon them,
with a will, and so many onions a day.

§ XIII. I said those times cannot now return. We have, with Christianity,
recognised the individual value of every soul; and there is no intelligence so
feeble but that its single ray may in some sort contribute to the general light. This
is the glory of Gothic architecture, that every jot and tittle, every point and niche
of it, affords room, fuel, and focus for individual fire. But you cease to
acknowledge this, and you refuse to accept the help of the lesser mind, if you

require the work to be all executed in a great manner. Your business is to think out
all of it nobly, to dictate the expression of it as far as your dictation can assist the
less elevated intelligence: then to leave this, aided and taught as far as may be, to
its own simple act and effort; and to rejoice in its simplicity if not in its power,
and in its vitality if not in its science.

§ XIV. We have, then, three orders of ornament, classed according to the degrees
of correspondence of the executive and conceptive minds. We have the servile
ornament, in which the executive is absolutely subjected to the inventive,—the
ornament of the great Eastern nations, more especially Hamite, and all pre-
Christian, yet thoroughly noble in its submissiveness. Then we have the mediæval
system, in which the mind of the inferior workman is recognised, and has full
room for action, but is guided and ennobled by the ruling mind. This is the truly
Christian and only perfect system. Finally, we have ornaments expressing the
endeavor to equalise the executive and inventive,—endeavor which is
Renaissance and revolutionary, and destructive of all noble architecture.

§ XV. Thus far, then, of the incompleteness or simplicity of execution necessary
in architectural ornament, as referred to the mind. Next we have to consider that
which is required when it is referred to the sight, and the various modifications of
treatment which are rendered necessary by the variation of its distance from the
eye. I say necessary: not merely expedient or economical. It is foolish to carve
what is to be seen forty feet off with the delicacy which the eye demands within
two yards; not merely because such delicacy is lost in the distance, but because it
is a great deal worse than lost:—the delicate work has actually worse effect in the
distance than rough work. This is a fact well known to painters, and, for the most
part, acknowledged by the critics of painters, namely, that there is a certain
distance for which a picture is painted; and that the finish, which is delightful if
that distance be small, is actually injurious if the distance be great: and, moreover,
that there is a particular method of handling which none but consummate artists
reach, which has its effects at the intended distance, and is altogether
hieroglyphical and unintelligible at any other. This, I say, is acknowledged in
painting, but it is not practically acknowledged in architecture; nor until my
attention was especially directed to it, had I myself any idea of the care with