APPENDIX.
Catalogue of the Subjects of the Sculptured Capitals in the Lower Stage of the Doge’s Palace, Venice.
THE capitals are numbered as in the accompanying key-plan, beginning at the south-east angle on the Molo front, and going from right to left until the last capital, near S. Mark’s, is reached. For those who wish for something more than a catalogue, I need hardly say that in the latter portion of the second volume of the ‘Stones of Venice,’ Mr. Ruskin has given all that can be desired, with his usual felicity and beauty of verbal illustration.
In the ‘Annales Archéologiques,’ vol. xvii. (1857), Mr. Burges has given a very full and careful account of all the capitals, to which M. Didron Ainé has added some supplementary notes.
Zanotto (‘Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,’ vol. i. pp. 209-355) has given a still more full description, accompanied by rather rude outlines of all the lower range of capitals. There is small need, therefore, for anything more than a mere catalogue here, which it seems to me may be of service to some of those who are able to look at the Ducal Palace, but unable to carry with them any of the weighty volumes to which I have referred.
South-east Angle.—Above the capital is the Drunkenness of Noah. Above this, on a level with the traceries of the upper arcade, the archangel Raphael, with Tobit, who bears a scroll with these words—
EFICE Q
SO. FRE
TV. RAFA
EL. REVE
RENDE
QUIETŪ.[103]
Capital I. Partly built up. Has three figures of nude children, one with a comb and shears, another with a bird. The foliage is good; but the nude figures have the appearance of semi-Renaissance work.
II. Partly built up. Large birds—one devouring a serpent, another a fish, and the third pluming its feathers. The foliage here is not very good, and the design of the capital in no way first-rate, the birds being treated in a very naturalesque way.