The case for the contemporaneous erection of these two fronts becomes even stronger if we ascend to the open gallery on the first floor and examine the capitals there. They are all similar in general character; and though they become gradually better as one goes from the south-east to the north-west, they give the impression of all being of nearly one date, and moreover they all appear to be later in date than the whole of those in the lower stage.
On the other hand, there seem to be at least two points which make strongly in favour of the later date which has been given to the twelve northern arches of the Piazzetta-front. These are, first, that all the eight capitals which are replicas are in this northern part of the front, and none of them in the first six arches from the south-west angle; and, secondly, that the plate armour in the sculpture above the capital of the north-east angle (Judgment of Solomon) is later in date than the period which I assume for this work, and later than the chain mail shown in the third and eighth capitals of the sea-front. To the first objection a sufficient answer is that some of the best of the capitals to these twelve arches are of original design—not replicas; and in reply to the last objection (which is of much force) the only, but at the same time obvious reply is, that the Trajan capital, just under this late armour, is one of the most beautiful of the entire series, and that on the whole it is much more likely that some of the sculpture was left in block and finished later, than that no difference should be made in any of the mouldings or details of the work of two periods. There is indeed some, though not very strong, evidence that the sculpture of this capital is not earlier than about 1423. There is, according to Zanotto, an inscription on it, “╋ Duo Soci Florentini incise,” and he argues from the use of this last word, that the two men were the same who made the monument to the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, in which, according to Sansovino, they used the same unusual term “inciserunt;” this interpretation of the inscription is the more allowable in that, as I have said, the details of armour in themselves suggest a date not much earlier than this for the sculpture connected with it on the angle just above the cap. This date of course brings this work to very nearly the same period as that of the execution of the Porta della Carta, and it has been assumed by some that these capitals were the work of the Bons who built it. Such an assertion is as wild as that of M. Didron, who says something as to their belonging to the thirteenth century, for the very shortest inspection of the Porta della Carta would convince the most sceptical that no part of the capitals could have been executed by any of the men who wrought at it. In comparing the merits of the carvers of the earliest and the latest capitals, it is due to the latter to say that one of the finest of the whole series is this Trajan capital at the north-west angle, and there is no internal evidence in it which could lead one to suppose it to be the work of a man who would ever condescend to copy another’s work.
No one can examine the building without seeing that there is not only in the detail, but equally in the general design, a marked difference between the two lower stages and the upper stage. In place of the extreme boldness which marks every part of the former, we see mouldings reduced in the latter to the smallest and meanest section possible; the windows of the upper stage are badly designed, whilst the traceries of the second stage are as fine as they can possibly be; the angle-shafts of the upper stage are of the latest type, elaborately twisted and violently defined, instead of being merely delicate roundings off of the hard line of wall, as all the early Venetian angle-shafts are; the parapet, too, is not equal in its design to any of the lower work, and crowns with an insignificant grotesqueness the noble symmetry of the two lower arcades; and finally, the chequer-work of marble which forms the whole of the upper wall is a mode of construction which I have not seen in any early work, though it is seen in the Porta della Carta (a.d. 1429), and in one other late work, the Palazzo in the Campo Sta. Maria Mater Domini.[49]
Looking at all the circumstances of the case, I think the fairest explanation of them is, that the whole sea-front and the six arches of the Piazzetta (columns 1 to 24 on the plan) were first built, that the extension to the north (columns 25 to 36 on plan) was then immediately undertaken by the same artists, and finally that the whole upper story was built and the sculpture of its capitals completed before 1423. The capitals of the lower arcade were probably sculptured by degrees, and certainly not by one hand, between the years 1310 and 1361.
There is a confirmation to some extent of this view in a MS. in the Bodleian Library of the fourteenth century (the Romance of Alexander), which contains a curious contemporary view of Venice. This drawing has been engraved at p. 26 of the second volume of the ‘Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages;’[50] here it will be seen, with the usual amount of licence which characterizes most mediæval
