Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy

by George Edmund Street

representations of places or towns, that it has nevertheless been intended as an absolute representation of what its draughtsman had seen. The columns with S. Theodore and the lion of S. Mark on their capitals, the bronze horses and the domes of S. Mark’s, the position by the waterside, and the representation of the Ponte di Paglia, are all proofs of this; but the important point for my present purpose is, that he drew the Ducal Palace as a building of two stories in height—the first a simple arcade, the second an arcade with tracery. In the distance behind this, his drawing shews a picturesque assemblage of buildings, whilst figures are represented behind the upper arcade as though it were only a kind of immense balcony. There can be no doubt whatever that this old drawing tells in favour of the view that the upper stage was not built until after a considerable interval; for it is almost impossible—looking at the way in which the rest of the drawing is made—to believe that all reference to it would have been omitted, had it been in existence at the time the artist saw it.

It will be seen that my supposition that the original design of the Ducal Palace was of considerably less elevation than the present building, would tend to make it very much more like the Byzantine type than it is; but even now no one can dispute the family likeness. The amount of constructive art is as nearly as possible the same. The weight is supported by a succession of shafts placed at very short intervals from each other, and in neither is there any approach to the system of pier, arch, and buttress, so distinctive of Gothic art in the North of Europe. The pointed arch is used, it is true, in the palace; but, after all, the mere use of the pointed arch does not make thorough pointed architecture, and therefore, interesting as it is as a variety of the style, the Ducal Palace is, I think, not properly to be placed in the first class of Gothic buildings. Indeed, the second stage, whose exquisite beauty is the charm of the whole building, does not exhibit the pointed arch at all in a properly developed form, and is strong enough to support the great weight of wall above, only by reason of the massy character of its tracery, and not by the proper application of constructional arches. I have already said that there is no approach to buttressing; but the angles require some help, and this is given partly by increasing considerably the size of the shafts, and partly by iron ties at the springing of the arches running for some distance in each direction from the angles.

All the mouldings are very simple; they are generally composed of three-quarter beads, small fillets, and large flat hollows, constantly arranged in the same order. The label of the main arcade is a plain bead. In the string-courses boldly-carved flowers are repeated with a slight interval between each, and the upper string-course has a row of nail-heads in one of its members. The cusping of the tracery is quite square in its section, and the cusps finish with a square end, to which is attached—and with good effect—a small circular ball of red marble. The parapet is of the somewhat peculiar kind I have already mentioned, and I confess I have never been long enough in Venice to accustom myself to, or to admire, its extreme peculiarity of both outline and design.

And now before we leave this subject let me offer a remark, as every one who writes on it must, on the admirable story of these sculptures. I have never sat in front of one of them for any space of time without seeing some wayfarer stop to study the story of some one of the capitals. They are a book at which more thousands have looked with pleasure for some five hundred years than at any other single book in the world, with the one exception of the Bible. And the lesson to architects is obvious. Concentrate your labour and your story on some one part of your building where all men may read it; tell some simple story and you will interest your readers, if you will but tell it so simply that by good chance they may be able to read it. Lay out a scheme so well that if you die your successor may carry it on. Here, as I believe, the architect completed his two stages of arcades, whilst the sculptor was changed, but kept generally to the scheme of subjects first of all laid down. At the three exposed angles are the three archangels, below them the moral lesson—as much wanted now as then—of the Drunkenness of Noah, and the Story of Tobit (with S. Raphael); at another angle The Fall (under S. Michael); and at the last the Judgment of Solomon (under S. Gabriel). In the lower range of capitals the stories and catalogues of virtues and vices; the illustrations of fruits, animals, every-day life; the labours of the months, trades, sciences, and arts—are all illustrated, and complete a cycle of subjects which, ill-treated, would always have a certain value, and which, well treated as most of them are here, have the very highest charm.

For a building which owes its general impressiveness entirely to the uniform character of its architecture, it is especially fortunate that there should be so much also in the detail to attract and reward constant and minute examination. It is for this reason that the range of great capitals to the columns of the lower arcade is of so much importance. They are so large, so close to the eye, so interesting in their story, and on the whole so carefully and artistically executed, as to afford the greater pleasure the more the building is known. The key-plan to these capitals which I give[51] will be useful to shew what the general arrangement of the subjects is. I have already shewn that there are repetitions of many of the subjects, but it is equally worth notice that the foliage which forms the framework for the subjects is also repeated. There are, I think, only four varieties in its arrangement. In the first the capitals are arranged very simply—in some cases rudely—with tufts of foliage or heads. The capitals numbered 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27, and 34, are examples of this. In the next the foliage of the lower part grows up vertically, bending slightly out to support the sculptured subjects. These are generally the most graceful of all, and infinitely richer in effect than the first class. The capitals numbered 1, 7, 9, 12, 18, 24, 26, 28, 33, and 36, are examples of these. In the third class the foliage is generally marked by the same feeling, but it rises vertically to the angles, and curls over under the subject; the 19th and 25th capitals are examples of this class. In the fourth class the foliage curves over downwards, both at the angles and under the subject. The neckings below the capitals are wrought on the shaft itself. They are sometimes moulded, sometimes corded, and sometimes delicately carved with foliage; these last are by very much the more beautiful, and generally accompany the best wrought of the capitals, whilst the inferior capitals have, in all cases, the plainer necking.

The capitals in the upper arcade have not so much story as those below. They have generally a head on each side in the midst of foliage, and are square in plan, though the lower caps are octagonal—a few only have their names written over them; but on the ground-story most of the capitals have, or have had, explanatory inscriptions. Some of the upper capitals close to the north-west angle are among the best. The curves of the foliage in the angles of the capitals are admirably wrought, and may be compared, to the damage of the latter, with some of the lower capitals in the sea-front. The upper range of capitals gradually deteriorates from the north-west angle as you go to the south-east. These last are really very bad, having rude gross carving of the human figure, and foliage feebly massed and treated; but the upper capital of the south-west angle with the figures of the four winds, and the two or three capitals near it, must be excepted from this remark, being superb in design and execution.

The remains of original work in the quadrangle are much less important. The arcade on the first floor remains, but none of its details are good, and on the east side it is a poor Renaissance copy of the other sides. The whole of the lower arcade has been destroyed or altered. But in the upper walls, which are faced with brick, some of the original windows remain; they are small, but of the same sort of detail and character as the larger windows in the outer walls.

The building has lost much by the gradual raising of the pavement. This is now about twenty inches above the old base of the columns, and their proportions are so far altered for the worse. And it has lost immensely also by the destruction of the inlaid marble which once filled all the spandrels of the main arcade. Two panels only of these remain, and both in the sea-front. They are charmingly designed, inclosing circles which exactly touch the labels and strings.

Of the modern additions to this grand building I shall not say anything. They are not beautiful in themselves nor interesting by reason of their decorations, if I except those walls on which Tintoretto has lavished so much of his skill. The architects of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were artists in very deed, and it is with their work only that I can feel any real sympathy.

Such, then, is the Ducal Palace: a building certainly in some respects of almost unequalled beauty, but at the same time of unequal merit; its first and second stages quite perfect in their bold nervous character, and in the almost interminable succession of the same beautiful features in shaft and arch and tracery, forming perhaps one of the grandest proofs in the world of the exceeding value of perfect regularity and of a repetition of good features in architecture, when it is possible to obtain it on a very large scale.