416. Section of St. Mark’s, Venice. (From ‘Chiesi Principali di Europa.’)
Externally the original construction was in brick, with blind arcades, niches, and a simple brick cornice such as is found in Lombardic work. It was not till the commencement of the 13th century that the decoration of the front and sides with marble was undertaken; the arches were encased with marble slabs carried on ranges of columns, those of the narthex being placed one above the other. The shafts, capitals and bases were brought from other buildings, having been imported from Altinum, Aquileia, Heraclea, Ravenna, and from other places in Dalmatia, Syria, and the East. It is possible that the porches of the churches of St. Gilles and of St. Trophime at Arles may have suggested this method of decoration, of which no prototype exists in the East. The capitals are of all periods, from the 4th to the 11th centuries, the entablature blocks and the stylobates being specially worked for the building. The rose window of the south transept and others of similar style were inserted about the commencement of the 14th century, the baptistery and the chapel of St. Isidore[[280]] being encased with marbles in the middle of the same century, and the decoration of the upper part of the arches of the west, towards the end of the 14th century. As will be seen by the north and south fronts section (Woodcut No. [416]) the original brick domes were surmounted by timber domes covered with lead, and of considerable height. These were probably added in the middle of the 13th century.[[281]] The rood loft dates from the end of the same century. The earlier mosaics in the domes date from the 12th century, and the marble casing of the lower portion of the walls and the richly decorated pavement from the 12th and 13th centuries. The work of decoration was carried on through succeeding centuries with occasional restorations, so that the church itself constitutes a museum with almost every phase of work in mosaic from the 12th to the 18th centuries.
Though from a strictly architectural point of view the disposition of the design is not equal to those of some of our northern cathedrals (except perhaps for the greater beauty of Byzantine domical construction), it is impossible to find fault with plain surfaces when they are covered with such exquisite gold mosaics as those of St. Mark’s, or with the want of accentuation in the lines of the roof, when every part of it is more richly adorned in this manner than any other church of the Western world. Then too the rood screens, the pulpit, the pala d’oro and the whole furniture of the choir are so rich, so venerable, and on the whole so beautiful, and seen in so exquisitely subdued a light, that it is impossible to deny that it is perhaps the most impressive interior in Western Europe. St. Front at Périgueux, with almost identical dimensions and design (Woodcut No. 562), is cold, scattered, and unmeaning, because but a structural skeleton of St. Mark’s without its adornments. The interior of a 13th-century Gothic church is beautiful, even when whitewashed; but these early attempts had not yet reached that balance between construction and ornament, which is necessary to real architectural effect.
The same is true of the exterior; if stripped of its ornament and erected in plain stone it would hardly be tolerable, and the mixture of florid 14th-century foliage and bad Italian Gothic details with the older work, would be all but unendurable. But marble, mosaic, sculpture, and the all-hallowing touch of age and association, disarm the critic, and force him to worship when his reason tells him he ought to blame.
Much as St. Mark’s must have been admired in the days of its freshness, the Gothic feeling seems to have been so strong in Northern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries as to prevent its being used as a model. The one prominent exception is San Antonio, Padua (1237-1307), which is evidently a copy of St. Mark’s, but with so much Gothic design mixed up with it as to spoil both. Length was sought to be obtained by using seven domes instead of five, and running an aisle round the apse. The side-aisles were covered with intersecting vaults, and pointed arches were occasionally introduced when circular would have harmonised better with the general design.
417. Plan of St. Antonio, Padua. (From Wiebeking.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
Externally the enveloping porch was omitted—not even the Pisan modification of it introduced, though it might have been employed with the happiest effect. The consequence of all this jumble is, that San Antonio is externally one of the most unsatisfactory churches in Europe, though possessing a quaint Oriental look from the grouping of its dome with the minaret-like spires which adorn it. The inside is not so bad, though a roof of only five bays over a quasi-Gothic church, 200 ft. in length, distorts the proportion, and with the ill-understood details of the whole, spoils what narrowly escaped being one of the most successful interiors of that part of Italy.