The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3),

by John Ruskin

In every group of windows in Venice which I was able to examine, and which were centralized in this manner, I found evidence in their mouldings of their being anterior to the Ducal Palace. That palace did away with the subtle proportion and centralization of the Byzantine. Its arches are of equal width, and its capitals are all different and ungrouped; some, indeed, are larger than the rest, but this is not for the sake of proportion, only for particular service when more weight is to be borne. But, among other evidences of the early date of the sea façade of that building, is one subtle and delicate concession to the system of centralization which is finally closed. The capitals of the upper arcade are, as I said, all different, and show no arranged correspondence with each other; but the central one is of pure Parian marble, while all the others are of Istrian stone.

The bold decoration of the central window and balcony above, in the Ducal Palace, is only a peculiar expression of the principality of the central window, which was characteristic of the Gothic period not less than of the Byzantine. In the private palaces the central windows become of importance by their number of lights; in the Ducal Palace such an arrangement was, for various reasons, inconvenient, and the central window, which, so far from being more important than the others, is every way inferior in design to the two at the eastern extremity of the façade, was nevertheless made the leading feature by its noble canopy and balcony.

§ IX. Such being the principal differences in the general conception of the Byzantine and Gothic palaces, the particulars in the treatment of the latter are easily stated. The marble facings are gradually removed from the walls; and the bare brick either stands forth confessed boldly, contrasted with the marble shafts and archivolts of the windows, or it is covered with stucco painted in fresco, of which more hereafter. The Ducal Palace, as in all other respects, is an exact expression of the middle point in the change. It still retains marble facing; but instead of being disposed in slabs as in the Byzantine times, it is applied in solid bricks or blocks of marble, 11½ inches long, by 6 inches high.

The stories of the Gothic palaces are divided by string courses, considerably bolder in projection than those of the Byzantines, and more highly decorated; and while the angles of the Byzantine palaces are quite sharp and pure, those of the Gothic palaces are wrought into a chamfer, filled by small twisted shafts which have capitals under the cornice of each story.

§ X. These capitals are little observed in the general effect, but the shafts are of essential importance in giving an aspect of firmness to the angle; a point of peculiar necessity in Venice, where, owning to the various convolutions of the canals, the angles of the palaces are not only frequent, but often necessarily acute, every inch of ground being valuable. In other cities, the appearance as well as the assurance of stability can always be secured by the use of massy stones, as in the fortress palaces of Florence; but it must have been always desirable at Venice to build as lightly as possible, in consequence of the comparative insecurity of the foundations. The early palaces were, as we have seen, perfect models of grace and lightness, and the Gothic, which followed, though much more massive in the style of its details, never admitted more weight into its structure than was absolutely necessary for its strength, Hence, every Gothic palace has the appearance of enclosing as many rooms, and attaining as much strength, as is possible, with a minimum quantity of brick and stone. The traceries of the windows, which in Northern Gothic only support the glass, at Venice support the building; and thus the greater ponderousness of the traceries is only an indication of the greater lightness of the structure. Hence, when the Renaissance architects give their opinions as to the stability of the Ducal Palace when injured by fire, one of them, Christofore Sorte, says, that he thinks it by no means laudable that the “Serenissimo Dominio” of the Venetian senate “should live in a palace built in the air.”[77] And again, Andrea della Valle says, that[78] “the wall of the saloon is thicker by fifteen inches than the shafts below it, projecting nine inches within, and six without, standing as if in the air, above the piazza;”[79] and yet this wall is so nobly and strongly knit together, that Rusconi, though himself altogether devoted to the Renaissance school, declares that the fire which had destroyed the whole interior of the palace had done this wall no more harm than the bite of a fly to an elephant. “Troveremo che el danno che ha patito queste muraglie sarà conforme alla beccatura d’ una mosca fatta ad un elefante.”[80]

§ XI. And so in all the other palaces built at the time, consummate strength was joined with a lightness of form and sparingness of material which rendered it eminently desirable that the eye should be convinced, by every possible expedient, of the stability of the building; and these twisted pillars at the angles are not among the least important means adopted for this purpose, for they seem to bind the walls together as a cable binds a chest. In the Ducal Palace, where they are carried up the angle of an unbroken wall forty feet high, they are divided into portions, gradually diminishing in length towards the top, by circular bands or rings, set with the nail-head or dog-tooth ornament, vigorously projecting, and giving the column nearly the aspect of the stalk of a reed; its diminishing proportions being exactly arranged as they are by Nature in all jointed plants. At the top of the palace, like the wheat-stalk branching into the ear of corn, it expands into a small niche with a pointed canopy, which joins with the fantastic parapet in at once relieving, and yet making more notable by its contrast, the weight of massy wall below. The arrangement is seen in the woodcut, [Chap. VIII.]; the angle shafts being slightly exaggerated in thickness, together with their joints, as otherwise they would hardly have been intelligible on so small a scale.

The Ducal Palace is peculiar in these niches at the angles, which throughout the rest of the city appear on churches only; but some may perhaps have been removed by restorations, together with the parapets with which they were associated.

Fig. XXIII.

§ XII. Of these roof parapets of Venice, it has been already noticed that the examples which remain differ from those of all other cities of Italy in their purely ornamental character. ([Chap. I.] § XII.) They are not battlements, properly so-called; still less machicolated cornices, such as crown the fortress palaces of the great mainland nobles; but merely adaptations of the light and crown-like ornaments which crest the walls of the Arabian mosque. Nor are even these generally used on the main walls of the palaces themselves. They occur on the Ducal Palace, on the Casa d’ Oro, and, some years back, were still standing on the Fondaco de’ Turchi; but the majority of the Gothic Palaces have the plain dog-tooth cornice under the tiled projecting roof (Vol. I. [Chap. XIV.] § IV.); and the highly decorated parapet is employed only on the tops of walls which surround courts or gardens, and which, without such decoration, would have been utterly devoid of interest. [Fig. XXIII.] represents, at b, part of a parapet of this kind which surrounds the courtyard of a palace in the Calle del Bagatin, between San G. Grisostomo, and San Canzian: the whole is of brick, and the mouldings peculiarly sharp and varied; the height of each separate pinnacle being about four feet, crowning a wall twelve or fifteen feet high: a piece of the moulding which surrounds the quatrefoil is given larger in the figure at a, together with the top of the small arch below, having the common Venetian dentil round it, and a delicate little moulding with dog-tooth ornament to carry the flanks of the arch. The moulding of the brick is throughout sharp and beautiful in the highest degree. One of the most curious points about it is the careless way in which the curved outlines of the pinnacles are cut into the plain brickwork, with no regard whatever to the places of its joints. The weather of course wears the bricks at the exposed joints, and jags the outline a little; but the work has stood, evidently from the fourteenth century, without sustaining much harm.

§ XIII. This parapet may be taken as a general type of the wall-parapet of Venice in the Gothic period; some being much less decorated, and others much more richly: the most beautiful in Venice is in the little Calle, opening on the Campo and Traghetto San Samuele; it has delicately carved devices in stone let into each pinnacle.