[75] 38 ft. 2 in., without its cornice, which is 10 inches deep, and sustains pinnacles of stone 7 feet high. I was enabled to get the measures by a scaffolding erected in 1851 to repair the front.
[76] I believe the necessary upper joint is vertical, through the uppermost lobe of the quatrefoil, as in the figure; but I have lost my memorandum of this joint.
[77] “Dice, che non lauda per alcun modo di metter questo Serenissimo Dominio in tanto pericolo d’ habitar un palazzo fabricato in aria.”—Pareri di XV. Architetti, con illustrazioni dell’ Abbate Giuseppe Cadorin (Venice, 1838), p. 104.
[78] “Il muro della sala è più grosso delle colonne sott’ esso piedi uno e onze tre, et posto in modo che onze sei sta come in aere sopra la piazza, et onze nove dentro.”—Pareri di XV. Architetti, p. 47.
[79] Compare “Seven Lamps,” chap. iii. § 7.
[80] Pareri, above quoted, p. 21.
[81] It is a curious proof how completely, even so early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Venetians had lost the habit of reading the religious art of their ancient churches, that Sanuto, describing this injury, says, that “four of the Kings in marble fell from their pinnacles above the front, at St. Mark’s church;” and presently afterwards corrects his mistake, and apologises for it thus: “These were four saints, St. Constantine, St. Demetrius, St. George, and St. Theodore, all Greek saints. They look like Kings.” Observe the perfect, because unintentional, praise given to the old sculptor.
I quote the passage from the translation of these precious diaries of Sanuto, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, a translation which I hope will some day become a standard book in English libraries.
[82] I am not speaking here of iron balconies. See below, § XXII.