The next Plate, [VII.], will show the principal characters of the Gothic jambs, and the total difference between them and the Byzantine ones. Two more Byzantine forms, 1 and 2, are given here for the sake of comparison; then 3, 4, and 5 are the common profiles of simple jambs of doors in the Gothic period; 6 is one of the jambs of the Frari windows, continuous into the archivolt, and meeting the traceries, where the line is set upon it at the extremity of its main slope; 7 and 8 are jambs of the Ducal Palace windows, in which the great semicircle is the half shaft which sustains the traceries, and the rest of the profile is continuous in the archivolt; 17, 18, and 19 are the principal piers of the Ducal Palace; and 20, from St. Fermo of Verona, is put with them in order to show the step of transition from the Byzantine form 2 to the Gothic chamfer, which is hardly represented at Venice. The other profiles on the plate are all late Gothic, given to show the gradual increase of complexity without any gain of power. The open lines in 12, 14, 16, etc., are the parts of the profile cut into flowers or cable mouldings; and so much incised as to show the constant outline of the cavetto or curve beneath them. The following are the references:
| [Plate VII.] Vol. III. | 1. Door in house of Marco Polo. 2. Old door in a restored church of St. Cassan. 3, 4, 5. Common jambs of Gothic doors. 6. Frari windows. 7, 8. Ducal Palace windows. 9. Casa Priuli, great entrance. 10. San Stefano, great door. 11. San Gregorio, door opening to the water. 12. Lateral door, Frari. 13. Door of Campo San Zaccaria. 14. Madonna dell’Orto. 15. San Gregorio, door in the façade. 16. Great lateral door, Frari. 17. Pilaster at Vine angle, Ducal Palace. 18. Pier, inner cortile, Ducal Palace. 19. Pier, under the medallion of Venice, on the Piazetta façade of the Ducal Palace. |
III. Capitals.
I shall here notice the various facts I have omitted in the text of the work.
First, with respect to the Byzantine Capitals represented in [Plate VII.] Vol. II., I omitted to notice that figs. 6 and 7 represent two sides of the same capital at Murano (though one is necessarily drawn on a smaller scale than the other). Fig. 7 is the side turned to the light, and fig. 6 to the shade, the inner part, which is quite concealed, not being touched at all.
We have here a conclusive proof that these capitals were cut for their place in the apse; therefore I have always considered them as tests of Venetian workmanship, and, on the strength of that proof, have occasionally spoken of capitals as of true Venetian work, which M. Lazari supposes to be of the Lower Empire. No. 11, from St. Mark’s, was not above noticed. The way in which the cross is gradually left in deeper relief as the sides slope inwards and away from it, is highly picturesque and curious.
No. 9 has been reduced from a larger drawing, and some of the life and character of the curves lost in consequence. It is chiefly given to show the irregular and fearless freedom of the Byzantine designers, no two parts of the foliage being correspondent; in the original it is of white marble, the ground being colored blue.
[Plate X.] Vol. II. represents the four principal orders of Venetian capitals in their greatest simplicity, and the profiles of the most interesting examples of each. The figures 1 and 4 are the two great concave and convex groups, and 2 and 3 the transitional. Above each type of form I have put also an example of the group of flowers which represent it in nature: fig. 1 has a lily; fig. 2 a variety of the Tulipa sylvestris; figs. 3 and 4 forms of the magnolia. I prepared this plate in the early spring, when I could not get any other examples,[65] or I would rather have had two different species for figs. 3 and 4; but the half-open magnolia will answer the purpose, showing the beauty of the triple curvature in the sides.
I do not say that the forms of the capitals are actually taken from flowers, though assuredly so in some instances, and partially so in the decoration of nearly all. But they were designed by men of pure and natural feeling for beauty, who therefore instinctively adopted the forms represented, which are afterwards proved to be beautiful by their frequent occurrence in common flowers.