IV. Archivolts.
In [Plate VIII.], opposite, are arranged in one view all the conditions of Byzantine archivolt employed in Venice, on a large scale. It will be seen in an instant that there can be no mistaking the manner of their masonry. The soffit of the arch is the horizontal line at the bottom of all these profiles, and each of them (except 13, 14) is composed of two slabs of marble, one for the soffit, another for the face of the arch; the one on the soffit is worked on the edge into a roll (fig. 10) or dentil (fig. 9), and the one on the face is bordered on the other side by another piece let edgeways into the wall, and also worked into a roll or dentil: in the richer archivolts a cornice is added to this roll, as in figs. 1 and 4, or takes its place, as in figs. 1, 3, 5, and 6; and in such richer examples the facestone, and often the soffit, are sculptured, the sculpture being cut into their surfaces, as indicated in fig. 11. The concavities cut in the facestones of 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 are all indicative of sculpture in effect like that of Fig. XXVI. Vol. II., of which archivolt fig. 5, here, is the actual profile. The following are the references to the whole:
| [Plate VIII.] Vol. III. | 1. Rio-Foscari House. 2. Terraced House, entrance door. 3. Small Porticos of St. Mark’s, external arches. 4. Arch on the canal at Ponte St. Toma. 5. Arch of Corte del Remer. 6. Great outermost archivolt of central door, St. Mark’s. 7. Inner archivolt of southern porch, St. Mark’s Façade. 8. Inner archivolt of central entrance, St. Mark’s. 9. Fondaco de’ Turchi, main arcade. 10. Byzantine restored house on Grand Canal, lower arcade. 11. Terraced House, upper arcade. 12. Inner archivolt of northern porch of façade, St. Mark’s. 13 and 14. Transitional forms. |
| IX. |
| GOTHIC ARCHIVOLTS. |
There is little to be noted respecting these forms, except that, in fig. 1, the two lower rolls, with the angular projections between, represent the fall of the mouldings of two proximate arches on the abacus of the bearing shaft; their two cornices meeting each other, and being gradually narrowed into the little angular intermediate piece, their sculptures being slurred into the contracted space, a curious proof of the earliness of the work. The real archivolt moulding is the same as fig. 4 c c, including only the midmost of the three rolls in fig. 1.
It will be noticed that 2, 5, 6, and 8 are sculptured on the soffits as well as the faces; 9 is the common profile of arches decorated only with colored marble, the facestone being colored, the soffit white. The effect of such a moulding is seen in the small windows at the right hand of Fig. XXVI. Vol. II.
The reader will now see that there is but little difficulty in identifying Byzantine work, the archivolt mouldings being so similar among themselves, and so unlike any others. We have next to examine the Gothic forms.
Figs. 13 and 14 in [Plate VIII.] represent the first brick mouldings of the transitional period, occurring in such instances as Fig. XXIII. or Fig. XXXIII. Vol. II. (the soffit stone of the Byzantine mouldings being taken away), and this profile, translated into solid stone, forms the almost universal moulding of the windows of the second order. These two brick mouldings are repeated, for the sake of comparison, at the top of [Plate IX.] opposite; and the upper range of mouldings which they commence, in that plate, are the brick mouldings of Venice in the early Gothic period. All the forms below are in stone; and the moulding 2, translated into stone, forms the universal archivolt of the early pointed arches of Venice, and windows of second and third orders. The moulding 1 is much rarer, and used for the most part in doors only.
The reader will see at once the resemblance of character in the various flat brick mouldings, 3 to 11. They belong to such arches as 1 and 2 in [Plate XVII.] Vol. II.; or 6 b, 6 c, in [Plate XIV.] Vol. II., 7 and 8 being actually the mouldings of those two doors; the whole group being perfectly defined, and separate from all the other Gothic work in Venice, and clearly the result of an effort to imitate, in brickwork, the effect of the flat sculptured archivolts of the Byzantine times. (See Vol. II. [Chap. VII.] § XXXVII.)