| X. |
| CORNICES AND ABACI. |
The following are the references:
| [Plate X.] Vol. III. | 1. Common plinth of St. Mark’s. 2. Plinth above lily capitals, St. Mark’s. 3, 4. Plinths in early surface Gothic. 5. Plinth of door in Campo St. Luca. 6. Plinth of treasury door, St. Mark’s. 7. Archivolts of nave, St. Mark’s. 8. Archivolts of treasury door, St. Mark’s. 9. Moulding of circular window in St. John and Paul. 10. Chief decorated narrow plinth, St. Mark’s. 11. Plinth of door, Campo St. Margherita. 12. Plinth of tomb of Doge Vital Falier. 13. Lower plinth, Fondaco de’ Turchi, and Terraced House. 14. Running plinth of Corte del Remer. 15. Highest plinth at top of Fondaco de’ Turchi. 16. Common Byzantine plinth. 17. Running plinth of Casa Falier. 18. Plinth of arch at Ponte St. Toma. 19, 20, 21. Plinths of tomb of Doge Vital Falier. 22. Plinth of window in Calle del Pistor. 23. Plinth of tomb of Dogaressa Vital Michele. 24. Archivolt in the Frari. 25. Running plinth, Casa Loredan. 26. Running plinth, under pointed arch, in Salizzada San Lio. 27. Running plinth, Casa Erizzo. 28. Circles in portico of St. Mark’s. 29. Ducal Palace cornice, lower arcade. 30. Ducal Palace cornice, upper arcade. 31. Central Gothic plinth. 32. Late Gothic plinth. 33. Late Gothic plinth, Casa degli Ambasciatori. 34. Late Gothic plinth, Palace near the Jesuiti. 35, 36. Central balcony cornice. 37. Plinth of St. Mark’s balustrade. 38. Cornice of the Frari, in brick, cabled. 39. Central balcony plinth. 40. Uppermost cornice, Ducal Palace. 41. Abacus of lily capitals, St. Mark’s. 42. Abacus, Fondaco de’ Turchi. 43. Abacus, large capital of Terraced House. 44. Abacus, Fondaco de’ Turchi. 45. Abacus, Ducal Palace, upper arcade. 46. Abacus, Corte del Remer. 47. Abacus, small pillars, St. Mark’s pulpit. 48. Abacus, Murano and Torcello. 49. Abacus, Casa Farsetti. 50. Abacus, Casa Loredan, lower story. 51. Abacus, capitals of Frari. 52. Abacus, Casa Cavalli (plain). 53. Abacus, Casa Priuli (flowered). 54. Abacus, Casa Foscari (plain). 55. Abacus, Casa Priuli (flowered). 56. Abacus, [Plate II.] fig. 15. 57. Abacus, St. John and Paul. 58. Abacus, St. Stefano. |
It is only farther to be noted, that these mouldings are used in various proportions, for all kinds of purposes: sometimes for true cornices; sometimes for window-sills; sometimes, 3 and 4 (in the Gothic time) especially, for dripstones of gables: 11 and such others form little plinths or abaci at the spring of arches, such as those shown at a, Fig. XXIII. Vol. II. Finally, a large number of superb Byzantine cornices occur, of the form shown at the top of the arch in [Plate V.] Vol. II., having a profile like 16 or 19 here; with nodding leaves of acanthus thrown out from it, being, in fact, merely one range of the leaves of a Byzantine capital unwrapped, and formed into a continuous line. I had prepared a large mass of materials for the illustration of these cornices, and the Gothic ones connected with them; but found the subject would take up another volume, and was forced, for the present, to abandon it. The lower series of profiles, 7 to 12 in [Plate XV.] Vol. I, shows how the leaf-ornament is laid on the simple early cornices.
VI. Traceries.
We have only one subject more to examine, the character of the early and late Tracery Bars.
The reader may perhaps have been surprised at the small attention given to traceries in the course of the preceding volumes: but the reason is, that there are no complicated traceries at Venice belonging to the good Gothic time, with the single exception of those of the Casa Cicogna; and the magnificent arcades of the Ducal Palace Gothic are so simple as to require little explanation.
There are, however, two curious circumstances in the later traceries; the first, that they are universally considered by the builder (as the old Byzantines considered sculptured surfaces of stone) as material out of which a certain portion is to be cut, to fill his window. A fine Northern Gothic tracery is a complete and systematic arrangement of arches and foliation, adjusted to the form of the window; but a Venetian tracery is a piece of a larger composition, cut to the shape of the window. In the Porta della Carta, in the Church of the Madonna dell’Orto, in the Casa Bernardo on the Grand Canal, in the old Church of the Misericordia, and wherever else there are rich traceries in Venice, it will always be found that a certain arrangement of quatrefoils and other figures has been planned as if it were to extend indefinitely into miles of arcade; and out of this colossal piece of marble lace, a piece in the shape of a window is cut, mercilessly and fearlessly: whatever fragments and odd shapes of interstice, remnants of this or that figure of the divided foliation, may occur at the edge of the window, it matters not; all are cut across, and shut in by the great outer archivolt.
It is very curious to find the Venetians treating what in other countries became of so great individual importance, merely as a kind of diaper ground, like that of their chequered colors on the walls. There is great grandeur in the idea, though the system of their traceries was spoilt by it: but they always treated their buildings as masses of color rather than of line; and the great traceries of the Ducal Palace itself are not spared any more than those of the minor palaces. They are cut off at the flanks in the middle of the quatrefoils, and the terminal mouldings take up part of the breadth of the poor half of a quatrefoil at the extremity.