206 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

actually, while the general effect is of a symmetrical arcade, there is not one of the arches the same in height as another; their tops undulate all along the wall like waves along a harbour quay, some nearly touching the string course above, and others falling from it as much as five or six inches.

§ 14. Let us next examine the plan of the west front of St. Mark’s at Venice, which, though in many respects imperfect, is in its proportions, and as a piece of rich and fantastic colour, as lovely a dream as ever filled human imagination.¹ It may, perhaps, however, interest the reader to hear one opposite opinion upon this subject; and after what has been urged in the preceding pages respecting proportion in general, more especially respecting the wrongness of balanced cathedral towers and other regular designs, together with my frequent references to the Doge’s palace, and campanile of St. Mark’s,² as models of perfection, and my praise of the former especially as projecting above its second arcade, the following extracts from the journal of Woods³ the architect, written on his arrival at Venice, may have a pleasing freshness in them, and may show that I have not been stating principles altogether trite or accepted.

“The strange looking church, and the great ugly campanile, could not be mistaken. * * * The exterior of this church surprises you by its extreme ugliness, more than by any thing else.”

“The Ducal Palace is even more ugly than any thing I have previously mentioned. Considered in detail, I can imagine no alteration to make it tolerable; but if this lofty wall had been set back behind the two storeys of little arches, it would have been a very noble production.”

¹ [Ruskin returned to this subject of the proportions of the façade of St. Mark’s in Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. v. §§ 11, 12.]

² [See above, pp. 111, 167.]

³ [The name is misprinted “Wood” in all previous editions. The references are to Joseph Woods (1776-1864), architect and botanist, whose Letters of an Architect from France, Italy, and Greece appeared in two volumes in 1828. The passages cited in § 14 will be found (1) in vol. i. pp. 255, 256 (asterisks have in this edition been inserted where Ruskin omitted words); (2) i. 261; (3) i. 262: (4) i. 280; (5) i. 427 (asterisks here inserted). Woods’ opinion of St. Mark’s is referred to again in Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. iv. § 28.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]