140 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

of all the most beautiful capitals in the world, whose function is to express lightness.

§ 9. We have hitherto proceeded entirely on the assumption that the form of cornice which was gathered together to produce the capital was the root of cornices, a of Fig. 5. But this, it will be remembered, was said in § 6 of Chap. VI. to be especially characteristic of Southern work, and that in Northern and wet climates it took the form of a dripstone.¹

Accordingly, in the Northern climates, the dripstone gathered together forms a peculiar Northern capital, commonly

called the Early English,* owing to its especial use in that style.

There would have been no absurdity in this, if shafts were always to be exposed to the weather; but in Gothic constructions the most important shafts are in the inside of the building. The dripstone sections of their capitals are therefore unnecessary and ridiculous.

§ 10. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary.

The edge of a dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, and the capital fails, therefore, in its own principal function; and besides this, the undercut contour admits of no distinctly visible decoration; it is, therefore, left utterly barren, and the capital looks as if it had been turned in a lathe. The Early English capital has, therefore, the three

* Appendix 18: “Early English Capitals” [p. 457].

¹ [So in all the editions; grammatical correctitude requires the insertion between “and” and “that” of some such words as “it was added.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]