CONSTRUCTION XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE 197

superbly employed in the cornice of the cathedral of Monza:¹ but all are beautiful in their way, and are the means of, I think, nearly half the picturesqueness and power of mediæval building; the forms b and c being, of course, the most frequent: a, when it occurs, being usually rounded off, as at a, Fig. 40; d, also, as in Fig. 38, or else itself composed of a single stone cut into the form of the group b in Fig. 40, or plain, as at c, which is also the proper form of the brick bracket, when stone is not to be had. The reader will at once perceive that the form d is a barbarism (unless when the scale is small and the weight to be carried exceedingly light): it is of course, therefore, a favourite form with the Renaissance architects; and its introduction is one of the first corruptions of the Venetian architecture.

§ 14. There is one point necessary to be noticed, though bearing on decoration more than construction, before we leave the subject of the bracket. The whole power of the construction depends upon the stones being well let into the wall; and the first function of the decoration should be to give the idea of this insertion, if possible; at all events, not to contradict this idea. If the reader will glance at any of the brackets used in the ordinary architecture of London, he will find them of some such character as Fig. 41; not a bad form in itself, but exquisitely absurd in its curling lines, which give the idea of some writhing suspended tendril instead of a stiff support, and by their careful avoidance of the wall make the bracket look pinned on, and in constant danger of sliding down. This is, also, a Classical and Renaissance decoration.

§ 15. (2.) The Parapet. Its forms are fixed in military architecture by the necessities of the art of war at the time of building, and are always beautiful wherever they have been really thus fixed; delightful in the variety of their

¹ [For this cathedral, see above, p. 123 n.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]