DECORATION XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET 325

the least diminishing its quietness. Nothing was ever, nor could be ever invented, fitted for its purpose, or more easily cut. From the arch it therefore found its way into every position where the edge of a piece of stone projected, and became, from its constancy of occurrence in the latest Gothic as well as the earliest Byzantine, most truly deserving of the name of the “Venetian Dentil.” Its complete intention is now, however, only to be seen in the pictures of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio; for, like most of the rest of the mouldings of Venetian buildings, it was always either gilded or painted-often both, gold being laid on the faces of the dentils, and their recesses coloured alternately red and blue.

§ 14. Observe, however, that the reason above given for the universality of this ornament was by no means the reason of its invention. The Venetian dentil is a particular application (consequent on the incrusted character of Venetian architecture) of the general idea of dentil, which had been originally given by the Greeks, and realised both by them and by the Byzantines in many laborious forms, long before there was need of them for arch armour; and the lower half of Plate 9 will give some idea of the conditions which occur in the Romanesque of Venice, distinctly derived from the classical dentil; and of the gradual transition to the more convenient and simple type, the running-hand dentil, which afterwards became the characteristic of Venetian Gothic. No. 13* is the common dentiled cornice, which occurs repeatedly in St. Mark’s; and, as late as the thirteenth century, a reduplication of it forming the abaci of the capitals of the

* The sections of all the mouldings are given on the right of each; the part which is constantly solid being shaded, and that which is cut into dentils left in open line.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]