DECORATION XXVII. CORNICE AND CAPITAL 379

the exact reverse of that of the other: the angle truncations are, in both, curved horizontally as well as uprightly; but their curve is convex in the one, and in the other concave. Plate 17 will show the effect of both, with the farther incisions, to the same depth, on the flank of the one with the concave truncation, which join with the rest of its singularly bold and keen execution in giving the impression of its rather having been cloven into its form by the sweeps of a sword, than by the dull travail of a chisel. Its workman was proud of it, as well he might be: he has written his name upon its front (I would that more of his fellows had been as kindly vain), and the goodly stone proclaims for ever, ADAMINUS DE SANCTO GIORGIO ME FECIT.

§ 34. The reader will easily understand that the gracefulness of this kind of truncation, as he sees it in Plate 17, soon suggested the idea of reducing it to vegetable outline, and laying four healing leaves, as it were, upon the wounds which the sword had made. These four leaves, on the truncations of the capital, correspond to the four leaves which we saw, in like manner, extend themselves over the spurs of the base, and, as they increase in delicacy of execution, form one of the most lovely groups of capitals which the Gothic workmen ever invented; represented by two perfect types in the capitals of the Piazzetta columns of Venice.¹ But this pure group is an isolated one; it remains in the first simplicity of its conception far into the thirteenth century, while around it rise up a crowd of other forms imitative of the old Corinthian, and in which other and younger leaves spring up in luxuriant growth among the primal four. The varieties of their grouping we shall enumerate hereafter: one general characteristic of them all must be noted here.

§ 35. The reader has been told repeatedly* that there are two, and only two, real orders of capitals, originally represented by the Corinthian and the Doric; and distinguished

* Chap. I. § 19, Appendix 7: and Chap. VI. § 5.²

¹ [For a discussion of these capitals, see St. Mark’s Rest, ch. ii. §§ 17-23.]

² [See also §§ 3 and 40 of this chapter; and vol. ii. ch. v. § 14.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]