DECORATION XXVII. CORNICE AND CAPITAL 383

tell him that there were only two real orders, and that there could never be more.* For we now find, that these two great and real orders are representative of the two great influences which must for ever divide the heart of man: the one of Lawful Discipline, with its perfection and order, but its danger of degeneracy into Formalism; the other of Lawful Freedom, with its vigour and variety, but its danger of degeneracy into Licentiousness.

§ 41. I shall not attempt to give any illustrations here of the most elaborate developments of either order; they will be better given on a larger scale:¹ but the examples in Plates 17 and 18 represent the two methods of ornament in their earliest appliance. The two lower capitals in Plate 17 are a pure type of the concave school; the two in the centre of Plate 18, of the convex. At the top of Plate 18 are two Lombardic capitals; that on the left from Sta. Sofia at Padua, that on the right from the cortile of St. Ambrogio at Milan. They both have the concave angle truncation; but being of date prior to the time when the idea of the concave bell was developed, they are otherwise left square, and decorated with the surface ornament characteristic of the convex school. The relation of the designs to each other is interesting; the cross being prominent in the centre of each, but more richly relieved in that from St. Ambrogio. The two beneath are from the southern portico of St. Mark’s;² the shafts having been of different lengths, and neither, in all probability, originally intended for their present place, they have double abaci, of which the uppermost is the cornice running round the old façade. The zigzagged capital is highly curious, and in its place very effective and beautiful; although

* Chap. I. § 19 [p. 34].

¹ [A reference to intended plates in the Examples of Venetian Architecture; such capitals as are there illustrated will be found in Plates 1 (Ducal Palace, capital 20), 3 (Byzantine), 7 (“Lily capitals”), 14 (Hotel Danieli), and 15 (Renaissance capitals, Loggia, Ducal Palace).]

² [For a general illustration of the portico, see Plate 6 in Examples of Venetian Architecture.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]