DECORATION XXVII. CORNICE AND CAPITAL 387

of Solomon, which Hiram made, with “nets of checker work, and wreaths of chain work for the chapiters that were on the top of the pillars ... and the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars were of lily work in the porch.” (1 Kings vii. 17, 19.)

§ 48. On this exquisite capital there is imposed an abacus of the profile with which we began our investigation long ago, the profile a, of Fig. 5 [p. 93]. This abacus is formed by the cornice already given, a, of Plate 16; and therefore we have, in this lovely Venetian capital, the summary of the results of our investigation, from its beginning to its close: the type of the first cornice; the decoration of it, in its emergence from the classical models; the gathering into the capital; the superimposition of the secondary cornice, and the refinement of the bell of the capital by triple curvature in the two limits of chiselling. I cannot express the exquisite refinements of the curves on the small scale of Plate 15; I will give them more accurately in a larger engraving;¹ but the scale on which they are here given will not prevent the reader from perceiving, and let him note it thoughtfully, that the outer curve of the noble capital is the one which was our first example of associated curves; that I have had no need, throughout the whole of our inquiry, to refer to any other ornamental line than the three which I at first chose, the simplest of those which Nature set by chance before me; and that this lily, of the delicate Venetian marble, has but been wrought, by the highest human art, into the same line which the clouds disclose, when they break from the rough rocks of the flank of the Matterhorn.

¹ [Details of the Lily Capitals of St. Mark’s were given on their actual scale in Plate 7 of the Examples of Venetian Architecture, included on a reduced scale in this edition in Stones of Venice, vol iii. The whole capital on its shaft is given in Plate 9 of vol. ii., where it is further described (ch. v. § 24).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]