IV. ST. MARK’S 117

and of Byzantine architecture may be allowed to rest on this fragment of St. Mark’s alone.

From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is no direct imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary a studious subjection to architectural purpose more particularly to be noticed hereafter, we may yet receive the same kind of pleasure which we have in seeing true vine-leaves and wreathed branches traced upon golden light; its stars upon their azure ground ought to make us remember, as its builder remembered, the stars that ascend and fall in the great arch of the sky; and I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright colours are everlastingly lovely, and to be by all men beloved; and, moreover, that church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not better nor nobler things than these. I believe the man who designed and the man who delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the reader look back to the archivolt I have already given out of the streets of London (Plate 13, Vol. I.¹), and see what there is in it to make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men who design such work as that call St. Mark’s a barbaric monstrosity, and let him judge between us.

§ 50. Some farther details of the St. Mark’s architecture, and especially a general account of Byzantine capitals, and of the principal ones at the angles of the church, will be found in the following chapter.* Here I must pass on to the second part of our immediate subject, namely, the inquiry how far the exquisite and varied ornament of St. Mark’s fits it, as a Temple, for its sacred purpose, and would be applicable in the churches of modern times. We have here evidently two questions: the first, that wide and continually agitated one, whether richness of ornament

* Some illustration, also, of what was said in § 33 above, respecting the value of the shafts of St. Mark’s as large jewels, will be found in Appendix 9, “Shafts of St. Mark’s” [p. 448.]

¹ [In this edition, Vol. IX., opposite p. 348. In the “Travellers’ Edition” the reference is omitted and an explanatory note added “Rusticated, from a London club-house.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]