158 THE STONES OF VENICE

it is a later restoration or a form absolutely unique in the Byzantine period.

§ 17. The concave group, however, was not naturally pleasing to the Byzantine mind. Its own favourite capital was of the bold convex or cushion shape, so conspicuous in all the buildings of the period, that I have devoted Plate 7, opposite, entirely to its illustration. The form in which it is first used is practically obtained from a square block laid on the head of the shaft (fig. 1, Plate 7), by first cutting off the lower corners, as in fig. 2, and then rounding the edges, as in fig. 3; this gives us the bell stone; on this is laid a simple abacus, as seen in fig. 4, which is the actual form used in the upper arcade of Murano, and the framework of the capital is complete. Fig. 5 shows the general manner and effect of its decoration on the same scale; the other figures, 6 and 7 both from the apse of Murano,¹ 8 from the Terraced House, and 9 from the Baptistery of St. Mark’s, show the method of chiselling the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such as occur everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of the more elaborate examples.

§ 18. In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained for these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1 a, Plate 10,² is the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it separates from the shaft. Fig. 4 a, on the other hand, is the profile of the pure convex group, which not only needs no such projecting fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2 a is the profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco

¹ [They are two sides of the same capital; see Stones of Venice, vol. iii., Appendix 10 (“Capitals”), where some further particulars are given with regard to the capitals on Plate 7.]

² [See Stones of Venice, vol. iii., Appendix 10 (“capitals”), for further particulars with regard to Plate 10. The Plate, No. 12 in that volume, giving capitals from the Fondaco de’ Turchi, was intended to illustrate this chapter.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]