V. BYZANTINE PALACES 167

do not think with any purpose of indicating the darkness at the time of the agony; especially because, had this been the intention, the moon ought not to have been visible, since it could not have been in the heavens during the day at the time of the passover. I believe rather that the two luminaries are set there in order to express the entire dependence of the heavens and the earth upon the work of the Redemption: and this view is confirmed by our frequently finding the sun and moon set in the same manner beside the figure of Christ, as in the centre of the great archivolt of St. Mark’s, or beside the hand signifying benediction, without any cross, in some other early archivolts;* while, again, not unfrequently they are absent from the symbol of the cross itself, and its saving power over the whole of creation is indicated only by fresh leaves springing from its foot, or doves feeding beside it; and so also, in illuminated Bibles, we find the series of pictures representing the Creation terminate in the Crucifixion, as the work by which all the families of created beings subsist, no less than that in sympathy with which “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”¹

§ 27. This habit of placing the symbol of the Christian faith in the centres of their palaces was, as I above said, universal in early Venice; it does not cease till about the middle of the fourteenth century. The other sculptures, which were set above or between the arches, consist almost invariably of groups of birds or beasts; either standing opposite to each other with a small pillar or spray of leafage between them, or else tearing and devouring each other. The multitude of these sculptures, especially of the small ones enclosed in circles, as figs. 5 and 6, Plate 11, which are now scattered through the city of Venice, is enormous, but they are seldom to be seen in their original positions. When the Byzantine palaces were destroyed, these fragments were generally preserved, and

* Two of these are represented in the second number of my folio work upon Venice [Examples of the Architecture of Venice, Plates 8 and 11.]

¹ [Romans viii. 22.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]