22 THE STONES OF VENICE

except so far as he can make the Most High his habitation),¹ that I would rather fix the mind of the reader on this general character than on the separate details, however interesting, of the architecture itself. I shall therefore examine these only so far as is necessary to give a clear idea of the means by which the peculiar expression of the building is attained.

§ 5. On the opposite page, the uppermost figure, 1, is a rude plan of the church. I do not answer for the thickness and external disposition of the walls, which are not to our present purpose, and which I have not carefully examined; but the interior arrangement is given with sufficient accuracy. The church is built on the usual plan of the Basilica,* that is to say, its body divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of massive shafts, the roof of the nave being raised high above the aisles by walls sustained on two ranks of pillars, and pierced with small arched windows. At Torcello the aisles are also lighted in the same manner, and the nave is nearly twice their breadth.† The capitals of all the great shafts are of white marble, and are among the best I have ever seen, as examples of perfectly calculated effect from every touch of the chisel. Mr. Hope calls them “indifferently imitated from the Corinthian:”‡ but the expression is as inaccurate as it is unjust; every one of them is different in design, and their variations are as graceful as they are fanciful. I could not, except by an elaborate drawing,² give any idea of the sharp, dark, deep penetrations of the chisel into their snowy marble,

* For a full account of the form and symbolical meaning of the Basilica, see Lord Lindsay’s Christian Art, vol. i. p. 12. It is much to be regretted that the Chevalier Bunsen’s work on the Basilicas of Rome is not translated into English.³

† The measures are given in Appendix 3 [p. 444].

‡ Hope’s Historical Essay on Architecture (third edition, 1840), chap. ix. p. 95. In other respects Mr. Hope has done justice to this building, and to the style of the early Christian churches in general.⁴

¹ [Psalms xci. 9.]

² [See, in the next volume, Plate 3 of the Examples, which gives one of the capitals of Torcello.]

³ [Die Basiliken des christlichen Roms nach ihren Zusammenhange mit Idee und Geschichte der Kirchenbaukunst, dargestellt von C. C. J. Bunsen, Munich, 1843. A French translation was published in 1872.]

⁴ [For another reference to this book, see Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. p. 63.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]