310 THE STONES OF VENICE

lowest of the three in Plate 17), which thenceforward became the established model for every work of importance in Venice. The palaces built on this model, however, most of them not till the beginning of the fifteenth century, belong properly to the time of the Renaissance; and what little we have to note respecting them may be more clearly stated in connexion with other facts characteristic of that period.

§ 44. As the examples in Plate 17 are necessarily confined to the upper parts of the windows, I have given in Plate 18* examples of the fifth-order window, both in its earliest and in its fully developed form, completed from base to keystone. The upper example is a beautiful group from a small house, never of any size or pretension, and now inhabited only by the poor, in the Campiello della Strope, close to the Church of San Giacomo de Lorio. It is remarkable for its excessive purity of curve, and is of very early date, its mouldings being simpler than usual.† The lower example is from the second story of a palace belonging to the Priuli family, near San Lorenzo, and shows one feature to which our attention has not hitherto been directed, namely, the penetration of the cusp, leaving only a silver thread of stone traced on the darkness of the window. I need not say that, in this condition, the cusp ceases to have any constructive use,¹ and is merely decorative, but often exceedingly beautiful. The steps of transition from the early solid cusp to this slender thread are noticed in the final Appendix, under the head “Tracery bars;” the commencement of the change

* This plate is not from a drawing of mine. They have been engraved by Mr. Armytage, with great skill, from two daguerreotypes.²

† Vide final Appendix, under head “Archivolt.”

¹ [For the use of the cusp in construction, see Vol. IX. p. 167.]

² [“Although Mr. Ruskin states that this plate was not from a drawing of his but was engraved by Mr. Armytage from two daguerreotypes, yet the drawings of the windows done by Mr. Ruskin for the engraver are in existence; the upper one being in the possession of Mr. J. P. Smart, junr., and the lower one belonging to Mr. William Ward. The presumption is that Mr. Armytage found a difficulty in engraving owing to the reflections on the daguerreotypes, and asked Mr. Ruskin for drawings from which to do the work” (note in the Bibliography of Ruskin by Wise and Smart, 1893, ii. 56). The lower drawing was reproduced by half-tone process in the Strand Magazine, December 1895.]

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