I. EARLY RENAISSANCE 21

Venice are, the small Church of the Miracoli, and the Scuola di San Marco beside the Church of St. John and St. Paul.¹ The noblest is the Rio Façade of the Ducal Palace. The Casa Dario, and Casa Manzoni, on the Grand Canal, are exquisite examples of the school,* as applied to domestic architecture; and, in the reach of the Canal between the Casa Foscari and the Rialto, there are several palaces, of which the Casa Contarini (called “delle Figure”) is the principal, belonging to the same group, though somewhat later, and remarkable for the association of the Byzantine principles of colour with the severest lines of the Roman pediment, gradually superseding the round arch. The precision of chiselling and delicacy of proportion in the ornament and general lines of these palaces cannot be too highly praised; and I believe that the traveller in Venice, in general, gives them rather too little attention than too much. But while I would ask him to stay his gondola beside each of them long enough to examine their every line, I must also warn him to observe most carefully the peculiar feebleness and want of soul in the conception of their ornament, which mark them as belonging to a period of decline; as well as the absurd mode of introduction of their pieces of coloured marble: these, instead of being simply and naturally inserted in the masonry, are placed in small circular or oblong frames of sculpture, like mirrors or pictures, and are represented as suspended by ribands against the wall; a pair of wings being generally fastened on to the circular tablets, as if to relieve the ribands and knots from their weight, and

* No: these are not so good. Strangely I have omitted mention here of the palace I knew best of all.² See § 38. The entire school is limited to a period of forty years-1480-1520. [1881.]

¹ [The Scuola di San Marco is the subject of the frontispiece to this volume. For a description of the Church of the Miracoli, see below, Venetian Index, p. 393. For the Rio Façade of the Ducal Palace, see below, § 38; for the Casa Dario, Vol. IX. p. 33, and below, p. 255; its marble disks are illustrated in Plate 1 of Vol. IX.; for the Casa Manzoni, see below, Venetian Index, p. 391.]

² [Namely the Casa Trevisan, for which see Vol. IX. p. 425 and Plate 20, which illustrates its marble decorations; and below, p. 256.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]