274 10. FINAL APPENDIX III. CAPITALS

two are seen on service, in Plate 8, Vol. I., showing comparatively early date by the experimental form of the six-foiled rose. But for elaborate edifices this form was not sufficiently rich; and there was felt to be something awkward in the junction of the leaves at the bottom. Therefore, four other shorter leaves were added at the sides, as in fig. 13, Plate 2, and as generally represented in Plate 10, Vol. II., fig. 1. This was a good and noble step, taken very early in the thirteenth century; and all the best Venetian capitals were thenceforth of this form. Those which followed, and rested in the common rose type, were languid and unfortunate: I do not know a single good example of them after the first half of the thirteenth century.

But the form reached in fig. 13 was quickly felt to be of great value and power. One would have thought it might have been taken straight from the Corinthian type; but it is clearly the work of men who were making experiments for themselves. For instance, in the central capital of Fig. 31, p. 298, Vol. II., there is a trial condition of it, with the intermediate leaf set behind those at the angles (the reader had better take a magnifying glass to this woodcut; it will show the character of the capitals better). Two other experimental forms occur in the Casa Cicogna (p. 309, Vol. II.), and supply one of the evidences which fix the date of that palace. But the form soon was determined as in fig. 13, and then means were sought of recommending it by farther decoration.

The leaves which are used in fig. 13, it will be observed, have lost the Corinthian volute, and are now pure and plain leaves, such as were used in the Lombardic Gothic of the early thirteenth century all over Italy. Now in a round-arched gateway at Verona, certainly not later than 1300, the pointed leaves of this pure form are used in one portion of the mouldings, and in another are enriched by having their surfaces carved each into a beautiful ribbed and pointed leaf. The capital, fig. 6, Plate 2, is nothing more than fig. 13 so enriched; and the two conditions are quite contemporary, fig. 13 being from a beautiful series of fourth-order windows in Campo Sta. Ma. Mater Domini, already drawn in my folio work.¹

Fig. 13 is representative of the richest conditions of Gothic capital which existed at the close of the thirteenth century. The builder of the Ducal Palace amplified them into the form of fig. 9, but varying the leafage in disposition and division of lobes in every capital; and the workmen trained under him executed many noble capitals for the Gothic palaces of the early fourteenth century, of which fig. 12, from a palace in the Campo St. Polo, is one of the most beautiful examples. In figs. 9 and 12 the reader sees the Venetian Gothic capital in its noblest development. The next step was to such forms as fig. 15, which is generally characteristic of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century Gothic, and of which I hope the reader will at once perceive the exaggeration and corruption.

This capital is from a palace near the Miracoli, and is remarkable for the delicate, though corrupt, ornament on its abacus, which is precisely the same as that on the pillars of the screen of St. Mark’s. That screen is a monument of very great value, for it shows the entire corruption of the Gothic power, and the style of the later palaces accurately and completely defined in all its parts, and is dated 1380; thus at once furnishing us with a limiting date, which

¹ [See below, Plate 2 in the Examples, p. 320.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]