280 10. FINAL APPENDIX IV. ARCHIVOLTS

There is little to be noted respecting these forms, except that, in fig. 1, the two lower rolls, with the angular projections between, represent the fall of the mouldings of two proximate arches on the abacus of the bearing shaft; their two cornices meeting each other, and being gradually narrowed into the little angular intermediate piece, their sculptures being slurred into the contracted space, a curious proof of the earliness of the work. The real archivolt moulding is the same as fig. 4 c c, including only the midmost of the three rolls in fig. 1.

It will be noticed that 2, 5, 6, and 8 are sculptured on the soffits as well as the faces; 9 is the common profile of arches decorated only with coloured marble, the facestone being coloured, the soffit white. The effect of such a moulding is seen in the small windows at the right hand of Fig. 26, p. 293, Vol. II.

The reader will now see that there is but little difficulty in identifying Byzantine work, the archivolt mouldings being so similar among themselves, and so unlike any others. We have next to examine the Gothic forms.

Figs. 13 and 14 in Plate 8 represent the first brick mouldings of the transitional period, occurring in such instances as Fig. 23 or Fig. 33, Vol. II. (the soffit stone of the Byzantine mouldings being taken away), and this profile, translated into solid stone, forms the almost universal moulding of the windows of the second order. These two brick mouldings are repeated, for the sake of comparison, at the top of Plate 9 opposite; and the upper range of mouldings which they commence, in that plate, are the brick mouldings of Venice in the early Gothic period. All the forms below are in stone; and the moulding 2, translated into stone, forms the universal archivolt of the early pointed arches of Venice, and windows of second and third orders. The moulding 1 is much rarer, and used for the most part in doors only.

The reader will see at once the resemblance of character in the various flat brick mouldings, 3 to 11. They belong to such arches as 1 and 2 in Plate 17, Vol. II.; or 6 b, 6 c, in Plate 14, Vol. II., 7 and 8 being actually the mouldings of those two doors; the whole group being perfectly defined, and separate from all the other Gothic work in Venice, and clearly the result of an effort to imitate, in brickwork, the effect of the flat sculptured archivolts of the Byzantine times. (See Vol. II. Chap. VII. § 37.)

Then comes the group 14 to 18 in stone, derived from the mouldings 1 and 2; first by truncation, 14; then by beading the truncated angle, 15, 16. The occurrence of the profile 16 in the three beautiful windows represented in the uppermost figure of Plate 18, Vol. II., renders that group of peculiar interest, and is strong evidence of its antiquity. Then a cavetto is added, 17; first shallow and then deeper, 18, which is the common archivolt moulding of the central Gothic door and window; but, in the windows of the early fourth order, this moulding is complicated by various additions of dog-tooth mouldings under the dentil, as in 20; or the gabled dentil (see fig. 20, Plate 9, opposite p. 319, Vol. I.), as fig. 21; or both, as figs. 23, 24. All these varieties expire in the advanced period, and the established moulding for windows is 29. The intermediate group, 25 to 28, I found only in the high windows of the third order in the Ducal Palace, or in the Chapter-house of the Frari, or in the arcades of the Ducal Palace; the great outside lower arcade of the Ducal Palace has the profile 31, the left-hand side being the innermost.

Now, observe, all these archivolts, without exception, assume that the

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