PLATE 2

ARABIAN WINDOWS

In Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini

THIS group of windows is the only remnant of a small palace, modernized in all its other parts: but it is one of the richest fragments in the city: and a beautiful example of the fantastic arches which I believe to have been borrowed from the Arabs. I defer my special account of it,¹ noting at present only what might otherwise have been supposed errors in the drawing, that two of the circular ornaments at the points of the arches are larger than the rest; that the lateral windows are broader than the three intermediate ones; and that, of the lateral windows themselves, the one on the right is broader than that on the left.

In nearly every group of windows in Venice, belonging to this transitional or Arabic period, the same thing takes place,-one of the lateral openings is larger than all the rest; and I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for such an arrangement, as these groups of windows appear to have always lighted one room only.

The tesselated and fragmentary incrustations are of marble, the capitals and shafts (I think) of Istrian stone, the walls of brick, whether formerly incrusted or not cannot now be discovered; the piece of balcony, seen at the top of the plate, is of course modern.

¹ [This plate was published in Part I. of the Examples in May 1851, i.e. shortly after the appearance of Stones of Venice, vol. i., and Ruskin no doubt intended to give a “special account” of this small palace in a later volume of the main work. This, however, was not done, though there is a brief reference to these windows-which are of his “Fourth Order” (see Vol. X. p. 300, and Plate 16)-in the Venetian Index: see below, p. 392. The plate is here reduced from 18 x 12¹/4 to 6³/8 x 4³/8.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]