PLATE 12

DOOR-HEADS

1. In Ramo Dirimpetto Mocenigo

I HAVE numbered this door-head 1, because it is the simplest type of a perfect construction, which I found in Venice-having the lintel arch-and superimposed gabled dripstone. It is the only remnant of the house to which it once belonged, and is now built up, and merely forms the termination of a small passage near the Fondaco de’ Turchi.¹

It affords us, in the first place, an example of the simple shield-pendent by its rude thong (as a mere heraldic device, how far more manly than our beast-borne escutcheons),-and the piece of sculpture, with the two small rosettes above the gable, is the easily recognisable fragment of a Greek Cross (of which I shall give many other examples),² which has been cut away to insert a shield of the Renaissance period.

Every little fact of this kind becomes of importance when it is regarded in its proper connection with others; and all such facts may be rendered meaningless by a sufficient degree of what is called “general information” in the examiner. Thus, in some review of the first volume of this work (I forget which, and it is not worth research) the writer tried to destroy the meaning of one of the most important facts stated in the opening chapter,-namely, the transportation for forgery of the sculptor of the Vendramin tomb,-by quoting the execution of Calendario in the loggia

¹ [For another reference to the door-head, see above, Appendix 10, p. 269. The plate is here reduced from 17˝ x 11 to 7˝ x 4⁵/8.]

² [In Stones of Venice, vol. ii.; see Vol. X. p. 166, and Plate 11.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]