PLATE 15

THE DUCAL PALACE

Renaissance Capitals of the Loggia

THE Capitals seen in this Plate will give a general idea of the workmanship of the fifteenth century Gothic of the Ducal Palace:¹ the Capital given in Plate 1 shows that of the previous century. The reader may perhaps at first like those in Plate 15 the best; let him give them both time; remembering that the entire design and proportion of the loggia in Plate 15, is of the earlier period, but executed in continuation of the older part of the palace, with, as it was thought, improved Capitals, after the year 1424.

The two nearest shafts are of red marble, as well as the portion of balustrade between them. They are the ninth and tenth from the judgment angle (I shall usually thus call the angle of the palace on which is the sculpture of the Judgment of Solomon); and the red marble was substituted for the Istrian stone in order to commemorate the showing of the head of Faliero to the people from between those shafts.² When the substitution took place I know not, but the capitals are unquestionably of the date I have assigned to them.³

¹ [See further on this subject, Vol. IX. p. 292 n.; and above, Appendix 1, p. 248.]

² [See above, p. 248.]

³ [The plate is here reduced from 19½ x 12½ to 7½ x 4⁷/8.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]