I. EARLY RENAISSANCE 5

Central or Roman Renaissance, which is the perfectly formed style; and Grotesque Renaissance, which is the corruption of the Renaissance itself.

§ 4. Now, in order to do full justice to the adverse cause, we will consider the abstract nature of the school with reference only to its best or Central examples. The forms of building which must be classed generally under the term Early Renaissance are, in many cases, only the extravagances and corruptions of the languid Gothic, for whose errors the classical principle is in nowise answerable. It was stated in the second chapter of the Seven Lamps,¹ that, unless luxury had enervated and subtlety falsified the Gothic forms, Roman traditions could not have prevailed against them; and, although these enervated and false conditions are almost instantly coloured by the classical influence, it would be utterly unfair to lay to the charge of that influence the first debasement of the earlier schools, which had lost the strength of their system before they could be struck by the plague.

§ 5. The manner, however, of the debasement of all schools of art, so far as it is natural, is in all ages the same; luxuriance of ornament, refinement of execution, and idle subtleties of fancy, taking the place of true thought and firm handling: and I do not intend to delay the reader long by the Gothic sick-bed, for our task is not so much to watch the wasting of fever in the features of the expiring king, as to trace the character of that Hazael who dipped the cloth in water, and laid it upon his face.² Nevertheless, it is necessary to the completeness of our view of the architecture of Venice, as well as to our understanding of the manner in which the Central Renaissance obtained its universal dominion, that we glance briefly at the principal forms into which Venetian Gothic first declined. They are two in number: one the corruption of the Gothic itself; the other a partial return to Byzantine forms: for the Venetian mind having carried the Gothic to a point at which

¹ [See Vol. VIII. p. 98, and author’s note there.]

² [2 Kings viii. 15.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]