90 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

and absurdity, and that convenience and stability are to be attained at the smallest cost. But when that convenience has been attained, the adding the noble characters of life by painting and sculpture, is a work in which all possible cost may be wisely admitted. There is great difficulty in fully explaining the various bearings of this proposition, so as to do away with the chances of its being erroneously understood and applied. For although, in the first designing of the building, nothing is to be admitted but what is wanted, and no useless wings are to be added to balance useful ones, yet in its ultimate designing, when its sculpture and colour become precious, it may be that actual room is wanted to display them, or richer symmetry wanted to deserve them; and in such cases even a useless wall may be built to bear the sculpture, as at San Michele of Lucca, or a useless portico¹ added to complete the cadences, as at St. Mark’s of Venice, or useless height admitted in order to increase the impressiveness, as in nearly every noble building in the world. But the right to do this is dependent upon the actual purpose of the building becoming no longer one of utility merely; as the purpose of a cathedral is not so much to shelter the congregation as to awe them. In such cases even some sacrifice of convenience may occasionally be admitted, as in the case of certain forms of pillared churches. But for the most part, the great law is, convenience first, and then the noblest decoration possible; and this is peculiarly the case in domestic buildings, and such public ones as are constantly to be used for practical purposes.

67. Proposition 3rd.-Ornamentation should be visible.²

[The sense of this passage has been obscured by the misprint in all previous eds. of “portion” for “portico.” The reference is to the two porticoes at the north and south end of the west façade of St. Mark’s, “which are of no use whatever except to consummate the proportions” (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. (Vol. X. p. 152). For San Michele at Lucca, see Plate 1 in Vol. III., and Plate 21 in Vol. IX.]

² [This proposition is stated and enforced in Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. pp. 4-8, and Stones of Venice, Vol. IX. pp. 292 seq.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]