ADDENDA TO LECTURES I. AND II 91

The reader may imagine this to be an indisputable position; but, practically, it is one of the last which modern architects are likely to admit; for it involves much more than appears at first sight. To render ornamentation, with all its qualities, clearly and entirely visible in its appointed place on the building, requires a knowledge of effect and a power of design which few even of the best artists possess, and which modern architects, so far from possessing, do not so much as comprehend the existence of. But, without dwelling on this highest manner of rendering ornament “visible,” I desire only at present to convince the reader thoroughly of the main fact asserted in the text,¹ that while modern builders decorate the tops of buildings, mediæval builders decorated the bottom. So singular is the ignorance yet prevailing of the first principles of Gothic architecture, that I saw this assertion marked with notes of interrogation in several of the reports of these Lectures; although, at Edinburgh, it was only necessary for those who doubted it to have walked to Holywood Chapel,² in order to convince themselves of the truth of it, so far as their own city was concerned; and although, most assuredly, the cathedrals of Europe have now been drawn often enough to establish the very simple fact that their best sculpture is in their porches, not in their steeples. However, as this great Gothic principle seems yet unacknowledged, let me state it here, once for all, namely, that the whole building is decorated, in all pure and fine examples, with the most exactly studied respect to the powers of the eye; the richest and most delicate sculpture being put on the walls of the porches, or on the facade of the building, just high enough above the ground to secure it from accidental (not from wanton*) injury. The decoration, as it rises,

* Nothing is more notable in good Gothic than the confidence of its builders in the respect of the people for their work. A great school of

¹ [See above, § 34, p. 57.]

² [The existing chapel, on the north side of the Palace, consists of the nave of the Abbey Church. The doorway of the west front contains finely sculptured decoration.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]