[M.152L]                                                              [M.152]	St Marks.  Atrium door.	152
                                                                      
                                                                      		Get, for spirit of 12th century and architectural papers, the
                                                                      		Foreign quarterly for January & April 1831.
                                                                      Capitals & Friezes.  I saw in St Marks today, the entire derivation of
                                                                      		the Byzantine from the Corinthian capital:  From the Byzantine
                                                                      		comes the leaf frieze: directly;  the cornices of Murano - St Marks
                                                                      		and Dandolo’s house are nothing but the leaves of a Byzantine
                                                                      		 imitation Corinthian unrolled and laid along.  Now to show
                                                                      		this properly I must draw one of the St Marks capitals in its
                                                                      		foliage part; thoroughly, (with the steps)  Then, the capitals
                                                                      		gradually become Lombardic, and the plinths take the rose,
                                                                      		 and become luxuriant: and when they have become rich, they
                                                                      		are again twined round the capital and form the luxuriant
                                                                      		Venetian, as the other formed the Corinthian:  Thus in Venice
                                                                      		nothing can be more simple than the derivation of their Gothic
                                                                      		- whatever it may be in the north.  The roll moulding in the door
                                                                      Door in St Marks described on last page, No 116, is valuable as giving one
                                                                      Leaf		the cases in which the Byzantine forked leaf is becoming the
                                                                      Mouldings	mediaeval pointed lobed leaf:  the change in the style is of
                                                                      		the period when the failure in its masonry took place.  The
                                                                      		two original joints are seen in No 116 the three figures and the
                                                                      		leaf work on both sides being all in three huge blocks,
                                                                      		with sharp diagonal joints It would evidently be impossible
                                                                      		to build the arch more strongly, if the stone could not be fractured.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]