[M2.151L]                                                             [M2.151]								151
                                                                      		L’Orange, Roman Arch, Avignon, St Pierre
I ought also to have noted respecting this arch that there            
is down the inner - or jamb side of its pilasters at the              		But I was most interested by the architrave of the central
side of the arch, a superb writhing roll of flowing leafage           		arch.  It was a piece of naturalism of the finest
almost exactly resembling as far as its mouldering outline            		kind;  might belong to any period of Gothic - consisting
can be traced that of the North door of the west                      Vegetation	of successive portions of ornament composed of apples
front of Rouen - that the {old} capitals of the main shafts           		and apple leaves;  vine fruit and vine leaf, fir cones
are a Corinthian very sharp and Byzantine in the leaf                 		and their long spiry bushes of foliage; all admirably cut;
cutting and in the restoration all the cutting of the leaf            		and just the same as the fircones used so dexterously on
internally being missed out, they look like early                     		the bronze of Cardinal Zeno’s chapel:  and now clumsily
Lombard.                                                              		on modern buildings at Avignon.  It was so curious that
                                                                      		only yesterday, Sunday 31st March, I was looking at a
                                                                      		later wreath of leafage forming a not very bold roll about
                                                                      		the inner edge, of the mouldings of the door of St
                                                                      St Pierre	Pierre at Avignon:  This roll like all late work is
                                                                      		misplaced and ineffective;  but I have hardly seen in
                                                                      		Italy finer treatment of this separate portions, composed
                                                                      		of apples; medlars, spanish chesnuts, filberts, and
                                                                      		grapes and acorns, all with their leaves;  and those leaves
                                                                      		laid almost as exquisitely and truly as the groups of
                                                                      		Ghibertis:  The Spanish chesnuts - one split open; with
                                                                      		the three nuts seen inside - the filberts and their
                                                                      		leaves quite exquisite in flow;  (much to be contrasted
                                                                      		with our coarse ones on one nymph) both these
                                                                      		fruits, with acorns occurring again and again among the
                                                                      		leaf work of the florid flamboyant niches;  I was struck
                                                                      		also by the entire similarity of the florid interpenetrant
                                                                      		flamboyant of this church, with that of Rouen, the worst
                                                                      		kind

[Version 0.05: May 2008]