161							151
                                                                      
                                                                      		   L’ORANGE, ROMAN ARCH,AVIGNON,ST PIERRE.
                                                                      
                                                                      	But I was most interested by the architrave of the cen-
	I ought also to have noted respecting this arch that there           tral arch.  It was a piece of naturalism of the finest
is down the inner - or jamb side of its pilasters at the              kind;  might belong to any period of Gothic - consisting 
side of the arch, a superb writhing roll of flowing leaf-             Vegetation	of successive portions of ornament composed of apples
age almost exactly resembling as far as its mouldering out-           and apple leaves;  vine fruit and vine leaf, fir cones
line can be traced that of the North door of the west                 and their long spiry bushes of foliage; all admirably cut;
front of Rouen - that the old capitals of the main shafts             and just the same as the prisoner and so desterously on
are a Corinthian very sharp and Byzantine in the leaf                 the bronze of Cardinal Zeno’s chapel:  and now clumsily
cutting and in the restoration all the cutting of the leaf            on modern buildings at Avignon.  It was so curious that
intentionally being missed out, they look like early                  only yesterday, Sunday 31st March, I was looking at a
Lombard.                                                              later wreath of leafage forming a not very bold roll about
                                                                      the inner edge, of the mouldings of the door of St
                                                                      St Pieerre	Pierre at Abignon:  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 thos 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 con-
                                                                      trasted 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]