Venetian [double] dentil

The final ‘e’ on dentil in the Ruskin Library Transcript T7A at Notebook M p.20 is an error, the result of a misreading of the dash used as punctuation.

In the Classical Ionic and Corinthian Orders dentils are the tooth-like moulding on the lower parts of the cornice, said to represent the ends of wooden beams:

The term Venetian dentil is derived from Willis (1835), and Willis there also mentions dogtooth as characteristic of Early English style. ‘Dogtooth’ and ‘dentil’ are obviously linked etymologically. Ruskin explores an evolutionary link between them in Plate 9 Facing Works, 9.318. That plate is made up from a collection of images of dentils and Gothic dogtooth moulding which gives a clear and precise statement of Ruskin’s views of the relationship between the Gothic dogtooth (in his sense of the word) and the dentil. At the top left he gives the notional starting point of the process in the notches used as ornaments of Venetian boats but ‘representing a general human instinct to hack at an edge’. At the bottom left he gives the form which, he says, provides the link between the examples of dogtooth in the upper part of the Plate with the examples of dentils in the lower part. His purpose is to examine the origins of Gothic in the collision (to use a different metaphor) of Classical, Byzantine, Lombard and Arab features in Northern Italy. That seemed a reasonable explanation for the early development of Gothic before the work of Abbot Suger in Paris, believed by Ruskin to be 13th Century, was dated to 1144.

The captions of Plate 9 are:

• 1 Notches decorating boat timber in Venice.
• 2 Tomb of Doge Andrea Dandolo in St. Mark’s.
• 3, 4, 5 Examples of plain dogtooth in the Gothic of Venice and Verona.
• 7 Arch with dogtooth on tomb of Can Signorio in Verona.
• 8, 9 dogtooth decoration of Venetian cornices used as gutters.
• 10 Refectory of Wenlock Abbey (compare Notebook M2 pp.188L and 188).
• 11 Church of Frari, Venice, cast in brick.
• 12 ‘a frequent Venetian moulding and of great value’.
• 13 ‘Common dentiled cornice used repeatedly in St. Mark’s’.
• 14 Vienne cathedral.
• 15 ‘Byzantine ruin in the rio di Ca’ Foscari’ - compare Notebook M p.177 and Works, 11.335.
• 16 the upper section is from the tomb of Can Mastino in Verona, the lower ‘a thirteenth century door in Venice’.
• 17 described as an early example from St. Mark’s.
• 18 described as an early example from the apse at Murano Duomo.
• 19 described as frequent in cast brick and connecting the dogtooth with the dentil.
• 20 gabled dentil of ‘rare occurrence until the latter half of the 13th Century’.
• 21 Example of gabled dentil from tomb of Pietro Cornaro

Plate XIV facing Works, 9.352 shows both dogtooth and classical dentil decoration in a spandril of the Ducal Palace - in this way too it was for Ruskin the architectural centre of the world. Cicognara & Diedo (1838-40) vol. 1, p.61, which Ruskin had read, though in general he has little respect for Cicognara’s views, refers to it as ‘miscuglio di tutti gli stili e del gusto egizio, greco, romano, e arabo’.

Notebook M2 p.1 has what appears to be an idea for a chapter dealing with these issues.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]