168 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

is so because it is divided into vertical equal parts:*-the tower of Pisa.¹

§ 29. One more principle of Proportion I have to name, equally simple, equally neglected. Proportion is between three terms at least. Hence, as the pinnacles are not enough without the spire, so neither the spire without the pinnacles. All men feel this, and usually express their feeling by saying that the pinnacles conceal the junction of the spire and tower. This is one reason; but a more influential one is, that the pinnacles furnish the third term to the spire and tower. So that it is not enough, in order to secure proportion, to divide a building unequally; it must be divided into at least three parts; it may be into more (and in details with advantage), but on a large scale I find three is about the best number of parts in elevation, and five in horizontal extent, with freedom of increase to five in the one case and seven in the other; but not to more without confusion (in architecture, that is to say; for in organic structure the numbers cannot be limited). I purpose, in the course of works which are in preparation,² to give copious illustrations of this subject, but I will take at present only one instance of vertical proportion, from the flower stem of the common water plantain, Alisma Plantago. Fig. 5, Plate XII., is a reduced profile of one side of a plant gathered at random; it is seen to have five masts, of which, however, the uppermost is a mere shoot, and we can consider only their relations up to the fourth. Their lengths are

* Not absolutely so. There are variations partly accidental (or at least compelled by the architect’s effort to recover the vertical) between the sides of the stones; and the upper and lower storey are taller than the rest. There is however an apparent equality in five out of the eight tiers.3

¹ [Cf. Vol. I. p. 432.]

² [The MS. says: “in the parts of Modern Painters which are in preparation.” See Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xiv., where Alisma Plantago is again instanced (§ 23) and illustrated (Fig. 3, Plate 8). Ruskin’s diary of 1847 (under date, Leamington, Aug. 9), shows him studying this water plant, with careful measurements and drawings. He refers to his “special acquaintance” with it in his letter to the Times of May 13, 1851, on the Pre-Raphaelites (Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. i. p. 88).]

³ [Note 12, at the end of the book, in eds. 1 and 2. Omitted in later editions.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]