208 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

to admire in Michael Angelo, will, perhaps, be willing to proceed with me to a charitable examination of St. Mark’s. For, although¹ the present course of European events² affords us some chance of seeing the changes proposed by Mr. Woods carried into execution, we may still esteem ourselves fortunate in having first known how it was left by the builders of the eleventh century.³

§ 15. The entire front is composed of an upper and lower series of arches, enclosing spaces of wall decorated with mosaic, and supported on ranges of shafts of which, in the lower series of arches, there is an upper range superimposed on a lower. Thus we have five vertical divisions of the façade; i.e. two tiers of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, below; one tier of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, above. In order, however, to bind the two main divisions together, the central lower arch (the main entrance) rises above the level of the gallery and balustrade which crown the lateral arches.

The proportioning of the columns and walls of the lower storey is so lovely and so varied, that it would need pages of description before it could be fully understood; but it may be generally stated thus: The height of the lower shafts, upper shafts, and wall, being severally expressed by a, b, and c, then a : c :: c : b (a being the highest); and diameter of shaft b is generally to the diameter of shaft a as height b is to height a, or something less, allowing for the large plinth which diminishes the apparent height of the upper shaft: and when this is their proportion of width, one shaft above is put above one below, with sometimes another upper shaft interposed: but in the extreme arches a single under shaft bears two upper, proportioned as truly as the boughs of a tree; that is to say, the diameter of each upper = ²/3 of lower. There being

¹ [The MS. is again missing from here to the end of the first paragraph of § 15 (“arches”).]

² [The date was 1848-1849, when the first war of Italian independence was in progress. In 1849, soon after this book appeared, the Austrians besieged and re-took Venice.]

³ [For the dates of St. Mark’s, see Stones of Venice, vol. i. (preface to ed. 1), and vol. ii. ch. iv. § 5.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]