CONSTRUCTION VII. THE PIER BASE 111

range. Suppose, however, that we require only a single pillar: as we have free space round it, there is no need to fill up the first ranges of its foundations; nor need we do so in order to equalise pressure, since the pressure to be met is its own alone. Under such circumstances, it is well to exhibit the lower tiers of the foundation as well as Y b and X b. The noble bases of the two granite pillars of the Piazzetta at Venice¹ are formed by the entire series of members given in Fig. 10, the lower courses expanding into steps, with a superb breadth of proportion to the shaft. The member X b is of course circular, having its proper decorative mouldings, not here considered; Y b is octagonal, but filled up into a square by certain curious groups of figures representing the trades of Venice. The three courses below are octagonal, with their sides set across the angles of the innermost octagon, Y b. The shafts are 15 feet in circumference, and the lowest octagons of the bases 56 (7 feet each side).

§ 18. Detached buildings, like our own Monument,² are not pillars, but towers built in imitation of pillars. As towers they are barbarous, being dark, inconvenient, and unsafe, besides lying, and pretending to be what they are not. As shafts they are barbarous, because they were designed at a time when the Renaissance architects had introduced and forced into acceptance, as de rigueur, a kind of columnar high-heeled shoe,-a thing which they called a pedestal, and which is to a true base exactly what a Greek actor’s cothurnus was to a Greek gentleman’s sandal. But the Greek actor knew better, I believe, than to exhibit or to decorate his cork sole; and, with shafts as with heroes, it is rather better to put the sandal off than the cothurnus on. There are, indeed, occasions on which a pedestal may be necessary; it may be better to raise a shaft from a sudden depression of plinth to a level with others, its companions, by means of

¹ [See also St. Mark’s Rest, § 15, where these bases are defended as appropriate: the bases are “restored,-but they must always have had them, in some such proportion.”]

² [Designed by Wren, and erected 1671-1677.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]