136 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

§ 3. We will therefore take the two figures, e and h of Fig. 12, and make this change in them as we reverse them, using now the exact profile of the cornice a,-the father of cornices; and we shall thus have a and b, Fig. 19.

Both of these are sufficiently ugly, the reader thinks; so do I; but we will mend them before we have done with them; that at a is assuredly the ugliest-like a tile on a flower-pot. It is, nevertheless, the father of capitals; being the simplest

condition of the gathered father of cornices. But it is to be observed that the diameter of the shaft here is arbitrarily assumed to be small, in order more clearly to show the general relations of the sloping stone to the shaft and upper stone; and this smallness of the shaft diameter is inconsistent with the serviceableness and beauty of the arrangement at a, if it were to be realised (as we shall see presently); but it is not inconsistent with its central character, as the representative of every species of possible capital; nor is its tile and flower-pot look to be regretted, as it may remind the reader of the reported origin of

[Version 0.04: March 2008]