168 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

pinched up out of the arch, as a cook pinches the paste at the edge of a pie.

§ 9. The depth and place of the cusp, that is to say, its exact application to the shoulder of the curve of the arch, varies with the direction of the weight to be sustained. I have spent more than a month, and that in hard work too, in merely trying to get the forms of cusps into perfect order; where by the reader may guess that I have not space to go into the subject now: but I shall hereafter give a few of the leading and most perfect examples, with their measures and masonry.¹

§ 10. The reader now understands all that he need about the shell of the arch, considered as an united piece of stone.

He has next to consider the shape of the voussoirs. This, as much as is required, he will be able best to comprehend by a few examples; by which I shall be able also to illustrate, or rather which will force me to illustrate, some of the methods of Mont-Cenisian masonry, which were to be the second part of our subject.

§ 11. 1 and 2, Plate 4, are two cornices; I from St. Antonio, Padua; 2, from the Cathedral of Sens. I want them for cornices; but I have put them in this plate because, though their arches are filled up behind, and are in fact mere blocks of stone with arches cut into their faces, they illustrate the constant masonry of small arches, both in Italian and Northern Romanesque, but especially Italian, each arch being cut out of its own proper block of stone: this is Mont-Cenisian enough, on a small scale.

3 is a window from Carnarvon Castle, and very primitive and interesting in manner,-one of its arches being of one stone, the other of two. And here we have an instance of a form of arch which would be barbarous enough on a large scale, and of many pieces; but quaint and agreeable thus massively built.

¹ [An intention partly fulfilled in Stones of Venice, vol. iii. appendix 10 (vi.).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]