180 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

which in many instances of Palladian work look as if they might be removed without danger to the building.

§ 5. The form a is a more pure Northern Gothic type than even b, which is the connecting link between it and the classical type. It is found chiefly in English and other Northern Gothic, and in early Lombardic, and is, I doubt not, derived as above explained, Chap. I., § 27 b, in a general French Gothic and French Romanesque form, as in great purity at Valence.¹

The small shafts of the forms a and b, as being Northern, are generally connected with steep vaulted roofs, and receive for that reason the name of vaulting shafts.

§ 6. Of all the forms b, Fig. 35, is the purest and most sublime, expressing the power of the arch most distinctly. All the others have some appearance of dovetailing and morticing of timber rather than stonework; nor have I ever yet seen a single instance, quite satisfactory, of the management of the capital of the main shaft, when it had either to sustain the base of the vaulting shaft, as in a, or to suffer it to pass through it, as in b, Fig. 36. Nor is the bracket which frequently carries the vaulting shaft in English work a fitting support for a portion of the fabric which is at all events presumed to carry a considerable part of the weight of the roof.

§ 7. The triangular spaces on the flanks of the arch are

¹ [The Cathedral of Valence is a Romanesque building of the twelfth century. Ruskin went there on his way home from Venice in the spring of 1850; the following notes on the Cathedral are from his diary:-

“Nor is the Roman character of the Romanesque less singularly marked [i.e. than at Avignon] in the cathedral of Valence; which seems to me an exactly balanced intermediate step between Romanesque and Gothic, nor can I in the least say to which it most inclines. As compared with our Norman churches, it is most singular in the height of its nave arches; which from the ground must be, to their spring, somewhat more than three times their span. They are therefore almost lancet in their tallness while semi-circular in their heads; and adding the effect of the clustered pier (vide Willis), it becomes in effect a tall, light, involved Gothic aisled church; while its details are for the most part pure Roman, the capitals of the nave shafts being imitation of Corinthian, cut with an elegance and sharpness altogether unknown in the North.”

The reference to Wills is to his Remarks on the Architecture of the Middle Ages, 1835, pp. 90-91, and Plate v. Fig. 2.]

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