212 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

must be wrong, unless under Mont-Cenisian masonry;¹ or else, unless the top of the door be the roof of the building, as in low cottages. And a square-headed door is just so much more wrong and ugly than a connection of main shafts by lintels, as the weight of wall above the door is likely to be greater than that above the main shafts. Thus, while I admit the Greek general forms of temple to be admirable in their kind, I think the Greek door always offensive and unmanageable.

§ 3. We have it also determined by necessity that the apertures shall be at least above a man’s height, with perpendicular sides (for sloping sides are evidently unnecessary, and even inconvenient, therefore absurd,) and level threshold; and this aperture we at present suppose simply cut through the wall without any bevelling of the jambs. Such a door, wide enough for two persons to pass each other easily, and with such fillings or valves as we may hereafter find expedient, may be fit enough for any building into which entrance is required neither often, nor by many persons at a time. But when entrance and egress are constant, or required by crowds, certain further modifications must take place.

§ 4. When entrance and egress are constant, it may be supposed that the valves will be absent or unfastened,-that people will be passing more quickly than when the entrance and egress are unfrequent, and that the square angles of the wall will be inconvenient to such quick passers through. It is evident, therefore, that what would be done in time, for themselves, by the passing multitude, should be done for them at once by the architect; and that these angles, which would be worn away by friction, should at once be bevelled off, or, as it is called, splayed, and the most contracted part of the aperture made as short as possible, so that the plan of the entrance should become as at a, Fig. 43.

§ 5. Farther. As persons on the outside may often approach the door or depart from it, beside the building, so

¹ [For the meaning of this phrase, here adopted for brevity, see above, p. 164. In the MS. Ruskin had first written, “unless either it is in comparison of the mass of the wall, a mere mousehole whose vacuity in nowise disturbs the continuity and holding of the great stones; or else ...”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]