214 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

the open egress, but for the surreptitious drainage of a stagnant congregation. Besides, the expression of the church door should lead us, as far as possible, to desire at least the western entrance to be single, partly because no man of right feeling would willingly lose the idea of unity and fellowship in going up to worship, which is suggested by the vast single entrance; partly because it is at the entrance that the most serious words of the building are always addressed, by its sculptures or inscriptions, to the worshipper;¹ and it is well that these words should be spoken to all at once, as by one great voice, not broken up into weak repetitions over minor doors.

In practice, the matter has been, I suppose, regulated almost altogether by convenience, the western doors being single in small churches, while in the larger the entrances become three or five, the central door remaining always principal, in consequence of the fine sense of composition which the mediæval builders never lost. These arrangements have formed the noblest buildings in the world. Yet it is worth observing* how perfect in its simplicity the single entrance may become, when it is treated as in the Duomo and St. Zeno of Verona, and other such early Lombard churches, having noble porches, and rich sculptures grouped around the entrance.

§ 7. However, whether the entrances be single, triple, or

* And worth questioning, also, whether the triple porch has not been associated with Romanist views of the mediatorship; the Redeemer being represented as presiding over the central door only, and the lateral entrances being under the protection of saints, while the Madonna almost always has one or both of the transepts.² But it would be wrong to press this, for, in nine cases out of ten, the architect has been merely influenced in his placing of the statues by an artist’s desire of variety in their forms and dress; and very naturally prefers putting a canonization over one door, a martyrdom over another, and an assumption over a third, to repeating a crucifixion or a judgment above all. The architect’s doctrine is only, therefore, to be noted with indisputable reprobation when the Madonna gets possession of the main door.

¹ [Compare in the next volume (ch. iv. § 67), in the account of St. Mark’s, the description of the door as the type of baptism.]

² [See, for instance, the account of “the Madonna’s porch” in The Bible of Amiens, ch. iv.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]