250 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

of stone, but is supposed to be incapable of standing without two huge buttresses on each angle. The St. Mark’s tower has a high sloping roof, but carries it simply, requiring no pinnacles at its angles; the British tower has no visible roof, but has four pinnacles for mere ornament. The Venetian tower has its lightest part at the top, and is massy at the base; the British tower has its lightest part at the base, and shuts up its windows into a mere arrowslit at the top.¹ What the tower was built for at all must therefore, it seems to me, remain a mystery to every beholder; for surely no studious inhabitant of its upper chambers will be conceived to be pursuing his employments by the light of the single chink on each side; and had it been intended for a belfry, the sound of its bells would have been as effectually prevented from getting out, as the light from getting in.

§ 16. In connection with the subject of towers and of superimposition, one other feature, not conveniently to be omitted from our house-building, requires a moment’s notice,-the staircase.

In modern houses it can hardly be considered an architectural feature, and is nearly always an ugly one, from its being apparently without support. And here I may not unfitly note the important distinction, which perhaps ought to have been dwelt upon in some places before now, between the marvellous and the perilous in apparent construction. There are many edifices which are awful or admirable in their height, and lightness, and boldness of form, respecting

myself, the building being one which does not come withing the range of our future inquiries; and its exact dimensions even here are of no importance as respects the question at issue.²

¹ [For some remarks on the proportions of the campanile, see Seven Lamps, ch. iv. § 28, Vol. VIII. p. 167.]

² [Willis’s estimate is at p. 186 of his Remarks on the Architecture of the Middle Ages, 1835. The actual height was 323 ft.; the width at the base, 42 ft. Some interesting particulars with regard to the bricks of which the Campanile was built were ascertained by Signor Boni on examining the débris. Many of them were of Veneto-Roman make, from Aquileja, surpassing in quality the best bricks of ancient Rome, and resisting a pressure three times as great as that which the best modern bricks are capable of withstanding (see Times, October 7, 1902).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]