256 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

they could describe his shield; a shield like those of dedicated spoil, without a handle, never to be waved in the face of war. And then we have helmets and lances, banners and swords, sometimes with men to hold them, sometimes without; but always chiselled with a tailor-like love of the chasing or the embroidery,-show helmets of the stage, no Vulcan work on them, no heavy hammer strokes, no Etna fire in the metal of them, nothing but pasteboard crests and high feathers. And these, cast together in disorderly heaps, or grinning vacantly over keystones, form one of the leading decorations of Renaissance architecture, and that one of the best; for helmets and lances, however loosely laid, are better than violins, and pipes, and books of music, which were another of the Palladian and Sansovinian sources of ornament. Supported by ancient authority, the abuse soon became a matter of pride, and since it was easy to copy a heap of cast clothes, but difficult to manage an arranged design of human figures, the indolence of architects came to the aid of their affectation, until by the moderns we find the practice carried out to its most interesting results, and, as above noted, a large pair of boots occupying the principal place in the bas-reliefs on the base of the Colonne Vendôme.¹

§ 6. A less offensive, because singularly grotesque, example of the abuse at its height, occurs in the Hôtel des Invalides,² where the dormer windows are suits of armour down to the bottom of the corslet, crowned by the helmet, and with the window in the middle of the breast.

Instruments of agriculture and the arts are of less frequent occurrence, except in hieroglyphics and other work, where they are not employed as ornaments, but represented for the sake of accurate knowledge, or as symbols. Wherever

¹ [The column, an imitation of Trajan’s column at Rome, was erected by order of Napoleon in 1806-1810, to commemorate his victories over the Russians and Austrians in 1805; the reliefs on the pediment represent the uniforms and weapons of the conquered armies. The column was taken down by the Communists in 1871, at the instigation of the painter, Courbet, but was subsequently re-erected.]

² [This building was begun in 1671 by Bruant and completed in 1675 by Mansart.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]