DECORATION XXV. THE BASE 343

the flat contour of the spur. Then 10 is the perfect, but simplest possible development of the same idea, from the earliest bases of the upper colonnade of the Ducal Palace, that is to say, the bases of the sea facade; and 7 and 8 are its lateral profile and transverse section. Finally, 11 and 12 are two of the spurs of the later shafts of the same colonnade on the Piazzetta side (No. 12 of Plate 11). No. 11 occurs on one of these shafts only, and is singularly beautiful. I suspect it to be earlier than the other, which is the characteristic base of the rest of the series, and already shows the loose, sensual, ungoverned character of fifteenth century ornament in the dissoluteness of its rolling.

§ 18. I merely give these as examples ready to my hand, and necessary for future reference; not as in anywise representative of the variety of the Italian treatment of the general contour, far less of the endless caprices of the North. The most beautiful base I ever saw, on the whole, is a Byzantine one in the Baptistery of St. Mark’s, in which the spur profile approximates to that of No. 10 in Plate 11; but it is formed by a cherub, who sweeps downwards on the wing. His two wings, as they half close, form the upper part of the spur, and the rise of it in the front is formed by exactly the action of Alichino, swooping on the pitch lake; “queidrizzo, volando, suso il petto.”¹ But it requires noble management to confine such a fancy within such limits. The greater number of the best bases are formed of leaves; and the reader may amuse himself as he will by endless inventions of them, from types which he may gather among the weeds at the nearest roadside. The value of the vegetable form is especially here, as above noted, Chap. XX., § 32, its capability of unity with the mass of the base, and of being suggested by few lines; none but the Northern Gothic architects were able to introduce entire animal forms in this position with perfect success. There is a beautiful instance at the

¹ [Dante: Inferno, xxii. 129; in the account of the device of Ciampolo to escape from Alichino and the other demons, Ciampolo plunged beneath, and “he (Alichino) with upward pinion raised his breast.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]