352 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

spaces noted, called the tympanum, and commonly of the form b, Fig. 61; and finally, in Chapter XVIII., he will find the third space described, that between an arch and its projecting gable, approximating generally to the form c, Fig. 61.

§ 9. The method of treating these spaces might alone furnish subject for three very interesting essays; but I shall only note the most essential points respecting them.

(1.) The Spandril. It was observed in Chapter XII., that this portion of the arch load might frequently be lightened with great advantage by piercing it with a circle, or with a group of circles; and the roof of the Euston Square railroad station was adduced as an example. One of the spandril decorations of Bayeux Cathedral is given in the Seven Lamps, Plate VII., Fig. 4.¹ It is little more than one of these Euston Square spandrils with its circles foliated.

Sometimes the circle is entirely pierced; at other times it is merely suggested by a mosaic or light tracery on the wall surface, as in Plate 14, which is one of the spandrils of the Ducal Palace at Venice. It was evidently intended that all the spandrils of this building should be decorated in this manner, but only two of them seem to have been completed.*

§ 10. The other modes of spandril filling may be broadly reduced to four heads. (1.) Free figure sculpture, as in the Chapter-house of Salisbury, and very superbly along the west front of Bourges, the best Gothic spandrils I know. (2.) Radiated foliage, more or less referred to the centre, or to the bottom of the spandril for its origin; single figures with expanded wings often answering the same purpose.

* Vide end of Appendix 20 [p. 459].

¹ [Vol. VIII., facing p. 128.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]