DECORATION XXVII. CORNICE AND CAPITAL 365

series, we should have forty-eight more cornices: but there is no use in pursuing the system further, as such arrangements are very rare and easily resolved into the simpler types with certain arbitrary additions fitted to their special place; and, in most cases, distinctly separate from the main curve, as in the inner line of No. 14, which is a form of the type e, the longest curve, i.e. the lowest, having deepest curvature, and each limb opposed by a short contrary curve at its extremities, the convex limb by a concave, the concave by a convex.

§ 13. Such, then, are the great families of profile lines into which all cornices and capitals may be divided; but their best examples unite two such profiles in a mode which we cannot understand till we consider the further ornament with which the profiles are charged. And in doing this we must, for the sake of clearness, consider, first the nature of the designs themselves, and next the mode of cutting them.

§ 14. In Plate 16, I have thrown together a few of the most characteristic medićval examples of the treatment of the simplest cornice profiles: the uppermost, a, is the pure root of cornices from St. Mark’s. The second, d, is the Christian Doric cornice,¹ here lettered d in order to avoid confusion, its profile being d of Plate 15 in bold development, and here seen on the left-hand side, truly drawn, though filled up with the ornament to show the mode in which the angle is turned. This is also from St. Mark’s. The third, b, is b of Plate 15, the pattern being inlaid in black because its office was in the interior of St. Mark’s, where it was too dark to see sculptured ornament at the required distance. (The other two simple profiles, a and c of Plate 15, would be decorated in the same manner, but require no example here, for the profile a is of so frequent occurrence that it will have a page to itself alone in the next volume;² and c may be seen over nearly every shop in London, being that of the common Greek egg cornice.) The fourth, e in Plate 16, is a transitional cornice, passing from Byzantine

¹ [Shown again in Plate 7 of the Examples.]

² [i.e. Plate 8 in that volume, “Byzantine Capitals. Concave Group.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]