402 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

any drawing of a richly decorated Eastern dome that made me desire to see the original.

§ 6. Our own Northern roof decoration is necessarily simple. Coloured tiles are used in some cases with quaint effect; but I believe the dignity of the building is always greater when the roof is kept in an undisturbed mass, opposing itself to the variegation and richness of the walls. The Italian round tile is itself decoration enough, a deep and rich fluting, which all artists delight in; this, however, is fitted exclusively for low pitch of roofs. On steep domestic roofs, there is no ornament better than may be obtained by merely rounding, or cutting to an angle, the lower extremities of the flat tiles or shingles, as in Switzerland: thus the whole surface is covered with an appearance of scales, a fish-like defence against water, at once perfectly simple, natural, and effective at any distance; and the best decoration of sloping stone roofs, as of spires, is a mere copy of this scale armour; it enriches every one of the spires and pinnalces of the cathedral of Countances, and of many Norman and early Gothic buildings. Roofs covered or edged with lead have often patterns designed upon the lead, gilded and relieved with some dark colour, as on the house of Jacques Cœur¹ at Bourges; and I imagine the effect of this must have been singularly delicate and beautiful, but only traces of it now remain. The Northern roofs, however, generally stand in little need of surface decoration, the eye being drawn to the fantastic ranges of their dormer windows, and to the finials and fringes on their points and ridges.

§ 7. Whether dormer windows are legitimately to be classed as decorative features, seems to me to admit of doubt. The Northern spire system is evidently a mere elevation and exaggeration of the domestic turret with its look-out windows, and one can hardly part with the grotesque lines of the projections, though nobody is to be expected to

¹ [This house, built for Jacques Cœur, the financier, in the reign of Charles VII., is now the Palais de Justice.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]