APPENDIX, 24, 25 471

24. p. 344.-RENAISSANCE BASES

The following extract from my note-book¹ refers also to some features of late decoration of shafts.

“The Scuola di San Rocco is one of the most interesting examples of Renaissance work in Venice. Its fluted pillars are surrounded each by a wreath, one of vine, another of laurel, another of oak, not indeed arranged with the fantasticism of early Gothic; but, especially the laurel, reminding one strongly of the laurel sprays, powerful as well as beautiful, of Veronese and Tintoret. Their stems are curiously and richly interlaced-the last vestige of the Byzantine wreathed work-and the vine-leaves are ribbed on the surfaces, I think, nearly as finely as those of the Noah,* though more injured by time. The capitals are far the richest Renaissance in Venice, less corrupt and more masculine in plan than any other, and truly suggestive of support, though of course showing the tendency to error in this respect; and finally, at the angles of the pure Attic bases, on the square plinth, are set couchant animals; one, an elephant four inches high, very curiously and cleverly cut, and all these details worked with a spirit, finish, fancy, and affection quite worthy of the Middle Ages. But they have all the marked fault of being utterly detached from the architecture. The wreaths round the columns look as if they would drop off the next moment,² and the animals at the bases produce exactly the effect of mice who had got there by accident: one feels them ridiculously diminutive, and utterly useless.”

The effect of diminutiveness is, I think, chiefly owing to there being no other groups or figures near them, to accustom the eye to the proportion, and to the needless choice of the largest animals, elephants, bears, and lions, to occupy a position so completely insignificant, and to be expressed on so contemptible a scale,-not in a bas-relief or pictorial piece of sculpture, but as independent figures. The whole building is a most curious illustration of the appointed fate of the Renaissance architects-to caricature whatever they imitated, and misapply whatever they learned.

25. P. 344.-ROMANIST DECORATION OF BASES

I have spoken above (Appendix 12) of the way in which the Roman Catholic priests everywhere suffer their churches to be desecrated. But the worst instances I ever saw of sacrilege and brutality, daily permitted in the face of all men, were the uses to which the noble base of St. Mark’s was put, when I was last in Venice. Portions of nearly all cathedrals may be found abandoned to neglect; but this base of St. Mark’s is in no obscure position. Full fronting the western sun-crossing the whole breadth of St. Mark’s

* The sculpture of the Drunkenness of Noah on the Ducal Palace, of which we shall have much to say hereafter.3

¹ [The Venetian diary of 1849-1850.]

² [The diary adds: “and in spite of their beauty, one wishes they would,”...]

³ [See next volume, ch. viii.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]