98 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

of rain, and in all the Lombardic Gothic we instantly recognise the shadowy dripstone: a, Fig. 8, is from a noble fragment at Milan, in the Piazza dei Mercanti; b, from the Broletto of Como. Compare them with c and d, both from Salisbury; e and f, from Lisieux, Normandy; g and h, from Wenlock Abbey, Shropshire.¹

§ 10. The reader is now master of all that he need know about the construction of the general wall cornice, fitted either to become a crown of the wall, or to carry weight above. If, however, the weight above become considerable, it may be necessary to support the cornice at intervals with brackets; especially if it be required to project far, as well as to carry weight; as, for instance, if there be a gallery on the top of the wall. This kind of bracket-cornice, deep or shallow, forms a separate family, essentially connected with roofs and galleries; for if there be no superincumbent weight, it is evidently absurd to put brackets to a plain cornice or dripstone (though this is sometimes done in carrying out a style); so that, as soon as we see a bracket put to a cornice, it implies, or should imply, that there is a roof or gallery above it. Hence this family of cornices I shall consider in connection with roofing, calling them “roof cornices,” while what we have hitherto examined are proper “wall cornices.” The roof cornice and parapet are therefore treated in division D.²

We are not, however, as yet nearly ready for our roof. We have only obtained that which was to be the object of our first division (A); we have got, that is to say, a general idea of a wall and of the three essential parts of a wall; and we have next, it will be remembered, to get an idea of a pier and the essential parts of a pier, which were to be the subjects of our second division (B).

¹ [The Benedictine Abbey of St. Milburga, originally founded in the seventh century; the ruins now extant are of the building commenced by Roger de Montgomery, a kinsman of the Conqueror. For another reference, see below, ch. xxiii. § 8, p. 321.]

² [For these divisions, see ch. iii. § 6 above, p. 77; the discussion of division (D)-“roofs proper”-begins in ch. xiii.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]