CHAPTER VII

GOTHIC PALACES

§ 1. THE buildings out of the remnants of which we have endeavoured to recover some conception of the appearance of Venice during the Byzantine period, contribute hardly anything at this day to the effect of the streets of the city. They are too few and too much defaced to attract the eye or influence the feelings. The charm which Venice still possesses, and which for the last fifty years has rendered it the favourite haunt of all the painters of picturesque subject, is owing to the effect of the palaces belonging to the period we have now to examine, mingled with those of the Renaissance.

This effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance palaces are not more picturesque in themselves than the club-houses of Pall Mall;¹ but they become delightful by the contrast of their severity and refinement with the rich and rude confusion of the sea-life beneath them, and of their white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove from beneath them the orange sails of the fishingboats, the black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. But the Gothic Palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wield over us an independent power. Sea and

¹ [The club-houses of Pall Mall illustrate very well the Classical Revival in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Athenæum (Decimus Burton), built 1824-1826, shows the Frieze of the Parthenon (see Fors Clavigera, Letter 23). The Travellers’ (Sir C. Barry), is copied from the Pandolfini Palace at Rome. The Reform (also Sir C. Barry), suggests the Farnese Palace there. The Carlton (Smirke), is founded on Sansovino’s Library of St. Mark’s at Venice. For the Army and Navy, a combination of that Library and the Palazzo Cornaro, see Vol. IX. p. 348 n.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]