280 THE STONES OF VENICE

Andrea della Valle says, that* the wall of the saloon is thicker by fifteen inches than the shafts below it, projecting nine inches within, and six without, standing as if in the air, above the piazza; † and yet this wall is so nobly and strongly knit together, that Rusconi,¹ though himself altogether devoted to the Renaissance school, declares that the fire which had destroyed the whole interior of the palace had done this wall no more harm than the bite of a fly to an elephant. “Troveremo che el danno che ha patito queste muraglie sarà conforme alla beccatura d’ una mosca fatta ad un elefante.”‡

§ 11. And so in all the other palaces built at the time, consummate strength was joined with a lightness of form and sparingness of material which rendered it eminently desirable that the eye should be convinced, by every possible expedient, of the stability of the building; and these twisted pillars at the angles are not among the least important means adopted for this purpose, for they seem to bind the walls together as a cable binds a chest. In the Ducal Palace, where they are carried up the angle of an unbroken wall forty feet high, they are divided into portions, gradually diminishing in length towards the top, by circular bands or rings, set with the nail-head or dog-tooth ornament, vigorously projecting, and giving the column nearly the aspect of the stalk of a reed; its diminishing proportions being exactly arranged as they are by Nature in all jointed plants.² At the top of the palace, like the wheat-stalk branching into the ear of corn, it expands into a small niche with a pointed canopy, which joins with the fantastic parapet in at once relieving, and yet making more notable by its contrast, the weight of massy wall below. The arrangement is seen in the woodcut,

* “11 muro della sala è più grosso delle colonne sott’ esso piedi uno e onze tre, et posto in modo che onze sei sta come in aere sopra la piazza, et onze nove dentro.”-Pareri di XV. Architetti, p. 47.

† Compare Seven Lamps, chap. iii. § 7 [Vol. VIII. p. 108].

‡ Pareri, above quoted, p. 21.

¹ [See below, p. 355.]

² [See Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. vi. ch. vii., where this subject is worked out; and compare Elements of Drawing, Letter iii.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]