VII. GOTHIC PALACES 283

have found it convenient to call its most beautiful capitals, the lily capitals of St. Mark’s.¹ But the occurrence of this flower, more distinctly than usual, on the battlements of the Ducal Palace, was the cause of some curious political speculation in the year 1511, when a piece of one of these battlements was shaken down by the great earthquake of that year. Sanuto notes in his diary that “the piece that fell was just that which bore the lily,” and records sundry sinister anticipations, founded on this important omen, of impending danger to the adverse French power.² As there happens, in the Ducal Palace, to be a joint in the pinnacles which exactly separates the “part which bears the lily” from that which is fastened to the cornice, it is no wonder that the omen proved fallacious.

§ 14. The decorations of the parapet were completed by attaching gilded balls of metal to the extremities of the leaves of the lilies, and of the intermediate spires, so as literally to form for the wall a diadem of silver touched upon the points with gold; the image being rendered still more distinct in the Casa d’Oro, by variation in the height of the pinnacles, the highest being in the centre of the front.

Very few of these light roof-parapets now remain; they are, of course, the part of the building which dilapidation first renders it necessary to remove.³ That of the Ducal Palace, however, though often, I doubt not, restored, retains much of the ancient form, and is exceedingly beautiful, though it has no appearance from below of being intended for protection, but serves only, by its extreme lightness, to relieve the eye when wearied by the breadth of wall beneath; it is nevertheless a most serviceable defence for any person walking along the edge of the roof. It has some

¹ [See above, p. 164.]

² [The reverential feeling for the stones of Venice which lies behind such sinister anticipations may be compared with the story of the Mowbray monument (above, p. xxviii.) which the mason refused to tamper with. Nor is this kind of feeling extinct. When the King and Queen of Italy went to Venice after the fall of the Campanile, and inspected the site of the old tower, “a lament was heard in the crowd of people: I varda dove gera el nostro povaro morto (They are going where our poor dead one lies)”: Okey’s Venice, p. 220.]

³ [Compare Vol. IX. p. 200.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]