VII. GOTHIC PALACES 297

The balcony is, of course, modern, and the series of windows has been of greater extent, once terminated by a pilaster on the left hand, as well as on the right; but the terminal arches have been walled up. What remains, however, is enough, with its sculptured birds and dragons, to give the reader a very distinct idea of the second order window in its perfect form. The details of the capitals, and other minor portions, if these interest him, he will find given in the final Appendix.¹

§ 31. The advance of the Gothic spirit was, for a few years, checked by this compromise between the round and pointed arch. The truce, however, was at last broken, in consequence of the discovery that the keystone² would do duty quite as well in the form b as in the form a, Fig. 30; and the substitution of b, at the head of the arch, gives us the window of the third order, 3 b, 3 d, and 3 e, in Plate 14. The forms 3 a and 3 c are exceptional; the first occurring, as we have seen, in the Corte del Remer, and in one other palace on the Grand Canal, close to the church of St. Eustachio; the second only, as far as I know, in one house on the Canna-Reggio,³ belonging to the true Gothic period. The other three examples, 3 b, 3 d, 3 e, are generally characteristic of the third order; and it will be observed that they differ not merely in mouldings, but in slope of sides, and this latter difference is by far the most material. For in the example 3 b there is hardly any true Gothic expression; it is still the pure Byzantine arch, with a point thrust up through it; but the moment the flanks slope, as in 3 d, the Gothic expression is definite, and the entire school of the architecture is changed. This slope of the flanks occurs, first, in so slight a degree as to be hardly perceptible, and gradually increases until, reaching the form 3 e at the close of the thirteenth

¹ [Vol. XI. App. 10. Other details from this house are given in Plates 10 and 11, Vol. IX.]

² [See Vol. IX. Plate 3, Figs. r and s, and p. 173, where also the development of the keystone is illustrated.]

³ [The Cannareggio is the broad canal which strikes out of the Grand Canal to the north-west, a short distance east of the railway station.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]