388 THE STONES OF VENICE

FOURTH CAPITAL. Has three children.¹ The eastern one is defaced: the one in front holds a small bird, whose plumage is beautifully indicated, in its right hand; and with its left holds up half a walnut, showing the nut inside: the third holds a fresh fig, cut through, showing the seeds.

The hair of all the three children is differently worked; the first has luxuriant flowing hair, and a double chin; the second, light flowing hair falling in pointed locks on the forehead; the third, crisp curling hair, deep cut with drill holes.

This capital has been copied on the Renaissance side of the palace, only with such changes in the ideal of the children as the workmen thought expedient and natural.² It is highly interesting to compare the child of the fourteenth with the child of the fifteenth century. The early heads are full of youthful life, playful, humane, affectionate, beaming with sensation and vivacity, but with much manliness and firmness also, not a little cunning, and some cruelty perhaps, beneath all; the features small and hard, and the eyes keen. There is the making of rough and great men in them. But the children of the fifteenth century are dull smooth-faced dunces, without a single meaning line in the fatness of their stolid cheeks; and, although, in the vulgar sense, as handsome as the other children are ugly, capable of becoming nothing but perfumed coxcombs.

FIFTH CAPITAL. Still three sides only left,³ bearing three half-length statues of kings; this is the first capital which bears any inscription. In front, a king with a sword in his right hand points to a handkerchief embroidered and fringed, with a head on it, carved on the cavetto of the abacus. His name is written above, “TITUS VESPASIAN IMPERATOR” (contracted IRAT.).

¹ [Now 8 sides, those described in the text being 1 and 8; 2, child with bunch of grapes; 3, with right hand raised to its cheek; 4, feeding a bird; 5, holding a dead bird; 6, with apple; 7, with a bunch of cherries.]

² [See Capital 35, below, § 126.]

³ [Again, a new capital. Sides 1, 2, and 8 described in the text; 3, king with a lily sceptre, inscribed (in the usual Latin) “Priam, King of Troy”; 4, Nebuchadnezzar; 5, Alexander; 6, Darius; 7, Julius Cæsar.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]