CHAPTER V.
BYZANTINE PALACES
§ I. The account of the architecture of St. Mark’s given in the previous chapter has, I trust, acquainted the reader sufficiently with the spirit of the Byzantine style: but he has probably, as yet, no clear idea of its generic forms. Nor would it be safe to define these after an examination of St. Mark’s alone, built as it was upon various models, and at various periods. But if we pass through the city, looking for buildings which resemble St. Mark’s—first, in the most important feature of incrustation; secondly, in the character of the mouldings,—we shall find a considerable number, not indeed very attractive in their first address to the eye, but agreeing perfectly, both with each other, and with the earliest portions of St. Mark’s, in every important detail; and to be regarded, therefore, with profound interest, as indeed the remains of an ancient city of Venice, altogether different in aspect from that which now exists. From these remains we may with safety deduce general conclusions touching the forms of Byzantine architecture, as practised in Eastern Italy, during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
§ II. They agree in another respect, as well as in style. All are either ruins, or fragments disguised by restoration. Not one of them is uninjured or unaltered; and the impossibility of finding so much as an angle or a single story in perfect condition is a proof, hardly less convincing than the method of their architecture, that they were indeed raised during the earliest phases of the Venetian power. The mere fragments, dispersed in narrow streets, and recognizable by a single capital, or the segment of an arch, I shall not enumerate: but, of important remains, there are six in the immediate neighborhood of the Rialto, one in the Rio di Ca’ Foscari, and one conspicuously placed opposite the great Renaissance Palace known as the Vendramin Calerghi, one of the few palaces still inhabited41 and well maintained; and noticeable, moreover, as having a garden beside it, rich with evergreens, and decorated by gilded railings and white statues that cast long streams of snowy reflection down into the deep water. The vista of canal beyond is terminated by the Church of St. Geremia, another but less attractive work of the Renaissance; a mass of barren brickwork, with a dull leaden dome above, like those of our National Gallery. So that the spectator has the richest and meanest of the late architecture of Venice before him at once: the richest, let him observe, a piece of private luxury; the poorest, that which was given to God. Then, looking to the left, he will see the fragment of the work of earlier ages, testifying against both, not less by its utter desolation than by the nobleness of the traces that are still left of it.
§ III. It is a ghastly ruin; whatever is venerable or sad in its wreck being disguised by attempts to put it to present uses of the basest kind. It has been composed of arcades borne by marble shafts, and walls of brick faced with marble: but the covering stones have been torn away from it like the shroud from a corpse; and its walls, rent into a thousand chasms, are filled and refilled with fresh brickwork, and the seams and hollows are choked with clay and whitewash, oozing and trickling over the marble,—itself blanched into dusty decay by the frosts of centuries. Soft grass and wandering leafage have rooted themselves in the rents, but they are not suffered to grow in their own wild and gentle way, for the place is in a sort inhabited; rotten partitions are nailed across its corridors, and miserable rooms contrived in its western wing; and here and there the weeds are indolently torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to struggle again into unwholesome growth when the spring next stirs them: and thus, in contest between death and life, the unsightly heap is festering to its fall.
Of its history little is recorded, and that little futile. That it once belonged to the dukes of Ferrara, and was bought from them in the sixteenth century, to be made a general receptacle for the goods of the Turkish merchants, whence it is now generally known as the Fondaco, or Fontico, de’ Turchi, are facts just as important to the antiquary, as that, in the year 1852, the municipality of Venice allowed its lower story to be used for a “deposito di Tabacchi.” Neither of this, nor of any other remains of the period, can we know anything but what their own stones will tell us.
§ IV. The reader will find in Appendix 11, written chiefly for the traveller’s benefit, an account of the situation and present state of the other seven Byzantine palaces. Here I shall only give a general account of the most interesting points in their architecture.
They all agree in being round-arched and incrusted with marble, but there are only six in which the original disposition of the parts is anywise traceable; namely, those distinguished in the Appendix as the Fondaco de’ Turchi, Casa Loredan, Caso Farsetti, Rio-Foscari House, Terraced House, and Madonnetta House:42 and these six agree farther in having continuous arcades along their entire fronts from one angle to the other, and in having their arcades divided, in each case, into a centre and wings; both by greater size in the midmost arches, and by the alternation of shafts in the centre, with pilasters, or with small shafts, at the flanks.
§ V. So far as their structure can be traced, they agree also in having tall and few arches in their lower stories, and shorter and more numerous arches above: but it happens most unfortunately that in the only two cases in which the second stories are left the ground floors are modernized, and in the others where the sea stories are left the second stories are modernized; so that we never have more than two tiers of the Byzantine arches, one above the other. These, however, are quite enough to show the first main point on which I wish to insist, namely, the subtlety of the feeling for proportion in the Greek architects; and I hope that even the general reader will not allow himself to be frightened by the look of a few measurements, for, if he will only take the little pains necessary to compare them, he will, I am almost certain, find the result not devoid of interest.
Fig. IV.
§ VI. I had intended originally to give elevations of all these palaces; but have not had time to prepare plates requiring so much labor and care. I must, therefore, explain the position of their parts in the simplest way in my power.
The Fondaco de’ Turchi has sixteen arches in its sea story, and twenty-six above them in its first story, the whole based on a magnificent foundation, built of blocks of red marble, some of them seven feet long by a foot and a half thick, and raised to a height of about five feet above high-water mark. At this level, the elevation of one half of the building, from its flank to the central pillars of its arcades, is rudely given in Fig. IV., in the previous page. It is only drawn to show the arrangement of the parts, as the sculptures which are indicated by the circles and upright oblongs between the arches are too delicate to be shown in a sketch three times the size of this. The building once was crowned with an Arabian parapet; but it was taken down some years since, and I am aware of no authentic representation of its details. The greater part of the sculptures between the arches, indicated in the woodcut only by blank circles, have also fallen, or been removed, but enough remain on the two flanks to justify the representation given in the diagram of their original arrangement.
And now observe the dimensions. The small arches of the wings in the ground story, a, a, a, measure, in breadth, from
The difference between the width of the arches b and c is necessitated by the small recess of the cornice on the left hand as compared with that of the great capitals; but this sudden difference of half a foot between the two extreme arches of the centre offended the builder’s eye, so he diminished the next one, unnecessarily, two inches, and thus obtained the gradual cadence to the flanks, from eight feet down to four and a half, in a series of continually increasing steps. Of course the effect cannot be shown in the diagram, as the first difference is less than the thickness of its lines. In the upper story the capitals are all nearly of the same height, and there was no occasion for the difference between the extreme arches. Its twenty-six arches are placed, four small ones above each lateral three of the lower arcade, and eighteen larger above the central ten; thus throwing the shafts into all manner of relative positions, and completely confusing the eye in any effort to count them: but there is an exquisite symmetry running through their apparent confusion; for it will be seen that the four arches in each flank are arranged in two groups, of which one has a large single shaft in the centre, and the other a pilaster and two small shafts. The way in which the large shaft is used as an echo of those in the central arcade, dovetailing them, as it were, into the system of the pilasters,—just as a great painter, passing from one tone of color to another, repeats, over a small space, that which he has left,—is highly characteristic of the Byzantine care in composition. There are other evidences of it in the arrangement of the capitals, which will be noticed below in the seventh chapter. The lateral arches of this upper arcade measure 3 ft. 2 in. across, and the central 3 ft. 11 in., so that the arches in the building are altogether of six magnitudes.
§ VII. Next let us take the Casa Loredan. The mode of arrangement of its pillars is precisely like that of the Fondaco de’ Turchi, so that I shall merely indicate them by vertical lines in order to be able to letter the intervals. It has five arches in the centre of the lower story, and two in each of its wings.
The gradation of these dimensions is visible at a glance; the boldest step being here taken nearest the centre, while in the Fondaco it is farthest from the centre. The first loss here is of eleven inches, the second of five, the third of five, and then there is a most subtle increase of two inches in the extreme arches, as if to contradict the principle of diminution, and stop the falling away of the building by firm resistance at its flanks.
I could not get the measures of the upper story accurately, the palace having been closed all the time I was in Venice; but it has seven central arches above the five below, and three at the flanks above the two below, the groups being separated by double shafts.
§ VIII. Again, in the Casa Farsetti, the lower story has a centre of five arches, and wings of two. Referring, therefore, to the last figure, which will answer for this palace also, the measures of the intervals are:
It is, however, possible that the interval c and the wing arches may have been intended to be similar; for one of the wing arches measures 5 ft. 4 in. We have thus a simpler proportion than any we have hitherto met with; only two losses taking place, the first of 2 ft. 2 in., the second of 6 inches.
The upper story has a central group of seven arches, whose widths are 4 ft. 1 in.
Here again we have a most curious instance of the subtlety of eye which was not satisfied without a third dimension, but could be satisfied with a difference of an inch on three feet and a half.
§ IX. In the Terraced House, the ground floor is modernized, but the first story is composed of a centre of five arches, with wings of two, measuring as follows:
[43] Only one wing of the first story is left. See Appendix 11.
Here the greatest step is towards the centre; but the increase, which is unusual, is towards the outside, the gain being successively six, four, and two inches.
I could not obtain the measures of the second story, in which only the central group is left; but the two outermost arches are visibly larger than the others, thus beginning a correspondent proportion to the one below, of which the lateral quantities have been destroyed by restorations.
§ X. Finally, in the Rio-Foscari House, the central arch is the principal feature, and the four lateral ones form one magnificent wing; the dimensions being from the centre to the side:
The difference of two inches on nearly three feet in the two midmost arches being all that was necessary to satisfy the builder’s eye.
§ XI. I need not point out to the reader that these singular and minute harmonies of proportion indicate, beyond all dispute, not only that the buildings in which they are found are of one school, but (so far as these subtle coincidences of measurement can still be traced in them) in their original form. No modern builder has any idea of connecting his arches in this manner, and restorations in Venice are carried on with too violent hands to admit of the supposition that such refinements would be even noticed in the progress of demolition, much less imitated in heedless reproduction. And as if to direct our attention especially to this character, as indicative of Byzantine workmanship, the most interesting example of all will be found in the arches of the front of St. Mark’s itself, whose proportions I have not noticed before, in order that they might here be compared with those of the contemporary palaces.
Fig. V.
§ XII. The doors actually employed for entrance in the western façade are as usual five, arranged as at a in the annexed woodcut, Fig. V.; but the Byzantine builder could not be satisfied with so simple a group, and he introduced, therefore, two minor arches at the extremities, as at b, by adding two small porticos which are of no use whatever except to consummate the proportions of the façade, and themselves to exhibit the most exquisite proportions in arrangements of shaft and archivolt with which I am acquainted in the entire range of European architecture.
Into these minor particulars I cannot here enter; but observe the dimensions of the range of arches in the façade, as thus completed by the flanking porticos:
[44] I am obliged to give these measures approximately, because, this front having been studied by the builder with unusual care, not one of its measures is the same as another; and the symmetries between the correspondent arches are obtained by changes in the depth of their mouldings and variations in their heights, far too complicated for me to enter into here; so that of the two arches stated as 19 ft. 8 in. in span, one is in reality 19 ft. 6½ in., the other 19 ft. 10 in., and of the two stated as 20 ft. 4 in., one is 20 ft. and the other 20 ft. 8 in.
Fig. VI.
I need not make any comment upon the subtle difference of eight inches on twenty feet between the second and third dimensions. If the reader will be at the pains to compare the whole evidence now laid before him, with that deduced above from the apse of Murano, he cannot but confess that it amounts to an irrefragable proof of an intense perception of harmony in the relation of quantities, on the part of the Byzantine architects; a perception which we have at present lost so utterly as hardly to be able even to conceive it. And let it not be said, as it was of the late discoveries of subtle curvature in the Parthenon,43 that what is not to be demonstrated without laborious measurement, cannot have influence on the beauty of the design. The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far to say, that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the changes of expression in the human countenance. The greater he is, the more he will feel their subtlety, and the intense difficulty of perceiving all their relations, or answering for the consequences of a variation of a hair’s breadth in a single curve. Indeed, there is nothing truly noble either in color or in form, but its power depends on circumstances infinitely too intricate to be explained, and almost too subtle to be traced. And as for these Byzantine buildings, we only do not feel them because we do not watch them; otherwise we should as much enjoy the variety of proportion in their arches, as we do at present that of the natural architecture of flowers and leaves. Any of us can feel in an instant the grace of the leaf group, b, in the annexed figure; and yet that grace is simply owing to its being proportioned like the façade of St. Mark’s; each leaflet answering to an arch,—the smallest at the root, to those of the porticos. I have tried to give the proportion quite accurately in b; but as the difference between the second and third leaflets is hardly discernible on so small a scale, it is somewhat exaggerated in a.44 Nature is often far more subtle in her proportions. In looking at some of the nobler species of lilies, full in the front of the flower, we may fancy for a moment that they form a symmetrical six-petaled star; but on examining them more closely, we shall find that they are thrown into a group of three magnitudes by the expansion of two of the inner petals above the stamens to a breadth greater than any of the four others; while the third inner petal, on which the stamens rest, contracts itself into the narrowest of the six, and the three under petals remain of one intermediate magnitude, as seen in the annexed figure.
Fig. VII.
§ XIII. I must not, however, weary the reader with this subject, which has always been a favorite one with me, and is apt to lead too far; we will return to the palaces on the Grand Canal. Admitting, then, that their fragments are proved, by the minute correspondences of their arrangement, to be still in their original positions, they indicate to us a form, whether of palace or dwelling-house, in which there were, universally, central galleries, or loggias, opening into apartments on each wing, the amount of light admitted being immense; and the general proportions of the building, slender, light, and graceful in the utmost degree, it being in fact little more than an aggregate of shafts and arches. Of the interior disposition of these palaces there is in no instance the slightest trace left, nor am I well enough acquainted with the existing architecture of the East to risk any conjecture on this subject. I pursue the statement of the facts which still are ascertainable respecting their external forms.
§ XIV. In every one of the buildings above mentioned, except the Rio-Foscari House (which has only one great entrance between its wings), the central arcades are sustained, at least in one story, and generally in both, on bold detached cylindrical shafts, with rich capitals, while the arches of the wings are carried on smaller shafts assisted by portions of wall, which become pilasters of greater or less width.
And now I must remind the reader of what was pointed out above (Vol. I. Chap. XXVII. §§ III. XXXV. XL.), that there are two great orders of capitals in the world; that one of these is convex in its contour, the other concave; and that richness of ornament, with all freedom of fancy, is for the most part found in the one, and severity of ornament, with stern discipline of the fancy, in the other.
Of these two families of capitals both occur in the Byzantine period, but the concave group is the longest-lived, and extends itself into the Gothic times. In the account which I gave of them in the first volume, they were illustrated by giving two portions of a simple curve, that of a salvia leaf. We must now investigate their characters more in detail; and these may be best generally represented by considering both families as formed upon the types of flowers,—the one upon that of the water-lily, the other upon that of the convolvulus. There was no intention in the Byzantine architects to imitate either one or the other of these flowers; but, as I have already so often repeated, all beautiful works of art must either intentionally imitate or accidentally resemble natural forms; and the direct comparison with the natural forms which these capitals most resemble, is the likeliest mode of fixing their distinctions in the reader’s mind.
The one then, the convex family, is modelled according to the commonest shapes of that great group of flowers which form rounded cups, like that of the water-lily, the leaves springing horizontally from the stalk, and closing together upwards. The rose is of this family, but her cup is filled with the luxuriance of her leaves; the crocus, campanula, ranunculus, anemone, and almost all the loveliest children of the field, are formed upon the same type.
The other family resembles the convolvulus, trumpet-flower, and such others, in which the lower part of the bell is slender, and the lip curves outwards at the top. There are fewer flowers constructed on this than on the convex model; but in the organization of trees and of clusters of herbage it is seen continually. Of course, both of these conditions are modified, when applied to capitals, by the enormously greater thickness of the stalk or shaft, but in other respects the parallelism is close and accurate; and the reader had better at once fix the flower outlines in his mind,45 and remember them as representing the only two orders of capitals that the world has ever seen, or can see.
§ XV. The examples of the concave family in the Byzantine times are found principally either in large capitals founded on the Greek Corinthian, used chiefly for the nave pillars of churches, or in the small lateral shafts of the palaces. It appears somewhat singular that the pure Corinthian form should have been reserved almost exclusively for nave pillars, as at Torcello, Murano, and St. Mark’s; it occurs, indeed, together with almost every other form, on the exterior of St. Mark’s also, but never so definitely as in the nave and transept shafts. Of the conditions assumed by it at Torcello enough has been said; and one of the most delicate of the varieties occurring in St. Mark’s is given in Plate VIII., fig. 15, remarkable for the cutting of the sharp thistle-like leaves into open relief, so that the light sometimes shines through them from behind, and for the beautiful curling of the extremities of the leaves outwards, joining each other at the top, as in an undivided flower.
§ XVI. The other characteristic examples of the concave groups in the Byzantine times are as simple as those resulting from the Corinthian are rich. They occur on the small shafts at the flanks of the Fondaco de’ Turchi, the Casa Farsetti, Casa Loredan, Terraced House, and upper story of the Madonnetta House, in forms so exactly similar that the two figures 1 and 2 in Plate VIII. may sufficiently represent them all. They consist merely of portions cut out of the plinths or string-courses which run along all the faces of these palaces, by four truncations in the form of arrowy leaves (fig. 1, Fondaco de’ Turchi), and the whole rounded a little at the bottom so as to fit the shaft. When they occur between two arches they assume the form of the group fig. 2 (Terraced House). Fig. 3 is from the central arches of the Casa Farsetti, and is only given because either it is a later restoration or a form absolutely unique in the Byzantine period.
VII.
BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP.
§ XVII. The concave group, however, was not naturally pleasing to the Byzantine mind. Its own favorite capital was of the bold convex or cushion shape, so conspicuous in all the buildings of the period that I have devoted Plate VII., opposite, entirely to its illustration. The form in which it is first used is practically obtained from a square block laid on the head of the shaft (fig. 1, Plate VII.), by first cutting off the lower corners, as in fig. 2, and then rounding the edges, as in fig. 3; this gives us the bell stone: on this is laid a simple abacus, as seen in fig. 4, which is the actual form used in the upper arcade of Murano, and the framework of the capital is complete. Fig. 5 shows the general manner and effect of its decoration on the same scale; the other figures, 6 and 7, both from the apse of Murano, 8, from the Terraced House, and 9, from the Baptistery of St. Mark’s, show the method of chiselling the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such as occur everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of the more elaborate examples.
§ XVIII. In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained for these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1, a, Plate X., is the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it separates from the shaft. Fig. 4, a, on the other hand, is the profile of the pure convex group, which not only needs no such projecting fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2, a, is the profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco de’ Turchi, lower arcade) founded on Corinthian, of which the main sweep is concave, but which bends below into the convex bell-shape, where it joins the shaft. And, lastly, fig. 3, a, is the profile of the nave shafts of St. Mark’s, where, though very delicately granted, the concession to the Byzantine temper is twofold; first at the spring of the curve from the base, and secondly the top, where it again becomes convex, though the expression of the Corinthian bell is still given to it by the bold concave leaves.
§ XIX. These, then, being the general modifications of Byzantine profiles, I have thrown together in Plate VIII., opposite, some of the most characteristic examples of the decoration of the concave and transitional types; their localities are given in the note below,46 and the following are the principal points to be observed respecting them.
The purest concave forms, 1 and 2, were never decorated in the earliest times, except sometimes by an incision or rib down the centre of their truncations on the angles.
VIII.
BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP.
Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 show some of the modes of application of a peculiarly broad-lobed acanthus leaf, very characteristic of native Venetian work; 4 and 5 are from the same building, two out of a group of four, and show the boldness of the variety admitted in the management even of the capitals most closely derived from the Corinthian. I never saw one of these Venetian capitals in all respects like another. The trefoils into which the leaves fall at the extremities are, however, for the most part similar, though variously disposed, and generally niche themselves one under the other, as very characteristically in fig. 7. The form 8 occurs in St. Mark’s only, and there very frequently: 9 at Venice occurs, I think, in St. Mark’s only; but it is a favorite early Lombardic form. 10, 11, and 12 are all highly characteristic. 10 occurs with more fantastic interweaving upon its sides in the upper stories of St. Mark’s; 11 is derived, in the Casa Loredan, from the great lily capitals of St. Mark’s, of which more presently. 13 and 15 are peculiar to St. Mark’s. 14 is a lovely condition, occurring both there and in the Fondaco de’ Turchi.
The modes in which the separate portions of the leaves are executed in these and other Byzantine capitals, will be noticed more at length hereafter. Here I only wish the reader to observe two things, both with respect to these and the capitals of the convex family on the former Plate: first the Life, secondly, the Breadth, of these capitals, as compared with Greek forms.
§ XX. I say, first, the Life. Not only is every one of these capitals differently fancied, but there are many of them which have no two sides alike. Fig. 5, for instance, varies on every side in the arrangement of the pendent leaf in its centre; fig. 6 has a different plant on each of its four upper angles. The birds are each cut with a different play of plumage in figs. 9 and 12, and the vine-leaves are every one varied in their position in fig. 13. But this is not all. The differences in the character of ornamentation between them and the Greek capitals, all show a greater love of nature; the leaves are, every one of them, more founded on realities, sketched, however rudely, more directly from the truth; and are continually treated in a manner which shows the mind of the workman to have been among the living herbage, not among Greek precedents. The hard outlines in which, for the sake of perfect intelligibility, I have left this Plate, have deprived the examples of the vitality of their light and shade; but the reader can nevertheless observe the ideas of life occurring perpetually: at the top of fig. 4, for instance, the small leaves turned sideways; in fig. 5, the formal volutes of the old Corinthian transformed into a branching tendril; in fig. 6, the bunch of grapes thrown carelessly in at the right-hand corner, in defiance of all symmetry; in fig. 7, the volutes knitted into wreaths of ivy; in fig. 14, the leaves, drifted, as it were, by a whirlwind round the capital by which they rise; while figs. 13 and 15 are as completely living leaves as any of the Gothic time. These designs may or may not be graceful; what grace or beauty they have is not to be rendered in mere outline,—but they are indisputably more natural than any Greek ones, and therefore healthier, and tending to greatness.
§ XXI. In the second place, note in all these examples, the excessive breadth of the masses, however afterwards they may be filled with detail. Whether we examine the contour of the simpler convex bells, or those of the leaves which bend outwards from the richer and more Corinthian types, we find they are all outlined by grand and simple curves, and that the whole of their minute fretwork and thistle-work is cast into a gigantic mould which subdues all their multitudinous points and foldings to its own inevitable dominion. And the fact is, that in the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine sculptures we obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the history of art, the germ of that unity of perfect ease in every separate part, with perfect subjection to an enclosing form or directing impulse, which was brought to its most intense expression in the compositions of the two men in whom the art of Italy consummated itself and expired—Tintoret and Michael Angelo.