Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/406

390 390 ITALIAN AECHITECTURE. J JP4 ,'AKT II. secting vaiiited Gothic style, perfect and complete in all its parts bearing a striking resemblance'to what we find on the banks of ^^^ Rhine; but when we ask by w'hat steps it reached this conipletent and where are the examples of its progress, we are at fault. In like manner in the 11th century we find at Venice, }^ Apulia, in Languedoc, and Anjou, a domical style of roof employed without hesitation, as if it had long been indigenous. Yet we are equally at a loss to explain 'now this, too, arose. Hitherto the usual solution has been to assert that it was imported from the East ; but this hardly seems suflftcient to account for the observed facts, and we must bear in mind that both the Byzan- tine and Gothic styles came out of Rome ; and there seems no good reason why a domi- cal style should not have been perfected on our side of the Adriatic as well as a vaulted style, even though that form of Roman art never penetra- ted to the East ; and such, in- deed, appears to have been the case. The great argument against this view is the ex- ceptionally Oriental character of St. Mark's, at Venice. It must not be forgotten, how- ever, that the five great domes which give such an Asiatic look to the exterior are not jjarts of the original design, but were added — in their present form, at least — late in the Middle Ages. The great quintuple portico, it is true, is exce^itional in Europe, and may have been suggested by something seen in the East. The arrangement of this, however, seems to have been adopted in conse- quence of the wealth of marble columns, which the argosies of Venice brought from Alexandria and the ruined cities of the East, rather than by the exigencies of design. But even then its numerous shafts and receding planes of decoration are much more like the forms with which we are familiar in Norman portals than anything yet dis- covered in the Levant. The plan, too, when closely examined, is not like those found in the East. There are many five-domed churches, it is true, on the other side of the Adriatic ; but there the four sul)- ordinate domes are arranged diagonally on the corners around the 821. Plan of St. Mark's, Venice.