Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/194

158 in very low relief which present an extreme instance of that tendency to pictorial treatment that distinguishes the relief sculpture of the Renaissance. The main cornice, embracing both divisions of the front, is crowned with a series of arched pediments, varying in span with the bays beneath, which recall those of the façade of the church of St. Mark. Those over the main division of the façade are raised on ornamental attics of which the middle one is in two stages.



The details of this composition are in very low relief, and the entablatures are broken into slight ressauts over the pilasters. The wall surfaces are incrusted with marble slabs, with simple panellings and small disks introduced sparingly, and the archivolts of the main portal, and of the crowning pediments, are adorned with arabesques and with small statues and finials.

The merit of this composition as a whole lies solely in the ordering of the component details which the designer has employed in a purely fanciful way without any proper architectural meaning; but the refinement of execution, and the beauty of the marbles, with their pearly colours subdued and harmonized by time, make the monument one of the most notable in Venice.

Another characteristic example of early Renaissance design in Venice is the Scuola di San Rocco (Fig. 92). The façade