Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/195

Rh of this building is again in two divisions each of two stories, the main division having three bays and the other but two. These bays are marked by superimposed pilasters which are carried across both divisions, and in the main division a free-standing Corinthian column is set in front of each pilaster. In each story the columns are raised on pedestals connected by a podium, and each one is wreathed with a band of ornamental foliage. The entablatures are in the plane of the wall, and are broken into very salient ressauts which in the main cornice are unpleasantly conspicuous against the sky. Both the columns and the ressauts are meaningless, the columns having nothing but the ressauts to carry, and the ressauts having no function but to cover the useless columns. The lesser details of this façade are of mixed character. The main portal has splayed jambs adorned with pilasters, and an archivolt of corresponding section. This portal is framed by an order of smaller Corinthian columns, on high polygonal pedestals, with a pediment over the entablature. The side bays of the basement of the main division have each a wide arched window subdivided by a central colonnette and jamb shafts carrying two small arches, with a tympanum pierced with a circle and triangles in mediæval fashion. The great arches of these windows have spandrels in relief crowned with cornices in the Lombard Renaissance manner. In the upper story each bay has a pair of arched windows framed by a pseudo-Corinthian order of colonnettes on ornamented round pedestals resting on corbels, the entablature of this diminutive order being surmounted by a pediment. In the window of the central bay the pier between the openings is wider than the piers of the side windows, and has a pair of colonnettes on its face instead of only one.

But the most characteristic architecture of the Renaissance in Venice is that of the private palaces of the grand canal. The princely dwellings ranged along this unique waterway are unmatched by anything else in the world. The finest of them are, however, those of the later mediæval period. These alone have the thoroughly distinctive Venetian character; but a few of the palaces of the early Renaissance retain the fine proportions, the quiet outlines, and the expression of refined opulence that belong to the buildings of the preceding epoch. In the