WINDOW OF THE CATHEDRAL OF S^T. MARK AT VENICE.
_London. Published by J&A Arch. Cornhill. March 1^{ st}. 1828_]
Over these five front recesses is a gallery, in the centre of which are now replaced the famous bronze horses of Lysippus. Just behind them is a great circular window, which was once highly decorated, but all the ornament has been taken out, in order, I suppose, to throw more light into the church, for the ornamented windows still remaining give very little. I send you a sketch of one of the side ones, where the original disposition is sufficiently clear, and great part of it perfect. It is rather against my theory, that the lower part of this is filled up, but the window is in a position from which a strong light could not in any case, be cast into the church. The two small square divisions within the arch, which are now entirely open, appear to have been originally filled up with basket-work like the rest. In the upright parts of the recess, there is at present no opening; but slabs of marble, between small mouldings, fill them up entirely; I rather suspect, however, that these have been added to the original design. The capitals of the little columns dividing the window, are as varied and as whimsical as those of the doorways below, some of them are completely baskets in stone, while some of the bases have the character and mouldings of capitals reversed.
[Illustration: Illustration of column capital]
Can I let you enter without saying one word of those enormous, ugly ill-shaped domes, which crown the building? Such as they are, beauty, not use is their object; for there is a wide space between them and the internal domes. They are covered with lead, and entirely without ornament; surmounted by little lanterns with lead-covered cupolas contracted at the base, and brought out to a point at the summit.
On passing the bronze doors, we find first, a spacious portal occupying the whole width of the front, and returning on each side like the portico of a peripteral temple, as far as the transept. It is vaulted with obtusely pointed arches, seemingly composed of two circular curves, the centres of which are little distant from each other, and the point of which is cut off by the key-stone; but as the whole vault is covered with mosaics, the exact form is not distinguishable with certainty. The ground of all these mosaics is formed of pieces of gilt glass; the figures are of coloured glass and composition, and some of them, which are executed from the designs of Titian, and Paolo Veronese, are really very beautiful; the sober reflected light which they receive, not permitting the splendid ground to be glaring. This vaulting on the side next the church, rests on columns, whose capitals offer some singular imitations of the Ionic order. The portal is also adorned with eight columns of oriental black and white marble, which have capitals of Istrian stone, (a sort of imperfect marble, or hard limestone) with a whimsical composition of birds and arabesques, and support nothing. These are said to have been part of Solomon’s temple, and the singularity of the capitals is appealed to by the Venetians as a proof of the truth of the tradition; not reflecting, that the nature of the material decidedly contradicts it. The shafts, like so many others, were probably brought from the Levant, possibly from Jerusalem, and that is the utmost extent of rational belief.