hter it is the better. More
fantastic forms may, therefore, be admitted in a parapet than in any
other architectural feature, and for most services, the Flamboyant
parapets seem to me preferable to all others; especially when the leaden
roofs set off by points of darkness the lace-like intricacy of
penetration. These, however, as well as the forms usually given to
Renaissance balustrades (of which, by the bye, the best piece of
criticism I know is the sketch in "David Copperfield" of the personal
appearance of the man who stole Jip), and the other and finer forms
invented by Paul Veronese in his architectural backgrounds, together
with the pure columnar balustrade of Venice, must be considered as
altogether decorative features.

Sec. XVIII. So also are, of course, the jagged or crown-like finishings
of walls employed where no real parapet of protection is desired;
originating in the defences of outworks and single walls: these are used
much in the east on walls surrounding unroofed courts. The richest
examples of such decoration are Arabian; and from Cairo they seem to
have been brought to Venice. It is probable that few of my readers,
however familiar the general form of the Ducal Palace may have been
rendered to them by innumerable drawings, have any distinct idea of its
roof, owing to the staying of the eye on its superb parapet, of which we
shall give account hereafter. In most of the Venetian cases the parapets
which surround roofing are very sufficient for protection, except that
the stones of which they are composed appear loose and infirm: but their
purpose is entirely decorative; every wall, whether detached or roofed,
being indiscriminately fringed with Arabic forms of parapet, more or
less Gothicised, according to the lateness of their date.

I think there is no other point of importance requiring illustration
respecting the roof itself, or its cornice: but this Venetian form of
ornamental parapet connects itself curiously, at the angles of nearly
all the buildings on which it occurs, with the pinnacled system of the
north, founded on the structure of the buttress. This, it will be
remembered, is to be the subject of the fifth division of our inquiry.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Not of Renaissance alone: the practice of modelling buildings
on a minute scale for niches and tabernacle-work has always been
more or less admitted, and I suppose _authority_ for diminutive
battlements might be gathered fro