f St. Mark was brought from Alexandria twenty years later. The
first church of St. Mark's was, doubtless, built in imitation of that
destroyed at Alexandria, and from which the relics of the saint had been
obtained. During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the
architecture of Venice seems to have been formed on the same model, and
is almost identical with that of Cairo under the caliphs,[22] it being
quite immaterial whether the reader chooses to call both Byzantine or
both Arabic; the workmen being certainly Byzantine, but forced to the
invention of new forms by their Arabian masters, and bringing these
forms into use in whatever other parts of the world they were employed.

To this first manner of Venetian architecture, together with vestiges as
remain of the Christian Roman, I shall devote the first division of the
following inquiry. The examples remaining of it consist of three noble
churches (those of Torcello, Murano, and the greater part of St.
Mark's), and about ten or twelve fragments of palaces.

Sec. XXXII. To this style succeeds a transitional one, of a character
much more distinctly Arabian: the shafts become more slender, and the
arches consistently pointed, instead of round; certain other changes,
not to be enumerated in a sentence, taking place in the capitals and
mouldings. This style is almost exclusively secular. It was natural
for the Venetians to imitate the beautiful details of the Arabian
dwelling-house, while they would with reluctance adopt those of the
mosque for Christian churches.

I have not succeeded in fixing limiting dates for this style. It appears
in part contemporary with the Byzantine manner, but outlives it. Its
position is, however, fixed by the central date, 1180, that of the
elevation of the granite shafts of the Piazetta, whose capitals are the
two most important pieces of detail in this transitional style in
Venice. Examples of its application to domestic buildings exist in
almost every street of the city, and will form the subject of the second
division of the following essay.

Sec. XXXIII. The Venetians were always ready to receive lessons in art
from their enemies (else had there been no Arab work in Venice). But their
especial dread and hatred of the Lombards appears to have long prevented
them from receiving the influence of the art which that people had
introduced on the mainland of Italy. Nevertheless, during the practice
of the two styles above distinguished,