archivolt was very deep,
and composed of a succession of such steps, the multitude of chamferings
were felt to be weak and insipid, and instead of dealing with the
outside edges of the archivolts, the group was softened by introducing
solid shafts in their dark inner angles. This, the manliest and best
condition of the early northern jamb and archivolt, is represented in
section at fig. 12 of Plate II.; and its simplest aspect in Plate V.,
from the Broletto of Como,--an interesting example, because there the
voussoirs being in the midst of their above-described southern contest
with the architrave, were better prepared for the flank attack upon them
by the shaft and chamfer, and make a noble resistance, with the help of
color, in which even the shaft itself gets slightly worsted, and cut
across in several places, like General Zach's column at Marengo.

Sec. XIV. The shaft, however, rapidly rallies, and brings up its own
peculiar decorations to its aid; and the intermediate archivolts receive
running or panelled ornaments, also, until we reach the exquisitely rich
conditions of our own Norman archivolts, and of the parallel Lombardic
designs, such as the entrance of the Duomo, and of San Fermo, at Verona.
This change, however, occupies little time, and takes place principally
in doorways, owing to the greater thickness of wall, and depth of
archivolt; so that we find the rich shafted succession of ornament, in
the doorway and window aperture, associated with the earliest and rudest
double archivolt, in the nave arches, at St. Michele of Pavia. The nave
arches, therefore, are most usually treated by the chamfer, and the
voussoirs are there defeated much sooner than by the shafted
arrangements, which they resist, as we saw, in the south by color; and
even in the north, though forced out of their own shape, they take that
of birds' or monsters' heads, which for some time peck and pinch the
rolls of the archivolt to their hearts' content; while the Norman zigzag
ornament allies itself with them, each zigzag often restraining itself
amicably between the joints of each voussoir in the ruder work, and even
in the highly finished arches, distinctly presenting a concentric or
sunlike arrangement of lines; so much so, as to prompt the conjecture,
above stated, Chap. XX. Sec. XXVI., that all such ornaments were intended
to be typical of light issuing from the orb of the arch. I doubt the
intention, but acknowledge the resemblance;