of crumbling rays. It cannot stand much longer; may Heaven
only, in its benignity, preserve it from restoration, and the sands of
the Serchio give it honorable grave.

In the "Seven Lamps," Plate VI., I gave a faithful drawing of one of its
upper arches, to which I must refer the reader; for there is a marked
piece of character in the figure of the horseman on the left of it. And
in making this reference, I would say a few words about those much
abused plates of the "Seven Lamps." They are black, they are overbitten,
they are hastily drawn, they are coarse and disagreeable; how
disagreeable to many readers I venture not to conceive. But their truth
is carried to an extent never before attempted in architectural drawing.
It does not in the least follow that because a drawing is delicate, or
looks careful, it has been carefully drawn from the thing represented;
in nine instances out of ten, careful and delicate drawings are made at
home. It is not so easy as the reader, perhaps, imagines, to finish a
drawing altogether on the spot, especially of details seventy feet from
the ground; and any one who will try the position in which I have had to
do some of my work--standing, namely, on a cornice or window sill,
holding by one arm round a shaft, and hanging over the street (or canal,
at Venice), with my sketch-book supported against the wall from which I
was drawing, by my breast, so as to leave my right hand free--will not
thenceforward wonder that shadows should be occasionally carelessly
laid in, or lines drawn with some unsteadiness. But, steady, or infirm,
the sketches of which those plates in the "Seven Lamps" are fac-similes,
were made from the architecture itself, and represent that architecture
with its actual shadows at the time of day at which it was drawn, and
with every fissure and line of it as they now exist; so that when I am
speaking of some new point, which perhaps the drawing was not intended
to illustrate, I can yet turn back to it with perfect certainty that if
anything be found in it bearing on matters now in hand, I may depend
upon it just as securely as if I had gone back to look again at the
building.

It is necessary that my readers should understand this thoroughly, and I
did not before sufficiently explain it; but I believe I can show them
the use of this kind of truth, now that we are again concerned with this
front of Lucca. They will find a drawing of the entire front in Gally
Knight's "Archit