he relic of a
barbarous age, incapable of attracting the admiration, or influencing
the feelings of a civilized community. Now the first broad
characteristic of the building, and the root nearly of every other
important peculiarity in it, is its confessed incrustation. It is the
purest example in Italy of the great school of architecture in which the
ruling principle is the incrustation of brick with more precious
materials. Consider the natural circumstances which give rise to such a
style. Suppose a nation of builders, placed far from any quarries of
available stone, and having precarious access to the mainland where they
exist; compelled therefore either to build entirely with brick, or to
import whatever stone they use from great distances, in ships of small
tonnage, and for the most part dependent for speed on the oar rather
than the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great, whether
they import common or precious stone, and therefore the natural tendency
would always be to make each shipload as valuable as possible. But in
proportion to the preciousness of the stone, is the limitation of its
possible supply; limitation not determined merely by cost, but by the
physical conditions of the material, for of many marbles pieces above a
certain size are not to be had for money. There would also be a tendency
in such circumstances to import as much stone as possible ready
sculptured, in order to save weight; and therefore, if the traffic of
their merchants led them to places where there were ruins of ancient
edifices, to ship the available fragments of them home. Out of this
supply of marble, partly composed of pieces of so precious a quality
that only a few tons of them could be on any terms obtained, and partly
of shafts, capitals, and other portions of foreign buildings, the island
architect has to fashion, as best he may, the anatomy of his edifice.

HOW THE OLD CAMPANILE WAS BUILT[48]

BY HORATIO F. BROWN

The wide discrepancy of the dates, 888 to 1148, may perhaps be accounted
for by the conjecture that the work of the building [the Campanile]
proceeded slowly, either with a view to allowing the foundations to
consolidate, or owing to lack of funds, and that the chroniclers
recorded each resumption of work as the beginning of the work. One point
may, perhaps, be fixt. The Campanile must have been some way above
ground by the year 997, for the hospital founded by the sainted Doge,
Pietro Orse