for all, namely, that the whole building is decorated, in all pure
and fine examples, with the most exactly studied respect to the powers
of the eye; the richest and most delicate sculpture being put on the
walls of the porches, or on the facade of the building, just high enough
above the ground to secure it from accidental (not from wanton[23])
injury. The decoration, as it rises, becomes _always_ bolder, and in the
buildings of the greatest times, _generally_ simpler. Thus at San Zeno
and the duomo of Verona, the only delicate decorations are on the
porches and lower walls of the facades, the rest of the buildings being
left comparatively plain; in the ducal palace of Venice the only very
careful work is in the lowest capitals; and so also the richness of the
work diminishes upwards in the transepts of Rouen, and facades of
Bayeux, Rheims, Amiens, Abbeville,[24] Lyons, and Notre Dame of Paris.
But in the middle and later Gothic the tendency is to produce an equal
richness _of effect_ over the whole building, or even to increase the
richness towards the top; but this is done so skillfully that no fine
work is wasted; and when the spectator ascends to the higher points of
the building, which he thought were of the most consummate delicacy, he
finds them Herculean in strength and rough-hewn in style, the really
delicate work being all put at the base. The general treatment of
Romanesque work is to increase the _number_ of arches at the top, which
at once enriches and lightens the mass, and to put the finest
_sculpture_ of the arches at the bottom. In towers of all kinds and
periods the _effective_ enrichment is towards the top, and most rightly,
since their dignity is in their height; but they are never made the
recipients of fine sculpture, with, as far as I know, the single
exception of Giotto's campanile, which indeed has fine sculpture, _but
it is at the bottom_.

[Footnote 23: Nothing is more notable in good Gothic than the confidence
of its builders in the respect of the people for their work. A great
school of architecture cannot exist when this respect cannot be
calculated upon, as it would be vain to put fine sculpture within the
reach of a population whose only pleasure would be in defacing it.]

[Footnote 24: The church to Abbeville is late flamboyant, but well
deserves, for the exquisite beauty of its porches, to be named even with
the great works of the thirteenth century.]

The facade of Wells Cathedral