Grand Canal, are exquisite examples of the school, as applied to
domestic architecture; and, in the reach of the canal between the Casa
Foscari and the Rialto, there are several palaces, of which the Casa
Contarini (called "delle Figure") is the principal, belonging to the
same group, though somewhat later, and remarkable for the association of
the Byzantine principles of color with the severest lines of the Roman
pediment, gradually superseding the round arch. The precision of
chiselling and delicacy of proportion in the ornament and general lines
of these palaces cannot be too highly praised; and I believe that the
traveller in Venice, in general, gives them rather too little attention
than too much. But while I would ask him to stay his gondola beside each
of them long enough to examine their every line, I must also warn him to
observe, most carefully, the peculiar feebleness and want of soul in the
conception of their ornament, which mark them as belonging to a period
of decline; as well as the absurd mode of introduction of their pieces
of colored marble: these, instead of being simply and naturally inserted
in the masonry, are placed in small circular or oblong frames of
sculpture, like mirrors or pictures, and are represented as suspended by
ribands against the wall; a pair of wings being generally fastened on to
the circular tablets, as if to relieve the ribands and knots from their
weight, and the whole series tied under the chin of a little cherub at
the top, who is nailed against the facade like a hawk on a barn door.

But chiefly let him notice, in the Casa Contarini delle Figure, one most
strange incident, seeming to have been permitted, like the choice of the
subjects at the three angles of the Ducal Palace, in order to teach us,
by a single lesson, the true nature of the style in which it occurs. In
the intervals of the windows of the first story, certain shields and
torches are attached, in the form of trophies, to the stems of two trees
whose boughs have been cut off, and only one or two of their faded
leaves left, scarcely observable, but delicately sculptured here and
there, beneath the insertions of the severed boughs.

It is as if the workman had intended to leave us an image of the
expiring naturalism of the Gothic school. I had not seen this sculpture
when I wrote the passage referring to its period, in the first volume of
this work (Chap. XX. Sec. XXXI.):--"Autumn came,--the leaves were
shed,--an