where, on some fragments of stucco, a
very early chequer background is traceable, composed of crimson
quatrefoils interlaced, with cherubim stretching their wings filling the
intervals. A small portion of this ground is seen beside the window
taken from the palace, Vol. II. Plate XIII. fig. 1.

Sec. XXXIII. It ought to be especially noticed, that, in all chequered
patterns employed in the colored designs of these noble periods, the
greatest care is taken to mark that they are _grounds_ of design rather
than designs themselves. Modern architects, in such minor imitations as
they are beginning to attempt, endeavor to dispose the parts in the
patterns so as to occupy certain symmetrical positions with respect to
the parts of the architecture. A Gothic builder never does this: he cuts
his ground into pieces of the shape he requires with utter
remorselessness, and places his windows or doors upon it with no regard
whatever to the lines in which they cut the pattern: and, in
illuminations of manuscripts, the chequer itself is constantly changed
in the most subtle and arbitrary way, wherever there is the least chance
of its regularity attracting the eye, and making it of importance. So
_intentional_ is this, that a diaper pattern is often set obliquely to
the vertical lines of the designs, for fear it should appear in any way
connected with them.

Sec. XXXIV. On these russet or crimson backgrounds the entire space of
the series of windows was relieved, for the most part, as a subdued white
field of alabaster; and on this delicate and veined white were set the
circular disks of purple and green. The arms of the family were of
course blazoned in their own proper colors, but I think generally on a
pure azure ground; the blue color is still left behind the shields in
the Casa Priuli and one or two more of the palaces which are unrestored,
and the blue ground was used also to relieve the sculptures of religious
subject. Finally, all the mouldings, capitals, cornices, cusps, and
traceries, were either entirely gilded or profusely touched with gold.

The whole front of a Gothic palace in Venice may, therefore, be simply
described as a field of subdued russet, quartered with broad sculptured
masses of white and gold; these latter being relieved by smaller inlaid
fragments of blue, purple, and deep green.

Sec. XXXV. Now, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, when
painting and architecture were thus united, two processes of