tian buildings made
throughout the preceding pages, are founded, as above stated, on careful
and personal examination of all the mouldings, or other features
available as evidence, of every palace of importance in the city. Three
parts, at least, of the time occupied in the completion of the work have
been necessarily devoted to the collection of these evidences, of which
it would be quite useless to lay the mass before the reader; but of
which the leading points must be succinctly stated, in order to show the
nature of my authority for any of the conclusions expressed in the text.

I have therefore collected in the plates which illustrate this article
of the Appendix, for the examination of any reader who may be interested
by them, as many examples of the evidence-bearing details as are
sufficient for the proof required, especially including all the
exceptional forms; so that the reader may rest assured that if I had
been able to lay before him all the evidence in my possession, it would
have been still more conclusive than the portion now submitted to him.

[Illustration: Plate V.
BYZANTINE BASES.]

We must examine in succession the Bases, Doorways and Jambs, Capitals,
Archivolts, Cornices, and Tracery Bars, of Venetian architecture.

_I. Bases._

The principal points we have to notice are the similarity and simplicity
of the Byzantine bases in general, and the distinction between those of
Torcello and Murano, and of St. Mark's, as tending to prove the early
dates attributed in the text to the island churches. I have sufficiently
illustrated the forms of the Gothic bases in Plates X., XI., and XIII.
of the first volume, so that I here note chiefly the Byzantine or
Romanesque ones, adding two Gothic forms for the sake of comparison.

The most characteristic examples, then, are collected in Plate V.
opposite; namely:

1, 2, 3, 4. In the upper gallery of apse of Murano.
5. Lower shafts of apse. Murano.
6. Casa Falier.
7. Small shafts of panels. Casa Farsetti.
8. Great shafts and plinth. Casa Farsetti.
9. Great lower shafts. Fondaco de' Turchi.
10. Ducal Palace, upper arcade.
PLATE V. 11. General late Gothic form.
Vol. III. 12. Tomb of Dogaressa Vital Michele, in St. Mark's atrium.
13. Upper arcade of Madonnetta House.
14. Rio-Foscari House.
15. Upper arcade. Terraced House.