e assumes very different
forms among different nations, it may be conveniently referred to three
heads:--Early Renaissance, consisting of the first corruptions
introduced into the Gothic schools: Central or Roman Renaissance, which
is the perfectly formed style: and Grotesque Renaissance, which is the
corruption of the Renaissance itself.

Sec. IV. Now, in order to do full justice to the adverse cause, we will
consider the abstract _nature_ of the school with reference only to its
best or central examples. The forms of building which must be classed
generally under the term _early_ Renaissance are, in many cases, only
the extravagances and corruptions of the languid Gothic, for whose
errors the classical principle is in no wise answerable. It was stated
in the second chapter of the "Seven Lamps," that, unless luxury had
enervated and subtlety falsified the Gothic forms, Roman traditions
could not have prevailed against them; and, although these enervated and
false conditions are almost instantly colored by the classical
influence, it would be utterly unfair to lay to the charge of that
influence the first debasement of the earlier schools, which had lost
the strength of their system before they could be struck by the plague.

Sec. V. The manner, however, of the debasement of all schools of art, so
far as it is natural, is in all ages the same; luxuriance of ornament,
refinement of execution, and idle subtleties of fancy, taking the place
of true thought and firm handling: and I do not intend to delay the
reader long by the Gothic sick-bed, for our task is not so much to watch
the wasting of fever in the features of the expiring king, as to trace
the character of that Hazael who dipped the cloth in water, and laid it
upon his face, Nevertheless, it is necessary to the completeness of our
view of the architecture of Venice, as well as to our understanding of
the manner in which the Central Renaissance obtained its universal
dominion, that we glance briefly at the principal forms into which
Venetian Gothic first declined. They are two in number: one the
corruption of the Gothic itself; the other a partial return to Byzantine
forms; for the Venetian mind having carried the Gothic to a point at
which it was dissatisfied, tried to retrace its steps, fell back first
upon Byzantine types, and through them passed to the first Roman. But in
thus retracing its steps, it does not recover its own lost energy. It
revisits the places