and of
architectural propriety with imitative finish, is found throughout all
the fine periods of the Italian Gothic, opposed to the wildness without
invention, and exuberance without completion, of the North.

45. One other distinction we must notice, in the treatment of the Niche
and its accessories. In Northern Gothic the niche frequently consists
only of a bracket and canopy--the latter attached to the wall,
independent of columnar support, pierced into openwork profusely rich,
and often prolonged upwards into a crocketed pinnacle of indefinite
height. But in the niche of pure Italian Gothic the classic principle of
columnar support is never lost sight of. Even when its canopy is
actually supported by the wall behind, it is apparently supported by two
columns in front, perfectly formed with bases and capitals:--(the
support of the Northern niche--if it have any--commonly takes the form
of a buttress):--when it appears as a detached pinnacle, it is supported
on four columns, the canopy trefoliated with very obtuse cusps, richly
charged with foliage in the foliating space, but undecorated at the cusp
points, and terminating above in a smooth pyramid, void of all ornament,
and never very acute. This form, modified only by various grouping, is
that of the noble sepulchral monuments of Verona, Lucca, Pisa, and
Bologna; on a small scale it is at Venice associated with the cupola,
in St. Mark's, as well as in Santa Fosca, and other minor churches. At
Pisa, in the Spina chapel it occurs in its most exquisite form, the
columns there being chased with checker patterns of great elegance. The
windows of the Florence cathedral are all placed under a flat canopy of
the same form, the columns being elongated, twisted, and enriched with
mosaic patterns. The reader must at once perceive how vast is the
importance of the difference in system with respect to this member; the
whole of the rich, cavernous chiaroscuro of Northern Gothic being
dependent on the accumulation of its niches.

46. In passing to the examination of our Author's theory as tested by
the progress of Sculpture, we are still struck by his utter want of
attention to physical advantages or difficulties. He seems to have
forgotten from the first, that the mountains of Syene are not the rocks
of Paros. Neither the social habits nor intellectual powers of the Greek
had so much share in inducing his advance in Sculpture beyond the
Egyptian, as the difference between marb