discipline of the fancy, in the other.

Of these two families of capitals both occur in the Byzantine period,
but the concave group is the longest-lived, and extends itself into the
Gothic times. In the account which I gave of them in the first volume,
they were illustrated by giving two portions of a simple curve, that of
a salvia leaf. We must now investigate their characters more in detail;
and these may be best generally represented by considering both families
as formed upon the types of flowers,--the one upon that of the
water-lily, the other upon that of the convolvulus. There was no
intention in the Byzantine architects to imitate either one or the other
of these flowers; but, as I have already so often repeated, all
beautiful works of art must either intentionally imitate or accidentally
resemble natural forms; and the direct comparison with the natural forms
which these capitals most resemble, is the likeliest mode of fixing
their distinctions in the reader's mind.

The one then, the convex family, is modelled according to the commonest
shapes of that great group of flowers which form rounded cups, like that
of the water-lily, the leaves springing horizontally from the stalk, and
closing together upwards. The rose is of this family, but her cup is
filled with the luxuriance of her leaves; the crocus, campanula,
ranunculus, anemone, and almost all the loveliest children of the field,
are formed upon the same type.

The other family resembles the convolvulus, trumpet-flower, and such
others, in which the lower part of the bell is slender, and the lip
curves outwards at the top. There are fewer flowers constructed on this
than on the convex model; but in the organization of trees and of
clusters of herbage it is seen continually. Of course, both of these
conditions are modified, when applied to capitals, by the enormously
greater thickness of the stalk or shaft, but in other respects the
parallelism is close and accurate; and the reader had better at once fix
the flower outlines in his mind,[47] and remember them as representing
the only two orders of capitals that the world has ever seen, or can
see.

Sec. XV. The examples of the concave family in the Byzantine times are
found principally either in large capitals founded on the Greek
Corinthian, used chiefly for the nave pillars of churches, or in the
small lateral shafts of the palaces. It appears somewhat singular that
the pure Corinthian form should have