its decoration on the same
scale; the other figures, 6 and 7, both from the apse of Murano, 8, from
the Terraced House, and 9, from the Baptistery of St. Mark's, show the
method of chiselling the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such
as occur everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of
the more elaborate examples.

Sec. XVIII. In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained for
these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any
condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave
profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1, _a_, Plate X., is
the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it
needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it
separates from the shaft. Fig. 4, _a_, on the other hand, is the
profile of the pure convex group, which not only needs no such
projecting fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2, _a_, is
the profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco de' Turchi, lower
arcade) founded on Corinthian, of which the main sweep is concave, but
which bends below into the convex bell-shape, where it joins the shaft.
And, lastly, fig. 3, _a_, is the profile of the nave shafts of St.
Mark's, where, though very delicately granted, the concession to the
Byzantine temper is twofold; first at the spring of the curve from the
base, and secondly the top, where it again becomes convex, though the
expression of the Corinthian bell is still given to it by the bold
concave leaves.

Sec. XIX. These, then, being the general modifications of Byzantine
profiles, I have thrown together in Plate VIII., opposite, some of the
most characteristic examples of the decoration of the concave and
transitional types; their localities are given in the note below,[48]
and the following are the principal points to be observed respecting
them.

The purest concave forms, 1 and 2, were never decorated in the earliest
times, except sometimes by an incision or rib down the centre of their
truncations on the angles.

[Illustration: Plate VIII.
BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP.]

Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 show some of the modes of application of a
peculiarly broad-lobed acanthus leaf, very characteristic of native
Venetian work; 4 and 5 are from the same building, two out of a group of
four, and show the boldness of the variety admitted in the management
even of the capitals most closely d