l be seen.
At Murano, between the pillars of the apse, a beautiful balustrade is
employed, of which a single arch is given in the Plate opposite, fig. 4,
with its section, fig. 5.; and at St. Mark's, a noble round-arched
parapet, with small pillars of precisely the same form as those of
Murano, but shorter, and bound at the angles into groups of four by the
serpentine knot so often occurring in Lombardic work, runs round the
whole exterior of the lower story of the church, and round great part of
its interior galleries, alternating with the more fantastic form, fig.
6. In domestic architecture, the remains of the original balconies begin
to occur first in the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the
round arch had entirely disappeared; and the parapet consists, almost
without exception, of a series of small trefoiled arches, cut boldly
through a bar of stone which rests upon the shafts, at first very
simple, and generally adorned with a cross at the point of each arch, as
in fig. 7 in the last Plate, which gives the angle of such a balcony on
a large scale; but soon enriched into the beautiful conditions, figs. 2
and 3, and sustained on brackets formed of lions' heads, as seen in the
central example of their entire effect, fig. 1.

[Illustration: Plate XIII.
BALCONIES.]

Sec. XXII. In later periods, the round arches return; then the interwoven
Byzantine form; and finally, as above noticed, the common English or
classical balustrade; of which, however, exquisite examples, for grace
and variety of outline, are found designed in the backgrounds of Paul
Veronese. I could willingly follow out this subject fully, but it is
impossible to do so without leaving Venice; for the chief city of Italy,
as far as regards the strict effect of the balcony, is Verona; and if we
were once to lose ourselves among the sweet shadows of its lonely
streets, where the falling branches of the flowers stream like fountains
through the pierced traceries of the marble, there is no saying whether
we might soon be able to return to our immediate work. Yet before
leaving the subject of the balcony[83] altogether, I must allude, for a
moment, to the peculiar treatment of the iron-work out of which it is
frequently wrought on the mainland of Italy--never in Venice. The iron
is always wrought, not cast, beaten first into thin leaves, and then cut
either into strips or bands, two or three inches broad, which are bent
into various cur