e XIV.
The forms 3 _a_ and 3 _c_ are exceptional; the first occurring, as we
have seen, in the Corte del Remer, and in one other palace on the Grand
Canal, close to the Church of St. Eustachio; the second only, as far as
I know, in one house on the Canna-Reggio, belonging to the true Gothic
period. The other three examples, 3 _b_, 3 _d_, 3 _e_, are generally
characteristic of the third order; and it will be observed that they
differ not merely in mouldings, but in slope of sides, and this latter
difference is by far the most material. For in the example 3 _b_ there
is hardly any true Gothic expression; it is still the pure Byzantine
arch, with a point thrust up through it: but the moment the flanks
slope, as in 3 _d_, the Gothic expression is definite, and the entire
school of the architecture is changed.

[Illustration: Fig. XXX.]

This slope of the flanks occurs, first, in so slight a degree as to be
hardly perceptible, and gradually increases until, reaching the form 3
_e_ at the close of the thirteenth century, the window is perfectly
prepared for a transition into the fifth order.

Sec. XXXII. The most perfect examples of the third order in Venice are
the windows of the ruined palace of Marco Querini, the father-in-law of
Bajamonte Tiepolo, in consequence of whose conspiracy against the
government this palace was ordered to be razed in 1310; but it was only
partially ruined, and was afterwards used as the common shambles. The
Venetians have now made a poultry market of the lower story (the
shambles being removed to a suburb), and a prison of the upper, though
it is one of the most important and interesting monuments in the city,
and especially valuable as giving us a secure date for the central form
of these very rare transitional windows. For, as it was the palace of
the father-in-law of Bajamonte, and the latter was old enough to assume
the leadership of a political faction in 1280,[88] the date of the
accession to the throne of the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, we are secure of
this palace having been built not later than the middle of the
thirteenth century. Another example, less refined in workmanship, but,
if possible, still more interesting, owing to the variety of its
capitals, remains in the little piazza opening to the Rialto, on the St.
Mark's side of the Grand Canal. The house faces the bridge, and its
second story has been built in the thirteenth century, above a still
earlier Byzantine cornice remaining,