and then the wall. The pilaster has, by way of capital, a square flat
brick, projecting a little, and cast, at the edge, into the form of the
first type of all cornices (_a_, p. 63, Vol. I.; the reader ought to
glance back at this passage, if he has forgotten it); and the shafts and
pilasters all stand, without any added bases, on a projecting plinth of
the same simple profile. These windows have been much defaced; but I
have not the least doubt that their plinths are the original ones: and
the whole group is one of the most valuable in Venice, as showing the
way in which the humblest houses, in the noble times, followed out the
system of the larger palaces, as far as they could, in their rude
materials. It is not often that the dwellings of the lower orders are
preserved to us from the thirteenth century.

[Illustration: Plate XVII.
WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES.]

Sec. XXXVI. In the two upper lines of the opposite Plate (XVII.), I have
arranged some of the more delicate and finished examples of Gothic work
of this period. Of these, fig. 4 is taken from the outer arcade of San
Fermo of Verona, to show the condition of mainland architecture, from
which all these Venetian types were borrowed. This arch, together with
the rest of the arcade, is wrought in fine stone, with a band of inlaid
red brick, the whole chiselled and fitted with exquisite precision, all
Venetian work being coarse in comparison. Throughout the streets of
Verona, arches and windows of the thirteenth century are of continual
occurrence, wrought, in this manner, with brick and stone; sometimes
the brick alternating with the stones of the arch, as in the finished
example given in Plate XIX. of the first volume, and there selected in
preference to other examples of archivolt decoration, because furnishing
a complete type of the master school from which the Venetian Gothic is
derived.

Sec. XXXVII. The arch from St. Fermo, however, fig. 4, Plate XVII.,
corresponds more closely, in its entire simplicity, with the little
windows from the Campiello San Rocco; and with the type 5 set beside it
in Plate XVII., from a very ancient house in the Corte del Forno at
Santa Marina (all in brick); while the upper examples, 1 and 2, show the
use of the flat but highly enriched architrave, for the connection of
which with Byzantine work see the final Appendix, Vol. III., under the
head "Archivolt." These windows (figs. 1 and 2, Plate XVII.) are fr