and silvery richness of this
architecture, in which the Byzantine ornamentation was associated with
the Gothic form of arch, to the simplicity of the pure Gothic arcade as
seen in the lower figure, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the
history of Venetian art. If it had occurred suddenly, and at an earlier
period, it might have been traced partly to the hatred of the Greeks,
consequent upon the treachery of Manuel Comnenus,[91] and the fatal war
to which it led; but the change takes place gradually, and not till a
much later period. I hoped to have been able to make some careful
inquiries into the habits of domestic life of the Venetians before and
after the dissolution of their friendly relations with Constantinople;
but the labor necessary for the execution of my more immediate task has
entirely prevented this: and I must be content to lay the succession of
the architectural styles plainly before the reader, and leave the
collateral questions to the investigation of others; merely noting this
one assured fact, that _the root of all that is greatest in Christian
art is struck in the thirteenth century_; that the temper of that
century is the life-blood of all manly work thenceforward in Europe; and
I suppose that one of its peculiar characteristics was elsewhere, as
assuredly in Florence, a singular simplicity in domestic life:

"I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad
In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone;
And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks,
His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content
With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax....
One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it
With sounds that lulled the parents' infancy;
Another, with her maidens, drawing off
The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
Old tales of Troy, and Fesole, and Rome."[92]

Sec. XLII. Such, then, is the simple fact at Venice, that from the
beginning of the thirteenth century there is found a singular increase
of simplicity in all architectural ornamentation; the rich Byzantine
capitals giving place to a pure and severe type hereafter to be
described,[93] and the rich sculptures vanishing from the walls, nothing
but the marble facing remaining. One of the most interesting examples of
this transitional state is a palace at San Severo, just behind the Casa
Zorzi. This latter is a Renaissance building, utterly worthless in every
res