idea from the traceries of the Frari, and arranging those traceries as
best fitted his own purpose, designed the great arcade (the lowest of
the three in Plate XVII.), which thenceforward became the established
model for every work of importance in Venice. The palaces built on this
model, however, most of them not till the beginning of the fifteenth
century, belong properly to the time of the Renaissance; and what little
we have to note respecting them may be more clearly stated in connexion
with other facts characteristic of that period.

Sec. XLIV. As the examples in Plate XVII. are necessarily confined to
the upper parts of the windows, I have given in the Plate opposite
(XVIII[94]) examples of the fifth order window, both in its earliest and
in its fully developed form, completed from base to keystone. The upper
example is a beautiful group from a small house, never of any size or
pretension, and now inhabited only by the poor, in the Campiello della
Strope, close to the Church of San Giacomo de Lorio. It is remarkable
for its excessive purity of curve, and is of very early date, its
mouldings being simpler than usual.[95] The lower example is from the
second story of a palace belonging to the Priuli family, near San
Lorenzo, and shows one feature to which our attention has not hitherto
been directed, namely, the penetration of the cusp, leaving only a
silver thread of stone traced on the darkness of the window. I need not
say that, in this condition, the cusp ceases to have any constructive
use, and is merely decorative, but often exceedingly beautiful. The
steps of transition from the early solid cusp to this slender thread are
noticed in the final Appendix, under the head "Tracery Bars;" the
commencement of the change being in the thinning of the stone, which is
not cut through until it is thoroughly emaciated. Generally speaking,
the condition in which the cusp is found is a useful test of age, when
compared with other points; the more solid it is, the more ancient: but
the massive form is often found associated with the perforated, as late
as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the Ducal Palace, the
lower or bearing traceries have the solid cusp, and the upper traceries
of the windows, which are merely decorative., have the perforated cusp,
both with exquisite effect.

[Illustration: Plate XVIII.
WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER.]

Sec. XLV. The smaller balconies between the great shafts in