is inaccessible without scaffolding,
and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are
very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find
(except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and
basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided
House.[164]

(4.) _The Madonnetta House._

On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della
Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a
small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old
shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern
plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious
agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position,
and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It
is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the
least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the
Madonnetta House.

(5.) _The Rio Foscari House._

We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and
enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of
that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the
Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and
time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a
circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of
small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I
have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume,
partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to
it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.

(6.) _Casa Farsetti._

We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As
soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize,
on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form
important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge.
Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part
of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely
modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor
have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been
shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various
small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in
propor