Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/378

362 ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part XL exactly the effect aimed at, and seldom that the objection does not present itself of too mucli or too little stone being used. The want of shadow in brick arcliiteeture is most felt in the cornices, where sufficient projection cannot be obtained. The defect might be easily and legitimately got over by the employment of stone in the upper members of the cornice, but this expedient seems never to have been resorted to. axu- 7!MI. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 7!il. There are few of tlicse brick buildings of the North of Italy which are not open to just criticism for defects of design or detail, but tliis may arise from the circumstance that they all belong to an age when the Italians were using a style which was not their own, and cm- ploying ornaments of which they understood neither the origin nor the n])plication. The <lefccts certainly do not aj)j)ear to be at all inherent in the material, and judging from the experience of the Italians, Avere we to make the attemjtt in a proper spirit, we might create Avitli it a style far surpassing anything we now ])ractise. Venice. The most beautiful specimens of the civil and domestic architecture of Italy in the Gothic period are probably to be found in Venice, the richest and most peaceful of Italian cities during the Middle Ages. It is necessary to speak of the buildings of Venice, or more correctly, of the Venetian Province, by themselves, since its architecture is quite distinct, both in origin and character, from any other found in Nortli- ern Italy. It was not derived from the old Lombard Round Gothic, but from the richer and more graceful Byzantine. True to its parent- age, it p.artook in after ages far more of the Southern Saracenic style than of the Northern Gothic ; still it cannot be classed as either By- zantine or Saracenic, but only as Gothic treated with an Eastern feeling, and enriched with many details borrowed from Eastern styles.