Flatness and lack .of deep shadows, owing to the impossibility of obtaining heavy cornices in that material, mark the style. The prevalence of sunlight led to a restriction of the windows and exaggeration of wall space. The development of ' tracery' was hindered both by the material and by the relative insignificance of the-windows. On the other hand, the plastic quality of terracotta. suggested an abundance of delicate ornamentation on a small sale, which produced its effect b its own individual beauty without broad reference to the generaly scheme. Coloured marbles"and fresooes served a like purpose. The exteriors of the north Italian Gothic churches are characterized by the fiatness. of the roof; 'the treatment of the west facade as a mere screen wall, masking the true lines of the aisle roofs; the great circular window in the west front for lighting the nave; the absence of pinnacles owing to the unimportance of the buttresses; the west-end porches with columns resting on lions or other animals. The peculiarity of Venetian domestic Gothic to which we have referred is this: we frequently find tracery used to fill rectangular, not arched, openings. The result is that the tracery itself as to support the structure above it-is, in fact, constructional-whereas in' most other countries"1the tracery is merely, as it were, a pierced screen filling in a constructional arch. V Hence the noticeable heaviness of V enetxan tracery. The ducal palace, like St Mark's, is a symbol and an epitome of the race which evolved it. Soon after the concentration The A at Rialto the doge Angelo Particiaco began an official ducal residence for the head of the state. It was probably P"“°' a small, strongly fortified castle; one of its massive angle-towers is now incorporated in St Mark's and serves as theaiireasiiry. During the earlier years of the republic the duel! palace was frequently destroyed and rebuilt. It was bumt.in 976 and again inf £195-" At the close of the 12th century (1173-1i7g) Sebastian Ziani ~ restored-and 'enlarged the pa.la¢e.'~E- Ofyliirwork some traces stillfrerna.ini;in'the richly sculptured l3ands”buii§ "in at intervals along the.14th¢el€htury facade on the"Ri'o, 'lf;d part of the handsome larch-wood 'beams which; formed the "loggia: of the piazzetta facade, stillfifiéible on thajiiner wall of the present loggia. The present magnificent building was a slow. growth extending over three centuries and expanding gradually as; the republic riches: .=° 1 l E The, 'place as we now see it, was begun about 1300v by Doge Pietro' garadenigxnwho soon, after-the closing of the' grea, t council aveits permanent form 'to the Venetian constitution. 'It is thereforegiin-i'B sense, contemporaneous with the early manhood of the state. Gradenigo built the' facade' along the Rio. About 1309 the arcaded fa. de along the lagkpon front was taken in hand, and set the design fir the w ole of the external frontage of the palace. Towards the end of the 14th century, this facade, with its lower colonnade, upper loggia with handsome Gothic tracery, and the vast impending upper storey, which give to the whole building its striking appearance and audacious design, had been carried as far as the tenth column on the piazzetta side. At this point, perhaps out of regard for therernains of Zia.ni's palace, the, work seems to have been arrested for many years, but in 1424 the building was resumed and carried as far as the north-west, or judgment, angle, near St Mark's, thus completing- the seaand piazzetta. facades .as we now see them. The great ateway, the Porta della Carta. was added in I 39-42 from designs by Bartholomeo Buono..(or Bong, and his son. The block of buildings- in the interior, connecting the orta della Carta to the Rio wing, was added about 1462 by'.the, doge Cristoforo Moro. In 1479 a fire consumed the earlier buildings along the Rio, and these were replaced (1480-1550) by the present Renaissance structure. ' ',

The two main facades, those towards the sea and the piazzetta, consist of a repetition of the same design, that which was begun in thi early years of the hgh century. he name of the architect who egan the work and t us fixed the design of the, whole is not certainly known, but it must have been a man of an earlier, generation than that of Filippo Calendario, who is often stated to have been the chief architect' of the older portion. Calendario was an accomplice in the conspiracy of Marino Faliero, and was, executed together with the doge in 1355. It appears probable that a Venetian architect and sculptor named Pietro Baseggio was the chief master builder in the first half of the 14th century. The 'design of these facades is very striking and unlike that of any other building in the world. It consists of two storeys with open colonnades, forming a long loggia on the und and first floors, with seventeen arc es on the m front andrgighteen on the other facade. Above -this is a lofty third store, pierced with a few large windows, with -pointed now lost. The whole

coveredfwith a 'diaper

stone and red 'Verona

to the building. Very

arches once 'illecfl with traeery, which is

surface of the ponderous upper storey is

pattern in slabs of creamy white lstrian

marble, givin, a delicate ras?-orange hue

beautiful sculpture, execut with an ivo?-like minuteness of finish, is used to decorate the whole building wit wonderf ul prof us1on.-At each of the three free angles is a large group immediately over the lower column. At the south-east alrrgle is the “ Drunkenness of Noah, " at the south-west the “ Fall of an, ” and at the north-west the “ judgment of Solomon!" Over each, at a much hi her level, 'is a colossal figure of an archangel—Raphael, Michael ami Gabriel. The great 'internal court is surrounded with arcading. From the interior of the court accessis iven to the u per loggia by a very beautiful staircase of early lgenaissance stylie, built in the middle of the r5th century by'Antonio Rizzo. Two colossal statues of Neptune and Mars at the top of these stairs were executed by Iacopo Sansovino 1n 1554:-hence the name “gia.nts' staircase." Qwing to a fire which gutted a. great part of the palace in 1574, the internal appearancegof the rooms was completely changed, and the fine series of early Paduan and Venetian paintings which decorated the wallsof the chief, rooms, was lost. At present the magnificent Council chambers for the different legislative bodies of the Venetian republic and thestate apartments 0 the doges are richly decorated with gilt carving and panelling in the style of, the later Renaissance. On. the walls of the c ref council chambers are a magnificent series of oil-paintings by Tintoretto and other less able Venetians-among them T1ntoretto's masterpiece, “ Bacchus and Ariadne, ” and, his enormous picture 'of Paradise, the largest oil-painting in the world. Among the many»Gothic churches of'Venice the largest are the Franciscan church 'of Santa Maria. Gloriosa dei Frari (12 50rg8o)', and the Dominican church of SS. Giovanni e GMM: Paolo (1260'°'1400). The Frari is remarkable for its c, ,, ,, ., ,, " Hne choir-stalls and for the series of six eastern chapels which from -outside give a very good example of Gothic brickwork, comparable with the even finer apse of the now desecrated church of San Gregorio. The church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo was the usual burying-placeof the doges, and contains many 'noble mausoleums of various dates. Besides these two churches we may mention Santo Stefano, an interesting building of central Gothic, " the best ecclesiastical example, of it in Venice.” The apse is built over a canal. The west entrance is later than the rest, of the edifice and is of the lichest Renaissance Gothic, a little earlier than theAPorta della Carta. But it is in the -domestic architecture of Venice that we find the most striking and characteristic examples of Gothic. Thejintroduction of that styled coincided with the énuué consolidation of the Venetian constitution and the mm* development of Venetian commerce both in the Levant ' A and with England and Flanders. The wealth which thus accrued found architectural expression in those noble palaces, so characteristic of Venice, which line thepGrand' and smaller canals. They are so numerous that we cannot do more than calliattention to one or two. 1 .

The 'most striking example is undoubtedly the Ca' d' Oro, so called from the profusion of gold' employed on its facade. It was built for. Marino Contarini in 1421, rather a late period in the development of the style. » . . »

Marino kept a minutexentry of his expenses fa document of the highest 'value, 'not merelyofor the history of the building, but also for the light it'throws' on 'the private life of the reat patricians who fgaveto Venice' such noble 'examples of art. Cgontanni was to some extent his own architect. He had the assistance of >Marco d' Amadeo, a rnasteribuilder, and of Matteo Reverti, a Milanese sculptor, who were joined later on by Giovanni Buono and 'his son Bartolomeof 'Other artists, of 'whom we know 'nothing else, such' as Antonio Busetto, Antonio Foscolo, Gasparino >Rosso, Giacomo da Como, Marco da Le no and others, were called in to help in evolving this masterpiece of decorated architecture, affording us an example of 'the way in which the ducal palace and' other monuments of Venice grew out of the collaboration' of numerous nameless artists. By the year 1431 the facade was nearly completed, and Contarini made a bargain with Martino and Giovanni Benzon for the 'marbles to cover wha.t' was yet unfinished. 'The facade is a triumph of graceful elegance; so light is the tracery, 'so rich the decoration, so successful the breach of symmetry which gives us a wing upon Ntheoleft-hand side 'but none upon the ri ht. But Contarini was not content' to'leave the marbles 'as they were. ' He desired to have the facade, of his house in colour. iThe 'contract for this work; signed with Master Zuan de Franza, conjures up a vision of the, Ca d' Oro ablaze with colour and gleaning with the gold ornamentation from which it took its name. Other' notable examples of this style are the Palazzo Ariani at San Raffaelle, with its handsome window in a. design of intersecting circles; the beautiful window with the symbols of the four Evangelists in the spandrels, in the facade of ai house, at San Stae; the row of three Ciustinian palaces at S., Barnaba; the Palazzo Priuli' at"Sa'n Severo, witlix a'remarkably'gra<:efu 1 anglewindovr,

where the columnar mullion carries down the angle of the