, from the highest to the most
humble: it is a frequent form of cottage door, more especially when
carried on spurs, being of peculiarly easy construction in wood: as
applied to large architecture, it can evidently be built, in its boldest
and simplest form, either of wood only, or on a scale which will admit of
its sides being each a single slab of stone. If so large as to require
jointed masonry, the gabled sides will evidently require support, and an
arch must be thrown across under them, as in Fig. XLIX., from Fiesole.

[Illustration: Fig. XLIX.]

If we cut the projection gradually down, we arrive at the common Gothic
gable dripstone carried on small brackets, carved into bosses, heads, or
some other ornamental form; the sub-arch in such case being useless, is
removed or coincides with the arch head of the aperture.

Sec. VI. 3. _c_, Fig. XLVIII. Substituting walls or pillars for the
brackets, we may carry the projection as far out as we choose, and form
the perfect porch, either of the cottage or village church, or of the
cathedral. As we enlarge the structure, however, certain modifications
of form become necessary, owing to the increased boldness of the
required supporting arch. For, as the lower end of the gabled roof and
of the arch cannot coincide, we have necessarily above the shafts one of
the two forms _a_ or _b_, in Fig. L., of which the latter is clearly the
best, requiring less masonry and shorter roofing; and when the arch
becomes so large as to cause a heavy lateral thrust, it may become
necessary to provide for its farther safety by pinnacles, _c_.

This last is the perfect type of aperture protection. None other can
ever be invented so good. It is that once employed by Giotto in the
cathedral of Florence, and torn down by the proveditore, Benedetto
Uguccione, to erect a Renaissance front instead; and another such has
been destroyed, not long since, in Venice, the porch of the church of
St. Apollinare, also to put up some Renaissance upholstery: for
Renaissance, as if it were not nuisance enough in the mere fact of its
own existence, appears invariably as a beast of prey, and founds itself
on the ruin of all that is best and noblest. Many such porches, however,
happily still exist in Italy, and are among its principal glories.

[Illustration: Fig. L.]

Sec. VII. When porches of this kind, carried by walls, are placed close
together, as in cases where there are many and large entrances to a
cathe