capital is therefore derived from the pure cornice root, represented
by the dotted line.

[85] The word banded is used by Professor Willis in a different
sense; which I would respect, by applying it in his sense always to
the Impost, and in mine to the capital itself. (This note is not for
the general reader, who need not trouble himself about the matter.)

[86] The Renaissance period being one of return to formalism on the
one side, of utter licentiousness on the other, so that sometimes,
as here, I have to declare its lifelessness, at other times (Chap.
XXV., Sec. XVII.) its lasciviousness. There is, of course, no
contradiction in this: but the reader might well ask how I knew the
change from the base 11 to the base 12, in Plate XII., to be one
from temperance to luxury; and from the cornice _f_ to the cornice
_g_, in Plate XVI., to be one from formalism to vitality. I know it,
both by certain internal evidences, on which I shall have to dwell
at length hereafter, and by the context of the works of the time.
But the outward signs might in both ornaments be the same,
distinguishable only as signs of opposite tendencies by the event of
both. The blush of shame cannot always be told from the blush of
indignation.

[87] The reader must always remember that a cornice, in becoming a
capital, must, if not originally bold and deep, have depth added to
its profile, in order to reach the just proportion of the lower
member of the shaft head; and that therefore the small Greek egg
cornices are utterly incapable of becoming capitals till they have
totally changed their form and depth. The Renaissance architects,
who never obtained hold of a right principle but they made it worse
than a wrong one by misapplication, caught the idea of turning the
cornice into a capital, but did not comprehend the necessity of the
accompanying change of depth. Hence we have pilaster heads formed of
small egg cornices, and that meanest of all mean heads of shafts,
the coarse Roman Doric profile chopped into a small egg and arrow
moulding, both which may be seen disfiguring half the buildings in
London.

[88] I have taken these dates roughly from Selvatico; their absolute
accuracy to within a year or two, is here of no importance.

[89] Chap. I. Sec. XIX., Appendix 7: and Chap. VI. Sec. V.

[90] Chap. I., S