eling. The motive usually
starts at the bottom and grows continuously to the top, with the base,
whether a mass of leafage, a vase, or other unit of ornament, well
defined and the crowning unit strong and rich. The central axis can be
actual or merely evidenced by the symmetry of the sides, preferably
actual. To prevent an effect of absolute perpendicular division or of
stringiness, this axis, between its base and crown, is divided either by
knots of ornament, concentrated masses, or horizontal motives. In making
these divisions the rules of cadence need to be carefully observed; the
divisions should be made equal in length, or alternate, or in sequence,
and the same method should be observed in the units of ornament marking
the divisions. In most cases there is more ground than ornament, which
always demands that the lines of the ornament should be most carefully
studied, and that the units used as terminals for these lines should be
exactly disposed, in relation to the axis, to each other, and to the
border of the panel. When one considers the number of factors which can
enter into the composition of one of these panels, it can be readily
conceived that their variety is wellnigh infinite; absolute symmetry on
either side of a central axis on which are threaded units of ornament,
and which starts from a mass of detail and terminates in a mass of
detail; systems of radial lines diverging from the central axis and
terminating in centres of ornaments of greater or less size, arranged in
all sorts of groupings; garlands, pendants, and ribbons, vases,
trophies, shields, birds, beasts, and nondescript combinations, foliage,
conventional and natural, forms, human and superhuman, all in varying
scales, all in surfaces undulating, now rising into sharp relief with
clear-cut edges, now sinking and melting into the background; and the
whole so carefully balanced, so exactly distributed, that no portion
should be too strong for another, no detail but should be equally
refined. It is not an easy matter to succeed in a design of such
requirements."

"It is well into the latter part of the fifteenth century before this
pilaster treatment is prevalent. The Quattrocento work contains much
less of it than the Cinquecento. The garlands and trophies, lions' and
bulls' heads, dolphins and griffins, tridents and shells and rosettes,
and numberless familiar forms appear in a new guise; the new forms
being, for the most part, heraldic motives