if possible
symmetrically grouped. The one almost universal moulding is decorated
with acanthus units, and the capitals have acanthus leaves around their
bells. These caps are of two types. One, that is manifestly an
adaptation of a classic cap, is a union of an Ionic and a Corinthian, or
at other times of a Roman Doric and a Corinthian capital. The other is
peculiar to Byzantine work, and is that shown in Plates XXI. to XXIV. in
the last number. This cap, as at S. Vitale, is often supplemented by
another plainer cap above. The lower cap has its faces decorated with
scrolls, acanthus wreaths, etc., and usually the corners are
strengthened with a decorative unit, leaf or other motive.

The difference between the Byzantine and the Romanesque arises from the
differences of the races and their environments. The art of seaport
towns, when Commerce was most largely carried on by sea, much more
nearly resembled the art of some great commercial centre on the
seaboard than it did that of its own neighbors inland.

The art of the seaboard cities in Europe was, then, for many years a
borrowed art from the East, as their people were to great extent Eastern
colonists. It was carried on with a full knowledge of constructive
methods, and a facility in obtaining materials that the inland towns did
not possess; and in consequence it is along the seaboard that is to be
found the persistence of the Byzantine influence. On the other hand, the
interior was peopled by descendants of Ostrogothic tribes mingling with
numberless local peoples. Whatever they touch is necessarily crude at
first, but constantly gaining as they gain facility in working. A
precedent of some kind they must have, and they find it close at hand in
the Roman basilicas. Uncertain, from the result of woful experiments, of
arches of great span, they pack their columns close together and
surmount them with sturdy little arches that have scarcely any thrust.
This arcade of heavy columns carrying absurdly disproportionate arches
is their only motive, and applied inside between aisles and nave, and
outside in successive stories rising one above another. As the masons
begin better to understand their art, the span of the arch increases,
though a large arch for some time does duty merely as a discharging
arch, and has smaller arches beneath and within it. The capitals, at
first crude imitations of classic prototypes, soon become the field for
the grotesque imagination of the w