chitecture has at least an equal
claim.

But all this does not mean that we are mere passive agents in the
matter. _We_ are, in a great measure, the 'external influences' that
modify art. The motion exists, but it devolves upon us to give
direction.

We have already alluded to Venetian architecture as being parallel in
origin and tendency to our own, and much can be gained, we believe, by a
careful examination of what it accomplished. Not that we ought to copy,
line for line, the doge's palace or the Casa d'Oro--the arabesque
arcade, or the Gothic balcony--that would only be following the
well-worn rut of imitation. We are not to study the result, but the
cause. For the causes that produced the style in question were not
unlike what we find at home to-day. A commercial republic, there was the
same liberty of expression--the same preponderance of the individual
over the national; and there, as here, are we attracted rather by the
elegance of independent units than by any general unity of design.

But the growth of art in Venice (we ask special attention) was due to
her central situation, and the simultaneous influx of foreign elements.
It was her commerce that made Venice great: her glory came and departed
with it. Witnessing, as she did, the development of all the mediaeval
styles, she became--geographically and historically--the metropolis of
architecture. 'The Greeks,' says Ruskin, 'gave the shaft, Rome gave the
arch, the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch.... Opposite in their
character and mission, alike in their magnificence of energy, they came
from the North and from the South--the glacier torrent and the lava
stream, they met and contended over the wreck of the Roman Empire; and
the very centre of the struggle, the point of pause of both, the dead
water of the opposite eddies, charged with embayed fragments of the
Roman wreck, is _Venice_.

'The ducal palace of Venice contains the three elements in exactly equal
proportions, the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It is the central building of
the world.'

Truly, it was a glorious success that art achieved in the Italian
republic, Whether the old precedents were violated or not, the result is
unquestionably pleasing, and the pleasure-seeking tourist lingers there
as long as the critic.

At this transition state, through which Venice passed so nobly, have we
now arrived. We have collected our materials, and piled them up
together, but just as all seems most propit