an older building turned inside out. They are covered with
sculptures on the back, only to be seen by mounting into the gallery.
They have once had an arcade of low wide arches traced on their surface,
the spandrils filled with leafage, and archivolts enriched with studded
chainwork and with crosses in their centres. These pieces have been used
as waste marble by the architect of the existing apse. The small arches
of the present balustrade are cut mercilessly through the old work, and
the profile of the balustrade is cut out of what was once the back of
the stone; only some respect is shown for the crosses in the old design,
the blocks are cut so that these shall be not only left uninjured, but
come in the centre of the balustrades.

Sec. XXXII. Now let the reader observe carefully that this balustrade
of Murano is a fence of other things than the low gallery round the
deserted apse. It is a barrier between two great schools of early
architecture. On one side it was cut by Romanesque workmen of the early
Christian ages, and furnishes us with a distinct type of a kind of
ornament which, as we meet with other examples of it, we shall be able
to describe in generic terms, and to throw back behind this balustrade,
out of our way. The _front_ of the balustrade presents us with a totally
different condition of design, less rich, more graceful, and here shown
in its simplest possible form. From the outside of this bar of marble we
shall commence our progress in the study of existing Venetian
architecture. The only question is, do we begin from the tenth or from
the twelfth century?

Sec. XXXIII. I was in great hopes once of being able to determine this
positively; but the alterations in all the early buildings of Venice are
so numerous, and the foreign fragments introduced so innumerable, that I
was obliged to leave the question doubtful. But one circumstance must be
noted, bearing upon it closely.

In the woodcut on page 50, Fig. III., _b_ is an archivolt of Murano, _a_
one of St. Mark's; the latter acknowledged by all historians and all
investigators to be of the twelfth century.

_All_ the twelfth century archivolts in Venice, without exception, are
on the model of _a_, differing only in their decorations and sculpture.
There is not one which resembles that of Murano.

But the deep mouldings of Murano are almost exactly similar to those of
St. Michele of Pavia, and other Lombard churches built, some as early as
the s