them to any regular
service in the support of the building.

An architect who cared only to display his own skill, and had no respect
for the works of others, would assuredly have chosen the former
alternative, and would have sawn the old marbles into fragments in order
to prevent all interference with his own designs. But an architect who
cared for the preservation of noble work, whether his own or others',
and more regarded the beauty of his building than his own fame, would
have done what those old builders of St. Mark's did for us, and saved
every relic with which he was entrusted.

Sec. XXVII. But these were not the only motives which influenced the
Venetians in the adoption of their method of architecture. It might,
under all the circumstances above stated, have been a question with
other builders, whether to import one shipload of costly jaspers, or
twenty of chalk flints; and whether to build a small church faced with
porphyry and paved with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in
freestone. But with the Venetians it could not be a question for an
instant; they were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and had
been accustomed to build with their ruins, not less in affection than in
admiration: they had thus not only grown familiar with the practice of
inserting older fragments in modern buildings, but they owed to that
practice a great part of the splendor of their city, and whatever charm
of association might aid its change from a Refuge into a Home. The
practice which began in the affections of a fugitive nation, was
prolonged in the pride of a conquering one; and beside the memorials of
departed happiness, were elevated the trophies of returning victory. The
ship of war brought home more marble in triumph than the merchant vessel
in speculation; and the front of St. Mark's became rather a shrine at
which to dedicate the splendor of miscellaneous spoil, than the
organized expression of any fixed architectural law, or religious
emotion.

Sec. XXVIII. Thus far, however, the justification of the style of this
church depends on circumstances peculiar to the time of its erection,
and to the spot where it arose. The merit of its method, considered in
the abstract, rests on far broader grounds.

In the fifth chapter of the "Seven Lamps," Sec. 14, the reader will find
the opinion of a modern architect of some reputation, Mr. Wood, that the
chief thing remarkable in this church "is its extreme ugliness;" and he