§ 100. ST. MARK'S AT VENICE. 335 



have much to do with the charm it possesses. The impres- 

 sion on a stranger being invariably one of admiration is quite 

 consistent with, and confirms, the fact of its not being looked 

 upon in the same light as any other building, but rather with 

 reference to its effect ; for those who are most adverse to 

 coloured architecture never think of withholding their admira- 

 tion from St. Mark's. Its beauty, especially of the exterior, 

 consists greatly in its picturesqueness ; and when any one 

 extols its excellence on the score of its architecture, he mis- 

 takes its real charm for its merit as a building. And it is evi- 

 dent that no similar edifice, whether an exact copy, or with the 

 same peculiar character, of St. Mark's, would be tolerable (even 

 in a similar position) in any other place. We should not say 

 this of other buildings of repute. To maintain its claims as 

 a specimen of good architecture is to deprive it of its real 

 merits, and to do it an injustice by subjecting it to the ordeal 

 of rules by which it should not be tested. For there is no 

 denying that in many instances it sins against the principles of 

 constructiveness, and the customs of architecture. What, for 

 instance, can be worse than the horizontal line at the summit 

 of the basement story of its facade, interrupted by the central 

 arch (already alluded to); or the succession of semicircles 

 crowned with ill-applied ogees, forming the upper story of 

 the facade ; or the ponderous graceless window in the centre, 

 before which the ill-placed horses are put away almost out of 

 sight ; or the clusters of small columns, perched over the 

 larger ones between each archway, which, like the horses from 

 Athens, proclaim the manner in which the plunder from 

 other monuments, collected by the Venetians, was added to 

 their favoured church ? This was done without adequate 

 inquiry whether each suited it, displayed its own beauty, or 

 contributed all it could to that of the structure ; which ap- 

 pears to be curiously consistent in this respect, that it was 

 built to receive the body of St. Mark, also furtively obtained, 



