§112,113. ITALIAN GOTHIC. 



349 



a conglomerate of corrupt classical forms is sometimes ad- 

 mitted into our houses in imitation of the bad taste of the 

 Stuart period, where a hybrid between an Ionic column, and 

 a Hermes' pillar, supports an arch with the key-stone in full 

 blossom (60). Some capricious forms may have the merit 

 of being elegant, as the small twisted columns of old cloisters, 

 supporting light arches : and as long as they are small, and 

 bear a slight weight, they are admissible ; but the twisted 

 shaft implies diminished power ; and when they carry a large 

 arch, or when (though of increased size) they are crowned by a 

 huge mass like the tasteless baldacchino of St. Peter's, they are 

 out of place, and lose the very merit which alone excuses them. 



[The centre of a pediment thrust up as if by subterraneous 

 agency, and leaving its two deserted ends far below it, has 

 also been tolerated, perhaps admired ; but al- 

 though this last may have the sanction of Lom- 

 bard architecture, and of some of Palladio's 

 churches, it is only the result of a want of 

 invention, decomposing what was beautiful, 

 without the excuse of a graceful reproduction 

 of it, under a new form.] 



113. Fortunately, no one has adopted the false gable, 

 perched on an upright wall, which rises alone far above the 

 roof at the west end of many fine Italian churches ; as in 

 the facade of S. Michele at Lucca, of Sta. Maria Novella 

 at Florence, and others. It forms in reality no part of the 

 building, above which it only stands like a screen ; and 

 neither can the richness of its ornaments compensate for its 

 graceless wall-shaped outline, nor the appearance of height 

 it lends to the church excuse its uselessness and its false pre- 

 tences. Whatever apology may be offered for it, it is a sham. 



We may congratulate ourselves on an escape from its 

 adoption, as well as from any imitation of the interiors of Ita- 

 lian-Grothic churches. Gothic was to most Italians a foreign 



