350 



ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



creation, which never accorded entirely with their feelings. 

 Though they erected many grand churches in that style, 

 their sympathies continued to be in favour of classical forms, 

 and they never understood its real beauty. Had Gothic 

 grown up in Italy independently of any bias towards classical 

 recollections, the Italians might have succeeded in giving it a 

 pure character of its own, like the northern architects ; and 

 they might have embellished it with sculptures, such as we 

 admire at Rheims and Chartres, which the " revival " of art 

 would have enabled them to execute with success. But their 

 ideas recurring constantly to the forms of ancient architecture, 

 prevented their excelling in the new style, and caused some 

 inconsistencies, which we see both in the interiors and ex- 

 teriors of their churches. The bald and heavy aspect too, of 

 the upper part of the Italian nave, with its monotonous 

 circles in the clerestory, contrasts very disadvantageously with 

 the light and harmonious effect of our triforium and clerestory; 

 and judging from the disproportion of the low wide pier- 

 arches dividing the nave from the shallow aisles, and the 

 heaviness of the vaulted roof, the Italians seem not to have 

 appreciated the most beautiful characteristics of a Gothic 

 building. They even failed in the very point for which they 

 have generally been noted — the harmony of proportion. 



That the architects of Borne should not have excelled in 

 Grothic architecture is not surprising ; they have an aversion 

 to it ; they neither admire nor comprehend its beauties ; and 

 there is only one church in that style within the walls of Rome. 



Another feature in Italian-Gothic fortunately has been*, 

 and we may hope always will be, avoided in this country; 

 which is, the arrangement of alternate courses of black and 

 white marble, copied from the East. But while we avoid the 

 faults of its church architecture, we might adopt in our public 



* We have only a few examples of it; but there is one, of alternate red 

 ami grey stone, in a doorway at Paignton Church, even of late Norman time. 



