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But in Venice the decorators were brave; their faith in their material was unbounded, and they not only frankly laid gold in enormous masses on flat wall and cupola, but they even moulded the edges and archivolts without separate ribs or strips to relieve them; the gold is carried all over the edges, which are rounded into curves to receive the mosaic, so that the effect is that of the entire upper part of the church having been pressed into shape out of solid gold.
If space permitted, nothing could be more delightful than to examine in detail these marvellous capitals and archivolts which Ruskin has so lovingly immortalized for English readers. Of all decorative sculpture there is none more satisfying from the ornamental point of view than the Byzantine interlace and vine forms so usual in Venice.
Such cornices have arisen from a mistaken appliance of the running ornaments, which are proper to archivolts, jambs, &c., to the features which have definite functions of support.
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