The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3), by John Ruskin

just account of the incapacities of the modern Italian. [69] Salisbury spire is only a tower with a polygonal gabled roof of stone, and so also the celebrated spires of Caen and Coutances. [70] Or by the shaded portions of Fig. XXIX. Vol. I. [71] The reader is not to suppose that Greek architecture had always, or often, flat ceilings, because I call its lintel the roof proper. He must remember I always use these terms of the first simple arrangements of materials that bridge a space; bringing in the real roof afterwards, if I can. In the case of Greek temples it would be vain to refer their structure to the real roof, for many were hypæthral, and without a roof at all. I am unfortunately more ignorant of Egyptian roofing than even of Arabian, so that I cannot bring this school into the diagram; but the gable appears to have been magnificently used for a bearing roof. Vide Mr. Fergusson's section of the Pyramid of Geezeh, "Principles of Beauty in Art," Plate I., and his expressions of admiration of Egyptian roof masonry, page 201. [72] See 'Athenæum,' March 5th, 1853. [73] Late, and chiefly confined to Northern countries, so that the two schools may be opposed either as Early and Late Gothic, or (in the fourteenth century) as Southern and Northern Gothic. [74] In many of the best French Gothic churches, the groups of figures have been all broken away at the Revolution, without much harm to the picturesqueness, though with grievous loss to the historical value of the architecture: whereas, if from the niche at Verona we were to remove its floral ornaments, and the statue beneath it, nothing would remain but a rude square trefoiled shell, utterly valueless, or even ugly.