Chapter IV: Window Tracery in the Palazzo Cavalli

In Venetian tracery it will always be found that a certain arrangement of quatrefoils and other figures has been planned as if it were to extend indefinitely into miles of arcade, and out of this colossal piece of marble lace a portion in the shape of a window is cut mercilessly and fearlessly: what fragments and odd shapes of interstice, remnants of this or that figure of the divided foliation, may occur at the edge of the window, it matters not; all are cut across and shut in by the great outer archivolt. This is of course open to serious criticism as construction, but its beauty and effectiveness, as used here, cannot be gainsaid.