The most common way in which the Italians used this material was by repeating around their openings or along their cornices small copies of Gothic details, as in this example from a circular window in the Broletto at Brescia (Woodcut No. 523). Where the details are small and designed with taste, the effect is almost equal to stone; but where the details are themselves on a large scale, as is sometimes the case, the smallness of the materials becomes apparent. Even in this example the semi-quatrefoils of the principal band are too large for the other details, though not sufficiently so to be offensive. [Illustration: 524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza. (From Street.)] Though not so rich, the effect is almost equally pleasing where the brick is merely moulded on its edge, without any very direct repetition of Gothic details, as in the upper part of the window shown in Woodcut No. 524, from the cathedral of Monza. Where great depth is given so as to obtain shadow, and long tiles are used for the upper arch, as was done by the Romans, an appearance of strength and solidity is given to the construction unsurpassed by that obtained in any other material. Perhaps the most pleasing application of terra-cotta ornaments is where bricks of different colours are used so as to produce by variety of pattern that relief which cannot so well be given by depth of shadow—a perfectly legitimate mode of ornament when so small a material is used, and when beauty only, not sublimity, is aimed at. This is sometimes produced in Italy by introducing stone of a different colour among the bricks, as in the two examples from Verona (Woodcuts Nos. 525, 526); and where this mode of ornamentation is carried throughout the building, the effect is very pleasing. It is difficult, however, so to proportion the two materials as to produce exactly the effect aimed at, and seldom that the objection does not present itself of too much or too little stone being used. The want of shadow in brick architecture is most felt in the cornices, where sufficient projection cannot be obtained. The defect might be easily and legitimately got over by the employment of stone in the upper members of the cornice, but this expedient seems never to have been resorted to. [Illustration: 525. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 526.] There are few of these brick buildings of the North of Italy which are not open to just criticism for defects of design or detail, but this may arise from the circumstance that they all belong to an age when the Italians were using a style which was not their own, and employing ornaments of which they understood neither the origin nor the application. The defects certainly do not appear to be at all inherent in the material, and, judging from the experience of the Italians, were we to make the attempt in a proper spirit, we might create with it a style far surpassing anything we now practise. VENICE.