+VENICE.+ In this city of merchant princes and a wealthy _bourgeoisie_, the architecture of the Renaissance took on a new aspect of splendor and display. It was late in appearing, the Gothic style with its tinge of Byzantine decorative traditions having here developed into a style well suited to the needs of a rich and relatively tranquil community. These traditions the architects of the new style appropriated in a measure, as in the marble incrustations of the exquisite little church of +S. M. dei Miracoli+ (1480-89), and the façade of the +Scuola di S. Marco+ (1485-1533), both by _Pietro Lombardo_. Nowhere else, unless on the contemporary façade of the Certosa at Pavia, were marble inlays and delicate carving, combined with a framework of thin pilasters, finely profiled entablatures and arched pediments, so lavishly bestowed upon the street fronts of churches and palaces. The family of the _Lombardi_ (Martino, his sons Moro and Pietro, and grandsons Antonio and Tullio), with _Ant. Bregno_ and _Bart. Buon_, were the leaders in the architectural Renaissance of this period, and to them Venice owes her choicest masterpieces in the new style. Its first appearance is noted in the later portions of the church of +S. Zaccaria+ (1456-1515), partly Gothic internally, with a façade whose semicircular pediment and small decorative arcades show a somewhat timid but interesting application of classic details. In this church, and still more so in S. Giobbe (1451-93) and the Miracoli above mentioned, the decorative element predominates throughout. It is hard to imagine details more graceful in design, more effective in the swing of their movement, or more delicate in execution than the mouldings, reliefs, wreaths, scrolls, and capitals one encounters in these buildings. Yet in structural interest, in scale and breadth of planning, these early Renaissance Venetian buildings hold a relatively inferior rank.