The façade of the Library of St. Mark has but two stories including the basement, and these are adorned with a Doric and an Ionic order respectively (Fig. 65); the first noticeable peculiarity of this design is its very florid character. The reveals are deep, the orders are in high relief, and the friezes and arch spandrels are loaded with showy ornamental carvings. Milizia says[97] that in the Doric order of this façade Sansovino attempted to solve a problem which had troubled all of the Italian architects, namely, how to make exactly half of a metope fall at the end of the frieze. The Greeks had placed a triglyph at the angle, but in so doing they had been obliged to sacrifice uniformity, since this angle triglyph fell over one side of the corner column, instead of over its centre as the other triglyphs of the series did (Fig. 66). This had made it necessary to lengthen the last metope, and to narrow the last intercolumniation. The Romans had set the last triglyph over the centre of the corner column, and had thus been obliged to give less than half a metope to the corner (Fig. 67), though they secured uniformity in all the rest of the parts. The frieze, however, had now an appearance of incompleteness at each end, as of a thing cut off arbitrarily through one of its members. The architects of the Renaissance appear to have disliked this narrow section of a metope at the end of the frieze, and to have sought a way to make it exactly half. This, as Milizia tells us, Sansovino did in the Library of St. Mark by lengthening the frieze enough to give the fragment of metope the width that was desired. Turning to the design itself (Fig. 68), we find that this obliged him to set a square pier with a pilaster on its face at the angle. Of this device Milizia remarks that it was a folly.[98] [Illustration: FIG. 67.--Roman corner.]