SECTION V. The great facade which fronts the spectator looks southward. Hence the two traceried windows lower than the rest, and to the right of the spectator, may be conveniently distinguished as the "Eastern Windows." There are two others like them, filled with tracery, and at the same level, which look upon the narrow canal between the Ponte della Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs: these we may conveniently call the "Canal Windows." The reader will observe a vertical line in this dark side of the palace, separating its nearer and plainer wall from a long four-storied range of rich architecture. This more distant range is entirely Renaissance: its extremity is not indicated, because I have no accurate sketch of the small buildings and bridges beyond it, and we shall have nothing whatever to do with this part of the palace in our present inquiry. The nearer and undecorated wall is part of the older palace, though much defaced by modern opening of common windows, refittings of the brickwork, etc. SECTION VI. It will be observed that the facade is composed of a smooth mass of wall, sustained on two tiers of pillars, one above the other. The manner in which these support the whole fabric will be understood at once by the rough section, Fig. III., which is supposed to be taken right through the palace to the interior court, from near the middle of the Sea Facade. Here _a_ and _d_ are the rows of shafts, both in the inner court and on the Facade, which carry the main walls; _b_, _c_ are solid walls variously strengthened with pilasters. A, B, C are the three stories of the interior of the palace. [Illustration: FIG. III.] The reader sees that it is impossible for any plan to be more simple, and that if the inner floors and walls of the stories A, B were removed, there would be left merely the form of a basilica,--two high walls, carried on ranges of shafts, and roofed by a low gable. The stories A, B are entirely modernized, and divided into confused ranges of small apartments, among which what vestiges remain of ancient masonry are entirely undecipherable, except by investigations such as I have had neither the time nor, as in most cases they would involve the removal of modern plastering, the opportunity, to make. With the subdivisions of this story, therefore, I shall not trouble the reader; but those of the great upper story, C, are highly important. SECTION VII. In the bird's-eye view above, Fig. II., it will be noticed that the two windows on the right are lower than the other four of the facade. In this arrangement there is one of the most remarkable instances I know of the daring sacrifice of symmetry to convenience, which was noticed in Chap. VII. as one of the chief noblenesses of the Gothic schools.