thirteenth century. I shall call it the _gabled_ dentil. It is found in the greatest profusion in sepulchral Gothic, associated with several slight variations from the usual dentil type, of which No. 21, from the tomb of Pietro Cornaro, may serve as an example. § XV. All the forms given in Plate IX. are of not unfrequent occurrence: varying much in size and depth, according to the expression of the work in which they occur; generally increasing in size in late work (the earliest dentils are seldom more than an inch or an inch and a half long: the fully developed dentil of the later Gothic is often as much as four or five in length, by one and a half in breadth); but they are all somewhat rare, compared to the true or armor dentil, above described. On the other hand, there are one or two unique conditions, which will be noted in the buildings where they occur.[77] The Ducal Palace furnishes three anomalies in the arch, dogtooth, and dentil: it has a hyperbolic arch, as noted above, Chap. X., § XV.; it has a double-fanged dogtooth in the rings of the spiral shafts on its angles; and, finally, it has a dentil with concave sides, of which the section and two of the blocks, real size, are given in Plate XIV. The labor of obtaining this difficult profile has, however, been thrown away; for the effect of the dentil at ten feet distance is exactly the same as that of the usual form: and the reader may consider the dogtooth and dentil in that plate as fairly representing the common use of them in the Venetian Gothic. § XVI. I am aware of no other form of fillet decoration requiring notice: in the Northern Gothic, the fillet is employed chiefly to give severity or flatness to mouldings supposed to be too much rounded, and is therefore generally plain. It is itself an ugly moulding, and, when thus employed, is merely a foil for others, of which, however, it at last usurped the place, and became one of the most painful features in the debased Gothic both of Italy and the North. FOOTNOTES: [74] I do not here speak of artistical merits, but the play of the light among the lower shafts is also singularly beautiful in this sketch of Prout's, and the character of the wild and broken leaves, half dead, on the stone of the foreground. [75] Vide the "Seven Lamps," p. 122. [76] The sections of all the mouldings are given on the right of each; the part which is constantly solid being shaded, and that which is cut into dentils left. [77] As, however, we shall not probably be led either to Bergamo or Bologna, I may mention here a curiously rich use of the dentil, entirely covering the foliation and tracery of a niche on the outside of the duomo of Bergamo; and a roll, entirely incrusted, as the handle of a mace often is with nails, with massy dogteeth or nail-heads, on the door of the Pepoli palace of Bologna. CHAPTER XXIV. THE ROLL AND RECESS.