And this one fact renders it
very difficult to speak with confidence respecting the date of any part
of the exterior of St. Mark's; for we have above seen that it was
consecrated in the eleventh century, and yet here is one of its most
important exterior decorations assuredly retouched, if not entirely
added, in the thirteenth, although its style would have led us to
suppose it had been an original part of the fabric. However, for all
our purposes, it will be enough for the reader to remember that the
earliest parts of the building belong to the eleventh, twelfth, and
first part of the thirteenth century; the Gothic portions to the
fourteenth; some of the altars and embellishments to the fifteenth and
sixteenth; and the modern portion of the mosaics to the seventeenth.
This, however, I only wish him to recollect in order that I may speak
generally of the Byzantine architecture of St. Mark's, without leading
him to suppose the whole church to have been built and decorated by
Greek artists. Its later portions, with the single exception of the
seventeenth-century mosaics, have been so dexterously accommodated to
the original fabric that the general effect is still that of a
Byzantine building; and I shall not, except when it is absolutely
necessary, direct attention to the discordant points, or weary the
reader with anatomical criticism.
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