kind with emphasis on the artificial conventions of Roman art. The rigid lines and rectangular sections of the furrows, each ending abruptly in a straight line across the bottom, and the unmodelled flatness of the intervening surfaces indicate a surprising lack of appreciation of those elements of beauty which distinguish really fine ornamental carving. Such leafage is, indeed, exceptionally poor, yet instances of a kindred sort are not seldom met with, as in the capitals of the doorway of the sacristy of Santa Croce in Florence by Michelozzi.
Fig. 105.—Leafage of Brunelleschi.
The more characteristic Renaissance leafage is, however, sometimes beautiful, as in the capitals of the municipal palace of Brescia (Fig. 106), Nevertheless, a curious, and singularly artificial, convention is noticeable here in the fillet-like form, and abrupt angular termination of the upper end, of the ridges which mark the subdivisions of the leaf surface. This peculiar detail is of almost constant occurrence in the acanthus foliation of the Renaissance, and is in marked contrast with the finely rounded and more natural treatment of the corresponding parts of the Greek leaf forms as in Figure 103. This unnatural detail sometimes takes another form, as in a capital by Giuliano da San Gallo in the Palazzo Gondi, where its edges (Fig. 107) are less angular, its surface grooved lengthwise, and the upper end is rounded. But whatever beauty this Italian leafage may have, the design is rarely more than a recast of Roman models, with little manifestation of that fresh inspiration from nature that gives such charm to Gothic foliation.
Fig. 106.—Leafage of Brescia.
The grotesque, which enters largely into these ornamental
