architecture, never since revived. But that the reader may understand
this, it is necessary that he should have some general idea of the
connection of the architecture of Venice with that of the rest of
Europe, from its origin forwards.

SECTION XVII. All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is
derived from Greece through Rome, and colored and perfected from the
East. The history of architecture is nothing but the tracing of the
various modes and directions of this derivation. Understand this, once
for all: if you hold fast this great connecting clue, you may string all
the types of successive architectural invention upon it like so many
beads. The Doric and the Corinthian orders are the roots, the one of all
Romanesque, massy-capitaled buildings--Norman, Lombard, Byzantine, and
what else you can name of the kind; and the Corinthian of all Gothic,
Early English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe: those old Greeks
gave the shaft; Rome gave the arch; the Arabs pointed and foliated the
arch. The shaft and arch, the frame-work and strength of architecture,
are from the race of Japheth: the spirituality and sanctity of it from
Ismael, Abraham, and Shem.

SECTION XVIII. There is high probability that the Greek received his
shaft system from Egypt; but I do not care to keep this earlier
derivation in the mind of the reader. It is only necessary that he
should be able to refer to a fixed point of origin, when the form of the
shaft was first perfected. But it may be incidently observed, that if
the Greeks did indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then the three
families of the earth have each contributed their part to its noblest
architecture: and Ham, the servant of the others, furnishes the
sustaining or bearing member, the shaft; Japheth the arch; Shem the
spiritualization of both.