Page 53

                  Doors
                                               53
doorway.    The Italian decorator would never have permitted so
harsh a contrast as that between the white trim and the mahog-
any doors of English eighteenth-century houses.   The juxtaposi-
tion of colors was disapproved by French decorators also, and
was seldom seen except in England and in the American houses
built under English influence.   It should be observed, too, that
the polish given to hard-grained wood in England, and imitated
in the wood-varnish of the present day, was never in favor in
Italy and France.  Shiny surfaces were always disliked by the
best decorators.
  The classic revival in Italy necessarily modified the treatment
of the doorway.   Flat arabesques and delicately chiselled medal-
lions gave way to a plain architrave, frequently masked by an
order; while the over-door took the form of a pediment, or, in
the absence of shafts, of a cornice or entablature resting on
brackets.  The i~se of a pediment over interior doorways was
characteristic of Italian decoration.
  In studying Italian interiors of this period from photographs or
modern prints, or even in visiting the partly dilapidated palaces
themselves, it may at first appear that the lines of the doorway
were not always carried up to the cornice.  Several causes have
combined to produce this impression.      In the first place, the
architectural treatment of the over-door was frequently painted on
the wall, and has consequently disappeared with the rest of the
wall-decoration  (see Plate XV).    Then,  again, Italian rooms
were often painted with landscapes and out-of-door architectural
effects, and when this was done the doorways were combined
with these architectural compositions, and were not treated as
part of the room, but as part of what the room pretended to be.
In the suppressed Scuola della GaritA (now the Academy of Fine