We find it retaining some traces of Byzantine influence in the decorated surfaces of applied marbles, and in the roundels of porphyry and verd antique, while it also retained certain characteristics of Gothic, as, for instance, in the pointed arches of the Renaissance facade in the courtyard of the ducal palace designed by Antonio Rizzo (1499).
It appears to have been imported early into the Cape Verd Islands, where, as also in some of the Greater Antilles and in Ascension, it has run wild.
Sculptured panels, with conventional motives, peacocks, eagles devouring hares, peacocks drinking from a cup on a tall pillar, are let into both exterior and interior walls, as are roundels of precious marbles, sawn from columns of porphyry, serpentine, verd antique, &c. The adoption of veneer for decoration prohibited any deep cutting, and almost all the sculpture is shallow.
