Whenever an opportunity arises, I laud the Venetian builders of Motovun. They knew their building materials. They knew their building technology. They knew their building clients. But it is enough to cast a quick look at the façade of Palazzo Polesini, now Hotel Kaštel, to see that I am lauding the builders of old a bit too lavishly: about sixty percent of molded stone architraves framing ample windows from above are broken. Sixty percent! The façade is at least a couple of centuries old, and most of the cracks appear to be roughly that age, as well. Clearly, the builder of this particular structure was far from a master of his trade. Luckily for him, it takes an ardent fan of building, like me, to notice that there is anything amiss with this masterpiece of his. The truth be told, the cracks only make it so much more appealing, and maybe even endearing.

Addendum (August 10, 2015)

As it turns out, my inspection of Hotel Kaštel’s façade was a bit too quick. As well as inexpert to boot. So many years ago, I was looking at the molded stone architraves framing the windows from some distance and through the crowns of the chestnut trees that grace the hotel terrace. Today I took a closer look of the architraves, and discovered that all of those that appeared cracked were actually cut in two unequal parts for ease of transport and putting in place. The cuts look like cracks in some places because they have gotten frayed, which explains my mistake, but the fraying has come with the movement in the façade over the centuries. The architraves were cut in two parts so as to prevent cracking. At any rate, my sincere apologies to the builder of this particular structure. As for me, I ought to be a bit more careful when judging the Venetian builders of Motovun. They were way ahead of me, to be sure.