I have nothing to add to the above description of this picture, except that I believe there may have been some change in the color of the shadow that crosses the pavement. The chequers of the pavements are, in the light, golden white and pale grey; in the shadow, red and dark grey, the white in the sunshine becoming red in the shadow. I formerly supposed that this was meant to give greater horror to the scene, and it is very like Tintoret if it be so; but there is a strangeness and discordance in it which makes me suspect the colors may have changed.

5. The Magdalen. This and the picture opposite to it, "St. Mary of Egypt," have been painted to fill up narrow spaces between the windows which were not large enough to receive compositions, and yet in which single figures would have looked awkwardly thrust into the corner. Tintoret has made these spaces as large as possible by filling them with landscapes, which are rendered interesting by the introduction of single figures of very small size. He has not, however, considered his task, of making a small piece of wainscot look like a large one, worth the stretch of his powers, and has painted these two landscapes just as carelessly and as fast as an upholsterer's journeyman finishing a room at a railroad hotel. The color is for the most part opaque, and dashed or scrawled on in the manner of a scene-painter; and as during the whole morning the sun shines upon the one picture, and during the afternoon upon the other, hues, which were originally thin and imperfect, are now dried in many places into mere dirt upon the canvas. With all these drawbacks the pictures are of very high interest, for although, as I said, hastily and carelessly, they are not languidly painted; on the contrary, he has been in his hottest and grandest temper; and in this first one ("Magdalen") the laurel tree, with its leaves driven hither and thither among flakes of fiery cloud, has been probably one of the greatest achievements that his hand performed in landscape: its roots are entangled in underwood; of which every leaf seems to be articulated, yet all is as wild as if it had grown there instead of having been painted; there has been a mountain distance, too, and a sky of stormy light, of which I infinitely regret the loss, for though its masses of light are still discernible, its variety of hue is all sunk into a withered brown. There is a curious piece of execution in the striking of the light upon a brook which runs under the roots of the laurel in the foreground: these roots are traced in shadow against the bright surface of the water; another painter would have drawn the light first, and drawn the dark roots over it. Tintoret has laid in a brown ground which he has left for the roots, and painted the water through their interstices with a few mighty rolls of his brush laden with white.

6. St. Mary of Egypt. This picture differs but little in the plan, from the one opposite, except that St. Mary has her back towards us, and the Magdalen her face, and that the tree on the other side of the brook is a palm instead of a laurel. The brook (Jordan?) is, however, here much more important; and the water painting is exceedingly fine. Of all painters that I know, in old times, Tintoret is the fondest of running water; there was a sort of sympathy between it and his own impetuous spirit. The rest of the landscape is not of much interest, except so far as it is pleasant to see trunks of trees drawn by single strokes of the brush.

7. The Circumcision of Christ. The custode has some story about this picture having been painted in imitation of Paul Veronese. I much doubt if Tintoret ever imitated any body; but this picture is the expression of his perception of what Veronese delighted in, the nobility that there may be in mere golden tissue and colored drapery. It is, in fact, a picture of the moral power of gold and color; and the chief use of the attendant priest is to support upon his shoulders the crimson robe, with its square tablets of black and gold; and yet nothing is withdrawn from the interest or dignity of the scene. Tintoret has taken immense pains with the head of the high-priest. I know not any existing old man's head so exquisitely tender, or so noble in its lines. He receives the Infant Christ in his arms kneeling, and looking down upon the Child with infinite veneration and love; and the flashing of golden rays from its head is made the centre of light, and all interest. The whole picture is like a golden charger to receive the Child; the priest's dress is held up behind him, that it may occupy larger space; the tables and floor are covered with chequer-work; the shadows of the temple are filled with brazen lamps; and above all are hung masses of curtains, whose crimson folds are strewn over with golden flakes. Next to the "Adoration of the Magi" this picture is the most laboriously finished of the Scuola di San Rocco, and it is unquestionably the highest existing type of the sublimity which may be thrown into the treatment of accessaries of dress and decoration.

8. Assumption of the Virgin. On the tablet or panel of stone which forms the side of the tomb out of which the Madonna rises, is this inscription, in large letters, REST. ANTONIUS FLORIAN, 1834. Exactly in proportion to a man's idiocy, is always the size of the letters in which he writes his name on the picture that he spoils. The old mosaicists in St. Mark's have not, in a single instance, as far as I know, signed their names; but the spectator who wishes to know who destroyed the effect of the nave, may see his name inscribed, twice over, in letters half a foot high, BARTOLOMEO BOZZA. I have never seen Tintoret's name signed, except in the great "Crucifixion;" but this Antony Florian, I have no doubt, repainted the whole side of the tomb that he might put his name on it. The picture is, of course, ruined wherever he touched it; that is to say, half over; the circle of cherubs in the sky is still pure; and the design of the great painter is palpable enough yet in the grand flight of the horizontal angel, on whom the Madonna half leans as she ascends. It has been a noble picture, and is a grievous loss; but, happily, there are so many pure ones, that we need not spend time in gleaning treasures out of the ruins of this.

9. Visitation. A small picture, painted in his very best manner; exquisite in its simplicity, unrivalled in vigor, well preserved, and, as a piece of painting, certainly one of the most precious in Venice. Of course it does not show any of his high inventive powers; nor can a picture of four middle-sized figures be made a proper subject of comparison with large canvases containing forty or fifty; but it is, for this very reason, painted with such perfect ease, and yet with no slackness either of affection or power, that there is no picture that I covet so much. It is, besides, altogether free from the Renaissance taint of dramatic effect. The gestures are as simple and natural as Giotto's, only expressed by grander lines, such as none but Tintoret ever reached. The draperies are dark, relieved against a light sky, the horizon being excessively low, and the outlines of the drapery so severe, that the intervals between the figures look like ravines between great rocks, and have all the sublimity of an Alpine valley at twilight. This precious picture is hung about thirty feet above the eye, but by looking at it in a strong light, it is discoverable that the Saint Elizabeth is dressed in green and crimson, the Virgin in the peculiar red which all great colorists delight in—a sort of glowing brick-color or brownish scarlet, opposed to rich golden brownish black; and both have white kerchiefs, or drapery, thrown over their shoulders. Zacharias leans on his staff behind them in a black dress with white sleeves. The stroke of brilliant white light, which outlines the knee of Saint Elizabeth, is a curious instance of the habit of the painter to relieve his dark forms by a sort of halo of more vivid light, which, until lately, one would have been apt to suppose a somewhat artificial and unjustifiable means of effect. The daguerreotype has shown, what the naked eye never could, that the instinct of the great painter was true, and that there is actually such a sudden and sharp line of light round the edges of dark objects relieved by luminous space.

Opposite this picture is a most precious Titian, the "Annunciation," full of grace and beauty. I think the Madonna one of the sweetest figures he ever painted. But if the traveller has entered at all into the spirit of Tintoret, he will immediately feel the comparative feebleness and conventionality of the Titian. Note especially the mean and petty folds of the angel's drapery, and compare them with the draperies of the opposite picture. The larger pictures at the sides of the stairs by Zanchi and Negri, are utterly worthless.



10. The Adoration of the Shepherds. This picture commences the series of the upper room, which, as already noticed, is painted with far less care than that of the lower. It is one of the painter's inconceivable caprices that the only canvases that are in good light should be covered in this hasty manner, while those in the dungeon below, and on the ceiling above, are all highly labored. It is, however, just possible that the covering of these walls may have been an after-thought, when he had got tired of his work. They are also, for the most part, illustrative of a principle of which I am more and more convinced every day, that historical and figure pieces ought not to be made vehicles for effects of light. The light which is fit for a historical picture is that tempered semi-sunshine of which, in general, the works of Titian are the best examples, and of which the picture we have just passed, "The Visitation," is a perfect example from the hand of one greater than Titian; so also the three "Crucifixions" of San Rocco, San Cassano, and St. John and Paul; the "Adoration of the Magi" here; and, in general, the finest works of the master; but Tintoret was not a man to work in any formal or systematic manner; and, exactly like Turner, we find him recording every effect which Nature herself displays. Still he seems to regard the pictures which deviate from the great general principle of colorists rather as "tours de force" than as sources of pleasure; and I do not think there is any instance of his having worked out one of these tricky pictures with thorough affection, except only in the case of the "Marriage of Cana." By tricky pictures, I mean those which display light entering in different directions, and attract the eye to the effects rather than to the figure which displays them. Of this treatment, we have already had a marvellous instance in the candle-light picture of the "Last Supper" in San Giorgio Maggiore. This "Adoration of the Shepherds" has probably been nearly as wonderful when first painted: the Madonna is seated on a kind of hammock floor made of rope netting, covered with straw; it divides the picture into two stories, of which the uppermost contains the Virgin, with two women who are adoring Christ, and shows light entering from above through the loose timbers of the roof of the stable, as well as through the bars of a square window; the lower division shows this light falling behind the netting upon the stable floor, occupied by a cock and a cow, and against this light are relieved the figures of the shepherds, for the most part in demi-tint, but with flakes of more vigorous sunshine falling here and there upon them from above. The optical illusion has originally been as perfect as one of Hunt's best interiors; but it is most curious that no part of the work seems to have been taken any pleasure in by the painter; it is all by his hand, but it looks as if he had been bent only on getting over the ground. It is literally a piece of scene-painting, and is exactly what we might fancy Tintoret to have done, had he been forced to paint scenes at a small theatre at a shilling a day. I cannot think that the whole canvas, though fourteen feet high and ten wide, or thereabouts, could have taken him more than a couple of days to finish: and it is very noticeable that exactly in proportion to the brilliant effects of light is the coarseness of the execution, for the figures of the Madonna and of the women above, which are not in any strong effect, are painted with some care, while the shepherds and the cow are alike slovenly; and the latter, which is in full sunshine, is recognizable for a cow more by its size and that of its horns, than by any care given to its form. It is interesting to contrast this slovenly and mean sketch with the ass's head in the "Flight into Egypt," on which the painter exerted his full power; as an effect of light, however, the work is, of course, most interesting. One point in the treatment is especially noticeable: there is a peacock in the rack beyond the cow; and under other circumstances, one cannot doubt that Tintoret would have liked a peacock in full color, and would have painted it green and blue with great satisfaction. It is sacrificed to the light, however, and is painted in warm grey, with a dim eye or two in the tail: this process is exactly analogous to Turner's taking the colors out of the flags of his ships in the "Gosport." Another striking point is the litter with which the whole picture is filled in order more to confuse the eye: there is straw sticking from the roof, straw all over the hammock floor, and straw struggling hither and thither all over the floor itself; and, to add to the confusion, the glory around the head of the infant, instead of being united and serene, is broken into little bits, and is like a glory of chopped straw. But the most curious thing, after all, is the want of delight in any of the principal figures, and the comparative meanness and commonplaceness of even the folds of the drapery. It seems as if Tintoret had determined to make the shepherds as uninteresting as possible; but one does not see why their very clothes should be ill painted, and their disposition unpicturesque. I believe, however, though it never struck me until I had examined this picture, that this is one of the painter's fixed principles: he does not, with German sentimentality, make shepherds and peasants graceful or sublime, but he purposely vulgarizes them, not by making their actions or their faces boorish or disagreeable, but rather by painting them ill, and composing their draperies tamely. As far as I recollect at present, the principle is universal with him; exactly in proportion to the dignity of character is the beauty of the painting. He will not put out his strength upon any man belonging to the lower classes; and, in order to know what the painter is, one must see him at work on a king, a senator, or a saint. The curious connexion of this with the aristocratic tendencies of the Venetian nation, when we remember that Tintoret was the greatest man whom that nation produced, may become very interesting, if followed out. I forgot to note that, though the peacock is painted with great regardlessness of color, there is a feature in it which no common painter would have observed,—the peculiar flatness of the back, and undulation of the shoulders: the bird's body is all there, though its feathers are a good deal neglected; and the same thing is noticeable in a cock who is pecking among the straw near the spectator, though in other respects a shabby cock enough. The fact is, I believe, he had made his shepherds so commonplace that he dare not paint his animals well, otherwise one would have looked at nothing in the picture but the peacock, cock, and cow. I cannot tell what the shepherds are offering; they look like milk bowls, but they are awkwardly held up, with such twistings of body as would have certainly spilt the milk. A woman in front has a basket of eggs; but this I imagine to be merely to keep up the rustic character of the scene, and not part of the shepherd's offerings.

11. Baptism. There is more of the true picture quality in this work than in the former one, but still very little appearance of enjoyment or care. The color is for the most part grey and uninteresting, and the figures are thin and meagre in form, and slightly painted; so much so, that of the nineteen figures in the distance, about a dozen are hardly worth calling figures, and the rest are so sketched and flourished in that one can hardly tell which is which. There is one point about it very interesting to a landscape painter: the river is seen far into the distance, with a piece of copse bordering it; the sky beyond is dark, but the water nevertheless receives a brilliant reflection from some unseen rent in the clouds, so brilliant, that when I was first at Venice, not being accustomed to Tintoret's slight execution, or to see pictures so much injured, I took this piece of water for a piece of sky. The effect as Tintoret has arranged it, is indeed somewhat unnatural, but it is valuable as showing his recognition of a principle unknown to half the historical painters of the present day,—that the reflection seen in the water is totally different from the object seen above it, and that it is very possible to have a bright light in reflection where there appears nothing but darkness to be reflected. The clouds in the sky itself are round, heavy, and lightless, and in a great degree spoil what would otherwise be a fine landscape distance. Behind the rocks on the right, a single head is seen, with a collar on the shoulders: it seems to be intended for a portrait of some person connected with the picture.

12. Resurrection. Another of the "effect of light" pictures, and not a very striking one, the best part of it being the two distant figures of the Maries seen in the dawn of the morning. The conception of the Resurrection itself is characteristic of the worst points of Tintoret. His impetuosity is here in the wrong place; Christ bursts out of the rock like a thunderbolt, and the angels themselves seem likely to be crushed under the rent stones of the tomb. Had the figure of Christ been sublime, this conception might have been accepted; but, on the contrary, it is weak, mean, and painful; and the whole picture is languidly or roughly painted, except only the fig-tree at the top of the rock, which, by a curious caprice, is not only drawn in the painter's best manner, but has golden ribs to all its leaves, making it look like one of the beautiful crossed or chequered patterns, of which he is so fond in his dresses; the leaves themselves being a dark olive brown.

13. The Agony in the Garden. I cannot at present understand the order of these subjects; but they may have been misplaced. This, of all the San Rocco pictures, is the most hastily painted, but it is not, like those we have been passing, clodly painted; it seems to have been executed altogether with a hearth-broom, and in a few hours. It is another of the "effects," and a very curious one; the Angel who bears the cup to Christ is surrounded by a red halo; yet the light which falls upon the shoulders of the sleeping disciples, and upon the leaves of the olive-trees, is cool and silvery, while the troop coming up to seize Christ are seen by torch-light. Judas, who is the second figure, points to Christ, but turns his head away as he does so, as unable to look at him. This is a noble touch; the foliage is also exceedingly fine, though what kind of olive-tree bears such leaves I know not, each of them being about the size of a man's hand. If there be any which bear such foliage, their olives must be the size of cocoa-nuts. This, however, is true only of the underwood, which is, perhaps, not meant for olive. There are some taller trees at the top of the picture, whose leaves are of a more natural size. On closely examining the figures of the troops on the left, I find that the distant ones are concealed, all but the limbs, by a sort of arch of dark color, which is now so injured, that I cannot tell whether it was foliage or ground: I suppose it to have been a mass of close foliage, through which the troop is breaking its way; Judas rather showing them the path, than actually pointing to Christ, as it is written, "Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place." St. Peter, as the most zealous of the three disciples, the only one who was to endeavor to defend his Master, is represented as awakening and turning his head toward the troop, while James and John are buried in profound slumber, laid in magnificent languor among the leaves. The picture is singularly impressive, when seen far enough off, as an image of thick forest gloom amidst the rich and tender foliage of the South; the leaves, however, tossing as in disturbed night air, and the flickering of the torches, and of the branches, contrasted with the steady flame which from the Angel's presence is spread over the robes of the disciples. The strangest feature in the whole is that the Christ also is represented as sleeping. The angel seems to appear to him in a dream.

14. The Last Supper. A most unsatisfactory picture; I think about the worst I know of Tintoret's, where there is no appearance of retouching. He always makes the disciples in this scene too vulgar; they are here not only vulgar, but diminutive, and Christ is at the end of the table, the smallest figure of them all. The principal figures are two mendicants sitting on steps in front; a kind of supporters, but I suppose intended to be waiting for the fragments; a dog, in still more earnest expectation, is watching the movements of the disciples, who are talking together, Judas having just gone out. Christ is represented as giving what one at first supposes is the sop to Judas, but as the disciple who received it has a glory, and there are only eleven at table, it is evidently the Sacramental bread. The room in which they are assembled is a sort of large kitchen, and the host is seen employed at a dresser in the background. This picture has not only been originally poor, but is one of those exposed all day to the sun, and is dried into mere dusty canvas: where there was once blue, there is now nothing.

15. Saint Rocco in Glory. One of the worst order of Tintorets, with apparent smoothness and finish, yet languidly painted, as if in illness or fatigue; very dark and heavy in tone also; its figures, for the most part, of an awkward middle size, about five feet high, and very uninteresting. St. Rocco ascends to heaven, looking down upon a crowd of poor and sick persons who are blessing and adoring him. One of these, kneeling at the bottom, is very nearly a repetition, though a careless and indolent one, of that of St. Stephen, in St. Giorgio Maggiore, and of the central figure in the "Paradise" of the Ducal Palace. It is a kind of lay figure, of which he seems to have been fond; its clasped hands are here shockingly painted—I should think unfinished. It forms the only important light at the bottom, relieved on a dark ground; at the top of the picture, the figure of St. Rocco is seen in shadow against the light of the sky, and all the rest is in confused shadow. The commonplaceness of this composition is curiously connected with the languor of thought and touch throughout the work.

16. Miracle of the Loaves. Hardly anything but a fine piece of landscape is here left; it is more exposed to the sun than any other picture in the room, and its draperies having been, in great part, painted in blue, are now mere patches of the color of starch; the scene is also very imperfectly conceived. The twenty-one figures, including Christ and his Disciples, very ill represent a crowd of seven thousand; still less is the marvel of the miracle expressed by perfect ease and rest of the reclining figures in the foreground, who do not so much as look surprised; considered merely as reclining figures, and as pieces of effect in half light, they have once been fine. The landscape, which represents the slope of a woody hill, has a very grand and far-away look. Behind it is a great space of streaky sky, almost prismatic in color, rosy and golden clouds covering up its blue, and some fine vigorous trees thrown against it; painted in about ten minutes each, however, by curly touches of the brush, and looking rather more like seaweed than foliage.

17. Resurrection of Lazarus. Very strangely, and not impressively conceived. Christ is half reclining, half sitting, at the bottom of the picture, while Lazarus is disencumbered of his grave-clothes at the top of it; the scene being the side of a rocky hill, and the mouth of the tomb probably once visible in the shadow on the left; but all that is now discernible is a man having his limbs unbound, as if Christ were merely ordering a prisoner to be loosed. There appears neither awe nor agitation, nor even much astonishment, in any of the figures of the group; but the picture is more vigorous than any of the three last mentioned, and the upper part of it is quite worthy of the master, especially its noble fig-tree and laurel, which he has painted, in one of his usual fits of caprice, as carefully as that in the "Resurrection of Christ," opposite. Perhaps he has some meaning in this; he may have been thinking of the verse, "Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth," &c. In the present instance, the leaves are dark only, and have no golden veins. The uppermost figures also come dark against the sky, and would form a precipitous mass, like a piece of the rock itself, but that they are broken in upon by one of the limbs of Lazarus, bandaged and in full light, which, to my feeling, sadly injures the picture, both as a disagreeable object, and a light in the wrong place. The grass and weeds are, throughout, carefully painted, but the lower figures are of little interest, and the face of the Christ a grievous failure.

18. The Ascension. I have always admired this picture, though it is very slight and thin in execution, and cold in color; but it is remarkable for its thorough effect of open air, and for the sense of motion and clashing in the wings of the Angels which sustain the Christ: they owe this effect a good deal to the manner in which they are set, edge on; all seem like sword-blades cutting the air. It is the most curious in conception of all the pictures in the Scuola, for it represents, beneath the Ascension, a kind of epitome of what took place before the Ascension. In the distance are two Apostles walking, meant, I suppose, for the two going to Emmaus; nearer are a group round a table, to remind us of Christ appearing to them as they sat at meat; and in the foreground is a single reclining figure of, I suppose, St. Peter, because we are told that "he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:" but this interpretation is doubtful; for why should not the vision by the Lake of Tiberias be expressed also? And the strange thing of all is the scene, for Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives; but the Disciples are walking, and the table is set, in a little marshy and grassy valley, like some of the bits near Maison Neuve on the Jura, with a brook running through it, so capitally expressed, that I believe it is this which makes me so fond of the picture. The reflections are as scientific in the diminution, in the image, of large masses of bank above, as any of Turner's, and the marshy and reedy ground looks as if one would sink into it; but what all this has to do with the Ascension I cannot see. The figure of Christ is not undignified, but by no means either interesting or sublime.

19. Pool of Bethesda. I have no doubt the principal figures have been repainted; but as the colors are faded, and the subject disgusting, I have not paid this picture sufficient attention to say how far the injury extends; nor need any one spend time upon it, unless after having first examined all the other Tintorets in Venice. All the great Italian painters appear insensible to the feeling of disgust at disease; but this study of the population of an hospital is without any points of contrast, and I wish Tintoret had not condescended to paint it. This and the six preceding paintings have all been uninteresting,—I believe chiefly owing to the observance in them of Sir Joshua's rule for the heroic, "that drapery is to be mere drapery, and not silk, nor satin, nor brocade." However wise such a rule may be when applied to works of the purest religious art, it is anything but wise as respects works of color. Tintoret is never quite himself unless he has fur or velvet, or rich stuff of one sort or the other, or jewels, or armor, or something that he can put play of color into, among his figures, and not dead folds of linsey-woolsey; and I believe that even the best pictures of Raffaelle and Angelico are not a little helped by their hems of robes, jewelled crowns, priests' copes, and so on; and the pictures that have nothing of this kind in them, as for instance the "Transfiguration," are to my mind not a little dull.

20. Temptation. This picture singularly illustrates what has just been observed; it owes great part of its effect to the lustre of the jewels in the armlet of the evil angel, and to the beautiful colors of his wings. These are slight accessaries apparently, but they enhance the value of all the rest, and they have evidently been enjoyed by the painter. The armlet is seen by reflected light, its stones shining by inward lustre; this occult fire being the only hint given of the real character of the Tempter, who is otherways represented in the form of a beautiful angel, though the face is sensual: we can hardly tell how far it was intended to be therefore expressive of evil; for Tintoret's good angels have not always the purest features; but there is a peculiar subtlety in this telling of the story by so slight a circumstance as the glare of the jewels in the darkness. It is curious to compare this imagination with that of the mosaics in St. Mark's, in which Satan is a black monster, with horns, and head, and tail, complete. The whole of the picture is powerfully and carefully painted, though very broadly; it is a strong effect of light, and therefore, as usual, subdued in color. The painting of the stones in the foreground I have always thought, and still think, the best piece of rock drawing before Turner, and the most amazing instance of Tintoret's perceptiveness afforded by any of his pictures.

21. St. Rocco. Three figures occupy the spandrils of the window above this and the following picture, painted merely in light and shade, two larger than life, one rather smaller. I believe these to be by Tintoret; but as they are quite in the dark, so that the execution cannot be seen, and very good designs of the kind have been furnished by other masters, I cannot answer for them. The figure of St. Rocco, as well as its companion, St. Sebastian, is colored; they occupy the narrow intervals between the windows, and are of course invisible under ordinary circumstances. By a great deal of straining of the eyes, and sheltering them with the hand from the light, some little idea of the design may be obtained. The "St. Rocco" is a fine figure, though rather coarse, but, at all events, worth as much light as would enable us to see it.

22. St. Sebastian. This, the companion figure, is one of the finest things in the whole room, and assuredly the most majestic Saint Sebastian in existence; as far as mere humanity can be majestic, for there is no effort at any expression of angelic or saintly resignation; the effort is simply to realize the fact of the martyrdom, and it seems to me that this is done to an extent not even attempted by any other painter. I never saw a man die a violent death, and therefore cannot say whether this figure be true or not, but it gives the grandest and most intense impression of truth. The figure is dead, and well it may be, for there is one arrow through the forehead and another through the heart; but the eyes are open, though glazed, and the body is rigid in the position in which it last stood, the left arm raised and the left limb advanced, something in the attitude of a soldier sustaining an attack under his shield, while the dead eyes are still turned in the direction from which the arrows came: but the most characteristic feature is the way these arrows are fixed. In the common martyrdoms of St. Sebastian they are stuck into him here and there like pins, as if they had been shot from a great distance and had come faltering down, entering the flesh but a little way, and rather bleeding the saint to death than mortally wounding him; but Tintoret had no such ideas about archery. He must have seen bows drawn in battle, like that of Jehu when he smote Jehoram between the harness: all the arrows in the saint's body lie straight in the same direction, broad-feathered and strong-shafted, and sent apparently with the force of thunderbolts; every one of them has gone through him like a lance, two through the limbs, one through the arm, one through the heart, and the last has crashed through the forehead, nailing the head to the tree behind as if it had been dashed in by a sledge-hammer. The face, in spite of its ghastliness, is beautiful, and has been serene; and the light which enters first and glistens on the plumes of the arrows, dies softly away upon the curling hair, and mixes with the glory upon the forehead. There is not a more remarkable picture in Venice, and yet I do not suppose that one in a thousand of the travellers who pass through the Scuola so much as perceives there is a picture in the place which it occupies.



23. Moses striking the Rock. We now come to the series of pictures upon which the painter concentrated the strength he had reserved for the upper room; and in some sort wisely, for, though it is not pleasant to examine pictures on a ceiling, they are at least distinctly visible without straining the eyes against the light. They are carefully conceived and thoroughly well painted in proportion to their distance from the eye. This carefulness of thought is apparent at a glance: the "Moses striking the Rock" embraces the whole of the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, and even something more, for it is not from that chapter, but from parallel passages that we gather the facts of the impatience of Moses and the wrath of God at the waters of Meribah; both which facts are shown by the leaping of the stream out of the rock half-a-dozen ways at once, forming a great arch over the head of Moses, and by the partial veiling of the countenance of the Supreme Being. This latter is the most painful part of the whole picture, at least as it is seen from below; and I believe that in some repairs of the roof this head must have been destroyed and repainted. It is one of Tintoret's usual fine thoughts that the lower part of the figure is veiled, not merely by clouds, but in a kind of watery sphere, showing the Deity coming to the Israelites at that particular moment as the Lord of the Rivers and of the Fountain of the Waters. The whole figure, as well as that of Moses and the greater number of those in the foreground, is at once dark and warm, black and red being the prevailing colors, while the distance is bright gold touched with blue, and seems to open into the picture like a break of blue sky after rain. How exquisite is this expression, by mere color, of the main force of the fact represented! that is to say, joy and refreshment after sorrow and scorching heat. But, when we examine of what this distance consists, we shall find still more cause for admiration. The blue in it is not the blue of sky, it is obtained by blue stripes upon white tents glowing in the sunshine; and in front of these tents is seen that great battle with Amalek of which the account is given in the remainder of the chapter, and for which the Israelites received strength in the streams which ran out of the rock in Horeb. Considered merely as a picture, the opposition of cool light to warm shadow is one of the most remarkable pieces of color in the Scuola, and the great mass of foliage which waves over the rocks on the left appears to have been elaborated with his highest power and his most sublime invention. But this noble passage is much injured, and now hardly visible.

24. Plague of Serpents. The figures in the distance are remarkably important in this picture, Moses himself being among them; in fact, the whole scene is filled chiefly with middle-sized figures, in order to increase the impression of space. It is interesting to observe the difference in the treatment of this subject by the three great painters, Michael Angelo, Rubens, and Tintoret. The first two, equal to the latter in energy, had less love of liberty: they were fond of binding their compositions into knots, Tintoret of scattering his far and wide: they all alike preserve the unity of composition, but the unity in the first two is obtained by binding, and that of the last by springing from one source; and, together with this feeling, comes his love of space, which makes him less regard the rounding and form of objects themselves, than their relations of light and shade and distance. Therefore Rubens and Michael Angelo made the fiery serpents huge boa constrictors, and knotted the sufferers together with them. Tintoret does not like to be so bound; so he makes the serpents little flying and fluttering monsters like lampreys with wings; and the children of Israel, instead of being thrown into convulsed and writhing groups, are scattered, fainting in the fields, far away in the distance. As usual, Tintoret's conception, while thoroughly characteristic of himself, is also truer to the words of Scripture. We are told that "the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people;" we are not told that they crushed the people to death. And while thus the truest, it is also the most terrific conception. M. Angelo's would be terrific if one could believe in it: but our instinct tells us that boa constrictors do not come in armies; and we look upon the picture with as little emotion as upon the handle of a vase, or any other form worked out of serpents, where there is no probability of serpents actually occurring. But there is a probability in Tintoret's conception. We feel that it is not impossible that there should come up a swarm of these small winged reptiles: and their horror is not diminished by their smallness: not that they have any of the grotesque terribleness of German invention; they might have been made infinitely uglier with small pains, but it is their veritableness which makes them awful. They have triangular heads with sharp beaks or muzzle; and short, rather thick bodies, with bony processes down the back like those of sturgeons; and small wings spotted with orange and black; and round glaring eyes, not very large, but very ghastly, with an intense delight in biting expressed in them. (It is observable, that the Venetian painter has got his main idea of them from the sea-horses and small reptiles of the Lagoons.) These monsters are fluttering and writhing about everywhere, fixing on whatever they come near with their sharp venomous heads; and they are coiling about on the ground, and all the shadows and thickets are full of them, so that there is no escape anywhere: and, in order to give the idea of greater extent to the plague, Tintoret has not been content with one horizon; I have before mentioned the excessive strangeness of this composition, in having a cavern open in the right of the foreground, through which is seen another sky and another horizon. At the top of the picture, the Divine Being is seen borne by angels, apparently passing over the congregation in wrath, involved in masses of dark clouds; while, behind, an Angel of mercy is descending toward Moses, surrounded by a globe of white light. This globe is hardly seen from below; it is not a common glory, but a transparent sphere, like a bubble, which not only envelopes the angel, but crosses the figure of Moses, throwing the upper part of it into a subdued pale color, as if it were crossed by a sunbeam. Tintoret is the only painter who plays these tricks with transparent light, the only man who seems to have perceived the effects of sunbeams, mists, and clouds, in the far away atmosphere; and to have used what he saw on towers, clouds, or mountains, to enhance the sublimity of his figures. The whole upper part of this picture is magnificent, less with respect to individual figures, than for the drift of its clouds, and originality and complication of its light and shade; it is something like Raffaelle's "Vision of Ezekiel," but far finer. It is difficult to understand how any painter, who could represent floating clouds so nobly as he has done here, could ever paint the odd, round, pillowy masses which so often occur in his more carelessly designed sacred subjects. The lower figures are not so interesting, and the whole is painted with a view to effect from below, and gains little by close examination.

25. Fall of Manna. In none of these three large compositions has the painter made the slightest effort at expression in the human countenance; everything is done by gesture, and the faces of the people who are drinking from the rock, dying from the serpent-bites, and eating the manna, are all alike as calm as if nothing was happening; in addition to this, as they are painted for distant effect, the heads are unsatisfactory and coarse when seen near, and perhaps in this last picture the more so, and yet the story is exquisitely told. We have seen in the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore another example of his treatment of it, where, however, the gathering of manna is a subordinate employment, but here it is principal. Now, observe, we are told of the manna, that it was found in the morning; that then there lay round about the camp a small round thing like the hoar-frost, and that "when the sun waxed hot it melted." Tintoret has endeavored, therefore, first of all, to give the idea of coolness; the congregation are reposing in a soft green meadow, surrounded by blue hills, and there are rich trees above them, to the branches of one of which is attached a great grey drapery to catch the manna as it comes down. In any other picture such a mass of drapery would assuredly have had some vivid color, but here it is grey; the fields are cool frosty green, the mountains cold blue, and, to complete the expression and meaning of all this, there is a most important point to be noted in the form of the Deity, seen above, through an opening in the clouds. There are at least ten or twelve other pictures in which the form of the Supreme Being occurs, to be found in the Scuola di San Rocco alone; and in every one of these instances it is richly colored, the garments being generally red and blue, but in this picture of the manna the figure is snow white. Thus the painter endeavors to show the Deity as the giver of bread, just as in the "Striking of the Rock" we saw that he represented Him as the Lord of the rivers, the fountains, and the waters. There is one other very sweet incident at the bottom of the picture; four or five sheep, instead of pasturing, turn their heads aside to catch the manna as it comes down, or seem to be licking it off each other's fleeces. The tree above, to which the drapery is tied, is the most delicate and delightful piece of leafage in all the Scuola; it has a large sharp leaf, something like that of a willow, but five times the size.

26. Jacob's Dream. A picture which has good effect from below, but gains little when seen near. It is an embarrassing one for any painter, because angels always look awkward going up and down stairs; one does not see the use of their wings. Tintoret has thrown them into buoyant and various attitudes, but has evidently not treated the subject with delight; and it is seen to all the more disadvantage because just above the painting of the "Ascension," in which the full fresh power of the painter is developed. One would think this latter picture had been done just after a walk among hills, for it is full of the most delicate effects of transparent cloud, more or less veiling the faces and forms of the angels, and covering with white light the silvery sprays of the palms, while the clouds in the "Jacob's Dream" are the ordinary rotundities of the studio.

27. Ezekiel's Vision. I suspect this has been repainted, it is so heavy and dead in color; a fault, however, observable in many of the small pictures on the ceiling, and perhaps the natural result of the fatigue of such a mind as Tintoret's. A painter who threw such intense energy into some of his works can hardly but have been languid in others in a degree never experienced by the more tranquil minds of less powerful workmen; and when this languor overtook him whilst he was at work on pictures where a certain space had to be covered by mere force of arm, this heaviness of color could hardly but have been the consequence: it shows itself chiefly in reds and other hot hues, many of the pictures in the Ducal Palace also displaying it in a painful degree. This "Ezekiel's Vision" is, however, in some measure worthy of the master, in the wild and horrible energy with which the skeletons are leaping up about the prophet; but it might have been less horrible and more sublime, no attempt being made to represent the space of the Valley of Dry Bones, and the whole canvas being occupied only by eight figures, of which five are half skeletons. It it is strange that, in such a subject, the prevailing hues should be red and brown.

28. Fall of Man. The two canvases last named are the most considerable in size upon the roof, after the centre pieces. We now come to the smaller subjects which surround the "Striking the Rock;" of these this "Fall of Man" is the best, and I should think it very fine anywhere but in the Scuola di San Rocco; there is a grand light on the body of Eve, and the vegetation is remarkably rich, but the faces are coarse, and the composition uninteresting. I could not get near enough to see what the grey object is upon which Eve appears to be sitting, nor could I see any serpent. It is made prominent in the picture of the Academy of this same subject, so that I suppose it is hidden in the darkness, together with much detail which it would be necessary to discover in order to judge the work justly.

29. Elijah (?). A prophet holding down his face, which is covered with his hand. God is talking with him, apparently in rebuke. The clothes on his breast are rent, and the action of the figures might suggest the idea of the scene between the Deity and Elijah at Horeb: but there is no suggestion of the past magnificent scenery,—of the wind, the earthquake, or the fire; so that the conjecture is good for very little. The painting is of small interest; the faces are vulgar, and the draperies have too much vapid historical dignity to be delightful.

30. Jonah. The whale here occupies fully one-half of the canvas; being correspondent in value with a landscape background. His mouth is as large as a cavern, and yet, unless the mass of red color in the foreground be a piece of drapery, his tongue is too large for it. He seems to have lifted Jonah out upon it, and not yet drawn it back, so that it forms a kind of crimson cushion for him to kneel upon in his submission to the Deity. The head to which this vast tongue belongs is sketched in somewhat loosely, and there is little remarkable about it except its size, nor much in the figures, though the submissiveness of Jonah is well given. The great thought of Michael Angelo renders one little charitable to any less imaginative treatment of this subject.

31. Joshua (?). This is a most interesting picture, and it is a shame that its subject is not made out, for it is not a common one. The figure has a sword in its hand, and looks up to a sky full of fire, out of which the form of the Deity is stooping, represented as white and colorless. On the other side of the picture there is seen among the clouds a pillar apparently falling, and there is a crowd at the feet of the principal figure, carrying spears. Unless this be Joshua at the fall of Jericho, I cannot tell what it means; it is painted with great vigor, and worthy of a better place.

32. Sacrifice of Isaac. In conception, it is one of the least worthy of the master in the whole room, the three figures being thrown into violent attitudes, as inexpressive as they are strained and artificial. It appears to have been vigorously painted, but vulgarly; that is to say, the light is concentrated upon the white beard and upturned countenance of Abraham, as it would have been in one of the dramatic effects of the French school, the result being that the head is very bright and very conspicuous, and perhaps, in some of the late operations upon the roof, recently washed and touched. In consequence, every one who comes into the room, is first invited to observe the "bella testa di Abramo." The only thing characteristic of Tintoret is the way in which the pieces of ragged wood are tossed hither and thither in the pile upon which Isaac is bound, although this scattering of the wood is inconsistent with the Scriptural account of Abraham's deliberate procedure, for we are told of him that "he set the wood in order." But Tintoret had probably not noticed this, and thought the tossing of the timber into the disordered heap more like the act of the father in his agony.

33. Elijah at the Brook Cherith (?). I cannot tell if I have rightly interpreted the meaning of this picture, which merely represents a noble figure couched upon the ground, and an angel appearing to him; but I think that between the dark tree on the left, and the recumbent figure, there is some appearance of a running stream, at all events there is of a mountainous and stony place. The longer I study this master, the more I feel the strange likeness between him and Turner, in our never knowing what subject it is that will stir him to exertion. We have lately had him treating Jacob's Dream, Ezekiel's Vision, Abraham's Sacrifice, and Jonah's Prayer, (all of them subjects on which the greatest painters have delighted to expend their strength,) with coldness, carelessness, and evident absence of delight; and here, on a sudden, in a subject so indistinct that one cannot be sure of its meaning, and embracing only two figures, a man and an angel, forth he starts in his full strength. I believe he must somewhere or another, the day before, have seen a kingfisher; for this picture seems entirely painted for the sake of the glorious downy wings of the angel,—white clouded with blue, as the bird's head and wings are with green,—the softest and most elaborate in plumage that I have seen in any of his works: but observe also the general sublimity obtained by the mountainous lines of the drapery of the recumbent figure, dependent for its dignity upon these forms alone, as the face is more than half hidden, and what is seen of it expressionless.

34. The Paschal Feast. I name this picture by the title given in the guide-books; it represents merely five persons watching the increase of a small fire lighted on a table or altar in the midst of them. It is only because they have all staves in their hands that one may conjecture this fire to be that kindled to consume the Paschal offering. The effect is of course a fire light; and, like all mere fire lights that I have ever seen, totally devoid of interest.

35. Elisha feeding the People. I again guess at the subject: the picture only represents a figure casting down a number of loaves before a multitude; but, as Elisha has not elsewhere occurred, I suppose that these must be the barley loaves brought from Baalshalisha. In conception and manner of painting, this picture and the last, together with the others above-mentioned, in comparison with the "Elijah at Cherith," may be generally described as "dregs of Tintoret:" they are tired, dead, dragged out upon the canvas apparently in the heavy-hearted state which a man falls into when he is both jaded with toil and sick of the work he is employed upon. They are not hastily painted; on the contrary, finished with considerably more care than several of the works upon the walls; but those, as, for instance, the "Agony in the Garden," are hurried sketches with the man's whole heart in them, while these pictures are exhausted fulfilments of an appointed task. Whether they were really amongst the last painted, or whether the painter had fallen ill at some intermediate time, I cannot say; but we shall find him again in his utmost strength in the room which we last enter.



36 to 39. Four Children's Heads, which it is much to be regretted should be thus lost in filling small vacuities of the ceiling.

40. St. Rocco in Heaven. The central picture of the roof, in the inner room. From the well-known anecdote respecting the production of this picture, whether in all its details true or not, we may at least gather that having been painted in competition with Paul Veronese and other powerful painters of the day, it was probably Tintoret's endeavor to make it as popular and showy as possible. It is quite different from his common works; bright in all its tints and tones; the faces carefully drawn, and of an agreeable type; the outlines firm, and the shadows few; the whole resembling Correggio more than any Venetian painter. It is, however, an example of the danger, even to the greatest artist, of leaving his own style; for it lacks all the great virtues of Tintoret, without obtaining the lusciousness of Correggio. One thing, at all events, is remarkable in it,—that, though painted while the competitors were making their sketches, it shows no sign of haste or inattention.

41 to 44. Figures of Children, merely decorative.

45 to 56. Allegorical Figures on the Roof. If these were not in the same room with the "Crucifixion," they would attract more public attention than any works in the Scuola, as there are here no black shadows, nor extravagances of invention, but very beautiful figures richly and delicately colored, a good deal resembling some of the best works of Andrea del Sarto. There is nothing in them, however, requiring detailed examination. The two figures between the windows are very slovenly, if they are his at all; and there are bits of marbling and fruit filling the cornices, which may or may not be his: if they are, they are tired work, and of small importance.

59. Christ before Pilate. A most interesting picture, but, which is unusual, best seen on a dark day, when the white figure of Christ alone draws the eye, looking almost like a spirit; the painting of the rest of the picture being both somewhat thin and imperfect. There is a certain meagreness about all the minor figures, less grandeur and largeness in the limbs and draperies, and less solidity, it seems, even in the color, although its arrangements are richer than in many of the compositions above described. I hardly know whether it is owing to this thinness of color, or on purpose, that the horizontal clouds shine through the crimson flag in the distance; though I should think the latter, for the effect is most beautiful. The passionate action of the Scribe in lifting his hand to dip the pen into the ink-horn is, however, affected and overstrained, and the Pilate is very mean; perhaps intentionally, that no reverence might be withdrawn from the person of Christ. In work of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the figures of Pilate and Herod are always intentionally made contemptible.

Ecce Homo. As usual, Tintoret's own peculiar view of the subject. Christ is laid fainting on the ground, with a soldier standing on one side of him; while Pilate, on the other, withdraws the robe from the scourged and wounded body, and points it out to the Jews. Both this and the picture last mentioned resemble Titian more than Tintoret in the style of their treatment.

61. Christ bearing his Cross. Tintoret is here recognizable again in undiminished strength. He has represented the troops and attendants climbing Calvary by a winding path, of which two turns are seen, the figures on the uppermost ledge, and Christ in the centre of them, being relieved against the sky; but, instead of the usual simple expedient of the bright horizon to relieve the dark masses, there is here introduced, on the left, the head of a white horse, which blends itself with the sky in one broad mass of light. The power of the picture is chiefly in effect, the figure of Christ being too far off to be very interesting, and only the malefactors being seen on the nearer path; but for this very reason it seems to me more impressive, as if one had been truly present at the scene, though not exactly in the right place for seeing it.

62. The Crucifixion. I must leave this picture to work its will on the spectator; for it is beyond all analysis, and above all praise.

S

SAGREDO, PALAZZO, on the Grand Canal, II. 256. Much defaced, but full of interest. Its sea story is restored; its first floor has a most interesting arcade of the early thirteenth century third order windows; its upper windows are the finest fourth and fifth orders of early fourteenth century; the group of fourth orders in the centre being brought into some resemblance to the late Gothic traceries by the subsequent introduction of the quatrefoils above them.

SALUTE, CHURCH OF STA. MARIA DELLA, on the Grand Canal, II. 378. One of the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, rendered impressive by its position, size, and general proportions. These latter are exceedingly good; the grace of the whole building being chiefly dependent on the inequality of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping of the two campaniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that the proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with the style or general merits of their architecture. An architect trained in the worst schools, and utterly devoid of all meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have such a natural gift of massing and grouping as will render all his structures effective when seen from a distance: such a gift is very general with the late Italian builders, so that many of the most contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect so long as we do not approach them. The Church of the Salute is farther assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front of it down to the canal; and its facade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the principal object in his well-known view of the Grand Canal. The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none. The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small Titian, "St. Mark, with Sts. Cosmo and Damian," was, when I first saw it, to my judgment, by far the first work of Titian's in Venice. It has since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully.

At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette which once decorated the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo (see above, page 74); and, at the side of it, one of the most highly finished Tintorets in Venice, namely:

The Marriage in Cana. An immense picture, some twenty-five feet long by fifteen high, and said by Lazari to be one of the few which Tintoret signed with his name. I am not surprised at his having done so in this case. Evidently the work has been a favorite with him, and he has taken as much pains as it was ever necessary for his colossal strength to take with anything. The subject is not one which admits of much singularity or energy in composition. It was always a favorite one with Veronese, because it gave dramatic interest to figures in gay costumes and of cheerful countenances; but one is surprised to find Tintoret, whose tone of mind was always grave, and who did not like to make a picture out of brocades and diadems, throwing his whole strength into the conception of a marriage feast; but so it is, and there are assuredly no female heads in any of his pictures in Venice elaborated so far as those which here form the central light. Neither is it often that the works of this mighty master conform themselves to any of the rules acted upon by ordinary painters; but in this instance the popular laws have been observed, and an academy student would be delighted to see with what severity the principal light is arranged in a central mass, which is divided and made more brilliant by a vigorous piece of shadow thrust into the midst of it, and which dies away in lesser fragments and sparkling towards the extremities of the picture. This mass of light is as interesting by its composition as by its intensity. The cicerone who escorts the stranger round the sacristy in the course of five minutes, and allows him some forty seconds for the contemplation of a picture which the study of six months would not entirely fathom, directs his attention very carefully to the "bell' effetto di prospettivo," the whole merit of the picture being, in the eyes of the intelligent public, that there is a long table in it, one end of which looks farther off than the other; but there is more in the "bell' effetto di prospettivo" than the observance of the common laws of optics. The table is set in a spacious chamber, of which the windows at the end let in the light from the horizon, and those in the side wall the intense blue of an Eastern sky. The spectator looks all along the table, at the farther end of which are seated Christ and the Madonna, the marriage guests on each side of it,—on one side men, on the other women; the men are set with their backs to the light, which passing over their heads and glancing slightly on the tablecloth, falls in full length along the line of young Venetian women, who thus fill the whole centre of the picture with one broad sunbeam, made up of fair faces and golden hair. Close to the spectator a woman has risen in amazement, and stretches across the table to show the wine in her cup to those opposite; her dark red dress intercepts and enhances the mass of gathered light. It is rather curious, considering the subject of the picture, that one cannot distinguish either the bride or the bridegroom; but the fourth figure from the Madonna in the line of women, who wears a white head-dress of lace and rich chains of pearls in her hair, may well be accepted for the former, and I think that between her and the woman on the Madonna's left hand the unity of the line of women is intercepted by a male figure; be this as it may, this fourth female face is the most beautiful, as far as I recollect, that occurs in the works of the painter, with the exception only of the Madonna in the "Flight into Egypt." It is an ideal which occurs indeed elsewhere in many of his works, a face at once dark and delicate, the Italian cast of feature moulded with the softness and childishness of English beauty some half a century ago; but I have never seen the ideal so completely worked out by the master. The face may best be described as one of the purest and softest of Stothard's conceptions, executed with all the strength of Tintoret. The other women are all made inferior to this one, but there are beautiful profiles and bendings of breasts and necks along the whole line. The men are all subordinate, though there are interesting portraits among them; perhaps the only fault of the picture being that the faces are a little too conspicuous, seen like balls of light among the crowd of minor figures which fill the background of the picture. The tone of the whole is sober and majestic in the highest degree; the dresses are all broad masses of color, and the only parts of the picture which lay claim to the expression of wealth or splendor are the head-dresses of the women. In this respect the conception of the scene differs widely from that of Veronese, and approaches more nearly to the probable truth. Still the marriage is not an unimportant one; an immense crowd, filling the background, forming superbly rich mosaic of color against the distant sky. Taken as a whole, the picture is perhaps the most perfect example which human art has produced of the utmost possible force and sharpness of shadow united with richness of local color. In all the other works of Tintoret, and much more of other colorists, either the light and shade or the local color is predominant; in the one case the picture has a tendency to look as if painted by candle-light, in the other it becomes daringly conventional, and approaches the conditions of glass-painting. This picture unites color as rich as Titian's with light and shade as forcible as Rembrandt's, and far more decisive.

There are one or two other interesting pictures of the early Venetian schools in this sacristy, and several important tombs in the adjoining cloister; among which that of Francesco Dandolo, transported here from the Church of the Frari, deserves especial attention. See above, p. 74.

SALVATORE, CHURCH OF ST. Base Renaissance, occupying the place of the ancient church, under the porch of which the Pope Alexander III. is said to have passed the night. M. Lazari states it to have been richly decorated with mosaics; now all is gone.

In the interior of the church are some of the best examples of Renaissance sculptural monuments in Venice. (See above, Chap. II. Sec. LXXX.) It is said to possess an important pala of silver, of the thirteenth century, one of the objects in Venice which I much regret having forgotten to examine; besides two Titians, a Bonifazio, and a John Bellini. The latter ("The Supper at Emmaus") must, I think, have been entirely repainted: it is not only unworthy of the master, but unlike him; as far, at least, as I could see from below, for it is hung high.

SANUDO PALAZZO. At the Miracoli. A noble Gothic palace of the fourteenth century, with Byzantine fragments and cornices built into its walls, especially round the interior court, in which the staircase is very noble. Its door, opening on the quay, is the only one in Venice entirely uninjured; retaining its wooden valve richly sculptured, its wicket for examination of the stranger demanding admittance, and its quaint knocker in the form of a fish.

SCALZI, CHURCH OF THE. It possesses a fine John Bellini, and is renowned through Venice for its precious marbles. I omitted to notice above, in speaking of the buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, that many of them are remarkable for a kind of dishonesty, even in the use of true marbles, resulting not from motives of economy, but from mere love of juggling and falsehood for their own sake. I hardly know which condition of mind is meanest, that which has pride in plaster made to look like marble, or that which takes delight in marble made to look like silk. Several of the later churches in Venice, more especially those of the Jesuiti, of San Clemente, and this of the Scalzi, rest their chief claims to admiration on their having curtains and cushions cut out of rock. The most ridiculous example is in San Clemente, and the most curious and costly are in the Scalzi; which latter church is a perfect type of the vulgar abuse of marble in every possible way, by men who had no eye for color, and no understanding of any merit in a work of art but that which arises from costliness of material, and such powers of imitation as are devoted in England to the manufacture of peaches and eggs out of Derbyshire spar.

SEBASTIAN, CHURCH OF ST. The tomb, and of old the monument, of Paul Veronese. It is full of his noblest pictures, or of what once were such; but they seemed to me for the most part destroyed by repainting. I had not time to examine them justly, but I would especially direct the traveller's attention to the small Madonna over the second altar on the right of the nave, still a perfect and priceless treasure.

SERVI, CHURCH OF THE. Only two of its gates and some ruined walls are left, in one of the foulest districts of the city. It was one of the most interesting monuments of the early fourteenth century Gothic; and there is much beauty in the fragments yet remaining. How long they may stand I know not, the whole building having been offered me for sale, ground and all, or stone by stone, as I chose, by its present proprietor, when I was last in Venice. More real good might at present be effected by any wealthy person who would devote his resources to the preservation of such monuments wherever they exist, by freehold purchase of the entire ruin, and afterwards by taking proper charge of it, and forming a garden round it, than by any other mode of protecting or encouraging art. There is no school, no lecturer, like a ruin of the early ages.

SEVERO, FONDAMENTA SAN, palace at, II. 264.

SILVESTRO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance in itself, but it contains two very interesting pictures: the first, a "St. Thomas of Canterbury with the Baptist and St. Francis," by Girolamo Santa Croce, a superb example of the Venetian religious school; the second by Tintoret, namely:

The Baptism of Christ. (Over the first altar on the right of the nave.) An upright picture, some ten feet wide by fifteen high; the top of it is arched, representing the Father supported by angels. It requires little knowledge of Tintoret to see that these figures are not by his hand. By returning to the opposite side of the nave, the join in the canvas may be plainly seen, the upper part of the picture having been entirely added on: whether it had this upper part before it was repainted, or whether originally square, cannot now be told, but I believe it had an upper part which has been destroyed. I am not sure if even the dove and the two angels which are at the top of the older part of the picture are quite genuine. The rest of it is magnificent, though both the figures of the Saviour and the Baptist show some concession on the part of the painter to the imperative requirement of his age, that nothing should be done except in an attitude; neither are there any of his usual fantastic imaginations. There is simply the Christ in the water and the St. John on the shore, without attendants, disciples, or witnesses of any kind; but the power of the light and shade, and the splendor of the landscape, which on the whole is well preserved, render it a most interesting example. The Jordan is represented as a mountain brook, receiving a tributary stream in a cascade from the rocks, in which St. John stands: there is a rounded stone in the centre of the current; and the parting of the water at this, as well as its rippling among the roots of some dark trees on the left, are among the most accurate remembrances of nature to be found in any of the works of the great masters. I hardly know whether most to wonder at the power of the man who thus broke through the neglect of nature which was universal at his time; or at the evidences, visible throughout the whole of the conception, that he was still content to paint from slight memories of what he had seen in hill countries, instead of following out to its full depth the fountain which he had opened. There is not a stream among the hills of Priuli which in any quarter of a mile of its course would not have suggested to him finer forms of cascade than those which he has idly painted at Venice.

SIMEONE, PROFETA, CHURCH OF ST. Very important, though small, possessing the precious statue of St. Simeon, above noticed, II. 309. The rare early Gothic capitals of the nave are only interesting to the architect; but in the little passage by the side of the church, leading out of the Campo, there is a curious Gothic monument built into the wall, very beautiful in the placing of the angels in the spandrils, and rich in the vine-leaf moulding above.

SIMEONE, PICCOLO, CHURCH OF ST. One of the ugliest churches in Venice or elsewhere. Its black dome, like an unusual species of gasometer, is the admiration of modern Italian architects.

SOSPIRI, PONTE DE'. The well known "Bridge of Sighs," a work of no merit, and of a late period (see Vol. II. p. 304), owing the interest it possesses chiefly to its pretty name, and to the ignorant sentimentalism of Byron.

SPIRITO SANTO, CHURCH OF THE. Of no importance.

STEFANO, CHURCH OF ST. An interesting building of central Gothic, the best ecclesiastical example of it in Venice. The west entrance is much later than any of the rest, and is of the richest Renaissance Gothic, a little anterior to the Porta della Carta, and first-rate of its kind. The manner of the introduction of the figure of the angel at the top of the arch is full of beauty. Note the extravagant crockets and cusp finials as signs of decline.

STEFANO, CHURCH OF ST., at Murano (pugnacity of its abbot), II. 33. The church no longer exists.

STROPE, CAMPIELLO DELLA, house in, II. 266.

T

TANA, windows at the, II. 260.

TIEPOLO, PALAZZO, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.

TOLENTINI, CHURCH OF THE. One of the basest and coldest works of the late Renaissance. It is said to contain two Bonifazios.

TOMA, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.

TOMA, PONTE SAN. There is an interesting ancient doorway opening on the canal close to this bridge, probably of the twelfth century, and a good early Gothic door, opening upon the bridge itself.

TORCELLO, general aspect of, II. 12; Santa Fosca at, I. 117, II. 13; duomo, II. 14; mosaics of, II. 196; measures of, II. 378; date of, II. 380.

TREVISAN, PALAZZO, I. 369, III. 212.

TRON, PALAZZO. Of no importance.

TROVASO, CHURCH OF ST. Itself of no importance, but containing two pictures by Tintoret, namely:

1. The Temptation of St. Anthony. (Altar piece in the chapel on the left of the choir.) A small and very carefully finished picture, but marvellously temperate and quiet in treatment, especially considering the subject, which one would have imagined likely to inspire the painter with one of his most fantastic visions. As if on purpose to disappoint us, both the effect, and the conception of the figures, are perfectly quiet, and appear the result much more of careful study than of vigorous imagination. The effect is one of plain daylight; there are a few clouds drifting in the distance, but with no wildness in them, nor is there any energy or heat in the flames which mantle about the waist of one of the figures. But for the noble workmanship, we might almost fancy it the production of a modern academy; yet as we begin to read the picture, the painter's mind becomes felt. St. Anthony is surrounded by four figures, one of which only has the form of a demon, and he is in the background, engaged in no more terrific act of violence toward St. Anthony, than endeavoring to pull off his mantle; he has, however, a scourge over his shoulder, but this is probably intended for St. Anthony's weapon of self-discipline, which the fiend, with a very Protestant turn of mind, is carrying off. A broken staff, with a bell hanging to it, at the saint's feet, also expresses his interrupted devotion. The three other figures beside him are bent on more cunning mischief: the woman on the left is one of Tintoret's best portraits of a young and bright-eyed Venetian beauty. It is curious that he has given so attractive a countenance to a type apparently of the temptation to violate the power of poverty, for this woman places one hand in a vase full of coins, and shakes golden chains with the other. On the opposite side of the saint, another woman, admirably painted, but of a far less attractive countenance, is a type of the lusts of the flesh, yet there is nothing gross or immodest in her dress or gesture. She appears to have been baffled, and for the present to have given up addressing the saint: she lays one hand upon her breast, and might be taken for a very respectable person, but that there are flames playing about her loins. A recumbent figure on the ground is of less intelligible character, but may perhaps be meant for Indolence; at all events, he has torn the saint's book to pieces. I forgot to note, that under the figure representing Avarice, there is a creature like a pig; whether actual pig or not is unascertainable, for the church is dark, the little light that comes on the picture falls on it the wrong way, and one third of the lower part of it is hidden by a white case, containing a modern daub, lately painted by way of an altar piece; the meaning, as well as the merit, of the grand old picture being now far beyond the comprehension both of priests and people.

2. The Last Supper. (On the left-hand side of the Chapel of the Sacrament.) A picture which has been through the hands of the Academy, and is therefore now hardly worth notice. Its conception seems always to have been vulgar, and far below Tintoret's usual standard; there is singular baseness in the circumstance, that one of the near Apostles, while all the others are, as usual, intent upon Christ's words, "One of you shall betray me," is going to help himself to wine out of a bottle which stands behind him. In so doing he stoops towards the table, the flask being on the floor. If intended for the action of Judas at this moment, there is the painter's usual originality in the thought; but it seems to me rather done to obtain variation of posture, in bringing the red dress into strong contrast with the tablecloth. The color has once been fine, and there are fragments of good painting still left; but the light does not permit these to be seen, and there is too much perfect work of the master's in Venice, to permit us to spend time on retouched remnants. The picture is only worth mentioning, because it is ignorantly and ridiculously referred to by Kugler as characteristic of Tintoret.

V

VITALI, CHURCH OF ST. Said to contain a picture by Vittor Carpaccio, over the high altar: otherwise of no importance.

VOLTO SANTO, CHURCH OF THE. An interesting but desecrated ruin of the fourteenth century; fine in style. Its roof retains some fresco coloring, but, as far as I recollect, of later date than the architecture.

Z

ZACCARIA, CHURCH OF ST. Early Renaissance, and fine of its kind; a Gothic chapel attached to it is of great beauty. It contains the best John Bellini in Venice, after that of San G. Grisostomo, "The Virgin, with Four Saints;" and is said to contain another John Bellini and a Tintoret, neither of which I have seen.

ZITELLE, CHURCH OF THE. Of no importance.

ZOBENIGO, CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA, III. 124. It contains one valuable Tintoret, namely:

Christ with Sta. Justina and St. Augustin. (Over the third altar on the south side of the nave.) A picture of small size, and upright, about ten feet by eight. Christ appears to be descending out of the clouds between the two saints, who are both kneeling on the sea shore. It is a Venetian sea, breaking on a flat beach, like the Lido, with a scarlet galley in the middle distance, of which the chief use is to unite the two figures by a point of color. Both the saints are respectable Venetians of the lower class, in homely dresses and with homely faces. The whole picture is quietly painted, and somewhat slightly; free from all extravagance, and displaying little power except in the general truth or harmony of colors so easily laid on. It is better preserved than usual, and worth dwelling upon as an instance of the style of the master when at rest.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] "Am I in Italy? Is this the Mincius? Are those the distant turrets of Verona? And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque Saw her loved Montague, and now sleeps by him? Such questions hourly do I ask myself; And not a stone in a crossway inscribed 'To Mantua,' 'To Ferrara,' but excites Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation."

Alas, after a few short months, spent even in the scenes dearest to history, we can feel thus no more.

[72] I have always called this church, in the text, simply "St. John and Paul," not Sts. John and Paul, just as the Venetians say San Giovanni e Paolo, and not Santi G., &c.



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CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

Page 69: 'Italian sarcophagi are kept massive, smoth and gloomy' smoth corrected to smooth.

Page 74: 'fallen back peacefully uppon his pillow' uppon corrected to upon.

Page 100: 'men's modes of life, and tones of throught' throught changed to thought.

Page 121: 'breathed upon her beaaty, until it melted away' beaaty corrected to beauty.

Page 157: 'morbid action by terror, accompained by the belief' accompained changed to accompanied.

Page 207: 'finds him by a fountaiu side' fountaiu corrected to fountain.

Page 222: 'Pietro di Castello, for the feast of St. Mary' Mary changed to Mark.

Page 233: Number 2. misplaced. Moved to 'a. Lower arcade, Fondaco de' Turchi.'

Page 233: Missing 4. added before 'a. Fondaco de' Turchi, central shaft, upper arcade.'

Page 237: 'fourth order windows in Campo Sta. Ma Mater Domini' Ma changed to M^a.

Page 293: 'the usual inportant purposes of the modern Italians.' inportant changed to important.

Page 294: 'not the slightest touch os it but is delicious.' os corrected to of.

Page 318: 'examine the two large tintorets' tintorets changed to Tintorets.

Page 319: 'Mlaipiero, Palazzo, on the Campo St. M. Formosa.' Mlaipiero corrected to Malipiero.

Page 358: 'drift of its clouds, and originalty and complication.' originalty corrected to originality.

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