It is long since such a throne has been set in the receptionchambers of Christendom, or such an answer heard from the lips of a king.
Thus the Renaissance spirit became base both in its abstinence and its indulgence. Base in its abstinence; curtailing the bright and playful wealth of form and thought, which filled the architecture of the earlier ages with sources of delight for their hardy spirit, pure, simple, and yet rich as the fretwork of flowers and moss, watered by some strong and stainless mountain stream: and base in its indulgence; as it granted to the body what it withdrew from the heart, and exhausted, in smoothing the pavement for the painless feet, and softening the pillow for the sluggish brain, the powers of art which once had hewn rough ladders into the clouds of heaven, and set up the stones by which they rested for houses of God.
§XLIII. And just in proportion as this courtly sensuality lowered the real nobleness of the men whom birth or fortune raised above their fellows, rose their estimate of their own dignity, together with the insolence and unkindness of its expression, and the grossness of the flattery with which it was fed. Pride is indeed the first and the last among the sins of men, and there is no age of the world in which it has not been unveiled in the power and prosperity of the wicked. But there was never in any form of slavery, or of feudal supremacy, a forgetfulness so total of the common majesty of the human soul, and of the brotherly kindness due from man to man, as in the aristocratic follies in the Renaissance. I have not space to follow out this most interesting and extensive subject; but here is a single and very curious example of the kind of flattery with which architectural teaching was mingled when addressed to the men of rank of the day.
§XLIV. In St. Mark’s library there is a very curious Latin manuscript of the twenty-five books of Averulinus, a Florentine architect, upon the principles of his art. The book was written in or about 1460, and translated into Latin, and richly illuminated for Corvinus, king of Hungary, about 1483. I extract from the third book the following passage on the nature ofstones. “As there are three genera of men,—that is to say, nobles, men of the middle classes, and rustics,—so it appears that there are of stones. For the marbles and common stones of which we have spoken above, set forth the rustics. The porphyries and alabasters, and the other harder stones of mingled quality, represent the middle classes, if we are to deal in comparisons: and by means of these the ancients adorned their temples with incrustations and ornaments in a magnificent manner. And after these come the chalcedonies and sardonyxes, &c., which are so transparent that there can be seen no spot in them.14Thus men endowed with nobility lead a life in which no spot can be found.”
Canute or Cœur de Lion (I name not Godfrey or St. Louis) would have dashed their sceptres against the lips of a man who should have dared to utter to them flattery such as this. But in the fifteenth century it was rendered and accepted as a matter of course, and the tempers which delighted in it necessarily took pleasure also in every vulgar or false means, of taking worldly superiority. And among such false means largeness of scale in the dwelling-house was of course one of the easiest and most direct. All persons, however senseless or dull, could appreciate size: it required some exertion of intelligence to enter into the spirit of the quaint carving of the Gothic times, but none to perceive that one heap of stones was higher than another.15And therefore, while in the execution and manner of work the Renaissance builders zealously vindicated for themselves the attribute of cold and superior learning, they appealed for such approbation as they needed from the multitude, to the lowest possible standard of taste;and while the older workman lavished his labor on the minute niche and narrow casement, on the doorways no higher than the head, and the contracted angles of the turreted chamber, the Renaissance builder spared such cost and toil in his detail, that he might spend it in bringing larger stones from a distance; and restricted himself to rustication and five orders, that he might load the ground with colossal piers, and raise an ambitious barrenness of architecture, as inanimate as it was gigantic, above the feasts and follies of the powerful or the rich. The Titanic insanity extended itself also into ecclesiastical design: the principal church in Italy was built with little idea of any other admirableness than that which was to result from its being huge; and the religious impressions of those who enter it are to this day supposed to be dependent, in a great degree, on their discovering that they cannot span the thumbs of the statues which sustain the vessels for holy water.
§XLV. It is easy to understand how an architecture which thus appealed not less to the lowest instincts of dulness than to the subtlest pride of learning, rapidly found acceptance with a large body of mankind; and how the spacious pomp of the new manner of design came to be eagerly adopted by the luxurious aristocracies, not only of Venice, but of the other countries of Christendom, now gradually gathering themselves into that insolent and festering isolation, against which the cry of the poor sounded hourly in more ominous unison, bursting at last into thunder (mark where,—first among the planted walks and plashing fountains of the palace wherein the Renaissance luxury attained its utmost height in Europe, Versailles); that cry, mingling so much piteousness with its wrath and indignation, “Our soul is filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy, and with the despitefulness of the proud.”
§XLVI. But of all the evidence bearing upon this subject presented by the various arts of the fifteenth century, none is so interesting or so conclusive as that deduced from its tombs. For, exactly in proportion as the pride of life became moreinsolent, the fear of death became more servile; and the difference in the manner in which the men of early and later days adorned the sepulchre, confesses a still greater difference in their manner of regarding death. To those he came as the comforter and the friend, rest in his right hand, hope in his left; to these as the humiliator, the spoiler, and the avenger. And, therefore, we find the early tombs at once simple and lovely in adornment, severe and solemn in their expression; confessing the power, and accepting the peace, of death, openly and joyfully; and in all their symbols marking that the hope of resurrection lay only in Christ’s righteousness; signed always with this simple utterance of the dead, “I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest; for it is thou, Lord, only that makest me dwell in safety.” But the tombs of the later ages are a ghastly struggle of mean pride and miserable terror: the one mustering the statues of the Virtues about the tomb, disguising the sarcophagus with delicate sculpture, polishing the false periods of the elaborate epitaph, and filling with strained animation the features of the portrait statue; and the other summoning underneath, out of the niche or from behind the curtain, the frowning skull, or scythed skeleton, or some other more terrible image of the enemy in whose defiance the whiteness of the sepulchre had been set to shine above the whiteness of the ashes.
§XLVII. This change in the feeling with which sepulchral monuments were designed, from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries, has been common to the whole of Europe. But, as Venice is in other respects the centre of the Renaissance system, so also she exhibits this change in the manner of the sepulchral monument under circumstances peculiarly calculated to teach us its true character. For the severe guard which, in earlier times, she put upon every tendency to personal pomp and ambition, renders the tombs of her ancient monarchs as remarkable for modesty and simplicity as for their religious feeling; so that, in this respect, they are separated by a considerable interval from the more costly monuments erected at the same periods to the kings or nobles ofother European states. In later times, on the other hand, as the piety of the Venetians diminished, their pride overleaped all limits, and the tombs which in recent epochs, were erected for men who had lived only to impoverish or disgrace the state, were as much more magnificent than those contemporaneously erected for the nobles of Europe, as the monuments for the great Doges had been humbler. When, in addition to this, we reflect that the art of sculpture, considered as expressive of emotion, was at a low ebb in Venice in the twelfth century, and that in the seventeenth she took the lead in Italy in luxurious work, we shall at once see the chain of examples through which the change of feeling is expressed, must present more remarkable extremes here than it can in any other city; extremes so startling that their impressiveness cannot be diminished, while their intelligibility is greatly increased, by the large number of intermediate types which have fortunately been preserved.
It would, however, too much weary the general reader if, without illustrations, I were to endeavor to lead him step by step through the aisles of St. John and Paul; and I shall therefore confine myself to a slight notice of those features in sepulchral architecture generally which are especially illustrative of the matter at present in hand, and point out the order in which, if possible, the traveller should visit the tombs in Venice, so as to be most deeply impressed with the true character of the lessons they convey.
§XLVIII. I have not such an acquaintance with the modes of entombment or memorial in the earliest ages of Christianity as would justify me in making any general statement respecting them: but it seems to me that the perfect type of a Christian tomb was not developed until toward the thirteenth century, sooner or later according to the civilization of each country; that perfect type consisting in the raised and perfectly visible sarcophagus of stone, bearing upon it a recumbent figure, and the whole covered by a canopy. Before that type was entirely developed, and in the more ordinary tombs contemporary with it, we find the simple sarcophagus, oftenwith only a rough block of stone for its lid, sometimes with a low-gabled lid like a cottage roof, derived from Egyptian forms, and bearing, either on the sides or the lid, at least a sculpture of the cross, and sometimes the name of the deceased, and date of erection of the tomb. In more elaborate examples rich figure-sculpture is gradually introduced; and in the perfect period the sarcophagus, even when it does not bear any recumbent figure, has generally a rich sculpture on its sides representing an angel presenting the dead, in person and dress as he lived, to Christ or to the Madonna, with lateral figures, sometimes of saints, sometimes—as in the tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy at Dijon—of mourners; but in Venice almost always representing the Annunciation, the angel being placed at one angle of the sarcophagus, and the Madonna at the other. The canopy, in a very simple foursquare form, or as an arch over a recess, is added above the sarcophagus, long before the life-size recumbent figure appears resting upon it. By the time that the sculptors had acquired skill enough to give much expression to this figure, the canopy attains an exquisite symmetry and richness; and, in the most elaborate examples, is surmounted by a statue, generally small, representing the dead person in the full strength and pride of life, while the recumbent figure shows him as he lay in death. And, at this point, the perfect type of the Gothic tomb is reached.
§XLIX. Of the simple sarcophagus tomb there are many exquisite examples both at Venice and Verona; the most interesting in Venice are those which are set in the recesses of the rude brick front of the Church of St. John and Paul, ornamented only, for the most part, with two crosses set in circles, and the legend with the name of the dead, and an “Orate pro anima” in another circle in the centre. And in this we may note one great proof of superiority in Italian over English tombs; the latter being often enriched with quatrefoils, small shafts, and arches, and other ordinary architectural decorations, which destroy their seriousness and solemnity, render them little more than ornamental, and haveno religious meaning whatever; while the Italian sarcophagi are kept massive,smooth, and gloomy,—heavy-lidded dungeons of stone, like rock-tombs,—but bearing on their surface, sculptured with tender and narrow lines, the emblem of the cross, not presumptuously nor proudly, but dimly graven upon their granite, like the hope which the human heart holds, but hardly perceives in its heaviness.
§L. Among the tombs in front of the Church of St. John and Paul there is one which is peculiarly illustrative of the simplicity of these earlier ages. It is on the left of the entrance, a massy sarcophagus with low horns as of an altar, placed in a rude recess of the outside wall, shattered and worn, and here and there entangled among wild grass and weeds. Yet it is the tomb of two Doges, Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo, by one of whom nearly the whole ground was given for the erection of the noble church in front of which his unprotected tomb is wasting away. The sarcophagus bears an inscription in the centre, describing the acts of the Doges, of which the letters show that it was added a considerable period after the erection of the tomb: the original legend is still left in other letters on its base, to this effect,
“Lord James, died 1251. Lord Laurence, died 1288.”
At the two corners of the sarcophagus are two angels bearing censers; and on its lid two birds, with crosses like crests upon their heads. For the sake of the traveller in Venice the reader will, I think, pardon me the momentary irrelevancy of telling the meaning of these symbols.
§LI. The foundation of the church of St. John and Paul was laid by the Dominicans about 1234, under the immediate protection of the Senate and the Doge Giacomo Tiepolo, accorded to them in consequence of a miraculous vision appearing to the Doge; of which the following account is given in popular tradition:
“In the year 1226, the Doge Giacomo Tiepolo dreamed a dream; and in his dream he saw the little oratory of the Dominicans, and, behold, the ground all around it (now occupiedby the church) was covered with roses of the color of vermilion, and the air was filled with their fragrance. And in the midst of the roses, there were seen flying to and fro a crowd of white doves, with golden crosses upon their heads. And while the Doge looked, and wondered, behold, two angels descended from heaven with golden censers, and passing through the oratory, and forth among the flowers, they filled the place with the smoke of their incense. Then the Doge heard suddenly a clear and loud voice which proclaimed, ‘This is the place that I have chosen for my preachers;’ and having heard it, straightway he awoke and went to the Senate, and declared to them the vision. Then the Senate decreed that forty paces of ground should be given to enlarge the monastery; and the Doge Tiepolo himself made a still larger grant afterwards.”
There is nothing miraculous in the occurrence of such a dream as this to the devout Doge; and the fact, of which there is no doubt, that the greater part of the land on which the church stands was given by him, is partly a confirmation of the story. But, whether the sculptures on the tomb were records of the vision, or the vision a monkish invention from the sculptures on the tomb, the reader will not, I believe, look upon its doves and crosses, or rudely carved angels, any more with disdain; knowing how, in one way or another, they were connected with a point of deep religious belief.
§LII. Towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, in Venice, the recumbent figure begins to appear on the sarcophagus, the first dated example being also one of the most beautiful; the statue of the prophet Simeon, sculptured upon the tomb which was to receive his relics in the church dedicated to him under the name of San Simeone Grande. So soon as the figure appears, the sarcophagus becomes much more richly sculptured, but always with definite religious purpose. It is usually divided into two panels, which are filled with small bas-reliefs of the acts or martyrdom of the patron saints of the deceased: between them, in the centre, Christ, or the Virgin and Child, are richly enthroned, under a curtainedcanopy; and the two figures representing the Annunciation are almost always at the angles; the promise of the Birth of Christ being taken as at once the ground and the type of the promise of eternal life to all men.
§LIII. These figures are always in Venice most rudely chiselled; the progress of figure sculpture being there comparatively tardy. At Verona, where the great Pisan school had strong influence, the monumental sculpture is immeasurably finer; and, so early as about the year 1335,16the consummate form of the Gothic tomb occurs in the monument of Can Grande della Scala at Verona. It is set over the portal of the chapel anciently belonging to the family. The sarcophagus is sculptured with shallow bas-reliefs, representing (which is rare in the tombs with which I am acquainted in Italy, unless they are those of saints) the principal achievements of the warrior’s life, especially the siege of Vicenza and battle of Placenza; these sculptures, however, form little more than a chased and roughened groundwork for the fully relieved statues representing the Annunciation, projecting boldly from the front of the sarcophagus. Above, the Lord of Verona is laid in his long robe of civil dignity, wearing the simple bonnet, consisting merely of a fillet bound round the brow, knotted and falling on the shoulder. He is laid as asleep; his arms crossed upon his body, and his sword by his side. Above him, a bold arched canopy is sustained by two projecting shafts, and on the pinnacle of its roof is the statue of the knight on his war-horse; his helmet, dragon-winged and crested with the dog’s head, tossed back behind his shoulders, and the broad and blazoned drapery floating back from his horse’s breast,—so truly drawn by the old workman from the life, that it seems to wave in the wind, and the knight’s spear to shake, and his marble horse to be evermore quickening its pace, and starting into heavier and hastier charge, as the silver clouds float past behind it in the sky.
§LIV. Now observe, in this tomb, as much concession is made to the pride of man as may ever consist with honor, discretion, or dignity. I do not enter into any question respecting the character of Can Grande, though there can be little doubt that he was one of the best among the nobles of his time; but that is not to our purpose. It is not the question whether his wars were just, or his greatness honorably achieved; but whether, supposing them to have been so, these facts are well and gracefully told upon his tomb. And I believe there can be no hesitation in the admission of its perfect feeling and truth. Though beautiful, the tomb is so little conspicuous or intrusive, that it serves only to decorate the portal of the little chapel, and is hardly regarded by the traveller as he enters. When it is examined, the history of the acts of the dead is found subdued into dim and minute ornament upon his coffin; and the principal aim of the monument is to direct the thoughts to his image as he lies in death, and to the expression of his hope of resurrection; while, seen as by the memory far away, diminished in the brightness of the sky, there is set the likeness of his armed youth, stately, as it stood of old, in the front of battle, and meet to be thus recorded for us, that we may now be able to remember the dignity of the frame, of which those who once looked upon it hardly remembered that it was dust.
§LV. This, I repeat, is as much as may ever be granted, but this ought always to be granted, to the honor and the affection of men. The tomb which stands beside that of Can Grande, nearest it in the little field of sleep, already shows the traces of erring ambition. It is the tomb of Mastino the Second, in whose reign began the decline of his family. It is altogether exquisite as a work of art; and the evidence of a less wise or noble feeling in its design is found only in this, that the image of a virtue, Fortitude, as belonging to the dead, is placed on the extremity of the sarcophagus, opposite to the Crucifixion. But for this slight circumstance, of which the significance will only be appreciated as we examine the series of later monuments, the composition of this monument of CanMastino would have been as perfect as its decoration is refined. It consists, like that of Can Grande, of the raised sarcophagus, bearing the recumbent statue, protected by a noble foursquare canopy, sculptured with ancient Scripture history. On one side of the sarcophagus is Christ enthroned, with Can Mastino kneeling before Him; on the other, Christ is represented in the mystical form, half-rising from the tomb, meant, I believe, to be at once typical of His passion and resurrection. The lateral panels are occupied by statues of saints. At one extremity of the sarcophagus is the Crucifixion; at the other, a noble statue of Fortitude, with a lion’s skin thrown over her shoulders, its head forming a shield upon her breast, her flowing hair bound with a narrow fillet, and a three-edged sword in her gauntleted right hand, drawn back sternly behind her thigh, while, in her left, she bears high the shield of the Scalas.
§LVI. Close to this monument is another, the stateliest and most sumptuous of the three; it first arrests the eye of the stranger, and long detains it,—a many-pinnacled pile surrounded by niches with statues of the warrior saints.
It is beautiful, for it still belongs to the noble time, the latter part of the fourteenth century; but its work is coarser than that of the other, and its pride may well prepare us to learn that it was built for himself, in his own lifetime, by the man whose statue crowns it, Can Signorio della Scala. Now observe, for this is infinitely significant. Can Mastino II. was feeble and wicked, and began the ruin of his house; his sarcophagus is the first which bears upon it the image of a virtue, but he lays claim only to Fortitude. Can Signorio was twice a fratricide, the last time when he lay upon his death-bed:histomb bears upon its gables the images of six virtues,—Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, and (I believe) Justice and Fortitude.
§LVII. Let us now return to Venice, where, in the second chapel counting from right to left, at the west end of the Church of the Frari, there is a very early fourteenth, or perhaps late thirteenth, century tomb, another exquisite example of the perfect Gothic form. It is a knight’s; but there is noinscription upon it, and his name is unknown. It consists of a sarcophagus, supported on bold brackets against the chapel wall, bearing the recumbent figure, protected by a simple canopy in the form of a pointed arch, pinnacled by the knight’s crest; beneath which the shadowy space is painted dark blue, and strewn with stars. The statue itself is rudely carved; but its lines, as seen from the intended distance, are both tender and masterly. The knight is laid in his mail, only the hands and face being bare. The hauberk and helmet are of chain-mail, the armor for the limbs of jointed steel; a tunic, fitting close to the breast, and marking the noble swell of it by two narrow embroidered lines, is worn over the mail; his dagger is at his right side; his long cross-belted sword, not seen by the spectator from below, at his left. His feet rest on a hound (the hound being his crest), which looks up towards its master. In general, in tombs of this kind, the face of the statue is slightly turned towards the spectator; in this monument, on the contrary, it is turned away from him, towards the depth of the arch: for there, just above the warrior’s breast, is carved a small image of St. Joseph bearing the infant Christ, who looks down upon the resting figure; and to this image its countenance is turned. The appearance of the entire tomb is as if the warrior had seen the vision of Christ in his dying moments, and had fallen back peacefullyuponhis pillow, with his eyes still turned to it, and his hands clasped in prayer.
§LVIII. On the opposite side of this chapel is another very lovely tomb, to Duccio degli Alberti, a Florentine ambassador at Venice; noticeable chiefly as being the first in Venice on which any images of the Virtues appear. We shall return to it presently, but some account must first be given of the more important among the other tombs in Venice belonging to the perfect period. Of these, by far the most interesting, though not the most elaborate, is that of the great Doge Francesco Dandolo, whose ashes, it might have been thought, were honorable enough to have been permitted to rest undisturbed in the chapter-house of the Frari, where they were first laid. But, as if there were not room enough, nor waste houses enough inthe desolate city to receive a few convent papers, the monks, wanting an “archivio,” have separated the tomb into three pieces: the canopy, a simple arch sustained on brackets, still remains on the blank walls of the desecrated chamber; the sarcophagus has been transported to a kind of museum of antiquities, established in what was once the cloister of Santa Maria della Salute; and the painting which filled the lunette behind it is hung far out of sight, at one end of the sacristy of the same church. The sarcophagus is completely charged with bas-reliefs: at its two extremities are the types of St. Mark and St. John; in front, a noble sculpture of the death of the Virgin; at the angles, angels holding vases. The whole space is occupied by the sculpture; there are no spiral shafts or panelled divisions; only a basic plinth below, and crowning plinth above, the sculpture being raised from a deep concave field between the two, but, in order to give piquancy and picturesqueness to the mass of figures, two small trees are introduced at the head and foot of the Madonna’s couch, an oak and a stone pine.
§LIX. It was said above,17in speaking of the frequent disputes of the Venetians with the Pontifical power, which in their early days they had so strenuously supported, that “the humiliation of Francesco Dandolo blotted out the shame of Barbarossa.” It is indeed well that the two events should be remembered together. By the help of the Venetians, Alexander III. was enabled, in the twelfth century, to put his foot upon the neck of the emperor Barbarossa, quoting the words of the Psalm, “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder.” A hundred and fifty years later, the Venetian ambassador, Francesco Dandolo, unable to obtain even an audience from the Pope, Clement V., to whom he had been sent to pray for a removal of the sentence of excommunication pronounced against the republic, concealed himself (according to the common tradition) beneath the Pontiff’s dining-table; and thence coming out as he sat down to meat, embraced his feet, and obtained,by tearful entreaties, the removal of the terrible sentence.
I say, “according to the common tradition;” for there are some doubts cast upon the story by its supplement. Most of the Venetian historians assert that Francesco Dandolo’s surname of “Dog” was given him first on this occasion, in insult, by the cardinals; and that the Venetians, in remembrance of the grace which his humiliation had won for them, made it a title of honor to him and to his race. It has, however, been proved18that the surname was borne by the ancestors of Francesco Dandolo long before; and the falsity of this seal of the legend renders also its circumstances doubtful. But the main fact of grievous humiliation having been undergone, admits of no dispute; the existence of such a tradition at all is in itself a proof of its truth; it was not one likely to be either invented or received without foundation: and it will be well, therefore, that the reader should remember, in connection with the treatment of Barbarossa at the door of the Church of St. Mark’s, that in the Vatican, one hundred and fifty years later, a Venetian noble, a future Doge, submitted to a degradation, of which the current report among his people was, that he had crept on his hands and knees from beneath the Pontiff’s table to his feet, and had been spurned as a “dog” by the cardinals present.
§LX. There are two principal conclusions to be drawn from this: the obvious one respecting the insolence of the Papal dominion in the thirteenth century; the second, that there were probably most deep piety and humility in the character of the man who could submit to this insolence for the sake of a benefit to his country. Probably no motive would have been strong enough to obtain such a sacrifice from most men, however unselfish; but it was, without doubt, made easier to Dandolo by his profound reverence for the Pontifical office; a reverence which, howeverwemay now esteem those who claimed it, could not but have been felt by nearly all good andfaithful men at the time of which we are speaking. This is the main point which I wish the reader to remember as we look at his tomb, this, and the result of it,—that, some years afterwards, when he was seated on the throne which his piety had saved, “there were sixty princes’ ambassadors in Venice at the same time, requesting the judgment of the Senate on matters of various concernment,so great was the fame of the uncorrupted justice of the Fathers.”19
Observe, there are no virtues on this tomb. Nothing but religious history or symbols; the Death of the Virgin in front, and the types of St. Mark and St. John at the extremities.
§LXI. Of the tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, in St. Mark’s, I have spoken before. It is one of the first in Venice which presents, in a canopy, the Pisan idea of angels withdrawing curtains, as of a couch, to look down upon the dead. The sarcophagus is richly decorated with flower-work; the usual figures of the Annunciation are at the sides; an enthroned Madonna in the centre; and two bas-reliefs, one of the martyrdom of the Doge’s patron saint, St. Andrew, occupy the intermediate spaces. All these tombs have been richly colored; the hair of the angels has here been gilded, their wings bedropped with silver, and their garments covered with the most exquisite arabesques. This tomb, and that of St. Isidore in another chapel of St. Mark’s, which was begun by this very Doge, Andrea Dandolo, and completed after his death in 1354, are both nearly alike in their treatment, and are, on the whole, the best existing examples of Venetian monumental sculpture.
§LXII. Of much ruder workmanship, though still most precious, and singularly interesting from its quaintness, is a sarcophagus in the northernmost chapel, beside the choir of St. John and Paul, charged with two bas-reliefs and many figures, but which bears no inscription. It has, however, a shield with three dolphins on its brackets; and as at the feet of the Madonna in its centre there is a small kneeling figure of a Doge, we knowit to be the tomb of the Doge Giovanni Dolfino, who came to the throne in 1356.
He was chosen Doge while, as provveditore, he was in Treviso, defending the city against the King of Hungary. The Venetians sent to the besiegers, praying that their newly elected Doge might be permitted to pass the Hungarian lines. Their request was refused, the Hungarians exulting that they held the Doge of Venice prisoner in Treviso. But Dolfino, with a body of two hundred horse, cut his way through their lines by night, and reached Mestre (Malghera) in safety, where he was met by the Senate. His bravery could not avert the misfortunes which were accumulating on the republic. The Hungarian war was ignominiously terminated by the surrender of Dalmatia: the Doge’s heart was broken, his eyesight failed him, and he died of the plague four years after he had ascended the throne.
§LXIII. It is perhaps on this account, perhaps in consequence of later injuries, that the tomb has neither effigy nor inscription: that it has been subjected to some violence is evident from the dentil which once crowned its leaf-cornice being now broken away, showing the whole front. But, fortunately, the sculpture of the sarcophagus itself is little injured.
There are two saints, male and female, at its angles, each in a little niche; a Christ, enthroned in the centre, the Doge and Dogaressa kneeling at his feet; in the two intermediate panels, on one side the Epiphany, on the other the Death of the Virgin; the whole supported, as well as crowned, by an elaborate leaf-plinth. The figures under the niches are rudely cut, and of little interest. Not so the central group. Instead of a niche, the Christ is seated under a square tent, or tabernacle, formed by curtains running on rods; the idea, of course, as usual, borrowed from the Pisan one, but here ingeniously applied. The curtains are opened in front, showing those at the back of the tent, behind the seated figure; the perspective of the two retiring sides being very tolerably suggested.Two angels, of half the size of the seated figure, thrust back the near curtains, and look up reverently to the Christ; while again, at their feet, about one third oftheirsize, and half-sheltered, as it seems, by their garments, are the two kneeling figures of the Doge and Dogaressa, though so small and carefully cut, full of life. The Christ raising one hand as to bless, and holding a book upright and open on the knees, does not look either towards them or to the angels, but forward; and there is a very noticeable effort to represent Divine abstraction in the countenance: the idea of the three magnitudes of spiritual being,—the God, the Angel, and the Man,—is also to be observed, aided as it is by the complete subjection of the angelic power to the Divine; for the angels are in attitudes of the most lowly watchfulness of the face of Christ, and appear unconscious of the presence of the human beings who are nestled in the folds of their garments.
§LXIV. With this interesting but modest tomb of one of the kings of Venice, it is desirable to compare that of one of her senators, of exactly the same date, which is raised against the western wall of the Frari, at the end of the north aisle. It bears the following remarkable inscription:
“Anno MCCCLX. prima die Julii Sepultura . Domini . Simonii Dandolo . amador . de . Justisia . e . desiroso . de . acrese . el . ben . chomum.”
“Anno MCCCLX. prima die Julii Sepultura . Domini . Simonii Dandolo . amador . de . Justisia . e . desiroso . de . acrese . el . ben . chomum.”
The “Amador de Justitia” has perhaps some reference to Simon Dandolo’s having been one of the Giunta who condemned the Doge Faliero. The sarcophagus is decorated merely by the Annunciation group, and an enthroned Madonna with a curtain behind her throne, sustained by four tiny angels, who look over it as they hold it up; but the workmanship of the figures is more than usually beautiful.
§LXV. Seven years later, a very noble monument was placed on the north side of the choir of St. John and Paul, to the Doge Marco Cornaro, chiefly, with respect to our present subject, noticeable for the absence of religious imagery from thesarcophagus, which is decorated with roses only; three very beautiful statues of the Madonna and two saints are, however, set in the canopy above. Opposite this tomb, though about fifteen years later in date, is the richest monument of the Gothic period in Venice; that of the Doge Michele Morosini, who died in 1382. It consists of a highly florid canopy,—an arch crowned by a gable, with pinnacles at the flanks, boldly crocketed, and with a huge finial at the top representing St. Michael,—a medallion of Christ set in the gable; under the arch, a mosaic, representing the Madonna presenting the Doge to Christ upon the cross; beneath, as usual, the sarcophagus, with a most noble recumbent figure of the Doge, his face meagre and severe, and sharp in its lines, but exquisite in the form of its small and princely features. The sarcophagus is adorned with elaborate wrinkled leafage, projecting in front of it into seven brackets, from which the statues are broken away; but by which, for there can be no doubt that these last statues represented the theological and cardinal Virtues, we must for a moment pause.
§LXVI. It was noticed above, that the tomb of the Florentine ambassador, Duccio, was the first in Venice which presented images of the Virtues. Its small lateral statues of Justice and Temperance are exquisitely beautiful, and were, I have no doubt, executed by a Florentine sculptor; the whole range of artistical power and religious feeling being, in Florence, full half a century in advance of that of Venice. But this is the first truly Venetian tomb which has the Virtues; and it becomes of importance, therefore, to know what was the character of Morosini.
The reader must recollect, that I dated the commencement of the fall of Venice from the death of Carlo Zeno, considering that no state could be held as in decline, which numbered such a man amongst its citizens. Carlo Zeno was a candidate for the Ducal bonnet together with Michael Morosini; and Morosini was chosen. It might be anticipated, therefore, that there was something more than usually admirable or illustrious in his character. Yet it is difficult to arrive at a just estimateof it, as the reader will at once understand by comparing the following statements:
§LXVI. 1. “To him (Andrea Contarini) succeeded Morosini, at the age of seventy-four years; a most learned and prudent man, who also reformed several laws.”—Sansovino, Vite de’ Principi.2. “It was generally believed that, if his reign had been longer, he would have dignified the state by many noble laws and institutes; but by so much as his reign was full of hope, by as much was it short in duration, for he died when he had been at the head of the republic but four months.”—Sabellico, lib. viii.3. “He was allowed but a short time to enjoy this high dignity, which he had so well deserved by his rare virtues, for God called him to Himself on the 15th of October.”—Muratori, Annali de’ Italia.4. “Two candidates presented themselves; one was Zeno, the other that Michael Morosini who, during the war, had tripled his fortune by his speculations. The suffrages of the electors fell upon him, and he was proclaimed Doge on the 10th of June.”—Daru, Histoire de Venise, lib. x.5. “The choice of the electors was directed to Michele Morosini, a noble of illustrious birth, derived from a stock which, coeval with the republic itself, had produced the conqueror of Tyre, given a queen to Hungary, and more than one Doge to Venice. The brilliancy of this descent was tarnished in the present chief representative of the family by the most base and grovelling avarice; for at that moment, in the recent war, at which all other Venetians were devoting their whole fortunes to the service of the state, Morosini sought in the distresses of his country an opening for his own private enrichment, and employed his ducats, not in the assistance of the national wants, but in speculating upon houses which were brought to market at a price far beneath their real value, and which, upon the return of peace, insured the purchaser a fourfold profit. ‘What matters the fall of Venice to me, so as I fall not together with her?’ was his selfish and sordid reply to some one who expressed surprise at the transaction.”—Sketches of Venetian History. Murray, 1831.
§LXVI. 1. “To him (Andrea Contarini) succeeded Morosini, at the age of seventy-four years; a most learned and prudent man, who also reformed several laws.”—Sansovino, Vite de’ Principi.
2. “It was generally believed that, if his reign had been longer, he would have dignified the state by many noble laws and institutes; but by so much as his reign was full of hope, by as much was it short in duration, for he died when he had been at the head of the republic but four months.”—Sabellico, lib. viii.
3. “He was allowed but a short time to enjoy this high dignity, which he had so well deserved by his rare virtues, for God called him to Himself on the 15th of October.”—Muratori, Annali de’ Italia.
4. “Two candidates presented themselves; one was Zeno, the other that Michael Morosini who, during the war, had tripled his fortune by his speculations. The suffrages of the electors fell upon him, and he was proclaimed Doge on the 10th of June.”—Daru, Histoire de Venise, lib. x.
5. “The choice of the electors was directed to Michele Morosini, a noble of illustrious birth, derived from a stock which, coeval with the republic itself, had produced the conqueror of Tyre, given a queen to Hungary, and more than one Doge to Venice. The brilliancy of this descent was tarnished in the present chief representative of the family by the most base and grovelling avarice; for at that moment, in the recent war, at which all other Venetians were devoting their whole fortunes to the service of the state, Morosini sought in the distresses of his country an opening for his own private enrichment, and employed his ducats, not in the assistance of the national wants, but in speculating upon houses which were brought to market at a price far beneath their real value, and which, upon the return of peace, insured the purchaser a fourfold profit. ‘What matters the fall of Venice to me, so as I fall not together with her?’ was his selfish and sordid reply to some one who expressed surprise at the transaction.”—Sketches of Venetian History. Murray, 1831.
§LXVIII. The writer of the unpretending little history from which the last quotation is taken has not given his authority for this statement, and I could not find it, but believed, from the general accuracy of the book, that some authority might exist better than Daru’s. Under these circumstances, wishing if possible to ascertain the truth, and to clear the character of this great Doge from the accusation, if it proved groundless, I wrote to the Count Carlo Morosini, his descendant, and one of the few remaining representatives of the ancient noblesseof Venice; one, also, by whom his great ancestral name is revered, and in whom it is exalted. His answer appears to me altogether conclusive as to the utter fallacy of the reports of Daru and the English history. I have placed his letter in the close of this volume (Appendix 6), in order that the reader may himself be the judge upon this point; and I should not have alluded to Daru’s report, except for the purpose of contradicting it, but that it still appears to me impossible that any modern historian should have gratuitously invented the whole story, and that, therefore, there must have been a trace in the documents which Daru himself possessed, of some scandal of this kind raised by Morosini’s enemies, perhaps at the very time of the disputed election with Carlo Zeno. The occurrence of the Virtues upon his tomb, for the first time in Venetian monumental work, and so richly and conspicuously placed, may partly have been in public contradiction of such a floating rumor. But the face of the statue is a more explicit contradiction still; it is resolute, thoughtful, serene, and full of beauty; and we must, therefore, for once, allow the somewhat boastful introduction of the Virtues to have been perfectly just: though the whole tomb is most notable, as furnishing not only the exact intermediate condition in style between the pure Gothic and its final Renaissance corruption, but, at the same time, the exactly intermediate condition offeelingbetween the pure calmness of early Christianity, and the boastful pomp of the Renaissance faithlessness; for here we have still the religious humility remaining in the mosaic of the canopy, which shows the Doge kneeling before the cross, while yet this tendency to self-trust is shown in the surrounding of the coffin by the Virtues.
§LXIX. The next tomb by the side of which they appear is that of Jacopo Cavalli, in the same chapel of St. John and Paul which contains the tomb of the Doge Delfin. It is peculiarly rich in religious imagery, adorned by boldly cut types of the four evangelists, and of two saints, while, on projecting brackets in front of it, stood three statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, now lost, but drawn in Zanotto’s work. It is all richin detail, and its sculptor has been proud of it, thus recording his name below the epitaph:
“Qstopera dintalgio e fatto in piera,Unvenician lafe chanome Polo,Nato di Jachomel chataiapiera.”This work of sculpture is done in stone;A Venetian did it, named Paul,Son of Jachomel the stone-cutter.
“Qstopera dintalgio e fatto in piera,
Unvenician lafe chanome Polo,
Nato di Jachomel chataiapiera.”
This work of sculpture is done in stone;
A Venetian did it, named Paul,
Son of Jachomel the stone-cutter.
Jacopo Cavalli died in 1384. He was a bold and active Veronese soldier, did the state much service, was therefore ennobled by it, and became the founder of the house of the Cavalli; but I find no especial reason for the images of the Virtues, especially that of Charity, appearing at his tomb, unless it be this: that at the siege of Feltre, in the war against Leopold of Austria, he refused to assault the city, because the senate would not grant his soldiers the pillage of the town. The feet of the recumbent figure, which is in full armor, rest on a dog, and its head on two lions; and these animals (neither of which form any part of the knight’s bearings) are said by Zanotto to be intended to symbolize his bravery and fidelity. If, however, the lions are meant to set forth courage, it is a pity they should have been represented as howling.
§LXX. We must next pause for an instant beside the tomb of Michael Steno, now in the northern aisle of St. John and Paul, having been removed there from the destroyed church of the Servi: first, to note its remarkable return to the early simplicity, the sarcophagus being decorated only with two crosses in quatrefoils, though it is of the fifteenth century, Steno dying in 1413; and, in the second place, to observe the peculiarity of the epitaph, which eulogises Steno as having been “amator justitie, pacis, et ubertatis,” “a lover of justice, peace, and plenty.” In the epitaphs of this period, the virtues which are made most account of in public men are those which were most useful to their country. We have already seen one example in the epitaph on Simon Dandolo; and similar expressions occur constantly in laudatory mentions of their laterDoges by the Venetian writers. Thus Sansovino of Marco Cornaro, “Era savio huomo, eloquente, e amava molto la pace e l’ abbondanza della citta;” and of Tomaso Mocenigo, “Huomo oltre modo desideroso della pace.”
Of the tomb of this last-named Doge mention has before been made. Here, as in Morosini’s, the images of the Virtues have no ironical power, although their great conspicuousness marks the increase of the boastful feeling in the treatment of monuments. For the rest, this tomb is the last in Venice which can be considered as belonging to the Gothic period. Its mouldings are already rudely classical, and it has meaningless figures in Roman armor at the angles; but its tabernacle above is still Gothic, and the recumbent figure is very beautiful. It was carved by two Florentine sculptors in 1423.
§LXXI. Tomaso Mocenigo was succeeded by the renowned Doge, Francesco Foscari, under whom, it will be remembered, the last additions were made to the Gothic Ducal Palace; additions which, in form only, not in spirit, corresponded to the older portions; since, during his reign, the transition took place which permits us no longer to consider the Venetian architecture as Gothic at all. He died in 1457, and his tomb is the first important example of Renaissance art.
Not, however, a good characteristic example. It is remarkable chiefly as introducing all the faults of the Renaissance at an early period, when its merits, such as they are, were yet undeveloped. Its claim to be rated as a classical composition is altogether destroyed by the remnants of Gothic feeling which cling to it here and there in their last forms of degradation; and of which, now that we find them thus corrupted, the sooner we are rid the better. Thus the sarcophagus is supported by a species of trefoil arches; the bases of the shafts have still their spurs; and the whole tomb is covered by a pediment, with crockets and a pinnacle. We shall find that the perfect Renaissance is at least pure in its insipidity, and subtle in its vice; but this monument is remarkable as showing the refuse of one style encumbering the embryo ofanother, and all principles of life entangled either in the swaddling clothes or the shroud.
§LXXII. With respect to our present purpose, however, it is a monument of enormous importance. We have to trace, be it remembered, the pride of state in its gradual intrusion upon the sepulchre; and the consequent and correlative vanishing of the expressions of religious feeling and heavenly hope, together with the more and more arrogant setting forth of the virtues of the dead. Now this tomb is the largest and most costly we have yet seen; but its means of religious expression are limited to a single statue of Christ, small and used merely as a pinnacle at the top. The rest of the composition is as curious as it is vulgar. The conceit, so often noticed as having been borrowed from the Pisan school, of angels withdrawing the curtains of the couch to look down upon the dead, was brought forward with increasing prominence by every succeeding sculptor; but, as we draw nearer to the Renaissance period, we find that theangelsbecome of less importance, and thecurtainsof more. With the Pisans, the curtains are introduced as a motive for the angels; with the Renaissance sculptors, the angels are introduced merely as a motive for the curtains, which become every day more huge and elaborate. In the monument of Mocenigo, they have already expanded into a tent, with a pole in the centre of it: and in that of Foscari, for the first time, theangels are absent altogether; while the curtains are arranged in the form of an enormous French tent-bed, and are sustained at the flanks by two diminutive figures in Roman armor; substituted for the angels, merely that the sculptor mightshow his knowledgeof classical costume. And now observe how often a fault in feeling induces also a fault in style. In the old tombs, the angels used to stand on or by the side of the sarcophagus; but their places are here to be occupied by the Virtues, and therefore, to sustain the diminutive Roman figures at the necessary height, each has a whole Corinthian pillar to himself, a pillar whose shaft is eleven feet high, and some three or four feet round: and because this was not high enough, itis put on a pedestal four feet and a half high; and has a spurred base besides of its own, a tall capital, then a huge bracket above the capital, and then another pedestal above the bracket, and on the top of all the diminutive figure who has charge of the curtains.
§LXXIII. Under the canopy, thus arranged, is placed the sarcophagus with its recumbent figure. The statues of the Virgin and the saints have disappeared from it. In their stead, its panels are filled with half-length figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity; while Temperance and Fortitude are at the Doge’s feet, Justice and Prudence at his head, figures now the size of life, yet nevertheless recognizable only by their attributes: for, except that Hope raises her eyes, there is no difference in the character or expression of any of their faces,—they are nothing more than handsome Venetian women, in rather full and courtly dresses, and tolerably well thrown into postures for effect from below. Fortitude could not of course be placed in a graceful one without some sacrifice of her character, but that was of no consequence in the eyes of the sculptors of this period, so she leans back languidly, and nearly overthrows her own column; while Temperance, and Justice opposite to her, as neither the left hand of the one nor the right hand of the other could be seen from below, have beenleft with one hand each.
§LXXIV. Still these figures, coarse and feelingless as they are, have been worked with care, because the principal effect of the tomb depends on them. But the effigy of the Doge, of which nothing but the side is visible, has been utterly neglected; and the ingenuity of the sculptor is not so great, at the best, as that he can afford to be slovenly. There is, indeed, nothing in the history of Foscari which would lead us to expect anything particularly noble in his face; but I trust, nevertheless, it has been misrepresented by this despicable carver; for no words are strong enough to express the baseness of the portraiture. A huge, gross, bony clown’s face, with the peculiar sodden and sensual cunning in it which is seen so often in the countenances of the worst Romanistpriest; a face part of iron and part of clay, with the immobility of the one, and the foulness of the other, double chinned, blunt-mouthed, bony-cheeked, with its brows drawn down into meagre lines and wrinkles over the eyelids; the face of a man incapable either of joy or sorrow, unless such as may be caused by the indulgence of passion, or the mortification of pride. Even had he been such a one, a noble workman would not have written it so legibly on his tomb; and I believe it to be the image of the carver’s own mind that is there hewn in the marble, not that of the Doge Foscari. For the same mind is visible enough throughout, the traces of it mingled with those of the evil taste of the whole time and people. There is not anything so small but it is shown in some portion of its treatment; for instance, in the placing of the shields at the back of the great curtain. In earlier times, the shield, as we have seen, was represented as merely suspended against the tomb by a thong, or if sustained in any other manner, still its form was simple and undisguised. Men in those days used their shields in war, and therefore there was no need to add dignity to their form by external ornament. That which, through day after day of mortal danger, had borne back from them the waves of battle, could neither be degraded by simplicity, nor exalted by decoration. By its rude leathern thong it seemed to be fastened to their tombs, and the shield of the mighty was not cast away, though capable of defending its master no more.
§LXXV. It was otherwise in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The changed system of warfare was rapidly doing away with the practical service of the shield; and the chiefs who directed the battle from a distance, or who passed the greater part of their lives in the council-chamber, soon came to regard the shield as nothing more than a field for their armorial bearings. It then became a principal object of their Pride of State to increase the conspicuousness of these marks of family distinction by surrounding them with various and fantastic ornament, generally scroll or flower work, which of course deprived the shield of all appearance of being intended for a soldier’s use. Thus the shield of the Foscari is introducedin two ways. On the sarcophagus, the bearings are three times repeated, enclosed in circular disks, which are sustained each by a couple of naked infants. Above the canopy, two shields of the usual form are set in the centre of circles filled by a radiating ornament of shell flutings, which give them the effect of ventilators; and their circumference is farther adorned by gilt rays, undulating to represent a glory.
§LXXVI. We now approach that period of the early Renaissance which was noticed in the preceding chapter as being at first a very visible improvement on the corrupted Gothic. The tombs executed during the period of the Byzantine Renaissance exhibit, in the first place, a consummate skill in handling the chisel, perfect science of drawing and anatomy, high appreciation of good classical models, and a grace of composition and delicacy of ornament derived, I believe, principally from the great Florentine sculptors. But, together with this science, they exhibit also, for a short time, some return to the early religious feeling, forming a school of sculpture which corresponds to that of the school of the Bellini in painting; and the only wonder is that there should not have been more workmen in the fifteenth century doing in marble what Perugino, Francia, and Bellini did on canvas. There are, indeed, some few, as I have just said, in whom the good and pure temper shows itself: but the sculptor was necessarily led sooner than the painter to an exclusive study of classical models, utterly adverse to the Christian imagination; and he was also deprived of the great purifying and sacred element of color, besides having much more of merely mechanical and therefore degrading labor to go through in the realization of his thought. Hence I do not know any example in sculpture at this period, at least in Venice, which has not conspicuous faults (not faults of imperfection, as in early sculpture, but of purpose and sentiment), staining such beauties as it may possess; and the whole school soon falls away, and merges into vain pomp and meagre metaphor.
§LXXVII. The most celebrated monument of this period is that to the Doge Andrea Vendramin, in the Church of St.John and Paul, sculptured about 1480, and before alluded to in the first chapter of the first volume. It has attracted public admiration, partly by its costliness, partly by the delicacy and precision of its chiselling; being otherwise a very base and unworthy example of the school, and showing neither invention nor feeling. It has the Virtues, as usual, dressed like heathen goddesses, and totally devoid of expression, though graceful and well studied merely as female figures. The rest of its sculpture is all of the same kind; perfect in workmanship, and devoid of thought. Its dragons are covered with marvellous scales, but have no terror nor sting in them; its birds are perfect in plumage, but have no song in them; its children lovely of limb, but have no childishness in them.
§LXXVIII. Of far other workmanship are the tombs of Pietro and Giovanni Mocenigo, in St. John and Paul, and of Pietro Bernardo in the Frari; in all which the details are as full of exquisite fancy, as they are perfect in execution; and in the two former, and several others of similar feeling, the old religious symbols return; the Madonna is again seen enthroned under the canopy, and the sarcophagus is decorated with legends of the saints. But the fatal errors of sentiment are, nevertheless, always traceable. In the first place, the sculptor is always seen to be intent upon the exhibition of his skill, more than on producing any effect on the spectator’s mind; elaborate backgrounds of landscape, with tricks of perspective, imitations of trees, clouds, and water, and various other unnecessary adjuncts, merely to show how marble could be subdued; together with useless under-cutting, and over-finish in subordinate parts, continually exhibiting the same cold vanity and unexcited precision of mechanism. In the second place, the figures have all the peculiar tendency to posture-making, which, exhibiting itself first painfully in Perugino, rapidly destroyed the veracity of composition in all art. By posture-making I mean, in general, that action of figures which results from the painter’s considering, in the first place, not how, under the circumstances, they would actually have walked, or stood, or looked, but how they may most gracefullyand harmoniously walk or stand. In the hands of a great man, posture, like everything else, becomes noble, even when over-studied, as with Michael Angelo, who was, perhaps, more than any other, the cause of the mischief; but, with inferior men, this habit of composing attitudes ends necessarily in utter lifelessness and abortion. Giotto was, perhaps, of all painters, the most free from the infection of the poison, always conceiving an incident naturally, and drawing it unaffectedly; and the absence of posture-making in the works of the Pre-Raphaelites, as opposed to the Attitudinarianism of the modern school, has been both one of their principal virtues, and of the principal causes of outcry against them.
§LXXIX. But the most significant change in the treatment of these tombs, with respect to our immediate object, is in the form of the sarcophagus. It was above noted, that, exactly in proportion to the degree of the pride of life expressed in any monument, would be also the fear of death; and therefore, as these tombs increase in splendor, in size, and beauty of workmanship, we perceive a gradual desire totake away from the definite character of the sarcophagus. In the earliest times, as we have seen, it was a gloomy mass of stone; gradually it became charged with religious sculpture; but never with the slightest desire to disguise its form, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century. It then becomes enriched with flower-work and hidden by the Virtues; and, finally, losing its foursquare form, it is modelled on graceful types of ancient vases, made as little like a coffin as possible, and refined away in various elegancies, till it becomes, at last, a mere pedestal or stage for the portrait statue. This statue, in the meantime, has been gradually coming back to life, through a curious series of transitions. The Vendramin monument is one of the last which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent figure laid in death. A few years later, this idea became disagreeable to polite minds; and, lo! the figures which before had been laid at rest upon the tomb pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began to look round them. The soul of the sixteenth century dared not contemplate its body in death.
§LXXX. The reader cannot but remember many instances of this form of monument, England being peculiarly rich in examples of them; although, with her, tomb sculpture, after the fourteenth century, is altogether imitative, and in no degree indicative of the temper of the people. It was from Italy that the authority for the change was derived; and in Italy only, therefore, that it is truly correspondent to the change in the national mind. There are many monuments in Venice of this semi-animate type, most of them carefully sculptured, and some very admirable as portraits, and for the casting of the drapery, especially those in the Church of San Salvador; but I shall only direct the reader to one, that of Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, in the Church of the Frari; notable not only as a very skilful piece of sculpture, but for the epitaph, singularly characteristic of the period, and confirmatory of all that I have alleged against it: