INDICES.
| I. PERSONAL INDEX. II. LOCAL INDEX. | III. TOPICAL INDEX. IV. VENETIAN INDEX. |
The first of the following Indices contains the names of persons; the second those of places (not in Venice) alluded to in the body of the work. The third Index consists of references to the subjects touched upon. In the fourth, called the Venetian Index, I have named every building of importance in the city of Venice itself, or near it; supplying, for the convenience of the traveller, short notices of those to which I had no occasion to allude in the text of the work; and making the whole as complete a guide as I could, with such added directions as I should have given to any private friend visiting the city. As, however, in many cases, the opinions I have expressed differ widely from those usually received; and, in other instances, subjects which may be of much interest to the traveller have not come within the scope of my inquiry; the reader had better take Lazari’s small Guide in his hand also, as he will find in it both the information I have been unable to furnish, and the expression of most of the received opinions upon any subject of art.
Various inconsistencies will be noticed in the manner of indicating the buildings, some being named in Italian, some in English, and some half in one, and half in the other. But these inconsistencies are permitted in order to save trouble, and make the Index more practically useful. For instance, I believe the traveller will generally look for “Mark,” rather than for “Marco,” when he wishes to find the reference to St. Mark’s Church; but I think he will look for Rocco, rather than for Roch, when he is seeking for the account of the Scuola di San Rocco. So also I have altered the character in which the titles of the plates are printed, from the black letter in the first volume, to the plain Roman in the second and third; finding experimentally that the former character was not easily legible, and conceiving that the book would be none the worse for this practical illustration of its own principles, in a daring sacrifice of symmetry to convenience.
These alphabetical Indices will, however, be of little use, unless another, and a very different kind of Index, be arranged in the mind of the reader; an Index explanatory of the principal purposes and contents of the various parts of this essay. It is difficult to analyze the nature of the reluctance with which either a writer or painter takes it upon him to explain the meaning of his own work, even in cases where, without such explanation, it must in a measure remain always disputable: but I am persuaded that this reluctance is, in most instances, carried too far; and that, wherever there really is a serious purpose in a book or a picture, the author does wrong who, either in modesty or vanity (both feelings have their share in producing the dislike of personal interpretation), trusts entirely to the patience and intelligence of the readers or spectators to penetrate into their significance. At all events, I will, as far as possible, spare such trouble with respect to these volumes, by stating here, finally and clearly, both what they intend and what they contain; and this the rather because I have lately noticed, with some surprise, certain reviewers announcing as a discovery, what I thought had lain palpably on the surface of the book, namely, that “if Mr. Ruskin be right, all the architects, and all the architectural teaching of the last three hundred years, must have been wrong.” That is indeed precisely the fact; and the very thing I meant to say, which indeed I thought I had said over and over again. I believe the architects of the last three centuries to have been wrong; wrong without exception; wrong totally, and from the foundation. This is exactly the point I have been endeavoring to prove, from the beginning of this work to the end of it. But as it seems not yet to have been stated clearly enough, I will here try to put my entire theorem into an unmistakable form.
The various nations who attained eminence in the arts before the time of Christ, each of them, produced forms of architecture which in their various degrees of merit were almost exactly indicative of the degrees of intellectual and moral energy of the nations which originated them; and each reached its greatest perfection at the time when the true energy and prosperity of the people who had invented it were at their culminating point. Many of these various styles of architecture were good, considered in relation to the times and races which gave birth to them; but none were absolutely good or perfect, or fitted for the practice of all future time.
The advent of Christianity for the first time rendered possible the full development of the soul of man, and therefore the full development of the arts of man.
Christianity gave birth to a new architecture, not only immeasurably superior to all that had preceded it, but demonstrably the best architecture that can exist; perfect in construction and decoration, and fit for the practice of all time.
This architecture, commonly called “Gothic,” though in conception perfect, like the theory of a Christian character, never reached an actual perfection, having been retarded and corrupted by various adverse influences; but it reached its highest perfection, hitherto manifested, about the close of the thirteenth century, being then indicative of a peculiar energy in the Christian mind of Europe.
In the course of the fifteenth century, owing to various causes which I have endeavored to trace in the preceding pages, the Christianity of Europe was undermined; and a Pagan architecture was introduced, in imitation of that of the Greeks and Romans.
The architecture of the Greeks and Romans themselves was not good, but it was natural; and, as I said before, good in some respects, and for a particular time.
But the imitative architecture introduced first in the fifteenth century, and practised ever since, was neither good nor natural. It was good in no respect, and for no time. All the architects who have built in that style have built what was worthless; and therefore the greater part of the architecture which has been built for the last three hundred years, and which we are now building, is worthless. We must give up this style totally, despise it and forget it, and build henceforward only in that perfect and Christian style hitherto called Gothic, which is everlastingly the best.
This is the theorem of these volumes.
In support of this theorem, the first volume contains, in its first chapter, a sketch of the actual history of Christian architecture, up to the period of the Reformation; and, in the subsequent chapters, an analysis of the entire system of the laws of architectural construction and decoration, deducing from those laws positive conclusions as to the best forms and manners of building for all time.
The second volume contains, in its first five chapters, an account of one of the most important and least known forms of Christian architecture, as exhibited in Venice, together with an analysis of its nature in the fourth chapter; and, which is a peculiarly important part of this section, an account of the power of color over the human mind.
The sixth chapter of the second volume contains an analysis of the nature of Gothic architecture, properly so called, and shows that in its external form it complies precisely with the abstract laws of structure and beauty, investigated in the first volume. The seventh and eighth chapters of the second volume illustrate the nature of Gothic architecture by various Venetian examples. The third volume investigates, in its first chapter, the causes and manner of the corruption of Gothic architecture; in its second chapter, defines the nature of the Pagan architecture which superseded it; in the third chapter, shows the connexion of that Pagan architecture with the various characters of mind which brought about the destruction of the Venetian nation; and, in the fourth chapter, points out the dangerous tendencies in the modern mind which the practice of such an architecture indicates.
Such is the intention of the preceding pages, which I hope will no more be doubted or mistaken. As far as regards the manner of its fulfilment, though I hope, in the course of other inquiries, to add much to the elucidation of the points in dispute, I cannot feel it necessary to apologize for the imperfect handling of a subject which the labor of a long life, had I been able to bestow it, must still have left imperfectly treated.
I.
PERSONAL INDEX.
A
Alberti, Duccio degli, his tomb, [iii. 74], [80].
Alexander III., his defence by Venetians, [i. 7].
Ambrose, St., his verbal subtleties, [ii. 320].
Angelico, Frà, artistical power of, [i. 400]; his influence on Protestants, [ii. 105]; his coloring, [ii. 145].
Aristotle, his evil influence on the modern mind, [ii. 319].
Averulinus, his book on architecture, [iii. 63].
B
Barbaro, monuments of the family, [iii. 125.]
Barbarossa, Emperor, [i. 7], [9].
Baseggio, Pietro, [iii. 199.]
Bellini, John, [i. 11]; his kindness to Albert Durer, [i. 383]; general power of, see Venetian Index, under head “Giovanni Grisostomo;” Gentile, his brother, [iii. 21].
Berti, Bellincion, [ii. 263].
Browning, Elizabeth B., her poetry, [ii. 206].
Bunsen, Chevalier, his work on Romanesque Churches, [ii. 381].
Bunyan, John, his portraiture of constancy, [ii. 333]; of patience, [ii. 334]; of vanity, [ii. 346]; of sin, [iii. 147].
C
Calendario, Filippo, [iii. 199].
Canaletto, [i. 24]; and see Venetian Index under head “Carità.”
Canova, [i. 217]; and see Venetian Index under head “Frari.”
Cappello, Vincenzo, his tomb, [iii. 122].
Caracci, school of the, [i. 24].
Cary, his translation of Dante, [ii. 264].
Cavalli, Jacopo, his tomb, [iii. 82].
Cicero, influence of his philosophy, [ii. 317], [318].
Claude Lorraine, [i. 24.]
Comnenus, Manuel, [ii. 263].
Cornaro, Marco, his tomb, [iii. 79].
Correggio, [ii. 192].
Crabbe, naturalism in his poetry, [ii. 195].
D
Dandolo, Andrea, tomb of, [ii. 70]; Francesco, tomb of, [iii. 74]; character of, [iii. 76]; Simon, tomb of, [iii. 79].
Dante, his central position, [ii. 340], [iii. 158]; his system of virtue, [ii. 323]; his portraiture of sin, [iii. 147].
Daru, his character as a historian, [iii. 213].
Dolci, Carlo, [ii. 105].
Dolfino, Giovanni, tomb of, [iii. 78].
Durer, Albert, his rank as a landscape painter, [i. 383]; his power in grotesque, [iii. 145].
E
Edwin, King, his conversion, [iii. 62].
F
Faliero, Bertuccio, his tomb, [iii. 94]; Marino, his house, [ii. 254]; Vitale, miracle in his time, [ii. 61].
Fergusson, James, his system of beauty, [i. 388].
Foscari, Francesco, his reign, [i. 4], [iii. 165]; his tomb, [iii. 84]; his countenance, [iii. 86].
G
Garbett, answer to Mr., [i. 403].
Ghiberti, his sculpture, [i. 217].
Giotto, his system of the virtues, [ii. 323], [329], [341]; his rank as a painter, [ii. 188], [iii. 172].
Giulio Romano, [i. 23].
Giustiniani, Marco, his tomb, [i. 315]; Sebastian, ambassador to England, [iii. 224].
Godfrey of Bouillon, his piety, [iii. 62].
Gozzoli, Benozzo, [ii. 195].
Gradenigo, Pietro, [ii. 290].
Grande, Can, della Scala, his tomb, [i. 268] (the cornice g in [Plate XVI.] is taken from it), [iii. 71].
Guariento, his Paradise, [ii. 296].
Guercino, [ii. 105].
H
Hamilton, Colonel, his paper on the Serapeum, [ii. 220].
Hobbima, [iii. 184].
Hunt, William, his painting of peasant boys, [ii. 192]; of still life, [ii. 394].
Hunt, William Holman, relation of his works to modern and ancient art, [iii. 185].
K
Knight, Gally, his work on Architecture, [i. 378].
L
Leonardo da Vinci, [ii. 171].
Louis XI., [iii. 194].
M
Martin, John, [ii. 104].
Mastino, Can, della Scala, his tomb, [ii. 224], [iii. 72].
Maynard, Miss, her poems, [ii. 397].
Michael Angelo, [ii. 134], [188], [iii. 56], [90], [99], [158].
Millais, John E., relation of his works to older art, [iii. 185]; aerial perspective in his “Huguenot,” [iii. 47].
Milton, how inferior to Dante, [iii. 147].
Mocenigo, Tomaso, his character, [i. 4]; his speech on rebuilding the Ducal Palace, [ii. 299]; his tomb, [i. 26], [iii. 84].
Morosini, Carlo, Count, note on Daru’s History by, [iii. 213].
Morosini, Marino, his tomb, [iii. 93].
Morosini, Michael, his character, [iii. 213]; his tomb, [iii. 80].
Murillo, his sensualism, [ii. 192].
N
Napoleon, his genius in civil administration, [i. 399].
Niccolo Pisano, [i. 215].
O
Orcagna, his system of the virtues, [ii. 329].
Orseolo, Pietro (Doge), [iii. 120].
Otho the Great, his vow at Murano, [ii. 32].
P
Palladio, [i. 24], [146]; and see Venetian Index, under head “Giorgio Maggiore.”
Participazio, Angelo, founds the Ducal Palace, [ii. 287].
Pesaro, Giovanni, tomb of, [iii. 92]; Jacopo, tomb of, [iii. 91].
Philippe de Commynes, [i. 12].
Plato, influence of his philosophy, [ii. 317], [338]; his playfulness, [iii. 127].
Poussin, Nicolo and Gaspar, [i. 23].
Procaccini, Camillo, [ii. 188].
Prout, Samuel, his style, [i. 250], [iii. 19], [134].
Pugin, Welby, his rank as an architect, [i. 385].
Q
Querini, Marco, his palace, [ii. 255].
R
Raffaelle, [ii. 188], [iii. 56], [108], [136].
Reynolds, Sir J., his painting at New College, [ii. 323]; his general manner, [iii. 184].
Rogers, Samuel, his works, [ii. 195], [iii. 113].
Rubens, intellectual rank of, [i. 400]; coarseness of, [ii. 145].
S
Salvator Rosa, [i. 24], [ii. 105], [145], [188].
Scaligeri, tombs of, at Verona; see “Grande,” “Mastino,” “Signorio;” palace of, [ii. 257].
Scott, Sir W., his feelings of romance, [iii. 191].
Shakspeare, his “Seven Ages,” whence derived, [ii. 361].
Sharpe, Edmund, his works, [i. 342], [408].
Signorio, Can, della Scala, his tomb, character, [i. 268], [iii. 73].
Simplicius, St., [ii. 356].
Spenser, value of his philosophy, [ii. 327], [341]; his personifications of the months, [ii. 272]; his system of the virtues, [ii. 326]; scheme of the first book of the Faërie Queen, [iii. 205].
Steno, Michael, [ii. 306]; his tomb, [ii. 296].
Stothard (the painter), his works, [ii. 187], [195].
Symmachus, St., [ii. 357].
T
Teniers, David, [ii. 188].
Tiepolo, Jacopo and Lorenzo, their tombs, [iii. 69]; Bajamonte, [ii. 255].
Tintoret, [i. 12]; his genius and function, [ii. 149]; his Paradise, [ii. 304], [372]; his rank among the men of Italy, [iii. 158].
Titian, [i. 12]; his function and fall, [ii. 149], [187].
Turner, his rank as a landscape painter, [i. 382], [ii. 187].
U
Uguccione, Benedetto, destroys Giotto’s façade at Florence, [i. 197].
V
Vendramin, Andrea (Doge), his tomb, [i. 27], [iii. 88].
Verocchio, Andrea, [iii. 11], [13].
Veronese, Paul, artistical rank of, [i. 400]; his designs of balustrades, [ii. 247]; and see in Venetian Index, “Ducal Palace,” “Pisani,” “Sebastian,” “Redentore,” “Accademia.”
W
West, Benjamin, [ii. 104].
Wordsworth, his observation of nature, [i. 247] (note).
Z
Zeno, Carlo, [i. 4], [iii. 80].
Ziani, Sebastian (Doge), builds Ducal Palace, [ii. 289].
II.
LOCAL INDEX.
A
Abbeville, door of church at, [ii. 225]; parapet at, [ii. 245].
Alexandria, Church at, [i. 381].
Alhambra, ornamentation of, [i. 429].
Alps, how formed for distant effect, [i. 247]; how seen from Venice, [ii. 2], [28].
Amiens, pillars of Cathedral at, [i. 102].
Arqua, hills of, how seen from Venice, [ii. 2].
Assisi, Giotto’s paintings at, [ii. 323].
B
Beauvais, piers of Cathedral at, [i. 93]; grandeur of its buttress structure, [i. 170].
Bergamo, Duomo at, [i. 275].
Bologna, Palazzo Pepoli at, [i. 275].
Bourges, Cathedral at, [i. 43], [102], [228], [271], [299]; [ii. 92], [186]; house of Jacques Cœur at, [i. 346].
C
Chamouni, glacier forms at, [i. 222].
Como, Broletto of, [i. 141], [339].
D
Dijon, pillars in Church of Notre Dame at, [i. 102]; tombs of Dukes of Burgundy, [iii. 68].
E
Edinburgh, college at, [i. 207].
F
Falaise (St. Gervaise at), piers of, [i. 103].
Florence, Cathedral of, [i. 197], [iii. 13].
G
Gloucester, Cathedral of, [i. 192].
L
Lombardy, geology of, [ii. 5].
London, Church in Margaret Street, Portland Place, [iii. 196]; Temple Church, [i. 412]; capitals in Belgrave and Grosvenor Squares, [i. 330]; Bank of England, base of, [i. 283]; wall of, typical of accounts, [i. 295]; statue in King William Street, [i. 210]; shops in Oxford Street, [i. 202]; Arthur Club-house, [i. 295]; Athenæum Club-house, [i. 157], [283]; Duke of York’s Pillar, [i. 283]; Treasury, [i. 205]; Whitehall, [i. 205]; Westminster, fall of houses at, [ii. 268]; Monument, [i. 82], [283]; Nelson Pillar, [i. 216]; Wellington Statue, [i. 257].
Lucca, Cathedral of, [ii. 275]; San Michele at, [i. 375].
Lyons, porch of cathedral at, [i. 379].
M
Matterhorn (Mont Cervin), structure of, [i. 58]; lines of, applied to architecture, [i. 308], [310], [332].
Mestre, scene in street of, [i. 355].
Milan, St. Ambrogio, piers of, [i. 102]; capital of, [i. 324]; St. Eustachio, tomb of St. Peter Martyr, [i. 218].
Moulins, brickwork at, [i. 296].
Murano, general aspect of, [ii. 29]; Duomo of, [ii. 32]; balustrades of, [ii. 247]; inscriptions at, [ii. 384].
N
Nineveh, style of its decorations, [i. 234], [239]; [iii. 159].
O
Orange (South France), arch at, [i. 250].
Orleans, Cathedral of, [i. 95].
P
Padua, Arena chapel at, [ii. 324]; St. Antonio at, [i. 135]; St. Sofia at, [i. 327]; Eremitani, Church of, at, [i. 135].
Paris, Hotel des Invalides, [i. 214]; Arc de l’Etoile, [i. 291]; Colonne Vendome, [i. 212].
Pavia, St. Michele at, piers of, [i. 102], [337]; ornaments of, [i. 376].
Pisa, Baptistery of, [ii. 275].
Pistoja, San Pietro at, [i. 295].
R
Ravenna, situation of, [ii. 6].
Rouen, Cathedral, piers of, [i. 103], [153]; pinnacles of, [ii. 213]; St. Maclou at, sculptures of, [ii. 197].
S
Salisbury Cathedral, piers of, [i. 102]; windows at, [ii. 224].
Sens, Cathedral of, [i. 135].
Switzerland, cottage architecture of, [i. 156], [203], [iii. 133].
V
Verona, San Fermo at, [i. 136], [ii. 259]; Sta. Anastasia at, [i. 142]; Duomo of, [i. 373]; St. Zeno at, [i. 373]; balconies at, [ii. 247]; archivolt at, [i. 335]; tombs at, see in Personal Index, “Grande,” “Mastino,” “Signorio.”
Vevay, architecture of, [i. 136].
Vienne (South France), Cathedral of, [i. 274].
W
Warwick, Guy’s tower at, [i. 168].
Wenlock (Shropshire), Abbey of, [i. 270].
Winchester, Cathedral of, [i. 192].
Y
York, Minster of, [i. 205], [313].
III.
TOPICAL INDEX.
A
Abacus, defined, [i. 107]; law of its proportion, [i. 111-115]; its connection with cornices, [i. 116]; its various profiles, [i. 319-323]; [iii. 243-248].
Acanthus, leaf of, its use in architecture, [i. 233]; how treated at Torcello, [ii. 15].
Alabaster, use of, in incrustation, [ii. 86].
Anachronism, necessity of, in the best art, [ii. 198].
Anatomy, a disadvantageous study for artists, [iii. 47].
Angels, use of their images in Venetian heraldry, [ii. 278]; statues of, on the Ducal Palace, [ii. 311].
Anger, how symbolically represented, [ii. 344].
Angles, decoration of, [i. 260]; [ii. 305]; of Gothic Palaces, [ii. 238]; of Ducal Palace, [ii. 307].
Animal character in northern and southern climates, [ii. 156]; in grotesque art, [iii. 149].
Apertures, analysis of their structure, [i. 50]; general forms of, [i. 174].
Apse, forms of, in southern and northern churches compared, [i. 170].
Arabesques of Raffaelle, their baseness, [iii. 136].
Arabian architecture, [i. 18], [234], [235], [429]; [ii. 135].
Arches, general structure of, [i. 122]; moral characters of, [i. 126]; lancet, round, and depressed, [i. 129]; four-centred, [i. 130]; ogee, [i. 131]; non-concentric, [i. 133], [341]; masonry of, [i. 133], [ii. 218]; load of, [i. 144]; are not derived from vegetation, [ii. 201].
Architects, modern, their unfortunate position, [i. 404], [407].
Architecture, general view of its divisions, [i. 47-51]; how to judge of it, [ii. 173]; adaptation of, to requirements of human mind, [iii. 192]; richness of early domestic, [ii. 100], [iii. 2]; manner of its debasement in general, [iii. 3].
Archivolts, decoration of, [i. 334]; general families of, [i. 335]; of Murano, [ii. 49]; of St. Mark’s, [ii. 95]; in London, [ii. 97]; Byzantine, [ii. 138]; profiles of, [iii. 244].
Arts, relative dignity of, [i. 395]; how represented in Venetian sculpture, [ii. 355]; what relation exists between them and their materials, [ii. 394]; art divided into the art of facts, of design, and of both, [ii. 183]; into purist, naturalist, and sensualist, [ii. 187]; art opposed to inspiration, [iii. 151]; defined, [iii. 170]; distinguished from science, [iii. 35]; how to enjoy that of the ancients, [iii. 188].
Aspiration, not the primal motive of Gothic work, [i. 151].
Astrology, judicial, representation of its doctrines in Venetian sculpture, [ii. 352].
Austrian government in Italy, [iii. 209].
Avarice, how represented figuratively, [ii. 344].
B
Backgrounds, diapered, [iii. 20].
Balconies, of Venice, [ii. 243]; general treatment of, [iii. 254]; of iron, [ii. 247].
Ballflower, its use in ornamentation, [i. 279].
Balustrades. See “Balconies.”
Bases, general account of, [iii. 225]; of walls, [i. 55]; of piers, [i. 73]; of shafts, [i. 84]; decoration of, [i. 281]; faults of Gothic profiles of, [i. 285]; spurs of, [i. 286]; beauty of, in St. Mark’s, [i. 290]; Lombardie, [i. 292]; ought not to be richly decorated, [i. 292]; general effect of, [ii. 387].
Battlements, [i. 162]; abuse of, in ornamentation, [i. 219].
Beauty and ornament, relation of the terms, [i. 404].
Bellstones of capitals defined, [i. 108].
Birds, use of in ornamentation, [i. 234], [ii. 140].
Bishops, their ancient authority, [ii. 25].
Body, its relation to the soul, [i. 41], [395].
Brackets, division of, [i. 161]; ridiculous forms of, [i. 161].
Breadth in Byzantine design, [ii. 133].
Brickwork, ornamental, [i. 296]; in general, [ii. 241], [260], [261].
Brides of Venice, legend of the, [iii. 113], [116].
Buttresses, general structure of, [i. 166]; flying, [i. 192]; supposed sanctity of, [i. 173].
Bull, symbolical use of, in representing rivers, [i. 418], [421], [424].
Byzantine style, analysis of, [ii. 75]; ecclesiastical fitness of, [ii. 97]; centralization in, [ii. 236]; palaces built in, [ii. 118]; sculptures in, [ii. 137], [140].
C
Candlemas, ancient symbols of, [ii. 272].
Capitals, general structure of, [i. 105]; bells of, [i. 107]; just proportions of, [i. 114]; various families of, [i. 13], [65], [324], [ii. 129], [iii. 231]; are necessary to shafts in good architecture, [i. 119]; Byzantine, [ii. 131], [iii. 231]; Lily, of St. Mark’s, [ii. 137]; of Solomon’s temple, [ii. 137].
Care, how symbolized, [ii. 348]. See “Sorrow.”
Caryatides, [i. 302].
Castles, English, entrances of, [i. 177].
Cathedrals, English, effect of, [ii. 63].
Ceilings, old Venetian, [ii. 280].
Centralization in design, [ii. 237].
Chalet of Switzerland, its character, [i. 203].
Chamfer defined, [i. 263]; varieties of, [i. 262], [429].
Changefulness, an element of Gothic, [ii. 172].
Charity, how symbolized, [ii. 327], [339].
Chartreuse, Grande, morbid life in, [iii. 190].
Chastity, how symbolized, [ii. 328].
Cheerfulness, how symbolized, [ii. 326], [348]; virtue of, [ii. 326].
Cherries, cultivation of, at Venice, [ii. 361].
Christianity, how mingled with worldliness, [iii. 109]; how imperfectly understood, [iii. 168]; influence of, in liberating workmen, [ii. 159], [i. 243]; influence of, on forms, [i. 99].
Churches, wooden, of the North, [i. 381]; considered as ships, [ii. 25]; decoration of, how far allowable, [ii. 102].
Civilization, progress of, [iii. 168]; twofold danger of, [iii. 169].
Classical literature, its effect on the modern mind, [iii. 12].
Climate, its influence on architecture, [i. 151], [ii. 155], [203].
Color, its importance in early work, [ii. 38], [40], [78], [91]; its spirituality, [ii. 145], [396]; its relation to music, [iii. 186]; quartering of, [iii. 20]; how excusing realization, [iii. 186].
Commerce, how regarded by Venetians, [i. 6].
Composition, definition of the term, [ii. 182].
Constancy, how symbolized, [ii. 333].
Construction, architectural, how admirable, [i. 36].
Convenience, how consulted by Gothic architecture, [ii. 179].
Cornices, general divisions of, [i. 63], [iii. 248]; of walls, [i. 60]; of roofs, [i. 149]; ornamentation of, [i. 305]; curvatures of, [i. 310]; military, [i. 160]; Greek, [i. 157].
Courses in walls, [i. 60].
Crockets, their use in ornamentation, [i. 346]; their abuse at Venice, [iii. 109].
Crosses, Byzantine, [ii. 139].
Crusaders, character of the, [ii. 263].
Crystals, architectural appliance of, [i. 225].
Cupid, representation of, in early and later art, [ii. 342].
Curvature, on what its beauty depends, [i. 222], [iii. 5].
Cusps, definition of, [i. 135]; groups of, [i. 138]; relation of, to vegetation, [ii. 219]; general treatment of, [iii. 255]; earliest occurrence of, [ii. 220].
D
Daguerreotype, probable results of, [iii. 169].
Darkness, a character of early churches, [ii. 18]; not an abstract evil, [iii. 220].
Death, fear of, in Renaissance times, [iii. 65], [90], [92]; how anciently regarded, [iii. 139], [156].
Decoration, true nature of, [i. 405]; how to judge of, [i. 44], [45]. See “Ornament.”
Demons, nature of, how illustrated by Milton and Dante, [iii. 147].
Dentil, Venetian, defined, [i. 273], [275].
Design, definition of the term, [ii. 183]; its relations to naturalism, [ii. 184].
Despair, how symbolized, [ii. 334].
Diaper patterns in brick, [i. 296]; in color, [iii. 21], [22].
Discord, how symbolized, [ii. 333].
Discs, decoration by means of, [i. 240], [416]; [ii. 147], [264].
Division of labor, evils of, [ii. 165].
Doge of Venice, his power, [i. 3], [360].
Dogtooth moulding defined, [i. 269].
Dolphins, moral disposition of, [i. 230]; use of, in symbolic representation of sea, [i. 422], [423].
Domestic architecture, richness of, in middle ages, [ii. 99].
Doors, general structure of, [i. 174], [176]; smallness of in English cathedrals, [i. 176]; ancient Venetian, [ii. 277], [iii. 227].
Doric architecture, [i. 157], [301], [307]; Christian Doric, [i. 308], [315].
Dragon, conquered by St. Donatus, [ii. 33]; use of, in ornamentation, [ii. 219].
Dreams, how resembled by the highest arts, [iii. 153]; prophetic, in relation to the Grotesque, [iii. 156].
Dress, its use in ornamentation, [i. 212]; early Venetian, [ii. 383]; dignity of, [iii. 191]; changes in modern dress, [iii. 192].
Duties of buildings, [i. 47].
E
Earthquake of 1511, [ii. 242].
Eastern races, their power over color, [ii. 147].
Eaves, construction of, [i. 156].
Ecclesiastical architecture in Venice, [i. 20]; no architecture exclusively ecclesiastical, [ii. 99].
Edge decoration, [i. 268].
Education, University, [i. 391]; [iii. 110]; evils of, with respect to architectural workmen, [ii. 107]; how to be successfully undertaken, [ii. 165], [214]; modern education in general, how mistaken, [iii. 110], [234]; system of, in Plato, [ii. 318]; of Persian kings, [ii. 318]; not to be mistaken for erudition, [iii. 219]; ought to be universal, [iii. 220].
Egg and arrow mouldings, [i. 314].
Egyptian architecture, [i. 99], [239]; [ii. 203].
Elgin marbles, [ii. 171].
Encrusted architecture, [i. 271], [272]; general analysis of, [ii. 76].
Energy of Northern Gothic, [i. 371]; [ii. 16], [204].
English (early) capitals, faults of, [i. 100], [411]; English mind, its mistaken demands of perfection, [ii. 160].
Envy, how set forth, [ii. 346].
Evangelists, types of, how explicable, [iii. 155].
F
Faërie Queen, Spenser’s, value of, theologically, [ii. 328].
Faith, influence of on art, [ii. 104], [105]; Titian’s picture of, [i. 11]; how symbolized, [ii. 337].
Falsehood, how symbolized, [ii. 349].
Fatalism, how expressed in Eastern architecture, [ii. 205].
Fear, effect of, on human life, [iii. 137]; on Grotesque art, [iii. 142].
Feudalism, healthy effects of, [i. 184].
Fig-tree, sculpture of, on Ducal Palace, [ii. 307].
Fillet, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 267].
Finials, their use in ornamentation, [i. 346]; a sign of decline in Venetian architecture, [iii. 109].
Finish in workmanship, when to be required, [ii. 165]; dangers of, [iii. 170], [ii. 162].
Fir, spruce, influence of, on architecture, [i. 152].
Fire, forms of, in ornamentation, [i. 228].
Fish, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 229].
Flamboyant Gothic, [i. 278], [ii. 225].
Flattery, common in Renaissance times, [iii. 64].
Flowers, representation of, how desirable, [i. 340]; how represented in mosaic, [iii. 179].
Fluting of columns, a mistake, [i. 301].
Foils, definition of, [ii. 221].
Foliage, how carved in declining periods, [iii. 8], [17]. See “Vegetation.”
Foliation defined, [ii. 219]; essential to Gothic architecture, [ii. 222].
Folly, how symbolized, [ii. 325], [348].
Form of Gothic, defined, [ii. 209].
Fortitude, how symbolized, [ii. 337].
Fountains, symbolic representations of, [i. 427].
French architecture, compared with Italian, [ii. 226].
Frivolity, how exhibited in Grotesque art, [iii. 143].
Fruit, its use in ornamentation, [i. 232].
G
Gable, general structure of, [i. 124]; essential to Gothic, [ii. 210], [217].
Gardens, Italian, [iii. 136].
Generalization, abuses of, [iii. 176].
Geology of Lombardy, [ii. 5].
Glass, its capacities in architecture, [i. 409]; manufacture of, [ii. 166]; true principles of working in, [ii. 168], [395].
Gluttony, how symbolized, [ii. 343].
Goldsmiths’ work, a high form of art, [ii. 166].
Gondola, management of, [ii. 375].
Gothic architecture, analysis of, [ii. 151]; not derived from vegetable structure, [i. 121]; convenience of, [ii. 178]; divisions of, [ii. 215]; surface and linear, [ii. 226]; Italian and French, [ii. 226]; flamboyant, [i. 278], [ii. 225]; perpendicular, [i. 192], [ii. 223], [227]; early English, [i. 109]; how to judge of it, [ii. 228]; how fitted for domestic purposes, [ii. 269], [iii. 195]; how first corrupted, [iii. 3]; how to be at present built, [iii. 196]; early Venetian, [ii. 248]; ecclesiastical Venetian, [i. 21]; central Venetian, [ii. 231]; how adorned by color in Venice, [iii. 23].
Government of Venice, [i. 2], [ii. 366].
Grammar, results of too great study of it, [iii. 55], [106].
Greek architecture, general character of, [i. 240], [ii. 215], [iii. 159].
Grief. See “Sorrow.”
Griffins, Lombardic, [i. 292], [387].
Grotesque, analysis of, [iii. 132]; in changes of form, [i. 317]; in Venetian painting, [iii. 162]; symbolical, [iii. 155]; its character in Renaissance work, [iii. 113], [121], [136], [143].
Gutters of roofs, [i. 151].
H
Heathenism, typified in ornament, [i. 317]. See “Paganism.”
Heaven and Hell, proofs of their existence in natural phenomena, [iii. 138].
History, how to be written and read, [iii. 224].
Hobbima, [iii. 184].
Honesty, how symbolized, [ii. 349].
Hope, how symbolized, [ii. 341].
Horseshoe arches, [i. 129], [ii. 249], [250].
Humanity, spiritual nature of, [i. 41]; divisions of, with respect to art, [i. 394].
Humility, how symbolized, [ii. 339].
I
Idleness, how symbolized, [ii. 345].
Idolatry, proper sense of the term, [ii. 388]; is no encourager of art, [ii. 110]. See “Popery.”
Imagination, its relation to art, [iii. 182].
Imitation of precious stones, &c., how reprehensible, [iii. 26], [30].
Imposts, continuous, [i. 120].
Infidelity, how symbolized, [ii. 335]; an element of the Renaissance spirit, [iii. 100].
Injustice, how symbolized, [ii. 349].
Inlaid ornamentation, [i. 369]; perfection of, in early Renaissance, [iii. 26].
Inscriptions at Murano, [ii. 47], [54]; use of, in early times, [ii. 111].
Insects, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 230].
Inspiration, how opposed to art, [iii. 151], [171].
Instinct, its dignity, [iii. 171].
Intellect, how variable in dignity, [iii. 173].
Involution, delightfulness of, in ornament, [ii. 136].
Iron, its use in architecture, [i. 184], [410].
Italians, modern character of, [iii. 209].
Italy, how ravaged by recent war, [iii. 209].
J
Jambs, Gothic, [iii. 137].
Jesting, evils of, [iii. 129].
Jesuits, their restricted power in Venice, [i. 366].
Jewels, their cutting, a bad employment, [ii. 166].
Judgments, instinctive, [i. 399].
Job, book of, its purpose, [iii. 53].
K
Keystones, how mismanaged in Renaissance work. See Venetian Index, under head “Libreria.”
Knowledge, its evil consequences, [iii. 40]; how to be received, [iii. 50], &c. See “Education.”
L
Labor, manual, ornamental value of, [i. 407]; evils of its division, [ii. 165]; is not a degradation, [ii. 168].
Labyrinth, in Venetian streets, its clue, [ii. 254].
Lagoons, Venetian, nature of, [ii. 7], [8].
Landscape, lower schools of, [i. 24]; Venetian, [ii. 149]; modern love of, [ii. 175], [iii. 123].
Laws of right in architecture, [i. 32]; laws in general, how permissibly violated, [i. 255], [ii. 210]; their position with respect to art, [iii. 96]; and to religion, [iii. 205].
Leaves, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 232] (see “Vegetation”); proportion of, [ii. 128].
Liberality, how symbolized, [ii. 333].
Life in Byzantine architecture, [ii. 133].
Lilies, beautiful proportions of, [ii. 128]; used for parapet ornaments, [ii. 242]; lily capitals, [ii. 137].
Limitation of ornament, [i. 254].
Lines, abstract use of, in ornament, [i. 221].
Lintel, its structure, [i. 124], [126].
Lion, on piazzetta shafts, [iii. 238].
Load, of arches, [i. 133].
Logic, a contemptible science, [iii. 105].
Lombardic architecture, [i. 17].
Lotus leaf, its use in architecture, [i. 233].
Love, its power over human life, [iii. 137].
Lusts, their power over human nature, how symbolized by Spenser, [ii. 328].
Luxury, how symbolized, [ii. 342]; how traceable in ornament, [iii. 4]; of Renaissance schools, [iii. 61].
M
Madonna, Byzantine representations of, [ii. 53].
Magnitude, vulgar admiration of, [iii. 64].
Malmsey, use of, in Feast of the Maries, [iii. 117].
Marble, its uses, [iii. 27].
Maries, Feast of the, [iii. 117].
Mariolatry, ancient and modern, [ii. 55].
Marriages of Venetians, [iii. 116].
Masonry, Mont-Cenisian, [i. 132]; of walls, [i. 61]; of arches, [i. 133].
Materials, invention of new, how injurious to art, [iii. 42].
Misery, how symbolized, [ii. 347].
Modesty, how symbolized, [ii. 335].
Monotony, its place in art, [ii. 176].
Months, personifications of, in ancient art, [ii. 272].
Moroseness, its guilt, [iii. 130].
Mosaics at Torcello, [ii. 18], [19]; at St. Mark’s, [ii. 70], [112]; early character of, [ii. 110], [iii. 175], [178].
Music, its relation to color, [iii. 186].
Mythology of Venetian painters, [ii. 150]; ancient, how injurious to the Christian mind, [iii. 107].
N
Natural history, how necessary a study, [iii. 54].
Naturalism, general analysis of it with respect to art, [ii. 181], [190]; its advance in Gothic art, [iii. 6]; not to be found in the encrusted style, [ii. 89]; its presence in the noble Grotesque, [iii. 144].
Nature (in the sense of material universe) not improvable by art, [i. 350]; its relation to architecture, [i. 351].
Niches, use of, in Northern Gothic, [i. 278]; in Venetian, [ii. 240]; in French and Veronese, [ii. 227].
Norman hatchet-work, [i. 297]; zigzag, [i. 339].
Novelty, its necessity to the human mind, [ii. 176].
O
Oak-tree, how represented in symbolical art, [iii. 185].
Obedience, how symbolized, [ii. 334].
Oligarchical government, its effect on the Venetians, [i. 5].
Olive-tree, neglect of, by artists, [iii. 175]; general expression of, [iii. 176], [177]; representations of, in mosaic, [iii. 178].
Order, uses and disadvantages of, [ii. 172].
Orders, Doric and Corinthian, [i. 13]; ridiculous divisions of, [i. 157], [370]; [ii. 173], [249]; [iii. 99].
Ornament, material of, [i. 211]; the best, expresses man’s delight in God’s work, [i. 220]; not in his own, [i. 211]; general treatment of, [i. 236]; is necessarily imperfect, [i. 237], [240]; divided into servile, subordinate, and insubordinate, [i. 242], [ii. 158]; distant effect of, [i. 248]; arborescent, [i. 252]; restrained within limits, [i. 255]; cannot be overcharged if good, [i. 406].
Oxford, system of education at, [i. 391].
P
Paganism, revival of its power in modern times, [iii. 105], [107], [122].
Painters, their power of perception, [iii. 37]; influence of society on, [iii. 41]; what they should know, [iii. 41]; what is their business, [iii. 187].
Palace, the Crystal, merits of, [i. 409].
Palaces, Byzantine, [ii. 118], [391]; Gothic, [ii. 231].
Papacy. See “Popery.”
Parapets, [i. 162], [ii. 240].
Parthenon, curves of, [ii. 127].
Patience, how symbolized, [ii. 334].
Pavements, [ii. 52].
Peacocks, sculpture of, [i. 240].
Pedestals of shafts, [i. 82]; and see Venetian Index under head “Giorgio Maggiore.”
Perception opposed to knowledge, [iii. 37].
Perfection, inordinate desire of, destructive of art, [i. 237]; [ii. 133], [158], [169].
Perpendicular style, [i. 190], [253]; [ii. 223], [227].
Personification, evils of, [ii. 322].
Perspective, aerial, ridiculous exaggerations of, [iii. 45]; ancient pride in, [iii. 57]; absence of, in many great works, see in Venetian Index the notice of Tintoret’s picture of the Pool of Bethesda, under head “Rocco.”
Phariseeism and Liberalism, how opposed, [iii. 97].
Philology, a base science, [iii. 54].
Piazzetta at Venice, plan of, [ii. 283]; shafts of, [ii. 233].
Pictures, judgment of, how formed, [ii. 371]; neglect of, in Venice, [ii. 372]; how far an aid to religion, [ii. 104], [110].
Picturesque, definition of term, [iii. 134].
Piers, general structure of, [i. 71], [98], [118].
Pilgrim’s Progress. See “Bunyan.”
Pine of Italy, its effect on architecture, [i. 152]; of Alps, effect in distance, [i. 245]. See “Fir.”
Pinnacles are of little practical service, [i. 170]; their effect on common roofs, [i. 347].
Play, its relation to Grotesque art, [iii. 126].
Pleasure, its kinds and true uses, [iii. 189].
Popery, how degraded in contest with Protestantism, [i. 34], [iii. 103]; its influence on art, [i. 23], [34], [35], [384], [432], [ii. 51]; typified in ornament, [i. 316]; power of Pope in Venice, [i. 362]; arts used in support of Popery, [ii. 74].
Porches, [i. 195].
Portraiture, power of, in Venice, [iii. 164].
Posture-making in Renaissance art, [iii. 90].
Prayers, ancient and modern, difference between, [ii. 315], [390].
Pre-Raphaelitism, [iii. 90]; present position of, [iii. 168], [174], [188].
Pride, how symbolized, [ii. 343], [iii. 207]; of knowledge, [iii. 35]; of state, [iii. 59]; of system, [iii. 95].
Priests, restricted power of, in Venice, [i. 366].
Proportions, subtlety of, in early work, [ii. 38], [121], [127].
Protestantism, its influence on art, [i. 23]; typified in ornament, [i. 316]; influence of, on prosperity of nations, [i. 368]; expenditure in favor of, [i. 434]; is incapable of judging of art, [ii. 105]; how expressed in art, [ii. 205]; its errors in opposing Romanism, [iii, 102], [103], [104]; its shame of religious confession, [ii. 278].
Prudence, how symbolized, [ii. 340].
Pulpits, proper structure of, [ii. 22], [380].
Purism in art, its nature and definition, [ii. 189].
Purity, how symbolized, [iii. 20].
Q
Quadrupeds, use of in ornamentation, [i. 234].
Quantity of ornament, its regulation, [i. 23].
R
Rationalism, its influence on art, [i. 23].
Realization, how far allowable in noble art, [iii. 182], [186].
Recesses, decoration of, [i. 278].
Recumbent statues, [iii. 72].
Redundance, an element of Gothic, [ii. 206].
Religion, its influence on Venetian policy, [i. 6]; how far aided by pictorial art, [ii. 104], [109]; contempt of, in Renaissance times, [iii. 122].
Renaissance architecture, nature of, [iii. 33]; early, [iii. 1]; Byzantine, [iii. 15]; Roman, [iii. 32]; Grotesque, [iii. 112]; inconsistencies of, [iii. 42], etc.
Reptiles, how used in ornamentation, [i. 230].
Resistance, line of, in arches, [i. 126].
Restraint, ornamental, value of, [i. 255].
Reverence, how ennobling to humanity, [ii. 163].
Rhetoric, a base study, [iii. 106].
Rigidity, an element of Gothic, [ii. 203].
Rivers, symbolical representation of, [i. 419], [420].
Rocks, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 224]; organization of, [i. 246]; curvatures of, [i. 58], [224].
Roll-mouldings, decoration of, [i. 276].
Romance, modern errors of, [ii. 4]; how connected with dress, [iii. 192].
Romanesque style, [i. 15], [19], [145]; [ii. 215]. See “Byzantine,” and “Renaissance.”
Romanism. See “Popery.”
Roofs, analysis of, [i. 46], [148]; [ii. 212], [216]; domed, [i. 149]; Swiss, [i. 149], [345]; steepness of, conducive to Gothic character, [i. 151], [ii. 209]; decoration of, [i. 343].
Rustication, is ugly and foolish, [i. 65]; natural objects of which it produces a resemblance, [i. 296].
S
Salvia, its leaf applied to architecture, [i. 287], [306].
Sarcophagi, Renaissance treatment of, [iii. 90]; ancient, [iii. 69], [93].
Satellitic shafts, [i. 95].
Satire in Grotesque art, [iii. 126], [145].
Savageness, the first element of Gothic, [ii. 155]; in Grotesque art, [iii. 159].
Science opposed to art, [iii. 36].
Sculpture, proper treatment of, [i. 216], &c.
Sea, symbolical representations of, [i. 352], [421]; natural waves of, [i. 351].
Sensualism in art, its nature and definition, [ii. 189]; how redeemed by color, [ii. 145].
Serapeum at Memphis, cusps of, [ii. 220].
Sermons, proper manner of regarding them, [ii. 22]; mode of their delivery in Scotch church, [ii. 381].
Serrar del Consiglio, [ii. 291].
Shafts, analysis of, [i. 84]; vaulting shafts, [i. 145]; ornamentation of, [i. 300]; twisted, by what laws regulated, [i. 303]; strength of, [i. 402]; laws by which they are regulated in encrusted style, [ii. 82].
Shields, use of, on tombs, [ii. 224], [iii. 87].
Shipping, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 215].
Shops in Venice, [ii. 65].
Sight, how opposed to thought, [iii. 39].
Simplicity of life in thirteenth century, [ii. 263].
Sin, how symbolized in Grotesque art, [iii. 141].
Slavery of Greeks and Egyptians, [ii. 158]; of English workmen, [ii. 162], [163].
Society, unhealthy state of, in modern times, [ii. 163].
Sorrow, how sinful, [ii. 325]; how symbolized, [ii. 347].
Soul, its development in art, [iii. 173], [188]; its connection with the body, [i. 41], [395].
Spandrils, structure of, [i. 146]; decoration of, [i. 297].
Spirals, architectural value of, [i. 222], [ii. 16].
Spurs of bases, [i. 79].
Staircases, [i. 208]; of Gothic palaces, [ii. 280].
Stucco, when admissible, [iii. 21].
Subordination of ornament, [i. 240].
Superimposition of buildings, [i. 200]; [ii. 386].
Surface-Gothic, explanation of term, [ii. 225], [227].
Symbolism, [i. 417]; how opposed to personification, [ii. 322].
System, pride of, how hurtful, [iii. 95], [99].
T
Temperance, how symbolized, [ii. 338]; temperance in color and curvature, iii. 420.
Theology, opposed to religion, [iii. 216]; of Spencer, [iii. 205].
Thirteenth century, its high position with respect to art, [ii. 263].
Thought, opposed to sight, [iii. 39].
Tombs at Verona, [i. 142], [412]; at Venice, [ii. 69]; early Christian, [iii. 67]; Gothic, [iii. 71]; Renaissance treatment of, [iii. 84].
Towers, proper character of, [i. 204]; of St. Mark’s, [i. 207].
Traceries, structure of, [i. 184], [185]; flamboyant, [i. 189]; stump, [i. 189]; English perpendicular, i 190, [ii. 222]; general character of, [ii. 220]; strength of, in Venetian Gothic, [ii. 234], [iii. 253]; general forms of tracery bars, [iii. 250].
Treason, how detested by Dante, [ii. 327].
Trees, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 231].
Trefoil, use of, in ornamentation, [ii. 42].
Triangles, used for ornaments at Murano, [ii. 43].
Tribune at Torcello, [ii. 24].
Triglyphs, ugliness of, [i, 43].
Trunkmakers, their share in recovery of Brides of Venice, [iii. 117], [118].
Truth, relation of, to religion, in Spenser’s “Faërie Queen,” [iii, 205]; typified by stones, [iii. 31].
Tympanum, decoration of, [i. 299].
U
Unity of Venetian nobility, [i. 10].
V
Vain glory, speedy punishment of, [iii. 122].
Vanity, how symbolized, [ii. 346].
Variety in ornamental design, importance of, [ii. 43], [133], [142], [172].
Vegetation, use of, in ornamentation, [i. 232]; peculiar meaning of, in Gothic, [ii. 199]; how connected with cusps, [ii. 219].
Veil (wall veil), construction of, [i. 58]; decoration of, [i. 294].
Vine, Lombardic sculpture of, [i. 375]; at Torcello, [ii. 15]; use of, in ornamentation, [ii. 141]; in symbolism, [ii. 143]; sculpture of, on Ducal Palace, [ii. 308].
Virtues, how symbolized in sepulchral monuments, [iii. 82], [86]; systems of, in Pagan and Christian philosophy, [ii. 312]; cardinal, [ii. 317], [318], [320]; of architecture, [i. 36], [44].
Voussoirs defined, [i. 125]; contest between them and architraves, [i. 336].
W
Walls, general analysis of their structure, [i. 48]; bases of, [i. 52], [53]; cornices of, [i. 63]; rustication of, [i. 61], [338]; decoration of, [i. 294]; courses in, [i. 61], [295].
Water, its use in ornamentation, [i. 226]; ancient representations of, [i. 417].
Weaving, importance of associations connected with, [ii. 136].
Wells, old Venetian, [ii. 279].
Windows, general forms of, [i. 179]; Arabian, [i. 180], [ii. 135]; square-headed, [ii. 211], [269]; development of, in Venice, [ii. 235]; orders of, in Venice, [ii. 248]; advisable form of, in modern buildings, [ii. 269].
Winds, how symbolized at Venice, [ii. 367].
Wooden architecture, [i. 381].
Womanhood, virtues of, as given by Spenser, [ii. 326].
Z
Zigzag, Norman, [i. 339].
IV.
VENETIAN INDEX.
I have endeavored to make the following index as useful as possible to the traveller, by indicating only the objects which are really worth his study. A traveller’s interest, stimulated as it is into strange vigor by the freshness of every impression, and deepened by the sacredness of the charm of association which long familiarity with any scene too fatally wears away,[71] is too precious a thing to be heedlessly wasted; and as it is physically impossible to see and to understand more than a certain quantity of art in a given time, the attention bestowed on second-rate works, in such a city as Venice, is not merely lost, but actually harmful,—deadening the interest and confusing the memory with respect to those which it is a duty to enjoy, and a disgrace to forget. The reader need not fear being misled by any omissions; for I have conscientiously pointed out every characteristic example, even of the styles which I dislike, and have referred to Lazari in all instances in which my own information failed: but if he is in any wise willing to trust me, I should recommend him to devote his principal attention, if he is fond of paintings, to the works of Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and John Bellini; not of course neglecting Titian, yet remembering that Titian can be well and thoroughly studied in almost any great European gallery, while Tintoret and Bellini can be judged of only in Venice, and Paul Veronese, though gloriously represented by the two great pictures in the Louvre, and many others throughout Europe, is yet not to be fully estimated until he is seen at play among the fantastic chequers of the Venetian ceilings.
I have supplied somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art. I cannot express the astonishment and indignation I felt on finding, in Kugler’s handbook, a paltry cenacolo, painted probably in a couple of hours for a couple of zecchins, for the monks of St. Trovaso, quoted as characteristic of this master; just as foolish readers quote separate stanzas of Peter Bell or the Idiot Boy, as characteristic of Wordsworth. Finally, the reader is requested to observe, that the dates assigned to the various buildings named in the following index, are almost without exception conjectural; that is to say, founded exclusively on the internal evidence of which a portion has been given in the Final Appendix. It is likely, therefore, that here and there, in particular instances, further inquiry may prove me to have been deceived; but such occasional errors are not of the smallest importance with respect to the general conclusions of the preceding pages, which will be found to rest on too broad a basis to be disturbed.
A
Accademia delle Belle Arti. Notice above the door the two bas-reliefs of St. Leonard and St. Christopher, chiefly remarkable for their rude cutting at so late a date as 1377; but the niches under which they stand are unusual in their bent gables, and in little crosses within circles which fill their cusps. The traveller is generally too much struck by Titian’s great picture of the “Assumption,” to be able to pay proper attention to the other works in this gallery. Let him, however, ask himself candidly, how much of his admiration is dependent merely upon the picture being larger than any other in the room, and having bright masses of red and blue in it: let him be assured that the picture is in reality not one whit the better for being either large, or gaudy in color; and he will then be better disposed to give the pains necessary to discover the merit of the more profound and solemn works of Bellini and Tintoret. One of the most wonderful works in the whole gallery is Tintoret’s “Death of Abel,” on the left of the “Assumption;” the “Adam and Eve,” on the right of it, is hardly inferior; and both are more characteristic examples of the master, and in many respects better pictures, than the much vaunted “Miracle of St. Mark.” All the works of Bellini in this room are of great beauty and interest. In the great room, that which contains Titian’s “Presentation of the Virgin,” the traveller should examine carefully all the pictures by Vittor Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, which represent scenes in ancient Venice; they are full of interesting architecture and costume. Marco Basaiti’s “Agony in the Garden” is a lovely example of the religious school. The Tintorets in this room are all second rate, but most of the Veronese are good, and the large ones are magnificent.
Aliga. See Giorgio.
Alvise, Church of St. I have never been in this church, but Lazari dates its interior, with decision, as of the year 1388, and it may be worth a glance, if the traveller has time.
Andrea, Church of St. Well worth visiting for the sake of the peculiarly sweet and melancholy effect of its little grass-grown campo, opening to the lagoon and the Alps. The sculpture over the door, “St. Peter walking on the Water,” is a quaint piece of Renaissance work. Note the distant rocky landscape, and the oar of the existing gondola floating by St. Andrew’s boat. The church is of the later Gothic period, much defaced, but still picturesque. The lateral windows are bluntly trefoiled, and good of their time.
Angeli, Church Delgli, at Murano. The sculpture of the “Annunciation” over the entrance-gate is graceful. In exploring Murano, it is worth while to row up the great canal thus far for the sake of the opening to the lagoon.
Antonino, Church of St. Of no importance.
Apollinare, Church of St. Of no importance.
Apostoli, Church of the. The exterior is nothing. There is said to be a picture by Veronese in the interior, “The Fall of the Manna.” I have not seen it; but, if it be of importance, the traveller should compare it carefully with Tintoret’s, in the Scuola di San Rocco, and San Giorgio Maggiore.
Apostoli, Palace at, [II. 253], on the Grand Canal, near the Rialto, opposite the fruit-market. A most important transitional palace. Its sculpture in the first story is peculiarly rich and curious; I think Venetian, in imitation of Byzantine. The sea story and first floor are of the first half of the thirteenth century, the rest modern. Observe that only one wing of the sea story is left, the other half having been modernized. The traveller should land to look at the capital drawn in [Plate II.] of Vol. III. fig. 7.
Arsenal. Its gateway is a curiously picturesque example of Renaissance workmanship, admirably sharp and expressive in its ornamental sculpture; it is in many parts like some of the best Byzantine work. The Greek lions in front of it appear to me to deserve more praise than they have received; though they are awkwardly balanced between conventional and imitative representation, having neither the severity proper to the one, nor the veracity necessary for the other.
B
Badoer, Palazzo, in the Campo San Giovanni in Bragola. A magnificent example of the fourteenth century Gothic, circa 1310-1320, anterior to the Ducal Palace, and showing beautiful ranges of the fifth order window, with fragments of the original balconies, and the usual lateral window larger than any of the rest. In the centre of its arcade on the first floor is the inlaid ornament drawn in [Plate VIII.] Vol. I. The fresco painting on the walls is of later date; and I believe the heads which form the finials have been inserted afterwards also, the original windows having been pure fifth order.
The building is now a ruin, inhabited by the lowest orders; the first floor, when I was last in Venice, by a laundress.
Baffo, Palazzo, in the Campo St. Maurizio. The commonest late Renaissance. A few olive leaves and vestiges of two figures still remain upon it, of the frescoes by Paul Veronese, with which it was once adorned.
Balbi, Palazzo, in Volta di Canal. Of no importance.
Barbarigo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, next the Casa Pisani. Late Renaissance; noticeable only as a house in which some of the best pictures of Titian were allowed to be ruined by damp, and out of which they were then sold to the Emperor of Russia.
Barbaro, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, next the Palazzo Cavalli. These two buildings form the principal objects in the foreground of the view which almost every artist seizes on his first traverse of the Grand Canal, the Church of the Salute forming a most graceful distance. Neither is, however, of much value, except in general effect; but the Barbaro is the best, and the pointed arcade in its side wall, seen from the narrow canal between it and the Cavalli, is good Gothic, of the earliest fourteenth century type.
Barnaba, Church of St. Of no importance.
Bartolomeo, Church of St. I did not go to look at the works of Sebastian del Piombo which it contains, fully crediting M. Lazari’s statement, that they have been “Barbaramente sfigurati da mani imperite, che pretendevano ristaurarli.” Otherwise the church is of no importance.
Basso, Church of St. Of no importance.
Battagia, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.
Beccherie. See Querini.
Bembo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, next the Casa Manin. A noble Gothic pile, circa 1350-1380, which, before it was painted by the modern Venetians with the two most valuable colors of Tintoret, Bianco e Nero, by being whitewashed above, and turned into a coal warehouse below, must have been among the most noble in effect on the whole Grand Canal. It still forms a beautiful group with the Rialto, some large shipping being generally anchored at its quay. Its sea story and entresol are of earlier date, I believe, than the rest; the doors of the former are Byzantine (see above, Final Appendix, under head “Jambs”); and above the entresol is a beautiful Byzantine cornice, built into the wall, and harmonizing well with the Gothic work.
Bembo, Palazzo, in the Calle Magno, at the Campo de’ due Pozzi, close to the Arsenal. Noticed by Lazari and Selvatico as having a very interesting staircase. It is early Gothic, circa 1330, but not a whit more interesting than many others of similar date and design. See “Contarini Porta de Ferro,” “Morosini,” “Sanudo,” and “Minelli.”
Benedetto, Campo of St. Do not fail to see the superb, though partially ruinous, Gothic palace fronting this little square. It is very late Gothic, just passing into Renaissance; unique in Venice, in masculine character, united with the delicacy of the incipient style. Observe especially the brackets of the balconies, the flower-work on the cornices, and the arabesques on the angles of the balconies themselves.
Benedetto, Church of St. Of no importance.
Bernardo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. A very noble pile of early fifteenth century Gothic, founded on the Ducal Palace. The traceries in its lateral windows are both rich and unusual.
Bernardo, Palazzo, at St. Polo. A glorious palace, on a narrow canal, in a part of Venice now inhabited by the lower orders only. It is rather late Central Gothic, circa 1380-1400, but of the finest kind, and superb in its effect of color when seen from the side. A capital in the interior court is much praised by Selvatico and Lazari, because its “foglie d’acanto” (anything by the by, but acanthus), “quasi agitate de vento si attorcigliano d’intorno alla campana, concetto non indegno della bell’epoca greca!” Does this mean “epoca Bisantina?” The capital is simply a translation into Gothic sculpture of the Byzantine ones of St. Mark’s and the Fondaco de’ Turchi (see [Plate VIII.] Vol. I. fig. 14), and is far inferior to either. But, taken as a whole, I think that, after the Ducal Palace, this is the noblest in effect of all in Venice.
Brenta, Banks of the, [I. 354]. Villas on the, [I. 354].
Businello, Casa, [II. 391].
Byzantine Palaces generally, [II. 118].
C
Camerlenghi, Palace of the, beside the Rialto. A graceful work of the early Renaissance (1525) passing into Roman Renaissance. Its details are inferior to most of the work of the school. The “Camerlenghi,” properly “Camerlenghi di Comune,” were the three officers or ministers who had care of the administration of public expenses.
Cancellaria, [II. 293].
Canciano, Church of St. Of no importance.
Cappello, Palazzo, at St. Aponal. Of no interest. Some say that Bianca Cappello fled from it; but the tradition seems to fluctuate between the various houses belonging to her family.
Carità, Church of the. Once an interesting Gothic church of the fourteenth century, lately defaced, and applied to some of the usual important purposes of the modern Italians. The effect of its ancient façade may partly be guessed at from the pictures of Canaletto, but only guessed at; Canaletto being less to be trusted for renderings of details, than the rudest and most ignorant painter of the thirteenth century.
Carmini, Church of the. A most interesting church of late thirteenth century work, but much altered and defaced. Its nave, in which the early shafts and capitals of the pure truncate form are unaltered, is very fine in effect; its lateral porch is quaint and beautiful, decorated with Byzantine circular sculptures (of which the central one is given in Vol. II. [Plate XI.] fig. 5), and supported on two shafts whose capitals are the most archaic examples of the pure Rose form that I know in Venice.
There is a glorious Tintoret over the first altar on the right in entering; the “Circumcision of Christ.” I do not know an aged head either more beautiful or more picturesque than that of the high priest. The cloister is full of notable tombs, nearly all dated; one, of the fifteenth century, to the left on entering, is interesting from the color still left on the leaves and flowers of its sculptured roses.
Cassano, Church of St. This church must on no account be missed, as it contains three Tintorets, of which one, the “Crucifixion,” is among the finest in Europe. There is nothing worth notice in the building itself, except the jamb of an ancient door (left in the Renaissance buildings, facing the canal), which has been given among the examples of Byzantine jambs; and the traveller may, therefore, devote his entire attention to the three pictures in the chancel.
1. The Crucifixion. (On the left of the high altar.) It is refreshing to find a picture taken care of, and in a bright though not a good light, so that such parts of it as are seen at all are seen well. It is also in a better state than most pictures in galleries, and most remarkable for its new and strange treatment of the subject. It seems to have been painted more for the artist’s own delight, than with any labored attempt at composition; the horizon is so low that the spectator must fancy himself lying at full length on the grass, or rather among the brambles and luxuriant weeds, of which the foreground is entirely composed. Among these, the seamless robe of Christ has fallen at the foot of the cross; the rambling briars and wild grasses thrown here and there over its folds of rich, but pale, crimson. Behind them, and seen through them, the heads of a troop of Roman soldiers are raised against the sky; and, above them, their spears and halberds form a thin forest against the horizontal clouds. The three crosses are put on the extreme right of the picture, and its centre is occupied by the executioners, one of whom, standing on a ladder, receives from the other at once the sponge and the tablet with the letters INRI. The Madonna and St. John are on the extreme left, superbly painted, like all the rest, but quite subordinate. In fact, the whole mind of the painter seems to have been set upon making the principals accessary, and the accessaries principal. We look first at the grass, and then at the scarlet robe; and then at the clump of distant spears, and then at the sky, and last of all at the cross. As a piece of color, the picture is notable for its extreme modesty. There is not a single very full or bright tint in any part, and yet the color is delighted in throughout; not the slightest touch of it but is delicious. It is worth notice also, and especially, because this picture being in a fresh state we are sure of one fact, that, like nearly all other great colorists, Tintoret was afraid of light greens in his vegetation. He often uses dark blue greens in his shadowed trees, but here where the grass is in full light, it is all painted with various hues of sober brown, more especially where it crosses the crimson robe. The handling of the whole is in his noblest manner; and I consider the picture generally quite beyond all price. It was cleaned, I believe, some years ago, but not injured, or at least as little injured as it is possible for a picture to be which has undergone any cleaning process whatsoever.
2. The Resurrection. (Over the high altar.) The lower part of this picture is entirely concealed by a miniature temple, about five feet high, on the top of the altar; certainly an insult little expected by Tintoret, as, by getting on steps, and looking over the said temple, one may see that the lower figures of the picture are the most labored. It is strange that the painter never seemed able to conceive this subject with any power, and in the present work he is marvellously hampered by various types and conventionalities. It is not a painting of the Resurrection, but of Roman Catholic saints, thinking about the Resurrection. On one side of the tomb is a bishop in full robes, on the other a female saint, I know not who; beneath it, an angel playing on an organ, and a cherub blowing it; and other cherubs flying about the sky, with flowers; the whole conception being a mass of Renaissance absurdities. It is, moreover, heavily painted, over-done, and over-finished; and the forms of the cherubs utterly heavy and vulgar. I cannot help fancying the picture has been restored in some way or another, but there is still great power in parts of it. If it be a really untouched Tintoret, it is a highly curious example of failure from over-labor on a subject into which his mind was not thrown: the color is hot and harsh, and felt to be so more painfully, from its opposition to the grand coolness and chastity of the “Crucifixion.” The face of the angel playing the organ is highly elaborated; so, also, the flying cherubs.
3. The Descent into Hades. (On the right-hand side of the high altar.) Much injured and little to be regretted. I never was more puzzled by any picture, the painting being throughout careless, and in some places utterly bad, and yet not like modern work; the principal figure, however, of Eve, has either been redone, or is scholar’s work altogether, as, I suspect, most of the rest of the picture. It looks as if Tintoret had sketched it when he was ill, left it to a bad scholar to work on with, and then finished it in a hurry; but he has assuredly had something to do with it; it is not likely that anybody else would have refused all aid from the usual spectral company with which common painters fill the scene. Bronzino, for instance, covers his canvas with every form of monster that his sluggish imagination could coin. Tintoret admits only a somewhat haggard Adam, a graceful Eve, two or three Venetians in court dress, seen amongst the smoke, and a Satan represented as a handsome youth, recognizable only by the claws on his feet. The picture is dark and spoiled, but I am pretty sure there are no demons or spectres in it. This is quite in accordance with the master’s caprice, but it considerably diminishes the interest of a work in other ways unsatisfactory. There may once have been something impressive in the shooting in of the rays at the top of the cavern, as well as in the strange grass that grows in the bottom, whose infernal character is indicated by its all being knotted together; but so little of these parts can be seen, that it is not worth spending time on a work certainly unworthy of the master, and in great part probably never seen by him.
Cattarina, Church of St., said to contain a chef-d’œuvre of Paul Veronese, the “Marriage of St. Catherine.” I have not seen it.
Cavalli, Palazzo, opposite the Academy of Arts. An imposing pile, on the Grand Canal, of Renaissance Gothic, but of little merit in the details; and the effect of its traceries has been of late destroyed by the fittings of modern external blinds. Its balconies are good, of the later Gothic type. See “Barbaro.”
Cavalli, Palazzo, next the Casa Grimani (or Post-Office), but on the other side of the narrow canal. Good Gothic, founded on the Ducal Palace, circa 1380. The capitals of the first story are remarkably rich in the deep fillets at the necks. The crests, heads of sea-horses, inserted between the windows, appear to be later, but are very fine of their kind.
Cicogna, Palazzo, at San Sebastiano, [II. 265].
Clemente, Church of St. On an island to the south of Venice, from which the view of the city is peculiarly beautiful. See “Scalzi.”
Contarini Porta di Ferro, Palazzo, near the Church of St. John and Paul, so called from the beautiful ironwork on a door, which was some time ago taken down by the proprietor and sold. Mr. Rawdon Brown rescued some of the ornaments from the hands of the blacksmith, who had bought them for old iron. The head of the door is a very interesting stone arch of the early thirteenth century, already drawn in my folio work. In the interior court is a beautiful remnant of staircase, with a piece of balcony at the top, circa 1350, and one of the most richly and carefully wrought in Venice. The palace, judging by these remnants (all that are now left of it, except a single traceried window of the same date at the turn of the stair), must once have been among the most magnificent in Venice.
Contarini (delle Figure), Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, III. 17.
Contarini dai Scrigni, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. A Gothic building, founded on the Ducal Palace. Two Renaissance statues in niches at the sides give it its name.
Contarini Fasan, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, [II. 244]. The richest work of the fifteenth century domestic Gothic in Venice, but notable more for richness than excellence of design. In one respect, however, it deserves to be regarded with attention, as showing how much beauty and dignity may be bestowed on a very small and unimportant dwelling-house by Gothic sculpture. Foolish criticisms upon it have appeared in English accounts of foreign buildings, objecting to it on the ground of its being “ill-proportioned;” the simple fact being, that there was no room in this part of the canal for a wider house, and that its builder made its rooms as comfortable as he could, and its windows and balconies of a convenient size for those who were to see through them, and stand on them, and left the “proportions” outside to take care of themselves; which, indeed, they have very sufficiently done; for though the house thus honestly confesses its diminutiveness, it is nevertheless one of the principal ornaments of the very noblest reach of the Grand Canal, and would be nearly as great a loss, if it were destroyed, as the Church of La Salute itself.
Contarini, Palazzo, at St. Luca. Of no importance.
Corner della Ca’ grande, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. One of the worst and coldest buildings of the central Renaissance, It is on a grand scale, and is a conspicuous object, rising over the roofs of the neighboring houses in the various aspects of the entrance of the Grand Canal, and in the general view of Venice from San Clemente.
Corner della Regina, Palazzo. A late Renaissance building of no merit or interest.
Corner Mocenigo, Palazzo, at St. Polo. Of no interest.
Corner Spinelli, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. A graceful and interesting example of the early Renaissance, remarkable for its pretty circular balconies.
Corner, Raccolta. I must refer the reader to M. Lazari’s Guide for an account of this collection, which, however, ought only to be visited if the traveller is not pressed for time.
D
Dandolo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Between the Casa Loredan and Casa Bembo is a range of modern buildings, some of which occupy, I believe, the site of the palace once inhabited by the Doge Henry Dandolo. Fragments of early architecture of the Byzantine school may still be traced in many places among their foundations, and two doors in the foundation of the Casa Bembo itself belong to the same group. There is only one existing palace, however, of any value, on this spot, a very small but rich Gothic one of about 1300, with two groups of fourth order windows in its second and third stories, and some Byzantine circular mouldings built into it above. This is still reported to have belonged to the family of Dandolo, and ought to be carefully preserved, as it is one of the most interesting and ancient Gothic palaces which yet remain.
Danieli, Albergo. See Nani.
Da Ponte, Palazzo. Of no interest.
Dario, Palazzo, [I. 370]; [III. 211].
Dogana di Mare, at the separation of the Grand Canal from the Giudecca. A barbarous building of the time of the Grotesque Renaissance (1676), rendered interesting only by its position. The statue of Fortune, forming the weathercock, standing on the world, is alike characteristic of the conceits of the time, and of the hopes and principles of the last days of Venice.
Donato, Church of St., at Murano, [II. 31].
Dona’, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. I believe the palace described under this name as of the twelfth century, by M. Lazari, is that which I have called the Braided House, [II. 132], [392].
D’Oro Casa. A noble pile of very quaint Gothic, once superb in general effect, but now destroyed by restorations. I saw the beautiful slabs of red marble, which formed the bases of its balconies, and were carved into noble spiral mouldings of strange sections, half a foot deep, dashed to pieces when I was last in Venice; its glorious interior staircase, by far the most interesting Gothic monument of the kind in Venice, had been carried away, piece by piece, and sold for waste marble, two years before. Of what remains, the most beautiful portions are, or were, when I last saw them, the capitals of the windows in the upper story, most glorious sculpture of the fourteenth century. The fantastic window traceries are, I think, later; but the rest of the architecture of this palace is anomalous, and I cannot venture to give any decided opinion respecting it. Parts of its mouldings are quite Byzantine in character, but look somewhat like imitations.
Ducal Palace, [I. 29]; history of, [II. 282], etc.; [III. 199]; plan and section of, [II. 282], [283]; description of, [II. 304], etc.; series of its capitals, [II. 332], etc.; spandrils of, [I. 299], [415]; shafts of, [I. 413]; traceries of, derived from those of the Frari, [II. 234]; angles of, [II. 239]; main balcony of, [II. 245]; base of, III. 212; Rio Façade of, [III. 25]; paintings in, [II. 372]. The multitude of works by various masters, which cover the walls of this palace is so great, that the traveller is in general merely wearied and confused by them. He had better refuse all attention except to the following works:
1. Paradise, by Tintoret; at the extremity of the Great Council chamber. I found it impossible to count the number of figures in this picture, of which the grouping is so intricate, that at the upper part it is not easy to distinguish one figure from another; but I counted 150 important figures in one half of it alone; so that, as there are nearly as many in subordinate position, the total number cannot be under 500. I believe this is, on the whole, Tintoret’s chef-d’œuvre; though it is so vast that no one takes the trouble to read it, and therefore less wonderful pictures are preferred to it. I have not myself been able to study except a few fragments of it, all executed in his finest manner; but it may assist a hurried observer to point out to him that the whole composition is divided into concentric zones, represented one above another like the stories of a cupola, round the figures of Christ and the Madonna, at the central and highest point: both these figures are exceedingly dignified and beautiful. Between each zone or belt of the nearer figures, the white distances of heaven are seen filled with floating spirits. The picture is, on the whole, wonderfully preserved, and the most precious thing that Venice possesses. She will not possess it long; for the Venetian academicians, finding it exceedingly unlike their own works, declare it to want harmony, and are going to retouch it to their own ideas of perfection.
2. Siege of Zara; the first picture on the right on entering the Sala del Scrutinio. It is a mere battle piece, in which the figures, like the arrows, are put in by the score. There are high merits in the thing, and so much invention that it is possible Tintoret may have made the sketch for it; but, if executed by him at all, he has done it merely in the temper in which a sign-painter meets the wishes of an ambitious landlord. He seems to have been ordered to represent all the events of the battle at once; and to have felt that, provided he gave men, arrows, and ships enough, his employers would be perfectly satisfied. The picture is a vast one, some thirty feet by fifteen.
Various other pictures will be pointed out by the custode, in these two rooms, as worthy of attention, but they are only historically, not artistically, interesting. The works of Paul Veronese on the ceiling have been repainted; and the rest of the pictures on the walls are by second-rate men. The traveller must, once for all, be warned against mistaking the works of Domenico Robusti (Domenico Tintoretto), a very miserable painter, for those of his illustrious father, Jacopo.
3. The Doge Grimani kneeling before Faith, by Titian; in the Sala delle quattro Porte. To be observed with care, as one of the most striking examples of Titian’s want of feeling and coarseness of conception. (See above, Vol. [I. p. 12].) As a work of mere art, it is, however, of great value. The traveller who has been accustomed to deride Turner’s indistinctness of touch, ought to examine carefully the mode of painting the Venice in the distance at the bottom of this picture.
4. Frescoes on the Roof of the Sala delle quattro Porte, by Tintoret. Once magnificent beyond description, now mere wrecks (the plaster crumbling away in large flakes), but yet deserving of the most earnest study.
5. Christ taken down from the Cross, by Tintoret; at the upper end of the Sala dei Pregadi. One of the most interesting mythic pictures of Venice, two doges being represented beside the body of Christ, and a most noble painting; executed, however, for distant effect, and seen best from the end of the room.
6. Venice, Queen of the Sea, by Tintoret. Central compartment of the ceiling, in the Sala dei Pregadi. Notable for the sweep of its vast green surges, and for the daring character of its entire conception, though it is wild and careless, and in many respects unworthy of the master. Note the way in which he has used the fantastic forms of the sea weeds, with respect to what was above stated (III. 158), as to his love of the grotesque.
7. The Doge Loredano in Prayer to the Virgin, by Tintoret; in the same room. Sickly and pale in color, yet a grand work; to be studied, however, more for the sake of seeing what a great man does “to order,” when he is wearied of what is required from him, than for its own merit.
8. St. George and the Princess. There are, besides the “Paradise,” only six pictures in the Ducal Palace, as far as I know, which Tintoret painted carefully, and those are all exceedingly fine: the most finished of these are in the Anti-Collegio; but those that are most majestic and characteristic of the master are two oblong ones, made to fill the panels of the walls in the Anti-Chiesetta; these two, each, I suppose, about eight feet by six, are in his most quiet and noble manner. There is excessively little color in them, their prevalent tone being a greyish brown opposed with grey, black, and a very warm russet. They are thinly painted, perfect in tone, and quite untouched. The first of them is “St. George and the Dragon,” the subject being treated in a new and curious way. The principal figure is the princess, who sits astride on the dragon’s neck, holding him by a bridle of silken riband; St. George stands above and behind her, holding his hands over her head as if to bless her, or to keep the dragon quiet by heavenly power; and a monk stands by on the right, looking gravely on. There is no expression or life in the dragon, though the white flashes in its eye are very ghastly: but the whole thing is entirely typical; and the princess is not so much represented riding on the dragon, as supposed to be placed by St. George in an attitude of perfect victory over her chief enemy. She has a full rich dress of dull red, but her figure is somewhat ungraceful. St. George is in grey armor and grey drapery, and has a beautiful face; his figure entirely dark against the distant sky. There is a study for this picture in the Manfrini Palace.
9. St. Andrew and St. Jerome. This, the companion picture, has even less color than its opposite. It is nearly all brown and grey; the fig-leaves and olive-leaves brown, the faces brown, the dresses brown, and St. Andrew holding a great brown cross. There is nothing that can be called color, except the grey of the sky, which approaches in some places a little to blue, and a single piece of dirty brick-red in St. Jerome’s dress; and yet Tintoret’s greatness hardly ever shows more than in the management of such sober tints. I would rather have these two small brown pictures, and two others in the Academy perfectly brown also in their general tone—the “Cain and Abel” and the “Adam and Eve,”—than all the other small pictures in Venice put together, which he painted in bright colors, for altar pieces; but I never saw two pictures which so nearly approached grisailles as these, and yet were delicious pieces of color. I do not know if I am right in calling one of the saints St. Andrew. He stands holding a great upright wooden cross against the sky. St. Jerome reclines at his feet, against a rock, over which some glorious fig leaves and olive branches are shooting; every line of them studied with the most exquisite care, and yet cast with perfect freedom.
10. Bacchus and Ariadne. The most beautiful of the four careful pictures by Tintoret, which occupy the angles of the Anti-Collegio. Once one of the noblest pictures in the world, but now miserably faded, the sun being allowed to fall on it all day long. The design of the forms of the leafage round the head of the Bacchus, and the floating grace of the female figure above, will, however, always give interest to this picture, unless it be repainted.
The other three Tintorets in this room are careful and fine, but far inferior to the “Bacchus;” and the “Vulcan and the Cyclops” is a singularly meagre and vulgar study of common models.
11. Europa, by Paul Veronese: in the same room. One of the very few pictures which both possess and deserve a high reputation.
12. Venice enthroned, by Paul Veronese; on the roof of the same room. One of the grandest pieces of frank color in the Ducal Palace.
13. Venice, and the Doge Sebastian Venier; at the upper end of the Sala del Collegio. An unrivalled Paul Veronese, far finer even than the “Europa.”
14. Marriage of St. Catherine, by Tintoret; in the same room. An inferior picture, but the figure of St. Catherine is quite exquisite. Note how her veil falls over her form, showing the sky through it, as an alpine cascade falls over a marble rock.
There are three other Tintorets on the walls of this room, but all inferior, though full of power. Note especially the painting of the lion’s wings, and of the colored carpet, in the one nearest the throne, the Doge Alvise Mocenigo adoring the Redeemer.
The roof is entirely by Paul Veronese, and the traveller who really loves painting, ought to get leave to come to this room whenever he chooses; and should pass the sunny summer mornings there again and again, wandering now and then into the Anti-Collegio and Sala dei Pregadi, and coming back to rest under the wings of the couched lion at the feet of the “Mocenigo.” He will no otherwise enter so deeply into the heart of Venice.
E
Emo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no interest.
Erizzo, Palazzo, near the Arsenal, [II. 262].
Erizzo, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, nearly opposite the Fondaco de’ Turchi. A Gothic palace, with a single range of windows founded on the Ducal traceries, and bold capitals. It has been above referred to in the notice of tracery bars.
Eufemia, Church of St. A small and defaced, but very curious, early Gothic church on the Giudecca. Not worth visiting, unless the traveller is seriously interested in architecture.
Europa, Albergo, all’. Once a Giustiniani Palace. Good Gothic, circa 1400, but much altered.
Evangelisti, Casa degli, [II. 265].
| XII. |
| CAPITALS OF FONDACO DE’ TURCHI. |
F
Facanon, Palazzo (alla Fava). A fair example of the fifteenth century Gothic, founded on Ducal Palace.
Falier, Palazzo, at the Apostoli. Above, [II. 253].
Fantino, Church of St. Said to contain a John Bellini, otherwise of no importance.
Farsetti, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, [II. 124], [393].
Fava, Church of St. Of no importance.
Felice, Church of St. Said to contain a Tintoret, which, if untouched, I should conjecture, from Lazari’s statement of its subject, St. Demetrius armed, with one of the Ghisi family in prayer, must be very fine. Otherwise the church is of no importance.
Ferro, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Fifteenth century Gothic, very hard and bad.
Flangini, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.
Fondaco de’ Turchi, [I. 328]; [II. 120], [121], [236]. The opposite plate, representing three of its capitals, has been several times referred to.
Fondaco de’ Tedeschi. A huge and ugly building near the Rialto, rendered, however, peculiarly interesting by remnants of the frescoes by Giorgione with which it was once covered. See Vol. [II. 80], and [III. 23].
Formosa, Church of Santa Maria, [III. 113], [122],
Fosca, Church of St. Notable for its exceedingly picturesque campanile, of late Gothic, but uninjured by restorations, and peculiarly Venetian in being crowned by the cupola instead of the pyramid, which would have been employed at the same period in any other Italian city.
Foscari, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. The noblest example in Venice of the fifteenth century Gothic, founded on the Ducal Palace, but lately restored and spoiled, all but the stone-work of the main windows. The restoration was necessary, however: for, when I was in Venice in 1845, this palace was a foul ruin; its great hall a mass of mud, used as a back receptacle of a stone-mason’s yard; and its rooms whitewashed, and scribbled over with indecent caricatures. It has since been partially strengthened and put in order; but as the Venetian municipality have now given it to the Austrians to be used as barracks, it will probably soon be reduced to its former condition. The lower palaces at the side of this building are said by some to have belonged to the younger Foscari. See “Giustiniani.”
Francesco della Vigna, Church of St. Base Renaissance, but must be visited in order to see the John Bellini in the Cappella Santa. The late sculpture, in the Cappella Giustiniani, appears from Lazari’s statement to be deserving of careful study. This church is said also to contain two pictures by Paul Veronese.
Frari, Church of the. Founded in 1250, and continued at various subsequent periods. The apse and adjoining chapels are the earliest portions, and their traceries have been above noticed (II. 234) as the origin of those of the Ducal Palace. The best view of the apse, which is a very noble example of Italian Gothic, is from the door of the Scuola di San Rocco. The doors of the church are all later than any other portion of it, very elaborate Renaissance Gothic. The interior is good Gothic, but not interesting, except in its monuments. Of these, the following are noticed in the text of this volume:
That of Duccio degli Alberti, at pages 74, 80; of the unknown Knight, opposite that of Duccio, [III. 74]; of Francesco Foscari, [III. 84]; of Giovanni Pesaro, 91; of Jacopo Pesaro, 92.
Besides these tombs, the traveller ought to notice carefully that of Pietro Bernardo, a first-rate example of Renaissance work; nothing can be more detestable or mindless in general design, or more beautiful in execution. Examine especially the griffins, fixed in admiration of bouquets, at the bottom. The fruit and flowers which arrest the attention of the griffins may well arrest the traveller’s also; nothing can be finer of their kind. The tomb of Canova, by Canova, cannot be missed; consummate in science, intolerable in affectation, ridiculous in conception, null and void to the uttermost in invention and feeling. The equestrian statue of Paolo Savelli is spirited; the monument of the Beato Pacifico, a curious example of Renaissance Gothic with wild crockets (all in terra cotta). There are several good Vivarini’s in the church, but its chief pictorial treasure is the John Bellini in the sacristy, the most finished and delicate example of the master in Venice.
G
Geremia, Church of St. Of no importance.
Gesuati, Church of The. Of no importance.
Giacomo de Lorio, Church of St., a most interesting church, of the early thirteenth century, but grievously restored. Its capitals have been already noticed as characteristic of the earliest Gothic; and it is said to contain four works of Paul Veronese, but I have not examined them. The pulpit is admired by the Italians, but is utterly worthless. The verdantique pillar, in the south transept, is a very noble example of the “Jewel Shaft.” See the note at p. 83, Vol. II.
Giacomo di Rialto, Church of St. A picturesque little church, on the Piazza di Rialto. It has been grievously restored, but the pillars and capitals of its nave are certainly of the eleventh century; those of its portico are of good central Gothic; and it will surely not be left unvisited, on this ground, if on no other, that it stands on the site, and still retains the name, of the first church ever built on that Rialto which formed the nucleus of future Venice, and became afterwards the mart of her merchants.
Giobbe, Church of St., near the Cana Reggio. Its principal entrance is a very fine example of early Renaissance sculpture. Note in it, especially, its beautiful use of the flower of the convolvulus. There are said to be still more beautiful examples of the same period, in the interior. The cloister, though much defaced, is of the Gothic period, and worth a glance.
Giorgio de’ Greci, Church of St. The Greek Church. It contains no valuable objects of art, but its service is worth attending by those who have never seen the Greek ritual.
Giorgio de’ Schiavoni, Church of St. Said to contain a very precious series of paintings by Victor Carpaccio. Otherwise of no interest.
Giorgio in Aliga (St. George in the seaweed), Church of St. Unimportant in itself, but the most beautiful view of Venice at sunset is from a point at about two thirds of the distance from the city to the island.
Giorgio Maggiore, Church of St. A building which owes its interesting effect chiefly to its isolated position, being seen over a great space of lagoon. The traveller should especially notice in its façade the manner in which the central Renaissance architects (of whose style this church is a renowned example) endeavored to fit the laws they had established to the requirements of their age. Churches were required with aisles and clerestories, that is to say, with a high central nave and lower wings; and the question was, how to face this form with pillars of one proportion. The noble Romanesque architects built story above story, as at Pisa and Lucca; but the base Palladian architects dared not do this. They must needs retain some image of the Greek temple; but the Greek temple was all of one height, a low gable roof being borne on ranges of equal pillars. So the Palladian builders raised first a Greek temple with pilasters for shafts; and, through the middle of its roof, or horizontal beam, that is to say, of the cornice which externally represented this beam, they lifted another temple on pedestals, adding these barbarous appendages to the shafts, which otherwise would not have been high enough; fragments of the divided cornice or tie-beam being left between the shafts, and the great door of the church thrust in between the pedestals. It is impossible to conceive a design more gross, more barbarous, more childish in conception, more servile in plagiarism, more insipid in result, more contemptible under every point of rational regard.
Observe, also, that when Palladio had got his pediment at the top of the church, he did not know what to do with it; he had no idea of decorating it except by a round hole in the middle. (The traveller should compare, both in construction and decoration, the Church of the Redentore with this of San Giorgio.) Now, a dark penetration is often a most precious assistance to a building dependent upon color for its effect; for a cavity is the only means in the architect’s power of obtaining certain and vigorous shadow; and for this purpose, a circular penetration, surrounded by a deep russet marble moulding, is beautifully used in the centre of the white field on the side of the portico of St. Mark’s. But Palladio had given up color, and pierced his pediment with a circular cavity, merely because he had not wit enough to fill it with sculpture. The interior of the church is like a large assembly room, and would have been undeserving of a moment’s attention, but that it contains some most precious pictures, namely:
1. Gathering the Manna. (On the left hand of the high altar.) One of Tintoret’s most remarkable landscapes. A brook flowing through a mountainous country, studded with thickets and palm trees; the congregation have been long in the Wilderness, and are employed in various manufactures much more than in gathering the manna. One group is forging, another grinding manna in a mill, another making shoes, one woman making a piece of dress, some washing; the main purpose of Tintoret being evidently to indicate the continuity of the supply of heavenly food. Another painter would have made the congregation hurrying to gather it, and wondering at it; Tintoret at once makes us remember that they have been fed with it “by the space of forty years.” It is a large picture, full of interest and power, but scattered in effect, and not striking except from its elaborate landscape.
2. The Last Supper. (Opposite the former.) These two pictures have been painted for their places, the subjects being illustrative of the sacrifice of the mass. This latter is remarkable for its entire homeliness in the general treatment of the subject; the entertainment being represented like any large supper in a second-rate Italian inn, the figures being all comparatively uninteresting; but we are reminded that the subject is a sacred one, not only by the strong light shining from the head of Christ, but because the smoke of the lamp which hangs over the table turns, as it rises, into a multitude of angels, all painted in grey, the color of the smoke; and so writhed and twisted together that the eye hardly at first distinguishes them from the vapor out of which they are formed, ghosts of countenances and filmy wings filling up the intervals between the completed heads. The idea is highly characteristic of the master. The picture has been grievously injured, but still shows miracles of skill in the expression of candle-light mixed with twilight; variously reflected rays, and half tones of the dimly lighted chamber, mingled with the beams of the lantern and those from the head of Christ, flashing along the metal and glass upon the table, and under it along the floor, and dying away into the recesses of the room.
3. Martyrdom of various Saints. (Altar piece of the third altar in the South aisle.) A moderately sized picture, and now a very disagreeable one, owing to the violent red into which the color that formed the glory of the angel at the top is changed. It has been hastily painted, and only shows the artist’s power in the energy of the figure of an executioner drawing a bow, and in the magnificent ease with which the other figures are thrown together in all manner of wild groups and defiances of probability. Stones and arrows are flying about in the air at random.
4. Coronation of the Virgin. (Fourth altar in the same aisle.) Painted more for the sake of the portraits at the bottom, than of the Virgin at the top. A good picture, but somewhat tame for Tintoret, and much injured. The principal figure, in black, is still, however, very fine.
5. Resurrection of Christ. (At the end of the north aisle, in the chapel beside the choir.) Another picture painted chiefly for the sake of the included portraits, and remarkably cold in general conception; its color has, however, been gay and delicate, lilac, yellow, and blue being largely used in it. The flag which our Saviour bears in his hand, has been once as bright as the sail of a Venetian fishing-boat, but the colors are now all chilled, and the picture is rather crude than brilliant; a mere wreck of what it was, and all covered with droppings of wax at the bottom.
6. Martyrdom of St. Stephen. (Altar piece in the north transept.) The Saint is in a rich prelate’s dress, looking as if he had just been saying mass, kneeling in the foreground, and perfectly serene. The stones are flying about him like hail, and the ground is covered with them as thickly as if it were a river bed. But in the midst of them, at the saint’s right hand, there is a book lying, crushed but open, two or three stones which have torn one of its leaves lying upon it. The freedom and ease with which the leaf is crumpled is just as characteristic of the master as any of the grander features; no one but Tintoret could have so crushed a leaf; but the idea is still more characteristic of him, for the book is evidently meant for the Mosaic History which Stephen had just been expounding, and its being crushed by the stones shows how the blind rage of the Jews was violating their own law in the murder of Stephen. In the upper part of the picture are three figures,—Christ, the Father, and St. Michael. Christ of course at the right hand of the Father, as Stephen saw him standing; but there is little dignity in this part of the conception. In the middle of the picture, which is also the middle distance, are three or four men throwing stones, with Tintoret’s usual vigor of gesture, and behind them an immense and confused crowd; so that, at first, we wonder where St. Paul is; but presently we observe that, in the front of this crowd, and almost exactly in the centre of the picture, there is a figure seated on the ground, very noble and quiet, and with some loose garments thrown across its knees. It is dressed in vigorous black and red. The figure of the Father in the sky above is dressed in black and red also, and these two figures are the centres of color to the whole design. It is almost impossible to praise too highly the refinement of conception which withdrew the unconverted St. Paul into the distance, so as entirely to separate him from the immediate interest of the scene, and yet marked the dignity to which he was afterward to be raised, by investing him with the colors which occurred nowhere else in the picture except in the dress which veils the form of the Godhead. It is also to be noted as an interesting example of the value which the painter put upon color only; another composer would have thought it necessary to exalt the future apostle by some peculiar dignity of action or expression. The posture of the figure is indeed grand, but inconspicuous; Tintoret does not depend upon it, and thinks that the figure is quite ennobled enough by being made a key-note of color.
It is also worth observing how boldly imaginative is the treatment which covers the ground with piles of stones, and yet leaves the martyr apparently unwounded. Another painter would have covered him with blood, and elaborated the expression of pain upon his countenance. Tintoret leaves us under no doubt as to what manner of death he is dying; he makes the air hurtle with the stones, but he does not choose to make his picture disgusting, or even painful. The face of the martyr is serene, and exulting; and we leave the picture, remembering only how “he fell asleep.”
Giovanelli, Palazzo, at the Ponte di Noale. A fine example of fifteenth century Gothic, founded on the Ducal Palace.
Giovanni e Paolo, Church of St.[72] Foundation of, [III. 69]. An impressive church, though none of its Gothic is comparable with that of the North, or with that of Verona. The Western door is interesting as one of the last conditions of Gothic design passing into Renaissance, very rich and beautiful of its kind, especially the wreath of fruit and flowers which forms its principal molding. The statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, in the little square beside the church, is certainly one of the noblest works in Italy. I have never seen anything approaching it in animation, in vigor of portraiture, or nobleness of line. The reader will need Lazari’s Guide in making the circuit of the church, which is full of interesting monuments: but I wish especially to direct his attention to two pictures, besides the celebrated Peter Martyr: namely,
1. The Crucifixion, by Tintoret; on the wall of the left-hand aisle, just before turning into the transept. A picture fifteen feet long by eleven or twelve high. I do not believe that either the “Miracle of St. Mark,” or the great “Crucifixion” in the Scuola di San Rocco, cost Tintoret more pains than this comparatively small work, which is now utterly neglected, covered with filth and cobwebs, and fearfully injured. As a piece of color, and light and shade, it is altogether marvellous. Of all the fifty figures which the picture contains, there is not one which in any way injures or contends with another; nay, there is not a single fold of garment or touch of the pencil which could be spared; every virtue of Tintoret, as a painter, is there in its highest degree,—color at once the most intense and the most delicate, the utmost decision in the arrangement of masses of light, and yet half tones and modulations of endless variety; and all executed with a magnificence of handling which no words are energetic enough to describe. I have hardly ever seen a picture in which there was so much decision, and so little impetuosity, and in which so little was conceded to haste, to accident, or to weakness. It is too infinite a work to be describable; but among its minor passages of extreme beauty, should especially be noticed the manner in which the accumulated forms of the human body, which fill the picture from end to end, are prevented from being felt heavy, by the grace and elasticity of two or three sprays of leafage which spring from a broken root in the foreground, and rise conspicuous in shadow against an interstice filled by the pale blue, grey, and golden light in which the distant crowd is invested, the office of this foliage being, in an artistical point of view, correspondent to that of the trees set by the sculptors of the Ducal Palace on its angles. But they have a far more important meaning in the picture than any artistical one. If the spectator will look carefully at the root which I have called broken, he will find that in reality, it is not broken, but cut; the other branches of the young tree having lately been cut away. When we remember that one of the principal incidents in great San Rocco Crucifixion is the ass feeding on withered palm leaves, we shall be at no loss to understand the great painter’s purpose in lifting the branch of this mutilated olive against the dim light of the distant sky; while, close beside it, St. Joseph of Arimathea drags along the dust a white garment—observe, the principal light of the picture,—stained with the blood of that King before whom, five days before, his crucifiers had strewn their own garments in the way.
2. Our Lady with the Camerlenghi. (In the centre chapel of the three on the right of the choir.) A remarkable instance of the theoretical manner of representing Scriptural facts, which, at this time, as noted in the second chapter of this volume, was undermining the belief of the facts themselves. Three Venetian chamberlains desired to have their portraits painted, and at the same time to express their devotion to the Madonna; to that end they are painted kneeling before her, and in order to account for their all three being together, and to give a thread or clue to the story of the picture, they are represented as the Three Magi; but lest the spectator should think it strange that the Magi should be in the dress of Venetian chamberlains, the scene is marked as a mere ideality, by surrounding the person of the Virgin with saints who lived five hundred years after her. She has for attendants St. Theodore, St. Sebastian, and St. Carlo (query St. Joseph). One hardly knows whether most to regret the spirit which was losing sight of the verities of religious history in imaginative abstractions, or to praise the modesty and piety which desired rather to be represented as kneeling before the Virgin than in the discharge or among the insignia of important offices of state.
As an “Adoration of the Magi,” the picture is, of course, sufficiently absurd: the St. Sebastian leans back in the corner to be out of the way; the three Magi kneel, without the slightest appearance of emotion, to a Madonna seated in a Venetian loggia of the fifteenth century, and three Venetian servants behind bear their offerings in a very homely sack, tied up at the mouth. As a piece of portraiture and artistical composition, the work is altogether perfect, perhaps the best piece of Tintoret’s portrait-painting in existence. It is very carefully and steadily wrought, and arranged with consummate skill on a difficult plan. The canvas is a long oblong, I think about eighteen or twenty feet long, by about seven high; one might almost fancy the painter had been puzzled to bring the piece into use, the figures being all thrown into positions which a little diminish their height. The nearest chamberlain is kneeling, the two behind him bowing themselves slightly, the attendants behind bowing lower, the Madonna sitting, the St. Theodore sitting still lower on the steps at her feet, and the St. Sebastian leaning back, so that all the lines of the picture incline more or less from right to left as they ascend. This slope, which gives unity to the detached groups, is carefully exhibited by what a mathematician would call coordinates,—the upright pillars of the loggia and the horizontal clouds of the beautiful sky. The color is very quiet, but rich and deep, the local tones being brought out with intense force, and the cast shadows subdued, the manner being much more that of Titian than of Tintoret. The sky appears full of light, though it is as dark as the flesh of the faces; and the forms of its floating clouds, as well as of the hills over which they rise, are drawn with a deep remembrance of reality. There are hundreds of pictures of Tintoret’s more amazing than this, but I hardly know one that I more love.
The reader ought especially to study the sculpture round the altar of the Capella del Rosario, as an example of the abuse of the sculptor’s art; every accessory being labored out with as much ingenuity and intense effort to turn sculpture into painting, the grass, trees, and landscape being as far realized as possible, and in alto-relievo. These bas-reliefs are by various artists, and therefore exhibit the folly of the age, not the error of an individual.
The following alphabetical list of the tombs in this church which are alluded to as described in the text, with references to the pages where they are mentioned, will save some trouble:
| Cavalli, Jacopo, [III. 82]. Cornaro, Marco, [III. 11]. Dolfin, Giovanni, [III. 78]. Giustiniani, Marco, [I. 315]. Mocenigo, Giovanni, [III. 89]. | Mocenigo, Pietro, [III. 89]. Mocenigo, Tomaso, [I. 8], [26], [III. 84]. Morosini, Michele, [III. 80]. Steno, Michele, [III. 83]. Vendramin, Andrea, [I. 27], [III. 88]. |
Giovanni Grisostomo, Church of St. One of the most important in Venice. It is early Renaissance, containing some good sculpture, but chiefly notable as containing a noble Sebastian del Piombo, and a John Bellini, which a few years hence, unless it be “restored,” will be esteemed one of the most precious pictures in Italy, and among the most perfect in the world. John Bellini is the only artist who appears to me to have united, in equal and magnificent measures, justness of drawing, nobleness of coloring, and perfect manliness of treatment, with the purest religious feeling. He did, as far as it is possible to do it, instinctively and unaffectedly, what the Caracci only pretended to do. Titian colors better, but has not his piety. Leonardo draws better, but has not his color. Angelico is more heavenly, but has not his manliness, far less his powers of art.
Giovanni Elemosinario, Church of St. Said to contain a Titian and a Bonifazio. Of no other interest.
Giovanni in Bragola, Church of St. A Gothic church of the fourteenth century, small, but interesting, and said to contain some precious works by Cima da Conegliano, and one by John Bellini.
Giovanni Novo, Church of St. Of no importance.
Giovanni, S., Scuola di. A fine example of the Byzantine Renaissance, mixed with remnants of good late Gothic. The little exterior cortile is sweet in feeling, and Lazari praises highly the work of the interior staircase.
Giudecca. The crescent-shaped island (or series of islands), which forms the most northern extremity of the city of Venice, though separated by a broad channel from the main city. Commonly said to derive its name from the number of Jews who lived upon it; but Lazari derives it from the word “Judicato,” in Venetian dialect “Zudegà,” it having been in old time “adjudged” as a kind of prison territory to the more dangerous and turbulent citizens. It is now inhabited only by the poor, and covered by desolate groups of miserable dwellings, divided by stagnant canals.
Its two principal churches, the Redentore and St. Eufemia, are named in their alphabetical order.
Giuliano, Church of St. Of no importance.
Giuseppe di Castello, Church of St. Said to contain a Paul Veronese: otherwise of no importance.
Giustina, Church of St. Of no importance.
Giustiniani Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, now Albergo all’ Europa. Good late fourteenth century Gothic, but much altered.
Giustiniani, Palazzo, next the Casa Foscari, on the Grand Canal. Lazari, I know not on what authority, says that this palace was built by the Giustiniani family before 1428. It is one of those founded directly on the Ducal Palace, together with the Casa Foscari at its side: and there could have been no doubt of their date on this ground; but it would be interesting, after what we have seen of the progress of the Ducal Palace, to ascertain the exact year of the erection of any of these imitations.
full of tracery, of which the profiles are given in the Appendix, under the title of the Palace of the Younger Foscari, it being popularly reported to have belonged to the son of the Doge.
Giustinian Lolin, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.
Grassi Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, now Albergo all’ Imperator d’ Austria. Of no importance.
Gregorio, Church of St., on the Grand Canal. An important church of the fourteenth century, now desecrated, but still interesting. Its apse is on the little canal crossing from the Grand Canal to the Giudecca, beside the Church of the Salute, and is very characteristic of the rude ecclesiastical Gothic contemporary with the Ducal Palace. The entrance to its cloisters, from the Grand Canal, is somewhat later; a noble square door, with two windows on each side of it, the grandest examples in Venice of the late window of the fourth order.
The cloister, to which this door gives entrance, is exactly contemporary with the finest work of the Ducal Palace, circa 1350. It is the loveliest cortile I know in Venice; its capitals consummate in design and execution; and the low wall on which they stand showing remnants of sculpture unique, as far as I know, in such application.
Grimani, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, [III. 32].
There are several other palaces in Venice belonging to this family, but none of any architectural interest.
J
Jesuiti, Church of the. The basest Renaissance; but worth a visit in order to examine the imitations of curtains in white marble inlaid with green.
It contains a Tintoret, “The Assumption,” which I have not examined; and a Titian, “The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” originally, it seems to me, of little value, and now, having been restored, of none.
L
Labia Palazzo, on the Canna Reggio. Of no importance.
Lazzaro de’ Mendicanti, Church of St. Of no importance.
Libreria Vecchia. A graceful building of the central Renaissance, designed by Sansovino, 1536, and much admired by all architects of the school. It was continued by Scamozzi, down the whole side of St. Mark’s Place, adding another story above it, which modern critics blame as destroying the “eurithmia;” never considering that had the two low stories of the Library been continued along the entire length of the Piazza, they would have looked so low that the entire dignity of the square would have been lost. As it is, the Library is left in its originally good proportions, and the larger mass of the Procuratie Nuove forms a more majestic, though less graceful, side for the great square.
But the real faults of the building are not in its number of stories, but in the design of the parts. It is one of the grossest examples of the base Renaissance habit of turning keystones into brackets, throwing them out in bold projection (not less than a foot and a half) beyond the mouldings of the arch; a practice utterly barbarous, inasmuch as it evidently tends to dislocate the entire arch, if any real weight were laid on the extremity of the keystone; and it is also a very characteristic example of the vulgar and painful mode of filling spandrils by naked figures in alto-relievo, leaning against the arch on each side, and appearing as if they were continually in danger of slipping off. Many of these figures have, however, some merit in themselves; and the whole building is graceful and effective of its kind. The continuation of the Procuratie Nuove, at the western extremity of St. Mark’s Place (together with various apartments in the great line of the Procuratie Nuove) forms the “Royal Palace,” the residence of the Emperor when at Venice. This building is entirely modern, built in 1810, in imitation of the Procuratie Nuove, and on the site of Sansovino’s Church of San Geminiano.
In this range of buildings, including the Royal Palace, the Procuratie Nuove, the old Library, and the “Zecca” which is connected with them (the latter being an ugly building of very modern date, not worth notice architecturally), there are many most valuable pictures, among which I would especially direct attention, first to those in the Zecca, namely, a beautiful and strange Madonna, by Benedetto Diana; two noble Bonifazios; and two groups, by Tintoret, of the Provveditori della Zecca, by no means to be missed, whatever may be sacrificed to see them, on account of the quietness and veracity of their unaffected portraiture, and the absolute freedom from all vanity either in the painter or in his subjects.
Next, in the “Antisala” of the old Library, observe the “Sapienza” of Titian, in the centre of the ceiling; a most interesting work in the light brilliancy of its color, and the resemblance to Paul Veronese. Then, in the great hall of the old Library, examine the two large Tintorets, “St. Mark saving a Saracen from Drowning,” and the “Stealing of his Body from Constantinople,” both rude, but great (note in the latter the dashing of the rain on the pavement, and running of the water about the feet of the figures): then in the narrow spaces between the windows, there are some magnificent single figures by Tintoret, among the finest things of the kind in Italy, or in Europe. Finally, in the gallery of pictures in the Palazzo Reale, among other good works of various kinds, are two of the most interesting Bonifazios in Venice, the “Children of Israel in their journeyings,” in one of which, if I recollect right, the quails are coming in flight across a sunset sky, forming one of the earliest instances I know of a thoroughly natural and Turneresque effect being felt and rendered by the old masters. The picture struck me chiefly from this circumstance; but, the note-book in which I had described it and its companion having been lost on my way home, I cannot now give a more special account of them, except that they are long, full of crowded figures, and peculiarly light in color and handling as compared with Bonifazio’s work in general.
Lio, Church of St. Of no importance, but said to contain a spoiled Titian.
Lio, Salizzada di St., windows in, [II. 252], [257].
Loredan, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, near the Rialto, II. 123, 393. Another palace of this name, on the Campo St. Stefano, is of no importance.
Lorenzo, Church of St. Of no importance.
Luca, Church of St. Its campanile is of very interesting and quaint early Gothic, and it is said to contain a Paul Veronese, “St Luke and the Virgin.” In the little Campiello St. Luca, close by, is a very precious Gothic door, rich in brickwork, of the thirteenth century; and in the foundations of the houses on the same side of the square, but at the other end of it, are traceable some shafts and arches closely resembling the work of the Cathedral of Murano, and evidently having once belonged to some most interesting building.
Lucia, Church of St. Of no importance.
M
Maddalena, Church of Sta. Maria. Of no importance.
Malipiero, Palazzo, on the Campo St. M. Formosa, facing the canal at its extremity. A very beautiful example of the Byzantine Renaissance. Note the management of color in its inlaid balconies.
Manfrini, Palazzo. The architecture is of no interest; and as it is in contemplation to allow the collection of pictures to be sold, I shall take no note of them. But even if they should remain, there are few of the churches in Venice where the traveller had not better spend his time than in this gallery; as, with the exception of Titian’s “Entombment,” one or two Giorgiones, and the little John Bellini (St. Jerome), the pictures are all of a kind which may be seen elsewhere.
Mangili Valmarana, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.
Manin, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of no importance.
Manzoni, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal, near the Church of the Carità. A perfect and very rich example of Byzantine Renaissance: its warm yellow marbles are magnificent.
Marcilian, Church of St. Said to contain a Titian, “Tobit and the Angel:” otherwise of no importance.
Maria, Churches of Sta. See Formosa, Mater Domini, Miracoli, Orto, Salute, and Zobenigo.
Marco, Scuola di San, [III. 16].
Mark, Church of St., history of, [II. 57]; approach to, [II. 71]; general teaching of, [II. 112], [116]; measures of façade of, [II. 126]; balustrades [II. 244], [247]; cornices of, [I. 311]; horseshoe arches of, [II. 249]; entrances of, [II. 271], [III. 245]; shafts of, [II. 384]; base in baptistery of, [I. 290]; mosaics in atrium of, [II. 112]; mosaics in cupola of, [II. 114], [III. 192]; lily capitals of, [II. 137]; Plates illustrative of (Vol. II.), [VI.] [VII.] figs. 9, 10, 11, [VIII.] figs. 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, [IX.] [XI.] fig. 1, and [Plate III.] Vol. III.
Mark, Square of St. (Piazza di San Marco), anciently a garden, [II. 58]; general effect of, [II. 66], [116]; plan of, [II. 282].
Martino, Church of St. Of no importance.
Mater Domini, Church of St. Maria. It contains two important pictures: one over the second altar on the right, “St. Christina,” by Vincenzo Catena, a very lovely example of the Venetian religious school; and, over the north transept door, the “Finding of the Cross,” by Tintoret, a carefully painted and attractive picture, but by no means a good specimen of the master, as far as regards power of conception. He does not seem to have entered into his subject. There is no wonder, no rapture, no entire devotion in any of the figures. They are only interested and pleased in a mild way; and the kneeling woman who hands the nails to a man stooping forward to receive them on the right hand, does so with the air of a person saying, “You had better take care of them; they may be wanted another time.” This general coldness in expression is much increased by the presence of several figures on the right and left, introduced for the sake of portraiture merely; and the reality, as well as the feeling, of the scene is destroyed by our seeing one of the youngest and weakest of the women with a huge cross lying across her knees, the whole weight of it resting upon her. As might have been expected, where the conception is so languid, the execution is little delighted in; it is throughout steady and powerful, but in no place affectionate, and in no place impetuous. If Tintoret had always painted in this way, he would have sunk into a mere mechanist. It is, however, a genuine and tolerably well preserved specimen, and its female figures are exceedingly graceful; that of St. Helena very queenly, though by no means agreeable in feature. Among the male portraits on the left there is one different from the usual types which occur either in Venetian paintings or Venetian populace; it is carefully painted, and more like a Scotch Presbyterian minister, than a Greek. The background is chiefly composed of architecture, white, remarkably uninteresting in color, and still more so in form. This is to be noticed as one of the unfortunate results of the Renaissance teaching at this period. Had Tintoret backed his Empress Helena with Byzantine architecture, the picture might have been one of the most gorgeous he ever painted.
Mater Domini, Campo di Sta. Maria, [II. 261]. A most interesting little piazza, surrounded by early Gothic houses, once of singular beauty; the arcade at its extremity, of fourth order windows, drawn in my folio work, is one of the earliest and loveliest of its kind in Venice; and in the houses at the side is a group of second order windows with their intermediate crosses, all complete, and well worth careful examination.
Michele in Isola, Church of St. On the island between Venice and Murano. The little Cappella Emiliana at the side of it has been much admired, but it would be difficult to find a building more feelingless or ridiculous. It is more like a German summer-house, or angle turret, than a chapel, and may be briefly described as a bee-hive set on a low hexagonal tower, with dashes of stone-work about its windows like the flourishes of an idle penman.
The cloister of this church is pretty; and the attached cemetery is worth entering, for the sake of feeling the strangeness of the quiet sleeping ground in the midst of the sea.
Michiel dalle Colonne, Palazzo. Of no importance.
Minelli, Palazzo. In the Corte del Maltese, at St. Paternian. It has a spiral external staircase, very picturesque, but of the fifteenth century and without merit.
Miracoli, Church of Sta. Maria dei. The most interesting and finished example in Venice of the Byzantine Renaissance, and one of the most important in Italy of the cinque-cento style. All its sculptures should be examined with great care, as the best possible examples of a bad style. Observe, for instance, that in spite of the beautiful work on the square pillars which support the gallery at the west end, they have no more architectural effect than two wooden posts. The same kind of failure in boldness of purpose exists throughout; and the building is, in fact, rather a small museum of unmeaning, though refined sculpture, than a piece of architecture.
Its grotesques are admirable examples of the base Raphaelesque design examined above, [III. 136]. Note especially the children’s heads tied up by the hair, in the lateral sculptures at the top of the altar steps. A rude workman, who could hardly have carved the head at all, might have allowed this or any other mode of expressing discontent with his own doings; but the man who could carve a child’s head so perfectly must have been wanting in all human feeling, to cut it off, and tie it by the hair to a vine leaf. Observe, in the Ducal Palace, though far ruder in skill, the heads always emerge from the leaves, they are never tied to them.
Misericordia, Church of. The church itself is nothing, and contains nothing worth the traveller’s time; but the Albergo de’ Confratelli della Misericordia at its side is a very interesting and beautiful relic of the Gothic Renaissance. Lazari says, “del secolo xiv.;” but I believe it to be later. Its traceries are very curious and rich, and the sculpture of its capitals very fine for the late time. Close to it, on the right-hand side of the canal which is crossed by the wooden bridge, is one of the richest Gothic doors in Venice, remarkable for the appearance of antiquity in the general design and stiffness of its figures, though it bears its date 1505. Its extravagant crockets are almost the only features which, but for this written date, would at first have confessed its lateness; but, on examination, the figures will be found as bad and spiritless as they are apparently archaic, and completely exhibiting the Renaissance palsy of imagination.
The general effect is, however, excellent, the whole arrangement having been borrowed from earlier work.
The action of the statue of the Madonna, who extends her robe to shelter a group of diminutive figures, representative of the Society for whose house the sculpture was executed, may be also seen in most of the later Venetian figures of the Virgin which occupy similar situations. The image of Christ is placed in a medallion on her breast, thus fully, though conventionally, expressing the idea of self-support which is so often partially indicated by the great religious painters in their representations of the infant Jesus.
Moisè, Church of St., [III. 124]. Notable as one of the basest examples of the basest school of the Renaissance. It contains one important picture, namely “Christ washing the Disciples’ Feet,” by Tintoret; on the left side of the chapel, north of the choir. This picture has been originally dark, is now much faded—in parts, I believe, altogether destroyed—and is hung in the worst light of a chapel, where, on a sunny day at noon, one could not easily read without a candle. I cannot, therefore, give much information respecting it; but it is certainly one of the least successful of the painter’s works, and both careless and unsatisfactory in its composition as well as its color. One circumstance is noticeable, as in a considerable degree detracting from the interest of most of Tintoret’s representations of our Saviour with his disciples. He never loses sight of the fact that all were poor, and the latter ignorant; and while he never paints a senator, or a saint once thoroughly canonized, except as a gentleman, he is very careful to paint the Apostles, in their living intercourse with the Saviour, in such a manner that the spectator may see in an instant, as the Pharisee did of old, that they were unlearned and ignorant men; and, whenever we find them in a room, it is always such a one as would be inhabited by the lower classes. There seems some violation of this practice in the dais, or flight of steps, at the top of which the Saviour is placed in the present picture; but we are quickly reminded that the guests’ chamber or upper room ready prepared was not likely to have been in a palace, by the humble furniture upon the floor, consisting of a tub with a copper saucepan in it, a coffee-pot, and a pair of bellows, curiously associated with a symbolic cup with a wafer, which, however, is in an injured part of the canvas, and may have been added by the priests. I am totally unable to state what the background of the picture is or has been; and the only point farther to be noted about it is the solemnity, which, in spite of the familiar and homely circumstances above noticed, the painter has given to the scene, by placing the Saviour, in the act of washing the feet of Peter, at the top of a circle of steps, on which the other Apostles kneel in adoration and astonishment.
Moro, Palazzo. See Othello.
Morosini, Palazzo, near the Ponte dell’ Ospedaletto, at San Giovannie Paolo. Outside it is not interesting, though the gateway shows remains of brickwork of the thirteenth century. Its interior court is singularly beautiful; the staircase of early fourteenth century Gothic has originally been superb, and the window in the angle above is the most perfect that I know in Venice of the kind; the lightly sculptured coronet is exquisitely introduced at the top of its spiral shaft.
This palace still belongs to the Morosini family, to whose present representative, the Count Carlo Morosini, the reader is indebted for the note on the character of his ancestors, above, [III. 213].
Morosini, Palazzo, at St. Stefano. Of no importance.
N
Nani-Mocenigo, palazzo. (Now Hotel Danieli.) A glorious example of the central Gothic, nearly contemporary with the finest part of the Ducal Palace. Though less impressive in effect than the Casa Foscari or Casa Bernardo, it is of purer architecture than either: and quite unique in the delicacy of the form of the cusps in the central group of windows, which are shaped like broad scimitars, the upper foil of the windows being very small. If the traveller will compare these windows with the neighboring traceries of the Ducal Palace, he will easily perceive the peculiarity.
Nicolo del Lido, Church of St. Of no importance.
Nome di Gesu, Church of the. Of no importance.
O
Orfani, Church of the. Of no importance.
Orto, Church of Sta. Maria, dell’. An interesting example of Renaissance Gothic, the traceries of the windows being very rich and quaint.
It contains four most important Tintorets: “The Last Judgment,” “The Worship of the Golden Calf,” “The Presentation of the Virgin,” and “Martyrdom of St. Agnes.” The first two are among his largest and mightiest works, but grievously injured by damp and neglect; and unless the traveller is accustomed to decipher the thoughts in a picture patiently, he need not hope to derive any pleasure from them. But no pictures will better reward a resolute study. The following account of the “Last Judgment,” given in the second volume of “Modern Painters,” will be useful in enabling the traveller to enter into the meaning of the picture, but its real power is only to be felt by patient examination of it.
“By Tintoret only has this unimaginable event (the Last Judgment) been grappled with in its Verity; not typically nor symbolically, but as they may see it who shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he has received, with Dante and Michael Angelo, the Boat of the Condemned; but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this image; he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at the sweeping blow and demon dragging of the other, but, seized Hylas like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the victim is dashed into his destruction; nor is it the sluggish Lethe, nor the fiery lake, that bears the cursed vessel, but the oceans of the earth and the waters of the firmament gathered into one white, ghastly cataract; the river of the wrath of God, roaring down into the gulf where the world has melted with its fervent heat, choked with the ruins of nations, and the limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling, like water-wheels. Bat-like, out of the holes and caverns and shadows of the earth, the bones gather, and the clay heaps heave, rattling and adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, like his of old who went his way unseeing to the Siloam Pool; shaking off one by one the dreams of the prison-house, hardly hearing the clangor of the trumpets of the armies of God, blinded yet more, as they awake, by the white light of the new Heaven, until the great vortex of the four winds bears up their bodies to the judgment seat; the Firmament is all full of them, a very dust of human souls, that drifts, and floats, and falls into the interminable, inevitable light; the bright clouds are darkened with them as with thick snow, currents of atom life in the arteries of heaven, now soaring up slowly, and higher and higher still, till the eye and the thought can follow no farther, borne up, wingless, by their inward faith and by the angel powers invisible, now hurled in countless drifts of horror before the breath of their condemnation.”
Note in the opposite picture the way the clouds are wrapped about in the distant Sinai.
The figure of the little Madonna in the “Presentation” should be compared with Titian’s in his picture of the same subject in the Academy. I prefer Tintoret’s infinitely: and note how much finer is the feeling with which Tintoret has relieved the glory round her head against the pure sky, than that which influenced Titian in encumbering his distance with architecture.
The “Martyrdom of St. Agnes” was a lovely picture. It has been “restored” since I saw it.
Ospedaletto, Church of the. The most monstrous example of the Grotesque Renaissance which there is in Venice; the sculptures on its façade representing masses of diseased figures and swollen fruit.
It is almost worth devoting an hour to the successive examination of five buildings, as illustrative of the last degradation of the Renaissance. San Moisè is the most clumsy, Santa Maria Zobenigo the most impious, St. Eustachio the most ridiculous, the Ospedaletto the most monstrous, and the head at Santa Maria Formosa the most foul.
Othello, House of, at the Carmini. The researches of Mr. Brown into the origin of the play of “Othello” have, I think, determined that Shakspeare wrote on definite historical grounds; and that Othello may be in many points identified with Christopher Moro, the lieutenant of the republic at Cyprus, in 1508. See “Ragguagli su Maria Sanuto,” i. 252.
His palace was standing till very lately, a Gothic building of the fourteenth century, of which Mr. Brown possesses a drawing. It is now destroyed, and a modern square-windowed house built on its site. A statue, said to be a portrait of Moro, but a most paltry work, is set in a niche in the modern wall.
P
Pantaleone, Church of St. Said to contain a Paul Veronese; otherwise of no importance.
Paternian, Church of St. Its little leaning tower forms an interesting object as the traveller sees it from the narrow canal which passes beneath the Porte San Paternian. The two arched lights of the belfry appear of very early workmanship, probably of the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Pesaro Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. The most powerful and impressive in effect of all the palaces of the Grotesque Renaissance. The heads upon its foundation are very characteristic of the period, but there is more genius in them than usual. Some of the mingled expressions of faces and grinning casques are very clever.
Piazzetta, pillars of, see Final Appendix under head “Capital.” The two magnificent blocks of marble brought from St. Jean d’Acre, which form one of the principal ornaments of the Piazzetta, are Greek sculpture of the sixth century, and will be described in my folio work.
Pieta, Church of the. Of no importance.
Pietro, Church of St., at Murano. Its pictures, once valuable, are now hardly worth examination, having been spoiled by neglect.
Pietro, Di Castello, Church of St., [I. 7], [361]. It is said to contain a Paul Veronese, and I suppose the so-called “Chair of St. Peter” must be worth examining.
Pisani, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. The latest Venetian Gothic, just passing into Renaissance. The capitals of the first floor windows are, however, singularly spirited and graceful, very daringly under-cut, and worth careful examination. The Paul Veronese, once the glory of this palace, is, I believe, not likely to remain in Venice. The other picture in the same room, the “Death of Darius,” is of no value.
Pisani, Palazzo, at St. Stefano. Late Renaissance, and of no merit, but grand in its colossal proportions, especially when seen from the narrow canal at its side, which terminated by the apse of the Church of San Stefano, is one of the most picturesque and impressive little pieces of water scenery in Venice.
Polo, Church of St. Of no importance, except as an example of the advantages accruing from restoration. M. Lazari says of it, “Before this church was modernized, its principal chapel was adorned with Mosaics, and possessed a pala of silver gilt, of Byzantine workmanship, which is now lost.”
Polo, Square of St. (Campo San Polo.) A large and important square, rendered interesting chiefly by three palaces on the side of it opposite the church, of central Gothic (1360), and fine of their time, though small. One of their capitals has been given in [Plate II.] of this volume, fig. 12. They are remarkable as being decorated with sculptures of the Gothic time, in imitation of Byzantine ones; the period being marked by the dog-tooth and cable being used instead of the dentil round the circles.
Polo, Palazzo, at San G. Grisostomo (the house of Marco Polo), II. 139. Its interior court is full of interest, showing fragments of the old building in every direction, cornices, windows, and doors, of almost every period, mingled among modern rebuilding and restoration of all degrees of dignity.
Porta Della Carta, [II. 302].
Priuli, Palazzo. A most important and beautiful early Gothic Palace, at San Severo; the main entrance is from the Fundamento San Severo, but the principal façade is on the other side, towards the canal. The entrance has been grievously defaced, having had winged lions filling the spandrils of its pointed arch, of which only feeble traces are now left, the façade has very early fourth order windows in the lower story, and above, the beautiful range of fifth order windows drawn at the bottom of [Plate XVIII.] Vol. II., where the heads of the fourth order range are also seen (note their inequality, the larger one at the flank). This Palace has two most interesting traceried angle windows also, which, however, I believe are later than those on the façade; and finally, a rich and bold interior staircase.
Procuratie Nuove, see “Libreria” Vecchia: A graceful series buildings, of late fifteenth century design, forming the northern side of St. Mark’s Place, but of no particular interest.
Q
Querini, Palazzo, now the Beccherie, [II. 255], [III. 234].
R
Raffaelle, Chiesa dell’Angelo. Said to contain a Bonifazio, otherwise of no importance.
Redentore, Church of the, [II. 378]. It contains three interesting John Bellinis, and also, in the sacristy, a most beautiful Paul Veronese.
Remer, Corte del, house in. [II. 251].
Rezzonico, Palazzo, on the Grand Canal. Of the Grotesque Renaissance time, but less extravagant than usual.
Rialto, Bridge of the. The best building raised in the time of the Grotesque Renaissance; very noble in its simplicity, in its proportions, and in its masonry. Note especially the grand way in which the oblique archstones rest on the butments of the bridge, safe, palpably both to the sense and eye: note also the sculpture of the Annunciation on the southern side of it; how beautifully arranged, so as to give more lightness and a grace to the arch—the dove, flying towards the Madonna, forming the keystone,—and thus the whole action of the figures being parallel to the curve of the arch, while all the masonry is at right angles to it. Note, finally, one circumstance which gives peculiar firmness to the figure of the angel, and associates itself with the general expression of strength in the whole building; namely that the sole of the advanced foot is set perfectly level, as if placed on the ground, instead of being thrown back behind like a heron’s, as in most modern figures of this kind.
The sculptures themselves are not good; but these pieces of feeling in them are very admirable. The two figures on the other side, St. Mark and St. Theodore, are inferior, though all by the same sculptor, Girolamo Campagna.
The bridge was built by Antonio da Ponte, in 1588. It was anciently of wood, with a drawbridge in the centre, a representation of which may be seen in one of Carpaccio’s pictures at the Accademia delle Belle Arti: and the traveller should observe that the interesting effect, both of this and the Bridge of Sighs, depends in great part on their both being more than bridges; the one a covered passage, the other a row of shops, sustained on an arch. No such effect can be produced merely by the masonry of the roadway itself.
Rio del Palazzo, [II. 282].
Rocco, Campiello di San, windows in, [II. 258].
Rocco, Church of St. Notable only for the most interesting pictures by Tintoret which it contains, namely:
1. San Rocco before the Pope. (On the left of the door as we enter.) A delightful picture in his best manner, but not much labored; and, like several other pictures in this church, it seems to me to have been executed at some period of the painter’s life when he was either in ill health, or else had got into a mechanical way of painting, from having made too little reference to nature for a long time. There is something stiff and forced in the white draperies on both sides, and a general character about the whole which I can feel better than I can describe; but which, if I had been the painter’s physician, would have immediately caused me to order him to shut up his painting-room, and take a voyage to the Levant, and back again. The figure of the Pope is, however, extremely beautiful, and is not unworthy, in its jewelled magnificence, here dark against the sky, of comparison with the figure of the high priest in the “Presentation,” in the Scuola di San Rocco.
2. Annunciation. (On the other side of the door, on entering.) A most disagreeable and dead picture, having all the faults of the age, and none of the merits of the painter. It must be a matter of future investigation to me, what could cause the fall of his mind from a conception so great and so fiery as that of the “Annunciation” in the Scuola di San Rocco, to this miserable reprint of an idea worn out centuries before. One of the most inconceivable things in it, considered as the work of Tintoret, is that where the angel’s robe drifts away behind his limb, one cannot tell by the character of the outline, or by the tones of the color, whether the cloud comes in before the robe, or whether the robe cuts upon the cloud. The Virgin is uglier than that of the Scuola, and not half so real; and the draperies are crumpled in the most commonplace and ignoble folds. It is a picture well worth study, as an example of the extent to which the greatest mind may be betrayed by the abuse of its powers, and the neglect of its proper food in the study of nature.
3. Pool of Bethesda. (On the right side of the church, in its centre, the lowest of the two pictures which occupy the wall.) A noble work, but eminently disagreeable, as must be all pictures of this subject; and with the same character in it of undefinable want, which I have noticed in the two preceding works. The main figure in it is the cripple, who has taken up his bed; but the whole effect of this action is lost by his not turning to Christ, but flinging it on his shoulder like a triumphant porter with a huge load; and the corrupt Renaissance architecture, among which the figures are crowded, is both ugly in itself, and much too small for them. It is worth noticing, for the benefit of persons who find fault with the perspective of the Pre-Raphaelites, that the perspective of the brackets beneath these pillars is utterly absurd; and that, in fine, the presence or absence of perspective has nothing to do with the merits of a great picture: not that the perspective of the Pre-Raphaelites is false in any case that I have examined, the objection being just as untenable as it is ridiculous.
4. San Rocco in the Desert. (Above the last-named picture.) A single recumbent figure in a not very interesting landscape, deserving less attention than a picture of St. Martin just opposite to it,—a noble and knightly figure on horseback by Pordenone, to which I cannot pay a greater compliment than by saying that I was a considerable time in doubt whether or not it was another Tintoret.
5. San Rocco in the Hospital. (On the right-hand side of the altar.) There are four vast pictures by Tintoret in the dark choir of this church, not only important by their size (each being some twenty-five feet long by ten feet high), but also elaborate compositions; and remarkable, one for its extraordinary landscape, and the other as the most studied picture in which the painter has introduced horses in violent action. In order to show what waste of human mind there is in these dark churches of Venice, it is worth recording that, as I was examining these pictures, there came in a party of eighteen German tourists, not hurried, nor jesting among themselves as large parties often do, but patiently submitting to their cicerone, and evidently desirous of doing their duty as intelligent travellers. They sat down for a long time on the benches of the nave, looked a little at the “Pool of Bethesda,” walked up into the choir and there heard a lecture of considerable length from their valet-de-place upon some subject connected with the altar itself, which, being in German, I did not understand; they then turned and went slowly out of the church, not one of the whole eighteen ever giving a single glance to any of the four Tintorets, and only one of them, as far as I saw, even raising his eyes to the walls on which they hung, and immediately withdrawing them, with a jaded and nonchalant expression easily interpretable into “Nothing but old black pictures.” The two Tintorets above noticed, at the end of the church, were passed also without a glance; and this neglect is not because the pictures have nothing in them capable of arresting the popular mind, but simply because they are totally in the dark, or confused among easier and more prominent objects of attention. This picture, which I have called “St. Rocco in the Hospital,” shows him, I suppose, in his general ministrations at such places, and is one of the usual representations of a disgusting subject from which neither Orcagna nor Tintoret seems ever to have shrunk. It is a very noble picture, carefully composed and highly wrought; but to me gives no pleasure, first, on account of its subject, secondly, on account of its dull brown tone all over,—it being impossible, or nearly so, in such a scene, and at all events inconsistent with its feeling, to introduce vivid color of any kind. So it is a brown study of diseased limbs in a close room.
6. Cattle Piece. (Above the picture last described.) I can give no other name to this picture, whose subject I can neither guess nor discover, the picture being in the dark, and the guide-books leaving me in the same position. All I can make out of it is, that there is a noble landscape with cattle and figures. It seems to me the best landscape of Tintoret’s in Venice, except the “Flight into Egypt;” and is even still more interesting from its savage character, the principal trees being pines, something like Titian’s in his “St. Francis receiving the Stigmata,” and chestnuts on the slopes and in the hollows of the hills; the animals also seem first-rate. But it is too high, too much faded, and too much in the dark to be made out. It seems never to have been rich in color, rather cool and grey, and very full of light.
7. Finding of Body of San Rocco. (On the left-hand side of the altar.) An elaborate, but somewhat confused picture, with a flying angel in a blue drapery; but it seemed to me altogether uninteresting, or perhaps requiring more study than I was able to give it.
8. San Rocco in Campo d’ Armata. So this picture is called by the sacristan. I could see no San Rocco in it; nothing but a wild group of horses and warriors in the most magnificent confusion of fall and flight ever painted by man. They seem all dashed different ways as if by a whirlwind; and a whirlwind there must be, or a thunderbolt, behind them, for a huge tree is torn up and hurled into the air beyond the central figure, as if it were a shivered lance. Two of the horses meet in the midst, as if in a tournament; but in madness of fear, not in hostility; on the horse to the right is a standard-bearer, who stoops as from some foe behind him, with the lance laid across his saddle-bow, level, and the flag stretched out behind him as he flies, like the sail of a ship drifting from its mast; the central horseman, who meets the shock, of storm, or enemy, whatever it be, is hurled backwards from his seat, like a stone from a sling; and this figure with the shattered tree trunk behind it, is the most noble part of the picture. There is another grand horse on the right, however, also in full action. Two gigantic figures on foot, on the left, meant to be nearer than the others, would, it seems to me, have injured the picture, had they been clearly visible; but time has reduced them to perfect subordination.
Rocco, Scuola di San, bases of, [I. 291], [431]; soffit ornaments of, I. 337. An interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing into Roman Renaissance. The wreaths of leafage about its shafts are wonderfully delicate and fine, though misplaced.
As regards the pictures which it contains, it is one of the three most precious buildings in Italy; buildings, I mean, consistently decorated with a series of paintings at the time of their erection, and still exhibiting that series in its original order. I suppose there can be little question, but that the three most important edifices of this kind in Italy are the Sistine Chapel, the Campo Santo of Pisa, and the Scuola di San Rocco at Venice: the first is painted by Michael Angelo; the second by Orcagna, Benozzo Gozzoli, Pietro Laurati, and several other men whose works are as rare as they are precious; and the third by Tintoret.
Whatever the traveller may miss in Venice, he should therefore give unembarrassed attention and unbroken time to the Scuola di San Rocco; and I shall, accordingly, number the pictures, and note in them, one by one, what seemed to me most worthy of observation.
There are sixty-two in all, but eight of these are merely of children or children’s heads, and two of unimportant figures. The number of valuable pictures is fifty-two; arranged on the walls and ceilings of three rooms, so badly lighted, in consequence of the admirable arrangements of the Renaissance architect, that it is only in the early morning that some of the pictures can be seen at all, nor can they ever be seen but imperfectly. They were all painted, however, for their places in the dark, and, as compared with Tintoret’s other works, are therefore, for the most part, nothing more than vast sketches, made to produce, under a certain degree of shadow, the effect of finished pictures. Their treatment is thus to be considered as a kind of scene-painting; differing from ordinary scene-painting only in this, that the effect aimed at is not that of a natural scene but a perfect picture. They differ in this respect from all other existing works; for there is not, as far as I know, any other instance in which a great master has consented to work for a room plunged into almost total obscurity. It is probable that none but Tintoret would have undertaken the task, and most fortunate that he was forced to it. For in this magnificent scene-painting we have, of course, more wonderful examples, both of his handling, and knowledge of effect, than could ever have been exhibited in finished pictures; while the necessity of doing much with few strokes keeps his mind so completely on the stretch throughout the work (while yet the velocity of production prevented his being wearied), that no other series of his works exhibits powers so exalted. On the other hand, owing to the velocity and coarseness of the painting, it is more liable to injury through drought or damp; and, as the walls have been for years continually running down with rain, and what little sun gets into the place contrives to fall all day right on one or other of the pictures, they are nothing but wrecks of what they were; and the ruins of paintings originally coarse are not likely ever to be attractive to the public mind. Twenty or thirty years ago they were taken down to be retouched; but the man to whom the task was committed providentially died, and only one of them was spoiled. I have found traces of his work upon another, but not to an extent very seriously destructive. The rest of the sixty-two, or, at any rate, all that are in the upper room, appear entirely intact.
Although, as compared with his other works, they are all very scenic in execution, there are great differences in their degrees of finish; and, curiously enough, some on the ceilings and others in the darkest places in the lower room are very nearly finished pictures, while the “Agony in the Garden,” which is in one of the best lights in the upper room, appears to have been painted in a couple of hours with a broom for a brush.
For the traveller’s greater convenience, I shall give a rude plan of the arrangement, and list of the subjects, of each group of pictures before examining them in detail.
First Group. On the walls of the room on the ground floor.
1. Annunciation. 2. Adoration of Magi. 3. Flight into Egypt. 4. Massacre of Innocents. | 5. The Magdalen. 6. St. Mary of Egypt. 7. Circumcision. 8. Assumption of Virgin. |
| At the turn of the stairs leading to the upper room: | |
| 9. Visitation. | |
1. The Annunciation. This, which first strikes the eye, is a very just representative of the whole group, the execution being carried to the utmost limits of boldness consistent with completion. It is a well-known picture, and need not therefore be specially described, but one or two points in it require notice. The face of the Virgin is very disagreeable to the spectator from below, giving the idea of a woman about thirty, who had never been handsome. If the face is untouched, it is the only instance I have ever seen of Tintoret’s failing in an intended effect, for, when seen near, the face is comely and youthful, and expresses only surprise, instead of the pain and fear of which it bears the aspect in the distance. I could not get near enough to see whether it had been retouched. It looks like Tintoret’s work, though rather hard; but, as there are unquestionable marks in the retouching of this picture, it is possible that some slight restoration of lines supposed to be faded, entirely alter the distant expression of the face. One of the evident pieces of repainting is the scarlet of the Madonna’s lap, which is heavy and lifeless. A far more injurious one is the strip of sky seen through the doorway by which the angel enters, which has originally been of the deep golden color of the distance on the left, and which the blundering restorer has daubed over with whitish blue, so that it looks like a bit of the wall; luckily he has not touched the outlines of the angel’s black wings, on which the whole expression of the picture depends. This angel and the group of small cherubs above form a great swinging chain, of which the dove representing the Holy Spirit forms the bend. The angels in their flight seem to be attached to this as the train of fire is to a rocket; all of them appearing to have swooped down with the swiftness of a falling star.
2. Adoration of the Magi. The most finished picture in the Scuola, except the “Crucifixion,” and perhaps the most delightful of the whole. It unites every source of pleasure that a picture can possess: the highest elevation of principal subject, mixed with the lowest detail of picturesque incident; the dignity of the highest ranks of men, opposed to the simplicity of the lowest; the quietness and serenity of an incident in cottage life, contrasted with the turbulence of troops of horsemen and the spiritual power of angels. The placing of the two doves as principal points of light in the front of the picture, in order to remind the spectator of the poverty of the mother whose child is receiving the offerings and adoration of three monarchs, is one of Tintoret’s master touches; the whole scene, indeed, is conceived in his happiest manner. Nothing can be at once more humble or more dignified than the bearing of the kings; and there is a sweet reality given to the whole incident by the Madonna’s stooping forward and lifting her hand in admiration of the vase of gold which has been set before the Christ, though she does so with such gentleness and quietness that her dignity is not in the least injured by the simplicity of the action. As if to illustrate the means by which the Wise men were brought from the East, the whole picture is nothing but a large star, of which Christ is the centre; all the figures, even the timbers of the roof, radiate from the small bright figure on which the countenances of the flying angels are bent, the star itself, gleaming through the timbers above, being quite subordinate. The composition would almost be too artificial were it not broken by the luminous distance where the troop of horsemen are waiting for the kings. These, with a dog running at full speed, at once interrupt the symmetry of the lines, and form a point of relief from the over concentration of all the rest of the action.
3. Flight into Egypt. One of the principal figures here is the donkey. I have never seen any of the nobler animals—lion, or leopard, or horse, or dragon—made so sublime as this quiet head of the domestic ass, chiefly owing to the grand motion in the nostril and writhing in the ears. The space of the picture is chiefly occupied by lovely landscape, and the Madonna and St. Joseph are pacing their way along a shady path upon the banks of a river at the side of the picture. I had not any conception, until I got near, how much pains had been taken with the Virgin’s head; its expression is as sweet and as intense as that of any of Raffaelle’s, its reality far greater. The painter seems to have intended that everything should be subordinate to the beauty of this single head; and the work is a wonderful proof of the way in which a vast field of canvas may be made conducive to the interest of a single figure. This is partly accomplished by slightness of painting, so that on close examination, while there is everything to astonish in the masterly handling and purpose, there is not much perfect or very delightful painting; in fact, the two figures are treated like the living figures in a scene at the theatre, and finished to perfection, while the landscape is painted as hastily as the scenes, and with the same kind of opaque size color. It has, however, suffered as much as any of the series, and it is hardly fair to judge of its tones and colors in its present state.
4. Massacre of the Innocents. The following account of this picture, given in “Modern Painters,” may be useful to the traveller, and is therefore here repeated. “I have before alluded to the painfulness of Raffaelle’s treatment of the Massacre of the Innocents. Fuseli affirms of it, that, ‘in dramatic gradation he disclosed all the mother through every image of pity and terror.’ If this be so, I think the philosophical spirit has prevailed over the imaginative. The imagination never errs; it sees all that is, and all the relations and bearings of it; but it would not have confused the mortal frenzy of maternal terror, with various development of maternal character. Fear, rage, and agony, at their utmost pitch, sweep away all character: humanity itself would be lost in maternity, the woman would become the mere personification of animal fury or fear. For this reason all the ordinary representations of this subject are, I think, false and cold: the artist has not heard the shrieks, nor mingled with the fugitives; he has sat down in his study to convulse features methodically, and philosophize over insanity. Not so Tintoret. Knowing, or feeling, that the expression of the human face was, in such circumstances, not to be rendered, and that the effort could only end in an ugly falsehood, he denies himself all aid from the features, he feels that if he is to place himself or us in the midst of that maddened multitude, there can be no time allowed for watching expression. Still less does he depend on details of murder or ghastliness of death; there is no blood, no stabbing or cutting, but there is an awful substitute for these in the chiaroscuro. The scene is the outer vestibule of a palace, the slippery marble floor is fearfully barred across by sanguine shadows, so that our eyes seem to become bloodshot and strained with strange horror and deadly vision; a lake of life before them, like the burning seen of the doomed Moabite on the water that came by the way of Edom: a huge flight of stairs, without parapet, descends on the left; down this rush a crowd of women mixed with the murderers; the child in the arms of one has been seized by the limbs, she hurls herself over the edge, and falls head downmost, dragging the child out of the grasp by her weight;—she will be dashed dead in a second:—close to us is the great struggle; a heap of the mothers, entangled in one mortal writhe with each other and the swords; one of the murderers dashed down and crushed beneath them, the sword of another caught by the blade and dragged at by a woman’s naked hand; the youngest and fairest of the women, her child just torn away from a death grasp, and clasped to her breast with the grip of a steel vice, falls backwards, helpless over the heap, right on the sword points; all knit together and hurled down in one hopeless, frenzied, furious abandonment of body and soul in the effort to save. Far back, at the bottom of the stairs, there is something in the shadow like a heap of clothes. It is a woman, sitting quiet,—quite quiet,—still as any stone; she looks down steadfastly on her dead child, laid along on the floor before her, and her hand is pressed softly upon her brow.”
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.
Second Group. On the walls of the upper room.
| 10. Adoration of Shepherds. 11. Baptism. 12. Resurrection. 13. Agony in Garden. 14. Last Supper. 15. Altar Piece: St. Rocco. 16. Miracle of Loaves. | 17. Resurrection of Lazarus. 18. Ascension. 19. Pool of Bethesda. 20. Temptation. 21. St. Rocco. 22. St. Sebastian. |
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.
Third Group. On the roof of the upper room.
| 23. Moses striking the Rock. 24. Plague of Serpents. 25. Fall of Manna. 26. Jacob’s Dream. 27. Ezekiel’s Vision. 28. Fall of Man. 29. Elijah. | 30. Jonah. 31. Joshua. 32. Sacrifice of Isaac. 33. Elijah at the Brook. 34. Paschal Feast. 35. Elisha feeding the People. |
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.
Fourth Group. Inner room on the upper floor.
| On the Roof. | |
36 to 39. Children’s Heads. 40. St. Rocco in Heaven. | 41 to 44. Children. 45 to 56. Allegorical Figures. |
| On the Walls. | |
57. Figure in Niche. 58. Figure in Niche. 59. Christ before Pilate. | 60. Ecce Homo. 61. Christ bearing his Cross. 62. Crucifixion. |
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 façade 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.] § 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.
| “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.
|
Transcriber's Note:
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