Titian by a few strokes of the brush knew how to make the general image and character of whatever object he attempted. His great care was to preserve the masses of light and of shade, and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable from natural objects. He was the greatest of the Venetians, and deserves to rank with Raphael and Michelangelo.
—Sir Joshua Reynolds
TITIAN
The march of progress and the rage for improvement make small impression on Venice. The cabmen have not protested against horsecars as they did in Rome, tearing up the tracks, mobbing the drivers, and threatening the passengers; neither has the cable superseded horses as a motor power, and the trolley then rendered the cable obsolete.
In short, there never was a horse in Venice, save those bronze ones over the entrance to Saint Mark's, and the one Napoleon rode to the top of the Campanile. But there are lions in Venice—stone lions—you see them at every turn. "Did you ever see a live horse?" asked a ten-year-old boy of me, in Saint Mark's Square.
"Yes," said I; "several times."
"Are they fierce?" he asked after a thoughtful pause. And then I explained that a thousand times as many men are killed by horses every year as by lions.