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.