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.