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.