§ LVII. Let us now return to Venice, where, in the second chapel counting from right to left, at the west end of the Church of the Frari, there is a very early fourteenth, or perhaps late thirteenth, century tomb, another exquisite example of the perfect Gothic form. It is a knight’s; but there is no inscription upon it, and his name is unknown. It consists of a sarcophagus, supported on bold brackets against the chapel wall, bearing the recumbent figure, protected by a simple canopy in the form of a pointed arch, pinnacled by the knight’s crest; beneath which the shadowy space is painted dark blue, and strewn with stars. The statue itself is rudely carved; but its lines, as seen from the intended distance, are both tender and masterly. The knight is laid in his mail, only the hands and face being bare. The hauberk and helmet are of chain-mail, the armor for the limbs of jointed steel; a tunic, fitting close to the breast, and marking the noble swell of it by two narrow embroidered lines, is worn over the mail; his dagger is at his right side; his long cross-belted sword, not seen by the spectator from below, at his left. His feet rest on a hound (the hound being his crest), which looks up towards its master. In general, in tombs of this kind, the face of the statue is slightly turned towards the spectator; in this monument, on the contrary, it is turned away from him, towards the depth of the arch: for there, just above the warrior’s breast, is carved a small image of St. Joseph bearing the infant Christ, who looks down upon the resting figure; and to this image its countenance is turned. The appearance of the entire tomb is as if the warrior had seen the vision of Christ in his dying moments, and had fallen back peacefully upon his pillow, with his eyes still turned to it, and his hands clasped in prayer.
§ LVIII. On the opposite side of this chapel is another very lovely tomb, to Duccio degli Alberti, a Florentine ambassador at Venice; noticeable chiefly as being the first in Venice on which any images of the Virtues appear. We shall return to it presently, but some account must first be given of the more important among the other tombs in Venice belonging to the perfect period. Of these, by far the most interesting, though not the most elaborate, is that of the great Doge Francesco Dandolo, whose ashes, it might have been thought, were honorable enough to have been permitted to rest undisturbed in the chapter-house of the Frari, where they were first laid. But, as if there were not room enough, nor waste houses enough in the desolate city to receive a few convent papers, the monks, wanting an “archivio,” have separated the tomb into three pieces: the canopy, a simple arch sustained on brackets, still remains on the blank walls of the desecrated chamber; the sarcophagus has been transported to a kind of museum of antiquities, established in what was once the cloister of Santa Maria della Salute; and the painting which filled the lunette behind it is hung far out of sight, at one end of the sacristy of the same church. The sarcophagus is completely charged with bas-reliefs: at its two extremities are the types of St. Mark and St. John; in front, a noble sculpture of the death of the Virgin; at the angles, angels holding vases. The whole space is occupied by the sculpture; there are no spiral shafts or panelled divisions; only a basic plinth below, and crowning plinth above, the sculpture being raised from a deep concave field between the two, but, in order to give piquancy and picturesqueness to the mass of figures, two small trees are introduced at the head and foot of the Madonna’s couch, an oak and a stone pine.
§ LIX. It was said above,[17] in speaking of the frequent disputes of the Venetians with the Pontifical power, which in their early days they had so strenuously supported, that “the humiliation of Francesco Dandolo blotted out the shame of Barbarossa.” It is indeed well that the two events should be remembered together. By the help of the Venetians, Alexander III. was enabled, in the twelfth century, to put his foot upon the neck of the emperor Barbarossa, quoting the words of the Psalm, “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder.” A hundred and fifty years later, the Venetian ambassador, Francesco Dandolo, unable to obtain even an audience from the Pope, Clement V., to whom he had been sent to pray for a removal of the sentence of excommunication pronounced against the republic, concealed himself (according to the common tradition) beneath the Pontiff’s dining-table; and thence coming out as he sat down to meat, embraced his feet, and obtained, by tearful entreaties, the removal of the terrible sentence.
I say, “according to the common tradition;” for there are some doubts cast upon the story by its supplement. Most of the Venetian historians assert that Francesco Dandolo’s surname of “Dog” was given him first on this occasion, in insult, by the cardinals; and that the Venetians, in remembrance of the grace which his humiliation had won for them, made it a title of honor to him and to his race. It has, however, been proved[18] that the surname was borne by the ancestors of Francesco Dandolo long before; and the falsity of this seal of the legend renders also its circumstances doubtful. But the main fact of grievous humiliation having been undergone, admits of no dispute; the existence of such a tradition at all is in itself a proof of its truth; it was not one likely to be either invented or received without foundation: and it will be well, therefore, that the reader should remember, in connection with the treatment of Barbarossa at the door of the Church of St. Mark’s, that in the Vatican, one hundred and fifty years later, a Venetian noble, a future Doge, submitted to a degradation, of which the current report among his people was, that he had crept on his hands and knees from beneath the Pontiff’s table to his feet, and had been spurned as a “dog” by the cardinals present.
§ LX. There are two principal conclusions to be drawn from this: the obvious one respecting the insolence of the Papal dominion in the thirteenth century; the second, that there were probably most deep piety and humility in the character of the man who could submit to this insolence for the sake of a benefit to his country. Probably no motive would have been strong enough to obtain such a sacrifice from most men, however unselfish; but it was, without doubt, made easier to Dandolo by his profound reverence for the Pontifical office; a reverence which, however we may now esteem those who claimed it, could not but have been felt by nearly all good and faithful men at the time of which we are speaking. This is the main point which I wish the reader to remember as we look at his tomb, this, and the result of it,—that, some years afterwards, when he was seated on the throne which his piety had saved, “there were sixty princes’ ambassadors in Venice at the same time, requesting the judgment of the Senate on matters of various concernment, so great was the fame of the uncorrupted justice of the Fathers.”[19]
Observe, there are no virtues on this tomb. Nothing but religious history or symbols; the Death of the Virgin in front, and the types of St. Mark and St. John at the extremities.
§ LXI. Of the tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, in St. Mark’s, I have spoken before. It is one of the first in Venice which presents, in a canopy, the Pisan idea of angels withdrawing curtains, as of a couch, to look down upon the dead. The sarcophagus is richly decorated with flower-work; the usual figures of the Annunciation are at the sides; an enthroned Madonna in the centre; and two bas-reliefs, one of the martyrdom of the Doge’s patron saint, St. Andrew, occupy the intermediate spaces. All these tombs have been richly colored; the hair of the angels has here been gilded, their wings bedropped with silver, and their garments covered with the most exquisite arabesques. This tomb, and that of St. Isidore in another chapel of St. Mark’s, which was begun by this very Doge, Andrea Dandolo, and completed after his death in 1354, are both nearly alike in their treatment, and are, on the whole, the best existing examples of Venetian monumental sculpture.
§ LXII. Of much ruder workmanship, though still most precious, and singularly interesting from its quaintness, is a sarcophagus in the northernmost chapel, beside the choir of St. John and Paul, charged with two bas-reliefs and many figures, but which bears no inscription. It has, however, a shield with three dolphins on its brackets; and as at the feet of the Madonna in its centre there is a small kneeling figure of a Doge, we know it to be the tomb of the Doge Giovanni Dolfino, who came to the throne in 1356.
He was chosen Doge while, as provveditore, he was in Treviso, defending the city against the King of Hungary. The Venetians sent to the besiegers, praying that their newly elected Doge might be permitted to pass the Hungarian lines. Their request was refused, the Hungarians exulting that they held the Doge of Venice prisoner in Treviso. But Dolfino, with a body of two hundred horse, cut his way through their lines by night, and reached Mestre (Malghera) in safety, where he was met by the Senate. His bravery could not avert the misfortunes which were accumulating on the republic. The Hungarian war was ignominiously terminated by the surrender of Dalmatia: the Doge’s heart was broken, his eyesight failed him, and he died of the plague four years after he had ascended the throne.
§ LXIII. It is perhaps on this account, perhaps in consequence of later injuries, that the tomb has neither effigy nor inscription: that it has been subjected to some violence is evident from the dentil which once crowned its leaf-cornice being now broken away, showing the whole front. But, fortunately, the sculpture of the sarcophagus itself is little injured.