“James Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, who conquered the Turks in war, himself in peace, transported from a noble family among the Venetians to a nobler among the angels, laid here, expects the noblest crown, which the just Judge shall give to him in that day. He lived the years of Plato. He died 24th March, 1547.”[20]
The mingled classicism and carnal pride of this epitaph surely need no comment. The crown is expected as a right from the justice of the judge, and the nobility of the Venetian family is only a little lower than that of the angels. The quaint childishness of the “Vixit annos Platonicos” is also very notable.
§ LXXXI. The statue, however, did not long remain in this partially recumbent attitude. Even the expression of peace became painful to the frivolous and thoughtless Italians, and they required the portraiture to be rendered in a manner that should induce no memory of death. The statue rose up, and presented itself in front of the tomb, like an actor upon a stage, surrounded now not merely, or not at all, by the Virtues, but by allegorical figures of Fame and Victory, by genii and muses, by personifications of humbled kingdoms and adoring nations, and by every circumstance of pomp, and symbol of adulation, that flattery could suggest, or insolence could claim.
§ LXXXII. As of the intermediate monumental type, so also of this, the last and most gross, there are unfortunately many examples in our own country; but the most wonderful, by far, are still at Venice. I shall, however, particularize only two; the first, that of the Doge John Pesaro, in the Frari. It is to be observed that we have passed over a considerable interval of time; we are now in the latter half of the seventeenth century; the progress of corruption has in the meantime been incessant, and sculpture has here lost its taste and learning as well as its feeling. The monument is a huge accumulation of theatrical scenery in marble: four colossal negro caryatides, grinning and horrible, with faces of black marble and white eyes, sustain the first story of it; above this, two monsters, long-necked, half dog and half dragon, sustain an ornamental sarcophagus, on the top of which the full-length statue of the Doge in robes of state stands forward with its arms expanded, like an actor courting applause, under a huge canopy of metal, like the roof of a bed, painted crimson and gold; on each side of him are sitting figures of genii, and unintelligible personifications gesticulating in Roman armor; below, between the negro caryatides, are two ghastly figures in bronze, half corpse, half skeleton, carrying tablets on which is written the eulogium: but in large letters graven in gold, the following words are the first and last that strike the eye; the first two phrases, one on each side, on tablets in the lower story, the last under the portrait statue above:
| Vixit annos LXX. Devixit anno MDCLIX. “Hic revixit anno MDCLXIX.” |
We have here, at last, the horrible images of death in violent contrast with the defiant monument, which pretends to bring the resurrection down to earth, “Hic revixit;” and it seems impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower. Yet even this monument is surpassed by one in St. John and Paul.
§ LXXXIII. But before we pass to this, the last with which I shall burden the reader’s attention, let us for a moment, and that we may feel the contrast more forcibly, return to a tomb of the early times.
In a dark niche in the outer wall of the outer corridor of St. Mark’s—not even in the church, observe, but in the atrium or porch of it, and on the north side of the church,—is a solid sarcophagus of white marble, raised only about two feet from the ground on four stunted square pillars. Its lid is a mere slab of stone; on its extremities are sculptured two crosses; in front of it are two rows of rude figures, the uppermost representing Christ with the Apostles: the lower row is of six figures only, alternately male and female, holding up their hands in the usual attitude of benediction; the sixth is smaller than the rest, and the midmost of the other five has a glory round its head. I cannot tell the meaning of these figures, but between them are suspended censers attached to crosses; a most beautiful symbolic expression of Christ’s mediatorial function. The whole is surrounded by a rude wreath of vine leaves, proceeding out of the foot of a cross.
On the bar of marble which separates the two rows of figures are inscribed these words:
“Here lies the Lord Marin Morosini, Duke.”