1. THE QUARRY 49

by one of the most intelligent of the recent writers who represent the popular feeling respecting Venetian art.

“Of the Italian school is also the rich but ugly (ricco ma non bel) sarcophagus in which repose the ashes of Tomaso Mocenigo. It may be called one of the last links which connect the declining art of the Middle Ages with that of the Renaissance, which was in its rise. We will not stay to particularise the defects of each of the seven figures of the front and sides, which represent the cardinal and theological virtues: nor will we make any remarks upon those which stand in the niches above the pavilion, because we consider them unworthy both of the age and reputation of the Florentine school, which was then with reason considered the most notable in Italy.”*

It is well, indeed, not to pause over these defects: but it might have been better to have paused a moment beside that noble image of a king’s mortality.

§ 41. In the choir of the same church, St. Giov. and Paolo, is another tomb, that of the Doge Andrea Vendramin.¹ This doge died in 1478, after a short reign of two years, the most disastrous in the annals of Venice.² He died of a pestilence, which followed the ravage of the Turks, carried to the shores of the lagoons. He died, leaving Venice disgraced by sea and land, with the smoke of hostile devastation rising in the blue distances of Friuli; and there was raised to him the most costly tomb ever bestowed on her monarchs.

§ 42. If the writer above quoted was cold beside the statue of one of the fathers of his country, he atones for it by his eloquence beside the tomb of the Vendramin. I must not spoil the force of Italian superlative by translation.

“Quando si guarda a quella corretta eleganza di profili e di proporzioni, a quella squisitezza d’ornamenti, a quel certo sapore antico che senza ombra d’ imitazione traspare da tutta l’opera-etc. Sopra ornatissimo zoccolo fornito

* Selvatico, Architettura di Venezia, p. 147.

crockets projecting at its vertical sides, and every Renaissance character in full development, could attribute Ducal palace to a posterior date, is beyond measure marvellous.”

The tomb belongs, in its artistic character, to the point of transition between the Gothic and the Renaissance periods. The recumbent figure, as Ruskin here says, is very beautiful; but the images of the Virtues, though they have here no ironical power, mark the increase of a boastful spirit; while its decoration in other respects is of the Renaissance character.]

¹ [For a further criticism of the tomb, see Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. ii. § 77.]

² [See above, p. 22 n.]

IX. D

[Version 0.04: March 2008]