APPENDIX, 11 303

signs of violence, except that the knight’s sword is broken. He died in 1384, and the tomb is remarkable at once for the curious severity and rudeness of the principal figure, and for the richness of ornamental detail which was gradually corrupting the simplicity of Gothic design....

[Ruskin then gives the inscriptions-“one is in curious Italian, the other in still more curious Latin.” The sculptor’s inscription has already been given in the text (p. 101); the epitaph is as follows:-]

“MILITIE SPLEDOR LATEQ. TREMEDUS IN ARMIS

HIC DE CAVALLIS JACOBUS FUIT. ALTAQ. GESSIT

PRO VENETIS CAPUT ARMIGERU DU FULMINAT HOSTES

UNIO QUE TANTU CAPIT HEC DOMUS ARTA SEPULCRI

DECESSIT MCCCLXXXIIII DIE XXIIII JANUARII.”

The contraction over the “e” in “splendor” has been curiously missed in the upper inscription, and the rest of its broken Latin cannot be mended, but its meaning appears to be:-

“This was James Cavalli, the light of soldiership, and far dreaded in arms. He fell illustriously while he headed the Venetians and crushed their enemies, whom only this narrow house of the tomb now receives. He died 1384, on the 24th day of January.”*

There was some reason also for assuring us that the work was done in stone, for every part of it is thickly painted, and in a manner more resembling the colour usually given to wood than to marble.

It is a sarcophagus, sustained on brackets, formed by the spandrils of a flat trefoiled arch, whose cusps are cut clear. It is this character which gives the tomb its great importance as a piece of evidence. On these brackets rests a cabled basic plinth which has spread into a semicircular projection in the centre, and into long almond-shaped tablets at the angles of the sarcophagus, in order to receive the three principal statues, now lost. They are drawn, however, in the work of Zanotto, already so often referred to,¹ and appear to have been fine. They represented Faith, Hope, and Charity. There are besides ... [Passage missing in the MS. which continues:-]

There has doubtless been a Madonna with male and female saint on each side, as usual, but besides these, there are in six elliptical panels on the front of the sarcophagus richly cut figures of the animal types of the Evangelists, and two saints bearing scrolls, while beneath the trefoiled arch which supports the tomb, an angel is carved, expanding its wings over the inscription. The richness of religious imagery is partly accounted for by the occurrence both on the tomb and the knight’s armour of the crimson scallop,

* His services are recounted at some length by Zanotto. He commanded the Venetian land forces in the war against Leopold of Austria, and was afterwards appointed by Pisani to posts of trust at Malamocco and St. Nicolo di Lido. He appears to have been a bold and successful soldier, but no light is otherwise thrown upon his character, except a somewhat unfavourable one, where we find him refusing to assault Feltre because the senate would not grant his soldiers the pillage of the town. His wife was Constance, daughter of Guglielmo della Scala.

¹ [For Zanotto, see above, pp. 101, 247.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]