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over its superb doors, supported by elegant columns and adorned with Eastern marble, are four beautiful statues by Giulio dal Moro, Francesco Castelli, Campagna, and Alessandro Vittoria. The Faith of the doge Marino Grimani is a grand intellectual composition, full of warmth and energy, by Titian. The Doge Grimani kneeling before the Virgin, St. Mark and other saints, by the Cav. Contarini, had, as well as its neighbour, Titian's chef-d'œuvre, the honour of being taken to Paris. The Doge Cicogna receiving the Persian ambas

Venice are conspicuous in every part of the Ducal palace: immense paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and other able masters, recall the grand events of its history; these beautiful paintings seem to breath a species of patriotism. Venice ever stands forth in ihem as the emblem of might, grandeur, and beauty; she is a powerful goddess who breaks the chains of the bondsman, and receives the homage of subjugated cities; she is seated in heaven amid the saints; she is represented sitting between Justice and Peace; she is encircled by the Virtues, crowned by Victory, or ap-sadors; the Doge giving audience to pears in the clouds amid a throng of deities: allegory there loses its ordinary coldness, as it serves to express a feeling of patriotic pride.

I observed in one of the first rooms (that of the stuccos) a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoretto; he has not that exaggerated childish air generally, and | improperly, given him when he was called to reign in Poland, Montluc had caused his portrait to be exposed to the public view, that his mild and noble physiognomy and majestic stature might win him the affection and respect of his new subjects. It was on the occasion of his passing through Venice when returning from Poland, that Tintoretto sketched his portrait on board the Bucentaur, where he had gone with the king's attendants. The curious narrative by the Parisian Claude Doron, revised by Pibrac, of the fêtes attending this passage, relates that "the people, at the sight of this king so young in years, calling to mind his noble deeds, thought him a second Alexander, and called him the wonder of the world." Henry III., in his youth a hero, may have been feeble, inconsistent, and ridiculous on the throne of France; but, like all the princes of the Valois family, he was neither deficient in intellect nor courage; he died at forty, when apparently recovering himself; he had already regained his warlike ardour, as may be seen in Davila, and, had he reached the ordinary age of man, it is not unreasonable to believe he would have again displayed himself in reality a king.

The hall of Four Doors is by Palladio:

Tintoretto did the portrait in crayons at first, painted it in oil directly after, end obtained the king's permission to finish It from life.

some ambassadors, are by Carletto Caliari, the eldest son and cherished pupil of Paolo Veronese, who publicly declared that he wished to be surpassed by him; this young and talented master died at the age of twenty-five, a prey to his love of study. The Arrival of Henry III. at the port of Lido, a vast painting by Vicentino, is interesting from the circumstance of its preserving the triumphal arch erected on that occasion from a design by Palladio. The ceiling of this hall of Four Doors was also designed by him; the stucco ornaments, executed by Vittoria and other able artists, are by Francesco Sansovino, and the frescos by Tintoretto.

The Rape of Europa, a masterpiece by Paolo Veronese, is in the room called anti-collegio: having been varnished and restored at Paris by a process totally unsuited to the works of this great painter, which only require a slight washing, it has lost its transparency and lustre; but its grace and expression are still left: Europa is in the Venetian costume; and but for the majesty of the god, which transpires even through his bull's head. one might think that she is flying through the lagoons like another Bianca Capello. This same room also contains other chefsd'œuvre, four paintings by Tintoretto: Mercury and the Graces; Vulcan's Forge; Pallas expelling Mars; and Ariadne crowned by Venus; by Bassano, Jacob's return to the land of Canaan; a fresco by Paolo Veronese, on the ceiling; and over the splendid door, by Scammozzi, three statues by Vittoria.

called collegio, and the three others to The painting over the door of the room the right are by Tintoretto. Over the throne is the grand painting by Paolo Veronese, in which, amid so many admi

has also painted an Angel driving away | the Vices, on the ceiling of an adjoining apartment, formerly the saloon of the | chiefs of the Ten.

The hole alone remains of the mouth of denunciations; it was not into the lion's mouth, as is commonly supposed, and as some drawings represent it, but under, that informers dropped their letters. The lion's head is gone; and it was scraped in 1797, like all the other lions of Saint Mark.

The hall of the tribunal of State Inquisitors, when I visited it in 1828, was converted into a pretty room fresh painted in the Italian style, which forms a contrast with the terrible reputation of the inquisitors. I have since had the extreme satisfaction of correcting my prejudices respecting them: it is sweet to find some oppressors the less in history. It is to be regretted that an enlightened and conscientious bistorian like Daru should have given credit to the pretended statutes of the State Inquisition, discovered by him in manuscript in the Bibliothèque du Roi, which are regarded as apoeryphal at Venice by all men of education, and as fabricated by an ignorant enemy of the republic. The State Inquisitors, guardians of the laws, silent tribunes beloved by the people, who, even to the close of last century, celebrated their triumph by fêtes, defended the multitude against the excesses of aristocratic power; this tribunal was the opposition of Venice; an opposition in conformity with that sort of mysterious government, and which, as Montesquieu had already said, violently brought back the state to liberty.

doge, who abdicated, is not there, for the portraits of the doges were not executed till after death. Notwithstanding the purpose entertained of placing Manini there, he does not deserve it: the chief of a state who suffers it to perish through his own weakness, if he is not so culpable, is often as fatal to his country as the ambitious aspirer who pants after sovereignty. It is true that in the general decay of Venice, the doge's authority had declined with every thing else; the first magistrate of the republic was then only a mere shadow, an obedient puppet charged to appear in public and hold levees in pompous robes, and I believe his principal function was the espousing of the Adriatic.

The doge Manini may, however, excite our compassion; be fainted away at the moment of taking the oath of allegiance to Austria, after the peace of Campo Formio; if he wanted strength of mind, he was at least sensible to the loss of his country's ancient liberty, and he became great in his grief.

The vast paintings which cover the walls and ceiling of the great council chamber, independently of their beauty, have also an historical interest, as a great number represent the religious, military, or political events which then bad the most influence on the destinies of European nations. The immense painting of the Glory of Paradise, a work of Tintoretto's old age, so greatly admired and extolled by the Carracci, though it seems all confusion, would be still a chef-d'œuvre, if it had not suffered so much from time and its restorers. This great artist also painted the AmbasThe wainscoting of the ancient hall of sadors presented to the emperor at Pathe great council presents a portion of via; and on the ceiling, the Prince of the collection of the doges' portraits, Este routed by Vittorio Loranzo; the painted by Tintoretto, Leandro Bassano, Victory of Stefano Contarini on lake and the younger Palma. In the place Garda; the Venice among the deities; where Marino Faliero should have been the Doge da Ponte receiving the depupainted, is the famous inscription in a tations from the towns; the Victory of frame on a black ground: Hic est locus J. Marcello over the Aragonese; the Marini Falethri, decapitati pro crimi- Defence of Brescia, by Francesco Barnibus, a deadly menace held out to power baro. His son and best pupil Domenico, in its very place. The subsequent part who would be more known were it not of the collection is in the Balloting cham-for his father's glory, painted the Naval ber: the portrait of Manini, the last Combat in which Otho, the emperor's

See on this subject the work of Count Dom. Tiepolo, entitled Discorsi sulla storia veneta, cice rettificazioni di alcuni equivoci riscontratti nella Storia di Venezia del signore Daru; Udina, 1828, fourth rectification, p. 68 et seq.

• There are seventy-six portraits in the first room, thirty-eight in the second.

son, was taken prisoner by the Venetians, a vast composition, curious for the form of the arms and the naval manœuvres; and the Second conquest of Constantinople. The Pope giving Otho permission to return to the emperor his father; the First conquest of Constantinople by Dandolo; the Venice seated, on the ceiling, so remarkable for the undraped parts of the slaves; the fine Naval victory won on the Po by Francesco Bembo, are by the younger Palma. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa before Alexander III., by Federico Zuccari, is a celebrated work of this chief of a declining school, which he did in 1582, and retouched in 1663. The Return of the doge Andrea Contarini after the victory gained over the Genoese; on the ceiling, the Apotheosis of Venice, are admirable paintings by Paolo Veronese, as well as the Defence of Scutari and the Taking of Smyrna.

and they have only the appearance of accessories. The library of Saint Mark counts sixty-five thousand volumes, and about five thousand manuscripts. Petrarch really laid its first foundations, as he expresses himself in a letter respecting the donation of manuscripts that he sent to Venice; it was a noble acknowledgment for the hospitality he had found there during the plague. Only a very small number of the manuscripts proceeding from Petrarch's stock are now in Saint Mark's; it is said that they remained forgotten in a small room near the bronze horses, where they were spoiled. But the learned librarian of Saint Mark, Morelli, has demonstrated that the Venetians did not deserve Ginguené's reproach of having suffered Petrarch's library to perish; he had only given some few works; at his death, twelve years after the donation, Petrarch did in reality leave a very precious library, but it was dispersed, as is evident from the manuscripts preserved in the Vatican, the Laurentian, the Ambrosian, the Bibliothèque du Roi, and not one ever reached Venice. The man whose literary liberality still lives and shines at Saint Mark's among so many noble donors, such as the Grimani and Contarini, is Bessarion. Although inserted in some erudite collections, the letter in which he announces to the doge and the senate the present of his manuscripts to Saint Mark's, may not be devoid of in

In the Balloting chamber is a triumphal arch dedicated to Francesco Morosini, the Peloponesian, which is embellished with six allegorical paintings, a magnificent work of Lazzarini, the best painter of Venice in the seventeenth century. The Universal Judgment is one of the masterpieces of the younger Palma. The Battle of Zara; the greater part of the doges' portraits, are by Tintoretto. The Victory of the Dardanelles, by Pietro Liberi, is remarkable for the naked slave, which shows the painter's skilful drawing and which has procured this battle pic-terest here; it portrays at once this illusture the name of the Slave of Liberi.

The Gallery leading to the Giants' Stairs contains one of those fine dead Christs, by Giovanni Bellini.

CHAPTER V.

Saint Mark a library.-Petrarch's donation.-BessaFion sletter and donation.-Manuscripts.-Book of the Gospels,-Attavanie's miniatures.—Amadio's Plants --Manuscript of Fra Paolo's History of the council of Trent.—of Guarini's Pastor flo-Fra Mauro's map of the world.- Librarians of Saint Mark—Museum.

The hall of the Great Council has received Saint Mark's Library: these books are. I believe, the most magnificently Joiged of any in the world; but the grandeur and beauty of the paintings which surround them, and the antique statues placed in the middle of their apartment, throw them into the shade,

trious man and the epoch of the revival, when books, on appearing, were hailed with such a lively enthusiasm; it also contains a very fine panegyric of the Venetian government, without the concetti of Petrarch's letter, written on a like occasion; in which he said that if Venice were environed with waves salsis, it was defended by counsels salsioribus.

"To the most illustrious and invincible prince Cristoforo Mauro, doge of Venice, and the most august senate, Bessarion, cardinal and patriarch of Constantinople, sends greeting:

"From my earliest youth I have applied all my attention, efforts, and zeal, to the collecting of books on the different sciences. In my boyhood I transcribed many with my own hand, and the little money, that a thrifty frugal life afforded me,