IV. ST. MARK’S 139

Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of the Book of Revelation;* but if he only entered, as often the common people do to this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labour of the day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendour of the glittering nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great messages,-“Christ is risen,” and “Christ shall come.” Daily, as the white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn,¹ while the shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph,-“Christ is risen;” and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the

* The old mosaics from the Revelation have perished, and have been replaced by miserable work of the seventeenth century.²

of the North Transept represent (1) the Sermon on the Mount, (2) traditional scenes from the life of St. John the Evangelist (see Robertson, pp. 236, 302). The Miracles of Christ are represented on the vaults of the North Transept: those here mentioned by Ruskin are described more fully in Robertson, pp. 243, 244, 246.]

¹ [See above, pp. 83-84 n.]

² [The scenes from the Book of Revelation begin on the vault that spans the nave immediately in front of the west gallery, are continued in the galleries to right and left, and finish in the great vault of the west gallery. Those that begin the series were by Francesco and Valerio Zuccato, from cartoons by E. Paoletti and Palma Giovane; the others, by Bozza and other workmen, from the designs of Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto-“miserable picture mosaics of the 16th century,” Ruskin calls them in the MS.-“vain efforts to copy the cartoons of Tintoret with broken bits of stone.” Ruskin’ characterisation of them as “miserable work” was the opinion at the time of their execution. The Procurators of St. Mark in 1563 brought a suit against the brothers Zuccato, at the instance of Bozza, alleging that he had produced certain effects by painting over a gold ground, instead of putting in coloured tesseræ. The great painters of the day were called as witnesses. Titian and Tintoret testified in favour of the defence, and stigmatised Bozza’s own work as the worst of the whole. Ultimately the brothers Zuccato were condemned to re-do the work at their own expense. Curiously enough the same thing happened thirty years ago when the mosaics were restored; the mosaic-workers were again accused of using the brush, and were condemned to re-make the mosaics (Robertson’s Bible of St. Mark, pp. 315-316). On one of his loose sheets of MS. with notes and illustrations for The Stones of Venice (see Vol. IX. p. xxvi.), Ruskin remarks on “the deadness of colour” in the later mosaics. “It is most curious,” he says, “that the modern mosaics make the church tawdry outside and dull within.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]