86 THE STONES OF VENICE

the tomb on which the figure rests, is a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border of it all around is of flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and deep, as if in a field in summer.

It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among the great of Venice; and early lost. She chose him for her king in his 36th year; he died ten years later, leaving behind him that history to which we owe half of what we know of her former fortunes.¹

§ 17. Look round at the room in which he lies.² The floor of it is of rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble, and its walls are of alabaster, but worn and shattered, and darkly stained with age, almost a ruin,-in places the slabs of marble have fallen away altogether, and the rugged brickwork is seen through the rents, but all beautiful; the ravaging fissures fretting their way among the islands and channelled zones of the alabaster, and the time-stains on its translucent masses darkened into fields of rich golden brown, like the colour of seaweed when the sun strikes on it through deep sea. The light fades away into the recess of the chamber towards the altar, and the eye can hardly trace the lines of the bas-relief behind it of the baptism of Christ: but on the vaulting of the roof the figures are distinct, and there are seen upon it two great circles, one surrounded by the “Principalities and powers in heavenly places,”³ of which Milton has expressed the ancient division in the single massy line,

“Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,”⁴

¹ [The Chronicum Venetum Andreć Danduli. The reign of Andrea Dandolo (1343-1354) was notable both for the war with Genoa in the East and for the Black Death (1348).]

² [For a detailed account of the Mosaics of the Baptistery, see St. Mark’s Rest, chapters viii. and ix.]

³ [See Ephesians iii. 10.]

⁴ [Paradise Lost, v. 601; Ruskin quotes the line again in Munera Pulveris, § 105. He was reading Milton at Venice at the time when he was writing this volume. A letter to his father contains some interesting criticism:-

“Sunday, 4th April.-I have many times in my life sat down to read Milton all through, but never got through. I suppose few people have: I am now reading a few lines every day, and I don’t think I shall miss any. I came

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