102 THE STONES OF VENICE II. PRIDE OF STATE

Paul, having been removed there from the destroyed church of the Servi;¹ first, to note its remarkable return to the early simplicity, the sarcophagus being decorated only with two crosses in quatrefoils, though it is of the fifteenth century, Steno dying in 1413; and, in the second place, to observe the peculiarity of the epitaph, which eulogizes Steno as having been “amator justitie, pacis, et ubertatis,”-“A lover of justice, peace, and plenty.” In the epitaphs of this period, the virtues which are made most account of in public men are those which were most useful to their country. We have already seen one example in the epitaph on Simon Dandolo [p. 97]; and similar expressions occur constantly in laudatory mentions of their later Doges by the Venetian writers. Thus Sansovino of Marco Cornaro, “Era savio huomo, eloquente, e amava molto la pace el’ abbondanza della citta;” and of Tomaso Mocenigo, “Huomo oltre modo desideroso della pace.”

Of the tomb of this last-named Doge mention has before been made.² Here, as in Morosini’s, the images of the Virtues have no ironical power, although their great conspicuousness marks the increase of the boastful feeling in the treatment of monuments. For the rest, this tomb is the last in Venice which can be considered as belonging to the Gothic period. Its mouldings are already rudely classical, and it has meaningless figures in Roman armour at the angles; but its tabernacle above is still Gothic, and the recumbent figure is very beautiful. It was carved by two Florentine sculptors in 1423.

§ 71. Tomaso Mocenigo was succeeded by the renowned Doge, Francesco Foscari, under whom, it will be remembered,

¹ [In the MS. sheets Ruskin notices,

“As a curious instance of the mischief done by removals, even when the various pieces of the removed sculpture remain unharmed, that the front of this tomb is composed of two separate slabs, each charged with a cross, set as in the earlier types above a group of diminishing steps. The workmen, in refitting it in its present place, have turned one of the slabs upside down, in consequence of which one of the crosses has steps at the bottom, and the other at the top.”]

² [See Vol. IX. pp. 26, 48-49. The tomb is in the northern aisle of SS. Giovanni e Paolo.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]