II. PRIDE OF STATE II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE 105

no difference in the character or expression of any of their faces,-they are nothing more than handsome Venetian women, in rather full and courtly dresses, and tolerably well thrown into postures for effect from below. Fortitude could not of course be placed in a graceful one without some sacrifice of her character, but that was of no consequence in the eyes of the sculptors of this period, so she leans back languidly, and nearly overthrows her own column; while Temperance, and Justice opposite to her, as neither the left hand of the one nor the right hand of the other could be seen from below, have been left with one hand each.¹

§ 74. Still, these figures, coarse and feelingless as they are, have been worked with care, because the principal effect of the tomb depends on them. But the effigy of the Doge, of which nothing but the sign is visible, has been utterly neglected; and the ingenuity of the sculptor is not so great, at the best, as that he can afford to be slovenly. There is, indeed, nothing in the history of Foscari which would lead us to expect anything particularly noble in his face; but I trust, nevertheless, it has been misrepresented by this despicable carver; for no words are strong enough to express the baseness of the portraiture. A huge, gross, bony clown’s face, with the peculiar sodden and sensual cunning in it which is seen so often in the countenances of the worst Romanist priests; a face part of iron and part of clay, with the immobility of the one, and the foulness of the other, double-chinned, bluntmouthed, bony-cheeked, with its brows drawn down into meagre lines and wrinkles over the eyelid; the face of a man incapable either of joy or sorrow, unless such as may be caused by the indulgence of passion or the mortification of pride. Even had he been such a one, a noble workman would not have written it so legibly on his tomb; and I believe it to be the image of the carver’s own mind that is there hewn in the marble, not that of the Doge Foscari. For the same mind is visible enough throughout, the traces of it mingled with

¹ [On this form of Renaissance “heartlessness,” see Vol. IX. pp. 51-52.]

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