APPENDIX, 11 289

11. THE TOMBS OF VENICE

[Additional passages from the author’s MSS.: see above, Introduction, pp. xv.-xvi.]

§ 1. General Introduction¹

THE most important and connected evidence which we possess is that furnished by the tombs of the great Venetians; and I have less hesitation in asking the reader to examine this evidence carefully, because the task of collecting it is not one of dull antiquarianism. The lessons which we may derive from a consecutive review of the series of monuments existing in the churches of St. Mark’s, St. Paul, and the Frari are perhaps the most valuable-certainly the most impressive-of all that we shall find graven in The Stones of Venice.

These monuments have long been the objects of the curiosity of the passing traveller, but the way in which he is compelled to examine them causes him in general to forgo all useful reflection. As he passes along the aisles of the churches, monuments of every age are alternately forced upon his attention: the rude sarcophagus and simple gravestone of the warrior of the twelfth century is half hidden by the accumulated piles of fantastic sculpture which modern wealth and pride have heaped on their ignoble dead; the vision of the dark and severe Madonna of the early sepulchre passes quickly from before his eyes as the sacristan drags him to the weeping nymphs of Canova, and rolling sea-horses of Lombardi. Amidst all these confused forms he is distracted also by the call upon his admiration made in favour of pictures of every school, painted glass, and wood-work, and altars of inlaid marble-calls which it is heresy to disobey; and it is little marvel that he comes in the end to be of the sacristan’s opinion, that the largest piece of sculpture is the finest, nor that he finally leaves the church with a vague impression that the dignity of a sepulchral monument depends on the number of negro servants that sustain its sarcophagus, or nondescript cetacea that plunge about its frieze.

§ 2.

I shall in the outset sketch briefly the character and course of the changes which took place in the principal features of the tombs of Venice from the eleventh to the seventeenth century, and then examine some of the more important examples in detail.

In the early periods the tombs are simple sarcophagi-very commonly set in niches of the walls of the church outside-supported on rude brackets, and bearing on their sides or covers, crosses and other symbols, or very coarse stunted figures of the Madonna, saints, or angels. Sometimes these sarcophagi have rude canopies over them, but this is more commonly the case in the other cities of Italy than in Venice. Towards the close of the thirteenth century the figures carved on the sarcophagus became more important; in Venice the effigy of the deceased does not appear on the lid of it, as far as I know, till the fourteenth century. As soon as this effigy appears a canopy is added to the tomb, consisting generally of a pointed arch under a gable,

¹ [Compare ch. ii. § 46, p. 81 above.]

XI. T

[Version 0.04: March 2008]