362 VENETIAN INDEX
ANDREA, CHURCH OF ST. Well worth visiting for the sake of the peculiarly sweet and melancholy effect of its little grass-grown campo, opening to the lagoon and the Alps. The sculpture over the door, “The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,”1 is a quaint piece of Renaissance work. Note the distant rocky landscape, and the oar of the existing gondola floating by St. Andrew’s boat. The church is of the later Gothic period, much defaced, but still picturesque. The lateral windows are bluntly trefoiled, and good of their time.
(1877. All now defaced and defiled by factory and railroad bridges. A mere woe and desolation.)
ANGELI, CHURCH DEGLI, at Murano. The sculpture of the “Annunciation” over the entrance-gate is graceful. In exploring Murano, it is worth while to row up the great canal thus far for the sake of the opening to the lagoon.
[ANGELO, PONTE DELL’, X. 295.]
ANTONINO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.
APOLLINARE, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance [IX. p. 237].
APOSTOLI, CHURCH OF THE. The exterior is nothing. There is said to be a picture by Veronese in the interior, “The Fall of the Manna.” I have not seen it; but if it be of importance, the traveller should compare it carefully with Tintoret’s, in the Scuola di San Rocco, and in San Giorgio Maggiore.
(1877. It is an imitation of that in San Giorgio, almost invisible, and not worth losing time upon.2)
APOSTOLI, PALACE AT, X. 296, on the Grand Canal, near the Rialto, opposite the fruit-market. A most important transitional palace. Its sculpture in the first story is peculiarly rich and curious; I think Venetian, in imitation of Byzantine. The sea story and first floor are of the first half of the thirteenth century, the rest modern. Observe that only one wing of the sea story is left, the other half having been modernized. The traveller should land to look at the capital drawn in Plate 2 of Vol. XI., fig. 7 [above, opposite p. 12].
ARSENAL. Its gateway is a curiously picturesque example of Renaissance workmanship, admirably sharp and expressive in its ornamental sculpture; it is in many parts like some of the best Byzantine work. The Greek lions in front of it appear to me to deserve more praise than they have received; though they are awkwardly balanced between conventional and imitative representation, having neither the severity proper to the one, nor the veracity necessary for the other.3
(1877. No, there’s no good in them; they are stupid work of the
panels, “to me among the most interesting pieces of art in North Italy,” being, according to Ruskin’s attribution, youthful pieces by Carpaccio-“Solomon and the Queen of Sheba,” etc.-(ibid., §§ 191-193).]
1 [Eds. 1-3 read, “St. Peter Walking on the Water,” instead of “The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.”]
2 [In a MS. note Ruskin says:-
“It is an imitation of Tintoret’s at San Giorgio, and seems to have had some qualities unusual in Paolo; but nothing can be seen of it in its present place. To me, the tombs in the Cornaro chapel are invisible also to any purpose. It is waste of time to go to the church.”]
3 [For some windows near the Arsenal, see X. 303.]
[Version 0.04: March 2008]