GIOVANNI-LIBRERIA 389

The cloister, to which this door gives entrance, is exactly contemporary with the finest work of the Ducal Palace, circa 1350. It is the loveliest cortile I know in Venice; its capitals consummate in design and execution; and the low wall on which they stand showing remnants of sculpture unique, as far as I know, in such application. (1877. I guessed this date (circa 1350), and am proud of myself; the actual year being 1342.)

GRIMANI, PALAZZO,¹ on the Grand Canal, XI. 43.

There are several other palaces in Venice belonging to this family, but none of any architectural interest.

J

JESUITI, CHURCH OF THE [IX. 257]. The basest Renaissance; but worth a visit in order to examine the imitations of curtains in white marble inlaid with green.

It contains a Tintoret, “The Assumption,” which I have not examined;² and a Titian,”The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” originally, it seems to me, of little value, and now, having been restored, of none.

L

LABIA, PALAZZO, on the Cana Reggio. Of no importance.

LAZZARO DE’ MENDICANTI, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.

LIBRERIA VECCHIA.³ A graceful building of the central Renaissance, designed by Sansovino, 1536, and much admired by all architects of the school. It was continued by Scamozzi, down the whole side of St. Mark’s Place, adding another story above it, which modern critics blame as destroying the “eurithmia;” never considering that had the two low stories of the Library been continued along the entire length of the Piazza, they would have looked so low that the entire dignity of the square would have been lost. As it is, the Library is left in its originally good proportions, and the larger mass of the Procuratie Nuove forms a more majestic, though less graceful, side for the great square.

But the real faults of the building are not in its number of stories, but in the design of the parts. It is one of the grossest examples of the base Renaissance habit of turning keystones into brackets, throwing them out in bold projection (not less than a foot and a half) beyond the mouldings of the arch; a practice utterly barbarous, inasmuch as it evidently tends to dislocate the entire arch, if any real weight were laid on the extremity of the keystone; and it is also a very characteristic example of the vulgar and painful mode of filling spandrils by naked figures in alto-relievo, leaning against the arch on each side, and appearing as if

¹ [Now the Court of Appeal.]

² [And, in the Refectory of the same church, a “Presentation of Christ” also by Tintoret (reproduced in J.B.S. Holborn’s Tintoretto, between pp. 60 and 61.]

³ [This building has now been re-arranged internally, to receive the Marciana Library, transferred there from the Ducal Palace: see Vol. X. p. 466.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]