390 VENETIAN INDEX

they were continually in danger of slipping off. Many of these figures have, however, some merit in themselves; and the whole building is graceful and effective of its kind. The continuation of the Procuratie Nuove, at the western extremity of St. Mark’s Place (together with various apartments in the great line of the Procuratie Nuove), forms the “Royal Palace,” the residence of the Emperor when at Venice. This building is entirely modern, built in 1810, in imitation of the Procuratie Nuove, and on the site of Sansovino’s Church of San Geminiano.

In this range of buildings, including the Royal Palace, the Procuratie Nuove, the old Library, and the “Zecca” which is connected with them (the latter being an ugly building of very modern date, not worth notice architecturally), there are many most valuable pictures,¹ among which I would especially direct attention, first to those in the Zecca, namely, a beautiful and strange Madonna, by Benedetto Diana; two noble Bonifazios; and two groups, by Tintoret, of the Provveditori della Zecca, by no means to be missed, whatever may be sacrificed to see them, on account of the quietness and veracity of their unaffected portraiture, and the absolute freedom from all vanity either in the painter or in his subjects.

Next, in the “Antisala” of the old Library, observe the “Sapienza” of Titian, in the centre of the ceiling; a most interesting work in the light brilliancy of its colour, and the resemblance to Paul Veronese. Then, in the great hall of the old Library, examine the two large Tintorets, “St. Mark saving a Saracen from Drowning,” and the “Stealing his Body from Constantinople,” both rude, but great (note in the latter the dashing of the rain on the pavement, and running of the water about the feet of the figures): then, in the narrow spaces between the windows, there are some magnificent single figures by Tintoret, among the finest things of the kind in Italy, or in Europe. Finally, in the gallery of pictures in the Palazzo Reale, among other good works of various kinds, are two of the most interesting Bonifazios in Venice,² the “Children of Israel in their Journeyings,” in one of which, if I recollect right, the quails are coming in flights across a sunset sky, forming one of the earliest instances I know of a thoroughly natural and Turneresque effect being felt and rendered by the old masters. The picture struck me chiefly from this circumstance; but, the notebook in which I had described it and its companion having been lost on my way home, I cannot now give a more special account of them, except that they are long, full of crowded figures, and peculiarly light in colour and handling as compared with Bonifazio’s work in general.

LIO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance, but said to contain a spoiled Titian.

LIO, SALIZZADA DI ST., windows in, X. 294, 300.

LOREDAN, PALAZZO,³ on the Grand Canal near the Rialto, X. 149, 454. Another palace of this name, on the Campo St. Stefano, is of no importance.

LORENZO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.

LUCA, CHURCH OF ST. Its campanile is of very interesting and quaint early Gothic, and it is said to contain a Paul Veronese, “St. Luke and the

¹ [See above, Introduction, p. xxviii.]

² [See Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xviii. § 22.]

³ [Now part of the Municipal Offices.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]