392 VENETIAN INDEX

MARK, SQUARE OF ST. (Piazza di San Marco), anciently a garden, X. 71; general effect of, X. 82, 141; plan of, X. 330. [Floods in, X. xxxvi.; pavement of, X. 62 n., 116 n.]

MARTINO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.

MATER DOMINI, CHURCH OF STA. MARIA. It contains two important pictures: one over the second altar on the right, “St. Christina,” by Vincenzo Catena, a very lovely example of the Venetian religious school; and, over the north transept door, the “Finding of the Cross,” by Tintoret, a carefully painted and attractive picture, but by no means a good specimen of the master, as far as regards power of conception. He does not seem to have entered into his subject. There is no wonder, no rapture, no entire devotion in any of the figures. They are only interested and pleased in a mild way; and the kneeling woman who hands the nails to a man stooping forward to receive them on the right hand, does so with the air of a person saying, “You had better take care of them; they may be wanted another time.” This general coldness in expression is much increased by the presence of several figures on the right and left, introduced for the sake of portraiture merely: and the reality, as well as the feeling, of the scene is destroyed by our seeing one of the youngest and weakest of the women with a huge cross lying across her knees, the whole weight of it resting upon her. As might have been expected, where the conception is so languid, the execution is little delighted in: it is throughout steady and powerful, but in no place affectionate, and in no place impetuous. If Tintoret had always painted in this way, he would have sunk into a mere mechanist. It is, however, a genuine and tolerably well-preserved specimen, and its female figures are exceedingly graceful; that of St. Helena very queenly, though by no means agreeable in feature. Among the male portraits on the left there is one different from the usual types which occur either in Venetian paintings or Venetian populace; it is carefully painted, and more like a Scotch Presbyterian minister than a Greek. The background is chiefly composed of architecture, white, remarkably uninteresting in colour, and still more so in form. This is to be noticed as one of the unfortunate results of the Renaissance teaching at this period. Had Tintoret backed his Empress Helena with Byzantine architecture, the picture might have been one of the most gorgeous he ever painted.

MATER DOMINI, CAMPO DI STA. MARIA, X. 304. A most interesting little piazza, surrounded by early Gothic houses, once of singular beauty; the arcade at its extremity, of fourth-order windows, drawn in my folio work¹ is one of the earliest and loveliest of its kind in Venice, and in the houses at the side is a group of second-order windows with their intermediate crosses, all complete, and well worth careful examination.

[MERCERIA, X. 304.]

MICHELE IN ISOLA, CHURCH OF ST. On the island between Venice and Murano. The little Cappella Emiliana at the side of it has been much admired, but it would be difficult to find a building more feelingless or ridiculous.

¹ [See above, Plate 2, of the Examples, p. 320.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]