MOISÈ-ORTO 395

I know in Venice of the kind; the lightly sculptured coronet is exquisitely introduced at the top of its spiral shaft.

This palace still belongs to the Morosini family, to whose present representative, the Count Carlo Morosini, the reader is indebted for the note on the character of his ancestors, above, p. 257.

MOROSINI, PALAZZO, AT ST. Stefano. Of no importance.

N

NANI-MOCENIGO, PALAZZO.¹ (Now Hotel Danieli.) A glorious example of

the central Gothic, nearly contemporary with the finest parts of the Ducal Palace. Though less impressive in effect than the Casa Foscari or Casa Bernardo, it is of purer architecture than either; and quite unique in the delicacy of the form of the cusps in the central group of windows, which are shaped like broad scimitars, the upper foil of the windows being very small. If the traveller will compare these windows with the neighbouring traceries of the Ducal Palace, he will easily perceive the peculiarity.

NICOLO DEL LIDO, CHURCH OF ST. Of no importance.

NOME DI GESU, CHURCH OF THE. Of no importance.

O

ORFANI, CHURCH OF THE. Of no importance.

ORTO, CHURCH OF STA. MARIA DELL’. An interesting example of Renaissance Gothic, the traceries of the windows being very rich and quaint.

It contains four most important Tintorets: “The Last Judgment,” “The Worship of the Golden Calf,”² “The Presentation of the Virgin,” and “Martyrdom of St. Agnes.” The first two are among his largest and mightiest works, but grievously injured by damp and neglect; and unless the traveller is accustomed to decipher the thoughts in a picture patiently, he need not hope to derive any pleasure from them. But no pictures will better reward a resolute study. The following account of the “Last judgment,” given in the second volume of Modern Painters, will be useful in enabling the traveller to enter into the meaning of the picture, but its real power is only to be felt by patient examination of it.

“By Tintoret only has this unimaginable event (the Last Judgment)

¹ [Originally the Palazzo Dandolo-built to receive the distinguished guests of the Republic. For one of the capitals of its window shafts see Plate 14 in the Examples, above, p. 346.]

² [On this picture see Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 308), where Ruskin calls attention to the beauty of the landscape; and ibid, vol. iv. ch. iv. § 2 n., where he notes the clouds around Mount Sinai. See also Vol. IV. pp. xxxvi.-xxxvii., where a passage is given from his diary of 1845 describing these pictures, more especially “The Last Judgment.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]