MONUMENTS OF THE CAVALLI FAMILY 133

to have been commanded. The Cavallis came first from Germany into the service of the Visconti of Milan, as condottieri, thence passing into the service of the Scaligers. Whether I am right in this conjecture or not, we have, at all events, record in this chapel of seven knights of the family, of whom two are named on the sarcophagus, of which the inscription (on the projecting ledge under the recumbent figure) is:-

S. (Sepulchrum) nobilis et egregii viri Federici et egregii et strenui viri domini Nicolai de Cavalis suorumque heredum, qui spiritum redidit astris Ano Dni MCCCLXXXX.

Of which, I think, the force may be best given thus in modern terms:-

“The tomb of the noble and distinguished Herr Frederic, and of the distinguished and energetic Herr the Lord Nicholas of the house of the Horse, and of their heirs, who gave back his soul to the stars in the year of our Lord 1390.”

10. This Frederic and Nicolas Cavalli were the brothers of the Jacopo Cavalli who is buried at Venice,¹ and who, by a singular fatality, was enrolled among the Venetian nobles of the senate in the year in which his brother died at Verona (for I assume the “spiritum redidit” to be said of the first-named brother). Jacopo married Constance della Scala, of Verona, and had five sons, of whom one, Giorgio, Conte di Schio, plotted, after the fall of the Scaligers, for their restoration to power in Verona, and was exiled, by decree of the Council of Ten, to Candia, where he died. From another son, Conrad, are descended the Cavallis of Venice, whose palace² has been the principal material from which recent searchers for the picturesque in Venice compose pictures of the Grand Canal. It forms the square mass of architecture on the left, in the continually repeated view of the Church of the Salute seen from the steps of the Academy.

¹ [See below, § 14, p. 137.]

² [For the Palazzo Cavalli (now Franchetti) see Vol. XI. p. 368.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]