GUIDE, ETC.

IN the first place, if the weather is fine, go outside the gate you have just come in at, and look above it. Over this door¹ are three of the most precious pieces of sculpture in Venice; her native work, dated; and belonging to the school of severe Gothic which indicates the beginning of her Christian life in understanding of its real claims upon her.

St. Leonard on the left, St. Christopher on the right, under Gothic cusped niches. The Madonna in the centre, under a simple gable; the bracket-cornice beneath bearing date, 1345;² the piece of sculpture itself engaged in a rectangular panel, which is the persistent sign of the Greek schools; descending from the Metopes of the Parthenon.

You see the infant sprawls on her knee in an ungainly manner: she herself sits with quiet maiden dignity, but in no manner of sentimental adoration.

That is Venetian naturalism; showing their henceforward steady desire to represent things as they really (according to the workman’s notions) might have existed. It begins first in this century, separating itself from the Byzantine formalism,-the movement being the same which was led by Giotto in Florence fifty years earlier.³ These sculptures are the result of his influence, from Padua, and other such Gothic power, rousing Venice to do and think for herself, instead of letting her Greek subjects do all for her. This is one of her first performances, independently of them.

¹ [The revised edition added a note here (still applicable):-

“On the left of the present door into the Academy.”]

² [For a description of this piece of sculpture, see below, p. 173.]

³ [See Giotto and his Works in Padua, above, pp. 23, 24.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]