PART II

IF you have looked with care at the three musicians, or any other of the principal figures, in the great town or landscape views in this principal room, you will be ready now with better patience to trace the order of their subjects, and such character or story as their treatment may develop. I can only help you, however, with Carpaccio’s, for I have not been able to examine, or much think of, Mansueti’s, recognizing nevertheless much that is delightful in them.

By Carpaccio, then, in this room,* there are in all eleven important pictures, eight from the legend of St. Ursula,¹ and three of distinct subjects. Glance first at the series of St. Ursula subjects, in this order:-

I.-572. Maurus the king of Brittany receives the English ambassadors: and has talk with his daughter touching their embassy.²

II.-578. St. Ursula’s Dream.³

III.-573. King Maurus dismisses the English ambassadors with favourable answer from his daughter. (This is the most beautiful piece of painting in the rooms.)

IV.-574. The King of England receives the Princess’s favourable answer.

* Or at least in the Academy: the arrangement may perhaps be altered before this Guide can be published; at all events we must not count on it.⁴

¹ [For other general references to the St. Ursula Series, see the Introduction, above, pp. xlix.-liv.]

² [Compare the notes on Nos. 106, 107 in the Rudimentary Series (Vol. XXI. pp. 200, 201.]

³ [For descriptions of this picture, see Fors Clavigera, Letters 20 and 71.]

⁴ [The arrangement of these pictures by Carpaccio has been greatly improved since Ruskin wrote, a new room having been built (XVI.) for their better display.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]