174 GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE

Yes, with these, and such other, I doubt not. But other things, it seems, had been done in Venice, with which Heaven was not pleased; assuming always that there is a Heaven, for otherwise-what followed was of course only process of Darwinian development. But this was what followed. That Madonna, with her happy angels and humble worshippers, was carved as you see her over the Scuola cloister door,-in 1345. And “on the 25th of January, 1347,* on the day, to wit, of the conversion of St. Paul, about the hour of vespers, there came a great earthquake in Venice, and as it were in all the world; and fell many tops of bell-towers, and houses, and chimneys, and the church of St. Basil: and there was so great fear that all the people thought to die. And the earth ceased not to tremble for about forty days; and when it remained quiet, there came a great mortality, and the people died of various evil. And the people were in so great fear, that father would not go to visit son, nor son father. And this death lasted about six months; and it was said commonly that there died two parts out of three, of all the people of Venice.”

These words you may read (in Venetian dialect) after you have entered the gate beneath the Madonna; they are engraved under the Gothic arch on your right hand; with other like words, telling the various horror of that Plague; and how the guardian of the Scuola died by it, and about ten of his officers with him, and three hundred of the brethren.

Above the inscription, two angels hold the symbol of the Scuola; carved, as you see, conspicuously also on the outer sculptures in various places; and again on the well in the midst of the cloister. The first sign this, therefore, of all chosen by the greater schools of Venice, of which, as aforesaid, “The first was that of St. Mary of Charity, which school has its wax candles red, in sign that Charity should be glowing; and has for its bearing a yellow” (meaning

* 1348, in our present calender.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]