GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE 175

golden*) “cross, traversing two little circles also yellow; with red and green quartering the parts which the cross describes,-those who instituted such sign desiring to show thereby the union that Charity should have with Faith and Hope.”†

The golden “anchored” cross stands for Faith, the golden outer circle for Charity, the golden inner for Hope-all on field quartered gules and vert, the colours of Charity and Hope.

Such the first symbol of Venetian Brotherhoods,‡-in reading which, I delay you, that you may be better prepared to understand the symbolism running through every sign and colour in Venetian art at this time, down even to its tinting of wax candles; art which was indeed all the more symbolic for being rude, and complicated much with the use of signals and heraldries at sea, too distant for any art in them to be visible, but serviceably intelligible in meaning.

How far the great Scuola and cloisters of the Carita, for monks and confraternity together, reached from the gate under which you are pausing, you may see in Dürer’s woodcut of the year 1500 (Correr Museum),¹ which gives the apse with attached chapels; and the grand double cloister reaching back nearly to the Giudecca; a water-wheel-as I suppose-outside, on the (now filled up and paved) canal, moved by the tide, for molinary work in the kitchens. Of all which nothing now remains but these pillars and beams, between you and the gallery staircase; and the well

* “Ex Cruce constat aurea, seu flava; ejus speciei, quam artis hujusmodi Auctores ‘ancoratam’ vocant.”

† “In tabulam Græcam insigni sodalitio S. M. Caritatis, Venetiarum, ab amplissimo Cardinali Bessarione dono datam, Disserattio.”-(St. Mark’s Library, 33331, page 146.)

‡ At least according to the authority above quoted; as far as I have consulted the original documents myself, I find the school of St. Theodore² primal.

¹ [In Room XX.]

² [For passages from the early documents of the School, or Guild, of St. Theodore, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 75.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]