GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE 185

595,¹ in the inner room, are interesting to myself; but may probably be little so to others. The first is (I believe) Domestic Love; the world in her hand becoming the colour of Heaven; the second, Fortitude quitting the effeminate Dionysus; the third (much the poorest and least intelligible), Truth, or Prudence; the fourth, Lust; and the fifth, Fortune as Opportunity, in distinction from the greater and sacred Fortune appointed of Heaven.

And now, if you are yet unfatigued,* you had better go back into the great room, and give thorough examination to the wonderful painting, as such, in the great Veronese,² considering what all its shows and dexterities at last came to, and reading, before it, his examination concerning it, given in Appendix, which shows you that Venice herself felt what they were likely to come to, though in vain; and then, for contrast with its reckless power, and for final image to be remembered of sweet Italian art in its earnestness, return into the long gallery³ (through the two great rooms, turning your back on the Veronese, then out by the door opposite Titian’s huge picture; then out of the corridor by the first door on the right, and walk down the gallery), to its little Sala X., where, high on your left, 54, is the Beata Catherine Vigri’s St. Ursula; Catherine Vigri herself, it may be, kneeling to her. Truly a very

* If you are, end with 270, and remember it well.

¹ [Ed. 1 reads: “... five symbolical pictures, 234-238, in the inner room, Sala VI.” Now Room XVIII. The five little pictures are now framed together, No. 595, in the following order (from left to right): (1) Bacchus and Mars, called by Ruskin “Fortitude quitting Dionysus”; (2) a woman holding a globe, called by Ruskin “Domestic Love”; (3) Fortune; (4) Truth (a nude figure); and (5) Calumny and Lust. The interpretation of the allegories has been much discussed. Of No. 2 picture, Ruskin had a copy made for Kate Greenaway. In sending it to her, he wrote (March 9, 1887):-

“The Globe picture is one of a series done by John Bellini of the Gods and Goddesses of good and evil to man. She is the sacred Venus. Venus always rises out of the sea, but this one out of laughing sea of unknown depth. She holds the world in her arms, changed into heaven.”

(Kate Greenaway, by M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Layard, 1905, p. 168).]

² [No. 203 in Room IX.]

³ [The following instructions no longer apply. The picture of St. Ursula is hung, no longer high up, in Room III.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]