290 S T. MARK’S REST

except the bases of the piazzetta shafts;¹ and there is little work like them elsewhere, pure realistic sculpture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: I may have much to say of them in their day²-not now.

Under these labourers you may read, in large letters, a piece of history from the Vienna Morning Post-or whatever the paper was-of the year 1815,³ with which we are not concerned; nor need anybody else be so, to the end of time.

Not with that; nor with the mosaic of the vault beneath-flaunting glare of Venetian art in its ruin.⁴ No vestige of old work remains till we come to those steps of stone ascending on each side over the inner archivolt; a strange method of enclosing its curve; but done with special purpose. If you look in the Bellini picture,⁵ you will see that these steps formed the rocky midst of a mountain which rose over them for the ground, in the old mosaic; the Mount of the Beatitudes. And on the vault above, stood Christ blessing for ever-not as standing on the Mount, but supported above it by Angels.

105. And on the archivolt itself were carved the Virtues-with, it is said, the Beatitudes; but I am not sure yet of anything in this archivolt except that it is entirely splendid twelfth-century sculpture. I had the separate figures cast for my English museum, and put off the examination of them when I was overworked. The Fortitude, Justice, Faith, and Temperance are clear enough on the right-and the keystone figure is Constancy, but I am sure of nothing

¹ [The carvings on the bases are now much worn away; the bases are favourite seats.]

² [This, however, was not done.]

³ [The inscription (which is cut in red marble in large deep letters, painted black) refers to the return of the bronze horses from Paris in that year; Napoleon had removed them in 1797, and placed them on the Triumphal Arch in the Place du Carrousel.]

⁴ [The mosaic, of the Last Judgment, made in 1836-1838, from cartoons of the painter Lattanzia Querena, by Laborio Salandri. It displaced one of the same subject by Pietro Spagna, made in 1683-1685, which in turn had displaced the one shown in Bellini’s picture.]

⁵ [Plate XLVI.: the reader will observe the steps over the inner archivolt of the central door.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]