VIII. THE REQUIEM 291

else yet: the less that interpretation partly depended on the scrolls, of which the letters were gilded, not carved:¹-the figures also gilded, in Bellini’s time.

Then the innermost archivolt of all is of mere twelfth-century grotesque, unworthy of its place. But there were so many entrances to the atrium that the builders did not care to trust special teaching to any one, even the central, except as a part of the façade. The atrium, or outer cloister itself, was the real porch of the temple. And that they covered with as close scripture as they could-the whole creation and Book of Genesis pictured on it.

106. These are the mosaics usually attributed to the Doge Selvo: I cannot myself date any mosaics securely with precision, never having studied the technical structure of them; and these also are different from the others of St. Mark’s in being more Norman than Byzantine in manner; and in an ugly admittance and treatment of nude form, which I find only elsewhere in manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries of the school of Monte Casino and South Italy.² On the other hand, they possess some qualities of thought and invention almost in a sublime degree. But I believe Selvo had better work done under him than these. Better work at all events, you shall now see-if you will. You must get hold of the man who keeps sweeping the dust about, in St. Mark’s; very thankful he will be, for a lira, to take you up to the gallery on the right-hand side (south, of St. Mark’s interior); from which gallery, where it turns into the south transept, you may see, as well as it is possible to see, the mosaic of the central dome.³

107. Christ enthroned on a rainbow, in a sphere supported by four flying angels underneath, forming white

¹ [The virtues on the right of the keystone (i.e., on the spectator’s left) are Humility, Chastity, Patience, Compunction, Abstinence, Modesty, Love, and Hope; on the spectator’s right, a figure unidentified, and then Mercy, Benignity, Prudence, Temperance, Faith, Justice, and Fortitude. For the legends on the scrolls (where still legible), see The Bible of St. Mark, pp. 38-40).]

² [For other references to the school of Monte Casino, see Vol. XXI. p. 50 (Nos. 198, 199).]

³ [For another account of them, see Stones of Venice, vol. ii. (Vol. X. p. 136).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]