VIII. THE REQUIEM 293

the time when people liked the white pillar-like figures of the dome, to that when they liked the dark exuberance of those in the transept.

109. But from this coign of vantage you may see much more. Just opposite you, and above, in the arch crossing the transept between its cupola and the central dome,¹ are mosaics of Christ’s Temptation, and of His entrance to Jerusalem. The upper one, of the Temptation, is entirely characteristic of the Byzantine mythic manner of teaching. On the left, Christ sits in the rocky cave which has sheltered Him for the forty days of fasting: out of the rock above issues a spring-meaning that He drank of the waters that spring up to everlasting life, of which whoso drinks shall never thirst; and in His hand is a book-the living Word of God, which is His bread.² The Devil holds up the stones in his lap.

Next the temptation on the pinnacle of the Temple, symbolic again, wholly, as you see,-in very deed quite impossible: so also that on the mountain, where the treasures of the world are, I think, represented by the glittering fragments on the mountain top. Finally, the falling Devil, cast down head-foremost in the air, and approaching angels in ministering troops, complete the story.

110. And on the whole, these pictures are entirely representative to you of the food which the Venetian mind had in art, down to the day of the Doge Selvo. Those were the kind of images and shadows³ they lived on: you may think of them what you please, but the historic fact is, beyond all possible debate, that these thin dry bones of art were nourishing meat to the Venetian race: that they grew and throve on that diet, every day spiritually fatter for it, and more comfortably round in human soul:-no illustrated papers to be had, no Academy Exhibition to be seen. If their eyes were to be entertained at all, such must be their

¹ [That is, in the north vault of the south transept.]

² [Matthew iv. 2; John iv. 14, vi. 45-51.]

³ [The MS. has “pictures” for “images and shadows,” the reference being to “the best in this kind are but shadows”: see Vol. XX. p. 300.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]