IX. SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS 323

He wears, as in many other pictures of him, a monk’s dress, in allusion to his being the founder of ascetic monachism. His “temptations” are well known.¹

b. St. Pietro Urseolo (above St. Anthony).

X BEATUS“Beatus Petrus Ursiolo dux(s) Vened.”

PETRV’VRSI“The blessed Pietro Urseolo, Doge of

ODUXSthe Venetians.’’

LOVENED

This Doge turned monk. Influenced by the teaching of the abbot Guarino, when he came to Venice from his convent in Guyenne, Pietro left his ducal palace one September night, fled from Venice, and shut himself up in the monastery of Cusano, where he remained for nineteen years, till his death in 997.

Here he is represented as a monk in a white robe, with a black cloak. He holds in his hand the Doge’s cap, which he has doffed for ever, and as he looks upwards, there shines down on him a ray of light, in the centre of which is seen the Holy Dove.

c. St. Isidore (opposite the Doge).

S. ISIDORVS MARTIR (?)

This is St. Isidore of Chios, a martyr saint, who perished during the persecutions of the Christians by the Emperor Decius, A.D. 250. He appears to have been much worshipped at Venice, where he is buried. Here he is seen dressed as a warrior, and bearing a shield and a lily, the symbol of purity.*

d. St. Theodore. S. THEODOR. M.

He is with St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Mercurius, one of the four Greek warrior saints of Christendom, besides

* See Stones of Venice (complete edition), vol. ii. chap. viii. § 127, and vol. iii. chap. ii. § 61. His body was brought to Venice with that of St. Donato in 1126 by the Doge Domenico Michiel. See ante, § 11.

¹ [The inscription, however, makes it clear that it is not St. Anthony, the anchorite of the famous temptations and the founder of monachism, but “Anthony of Brescia.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]