336 ST. MARK’S REST

prey; its wings having wasted away into mere paddles or flappers, having in them no faculty or memory of flight; its throat stretched into the flaccidity of a sack, its tail swollen into a molluscous encumbrance, like an enormous worm; and the human head beneath its paw symbolizing therefore the subjection of the human nature to the most brutal desires.

160. When I came to Venice last year,¹ it was with resolute purpose of finding out everything that could be known of the circumstances which led to the building, and determined style, of this chapel-or, more strictly, sacred hall-of the School of the Schiavoni. But day after day the task was delayed by some more pressing subject of inquiry; and, at this moment-resolved at last to put what notes I have on the contents of it at once together,-I find myself reduced to copy, without any additional illustration, the statement of Flaminio Corner.*

161. “In the year 1451, some charitable men of the Illyrian or Sclavonic nation, many of whom were sailors, moved by praiseworthy compassion, in that they saw many of their fellow-countrymen, though deserving well of the republic, perish miserably, either of hard life or hunger, nor have enough to pay the expenses of church burial, determined to establish a charitable brotherhood under the invocation of the holy martyrs St. George and St. Trifon-brotherhood whose pledge was to succour poor sailors, and others of their nation, in their grave need, whether by reason of sickness or old age, and to conduct their bodies, after death, religiously to burial. Which design was approved by the Council of Ten, in a decree dated 19th May, 1451; after which, they obtained from the pity of the Prior of the Monastery of St. John of Jerusalem, Lorenzo Marcello, the convenience of a hospice in the

* Notizie Storiche, Venice, 1758, p. 167.²

¹ [In 1876: see above, Introduction, pp. xxxiv. seq.]

² [Flaminio Cornaro: Notizie Storiche delle Chiese e Monasteri di Venezia, published at Padua.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]