356 ST. MARK’S REST

St. Jerome lives here by what is really the immortal bread; that shall not here be filled with it so as to hunger no more; and under his earthly cloak comprehends as little perhaps the Great Love he hungers after and is fed by, as his dog comprehends him. I am sure the dog is there with some such purpose of comparison. On that very last quoted passage of Dante, Landino’s commentary (it was printed in Venice, 1491) annotates the words ‘che drizzaste ’I collo,’ with a quotation.

‘Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram,

Os homini sublime dedit, coelum que tueri

Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.’”

187. I was myself brought entirely to pause of happy wonder when first my friend showed me the lessons hidden in these pictures; no do I at all expect the reader at first to believe them. But the condition of his possible belief in them is that he approach them with a pure heart and a meek one; for this Carpaccio teaching is like the talisman of Saladin,¹ which dipped in pure water made it a healing draught, but by itself seemed only a little inwoven web of silk and gold.

188. But to-day, that we may be able to read better to-morrow, we will leave this cell of sweet mysteries, and examine some of the painter’s earlier work, in which we may learn his way of writing more completely, and understand the degree in which his own personal character, or prejudices, or imperfections, mingle in the method of his scholarship, and colour or divert the current of his inspiration.

189. Therefore now taking gondola again, you must be carried through the sea-streets to a far-away church, in the part of Venice now wholly abandoned to the poor, though a kingly saint’s-St. Louis’s:² but there are other things in this church to be noted, besides Carpaccio, which will

¹ [For this reference to Scott’s Talisman, see Vol. VI. p. 449 n.]

² [St. Alvise=St. Louis.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]