II. MEMORIAL STUDIES OF ST. MARKS’S 417

is my general agent for photographs, either taken under my direction (as here, Nos. 4, 9, and 10), or specially chosen by me for purposes of Art Education. The series of views here shown are all perfectly taken, with great clearness, from the most important points, and give, consecutively, complete evidence respecting the façade.

They are arranged in the following order:-

1. THE CENTRAL PORCH.|

2. THE TWO NORTHERN PORCHES.|Arranged in one frame.

3. THE TWO SOUTHERN PORCHES.|

5. THE SOUTHERN PORTICO. Before restoration.

4. THE NORTHERN PORTICO.

6. THE WEST FRONT, IN PERSPECTIVE. Seen from the North.

7. THE WEST FRONT, IN PERSPECTIVE. Seen from the South.

8. THE SOUTH SIDE. Before restoration.

9. DETAIL OF CENTRAL ARCHIVOLT.

10. THE CROSS OF THE MERCHANTS OF VENICE.

7. This last photograph is not of St. Mark’s, but is of the inscription which I discovered, in 1877, on the Church of St. James of the Rialto.¹ It is of the ninth or tenth century (according to the best antiquarians in Venice), and is given in this series, first, to confirm the closing paragraph in my notes on the Prout drawings in Bond Street;² and secondly, to show the perfect preservation even of the hair-strokes in letters carved in the Istrian marble used at Venice a thousand years ago. The inscription on the cross is,-

“Sit crux vera salus huic tua Christe loco.”

(Be Thy Cross, O Christ, the true safety of this place.)

And on the band beneath,-

“Hoc circa templum sit jus mercantibus æquum,

Pondera nec vergant nec sit conventio prava.”

(Around this temple let the merchants’ law be just,

Their weights true, and their contracts fair.)

¹ [See Plate LXII. in Vol. XXI. p. 269; and compare above, Introduction, p. xli.]

² [The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to the Notes: see Vol. XIV. pp. 403-404.]

XXIV. 2 D

[Version 0.04: March 2008]