liv INTRODUCTION

abroad, and the increasing attention which visitors now paid to them, have led in recent years to great and admirable changes. Two new galleries have been built for the exhibition of the works by Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini respectively; the “St. Ursula” Series is now shown all together in one room, admirably lighted and on the level of the eye. In the Carpaccio Room there is contained in a frame an illuminated copy of Le Historie de S. Ursula Secondo Jacobo da Voragine, “scripto illuminato per mano di me, Lucio Mariani romano, 26 Aprile 1895. Laus Deo”; there is also a photograph of an original letter from Carpaccio to the Venetian Senate, dated 15th August 1511.

In 1494 Carpaccio painted “The Miracle of the Holy Cross,” No. 566 in the Academy; noted by Ruskin in the Guide (p. 162), and see “Venetian Index,” under “Rialto,” Vol. XI. p. 400.

In 1501 he was commissioned to execute paintings in the Sala de’ Pregadi, in the Ducal Palace,¹ but these have not survived; and in 1507 he received appointment as one of John Bellini’s assistants in painting the Great Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace. Ruskin prints the decree of his appointment in The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret (Vol. XXII. p. 89).

To the year 1504 belongs a picture in the Correr Museum at Venice, “St. Mary and Elizabeth,” which is mentioned in St. Mark’s Rest, § 202 n.

Between the years 1501-1511 he painted the series of pictures, to which Ruskin devotes so much attention, for the Confraternity of the Sclavonians.² The foundation of the brotherhood is described in St. Mark’s Rest, §§ 161, 213; the general appearance of the little chapel-called by Ruskin “The Shrine of the Slaves” (i.e., Sclavonians)-in §§ 164, 165. The pictures by Carpaccio upon its walls are nine in number, here enumerated in order beginning on the left-hand wall as one enters. The first three are from the story of St. George. The legend is told in St. Mark’s Rest, §§ 214, 216-222, and Fors Clavigera, Letter 26.

1. St. George and the Dragon.-Described in St. Mark’s Rest, §§ 168, 223-241, and in Fors, Letter 26, § 4; see also Lectures on Landscape, § 77 (Vol. XXII. p. 57). Of this picture there are two studies by Ruskin in the Museum at Sheffield; one of the whole picture, here reproduced (Plate LX.); the other of the upper part of the figure of St. George only (Plate LXIX.). Of the viper in this picture

¹ See Nos. 256 and 257 in Lorenzi’s Monumenti per servire alla storia del Palazzo Ducale.

² Rawdon Brown notices that the Sclavonians, of the Venetian provinces, were great seamen and did much commerce with England. Their guild had a burialplace near Southampton, and in the church of North Stoneham a slab is preserved bearing the following inscription: “SEPVLTVRA DE LA SCHOLA DE SCLAVONI, ANO DñI MCCCCLXXXXI” (L’Archivio di Venezia con riguardo speciale alla storia inglese, 1868, p. 151).

[Version 0.04: March 2008]