The Sala di Giove brings us to Venetian painting indeed, and glorious painting too, for next the door is Titian’s “Bella,” No. 18, the lady in the peacock-blue dress with purple sleeves, all richly embroidered in gold, whom to see once is to remember for ever.  On the other side of the door is Andrea’s brilliant “S.  John the Baptist as a Boy,” No. 272, and then the noblest Fra Bartolommeo here, a Deposition, No. 64, not good in colour, but superbly drawn and pitiful.  In this room also is the monk’s great spirited figure of S. Marco, for the convent of that name.  Between them is a Tintoretto, No. 131, Vincenzo Zeino, one of his ruddy old men, with a glimpse of Venice, under an angry sky, through the window.  Over the door, No. 124, is an Annunciation by Andrea, with a slight variation in it, for two angels accompany that one who brings the news, and the announcement is made from the right instead of the left, while the incident is being watched by some people on the terrace over a classical portico.  A greater Andrea hangs next:  No. 123, the Madonna in Glory, fine but rather formal, and, like all Andrea’s work, hall-marked by its woman type.  The other notable pictures are Raphael’s Fornarina, No. 245, which is far more Venetian than the “Madonna della Sedia,” and has been given to Sebastian del Piombo; and the Venetian group on the right of the door, which is not only interesting for its own charm but as being a foretaste of the superb and glorious Giorgione in the Sala di Marte, which we now enter.

Here we find a Rembrandt, No. 16, an old man:  age and dignity emerging golden from the gloom; and as a pendant a portrait, with somewhat similar characteristics, but softer, by Tintoretto, No. 83.  Between them is a prosperous, ruddy group of scholars by Rubens, who has placed a vase of tulips before the bust of Seneca.  And we find Rubens again with a sprawling, brilliant feat entitled “The Consequences of War,” but what those consequences are, beyond nakedness, one has difficulty in discerning.  Raphael’s Holy Family, No. 94 (also known as the “Madonna dell’ Impannata"), next it might be called the perfection of drawing without feeling.  The authorities consider it a school piece:  that is to say, chiefly the work of his imitators.  The vivacity of the Child’s face is very remarkable.  The best Andrea is in this room—­a Holy Family, No. 81, which gets sweeter and simpler and richer with every glance.  Other Andreas are here too, notably on the right of the further door a sweet mother and sprawling, vigorous Child.  But every Andrea that I see makes me think more highly of the “Madonna della Sacco,” in the cloisters of SS.  Annunziata.  Van Dyck, who painted much in Italy before settling down at the English court, we find in this room with a masterly full-length seated portrait of an astute cardinal.  But the room’s greatest glory, as I have said, is the Giorgione on the easel.