S. Giovanni Crisostomo has also two fine reliefs, one by Tullio Lombardi with a sweet little Virgin (who, however, is no mother) in it, and the twelve Apostles gathered about.  The sacristan, by the way, is also an amateur artist, and once when I was there he had placed his easel just by the side door and was engaged in laboriously copying in pencil Veronese’s “Christ in the House of Levi” (the original being a mile away, at the Accademia) from an old copper plate, whistling the while.  Having no india-rubber he corrected his errors either with a penknife or a dirty thumb.  Art was then more his mistress than Pecunia, for on this occasion he never left his work, although more than one Baedeker was flying the red signal of largesse.

Continuing on our way we come soon to a point where the Calle Dolfin meets a canal at right angles, with a large notice tablet like a gravestone to keep us from falling into the water.  It bears an ancient, and I imagine, obsolete, injunction with regard to the sale of bread by unauthorized persons.  Turning to the left we are beneath the arcade of the house of the ill-fated Marino Faliero, the Doge who was put to death for treason, as I have related elsewhere.  It is now shops and tenements.  Opposite is the church of SS.  Apostoli, which is proud of possessing an altar-piece by Tiepolo which some think his finest work, and of which the late John Addington Symonds wrote in terms of excessive rapture.  It represents the last communion of S. Lucy, whose eyes were put out.  Her eyes are here, in fact, on a plate.  No one can deny the masterly drawing and grouping of the picture, but, like all Tiepolo’s work, it leaves me cold.

I do not suggest the diversion at this moment; but from SS.  Apostoli one easily gains the Fondamenta Nuovo, on the way passing through a rather opener Venice where canals are completely forgotten.  Hereabouts are two or three popular drinking places with gardens, and on one Sunday afternoon I sat for some time in the largest of them—­the Trattoria alla Libra—­watching several games of bowls—­the giuocho di bocca—­in full swing.  The Venetian workman—­and indeed the Italian workman generally—­is never so happy as when playing this game, or perhaps he is happiest when—­ball in hand—­he discusses with his allies various lines of strategy.  The Giudecca is another stronghold of the game, every little bar there having a stamped-down bowling alley at the back of it.

The longest direct broad walk in Venice—­longer than the Riva—­begins at SS.  Apostoli and extends to the railway station.  The name of the street is the Via Vittorio Emmanuele, and in order to obtain it many canals had to be filled-in.  To the loss of canals the visitor is never reconciled.  Wherever one sees the words Rio Terra before the name of a calle, one knows that it is a filled-in canal.  For perhaps the best example of the picturesque loss which this filling-in entails one should seek the Rio Terra delle Colonne, which runs out of the Calle dei Fabri close to the Piazza of S. Mark.  When this curved row of pillars was at the side of water it must have been impressive indeed.