In the corresponding corner at the other end of this wall is another of the many “Last Suppers” which Tintoretto devised.  It does not compare in brilliance with that in S. Giorgio Maggiore, but it must greatly have interested the painter as a composition, and nothing could be more unlike the formality of the Leonardo da Vinci convention, with the table set square to the spectators, than this curious disordered scramble in which several of the disciples have no chairs at all.  The attitudes are, however, convincing, Christ is a gracious figure, and the whole scene is very memorable and real.

The Tintorettos on the walls of the upper hall I find less interesting than those on the ceiling, which, however, present the usual physical difficulties to the student.  How Ruskin with his petulant impatience brought himself to analyse so minutely works the examination of which leads to such bodily discomfort, I cannot imagine.  But he did so, and his pages should be consulted.  He is particularly interesting on “The Plague of Serpents.”  My own favourite is that of Moses striking the rock, from which, it is said, an early critic fled for his life for fear of the torrent.  The manna scene may be compared with another and more vivid version of the same incident in S. Giorgio Maggiore.

[Illustration:  THE CRUCIFIXION (CENTRAL DETAIL) FROM THE PAINTING BY TINTORETTO In the Scuola di S. Rocco]

The scenes from the Life of Christ around the walls culminate in the wonderful “Crucifixion,” in the Refectory leading from this room.  This sublime work, which was painted in 1565, when the artist was forty-seven, he considered his masterpiece.  It is the greatest single work in Venice, and all Tintoretto is in it, except the sensuous colourist of the “Origin of the Milky Way”:  all his power, all his thought, all his drama.  One should make this room a constant retreat.  The more one studies the picture the more real is the scene and the more amazing the achievement.  I do not say that one is ever moved as one can be in the presence of great simplicity; one is aware in all Tintoretto’s work of a hint of the self-conscious entrepreneur; but never, one feels, was the great man so single-minded as here; never was his desire to impress so deep and genuine.  In the mass the picture is overpowering; in detail, to which one comes later, its interest is inexhaustible.  As an example of the painter’s minute thought, one writer has pointed out that the donkey in the background is eating withered palm leaves—­a touch of ironical genius, if you like.  Ruskin calls this work the most exquisite instance of the “imaginative penetrative.”  I reproduce a detail showing the soldiers with the ropes and the group of women at the foot of the cross.

The same room has Tintoretto’s noble picture of Christ before Pilate and the fine tragic composition “The Road to Calvary,” and on the ceiling is the S. Rocco of which I have already spoken—­the germ from which sprang the whole wonderful series.