I have not counted the Venetian churches with examples of Tintoretto’s genius in them (it would be simpler to count those that have none); but they are many and his industry was enormous.  One likes to think of his studio being visited continually by church patrons and prelates anxious to see how their particular commission was getting on.

Tintoretto married in 1558, two years after Shakespeare’s birth, his wife being something of an heiress, and in 1562 his eldest son, Domenico, who also became an artist, was born.  We have seen how in 1560 Tintoretto competed for the S. Rocco decorations; in 1565 he painted “The Crucifixion”; and he was working on the walls of the Scuola until 1588.  In the meantime he worked also for the Doges’ Palace, his first picture, that of the Battle of Lepanto, being destroyed with many others in the fire of 1576, first obtaining him as a reward a sinecure post in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, that central office of German merchants and brokers on the facade of which Giorgione and Titian painted their famous (now obliterated) frescoes.  Small posts here with no obligations were given to public servants, much as we give Civil List pensions.

Tintoretto’s life was very methodical, and was divided strictly between painting and domestic affairs, with few outside diversions.  He had settled down in the house which now bears his name and a tablet, close to the church of the Madonna dell’Orto.  His children were eight in number, among whom his favourite was Marietta, his eldest daughter.  He and she were in fact inseparable, Marietta even donning boy’s attire in order to be with him at his work on occasions when as a girl it would have been difficult.  Perhaps it is she who so often appears in his pictures as a beautiful sympathetic human girl among so much that is somewhat frigidly Biblical and detached.  Among his closer friends were some of the best Venetian intellects, and, among the artists, Andrea Schiavone, who hovers like a ghost about so many painters and their work, Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, Jacopo da Ponte, or Bassano, and Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor.  He had musician friends, too; for Tintoretto, like Giorgione before him, was devoted to music, and himself played many instruments.  He was a man of simple tastes and a quiet and somewhat dry humour; liked home best; chaffed his wife, who was a bit of a manager and had to check his indiscriminate generosity by limiting him to one coin a day; and, there is no doubt whatever, studied his Bible with minuteness.  His collected works make the most copious illustrated edition of scripture that exists.

[Illustration:  THE COLLEONI STATUE AND S.S.  GIOVANNI E PAOLO]