at the age of eighty, but he occupied the throne only for a year and his end was hastened by grief at another of those disastrous fires, in 1576, which destroyed some of the finest pictures that the world then contained.  This statue is vigorous, and one feels that it is true to life, but for the old admiral at his finest and most vivid you must go to Vienna, where Tintoretto’s superb and magnificent portrait of him is preserved.  There he stands, the old sea dog, in his armour, but bare-headed, and through a window you see the Venetian fleet riding on a blue sea.  It is one of the greatest portraits in the world and it ought to be in Venice.

The chapel of the Rosary, which is entered just by the statue of Venier, was built in honour of his Lepanto victory.  It was largely destroyed by fire in 1867, and is shown by an abrupt white-moustached domineering guide who claims to remember it before that time.  Such wood carving as was saved ("Saved!  Saved!” he raps out in tones like a pistol shot) is in the church proper, in the left aisle.  Not to be rescued were Titian’s great “Death of S. Peter, Martyr” a copy of which, presented by King Victor Emmanuel, is in the church, and a priceless altar-piece by Giovanni Bellini.  The beautiful stone reliefs by Sansovino are in their original places, and remain to-day as they were mutilated by the flames.  Their unharmed portions prove their exquisite workmanship, and fortunately photography has preserved for us their unimpaired form.  An American gentleman who followed me into the church, after having considered for some time as to whether or not he (who had “seen ten thousand churches”) would risk the necessary fifty centimes, expressed himself, before these Sansovino masterpieces, as glad he came.  “These reliefs,” he said to me, “seem to be of a high order of merit.”  The restoration of the chapel is being carried out thoroughly but slowly.  Modern Sansovinos, in caps made from the daily paper, are stone-cutting all day long, and will be for many years to come.

Returning to the church proper, we find more Doges.  An earlier Venier Doge, Antonio (1382-1400), is here.  In the left aisle is another fine Ducal monument, that of Pasquale Malipiero (1457-1462), who succeeded Foscari on his deposal and was the first Doge to be present at the funeral of another, for Foscari died only ten days after his fall.  Here also lie Doge Michele Steno (1400-1413), who succeeded Antonio Venier, and who as a young man is credited with the insult which may be said to have led to all Marino Faliero’s troubles.  For Steno having annoyed the Doge by falling in love with a maid of honour, Faliero forbade him the palace, and in retaliation Steno scribbled on the throne itself a scurrilous commentary on the Doge’s wife.  Faliero’s inability to induce the judges to punish Steno sufficiently was the beginning of that rage against the State which led to his ruin.  It was during Steno’s reign that Carlo Zeno was so foolishly arrested and imprisoned, to the loss of the Republic of one of its finest patriots.