their many sins by splendid religious foundations. So her people
came to live in an atmosphere of religious observance, and the
bloom and fruitage of their religious hopes and fears are seen in
the whole history of Venetian art,--from the rude sculptures of
Torcello and the naive mosaics of San Marco to the glowing
altarpieces and ceilings of John Bellini, Titian, and Tintoretto
and the illuminations of the Grimani Psalter. No class in Venice
rose above this environment. Doges and Senators were as
susceptible to it as were the humblest fishermen on the Lido. In
every one of those glorious frescoes in the corridors and halls
of the Ducal Palace which commemorate the victories of the
Republic, the triumphant Doge or Admiral or General is seen on
his knees making acknowledgment of the divine assistance. On
every Venetian sequin, from the days when Venice was a power
throughout the earth to that fatal year when the young Bonaparte
tossed the Republic over to the House of Austria, the Doge,
crowned and robed, kneels humbly before the Saviour, the Virgin,
or St. Mark. In that vast Hall of the Five Hundred, the most
sumptuous room in the world, there is spread above the heads of
the Doge and Senators and Councilors, as an incentive to the
discharge of their duties on earth, a representation of the
blessed in Heaven.

From highest to lowest, the Venetians lived, moved, and had their
being in this religious environment, and, had their Republic been
loosely governed, its external policy would have been largely
swayed by this all-pervading religious feeling, and would have
become the plaything of the Roman Court. But a democracy has
never been maintained save by the delegation of great powers to
its chosen leaders. It was the remark of one of the foremost