LEFT]


The north façade of S. Mark's receives less attention than it should,
although one cannot leave Cook's office without seeing it. The north has
a lovely Gothic doorway and much sculpture, including on the west wall
of the transept a rather nice group of sheep, and beneath it a pretty
little saint; while the Evangelists are again here--S. Luke painting, S.
Matthew looking up from his book, S. John brooding, and S. Mark writing.
The doorway has a quaint interesting relief of the manger, containing a
very large Christ child, in its arch. Pinnacled saints, with holy men
beneath canopies between them, are here, and on one point the quaintest
little crowned Madonna. At sunset the light on this wall can be very
lovely.

At the end of the transept is a tomb built against the wall, with lions
to guard it, and a statue of S. George high above. The tomb is that of
Daniele Manin, and since we are here I cannot avoid an historical
digression, for this man stands for the rise of the present Venice. When
Lodovico Manin, the last Doge, came to the throne, in 1788, Venice was,
of course, no longer the great power that she had been; but at any rate
she was Venice, the capital of a republic with the grandest and noblest
traditions. She had even just given one more proof of her sea power by
her defeat of the pirates of Algiers. But her position in Europe had
disappeared and a terrible glow was beginning to tinge the northern
sky--none other than that of the French Revolution, from which was to
emerge a Man of Destiny whose short sharp way with the map of Europe
must disturb the life of frivolity and ease which the Venetians
contrived still to live.