S. Mark's is described by Ruskin as an illuminated missal in mosaic. It
is also a treasury of precious stones, for in addition to every known
coloured stone that this earth of ours can produce, with which it is
built and decorated and floored, it has the wonderful Pala d'oro, that
sumptuous altar-piece of gold and silver and enamel which contains some
six thousand jewels. More people, I guess, come to see this than
anything else; but it is worth standing before, if only as a reminder of
how far the Church has travelled since a carpenter's son, who despised
riches, founded it; as a reminder, too, as so much of this building is,
of the day when Constantinople, where in the eleventh century the Pala
d'oro was made, was Christian also.

The fine carved pillars of the high altar's canopy are very beautiful,
and time has given them a quality as of ivory. According to a custodian,
without whom one cannot enter the choir, the remains of S. Mark still
lie beneath the high altar, but this probably is not true. At the back
of the high altar is a second altar with pillars of alabaster, and the
custodian places his candle behind the central ones to illustrate their
soft lucency, and affirms that they are from Solomon's own temple. His
candle illumines also Sansovino's bronze sacristy door, with its fine
reliefs of the Deposition and the Resurrection, with the heads of
Evangelists and Prophets above them. Six realistic heads are here too,
one of which is Titian's, one Sansovino's himself, and one the head of
Aretino, the witty and licentious writer and gilt-edged parasite--this
last a strange selection for a sacristy door. Sansovino designed also
the bronze figures of the Evangelists on the balustrade of the choir
stalls and the reliefs of the Doge's and Dogaressa's private pews.

There are two Treasuries in S. Mark's, One can be seen every day for
half a franc; the other is open only on Fridays and the entrance fee is,