through the old cloister, and I added, for my own pleasure (and chiefly
out of my own fancy, I am afraid, for I can nowhere localize the fable on
which I built), that the rivalry between the painters was partly a love-
jealousy, and that the disputed object of their passion was that fair
Violante, daughter of the elder Palma, who is to be seen in so many
pictures painted by her father, and by her lover, Titian. No doubt there
are readers will care less for this idleness of mine than for the fact
that the hard-headed German monk, Martin Luther, once said mass in the
adjoining church of San Stefano, and lodged in the convent, on his way to
Rome. The unhappy Francesco Carrara, last Lord of Padua, is buried in this
church; but Venetians are chiefly interested there now by the homilies of
those fervent preacher-monks, who deliver powerful sermons during Lent.
The monks are gifted men, with a most earnest and graceful eloquence, and
they attract immense audiences, like popular and eccentric ministers among
ourselves. It is a fashion to hear them, and although the atmosphere of
the churches in the season of Lent is raw, damp, and most uncomfortable,
the Venetians then throng the churches where they preach. After Lent the
sermons and church-going cease, and the sanctuaries are once more
abandoned to the possession of the priests, droning from the altars to the
scattered kneelers on the floor,--the foul old women and the young girls
of the poor, the old-fashioned old gentlemen and devout ladies of the
better class, and that singular race of poverty-stricken old men proper to
Italian churches, who, having dabbled themselves with holy water, wander
forlornly and aimlessly about, and seem to consort with the foreigners
looking at the objects of interest. Lounging young fellows of low degree
appear with their caps in their hands, long enough to tap themselves upon
the breast and nod recognition to the high-altar; and lounging young
fellows of high degree step in to glance at the faces of the pretty girls,
and then vanish. The droning ends, presently, and the devotees disappear,
the last to go being that thin old woman, kneeling before a shrine, with a