reflected little credit upon the supernatural artist. The church is
properly that of Saint Christopher, but the saint has been titularly
vanquished by the Madonna, though he comes out gigantically triumphant in
a fresco above the high altar, and leads to confused and puzzling
reminiscences of Bluebeard and Morgante Maggiore, to both of which
characters he bears a bewildering personal resemblance.

There were once many fine paintings by Tintoretto and Bellini in this
church; but as the interior is now in course of restoration, the paintings
have been removed to the Academy, and we only saw one, which was by the
former master, and had all his striking imagination in the conception, all
his strength in the drawing and all his lampblack in the faded coloring.
In the centre of the church, the sacristan scraped the carpenter's rubbish
away from a flat tablet in the floor, and said that it was Tintoretto's
tomb. It is a sad thing to doubt even a sacristan, but I pointed out that
the tomb bore any name in the world rather than Robusti. "Ah!" said the
sacristan, "it is just that which makes it so very curious,--that
Tintoretto should wish to be buried under another name!" [Footnote:
Members of the family of Tintoretto are actually buried in this church;
and no sacristan of right feeling could do less than point out some tomb
as that of the great painter himself.]

It was a warm, sunny day in the fall, as I said; yet as we drew near the
Ghetto, we noticed in the air many white, floating particles, like lazy,
straggling flakes of snow. These we afterward found to be the down of
multitudes of geese, which are forever plucked by the whole apparent force
of the populace,--the fat of the devoted birds being substituted for lard
in the kitchens of the Ghetto, and their flesh for pork. As we approached
the obscene little riva at which we landed, a blond young Israelite,
lavishly adorned with feathers, came running to know if we wished to see