the Venetian sequin. But observe the great picture of Titian's in the
ducal palace, of the Doge Antonio Grimani kneeling before Faith: there
is a curious lesson in it. The figure of Faith is a coarse portrait of
one of Titian's least graceful female models: Faith had become carnal.
The eye is first caught by the flash of the Doge's armor. The heart of
Venice was in her wars, not in her worship.

The mind of Tintoret, incomparably more deep and serious than that of
Titian, casts the solemnity of its own tone over the sacred subjects
which it approaches, and sometimes forgets itself into devotion; but the
principle of treatment is altogether the same as Titian's: absolute
subordination of the religious subject to purposes of decoration or
portraiture.

The evidence might be accumulated a thousandfold from the works of
Veronese, and of every succeeding painter,--that the fifteenth century
had taken away the religious heart of Venice.

SECTION XV. Such is the evidence of Painting. To collect that of
Architecture will be our task through many a page to come; but I must
here give a general idea of its heads.

Philippe de Commynes, writing of his entry into Venice in 1495, says,--

"Chascun me feit seoir au meillieu de ces deux ambassadeurs qui est
l'honneur d'Italie que d'estre au meillieu; et me menerent au long de la
grant rue, qu'ilz appellent le Canal Grant, et est bien large. Les
gallees y passent a travers et y ay veu navire de quatre cens tonneaux
ou plus pres des maisons: et est la plus belle rue que je croy qui soit
en tout le monde, et la mieulx maisonnee, et va le long de la ville. Les