the waves. You see also how her thin dress is all in waves; and the water ripples under her boat so gaily, that it sets all the leaf below rippling too. The next leaf, you observe, does not ripple. 2. Next to the Angel of the Moon, is the Angel of the planet Jupiter, the symbol of the power of the Father (Zeus, Pater) in creation. He lays his hand on the image of Man; and on the ledge of stone, under the iron bar above his head, you may decipher, beginning at the whitest spot on the exactly nearest angle,—these letters: D (written like a Q upside down) E L I; then a crack breaks off the first of the three legs of M; then comes O, and another crack; then D SADA (the A is seen in the light, a dancing or pirouetting A on one leg); then DECO, up to the edge of Jupiter's nimbus; passing over his head, you come on the other side to STAF O, and a ruinous crack, carrying away two letters, only replaceable by conjecture; the inscription then closing with AVIT 7 E V A. The figure like a numeral 7 is, in all the Ducal Palace writing, short for E T, so that now putting the whole in order, and adding the signs of contraction hidden by the iron bar, we have this legend: "DE LIMO DS ADĀ DE COSTA FO**AVIT ET EVĀ;” or, in full, "De limo Dominus Adam, de costa formavit et Evam." "From the clay the Lord made Adam, and from the rib, Eve." Both of whom you see imaged as standing above the capital, in photograph No. 3. 3. And above these, the Archangel Michael, with his name written on the cornice above him-ACANGEL. MICHAEL; the Archangel being written towards the piazzetta, and Michael, larger, towards the sea; his robe is clasped by a brooch in the form of a rose, with a small cross in its centre; he holds a straight sword, of real bronze, in his right hand, and on the scroll in his left is written: "ENSE BONOS TEGO MALORV CRIMINA PURGO." "WITH MY SWORD, I GUARD THE GOOD, AND PURGE THE CRIMES OF THE EVIL." Purge-not punish; so much of purgatorial doctrine being engraved on this chief angle of the greater council chamber of the Senate.1 Of all such inscription, modern Venice reads no more; and of such knowledge, asks no more. To guard the good is no business of hers now: "is not one man as good as another?" and as to angelic interference, "must not every one take care of himself?" To purify the evil;-" but what!—are the days of religious persecution returned, then? And for the old story of Adam and Eve,2-don't we know better than that!" No deciphering of the old letters, therefore, any more; but if you observe, here are new ones on the capital, more to the purpose. Your Modern Archangel Uriel-standing in the Sun-provides you with the advertisement of a Photographic establishment, FOTOGRAFIA, this decoration, alone being in letters as large, you see, as the wreath of leafage round the neck of the pillar. Another bill-farther round the shaft-completes the effect; and at your leisure you can compare the beautiful functions and forms of the great modern art of Printing, with the ancient rude ones of engraving. 4. Truly, it is by this modern Archangel Uriel's help, that I can show you pictures of all these pretty things, at 1 [Compare Stones of Venice, vol. ii. (Vol. X. pp. 359-363).] [Uriel (the fourth Archangel: 2 Esdras iv. 36), "the Light of God," regent of the sun.] Sheffield; but by whose help do you think it is that you have no real ones at Sheffield, to see instead? Why haven't you a Ducal Palace of your own, without need to have the beauties of one far away explained to you? Bills enough you have, stuck in variously decorative situations; public buildings also-but do you take any pleasure in them? and are you never the least ashamed that what little good there may be in them, every poor flourish of their cast iron, every bead moulding on a shop front, is borrowed from Greece or Venice: and that if you got all your best brains in Sheffield, and best hands, to work, with that sole object, you couldn't carve such another capital as this which the photographer has stuck his bill upon ? You don't believe that, I suppose. Well, you will believe, and know, a great deal more, of supreme serviceableness to you, if ever you come to believe and know that. But you can only come to it slowly, and after your “character" has been much "improved," as you see Mr. Goldwin Smith desires it to be (see the third article of Correspondence). To-day you shall take, if you will, a step or two towards such improvement, with Leucothea's help-white goddess of sea foam,' and the Sun-Angel's help-in our lesson-Photograph No. 1.2 With your patience, we will now try if anything "is to be seen in it." 5. You see at all events that the hair in every figure is terminated by severely simple lines externally, so as to make approximately round balls, or bosses, of the heads; also that it is divided into minute tresses from the crown of the head downwards; bound round the forehead by a double fillet, and then, in the head-dress of the greater Goddess, escapes into longer rippling tresses, whose lines are continued by the rippling folds of the linen sleeve below. 1 [See St. Mark's Rest, § 76 (Vol. XXIV. p. 267).] [See Plate V. in Vol. XXVIII. (p. 574). The "Leucothea" had, however, been numbered as the Second Lesson Photograph, because it was the second selected by Ruskin (ibid., pp. 574, 625). Yet on p. 626 he calls it, as here, "the first" that is, in historical order.] 3 * [See Letter 69, § 14 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 698).] |