en
slanting rack, that served as a bed--still remain. In many of these are
inscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (in
translation): "May God protect me against him whom I trust; I will
protect myself against him whom I do not trust."

The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: "G. M. B. was
confined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it will be
the last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family."

All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:--

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand."

The piazza of St. Mark's is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe.
It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which are
merely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk is
blockaded with cafes _al fresco_, the ground is half covered with the
dense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The
facade of St. Mark's fills one end--a mass of gleaming color. At one
corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissance
style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa
days three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forth
on the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above,--a very
ingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculptures
and masses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall,
where all the town congregates from morning till midnight.

To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and one
that would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries of
Venice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastiano
lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated
frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his
"Coronation of the Virgin," "The Virgin in the Gloria," "Adoration of
the Magi," "Martyrdom of San Sebastian," and many others. In the Scuola
di San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, "St. Magdalene in the
Wilderness," the "Visitation," and the "Murder of the Innocents."

In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of Titian,--an exquisite grouping
of sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of the
Emperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is Titian's
most famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pessaro," the work of which is
probably, too, the great