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 ven 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
maisons sont fort grandes et haultes, et de bonne pierre, et les
anciennes toutes painctes; les aultres faictes depuis cent ans: toutes
ont le devant de marbre blanc, qui leur vient d'Istrie, a cent mils de
la, et encores maincte grant piece de porphire et de sarpentine sur le
devant.... C'est la plus triumphante cite que j'aye jamais vene et qui
plus faict d'honneur a ambassadeurs et estrangiers, et qui plus
saigement se gouverne, et ou le service de Dieu est le plus
sollempnellement faict: et encores qu'il y peust bien avoir d'aultres
faultes, si je croy que Dieu les a en ayde pour la reverence qu'ilz
portent au service de l'Eglise."[16]

[Illustration: Plate I. Wall-Veil-Decoration.
CA'TREVISAN
CA'DARIO.]

Sec. XVI. This passage is of peculiar interest, for two reasons. Observe,
first, the impression of Commynes respecting the religion of Venice: of
which, as I have above said, the forms still remained with some
glimmering of life in them, and were the evidence of what the real life
had been in former times. But observe, secondly, the impression
instantly made on Commynes' mind by the distinction between the elder
palaces and those built "within this last hundred years; which all have
their fronts of white marble brought from Istria, a hundred miles away,
and besides, many a large piece of porphyry and serpentine upon their
fronts."

On the opposite page I have given two of the ornaments of the palaces
which so struck the French ambassador.[17] He was right in his notice of
the distinction. There had indeed come a change over Venetian
architecture in the fifteenth century; and a change of some importance
to us moderns: we English owe to it our St. Paul's Cathedral, and Europe
in general owes to it the utter degradation or destruction of her
schools of architecture, never since revived. But that the reader may
understan