he panel in
which the Saint's body lies at the feet of the sailors, while his vision
appears shining upon the sails.

Except for the exaggerated insistence on the gilded elaborations of the
early ancona, there is not much to differentiate the early art of Venice
from that of other centres; but we notice that it persevered longer in
the material and mechanical art of the craftsman. Tuscan taste made
little impression, and many years elapsed before work akin to that of
Giotto attracted attention and was admired and imitated. A man like
Antonio Veneziano met with the fate of the innovator in Venice. He had
too much of the simplicity of the Tuscan and was compelled to carry his
work to Pisa, where his naif and humorous narratives still delight us in
the Campo Santo. It was in 1384 that he was employed to finish the
frescoes of the life of S. Ranieri, which had been left uncompleted
at Andrea da Firenze's death, and the fondness for architecture and
surroundings in the Florentine taste, which secured him a welcome, may,
as Vasari says, be derived from Agnolo Gaddi, who had already visited
Padua and Venice.

In the last years of the fourteenth century tributary streams begin to
feed the feeble main current. In 1365 Guariento, a Paduan, was employed
by the State to paint a huge fresco of Paradise in the Hall of the Gran
Consiglio of the Ducal Palace. This, which lay hid for centuries under
the painting by Tintoretto, was uncovered in 1909 and found to be in
fairly good preservation. It can now be seen in a side room. It tells us
that Guariento had to some extent been influenced by Giotto. The thrones
have long Gothic pendatives, the faces have more the Giottesque than the
Byzantine cast and show that the old traditions were crumbling.

When painting in Venice first begins to live a life of its own,
Jacobello del Fiore stands out as the most conspicuous of the indigenous
Venetians. His father had been president of the Painters' Guild. Jacopo
himself was president from 1415 to 1436. He was a rich and popular
member of the State and a man of high character. His works, to judge
by the specimens left, hardly attained the dignity of art, though in
the banner of "Justice," in the Academy, the space is filled in a
monumental fashion and the figure of St. Gabriel with the lily has
something grand and graceful. We trace the same treatment of flying
banners and draperies and rippling hair in the fantastic but picturesque
S. Grisogono