resents may be given in a few words:

In the days of Doge Gradenigo, one February, there arose a fearful
storm in Venice. During the height of the tempest, three men accosted a
poor old fisherman, who was lying in his decayed old boat by the Piazza,
and begged that he would row them to S. Niccolo del Lido, where they had
urgent business. After some demur they persuaded him to take the oars,
and in spite of the hurricane, the voyage was accomplished. On reaching
the shore they pointed out to him a great ship, the crew of which he
perceived to consist of a band of demons, who were stirring up the waves
and making a great hubbub. The three passengers laid their commands on
them to desist, when immediately they sailed away and there was a calm.
The passengers then made the oarsman row them, one to S. Niccolo, one to
S. Giorgio, and the third was rowed back to the Piazza. The fisherman
timidly asked for his fare, and the third passenger desired him to go to
the Doge and ask for payment, telling him that by that night's work a
great disaster had been averted from the city. The fisherman replied
that he should not be believed, but would be imprisoned as a liar. Then
the passenger drew a ring from his finger. "Show him this for a sign,"
he said, "and know that one of those you have this night rowed is S.
Niccolas, the other is S. George, and I am S. Mark the Evangelist,
Protector of the Venetian Republic." He then disappeared. The next day
the fisherman presented the ring, and was assigned a provision for life
from the Senate.

There has, perhaps, never been a richer and more beautiful
subject-picture painted than this glowing canvas, or one which brings
more vividly before us the magnificence of the pageants which made
such a part of Venetian life in the golden age of painting. It is all
strength and splendour, and escapes the hectic colour and weaker type
which appear in Bordone's "Last Supper" and some of his other works. In
1538 he went to France and entered the service of Francis II., painting
for him many portraits of ladies, besides works for the Cardinals of
Guise and of Lorraine. The King of Poland sent to him for a "Jupiter and
Antiope." At Augsburg he was paid 3000 crowns for work done for the
great Fugger family.

No one gives us so closely as Bordone the type of woman who at this time
was most admired in Venice. The Venetian ideal was golden haired, with
full lips, fair, rosy cheeks, large limbed and ample, with