we consider the style of
the treatment and the customs of the time.

5. All who have visited the church of the Frari at Venice will
remember--for once seen, they never can forget--the ex-voto
altar-piece which adorns the chapel of the Pesaro family. The
beautiful Virgin is seated on a lofty throne to the right of the
picture, and presses to her bosom the _Dio Bambinetto_, who turns from
her to bless the votary presented by St. Peter. The saint stands on
the steps of the throne, one hand on a book; and behind him kneels one
of the Pesaro family, who was at once bishop of Paphos and commander
of the Pope's galleys: he approaches to consecrate to the Madonna
the standards taken from the Turks, which are borne by St. George, as
patron of Venice. On the other side appear St. Francis and St. Antony
of Padua, as patrons of the church in which the picture is dedicated.
Lower down, kneeling on one side of the throne, is a group of various
members of the Pesaro family, three of whom are habited in crimson
robes, as _Cavalieri di San Marco_; the other, a youth about fifteen,
looks out of the picture, astonishingly _alive_, and yet sufficiently
idealized to harmonize with the rest. This picture is very remarkable
for several reasons. It is a piece of family history, curiously
illustrative of the manners of the time. The Pesaro here commemorated
was an ecclesiastic, but appointed by Alexander VI. to command the
galleys with which he joined the Venetian forces against the Turks in
1503. It is for this reason that St. Peter--as representative here of
the Roman pontiff--introduces him to the Madonna, while St. George,
as patron of Venice, attends him. The picture is a monument of the
victory gained by Pesaro, and the gratitude and pride of his family.
It is also one of the finest works of Titian; one of the earliest
instances in which a really grand religious composition assumes almost
a dramatic and scenic form, yet retains a certain dignity and symmetry
worthy of its solemn destination.[1]

[Footnote 1: We find in the catalogue of pictures which belonged to
our Charles I. one which represented "a pope preferring a general of
his navy to St. Peter." It is Pope Alexander VI. presenting this very
Pesaro to St. Peter; that is, in plain unpictorial prose, giving him
the appointment of admiral of the galleys of the Roman states. This
interesting picture, after many vicissitudes, is now in the Museum at
Antwerp. (See the _Handbook to the