t of masses of light,
and yet half tones and modulations of endless variety; and all
executed with a magnificence of handling which no words are energetic
enough to describe. I have hardly ever seen a picture in which there
was so much decision, and so little impetuosity, and in which so
little was conceded to haste, to accident, or to weakness. It is too
infinite a work to be describable; but among its minor passages of
extreme beauty, should especially be noticed the manner in which the
accumulated forms of the human body, which fill the picture from end
to end, are prevented from being felt heavy, by the grace and
elasticity of two or three sprays of leafage which spring from a
broken root in the foreground, and rise conspicuous in shadow against
an interstice filled by the pale blue, grey, and golden light in which
the distant crowd is invested, the office of this foliage being, in an
artistical point of view, correspondent to that of the trees set by
the sculptors of the Ducal Palace on its angles. But they have a far
more important meaning in the picture than any artistical one. If the
spectator will look carefully at the root which I have called broken,
he will find that in reality, it is not broken, but cut; the other
branches of the young tree having _lately been cut away_. When we
remember that one of the principal incidents in great San Rocco
Crucifixion is the ass feeding on withered palm leaves, we shall be at
no loss to understand the great painter's purpose in lifting the
branch of this mutilated olive against the dim light of the distant
sky; while, close beside it, St. Joseph of Arimathea drags along the
dust a white garment--observe, the principal light of the
picture,--stained with the blood of that King before whom, five days
before, his crucifiers had strewn their own garments in the way.

2. _Our Lady with the Camerlenghi._ (In the centre chapel of the three
on the right of the choir.) A remarkable instance of the theoretical
manner of representing Scriptural facts, which, at this time, as noted
in the second chapter of this volume, was undermining the belief of
the facts themselves. Three Venetian chamberlains desired to have
their portraits painted, and at the same time to express their
devotion to the Madonna; to that end they are painted kneeling before
her, and in order to account for their