he general effect is, however, excellent, the whole arrangement
having been borrowed from earlier work.

The action of the statue of the Madonna, who extends her robe to
shelter a group of diminutive figures, representative of the Society
for whose house the sculpture was executed, may be also seen in most
of the later Venetian figures of the Virgin which occupy similar
situations. The image of Christ is placed in a medallion on her
breast, thus fully, though conventionally, expressing the idea of
self-support which is so often partially indicated by the great
religious painters in their representations of the infant Jesus.

MOISE, CHURCH OF ST., III. 124. Notable as one of the basest examples
of the basest school of the Renaissance. It contains one important
picture, namely "Christ washing the Disciples' Feet," by Tintoret; on
the left side of the chapel, north of the choir. This picture has been
originally dark, is now much faded--in parts, I believe, altogether
destroyed--and is hung in the worst light of a chapel, where, on a
sunny day at noon, one could not easily read without a candle. I
cannot, therefore, give much information respecting it; but it is
certainly one of the least successful of the painter's works, and both
careless and unsatisfactory in its composition as well as its color.
One circumstance is noticeable, as in a considerable degree detracting
from the interest of most of Tintoret's representations of our Saviour
with his disciples. He never loses sight of the fact that all were
poor, and the latter ignorant; and while he never paints a senator, or
a saint once thoroughly canonized, except as a gentleman, he is very
careful to paint the Apostles, in their living intercourse with the
Saviour, in such a manner that the spectator may see in an instant, as
the Pharisee did of old, that they were unlearned and ignorant men;
and, whenever we find them in a room, it is always such a one as would
be inhabited by the lower classes. There seems some violation of this
practice in the dais, or flight of steps, at the top of which the
Saviour is placed in the present picture; but we are quickly reminded
that the guests' chamber or upper room ready prepared was not likely
to have been in a palace, by the humble furniture upon the floor,
consisting of a tub with a copper saucepan in it, a coffee-pot, and a
pair