es are preserved, too numerous and heterogeneous for description.

[Illustration: S. CHRISTOPHER
FROM THE FRESCO BY TITIAN
_In the Doges' Palace_]

The antique section of the Archaeological Museum is not of general
interest. It consists chiefly of Greek and Roman sculpture collected by
Cardinal Grimani or dug from time to time from the soil of Venetian
provinces. Here are a few beautiful or precious relics and much that is
indifferent. In the absence of a Hermaphrodite, the most popular
possession is (as ever) a group of Leda and the Swan. I noted among the
more attractive pieces a Roman altar with lovers (Baedeker calls them
satyrs), No. 68; a Livia in black marble, No. 102; a nice girl, Giulia
Mammea, No. 142; a boy, very like a Venetian boy of to-day, No. 145; a
giant Minerva, No. 169; a Venus, No. 174; an Apollo, No. 223. A very
beautiful Pieta by Giovanni Bellini, painted under the influence of
Duerer, should be sought and found.

The Bridge of Sighs, a little way upon which one may venture, is more
interesting in romantic fancy than in fact, and its chief merit is to
span very gracefully the gulf between the Palace and the Prison. With
the terrible cells of the Doges' Palace, to which we are about to
descend, it has no connexion. When Byron says, in the famous line
beginning the fourth canto of "Childe Harold,"

I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,

he probably meant that he stood in Venice on the Bridge of Straw (Ponte
di Paglia) and contemplated the Bridge of Sighs. Because one does not
stand on the Bridge of Sighs but in it, for it is merely dark passages
lit by gratings. But to stand on the Ponte di Paglia on the Riva and
gaze up the sombre Rio del Palazzo with the famous arch poised high over
it is one of the first duties of all visitors to Venice and a very
memorable experience.

Lastly, the horrible cells (which cost half a lira more), upon which and
the damp sinister rooms where the place of execution and oubliette were
situated, a saturnine custodian says all that is necessary. Let me,
however, quote a warning from the little Venetian guide-book: "Everybody
to whom are pointed out the prisons to which Carmagnola, Jacopo Foscari,
Antonio Foscarini, etc., were confined, will easily understand that such
indications cannot be true at all."

CHAPTER VI

THE DOGES' PALACE. II: THE EXTERIOR

The colour of Venice--Sunny Gothic--A magical edifice--The evolution of
a palace--A fascina