gures and no lettering. A cobbler faces the campanile.
It is above this fifth column that we notice in the upper row of arches
two columns of reddish stain. It was between these that malefactors were
strangled.
The sixth has symbolical figures which I do not understand. Ruskin
suggests that they typify the degradation of human instincts. A knight
in armour is here. A musician seated on a fish faces the Old Library.
There is no lettering, and as is the case throughout the figures on the
wall side are difficult to discern.
The seventh represents the vices, and names them: luxury, gluttony,
pride, anger, avarice, idleness, vanity, envy.
The eighth represents the virtues and names them: hope, faith,
fortitude, temperance, humility, charity, justice, prudence.
The ninth has virtues and vices, named and mixed: modesty, discord,
patience, constancy, infidelity, despair, obedience, liberality.
The tenth has named fruits.
Ruskin thinks that the eleventh may illustrate various phases of
idleness. It has no lettering.
The twelfth has the months and their employments, divided thus: January
(indoors) and February, March blowing his pipes, April with a lamb and
May, June (the month of cherries), July with a sheaf of corn and August,
September (the vintage), October and November, and December,
pig-sticking.
The thirteenth, on a stouter column than the others, because it has a
heavier duty, namely, to bear the party wall of the great Council Hall,
depicts the life of man. There is no lettering. The scenes represent
love (apparently at first sight), courtship, the marriage bed, and so
forth, the birth of the baby, his growth and his death. Many years ago
this column was shown to me by the captain of a tramp steamer, as the
most interesting thing in Venice; and there are others who share his
opinion. Above it on the facade is the medallion of the Queen of the
Adriatic ruling her domains.
The fourteenth capital represents national types, named: Persian, Latin,
Tartar, Turk, Hungarian, Greek, Goth, and Egyptian.
The fifteenth is more elaborate and ingenious. It represents the ages of
man and his place in the stellar system. Thus, infancy is governed by
the moon, childhood by Mercury, youth by the sun, and so forth.
The sixteenth depicts various craftsmen: the smith, the mason, the
goldsmith, the carpenter, the notary, the cobbler, the man-servant, the
husbandman. Over this are traces of a medallion, probably of porp
|