rophet's chamber on the facade and a fine Gothic window and balcony,
is the fifteenth-century Erizzo. Then the Piovene, with fluted window
pillars and marble decorations; then the Emo, another antiquity shop,
with a fine view down the canal from its balcony. A traghetto is here,
and then the Palazzo Molin, now a business house, and the Rio della
Maddalena. The palace adjoining the Rio is the Barbaro, with an ancient
relief on it representing little people being blessed by the Madonna;
and then the Barbarigo, with remains of frescoes still to be seen, of
which one of a goat and infant is pretty. It was the custom once to
decorate all facades in this way, but these are now almost the only ones
that remain.

Now comes a very poor series of houses to the next rio, the Rio di
Noale, the last being the Gussoni, or Grimani, with a nice courtyard
seen through the door. It was once decorated with frescoes by
Tintoretto. Looking along the Rio di Noale we see the Misericordia, and
only a few yards up on the left is the Palazzo Giovanelli where
Giorgione's "Tempest" may be seen. At the other corner is the pretty
little Palazzo Lezze with a terrace and much greenery, and then the
massive but commonplace Boldu palace, adjoining a decayed building on
whose fondamenta are piled gondola coverings belonging to the traghetto.
A fine carved column is at the corner of the calle, and next it the
Palazzo Bonhomo, with two arches of a colonnade, a shrine and
fondamenta. Then a nice house with a tumbled garden, and in spring
purple wistaria and red Judas-trees, and then the Rio S. Felice and the
immense but unimpressive Palazzo Fontana, built possibly by no less an
architect than the great Sansovino. A massive head is over the door, and
Pope Clement XIII was born here. A little green garden adjoins--the
Giardinetto Infantile--and next is a boarded-up dolls' house, and next
the Miani or Palazzo Coletti, with two busts on it, and then the lovely
Ca' d'Oro, that exquisite riot of Gothic richness.

The history of the Ca' d'Oro--or golden house, so called from the
prevalence of gold in its ornamentation--is melancholy. It was built by
the two Bons, or Buons, of the Doges' Palace for Pietro Contarini in
1425. It passed through various hands, always, one imagines, declining
in condition, until at the end of the eighteenth century it was a
dramatic academy, and in the middle of the last century the dancer
Taglioni lived in it and not only made it squa