r-boats before it, now the central Post Office, is the very
Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the head-quarters of German merchants in Venice,
on whose walls Giorgione and Titian painted the famous frescoes and in
which Tintoretto held a sinecure post. Giorgion's frescoes faced the
Canal; Titian's the Rialto.

And so we reach the Rialto bridge, on this side of which are no shrines,
but a lion is on the keystone, and on each side is a holy man. After the
Rialto bridge there is nothing of any moment for many yards, save a
house with a high narrow archway which may be seen in Mr. Morley's
picture, until we reach Sansovino's Palazzo Manin, now the Bank of
Italy, a fine building and the home of the last Doge. The three
steamboat stations hereabouts are for passengers for the Riva and Lido,
for Mestre, and for the railway station, respectively. The palace next
the Ponte Manin, over the Rio San Salvatore, is the Bembo, with very
fine windows. Then the Calle Bembo, and then various offices on the
fondamenta, under chiefly red facades. At the next calle is a traghetto
and then the Palazzo Loredan, a Byzantine building of the eleventh or
twelfth century, since restored. It has lovely arches. This and the next
palace, the Farsetti, now form the Town Hall of Venice: hence the
splendid blue posts and golden lions. In the vestibule are posted up the
notices of engagements, with full particulars of the contracting
parties--the celibi and the nubili. It was in the Farsetti that Canova
acquired his earliest knowledge of sculpture, for he was allowed as a
boy to copy the casts collected there.

Another calle, the Cavalli, and then a comfortable-looking house with a
roof garden and green and yellow posts, opposite which the fondamenta
comes to an end. Fenimore Cooper, the novelist of the Red Man, made
this palace his home for a while. The pretty little Palazzo Valmarana
comes next, and then the gigantic, sombre Grimani with its stone as dark
as a Bath or Bloomsbury mansion, which now is Venice's Court of
Appeal. The architect was the famous Michele Sammicheli who also
designed the Lido's forts. Then the Rio di S. Luca and the Palazzo
Contarini, with rich blue posts with white rings, very striking, and two
reliefs of horses on the facade. Next a very tiny pretty little Tron
Palace; then a second Tron, and then the dreary Martinengo, now the Bank
of Naples. In its heyday Titian was a frequent visitor here, its owner,
Martino d'Anna, a Flemish merchant