ame and a tablet, close
to the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. His children were eight in
number, among whom his favourite was Marietta, his eldest daughter. He
and she were in fact inseparable, Marietta even donning boy's attire in
order to be with him at his work on occasions when as a girl it would
have been difficult. Perhaps it is she who so often appears in his
pictures as a beautiful sympathetic human girl among so much that is
somewhat frigidly Biblical and detached. Among his closer friends were
some of the best Venetian intellects, and, among the artists, Andrea
Schiavone, who hovers like a ghost about so many painters and their
work, Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, Jacopo da Ponte, or Bassano, and
Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor. He had musician friends, too; for
Tintoretto, like Giorgione before him, was devoted to music, and himself
played many instruments. He was a man of simple tastes and a quiet and
somewhat dry humour; liked home best; chaffed his wife, who was a bit of
a manager and had to check his indiscriminate generosity by limiting him
to one coin a day; and, there is no doubt whatever, studied his Bible
with minuteness. His collected works make the most copious illustrated
edition of scripture that exists.

[Illustration: THE COLLEONI STATUE AND S.S. GIOVANNI E PAOLO]

Certain of Tintoretto's sayings prove his humour to have had a caustic
turn. Being once much harassed by a crowd of spectators, including men
of civic eminence, he was asked why he painted so quickly when Bellini
and Titian had been so deliberate. "They had not so many onlookers to
drive them to distraction," he replied. Of Titian, in spite of his
admiration for his colour, he was always a little jealous and could not
bear to hear him much praised; and colour without drawing eternally
vexed him. His own colour is always subservient. The saying of his which
one remembers best bears upon the difficulties that beset the
conscientious artist: "The farther you go in, the deeper is the sea."

Late in life Tintoretto spent much time with the brothers of S. Rocco.
In 1594, at the age of seventy-six, he died, after a short illness. All
Venice attended his funeral.

He was one of the greatest of painters, and, like Michael Angelo, he did
nothing little. All was on the grand scale. He had not Michael Angelo's
towering superiority, but he too was a giant. His chief lack was
tenderness. There is something a little remote, a little u