n retaliation Steno scribbled on the throne itself a
scurrilous commentary on the Doge's wife. Faliero's inability to induce
the judges to punish Steno sufficiently was the beginning of that rage
against the State which led to his ruin. It was during Steno's reign
that Carlo Zeno was so foolishly arrested and imprisoned, to the loss of
the Republic of one of its finest patriots.

[Illustration: MADONNA WITH THE MAGDALEN AND S. CATHERINE
FROM THE PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI
_In the Accademia_]

The next Ducal tomb is the imposing one of the illustrious Tommaso
Mocenigo (1413-1423) who succeeded Steno and brought really great
qualities to his office. Had his counsels been followed the whole
history of Venice might have changed, for he was firm against the
Republic's land campaigns, holding that she had territory enough and
should concentrate on sea power: a sound and sagacious policy which
found its principal opponent in Francesco Foscari, Mocenigo's successor,
and its justification years later in the calamitous League of Cambray,
to which I have referred elsewhere. Mocenigo was not only wise for
Venice abroad, but at home too. A fine of a thousand ducats had been
fixed as the punishment of anyone who, in those days of expenses
connected with so many campaigns, chiefly against the Genoese, dared to
mention the rebuilding or beautifying of the Ducal Palace. But Mocenigo
was not to be deterred, and rising in his place with his thousand ducat
penalty in his hand, he urged with such force upon the Council the
necessity of rebuilding that he carried his point, and the lovely
building much as we now know it was begun. That was in 1422. In 1423
Mocenigo died, his last words being a warning against the election of
Foscari as his successor. But Foscari was elected, and the downfall of
Venice dates from that moment.

The last Ducal monument is that of Niccolo Marcello (1473-1474) in whose
reign the great Colleoni died. Pietro Mocenigo was his successor.

In pictures this great church is not very rich, but there is a Cima in
the right transept, a "Coronation of the Virgin," which is sweet and
mellow. The end wall of this transept is pierced by one of the gayest
and pleasantest windows in the city, from a design of Bartolommeo
Vivarini. It has passages of the intensest blue, thus making it a
perfect thing for a poor congregation to delight in as well as a joy to
the more instructed eye. In the sacristy is an Alvise Vivarini-