h he stands above the
Christ, is enough in itself to show that the poor Veronese painter had
some intelligence of his subject; and the quaint and haggard figure,
grim-featured, with its black hair rising in separate locks like a crown
of thorns, is a curious intermediate type between the grotesque
conception which we find in earlier art (or, for instance, on the coins
of Florence) and the beautiful, yet always melancholy and severe figures
of St. John painted by Cima da Conegliano at Venice. With this stern
figure, in raiment of camel's hair, compare the Magdalen in the frescoes
at the side of the altar, who is veiled from head to foot with her own,
and sustained by six angels, being the type of repentance from the
passions, as St. John of resistance to them. Both symbols are, to us, to
say the very least, without charm, and to very few without offense; yet
consider how much nobler the temper of the people must have been who
could take pleasure in art so gloomy and unadorned, than that of the
populace of to-day, which must be caught with bright colors and excited
by popular sentiment.

224. Both these frescoes, with the others on the north wall of the
chapel, and Madonna between four saints on the south side, by the
Cavalli tomb, are evidently of fourteenth century work, none of it good,
but characteristic; and the last-named work (seen in the plate) is so
graceful as to be quite worth some separate illustration. But the one
above it is earlier, and of considerable historical interest. It was
discovered with the other paintings surrounding the tomb, about the year
1838, when Persico published his work, "Verona, e la sua Provincia," in
which he says (p. 13), "levatane l'antica incrostatura, tornarono a vita
novella."

It would have been more serviceable to us if we could have known the
date of the rough cast, than of its removal; the period of entire
contempt for ancient art being a subject of much interest in the
ecclesiastical history of Italy. But the tomb itself was an
incrustation, having been raised with much rudeness and carelessness
amidst the earlier art which recorded the first rise of the Cavalli
family.

225. It will be seen by reference to the plate that the frescoes round
the tomb have no symmetrical relation to it. They are all of earlier
date, and by better artists. The tomb itself is roughly carved, and
coarsely painted, by men who were not trying to do their best, and could
not have done anything ve