t is remarkable when we compare the
Cathedral of Torcello with any of the contemporary basilicas in South
Italy or Lombardic churches in the North. St. Ambrogio at Milan, St.
Michele at Pavia, St. Zeno at Verona, St. Frediano at Lucca, St. Miniato
at Florence, are all like sepulchral caverns compared with Torcello, where
the slightest details of the sculptures and mosaics are visible, even
when twilight is deepening. And there is something especially touching
in our finding the sunshine thus freely admitted into a church built by
men in sorrow. They did not need the darkness; they could not perhaps
bear it. There was fear and depression upon them enough, without a
material gloom. They sought for comfort in their religion, for tangible
hopes and promises, not for threatenings or mysteries; and though the
subjects chosen for the mosaics on the walls are of the most solemn
character, there are no artificial shadows cast upon them, nor dark
colors used in them: all is fair and bright, and intended evidently to
be regarded in hopefulness, and not with terror.

Sec. IX. For observe this choice of subjects. It is indeed possible that
the walls of the nave and aisles, which are now whitewashed, may have
been covered with fresco or mosaic, and thus have supplied a series of
subjects, on the choice of which we cannot speculate. I do not, however,
find record of the destruction of any such works; and I am rather
inclined to believe that at any rate the central division of the
building was originally decorated, as it is now, simply by mosaics
representing Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles, at one extremity, and
Christ coming to judgment at the other. And if so, I repeat, observe the
significance of this choice. Most other early churches are covered with
imagery sufficiently suggestive of the vivid interest of the builders in
the history and occupations of the world. Symbols or representations of
political events, portraits of living persons, and sculptures of
satirical, grotesque, or trivial subjects are of constant occurrence,
mingled with the more strictly appointed representations of scriptural
or ecclesiastical history; but at Torcello even these usual, and one
should have thought almost necessary, successions of Bible events do not
appear. The mind of the worshipper was fixed entirely upon two great
facts, to him the most precious of all facts,--the present mercy of
Christ to His Church, and His future coming to judge the wo