skill. This monument bears date 1317,[138] and its sculptor
was justly proud of it; thus recording his name:

"CELAVIT MARCUS OPUS HOC INSIGNE ROMANIS,
LAUDIBUS NON PARCUS EST SUA DIGNA MANUS."

Sec. XXXIX. The head of the Noah on the Ducal Palace, evidently worked
in emulation of this statue, has the same profusion of flowing hair and
beard, but wrought in smaller and harder curls; and the veins on the
arms and breast are more sharply drawn, the sculptor being evidently
more practised in keen and fine lines of vegetation than in those of the
figure; so that, which is most remarkable in a workman of this early
period, he has failed in telling his story plainly, regret and wonder
being so equally marked on the features of all the three brothers that
it is impossible to say which is intended for Ham. Two of the heads of
the brothers are seen in the Plate; the third figure is not with the
rest of the group, but set at a distance of about twelve feet, on the
other side of the arch which springs from the angle capital.

Sec. XL. It may be observed, as a farther evidence of the date of the
group, that, in the figures of all the three youths, the feet are
protected simply by a bandage arranged in crossed folds round the ankle
and lower part of the limb; a feature of dress which will be found in
nearly every piece of figure sculpture in Venice, from the year 1300 to
1380, and of which the traveller may see an example within three hundred
yards of this very group, in the bas-reliefs on the tomb of the Doge
Andrea Dandolo (in St. Mark's), who died in 1354.

Sec. XLI. The figures of Adam and Eve, sculptured on each side of the
Fig-tree angle, are more stiff than those of Noah and his sons, but are
better fitted for their architectural service; and the trunk of the
tree, with the angular body of the serpent writhed around it, is more
nobly treated as a terminal group of lines than that of the vine.

The Renaissance sculptor of the figures of the Judgment of Solomon has
very nearly copied the fig-tree from this angle, placing its trunk
between the executioner and the mother, who leans forward to stay his
hand. But, though the whole group is much more free in design than those
of the earlier palace, and in many ways excellent in itself, so that it
always strikes the eye of a careless observer more than the others, it
is of immeasurably inferior spirit in the workmanship; the leaves of the
tree, though far more studiously