n their traceries: I
believe the stone framework of these windows must have been so cracked
and injured by the flames of the great fire, as to render it necessary
to replace it by new traceries; and that the present mouldings and
capitals are base imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at
first, however, restored in their complete form, as the holes for the
bolts which fastened the bases of their shafts are still to be seen in
the window-sills, as well as the marks of the inner mouldings on the
soffits. How much the stone facing of the facade, the parapets, and the
shafts and niches of the angles, retain of their original masonry, it is
also impossible to determine; but there is nothing in the workmanship
of any of them demanding especial notice; still less in the large
central windows on each facade, which are entirely of Renaissance
execution. All that is admirable in these portions of the building is
the disposition of their various parts and masses, which is without
doubt the same as in the original fabric, and calculated, when seen from
a distance, to produce the same impression.

Sec. CXXXIV. Not so in the interior. All vestige of the earlier modes of
decoration was here, of course, destroyed by the fires; and the severe
and religious work of Guariento and Bellini has been replaced by the
wildness of Tintoret and the luxury of Veronese. But in this case,
though widely different in temper, the art of the renewal was at least
intellectually as great as that which had perished: and though the halls
of the Ducal Palace are no more representative of the character of the
men by whom it was built, each of them is still a colossal casket of
priceless treasure; a treasure whose safety has till now depended on its
being despised, and which at this moment, and as I write, is piece by
piece being destroyed for ever.

Sec. CXXXV. The reader will forgive my quitting our more immediate
subject, in order briefly to explain the causes and the nature of this
destruction; for the matter is simply the most important of all that can
be brought under our present consideration respecting the state of art
in Europe.

The fact is, that the greater number of persons or societies throughout
Europe, whom wealth, or chance, or inheritance has put in possession of
valuable pictures, do not know a good picture from a bad one,[161] and
have no idea in what the value of a picture really consists. The
reputation of certain works is