68

THE STONES OF VENICE

IT. PRIDE OF STATE

figure shows him as he lay in death. And, at this point,the perfect type of the Gothic tomb is reached.

§ 49. Of the simple sarcophagus tomb there are manyexquisite examples both at Venice and Verona; the mostinteresting in Venice are those which are set in the recessesof the rude brick front of the Church of St. John and Paul,ornamented only, for the most part, with two crosses setin circles, and the legend with the name of the dead andan “ Orate pro anima ” in another circle in the centre.And in this we may note one great proof of superiority inItalian over English tombs : the latter being often enrichedwith quatrefoils, small shafts, and arches, and other ordi-nary architectural decorations, which destroy their serious-ness and solemnity, render them little more than ornamental,and have no religious meaning whatever ; while the Italian sarcophagi are kept massive, smooth, and gloomy,—heavy-lidded dungeons of stone, like rock tombs,—but bearingon their surface, sculptured with tender and narrow lines,the emblem of the cross, not presumptuously nor proudly,but dimly graven upon their granite, like the hope which thehuman heart holds, but hardly perceives, in its heaviness.

§ 50. Among the tombs in front of the Church of St.John and Paul there is one which is peculiarly illustrativeof the simplicity of these earlier ages. It is on the left ofthe entrance, a massy sarcophagus with low horns as of analtar, placed in a rude recess of the outside wall, shatteredand worn, and here and there entangled among wild grassand weeds. Yet it is the tomb of two Doges, Jacopo andLorenzo Tiepolo , by one of whom nearly the whole groundwas given for the erection of the noble church in front ofwhich his unprotected tomb is wasting away. The sarco-phagus bears an inscription in the centre, describing theacts of the Doges, of which the letters show that it wasadded a considerable period after the erection of thetomb: the original legend is still left in other letters on itsbase, to this effect,

“ Lord James, died 1251. Lord Laurence, died 1288.”

At the two corners of the sarcophagus are two angelsbearing censers; and on its lid two birds, with crosses