Chapter XXIX: Section XIV

_S. Sebastiano--S. M. del Carmine--S. Pantaleone--The Cobblers’
Guildhall--S. Polo--S. Apollinare_

We follow the route (Section XI.) to the Campo Morosini and turn R. by the church of S. Vitale along the Campiello Loredan. After crossing two bridges and turning an angle to the L., we reach the Campo S. Samuele. The ferry across the Grand Canal will land us at the Calle del Traghetto, which we follow to the Campo S. Barnabà. Crossing the Campo obliquely we reach on the R. the Ponte dei Pugni, as its name implies, one of the bridges where the faction fights between the Castellani and Nicolotti used to take place. The former were distinguished by red, the latter by black caps and scarves. These contests were favoured by the Signory, in order, it is believed, to foster a warlike spirit among the people, and were continued until 1705, when a peculiarly bloody affray in which stones and knives were used, led to their abolition.[116] If the traveller will mount to the crown of the bridge he will see two footmarks in stone let into the paving on either side. Victory smiled on that faction which could thrust their adversaries beyond the line marked by the feet. The bridge then had no parapets and in the course of the struggle many a champion fell into the canal. We resume our way along the Fondamenta as far as the Ponte delle Pazienze. A turning opposite, to the L., brings us to the Calle Lunga, which we follow to the R. direct to the church of S. Sebastiano. No admirer of Veronese should leave this church unvisited. Here the painter, when he came, a young man of twenty seven, to try his fortune at Venice, received his first commission to decorate the sacristy, owing to the influence of his uncle the prior of the monastery. Veronese has made the walls of this temple glorious with some of his greatest creations. Here he desired to be buried, and his two sons and his brother (all fellow artists) piously gave effect to his wishes, and a slab of marble on the pavement, with an inscription, marks his resting-place under his bust to the R. of the organ. A year after his work on the ceiling of the sacristy (the Coronation of the Virgin and the Four Evangelists), he painted in 1556 the ceiling of the church with scenes from the Book of Esther. People crowded to see these novel and daring compositions. At one flight he rose to the highest plane of artistic excellence, to rank with the veteran Titian, and with Tintoretto in the height of his fame. In these creations the Veronese of the Ducal Palace is already revealed with his daring perspective, the grand and victorious sweep of his powerful brush, the pulsating life and movement of his figures. In the plenitude of his genius he subsequently decorated the walls of the choir with two scenes from the martyrdom of SS. Sebastiano, Marco and Marcellino (all three victims of the Diocletian persecution), and the high altar with a Virgin and Child with the Baptist, SS. Sebastian, Peter and Francis, John the Baptist and Elizabeth. In the composition L. of the choir, St Sebastian in armour clasping a banner is seen exhorting SS. Marco and Marcellino to be faithful unto death, while their mothers at the top of the steps entreat them to recant and live. Below, kneeling wives and children add their supplications. This is esteemed by some the masterpiece of the artist, who has painted his own portrait in the figure of St Sebastian. To the R. of the choir is the Martyrdom of St Sebastian.

Veronese designed also the decorations of the organ and painted the panels, (outside) the Purification of the Virgin, (inside) the Pool of Bethesda. The church possesses three altar-pieces by the master (the first altar has a St Nicholas by Titian), and the wall paintings in fresco in the upper choir.

We retrace our steps to the Ponte delle Pazienze, which we cross, and quickly reach the long basilica of S. Maria del Carmine, elaborately renovated in the seventeenth century. The church contains a somewhat faded Cima, Birth of Christ, with a characteristic landscape; an early Tintoretto, the Purification of the Virgin; Lorenzo Lotto’s Apotheosis of St Nicholas, with the Baptist, St Lucy, and angels bearing the bishop’s mitre and crook. In a landscape to R. is seen St George slaying the dragon; in the centre the Princess near a city by the sea; L. are some peasants--a noble and poetic creation.

We leave by the door of the L. aisle, and make our way through the long Campo S. Margarita to the church of S. Pantaleone, which we visit for the sake of the fine altar-piece, a Coronation of the Virgin, by Giov. Alemano and Antonio Vivarini in the chapel L. of the choir. What art was able to accomplish four centuries later we may see by lifting our eyes to the ceiling of the church over which expatiate Fumiani’s paintings of the Martyrdom and Apotheosis of the patron-saint.

We leave the church on our left, and continue N.E. to the Campo S. Tomà. Here we shall find the old Guild Hall of the Cobblers (_Scuola dei Calerghi_) with a relief by Pietro Lombardo, St Mark healing the cobbler. The quaint signs of the craft over the portal and Pietro’s sculpture bear traces of the original colouring. We make our way E., passing the fourteenth-century Campanile of S. Polo, one of the finest at Venice. At the base are carved in stone two lions, one of which has a serpent coiled round its neck, the other holds a human head in its claws. They are popularly supposed to symbolise the fate that overtook Marin Faliero. We note on the L. the fine old Gothic S. portal of the church, and emerge into the broad Campo S. Polo.

From the S.E. angle of the campo a way leads along the Calle della Madonetta, and by the Calle del Perdon to the Campo S. Apollinare. On the L., just before we emerge into the campo, are an inscription and a medallion of Pope Alexander III., which mark his legendary resting-place (p. 50). (Another tradition, however, indicates the portico of the old church of S. Salvatore in the Merceria as the spot where he lay.) S. from the campo a way leads to the S. Silvestro Pier on the Grand Canal.