pointed-arched and open arcade of the cloister; above this rise the gable of the south transept and the eastern apse with its surrounding aisle, and two lofty octagonal brick turrets, on each side of the apse, which look like minarets from Cairo, and combined with the collections of domes on the roof give a completely Eastern effect to the whole view. If, however, the detail of this striking building is examined, one can hardly be satisfied. There is throughout, as there so often is in Italy, a sad want of skill and neatness in the adjustment of details as compared to what is common in northern Gothic buildings. This indeed is a feature of all the works of the Pisani, and gives them the character-so common and so fatal in modern works--of being to a great extent the work of assistants and not of the master. Nothing can be much more clumsy than the provision for the steps leading to the turrets, nor weaker than the rectangular tracery inserted in the circular window of the transept. This, however, is a work of the middle of the fourteenth century, and Nicola Pisano, even if he were the first architect of the church, would not be responsible for it. I cannot say that I was at all satisfied either with the internal or external effect of the church-though it must be confessed that, when seen from a distance, there is excessive grandeur in the grouping of the multitude of domes, with the steep cone rising in the centre, and giving point and emphasis to the whole. The arrangement of the windows and arches round the apse, for instance, is confused and weak to a degree; and I do not feel that Nicola Pisano has fairly settled the question of the adaptation of the dome to pointed buildings by his treatment of the domes here. The question is still, I think, an open one; and though it may be doubted whether with

1 The eastern chapel and dome are comparatively modern, and the coverings of the other domes appear to be also modern; but I suppose they follow the old outline.

our present opportunities it will soon be satisfactorily answered, I still feel that it would not be difficult to answer it far more successfully than has been done here.

In the evening we heard some very fine music of ancient character in Sant' Antonio, after which there was a sermon; and though it was a week-day, there was a large congregation, very attentive and quiet.

The Duomo is a cold, unattractive church-said, however, to have been designed by Michael Angelo-and rather bold in the treatment of the pendentives under its dome. By its side stands a Lombard baptistery, the interior of which I did not succeed in getting a sight of; and I believe that I missed some valuable examples of fresco-painting with which its walls and domed roof are covered.

We wandered about the melancholy streets of Padua, searching in vain for objects of any interest to our antiquarian eyes. It is true that the columns and arcades which support the houses are, many of them, ancient; but they are of a character very common throughout the north of Italy, and were not sufficiently novel or striking to draw off our attention from the melancholy and dilapidated look of the houses and shops which they half concealed and half supported. We saw also one or two old monuments at the corners of streets-one of them called the tomb of Antenor -similar in their idea to those which are so frequent in Verona.

The next morning, therefore, saw us making our way to the railway station for Venice, sad only in leaving Padua that we could not spend more time there for the study, more quietly and carefully, of the lovely little Arena Chapel and the paintings of Giotto.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."

Tennyson.

Padua and Venice Railway - Venice: Piazza and Church of S. MarkTorcello - The Lagoon-Murano -Sta. Maria dei Frari - SS. Giovanni

e Paolo Sta. Maria dell' Orto-Other Churches - Domestic Architecture - Fondaco de' Turchi — Other Byzantine Palaces - The Ducal Palace -Foscari Palace Ca' d'Oro- Other Gothic Palaces Balconies - Venetian Architecture - A Festival - Paintings.

LITTLE is to be seen as one leaves Padua to distinguish the city at all vividly, save the oriental-looking cupolas of Sant' Antonio, and the great roof of the Sala della Ragione, looking like the inverted hull of some great ship, with its convex sides towering up above the otherwise not remarkable-looking city.

And now our destination was Venice, and anxiously we looked out ever and anon, impatient, long before the time, to see the tall outline of S. Mark's campanile against the horizon. The view was too contracted to be really beautiful; on each side of the railway rank and luxuriant hedges of acacia sprouted their tall branches above the carriages, and beyond them might be seen plantations of maize, flax, and other crops, all remarkable for their prodigious growth and size, and watered by countless small canals, and here and there with

turgid, muddy-looking streams rushing on from the mountains to discharge themselves into the Adriatic, and gliding between great artificial banks which gave them the appearance rather of large canals than rivers. Nothing breaks the dead monotony of the scene, for it is misty, and the Tyrolese Alps, which ought to show their jagged peaks to the north, are invisible. The stations follow each other in quick succession, and at each stands some diligence or carriage whose ingrained panoply of white dust, added to that which rises here and there white and cloud-like in the dry glare of the Italian sun which beams overhead, makes one feel grateful that however unpoetical such a mode of approach may be— a railroad carries us to Venice. Nor is such a country as this along which one passes from Padua to Venice without its moral. I suppose there is nothing more certain than that, ordinarily, the appreciation of high art, and success in its practice, have never been so marked in countries whose natural features are lovely as in those in which the devoutest student of nature's beauties can see nothing to admire or love. So Venice, surrounded by waters, and then by a country which would be entirely tame and uninteresting, were it not for the exquisite distant views of the Friulan Alps, fell back on her own resources, and provided herself with that substitute for the loveliness of nature which-alone of man's works-the loveliness of beautiful art can be. And perhaps, it is better for the traveller, that no interest should be felt save in the end of the journey, where the journey has so brave an end!

At last, however, the broad watery level of the Lagoon is reached; Venice rises out of the water at a distance of some two miles; and then across an almost endless bridge the railway takes us into the outskirts of the city; a confused idea of steeples and domes is all that is obtained, and one finds oneself going through that most painful of processes to