The mosaics on the cathedral facade all bear upon the life of S. Mark. That over the second door on the left, with a figure in red, oddly like Anatole France, looking down upon the bed, represents S. Mark's death. In the Royal Palace are pictures by Tintoretto of the finding of the body of S. Mark by the Venetians, and the transportation of it from Alexandria, under a terrific thunderstorm in which the merchants and their camel are alone undismayed. Arrived in Venice the remains were enclosed in a marble pillar for greater safety, but only two or three persons knew which pillar, and, these dying, the secret perished. In their dismay all the people grieved, but suddenly the stones opened and revealed the corpse. Thereafter many miracles were performed by it; Venice was visited by pilgrims from all parts of the world; its reputation as a centre of religion grew; and the Doge's foresight and address were justified. Before, however, S. Mark and his lion could become the protectors of the Republic, S. Theodore had to be deposed. S. Theodore's church, which stood originally on a part of the Piazza (an inscription in the pavement marks the site) now covered by the Campanile and one or two of the flagstaffs, is supposed to have been built in the sixth century. That it was destroyed by fire in the tenth, we know, and it is known too that certain remains of it were incorporated in the present structure of S. Mark's, which dates from the eleventh century, having been preceded by earlier ones. To my mind not one of the external mosaic pictures is worth study; but some of the mosaic patterns over the doors are among the most lovely things I ever saw. Look at the delicate black and gold in the arch over the extreme right-hand door. Look at the black and gold bosses in that next it. On the other side of the main entrance these bosses have a little colour in them. On the extreme left we find symbolism: a golden horseman, the emblems of the four Evangelists, and so forth, while above is a relief in black stone, netted in: this and the group over the central door being the only external statuary in Venice to which the pigeons have no access. The carvings over the central door are interesting, although they have a crudity which will shock visitors fresh from the Baptistery doors at Florence. As in most Venetian sculpture symbolism plays an important part, and one is not always able to translate it. Here are arches within arches: one of scriptural incidents--at any rate Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel are identifiable; one of grotesques and animals; one of uncouth toilers--a shepherd and woodman and so forth--with God the Father on the keystone. What these mean beyond the broad fact that religion is for all, I cannot say. Angels are above, and surmounting the doorway is Christ. Among all this dark stonework one is conscious now and then of little pink touches which examination shows to be the feet of reposing pigeons.