Art -- Italy -- Venice; Venice (Italy) -- Description and travel
At the back of the Misericordia is an ancient abbey, now also
secularized, with a very charming doorway surmounted by a pretty relief
of cherubs. Farther north is the Sacco of the Misericordia opening into
the lagoon. Here are stored the great rafts of timber that come down the
rivers from the distant hill-country, and now and then you may see one
of the huts in which the lumber-men live on the voyage.
From the Misericordia it is a short distance to the Fondamenta dei Mori,
at No. 3399 of which is the Casa di Tintoretto, with a relief of the
great painter's head upon it. Here he lived and died. The curious carved
figures on this and the neighbouring house are thought to represent
Morean merchants who once congregated here. Turning up the Campo dei
Mori we come to the great church of the Madonna dell'Orto, where
Tintoretto was buried. It should be visited in the late afternoon,
because the principal reason for seeing it is Tintoretto's
"Presentation," and this lovely picture hangs in a dark chapel which
obtains no light until the sinking sun penetrates its window and falls
on the canvas. To my mind it is one of the most beautiful pictures that
Tintoretto painted--a picture in which all his strength has turned to
sweetness. We have studied Titian's version in the Accademia, where it
has a room practically to itself (see opposite page 36); Tintoretto's is
hung badly and has suffered seriously from age and conditions. Titian's
was painted in 1540; this afterwards, and the painter cheerfully
accepted the standard set by the earlier work. Were I in the position of
that imaginary millionaire whom I have seen in the mind's eye busy in
the loving task of tenderly restoring Venice's most neglected
masterpieces, it is this "Presentation" with which I should begin.
[Illustration: THE PRESENTATION
FROM THE PAINTING BY TINTORETTO
_In the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto_]
The Madonna dell'Orto is not a church much resorted to by visitors, as
it lies far from the beaten track, but one can always find some one to
open it, and as likely as not the sacristan will be seated by the
rampino at the landing steps, awaiting custom.
The church was built in the fourteenth century as a shrine for a figure
of the Madonna, which was dug up in a garden that spread hereabout and
at once performed a number of miracles. On the facade is a noble slab of
porphyry, and here is S. Christopher with his precious burden. The
campanile has a round top and flowers sprout from the masonry. Within,
the chief glory is Tintoretto. His tomb is in the chapel to the right of
the chancel, where hang, on the left, his scene of "The Worship of the
Golden Calf," and opposite it his "Last Judgment".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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