The wild fig leaves are unfinished; for my assistant having unfortunately shown his solicitude for their preservation too energetically to some street boys who were throwing stones at them, they got a ladder, and rooted them up the same night. The purple and fine-grained white marbles of the pilaster are entirely uninjured in surface by three hundred years' exposure. The coarse white marble above has moldered, and is gray with lichens. (40.) _Study of the base of the same Pilaster, and connected Facade._ (R.) Showing the effect of differently colored marbles arranged in carefully inequal masses. 253. (41.) _Interior Court of the Ducal Palace of Venice, with Giant's Stair._ (R.) Sketched in 1841, and perhaps giving some characters which more finished drawing would lose. (42.) _The Piazza d' Erbe, Verona._ (R.) Sketched in 1841, showing general effect and pretty grouping of the later Veronese buildings. (43.) _Piazza de' Signori, Verona._ Sketched last year. Note the bill advertising Victor Hugo's "Homme qui rit," pasted on the wall of the palace. The great tower is of the Gothic time. Note its noble sweep of delicately ascending curves sloped inwards. (44.) _Gate of Ruined School of St. John, Venice._ (Photograph.) Exquisite in floral sculpture, and finish of style. (45.) _Hawthorn Leaves, from the base of Pilaster, in the Church of St. Maria de Miracoli, Venice._ (R.) In the finest style of floral sculpture. It cannot be surpassed for perfectness of treatment; especially for the obtaining of life and softness, by broad surfaces and fine grouping. (46.) _Basrelief from one of the Inner Doors of the Ducal Palace._ Very noble, and typical of the pure style. (47.) _St. John Baptist and other Saints._ (Cima da Conegliano.) Consummate work; but the photograph, though well taken, darkens it terribly. (48.) _Meeting of Joachim and Anna._ (Vettor Carpaccio.) (Photograph.) (49.) _Madonna and Saints._ (John Bellini.) Portrait. (Mantegna.) (Photographs.) (50.) _Madonna._ (John Bellini.) With Raphael's "Della Seggiola." Showing the first transition from the style of the "Masters" to that of modern times. _The Photographs in the above series are all from the Pictures themselves._ CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM.[15] A PREFACE. 254. The writer of this book has long been my friend, and in the early days of friendship was my disciple.