The most ancient pictorial remains in the Venetian territories I believe to be at Verona, in a subterraneous part of the nunnery of Santi Nazario and Celso, which, however inaccessible to the generality of virtuosi, have, nevertheless, been engraved on a variety of plates by order of the indefatigable Signor Dionisi. In this, which was formerly the Chapel of the Faithful, are represented several mysteries of our redemption; some apostles, some holy martyrs, and in particular the transit of one of the righteous from this life, on whom the archangel, St. Michael, is seen bestowing his assistance. Here the symbols, the workmanship, the design, the attitudes, the drapery of the figures, and the characters united, permit us not to doubt that the painting must be much anterior to the revival of the arts in Italy. But most writers seem to trace the rudiments of Venetian painting from the eleventh century, about the year 1070, at the period when the Doge Selvo invited the mosaic workers from Greece to adorn the magnificent temple, consecrated to St. Mark the Evangelist. Such artificers, however rude, must have been acquainted, in some degree, with the art of painting; none being enabled to work in mosaic who had not previously designed and coloured, upon pasteboard or cartoon, the composition they intended to execute. And these, observe the same writers, were the first essays of the art of painting in Venice. However this may be, it speedily took root, and began to flourish after the year 1204, when Constantinople being taken, Venice was in a short time filled, not indeed with Grecian artists, but with their pictures, statues, and bassi relievi.[6] Had I not here restricted my observations to existing specimens of the art, bestowing only a rapid glance upon the rest, along with their authors, I might prove, that from the above period, the city was no longer destitute of artists; and was enabled, in the thirteenth century, to form a company of them with their appropriate laws and institutions.