§ LXVIII. The writer of the unpretending little history from which the last quotation is taken has not given his authority for this statement, and I could not find it, but believed, from the general accuracy of the book, that some authority might exist better than Daru's. Under these circumstances, wishing if possible to ascertain the truth, and to clear the character of this great Doge from the accusation, if it proved groundless, I wrote to the Count Carlo Morosini, his descendant, and one of the few remaining representatives of the ancient noblesse of Venice; one, also, by whom his great ancestral name is revered, and in whom it is exalted. His answer appears to me altogether conclusive as to the utter fallacy of the reports of Daru and the English history. I have placed his letter in the close of this volume (Appendix 6), in order that the reader may himself be the judge upon this point; and I should not have alluded to Daru's report, except for the purpose of contradicting it, but that it still appears to me impossible that any modern historian should have gratuitously invented the whole story, and that, therefore, there must have been a trace in the documents which Daru himself possessed, of some scandal of this kind raised by Morosini's enemies, perhaps at the very time of the disputed election with Carlo Zeno. The occurrence of the Virtues upon his tomb, for the first time in Venetian monumental work, and so richly and conspicuously placed, may partly have been in public contradiction of such a floating rumor. But the face of the statue is a more explicit contradiction still; it is resolute, thoughtful, serene, and full of beauty; and we must, therefore, for once, allow the somewhat boastful introduction of the Virtues to have been perfectly just: though the whole tomb is most notable, as furnishing not only the exact intermediate condition in style between the pure Gothic and its final Renaissance corruption, but, at the same time, the exactly intermediate condition of _feeling_ between the pure calmness of early Christianity, and the boastful pomp of the Renaissance faithlessness; for here we have still the religious humility remaining in the mosaic of the canopy, which shows the Doge kneeling before the cross, while yet this tendency to self-trust is shown in the surrounding of the coffin by the Virtues. § LXIX. The next tomb by the side of which they appear is that of Jacopo Cavalli, in the same chapel of St. John and Paul which contains the tomb of the Doge Delfin. It is peculiarly rich in religious imagery, adorned by boldly cut types of the four evangelists, and of two saints, while, on projecting brackets in front of it, stood three statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, now lost, but drawn in Zanotto's work. It is all rich in detail, and its sculptor has been proud of it, thus recording his name below the epitaph: "QST OPERA DINTALGIO E FATTO IN PIERA, UNVENICIAN LAFE CHANOME POLO, NATO DI JACHOMEL CHATAIAPIERA."