of their principal virtues, and of the principal causes of outcry against them. § LXXIX. But the most significant change in the treatment of these tombs, with respect to our immediate object, is in the form of the sarcophagus. It was above noted, that, exactly in proportion to the degree of the pride of life expressed in any monument, would be also the fear of death; and therefore, as these tombs increase in splendor, in size, and beauty of workmanship, we perceive a gradual desire to _take away from the definite character of the sarcophagus_. In the earliest times, as we have seen, it was a gloomy mass of stone; gradually it became charged with religious sculpture; but never with the slightest desire to disguise its form, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century. It then becomes enriched with flower-work and hidden by the Virtues; and, finally, losing its foursquare form, it is modelled on graceful types of ancient vases, made as little like a coffin as possible, and refined away in various elegancies, till it becomes, at last, a mere pedestal or stage for the portrait statue. This statue, in the meantime, has been gradually coming back to life, through a curious series of transitions. The Vendramin monument is one of the last which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent figure laid in death. A few years later, this idea became disagreeable to polite minds; and, lo! the figures which before had been laid at rest upon the tomb pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began to look round them. The soul of the sixteenth century dared not contemplate its body in death. § LXXX. The reader cannot but remember many instances of this form of monument, England being peculiarly rich in examples of them; although, with her, tomb sculpture, after the fourteenth century, is altogether imitative, and in no degree indicative of the temper of the people. It was from Italy that the authority for the change was derived; and in Italy only, therefore, that it is truly correspondent to the change in the national mind. There are many monuments in Venice of this semi-animate type, most of them carefully sculptured, and some very admirable as portraits, and for the casting of the drapery, especially those in the Church of San Salvador; but I shall only direct the reader to one, that of Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, in the Church of the Frari; notable not only as a very skilful piece of sculpture, but for the epitaph, singularly characteristic of the period, and confirmatory of all that I have alleged against it: "James Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, who conquered the Turks in war, himself in peace, transported from a noble family among the Venetians to a nobler among the angels, laid here, expects the noblest crown, which the just Judge shall give to him in that day. He lived the years of Plato. He died 24th March, 1547."[20]