"'The Bridge of Sighs,'" he explains (i.e. _Ponte de' Sospiri_), "is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of the Doge to the prison of the state." Compare _The Two Foscari_, act iv. sc. 1-- "In Venice '_but_'s' a traitor. But me no '_buts_,' unless you would pass o'er The Bridge which few repass." This, however, is an anachronism. The Bridge of Sighs was built by Antonio da Ponte, in 1597, more than a century after the death of Francesco Foscari. "It is," says Mr. Ruskin, "a work of no merit and of a late period, owing the interest it possesses chiefly to its pretty name, and to the ignorant sentimentalism of Byron" (_Stones of Venice_, 1853, ii. 304; in. 359).] [377] [Compare _Mysteries of Udolpho_, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, 1794, ii. 35, 36-- "Its terraces crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics ... appeared as if they had been called up from the Ocean by the wand of an enchanter."] [lb] {328} ----_throned on her Seventy Isles_.--[MS. M. altern. reading, D.] [378] Sabellicus, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true.--"Quo fit ut qui supernè [ex specula aliqua eminentiore] urbem contempletur, turritam telluris imaginem medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere." [_De Venetæ Urbis situ Narratio_, lib. i. _Ital. Ill. Script._, 1600, p. 4. Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus (1436-1506) wrote, _inter alia_, a _History of Venice_, published in folio in 1487, and _Rhapsodiæ Historiarum Enneades, a condito mundo, usque ad_ A.C. 1504. His description of Venice (_vide supra_) was published after his death in 1527. Hofmann does not give him a good character: "Obiit A.C. 1506, turpi morbo confectus, ætat. 70, relicto filio notho." But his Αὐτοεπιτάφιον [Au)toepita/phion] implies that he was satisfied with himself. "Quem non res hominum, non omnis ceperat ætas, Scribentem capit hæc Coccion urna brevis." Cybele (sometimes written Cybelle and Cybēle), the "mother of the Goddesses," was represented as wearing a mural crown--"coronamque turritam gestare dicitur" (Albricus Phil., _De Imag. Deor._, xii.). Venice with her tiara of proud towers is the earth-goddess Cybele, having "suffered a sea-change."] [lc] {329} _From spoils of many nations and the East_.--[MS. M., D. erased.] [379] ["Gems wrought into drinking-vessels, among which the least precious were framed of turquoise, jasper, or amethyst ... unnumbered jacinths, emeralds, sapphires, chrysolites, and topazes, and, lastly, those matchless carbuncles which, placed on the High Altar of St. Mark's, blazed with intrinsic light, and scattered darkness by their own beams;--these are but a sample of the treasures which accrued to Venice" (Villehardouin, lib. in. p. 129). (See _Sketches from Venetian History_, 1831, i. 161.)]