Think of the makers of St. Mark's--the great men who worked together with brains and hands to make her what she is! The army of artists, painting, designing, sculpturing, one after the other from generation to generation in this great cathedral! Titian, Tintoretto, Palma, Pilotto, Salviati, and Sebastian were among the painters whose designs were used for the mosaics; Bozza, Vincenzo, Bianchini, and Passerini, among the master mosaicists; Pietro Lombardo, Alberghetti, and Massegna, among the sculptors. Then, the other thousands, all men of extraordinary talent, of whom astonishingly little is known, fervent workers! Throughout eight centuries they worked, and with what care and skill and patience! At what a cost, too, these masterpieces must have been achieved! Think of the temples and the quarries that have been robbed of their gold, and of the marbles, the alabaster, and the porphyry. All the saints and prophets and martyrs are there; the stories of the Virgin, of the Passion, and of Calvary; all the scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The early Venetians seem to have revelled in colour and in rich materials. The builders laid on the richest colour and the most brilliant jewels they could find. They were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and when they succeeded in war their first thought was to bring home shiploads of precious materials. Just as the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Arabs had an intense love of colour, so had the early Venetians, who used precious stones in great abundance, even in their own private houses. A most extraordinary thing is that there is nothing vulgar about the costliness of St. Mark's. Although both inside and out it is rich beyond words, rich in precious stones, rich in every way, the building is full of reserve. There is no ostentation, no vulgarity. The jewels used in its construction do not for one moment interfere with one's sense of the beautiful, or with reverence and religion. They simply give a rare luxurious feeling to the place, and in the ignorant inspire respect for a Church thus encased and honoured with the richest in the land.