In Bellini’s time this corner by San Lorenzo was splendid indeed. The Capello family, which, according to the chroniclers, was numbered among the patricians in 1297, played a prominent part in all Venetian activities, but chiefly in war. It is a member of this family--Vittore Capello, generalissimo of Venice in the Turkish campaign of 1462 and 1465, who is represented as kneeling before Sant’ Elena in the beautiful relief above the façade of Sant’ Aponal. Another Capello--Vincenzo--in the succeeding century filled five times the office of Admiral, and in 1541 erected the façade of Santa Maria Formosa. Notoriety of a different kind was brought to the family by Bianca, who married for love and freedom, and was cheated of both, but who died Grand Duchess of Tuscany. This palace of the Capello family at San Giovanni Laterano was worthy of their fame. The superb side wall that faces us in Bellini’s picture is like a tapestry in diamonds of dusky crimson and gold. It is bordered by a design of gold below the bands of colour, which are most effectively placed immediately under the projecting roof. A beautiful design in red and green, like rich embroidery, forms a kind of flag, enclosing the Capello symbols on a shield painted in different shades of blue. Everything that conventional ornament could do to beautify the house has been done. Ornamental borders and squares are set among the bricks, and the smooth marble facings of the ogival windows are inlaid with coloured discs and knobs. The lower square house at the end of the fondamenta, divided from the Capello palace by the rio, has the same beauties of ornamental band and stripes of alternating colours beneath the roof. The single window in the wall that faces us is magnificent, grated and enclosed by gilt rope-work; the capitals of its pillars and its ogival arch are richly gilded, and in the surface of the stone above are set discs of porphyry with centre and rim of gold. Over the massive wooden entrance door is a painted frieze of green leaves, and discs with Byzantine birds are inserted in the wall above. A grand surface of wall is still left for the fresco painter, and Tintoretto was yet to come. Perhaps the most notable feature in this lower house is the carving of its chimneys; each has an individual form. The fondamenta in the picture is thronged with citizens, and the conspicuous row of stalwart ladies, who kneel on its extreme edge above the water, tradition calls Catterina Cornaro and her train. Certainly this representation of the Queen of Cyprus and her train is different from that which Bembo has given us in his delightful letters to Lucrezia Borgia from Asolo. Catherine, it is true, was no longer a girl when she went to her captivity at Asolo; but there is a lightness and freedom in Bembo’s picture of the party who told tales of love and philosophy and idled among the gardens, which leaves us unprepared for the solidity and uncomeliness of this uniform row of figures.