"Among the important works recently executed is a large mosaic panel representing Columbus being received by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain after his return from America. This panel, measuring about two hundred square feet, shows Columbus when kneeling before the sovereigns, presenting to them the natives of the newly discovered land, and some products of the soil. The persons represented are about thirty-eight in number, many of them of the natural size, formed in three principal groups. In the most important group is Columbus, having at his side the young crown prince and the sovereigns, surrounded by the dignitaries of the court, ladies and noblemen, and pages holding the standards. In the middle group, but more to the left, are the native Indians; and near the entrance of the hall other Spanish nobles and the companions of Columbus. The gorgeous and various attires of all the figures, their warlike implements, the splendid stuffs of all sorts and {126} tints, the rich decoration of the hall, the pageantry of the court, the strange tones and costumes of the natives in full contrast with the others, and the various attitudes of all these personages form a whole in perfect harmony with the details of the scene, owing to the excellent distribution of the figures, and the perfect fusion of tints. The work is so delicately executed that no one can believe that the panel is not painted until on touching it he discovers that it is entirely composed of small enamel cubes, put together without any aid of color or cement, and worked according to the mode of the old Venetian mosaic school. This panel will form the pendant of another representing Columbus landing in America." No glass has been so famous as that of Venice, because no other glass-makers have ever equalled the Venetians in the beauty of their products, nor in the marvellous manner in which they varied the use of their materials. Good authorities believe that this art was known to the earliest settlers of the lagoons, although they used their knowledge in the making of the necessities of life alone; but the material of the antique glass and the Muranese glass is precisely the same.