c
windows in delicately carved frames and little balconies of fretted
marble. Zanetti, in 1771, gives an etching of a magnificent bronze
frieze cast from the master's design, which ran round the Grand Sala.
The family must have occupied the _piano nobile_ and let off the floors
they did not require.

Descriptions of the life led by the painter and his family are given
by Vasari, who knew him personally, and by Ridolfi, whose book was
published in 1646, and who must have known his children, several of whom
were still alive and proud of their father's fame. We hear of pleasant
evenings spent in the little palace, of the enthusiastic love of music,
Tintoretto himself and his daughter being highly gifted. Among the
_habitues_ were Zarlino, for twenty-five years chapel-master of St.
Mark's, one of the fathers of modern music; Bassano; and Veronese, who,
in spite of his love for magnificent entertainments, was often to be
found in Tintoretto's pleasant home. Poor Andrea Schiavone was always
welcome, and as time went on the house became the haunt of all the
cultured gentlemen and _litterati_ of Venice.

It is not difficult from the materials available to form a sufficiently
lively idea of this Venetian citizen of the sixteenth century, as father
and husband, host and painter. Ridolfi has collected a number of
anecdotes, which space forbids me to use, but which are all very
characteristic. We gather that he was a man of strong character,
generous, sincere and simple, decided in his ways, caring little for
the great world, but open-handed and hospitable under his own roof,
observant of men and manners, and sometimes rather brusque in dealing
with bores and offensive persons. Full of dry quiet humour and of
good-natured banter of his wife's little weaknesses. A man, too, of
upright conduct and free, as far as it can be ascertained, from any of
those laxities and infidelities, so freely quoted of celebrated men and
so easily condoned by his age. Art was Tintoretto's main preoccupation;
but he seems to have been a man of strong religious bias, making a close
study of the Bible, and turning naturally in his last days to those
truths with which his art had made him familiar, truths which he had
represented with that touch of mystic feeling which was the deepest part
of his nature.

His relations with the State commenced in 1574, when his offer to
present a superb painting of the Victory of Lepanto was made to and
accepted by the