ust present more remarkable extremes here than it can in any
other city; extremes so startling that their impressiveness cannot be
diminished, while their intelligibility is greatly increased, by the
large number of intermediate types which have fortunately been
preserved.

It would, however, too much weary the general reader if, without
illustrations, I were to endeavor to lead him step by step through the
aisles of St. John and Paul; and I shall therefore confine myself to a
slight notice of those features in sepulchral architecture generally
which are especially illustrative of the matter at present in hand, and
point out the order in which, if possible, the traveller should visit
the tombs in Venice, so as to be most deeply impressed with the true
character of the lessons they convey.

Sec. XLVIII. I have not such an acquaintance with the modes of entombment
or memorial in the earliest ages of Christianity as would justify me in
making any general statement respecting them: but it seems to me that
the perfect type of a Christian tomb was not developed until toward the
thirteenth century, sooner or later according to the civilization of
each country; that perfect type consisting in the raised and perfectly
visible sarcophagus of stone, bearing upon it a recumbent figure, and
the whole covered by a canopy. Before that type was entirely developed,
and in the more ordinary tombs contemporary with it, we find the simple
sarcophagus, often with only a rough block of stone for its lid,
sometimes with a low-gabled lid like a cottage roof, derived from
Egyptian forms, and bearing, either on the sides or the lid, at least a
sculpture of the cross, and sometimes the name of the deceased, and date
of erection of the tomb. In more elaborate examples rich
figure-sculpture is gradually introduced; and in the perfect period the
sarcophagus, even when it does not bear any recumbent figure, has
generally a rich sculpture on its sides representing an angel presenting
the dead, in person and dress as he lived, to Christ or to the Madonna,
with lateral figures, sometimes of saints, sometimes--as in the tombs of
the Dukes of Burgundy at Dijon--of mourners; but in Venice almost always
representing the Annunciation, the angel being placed at one angle of
the sarcophagus, and the Madonna at the other. The canopy, in a very
simple foursquare form, or as an arch over a recess, is added above the
sarcophagus, long before the life-size recumbe