was to receive his relics in the
church dedicated to him under the name of San Simeone Grande. So soon as
the figure appears, the sarcophagus becomes much more richly sculptured,
but always with definite religious purpose. It is usually divided into
two panels, which are filled with small bas-reliefs of the acts or
martyrdom of the patron saints of the deceased: between them, in the
centre, Christ, or the Virgin and Child, are richly enthroned, under a
curtained canopy; and the two figures representing the Annunciation are
almost always at the angles; the promise of the Birth of Christ being
taken as at once the ground and the type of the promise of eternal life
to all men.

Sec. LIII. These figures are always in Venice most rudely chiselled; the
progress of figure sculpture being there comparatively tardy. At Verona,
where the great Pisan school had strong influence, the monumental
sculpture is immeasurably finer; and, so early as about the year
1335,[16] the consummate form of the Gothic tomb occurs in the monument
of Can Grande della Scala at Verona. It is set over the portal of the
chapel anciently belonging to the family. The sarcophagus is sculptured
with shallow bas-reliefs, representing (which is rare in the tombs with
which I am acquainted in Italy, unless they are those of saints) the
principal achievements of the warrior's life, especially the siege of
Vicenza and battle of Placenza; these sculptures, however, form little
more than a chased and roughened groundwork for the fully relieved
statues representing the Annunciation, projecting boldly from the front
of the sarcophagus. Above, the Lord of Verona is laid in his long robe
of civil dignity, wearing the simple bonnet, consisting merely of a
fillet bound round the brow, knotted and falling on the shoulder. He is
laid as asleep; his arms crossed upon his body, and his sword by his
side. Above him, a bold arched canopy is sustained by two projecting
shafts, and on the pinnacle of its roof is the statue of the knight on
his war-horse; his helmet, dragon-winged and crested with the dog's
head, tossed back behind his shoulders, and the broad and blazoned
drapery floating back from his horse's breast,--so truly drawn by the
old workman from the life, that it seems to wave in the wind, and the
knight's spear to shake, and his marble horse to be evermore quickening
its pace, and starting into heavier and hastier charge, as the silver
clouds float past behind it in