rk
which shakes at a touch, but which has withstood the rough handling of
five centuries, composed of open quatrefoils and the ladder (_scala_),
the family bearing, and a few other fanciful patterns, constantly
repeated: it is the lace of an iron age. Within this precinct rest ten
princes of the line, who from being nobles of Verona were elected in 1261
by unanimous popular choice to succeed the atrocious Eccelin da Romano,
the tyrant of Padua, who also held Verona under his execrable rule. There
is every variety of tomb, from the plain, heavy sarcophagus of Mastino I.
to the magnificent four-storied monument of Can Signorio surmounted by his
equestrian statue, a rising succession of small columns, arches, niches,
statuettes, canopies, pinnacles, embowered in leafage, bud and flower, as
if the splendid art of the fourteenth century were blossoming before one's
eyes. The tomb of Can Grande is fine, although much simpler: it has three
stories. He lies on the lowest floor, in robes of state, composed to his
last sleep, while on the summit he looks down from his horse, a full-armed
warrior. Four big dogs, from whom he took his enigmatic cognomen (although
the canine proclivity did not begin with him, as his ancestor was
Mastino), support the tomb, each bearing a shield with the arms of the
family.

Verona is rich in tombs. From our windows in the Due Torri we looked
across to the monument of Guglielmo del Castelbarco, a friend of the Delle
Scale, whose massive sarcophagus stands beneath a high Gothic canopy over
the gateway of a building which once formed part of the convent of Sta.
Anastasia. As we gazed down into the square, with its fountain and groups
of old women drawing water, and sometimes setting down their ewers to go
and say a short prayer in the beautiful old church of Sta. Anastasia, we
used to think that if this outlook were included in the charge for our
rooms, we were not paying too much. Another fine monument, by the
architect Sanmicheli, to two brothers who rejoiced in the surname of
Verita encrusts the front of the church of Sta. Eufemia; and in the
cemetery of San Zenone are a tomb and sepulchral urn which claim that they
contain the mortal remains of Pepin, king of Italy, the son of
Charlemagne. Besides these, altar-tombs, pillared and canopied monuments
and mortuary chapels meet the eye everywhere inside and outside of the
churches. That which attracts most attention now-a-days is decidedly the
least or