djoins it, was, as a hotel, under the
name Albergo dell'Universo, Browning's first Venetian home. Later he
moved to the Zattere and after that to the Palazzo Rezzonico, to which
we are soon coming, where he died.

Next we reach the church, convent and Scuola of S. Maria della Carita,
opposite the iron bridge, which under rearrangement and restoration now
forms the Accademia, or Gallery of Fine Arts, famous throughout the
world for its Titians, Tintorettos, Bellinis, and Carpaccios. The
church, which dates from the fifteenth century, is a most beautiful
brown brick building with delicate corbelling under the eaves. Once
there was a campanile too, but it fell into the Grand Canal some hundred
and seventy years ago, causing a tidal wave which flung gondolas clean
out of the water. We shall return to the Accademia in later chapters:
here it is enough to say that the lion on the top of the entrance wall
is the most foolish in Venice, turned, as it has been, into a lady's
hack.

The first house after the Accademia is negligible--newish and dull with
an enclosed garden; the next is the Querini; the next the dull Mocenigo
Gambara; and then we come to the solid Bloomsbury-blackened stone
Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni and its neighbours of the same
ownership. Then the Rio S. Trovaso, with a pretty garden visible a
little way up, and then a gay new little home, very attractive, with a
strip of garden, and next it the fifteenth-century Loredan. A tiny
calle, and then the low Dolfin. Then the Rio Malpaga and after it a very
delectable new residence with a terrace. A calle and traghetto, with a
wall shrine at the corner, come next, and two dull Contarini palaces,
one of which is now an antiquity store, and then the Rio S. Barnaba and
the majestic sombre Rezzonico with its posts of blue and faded pink.

This for long was the home of Robert Browning, and here, as a tablet on
the side wall states, he died. "Browning, Browning," exclaim the
gondoliers as they point to it; but what the word means to them I cannot
say.

CHAPTER IX

THE GRAND CANAL. II: BROWNING AND WAGNER

The Palazzo Rezzonico--Mr. and Mrs. Browning--Browning's Venetian
routine--In praise of Goldoni--Browning's death--A funeral service--Love
of Italy--The Giustiniani family--A last resource--Wagner in
Venice--_Tristan und Isolde_--Plays and Music--The Austrians in
power--The gondoliers' chorus--The Foscari Palace.

The Rezzonico palace and one of the Gi