s and grapes, which the cicerone boldly
attributes to Rubens, but Baedeker to one of his pupils. Whoever the
designer, he had an agreeable and robust fancy and a sure hand. The
palace seems to have more rooms than its walls can contain, all
possessing costly accessories and no real beauty. The bedroom of
Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo is shown: his elaborate cradle with a stork
presiding over it, surely a case of _trop de zele_; pretty yellow
painted furniture; and a few pictures, including a fine horseback
portrait by Moretto, a Cima, a Giovanni Bellini, and the usual Longhis.
But it is the riotous little spirits of the vintage that remain in the
mind.

After the Michiel dalle Colonne is a little newish house and the Gothic
Palazzo Michiel da Brusa with blue posts with yellow stripes, rather
overweighted with balconies but having nice ironwork; and then the
comfortable-looking Mangilli Valmarana with blue posts with red and
white tops, and the Rio dei SS. Apostoli with a view of the campanile
along it. Next a dull white building with flush windows, and next that
the fine and ancient Palazzo da Mosto. This house has many old
sculptured slabs worked into the facade, and it seems a great pity that
it should so have fallen from its proper state. An ugly modern iron
balcony has been set beneath its Gothic windows. Adjoining is a house
which also has pretty Gothic windows, and then the dull and neglected
Palazzo Mocenigo, with brown posts. Then comes the Rio S. Gio.
Crisostomo, and next it a house newly faced, and then the fascinating
remains of the twelfth-century Palazzo Lion, consisting of an exposed
staircase and a very attractive courtyard with round and pointed arches.
It is now a rookery. Washing is hung in the loggia at the top, and
ragged children lean from the windows.

[Illustration: THE RIALTO BRIDGE FROM THE PALAZZO DEI DIECI SAVII]

Next, a pretty little house which might be made very liveable in, facing
the fruit market, and then the hideous modern Sernagiotto, dating from
1847 and therefore more than negligible. A green little house with a
sottoportico under it, and then a little red brick prison and the ugly
Civran palace is reached. Next, the Perducci, now a busy statuary store,
and next it the Ca Ruzzini, all spick and span, and the Rio dell'Olio o
del Fontego, through which come the fruit barges from Malamocco. And now
we touch very interesting history again, for the next great building,
with the moto