kes, which served for no other
purpose but to hang the Duke whensoever he shall happen to commit any
treason against the State. And for that cause it is erected before the
very gate of his Palace to the end to put him in minde to be faithfull
and true to his country. If not, he seeth the place of punishment at
hand. But this is not a perfect gallowes, because there are only two
pillars without a transverse beame, which beame (they say) is to be
erected when there is any execution, not else. Betwixt this gallowes
malefactors and condemned men (that are to goe to be executed upon a
scaffold betwixt the two famous pillars before mentioned at the South
end of S. Mark's street, neare the Adriaticque Sea) are wont to say
their prayers, to the Image of the Virgin Mary, standing on a part of S.
Mark's Church right opposite unto them."

CHAPTER III

S. MARK'S. II: THE INTERIOR

Vandal guides--Emperor and Pope--The Bible in mosaic--The Creation of
the world--Cain and Abel--Noah--The story of Joseph--The golden
horses--A horseless city--A fiction gross and palpable--A populous
church--The French pilgrims--Rain in Venice--S. Mark's Day--The
procession--New Testament mosaics--S. Isidoro's chapel--The chapel of
the Males--A coign of vantage--The Pala d'oro--Sansovino--S. Mark's
treasures--The Baptistery--The good Andrea Dandolo--The vision of Bishop
Magnus--The parasites.

Let us now enter the atrium. When I first did so, in 1889, I fell at
once into the hands of a guide, who, having completed his other
services, offered for sale a few pieces of mosaic which he had casually
chipped off the wall with his knife somewhere in the gallery. Being
young and simple I supposed this the correct thing for guides to do, and
was justified in that belief when at the Acropolis, a few weeks later,
the terrible Greek who had me in tow ran lightly up a workman's ladder,
produced a hammer from his pocket and knocked a beautiful carved leaf
from a capital. But S. Mark's has no such vandals to-day. There are
guides in plenty, who detach themselves from its portals or appear
suddenly between the flagstaffs with promises of assistance; but they
are easily repulsed and the mosaics are safe.

Entering the atrium by the central door we come upon history at once.
For just inside on the pavement whose tesselations are not less lovely
than the ceiling mosaics--indeed I often think more lovely--are the
porphyry slabs on which the Emperor Frederick B