_Turin_ 300

TURNER The Fighting Temeraire _London_ 306

BOTTICELLI Spring _Florence_ 314

GREAT PICTURES

DESCRIBED BY GREAT WRITERS

THE FISHERMAN PRESENTING THE RING TO THE DOGE GRADENIGO

(_BORDONE_)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

This picture, which represents a gondolier returning the ring of Saint
Mark to the Doge, treats of a legend, an episode of which Giorgione, as
we shall see in the next hall, has also painted in a somewhat singular
manner. Here is the story in a few words: One night while the gondolier
was sleeping in his gondola, waiting for custom along the canal of S.
Giorgio Maggiore, three mysterious individuals jumped into his boat and
bade him take them to the Lido; one of the three persons, as well as he
could be distinguished in the darkness, appeared to have the beard of an
apostle and the figure of a high dignitary of the Church; the two
others, by a certain sound as of armour rubbing beneath their mantles,
revealed themselves as men-at-arms. The gondolier turned his prow
towards the Lido and began to row; but the lagoon, so tranquil at their
departure, began to chop and swell strangely: the waves gleamed with
sinster{a} lights; monstrous apparitions were outlined menacingly around
the barque to the great terror of the gondolier; and hideous spirits of
evil and devils half man half fish seemed to be swimming from the Lido
towards Venice, making the waves emit thousands of sparks and exciting
the tempest with whistling and fiendish laughter in the storm; but the
appearance of the shining swords of the two knights and the extended
hand of the saintly personage made them recoil and vanish in sulphurous
explosions.

The battle lasted for a long time; new demons constantly succeeded the
others; however, the victory remained with the personages in the boat,
who had themselves taken back to the landing of the Piazzetta. The
gondolier scarcely knew what to think of their strange conduct; until,
as they were about to separate, the oldest of the group, suddenly
causing his nimbus to shine out again, said to the gondolier: "I am
Saint Mark, the patron of Venice. I learned to-night that the devils
assembled in convention at the Lido in the cemetery of the Jews, had
formed the resolution of exciting a frightful tempest and overthrowing
my beloved city, under the pretext that many excesses are committed
ther