* A selection from Tintoretto’s religious paintings, excluding those at the Scuola di San Rocco (the churches named being all in Venice):
I. OLD TESTAMENT SCENES: Creation of the Animals (Venice); Adam and Eve (Venice)—a uniquely illumined landscape; Cain and Abel (Venice); Abraham’s Sacrifice (Uffizi); Joseph and Fotiphar’s Wife (Prado); Finding of Moses (Escorial); Golden Calf (Madonna dell’ Orto); Gathering of the Manna (San Giorgio Maggiore)—a remarkable mingling of nature, men, women, and animals.
II. MADONNAS: Birth of the Virgin (Mantua)—almost as gracious as a Correggio; Annunciation (Berlin); Visitation (Bologna); Madonna and Child (Cleveland); Madonna and Saints (Ferrara)—splendid, but the saints are Michelangelesque octogenarian gladiators; Assumption (I Gesuiti)—weak and pale compared with Titian’s masterpiece in the Frari.
III. FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST: Circumcision (Santa Maria del Carmine); Baptism (San Silvestro; a variant in the Prado); Jesus in the House of Martha (Munich)—exceptionally beautiful; Marriage at Cana (Madonna della Salute); Christ at the Sea of Galilee (Washington)—an almost impressionistic study in blue and green; Woman Taken in Adultery (Rome, Galleria Nazionale)—a pretty sinner in a too theatrical picture; Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet (Escorial); Raising of Lazarus (Leipzig); Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes (New York); Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Uffizi); Last Supper (San Trovaso; another in San Stefano and in San Giorgio Maggiore, and a magnificent drawing in the Uffizi); Crucifixion (San Cassiano); Deposition (Venice, Parma, Milan, Pitti Gallery); Burial of Christ (San Giorgio Maggiore); Descent into Limbo (San Cassiano); Resurrection (Farrer Collection); Last Judgment (Madonna dell’ Orto)—a vain attempt to exceed the confusion and absurdities of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco.
IV. THE SAINTS: St. Augustine Healing Victims of the Plague (New York); Miracle of St. Agnes (Madonna dell’ Orto); St. George and the Dragon (London)—a study in light and shade, as of a night engagement; Marriage of St. Catherine (Ducal Palace); Martyrdom of St. Catherine (Venice)—in both cases a lovely lady whom only a fool would want to kill; Transportation of the Body of St. Mark (Venice), and Finding of the Body of St. Mark (Milan)—a masterly perspective of a darkened nave, a kneeling patrician in holy terror, a charming lass whose knees are clasped by a youth pretending fright, and a splendid St. Mark standing erect over his own corpse.
* This was one of many pictures taken from Italy by Hermann Goering during the Second World War, and recovered for Italy by the victory of the Allies.34
* Besides the pictures mentioned in the text the following are notable:
I. FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT: Creation of Eve (Chicago); Moses Saved from the Waters (Prado); Burning of Sodom (Louvre); Queen of Sheba Before Solomon (Turin); Bathsheba (Lyons); Judith Before Holofernes (Tours); Susanna and the Elders (Louvre), where, for a change, the elders are more interesting than Susanna.
II. OF THE VIRGIN: Annunciation (Venice); Adoration of the Magi (Vienna, Dresden, and London—all magnificent); Holy Family (Princeton); Holy Family with St. Catherine and St. John (Uffizi)—a major work; Virgin, Child, and Saints— superb (Venice); Presentation (Dresden); Assumption and Coronation (Venice).
III. OF THE BAPTIST: Preaching of St. John (Borghese).
IV. OF CHRIST: Baptism (Pitti, Brera, Washington); Christ Disputing in the Temple (Prado); Jesus and the Centurion (Prado); Christ Revives the Daughter of Jairus (Vienna); Last Supper (Brera); Deposition (Verona, Leningrad); Maries at the Tomb (Pitti).
* Alamanni shared with Trissino and Giovanni Rucellai the distinction of being among the first writers of blank verse—versi sciolti— in Italy.
* Shakespeare took the story from Arthur Broke’s Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562); Broke took it from Masuccio or Bandello. Shakespeare also knew the tale in William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566), which took it from Bandello.28
* The Via Balbi was shattered in the Second World War.
* Notably Portrait of an Old Gentleman (Bergamo); Antonio Navagero (Milan); Bartolommeo Bonga (New York); Old Man and Boy (Boston); Titian’s Schoolmaster (Washington); Lodovico Madrazzo (Chicago).