"Thou askest more of Venice than I," he said, well pleased with her
enthusiasm; "but have a care lest they say I have not taught thee well,
or that I do not know my art, or that I claim too much. At the time of
the burning of San Marco these Mosaics for the restoration were from the
stabilimenti of the Republic on Rialto--so early it came to us, this
glorious art. And it was one Piero, a founder of our house, though the
name was other than Magagnati, who was the master in that restoration.
But the first mosaics in that old San Marco--ay, and the workmen," he
added with a conscious effort, so much would he have liked to claim the
invention for Venice, "came hither from the East. Thou shouldst know the
history of our art; it is the story of thine ancestry and the nobility
of thy house. Thou hast no other."
"I have thee, my father!"
IV
The Veronese did not paint that beautiful face the next morning as he
had planned; for the first time he had encountered difficulties. Slowly,
as he wended his way through the many turnings of the narrow calle to
Campo San Maurizio, carrying a beautiful Moorish box filled with the
pearly shells which the Venetians call "flowers of the Lido," and a
bouquet of aromatic carnations for the bambino, he recalled the figure
and speech of his Madonna, and they were not those of the maidens whom
one might encounter at the traghetto or in the Piazza; there had been a
dignity and self-forgetfulness in such perfect harmony with the face
that, at the moment, this had seemed entirely natural.
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