The Cruise of the Branwen

CRUISE OF THE BRANWEN gone back to Venice. During this· period, Onofrio, an architect of the Venetian Gothic school, began the Rector's Palace, and the famous JEsculapius capital in the Loggia is typical of his work. Four other eapitals he wrought, and one of these Mr. T. G. Jackson discovered at Gravosa. But all his five columns of Curzola stone and his interior walls were used when the Palace was given its present form in 1464, by 1\1ichelozzo, a pupil of Donatello, reckoned the most able architect of his day after Brunelleschi. Another follower of the Classic Renaissance, Giorgio Orsini, continued J\1ichel– ozzo's work. The result is a singularly beautiful building, which might almost have been trans– planted from the Grand Canal in Venice. The Dogana, though less pretentious, is almost as satisfactory in its own way. The Cloister of the Dominican Convent, with its lovely central well, is a most charming contrast to the Venetian work elsewhere, and the Franciscan Cloister is good too. Within the treasury of S. Biagio i's a marvel– lous enamelled skull, together with a fine sixteenth– century ewer and basin like the work of a Nurem– berg jeweller. The public buildings, in fact, are relatively as magnificent as those of Venice or the Low Countries, and just what you might imagine from the long-continued aristocratic Republic which ruled the town so well. It was a most interesting day we spent wander– ing through these shady stone-paved streets, which seemed at first entirely populated by cats and Croats and small Austrian soldiers. We 16o