I hope there is foundation for this belief, Signore, which greatly flatters our pride, and is not without use in keeping some among us truer to the right, and better favored in the eyes of St.
Anthony than might otherwise be." "The fact was so." "And the painting, excellent Signore?
I hope our vanity has not deceived us concerning the picture, neither ?" "The picture you mention is to be seen within the palace." "Corpo di Bacco! I have had my misgivings on that point, for it is not common that the rich and happy should take such note of what the humble and the poor have done.

Is the work from the hands of the great Tiziana himself, eccellenza ?" "It is not; one of little name hath put his pencil to the canvas." "They say that Tiziano had the art of giving to his work the look and richness of flesh, and one would think that a just man might find, in the honesty of the poor fisherman, a color bright enough to have satisfied even his eye.

But it may be that the senate saw danger in thus flattering us of the Lagunes." "Proceed with the account of thine own fortune with the ring." "Illustrious nobles, I have often dreamed of the luck of my fellow of the old times; and more than once have I drawn the nets with an eager hand in my sleep, thinking to find that very jewel entangled in its meshes, or embowelled by some fish.

What I have so often fancied has at last happened.

I am an old man, Signore, and there are few pools or banks between Fusina and Giorgio, that my lines of my nets have not fathomed or covered.