To see this altar-piece aright one must go in the early morning: as I did on my first visit, only to find the central aisle given up to a funeral mass.
The coffin was in the midst, and about it, on their knees, were the family, a typical gondolier all in black being the chief mourner.

Such prayers as he might have been uttering were constantly broken into by the repeated calls of an attendant with a box for alms, and it was interesting to watch the struggle going on in the simple fellow's mind between native prudence and good form.

How much he ought to give?
Whether it was quite the thing to bring the box so often and at such a season?
Whether shaking it so noisily was not peculiarly tactless?
What the spectators and church officials would think if he refused?
Could he refuse?
and, However much were these obsequies going to cost ?--these questions one could discern revolving almost visibly beneath his short-haired scalp.

At last the priests left the high altar and came down to the coffin, to sprinkle it and do whatever was now possible for its occupant; and in a few minutes the church was empty save for the undertaker's men, myself, and the Bellini.

It is truly a lovely picture, although perhaps a thought too mild, and one should go often to see it.
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS FROM THE PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI _In the Church of S.Zaccaria_] The sculptor Alessandro Vittoria, who did so much to perpetuate the features of great Venetians and was the friend of so many artists, including Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, is buried here.