At Easter a procession of mechanical figures below the clock-face delights the spectators.
It was while Coryat was in Venice that one of these giants, I know not which, performed a deed of fatal savagery.

The traveller thus describes it: "A certaine fellow that had the charge to looke to the clocke, was very busie about the bell, according to his usuall custome every day, to the end to amend something in it that was amisse.

But in the meane time one of those wilde men that at the quarters of the howers doe use to strike the bell, strooke the man in the head with his brazen hammer, giving him such a violent blow, that therewith he fell down dead presently in his place, and never spake more." At the third turning to the right out of the Merceria is the church of S.Giuliano, or S.Zulian, which the great Sansovino built.

One evening, hearing singing as I passed, I entered, but found standing-room only, and that only with the greatest discomfort.

Yet the congregation was so happy and the scene was so animated that I stayed on and on--long enough at any rate for the offertory box to reach me three separate times.
Every one present was either poor or on the borders of poverty; and the fervour was almost that of a salvation army meeting.