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I do not know what defence to offer for not having visited the galleries of the Museo Civico, where by actual count in the guide-book I missed one hundred and sixty-nine works of art, though just how many masterpieces I am not able to say: probably one out of every ten was a masterpiece.
The Rio del Megio divides the granary from the old Fondaco dei Turchi, once, after a long and distinguished life as a palace, the head-quarters of the Turks in Venice, and now, admirably restored, the civic museum. It is necessary to visit the collections preserved here, but I cannot promise any feelings of exultation among them. The Museo Civico might be so interesting and is so depressing.
"This way to the Museo Civico," it reads "if you want to find a gondola of twenty-five years ago." As for the Luigis and the Esperos they will then have given up the unequal struggle. The only hope rests with the Venetians themselves.
Ruskin has written a pamphlet about it which is a real aid to enjoyment, though I can't but think the generous artist, with his keen senses and his just feeling, would have suffered to hear his eulogist declare that one of his other productions in the Museo Civico of Palazzo Correr, a delightful portrait of two Venetian ladies with pet animals is the "finest picture in the world."
From some of Canaletto's exact architectural drawings the Venice of his day could be reconstructed almost stone by stone. Before leaving the Museo Civico let me warn the reader that it is by no means easy of access except in a gondola.
Here comes to view the 'flecked' appearance of the iris, especially in the right eye. The left may be described as almost wholly blue." And so on, and so on, and so on. "In the Museo Civico at Pavia, is a fresco likeness by an unknown hand, in which this fresh red is distinctly recognisable on the face.
For Tiepolo at his best the Labia Palace must be visited, and Longhi is more numerously represented at the Museo Civico than here. Both Canaletto and Guardi can be better studied in London, at the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. There are indeed no works by either man to compare with the best of ours.
It is enough to indicate the goal of many a pleasant pilgrimage: warrior angels of Vivarini and Basaiti hidden in a dark chapel of the Frari; Fra Francesco's fantastic orchard of fruits and flowers in distant S. Francesco della Vigna; the golden Gian Bellini in S. Zaccaria; Palma's majestic S. Barbara in S. Maria Formosa; San Giobbe's wealth of sculptured frieze and floral scroll; the Ponte di Paradiso, with its Gothic arch; the painted plates in the Museo Civico; and palace after palace, loved for some quaint piece of tracery, some moulding full of mediæval symbolism, some fierce impossible Renaissance freak of fancy.
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