tion.

yonder a patient sick in bed. Models of crushed hands and broken legs also added to the ghastly wall ornamentation. The roof of the apse was decorated with frescoes, but they were in bad style, and in a bad state of preservaRepresentations of the four evangelists were the most easily distinguishable. There were a few pictures said to be by Cesare Vecellio, and an altar-piece of the Bible, sealed with seven seals, and a lamb lying on the top of it. Attached to the little church there is a good stone campanile, with a sun-dial and an inscription. By the side of it is a short column, hollowed out and fashioned into that indispensable article of furniture of the church, a money-box. Again we made a start, when, passing a few scattered houses, then a fountain, around which a group of women were chatting whilst filling their bright copper vessels, and then the parish church, whose foundation is said to go back to the sixth century, we at last completed the steep ascent, and rattled into the little Piazza of Pieve di Cadore.

TITIAN'S MONUMENT, PIEVE DI CADORE.

(By kind permission of Signor Davide Riva, of Calalzo.)

To face p. 87.

CHAPTER VII

PIEVE DI CADORE

(Capital of the old Republic of Cadore, population 800; distance from Venice 100 miles; height above sea-level 2990 feet. Nearest railway stations-Belluno, 28 miles; Vittorio, 41 miles; Carnia (on the Pontebba line), 48 miles; Toblach, 38 miles. Diligences carrying mails, passengers, and luggage start for and arrive from all these stations twice daily. Post and telegraph offices. Good doctor and chemist.

Hotels-Al Progresso (over 100 beds), Al Angelo, and Sole; rooms 2 fr.; pension from 8 fr. per day. Private apart. ments to be had.)

THE word Pieve, derived, in all likelihood, from plebs (the people), generally marks a place of popular assembly, and as there are several Pieves in Italy, it is necessary, in order to distinguish them, to add the names of their districts or provinces. Thus our mountain one, which we have just reached, the most famous of them all, is Pieve di Cadore. The name Cadore is thought to be derived from that of the Caturigi, who early settled here, fleeing from a Gallican invasion of their country.

In the whirligig of time the seat of government of the old Republic of Cadore has become but the chief town of a district of a province (Belluno) of the kingdom of Italy. Still nothing deprives it of its local, family, and historic interests. It is a compact little place of about seven hundred inhabitants, on a commanding, yet not exposed, position on the saddle of a hill, well guarded by the guns of the crouching modern fortress of Monte Ricco, that takes the place of the towers and keeps and battlemented walls

of the old castle.

It has, like most of the Cadore villages, a substantial, well-to-do look.

Its houses are large square stone dwellings, with broad overhanging eaves. They are called palazzi (palaces), which term is applied in Italy to any large self-contained building. Roughly speaking, the village is triangular in form, and the space enclosed, which serves as a villáge market square, is called the Piazza Tiziano, so named after the great painter who was born here in 1477. As everything and everybody in the place seems to have a connection with Titian, it is well to begin with him in our examination of the little town. Looking round the Piazza one sees the name Vecellio everywhere. The chief grocer is a Vecellio, so is the baker, the butcher, and the cobbler. The papers nailed to the Town-Hall door are signed "Vecellio, Sindaco." Here is a Tipografia Tiziano, there an Albergo Tiziano, and yonder a caffè and reading-room, also called Tiziano. The striking resemblance of the late handsome landlord of the albergo to his illustrious forebear struck all who saw him.

In the centre of the Piazza is Titian's monument, a large bronze statue, set on a lofty stone pedestal, representing him with brush and palette in hand in the act of painting. Affixed to the pedestal are bronze medallions with the names of his chief works, and the arms of Venice and Cadore. The monument was only erected in 1880, and is the work of his fellow-countryman, Antonio dal Zotto, who modelled it; the brothers De Poli, the famous bell-makers of Ceneda, who cast it; and of Giuseppe Ghedina of Cortina, who designed the pedestal. From the foot of the monument can be seen a granite tablet, let into the wall of an old house that abuts on the Piazza del Arsenale (where an Arsenal, supplementary to the Venice one, used to be) at the top of the Sottocastello road, on which are the words, "Cadore segna agli ospiti questa casa dove naque e crebbe Tiziano" (Cadore points out to its guests this house where Titian was born and grew up.) The house is a very modest one, and leans on others like itself for support, and is in a