It would seem that the pictures for the brotherhood of St. Roque secured for Tintoretto the crowning honour of his life, the commission to bring his brush to the service of the Doges' Palace. It is hardly too much to say that just as the Doges' Palace is the most remarkable monument of the Venetian Republic left in Venice to-day, so Tintoretto's pictures are the most remarkable decorations in the palace itself. There must be fifty or more of them, if we include the Hall of Grand Council, the Hall of Scrutiny, the College, the Entrance and the Passage to the Council of Ten, the Ante-room to the Chapel, the Senate and the Salon of the Four Doors; but the task of painting fifty pictures, stupendous though it may seem, is not realised until we remember the size and quality of some of these works. The "Paradise," for example, in the Council Hall, is more than twenty-five yards long, and is such a work as many a painter would have given the greater part of his life to; but Tintoretto had little more than six years to live when he undertook the work, and there is no doubt that while the brain behind the picture was always his, the hand was sometimes that of his son or one of his pupils.

It may be supposed that most painters, who have reached Tintoretto's age when they received their commission for the Ducal Palace, would have hesitated to begin work on such a colossal scale. They would have felt that the span of their life could hardly stretch much farther, and knowing that much was to be done in the way of portraits and small pictures, would have been content with these. It was characteristic of Tintoretto that he should at once undertake pictures on the largest scale known to painters. Not only did he undertake the work, but he accomplished it.

The student of Tintoretto who finds himself in Venice should, we think, endeavour to leave the Doges' Palace alone until he has watched the painter's development in the various Venetian churches. Then he should study the work done for the brotherhood of St. Roque, and finally should go to St. Mark's to see the crowning achievement of one of the greatest men who ever took a paint-brush in hand. Students of opera will have noticed how a great singer will sometimes keep his voice back until the work is nearly over, in order to put all his energy into the last act, and so leave an impression that will not be forgotten easily. So it was with Tintoretto. He did splendid work in many directions, but saved himself for the last act, and the crowning achievement of his life was reserved for the Doges' Palace. There all the inspiration that had blossomed in the Venetian churches, and budded in the Scuola of St. Roque, came suddenly into flower, and the visitor to the palace will look in vain throughout the civilised world for an equally enduring monument to any one man. Other great artists have left their traces in many cities, but it may be doubted whether Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican have left a more enduring record than Tintoretto gave to the Palace of the Doges. So vast was his achievement, so brilliant was his imagination, that our eyes, trained down to see small things, and unaccustomed to realise the full idea underlying great pictures, tremble before the "Paradise" and "Venice with the Gods and the Doge Nicolo da Ponte," or the "Capture of Zara," or "St. Mark Introducing the Doge Mocenigo to Christ," or the splendid "Descent from the Cross," in the Senate, or the Pagan picture in the Salon of the Four Doors, in which Jupiter gives Venice the Empire of the Sea. Any one of these pictures might have been regarded as the crowning achievement in the life of a very considerable painter. Before them all imagination stops. Certainly Tintoretto was a long time coming into his kingdom, but there could have been few to dispute his supremacy when he arrived.

In 1574 Tintoretto applied to the Fondaco de Tedeschi for a broker's patent, and thus history repeated itself, for it will be remembered that Titian had endeavoured to secure Bellini's place in the great house of the German merchants, and now Tintoretto was supplanting Titian. The application seems to have been quite successful. The house to-day serves as a general post-office, and still shows some slight trace of the frescoes of Giorgione and Titian. There does not seem to be any record of work that Tintoretto did for the German merchants, but the appointment was largely an honorary one as far as the work went, although it brought a certain income to the fortunate owner of the office. Tintoretto had now reached the time when his work could no longer be ignored, and even Florence which looked askance at art in Venice elected the painter a member of its Academy, an honour that was conferred also upon Titian, Paul Veronese, and a few smaller men.

Throughout all the years in which the painter's art was maturing, and the circle of his patrons was widening, he seems to have lived a quiet and uneventful life in Venice, seeking friends in his own circle, labouring diligently in his studio, and never permitting the claims of affairs lying outside his work to tempt him to be idle. A man of happy disposition, with no vices, and no extravagant tastes, he would seem to have found his earning sufficient for his need, and to have been happy in his home life, although we have already recorded the fact upon Ridolfi's authority that like so many other good men Tintoretto was in the habit of telling lies to his wife. Signora Robusti must have been a little trying when she sought to regulate her husband's expenditure, the times of his going out and coming in, and other trifles of the sort that good women delight to take an interest in.

The great grief of Tintoretto's life was happily delayed until 1590, when the well-beloved Marietta, who had been her father's friend and companion for so long, died. The shock must have been a very serious one, for Tintoretto himself was well over seventy, but it does not seem to have diminished his activity. He would appear to have given all his days to his own labour, or the superintendence of the labours of others, and so the years crept on uneventfully for him, until the last day of May 1594 when his strenuous, vigorous, and brilliant career found its closing hour, and those whom he left behind, together with a great concourse of admiring citizens, took him to the tomb of his wife's house in the Church of the Madonna dell 'Orto, which he had enriched with so much fine painting. His daughter, having predeceased him—as we have seen, she was a portrait painter, and her father's dearest friend—his son Domenico carried on the family work, and completed his father's commissions, but neither brain, nor hand, nor eye could compare with those that were now at rest, and the younger Tintoretto makes small claim upon the attention of artist or historian.

So a very great man passed out of the life of Venice, and for a brief while his fame slumbered, but in years to come great artists, Velazquez foremost among them, made the great city of the Adriatic a place of pilgrimage for his sake. His influence, travelling on another road, extended as far as Van Dyck. We have already traced the descent to the modern school of impressionism, but he would be a bold man who would say that the influence of Tintoretto is exhausted, or holds that he has nothing to teach the twentieth century. His light will hardly grow dim as long as his painting has a claim upon the attention of civilised men.

The plates are printed by Bemrose Dalziel, Ltd., Watford
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh