" Some
of his finest poems were also produced here, poems for which Venice
is as grateful as Ravenna. Here he wrote "Marino Faliero," "The Two
Foscari," "Morganti Maggiore," "Sardanapalus," "The Blues," "The
fifth canto of Don Juan," "Cain," "Heaven and Earth," and "The
Vision of Judgment." I looked in at the court of the palace,--a
pleasant, quiet place,--where he used to work, and tried to guess
which were the windows of his apartments. The sun was shining
brightly, and a bird was singing in the court; but there was no other
sign of life, nor anything to remind one of the profligate genius who
was so long a guest here.
RESTING-PLACE OF CAESARS--PICTURE OF A BEAUTIFUL HERETIC
Very different from the tomb of Dante, and different in the
associations it awakes, is the Rotunda or Mausoleum of Theodoric the
Goth, outside the Porta Serrata, whose daughter, Amalasuntha, as it
is supposed, about the year 530, erected this imposing structure as a
certain place "to keep his memory whole and mummy hid" for ever. But
the Goth had not lain in it long before Arianism went out of fashion
quite, and the zealous Roman Catholics despoiled his costly
sleeping-place, and scattered his ashes abroad. I do not know that
any dead person has lived in it since. The tomb is still a very
solid affair,--a rotunda built of solid blocks of limestone, and
resting on a ten-sided base, each side having a recess surmounted by
an arch.
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