The second capital has cherubs with fruit and birds and no lettering.

The fourth is allegorical, representing, but without much psychology, named virtues and vices, such as misery, cheerfulness, folly, chastity, honesty, falsehood, injustice, abstinence.

A Wanderer in Venice — Part 47

The fifth has figures and no lettering. A cobbler faces the campanile. It is above this fifth column that we notice in the upper row of arches two columns of reddish stain. It was between these that malefactors were strangled.

A Wanderer in Venice — Part 47

The sixth has symbolical figures which I do not understand. Ruskin suggests that they typify the degradation of human instincts. A knight in armour is here. A musician seated on a fish faces the Old Library. There is no lettering, and as is the case throughout the figures on the wall side are difficult to discern.

A Wanderer in Venice — Part 47

The seventh represents the vices, and names them: luxury, gluttony, pride, anger, avarice, idleness, vanity, envy.

The eighth represents the virtues and names them: hope, faith, fortitude, temperance, humility, charity, justice, prudence.

The ninth has virtues and vices, named and mixed: modesty, discord, patience, constancy, infidelity, despair, obedience, liberality.

Ruskin thinks that the eleventh may illustrate various phases of idleness. It has no lettering.

The twelfth has the months and their employments, divided thus: January (indoors) and February, March blowing his pipes, April with a lamb and May, June (the month of cherries), July with a sheaf of corn and August, September (the vintage), October and November, and December, pig-sticking.

The thirteenth, on a stouter column than the others, because it has a heavier duty, namely, to bear the party wall of the great Council Hall, depicts the life of man. There is no lettering. The scenes represent love (apparently at first sight), courtship, the marriage bed, and so forth, the birth of the baby, his growth and his death. Many years ago this column was shown to me by the captain of a tramp steamer, as the most interesting thing in Venice; and there are others who share his opinion. Above it on the façade is the medallion of the Queen of the Adriatic ruling her domains.

The fourteenth capital represents national types, named: Persian, Latin, Tartar, Turk, Hungarian, Greek, Goth, and Egyptian.