CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Bible of St. Mark. By Alexander Robertson, D.D. (George Allen. 10s. 6d.)—This is the name by which Dr. Robertson all through his book speaks of St. Mark's Church at Venice, and though the simile is no doubt happy, be perhaps insists upon it a little too much. The building is described under the heads of the "Title-page inscribed on the Facade," "The Old Testament in the Atrium," "The New Testament in the Interior," and an appendix. In 829 two Venetian sea-captains found that the Mahommedans at Alexandria were destroying the Christian church where St. Mark was buried. They resolved to carry off the body and take it to Venice, and, after many adventures, they succeeded in doing so. The Venetians then determined to build a fitting church to hold this relic, and "the then reigning Doge, Giustiniano Partecipazio, set about carrying the idea into effect." He, however, died, but the building was begun in 830 by his brother and successor, and finished four years later. In 976 it was partly burnt down, but it was restored again in two years by Doge Pietro Orseolo I. In the eleventh century Doge Domenico Contarini enlarged and reconstructed the church on Byzantine principles, and this "Third Edition," as Dr. Robertson calls it, is the one now in existence. "The rite used down to 1807 was not the Roman one," but" the ancient one of the churches said to have been founded by St. Mark in Aquileia and Grado ; " and Dr. Robertson points out that the subjects of the mosaics are taken directly from the Bible, the New Testament ones closely following St. Mark's Gospel. The book is full of beautiful repro- ductions of photographs of all parts of the church. Perhaps the most interesting part of the carvings are the archivolts, with figures representing Venetian trades and seasons, when the city was at the height of her power :— "What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the Kings, Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings P"
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