Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing the little brass lions at the sides.  People tried to question the old hunchback, but he gave no secrets away.  The master always stood up behind and rowed; while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the guest of honor.

There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola.  The man’s motto might have been, “Ich Dien,” or that passage of Scripture, “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.”  Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of “The Transfiguration” was unveiled.  If this medal had been a crucifix, and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some important diocese.  But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just passed “the greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master.”

Then, if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, the gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.

The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like ’bus-drivers in Piccadilly—­they know everybody and are in close touch with all the Secrets of State.  When you get to the Gindecca and tie up for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you this: 

The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil, who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist the world has ever seen.  Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One.  He is the man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions and introducing him everywhere!  And how about the divine Giorgione who called him father?  Oho!

And who is Giorgione?  The son of some unknown peasant woman.  And if Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him on the cheek when he came back just from a day’s visit to Mestre, whose business was it!  Oho!

Beside that, his name isn’t Giorgione—­it is Giorgio Barbarelli.  And didn’t this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most of Gian’s pictures?  Surely they did.  The old man simply washes in the backgrounds and the boys do the work.  About all old Gian does is to sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds.  Carpaccio helps him, too—­Carpaccio who painted the loveliest little angel sitting cross-legged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.