The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-20
EASE. OF DESTRUCTION OF
 ART TREASURES IN VENICE
 TOLD BY CORRESPONDENTS

the roof. Instead, 1t made g. clean l hole through the roof, and then, | shooting downwards, exploded just 1 above and in front of the pulpit.
 This internal explosion is what caus- ed the terrible destruction, besides the flying fragments of the bomb and; l it's shrapneI contents, the sudden ex- pansion of air in the confined interior of the church literally lifted the roof from the supporting walls and blew it. ] skywa-d. One side of the roof was l bent over to the right, the other to. i the left, beams and arches crashing upward and over, while masses of de- bris settled down between the walls. 1 The frescoed ceiling had disappeared in an instant. Particles of the bomb dug deep into the aIabaster facing the walls, Ncracking and wreneIing the marble pillars and side walls from floor to roof. Even the marble floor, made of huge slabs formed in mo- safes, was torn up in chunks. One huge slab of the floor covered the tomb of some of the famous Venetians of o1dep days, and this was wrenched out exposing the tomb below. The ex- p1osion occurred when the. church was deserted that no loss of life result
 To the art world the damage to the famous old church is an irrepar- able loss. Everywhere it was known as the type Of the Venetian barpque
 
 ta Maria was the best example of this style in the world. The fEesco by Tie polo, covering the entire ceiling, was of course, the greatest loss, as next to Titan, TintOretto and Paul Veron- | ese, Tepolo was accepted as the great est of descri ptive painters, and the last of the, older school of famous2I Venetian masters. The destroyed fresco was his most representative l work, and probably the largest. After nearly 300 years the painting was in an excellent state of preservation, the | vividness of the eoloring and the i great number of figures in the colos- l sal work-nearly 100 feet across giving it a special interest and value 1 to the art world.
 Only by chance, too, is it TepoIo's l work that is destroyed instead of Ti- | tian's or Tintorettos,@ for these mas | ters are similarly represented on tn | ceilings and walls of many of the | churches and historic monuments of Venice, and while paintings can be re- moved to places of safety the fires | coed ceilings must stay to take the | chance of bombs. Rusl<in in his Stones of Venice says Titan and Paul Neronese can be judged only by the | carvings of the high altar are by an other Ventian master. Pozzo, but taese escaped serious damage.
 Besides the destruction of the Scal- | zi church, the chief effect of the bomb | raids has been near the Arsenal. It | is clear that the chief purpose of the 1 raids is to reach the Arsenal and thei railway station, the former being the chief defensive work of Venice with large stores of ammunition, while the railway station is a junction for many lines for strategic military movements toward the frontier. The bombs thus far have fallen outside the Arsenal in narrow side streets, tearing up the streets and riddling the houses but | not causing much loss of life. The canals are everywhere, and many of the bombs have fallen in the water
 The nearest approach to the famous Campanille and Dogs Palace was a bomb which fell midway between the column bearing the winged lion of San Marco and the column of San Theo- k doro, both on the Piat2za San Marco, but this bomb did not explode. An other bomb fell in the Grand Canal just in front of the Doges' Palace Both of these bombs, which fortunate 1y were harmless, struck within 9 hun dred yards of the most famous monu- ments in Europe.