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Paolo. In 1867 this chapel fell a prey to the flames and was 
well-nigh consumed.* Two visits were devoted to examining 
the blackened remains of choice marbles and ornamental stones, 
and they were not uninstructive. The porphyrite used as small 
pillars in the chapel, was probably brought from the vicinity of 
Rovérédo in South Tyrol. The stumps of the pillars standing 
on the North side of the chapel walls had been completely 
shelled, and presented the usual scooped out hollow outlines. 
On both the side walls were worked columns of marble, with 
fluting and other ornament; these had been stripped nearly all 
over of their worked exterior, and been licked by the flames 
into distorted shapes. The heat of this conflagration must have 
been intense, on account of their being confined within narrow 
enclosed walls surrounded on three sides, and reflecting the 
heat toafocus. The marbles were entirely baked to a porce- 
lainite, and the porphyrites materially changed. Specimens of 
them, save a few small bits, were difficult to obtain. One 
fragment of the porphyrite which formed a portion of a pillar, 
one of a colonnade, on the South of the edifice calls for remark ; 
this material was a rock of white and chocolate red colour, of 
brecciated character, so frequently to be observed with other 
porphyrites in the Venetian Tyrol. The point of interest to be 
named is that of the mechanical effect: of heat at high temperature. 
Two portions of the rock of contrasted colours, one of white, 
the other of a dark marone or reddish purple, had by the fierce 
energy acting laterally and by a shearing force, left evidence of 
the direction of the vibrations, wrenching one piece from the 
other by a transverse strain, and further had left in proof of 
the direction, small portions of the fractured stones inter- 
changed, small bits in relief of the white upon the red 
* The origin of this fire came about in a strange way. There had been 
a Festival celebrated in the Church, called by the Venetians S. Zanipolo, and 
some of the tapers not quite extinguished, had been left smouldering and 
_ unnoticed in a corner of the chapel ; and of course the usual result followed. 
But the price paid for this piece of carelessness was the irreparable loss of 
two exquisite pictures, both of them consumed. They were, moreover, fine 
examples of the Venetian school, one by Titian, the other by Bellini. 
