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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venice, by Mortimer Menpes.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42998 ***</div>
<div class="tnbox">
<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original
document have been preserved.</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="382" height="550" alt="Cover" />
</div>
<p class="center p6">
BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p>
<div class="bbox">
<p class="center b12">BEAUTIFUL BOOKS</p>
<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR</p>
<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Price <b>20s.</b> net each</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem">
<p>JAPAN</p>
<p>WORLD'S CHILDREN</p>
<p>WORLD PICTURES</p>
<p>VENICE</p>
<p>BRITTANY</p>
<p>THE THAMES</p>
</div></div>
<hr />
<p class="center s08">A. & C. BLACK . 4 SOHO SQUARE . LONDON</p>
</div>
<h1>VENICE</h1>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-005" id="i-005"></a>
<img src="images/i-005.jpg" width="429" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CROSSING THE PIAZZA</p>
</div>
<div class="blockquot p6">
<p class="center">::::VENICE::::</p>
<p class="center">: BY MORTIMER MENPES :<br />
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES<br />
PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND<br />
CHARLES BLACK·LONDON·W</p>
<div class="figright p2">
<img src="images/illo_007.jpg" width="59" height="56" alt="Logo" />
</div>
</div>
<p class="center p15 s08"><i>Published May 1904</i></p>
<p class="center s08"><i>Reprinted</i> 1906, 1912</p>
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
<table summary="Table of Contents">
<tr>
<td colspan="2" class="tdr"><span class="s08">PAGE</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Arrival and First Impressions</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">History</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">A Glimpse into Bohemia</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Architecture</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">St. Mark's</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Painters of the Renaissance</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Streets, Shops, and Courtyards</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">The Islands of the Lagoon</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Social Ups and Downs</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="smcap">Gondolas and Gondoliers</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VII" id="Page_VII">vii</a></span></p>
<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
<table summary="List of Illustrations">
<tr>
<td class="tdr">1.</td>
<td>Crossing the Piazza</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-005"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr" colspan="3"><span class="s08">FACING PAGE</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">2.</td>
<td>Grand Canal, showing Tower of St. Geremia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-020">2</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">3.</td>
<td>A Pink Palace</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-026">4</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">4.</td>
<td>Palazzo Pisani</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-032">6</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">5.</td>
<td>The Salute at Sunset</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-038">8</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">6.</td>
<td>A Ruined Palazzo</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-046">12</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">7.</td>
<td>Palazzi on the Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-052">14</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">8.</td>
<td>Giudecca</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-058">16</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">9.</td>
<td>San Giorgio Maggiore</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-066">20</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">10.</td>
<td>Off the Giudecca</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-072">22</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">11.</td>
<td>St. Maria delle Misericordia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-080">26</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">12.</td>
<td>The Custom House and Church of Santa Maria della
Salute</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-086">28</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">13.</td>
<td>At Chioggia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-092">30</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">14.</td>
<td>Church of San Geremia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-098">32</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">15.</td>
<td>The Bridge of Sighs and Straw Bridge</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-104">34</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">16.</td>
<td>On the Grand Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-110">36</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">17.</td>
<td>The Bridge of Sighs</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-116">38</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">18.</td>
<td>Palace in a By-Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-122">42</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">19.</td>
<td>The Orange Door</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-126">44</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">20.</td>
<td>An Unfrequented Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-136">50</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">21.</td>
<td>St. Mark's Basin</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-142">52</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">22.</td>
<td>Hotel Danieli</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-148">54</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VIII" id="Page_VIII">viii</a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">23.</td>
<td>Porta della Carta</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-152">56</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">24.</td>
<td>Grand Canal looking towards the Dogana</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-158">58</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">25.</td>
<td>A Famous Palazzo</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-164">60</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">26.</td>
<td>Entrance to the Grand Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-170">62</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">27.</td>
<td>Panorama seen from St. Mark's Basin</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-176">64</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">28.</td>
<td>The Dogana and Salute</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-182">66</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">29.</td>
<td>Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-188">68</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">30.</td>
<td>Santa Maria della Salute</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-196">72</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">31.</td>
<td>Palazzo Mengaldo</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-202">74</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">32.</td>
<td>Ospedale Civile</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-208">76</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">33.</td>
<td>St. Mark's</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-214">78</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">34.</td>
<td>Palazzo Danieli</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-220">80</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">35.</td>
<td>Francesca</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-226">82</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">36.</td>
<td>St. Mark's Piazza</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-234">86</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">37.</td>
<td>Scuola di San Marco</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-240">88</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">38.</td>
<td>A Quiet Waterway</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-246">90</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">39.</td>
<td>Canal Priuli</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-254">94</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">40.</td>
<td>Osmarin Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-262">98</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">41.</td>
<td>A Sotto Portico</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-270">102</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">42.</td>
<td>A Narrow Canal</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-280">108</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">43.</td>
<td>Bridge near the Palazzo Labia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-286">110</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">44.</td>
<td>The House with the Blue Door</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-292">112</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">45.</td>
<td>Canal in Giudecca Island</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-298">114</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">46.</td>
<td>The Orange Sail</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-306">118</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">47.</td>
<td>A Quiet Rio</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-312">120</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">48.</td>
<td>Humble Quarter</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-318">122</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">49.</td>
<td>Rio di San Marina</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-324">124</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">50.</td>
<td>A Squero or Boat-building Yard</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-330">126</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">51.</td>
<td>The Weekly Wash</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-336">128</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">52.</td>
<td>A Back Street</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-342">130</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">53.</td>
<td>The Wooden Spoon Seller</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-354">138</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_IX" id="Page_IX">ix</a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">54.</td>
<td>Work Girls</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-362">142</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">55.</td>
<td>Chioggia Fish Market</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-374">150</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">56.</td>
<td>Chioggia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-382">154</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">57.</td>
<td>In Murano</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-390">158</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">58.</td>
<td>Mrs Eden's Garden in Venice</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-396">160</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">59.</td>
<td>Timber Boats from the Shores of the Adriatic</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-402">162</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">60.</td>
<td>By a Squero or Boat-building Yard</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-408">164</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">61.</td>
<td>In a Side Street, Chioggia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-414">166</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">62.</td>
<td>Santa Maria della Salute</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-420">168</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">63.</td>
<td>Rio e Chiesa degli Ognissanti</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-430">174</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">64.</td>
<td>A Campiello</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-436">176</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">65.</td>
<td>Fishing Boats from Chioggia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-442">178</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">66.</td>
<td>A Woman of the People</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-448">180</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">67.</td>
<td>Chioggia</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-456">184</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">68.</td>
<td>The Fish Market</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-466">190</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">69.</td>
<td>Midday on the Lagoon</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-476">196</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">70.</td>
<td>A Traghetto</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-484">200</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">71.</td>
<td>Marietta</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-492">204</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">72.</td>
<td>Bambino</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-500">208</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">73.</td>
<td>A Squero or Boat-building Yard in Venice</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-508">212</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">74.</td>
<td>Under the Midday Sun</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-514">214</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr">75.</td>
<td>The Rialto</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i-522">218</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-020" id="i-020"></a>
<img src="images/i-020.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="" />
<p class="caption">GRAND CANAL, SHOWING TOWER OF ST. GEREMIA</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span></p>
<h2>ARRIVAL AND FIRST
IMPRESSIONS</h2>
<p>There is no city more written about, more painted,
and more misrepresented, than Venice. Students,
poets, and painters have combined in reproducing
her many charms. Usually, however, Venice is
described in a hurried, careless way: the subject
is seldom gone deeply into, and studied as it should
be, before attempting to compile a book. It is
only one who has been there, and observed the life
and characteristics of the people for years, who
can gain any true perception of their character.
Those who have not been to Venice must needs
know by heart her attractions, which have been so
persistently thrust before the public; but unless
half a dozen really excellent books have been read
concerning her, the city of their imaginations must
be a theatrical Venice, unreal and altogether false.
Normally one feels that the last word about
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>
Venice has been said—the last chord struck upon
her keyboard, the last harmony brought out.
But this is by no means the case. There are
chords still to be struck, and harmonies still to be
brought out: her charm can never be exhausted.
The last chord struck, no matter how poorly
executed it may be, goes on vibrating in our ears,
and all unconsciously we are listening for another.
How strange this is! Why should it be so?
What other cities impress us in the same way?
Oxford perhaps, and Rome certainly. These are
the only two which come to my mind at the
moment. They are the cities of the soul, round
which endless romantic histories cling, endless dear
and glorious associations. Perhaps the reason why
one never tires of books on Venice, or of pictures of
Venice, is that they none of them fulfil one's desires
and expectations—they never express just what
one feels about her—there is always something
left unsaid, something uninterpreted; and one is
always waiting for that. It is impossible to express
all one feels with regard to Venice. One
feels one's own incompetence terribly. Try as
you may, you can only give one day, one hour,
one aspect of sea and sky, only the four seasons,
not all the myriad changes between;—only four
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>
times of the day—dawn, mid-day, twilight, and
night—not the thousand melting changes, not the
continual variations. It is not a panorama, not
a magnificent view permanent before one's gaze.
The cloud forms will never be quite the same as
you see them at a certain moment; the water will
never be again of that particular shade of green;
the reflection of a pink palace, with the black
barge at its base laden with golden fruit, will
never again be thrown upon the water quite in
that same way; there will not always be that
warm golden light bathing sea and sky and
palace; that particular pearly-grey mist in the
early morning will never recur, never quite that
deep blue-black of night with the orange lights
and the steely water.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-026" id="i-026"></a>
<img src="images/i-026.jpg" width="358" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A PINK PALACE</p>
</div>
<p>When one lives in Venice one becomes absolutely
in sympathy with the place. One feels her
beautiful colour; but it is quite another story
when one comes to reproduce it. Words cannot
describe nor brush portray it. Thousands have
attempted to paint Venice; but few have succeeded.
The Venetians themselves, loving their
country, painted her continually; but even they
could only give one aspect of her. The pictures
of Venice by Venetian masters are chiefly of her
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
pomp and glory, her State functions and her water
fêtes. However, one finds marvellous glimpses of
landscape work in some of the great masterpieces—sweeps
of sky above the heads of some of the
Madonnas, skies in which one can feel the shimmer
of light so characteristic of Venice, the blending
of the tones and the flaming glory of the sunset
sky. Turner, too, caught the radiant, shimmering,
bright and opalescent qualities of the lagoon
scenery; but even his palette could not cope with
the ever-changing colour.</p>
<p>One must be either hot or cold with regard to
Venice. You cannot be lukewarm. The magic
of her spell begins to work upon you immediately
you arrive. Most of us imagine what the place
will be like before we reach it. We people it
in our dreams, and visualise it for ourselves—canals,
palaces, streets, the general appearance of
things. This imaginary city has no foundations
save those which are supplied by pictures and
stories.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-032" id="i-032"></a>
<img src="images/i-032.jpg" width="424" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALAZZO PISANI</p>
</div>
<p>One's first impressions are always those which
one remembers longest, and one's first impressions
of Venice are surpassingly beautiful. In the train,
arriving, you catch glimpses of flashes of light in
the darkness, more strangely fantastic than anything
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
you could imagine; you traverse a long
causeway stretching over the lagoon; you see the
water on either side of you, jet black, stretching
on indefinitely; the train seems to float on air;
you cannot see the bridge—nothing but sky and
water. You arrive at a large terminal station, and
step into the gondola which is to take you into
Venice. Into most cities one arrives in a whirl
and shriek of engines amid smoke and bustle;
but Venice is different. One arrives in a
gondola. The water is of a clear pale green;
the banks are scrubby grass and mud. One
watches the silver prow of the gondola as it shoots
forward, the sea air blowing keen and salt. You
realise that you are in a wide canal, and that there
are buildings on either side of you, looming up
white and gaunt, with here and there a lantern
glimmering at their base. It is strange to see a
city rising thus out of the sea. Venice seems
double: one sees it in the substance and in the
reflections on the water.</p>
<p>After gliding along for some time you turn up
narrow water lanes, devious and branching, running
by low stonework, very complicated in their turnings.
There are doors with water creeping up
their steps, striped posts looking like spectres, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
arches everywhere. Strange figures, like phantoms
in a dream, appear in the gloom; black gondolas,
like funeral biers, lie silently at the base of the
houses; and the water laps dully at the steps. The
silence of the waterways is deathlike after the rush
and noise of a long journey; each shape that passes
looks ghostly in the dim light; it is like a city of
eternal sleep, a city of death. What a perfect
background it would make for melodrama or
for tragedy! No crime or intrigue could be
too terrible to happen within those unfathomable
shadows! A brigand might pass within that
heavy half-opened oak door silently and unnoticed.
A corpse with a stiletto buried in its breast might
be gliding by in that black gondola. One would
be quite surprised and somewhat shocked on lifting
the felce to discover a fat and florid tradesman
returning from supper with a friend. Venice is
not a fitting background for such a sordid everyday
scene. She is much better suited to the
romances of Maturin, Lewis, and Ann Radcliffe;
to the Great Bandit, the stories of the Three
Inquisitors, the Council of Ten, masked spies, and
pitfalls.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-038" id="i-038"></a>
<img src="images/i-038.jpg" width="550" height="441" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE SALUTE AT SUNSET</p>
</div>
<p>In the daytime one recognises Venice as the
Venice of Canaletto, of Bonington, and of Wild.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>
There is that same vague, luminous atmosphere,
full of rays and mists; the coming and going
of gondolas or galiots; the landing-place of the
Piazzetta, with its Gothic lanterns ornamented
by figures of the saints, fixed on poles and sunk
into the sea; the vermilion façade of the Ducal
Palace, lozenged with white and rose marble, its
massive pillars supporting a gallery of small
columns. With all this one has been familiar
through the pictures of the masters whom I have
mentioned; but the real Venice is still more
beautiful, still more wonderful, still more fantastic.</p>
<p>If you climb up on any height and look down
upon the lagoon, you will see a sight never to be
forgotten. You will imagine that it is a dream
which has taken shape, a vision of fairy-land. The
sea is dotted with craft of all kinds. There is a
continuous movement of boats—gondolas, sailing
vessels, and steam-boats pouring forth volumes
of black smoke and making a disturbance on
the peaceful lagoon. The water is limpid, the
light radiant; a row of stakes on the lagoon
marks the channels which are navigable for ships.
There is the island of San Giorgio, with its red
steeple, its white basilica, surrounded by a girdle
of boats, and looking like a sheet of burnished
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
silver. There is the Giudecca, a maritime suburb
of Venice, turning towards the city a row of houses
and towards the sea a belt of gardens; it has two
churches, Santa Maria and the Redentore. There
is San Clemate, at the back of the Giudecca, a
place of penitence and of detention for priests
under discipline; Poreglia, where the vessels are
quarantined; and the little island of St. Peter,
almost invisible in the distance. The only black
cupola is that of St. Simeon the Less. Those of
the other churches are silvery. The clouds and
the islands seem to mingle one with the other, and
are as baffling as the mirage in a desert. On a
fine day in Venice there is a certain brilliant
crystalline clearness sharpening every outline;
every tower and dome stands out sharp and clear
against the sky, making the colours burn. There
is colour everywhere: even the islands in the
distance are blue and distinct. There is colour
in the groups that saunter by, in the sapphire
water, and in the cloudless heavens. The air is
warm and still; the streets are full of people,
walking and loitering at the doors of the shops;
sunbeams dance on the rippling water; spring is
everywhere. As evening comes on the colours
grow richer and deeper; scarlet clouds float across
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
the amber sky; the canal takes on the hues of the
upper air, and is a rippling mass of liquid topaz
and molten gold, in rapid succession changing
from gold to orange, and from orange to deepest
crimson. In the soft hazy light, against the rose
tone of the sky, the cupolas of the islands and the
palaces seem to float, shimmering with the hues
of mother-of-pearl, mysterious, dream-like, not like
solid stone. The soft lap of the water breaks
the silence; the vaporous mists float upwards.
Across the light drifts a line of fishing boats, their
great brown sails set. A streak of flame-colour
strikes on the windows of Venice, a flush of orange
and rose. Then in a second the sun is gone, and a
brief space of doubt ensues, when day hangs trembling
in the balance; then night settles on the
lagoon. A hundred bells ring out over the city,
clashing and clamouring together in one brazen
peal. Soon the peal subsides. The evening
breeze springs up mild and sweet from the sea,
and the soft and mellow cry of "Stali! Ah Stali!"
is heard everywhere. It is the hour when all that
is poor and unlovely melts into ethereal beauty.
The water is a deep blue-black, save for rippling
trails of light from the lamps, which shine like
golden stars from the prows of the gondolas. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
moon rises, nearly full, and is veiled by hazy
clouds; the outlines of the bell towers of the
palaces are pale and delicate in the soft light.
The stillness of the water streets is soothing, and
the prattle of the city falls gently on the ears.</p>
<p>No matter how prosaic or how unimpressionable
one may be, one soon grows into sympathy with
the atmosphere of Venice. It is almost impossible
to avoid becoming sentimental as one floats in
one's gondola at night, with the twinkling stars
above and the twinkling splashes below. One
almost unconsciously builds romances round the
palaces tottering to decay. Venice is always
ready to charm and allure you. It is hard to
believe that somewhere there is a working, active,
busy life going on. But indeed no one in Venice
seems to be in earnest. It is as if the present
time does not count, as if it were but an echo of
what passed long years ago. People work without
aim or energy, and when they suffer it seems as
if they were but mumming. A sweetness and
a docility steal into one's soul, and one feels
that one can do nothing but drift on for ever
in this pleasant idleness. Harsh voices become
modulated; cross-grained, querulous natures are
sweetened; even the flat-faced, spectacled tourists,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>
when they step from the railway station into a
gondola and glide into the mystic water city,
alive with a myriad glistening lights, develop
unconsciously, and despite themselves, into delightful
people.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-046" id="i-046"></a>
<img src="images/i-046.jpg" width="361" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A RUINED PALAZZO</p>
</div>
<p>On the day when I arrived in Venice, as I was
wandering down a lane beyond the Canareggio
Canal, I found myself in the Jewish part of the
city. It is a fetid and pestilential place. There is
about it nothing pleasant, or wholesome, or attractive.
The stonework is cracked and rotten. The
houses, streaked with dirt, bend over into the
water with the weight of years. Most of them
are nine stories high, grimy and dirty, and speckled
with green spots. There is not a straight line
anywhere, and not a whole pane of glass—paper
is the substitute. Now and then one sees a patch
of plaster on a house; but for the most part the
plaster has fallen away, revealing the crumbly red
bricks beneath. It gives one a sickening feeling—this
terrible poverty, solitude, and neglect. Everything
is strange, sullen, mysterious. Men and
women with curved noses and eyes set like burning
coals in their pale faces glide noiselessly along
with furtive glances. The children are half naked,
and play about on benches in the streets. I have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
seen poverty-stricken Jewish quarters before, but
never anything so sad as this. The sordidness
and terrible despair of it make one's heart ache.
There are no green fields and trees to alleviate the
misery of the people. Yet, I suppose, the condition
of the Jew was worse in the old days.
Certainly the injustices and insults which once
were prevalent do not occur now. The Christian
to-day is on more or less friendly terms with the
Jew. They meet one another on the exchange;
they talk together, and partake of each other's
hospitality.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-052" id="i-052"></a>
<img src="images/i-052.jpg" width="550" height="438" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALAZZI ON THE CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>The Christian may despise the Jew; but he has
the grace to keep the feeling to himself, for the
Jew possesses a great part of the trade of the city,
and in money matters has ever the upper hand.
He is educated, intellectual, patriotic, and calls
himself a Venetian. If he is rich he lives in a
fine new house on the Grand Canal and is owner
of other houses. An instinct of the poorer class
of Jews in Venice is to set up pawnshops and
lend money to tradesmen in times of necessity.
The Jews are decidedly useful. In the old days
they were driven into exile; but they were soon
called back. They were made to wear a yellow
badge, distinguishing them from Christians. They
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
were not allowed to buy houses or lands, or to
exercise any trade or profession excepting that
of medicine. They were given a dwelling-place
in the dirtiest, unhealthiest part of the city,
and called it a Ghetto, meaning a congregation.
It was walled in. The gates were kept by
Christian guards, who were paid by the Jews,
and opened the doors at dawn, closing them at
sunset. The Jews were not allowed to emerge
on holidays or feast days, and two barges full of
armed men watched them night and day. A
special magistracy had charge of their affairs.
Their dead were buried in the sand on the seashore.
Thither the baser of the Venetians made it
a habit to go on Mondays in September, to dance
and make merry on the graves. The Jews were
made to pay tribute to Venice every third year.</p>
<p>In spite of all hardships and deprivations, they
flourished. As the Christians became poor, the
Jews waxed rich. They were not again expelled
from the city. They were never disturbed in their
Ghetto by actual ill-treatment and violence, excepting
on one occasion, when a charge was brought
against them of child murder. So the Jews lived
peacefully in their own quarter until, with the
advent of modern civilisation, their prison walls
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
crumbled away, and some of them went forth
from the Ghetto and fixed their habitations in
different parts of the city. Many Jewish families,
however, cling to the spot made sacred for them
by so much suffering and humiliation. Even to
this day, although the Jews are distributed everywhere
throughout the length and breadth of
Venice, never a Christian comes to dwell in the
Ghetto. Very many Jews still live there. Some
of the women are handsome, with Oriental grace,
delicate, sensitive, highly bred. The only time
when the Ghetto has at all a picturesque appearance
is the autumn. Then the air is filled with
white floating particles, feathers of geese, which
seem to be plucked by the whole force of the
populace. You see on every doorstep groups of
Hebrew youths plucking geese, and on looking
into the interior you will observe strings of the
birds suspended from the rafters, while an odour
of roast goose greets your nostrils wherever you
may go.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-058" id="i-058"></a>
<img src="images/i-058.jpg" width="550" height="437" alt="" />
<p class="caption">GIUDECCA</p>
</div>
<h2>HISTORY</h2>
<p>With her pomp and pageantry, her wealth of
art, her learned academies, her schools of painting,
and her sumptuous style, Venice at the prime
of her life was great, dazzling, splendid. Her
navy was supreme. Her nobles were the richest
in Europe. This opulence and this pride led to
her downfall. She was unable to resist the temptation
of building herself an empire on the mainland,
thereby causing jealousy among the other
Italian States. Rome became fearful of her own
safety, and, with the intention of crushing the
Republic, formed the League of Cambray. Rome
did not achieve her object; but Venice was
weakened by the blow, and misfortune after
misfortune fell upon her. The passage round
the Cape of Good Hope was discovered; which
took commercial trade with the East out of her
hands, and left her no longer the mart of Europe.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
Then came the great battles with the Turk, in
which both blood and money of Venice flowed
in vain. Europe was either powerless or too
indifferent to help. Gradually the strength of
Venice was broken. She declined and sank.
Still, the rigidity and the power of endurance of
the Venetian constitution were marvellous. She
kept a semblance of life long after the heart had
ceased to beat. The constitution of the State was
the most elaborate imaginable, and not easily
brought to nothing. Nevertheless, although there
were occasional flashes of the old brilliancy of
Venice, her day was over. The last of her Doges
yielded the State to Napoleon without a blow.
Laying the ducal biretta on the table, he called
to his servants, "Take it away: I shall not use it
more."</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-066" id="i-066"></a>
<img src="images/i-066.jpg" width="550" height="320" alt="" />
<p class="caption">SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE</p>
</div>
<p>When the first refugees came from the mainland
and started life on the islands of the Archipelago,
the mud-banks of Torcello and Rivoalto, they
little thought that they were founding a city
which was to be the admiration of the whole
world, that her navy would ride supreme in all
known waters, that Venice was to be the pride
of the Adriatic. When those early people, the
Veneti, from whom the Venetians take their name,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
drove in their first stakes and built their wattled
walls, they could not have foretold that this was
to be the greatest of mediæval republics, the
centre of the commerce of Europe. Nature
helped Venice handsomely. Had the channels
been deeper, men-of-war might have entered and
conquered the city. Had the waves been stronger,
the airy structure that we know as Venice would
have been supplanted by the ordinary commercial
seaport. Had there been no tide, for sanitary
reasons the city would have been uninhabitable.
Had the tide risen any higher than it rose, there
would have been no water entrances to the palaces,
the by-canals would have been filled up, and the
character of the place spoiled.</p>
<p>One's imagination is inclined to run riot in
Venice. One gilds, and romances, and fills the
city with pomp and pageantry, ornamenting the
canals with State barges, the piazza with noble
men and fair women, and the Ducal Palace with
illustrious Doges. But far more interesting is it
to see Venice as she really is, in her own simple
strength. Think of the more rugged Venice, that
city built by strong and patient men against such
terrible odds, and in so wild and solitary a spot.
In order to gain some idea of Venice as she was in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
those early days, it is well to go out in a gondola
at low tide, when the canal is a plain of seaweed.
As your gondola makes its way down a narrow
channel, you have some conception of the difficulties
with which the founders of Venice had to
contend. To the narrow strips of land, long ridges
guarding the lagoon from the sea, ill sheltered from
the waves, the few hundred stragglers came. Their
capital, Padua, had been destroyed by the northern
hordes, and they took shelter in the islands of the
lagoon. So desolate and wind-swept were these
islands that one can scarcely imagine men disputing
possession of them with the flocks of sea-birds.
They were impelled by no whim, however: they
were exiles driven by necessity. Here they looked
for a temporary home, lived much as the sea-birds
lived, and were quite fearless. The soil, composed
chiefly of dust, ashes, and bitumen, with here and
there a layer of salt, was rich and fertile. This
was in the fifth century of our era, of which period
there are but few Venetian records.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-072" id="i-072"></a>
<img src="images/i-072.jpg" width="550" height="439" alt="" />
<p class="caption">OFF THE GIUDECCA</p>
</div>
<p>Still, one thing is certain: the Veneti were not
a primitive or barbarous people. Fugitives as
they were, they were for the most part of high
birth and associations. They had character and
intelligence. In their mud huts they possessed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
a social distinction and a political training such as
would have graced the most sumptuous of palaces.
In quite early days they began to put their heads
together and to form a definite system of polity.
Year by year the little community was added to.
Battle and bloodshed continued on the mainland,
and men and women flocked to the islands. It is
curious to notice how rank and social distinction
assert themselves. Blood will out. Wherever
human beings are gathered together, whether on
the islands of the Adriatic or on those of the South
Seas, and however sorry their plight or great their
general misfortune, different grades will become
visible. Men and women will place themselves
one above the other, the master and the man, the
mistress and the maid—such is the law of humanity
all the world over. Calamity did not in the long
run have much effect upon the higher class of
refugees, and the position of the lower classes
was not bettered. Sympathy had levelled social
distinctions for a time; but that was not for long.
Soon, in the natural course of events, when the
little colony grew into a city, and the origin of
the Veneti had faded almost into a tradition, the
various ranks became distinct. True, they lived
as sea-birds live, one kind of food common to both,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
and one kind of house sheltering both; but the
poor man and the rich did not live in equality.</p>
<p>As the community grew in importance they
began to cultivate their islands and to build unto
themselves ships. By force of necessity, they became
expert in all matters of navigation, as agile
on the water as on land, fearless. They acquired
a better means of navigation and a wider knowledge
of the lagoons than any other State possessed.
Then they began to be attacked. With great
courage and determination, Venice resisted all her
foes—Gothic, Lombard, Byzantine, and Frank.
Her position was peculiar, vague. She acknowledged
a certain allegiance to the Court of Byzantium;
yet by her acts she recognised the supremacy
of the kingdoms on the mainland. Neither Byzantium
nor Ravenna, and not Padua, could claim
the lagoons. Venice was marvellously diplomatic.
She drew from East and West exactly what she
wanted to make her a nation by herself. While
she pretended allegiance to several empires, she was
in reality struggling for independence. In the
stillness of the lagoon and the freedom of the sea
air, the germs of individuality grew and flourished.
They had a congenial soil and fitting nutriment.
It is wonderfully interesting to watch the progress
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
of the little State—the diplomatic way she went to
work: how when she was weak and unable to stand
alone she feigned allegiance to a stronger Power,
yet never bound herself by written word; how she
played one Power against the other; and how in
the end, when sufficiently strong, under the shelter
of her various foster-mothers, she struck out for
freedom boldly.</p>
<p>There is a letter from Cassiodorus, Prefect of
Theodoric the Great, which throws light upon the
relations of Venice with the Goths. Theodoric
endeavoured to veil his power over Venice under
the guise of alliance or of hospitality. At the
time of the famine in 520 he came to their rescue
with provisions. This gave him a certain hold
over the Venetian people. It imposed upon them
a debt which was not to be easily discharged.
A letter written by Cassiodorus in 523 is neither
more nor less than a demand to the Venetians to
bring supplies of oil, wine, and honey, which the
islands possessed, to the Goths. The letter, which
is of florid style, is one long sneer veiled in delicate
flattery. Cassiodorus explains that the Venetians
own certain ships, that they are well built, that the
sea is an easy path to them; and he begs that the
vessels will transport the tributes of Istria to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
shores of his country. By this letter one realises
that the Venetians had already a reputation as
pilots and mariners, and knew well how to thread
in and out the channels of the lagoons. Theodoric
was a generous and powerful neighbour, and the
only homage the Venetians could give the Goths
in return was their water service; but they felt
their weakness and dependence deeply, and were
continually waiting for an opportunity to better
their position. Consequently, when the war broke
out, after Theodoric's death, between his successors
and the Greek Emperor, the Venetians struggled
to make themselves of value, and took an active
share in the operations. They sided with the
Lombards, and conveyed a large reinforcement of
Lombard mercenaries to their destination. That
was the beginning of their intimate connection
with Constantinople. Two churches were erected
in commemoration of the services of the islanders.
These were built of costly materials, probably
obtained from buildings on the mainland which
were partially destroyed by the invaders. The
Venetians were enabled to transport these treasures
in their ships.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-080" id="i-080"></a>
<img src="images/i-080.jpg" width="550" height="419" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ST. MARIA DELLA MISERICORDIA</p>
</div>
<p>Much to the anger of the Paduans, Venice was
growing very rapidly, and was gradually, by sheer
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
competence, absorbing all the coast and river trade.
Longinus paid a visit to Venice, begging that she
would procure means of transport for his people.
This was granted; but he endeavoured to force the
Venetians to accept the suzerainty of his master,
which was immediately refused in a grand and
sovereign manner. The Venetians declared that,
amid much toil and labour, and in the face of many
hardships from Hun, Vandal, Goth, and Lombard,
God had helped and protected them in order that
they might continue to live in the watery marshes.
They proudly stated that this group of islands was
an ideal habitation, and that no power of emperor
or prince should take it from them. It was impossible
to attack them, they maintained, unless by
the sea; and of that they were assured masters.
This reception must have impressed Longinus. In
place of a weak little State requiring the protection
of his country, he found the Venetians a fierce and
self-reliant people. He could obtain only a very
vague promise from the diplomatic Venetians.
They would acknowledge the Emperor as overlord,
they said, but only on their word of honour:
they would take no oath of fealty. Still, the rule
of the Lombard over Venice was of longer duration
than that of any other State.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span></p>
<p>A great trouble beset Venice at about this period.
When the first settlers began work on the islands,
each little group had a separate life, its people retaining
as far as possible the customs, the religion,
and the constitution of their ruined homes on the
mainland. The largest townships which sprang up
on the Lido were Heraclea, Jesolo, and Malamocco.
These gradually grew together into a federation
of twelve communes, each governed by its own
tribune; and the tribunes had regularly a general
assembly for the settlement of such business as
affected the common interests of the lagoon.
Jealousy and civil feuds, however, sprang up
among the islanders, as one after another endeavoured
to acquire supremacy. Heraclea tried
to take the lead, and to destroy Jesolo; but she
in her turn was attacked, and razed to the ground,
by Malamocco. The civil trouble well-nigh caused
the destruction of Venice. The tribunes intrigued;
family rose against family, clan against clan; and
there was terrible bloodshed. For nearly two years
and a half the Republic was in anarchy. The
constitutional evil sapped the general prosperity,
obstructed trade and industries, and brought property
to havoc. Had it continued much longer,
the people would have frittered their strength away
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
in private quarrels, and the State of Venice might
never have emerged; but pressure from the mainland
was brought to bear on Venice, and it became
necessary for the various committees to consolidate
as one body and sweep away the perils that were
confronting them. The Lombards were becoming
bolder and bolder. The Monarchy grew and grew,
and at last the Republic of Venice feared that it
might desire to add the islands of the Adriatic to
its dominions.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-086" id="i-086"></a>
<img src="images/i-086.jpg" width="550" height="435" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE CUSTOM HOUSE AND CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA
DELLA SALUTE</p>
</div>
<p>This awoke Venice from lethargy. It was the
peril of the sea that formed and completed her.
The pressure was very severe. East and West were
beginning to ask her very plainly to choose on
which side and under whose protection she intended
to place herself, and they did not intend to wait
long for an answer. Venice, subtle and diplomatic,
put off the evil hour as long as she possibly could;
but her policy became obvious soon. She could
no longer feign fealty first to one Empire and then
to another, and meanwhile struggle for independence.
The time had come for action. The
critical moment was at hand. Either she must put
herself under protection of the East or of the
West, or declare her independence. Any course
was dangerous, perhaps fatal. Out of the three
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
possible issues, Venice chose the most perilous,
severing herself from both East and West. The
result was fortunate. Thrown upon her own
resources, she saved herself by energy.</p>
<p>King Pippin invited Venice to join in a war.
Venice refused, and prepared to defend herself,
trusting in the courage of her men and the intricacy
of the lagoon. From north and south King Pippin
could concentrate his forces upon Venice, and
victory seemed easy; but he had forgotten the
natural defences of the sea-bound city. He did
not know the shoals and deeps of the sea home.
A life's study would scarcely have taught him. A
certain noble assumed the lead of the Venetian
people. He commanded them to remove their
wives, children, and goods to a little island in mid
lagoon—Rialto, impregnable from land or sea.
This done, the fighting men took up positions on
the outlying islands, and awaited the attack of
the Franks. Pippin seized on Brondolo, Chioggia,
and Palestrina, and tried to press his squadron on
to the capital; but the shoals stopped him. His
ships ran aground; his pilots missed the channels;
and the Venetians pelted them with darts and
stones. For six months Pippin struggled; but
the Venetians kept him at bay by their network
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
of canals and their oozy mud-banks. They shook
off every assault. In the summer there came a
rumour that an Eastern fleet was approaching.
Pippin tried one more appeal to the Venetians,
begging them to own themselves his subjects.
"For are you not within the borders of my
kingdom?" he said. "We are resolved to be the
subjects of the Roman Emperor," they answered,
"and not of you." The King was forced to retire.
This great victory seemed to have the effect
of consolidating the Venetians effectively. They
agreed thenceforward to work together for the
common cause. War had completed the union
of Venice. She had emerged from her trial an
independent State. There was no more internal
discord. Venetian men and Venetian lagoons had
made and saved the State. The spirit of the
waters, free, vigorous, and pungent, had passed
during the strife into the being of the people.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-092" id="i-092"></a>
<img src="images/i-092.jpg" width="550" height="435" alt="" />
<p class="caption">AT CHIOGGIA</p>
</div>
<p>This triumph was really the birth hour of Venice,
and the people look back upon it with joy. The
victory over King Pippin is cherished to this day
as one of the finest events in history. The
Venetians realised the peril of the sea from this
attack. Also they realised the peril of the mainland
from the Hunnish invasion. They then
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
effected a compromise, and chose as the future
home of their State a group of islands mid-way
between the sea and the land, then known as
Rialto, but thenceforth to bear the proud name of
Venice. Venice in this union of her people declared
her nature, so infinitely various, rich, pliant, and
free, that to this day she awakens and in some
measure satisfies a passion such as we feel for some
person deeply beloved. Her people then struggled
to attain from infancy to manhood. For the first
time they had learned their own power, and union
gave them strength. They began to create their
Constitution, that singular monument of rigidity
and durability which endured, with hardly a break
in its structure, for ten centuries. They built with
vigour and enthusiasm that incomparably lovely
city of the sea. The aristocracy of Venice emerged.
Her empire extended, following the lines of her
commerce, in the East. St. Mark was substituted
for St. Theodore as patron saint. The crusades
were used as a means to conquer Dalmatia, and to
plant the lion in the Greek Archipelago. Venice
clashed with Genoa, and emerged victorious.
Wealth flowed into her State coffers and her
private banks. The island of Rialto proved the
advantage of its situation, and established a claim
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
for gratitude as the asylum of Venice in her hour
of need. The Venetians had seen that the mainland
was unsafe, and the attack of Pippin showed
that there was danger on the sea. Thus, experience
leading to the choice of the middle point, in 810
the seat of the Government was removed to Rialto
under Angelo Badoer as Doge. Rialto became
a sacrament of reconciliation between Heraclea and
Malamocco. It was the glory of Venice that of
all parts of Italy she alone remained unscathed by
the foreign ravages of the fifth century and the conquest
of the eighth. Venice alone was left out of all
Italy's ruin. She alone escaped pure and undefiled.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-098" id="i-098"></a>
<img src="images/i-098.jpg" width="550" height="471" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CHURCH OF SAN GEREMIA</p>
</div>
<p>This marvellous period of her history—the
repulses of the Franks and the creation of her
State—requires no embellishments; yet the
Venetians loved to gather a mythology of persons
and events. Cannon-balls of bread, they say,
were fired into the Frankish camp in mockery of
Pippin's hope of strong Rialto surrendering. Then,
again, there are the stories of the old woman who
lured the invader to his final effort when half his
forces were lost; of the canal Orfano, which ran
with foreign blood, and won its name from the
countless Frankish hordes that day made desolate;
of the sword of Charles, which was flung into the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
sea when the Emperor acknowledged his repulse
and cried, "As this my brand sinks out of sight,
nor ever shall rise again, so let all thoughts of
conquering Venice fade from out men's hearts, or
they will feel, as I have felt, the heavy displeasure
of God." All these stories were absolutely untrue;
but they were born of a pardonable pride.</p>
<p>The Venetians held their country in a singularly
powerful devotion. Possibly this was because
they were so closely shut in on these few little
islands, precious morsels of land snatched from
the devouring sea. Certain it is that they toiled
for the State as no other nation has toiled before
or since. They were determined that Venice
should be great, that she should be beautiful;
and century after century of Venetians devoted
their lives to this work, sinking their own interests
in hers. The Republic was before everything.
Wherever one goes in Florence, one finds traces
of great and famous men of all periods and of all
crafts—painters, poets, writers, statesmen,—in
every square, in every street, you are reminded of
them; their spirits and their works live with you
wherever you may go. But in Venice, where
are they? There is the city—yes: there is that;
and there are the archives, the annals of the city,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
histories without number, marvellous histories;—but
the familiar figures, the great men that we
honour and look for,—they are not here. Venice
herself was the centre of all their aspirations, all
their affections. She was erected as would be a
treasure-heap: all the choicest and all the best
were there. One knows but little, for example,
of the great painters—the men, with beautiful
thoughts, who filled the churches and the palaces
with untold splendour, glowing sunshine. Their
works are left, and their names; but no more. It
seems as if they must have kept one another down,
that Venice alone might shine.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-104" id="i-104"></a>
<img src="images/i-104.jpg" width="550" height="434" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS AND STRAW BRIDGE</p>
</div>
<p>If one wishes to study the history of Venice,
there is no difficulty. Historic documents without
number are accessible. Every period, every vogue,
every year, is carefully studied and commented
upon by keen observers, men of the greatest
talents. These records glow with life and energy.
In quite early days, when the Republic was in
its infancy,—when there was no aristocracy, no
great and powerful State,—even the fishermen
and the merchants and the salt manufacturers
had a longing to chronicle the doings of the
community. The palaces which were being built,
and the churches,—all these they wished to have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>
chronicled for ever. Numberless historians there
were, and all nameless—men of extraordinary
skill and genius. Embellishments and fables
abound; but on the whole these histories, written
with great realism, bring back a vivid picture of
the State. No Venetian ever tires, ever did tire,
of the history of his country. It is the one subject
that is of endless interest to him. The trade of
Venice, her ceremonies, her treaties, her money,
the speeches of her orators—all are chronicled.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-110" id="i-110"></a>
<img src="images/i-110.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ON THE GRAND CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>Venice was looked upon by Italy very much as
we look upon America. She had no long and
glorious history—at least, no history of anything
beyond handicraft—no literature, no ancient manuscripts.
The Florentines, on the other hand, had
a great enthusiasm for ancient history. They were
proud of their descent, and gloried in looking back
to a long Etruscan civilisation. When one visits
Florence, there is no difficulty in gathering knowledge
concerning her great men of any period.
Their shadows walk in her streets; their memories
will never fade. You meet them everywhere—the
painters, the monks, the gallants, the statesmen,—the
individualities of the men who were the makers
of Florence. The Venetians had no sympathy
with the Florentines. They could not understand
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
the Florentine desire to live with the past
rather than the present. There are very few
names which stand out prominently in the history
of Venice, names concerning which a great deal is
known; but there are one or two stories that are
picturesque and popular, stories which are ever
fresh to the Venetians. One is of a prince, the
beheaded Doge Marino Faliero,—not at all an
important incident in Venetian history, but one
that is very dear to the hearts of the people,
because of its melancholy. The prince was a man
of hasty temper and haughty nature, and could
brook no slight to his dignity. Once a bishop
kept him waiting, and that worthy, for his misdemeanour,
received, to the astonishment of everyone,
a sound box on the ear. Before he came to
the throne, Faliero was of great service to the
State. He was offered the throne of Venice at
the age of seventy-six, and married a young and
beautiful woman. The story runs that a young
gallant called Michele Steno, having been turned
out of her presence, insulted the lady and her
husband by pinning an impudent message to the
chair of the Doge. The young man was brought
before the "Forty," excused on the plea of his
age and impetuosity, condemned to prison for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
two months, and banished from Venice for a year
afterwards. This slight punishment for so grave
an offence stung Faliero to the quick. He felt
that, though he occupied the Venetian throne, he
had scarcely more power than the beggar at his
gate. All his life he had been an active, energetic
man, a ruler of men; his word had been law, and
his counsels listened to with respect and acted
upon. Now he was powerless. He was insulted
by the young nobles, and had no power to punish
them; his authority was entirely disregarded.
This state of things grew worse and worse. Two
of his old friends also were insulted by noblemen.
At last Faliero's temper could endure no longer.
In the April of 1355 he formed a conspiracy, and
tried to assert his supremacy. Six months after
his triumphant arrival in Venice as Doge, an old
man and friendless, enraged at the insults offered
to him, he struck one mad and foolish blow for
freedom. The plot was betrayed on the eve of
the catastrophe. The conspirators were strung up
in one long ghastly line on the piazza. Faliero
himself was beheaded at the foot of the stairs
where a few short months before he had sworn the
<i>promissione</i> on assuming the office of Doge.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-116" id="i-116"></a>
<img src="images/i-116.jpg" width="393" height="393" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS</p>
</div>
<h2>A GLIMPSE INTO BOHEMIA</h2>
<p>On one occasion we arrived at Venice early in
the morning. I was frightened at the darkness
and the stillness, and the tall black houses
looming high above us: it seemed that brigands
must be lurking there, ready to murder us. Absolute
silence reigned, except for mysterious sounds
as if melodious voices were calling a refractory
dog—"Puppy," "Puppy," "Puppy," we heard on
every side. It was the warning of the gondoliers
as they passed one another in the darkness. I
longed for some accustomed natural noise. If
only something would fall and make a splash!
The silence set one's nerves on edge. We hired
a gondola, and glided swiftly and silently out into
the darkness, our gondolier's ringing voice joining
the chorus of "Puppy." And so dexterously did
he handle his dainty craft that, even as we turned
corners and passed other gondolas in the pitch-black
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
darkness, not a sound was made, not a splash.
I felt like beating the water with the palms of my
hands to make a disturbance. This silent gliding
went on for about twenty minutes, until suddenly
we drew up by an enormous silver-grey palace
down a side canal, one of the largest palaces in
Venice, with broad marble steps and badly-made
deal doors. After some time the doors were
opened, and an old lady appeared, bowing and
talking in rapid Italian. She led us up the steps
and through a colossal hall of marble, all marble,
with staircases on either side leading on to spacious
landings, into a suite of rooms that seemed more
like the state apartments of a king than those of an
ordinary hotel.</p>
<p>One of the first things I did when I awoke in the
morning was to get out on to the roof of the
palace and look about me. I always ask to be
directed on to the roof when I arrive at a new
place. And there I remained the whole morning,
painting, deaf to the pleadings of my friends that I
should come down and eat. It was the chimneys
that fascinated me! From the decorative standpoint
they were quite startling. Chimneys, chimneys,
everywhere, and such chimneys—grouped
into pictures in every direction! There were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
clusters of twos, and clusters of threes; and
wherever there were spaces that could be used for
decoration they were used to the full. Each one
of these chimneys seemed to have its own particular
character. Some bulged out at the top in graceful
lines; some were square and stolid; others were
light and airy. At the base of some bloomed a
blaze of flowers from the roof gardens. Each one
was different. When I learned that a book had
been published on the chimneys of Venice I was
not in the least surprised.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-122" id="i-122"></a>
<img src="images/i-122.jpg" width="435" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALACE IN A BY-CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>When my friends were able to tear me away
from chimneys we got into our gondola and
allowed the gondolier to take us where he pleased,
to drift about in the by-canals. I wanted my
impressions of Venice to be quite haphazard.
We glided in the gondola past marble palaces—green
palaces, pink palaces, blue palaces, all toned
and variegated with age. Venice struck me as
being a highly-coloured city, the most brilliantly
coloured I had ever seen. It was not, as most
cities are, merely a background for brightly-dressed
figures: the buildings themselves were coloured,
and the gondolas and the figures were black and
sombre. Every wall, every doorway, was coloured.
We glided past a series of crazy old doorways of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
blues, greens, and vermilions. Each door was
broken with many changes of colour, and the
red, rusty ironwork above, just where it caught
the sun, was of a rich golden sienna. Certainly
Venice is the most highly-coloured city in the
world. How different from the impressions one
finds in Bond Street—the vicious water-colours in
which the artist always insists on orange and
vermilion sails and crisp, flowing reflections that
have been painted on slanting tables: the water-colours
that are so sought after and so saleable!
That Venice is vividly coloured I admit; but there
is a scumble over the city. Age has toned it.
The pink palace reflected in the green water is
totally unlike the pink palace of the blobby water-colours.
There are blues, and violets, and old-rose
tones, and a certain bloom in it that these artists
never seem to give. And to a certain extent these
pictures handicap one: one feels annoyed to think
that Venice should be so caricatured. You see the
Bridge of Sighs at daybreak; you see the Salute
by moonlight; and somehow you cannot forget
these eternal water-colours. There is a certain
resemblance, sufficient to irritate.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-126" id="i-126"></a>
<img src="images/i-126.jpg" width="438" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE ORANGE DOOR</p>
</div>
<p>Indolence was upon us. Already we were becoming
apathetic. There was something about the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
atmosphere that encouraged a delightful languor.
The residents said it was the sirocco. The sirocco
seemed answerable for many deficiencies: it was
always being blamed. Later, when we came in
touch with the artists, we found that it was the
normal excuse for not working. We discovered
groups of them sitting about in the square drinking,
and when we asked them if they had done any
work they all said, "No: there is a sirocco on
now: of course, we can't work." Venice is overrun
with artists; yet how few you see at work!
Here and there you will find a stray one in a
gondola painting, but very rarely. We were
drifting about idly. Our gondolier was quite a
part of the picture—young, very handsome, with
a musical voice. And I began in a dreamy way
to muse as I watched him. My thoughts went
back for the moment to the Thames—to an old
gentleman toiling in a punt. He was once a
handsome young gondolier like this one, gracefully
piloting a gondola through the canals of
Venice; but now he had grown old on the
Thames. There is no doubt that the gondola is
made for Venice: it is futile to try it elsewhere.
And then the colour is right. The gondola ought
to be black. It became so naturally and as a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
matter of economy. People used to spend too
much money on their gondolas, and colours had
to be forbidden.</p>
<p>I was in a dreamy mood, and I began to wonder
what became of the handsome young gondoliers—they
were all handsome and all young. They could
not remain so for ever. What became of the old
ones? I soon learnt. When gondoliers grew
to be too old for their tasks they drifted on to
the landing-stages. There we saw them, with
marvellous crooks, catching the gondolas and
drawing them into the proper places. I examined
these sticks, and was surprised to find that some of
them were of very great value. The gondolier
prizes and decorates his stick just as a bootblack
tends his stand: only, where the bootblack has
coppers and bits of tinsel, the Venetian has pure
gold coins dating back to the time of the Doges.
This love of collecting and cherishing beautiful
things is characteristic of the peasant people of
Venice. Women will spend their savings in inches
of gold chain, which they join together into long
strings, and sometimes a woman will have festoons
of gold chain collected for two or three generations.
It is their way of investing money.</p>
<p>We drifted along all the afternoon through the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
canals, being hooked on to different landing-stages
by these old gentlemen; and we came to the
conclusion that this was really the end of our
handsome gondolier. We were anxious to
meet the artists of Venice, and had been told
of a certain restaurant, the Panada, where they
generally congregated.</p>
<p>In the evening, then, we landed, and went thither
to dine. The artists who went to the Panada, we
had been told, were those who had "let themselves
go" more or less—who had been taken hold of
by the sirocco and had settled down to loafing.
When they first arrived in Venice they went to
wine-shops, little dark places, and dined off
macaroni and harsh drink. The Panada was
more or less organised for the convenience of
artists. In the first place, you were not bored by
having to tip waiters—a duty that is always trying
to an artist who is in between two exhibitions.
And nearly all the Panada artists were in that
condition. They had nearly all had exhibitions
in Bond Street which had been "great artistic
successes"—in other words, they hadn't sold any
pictures. Another point about the Panada that
appealed to the artist was that his bills could run
on indefinitely. The bills did run: in fact, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
only things that seemed to be at all active in
Venice, in spite of the sirocco, were the bills. The
Panada was a paradise! Who could resist it?
The cooking was excellent, as cooking must always
be where painters are, for they are very particular
people. The Panada was perfect; the Panada had
a sanded floor; the Panada was the noisiest
restaurant in Italy. It was our first experience
of Bohemia, the painter's world, in Venice; and we
sat there, over our untouched dinner, fascinated—fascinated
by the general noise and confusion,
fascinated even by the unsavoury smells. It was
not clean; there was a great deal of smoke, and
so much talk! The guests seemed to be screaming
and talking at once in all the languages of the
world. Two words I heard continually—"breadth"
and "simplicity." Here and there was a little talk
of "mediums" and "technique," but not much.
It was generally broad principles that were discussed.
There was no mistaking these groups of
men. They were artists to their finger-tips in
everything save work. They dressed like artists,
talked like artists, and behaved like the artists one
reads about in novels: the Ouida artists. They
wore neckties reaching down to their waists, collars
two sizes too large and cut very low; their hands
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
were always a little soiled, and their finger-nails
never quite clean. The waiters also were soiled.
They were very toney indeed, and very apathetic—toes
turned inwards, heads bent slightly forward.
They were dejected from want of variety: there
was no uncertainty in the Panada as to tips. They
came in on the aggregate and received lump sums;
but there was a general depression about the people
that waited. All were soiled at the Panada—the
waiters, the artists, and the linen. But we very
soon began to talk of this dirt as tone, and then
it didn't seem to matter so much. Everything
seemed to be worked on more or less artistic
principles. There were quaint decorative dishes.
The puddings were pink; the butter was stained;
and altogether it required great habits to enjoy food
at the Panada. By perseverance, I was told, it
was possible to acquire an appetite. There were
tables of different sizes, and groups of artists
belonging to different sects—some antagonistic,
some sympathetic: Dottists, and Spottists, and
Stripists. Sometimes when the Dottists and
Spottists happened to be friends for the minute
they would join their tables together and make
one long one. But this was only now and then.
Usually the groups in the Panada were formed of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
twos. Often genius sat alone. Now and then,
when a big picture was sold, the restaurant was
very festive: the artist had a dinner-party, to which
everyone had been invited. But generally it was
a small water-colour that was sold, and the party
went off to a small café down by a side canal.
There was one man who got himself up to look
like King Charles, and he was King Charles to the
life! Long hair rested on his shoulders, and an
enormous tie adorned his neck; his trousers and
waistcoat were fringed, and his boots and beard
were pointed. He had a coat of velvet that
through age had become marked with an opalescent
mottle. If he stood in front of an age-toned palace
you never knew which was coat and which was
palace. He possessed no earthly goods, but paid
his way all over the world by painting portraits.
He would either cut you out in black paper for
fivepence or draw an elaborate portrait in pastel
for one franc fifty. This celebrated man came up
to us, and began to paint our portraits. Before we
knew where we were he had cut out, dry-pointed,
and stippled us; and melted away, leaving behind
him a whole tableful of works of art, side by side
with his bill. Then another man introduced himself
to us, and explained that this was quite the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
usual thing for "King Charles" to do. He pointed
out how romantic and interesting it all was: he
seemed quite convinced that the place was full of
romance.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-136" id="i-136"></a>
<img src="images/i-136.jpg" width="388" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">AN UNFREQUENTED CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>For us Bohemia had lost its romance. We felt
that we had been green, grass-green, and that (to
use a vulgarism) the gilt was off the gingerbread.
The room was becoming stuffy; the Bohemians
were noisy and dishonest; and the waiters, no
longer toney, were dirty. So we paid our own
bill and "King Charles's," and left the Panada and
romance for the open air.</p>
<p>In the piazza the band was playing the popular
music that one knows so well from the barrel
organs. Instinctively one thought of London,
Soho, and performing monkeys. But this impression
was swept away when I saw the picture that
presented itself before me in St. Mark's. What
an extraordinary change had come over the piazza
since dinner! A swarm of locusts might have
settled upon Venice—a dark, seething mass,
clustering round the walls of St. Mark's and filling
up every inch of space. They were pilgrims from
Russia, thousands of them—men, women, and
children—on their way to Rome—poor peasants
who had saved up for this pilgrimage during their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
whole lifetime, sleeping the sleep of the righteous,
their bodies pressed close against the holy walls of
St. Mark's as though for sympathy. It was a dark-coloured
crowd, all dressed in black, with big capes
and long boots and little astrachan caps,—a strong
silhouette of black against the brilliant background
of St. Mark's. It was a marvellous picture, and
pathetic. These peasants seemed to be waiting
for a greater, deeper joy, when they would be
transformed to new creatures and fly back to their
native land on the wings of a beautiful faith. The
moon herself shone down upon them caressingly,
lighting up many a weary, travel-worn face, turning
their sombre hues to silvers, and greens, and violets.
St. Mark's, with this dark mass of people at her
base, seemed almost flippant by contrast.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-142" id="i-142"></a>
<img src="images/i-142.jpg" width="550" height="433" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ST. MARK'S BASIN</p>
</div>
<p>This was a night of contrasts! The dirt and
filth of the little restaurant, with its noisy Bohemians:
and then the quiet night, a clear, bright,
silvery blue night such as one only sees in Venice;
the weary pilgrims and the sumptuous cathedral;
the dainty lightness and gracefulness of St. Mark's
and the broad, simple, strong tower rearing her
head into the sky—the Campanile, now, alas! no
more than a memory. It was a picture such as
you see but once in a lifetime. This building of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
precious stones, one of the most beautiful in the
world, so rich with gold and mosaic, jewels, marbles,
and lapis lazuli, that even in the cold blue light of
the moon and a few dim gas-lamps it seemed to be
dancing and sparkling with colour,—this, and the
sleeping peasants in their rags—what a contrast!</p>
<p>Then, again, what a contrast suddenly to turn
from these dark groups to the jewellers' shops
and the huge windows full of glittering Venetian
glass! To see the gaily-dressed crowds sipping their
coffee outside Florian's famous café that had never
been closed during three hundred years! Here was
nothing but brightness and gaiety. An excellent
band played in the middle of the piazza. Smartly-dressed
young men and military officers in pale blue
uniform strolled about the square, quite conscious
that they were being regarded favourably by girls
and their mothers sitting at the coffee-tables.
Florian's was an ideal place for the artist. It was
never shut. It was quite the fashionable thing to
drink coffee there after dinner, and one had the
chance of talking to one's friends and acquaintances.
Fascinating fruits were brought round to
us—grapes, and figs, and almonds dipped in caramel
sugar and stuck on to sticks. The men smoked
cigars as long as those smoked in Burma. So
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
capacious were they that they put them on little
stoves in the way a woman heats her curling-tongs,
and by the time they had drunk their coffee the
cigars were probably alight.</p>
<p>When the band had stopped playing we went to
Bauer's to drink beer. And so ended a typical day
in the life of an artist in that most fascinating city
on the waters.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-148" id="i-148"></a>
<img src="images/i-148.jpg" width="550" height="329" alt="" />
<p class="caption">HOTEL DANIELI</p>
</div>
<p>Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Bozzi, the
manager of the well-known Danieli's Hotel, who
often piloted me about the intricate network of
streets, I became familiar with many of the
unfrequented quarters, which, as a rule, remain
absolutely unknown to the tourist.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-152" id="i-152"></a>
<img src="images/i-152.jpg" width="429" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PORTA DELLA CARTA</p>
</div>
<h2>ARCHITECTURE</h2>
<p>In architecture one finds a history of Venice. It
is the most definite expression, the most faithful
embodiment, of the local genius. It presents
realistically the daily life and thought and work of
a bygone race. The intense love of the early
Venetians for colour shows itself in the gleaming
gold, the veined marble, and the white sculpture.
Another of their affections is symbolised by the
frequent introduction of children in the sculptured
works. There are children of all periods, of all
appearances, illustrating various of the changes in
thought and in ideals that were continually coming
to pass. Those of the earlier time are sturdy,
strapping youngsters, with a purposeful look
about them; whereas the children of the fifteenth
century are fat, chubby, and uninteresting.</p>
<p>In the early stage of her history Venice was a
Greek rather than an Italian city, and her buildings
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
were of Byzantine type. That is easily explained.
During her first great period Venice was connected
by sea with Constantinople and the East, but cut
off by the lagoons and marshes from Lombardy
and the rest of Italy. Only a few of the Byzantine
buildings remain. The period is principally marked
by the precious stones and coloured marbles encrusted
in the brickwork, and by the ancient reliefs
inserted in the blank walls of churches and houses.
Among Byzantine buildings St. Mark's comes first.
The existing building began to be constructed at
the close of the tenth century; and Byzantine
architects worked at it for nearly a hundred years.
It was largely remodelled afterwards, and was
altered in decoration during the different reactions
of architecture; but the bulk of it belongs to the
early period, and is in the pure Byzantine style.
Parts of it remind one greatly of St. Sophia in
Constantinople, on the lines of which, I believe, St.
Mark's was partially modelled. There were many
Gothic additions in the shape of pinnacles and
pointed gables above the chief arches, just sufficient
intrusion of the Gothic element to add a touch of
bizarre extravagance; and in the sixteenth century
many of the old mosaics were superseded by jejeune
Renaissance compositions, of no decorative value,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
incongruous with the general scheme. Nevertheless,
the church as a whole, as I have said, still
remains essentially Byzantine. The main fabric
of the façade represents the original Byzantine
Romanesque building, and is in almost every
particular similar to the picture of the church
given in the thirteenth-century mosaic. The
turreted pinnacles and the false gables are Gothic
additions of the fifteenth century—merely screens
of decoration with no roof behind. The building
is truly Oriental. In the shape of a Greek cross
with four equal arms, it faces west, and has a high
altar and a presbytery at the east end. It was
first of all the domestic chapel of the Doge's Palace,
and then the shrine of the body of St. Mark the
Evangelist. Everywhere one sees the motto, "Pax
tibi, Marce, Evangelista mea" ("Peace to thee,
Mark, my Evangelist"). There are the symbols
of all the four evangelists,—Luke, a bull; Mark, a
lion; John, an eagle; Matthew, an angel. There
are scenes from the life of Christ—the Adoration
of the Magi and Annunciation to the shepherds.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-158" id="i-158"></a>
<img src="images/i-158.jpg" width="550" height="433" alt="" />
<p class="caption">GRAND CANAL LOOKING TOWARDS THE DOGANA</p>
</div>
<p>Venice in the Byzantine period must have been
a city of great architectural wealth and splendour,—far
in advance of other Italian towns, although,
of course, destitute of the engineering glories of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
France and Germany. One can tell this by the
few remaining Byzantine palaces,—very few of
them are purely Byzantine. There is the magnificent
Palazzo Loredan, one of the most beautiful
of all the palaces on the Grand Canal, and a
splendid example of the Byzantine Romanesque
period. It has about it a distinct tinge of
Oriental feeling; the capitals of some of the
columns are exquisitely beautiful, and there are
not many Gothic alterations. Next to this palace
comes the Palazzo Farsetti, Romanesque of the
twelfth century, simpler in style and with less
ornamentation. It is really more nearly pure
Romanesque than Byzantine, and shows no
Oriental influence whatever. It is graceful and
dignified. The "Fondaco dei Turchi," a very
early Byzantine Romanesque palace, assumed its
name in the seventeenth century, when it was let
to the Turkish merchants of Venice. Originally
a twelfth-century palace, it has recently been so
much restored as to have lost all its air of antiquity
and the greater part of its earlier interest, although
it still represents symbolically the splendid homes
of the Byzantine period. It is much like St.
Mark's, and is the only surviving example of a
building all in one style. The arches, the capitals,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
the shafts, the parapets and decorative plaques,
are modernised, to be sure; but they are typical
if not original, and give one a very good idea of
what the Grand Canal must have been like
before the invasion of the Gothic style and the
Renaissance.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-164" id="i-164"></a>
<img src="images/i-164.jpg" width="429" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A FAMOUS PALAZZO</p>
</div>
<p>One gleans a very good idea by means of these
palaces of how extremely civilised and peaceful
Venice must have been at that early period. In
northern Europe the homes of mediæval nobles
were dark and gloomy castles built mainly for
defence, having single heavy oak doors studded
with nails, and great iron gates and drawbridges;
there were no openings in the ground floors, and
the windows above were small and grated. For
Venice such fortifications were unnecessary. Her
palaces were airy and graceful; for she was protected
from the outside by her moat of lagoons, and
from the inside by her strong internal Government.
These ancient buildings, the "Fondaco dei Turchi"
and the rest, were even then gentlemen's palaces,
always open and undefended, the homes of pleasure,
with free means of access, broad arcades, plenty of
light, and presenting a general air of peace and
security.</p>
<p>It is interesting to notice the later Venetian
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
architecture (as exhibited in the Libreria and the
Procuratie Vecchie), developed from this early
open and airy style. The native Venetian ideal
seems to have traversed all styles, and persisted
through them all in spite of endless architectural
changes. The Grand Canal was the street of the
nobles—the finest street in the world, in the way
of architectural beauties. From end to end there
are palaces of all periods, from the Byzantine time
to the eighteenth century, and all are palaces of
the ancient Venetian nobility. The Grand Canal
is to Venice what the Strand is to London and the
Rue St. Honoré to Paris. It is the most wonderful
street in the world. There is nothing so bizarre,
so fairy-like, to be seen in any other city through
the length and breadth of the globe. It is a
marvellous book wherein every family of the
Venetian nobility has signed its name. Every
wall tells a story; every house is a palace; each
was erected by some well-known architect. Pietro
Lombardo, Scamozzi, Sansovino, Sammichele (the
Veronese), Selva, Vissenti—these were the men who
drew the plans and directed the construction of the
houses; but unknown architects of the Middle Ages
built some of the most picturesque.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-170" id="i-170"></a>
<img src="images/i-170.jpg" width="550" height="439" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ENTRANCE TO THE GRAND CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>There were palaces of all styles. After a palace
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
of the Renaissance comes one belonging to the
Middle Ages in Gothic Arab style, much like the
Ducal Palace, with balconies, lancet windows, and
trefoils. Then there will be a palace adorned with
great plaques or medallions of differently coloured
marbles; anon a great bare sweep of rose-toned
wall. All styles are here—Byzantine, Saracen,
Lombard, Gothic, Roman, Greek, and Rococo—fanciful
capitals, Greek cupolas, mosaic and bas-relief,
classic severity combined with the elegant
fantasy of the Renaissance.</p>
<p>It is a gallery open to the sky, full of the art of
seven or eight centuries. Think of the genius and
money and talent expended on this one street
by brilliant artists and munificent patrons! The
Grand Canal was originally one of the navigable
channels by whose aid the waters found their way,
through the mud-banks, past the mouth of the
Lido to the open sea. It is the original deep
water which first created Venice. Up this canal
the commerce of all countries used to reach the
city in the days of her splendour. The Rialto, the
most beautiful bridge in Venice, bestrides the canal
in a single span. It was built by Antonio da Ponte.
There are two rows of shops upon it; and one of
the most picturesque scenes in the Grand Canal
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
lies round about it—old houses with platformed
roofs, bulging balconies, and stairways with disjointed
steps.</p>
<p>It is interesting to watch how Byzantine architecture
gave place to Gothic when Venice began
to conquer on the Italian mainland. Thus Gothic
architecture came in, and the conquest of Padua
and Verona completed it. The term "Gothic" is
very elastic; but there are certain points by which
one can tell whether a building is Gothic or not.
It is Gothic if the roof rises in a steep gable high
above the walls; if the principal windows and doors
have pointed arches and gables; if it has a steep
roof; if the arches are foliated—that is to say, if
the shapes of different leaves are cut into the stone
to form a species of delicate tracery like lacework,
letting in the daylight. Foliation is especially
characteristic of Gothic architecture; some of the
windows in Westminster Abbey are foliated.
Gothic architecture is very rough and loose and
irregular; yet it has a wonderful tenderness and
variation of design. Changeableness and variety
are the great requirements of perfect architecture.
One should be enabled to derive just as much
pleasure and instruction from looking at a perfect
piece of architecture as from reading one of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
finest of classic books. Gothic architecture is
essentially truthful and naturalistic. The architects
of this period were peculiarly fond of vegetation,
which is a sign of gentleness and refinement
of mind. Gothic is principally independent. It
juts out continually with many pinnacles; there
is nothing broad, or uniform, or smooth, about a
Gothic building; it is variable, rough, and jutting,
though, nevertheless, graceful in the extreme. The
materials were rougher then than in the time of
the Byzantine architecture, and to atone for this it
was necessary to introduce much workmanship.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-176" id="i-176"></a>
<img src="images/i-176.jpg" width="550" height="441" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PANORAMA SEEN FROM ST. MARK'S BASIN</p>
</div>
<p>The artists were enthusiastic in their love of
Nature, and felt deeply all her changing and complex
moods. For example, you may see the difference
between a Renaissance and a Gothic palace by
imagining the surroundings of the former, its
background, gone. It would then be deprived of
its charm; whereas if you took a Gothic palace
and placed it anywhere, it would still be beautiful.</p>
<p>The Ducal Palace expresses the Gothic spirit
to perfection. It was the great work of Venice at
this period. The best architects, the best labourers,
and the best painters were employed in beautifying
it. At one time the palace fell into decay, and it
was obvious to everyone that it should be rebuilt
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
and enlarged. But the alteration would be extremely
expensive. Therefore a law was passed
preventing anyone suggesting such alterations
unless he had previously paid one thousand ducats
to the State. At last a man arose who cared not
for the thousand ducats, and suggested the necessary
alterations. The palace was then rebuilt. It was
palace, prison, senate-house, and office of public
business, all in one. There were thirty-six great
pillars supporting the lower stories alone, all
decorated in the richest possible manner. There
was no end to the fantasies of the sculptors at that
period—exquisite curves, studied outlines, graceful
but complex, solid and strong and beautifully proportioned
braided work; lilies and flowers of all
kinds intertwined. Much of the sculpture is snow-white,
with gold as a background; some of it has
glass mosaic let into the hollows. The cross is
used a good deal; also the peacock, the vine, the
dove.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-182" id="i-182"></a>
<img src="images/i-182.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE DOGANA AND SALUTE</p>
</div>
<p>The palace of Semitecolo has some beautiful
early-Gothic windows, having false cusps in the
arches, so as to make the head a trefoil. One sees
here the gradual growth of the arch until it culminates
in the Doge's Palace type. There are
beautiful balustrades to the balconies, original and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
belonging to the period. In the early-Gothic
palaces one notices a certain softening of the angles—that
is to say, in the fine fourteenth-century
Gothic buildings. The early Gothic architecture
has no cusps to the arches; it shows a transitional
form between Venetian Romanesque and Venetian
Gothic. There are first-floor arcades early-Gothic,
with a somewhat Oriental curve in the arch derived
by the early Venetian Gothics from Alexandria or
Cairo. The capitals of the columns are characteristic
of the period: there are dainty balconies with
graceful, slender columns, and cusps to the arches.</p>
<p>These Gothic palaces were built by a people who
were laborious, brave, practical, and prudent; yet
they had great ideas of the refinement of domestic
life, and the Gothic palaces remain to-day much
the same as when they were newly built—marble
balconies, great strong sweeps of delicate-looking
tracery, clustered arches. It is the Gothic window
that is so perfect, so strong,—built, too, with
material that was by no means good.</p>
<p>There is so much rivalry, vanity, dishonesty, in
the present day, that houses are badly and cheaply
built; even in the best of them, bad iron and
inferior plaster are used. How many of them, I
should like to know, will be standing fifty years
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
hence? Mr. Ruskin is much against our modern
windows and the manner in which they are quickly
constructed out of bad materials, and the bricks
all placed one on top of the other slanting anyhow.
The doors of Gothic palaces are all semicircular
above. At one time the name of the family was
placed over the entrance, and a prayer inserted for
their safety and prosperity,—also a blessing for the
stranger who should pass the threshold. Inside
the houses there is always a large court round
which all the various rooms circle, with a beautiful
outside staircase supported on pointed arches with
coned parapets and projecting landing-places. In
the court there is always a well of marble superbly
sculptured.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-188" id="i-188"></a>
<img src="images/i-188.jpg" width="424" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALAZZO CONTARINI DEGLI SCRIGNI</p>
</div>
<p>The centres of the early Renaissance architecture
were Florence, Milan, and Venice. Venice is the
only city in which important examples of all three
periods of the Renaissance are to be found—the
early period, the culminating period, and the
period of decay. The Renaissance found better
expression in Venice than elsewhere in Italy. In
fact, when Florence and Rome had entered upon
quite another period, Venice continued it for fully
twenty-five years longer. The Venetians were
ambitious, exceedingly so; and this ambition was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
a source of great trouble to the rest of Italy. The
balance of power seemed, in their opinion, to be
weighing too heavily in the direction of the Queen
of the Adriatic; and the peace of the peninsula,
they felt, was not by any means assured. The
greatest period for Venice was at the end of the
fifteenth century, when she had conquered all the
land about her from Padua nearly to Milan, and
seawards to Dalmatia and Crete. In the market-places
of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia, the
Lion of St. Mark was set up as a sign of the subjugation.
Even now one can trace the influence of
Venice upon the art of these various places. But
the Venetians certainly learnt a great deal from the
people whom they conquered. Other influences
were brought to bear upon Venetian architecture—as,
for example, the Lombardi family, who probably
belonged to some part of Lombardy.
Venice seems at this time to have gathered unto
herself many fine suggestions from the rest of
Italy. In fact, Venice absorbed talent from the
rest of the world. In quite early days she adopted
Byzantine and Arabic architecture; then, in the
sixteenth century, she took unto herself the art of
the Milanese, who enriched the city with their work.</p>
<p>A truly Renaissance building did not appear in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
Venice until sixty years after the first was erected
in Florence, and then, strangely, it had little of the
Florentine character. This, after all, is not extraordinary
when one comes to think of the bitter
war between Florence and Venice in 1467. She
took her style of architecture from the countries
which she had conquered and naturalised, such
as the district of Lombardy; and in her turn
she influenced them. The adoption of the Greek
forms of Roman architecture which originated in
Florence gradually spread and reached Venice;
but the Venetians did not struggle, as did the
Florentines, to revive and purify Roman architecture.
Simply the tendency of the general taste
inclined in that direction, and gave to their own
Venetian forms of architecture a certain classic air.
In the general form of the work of this period one
cannot detect the classical influence; but, if you
examine into it carefully, you will notice in small
details, such as a capital, that some classical subject
has been introduced in place of the usual symbolical
one. You will also detect in purely Gothic
composition signs of the new art influence. For
example, in the mouldings there is an introduction
of cupids among the foliage, and all the strange
fables and gods of the heathen are represented
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
there. This was the period when people were
becoming more learned. Later, buildings were
erected on purely classical lines; yet they still kept
to the Gothic arch. Bartolomeo Buono of Bergamo
was one of the greatest architects of his time. In
1520 the work of another architect was noticeable—that
of Guglielmo Bergamasco.</p>
<p>The question of the church exterior was one of
the most difficult problems of the early-Renaissance
architect, and he never solved it quite. The
churches of Venice nearly all belong to the
Renaissance; there were many of them rebuilt
under the influence of either Palladian or Jesuit
style. Palladio was a great architect; but he had
nothing of the Catholic feeling. He was really
more suited to build a pagan temple than to build
a Christian church. The Jesuit style, moreover, is
horrible, with its stumpy columns, bloated cherubs,
unhealthy affectations, and fiery ornaments. It
is a display without beauty or grace, merely overloaded
and heavy. The church of the Scalzi is of
extravagant richness. The walls are encrusted
with coloured marble; there are frescoed ceilings
by Tiepolo and Sansovino; bright tones prevail—more
appropriate to a ballroom than to a house
of prayer. One can quite imagine a minuet under
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
such a ceiling. Many of the churches in Italy are
built in this style, and are compensated only by the
number and interest of the valuable objects which
they contain. Almost every church has a museum
such as would honour the palace of a king. There
one sees Titians, Paul Veroneses, Tintorettos, Palmas,
Giovanni Bellinis, Bonifazios. The church of
the Scalzi has a broad staircase in red brocatelle of
Verona, with truncated columns in marble, gigantic
prophets, stone balustrades, and doors of mosaic.
The Romanesque churches are really beautiful,
with their pillars of porphyry, antique capitals,
images standing out upon a glitter of gold,
Byzantine mosaics, slender columns, and carved
trefoils. The church of Santa Maria della Salute
has been made famous by the picture of her by
Canaletto in the Louvre. One of the most beautiful
things within is a ceiling by Titian. Venetian
arabesque ornament of the Quattri cento is tenderly
sculptured, and the friezes are undercut in a
reverent and delicate manner.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-196" id="i-196"></a>
<img src="images/i-196.jpg" width="400" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE</p>
</div>
<p>One of the most beautiful palaces of the Grand
Canal is the Palazzo Corner-Spinelli. It is
especially noticeable because of the number of
windows in the basement,—there is no observable
order in the placing of them. Then, again, there
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
are contrasts in the shape of balconies. Some are
small and curved inwards; others are long and
straight. In 1481 the palaces became of a more
advanced character. The central windows were
grouped together; but this last feature is characteristic
of Venetian architecture of all periods. One
of Sammichele's finest works is the Palazzo Grimani,
on the Grand Canal. It was carried out by others
after Sammichele's death; nevertheless, it is very
fine. It has great dignity and majesty, and is a
composition such as will be found in Venice alone.</p>
<p>Venice is, architecturally, the most interesting
city in Italy. It contains works of all periods,
from the early Christian foundation to the
eighteenth century; and perhaps the best examples
of each are there. First there was the school
of the Lombardi; next, that of Sammichele and
Sansovino, quite distinct, an influence direct from
Rome. Then came, closely following, the schools
of Palladio and Scamozzi; and a fourth is that of the
seventeenth-century artists, who did good work in
Venice, but on different lines. The best example
of this late period in Venice is Santa Maria della
Salute, erected in token of the cessation of the
plague. It is situated at the sea gate to the
presence-chamber of the Queen of the Adriatic.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
Few churches of any age can rival it architecturally.
The composition is mainly pyramidal.</p>
<p>The barocco style is nowhere so appalling as in
Venice. It is most untruthful and unprincipled in
character. There is a great deal of ostentation and
bombastic pomp about it. A terrible example of
this can be seen in Doge Valiero's tomb, where the
marble is made to imitate silk and cloth wherever
possible.</p>
<p>The Palazzo Pesaro was built, rich and gross,
typical of the domestic Renaissance, when architecture
tended to decay. Technically it is a most
inferior building. The figures in the sculpture are
spasmodic in action, and restless; there is a projecting,
diamond-like rustication, far too bold in
treatment. The angles are an exaggeration of the
style of Sansovino.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-202" id="i-202"></a>
<img src="images/i-202.jpg" width="486" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALAZZO MENGALDO</p>
</div>
<p>There are three great causes of the decadence of
Venetian architecture. First of all, it was started
by purists who were bound too firmly to ancient
usages, too much regulated by precedent, coldness,
and formality. Secondly, a more disastrous influence
was brought to bear—that of Michael
Angelo, the example of freedom to the verge of
licence. This revolution was brought about partly
by the revolt of the public feeling against the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
restrictions of the purists, partly by real want of
knowledge and failure to understand traditional
weaknesses and systems of design with regard to
construction. The purpose and use of features
was misunderstood; uncontrolled freedom was
allowed; ornament was added for its own sake,
instead of being bound up in architectural lines.
By such freaks and caprices almost every building
at this time, though not ignoble in composition,
was completely disfigured. Thirdly, the architects
made the fatal mistake of using the excrescences of
a weakness of the great masters and endeavouring
to raise them to the dignity of features of design.
Thus Venetian architecture withered and decayed,
fading out into a pale shadow of what it had once
been. That glorious art, which had once been so
superb in the hands of the masters, sank into the
execution of feigned architecture, false perspective,
and fictitious grand façades, with bad statues in
unreal relief.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-208" id="i-208"></a>
<img src="images/i-208.jpg" width="550" height="431" alt="" />
<p class="caption">OSPEDALE CIVILE</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-214" id="i-214"></a>
<img src="images/i-214.jpg" width="550" height="437" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ST. MARK'S</p>
</div>
<h2>ST. MARK'S</h2>
<p>When you arrive before the Church of St. Mark's
you realise that at last, after all your travels
throughout the length and breadth of the globe,
you have before you a building in which colour
and design unite in forming perfection. Here
stands without a shadow of doubt the finest
building in the world, flawless. It is impossible
to imagine that St. Mark's has been built stone
by stone, that the brains of mere men have
designed it, and that the hands of mere men have
set it up. It must, you think, have been there
from all time just as it is,—formed as the bubble
is formed, and the opal. It is a revelation to look
upon such perfect symmetry, such glorious colouring.
Like an opal, St. Mark's shows no sign of
age. It glitters like a new jewel, and might have
been built but yesterday. Unlike most churches,
it has no sombre, frowning air. Its spires do not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
launch themselves into the sky. It does not bristle
with towers and arched buttresses. Rather the
building seems to stoop and crouch. It is surmounted
by domes, as is a Mohammedan mosque,
and is a strange mixture of Oriental ornamentation
and Christian symbolism. Horses take the place
of angels; grace and splendour, the place of
austerity and mystery. Who ever heard of gold,
alabaster, amber, ivory, enamel, and mosaic being
used in the construction of a Christian church?
Who ever heard of dolphins, tridents, marine shells,
trefoils, cupolas, marble plaques, backgrounds of
vividly coloured mosaics and of gold? It is more
like a fairy palace, or an Alcazar, or a mosque,
than a Catholic church; more like an altar to
Neptune than one to the Christian God.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-220" id="i-220"></a>
<img src="images/i-220.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="" />
<p class="caption">PALAZZO DANIELI</p>
</div>
<p>The ultimate result of this apparent incoherence
is a harmonious whole. Reverence and Christianity
are here—an absolute and living faith.
Even the most devout Catholic has no cause for
complaint. With all its pagan art, St. Mark's
preserves the character of primitive Christianity.
The exterior is extremely complicated. There are
many porticoes, each with columns of marble,
jasper, and other precious materials; many mosaics
on grounds of gold over each doorway; many
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
historic stories and legends that these mosaics
represent; many fantastic forms of angelic beasts,
saints, Byzantine and Middle-Ages bas-reliefs,
magnificent bronze doors, arcades, lamps, peacocks—so
many that it is impossible to attempt to
describe them in detail. Even to tell of the
delicate structure and the subtle, ever-changing,
iridescent colour is beyond me. It is almost
bewildering when one thinks that at the time St.
Mark's was built every house in every side street
had much of the same extravagant richness, beauty
of colouring, and superb architecture. As Mr.
Ruskin says, it is absurd to imagine that churches
were designed in a style particularly different from
that of other buildings. There is nothing specially
sacred in what we call ecclesiastical architecture.
All the houses were built much in the same way.
Only, while the houses have fallen into decay, the
church has been preserved by a devoted populace.
It is not often that one sees a coloured building,
a building teeming with colour; but St. Mark's
vibrates with colour. There are no blank spaces
of grey stone. Every square inch is beautiful.</p>
<p>When one enters from the bright sun, St.
Mark's appears dim and dark; but you must not
judge by that. To appreciate its beauties, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
student should visit the church day after day.
Gradually they will unfold themselves. That is
what constitutes one of the charms of St. Mark's.
It is as though one were in a carved-out cave of
gold and purple, on a voyage of discovery all by
oneself. At first you can see nothing; but as your
eyes become accustomed to the darkness, colours
begin to grow upon you out of the gloom. Some
minutes must elapse before you realise that the
floor, which at first you took to be of a deep-toned
grey stone, is a mosaic composed of thousands of
differently coloured marbles—that you are walking
on precious marbles of peacock hues. Golden
gleams above your head attract you to the domed
ceiling, and, to your delight and amazement, you
discover that it is formed entirely of gold mosaic.
You are passing a dim recess, and you see a
blurred mass of rich colour; after a time you
realise that you are looking at a famous masterpiece
by one of the great Italian painters. You
sit there as in a dream; and one by one the
pictures and the mosaics, the Gothic images, the
cupolas, the arches, the marbles, the alabaster,
the porphyry, and the jasper appear to you—until
what was darkness and gloom appears to be teeming
and vibrating with colour.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-226" id="i-226"></a>
<img src="images/i-226.jpg" width="432" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">FRANCESCA</p>
</div>
<p>St. Mark's carries one away from the everyday
world. On the ignorant and the uninitiated it has
a marvellous effect. Men and women and children
flock to it by the thousands daily. Many and
fervent are the worshippers one sees praying before
some special saint or beloved Madonna. Some are
weeping, and others kneel for hours on the cold
stones. The unhappy people of Venice have
many sins and sorrows, and there is much that is
comforting to them in this rich, majestic church.
The fainting spirit is revived and the most desperate
person stimulated as he looks about him at the
sparkling mosaic roof, the rich walls, and the
dimly burning lamps. There is much in precious
stones, music, sculptured figures, in pictures of
heaven and hell, that appeals to these people. An
infinite and pitiful God somewhere about them,
these peasants of poor imaginations cannot understand.
They want a faith that they can cling to—almost
something that they can finger and touch.
St. Mark's is to the poor of Venice like a beautifully
illustrated Bible. There, in the cupolas, the
story of the Old Testament is presented in mosaic,
plainly for every eye to see, for the youngest and
least educated to understand. It touches them,
and appeals to them, and keeps their faith burning
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
bright and clear. There they have the seven days
of creation represented,—mysterious, weird, and
primitive,—discs of gold and silver representing
the sun and the moon. There are the Tree of
Knowledge, the Temptation, the Fall, and the
Expulsion from Paradise. Then comes the slaying
of Abel by Cain, Adam and Eve tilling the ground.
There is a strange mosaic of the Ark, with the
animals going in two by two on a background of
gold; there are the stories of Abraham, of Joseph,
and of Moses, all quaintly executed, full of detail
and without regard to anatomy. There is no
struggle to imitate Nature, and the colouring is
good.</p>
<p>In the time when St. Mark's was built there were
no cheap Bibles, and, if there had been any, the
poorer classes could not have read them. Thus
the great Church was an endless boon to them, one
which could never be quite exhausted. Many and
splendid are the lessons these mosaics and pictures
taught and continue to teach. The mysteries and
beauties of the Bible are impressed upon the mind
in a manner that cannot be effaced. All the
virtues are there—Temperance quenching fire with
water; Charity, mother of the virtues, and the
last attained in human life; Patience; Modesty;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
Chastity; Prudence; Lowliness of Thought,
Kindness, and Compassion; and Love which is
Stronger than Death. These lessons the Venetians
have continually before them, to help them to bear
the troubles of this world, and giving them hope
for the peace of another. Most of the pictures in
mosaic are typically Byzantine, mainly symbolical
and of the first school of design in Venice. Upon
these pictures the people of Venice live and thrive
spiritually: the pleasure is real and pure. Colour
has a great influence upon the emotions, just as
music has; and colour was used in the earliest
times to stimulate devotion and repentance.
There are pictures in which the most profound
emotion is expressed. When one sees the pictures
of Christ's life and passion, one cannot but be
touched.</p>
<p>By the medium of paintings in the churches,
people began to understand and appreciate art, and
to feel the need of it in their homes. Not only
is St. Mark's an education to the poor and the
ignorant: it is also an education to the student
and to the artist. Here you have pictures of the
nation of fishermen at their greatest period; also
you find legends splendidly told, such as the story
of the two merchants who brought the bones of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
St. Mark from Alexandria under cover of pork,
crying "Swine! swine!" You see the priests,
the Doge, and the people of Venice as they were
in the days of her power.</p>
<p>In one of the dim corners of St. Mark's is a
statue of an old man on crutches with a finger on
his lip. This is a Byzantine architect who was
sent to Pietro Orseolo from Constantinople, as the
cleverest Eastern builder of his time, to construct
St. Mark's Church. He was a bow-legged dwarf,
and undertook to build this marvellous edifice,
unequalled in its beauty, on condition that a statue
of himself should be placed in a conspicuous position
in the Church. This was arranged. One day
the Doge overheard the architect say that he could
not execute the work in the way he had intended.
"Then," said Orseolo, "I am absolved from my
promise"; and he merely erected a small statue of
the architect in a corner of the Church.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-234" id="i-234"></a>
<img src="images/i-234.jpg" width="550" height="428" alt="" />
<p class="caption">ST. MARK'S PIAZZA</p>
</div>
<p>Think of the makers of St. Mark's—the great
men who worked together with brains and hands to
make her what she is! The army of artists, painting,
designing, sculpturing, one after the other from
generation to generation in this great cathedral!
Titian, Tintoretto, Palma, Pilotto, Salviati, and
Sebastian were among the painters whose designs
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
were used for the mosaics; Bozza, Vincenzo,
Bianchini, and Passerini, among the master
mosaicists; Pietro Lombardo, Alberghetti, and
Massegna, among the sculptors. Then, the other
thousands, all men of extraordinary talent, of
whom astonishingly little is known, fervent
workers! Throughout eight centuries they
worked, and with what care and skill and
patience! At what a cost, too, these masterpieces
must have been achieved! Think of the
temples and the quarries that have been robbed of
their gold, and of the marbles, the alabaster, and
the porphyry. All the saints and prophets and
martyrs are there; the stories of the Virgin, of the
Passion, and of Calvary; all the scenes from the
Old and New Testaments.</p>
<p>The early Venetians seem to have revelled in
colour and in rich materials. The builders laid on
the richest colour and the most brilliant jewels they
could find. They were exiles from ancient and
beautiful cities, and when they succeeded in war
their first thought was to bring home shiploads of
precious materials. Just as the Egyptians, the
Greeks, and the Arabs had an intense love of colour,
so had the early Venetians, who used precious
stones in great abundance, even in their own
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
private houses. A most extraordinary thing is
that there is nothing vulgar about the costliness of
St. Mark's. Although both inside and out it is
rich beyond words, rich in precious stones, rich in
every way, the building is full of reserve. There
is no ostentation, no vulgarity. The jewels used
in its construction do not for one moment interfere
with one's sense of the beautiful, or with
reverence and religion. They simply give a rare
luxurious feeling to the place, and in the ignorant
inspire respect for a Church thus encased and
honoured with the richest in the land.</p>
<p>Then, again, the jewels do not form a principal
part of the ornamentation. One looks first at the
exquisite workmanship; and afterwards are noticed
the precious materials, which form a subordinate
part and do not interfere with the design. It is
almost as though a veil had been swept over the
whole building, both inside and out, bringing
together this wealth of colour and forming it into
a complete whole. It has the effect of a marvellous
glaze—of a picture that has had a thin glaze
swept over it. Wherever you look, the Church
teems with colour; but it seems to be piercing
through a veil. It is not vivid positive colour, but
colour breaking through a skin. In the East I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
have seen millions of pounds' worth of jewels in
one heap, with the sun shining on them, and I was
overpowered with this wealth, I was inspired with
their costliness;—but St. Mark's does not affect you
at all in this way. Rich man and peasant are alike
in this respect: they are elevated and stimulated
in that building, not because of its costliness, but
because of its extreme beauty. The technique is
marvellous, but not obvious: the moment you are
conscious of technique you may be sure that the
work is poor. You never wonder how St. Mark's
was built; and that is the highest tribute to the
marvellous arts which it expresses.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-240" id="i-240"></a>
<img src="images/i-240.jpg" width="422" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">SCUOLA DI SAN MARCO</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-246" id="i-246"></a>
<img src="images/i-246.jpg" width="434" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A QUIET WATERWAY</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span></p>
<h2>PAINTERS OF THE
RENAISSANCE</h2>
<p>One of the chief characteristics of the Venetian
school of painters, and one of the most attractive
to all art lovers, is their great appreciation of
colour. In most of their work colour seems to
be the chief motive. Pictures by Venetian
painters never suggest drawings. They strike
you not as having been coloured afterwards, but
as having been painted essentially for the colour.
One sees this throughout the whole school. And
in their paintings they do not go to extremes.
There is no exaggeration in their colouring. They
do not err, as do so many schools, either on the
foxy-red side or on the cold steely colouring. Unfortunately,
much of the beautiful colouring of
these pictures is lost by age. One has to become
accustomed to that ugly brown skin which has
formed upon the surface before one can realise
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>
what great colourists these early Venetians really
were. The pictures somehow cause one to resent
oil as a medium. One realises how different they
must have looked when fresh from the easel, and
wishes that these great masters could have painted
with a medium more lasting—as did the Chinese,
whose works are as young and fresh now as if
they had been painted yesterday: the years have
left no trace whatever: the simple colouring is the
same to-day as it was a hundred years ago. Many
of the earlier paintings, those of the Gothic
Venetians, the less-known men, are a good deal
better preserved. Their canvasses have not turned
black; the glazings have not departed; and there
is no smoky film upon them, as in the case of the
works of the great masters, such as Titian, Tintoretto,
and Giovanni Bellini, men who came a hundred
years afterwards. It may very possibly be that
the pigment which painters used then was purer
and less adulterated. Certainly one sees in the
various schools all over the world that the older
the pictures are the better preserved they are.
Age never improves a picture—unless, indeed,
it is an extremely bad one, when time serves as
a thin veil.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-254" id="i-254"></a>
<img src="images/i-254.jpg" width="430" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CANAL PRIULI</p>
</div>
<p>Undoubtedly these great colourists, the Venetians,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
influenced the various schools of painters all over the
world, and are still influencing them. Originally they
worked for the churches, and colour was used exactly
as music was used—to appeal to the senses, to the
emotions: to influence the people, to teach them
biblical stories and parables. It also educated the
people to understand painting and to feel the need
of it in their daily lives.</p>
<p>At about this time the Renaissance began to
express itself, not only in poetry and other
literature, but also in paintings; and it found
clearer utterance in Venice than elsewhere. The
conditions at this time were perfect for the
development of art. Venice at that period lent
herself to art. She was at peace with the whole
world, and she was prosperous. The people were
joyous, gay, and light-hearted. They longed for
everything that made life pleasant. Naturally,
they wanted colour. And Venice was not affected
by that wave of science which swept over the
rest of Italy. The Venetians were not at all
absorbed in literature and archæology. They
wanted merely to be joyous. This was an ideal
atmosphere for the painter. Such a condition of
things could not but create a fine artistic period.
The painter is not concerned with science and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
learning, or should not be. Such a condition of
mind would result in feeble, academical work—in
struggling to tell a story with his medium,
instead of producing a beautiful design. That is
partly why the Venetian school has had such a
strong influence on art, even until the present
day. The conditions were perfect for the development
of art, because the patrons were capable of
appreciating beautiful form and beautiful colour.
Because the public would have it, this new school
of painters appeared. The demand was created,
and the supply came.</p>
<p>There was undoubtedly great friction among the
painters of this period, exactly as there has been
lately with the modern impressionists and the
academic painters. Some of the old Venetians
resented the new school that was springing up;
but they had eventually to bend and try to paint
in sympathy with the senses and emotion of their
patrons. You find this new mode of thought
expressed strongly even in the churches and in
the treatment of religious subjects. The old
ideals were altered. Men no longer painted
saints and Madonnas as mild, attenuated people.
The figures were lifelike and full of actuality.
The women were Venetian women of the period
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
dressed in splendid robes and dignified; the men
were healthy, full-blooded, and joyous. Florence,
however, at this particular period was undergoing
quite a different mood. The Florentines preferred
to express themselves in poetry and in prose.
That was the language the masses understood.
Painting was not popular. There has always been
a literary atmosphere about Florence, and one
feels it there to this day; it is essentially the
city for the student.</p>
<p>When painting became so much a vogue in
Venice, painters began to try and perfect the art in
every possible way. They struggled for actuality.
Art began to develop in the direction of realism.
The Venetians wanted form and colour in their
pictures; but they wanted also a suggestion of
distance and atmosphere. In those early pictures
you find that painters smeared their distance to
give it a blurred look. That was the beginning of
perspective. Painters of this period seem to have
been marvellously modern. They were quite in
the movement. There has never been any
attempt at harking back to earlier periods.</p>
<p>Venice was very wealthy at this time, and
Venetian people never missed an opportunity of
parading wealth. They loved glory where the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
State was concerned, and encouraged pageantry
by both land and sea. They loved to see Doge
and senators in their gorgeous robes, either on the
piazza or on the Grand Canal. Then there came
a demand for painted records of these processions
and ceremonials. All this was encouraged by
the State for political reasons. Pageantry entertained
the people, and at the same time made
them less inquisitive. Much better, these great
officials argued, that the people should be enjoying
things in this way than that they should begin to
inquire into the doings of the State. Gentile
Bellini and Carpaccio were the first pageant
painters of the period. Paolo Veronese, who came
much later, also loved pageantry, elevated it to
the height of serious art, and idealised prosaic
magnificence. He painted great banquets, and
combined ceremony, splendour, and worldliness
with childlike naturalness and simplicity.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-262" id="i-262"></a>
<img src="images/i-262.jpg" width="431" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">OSMARIN CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>First of all, as has been shown, it was the Church
that called for pictures—to represent their saints
and to enforce biblical legends. Painting became
more and more popular. People became more
and more educated to understand painting, until
at last they wanted their domestic and social lives
depicted. Also they wanted to hang these pictures
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
in their homes. Pictures were neither so rare nor
so expensive in those days as they are now, and
people could afford to buy them—even the lower
and the middle classes. Immediately there sprang
up painters who satisfied the demand. In those
days there were no academies and no salons wherein
artists fought to outdo one another as to the size
and eccentricity of their pictures; there were no
vulgar struggles of that kind. Painters simply
supplied to the best of their ability the wants of
the people. Naturally, the public required small
pictures, suitable to the size of their houses.
Therefore, they needed gay and beautiful colour,
and pictures in which the subjects did not obtrude
themselves forcibly. Thus, in the natural course of
events pageantry found less favour, and pictures
of social and domestic life found more. Religious
subjects were rather deserted. By the aid of books
people could learn all the stories of the Bible.
Besides, they were not at that period in a devotional
or contrite mood. They were too happy and full
of life to feel any pressing need for religion.</p>
<p>Painting took much the same position with the
Venetians as music has with us now. The fashion
for triumphal marches and the clashing of cymbals
in processional pictures had died out, and the vogue
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
of symphonies and sonatas had come in. No one
at that time seemed quite capable of satisfying the
public taste. Carpaccio, whose subtle yet brilliant
colouring would have exactly suited it, never
undertook these subjects. Giovanni Bellini attempted
them; but his style was too severe for
the gaiety of the period.</p>
<p>However, there was not long to wait. Soon
appeared a man who told the public what they
wanted and gave it to them. He swept away conventions
and revolutionised art all over the world.
He was a genius—Giorgione. Pupil of Bellini
and Carpaccio, he combined the qualities of both.
When he was quite a youth painters all over the
world followed his methods. Curiously enough,
there are not a dozen of this great master's works
preserved at the present day. The bulk of them
were frescoes which long ago disappeared. The
few that remain are quite enough to make one
realise what a great master he was. The picture
which most appeals to me is an altar-piece of the
Virgin and Child at Castelfranco. It is painted
in the pure Giorgione spirit. St. George in armour
is at one side, resting on a spear which seems
to be coming right out of the picture; while
on the other side there is a monk, and in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
background are a banner of rich brocade and a
small landscape.</p>
<p>The Renaissance, the rejuvenation of art, seems
to have slowly developed until at length it culminated
in Giorgione. He was the man who
opened the door, the one great modern genius of
his period, whose influence remains and is felt to
this day. Velasquez would never have been known
but for Giorgione. Imagine this young man with
his new ideas and his sweeps of golden colouring
suddenly appearing in a studio full of men, all
painting in the correct severe style established at
the period. Such a man must needs influence all
his fellows. Even Giovanni Bellini, the Watts of
his day, acknowledged the young man's genius, and
almost unconsciously began to mingle Giorgione's
style with his own. We cannot realise what they
meant at that period—these new ideas of Giorgione.
He created just as much of a "furore" as when
Benvenuto Cellini, in his sculpture, allowed a limb
to hang over the edge of a pedestal. He needed
this to complete his design. Since then almost
everyone that has modelled has hung a limb over a
pedestal. But Benvenuto Cellini started this new
era. So, in much the same sort of way, did
Giorgione. He cut away from convention, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
introduced landscape as backgrounds to his figure
subjects. He was the first to get actuality and
movement in the arrangement of drapery. The
Venetian public had long been waiting, though unconsciously,
for this work; and Giorgione was so
well in touch with the needs of the people that the
moment he gave them what they wanted they
would take nothing else.</p>
<p>In the work of Giorgione the Renaissance finds
its most genuine expression. It is the Renaissance
at its height. Both Giorgione and Titian were
village boys brought to Venice by their parents and
placed under the care of Giovanni Bellini to learn
art. They must have been of very much the same
age. It is interesting to watch the career of these
boys—the two different natures—the impulsiveness
of the one and the plodding perseverance of the
other. Giorgione shot like a meteor early and
bright into the world of art, scattering the clouds
in the firmament, bold, crowding the work and the
pleasure of a lifetime in a few short years. His
work was a delight to him, and life itself was full
of everything that was beautiful. He was surrounded
always by a multitude of admiring comrades,
imitating him and urging him on. Giorgione
was ever restless and impetuous by nature. When
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
commissions flagged and he had no particular work
in hand, he took to painting the outside of his own
house. He cared not a whit for convention. He
followed his own tastes and his own feelings. He
converted his home into a glow of crimson and
gold,—great forms starting up along the walls,
sweet cherub boys, fables of Greece and Rome,—a
dazzling confusion of brilliant tints and images.
Think how this palace must have appeared reflected
in the waters of the Canal! Unfortunately, the
sun and the wind fought with this masterly canvas,
conquered, and bore all these beautiful things
away. Indeed, many of Giorgione's works were
frescoes, and the sea air swept away much of the
glory of his life. His career was brief but gay, full
of work and full of colour. This impetuous painter
died in the very heyday of his success. Some say
he died of grief at being deserted by a lady whom
he loved; others that he caught the plague.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-270" id="i-270"></a>
<img src="images/i-270.jpg" width="355" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A SOTTO PORTICO</p>
</div>
<p>Of what a different nature was Titian! He
studied in the same bottega as Giorgione, and was
brought up under much the same conditions. But
he was a patient worker, absorbing the knowledge
of everyone about him, ever learning and experimenting;
never completing. He did not think
of striking off on a new line, of executing bold and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
original work. He wanted to master not one side
of painting but all sides. He waited until his
knowledge should be complete before he declared
himself, before he really accomplished anything.
He absorbed the new principles of his comrade
Giorgione, as he absorbed everything else that was
good, with unerring instinct and steady power.
Titian was never led away in any one direction.
He was always open to any new suggestion. As
it happened, it was just as well that Titian worked
thus at his leisure, and Giorgione with haste and
fever. Titian had ninety-nine years to live; Giorgione
had but thirty-four. There is an interesting
anecdote told by Vasari with regard to these two
young men. They were both at work on the
painting of a large building, the Fondaco dei
Tedeschi; Titian painting the wall facing the
street, and Giorgione the side towards the canal.
Several gentlemen, not knowing which was the
particular work of either artist, went one day to
inspect the building, and declared that the wall
facing the Merceria far excelled in beauty that of
the river front. Giorgione was so indignant at this
slight that he declared that he would neither see
nor speak to Titian again.</p>
<p>Titian does not seem to have been very much
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
appreciated by his patrons at the beginning of
his career. He inspired no affection. He was
acknowledged as the greatest of all the young
painters; but the Republic, it would seem, was
never very proud of the man who did her so much
credit and added so greatly to her fame. Even
although the noise of his genius was echoed all
over the world,—although the great Emperor
himself stooped to pick up his brush, declaring
that a Titian might well be served by a Cæsar,—although
Charles the Fifth sat to him repeatedly,
and maintained that he was the only painter whom
he would care to honour,—the Venetians do not
seem to have been greatly enamoured of him.
Perhaps it was that they missed the soul, the
purity and grace and devotion, of the pictures of
Bellini and Carpaccio. Certainly, as far as one
can judge, he did not have a prepossessing nature.
He was shifty in his dealings with his patrons and
unfaithful in his promises. He seems to have
belonged to a corrupt and luxurious society.
Pietro Aretino had a very bad influence on Titian.
He taught him to intrigue, to flatter, to betray.
Aretino was a base-born adventurer for whom no
historian seems to have a good word. He was,
however, a man of wit and dazzling cleverness,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
with a touch of real genius. Aretino corresponded
with all the most cultured men of his time, and
he had the power of making those whom he chose
famous. It was he who introduced Titian to
Charles the Fifth.</p>
<p>Titian's pictures were much more saleable in
foreign courts than in his own country. Abroad
they did not seem to have the lack of soul which
the Venetians so greatly deplored. It was the old
case of the prophet having no honour in his own
country. Certainly in the art of portraiture Titian
has never been surpassed. At that period he had
the field completely to himself. Nothing could
have been more magnificent than Titian's portraits.
They help to record the history of the age. It
was in Titian's power to confer upon his subjects
the splendour that they loved, handing them down
to posterity as heroes and learned persons. His
men were all noble, worthy to be senators and
emperors, no coxcombs or foolish gallants. Titian
was more at home in pictures of this kind than
in religious subjects. His Madonnas are without
significance; his Holy Families give no message
of blessing to the world.</p>
<p>In the prime of his life he moved from his
workshops to a noble and luxurious palace in San
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
Cassiano, facing the wide lagoon and the islands.
All trace of it has disappeared, and homes of the
poor cover the garden where the best company of
Venice was once entertained. It is said that Titian
gave the gayest parties and suppers—that he entertained
the most regal guests. Nevertheless,
although made a knight and a count, and a
favourite at most of the courts in Europe, he was
greatly disliked by the Venetian Signoria, who in
the midst of his famous supper-parties called upon
him to demand that he should execute a certain
work for which he had received the money long
before. He seems to have been exceedingly grasping—a
strange trait in the character of a painter.
One sees throughout his correspondence, until the
end of his life, a certain desire and demand for
money. Undoubtedly he often painted merely for
money alone, turning out a sacred picture one day
and a Venus the next with equal impartiality.
Anything, it was said, could have been got out of
Titian for money. The Venetians never loved
Titian's works, though foreign princes adored them.
He seems to have laboured, until the end of his
life, more from love of gain than from necessity.
He was buried at the Frari, carried thither in great
haste by order of the Signoria,—for it was at the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
time of the plague, when other victims were taken
to the outlying islands and put in the earth
unnamed.</p>
<p>Somehow, in reading the life of Titian one is
brought right away to the twentieth century.
Here is the painter with the attendant journalist,
Pietro Aretino, the boomer. Aretino was a
journalist, the first. He took Titian in hand and
"ran" him for all he was worth. Had it not been
for this system of booming, Titian would probably
not have been well known during his lifetime. In
the Academy of the Fine Arts one can trace by
his pictures a splendid historical record of Titian's
life, and can see plainly the changes in popular
feeling and their effect upon his work. For very
many years he lived and painted constantly, and
then was killed by the plague!</p>
<p>There is a picture painted by him when he was
fourteen years of age—a picture which contains all
the qualities, in the germ, of his later work: marvellous
architecture, pomp, yet great simplicity and
luminous colour. Here also is the last picture he
ever painted—at the age of ninety-nine. Think of
the interval between the two! It is sombre, pious.
There is something pathetic about it. This great
painter, whose work showed such fury, audacity,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
vehemence,—the man who had always the sun on
his palette—was now painting mildly, carefully,
obviously with the shadow of approaching death
upon him.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-280" id="i-280"></a>
<img src="images/i-280.jpg" width="427" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A NARROW CANAL</p>
</div>
<p>A marvellous picture by Titian hangs in the
Academy of the Fine Arts. It is considered to
be one of his finest pictures—the masterpiece of all
his masterpieces—the eye of the peacock, as it were.
This picture was neglected for many years, hidden
away in an obscure portion of a church, and covered
with a thick layer of cobwebs and dust. The
custodian had almost forgotten the subject of the
picture and the name of the painter. One day a
certain Count Cicogna happened to visit the church.
Being a great connoisseur and lover of art, he
noticed this picture, and could not resist moistening
his finger and rubbing it over a portion of the
canvas. To his amazement, this portion emerged
young and fresh, and as highly coloured as when it
left the painter's hands—a picture bearing upon it
the unmistakable stamp of Titian's genius! The
delight of the Count can be imagined. He
suggested to the custodian, with great care and
tact, that he would present to the church a bran-new
glossy picture, very large, of some religious
subject; and mentioned in a casual way that they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
might give him the dilapidated old picture as a
slight return. This was the Assunta. It was
painted for the church of the Frari. Fra Marco
Jerman, the head of the convent, ordered it at
his own expense. Many a time when the work
was in progress he and all the ignorant brethren
visited the painter's studio and criticised his picture,
grumbling and shaking their heads, and wondering
whether it would be good enough to be accepted,
whether it would be sneered at when uncovered
before all Venice. They undoubtedly thought
that they had done a rash thing in engaging him.
Think of the agony of Titian, hindered by these
ignorant men, being forced to explain elaborately
that the figures were not too large, that they must
needs be in proportion to the space! It was not
until the envoy of the Emperor had seen the
picture and declared it to be a masterpiece, offering
a large sum of money for its purchase, that the
Frari understood its value, and decided that, as
the buying and selling of pictures was not in their
profession, they had better keep it.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-286" id="i-286"></a>
<img src="images/i-286.jpg" width="550" height="430" alt="" />
<p class="caption">BRIDGE NEAR THE PALAZZO LABIA</p>
</div>
<p>Tintoretto painted, according to the popular
feeling of his period, for the good of mankind.
This we certainly owe to the Renaissance—the
desire to benefit mankind, and not only men
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
individually. Tintoretto felt this strongly. One
sees not only the effect of this new era of thought
in his work: one sees also human life at the base
of it. Tintoretto worked for the good of mankind,
and his work throbs with humanity. There was
atmosphere, reality, in it. He was, it is true, a
pupil of Titian; but it was Michael Angelo whose
works had the greatest attraction for him. He
loved Angelo's overwhelming power and gigantic
force. Tintoretto's pictures seem to possess much
of the glowing colour of Titian; but he paid greater
attention to chiaroscuro. He seems to have had
the power of lowering the tone of a sky to suit his
composition of light and shade. His conception of
the human form was colossal. His work showed a
wide sweep and power. He turned to religion,
not because it was a duty, but because it answered
the needs of the human heart—because it helped
him to forget the mean and sordid side of life,
braced him to his work, and consoled him in his
days of despair. The Bible was not to him a
cut-and-dried document concerning the Christian
religion, but a series of beautiful parables pointing
to a finer life. Then, Tintoretto asked himself,
Why keep to the old forms and the old ideals?
Why should the saints and biblical people be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
represented as Romans, walking in a Roman background?
He himself thought of them as people
of his own kind, and painted them as such. Thus,
he argued, people became more familiar with the
Bible, more readily understood it.</p>
<p>Tintoretto painted portraits not only of Venetians,
but also of foreign princes. Although he painted
with tremendous rapidity, the demand was greater
than the supply. His paintings were popular.
They gave pleasure to the eye, and stimulated the
emotions. He painted people at their best, in
glowing health and full of life. Under his marvellous
brush old men became vigorous and full-blooded.
His pictures give the same sort of
pleasure as one finds in looking upon a casket of
jewels—they are just as deathless in their brilliancy.
The portrait that the popular taste called forth in
Titian's day was just about as unlike the typical
modern portrait as you could possibly imagine,—the
colourless, cold, unsympathetic portrait of the
fish-eyed mayor in his robes.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-292" id="i-292"></a>
<img src="images/i-292.jpg" width="375" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE HOUSE WITH THE BLUE DOOR</p>
</div>
<p>At the age of fifteen, Jacopo Robusti—tintoretto,
the little dyer—was brought by his father,
Battista Robusti, to the studio of the great painter
Titian. There he stayed for a little while, until
one day Titian came across, in his bottega, some
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
drawings that showed promise. On discovering
that they were from the hand of Jacopo, he sent
the boy away. Young as he was, Tintoretto had
all the arrogance of the well-to-do citizen. He
would brook no man's No, and would not yield
his own pretensions for the greatest genius in
Christendom. He did not need money: he was
independent: and he started boldly to teach himself.
Boiling with rage at the affront Titian had
put upon him, he was determined to make a career
for himself. He studied the works of Michael
Angelo and of Titian, and inscribed upon his studio
wall, so that his ambition might always be before
his eyes, "Il desegno di Michael Angelo, e' il
colorito di Titiano." He studied casts of ancient
marbles, and made designs of them by the light of
a lamp, in order to gain a strong effect of shadow.
Also, he copied the pictures of Titian. Seeking,
by every means in his power, to educate himself, he
modelled figures of wax and plaster, upon which
he hung his drapery. And always, whether painting
by night or by day, he arranged his lights so as
to have everything in high relief. Tintoretto's
inventions for teaching himself were endless.
Often he visited the painters' benches in the piazza
of St. Mark's, where the poor men of the profession
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
worked at painting chests and furniture of all kinds.
In those days there were too many painters. The
profession was overdone. Many young men who
had real genius worked at the benches. Titian was
the great man at the moment, and Palma Vecchio.
But Tintoretto did not care. He forced his work
down men's throats—gave it to them for nothing
if they would not pay for it. He was always ready
with his brush, and would paint anything from an
organ to an altar-piece. He worked like a giant,
with tremendous sweep and power; no subject was
too great or too laborious; and always he had a
desire to do his best.</p>
<p>Tintoretto would not be trifled with or condescended
to. He would not have his work under-valued,
and would allow no patrician, not even a
prince, to play the patron to him. He was determined
not to be set aside. He flung his pictures
at people's heads, and insisted on undertaking any
great piece of work there was to do. Thus,
Tintoretto's pictures are to be seen everywhere in
Venice—in almost every church, every council-hall,
every humble chapel, every parish church, every
sacristy. He neglected no opportunity to make
his work known. He worked with extraordinary
rapidity. Whenever Tintoretto came across a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
fine fair wall he prevailed upon the master-mason
to allow him to paint it. A fifty-foot space he
would cover with avidity, asking nothing for his
work but the cost of the material, giving his time
and labour as a gift.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-298" id="i-298"></a>
<img src="images/i-298.jpg" width="550" height="439" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CANAL IN GIUDECCA ISLAND</p>
</div>
<p>Portraiture was the outcome of realism, and one
of the most important discoveries of the Renaissance.
People began to feel that they wanted not
only their affluence in possessions, but also their
own individual faces and features, handed down to
posterity. Thus portraiture began to creep in.
At first it appeared in the churches under cover of
saints and Madonnas; gradually it became possible
to distinguish one from another—it was not always
the same face. Painters took models from life as
their saints. But portraiture in painting was very
slow in reaching perfection. Sculpture had accomplished
that long before; now that the latest
craze was for portraiture, it was the sculptors who
were the most prepared to take it up, and stepped
forward to execute commissions. They had plenty
of material in the way of old Roman coins and
busts. Donatello and Vittore Pisano were the two
men who first offered to satisfy the new want.
Donatello executed marvellous studies of character,
and Pisano medals such as have never been seen
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
before or since. But even these men, fine as their
work undoubtedly was, felt that the public could
not long remain satisfied merely with the sculptured
portrait. They must have colour. Donatello,
therefore, began to stain and colour his busts,
showing that painting, not sculpture, was to be
the portrait art of the Renaissance. Vittore Pisano
also gave up his sculpture, and turned his attention
to portrait-painting; but he was only an
amateur in this direction, and did not meet with
much success. No portrait-painter of any merit
was produced in that generation. The idea was
entirely new. Men had not had sufficient time in
which to study the human face. The next generation
ushered in Mantegna, who painted a marvellous
portrait of Cardinal Sciramo; but he went too
far in the other direction. He painted his man as
he was—as he saw him, line for line. He painted
the soul and heart of him—and the soul and
the heart were black. Venice was revolted with
such a portrait. It seemed indeed indecent that a
man's character should be laid bare in such a way.
It was a picture they did not care to hang in the
Council Chamber, a picture that was unpleasant to
live with. The Cardinal belonged to the State.
His honour was their honour, and it must not be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
defiled. The Venetians came to the conclusion
that portraits must be painted not in full-face but
in profile. Thus the characteristics of a man, if
they be not pleasant, do not come out clearly.
This accounts for the number of profile portraits.
The age wanted an agreeable portrait. This
Giorgione provided. He realised that the treatment
must always be bright, joyous, romantic.
His followers trod in his footsteps: the master's
style was too strong and pronounced to be much
deviated from. Giorgione seems to have reached
the topmost height of art at that period. Even
Titian, for a generation after his death, followed in
Giorgione's lines; only, Titian's work was a little
more sober, a little less sunny. He had the sense
to see that Giorgione had expanded the old rule
and done something worth adopting, and for a
time he simply followed this joyful outburst. His
early years fell at a time when life was glowing,
radiant, almost intoxicating in its vigour. But
youth and joy cannot last; nor could the Renaissance
spirit. Gradually the trouble and the strife
from which the whole of Italy was suffering
filtered into Venice, and cast a serious aspect over
art and social life. Venice, of all the states in
Italy, was the last to feel this sobering influence.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
She had been defeated both in battle and in commerce;
and, although she was not totally crushed
under the heel of Spain, life was not the endless
holiday it promised to be. Men took themselves
more seriously, and the quieter pleasures of
friendship and affection began to be more sought
after. Religion revived in importance. Men
clung to it, as they always do in time of trouble,
for comfort and support. It was no longer a
political sentiment, but a personal one. Art declined
as the sunshine and the gaiety that had fed
and nourished it ebbed away. When men began
to feel that individually they were of no avail, that
they were subject to the powers round about and
above them, the death-blow of great art fell.
Titian was influenced by his environment, and
his painting changed completely. He produced
pictures that would have been looked upon with
scorn in his earlier days. The faces of his men are
no longer smooth and free from care. One saw
there struggle and suffering, and all that life had
done for them. But Titian was not a pessimist at
heart. The joy and gaiety in which he had been
brought up formed part of his character. Whatever
changes may have happened to his country
politically, nothing could alter that entirely. And
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
it was no doubt this early training and the
atmosphere in which he was brought up that
made his pictures the masterpieces they were.
You notice the men who came after Titian—how
they began to decline. For example, Lorenzo
Lotto had been brought up in the heyday of the
Renaissance; but the new order of things, the
change from national virility to national decadence,
enfeebled him. Then, again, the coming in touch
with poets and men of letters, victims flying from
the fury of Spain, was a new stimulant to art.
It did not exactly improve it; but it certainly
changed it.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-306" id="i-306"></a>
<img src="images/i-306.jpg" width="550" height="433" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE ORANGE SAIL</p>
</div>
<p>A fine period of painting does not come in a
day, nor does it end in a day; and, although the
universal interest in the Venetian school dies with
Titian and Tintoretto, it does not die unnoticed.
The torch of art flickered up many times in Venice
before it was finally extinguished. The men who
came immediately after Tintoretto had not the
strength to start off on any new lines. They
simply fell back on variations of the earlier masters,
showing much of the masters' weaknesses, but few
of their great qualities. Some even were so inartistic
as to attempt to pass off their pictures, on
ignorant people, as Titians and Giorgiones. However,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
before the Republic disappeared there were
two or three men who took the first rank
among the painters of the period, provincial artists,
men whose art was sufficiently like her own to be
readily understood, such as Paul Veronese. The
provinces were not declining so rapidly as Venice
was. They were less troubled by the approaching
storm. Men there led simple, healthy lives;
Spanish manners were long in reaching the provinces,
and, when they did, the people were slow
to succumb. Men in the provinces had stamina,
simplicity, and courage with which to meet the
new order of things. They combined ceremony
and splendour with childlike naturalness. Consequently,
the works of Paul Veronese delighted
the Venetians. The more fashionable and ceremonious
private life in the city became, the more
were the people charmed with his simple rendering.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-312" id="i-312"></a>
<img src="images/i-312.jpg" width="440" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A QUIET RIO</p>
</div>
<p>Gradually the taste of the Venetians turned
towards pictures in humble quarters—in the provincial
towns and in the country. In the Middle
Ages the country was so upset that it was not safe
for people to venture out of the city; but with the
advance of civilisation this state of affairs was
altered. People began to delight in country life.
The aristocracy took villas in the provinces, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
the poorer people wanted representations of them
in their houses. The painters of the period, Palma
and Bonifacio, began to add pastoral backgrounds
to their works. But the first great landscape
painter was Jacopo Bassano. His treatment of
light and atmosphere was masterly, and his colouring
was jewel-like and brilliant. It was Bassano
who started that great Spanish school which
was to culminate in Velasquez. Venice did not
produce many great painters in the eighteenth
century—only three or four. The city itself
remained unchanged: it was just as beautiful, still
the most beautiful and luxurious city in the world:
it was the people who changed. They became
apathetic, placid, and drifting, perfectly contented
with one another and with their lots in life, never
trying to better themselves in any way. There
were no difficulties, no problems to be solved.
People were just as gay as they were serious, just
as much interested in paintings as they were in
politics. This was a vegetable period.</p>
<p>It is strange that such a demoralising time should
have seen the rise of a great master; but it
certainly saw him in Canaletto. That artist
differed from nearly all the Venetian painters in
that he had complete mastery of technique. His
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
work is just as fine technically as that of Velasquez
or that of Rembrandt. It shows marvellous dexterity
and power. He understood his materials
better than any other Venetian painter—better
even than Giorgione.</p>
<p>Guardi and Tiepolo followed Canaletto. In
Tiepolo's work especially you realise the character
of these eighteenth-century people. At that time
Venice was sliding downhill rapidly. Her people
were aping dignity. They dressed extravagantly,
not so much for the love of colour and splendour
as for swagger. They were degenerating rapidly.
Here and there lesser masters appeared; but
Venetian art became poorer and poorer, until it
reached the condition of the present day, when in
Venice there is no art at all. The kind of work
which the people appreciate sickens and saddens
you—those sunlit photographs glazed with blue
to counterfeit moonlight, and tricky, vicious water-colours,—brutal
pictures with metallic reflections
and cobalt skies,—all wonderfully alike, all with
the same orange sail, and all equally untrue.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-318" id="i-318"></a>
<img src="images/i-318.jpg" width="550" height="426" alt="" />
<p class="caption">HUMBLE QUARTERS</p>
</div>
<p>Year by year painters continue to paint Venice
without the public showing signs of weariness.
Perhaps the failure of the artists to reproduce the
undying charm of that dazzling jewel of cities is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
both the excuse and the reason for the pertinacity
of the tribe. Womanlike, she eludes them; manlike,
they pursue. Few have seen the real Venice,
the Venice of Ruskin and Turner and Whistler.
Venice is not for the cold-blooded spectator, for
the amateur or the art dabbler: she is for the
enthusiastic colourist and painter, the man who
sees, and does not merely look.</p>
<p>Sir Edward Burne-Jones was wont to declare
that to paint Venice as she should be painted one
must needs live for three thousand years: the first
thousand should be devoted to experiments in
various media; the second to producing works and
destroying them; the third to completing slowly
the labour of centuries. He would never have
dreamed of spending a painting holiday beyond
Italy—that is, unless he had been permitted to live
for over five thousand years; and even then, it was
his firm opinion, no man could paint St. Mark's,
which was unpaintable—mere pigment could not
suggest it.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-324" id="i-324"></a>
<img src="images/i-324.jpg" width="349" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">RIO DI SAN MARINA</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-330" id="i-330"></a>
<img src="images/i-330.jpg" width="550" height="361" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A SQUERO OR BOAT-BUILDING YARD</p>
</div>
<h2>STREETS, SHOPS, AND
COURTYARDS</h2>
<p>In the crooked and bewildering streets of Venice,
which open out from the great piazza and lead all
over the city, one sees the true life of the people.
It is there that the poor congregate. The houses
teem with humanity. There the true Venetians are
harboured. One comes to know them well, and the
manner of life they lead; and so gay and light-hearted
are they, it is strange if one does not like
them in spite of all their faults. Was there ever
more irregularity than in the streets of Venice?
All the houses seem to be differently constructed.
Some are lofty; others are squat; some have balconies
and chimney-pieces thrust out into the street
so as almost to touch the houses opposite. Nearly
every house has at one time been a palace, and each
is in a different stage of decay—houses that have
once been the homes of merchant princes, palaces
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
in which perhaps even Petrarch may have feasted,—inhabited
now by the poorest of Venetians.
The weekly wash flutters from the balconies (the
linen of Venice is famed for its whiteness), and
frowsy heads appear at Gothic windows. Worms
have eaten and rust has corrupted everything
destructible. Yet now and then one is astonished
at the preservation of certain portions of the
buildings. In that labyrinth of streets one never
knows what surprise may be in store. You will
come across beautiful early-Gothic gateways
covered with sculptured relief and inlaid designs of
leaves; a fourteenth-century palace with the faint
remains of the paintings of some artist with which
at one time it must have been covered; lovely
remnants of crosses let into the walls; Renaissance
wells of the sixteenth century; delicately-carved
parapets; a great stone angel standing guardian at
some calle head; irregularly twisted staircases of
the fifteenth century; a Gothic door with terra-cotta
mouldings; and churches without number.
Some of the finest architectural gems in Europe
are here, and almost every house is invested with
a strange history. The place seems inexhaustible.
As you walk in those old streets the shadows
of the mighty dead go with you—those great
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
men who lived glorious lives for Venice and for
art. There is an old-world atmosphere about the
streets. They twist and turn, and sometimes are
so narrow that there is scarcely room for two
people to pass each other; at times they are so
dark and still that the scuttling of a rat into the
water makes one start. Venice is full of contrasts,
full of the unexpected. It is as if Providence,
seeing fit that one's eyes should not become
satiated with beauty unalloyed, throws in little
marring touches—shocks to your feelings, cold
douches of water, as it were—in order to give value
to the marvellous colouring and antiquity of the
water city. For example, from the world of
Desdemona, where one can fancy one sees her lean
from a traceried window and catch a distant echo
of a mellow voice out on the water singing a
serenade, it is rather a shock suddenly to find yourself
in the piazza of St. Mark. It is easy to lose
oneself in the streets of Venice. In a minute
you can step from the past to the present, and find
yourself among the marbles of St. Mark's and the
arcades of the Ducal Palace—in the tourist's Venice,
amid glittering shops full of modern atrocities,
mosaic jewellery, wood-carving, imitation glass, and
what not—Americans and other globe-trotters
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
staring up at St. Mark's, laughing and reading
their guide-books.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-336" id="i-336"></a>
<img src="images/i-336.jpg" width="394" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE WEEKLY WASH</p>
</div>
<p>For all artists and lovers of the picturesque the
side streets of Venice—<i>calle</i>, as they are called—are
fascinating beyond words. Every house has a
character peculiarly its own. Each is in a way
unique and totally dissimilar to its fellows; each
is proud in the possession of relics of architectural
beauties. Every street is made up of magnificent
palaces and churches, fine examples of architecture
in such rich and varied wealth and diversity of
styles that one is almost overpowered. There are
old Gothic palaces, venerable specimens of Renaissance
or Venetian period. Time indeed has
laid heavy hands upon them; but it seems to have
augmented their charm. This homely aspect of
Venice interests. The old houses and the rickety
archways appeal to the observer, if he be not too
keen of smell. Here are marvellous and varied
combinations of rich colouring—weather-worn
bricks, grated windows, and brilliant shutters
picturesque and shabby by the lapse of time, and
shops half lost in gloom. Most of the houses are of
distempered rose-colour at the top and moss-green
at the bottom. The sun shines on the roof, and
the water laps at the base. There are land-gates
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
and water-gates to most of the houses—one opening
upon a canal, the other upon a courtyard.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-342" id="i-342"></a>
<img src="images/i-342.jpg" width="359" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A BACK STREET</p>
</div>
<p>I lived for six months in Venice, and have seen
these streets under every possible aspect. I have
seen them in the early morning, at mid-day, in the
evening, at night, in the rain, in the sun; and I
can never decide at what time of the day they
appear most fascinating. Perhaps it is after a rain-shower,
when every tone upon the old walls is
brought out and accentuated—greys and pale sea-greens
and the old Venetian red with which so many
of the houses used to be distempered. The shops
in Venice are very thickly set. Most of them
open right down to the ground, and the wares,
which are varied, appear to ooze out into the street.
Here is a corn-dealer's shop with open sacks of
polenta flour of every shade of yellow; there a
green-grocer's shop where vegetables are sold—such
a wealth of colour in the piles of tomatoes, vegetable
marrows, and great pumpkins cut down the
middle to display their orange cores. The richer
shops, however, are blocked up several feet high,
and have latticed windows.</p>
<p>I love to wander through these streets at night,
when the squalor and the misery of Venetian life
are hidden by the darkness, and one sees only
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
beauty. Here are subjects for the etcher, for
Rembrandt and Frans Hals,—marvellous effects
of light and shade. The streets are pitch-dark;
there is nothing to mar the lovely fair blue nights
of Venice—no vicious shaft of electric light to
bleach the colour from the sky. These side streets
are lit by the candle and the lamp. Perhaps the
most picturesque of all the shops at night are the
wine-shops. There one sees, beneath some low
blackened doorway, a rich golden-brown interior.
In the midst of this golden gloom one dim oil-lamp
is burning—the most perfect light possible
from the painter's standpoint: by it, the dark
faces and gesticulating hands of the men gathered
round a table are turned to deep orange. This
is all one sees growing from out the encircling
gloom—faces, hands, and a few flecks of ruby
light, as the glasses are raised. Every shop down
these narrow streets has its shrine to the Virgin
Mary, with its statuette, its fringes, and its flowers;
and at night these shrines are illuminated according
to the poverty or the wealth of the proprietor—some
have only a tiny dip, others have a candle or
a group of candles, while well-to-do folk boast a
row of oil-lamps. Rich or poor, each has its
offering, its tiny beacon. The children may go
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
without bread, and the mother may lack warm
clothing; but the Holy Mother must not be
robbed of her due. There is certainly a wonderful
simplicity of faith about these people. The cook-shops
are fascinating by night. There are innumerable
stalls; in fact, nearly all the shopping
seems to be done from stalls; even the butchers
have open-air stalls. At night chestnut-roasters,
toffee-vendors, pumpkin-and-hot-pear men hold
full sway. These are generally surrounded by
groups of open-mouthed children gazing with
delight at the long twisted strings of toffee in the
hands of the operator. Almost a still greater
attraction to the young folk of Venice is the
chestnut-roaster; he generally takes up his position
in the courtyards, as does the coffee-roaster.
Courtyards seem to be the favourite haunts of
the coffee-roasters,—partly, I suppose, because all
the doors of the houses round about open into
them, and housewives can be easily supplied. They
seem to be constantly roasting coffee berries night
and day; the whole place reeks with the fragrant
odour. They are picturesque by day, these busy
workers, but far more picturesque by night, when
the gleam of their ovens shows orange in the purple
gloom, and the leaping flames light up the faces of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
the children round about, handsome little faces
with a certain grandeur in them—boys with
bronze cheeks, dark hair, olive complexions, black
eyes, and sometimes a touch of colour in their red
flannel caps and their multicoloured patches of
garments. There is something barbaric and fine
and graceful about them, half-encircled, as they
are, by the filmy blue smoke from the ovens. A
Venetian Good Friday celebrated in a poor and
populous part of Venice at night is most picturesque.
The people of the quarter—the coffee-roasters,
the cook-shop men, the footmen, and the
wine-sellers—arrange to sing a chant in twenty-four
verses, a grave and sombre chant following
the life of our Lord in His Passion. Each verse
takes about five minutes to sing, and there is a
pause of equal length between each two verses.
During every interval the crowd, who have been
quiet, begin to chatter, the men smoke, and the
boys rush and tumble. Directly the precentor
begins, silence falls upon them once more. Most
of the people in that particular quarter subscribe
to the erection of a shrine with plenty of candles
and little glass lamps. It is a picturesque sight—the
yellow light from the altar lamps falling on
the group of men and women gathered round the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
singers and the many heads thrust out of windows
and balconies, on the fair, devout, and serious faces
of the children, on the handsome women and the
bronze-faced men.</p>
<p>All the world in Venice lives out of doors: they
breakfast and lunch and dine, all in the open air.
All of them live in lodgings or hotels, and principally
in the bedrooms, which are for the most part
comfortless and dreary,—their only merits are a
frescoed ceiling, sometimes really fine and old, and
a balcony. One can procure a marvel of a palace
in Venice for the cost of a garret in London.
There is no real home-life in Venice. Rich and
poor, mothers, fathers, children, and servants,—all
take their food in the open air. There are restaurants
and cafés for the well-to-do, endless eating-houses
for the poorer classes, and sausage-makers
for the gondoliers. Cookshops swarm. There you
see great piles of fish and garlic, bowls of broth,
polenta, and stewed snails, roast apples, boiled
beans, cabbages, and potatoes. Every holiday,
every saint's day, has its special dish. Carnival time
sets the fashion for beaten cream or panamonlata;
at San Martino gingerbread soldiers are popular;
and for Christmas time there is candy made with
honey and almonds. A certain broth consumed by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
the very humblest is made from scraps of meat
which even the sausage-makers will not use: as may
be imagined, the soup is highly flavoured. In the
midst of all these stalls and eating-houses it is
extraordinary how little there is eaten in Venice,—merely
a mouthful here and there,—a kind of light
running meal. A Venetian, no matter how rich
he might be, would never dream of inviting you
to a set meal. There is no heavy food, no cut from
the joint. If a Venetian invites you to an entertainment,
he will give you a cup of coffee perhaps,
or a glass of wine and a biscuit,—rarely more. He
will never invite you to eat a great meal; he never
takes it himself. The eating-house and the stall
appear to be more or less of an excuse for gossip
and the meeting of neighbours.</p>
<p>If the streets of Venice are bewitching by night,
they are certainly delightful in the early morning.
It is then that one receives the most vivid impressions.
There is a certain freshness in one's perceptions
at the dawn. The poor wretches who make
their beds in the streets, or on the steps, or at the
base of columns, shake themselves and shamble off.
Troops of ragged "facchini" fill the streets, and
quarrel noisily over their work. The great cisterns
in the market-place are open, and the water is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
brought round to your house by dealers, stout
young girls with broad backs and rosy cheeks;
they carry it in two brass buckets attached to a
pole, and empty it into large earthenware pots
placed ready for its reception in the kitchen.
These girls, called "bigolanti," supply the place
of water-works. At this hour you see the shops
opening like so many flowers before the sun.
Butchers set forth their meat; fruit shops, crockery
shops, bakers', cheap-clothing, and felt-hat shops,
show their various wares. You see peasants at
work among vegetables, building cabbages and
carrots into picturesque piles, and decorating them
with garlic and onions, while their masters are still
sleeping on sacks of potatoes. Great barges arrive
from Mestre, Chioggia, and Torcello, laden with
vegetables and fruit. Eating-houses begin their
trade. You see men and women taking their
breakfast, and a savoury smell of spaghettis and eels
on gridirons fills the air. Gondoliers begin to wash
their gondolas, brush their felces, polish the iron of
their prows, shake their cushions, and put everything
in order for business. Picturesque old women,
carrying milk in fat squat bottles, make the round
of the hotels and restaurants at this early hour.
They are good to look at, with their dark nut-brown
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
faces and dangling gold earrings under their
large straw hats. Their figures are much the shape
of their bottles; and they bring a pleasant atmosphere
into Venice, an atmosphere of fields and
clover-scented earth, and milk drawn from the
cream-coloured cows. Fishermen, a handsome
class, with weather-beaten faces, in blue clothing,
come striding down the calle, shallow baskets of
fish on their heads. They set up their stalls and
display their soles and mackerel, chopping up their
eels into sections and crying, "Beautiful, and all
alive!" At this hour everyone is making bargains,
and the result is a continual buzz; but there is
nothing discordant about the street cries of Venice.
A peculiarly beautiful cry is that of the man who
comes round every morning with wood for your
kitchen fire. The fuel-men cut their wood on the
shores of the Adriatic, and anchor their barges at
the Custom House, leaving them in charge of
mongrel yellow dogs, who guard so vigilantly and
are so extremely aggressive that never a splinter
is taken from the barges.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-354" id="i-354"></a>
<img src="images/i-354.jpg" width="431" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE WOODEN SPOON SELLER</p>
</div>
<p>The street cries are full of individuality, and
the tradesman brings a little art to bear on the
description of his wares. The song of the sweep,
exquisitely sad, quite befits the warning, "Beware
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
of your chimney!" There is nothing gay about
the sweep: he is a very melancholy person, and
his expression is in sympathy with his music.
The pumpkin-vendor is coy, and his cry has a
winning pathos; his is not an easy vegetable to
launch on the market, and he has developed into
a very bashful person. His cry is cooing and
subtle: he almost caresses you into buying, which
is necessary, as no one in his right senses really
desires a pumpkin. The fruiterer is different.
He is handsome, fat-cheeked, and has scarlet lips,
strong black hair curling in ringlets, and gold
rings in his ears. His adjuration is a round, full,
resonant roar, like a triumphant hymn; and there
is altogether a certain Oriental splendour about his
demeanour. It is not necessary for him to be
subtle: there is always a sale for melons and pears,
chestnuts and pomegranates. He uses colour as
a stimulant to his customers, and dwells upon the
hue of his fruit. "Melons with hearts of fire!"
he cries. Also he flatters. To a dear old gentleman
passing by he will hold up a clump of melons,
some of them sliced, or a group of richly coloured
pomegranates, and say, "Now, you as a man of
taste will appreciate this marvellous colour; you
are young enough to understand the fire and beauty
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
of these melons"; and the old gentleman will go
on his way feeling quite pleased and youthful.
Some of the cries are quaint. I once heard a man
say, "Juicy pears that bathe your beard!" and
another said his peaches were "ugly but good,"—they
certainly were not beautiful to look upon.
Almost the most melodious salesmen are the
countrymen who pace the streets with larks and
finches in cages, and roses and pinks in pots.</p>
<p>At mid-day the streets are enveloped in a warm
golden light; there are rich old browns, orange
yellows, and burnt siennas—all the tints of a gorgeous
wall-flower. A ray of sun in a bric-à-brac
shop attracts your attention; and you get a peep
through a window with cobwebbed panes, high
up in a flesh-coloured wall, at some of the objects
within,—brass pots and pans gleam from the walls,
bits of china and porcelain, strings of glass beads,
some quaint old bookcases with saints carved in
ivory, fragments of old brocade woven with gold and
gorgeous,—all kinds of strange curiosities, looking
crisp and brilliant in the sunlight. Suddenly you
are blinded by a patch of golden yellow. It is an
orange-stall placed before a pink palace flecked
with the delicate tracery of luminous violet shadow.
Away down in the interior of the stall, where the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>
sun does not shine, it appears almost purple by
contrast to the brilliant mass of golden fruit. The
background of all these shops is neutral: the
objects for sale form the only brilliant and positive
colour.</p>
<p>The palaces and houses are mostly pink and
white. There are pinks, and greys, and blues,
and so on. It is not the painted, coloured city
that one had imagined it to be: Venice is very
grey. But its greyness is that of the opal and
the pearl. I have often heard people say how
strange it is that the colours always seem brighter
in Venice than in any other city—the shutters and
the doors and the shops. The answer is not far
to seek. It is because the background and the
general colouring is neutral. There are no large
patches of positive colour: even St. Mark's, choke-full
of colour as it is, has no positive colour in its
composition. Take a peep into a carpenter's shop.
Through the iron grating, rusty and red with age,
you see the quaint old craftsman at work, his flesh
tone very much the colour of the wood he is
planing; piercing black eyes look through and
over the large bone-framed glasses that he wears;
he suggests the carpenter of Japan; and, judging
from the amount of shavings you see about the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>
floor, you gather that he is a dignified, not what
may be called a feverish, worker. He is, however,
evidently an artist: you see dainty specimens of
wood-carving hung round on the walls. Most of
the carpenters of Venice seem to be old men.
There appear to be very few middle-aged people
at all. They seem to be either young boys and
girls or ancient men and women. Whether it is
that Venetians age quickly, I do not know. The
old women are extraordinary. You can scarcely
imagine how anything so crooked and foul and
old and frowsy, with so little hair, so few teeth,
so many protruding bones, and such parchment-like
skin, can be human. Their faces seem to be
shrunken like old fruit: I have seen women with
noses shrivelled and with dents in them like
strawberries. It is extraordinary to watch these
women on their shopping excursions. How they
bargain! They think nothing of starting the day
before to buy a piece of steak, and sometimes
spend a whole day haggling over it. Some of the
shopmen are swindlers,—fat, greasy men, very fresh
and brisk, who have reduced cheating to a fine art.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-362" id="i-362"></a>
<img src="images/i-362.jpg" width="425" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">WORK GIRLS</p>
</div>
<p>It is only after living in Venice for some months
that one begins to understand the bargaining in
the streets. You will see two men talking—one
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
the shopman, the other the purchaser—and if you
know anything of the language, and watch carefully,
you will find it the most marvellous bit of
acting imaginable. They bargain; the customer
turns in scorn, and goes; he is called back; the
goods are displayed once more, and their merits
expatiated upon. The customer laughs incredulously
and moves away. The seller then tries other
tactics to fog his client. Eventually he makes a
low offer, which is accepted; but even then the
shopman gets the best of it, for he has a whole
battery of the arts of measurement in reserve.
There is really no end to the various possibilities
of "doing" a man out of a halfpenny.</p>
<p>Beggars are a great trial in the streets. The
lame, the halt, and the blind breathe woe and
pestilence under your window, and long monotonous
whines of sorrow. Fat friars in spectacles
and bare feet come round once a month begging
bread and fuel for the convents. Old troubadours
serenade you with zithers, strumming feebly with
fingers that seem to be all bone, and in thin
quavering voices pipe out old ditties of youth
and love.</p>
<p>There are lottery offices everywhere. Around
them there is always a great excitement. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
missing number, printed on a card framed in
flowers and ribands, is placed in the windows daily.
Some say that the system of lottery should be
done away with; but it might be cruel to deprive
the poor wretches of hope. The lottery brings
joy to many despairing people.</p>
<p>Venetian women are good-looking. One sees
them continually about the streets. Nothing can
surpass the grace of the shawl-clad figures seen
down the perspective of the long streets, or about
some old stone well in a campiello. They are for
the most part smart and clean. You see them
coming home from the factories, nearly always
dressed in black, simple and well-behaved. Their
hair is of a crisp black, and well tended; their
manner is sedate and demure. There is no boisterousness
about the Venetian girls, no turning
round in the streets, no coarseness. Many of them
are very beautiful. You see a woman crossing an
open space with the sunlight gleaming on the
amber beads about her throat and making the rich
colour glow brighter beneath her olive skin. A
shawl is thrown round her shoulders, and her jet-black
hair is fastened by a silver pin. She wears a
deep crimson bodice. The choice of colour of these
women is unerring in taste. Their shawls are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>
seldom gaudy, generally of blue or pale mauve;
vivid colours are reserved for the bodices.</p>
<p>Then, there are the bead-stringers. You see
them everywhere: handsome girls with a richness of
southern colour flushing beneath warm-toned skins,
eyes large and dark, with heavy black lashes, the
hair twisted in knots low on their necks, and swept
back in large waves from square foreheads, a string
of coloured beads round their necks, and flowered
linen blouses with open collars. You see them
with their wooden trays full of beads. The bead-stringers
are nearly always gay. They laugh and
chat as they run the beads on the strings. They
often form a very pretty picture, as they bend
over their work and thread turquoise beads from
wooden trays.</p>
<p>In the courtyards, some women are hanging
white clothes on a line before a yellow wall; others
are leaning out of their windows, gossiping with
neighbours. Never was there a more gossiping set
of women: every window, every balcony, seems to
be thronged with heads thrust out to chatter.</p>
<p>Venice is divided up into campi or squares.
Each campo has a church, a butcher, a baker,
a candlestick-maker, and everything else that is
necessary to life, including a café and a market.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span></p>
<p>Venetian children, as a rule, are very badly
reared, and many of them die at an early age. It
is a belief and a consolation that the little ones go
straight to heaven, there to plead their parents'
cause and to arrange for their reception.</p>
<p>May is the best month in which to see the
streets. The intoxication of spring is in the air,
and in the bright sunlight the colours burn and
glow. Although you cannot see them, you are
constantly reminded that there are gardens in
Venice. Suddenly over the red brickwork of a
high wall you will see clumps of tamarisk, hanging
mauve wisteria, or the scarlet buds of a pomegranate,
while the scent of syringa and banksia
roses fills the air, the birds sing in the enclosure,
and the perfume of honeysuckle trails over the
wall of a garden of a foreign prince. Few crowds
are more cheerful or better ordered than a Venetian
crowd. There is a light-heartedness about these
people that is very engaging; they have a
marvellous frankness of manner, a sublime indifference
to truth. The smallest Venetian child
is a born flatterer, and will tell you, not what he
thinks, but what he imagines you wish to hear.
The people are the most engaging in the world,
free from care or doubt as to right or wrong.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
This carelessness is characteristic of the whole
Italian race. Venetians give the impression of
being always determined to enjoy life to the full.
They are continually coming together, for the
purpose of pleasure, on one pretence or another,
and the flashes of wit in the street are sometimes
very amusing. The Venetians have always been,
and still are, a great festa-loving people. When
the Republic fell, the brave ceremonies came
to an end; but the original passion is still kept
alive. The festa in Venice are chiefly of religious
character. For example, once a year each parish
church honours the feast of its patron saint by
processions to all shrines within that particular
parish. Very picturesque are the streams of priests
and people crossing the bridges and passing along
the fondanta of some small canal,—a brilliant
ribbon of vermilion and gold winding through the
grey-toned city: porters of the church (in blouses of
white, red, and blue) bearing candles, pictures, and
banners; bands playing the gayest operatic tunes;
priests and the parocco carrying the Host under a
canopy of cloth of gold; long files of the devout
holding candles; and boys with crackers and guns.
At night there is dancing in the largest campo of
the parish. On Good Friday the streets resemble
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
a feast rather than a fast. The people are in their
best and gaudiest clothes; children are rushing and
romping and turning somersaults, whirling their
rattles, fitting up shrines and then appealing to the
crowd for coppers,—human mites of six or seven
constructing "Santo Sepolcro," or Holy Graves,
from old bottles, sprigs of bay stuck in, and odd
candle-ends. One may witness touches of sentiment
in a Venetian crowd; but the depths are
seldom stirred. Sometimes sentiment finds expression
in the rilotti—popular Venetian songs.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-374" id="i-374"></a>
<img src="images/i-374.jpg" width="550" height="415" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CHIOGGIA FISH MARKET</p>
</div>
<h2>THE ISLANDS OF THE
LAGOON</h2>
<p>There is no piece of water more extraordinary
than the lagoons of Venice. They cover an area of
184 square miles of water, shut off from the sea by
a narrow strip of sandy islands, which are called the
Lidi. The form of the lagoons is, roughly, that of
a bent bow. How did they happen to be formed
thus? That is a difficult question, and there are
various opinions. Certainly the lagoons are a great
feature of the city. They gave shelter to the
founders flying from the Huns on the mainland,
and the health of the community depends on their
regular ebb and flow. A lagoon is not a lake;
neither is it a swamp, nor open sea. It is a strange
piece of natural engineering. There are really,
although we cannot see them at high tide, four
distinct water systems, with separate watersheds
and confluent streams. The sea comes in once a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
day as from a great heart, pulsing in through the
four breaks in the Lido barrier, cleaning and
purifying the lagoon, and afterwards bearing away
the refuse of the city. At low tide one can see
these channels distinctly winding in and out of
the mud-banks. In the spring they are bare, with
long trails of sea-grass. In autumn they are brown
and bare, and at high tide the whole surface is
flooded. On the mainland shore of the lagoon
there is a certain territory, called Laguna Morta,
where the sea and the land fight a continual battle.
It is the home of the wildfowl. Here salt sea-grasses
grow, tamarisk, samphire, and, in the
autumn, sea lavender. Farther, the ground
becomes solid, and the Venetian plain begins, with
its villas, poplars, vineyards, and mulberry groves.</p>
<p>Nothing is more delightful than to spend a whole
long day upon the lagoon when the air is sweet and
the breeze is fresh from the Lido. There are fishing-boats
coming in from their long night, with spoil
for the Rialto market, crossing and recrossing one
another as they tack. The bows are painted, and
the nets are hung mast-high to be mended and
dried in the sun. Their sails are folded close
together, like the wings of great vermilion moths.
These sails, which are picturesque in the Venetian
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
landscape, are of the deepest oranges and reds, rich
red browns, orange yellows, and burnt siennas,
contrasting strangely with the cool grey waters of
the lagoon upon which they float.</p>
<p>One can wander for miles along the Lido on
the Adriatic side. The lizards bask in the hot
sand; the delicate, pale sea-holly mingles with the
yellow of the evening primrose. From the Lido
you can see right away to the south-east, and in
the horizon can discern the faint blue hills above
Trieste and the top of Monte Maggiore. From
there the city looks well: one sees the Ducal Palace,
faintly pink, the green woods of the public gardens,
and the vast blue Venetian sky. The true native
seems to have a strange affection for the Lido.
One cannot tell why or wherefore; but it is so—"Lido"
has ever been a name to conjure with.
One cannot tell what associations and sensations of
pleasure and charm are connected with it. At the
present day it is a flat piece of somewhat marshy
ground, with large gardens intersected by canals.</p>
<p>The woods of the Favorita, on the shore of San
Elizabetta, are delightful, with their groves of
acacia and catalpas, where the ground is carpeted
with wild flowers, and the grass is greener than
elsewhere in Venice, and the nodding violets grow.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
Behind the acacia grove there is a Protestant burial-ground
where rest the bones of many Englishmen
who came to Venice for pleasure and stayed to die.
The tomb of our ambassador, Sir Francis Vincent,
is here. A beautiful walk is towards the ramparts
of San Nicolo, where the blackbirds sing in the old
convent garden, and in summer crimson poppies,
purple salvias, and vivid green grass are luxuriant.
San Nicolo di Bari is the patron saint of sailors.
They have erected a magnificent church dedicated
to his memory on the most beautiful point of the
Lido. Here the crews of the merchantmen and
warships of the Republic would linger for a while
before sailing, to ask a blessing on their voyage.
The saint's remains do not really rest here. Venice
failed in her endeavour to obtain them by force
from the people of Bari; but she spread the fiction
among the people. To this day the sailors of the
lagoon firmly believe that San Nicolo still watches
over and protects them, and when in doubt or
danger are enabled by the campanile of his church
to find the direct course to the Lido port. At the
Lido is the cemetery of the Jews. The graves are
covered with sand and vegetation, and children
never hesitate to dance on them,—in fact, to do so
is a favourite pastime. If one remonstrates, they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
will look at you with wide-open eyes, and explain
that these are only graves of Jews,—a Jew with
the Venetians being no better than a dog. The
grave of a Christian is treated with the greatest
reverence: even the children and the gondoliers
salute it as they pass. There is something pathetic
about the Jewish graves, from the stones over which
the inscriptions have been effaced.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-382" id="i-382"></a>
<img src="images/i-382.jpg" width="550" height="420" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CHIOGGIA</p>
</div>
<p>Chioggia is one of the greater islands. It has a
large town with an immensely broad street and a
wide canal. Here is the most famous and most
picturesque fish-market of all suburban Venice.
In it one comes across the finest Venetian types,
magnificent models for painters, bronzed Giorgione
figures and black-eyed swarthy women. Their
dialect is beautiful, far more so than that of Venice
proper; and at night Ariosto is read publicly in
the streets by a musical sweet-voiced Chiozzotto.
Here the dramatist Goldoni lived, and the painter
Rosalba Carrera, and the composer Giuseppe
Zarlino. Chioggia reminds one of the Jewish
quarter in the east end of London. The people,
mostly fishermen, are extremely poor.</p>
<p>This is the place for colour. There is colour
everywhere—in the sails of the boats, in the
costume of the people, and even in the red cotton
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
curtains of the churches. Unfortunately, one's
stay there was brief—because of the insects. A
fisherman in Chioggia took us for a sail. We had
bargained for an hour's journey; but we had not
been out for more than ten minutes before he
landed us on the rocks and demanded five francs.
We were entirely at his mercy, and were forced to
concede; but his action struck us as being high-handed.
Sometimes the fishermen of Chioggia,
if they are so inclined, will tell you tales of
Angelica and Orlando, and the pageant of the
Carolingian myth.</p>
<p>Torcello is one of the most interesting islands
of the lagoon. It is seven miles from Venice, and
a pathway is made to it through the sea by stakes.
The island is for the most part a waste of wild sea
moor. Grey and lifeless in colour, it is a desolate
place, and you feel as if you were at the end of the
world. At one time it was extremely populous;
but now it is impossible to live there, because the
marshes breed malaria. Any count whose title
and estates the Venetians deem improbable they
call "the count from Torcello." One passes six
miles of the most beautiful scenery on the way
thither. The entrance is by a canal, and the banks
on either side are covered with dwarf bushes and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
lilac trees. Thirteen hundred years ago the grey
moorland looked much as it does now—except
that where a city stood the cattle feed, what was
once the piazza of the city is a grassy meadow, and
a narrow pathway is the only street. Two hundred
years after the invasion of Attila, the inhabitants
of Aquileia and Altinum, with their most precious
possessions, flew from their houses to the island of
Torcello. Now there is scarcely a sign of human
habitation; and only the ruins of an old quay, an
ancient well, foundations of marble buildings, a
great church, and a campanile, are left to show
what at one time was a populous city, which was
called the mother of Venice. By the remains of
these buildings one can see that they were constructed
by men in great distress, seeking a shelter,
yet not wishing to attract the eyes of their enemies
by their splendour. The church of Torcello shows
force and simplicity of character, and a certain
reverent religious feeling on the part of its
founders. Everything is on a small and humble
scale. The columns which support the roof are
no higher than a man. Yet these columns are of
pure Greek marble, and the capitals are enriched
with delicate sculpture. One sees everywhere in
this church an earnest and simple desire to do
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
honour to God in the temple they were erecting,
and that it should not form too great a contrast
to the churches they had loved and seen destroyed.
Torcello is equally delightful in springtime and
in autumn. In spring the orchards are in full
bloom, and the hedges throw their pink and
white sprays of thorn against the sky. In autumn
the water meadows are a shimmer of purple and
red from the masses of feathery lavender that
grow there. It has much the same colour and
feeling as a Scotch moor. Torcello is interesting
from its venerable traditions, its desolation, its
wildness, and its profound silence.</p>
<p>There are many expeditions on which one could
go if one had the time to spare. For example,
there is an island near Torcello called San
Francisco in Deserto. The name is well applied:
St. Francis' island certainly stands in a desert.
There is still an islet monastery of the Franciscan
order. The brethren show you with much enthusiasm
a stone coffin in which the founder of
the convent was in the habit of lying in order to
acclimatise himself to the sensation of death.
Also there is pointed out a penitential cell which
was once inhabited by the saint, and a tree (said
to have sprung from his staff) which he planted.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
This legend may sound mythical; but perhaps it
may not be so. It is quite possible for a staff,
even if it has lain by for some time, to shoot out in
several places in green sprigs; and one of these,
cut in proper manner, might easily take root and
grow into a tree. The real charm of the island
lies in the garden of the monastery, where narcissus
are abundant and there is a great avenue of
cypresses, the finest in Venice.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-390" id="i-390"></a>
<img src="images/i-390.jpg" width="550" height="369" alt="" />
<p class="caption">IN MURANO</p>
</div>
<p>Triporti is different: in fact, no other island
of the lagoon is quite like it. Here are great
sweeps of sandy land covered with coarse grass
and heather and pools of brackish water. The
island is more or less uncultivated, and the air is
full of strange aromatic odours from the sea. It
is a marvellous place to bathe in: the sand is fine
and soft and yellow, and the sea lies wide open
before you, warm and limpid.</p>
<p>If you have any doubt as to where Murano
is, look for a great black cloud hovering over an
island; and you may be sure that there are the
glass factories of Murano. Glass-making is the
only industry now practised in the lagoon. The
factories are no longer numerous, Murano having
declined from her ancient splendour. The secret
of the magician is exposed; and Murano has no
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
longer the monopoly of bevelled mirrors, great
glasses, and crystal balls. Such work is executed
in Birmingham quite as well as in Murano.
The old art is lost. Still, Murano is interesting.
There is perhaps more life in it than in any other
of the islands. Workmen sift glass upon the pavement;
women, at the doors, sit busily knitting,
or stringing beads; fishermen, clothed in a dark
greenish grey, are disentangling their nets, which
hang over the boats in apparently inextricable
confusion; there are street vendors of all kinds,
calling out the nature of their wares to the passerby.
There are five thousand inhabitants in the city
of Murano. Its grand canal is almost as broad
as that of Venice. The beautiful palaces, with
their doors and windows of marble,—some of red
Verona marble, some deeply enriched with mouldings,
others with arcades of a singular grace and
delicacy—are now inhabited by the very poorest
of the poor. The church of San Donato, the
Matrice or mother church of Murano, stands in
a field of fresh green grass. It is said that a
virgin appeared in a vision to its founder, Otho
the Great, showing him this very meadow overgrown
with scarlet lilies, and bidding him erect
a church there in her honour. Murano, on the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
whole, is a dreary little town. Wealth, beauty,
and elegance have passed away; the country is
devoted to cabbages and potato patches. Still,
it has charm even in its decay. How beautiful
Murano must have been at the time when Cardinal
Bembo and so many famous literati lived there!
It must have been an earthly paradise, with its
luxurious vegetation, lordly palaces, and magnificent
gardens. In this city the horse is a quaint
and unexpected animal. He is not wanted. He
is quite as ridiculous and useless as a unicorn would
be in the streets of London. He annoys one, this
strange beast,—making one think of mountains,
valleys, fields, trees, streets, and carriages, at a
time when one is eager to be satisfied with sparkling
lagoons, gondolas, and a palace for hotel.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-396" id="i-396"></a>
<img src="images/i-396.jpg" width="427" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">MRS. EDEN'S GARDEN IN VENICE</p>
</div>
<p>The gardens in Venice have a character all their
own. They are highly prized, for space is scarce.
The soil is rich, formed of lagoon mud; but only
certain plants will grow freely in it—because of the
salt air. The variety that will bloom, however, is
quite enough to make a good show—flowering and
aromatic shrubs, roses (especially banksia), most
bulbs, and (blooming the finest and happiest of
all in Venetian soil) carnations, the "garofoli"
which play so large a part in Italian love-stories.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span></p>
<p>On the Giudecca there are two gardens, each
quite different from the other in character and
appearance, but both illustrating what a Venetian
garden may be like. In one all the resources of
art and wealth have been brought to bear, and
there is a succession of brilliant beds of colour.
In the middle is a green oasis, a kind of English
orchard, where the turf is as fine and as velvety, as
deep and green, as that of any English lawn, and
the orchard trees throw a delicate tracery of flickering
shadows. There are beds of splendid colour,
varying with the seasons. In fact, there is almost
an Oriental lavishness about this garden: the scent
of the flowers is almost oppressive. The other
garden is not less beautiful; but it is set apart
for profit rather than for pleasure. There are
aisles upon aisles of vine-covered pergolas, crossing
one another; and one can saunter down these cool
promenades for hours, absolutely bareheaded. A
narrow strip is divided from the rest of this garden
by a thick hedge. Here, in one glorious mass, are
all the flowers that will grow freely in Venice—the
flame-coloured trumpets of the bigonici, by bowers
of roses over-arching walks, banksias festooning the
walls, and one corner completely filled by a splendid
<i>Daphne odorifera</i> which by her perfume draws the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
butterflies. However, one cannot quite understand
the spirit that prompted Alfred de Musset to write
those verses the last of which runs:—</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem">
<p>À Saint Blaise, à la Zuecca,</p>
<p>Dans les prés fleuris cuellir la verveine;</p>
<p>À Saint Blaise, à la Zuecca,</p>
<p>Vivre et mourrir là.</p>
</div></div>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-402" id="i-402"></a>
<img src="images/i-402.jpg" width="550" height="389" alt="" />
<p class="caption">TIMBER BOATS FROM THE SHORES OF THE ADRIATIC</p>
</div>
<p>There are now at Saint Blaise no pastoral and
poetic places where lovers could stroll hand in
hand by the pale moonlight: the gardens, somewhat
marshy, are cultivated principally for market
purposes. The Giudecca Canal is the commercial
harbour of Venice. The churches of Redentore
and Maggiore lie on the farther side of it. In this
canal a group of small vessels lie all day long at
anchor—twenty or thirty of them, laden with wood
brought from the Istrian coast, and sold in Venice.
When it has been disposed of, the captain calls his
crew from the distant cafés and wine-shops, releases
the watch-dog from his post on deck, weighs
anchor, and creeps down the Adriatic to reload
again with fuel. This is all the Venetian commerce
of to-day—this and a few beads, glass, wood-carving,
lace, and bric-à-brac, such as would scarcely load a
modern trading-ship. Nine hundred years ago the
trade of Venice was important. By the close of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
the eleventh century, the city was commercially
supreme in Europe. Yet she manufactured nothing.
She was supreme simply by the exercise of
the merchant's calling. She was Europe's greatest
ship-owning power and commercial head. Her
merchants, conveying cloth, velvet, serge, canvas,
various precious and commercial metals, glass beads,
and other goods, received in return drugs, spices,
dyes, precious stones, rugs, silks, brocades, cotton,
and perfumes, which were sold at a high rate of
profit. The population of Venice was then two
hundred thousand; the annual exports were valued
at ten million ducats; there were three hundred
sea-going vessels, eight thousand sailing vessels,
three thousand smaller craft, seventeen thousand
mercantile sailors, and a powerful navy with eleven
thousand able-bodied seamen.</p>
<p>San Giorgio is of note as the place for red mullet
from the Adriatic. Nothing equals the fish: none
other is so appetising, so red and fresh in colour—one
would feel inclined to eat of it if only for its
hue. The best place to procure mullet is in a
certain tavern where gondoliers and sailors mostly
congregate: here they can drink wine free of duty.
The tavern is invariably filled with such men, all
stretched out on benches round the table. San
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
Giorgio is the place for sunsets also: from nowhere
else in the lagoon can one see such a marvellous
variety, such changes of sea and sky. The church
possesses a wonderful Entombment by Tintoretto.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-408" id="i-408"></a>
<img src="images/i-408.jpg" width="550" height="442" alt="" />
<p class="caption">BY A SQUERO OR BOAT-BUILDING YARD</p>
</div>
<p>San Servolo is a very small island beyond San
Giorgio, yet one of the brightest jewels in the
coronet of the lagoon—almost entirely covered
with buildings.</p>
<p>Burano has a population of some nine thousand.
The people are chiefly engaged in fishing and in
towing. One sees boatfuls of them returning from
the sea; and lines of them towing heavy mud-filled
barges on the way to Pordenone, all the men
stepping in time with one another and bending to
the rope with a will. There is something statuesque
about these toilers. With their long, cleanly-moulded
limbs, they remind one of ancient Egyptian
bronzes. The sculptor would find plenty of scope
in Burano. The people, however, are of evil repute
by heredity. They are the scapegoats of the lagoon.
If anything goes wrong, the blame is always laid
upon them. They work harder and receive less
pay than the inhabitants of any other island. In
the old days terrible quarrels used to arise among
the women, either in the market-place or when
they sat in their doorways making that exquisite
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
lace for which the town is famous. To the present
day lace is made at Burano, and even now the
women quarrel over their work. If one did not
know the language, one would not imagine that
they were quarrelling—the dialect is so soft and
sweet, the words dying away in a kind of sigh.</p>
<p>Mazzorbo is connected with Burano by a long
wooden bridge. There are very few houses here,
and very few inhabitants. The island is given up
to flower gardens and the cultivation of fruit.
Every day boats laden with fruit, to be sold at the
Rialto, are sent to Venice. Most of the inhabitants
of Mazzorbo are extraordinarily beautiful and sweet
of nature. These characteristics are very often
found among those whose business is chiefly
connected with mother earth. Gardeners of all
nationalities are generally gentle and charming
persons.</p>
<p>San Lazzaro is where the Armenian monks
spend their quiet lives, happy in the study and
culture of their gardens. This convent of theirs is
a gem of colour set on the lagoon, painted a deep
crimson and looking like some gorgeous tropical
flower. There is a terraced walk in the garden,
and the cloister is rich in flowers and planted with
cypress and oleander trees. It is a place in which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
to bask in the sun, and watch the crabs fighting
with one another on the sloping wall. One can
see the sun setting behind the Euganian hills, and
watch the first stars appear and the piazza lights
shine out.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-414" id="i-414"></a>
<img src="images/i-414.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">IN A SIDE STREET, CHIOGGIA</p>
</div>
<p>Malamocco is not often visited by strangers; yet
there is much that is beautiful in the place, and a
certain old-world air that fascinates one. It is
a good deal older than Venice; and its people,
friendly and clean persons, are always careful to
explain to you that they are not Venetians. The
famous white asparagus, for which the evil-smelling
mud makes excellent soil, grows plentifully in
Malamocco.</p>
<p>San Elena was once an exceedingly lovely island.
It lies near to the city, and is only a short distance
from the public gardens. The grave of Helen,
mother of Constantine the Great, at once an
empress and a saint, is said to have been here.
There was also a very beautiful Gothic cloister.
Now the old monastery walls have been pulled
down, and a hideous iron factory has been erected;
the quiet convent cemetery has been dug up, and
the crosses have been thrown aside to make way
for iron-girded workshops.</p>
<p>For expeditions on the lagoons it is always well
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
to choose a pearly, silvery-grey day, when everything
is delicate in colour and mellowed by a
semi-transparent haze. The lagoons are not always
grey and calm. They have their moods. I have
seen a fair green sea grow black beneath a sudden
storm. Sometimes Venice will appear blue and
rosy, the smooth sea as green as in Canaletto's
pictures, the white cupolas of Santa Maria della
Salute and the silver domes of St. Mark's standing
out as on an azure background. Then great
masses of grey clouds will come up, the sea is
festooned with foam, and black gondolas skim
over the water like swallows flying before a storm.
Sometimes the sky is clear and the light vivid, the
water shines like silver, and one cannot tell the
horizon from the sea; the islands appear like
brown specks, and the ships seem to be sailing
in the sky. At others the sea, under an east
wind, is cold and hard as steel. In winter the
lagoons are wrapped in damp mists, so thick that,
however good a navigator you may be, you must
needs lose your way; steamers and gondolas loom
out and then disappear, swallowed up by the dense
wall of vapour, and the shipping looks ghostly,
tall and gaunt.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-420" id="i-420"></a>
<img src="images/i-420.jpg" width="429" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE</p>
</div>
<p>Away out in the remote and unfrequented
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
regions of the lagoon are small isolated huts, mud-plastered,
single-roomed cabins, built on piles, which
guard certain valli, to which the fish are driven in
the spring, to spawn. These consist of deep ditches
surrounded by palisades of wattled cane. Here
the men stay sometimes for days, fishing with nets,
or standing upright in the long light boats waiting
for their prey. Some of the valli have the most
uncanny names: one is "The Val dell' Inferno,"
and another "The Val dei Sette Morte." Of this
last there is a terrible story, which has taken deep
root in the imagination of the people. Six fishermen
were living in a valle. They had with them
a boy, who, when they went out on the lagoon,
stayed at home to cook for the men. One day,
when they were returning with their boatload,
they found the body of a drowned man floating out
to sea. They picked the body up and laid it on
the prow. The boy came to meet them, crying
that breakfast was ready. When they were seated
at their meal he asked why they had not brought
the man who was lying in the prow. The fishermen
said, jokingly, that he had better go and call
him. This the child did, but soon returned with
the news that he had shouted to the man in the
prow, who had neither moved nor answered him.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
"Go again," said the men. "He is a deaf old
fool. You must shout and swear at him." The
child went once more to the boat, and shouted
and swore at the man; but still he would not wake.
"Go out again and shake him by the leg, and tell
him that we can't wait until doomsday for him,"
said the fishermen. So the boy went, climbed
into the boat, and shook the man by the leg.
This time the man in the prow sat up and said,
"What do you want?" "Why don't you come?"
asked the boy. "They can't wait until doomsday
for you." "Go back," he said, "and tell them I
am coming." The boy went back to the hut, and
told the men, who were laughing and joking over
their meal, that it was all right: the man in the
prow was coming. At this the fishermen turned
very pale and laughed no more. Then they heard
heavy footsteps coming slowly up the path; the
door was pushed open; the dead man came in,
and sat down in the boy's place, making seven at
the table. The eyes of the other six were fixed
on the seventh, their guest. They could neither
move nor speak. The blood grew colder and
colder in their veins. When the sun rose and
shone in at the window, it shone on seven dead
men sitting round the table in the valle.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span></p>
<p>Despite this tale, Venetian people are bright
and essentially practical. They are not deeply
imaginative. Horrors, weird fancies, and love of
the preternatural are quite foreign to the Italian
temperament.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-430" id="i-430"></a>
<img src="images/i-430.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">RIO E CHIESA DEGLI OGNISSANTI</p>
</div>
<h2>SOCIAL UPS AND DOWNS</h2>
<p>A great change came over society in Venice early
in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The
people were dull, and sullen, and poor. They
resented their political position bitterly. The
feeling with which they were possessed was their
great hatred of the Austrians. They did not hate
the Austrians individually; but they did politically,
and therefore socially. If you wanted to know
the Austrians, you could not know the Venetians:
if you were friendly with either, you must cold-shoulder
the others. Society in Venice was divided
into two distinct sections. Once gone over to a
side, you had no withdrawal. If a girl intermarried
she was cut off for life from her family.
Whatever the Venetian can or cannot do, he can
certainly hate, and that well. He may be dull
and dispirited; but he is fiercely patriotic, and his
hatred of the Austrian was very strong. Most of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
the nobility were exiled. The rest kept severely
to themselves. They never attended popular
festivities, and even among the poorer classes of
Venetians very few old customs were kept up.
The people felt keenly the contrast of what had
been and what was. A bridge of boats was still built
over the water to the church of the Redentore;
but it was very little used. The carnival, which
was wont to last for six weeks, was kept up but
a single night; and then it was a farcical show.
Only a few dressed-up beggars tore through
the streets, singing songs at the cafés for drinks,
and they were looked upon by the crowd with
melancholy scorn.</p>
<p>Venetian people of good family seldom went to
the play or to the opera. Austrian bands played
there. The places of entertainment were mostly
kept up by foreigners, and were consequently not
what they might have been. To find good Italian
opera one had to go to London or to Paris. Still,
the Venetians love music. It is born in them: they
have a passion for the art which nothing can subdue.
Even the veriest street urchin sings his gutter song
with a fervour such as we do not know of in the
north. Despite the ban from which they suffered,
the theatres were not uninteresting. Scarcely any
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>
Italian can act badly. Practically in every case he
has the dramatic instinct. But there was no gay
buzz in the audience, no flitting from box to box.
The theatres were filled with Austrians, who took
their pleasure quietly. The artisans and other poor
Venetians, who saved up their money to go to the
play, certainly did enjoy it. They cheered and
hissed with vehemence, and between the acts drank
aniseed and water, and ate candied fruits on sticks
fashioned at the ends into toothpicks.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-436" id="i-436"></a>
<img src="images/i-436.jpg" width="433" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A CAMPIELLO</p>
</div>
<p>Marionette shows were very popular. The
theatre was tiny, and the stage was tiny; everything
was arranged in accordance with the small
dimensions of the actors. The marionettes talked
very volubly, so much so that it was sometimes
difficult to follow them. The plays, written expressly
for the marionettes, were of all descriptions,
from melodrama to farce. Sometimes there were
ballets. The audience was generally amusing. It
consisted principally of boys. The hat was passed
round, and if the proprietor considered that there
was not sufficient money collected he would shout,
"O you sons of dogs!" and close the theatre.</p>
<p>If any Venetian of good family gave a ball or a
party, he was looked upon with suspicion by the
poor, who had no holidays, no tips, small trade,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
and large taxes. The Austrians gave balls and
parties occasionally, but not very often. They
hated Venice, where they were regarded as a
pestilence, and shunned by all save their own
countrymen. This strange antagonism continued
for a few years, until the Austrian occupation
ceased and Venice was united to the rest of
Italy.</p>
<p>The Emperor of Austria's birthday afforded a
good example of the inter-racial bitterness. All
night long Austrian bands paraded the streets,
cannons were fired at intervals, and fireworks let
off. It seemed as though by unnecessary ostentation
of artillery the Austrians were endeavouring
to reach the throne in Vienna. But a dead silence
reigned in Venice. Not a single Venetian was
abroad. The Austrians had their celebrations all
to themselves. It was rather pathetic to see them
trying to work up joy and enthusiasm. Next
morning the celebrations were continued. Service
was held in St. Mark's Church; and the soldiers
stood outside in the square in long rows, drawn
to attention, the sun shining on their resplendent
uniforms and handsome faces—a gallant array!
Not a single Venetian showed himself. Not a
blind was drawn. Not one curious woman's face
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
appeared at a window. Even a Venetian servant
girl would not have exchanged a civility with an
Austrian officer that day. There was a dreadful
hush everywhere. Venice was like a dead city.
One felt that the people were stuffing their ears,
and covering their eyes, behind drawn blinds.
The Austrians tried hard to be jubilant and gay;
but very obviously they did not succeed. In the
evening they went to the opera, endeavouring to
spread out and make more of themselves; but the
large house was practically empty. The day after
that, Venetian life flowed back again into its accustomed
channels. The people were laughing
and chatting and filling all the eating-houses, as
though making up for lost time. One wondered
what the antagonism would all end in.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-442" id="i-442"></a>
<img src="images/i-442.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="" />
<p class="caption">FISHING BOATS FROM CHIOGGIA</p>
</div>
<p>There was in Venice a committee which looked
after Venetian interests. On all the public anniversaries
bombs were fired and flags were flown.
In all the Government Departments the committee
placed spies, who were so clever that they were
seldom detected by the Austrians. Even in the
cathedrals those men would sometimes explode
bombs. The antagonism between the Venetian
and the Austrian was shown in the piazza, perhaps,
more than elsewhere. The military band
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
played there three times a week, winter and
summer,—played gloriously all the best Italian
airs. Much as they loved music, the Venetians
walked up and down the quay, or in the arcades.
They would not enter the square until the music
was finished. Such was their pride! The cafés had
no longer their gay and lively reputation. Only
at Florian's did the Austrians and the Venetians
sometimes intermingle—and that was because of
the foreigners. Usually the Venetians had their
separate cafés, and the Austrians theirs—the
Quadri and the Specchi.</p>
<p>The piazza of St. Mark's seems to be the very
heart of Venice, the very core, from which everything
radiates, only to return. If you lose yourself
in Venice, and go on walking, you will be sure
to find your way back to the piazza sooner or later.
At eight o'clock the piazza was at its very gayest.
Nothing could be more lively, more amusing. It
was lined with cafés—the cafés "Suttil," "Quadri,"
"Costanza," and "Florian"; which last reminds one
very much of the "Café Royal" in Paris, and was
certainly quite as famous. The old proprietor of this
restaurant was greatly patronised by the Venetian
nobility, who were loud in their praises both of
himself and of his viands. The first Florian lived
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
in the time of the Empire. There is a charming
story told of him and the artist Canova. The old
hotel-keeper was very much troubled with gout,
and Canova, to whom Florian had rendered many
services, modelled the affected leg in plaster, in
order that he might have a shoe made which would
fit exactly, and so ease the pain. No doubt (but
this is pure surmise) Florian favoured the artist,
in return for his kindness, with a dish of his famous
"sorbet au raisins."</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-448" id="i-448"></a>
<img src="images/i-448.jpg" width="429" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE</p>
</div>
<p>Street vendors of all kinds swarmed in the piazza
at night—flower-girls of the most obliging natures,
who, if you would not buy their wares, would thrust
a bouquet into your hand gratis (you were, of
course, supposed to repay them at some other
time). There were musicians of every sort and
kind—some with guitars; others with mandolines;
some playing selections from the operas; others
singing "Funiculi" and "Santa Lucia" in high
tenor voices; deep-chested, bronze-faced men who
explained that they were once operatic stars, but
were now reduced, by the injustice of managers
and the villainous tempers of the prima donnas, to
street singing. There were men who went about
selling frosted fruits on long sticks, crying
"Caramel, caramel!" and giving descriptions of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
their wares in almost every European language.
People of all races were there—red-faced Englishmen
and fair women, with their rosy daughters
in sailor hats, on the way from Switzerland, the
respectable English father explaining St. Mark's
with a comprehensive wave of the hand. There
were Frenchmen, Americans, Austrians, Italians,
either talking volubly or deadly quiet; Greeks,
with long bluish-black hair floating out behind
them, and caps with silk top-knots (these were
captains of small vessels coming from Cyprus and
Syria, and they went to the Café della Costanza,
where they could procure mocha and the pipe they
loved best); and young Venetian gentlemen who
spent their lives for the most part in drifting from
one café to another, generally handsome, well-dressed
men with immaculate linen and pointed
beards carefully cut, carrying long canes, and the
lightest of kid gloves (their main object seemed to
be to stare at all the pretty women); and Austrians,
smart, good-natured people, who frequented their
own cafés, with much talk and laughter and rattling
of swords. Now and then one saw Venetian
women of the upper classes on the piazza, but very
rarely. They were extremely indolent and lazy,
and seldom went out. The weather, they would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
tell you, was never sufficiently fine: there was too
much sun, or a sirocco was coming, or a cloud
threatened rain: the slightest thing deterred them.
Often the utmost exertion a Venetian woman
would allow herself in the day was to pass from
her sofa to her balcony to breathe the freshness of
the flowers. Consequently, she had a complexion
which was extremely delicate, a sort of pearly
whiteness. Sometimes she would take a turn or
two in the piazza with her husband or brother as
cavalier, and languidly sip anise and water at the
Café Florian.</p>
<p>For the most part the ancient aristocracy of
Venice lived in retirement and were very poor.
They dwelt in palaces whose walls were covered
with priceless paintings by great masters, with
which they would not part. They dined off a dish
of polenta or fried fish, which a valet brought from
a tavern near by. Their poverty and the fear of
spies and informers combined in making society in
Venice extremely reserved. It was impossible for
a stranger to penetrate into the midst.</p>
<p>In summer, in the months of the dog-star, those
few among the patricians who were well-to-do
flew to their villas on the banks of the Brenta, on
the mainland. They returned to Venice in winter,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
only because, they said, the odours from the
lagoons at that time were unhealthy and caused
fever. Those who had no country houses, and
could not afford to travel, shut themselves up in
their palaces and drew down their blinds until it
was the fashionable time to appear. In the dead
season there were no lamps lit in the great
entrances, and the palaces were silent. The
family lived in the back rooms on the top story.
The rest of the house was let. Most of the
palaces were built round courtyards, and the
contessa might go thither as often as she pleased to
interview tradesmen and bargain for fish—there
at least she would be free from espionage.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, it was pleasant to be in
Venice at that season. The heat was less: the sun
did not bake the ground as it did on the mainland.
Owing to the sirocco which blew across the water,
the air was cool and sweet. Human beings, however,
are ever the slaves of custom, and it was the
fashion for Venetian noblemen to spend the summer
months on the Brenta. The river scenery had a
fascination for them, just as the Thames has for
Londoners. All along the banks were rows of
little, bright, stuccoed villas, somewhat flimsy, each
with its patch of garden and its shrubbery at the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
back, where the family sat all day. Now and then
one saw a nobleman's palace breaking the line of
somewhat uninteresting houses. Such was the
magnificent villa at Stra, belonging to a princely
Venetian family, with its great sweeps of green
lawns, its orangeries, its alleys, and quaintly cut
yews. Venetians love nature when it has been
trimmed by man. Certainly the banks of the
Brenta are very beautiful, especially in spring,
when the water is covered with lilies of yellow and
white, and the banks are lined with scented flags,
and the larks tip the surface of the water with
violet wings and sing as they mount against the
sun. It is not unlike the scenery of some quiet
English stream.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-456" id="i-456"></a>
<img src="images/i-456.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">CHIOGGIA</p>
</div>
<p>This custom of spending the summer months in
the suburbs of Venice was called "villeggiatura."
It was one of the gayest times of the year for the
Venetians. They lived by night. All day long
they lay behind closed blinds, while the sun
parched and baked the ground. Only from five
o'clock in the afternoon until four in the morning
could they be said to live. Then they held dances,
card-parties, and flirtations. During these hours,
when the temperature was low, amusement and
pleasure reigned supreme; but no sooner did the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
sun begin to rise than, as surely as Cinderella
disappeared at the stroke of twelve, the gay
society of the Brenta vanished, and the place
lay dead and silent once more under the intolerable
glare.</p>
<p>How different society in Venice was in the
early days! Then the houses were marvels of
luxury; the finest wit, the most brilliant conversation,
and the most delightful music were to be
heard in Venice. It was not in the houses of the
old aristocracy that the most brilliant people—painters,
writers, poets, and politicians—assembled.
It was in the houses of women who were looked
upon as more or less shady persons, whom no
Venetian gentleman would dream of introducing
to his wife. The wives of the aristocracy were
seldom seen except at public functions. They
took much the same position in society as the
"honoured interior" takes in Japan at the present
day. (The geisha, although she is infinitely more
entertaining, has no social status whatever.) The
Venetian lady of quality, unlike the "honoured
interior," dressed in the most magnificent style.
In the estimate of her husband nothing was too
gorgeous or too costly for her to wear. Among
all those of the larger towns of northern Italy,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
Venetian women of the sixteenth century were
the first to wear needle-point.</p>
<p>Although the ideal woman of that time had to
be tall, a Venetian mother never troubled herself
about the height of her daughter. At any moment
she could transform the girl's dwarfish stature to
that of a splendid giantess by the use of a pair of
high pattens, which were unnoticed beneath the
long stiff dress. Neither was the colour of the hair
a source of inconvenience. Should a girl's locks be
of a mousey nondescript shade, her mother, instead
of using injurious dyes, made her daughter sit
every day for three hours in the front balcony
where the sun shone the brightest, dressed in a
crownless hat, so that her tresses might be pulled
through it, and a very broad brim, in order that
her face should not be tanned. Then the damsel's
maid would sit and comb her mistress's hair,
bleaching in the sun. Girls were never dressed so
richly as their mothers. In fact, the uniform dress
was very simple, generally plain black or white.
When they went to church they wore long white
veils, or falzulo, and on ordinary occasions long
gauzy silk ones, through which they could see, yet
not be seen. On her marriage day the girl was
first introduced into society, and saw the bridegroom
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
for the first time. After marriage the
rules which ordered her life were not nearly so
restricting.</p>
<p>In 1614 certain regulations were passed with
regard to dress and household extravagances—the
amount of money to be spent on dress, liveries,
gondolas, jewellery, feasts and entertainments,
gold and silver plate, and even the dishes and the
menus of dinner-parties. All these were limited.</p>
<p>The earliest nobility consisted of twenty-four
families who ruled as tribunes over the twelve
islands of the lagoons that formed the Venetian
State. Some of these families are still represented
in Venice. In the year 1296 a rigid and definite
aristocracy was formed. Those who held chief
places in the management of the State, whether
they were noble or they had gained importance
through their riches, determined to establish themselves
as the permanent rulers of Venice, and to
close the doors of office against all parvenus.
Thenceforward only near relations of those who
sat in the Great Council could be recognised as
members of the caste. The twenty-four families,
nevertheless, had distinction, and were called the
"old houses." Admission to the Venetian nobility
was rarely conferred on anyone save foreign princes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
or distinguished generals. Now and then, when
the State was sorely in need of money, a Venetian
family was ennobled; but for the most part the
aristocracy guarded their privileges most zealously.</p>
<p>In the days of her decadence, in the eighteenth
century, the tightly-laced, lackadaisical men and the
hooped and brocaded women of Venetian society
lived a curious, aimless, artificial life. Their
greatest pleasure seems to have lain in gossiping,
eating, drinking, and generally struggling to kill
time. It was an inane life, frigid, without freedom,
without heart, without strong emotion. All
pleasures seem to have been carried out by rule.
Even the laughter and the jokes were artificial.
There can be but small wonder that society fell
into broken fortunes.</p>
<p>The ideal nobleman of to-day is a stronger, more
active, finer person altogether than his senatorial
ancestor. His character is healthier. He adopts
more or less a country life. He owns property on
the mainland, and is very much occupied in trying
to make it pay. He rears cattle, grows crops,
makes wine on his own premises, is interested in
silk-growing and in model farms, and competes for
agricultural prizes offered by the Government.
His Venetian palace does not interest him greatly.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
He spends a few months there in the season, gives
one or two large entertainments, and is constantly
making alterations and improvements; but his heart
is in the country, and he leaves Venice for his rural
palazzo on the slightest pretext. This Venetian
noble of to-day thinks a great deal of himself. His
temper is haughty, and there is no softness or
geniality about him. Nevertheless, he is a decided
improvement.</p>
<p>What society there is still to be found in Venice
is constituted by foreigners, mainly English and
American. One of the great things to be done is
to take a gondola and go to the Canal of the Slaves,
beyond the public gardens on the island of St.
Peter—to the home of an old fisherman celebrated
for his fish dinners. This fisherman's cottage is
just as celebrated in Venice as the Trafalgar Hotel
in London, or the Ship Tavern at Greenwich, or
La Rapée in Paris. Here, however, is a more
picturesque environment—boats drawn up on the
yellow sand, nets stretched to dry in the sun, planks
forming a landing-place in front of the houses—all
is very simple. One eats the fish dinner in a garden,
under an arbour shaded by vines, where flowers
and edible vegetables grow in charming but ill-kept
confusion. The host is jovial; his wife, a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
great authority, is the cheerful mother of many
children.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-466" id="i-466"></a>
<img src="images/i-466.jpg" width="550" height="433" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE FISH MARKET</p>
</div>
<p>One finds on one's travels that each city has its
local and peculiar dish—Marseilles its "bouille à
baisse"; Venice its "soupe au pidocchi"—mussels,
gathered in the lagoons and canals, flavoured with
spices and aromatic herbs. Personally, I would
rather this Venetian viand were not so classical;
but you would touch the people to the quick if you
refused their offering. After it come oysters from
the arsenal, eels and mullet from Chioggia, fried
sardines, white wine of Policella, and fruits from
the hills of Este, Marselice, and Montagnana. At
the end of the repast one is presented with a
bouquet from the garden.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span></p>
<h2>GONDOLAS
AND GONDOLIERS</h2>
<p>No conveyance in this world is more delightful
than the gondola. In appearance it is undoubtedly
the most beautiful vessel in the world. Like most
characteristic objects appertaining to Venice, it is
suitable to the place: in fact, it is the outcome of
the place. There is nothing strange or unnatural
about Venice. Everything there seems to have
come about through force of necessity, and is
therefore perfectly beautiful. Even as the hansom
cab suits London, or the 'rickshaw suits Japan, or
the jaunting-car suits Ireland, so the gondola is
the vessel for Venice. You cannot separate the
lagoon from the gondola. One completes the
other. Without either Venice would be impossible.
The gondola alone can wend its way
through the intricate water-streets of the Queen
of the Adriatic.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span></p>
<p>There is no indication of movement whatever
in a gondola. The craft has no springs, no cogs,
no jarring wheels or oily machinery, no vibration.
Simply one sees the palaces glide by in front of
one, and hears the water making a lapping noise
under the bows. The gondolier is out of sight.
Nothing blocks your view of sea and sky, save
the slender steel ferro at the prow. The gondola
is built for leisure: one cannot quite imagine it,
let us say, in America. It is a historic vessel,
with a flavour of sentiment and antiquity about
it, built by a leisured people for idleness, not for
business or for hurry. It is long and slender,
flat-bottomed, and tapers towards each end, where
it rises considerably above the water. It draws
but little water, and has much the form of a skate.
The felce (cabin), placed somewhat astern, is draped
with black cloth, which can be removed in the
summer-time to make room for a striped awning.
This, however, the true Venetian loathes: rather
than use it, I am sure, he would be willing to
swelter under the felce. On each side of the cabin
there is a window, which can be closed in three
separate ways—by a bevelled Venetian glass let
down; by a blind with movable blades; by a
strip of cloth dropped over.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-476" id="i-476"></a>
<img src="images/i-476.jpg" width="550" height="367" alt="" />
<p class="caption">MIDDAY ON THE LAGOON</p>
</div>
<p>The gondola is made to hold four people. There
are morocco cushions on either side. As the seats
are very low, you are supplied with two silken
cords with handles, to assist you to rise. As the
cabin is too small to turn in, one must enter a
gondola backwards. The woodwork is carved
according to the wealth of the owner or the taste
of the gondolier. Sometimes it is very elaborate.
Above the door is generally a copper shield on
which the coat-of-arms of the owner is engraved,
surmounted by a crown; on the felce there hangs,
in a small frame, an image of the Holy Virgin, or
of St. Mark, or of St. Theodore, or of St. George,
or of some saint for whom the gondolier has a
special devotion. The lantern also hangs here—a
custom which, as the gondolas sometimes run
without the star in front, is gradually dying out.
On account of the coat-of-arms, the saint, and
the lantern, the left is the place of honour: there
the ladies are placed, or any aged or distinguished
person. There is in the felce a sliding panel,
through which one can communicate with the
gondolier on emergency. At the prow there is a
halberd-like piece of iron, smooth and polished,
called "the ferro," much like the finger-board of
a violin. This serves for decoration, for defence,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
for counterpoise to the rower in the stern, and to
test the height of the bridges. It is the pride of
the gondolier to keep this always as bright as
silver. Often when a crowd of gondolas are
moored thickly about the landing-stage, the ferro
is used as a wedge, by the aid of which boats
can be divided. The rower plies his oar standing
on a small platform on the poop, not far behind
the cabin, and facing the direction in which the
gondola is to move.</p>
<p>The skill with which the gondolier manages his
graceful craft is extraordinary. He stands quite
upright on the poop, one foot placed firmly in front
of him, and throws the weight of his body forward
on his oar to such an extent that one fears he may
follow it into the water. It is only by long habit
that he can procure the necessary balance. The
gondola is sensitive to the least impression, and
the downward stroke has the effect of sending the
boat round. It is only by turning the blade in
the water, and raising it gradually upward, that
the gondola can be kept straight. The oar rests
in a fork, beautifully designed to allow free movement.
The gondolier, sole director of his craft,
uses the oar sometimes as a paddle, and sometimes
as a boathook. He rows always on one side.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
Under the hands of an efficient man, the gondola
glides over the water like a living thing, turning
the corners of canals with great precision.</p>
<p>Sometimes on festa days the gondoliers practise
feats, such as setting the vessel full-tilt and with
all their might against the stone wall of a quay,
going with such rapidity that you expect man and
boat to be dashed to pieces. Just at the last
moment, with a powerful turn of the oar that
is interesting to watch, he stops dead at the base
of the quay, sometimes nearly grazing it. In much
the same way, in the At Maidan of Constantinople,
long ago, Arab and Turkish horsemen charged
against stone walls and suddenly pulled up.</p>
<p>Very different is the gondola in the hands of an
amateur. Many are the duckings that ensue.
Some of the young patricians, however, occasionally
don the traditional jacket, cap, and girdle of a
gondolier, and guide their own craft in a remarkably
graceful manner.</p>
<p>Few people have any knowledge of the real
meanings of the gondoliers' cries, some of which are
peculiarly sweet and characteristic. When a man
wants to pass on the left, and does not intend to
use the backward stroke, he cries, "Premi!" If,
on the other hand, he wishes to pass on the right,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
he cries, "Stali!" Sometimes, if when turning
a dangerous corner he wishes to be especially
emphatic, he cries, "Premi! Premi!" and "Stali!
ah, Stali!" The gondola can be stopped immediately,
however great the rate at which it is travelling,
by placing the blade in front of the fork. If
a man is really expert he stops his gondola very
suddenly, making a great deal of foam with his oar.
When stopping a gondola thus the gondolier cries,
"Sciar!" As you approach the landing-stage a
crowd of ragamuffins, old and young, called "crab-catchers,"
come forward, holding in their hands
staffs, with bent nails attached, with which to
secure your gondola as you place your foot on
shore.</p>
<p>The gondolier is a voluble, gossiping person.
He loves to have a chat at the top of his voice
with another of his kind, and to scream repartee
across the water. He enjoys nothing more than
a quarrel, especially with a man who is across the
canal. Invariably they pass from pertinent observations
on their personal appearances to defamation
of their women. If such language were used
at close quarters on either bank they would come
to blows. I once saw two gondolas hook on to
each other by mistake with their iron axes, and I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
shall never forget the discussion that ensued. It
made one's blood literally curdle! The men looked
like two angry sea-birds pecking at each other as
they pulled and pulled in their endeavour to release
themselves. When this had been accomplished
they stood upright, each on his own poop, brandishing
their oars as though they longed to kill.
As a matter of fact, there is rarely any violence
among Venetians except in language. "Body
of Bacchus!" one shouts. "Blood of David!" the
adversary answers. These mythological oaths
being not sufficiently comforting, they continue:
"Low crab!" "Sea-lion!" "Dog!" "Son of a cow!"
"Ass!" "Son of a sow!" "Assassin!" "Ruffian!"
"Spy!" Having reached the worst taunt in their
vocabulary, they take to cursing the rival saints.
"The Madonna of thy landing is a street-walker
who is not worth two candles!" one will cry. "Thy
saint is a rascal who does not know how to make
a decent miracle!" the other will rejoin. The
profanity becomes more terrible as the distance
between them increases. Possibly next time they
meet they will drink a glass of wine together
without remembering the quarrel.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-484" id="i-484"></a>
<img src="images/i-484.jpg" width="358" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A TRAGHETTO</p>
</div>
<p>The gondolier is a more intelligent person than
the ordinary hackman. He knows all the histories
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
of the different places of interest, and relates them
for the benefit of foreigners. He has a few words
of French and English. Of course, he is a rogue
by nature, and will cheat you on every possible
occasion; but that conduct is common to the
carriers of all countries. And there is something
very frank and amusing about the way in which
they commit their petty thefts. A gondolier likes
to serve Englishmen or Americans, who pay good
prices; but a German is beyond his comprehension.
The Teuton either goes by the tariff or walks—an
eminently foolish act, in the gondolier's opinion.</p>
<p>Every gondolier belongs to a traghetto (ferry-boat
station), from which gondolas cross over to
Venice from various points on the Giudecca.
These traghette have been established for centuries—no
one knows exactly how long; but certainly
they were in existence in the fourteenth century.
To a gondolier a traghetto is, as it were, a club.
There are sixteen traghette. Each is governed
by its own laws and constitutions, which are still
strictly kept; each has its own history, archives,
and parchment documents. By this society are
regulated the gondolier's wages, the limits of his
obedience, his holidays, everything appertaining to
his welfare. There is at each traghetto a little
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
house in which the gondoliers can sit and gossip
and mend their boats.</p>
<p>One sees some of the finest types there. Years
ago they used to sing there on moonlight nights,
in their beautiful broken Venetian patois, verses
from Tasso. It is long since they have done this
as a habit; but they will do it sometimes if you
pay them sufficiently well. One often hears them
singing on the lagoon to the accompaniment of
an Englishman's golden coins. You can almost
imagine on such occasions that you are living away
back in the Middle Ages—except that now the
Venetians drink a good deal, as they certainly
never did then, and sing in thick, guttural voices,
somewhat hoarse, but on the whole beautiful, as
the musical Venetian dialect must always be. The
songs that they sing are all about lovely maidens and
romantic excursions on the water. The singing is
very fine from a distance, the melody of a human
voice floating out on the calm and silence of the
night. The gondoliers are proud of their talent,
and value it highly.</p>
<p>Nearly every gondolier belongs to a bank. He
is a capable financier. In company with twenty-nine
other men, he deposits 10 lire, and pledges to
pay a weekly sum of 1 lira throughout the year.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
On his failing to pay up once a week, 10 per cent.
on each lira is charged. Gondoliers are supposed
to borrow a certain amount, for which 10 per cent.
is charged, every year. The accounts of the bank
are settled in September, and then a new venture
is started.</p>
<p>The gondolier is an inflammable person. He is
much taken up with pretty women getting in and
out of gondolas. Love-making with him begins
on the bridges in the narrow canals, or at the
windows. One fine day, generally very early in
life, when propelling his boat slowly down a side
canal, he sees at an iron grated window the face of
a girl. Instantly becoming enamoured, boldly he
takes up his position every day underneath her
casement, waiting for a look, sighing for a smile.
If by chance the maiden should appear and return
his salute, he takes himself off with great joy; and
at the end of the day, when his work is done, he
and a friend in whom he has confided dress themselves
in their best, and call upon the father of the
girl, formally to ask her hand. He states his
family, his profession, the amount of his income,
and the extent of his love. Two or three months
are allowed to elapse. Then there will be more
gazing at the window and meeting in the calle.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
If by the end of that time their affection has
declared itself sincere, the lover and his parents
are invited to supper at the girl's home. Every
stage in a Venetian's love affair is marked by feasts,
generally suppers. On this occasion the young
man again asks the father's consent. This is
accorded him, and the pair are blessed. The
ceremony is called the "dimanda." A little later
comes the betrothal ("segno"), when the lover presents
the girl with her wedding ring, and, if he can
afford it, other rings as well. There is a sumptuous
supper, and thenceforward they are called respectively
"novizza" and "spoza." During the time of
the betrothal the poor gondolier is kept very busy
buying and giving presents to the lady of his choice.
He must give the proper things at the proper times,
and never by any chance make the mistake of
purchasing a comb or scissors, for one is an emblem
of the witch, and the other signify a cutting
tongue. He must remember to present to her at
Christmas a confitura of fruit and raw mustard-seed,
and a box of mandolato; on All Souls' Day
a box of fare; at the Feast of St. Mark a boccolo
or button-hole of rosebuds; at Easter a fugazza or
cake; at Martinmas roast chestnuts. The thing
for the girl to give in return is a silk handkerchief:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
it is not considered etiquette to present her lover
with a gift of great value.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-492" id="i-492"></a>
<img src="images/i-492.jpg" width="438" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">MARIETTA</p>
</div>
<p>In Venice everything is ruled by custom. The
most important acts in a Venetian's life are bound
and fettered by it, and he would never dream of
breaking through. He will sacrifice anything for
custom, and never count the cost. For example,
if one saw a gondolier at a festa, or at a baptism,
or at a wedding, you might take him for either a
rich man or a spendthrift. As a matter of fact, he
is neither the one nor the other. Only, he is bound
by custom to do certain things and spend a certain
amount of money at a festa, and he does it regally.
He may have to pinch and scrape at home afterwards;
but that is another matter.</p>
<p>The gondoliers are a very conservative people.
They are the slaves of custom. Custom is to them
a religion. They much prefer their ancient
customs to any new order of comfort or convenience.
Their lives are simple, bright, and easy;
their wants are very few and moderate. House-rent
is cheap: they can procure a fallen palace in
moderately good repair for half a franc a day.
They are frugal and easily pleased; their constitutions
are sound; their climate is fine, and the air
they breathe is pure. Consequently, the gondolier
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
can live happily, with his wife, on a franc and a
half a day. His meals, to be sure, are always the
same—coffee and bread in the morning, polenta
and fish at mid-day, a soup of shell-fish or artichokes
at night. When the family begins to be large, the
gondolier's life is not ideal; still, in spite of the
hunger and poverty and crowding in Venetian
houses, a great deal of joy manages to find room.
If a baby lives, he grows up into a fine healthy
man, robust and happy; but usually he dies,
especially if he is one of many. Venetian women
seem to have naturally not the slightest idea how
to bring up a baby. It is only after constant habit
and practice, and the loss of lives, that a mother
seems to grasp the first principles of a baby's upbringing.
Before that she will feed it, at two
months old, on black coffee, sour apples, and
wine; allow it to swallow all kinds of lotions and
concoctions prepared by the doting old crones of
the quarter. As the child grows older she lets it
wear during winter the clothes which it wore in
summer. Then she wonders why out of eight
children only four are living. It is a beautiful
sight to see a great gondolier nursing his little
child. He may be harsh and bullying to his
fellows; but he treats Baby with the utmost
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
tenderness and gentleness. The child is a good
deal safer in his arms than in those of the
mother.</p>
<p>The chief amusements of the gondolier are to go
to the opera or to see marionettes, to make up a
party and spend the day in the country, to compete
in a rowing match, and to give a little supper at a
wine-shop. It is on such days as these that the
true freshness and warmth of his nature appear,
and one sees the gondolier as he is—mirthful,
pungent, gay.</p>
<p>There are two things about which the gondolier
is particular. One is his bread, and the other is
his wine. One seldom finds good wine in Venice.
It is only when the red wine arrives fresh from
Padua and Verona that it is good. Then everyone
rushes to the wine-shops; for nothing spreads
quicker than the reputation of a good wine, and
everyone clamours for it. Very soon it becomes
watery and sour. The white wine the gondoliers
do not like at all. Of bread there are all kinds.
One is expected to have a preference for a certain
make, and there are many different makes. There
are the Chioggian bread, the "pane Commune,"
the "pane col agid," and many others.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-500" id="i-500"></a>
<img src="images/i-500.jpg" width="365" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">BAMBINO</p>
</div>
<p>Men of the gondolier class do not think a great
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>
deal of religion. That is reserved for women.
Church-going is no longer a habit with the men.
Still, whenever matters of ancient custom step in
they invariably do their duty—as in events of
domestic life, such as confirmations,—and the little
chapel to the Madonna at each traghetto has
always its flowers and its few candles placed there
by the reverent hands of the gondoliers.</p>
<p>Times were good for the gondoliers when Venice
was rich and prosperous. Nowadays their gains
are meagre, and they number hundreds where they
numbered thousands in the old days. Noblemen
kept six or seven gondolas, with attendant
gondoliers, and, besides paying them an ample
salary, on festa days allowed them to exact any
payment they chose.</p>
<p>If you are staying in Venice for any length of
time, it is better to hire a gondola and gondolier by
the month than by the day. One only pays five
francs a day, and when off duty the youth makes
an excellent servant in the house. He comes and
knocks at your water-gate at a certain time every
day; also he will wait at table, act as footman, take
care of the children; in fact, he will do everything
one wishes; and he pays the proprietor of the
gondola, out of his own pocket, one franc a day.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
It is the ambition of every gondolier to serve an
"Inglese."</p>
<p>They say that Venice is always silent; but I
can vouch that it is not so. At night, if your
lodgings are anywhere near a landing-place, you
will find that it is very noisy indeed. The gondoliers
sleep at their posts on the pedestals of the
two columns as they sit waiting for a job, and they
love their repose in the sunshine; but at night they
become extremely lively, and keep up a perpetual
disturbance of laughter, shouts, and songs until two
o'clock in the morning. They sit on the marble
steps, or on the ends of their gondolas; or they eat
shell-fish and drink wine under the light of the
lamps in the niches of the Madonnas at street
corners; vagabonds from their beds in the street
arise and join them.</p>
<p>One sees on the lagoons gondolas of all kinds,
carrying passengers of all kinds, and it is sometimes
interesting to peep inside as they pass.
There are official gondolas, with the Italian banner
floating at their sterns, carrying some cold, stiff
functionary in full-dress uniform, his breast covered
with decorations. Another carries English people,
phlegmatic tourists, to Chioggia; another, with
lowered felce, hides lovers who are going to breakfast
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
somewhere on the lagoon; yet another, a
larger gondola, takes a family to the sea baths at
the Lido. There is a red craft waiting at the foot
of some steps; a red bier is brought out of a church
by a red cortege,—it is a corpse, to be buried in a
cemetery on an island on the way to Murano.
(When anyone dies in Venice a notice is posted up
on his house, and on the houses round about,
stating the age, place of birth, and the illness of
which he died; also saying that he has received the
Sacrament and died a good Christian; prayers are
asked for his soul.) There are gondolas in which
are musical instruments of all kinds—violins of
Cremona, cornets, mandolines, tambourines,—a
complete orchestra. Quite a large flotilla of gondolas
follow in its wake. One has fastened to the
side a bluish monster splashing and making the
water foam. That is a dolphin, a marine curiosity
which is displayed by the proud possessors under
all the balconies as they pass, collecting money in a
hat. In order that it may be seen to advantage,
the animal is kept half in the water and half out.</p>
<p>If one is at all interested in gondolas—that is to
say, in the making of them,—nothing could be
more fascinating than to spend a few hours in a
squero (building yard). Any gondolier will be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
pleased to take you there, for he is inordinately
proud of his craft. The squeri are picturesque;
but somehow one always associates them with
pitch. The place reeks with it. Always in one
corner there stands the pitch-pot, sending a stream
of thick black smoke up into the air. Small boys
prance around, looking like young imps among the
smoke and blaze, and wave smearing brushes in
their hands. Long lines of boats, like some
strange fish out of water, are drawn up, waiting to
be cleaned or mended. The bottom of a gondola
has to be dried thoroughly and quickly before
receiving its coat of melted tallow. This is done
by lighting a blazing fire of reeds under the boat,
the flames leaping high into the air. Volumes of
smoke arise, roll up over the house-tops, and are
swept away by the breeze. Boys dance a kind of
war-dance round the flames. The art of gondola-building
is exacting. Three qualities are absolutely
necessary to the formation of a perfect craft.
It must draw but little water; it must turn easily;
and it must be rowable by one oarsman only. To
secure this, the hull is built of light thin boards,
and only a portion of the flat bottom rests upon
the water. Thus the boat swings as on a pivot.
Then, the gondola is not equally divided by a line
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
drawn from stern to bow: in order that the rower
may be balanced, there is more bottom on one side
than on the other. The various woods of which a
gondola is made must be chosen with great care.
They must be well seasoned and without knots, for
the planks are liable to warp and the knots to start.
Once every twenty days in summer the gondolier
forfeits his four lire and takes his gondola to the
squero to be cleaned and scraped. Weeds rapidly
collect at the bottom when the water is warm, and
the deadly toredo bores holes through the planking.
The gondola is hauled up high and dry, and a fire
burnt underneath it. A whole day's earnings in
the summer season is a great loss to the gondolier;
but if he keeps his gondola in good condition it
will last him for a considerable time, perhaps for
five years, and, besides, when the bottom of the
boat is kept clear of weeds and well greased the
speed is greater. When a gondolier sells his craft
it becomes a ferry-boat for five years, the woodwork
slowly bowing and bending until it becomes
a gobbo half buried in the water. Later it is sold
for five lire, broken up, and burnt in the glass
manufactories of Murano.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-508" id="i-508"></a>
<img src="images/i-508.jpg" width="436" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">A SQUERO OR BOAT-BUILDING YARD IN VENICE</p>
</div>
<p>The natural history of these objects and their
gradual development through centuries would form
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
a fascinating chapter. To gain some idea of what
the gondola once was, it is as well to study the
pictures of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio in the
Academy. There you will see Venetian nobles in
their gondolas with their light Eastern rugs. The
ferro was not then hatchet-shaped, with six teeth,
as it is now, but a round club of metal. The
rower was tall and graceful, standing on the poop
in his parti-coloured hose and slashed doublet.
One can see by these pictures what a great change
the gondola has undergone. Those who have not
been to Venice, and wish to know something of a
gondola in its later stage, would do well to study
the pictures of Guardi and Canaletto. Therein
the gondola has not its old brilliant colouring; but
what it has lost in colour it has gained in grace.</p>
<p>Some of the gondoliers are most skilful in
managing without either keel or rudder; like the
Vikings of old, steering with an oar behind.
A good man is devotedly attached to his gondola.
He knows its character and peculiarities.
To the initiated every gondola differs in a hundred
details from its fellow, although they may all have
apparently been built on the same model. A
gondolier's skill in rowing depends largely upon his
knowledge of his craft. One can generally gauge
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
the efficiency of a man by the brightness of his
ferro. The slightest spot of dew or rain upon it
produces a spot of rust which takes weeks of constant
rubbing to efface. There is a good deal of
brass-work which has to be kept clean; the
cushions must be brushed, and the paint scrubbed;
and altogether a gondolier spends quite an hour
and a half a day on the toilet of his craft, polishing,
oiling, and scrubbing. His own person does
not occupy nearly so much of his attention.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-514" id="i-514"></a>
<img src="images/i-514.jpg" width="550" height="437" alt="" />
<p class="caption">UNDER THE MIDDAY SUN</p>
</div>
<p>The gondola is so closely connected with the life
of the sea city that most of one's impressions of
Venice are wound round and about it. It is not
always safe out on the lagoon in a gondola. Often
in summer or in autumn a gale will suddenly arise.
Great masses of cloud will gather in the east, and
gain upon you; they are curved into an arc by the
pressure of the wind from behind, although upon
the water there is scarcely enough breeze to fill a
sail. These great billowy battalions, dark and
angry, advance slowly, steadily; the water changes
from a pale transparent to a pale sea-green as thick
as jade. A feeling of oppression fills the air, a
brooding stillness, for five minutes, while the storm-clouds
gradually overtake you. Then comes a low
humming noise like that of a threshing machine:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
it is the wind on the nearest island. You down
sail and make for the first port in view. The
hurricane leaps out from the city, striking the
water and tearing it into foam, flinging the spray
high in air. There is hurry and confusion in the
sky; the thundery clouds are rent and riven; and
through the gaps of dull-coloured vapour you see
the steely blue of the storm-clouds boiling as in a
cauldron; and far above all is blue sky and sunlight;
a rainbow spans the lagoon. Then the
whole tornado sweeps away south-westward. The
sun sets, leaving the sky dark, but with flaming
streamers; then night falls over all. There is
lightning and storm away in the distance. The
heavens assume their customary deep blue, and
the breeze is fresh and cool. These summer storms
are sometimes almost tropical in their fury; but
they are quickly over. Their path is narrow—usually
confined to one line on the lagoon;—but
where they strike they leave devastation in their
track.</p>
<p>The Venetians love festas, and in the days of
the city's wealth and pride the State lavished great
sums and much care upon its entertainments.
Certainly the natural capacities of the city gave
splendid scope for great spectacles. It was a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
magnificent background, and seemed to invite
display. The pictures of Bellini, Carpaccio, Veronese,
and all the rest of the old Venetian masters,
prove how deeply the people must have loved the
pageants and State processions. With the collapse
of the State these customs fell into disuse. For
example, there was that wonderful old sport—how
picturesque it must have been!—the battle on the
bridge between the Nicolotti and the Castellani,
rival factions of black and red. There also was the
regatta (I am not sure if it continues)—a great
spectacle that could not be surpassed by any in
Europe. A race was rowed in light gondolas,
smaller than those of ordinary use. The Grand
Canal was crowded with boats of all sizes—sandolas,
barche, barchette, tipos, cavaline, vigieri, bissoni,—there
is no end to the variety of Venetian craft.
The façades of the palaces fluttered with flags,
tapestries, carpets, and curtains,—anything that
would add to the general mass of colour. The
balconies were filled with people; every window
had its bevy of heads. Down below on the water
the scene was brilliant. The course was kept by
large twelve-oared boats, all decorated symbolically.
One represented the Arctic regions, the
rowers being dressed as polar bears, with blocks of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
ice for seats; another the tropical regions, with
palms and gorgeous flowers. In the evening there
was a serenade, starting from a point above the
Rialto. The singers and the orchestra were placed
on a barge decorated and lighted by many coloured
lamps, and the music of Donizetti's "A te, o cara"
filled the air. The object of every gondolier on an
occasion of this kind was to get his padrone as near
to the music as possible, whether he wanted it or
not. The singers' barge, therefore, was surrounded
by a solid mass of gondolas, which floated slowly
down the canal together, getting denser as the
canal narrowed to pass under the Rialto bridge.
It was a fantastic scene—with the masses of Bengal
lights, the rising moon, the gondolas swaying
gently to the rhythm of the song and the sea, and
the statuesque gondoliers, creatures of the sea,
standing upright on the stern of their vessels,
or, oars in hand and hair blown by the breeze,
silhouetted against a background of deep-blue
sky.</p>
<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="i-522" id="i-522"></a>
<img src="images/i-522.jpg" width="550" height="386" alt="" />
<p class="caption">THE RIALTO</p>
</div>
<p>The gondolier in Venice is an important person
to the stranger. Half one's comfort depends on
his worthiness or unworthiness. He is like the girl
of childhood's fame "who, if she was good, was
very very good, but, if she was bad, was horrid."
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
If you are the employer of an ideal gondolier you
will find him thorough, ready-handed, and versatile.
In passing rapidly through Venice one does not
properly appreciate his worth. You must own him
for some months before you discover that he will
attach himself to you and identify himself with
your interests in an almost feudal manner. He
will save you an infinity of trouble, and repay your
confidence with honesty. The gondolier usually
prefers to have a foreigner for a master. The
foreigner pays well, never grumbling at the full
tariff of five lire a day: also, as the foreigner does
not know the language or the place, the gondolier
becomes of some importance in the eyes of his
neighbours, who bid for his patronage. With a
Venetian master he would be paid from three to
five lire a day; the work would be harder, and the
hours later.</p>
<p>When the squerariola (gondola builders) have
finished their work, the vessel will probably have
cost three hundred lire. Even then the craft is not
by any means complete. There are the steel
ornaments and many other details to be bought
and bargained for,—things not procurable at the
squero. For the steel prow (ferro), which must
have the edges of its teeth in one straight line, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
in these days of hurried workmanship is not always
to be found, one must seek in all the smithies in
Venice. A good gondolier, however, will often
possess a ferro, an heirloom, made of hand-wrought
iron, not cast in mould, heavy and brittle, as are
the new ferri, but light and pliant. A ferro of the
good and ancient make, if properly cared for and
not allowed to rust, will outlive many a gondola.
For the sea-horses, the rude carvings, the pictured
Madonnas, the rugs and the covering for the
felce,—all, in fact, that helps to make the gondola
the picturesque craft it is,—one must go to the
various shops in Venice.</p>
<p>Modern progress and modern ideas are rapidly
sweeping away the ancient and hereditary profession
of the gondolier. One feels that his life
and that of the traghetto are drawing to a close—that
soon they will be things of the past. What
would the Grand Canal be like without its swiftly
gliding gondola, black-hulled, black-roofed,—its
most characteristic feature? What a terrible thing
it will be when that exquisite art is forgotten,—when
the Venetian can no longer judge the turn of
a corner or balance himself on the poop,—when
for the picturesque cries "Stali!" and "Premi!"
will be substituted the clank and thud of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
steamers' screws! When a company first began
to run steamers from Venice to the railway station
and public gardens, the gondoliers struck. For
three whole days there were no gondolas running
in Venice; the canals were full of tightly packed
vessels, while their owners hung together in groups
at the wine-shops, talking. A strange and scratch
fleet of nondescript boats plied between Venice
and the islands, and the expression of the gondoliers,
as they leaned over the bridges and
watched the amateur watermen struggling with
their oars, was quite unique. On the second day
a notice was posted up in every traghetto begging
the men to return to their work, and not to bring
dishonour on a profession which had always been
such a source of pride to Venice. This had no
effect. The gondoliers merely enlisted the services
of a barrister, getting him to take a copy of their
demand to the Company—that the offending
steamers should be removed. That was impossible.
The steamers were cheap and useful, and the
gondoliers could not be allowed to dictate to the
State. However, they were told that if they returned
peaceably to their work something might
be done for them. They persisted in their strike,
until suddenly—no one ever knew why, or whence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
it came—a single gondola started running from
one of the ferries. That broke the ice. The
gondoliers rushed to their crafts and untied them.
The strike was forgotten. The men's first thought
was to find good custom. I have always felt that
there was something touching in this hopeless
struggle of the gondoliers against the modernity
that is fast settling on and demoralising Venice.</p>
<p class="center p6 s08">
PRINTED BY<br />
NEILL AND COMPANY, LIMITED,<br />
EDINBURGH.</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42998 ***</div>
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