VENICE Y.uyK £c&[& j»00 |00 G;_nrc;l>«£ Qther.Quridiw.js' 2. S Nana del HiraColi 3J5.(jiovaQQi Cri$Q$ton)0 5S2acdaria 6S#ovanvi wjyagora TS.tfartioo 8. S.Giorgio dei~$reci 9. SQuhaoo Mai \l.Paluzzo DucaJe MMaizo fatriarcale W.Procuratie Vecctie. iS.Produratie Hoove 16. fluova Fabbrica nZeCca 18.Scuola di S ffarco LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class VENICE AND VENETIA A .':*.:: t .•• •«••• • • • ,• • • •« c c c c * « • • •• «•••«• «• VENICE AND VENETIA BY EDWARD HUTTON AUTHOR OF "THE CITIES OF UMBRIA," ETC. WITH FOURTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY MAXWELL ARMFIELD AND TWELVE OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK THE MAGMILLAN COMPANY 1911 y k b M • • e a « •„• • •-" • TO C. H. and E. A. A. 226680 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. VENETIA AND VENICE ..... I II. S. MARK'S ...... 42 III. THE DOGE'S PALACE . . . 67 IV. PIAZZA DI S. MARCO .... 84 V. SESTIERE DI CASTELLO . . -94 VI. SESTIERE DI S. MARCO I05 VII. SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO . . . . Il6 VIII. SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO . . 127 IX. SESTIERE DI DORSODURO . . . . 140 X. THE ACADEMY ..... I4& XI. THE ISLANDS OF THE GIUDECCA AND S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE . . . . . .167 XII. THE LIDO, S. LAZZARO, S. SERVOLO, AND S. ELENA 176 XIII. THE ISLANDS OF S. MICHELE AND MURANO . 1 87 viii VENICE AND VENETIA CHAPTER PAGE XIV. THE ISLANDS OF BURANO, TORCELLO, AND S. FRANCESCO DEL DESERTO . . . 199 XV. TO CHIOGGIA ...... 209 XVI. TO TREVISO . . . . . 2l8 XVII. CASTELFRANCO AND BASSANO . . . 230 XVIII. PADUA . . . . . . 242 XIX. TWO POETS AND THE EUGANEAN HILLS . . 264 XX. VICENZA ...... 274 XXI. VERONA . . . . .284 INDEX . . . . -309 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR OUTSIDE THE WALLS, PADOVA TORCELLO FROM BURANO . S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE S. MARK'S, VENICE . . THE PIAZZETTA, VENICE THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE THE GESUATI, VENICE . . . S. GIORGIO, VENICE THE EUGANEAN HILLS TORCELLO . . . . . , PALAZZO EZZELINO BALBO, PADUA . VICENZA . . . . VERONA ..... THE CLOISTER OF THE DUOMO, VERONA Frontispiece FACING PAGE 12 • 38 58 • 84 I06 . 144 168 . 182 206 . 242 274 . 284 302 x VENICE AND VENETIA IN MONOTONE FACING PAGK PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS . . . .48 By Gentile Bellini, in the Accademia, Venice . (Photo : Brogi) THE RAPE OF EUROPA ..... 78 By Paul Veronese, in the Doge's Palace, Venice (Photo : Alinari) MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS . . .96 By Giovanni Bellini, in the Church of S. Zaccaria (Photo : Anderson) MADONNA ENTHRONED ..... 102 By Antonio da Negroponte, in the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna (Photo : Anderson) THE SOLDIER AND THE GIPSY . . . .122 By Giorgione, in the Palazzo Giovanelli, Venice (Photo : Alinari) CLEOPATRA . . . . . . .126 By Tiepolo, in the Palazzo Labbia, Venice (Photo : Anderson) THE PESARO FAMILY, DETAIL FROM THE MADONNA DEL PESARO . . . . . .136 By Titian, in the Frari, Venice (Photo : Anderson) THE ENGLISH AMBASSADORS ASKING FOR THE HAND OF S. URSULA . . . . . .156 By Carpaccio, in the Accademia, Venice (Photo : Alinari) BACCHUS AND ARIADNE . . . . . 164 By Tintoretto, in the Doge's Palace, Venice (Photo : Alinari) MARTYRDOM OF S. CRISTOFORO .... 256 By Andrea Mantegna, in the Eremitani, Padua (Photo : Anderson) FIVE SAINTS ....... 280 By Montagna, in the Church of S. Corona, Vicenza (Photo : Anderson) ST. GEORGE AND THE PRINCESS .... 298 By Pisanello, in the Church of S. Anastasia, Verona (Photo: Anderson) VENICE AND VENETIA VENICE AND VENETIA VENETIA AND VENICE THE traveller who, on his way to Italy from the North, should have the patience, perseverance, or curiosity to cross the great mountains on foot, or at least by road, whether he attempt them by the Mont Cenis, the Simplon, the S. Gotthard, the Spliigen, or the Brenner, will find stretched out before him as far as the eye can reach a vast green plain in which he will see the distant glitter of many fair cities. This plain in his first joy he takes to be Italy ; in fact, it is Cisalpine Gaul. Yet he is partly right in his enthusiasm, for this great plain, so tremendously defended on the north and the west against the Germanies, is indeed much more Latin in its history and civilization than Gallic or Teutonic, but it is separated from Italy by a very considerable bastion — the bastion of the Apennines, though it may not be com- pared with that which defends it from the Germanies. This vast plain thus separated from the world on the north, the west, and the south, is guarded on the east by the sea. From west to east it is divided into two not unequal parts by a great river, the Po. South of the Po, between the river and the Apennines, it is divided superficially into numerous districts of no great extent by many rivers, not one of which 2 VENICE AND VENETIA is of any great importance, and all of which are tributaries of the Po. But with these provinces to the south of the great river, under the shadow as it were of the Apennines, and so with but one by no means impassable barrier between them and Italy proper, it is not my purpose to deal in this book. They early came for the most part under Italian influence, and are to this day the more Italian parts of the great plain. Our business lies with that part of this vast plain which lies to the north of the Po between it and the great mountains, and with but a part of that, the eastern part. For the great plain to the north of the Po, defended by that river on the south, by the Alps on the north and west, and on the east by the sea, is in itself naturally divided into two parts by the Lake of Garda and the Mincio, which runs out of it into the Po. The province, which lies to the west of the Mincio, which we call Lombardy, whose capital from time immemorial has been Milan, has always been separate from the district which lies to the east of the Mincio, which we call Venetia, as did the Romans. This last and eastern province, unlike the others which all together form the whole vast plain, guarded on three sides by the mountains and on the fourth by the sea, never made a real part of Cisalpine Gaul. It was outside the great command which Caesar held when he crossed the Rubicon to conquer Italy, and save on its north-eastern frontier it possessed then the same frontiers as it does to-day, when its boundaries are the Mincio, the Po to its mouth, the Adriatic to the Austrian frontier on this side the Isonzo, and the Julian, Carnic, Dolomitic, and Rhaetian Alps. Venetia, the Veneto, the green plain thus enclosed and defended by nature, is, and has been for many ages, itself divided into districts or provinces : to wit, Venezia proper, the Friuli, the Marches of Treviso, the Polesine, the Padovano, and the Veronese ; but such divisions were to a large extent merely political, Venetia being divided by nature into but three main parts — the mountains, the plain, and the lagoons; It is with the two latter parts we propose to deal. Now as TENETIA AND VENICE 3 the mountains made the rivers, so the rivers rising in the mountains made the plain, and in their confluence with the sea the lagoons. In looking at any map of the physical configuration of Europe it will be seen how the mountains roll up slowly out of the plain of the Germanies till they break in a great crested wave upon this Italian shore. The steepness of this wave, the suddenness of its breaking, have this consequence, that the rivers which flow southward from it are everywhere rapid in the mountains or immediately under them, as at Verona, but the plain breaks their onslaught so that very soon as at Mantua they become sluggish and spread out into vast marshes, and indeed it is only the tireless energy of man that prevents them now as in the past from turning the whole plain into an incredible morass. Yet to this onslaught of the rivers — and all have much the same character, the Po, the Mincio, the Brenta, the Adige, and the Piave — we owe the whole character of the plain not only for evil but for good also. For these rapid and torrential streams brought to the plains a wealth of soil unknown in any other part of Italy, and the continual danger, the necessity for a tireless war against nature, bred a hardy and industrious people. There is something else, too ; though spiritual as it is and not material, it will appeal less to the thought of our time. The rivers which thus formed the plain and gave so sturdy a character to the inhabitants, all flowed eastward into the Adriatic, and thus the cities which were built there beside them were forced to look eastward too. In the terrible revolutions in which the Western Empire fell this fact has a spiritual importance that it is impossible to exaggerate. If the mountains and the rivers made the plain and gave it its character, the rivers and the sea formed that other essential part of the Veneto, I mean the lagoons, those vast and mysterious lakes of tidal water separated from the Adriatic by long and narrow stretches of sand dunes which we call lidi. For as the rivers grew weary and sluggish in the immensity of the plain, so when they met the sea they had no energy to 4 VENICE AND VENETIA battle with it but spread out in deltas j and the tide, slowly swirling round the great gulf from east to west, meeting the rivers one by one, heaped up their alluvial soil in those long bars, which were broken here and there by the tide and the storm, so that they formed infinitely long and narrow islands, almost enclosing great sheets of water, mixed of salt and fresh, and dotted with smaller islands, which, as we might suppose, were more continuous towards the mainland, where the force of the tide, out of its main channel there, was less, and the water fresher, a mere flood, in fact, from the rivers, which might seem to have lost their way upon that vague and desolate coast. These lagoons with their innumerable islands stretch from the mouth of the Isonzo on the north to the mouth of the Po on the south, forming a vague and mysterious world between sea and shore. Only one of them, however, was to win any importance in history — the lagoon of Venice, which has had so great an influence upon the world. This lagoon is set some- what nearer to the mouth of the Po than to the mouth of the Isonzo in the deepest bend of that concave shore. Guarded on the north by the now canalized Piave, and on the south by the canalized Brenta, on the west by an impassable marsh, and on the east by the lidi and the sea, it is some hundred and sixty square miles in extent, thirty-five miles long, and at its greatest some seven miles wide. It too is set with in- numerable islands, the chief of which formed the foundation of the city of Venice, in the midst of the lagoon guarded on all sides by miles of shallow water. Such is the threefold character of Venetia when we first come upon it, in the writings of Strabo, as a province of Rome. It was then peopled, so far as the mainland was concerned, for the lagoons were but vaguely inhabited, by the Heneti or Veneti, a race of which we know nothing but who seem to have been immigrants from Asia Minor. The Heneti came to be threatened by the Gauls of the middle and upper valley of the Po, and their entry into Roman civilization and government seems to have been made for the sake of protec- tion against these tribes. They sent assistance to the Roman VENETIA AND VENICE 5 armies in their expedition against the Gauls, and were eventu- ally absorbed into that vast Empire we still regret which it will be the noblest business of mankind to build again. There followed, as might be expected, a period of prosperity for Venetia such as it has scarcely known since. Not only was the vast agricultural wealth of the province developed, but great and rich cities arose within its borders. Thus Padua was born and Treviso, Verona arose and Vicenza, Aquileia flourished, which now is nothing — a village of a thousand in- habitants ; — while great ports were opened along that vague coast : Adria, Altinum, Grado, and Ravenna ; and the im- perishable roads of Rome thrust their way across the mountains and through the marshes and over the plains bearing her armies, and behind her arms the wealth, the civilization, the order, the art of the world. Padua was so rich that in the time of Augustus it was called the richest city in Upper Italy ; in Sermione Catullus sang in exile, in Mantua was Virgil bom, while Verona was the German gate, barred and very strong. Such was the state of Venetia before the Empire fell. Its condition since, save for that city that was to rise out of the sea, that was not yet founded, has been till our own day an almost unrelieved disaster. Before that fall there was im- mutable peace, a vast plenty, an unimaginable security and happiness ; after it, terror, unbroken war, starvation, tyranny, and defeat. The Empire fell. Why ? Let us make no mistake; such a question, tremendous as it is, is not beside the point here. Out of that fall Venice rose ; and then we must never forget, here in the Veneto we are upon the frontier. That vast range of mountains we see to the north is the last watershed, it drains into the Danube. Yonder lies all the mystery of the Germanies: the barbarism that all but unmade Europe, that broke it again in the sixteenth century, and that even to-day is but waiting its opportunity for a new conquest. Why did the Empire fall ? And to begin with let us console ourselves with this assurance, that not all the Germanies 6 VENICE AND VENETIA together could have sundered it had not an inward rottenness invited so wild a blow. We have seen Venetia glorious with cities, the whole vast plain traversed by roads, the ports open and flourishing, the lands tilled, the whole province filled with people. Where was its weakness, in what lay its decline? Perhaps in mere old age, a certain languor and weariness, half spiritual, half physical, a need of repose or recreation. But assuredly if this were so — and it is certainly doubtful whether an universal thing like the Empire can know old age and weariness — assuredly this was not the only if even the chief cause. That might seem to have been, so far, that is, as it was not a result of an universal mongrelism, the worst enemy of Roman civilization as of ours, a decline of wealth, a flaw in the means of distributing wealth which the Empire had so carefully fostered and with so splendid a success. Hearing men talk and reading the history of our professional historians, a mere man of letters may be excused if he often wonders whether these writers so eagerly national, and most of them on what might seem such precarious, even false, grounds, ever really were able to understand what the Empire was, what in any thoughtful contemplation of life, of the history of man, it really meant. While it remained we were one, since it departed there has been only war. Even in Britain, the last of the provinces, the writers I have alluded to never seem to understand that for some 350 to 400 years there was a majestic civilization which was our common heritage with our fellows — that there was for all great purposes but one language common to the Empire, that for more than 150 years, Britain was Christian and enjoyed with the rest of the Empire one official religion, that above all there was peace. The Pax Romana ! we have spoken of it ever since with a kind of longing. Well, that was Rome. From the day when Alaric took the City, 24 August, 410, we have never known it since, not for one hour. With all our modern contrivance!, VENETIA AND VENICE 7 our cleverness, our mechanical genius, we have not been able to establish just that. 1 The Pax Romana, the outward and visible sign of the Empire, was domestic as well as political. It ensured a complete and absolute order, the condition of civilization. This peace, established through many generations, seemed immutable and unbreakable, and with it went a concep- tion of property more fundamental than anything we have been able to understand, while free exchange was assured by a complete system of communication and admirable laws. What can have destroyed our Empire, so splendid and so strong? I have said it was mongrelism, an almost universal mixture of incompatible races, and an economic flaw that brought Rome down and with her the world. Those flaws, at any rate, are obvious, and in somewhat the same way everywhere threaten the laborious structure of our civilization to-day, and more surely, for our civilization stands on a costly and insecure foundation of armaments. That universal mongrelism, the advent of the Jew, and the destruction of several aristocracies, are obvious. Less clear is the fact that the wealth that the Empire was so admirably fitted to accumulate, which it did accumulate with so splendid a success, was wrongly distributed. Too soon, certainly in the time of Marcus Aurelius, the means of production had come into a comparatively few hands, but not upon them fell the burden of the State. I do not speak of the lower class, still less of the slaves ; I speak of the higher bourgeoisie, they held up great Rome. When they became impoverished Rome fell ; when they became impoverished, as they did at last everywhere throughout the Empire, it was worth no man's while to hold up the State. They were tired, call it old age if 1 What I mean will perhaps be more obvious to the reader when I say that in 1909-1910 England, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy were spending near two hundred millions sterling per annum on their armies alone, and this not against any barbarian, but against one another. 8 VENICE AND VENETIA you will, many of them fell into a servile condition. Rome fell, and with Rome the world. These men who for more than five hundred years had borne the weight of that great government must have been numerous in the Veneto. They decayed through many years. Slowly, yes, and foreseen the crisis came, the frontiers were broken, the Germanies rushed in. After Africa and Britain, I suppose there was no province which suffered more grievously than Venetia. I say the crisis was foreseen : it was, it must have been ; but no one, prophet or statesman, dreamed, or in any way foreboded, the fall of the Empire. It seemed imperishable, founded for ever, indestructible, deathless. Yet it fell. A man living at that time in Verona, anywhere in Venetia, must often have seen the barbarians, must often have laughed at them, for they were admitted, though in small numbers, within the Empire. That he ever dreamed of the revolt we may well doubt. Insecurity was not a haunting dread to the man of the Empire as it is to us. At any rate, whatever he may have thought, he was not pre- pared for Alaric's descent on Venetia in November, 401, he was not prepared for the fall of Aquileia, he was not prepared for the siege of Verona, cities of the Empire. Yet with a vast astonishment he saw all swept away. Claudian speaks of such an one, an old husbandman of Verona, watching his trees, " his contemporary trees," burning in his orchards, his vines trampled underfoot, his cottage, his family, his happiness swept away before his eyes. Was there no rage in such a man ? Of what avail was rage against the iron teeth of this Germanic horde ! " Fame," says Claudian, " encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian and filled Italy with terror." Yet this was but the first blow. Already on the far shores of the Baltic, in the impassable mountains of Asia, the wolves gathered. Night fell. That night, filled with an unspeakable horror and fear, endured for near four hundred years. In it we see pass figures so terrible that they can never be forgotten or pass VENETIA AND VENICE 9 away, they live for ever in the legends of the people, the only literature of the Fall. Some of these figures, rude and uncouth though they be, we might almost admire but for their wolfish business, some are so appalling that it is only in the image of beasts we hear of them : Attila smeared with blood, panting like a wolf, with long hooked teeth looking for prey ; Genseric, the scourge of God ; Totila, who left the City silent ; and other nameless things there were that feasted upon the ruins, roar- ing out of the Germanies, their eyes bright from the darkness of the forests j they came, they filled Italy. Till there was, so at last they cried one to another in that guttural tongue, no more to destroy. They were wrong ; there was this : the soul of Europe. In the darkest and most impenetrable hour of that appalling night the Church arose and cried for vengeance. She was heard, she was answered. Faintly, far off in the defiles of the Alps, winding over the passes and the snow, there came the horns of Charlemagne. The sword of Europe was unscabbarded ; La Joyeuse flashed in the sun of Italy. Charlemagne fell upon the heathen and scattered them, and from his anger there was no escape. In a moment all was changed. Like one of those gaunt cities that on the confines of the desert of Africa still attest the Roman name, the Empire suddenly reappeared, terrible, exalted, indestructible. In the court of S. Peter's, on the feast of the Nativity in the year 800, Leo, our Pope, crowned Charlemagne Emperor. Europe was saved. Europe was saved, but not all at once. The anarchy of the ninth century was, if possible, more appalling than any which had preceded it, but the achievement of Charlemagne, above all his crowning in S. Peter's at the hand of the Pope, ensured the slow rebuilding of Latin Power, that infinitely gradual resurrection of Europe, of the Empire, which, proceeding infallibly through many hundreds of years, came to its own in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of which the modern world is but the latest, I cannot believe the last, result. Those centuries which had seen the hope and order of the world swept away are properly known to history as the Dark io VENICE AND VENETIA Ages. They alone created nothing, but on the contrary com- pelled even Europe to return to the habits of the forest, the despair of Asia, the dumbness of the beast. We know nothing of them ; they are a vast hiatus in our history. Before them there is the Day and after them the Dawn j themselves are an unfathomable night. They passed : Deo gratias. I say they created nothing. On the contrary, they aban- doned everything; this can be illustrated in any one of the provinces of the Empire : in Britain for instance, at St. Albans, where the site of the British city had been changed by the Romans, yet the barbarians returned to it. They created nothing, they conserved nothing — they were only barbarians. Yet as it were in spite of themselves they were the cause of the foundation by Latin genius, patience, and endurance of one very great and splendid thing. Here in Venetia we should remember it. I mean the city of Venice. It is true that to its dying day — and all things must pass away — Venice will carry the birth-mark, the scar of her genesis. She is of the Dark Ages, and in her whole aspect, in her archi- tecture, her government and her history we may perceive it, and may indeed trace to it her future and the long captivity which she alone of all the provinces of Italy was called upon to endure. She never was, she never will be wholly European ; yet in another and as true a sense she is the one thing we were able to create in those years of horror — the child of terror and fear — our child though by a barbarian father. The parent city of Venice, if indeed any may claim that honour, was Aquileia, that great Roman place at the head of the Gulf of the Adriatic, and we shall best understand the foundation of Venice by glacing at the fortune of this city during the Dark Ages. Aquileia had suffered many sieges from the time when the Empire began to feel the first stirrings of the anarchy which at last left her at the mercy of those appalling hordes, wave after wave, of barbarism. In 238 she had been besieged by Maximus and had repulsed him very gloriously. In 361 she had suffered the attack of Jovinus. In 388 she was taken by VENETIA AND VENICE n Theodosius and that was a sort of deliverance. These affairs but presaged what was to be the fate of that almost im- pregnable fortress which held the road to Rome. Her appalling destiny began to be fulfilled in the year 401, when Alaric and his Goths, fallen like an avalanche from the moun- tains, thundered at her gates. In 406, about the time of the vintage, they are said to have pillaged her with her sister Altinum. Yet Latin as she was she persisted, she lived, she was not destroyed. A worse fate awaited her ; it was not to the rude chivalry of the Goths she was to render her life but to that yellow butcher Attila and the Huns. Aquileia was at that time, in spite of everything, one of the richest, most populous and strongest of the maritime cities of the Adriatic coast. 1 Attila laid siege to her in 452, for three months in vain. Indeed, he had been compelled by the yelping of his own wolves to order the raising of the siege, when, so the story goes, riding round the walls on the last morning in his anger, by chance he saw a stork preparing to leave her nest in one of the towers of the great city and to fly with her young into the country. In that act of his fellow-beast he saw an assurance of victory. He hounded his Huns to the assault, and no man since that day has found even the ruins of Aquileia. 2 Attila marched on : Altinum, Concordia, and Padua shared the same ruin. Vicenza and Verona he too consumed. In that night such as might flee, fled away, doubtless demanding of God whither they should go. God led them to the lagoons. We have already in some sort analyzed the aspect and geography of Venetia, and have certainly made it clear what the lagoons were and what sort of a refuge they offered. As it proved, they provided a secure sanctuary to these fugitives for many hundreds of years ; they were, in fact, impregnable to any armies save those of the modern world . 1 Cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall (ed. Bury), vol. iii, pp. 467-8. 8 Cf. Gibbon, op cit., vol. iii, p. 468. Jornandes affirms a hundred years later that Aquileia was so utterly destroyed : " Ita ut vix ejus vestigia ut appareant reliquerint. " Even the name was applied to quite another place. 12 VENICE AND VENETIA What the fugitives saw before them was a vast and shallow lake of salt water, in shape a vast crescent guarded all about by impassable marsh and before by the lidi and the sea. This lake, scattered with islands, and held, perhaps, by a few fisher folk, was of very great extent, as we have seen, and nowhere of much depth, but impassable by any army, certainly by any army of barbarians. Here the fugitives were safe. There was no organized exodus, of course. On the con- trary, the fugitives doubtless came thither as stragglers during the years of the Terror. They can have brought little with them ; they were probably almost naked, they were certainly without any organization, but they were Latin, all that was left of Latin civilization after the Hunish deluge. They began to arrive in 452 ; in 466 they have already formed a sort of State, precarious, doubtless, and only temporary in its idea \ the lagoons were still to them a mere refuge till they could return. It was not till the invasion of the Longobards, a hundred years later, that they realized once for all that there would be no return, that any such attempt was im- possible. In 568 they built Torcello — that it might endure ; later they occupied Malamocco and Rialto, islands of the lagoon. They knew they were a remnant; but they were prepared to go on. We know nothing of that early settlement, but we can, per- haps, imagine it from the character of the lagoons — a vague world of low islands composed of mud and sand through which twice a day the tide swept in deep and unknown channels, by which alone the islands could be approached from the sea and which were hidden in the vast expanse of shallow water. Yet it was not altogether a new thing, this building of a town really upon the sea ; the wonder of Venice, now so unique, blinds us to that fact, yet it was not without a sort of precedent. Cassiodorus, the friend and secretary of Theodoric the Great, the founder of the Ostrogothic monarchy who at the end of that disastrous fifth century secured for Italy a peace of more than thirty years, has by chance left us a description of 1 > ■> •> >1 I V VENETIA AND VENICE 13 the first Venetian settlement which brings it vividly before our eyes. He shows us a people largely engaged in fishery and for the most part living on what they could win from the sea. They had driven piles into the mud to hold it from the tide, binding them together with wattles and rushes, they had con- served the rainfall in pozzi, and their dwellings were all made of wattle, " built like sea-birds' nests, half on sea and half on land, spread, as the Cyclades, over the surface of the waters." Such also had been the foundation of Ravenna many centuries before. It too, from which the sea is now so far, had been built upon the waves upon piles driven into the mud of the southernmost part of the vast lagoon, and there from the time of Augustus the navy of Rome had found a permanent station. But it cannot have been for long that Venice remained a mere settlement. In those disastrous days the refugees quickly increased, bringing with them bricks or clay for bricks from the mainland and some stone, as little by little what had been a mere refuge came to be regarded as a permanent settle- ment, a great village, a town, and at last a city. Such brick houses as were set up may still be seen almost anywhere on the islands of the lagoon save at Venice itself — at Burano, at Torcello, and at S. Francesco. They were one storey high and in the midst a courtyard was set ; here one beat out the corn, or dried the fish, while above the house was an open loggia whence one might see and signal those far out on the vague waters. Before the house, between it and the lagoon, a road- way or path was built of beaten mud strengthened with piles and guarded with wattles ; this was called, as it is to-day, the jundamenta and was, in fact, a continuation of the actual foundation of the house. It was not, however, only on the islands we now call Venice that these settlements were made and these cottages built ; indeed, the island of Rialto was among the last to be oc- cupied. The refugees, as we know, at least in the first instance, came from Aquileia, very far away from Venezia ; they settled first on those islands or mud banks nearest to them, yet far enough away for safety; Grado surely first, 14 VENICE AND VENETIA Carole, Heraclea, Torcello, Burano, Malamocco, Rialto, Chioggia, and one may think somewhat in that order. But the first permanent settlement of which we have any record or any legend is that which the people of Altinum made at Torcello when they fled before the Lombards in 568. They were the last to flee ; possibly they were the landowners and fled at last only when it was death to stay, since they could not take their wealth with them. They seem to have been, Roman as they still were, under the command of their Bishop, whose name was Paulus. They had seen the flight of their friends to Ravenna and to Istria, but when at last they too had to go they did so deliberately, fasting and praying for three days ere they went forth. Also they asked of God a sign such as He gave to Israel to direct them whither they should go. And it was as they desired, for out of the night came a Voice like thunder which said, " Go ye up to the tower and consider the stars." And Paulus the Bishop went up to the top of the tower of his. church and saw the stars set in the sea of the heavens as so many bright islands in the lagoon, and he understood and led forth his people, and they came presently across the vast marsh to a low island and rested there and called the place Torcello, because of the tower from which the vision had been vouchsafed them. Now, as the legend tells, there was with Paulus the Bishop, a priest, possibly his chaplain, named Marcus. To this man it was given to see in a vision : " As I went along the lido a great cloud all of white, and within as it were two stars like the sun for brightness, and I heard a voice like unto many waters saying, * I am the Saviour and Lord of all the earth; that ground whereon thou art I give to thee, build there a church in My name.' And after I heard another voice softer than the morning dew which said, ' I am Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I would that thou built a church in my honour also.' " Nor were these all the visions he had, for Peter the Prince of the Apostles, St. Autolinus, S. Giustina, and S. John the Baptist also appeared to him. What are we to make of such a legend ? VENETIA AND VENICE 15 This at least, that the ecclesiastical power had at last been compelled to forsake the mainland ; and this, too, which follows from that fact, namely, that it is now a permanent immigration with which we are dealing ; churches are to be built, not one merely, but many. And note this : Christ gives the land to the people. You do not give away a gift like that, nor do you easily admit any other suzerain. Venice never did. Yet just that is what she had to decide almost at once. For the settlements grew in that fearful anarchy and flourished in the peace of the sea. A race of sailors was founded which even to-day is not extinct, and already in the sixth century they find their occupation in transport, which was to bring so much wealth and fame later. Even before 568 Narses had paid the Venetians, as I shall now call them, though Venice was not yet founded, to transport his troops from Grado to the Brenta. It was a little later that the Paduans claimed dominion over the islands of the lagoon from Narses, but when he heard that God had given them to the people who held them he would not decide. When the Lombards came — another pack of wolves — Longinus, representing the Eastern Empire, paid the Venetians to escort him to Byzantium ; this they did gladly, but when he would have them declare them- selves subjects to his Emperor they would not, for said they, " God, who is our help and protector, has saved us, that we might dwell upon these waters. This second Venetia which we have raised in the lagoon is a mighty habitation for us. No power of Emperor or Prince can reach us, and of them we have no fear." In these words the State of Venice was founded, the first nation, a Latin nation, to emerge out of the ruins of the Empire. In the quarrel of East and West that claim grew ever clearer, yet it must not be forgotten that Venice thus founded upon the sea looked in fact East, and, though never pledging herself, did for her own ends make a formal act of submission to Byzantium, and that Maurice the Cappadocian in 584 conferred her first diploma upon her as a separate State. 1 6 VENICE AND VENETIA For more than a century then, the little communities of the lagoon had been governed by elected officers, called Tribunes, each Tribune representing an island, Heraclea being the most important. In the year that diploma was received these Tribunes were doubled, the original Tribune remaining at the head of affairs in the island, the new one joining with his fellows from the other islands to form a sort of federal government. This was the first step towards administrative unity. That it did not succeed goes without saying, but it was a necessary step doubtless, and when the Patriarch of Grado summoned a great meeting of the people of this new Venetia at Heraclea in 697 they were ready to suppress the Tribunal federal government and to elect a leader, a Dux, a Doge. Thus before the end of the seventh century the actual unity of Venice was secured. Yet not without a struggle. The chief need, the pro- ound aspiration of Venice then, as always, was for in- dependence; but in the confusion of the world, the vast struggle that was going on on the mainland, this was not easy to secure. Inevitably two parties appear in the State, each, we may believe, intent upon securing her independence in its own way. Very roughly we may call them aristocratic and democratic. The first looked eastward to Byzantium and saw, or pretended to see, there the ruler of the world and the necessary protector of their city ; it was also in- clined to make the Dogeship hereditary. The other, more clairvoyant of the future maybe, looked to the Church and the Western world. It was in Heraclea that the first party had its stronghold, where Anafesto, the first Doge, had his seat. But the second party was strong in Jesolo and Malamocco. It will be remembered that Venice had already received a diploma from Byzantium; it must have been about the time of the emergence of these two parties that she made her first treaty with Liutprand, King of the Lombards (709). That this was necessary all were ready to admit, for the future of Venice lay in commerce, and such an under- VENETIA AND VENICE 17 standing with her neighbours of the mainland was necessary to her. But what is important to us is that thus at the entrance into this internal struggle she started as it were on an even keel ; she had entered into relations both with the East and with the West. This is no place to discover to the reader the progress of that quarrel, it has been told well many times, 1 and it was always too much at the mercy of the tremendous forces, of the mainland, of the two Empires, of the Church, for us to be able to follow it in such a book as this . But what really emerges is this. To the mind of the world at that time and for many centuries after it was utterly inconceivable that the Empire had passed away. Of such a place as Venice every- one would ask : To which Empire does it belong — to the East or to the West ? The Venetians themselves, intent as they were on independence, asked themselves the question. We may follow perhaps their solution of it as far as this. In the beginning of the eighth century S. Gregory II had denounced Leo, the Byzantine Emperor, as an Iconoclast, and had invited Liutprand the Lombard to seize Leo's city of Ravenna. Liutprand was successful, and the Imperial governor fled to the lagoons, for he held them part of the Eastern Empire. He appealed to Doge Orso, an Heraclean and therefore of the first of the two parties I have described in Venice, to recover Ravenna. This was done, though Jesolo, Malamocco, and their party attacked Heraclea and murdered the Doge for it. The Pope soon quarrelled with his barbarian ally, and half a century later the Papacy, as we know, called in the Franks against the Lombards, and crowned Pepin King of Italy. Pepin came to make good his title, defeated the Lombards and besieged Ravenna and Pentapolis, bestowing them on the Pope. This act created a vastly different political situation. It was confirmed by the advent of Charlemagne, who, fearing the Eastern policy of the lagoons, had the Venetian merchants 1 Notably by Mr. Horatio Brown in his big History and very succinctly and well in his little book on the Venetian Republic (Dent, n.d.). To all his work .1 am much indebted, c 18 VENICE AND VENETIA expelled from Ravenna. This act stultified the democratic party in Venice and caused a Byzantine reaction. Whatever else Venice was, she was now against Charlemagne, who was, however, naturally favoured as the Pope's ally by the Patriarch of Grado. At this moment the new see of Castello — it was Olivolo then — awaited its Bishop. The Doge named a Greek, but the Patriarch refused him. The Doge called for ships, and they came, and, led by his son Maurizio, they took Grado and flung the Patriarch from the loftiest of his towers. This, however, like most violence, was useless. The dead Patriarch was succeeded by his nephew Fortunatus, a very strong and remarkable man. He plotted to murder the Doge, but he was discovered, and he fled to the court of Charlemagne. His friends, however, after a time succeeded in electing one of their own family, Obelerio, as Doge, and Fortunatus returned. A sort of civil war followed. Malamocco attacked Heraclea and subdued it, and succeeded in securing the government to itself. The Doge even invited Charlemagne, and it seemed as though nothing could prevent Venice from falling to the Western Empire . Nevertheless it was not so ; the Byzantine party revived, appealed to the Emperor Nicephorus, and again Fortunatus fled. This was in the opening of the ninth century. Fortunatus went to Pepin, King of Italy, as he had gone to his father Charlemagne. Pepin determined to reduce the lagoons. He assembled a fleet at Ravenna, sailed up the coast, took Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina, and, working along the lidi y made for Malamocco the capital. In this crisis the Doge and the Venetians took a bold and splendid step ; they forsook Malamocco, which lay exposed to the sea, and set up their new capital on a group of islands everywhere guarded by the lagoon, then called Rialto and later Venice. Pepin attempted to follow them, but his ships ran aground, his sailors were lost in the vague and shallow waters with their confused tideways and winding channels. Legend reports that at the suggestion of an old woman at Malamocco he built a bridge of wood, from which his frightened horses leapt into VENETIA AND VENICE 19 the sea with their riders and all his staff in a defeat much like Pharaoh's. This much we know : he confessed himself beaten and abandoned the attack. The Venetians remained under the influence— the precarious influence — of the Eastern Empire, and in that short campaign, as it were in a second flight, was founded that city which was to grow into so mighty and so splendid a dominion, beside which Heraclea, Tesolo, and Malamocco were but villages in a waste of water. The greatness of Venice, like the greatness of England, was encouraged largely by the oligarchic form of her govern ment, a government which like our own later came little by little into the hands of an oligarchy of nobles which saved her equally from the unstable and fragile yoke of tyrants and from the distraction and anarchy of a democracy. She pro- duced no parvenu Medici to break her spirit as Florence did, nor did she deliver herself like Siena into the hands of the people. These States soon fell, Venice was to remain almost to our own time. Yet she like they built up her own fate out of the circumstances and the environment in which she found herself. She was determined always in one thing : that she would not be ruled by a lord, no hereditary ruler should claim her. But this determination, too, was forced upon her ; for had the Dogeship become hereditary — and in the years which followed the establishment of Rialto as the site of the city it was the question to be decided — it would not have been long before she would have fallen into the power of the Frankish kingdom or into the hands' ot the Eastern Empire. She refused to permit the Dogeship to become hereditary, yet she did not deliver herself to a democracy. The reason she did not was the sea. The command of the sea, and she claimed nothing less, has never been attempted by a democracy, it demands an eifort too persistent, too far-sighted and too self- denying. The command of the sea soon became a necessity for Venice, and this necessity largely decided the ultimate form of her government. Like England later she became an aristocratic oligarchy represented by a constitutional sovereign, in Venice elective, in England hereditary. 20 VENICE AND VENETIA Yet all this was not achieved without a long struggle. Indeed, it was not till two Doges had been banished and one murdered that in 1023 it was finally obvious that an hereditary Dogeship was impossible in Venice. The attempt had been continued by various families — the Particiachi, the Candiani, and the Orseoli — during more than two hundred years counting only from the establishment of Venice at Rialto, an act which was finally confirmed in 828, when the body of S. Mark was brought to Venice from Alexandria by two adventurers, 1 and the lagoons, which had had so many patrons — Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, S. Giustina, and S. Theodore — were at last placed under the benediction of the Lion and the Book. By 1023, then, it was evident that the Dogeship could not be established as an hereditary office. In that year a law was made appointing two councillors to assist the Doge — who, moreover, was compelled by the same law to consult with the more prominent citizens ; the aristocracy had appeared. The aristocracy, if so we may call the " more prominent " citizens at this time, was very like that of the mainland cities. It was unruly and eager for private war. The Caloprini and Morosini, for instance, had practised a long vendetta, and had Venice been less than impregnable their appeal and use of foreign aid would have ruined the State to which they owed allegiance. They were crushed, however, by a stronger than they, the Doge Pietro Orseolo II (983-1008), who founded the maritime supremacy of the city. We shall consider him as a statesman later j his insistence, however, on order within Venice itself, his curbing of the great families, did much to consolidate an aristocracy which, when his own family was for ever debarred from office, was ready in 1032 to take more than a hand in the government. The two councillors who were appointed in that year to assist the Doge found they had two things to accomplish before they or their city were secure — they had to make the Doge a figurehead, and to take all political power out of the 1 See infra, pp. 45-47. VENETIA AND VENICE 21 hands of the people. These ends might be accomplished, not easily, but at one blow nevertheless — by depriving the people of their right to elect the Doge; for if the Doge could claim no popular mandate, as it were, he was but a tool in their hands. The people had been wont to elect the Doge in S. Pietro di Castello, the cathedral of Venice, the Bishop and clergy assisting, with prayers and some ceremony, the Doge being borne back on a barge of state to S. Mark's, which he entered barefoot in token of humility. From the high altar he took his staff of office and proceeded to the Ducal Palace amid the acclamations of all Venice. There he took the oath of allegiance and set about ordering the place, spoiled by the mob, to be refurnished. Such seems to have been the right and custom of the people till 1 1 92. Venice was by then enriched beyond all expectation by the business of the Crusades ; as we shall see later, her power was already securely laid upon the sea. A very considerable, even an enormous wealth had come into the houses of those "prominent citizens," just as an enormous wealth came into the hands of our parvenu aristocracy when Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries. The results were the same in England and in Venice. In England the parvenu nobility presently made the Civil War, curtailed the power of the Crown, turned it, as DTsraeli said, into a Venetian Doge- ship, and till 1832 ruled us for our enormous good. In Venice a national disaster, the miserable campaign of 1171 which Doge Vitale Michiel II had undertaken to avenge the treachery of the Emperor Manuel, who had seized all the Venetians in Constantinople, was used by the wealthy aris- tocracy to begin the revolution they desired and to the great good of Venice. The disaster had been the affair of the people, who com- pelled the Doge to action, in spite of the advice of his two councillors. The Doge was murdered. But what the aris- tocracy achieved in 11 71 was an instalment only of their purpose. The city was already divided, as it still is, into 22 VENICE AND VENETIA sestieri. x It was determined that each of these divisions of the city should elect two representatives, these forming, as it were, a Greater Council, whose business was threefold : (i) To elect the Doge, (2) to appoint all officers of the State, (3) to choose the members of the general assembly. The general assembly was formed by the selection of forty members by each councillor, that is to say, eighty from each sestiere, and consisted thus of 480 members, who served for a year. When they retired, their business was to choose the two represen- tatives from each sestiere for the Greater Council, who in their turn again selected the new 480 members of the general assembly. Thus we see the people successfully deprived of a voice in the election of the Doge and in the management and direction of the State. At the same time the Greater Council, as it may even now be called, appointed six officers instead of two to advise the Doge. Thus the Doge became a mere figurehead, and all this was achieved by the power of words over the people and the influence of pageantry, just as a similar change was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought about in England, and is being brought about to-day. The Doge was, in fact, chosen by the Greater Council, "if the people pleased," and in a great pageant was carried round the Piazza di S. Marco to receive their acclama- tion. All this before the end of the twelfth century ; before the end of the thirteenth the oligarchy was to be perfectly established. The advance towards this end began in the first years of that century, when the oligarchy, at the election of each new Doge, still further encroached upon the prerogatives of that office, and this not by statute, but by means of the oath — the coronation oath, as it were — whose terms were changed according to circumstances at each election. Any tendency towards the liberty of the Dogeship was thus continually checked. This subtle weapon was known as the promissione 1 The sestieri&re (1) Castello, (2) S. Marco, (3) Cannaregio, (4) Dorso- duro, (5) S. Polo, (6) Santa Croce. See also infra, pp. 94-95. VENETIA AND VENICE 23 ducale. By this means already, in 1229, it was established that the Doge should pay taxes, should have no part in the election to ecclesiastical preferment, and above all should not hold communication with foreign powers. By 1249 he is forced to undertake to solicit office for no one; by 1275 he is forbidden to raise loans, to allow any of his family to marry a foreigner, to buy lands without the Ducato, or to accept fiefs either on his own behalf or on that of his family anywhere. His family, too, may hold no office save that of ambassador or naval captain ; even his wife is not permitted to make presents. The Doge had become a mere figurehead, and it now only remained to turn the oligarchy into a close caste to establish it firmly and perhaps for ever. This was actually achieved in 1297, and by this means. Till that time, theoretically at least, any man who could claim to be a prominent citizen was eligible for the Greater Council, as I have ventured already to call it. In 1297 two things were established, namely: (1) That all those who had sat in the Council during the last five years should always be eligible to it; (2) that no one whose ancestors had not sat in the Council between 1172 and 1297 should be eligible. This immediately established a governing class, or, as we might say, a peerage, outside which no one had a voice in the government of the State. A further step was taken in 13 19, when the State opened the Libro d' Oro, a full register of this aristocracy. All that was now needed was the order and arrangement of the oligarchy for its function of government. This occupied the first thirty-five years of the fourteenth century. The Greater Council soon grew to be too numerous for business, and therefore an inner council or senate, the Predagi, of sixty members originally, was elected by the Greater Council, to whom eventually were added another sixty called the Zonata. This Senate of a hundred and twenty members managed foreign affairs, finance, customs, and naval defence. The six councillors of the Doge, now called the Lesser Council, were not disturbed, but a Council of Forty was established as the judicial authority of the State. In all 24 VENICE AND VENETIA these councils the Doge represented the Republic, but he controlled none of them. All this was, as may be imagined, not established without a considerable struggle. The discontent of the people at their deprivation came to a head when the war of Ferrara proved that the new government was not efficient. The war had come suddenly, in 1308, and it soon became clear that neither the Greater Council, which was too numerous, nor the Senate, which was not sure of its power, could deal with it. Popular anger was rising. Action was necessary if the oligarchy was not to be strangled at its birth. It is in this crisis we see emerge another permanent feature of the government of Venice, the Collegw, or council of sages, originally seven in number, the Cabinet, as we might say, elected by the Greater Council. This Collegio consisted really of the Secretaries of State for War, for the Navy, and for Finance. The final development of the government of Venice declared itself in a somewhat similar way ; it too was the result of a crisis, and just as we see the Collegio, or Cabinet, emerge to meet a foreign, so we see the Council of Ten created to meet an internal foe. Both before and after the crisis of 1308 the discontent of the people smouldered. It nearly came to a head in 1300, but it was not till ten years later that it finally declared itself, headed by certain nobles. It was, in fact, an attempt at revolution. It failed, but to meet it the Greater Council formed a Committee of Public Safety, as it were, which became a permanent part of the constitution as the Council of Ten. Thus in 1335 we have practically complete the constitution of Venice which was to rule that great State so successfully and for so many centuries. There has been nothing like it in Italy, or even in Europe, unless we may compare it with that of England between 1668 and 1832. It is in this connexion interesting to note that neither England nor Venice made a part of the refounded Empire ; that both were in some sort a new creation quite outside it ; that both, too, were but for- VENETIA AND VENICE 25 tresses in the sea dependent upon the command of the sea and upon their oversea commerce; that both were the creators of a vast colonial Empire. Venice for long, how- ever, stood alone. In the midst of the despotic or democratic governments of Italy she stood like a vast rock against which many were broken in pieces. Why was this? We have described the establishment of that strong government which was for long the envy of the world, but this alone does not account for the greatness and wealth of Venice. Its very existence is, in fact, dependent upon one fundamental thing — an impregnable State. No amount of good government nor any quantity of excellent intentions could have saved Venice alive, any more than they will save England, for a single hour. On this alone depended the establishment and safety of the Republic — the command of the sea. How did she obtain and keep it ? In answering that question we turn from domestic to foreign affairs. It has already been said that Venice looked eastward, and not south; this was forced upon her by her geographical position, and established as she was in the sea, a mere fortress at the head of the Adriatic, her first necessity was bare security — the command, then, of the Adriatic; her second was commerce, therefore an open road to Syria and the Levant. She won these in three main efforts and by various means. Her maritime consciousness was early thrust upon her when she provided transport for the Imperial armies of the East, as we have already noted. The only attack that had ever been made upon her with any hope of success was that of Pepin — and it came from the sea. It made Rialto the centre of Venetian life ; and when Venice was there established, she at once built a fleet of war consisting of some sixty ships. Even so she was not quite secure. Her fleet was tied to home waters. This was brought home to her in 836, when, her fleet absent on that disastrous expedition to Taranto, the Dalmatian pirates of the coast opposite the lagoons fell upon the city. It was 26 VENICE AND VENETIA obvious at once that, though she might fortify the lidi, she could never really be secure, could never allow her fleet out of home waters till this pirate power was destroyed. It was the first necessity ; yet she was not able to achieve it till the year 997. Meantime, she had become the mart of Italy ; her transports, laden with the merchandise of the East, peopled the sea. It became every year more necessary to secure the absolute safety of this commerce, of which the pirates too often made a prey. There was this, too, that the people of the Dalmatian coast, in trade relations with the Republic, were also and too often at the mercy of these robbers. It became a vital commercial necessity to exterminate them. It was Doge Pietro Orseolo II who embarked upon this, the first great expedition the Republic undertook, in the year 997 ; the fleet sailed on Ascension Day. He was completely successful. He met the pirates and defeated them. The people of the Dalmatian towns welcomed him ; only Curzola and Lagosta held out. Curzola was easily broken, Lagosta it was necessary formally to attack ; it fell. To the title of Doge of Venice was added that of Duke of Dalmatia. This expedi- tion gave Venice the Adriatic ; from the hour in which it was successful s"he was secure. The Dalmatian cities became less valuable allies ; she exercised a sort of protection over them, and their numerous and splendid ports were thrown open to her ships. The dominion of Venice, the command of the Adriatic, thus obtained, was marked and symbolized every year thereafter till the fall of the Republic before the apparition of Napoleon in £796, in a ceremony at once dramatic and touching, as though at once to remind her people of their great birthright and to convince them of some sacred responsibility of which they were the heirs. Would that we had some such ceremony in England to-day ! It took place on Ascension Day, because on that day the fleet had sailed, and it was called the Sposalizio del Mare, the Marriage of the Sea ; and we shall describe it when we come to deal with the spot where it took place. 1 1 See infra, p. 180 et seq. YENETIA AND VENICE 27 The Dalmatian expedition is of very great importance in the history of Venice ; it gave the city confidence in herself, and is, in fact, the beginning of her exterior history. She had, as we have seen, always been in touch with the Eastern Empire, and had often, as we have seen too, rendered her considerable services. This policy she continued; but she was now in a position to reap the full benefit of such reward as Constanti- nople had to offer. For help rendered against the Normans Venice obtained from the Emperor Alexis in 1085 a "free access" for her citizens to all harbours of the Empire; and her citizens were not only to be free from all customs, but they were to be allowed to acquire land, to build factories, and to establish depots in Constantinople itself. In fact, a Venetian quarter rose in the capital of the East which was to be the cause of her most wonderful achieve- ment. That expedition against King Robert on behalf of Byzantium brings us to within ten years of the Crusades, and with the Crusades we come to so sudden and extraordinary an expan- sion of Venice in power and wealth that we find her at their close probably the most formidable power in Europe. The reasons for this are chiefly geographical. Venice alone of all the city States looked to the East, and was by far the most convenient port of departure thereto for any army coming from the north and west of Europe. It is not surprising, then, that in the Crusades she suddenly became the gate of Europe. Her only rivals, Genoa and perhaps Pisa, lay far to the south ; moreover, neither passively nor actively were they so strong as she, nor could either of them be said to command their sea as Venice held the Adriatic. So she became the power which transported those vast multitudes to the East. Yet, if she did little or nothing to win the Holy Sepulchre for the Western Empire, her fleets kept the seas ; and when Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, asked for aid in subduing the ports of Palestine she sent a hundred ships, and Sidon fell in 1102 ; she sent seventy- two ships, and Tyre fell in 11 23. In both of these cities she obtained quarters, she built churches, she established 28 VENICE AND VENETIA markets, where she used her own weights and measures. It was an Empire she was building in the East while the chivalry of Europe sought for a Tomb. All this, which meant vast increase of wealth and power, could not be achieved without exciting jealousies. Venice suddenly found herself under the displeasure of the Emperor of Constantinople, who looked with hostility on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and especially at the part Venice, a feudatory, as he thought, of the Eastern Empire, had played therein. The policy of Venice was beginning to run counter to that of Byzantium. This was presently made clearer still. In 1 148 Venice, at the request of the Emperor, had made war on the Normans in the Ionian Islands. She defeated them ; but the treaty she made was selfish and merely secured her possessions in the Adriatic from attack. The Emperor determined to punish her. It will be remembered that Venice had already secured a quarter in Constantinople with certain trading rights. These she had exercised to the full, and the Venetian quarter is said to have held as many as 200,000 inhabitants. In 11 71 all the Venetians were arrested by order of the Emperor and their goods seized. This sudden and unexpected blow found Venice unprepared. She sent a great expedition against the Emperor, but it was shattered and discomfited. This failure offered the oligarchy the opportunity it had awaited to estab- lish itself in Venice. That revolution was successful. Venice was not again to be taken unawares. The disaster, grievous as it was, bitter though it was, left Venice still by far the greatest sea power in the world. This appeared when it was seen that if the great Crusade preached by Innocent III were ever to reach the Sepulchre, Venice must transport it thither. She agreed to do so on her own terms. She would transport 9,000 knights and 20,000 foot, 4,500 horses, and find provision for twelve months, besides herself sending fifty galleys ; this for 85,000 silver marks and a half of all that was taken. That bargain was confirmed in S. Mark's, but though Venice was ready to carry out her part VENETIA AND VENICE 29 of it the Crusaders, it soon appeared, were not. Venice, taking thought, turned all to her own benefit. The old and glorious Doge Enrico Dandolo ascended the pulpit of S. Mark's and spoke to the assembled multitude. He offered to lead the Crusade if on its part, seeing that the money was not forth- coming, it would attack Zara and Dalmatia, now in the hands of the Hungarians, and thus secure the inviolability of the Adriatic. The Crusaders agreed. They sailed in October, led by Dandolo— a splendid, an immortal company — in the tall, great ships, led by the towering galleys Aquila, Pellegrino and Paradiso, flying the banner of S. Mark. Zara was taken. Then a new plan was opened. It is said that Boniface, Marquis of Monferrat, was the author of it. However that may be, it agreed with the will of Venice. Not Jerusalem but Constantinople was to be the quarry of that Crusade. Yet, though her vengeance was thus placed to her hand, Venice was true to herself. She demanded and obtained 100,000 marks for the use of the Venetian fleet in that expedi- tion. Then Dandolo led them on; he forced the Golden Horn and — how tell of the fighting ? — took the Imperial city in 1204. It was as though the Rome that had not heard of Alaric had fallen into his hands. In that tremendous victory Venice found herself. To her fell the Cyclades and the Sporades islands of the ^Egean ; she purchased Crete, the mother of Greece; Zara was hers and the coast of Dalmatia ; not the Adriatic only but the Eastern Mediterranean was in her grip ; she held the gateways of the Orient. It must have seemed to Venice, even to the world, like an apotheosis. Who would dare to say her nay? Well, Genoa would. The great naval struggle, the greatest of the Middle Ages, which thus rose out of the fall of Constantinople must always have been inevitable. It occupies some hundred and seventy years of Venetian history. Both cities fought with great tenacity and courage, for both felt — as, indeed, was the case — that their existence depended on the result. They were fight- ing for the command of the Mediterranean and the commerce 30 VENICE AND VENETIA of the world ; the result was decided by the superior wealth, and therefore the superior recuperative power, of Venice. Moreover, Venice was impregnable save from the sea ; Genoa was not. The series of campaigns was opened by Genoa at Acre, in which the Genoese sacked the Venetian quarter. Venice demanded satisfaction and got a refusal. Therefore she sacked the Genoese quarter in the same town and crushed the Genoese fleet in those waters. That was the first round of the great war, and it centred in Acre. The second opened in Constantinople, where in 1261, in the absence of the Venetian fleet, the Greek Empire was restored. Very naturally it favoured the Genoese merchants so that they threatened to dominate the whole Levant. This was fatal to Venice. War broke out, and Geronimo Dandolo, in 1264, again destroyed the Genoese fleet, this time at Trepani. A sort of peace followed. But Venice was not content. She could only be satisfied with the ruin of Genoa as a naval power. She was willing to reach this end by any means. She supplied an Admiral Alberto Morosini to the Pisans in their great engagement with Genoa at Meloria in 1284 ; x as we know, he was destroyed. Indeed, this was Genoa's great moment. Strong in Constantinople, with a new, victorious fleet at sea, she saw Venice regaining the trade of the East by treaties with the Infidel Turk. She closed the Dardanelles. Venice sent forth seventy-three galleys to bring her to reason ; Genoa defeated them in the Gulf of Alexandretta. Venice sent again another fleet under Ruggiero Morosini. He forced the Dardanelles, burned the Genoese quarter at Galata, and threatened the Emperor. He returned to Venice with a vast booty. Nevertheless the Genoese, meeting a Venetian fleet of ninety-five sail under Andrea Dandolo, broke it off Curzola, practising the tactics of Meloria. Dandolo killed himself. A treaty of peace was made, but it was not unfavourable to Venice. That was in 1299, and that peace might have taught the Genoese the truth j Venice was too strong for them, her 1 Cf. my "Florence and Northern Tuscany" (3rd edition, Methuen), p. 87 et seq. VENETIA AND VENICE 31 wealth too great, she was destined to win, she was built to endure. The third campaign centres in the Black Sea. Quarrels about the trade with the Tartars opened it. Under the walls of Pera Paganino Doria broke the fleet of Niccolb Pisani, but the Venetians sent reinforcements, and Pisani, in 1353, broke the Genoese off Cagliari and destroyed them. That was all but a mortal blow. Genoa placed herself under Giovanni Visconti of Milan. Petrarch, at his request, came to Venice to arrange terms, but Venice would hear of none. The war went on ; Genoa flung a fleet upon the seas under Paganino, who slipped by Pisani into the Adriatic and burned Curzola and Lagosta and threatened Venice itself. A truce was made, for Genoa was not ready for a great advance. Never- theless Doria caught Pisani in winter quarters at Sapienza in November, 1354, and took his whole command. This was the worst blow Venice ever had till she fell in 1796. It found her in confusion, for in the next year Doge Marino Falier was found guilty of the obscure conspiracy which bears his name and was beheaded by the Council of Ten. But, as before, Genoa was too exhausted to advance; she had neither the money nor the men to break Venice, who, as soon as peace was made, turned again to business and recouped herself. The fourth and last campaign broke out of necessity because the three which had preceded it had not been decisive. The immediate quarrel was over the island of Tenedor, which commanded the approach to the Dardanelles. Venice, by an unscrupulous threat, procured this from the Emperor Paleo- logus. Genoa tried to frustrate this act of the Emperor, and, failing, made alliance with Hungary and the Paduans. Out of Venice sailed Vettor Pisani, with the banners of S. Mark, and broke the Genoese off Cape Antium. By command of the Senate he wintered at Pola in I stria, and was surprised by Luciano Doria of Genoa, who destroyed his fleet. Pisani was imprisoned. Then Pietro Doria of Genoa and Carrara of Padua closed on Venice. Carrara held the mainland and Doria blockaded 32 VENICE AND VENETIA the city from the sea, basing himself on Chioggia, which he took in August, 1379. He should have struck at Venice herself. He preferred to starve her out. Then Venice rose; she would not be beaten. She led Vettor Pisani out of prison and gave him her last ships. He set forth by the sea-way out of Porto di Lido for Chioggia. He found Doria in winter quarters in the lagoon. He seized and held the gate Porto di Chioggia. The blockader was blockaded. In vain he tried to dig himself out through the sand banks; Pisani scattered him, willing for him to starve. With untiring watchfulness he waited with half-mutinous crews till, on January 1, 1380, Carlo Zeno, the adventurous captain, reinforced him. Then he took the offensive, forced the Genoese off the banks back into Chioggia, and received in June the surrender of the Genoese fleet. It was the last throw of Genoa. She was broken for ever ; Venice became sole mistress of the Mediterranean. We have seen Venice establish herself as a great State ; we have watched the development of her government into its final form ; we have seen her reach out and grasp first the Adriatic, then the Midland sea ; we have followed her step by step in the foundation of her dominion in the East. This develop- ment was natural and necessary. Her first necessity was the command of the Adriatic, her second the security of her trade routes, while a dominion in the East was not only the easiest but the most valuable way in which to found her com- merce and her rule. It is only after the opening of the Genoese wars that we see her attempt to acquire possessions on what she called terra firma — on the mainland of Italy, that is. In the end she was able to refound the ancient province of Venetia and more, but she only began to set about this after years of effort in the East and upon the sea. Why ? The reason is perhaps obvious. She was compelled to a dominion on the sea before anything else, because it was only as mistress of the Adriatic that she could maintain herself at all. This she secured by her wealth, and her wealth she found first in the East, where she early for this reason began to found VENETIA AND VENICE 33 a dominion. It was only when Genoa threatened her and from the sea that she began to think of the mainland. She turned to the mainland then for this reason. The greatest danger Venice ran from an enemy like Genoa, who could both hold and attack her from the sea, was the danger of starvation. With the parti blockaded and an unfriendly terra firma^ she was at the mercy of hunger. In the lagoons one could not grow corn, and we find that the first acquisitions Venice made on terra firma were great corn-growing districts — Treviso, for instance, and Bassano. With the latter she obtained the command of a pass into the Germanies. This also she needed, for the West was more and more coming to be neces- sary to her, as the East had always been ; for if she bought in the East, she sold in the West, and was the natural means of communication between them. About the time of the Genoese wars — and in all this, too, she is like England — she had suffered much from hostile tariffs. The wars of Ferrara in 1240 and 1308 were waged on this account, so was the war with the Scaligers of 1329. That war with the lords of Western Venetia, whose capital was Verona, and whose dominion stretched at that time from the mouth of the Po to the Alps, and from Verona to the sea, gave Venice possession of Treviso and Bassano, and re- established her trading rights in Vicenza and Verona. Before that war the position of Venice was, as far as food- stuffs and the trade routes Westward went, that of a dependent upon the Scaligers. A maritime enemy in conjunction with the Scaligers had a good chance of bringing Venice, rich as she was, to her knees. It was when this contingency actually came to pass, when Mastino della Scala tried to ally himself with Genoa, that Venice, seeing her danger, was compelled to make war on the mainland. This she did in 1339. Like England, she had no army fit for a continental war; like England, she was divided about the wisdom of this policy ; but, like England, she was determined to have her way. Her commerce was threatened, she herself was in pro- found danger; she forged an army, and made up her D 34 VENICE AND VENETIA mind to fight. She was right, and she was completely successful. The situation thus created was wholly new to her. Till now she had been an impregnable fortress holding the sea, which was her frontier. In 1339 she became a continental power, with a land frontier as easily attacked as any other. This is no place to discover how she achieved that revolution of policy; how she raised an army by universal service; how she, the youngest military power in Europe, determined to march to Verona if necessary, as England might determine to march to Berlin. For such an inquiry, useful as it would be to us at this time, there is no space in such a work as this. It must be enough for us to know — to know and to treasure the knowledge — that she did all this and achieved her pur- pose. In that she was not without allies any more than we should be. The Scaligers of Verona, with their vast new dominion, had aroused the fear and the jealousy of more than one neighbouring State. When Venice declared war she did not stand alone ; Florence, Parma, Mantua, and Milan were ready to assist her. This array of allies frightened Verona. Mastino della Scala wanted terms, and he sent Marsilio da Carrara, once lord but now governor of Padua under the Scaligers, to Venice as ambassador. It was an elementary and a fatal mistake. Carrara made secret terms with Venice; he proposed to place her in possession of Padua on condition that his House was restored there. In these circumstances the war opened. Scala was busy with the Visconti on the west; in his absence Pietro Rossi of Parma fell upon Padua, and Venice took it, placing Carrara, according to the bargain, once more in possession of his lordship. Peace was made when Brescia fell in 1339, and by it Venice, as we have said, acquired Treviso and Bassano, her first possessions on the mainland. She had disposed once and for all of the Scaligers, and in Padua saw Carrara a sort of a vassal, as she hoped, ready to do her bidding. What she had to fear — not then perhaps, but in the VENETIA AND VENICE 35 future — was the growing power of the Visconti of Milan. Their territory ran with that of Padua. Every attack they made on the Padovani was in a very real sense an attack upon Venice. Nor could she trust the Carraresi, for to them in their desire for independence Venice seemed a nearer and more dreadful danger than Visconti. So they came to take sides against the Republic. Their real oppor- tunity occurred in 1354, when Genoa destroyed the Venetian fleet at Sapienza and the treason of Marino Falier brought confusion upon the city. In that disastrous moment the Hungarians claimed the Dalmatian cities ; and others, among them the Patriarch of Aquileia, joined them. Carrara refused to assist, but secretly sent aid to the Hungarians when they besieged Treviso. That was the beginning of the end for Carrara. It is true that the peace of Zara, which Venice made to gain time, confirmed him in the possession of Padua, but that was no more final than was in the case of the Boers the Convention of London in 1881. Venice saw she must crush Carrara and possess herself of Padua if she was safely to fight Genoa; in the future an enemy on her flank would be fatal. In this she was right ; the whole danger to the city in the great war with Genoa came from the co-operation of Padua with the Genoese. Francesco Carrara was then lord of Padua. He had been already punished by Venice, but gamely made this last wild attempt for liberty and independence. He it was who blockaded Venice from the mainland while Pietro Doria struck at the city. He it was who fed the Genoese at Chioggia during that long patience. He it was whom Carlo Zeno broke and thus ended the war. He was broken, but not done with. It was Genoa only who was finally disposed of in that war. Carrara remained very powerful on the mainland waiting his opportunity. It never came. He tried every way. He built up slowly a tariff against Venice, and holding the passes, for he bought and possessed himself of them all, he had good hope of her ruin. He failed because, like every continental power, he 36 VENICE AND VENETIA was ever in danger from his neighbours. He failed for the same reason that Napoleon failed in his attempt on England. Behind Napoleon lay the enemy ; behind Carrara lay Visconti of Milan. They quarrelled over Vicenza. They had agreed it was in the dominion of Padua, but Visconti seized it. Carrara turned for aid to Venice. He pointed out many things with much eloquence. He described himself as a "buffer" necessary to the Republic between herself and Visconti. Too late he recognized how necessary Venice was to his existence. Visconti also approached Venice; he was ready to surrender Treviso and Feltre as the price of assistance against Carrara. Venice accepted his offer. Nevertheless, when she found herself face to face with Visconti, and understood the ambition of the viper of Milan, she joined the league Florence had established against him, and in 1392 restored the Carraresi to Padua. These thing, remained for exactly ten years, till, in 1402, the House of Visconti fell to pieces. After the death of Gian Galeazzo Venice had no more need of the Carrara, who, in the con- fusion of the Visconti revolution, claimed Vicenza. The Duchess of Milan, Visconti's widow, appealed to Venice, who, as the price of her help, demanded Bassano, Vicenza, and Verona. These terms were accepted. The two Carraresi, Jacopo and Francesco, were taken, and in 1405 were strangled in prison in Venice. Into their dominion Venice entered, and so restored the ancient frontiers of Venetia in a State which she ruled till her fall in 1796. The State thus formed, whose boundaries were the Alps, the Po, the Lago di Garda, the Mincio, and the sea, alone in Italy remained stable and firm during some four hundred years. Why? For more than one reason, but first because Venice held the command of the sea, and was almost till the end of that period herself impregnable. That she established good government, the best that Italy has ever known since the fall of the Empire, goes for much ; that she more than any other Italian State inspired the love of her dependent cities so that they were loyal to her and ready to fight in YENETIA AND VENICE 37 her behalf, goes for more. But the chief and final cause of the endurance of Venice and her dominion was her impreg- nable position consequent upon her command of the sea. This she won in the fourteenth century, and by the opening of the fifteenth she had established herself as one of the greatest European States, not to be moved or overthrown till, untrue to herself, inwardly rotten and almost defenceless, the guns of Napoleon bellowed across the lido, and after more than a thousand years the Republic fell, stricken from the sea, never to rise again. There remains upon the vague lagoons, like a ghost upon those mysterious waters, a beautiful dead city that we still call Venezia. The history of Venice that we have thus traced, not indeed in detail but with a certain largeness, for the sake of an idea rather than for the enumeration of mere facts, divides itself easily into two periods, which are very closely marked by the wars with Genoa and the sudden advance on terra firma, the establishment of Venice as an Italian power, the re-creation of Venetia. At no time in her thousand years of history did Venice make a part of the Western Empire. In this she stood alone in all Western Europe, unless, indeed, the thousand similitudes she bears to England may appear also in this, for England, too, never formally made a part of the refounded Empire of the West. Yet both Venice and England ever belonged to the Western Church; they came within its government, and equally owed almost everything to that universality. But Venice, as we have seen, looked to the East. Her earliest relations were with the Eastern Empire, and though this out- look largely remained hers to the very end, yet we find that the Genoese war achieved after all chiefly this : that it forced her to turn Westward, to become a continental power, and thus brought her within the influence of Western thought and politics. It is, then, the fourteenth century which marks the great turning-point of Venetian history, thought, and art. Before the Genoese wars she was chiefly a Byzantine city 38 VENICE AND VENETIA at their close in 1339 she had become mainly European. Her advance is to be for the future along the same lines as Italy will use ; she will be engaged in the same methods of thought, she will experience the same moods and find the same means of expression. This becomes clear at once in the aspect of Venice herself. Till the beginning of the fourteenth century she is Byzantine, her buildings are rather Oriental than European, and her greatest church is modelled upon S. Sophia in Constantinople. By the close of the fourteenth century she is largely Gothic, has indeed under- stood that spirit as well as any other Italian city whatsoever, and is ready to advance with the rest of Italy into the Renais- sance, and to make that return to Rome, without any com- punction. Yet a flavour of the East, across the sea, always remained with her in a certain exuberance of fancy and orna- ment, a delight in bright colours and the expression of rich- ness, of wealth, which are like a crimson pattern running at hazard through the sombre and precious Roman stuff upon which, in fact, she stood. Even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we may see this in the strangely moving colour of Palladio's vast churches, in the rhetoric of the Salute, so extraordinarily decorative too, in the sheer gesticulation against the soft sky of the Gesuiti; above all, in the rosy towers full of bells that everywhere lean over her in the quiet Campos like silent Eastern courts, in the miracle of the S. Giorgio, so delicately rosy and tipped with a golden angel. Yes, she speaks even to the end with a subtle voice, and standing as she does, so brittle a thing, on the brink of the Adriatic, spoiled by the modern world, and perhaps, ghost as she is, even to-morrow to pass away from our world, she seems to remind us as a symbol may do — a symbol or a grave — of that old dream we once had in which East and West were one, that old and precious unity which Rome founded and broke asunder, and which — who knows? — it may be the glory and the happiness of our children to create again. So much for the city of old. What of the city to-day ? Like » : •» » ►• S. MAKIA DELL A SALUTE, VENICE VENETIA AND VENICE 39 a vast precious stone sinking into the mud and ooze of her lagoons, Venice is to-day vanishing from our earth in the sea distance and her lapsing tides. Glorified by our dreams and her smouldering, tragic sunsets, she is gradually disappearing behind the remotest of horizons. Through her marvellous and dying streets the wet sea wind passes like an old forgotten melody, and is lost in the desolate lagoons in the white foam mist of the sea. Gradually he her immortal lover is gather- ing her into his embrace ; soon he will kiss her on the mouth and cleanse her from all the abominations that we have made her suffer. She was too beautiful for our little day : therefore he will surround her with his inviolable silence, his immaculate purity, his everlasting strength. Is she not vanishing, will she not be lost ? Yet even now, just before she is gone, shamed as she is, broken in heart and without a soul, she seems indeed almost to illumine the sky rather than to receive light from it. How long even as we see her can she remain ? Already the inevitable decay of the piles of white poplar wood, driven into the mud, the dredging of the lagoon and the tideway for the huge modern ships, the wash and swirl and hurry of the passing steamboats up and down the Grand Canal, that was surely never meant for them — all have contributed toward the down- fall of what was once so majestic and so lovely. And as though this were not enough, the new barbarism has thrust upon her its peculiar vulgarity and haste, and her sons, ready to batten on that they have murdered, eagerly conceive for themselves a future in which, for the sake of money, great chimneys will take the place of the leaning campanile vast factories will occupy the foundations of the magical palaces, and a huge industrial capital and port, shrouded in smoke, clanging with machinery, filthy with mud and groaning with misery, will rise where for so long Venice had her inviolate throne. She remains to us — for how long? She remains for a moment while we love her, in the solitude and silence of her limitless horizon, in the mysterious loneliness of the wide 40 VENICE AND VENETTA lagoon, in the twilight under the evening sky. Still the gondolas at evening steal back from the Lido, like ghosts, silently into the city as night descends from the mountains far away. Still the stars peer down from an unimaginable height, and seem like great golden water-lilies on the waters of the lagoon, and everywhere there is a kind of music : perhaps it is the weeping of the oar, perhaps the whisper of the lagoon grass through which the gondola passes, cleaving a disappearing lane as it goes j perhaps the musical blow of the boat itself on the water meeting the south wind coming over the sand dunes from the sea j and at evening this music only becomes more distinct, resolving itself into singing heard in the distance to the accompaniment of mandolin and guitar. Under the unfathomable serenity of her sky she still draws breath at evening, but how languidly ! Does she pray then in the twilight that she may be relieved at last of the dis- orderly throng of sensible things? Hers has been one of those sublime moments that have no return. Does she remember it when under a full moon all her domes are glistening with silver ? Does she look longingly far away over the lagoon, where that path of pearl stretches away to the lidi and the sea ? Far away from her thoughts now is all that lives in the voices and mandolins of the gondoliers. What is it to her that the Piazza is full of men and women whom she knows not, or even that in the Salute they have ceased singing Compline ? She is thinking of her husband the Sea, and of her destined bridal bed. Let us pray that still beautiful, still the most lovely city of our world, she will in a moment be lost to us, that he her husband will not greet her as less than a queen. All the spoils of the splendid ships, all the beauty of his prey, all that in the centuries he has stolen from us, all the sunshine he has stored in his deep, indestructible caverns, he will lavish upon her, and every night he will deck her with innumerable stars. Ropes of seaweed, opalescent and rare, will sway like beautiful snakes in her hair, banners woven by the secret sway of the sea shall float from the tall campanili ; on her left hand shall flash the mighty ring; and over her heart a red and VENETIA AND VENICE 41 burning sun shall flame. Thus in the silence of that lucent world the sea shall make her his own at last. Thus when I evoke her image does she appear to me enthroned on her piles sinking into the mud, encircled by the sea. And believing, as I do, that one day a great cry will go up for all that she was, for all that she meant, for her beauty and her splendour and her strength, when it is too late, I desire nothing better than to be remembered as one who loved her and all that for which she stood, and who hated with bitterness and despair that which destroyed her, which her spirit will one day everlastingly vanquish. II S. MARK'S THE history of Venice, perhaps the most interesting of any city State save that of Rome itself, is, as we have seen, divided into two main periods — the Byzantine and the Italian ; and if we pursued our inquiry a little further and a little more closely we should, of course, find the Italian period itself, subdivided, here too, into the same cycles that we recog- nize in the history, in the thought, and in the art of every city, not only in the Italian peninsula but in the Western Empire — I mean the Gothic period, the Renaissance, and the Baroque. Very fortunately for the student, as it happens, all these various moods of the Venetian soul are quite perfectly expressed in those buildings which for ourselves, as for our fathers, may be said to stand as the symbol of the city, to be for the mind's eye Venice itself — I mean the Cathedral of S. Mark, the Palace of the Doges, the Piazza and the Piazzetta. We shall therefore take these in order, finding the Byzantine city summed up and expressed once for all in S. Marco, the Gothic in the Doge's Palace, the Renaissance and the Baroque in the Piazza and Piazzetta, where, in fact, the whole development and decline of the Renaissance may be studied more satisfactorily and completely than anywhere else in the city. We shall begin, then, with San Marco, and for these reasons. But before we make any examination of the church, it may be 42 S. MARK'S 43 as well to decide what exactly the Church of San Marco is. And to begin with let us say at once that during all the thou- sand years of the Republic it was never the Cathedral of Venice ; it only became the seat of the Bishop and Patriarch in 1807. For in this, too, as in so many other things, Venice is like England — that the seat of her Archbishop was not the capital, but always a provincial city. Till 145 1 it was estab- lished at Grado, where the old Patriarchate of Aquileia was set up. Ecclesiastically Venice was entirely dependent upon Grado, just as England is and always has been ecclesiastically dependent not on London but on Canterbury. From 1091 till 145 1 a Suffragan Bishop ruled Venice from S. Pietro di Castello, but in 145 1 the seat of the Patriarchate was removed from Grado to S. Pietro di Castello, where it endured till, eleven years after the fall of the Republic, Napoleon had it removed to S. Marco. But if the Church of S. Marco was not the Cathedral of Venice, what was it ? It was the chapel of the Doges. 1 What Westminster Abbey was to the Crown and realm of England that the Church of S. Marco was to the Doge and Republic of Venice. It was the Doge's chapel, the church, as we have seen, where he was obliged to take the oath on his election ; it stood, too, in much the same relation both theoretically and materially to the Palace of the Doges as Westminster Abbey did to the King's Palace; moreover, it contained, as Westminster did, for centuries the chief shrine of the State, the tomb of S. Mark. Yet S. Mark was by no means the first or only patron of Venice any more than was S. Edward of England. Indeed, he was the latest, as was the Confessor, and, like him, he never stood alone as the patron of the State, though he may often have seemed to do so in the popular imagination. For, like S. Edward, S. Mark seemed to per- sonify the patriotism and the achievement of a people, and to point the way to a future that, like ourselves, the Venetians won in his name. In S. Mark's, then, we have the great State Church of 1 In the Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella." 44 VENICE AND VENETIA Venice — a secular and official building if you will, as West- minster is a Royal building, in which all the splendour of the State, its strength, health, and wealth are expressed. Even the dedication to S. Mark is a State affair, a political rather than an ecclesiastical manifesto. For the patron saints of Venice, always numerous as we have seen, 1 and wholly eccle- siastical in their appointment, were early half forgotten in the continual movement of the central government from Grado to Torcello, from Torcello to Malamocco. It was only when the Republic finally established itself on Rialto that S. Theodore, the martyr and patron of that island, came to be regarded as the tutelar of Venice, which in some sort he remained to the end. Even in the ninth century a church under his dedication is said to have occupied the site of S. Marco, and for long after that was destroyed his body lay in the old Scuola di S. Teodoro, near the Church of S. Sal- vatore, while even to-day, as we know, his statue standing upon the crocodile, his symbol, adorns one of the two great pillars in the Piazzetta. S. Theodore was the first patron of Rialto, of what later became the centre of the city of Venice ; it does not seem to have been till about 829 that S. Mark actually became the patron. Some time before that, however, as we may believe, the Venetians had recalled the legend that the Evangelist was Bishop of Aquileia, and was indeed shipwrecked upon their shores, and there heard that voice full of all sweetness and consolation, "Pax tibi Marce, Evangelista Meus." " Mark the Evangelist," says Voragine, "was of the kindred of the Levites, and was a priest. And when he was christened he was godson of S. Peter the apostle, and therefore he went with him to Rome. When S. Peter preached there the Gospel, the good people of Rome prayed S. Mark that he would put the Gospel in writing like as S. Peter had preached. Then he at their request wrote, and showed it to his master, S. Peter, to examine ; and when S. Peter had examined it, and saw that it contained the very truth, he approved it and commanded that 1 See supra, p. 20. S. MARK'S 45 it should be read at Rome. And then S. Peter seeing S. Mark constant in the faith, he sent him into Aquilegia for to preach the faith of Jesu Christ, where he preached the word of God and did many miracles, and converted innumerable multitudes of people to the faith of Christ, and wrote also to them the Gospel, like as he did to them of Rome, which is to this day in the Church of Aquilegia, and with great devotion kept. " After this it happed that S. Mark led with him to Rome a burgess of that same city whom he had converted to the faith, named Ermagoras, brought him to S. Peter, and prayed him that he would sacre him bishop of Aquilegia, and so he did. Then this Ermagoras when he was bishop he governed much holily the church, and at last the paynims martyred him. Then S. Peter sent S. Mark into Alexandria, whereas he preached first the word of God. . . . Now it happened on Easter Day, when S. Mark sang Mass there, they assembled all and^ put a cord about his neck, and after drew him throughout the city, and said : Let us draw the bubale to the place of bucale. And the blood ran upon the stones and his flesh was torn piecemeal that it lay upon the pavement all bebled. After this they put him in prison, where an angel came and comforted him, and after came Our Lord for to visit and comfort him, saying : Pax tibi Marce, Evan- gelista Meus j Peace be to thee, Mark, Mine Evangelist ! be not in doubt, for I am with thee and shall deliver thee. And in the morn they put the cord about his neck and drew him like as they had done before, and cried : Draw the bubale. And when they had drawn he thanked God and said : Into Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit, and he thus saying died. Then the paynims would have burnt his body, but the air began suddenly to change and to hail, lighten, and thunder in such wise that every man enforced him to flee and left there the holy body alone. Then came the Christian men and bare it away and buried it in the church with great joy, honour, and reverence. ' This was in the year of Our Lord 57, in the time that Nero was Emperor. " 46 VENICE AND VENETIA There the body remained, according to " The Golden Legend," till the year 466, according to the Venetian chroniclers till about the year 820. l In the latter year, as we may suppose, a decree had been made by the Eastern Emperor, which the Doge had been forced to acknowledge, that no intercourse should take place even for purposes of commerce between the Christian powers and the unbelievers. Here I think we have the source of the vast popularity of and enthusiasm for S. Mark in Venice, and the true reason why he became, as did S. Edward the Confessor for us, a sort of national symbol, his name a warcry, and his shrine the centre of the State. It will be obvious to anyone who has followed the outline of Venetian history in the previous chapter that Venice was before all else a commercial State, a city of merchants, and that since she depended both upon the East and upon the West for markets, it was one of her greatest political neces- sities to keep herself independent of both the Eastern and the Western Emperors. The decree of Leo V must have threatened her very existence, and she must often have reminded herself that she owed him no allegiance and that it was but a political necessity which forced her to obey his decree. Therefore when two Venetian seamen, Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, disobeyed the Imperial order, fitted out a ship with stuff for the Eastern markets, set sail secretly for Alexandria, sold their goods, and brought back to Venice the body of S. Mark, 3 the whole city and State could not but see in such a miraculous good fortune the establishment once and for all of their independence of the 1 The two accounts agree in most particulars save that of date. They both agree in naming "the Emperor Leo." But there was a Leo I Emperor in 466 and a Leo V Emperor in 820. 8 They are said to have bribed the Pagan keepers of the tomb in Alex- andria to sell them the body. And having it they placed it in a cart and covered it with the carcases of swine, knowing that the Mohammedans would not then examine their load. So they brought their rich booty aboard. S. MARK'S 47 Emperor of their absolute right to freedom of trade. The effect at any rate was magical. S. Mark deposed S. Theodore, and became then once and for all the symbol of the city, the war- cry of the Republic, the foundation, as it were, of all that was most vital in Venice. We of the modern world cannot, I think, allow ourselves to see in the advent of S. Mark to Venice mere chance and good fortune. Just there I think we uncover one of those profound and even prophetic acts which our own country has so often known how to perform. If it were not the Republic herself who sent Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello on that adventure, then indeed the splendour of S. Edward's shrine was of pure devotion, the riches heaped upon it, the everlasting glory and beauty of the church which it created is but a folly, and the graves of the great kings which stand everywhere within its shadow are only there by chance. But the shrine of S. Mark, as we know, like the shrine of S. Edward, became the rallying-place of a nation, of a nation beaten and enslaved in England that for more than two hundred years looked with a wild regret upon the holy tomb of the last of the English kings, of a nation thwarted and in fear in Venice that in a great and bold adventure had found itself and founded for ever in the new grave of the Evangelist its own freedom, glory, and riches. I say this cannot be doubted. Note how the Republic received the holy body, the fruit of its defiance of the Emperor. All the people of Venice, we read, came down to the lagoon, and the noblest of Venice bore upon their shoulders the priceless burden, bearing it within the chapel of the Ducal Palace with cries from island to island, from Grado even to Malamocco, " Viva San Marco ! " the new battle-cry of the Republic. Such was the coming of S. Mark to Venice, and ever after the Republic bore as arms the Lion and the Book, and she wrote therein these words as her motto, " Pax tibi Marce, Evangelista Meus." Nor was this all. The old church of S. Teodoro, which 48 VENICE AND VENETIA had stood where S. Mark's stands to-day, was pulled down, and a new church was built as a shrine for the Evangelist. This new church was burnt down in 976 ; it cannot have stood in any case much more than one hundred years. In that fire, it is said by many, the body of S. Mark perished. Whether, indeed, this were so or not matters little. S. Mark had fulfilled his mission. It was nevertheless a necessity to rediscover the body, and this was duly accomplished under Doge Vital Falier (1085- 1096). 1 It was towards the close of the tenth century that the great church we see to-day — the greatest Byzantine building that remains in our possession in Europe, for the Pagans still hold S. Sophia — was begun. For near a hundred years it was built stone by stone, pillar by pillar, capital by capital, dome by dome, by Byzantine artists. And substantially what we see to-day is that Byzantine church. It is true the decorations are for the most part far later work, that the pinnacles, for instance, belong to another and later mood of the city and of Europe, but in its main strength S. Mark's is still a Greek church, the work of Greek builders, an alien in Western Europe — a church of the Eastern Empire. S. Mark's, then, belongs to and sums up Byzantine Venice, that far-off heroic city looking eastward to the rising sun, iu the shadow of Constantinople. What we see. of later work 1 " The place in which the body of the holy Evangelist had rested was lost, so that Doge Vital Falier was ignorant of the place of the venerable deposit. This was no little affliction not only to the pious Doge but to all the citizens and people ; so that at last, moved by confidence in the Divine * mercy, they determined to implore, with prayer and fasting, the mani- festation of so great a treasure, which did not now depend upon any human effort. A general fast being therefore proclaimed and a solemn procession appointed for the 25th day of June, while they assembled in the church interceded with God in fervent prayers for the desired boon, they beheld with as much amazement as joy a slight shaking in the marbles of a pillar [where the altar of the Cross is now] which presently falling to the earth, exposed to the view of the rejoicing people the chest of bronze in which the body of the Evangelist was laid." So far the chronicler. There is no possibility of doubting the main facts. Even Ruskin accepts them {cf. " Stones of Venice," vol. ii, cap. iv, " S. Mark's "). • »•-»*•■ • • • ► ••••• » > > , ' , S. MARK'S 49 there, however, is, though precious, expressing the life of the city, really but a kind of vegetation — a sign of age upon it. Those pinnacles, those pointed gables of the fourteenth century, reflect the Gothic period of the city, then newly Italian, as certainly as the Doge's Palace can do, while a later and less noble mood has left its marks upon the church in the obtrusive and flagrant mosaics (all save one) of the facade, works of the Baroque period, when all that was really Venice was wounded to death and the city was entering that second childhood which lasted so long, till, in fact, the voice of Napoleon struck her suddenly at last into silence. All this we shall be content, more than content, to ignore, setting our- selves instead to discover if we can the secret of this so strangely lovely Byzantine church, whose character after all is but brought out more strongly for us by those alien ornaments, which I, for one, will never wish away, since they add, as it were, a certain salt to what must always remain in Western Europe and for us an alien loveliness. And let us begin our examination of a building so magnified by fame that the world itself would not seem the same without it by setting down our more general impression of it. If S. Mark's strikes us first by the Byzantine character of its architecture, its crowd of domes, the vast width of its facade in comparison with its height, it impresses us next, I think, by its strangely lovely colour, the gold and blue and green and red of its mosaics, colour which changes with every change of the sky, which is one thing in the blaze of a summer morning and quite another on an autumn afternoon after rain, when the sky is still full of cloud and the wind comes in melancholy gusts out of the pale gold of a watery sunset. I do not know under the influence of which skv, or at what hour of the day or of the night the church is most beautiful ; I only know it is always beautiful : in the golden summer heat or standing amid the winter snow, or in the spring or late autumn when the Piazza has been flooded by the gale in the Adriatic ; but I think I love it best when the sky clears in the evening, after a day of rain in early autumn, when some delicate and pure 50 VENICE AND VENETIA light has suddenly fallen upon the world, and the great facade seems for a moment to be made of pearl and mother-of-pearl, to reflect every colour and shadow of a beauty that belongs to the sea. Then, as the pigeons soar in many clouds about the great Piazza, empty at that hour after the rain, Venice herself seems to me to look out of that marvellous face as though recognizing in that hour something peculiarly her own, some- thing that in all our thoughts of her, her languid beauty, her wealth and strength and splendour, we have always unaccount- ably missed : the wide and sad horizons of the sea, the vague motion of vast waters, the coming of night, the emptiness, the silence. At such an hour in the flagstones of the Piazza, still wet after the day's rain, the great facade backed by its domes, the flagstaves that stand before it on the pavement, are reflected there as a ship might be at the same mysterious hour in the grey-blue sea; it is as though some vast ship, only by conduct of some star, made her way upon the waters : a ship of pearl in which a thousand vague colours burn and fade and are merged into the grey twilight into the night and it is gone. It is not in such an hour as that after a day of rain that the many will see S. Marco : they desire, and how rightly, a morning of sun, when nothing subtle or vague is to be found in the splendour and glitter of the great church which then greets them with an imperishable smile. In that morning hour you are struck, I think, chiefly by the splendour of the build- ing — and it is very splendid — and perhaps after a time by the extraordinary variety, both without and within, of a building that is after all not very large. S. Mark's is but 350 feet long, and at its widest but 168 feet. It is built in the shape of a Greek cross, and is duly set east and west, north and south, its eastern arm being structurally divided into three parts, each with semicircular apse, of which that in the midst con- taining the High Altar projects further than the two beside it, originally containing the Chapel of S. Peter on the Gospel side, the Chapel of S. Clement on the Epistle side. This simple design, a cross of equal arms, is, however, S. MARK'S 51 complicated and confused in any view of the church from without by the vast Atrium which surrounds the church up to its first story on three sides, the north, the west, and the south. The Atrium, which thus encloses the church on three sides, is, as you find at once on entering it, by no means a part of the church proper, for it is not necessary to uncover there. It is open in its west and northern parts, but its southern part has been screened off into two chapels, which are entered from the church itself, the Cappella Zen, into which one looks from the Atrium, and the Baptistery. Such is the main plan of the building, the church proper having, as has been said, the shape of a Greek cross. Within, this Greek cross is roughly divided into five minor parts — the nave, the two transepts, the sanctuary, corresponding to four arms of equal length ; in the midst, where all these arms meet, there is, as it were, a square central portion, which, like each of the four arms, is covered with a dome. The nave and transepts are each divided into three aisles by splendid Byzantine arcades, bearing open galleries. The eastern arm is also divided into three parts ; the main central part, consisting of the sanctuary proper, is closed on the west by a great open screen, on which are set fourteen statues of S. Mark, the Blessed Virgin, and the Twelve Apostles. At the east it is closed by a semicircular apse, and on the north and south it is divided from the chapels originally of S. Peter and of S. Clement respectively, by splendid Byzantine arcades. Each of these chapels is closed on the east by a semicircular apse, and the whole of this eastern arm is raised above the level of the rest of the church. Having thus obtained, as it were, a main plan of the church in its several parts both within and without, let us consider it in more detail. And before attempting to describe or explain to ourselves this wonderful building as a work of art, let us consider it for a moment as a church pure and simple, the religious expression of the Catholic Faith as Venice and the Government of Venice understood it, and as the shrine of the patron saint of the Republic. 52 VENICE AND VENETIA We have before us a building in the shape of a great cross, whose arms are of nearly equal length, and this cross is sur- rounded on three sides on its lower story by a vast outer court or Atrium. Why? The Church of S. Mark is the Byzantine or Greek form of the basilica, it is the Greek translation of the most ancient form of Christian church, which was modelled from the old Roman court of justice, and which can, I suppose, best be realized to-day in S. Clemente in Rome. That too has a sort of Atrium, but its necessity in a Christian church is not at first obvious to us of this late day. The symbolism of the cruciform church is easily understood, I suppose, even by us ; but that only emphasizes our question, Why spoil it by adding an Atrium ? The origin of the Atrium, in fact, is far from clear; it seems to have been Eastern, and has there, indeed, developed into the mosque of the Moslems. But though the origin of this outer court, which some have thought represents the Forum, in which the Pagan basilicas were situate, remains far from clear, the history and tradition of the Church do not leave us in doubt as to its use. The Atrium, without the church, was the appointed gathering-place of the penitents and the catechumens and of such unbaptized persons as might wish by any means to gain admission after trial and examination to the body of the Faithful, the company of Christ, the Church Militant here on earth. These persons in the earlier ages were not admitted into the church, they waited without. Later the full rigour of this custom was relaxed, and the catechumens were admitted to the church at certain times and for certain parts of the Mass and the Divine Office, but they were obliged to retire to the Atrium, for instance, after the Gospel at Mass. To make the matter quite clear, let us imagine ourselves in the Atrium of such a church as S. Mark's on Holy Saturday, the Vigil of Easter, some eight or nine hundred years ago. At the hour of None, about three in the afternoon, the clergy have repaired to the church, and the greatest vigil of the S. MARK'S 53 Christian year, a vigil that even then was growing rare, and is now practically not kept at all, is about to begin. The church is crowded with the Faithful, the Doge and the great officers of the Republic are in their stalls, in the Atrium are assembled a crowd of persons, men, women, and children, catechumens, who during the forty days of Lent have con- tinually gathered there, seeking admission to the church. The various scrutinies are over, the teaching, examinations, and catechizings are finished, they are about to be admitted into Christ's flock. Within the church porch the new fire is kindled ; the first words of hope after the terror and silence of Good Friday are heard by the throng of postulants, Lumen Christie and the response, as though one dared to breathe again, Deo gratias. The spark thus struck from the flint and greeted so thankfully in the porch without, lights the Paschal candle and the whole church, the new fire is blessed and the incense kindled ; in the magnificent tones of the Preface the deacon — it is the only time he may use that chant — proclaims Easter to the people, whose hearts thrill to his Exsultet. From the Gospel Ambo the Paschal candle burns. Joy is come into the church, and without in the Atrium the priest is performing the preparatory rites over the catechumens. He signs all upon the forehead with the sign of the cross, from each is Satan exorcised. Touching their ears, he says, "Be ye opened " ; touching the nostrils, " Breathe ye in sweet fragrance." Thereafter he anoints each catechumen on the breast and between the shoulders with the oil of catechumens, made ready against to-day at the White Mass of Holy Thurs- day, receiving in turn the promise of each to renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Thus in the Atrium the catechization proceeds ; within the church are read the Twelve Prophecies, followed by a collect and often by a responsary, chaunted to the wonderful melody of the Tract. These splendours the catechumens hear, moving at last in procession with the rest of the people, though separate from them, towards the Baptistery. There 54 VENICE AND VENETIA the font having been newly blessed, the Paschal candle, the symbol of Christ, having been plunged thrice into the holy water, the Holy Oils having been mingled therein, the Bishop receives the catechumens one by one, the men and boys first, the women and girls after, and, each stripped to the waist, is received into Christ's Church, under the sign of water. Then all newly clad in white proceed in order for their confirmation. Led by their sponsors, they come one by one to the Bishop, who signs each with the Holy Chrism. Then in glad proces- sion, singing the Litany of the Saints, they return to the church a single family, and now in the earliest dawn hear the Mass of Easter, the catechumens there making their first communion. I have explained at some length this great ceremony, which belonged more particularly to the Vigils of Easter and of Pentecost, because it will help us easily to understand what the Atrium was for, as well as many things otherwise inexplic- able which are expressed in the wonderful decoration of its roof. The Atrium, as we have seen — as we may see any day we enter it — is not part of the church proper ; it is but an outer or forecourt of it, it is but preliminary to it, and is inexplicable if it were to stand alone. It fulfils, in fact, pre- cisely the function of the old dispensation to the new, of the Old to the New Testament. In it there is but one prayer possible to man — Kyrie Eleison. And, in fact, when we come to examine it in detail, we shall find that the whole of its decoration is concerned with the Old Testament, and that it stands in the same relation to the church in its symbolism as that does to the Gospels. It is, if you will — and remembering the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore we may well call it so — the synagogue, as the greater building itself is the church. This greater building, the church proper, is here in S. Mark's approached from the Atrium by three doors in the inner facade — the door of S. Mark in the centre, which leads straight up the nave to the High Altar and the tomb of the Evangelist ; the door of S . Peter's, on the left or Gospel side, which leads straight to the altar of S. Peter ; and the door of S. MARK'S 55 S. Clement on the right or Epistle side, which leads straight to the altar of S. Clement. A fourth door leads out of the Atrium into the north transept, where of old it led to the altar of S. John, now the altar of Our Lady. We will ignore this door, and with it the two transepts for the moment, and confine ourselves to the main church, which, seen as I have described it, from the three great doors, is like to three churches side by side, with an altar at the head of each, thus : the door of S. Peter, leading through the whole length of the north aisle to the altar of S. Peter, opens on one church ; the door of S. Mark, leading through the whole central nave to the High Altar, opens on another ; and the door of S. Clement, leading through the whole south aisle to the altar of S. Clement, is a third. Taking the church thus we shall find that even as the decoration of the Atrium is devoted to the Old Testament, so the decoration here is devoted to the New. We shall find more, for we shall see that the whole of the central church entered by the door of S. Mark, and leading to his tomb, is devoted to the Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord ; that the two other churches, as it were, that lie side by side the central one, including the transepts, which we shall now reckon in each according to their position, the northern with the church of S. Peter, the southern with the church of S. Clement, are concerned with the Acts of the Apostles and the Saints ; and that even as structurally the church is made one in that square central space under the central dome, so symbolically in its decorations the parts are here joined and all is unified, for on either side the central space the mosaics speak of the ministry of Christ, and lead thus logically to the acts of His apostles and servants. So much for the material and mystical construction of the church. When that is well grasped the examination of the church in detail becomes a matter of delight. First, however, let us consider the facades. These consist everywhere of two parts as seen from the Piazzas, the facade of the Atrium reaching to the platform at the first story and 56 VENICE AND VENETIA the upper part of the true facade of the church proper. This is obvious at once as we gaze on the great western front from the Piazza. The balcony, on which are set the mighty bronze horses of Nero, is the roof of the Atrium ; below it stands the false facade, the facade of the Atrium, while behind the horses rises the true facade of the church. The lower, or false facade, consists of five great arches, two of equal size on either side the great central arch, the whole being flanked at each end by a smaller irregular arch. The great central arch contains the beautiful main door- way into the Atrium ; in its lunette is a modern (1836) mosaic of the Last Judgment. On either side this central arch are two smaller arches ; the first, on the right, contains the door- way into the Atrium facing the door of S. Clement into the church, the second contains a window looking into the chapel of S. Zen ; the first, on the left, contains a doorway into the Atrium facing the door of S. Peter into the church, the second a door into the northern part of the Atrium opposite the door of S. John into the left transept of the church. These four arches contain mosaics of the translation of the body of S. Mark from Alexandria to Venice. Beginning on the right, we see in the first arch the body taken from the church in Alexandria ; placed in a basket covered with vine leaves ; the Saracens examine it and refuse to touch it, thinking it to be pork. In the second arch we see the arrival of the ship with its precious burden in Venice ; the body is received on the Piazzetta by a procession of clergy and people, and is borne ashore. All these mosaics date from the middle of the seventeenth century, when the original thirteenth century works were ruthlessly destroyed to make way for these utterly feeble usurpers. In the first arch, to the right of the central doorway, we see the body received by the Doge and officers of the Republic. This is a work of the eighteenth century, and we are only aware, perhaps, how feeble it is when we compare it with the majestic and splendid work beside it in the last arch, the only mosaic of the thirteenth century remaining on the facade. S. MARK'S 57 There we see the body borne in procession to its shrine, this very church. The beauty and interest of this mosaic can scarcely be exaggerated, for we see in it the facade of the church of S. Marco as it appeared in the thirteenth century, the great bronze horses in place, the lunette of the great central doorway filled, not as it is to-day by the feeble faith and achievement of the seventeenth century, but a masterpiece of a far earlier age, earlier than the thirteenth century, a half figure of Our Lord in glory, His right hand raised in blessing. The other lunettes are empty ; if we would know how the thirteenth century filled them we must consult Bellini's picture in the Accademia. Two ecclesiastics, apparently a bishop and an abbot, bear the casket in which the body of the Evangelist lies, to the right stand the Doge and his officers, to the left a crowd of emperors, kings, queens, and princes, perhaps repre- sentative of all the countless royalties who had visited the shrine when the mosaic was designed. We now turn from the mosaics to consider the great reliefs set in the face of this lower facade between the arches. On either side of the great arch we find S. Theodore and S. George, two ancient protectors of the Republic, seated on faldstools. Beyond these, on either side, is an Annuncia- tion, the Madonna with her arms uplifted in the Byzantine manner. All these reliefs are of the thirteenth century. The two beyond them at either end of the facade are Pagan works, though possibly as late as the sixth century ; they represent two labours of Hercules, and are certainly spoil of war. Such, with the infinitely lovely clusters and groups of columns of various marbles which everywhere go to support the five main arches and the two porticos in a double story, are the chief features of the lower western facade. Its details are innumerable, and often unmatched in loveliness. Consider, for instance, the single " lily capitalled " column that supports the little portico at the northern extremity of this western facade j consider the details of each doorway and arch, the sculpture there, the beauty of the pillars and their capitals, the reliefs of the months and the handicrafts and the prophets 58 VENICE AND VENETIA in the vaults of the main archway, the variety and perfection of work that is as far beyond our power to execute to-day as is the understanding of that spirit which achieved it. Above the strength and splendour of this lower facade rises like some marvellous chant the glory of the upper or true face of the church, fronted by the four great horses of gilded bronze over the main gateway. The disposition of this upper facade is similar to the lower ; it too consists of four arches, their lunettes filled with mosaics set about a central main arch, here filled with glass and forming the western window of the church. Before this window, on the platform that is the roof of the Atrium, stand the golden horses of Nero. These are the spoil of war ; they are the trophies of the capture of Constantinople by the Doge Enrico Dandolo at the head of the Crusade in 1204. For some they are Greek works of the school of Lysippus, and whether Greek or Roman, they are part of the quadriga that adorned the triumphal arch of Nero, and later that of Trajan in Rome, which Constantine the Apostate took to Byzantium to give lustre to his new capital. There the podesta Zen, whose chapel we shall consider later, found them when he held Constantinople for Venice in 1204. He sent them to her as spoil, and they were set up as we see them now. There they remained till another Emperor, Napoleon I, in 1797 carried them off once more, to adorn his capital, to decorate the triumphal arch he set up in the Place du Carrousel. In 1815, however, they were returned to Venice by the Emperor Francis I, into whose hands Venice had fallen. The great central arch of this upper facade is filled, as has been said already, by the western window of the church ; the two arches on either side each have a small window, but their lunettes are filled with mosaics of the life of Christ. The subjects begin at the extreme left with the Descent from the Cross, then follow the Descent into Hades, the Resurrection, and the Ascension ; they are works of the seventeenth century similar to those in the lunettes of the lower or false facade. The false gables over each arch, the pinnacles between them , > > ) 1 I ' ; ■ ■•■ * i ri S. MARK'S 59 and the statues, had no place in the original Byzantine facades, but are additions, picturesque but unhappy, of the late Gothic manner of the fifteenth century. Turning now to the northern facades in the Piazza dei Leoni, we find the same division as in the great west front — that is to say, the lower facade is that of the Atrium, the upper that of the church. Broken by the thrust of the transept, the lower facade is covered with various reliefs which seem to have no connexion the one with the other, while the upper or true facade is carved with work mainly or wholly decorative. The door into the Atrium, the Porta dei Fiori, is Gothic in character, with, however, more than a suggestion of the East. The same arrangement of false and true facade meets us on the south side of the church, where before the beautiful open portico stands the Pietra del Bando, the low red pillar of marble from which the Laws of the Republic were declared. The two square carved pillars beyond it are Byzantine, and came as spoil from the Church of S. Saba at S. Jean d' Acre ; they were taken from the Genoese in 1256 by Lorenzo Tiepolo. Standing back in the Piazzetta we see the whole of this south front, perhaps the most beautiful, and certainly, in its upper part, the richest facade of the church. The two pierced screens of the upper fagade, the little arch between them with its famous mosaic of the Madonna, before which the two lamps that have been lighted every night for hundreds of years still burn, are worthy of this, the sea-front of S. Mark's. Nor can we fail to delight in the jutting angle of the Treasury, with its ancient marbles and fine porphyry relief of four figures embracing in pairs, which is also spoil from S. Jean d' Acre. So much for the outside of the church, which in its richness and colour has no equal in Europe. We now turn to the interior and first to the Atrium. I said that this was built for the unbaptized and the penitents, persons either outside or temporarily exiled from Christ's Church. For this reason its mosaics are wholly devoted to the Old Testament story, to the life of man 60 VENICE AND VENETIA before Christ had come to redeem him. One enters the Atrium, of course, by the beautiful main door in the western facade. Coming thus into it, you face the door of S. Mark with its great lunette filled with a sixteenth-century mosaic of the Evangelist after a design by Titian. Beneath, in the arches, are early mosaics of the Madonna and six Apostles and under them the four Evangelists. It is not, however, with these we are at present concerned, but with the work in the Atrium proper, which begins in the cupola nearest the Piazzetta and the sea. Here we see in mosaics of the thirteenth century the beginning of the history of the world and of man, their creation and their fall. Then the story is continued past the door of S. Clement with the birth of Cain and Abel, their sacrifices and the murder of Abel, and the curse of Cain, furthest from the church. The story is continued with the history of Noah, the building of the Ark, the Flood, and return of the dove with the olive branch, the sacrifice of Noah and the re- occupation of the earth. Later Noah plants a vineyard, is overcome by drunkenness, is seen in his shame by Ham, is covered by Shem and Japhet; Ham is cursed and Noah dies. Then Babel is built — as it were the clock-tower of Venice — and the tongues of men are confounded by the Lord in glory with His legions of angels. By the door of S. Peter the story is continued with the history of Abraham, who is sent by God out of Ur ; in Sodom Lot is made prisoner, while Abraham and Melchisedech meet. Then Abraham encounters the king of Sodom and Sarah brings her handmaid Hagar to him. Hagar flees to the wilderness, is comforted by an angel, and Ishmael is born and circumcized. Abraham receives the three Strangers and serves them while Sarah laughs. Isaac is born and circumcized. For some reason not quite clear this cupola is borne by the four greater prophets. The story is continued into the northern part of the Atrium with the history of Joseph, which occupies three cupolas and their parts. In the last cupola we come to the history of Moses, that prototype of Our Lord: "as Moses lifted up the S. MARK'S 61 serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." Entering the church by the great door of S. Mark, just that is in fact what the catechumen would first see; for looking back as of old custom to salute the sun as he entered the church, he would see high up above the door Our Lord enthroned between the Blessed Virgin and S. Mark. And all around him he would find reminders of the way he had come and of Him who had led him to this holy place. For that Christ enthroned holds an open book, where is inscribed : / am the door ; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. And over is written again : I am the gate of life ; let those who are Mine enter by Me. And over again these words are set, Who He was, and from whom He came, and at what price He redeemed thee, and why He made thee and gave thee all things, do thou consider. Considering thus as he was taught, lifting his eyes in thank- fulness, what did he see ? He saw the Dove, the Holy Spirit enthroned in the height of the cupola, and from it proceeding twelve streams of fire upon the twelve Apostles there, and beneath all the nations who hear the word as at the first Pente- cost every man in his own tongue, and at the four angles in the vaults he saw four angels, each bearing a banner, and thereon inscribed : Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus, and round the border of the great cupola he read the rest of these angels' song : Deus Sabaoth Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. And kneel- ing there he would catch for a moment surely some shadow of the holiness of his God. Thus, as the Psalmist had foretold, he would enter His courts with praise. Raising his head from this contemplation, he would under- stand why he must with praise enter these courts. For on the vault between the first and second cupolas he would see the Redemption of the world, the Passion of Christ, the Treason of man, the Crucifixion, the Descent into Hades, the Resurrec- tion. And passing on, the whole of that triumph of God over Sin and Death would burst upon him in the central great 62 VENICE AND YENETIA cupola where Christ is caught up into heaven amid the angels to prepare a place for us. There he would read these words under the figures of the Madonna and the astonished Apostles and those two angels who appeared at the moment of Ascension ; it is their words he reads : Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven 1 This Christ, the Son oj God, as He is taken from you, shall so come the arbiter of the earth, trusted to do judgment and justice. And immediately he sees the four Evangelists who bear witness to the world, sym- bolized, I think, by the four great rivers — Pison, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, of all these things and the virtues which spring from that witness in the hearts of men. The great central cupola and the Ascension of Christ bring us to the sanctuary itself and its great treasure, the shrine of S. Mark. It is guarded, as has been said, by the beautiful screen on which are set the Crucifix and fourteen statues : Our Lady, S. Mark, and the Twelve Apostles. The cupola under which stands the High Altar represents, I think, the kingdom of Heaven. The mosaic there shows us Christ enthroned as the Messiah surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. It is for this reason, I think, that the arch before the sanctuary is concerned with the infancy of Our Lord — for "unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." Here in the sanctuary beside the great shrine and beyond it the altar of S . Mark with its four alabaster columns from the Temple of Solomon and mosaic in the apse, are many beautiful and wonderful things, such as those cipollino pillars carved in high relief that uphold the baldacchino of verde antico — all work of the tenth century — and the Pala d' Oro ; but to consider them here would confuse us in our examination of the church as a whole and its mystical teaching and significance. When the catechumen or pilgrim had come so far, and had in the very kingdom of Heaven paid his respects to the shrine of the Evangelist, he would find himself once more in that central space under the great dome of the Ascension where all the church is one. Turning either to right or left, lifting up his eyes, he would see on either hand scenes from the ministry S. MARKS 63 of Our Lord. Passing thence into the north aisle, he would have come straight to the altar of S. Peter, in the chapel at the head of the north aisle — the altar of S. Peter who was the chief captain appointed by Christ to carry on His ministry and who was also the godfather of S. Mark. The whole north aisle, from the door in the western facade to this altar in the apse, seems to be devoted to S. Peter as Prince of the Apostles and to their ministry which he controlled. The north transept is, however, not his, but belongs to the Madonna and to her divinely adopted son, S. John. Above, on the left, is a late mosaic representing the genealogy of the Madonna, while close by is the Cappella dei Mascoli, of the fifteenth century, with mosaics of the death of the Virgin. All this is late work, as is the chapel of Our Lady in the eastern aisle of the transept. This was formerly the chapel of S. John, to whom, in fact, the whole transept once belonged, being entered by his door, Porta di S. Giovanni. Proceeding now once more to the central space under the great dome of the Ascension and thence into the south aisle, we enter the church, as it were, of S. Clement, the successor, as was believed, of S. Peter in the Papacy, the second great captain of the Church, the patron of sailors. And just as the northern part of the church which is S. Peter's is devoted to the Apostles and the Madonna, so the southern, which is S. Clement's, is devoted to the Saints. The present chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the eastern aisle of the transept was formerly dedicated to S. Leonard, and the mosaics there devoted to his life still remain. Here also is an altar of S. James, and the representation of very many saints dear to Venice and her subject islands and cities. Thus the whole church spreads itself before us like a kingdom and like a book in which is established and in which we may read the whole Christian mythos, and the scheme of govern- ment which re-established our unity and produced the flower of the Middle Age. To attempt to discover to the reader the whole of this kingdom, to decipher the whole of this book in its completeness, would require a space at least as great as that 64 VENICE AND VENETIA in which I propose to deal not with the Church of S. Mark, but with Venice and Venetia. All I propose to do here I have already done in giving the reader the key to this mystery as I understand it, and in emphasizing what in many visits during many years has become daily more clear to me : that the Church of S. Mark is as profoundly a unity in its decoration as it is in its construction, and that though the variety of both may seem to obscure this fact, every day of study and atten- tion will but make it clearer. We are left, then, with but two parts of this great building to explore, and they properly belong not to the church itself, but to the Atrium : I mean the Baptistery and the Cappella Zen. It was not till the thirteenth century that these two chapels were established, and I imagine, though I am not sure, that before that date S. Mark's had no Baptistery, a Venetian child being taken then to S. Pietro di Castello for baptism. However that may be, it was in the thirteenth century that this Baptistery and the Cappella Zen were built in the Atrium, and in the middle of the fourteenth century Doge Andrea Dandolo covered the whole of the interior of the former with mosaics. The Baptistery thus became not only the chapel of St. John Baptist and the universal font of Venice, but in a sense the mausoleum of the great Doge to whom it owed its beauty. The Baptistery was apparently entered from the Atrium or the Cappella Zen by the small vaulted chamber we see there filled with mosaics of the life of Christ before His baptism. The font itself is a later work of 1545, with reliefs by Desiderio da Settignano and of Minio of Padua and a statue of S. John Baptist by Segala. The mosaic of the Crucifixion with the Madonna, S. John Evangelist, S. Mark, and S. John Baptist, with the donor at the foot of the Cross, summarizes the mystery of Baptism here in S. Mark's, and the rest are in their beauty devoted to the life of the Baptist. The chapel also contains a curious relic — the slab of stone on which S. John was beheaded. In the cupola above the. font we see Christ with S. Mark and the Apostles. Our Lord holds a scroll on which is written that first and last command : " Go ye there- S. MARK'S 65 fore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And under is written where S. Mark and the Apostles fulfilled this command : as S. Mark in Alexandria, S. John in Ephesus, S. James in India, S. Peter in Rome, S. Matthias in Palestine ; while in the pendentives are the four Greek Fathers — S. Athanasius, S. John Chrysostom, S. Gregory Nazianzen, and S. Basil. The cupola over the altar, like the cupola over the High Altar of the church, represents the kingdom of Heaven to which by baptism we are admitted. There we see Christ surrounded by angels, the archangels, thrones, dominations, powers, the virtues of Heaven, and the blessed Seraphim and Cherubim, and all the company of Heaven as in the Preface. In the pen- dentives are the four Latin Fathers — S. Gregory, S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, and S. Augustine. The altar is spoil from Tyre, and behind it is a relief of the Baptism of Christ. Before the main door of the chapel is the tomb of the great Doge who made all this so fair — Andrea Dandolo — a splendid work of the fourteenth century. The Cappella Zen was originally erected to mark the first resting-place of the body of S. Mark in Venice. There- fore it is decorated with mosaics of his life. It afterwards became famous as the scene of a miracle of the Madonna, who there gave her golden shoe to a poor pilgrim ; hence its later name of the Cappella della Scarpa. Then in the six- teenth century the Cardinal Zen, nephew of Pope Paul II, a Venetian, died and left his vast fortune to the Republic, which erected the great tomb we see there in his honour. So we come once more into the Piazza ; but before finally leaving let us consider the church once more as the mystical monument it is to the Faith of Venice, the Faith she, more than any other power in Christendom, continually championed against the infidel. What I have said of S. Mark's has been but a hint, as it were, of its true splendour and meaning. The profound and subtle beauty of the thought, of the religion, it stands for is not to be expressed in the few pages of a book 66 VENICE AND VENETIA or to be rightly praised or understood even after many visits. That which was achieved only after many years, in the course of centuries, and at the expense of the whole energy of a city like Venice, cannot be apprehended in a few hours by even the cleverest of us. It sums up the whole of one period, and that not the least heroic, in the life of the Republic. It has been called ugly, has been continually despised, and is even now, after all the eloquence of Ruskin, but coldly appreciated. Yet in many ways and from many points of view it is the most venerable and the most beautiful building left to us in Europe, coming to us from the earliest Middle Age with all the wonder of the East in its golden, dim aisles and all the beauty of the West in its space and splendour. And though for us of the North, expressing our love in a manner so different in a grey world of low and often leaden sky, of snow and frost and intermittent sunshine, S. Mark's must always remain a kind of wonder, we too, if we will, may there find our origins and understand better there perhaps than anywhere else to-day in Christendom that we were once brethren, the sheep of one pasture, one flock having one shepherd. Ill THE DOGE'S PALACE IF the Church of S. Mark sums up and expresses the Byzantine city ; the Palace of the Doges may be said to bear witness in its architecture to the Gothic, in its contents to the Renaissance, splendour of a city that more than any other State in the Italian peninsula has known how to express herself. The beautiful site which the Palace still occupies and adorns is in itself unique in Europe, Westminster alone being able to bear comparison with it. In that site we may find if we will indeed the whole character of the Venetian people — their love of splendour, their dependence on the mastery of the sea. Nor is the choice of this site a thought of the fourteenth century, when Venice had in truth found herself, as the Palace which now fills it is. From the beginning, when in 810 the Rialto had become the capital of the Republic, it was here on this very spot that the Palace of the Government was built, and this becomes obvious to us at once when we remember that S. Mark's and its predecessors, the Church of S. Theodore even, were but the chapels of the Doges and for that reason alone became the great shrine in Venice. As early certainly as 813 a palace has stood upon this spot; for more than a thousand years the home of Venetian govern- ment has been mirrored there in the Venetian sea. The first Palace, however, was doubtless very different from that we see to-day j it was a Byzantine building and, as we may suppose, 67 68 VENICE AND VENETIAN must have resembled those Byzantine palaces which, though dilapidated, are in some sort still left to us on the Grand Canal, the Palazzo Loredan, the Palazzo Fasetti, and, best of all, the so-called Fondaco dei Turchi. This building was several times burnt down, and when the final restoration was made in 1173 by the Doge Sebastiano Ziani there can have been very little left, one may suppose, of the first building. The Ziani Palace, however, was still wholly Byzantine, and so it remained for more than a hundred years, till the present Gothic building was begun and gradually during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries took its place, for so late as 1422 half of the Ziani Palace was still standing, as the Chronicle of Pietro Dolfino assures us. It will be remembered that in the midst of the long struggle with Genoa for sea power Venice suffered many defeats; at Aias, in the Gulf of Alexandretta, Niccolb Spinola defeated the Venetian fleet, and again at Curzola Lamba Doria with eighty- five Genoese ships outmanoeuvred Andrea Dandolo and, em- ploying the tactics that had been successful at Meloria against Pisa, won a complete victory over the Venetians. This was in the year 1298. The great aristocrat and patriot, Gradenigo I, had then been Doge for ten years. Sansovino calls him "a man prompt and prudent, of unconquerable determination and great eloquence, who laid, so to speak, the foundations of the eternity of this Republic by the admirable regulations which he introduced into the government." J Many students have since contested this verdict, their minds set on the vain and empty vision of democracy, for it was Gradenigo I who in the midst of defeat established the oligarchy which for so long vindicated and upheld the greatness of the Venetian Republic. He it was who in 1296 closed the Great Council to the people at large and fixed the number of the Senate within certain limits. 2 This profound revolution, out of which was to come victory and that wise and stable government 1 Cf. Ruskin, "Stones of Venice," vol. ii, cap. viii. 2 See supra, p. 23. THE DOGE'S PALACE 69 which was to win and secure for Venice her great and happy Empire, had its effect, as we might suppose, on the great Palace Ziani had restored and enlarged. A great saloon was necessary for the new Great Council, and, as Sansovino tells us, "in 1301 a saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo under the Doge Gradenigo and finished in 1309, in which year the Great Council first sat in it." It is, then, in the first year of the fourteenth century that we see the present Palace begun. That Palace, like its predecessors, has three facades — the Piazzetta fagade, which in the Byzantine Palace was the principal, the sea facade, and the facade on the canal that passes under the Ponte della Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs, which was and is known as the Rio facade. It was here that the new saloon was built. For the new and Gothic Palace was to be wholly the work of the aristocratic oligarchy. Little by little it was to consume and take the place of the old Byzantine Palace of Ziani as little by little the oligarchy was to possess itself of the Central Government. This Gothic saloon, long since destroyed, was situated just behind the Bridge of Sighs as far as possible from observation, for, as has been said, the main facade of the Ziani Palace was on the Piazzetta. Other chambers, the Cancellaria and the Torresella, all now destroyed, were presently added to it when the Tiepolo conspiracy in 1310, just a year after the Great Council had begun to sit in the new chamber, gave the Central Government an opportunity and an excuse for streng- thening its power. In 1300 Marino Bocconio had conspired against the oligarchy without success; in 13 10 a number of nobles, Tiepolos, Querinis, Badoers, did the same thing with the same result ; but the Government seized the opportunity to strengthen itself: it created the famous Council of Ten. That was the last and crowning work of Doge Gradenigo, who had made Venice as strong an oligarchy as Oliver Crom- well made England. That Council, too, would need its saloon, but before anything was added to the Palace Gradenigo was dead. His successor lived but a year. Then came 70 VENICE AND VENETIA Giovanni Soranzo, who in his turn added nothing, and then in 1329 Francesco Dandolo, third of his name, who added the great gate which was later destroyed to make way for the Porta della Carta. It was his successor, the second Gradenigo, however, who added a new council chamber for the Senate, which found the semi-secret saloon too small and perhaps too mean. For the oligarchy was perfectly established and needed no disguise. In 1340, when Gradenigo had been Doge a year, a Committee of Three was formed to decide where the new Hall of the Great Council should be built. They reported in the same year that the new Hall should be built on the sea, or, as they called it, on the Grand Canal. Their report was adopted, and it was thus in 1340 was begun the great Sala del Maggior Consiglio which is still one of the wonders of the world. For consider the pride, confidence, and joy of the oligarchy. It was on the sea itself they founded their council chamber. Out of the very waves it rose on that marvellous double arcade which still astonishes us and contains in itself half the magic of Venice. In those days the Riva and that part of the Piazzetta where the two columns stand was not thought of. The sea front of the Palace rose up out of the waves, and within that Hall so majestically reared met the Government that ruled the first great sea power of Europe. This marvellous work took twenty-five years to complete and was interrupted by plague and conspiracy — the conspiracy of Marino Falier. In 1365 Guariento was able to paint his Paradise upon the wall where Tintoretto's now hangs, yet the magnificent decorations of the roof were not undertaken till thirty-five years later, and it was not till the year 1423 that all was finished. These decorations were, of course, not those we see now, but a much simpler scheme representing the heavens covered with stars. To the Doge Steno we still owe the magnificent balcony of the Great Hall, though the work above it is in part of more recent date. 1 In 1423 the Great Council sat for the first time in its new 1 See Ruskin, op. cit., vol. ii, cap. viii. THE DOGE'S PALACE 71 chamber. Thus the great Gothic Palace was built beside the Byzantine Palace of Ziani which faced the Piazzetta. That old Palace — for reverence for ancient buildings because they are ancient is a rare and modern emotion — was no doubt an eyesore to many who then, as now, would have all things always new, but for a time the depletion of the exchequer in the mainland wars and the necessity, now felt for the first time, of defending a land frontier forbade the fulfilment of any such desire. Indeed, such a scheme was felt to be a danger to the Republic and a law was actually passed that any who in the Council should so much as propose it should suffer a fine of one thousand ducats. 1 In 141 9, however, a fire broke out in the old Palace, to the injury both of it and of the Church of S. Mark. Then the Doge Mocenigo I, being anxious for the glory of the Republic, took the matter in hand. He did not wish to restore the old Palace, but determined at last to rebuild it on the plan of the new. Therefore he had the thousand ducats carried into the council chamber and spoke as follows, saying, "Since the late fire has burned in great part the ducal habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the places used for public business) this occasion was to be taken for an admonishment sent from God, that they ought to rebuild the Palace more nobly and in a way more befitting the greatness to which by God's grace their dominions had reached ; and that his motive in proposing this was neither ambition nor selfish interest; that as for ambition they might have seen in the whole course of his life, through so many years, that he had never done anything for ambition, either in the city or in foreign business, but in all his actions had kept justice first in his thoughts and then the advantage of the State and the honour of the Venetian name ; and that, as far as regarded his private interest, if it had not been for this accident of the fire, he would never have thought of changing anything in the Palace into either a more sumptuous 1 An excellent law which I suggest the modern Venetians should revive and apply to all their old buildings. It would tame many Jewish schemes, and Venice might recommend it to Rome. 72 VENICE AND VENETIA or a more honourable form ; and that during many years in which he had lived in it he had never endeavoured to make any change, but had always been content with it as his pre- decessors had left it ; and that he knew well that if they took in hand to build it, as he exhorted and besought them, being now very old and broken down with many toils, God would call him to another life before the walls were raised a pace from the ground. And that therefore they might perceive that he did not advise them to raise this building for his own convenience, but only for the honour of the city and its Dukedom. ... In order, as he had always done, to observe the laws, ... he had brought with him the thousand ducats which had been appointed as the penalty for proposing such a measure, so that he might prove openly to all men that it was not his own advantage that he sought, but the dignity of the State. To this speech there was no reply. The thousand ducats were unanimously devoted to the work, which was imme- diately taken in hand. That was in 1422; the new Palace, the Hall of the Great Council, was not then perfectly com- plete. The Senate did not use it until the following year, and then Mocenigo was dead. It was Francesco Foscari who actually undertook the new building and was the first Doge to preside in the present Hall of the Great Council. Thus the old Palace of Ziani was destroyed and the new Palace continued on its rich arcades over the old site facing into the Piazzetta. The destruction of the old Byzantine Palace may well strike us as a vandalism as great as the destruction of old S. Peter's. Yet in giving any such verdict we must remember that in those days men were still capable of replacing an old nobility with a new. When the Norman Abbey of Westminster was destroyed, the church of the Confessor, Henry III was able to replace it by the incomparable building we still enjoy, but if we were to destroy Henry's church what could we put in its place ? The vandalism of our forefathers, though it be none 1 Sanuto, "Cronica," apud Ruskin, op. cit.^ vol. ii, cap. viii. THE DOGES PALACE 73 the less vandalism, is to be excused in this, that they knew how to replace what they destroyed and even more worthily. 1 What have we then to-day in the Doge's Palace ? We have a building in part of the fourteenth and in part of the fifteenth century. To the fourteenth century belongs that part of the Palace which consists of the Hall of Great Council with its supporting arcades. To the fifteenth belongs the Piazzetta facade. To this must be added the Porta della Carta, begun by Doge Foscari in 1439 and the interior buildings with which it is connected added in 1462 by Doge Cristoforo. Then in 1479 came another great fire which destroyed that part of the fpalace which faced the Rio, and it became necessary to rebuild this both within and without. This work was not completed till the middle of the sixteenth century. But the Palace was not yet done with its enemy fire. In 1574 a vast conflagration destroyed all the upper halls on the sea facade and all the pictures of the Hall of Great Council, together with . a good part of the rooms in the Rio. The building can have appeared as little more than a ruin. And in fact it was debated whether or no it should be pulled down and rebuilt. Happily this was not attempted : yet Palladio counselled it. Nevertheless, it was decided to repair the old Gothic building as Francesco Sansovino had advised. It was now that the prisons, hitherto at the top of the Palace in the tower, were erected on the further side of the Rio and the Bridge of Sighs, built by Antonio da Ponte to connect them with the Palace and the present Rio facade, was begun, while the whole Palace was re-adorned with pictures. Thus we have in the middle of the sixteenth century the complete Palace we see to-day, unique in its beauty as in its site and, let us hope, for ever one of the glories of the world. Now in any general view of it from without, when we have 1 Yet Mr. Ruskin, not without reason, dates the decay of Venice from the destruction of the Ziani Palace, the vandalism of Mocenigo. " It was the knell of the architecture of Venice," he says, "and of Venice herself" (Ruskin, op. cit.^ vol. ii, cap. viii.). 74 VENICE AND VENETIA felt the wonder and excellence of its loveliness, the splendour of its great double arcades, the fortitude and simplicity and beauty of colour of the rosy upper facade, what chiefly strikes us, I suppose, is the great groups of sculpture that adorn each of the three visible angles of the facades. These three angles are now universally known as the Fig Tree Angle, the Vine Angle, and the Judgment Angle. They consist in each case of a great column and vast capital, surmounted by a sculp- tured group in the lower arcade ; of a smaller pillar and capital surmounted by an angel in the upper arcade; and finally of a spiral shaft with a niche over all. They form, indeed, the cornerstones of the building, and we shall find the whole meaning of the Palace in the sculpture upon them. And first the Fig Tree corner. This joins the sea facade to the Piazzetta facade, and is thus the chief, in any view of the Palace. The group of sculpture upon it, one of the loveliest in Europe, represents the Fall of Man, and teaches, I suppose, Fear and Humility and Obedience : above is S. Michael Archangel with his drawn sword. The Vine corner joins the sea facade to the Rio facade. The group of sculp- ture here represents the Drunkenness of Noah and teaches Temperance and Modesty : above is S. Raphael Archangel with Tobias. The Judgment corner joins the Piazzetta facade with that part of the Palace which faces S. Mark's by the Porta della Carta. The group of sculpture here re- presents the Judgment of Solomon, a Florentine work of the fifteenth century : above is S. Gabriel Archangel with the Annunciation Lily, perhaps the earliest Renaissance figure in Venice. Here we have the Justice of the old Dispensa- tion, ruthless and exact, but, with the Annunciation of Gabriel, to be tempered, to be overwhelmed with mercy. No longer will Judgment alone, as Solomon has said, come from the Lord, for Christ is announced to perform the mercy which He promised to our forefather Abraham. On these cornerstones, then, of Obedience, Temperance, and Justice with Mercy the Venetian Republic wished to found itself. THE DOGE'S PALACE 75 If now we proceed further to examine the facades of the Palace we shall note, as we stand on the Ponte della Paglia, that the southern part of the Rio facade is bare, while the northern part is heavy with work of the high Renaissance. The sea facade, the most beautiful of all, is broken in its symmetry very happily by the lower level of the two eastern windows, which still retain their tracery, and by the splendid arch and balcony of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, while all is crowned by a statue of Venice. The capitals of the columns here are all different and full of symbolical sculptures of emperors and philosophers and virtues and vices, and I know not what else. They have been much restored. In the Piazzetta facade we note that the first two windows are part of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, and thus are part of the fourteenth-century Palace. The rest of this facade belongs to the fifteenth century and was built by Doge Francesco Foscari on the site of the old Byzantine Palace of Ziani. It is crowned by a statue of Venice between her lions, beneath which kneels the Doge Francesco Foscari before the Lion and the Book. In the niches here, for the first time, we see Pagan deities represented, and are thus confirmed in our knowledge of the Renaissance origin of the work. Here, too, the capitals are variously sculptured with symbolical figures of lawgivers and various trades. We now proceed to examine the interior of the Palace. We enter by the splendid Porta della Carta, where the Government had its proclamations read. It is the work of Bartolommeo Buon (1443). Above is Justice again en- throned between the Lions of Venice under S. Mark with the Book. The relief of Doge Cristoforo kneeling before the Lion of S. Mark is a restoration ; at the sides in niches are four virtues — Charity, Prudence, Hope, and Fortitude. Coming into the great courtyard of the Palace, we notice its general Renaissance character, especially the rich Eastern facade j but the south and west sides are for the most part Gothic work of the fourteenth century, the upper story being still in brick. The two bronze well heads are of fine sixteenth- 76 VENICE AND VENETIA century workmanship. It is here, in fact, that we leave the Gothic Palace and all memory of the Gothic city and are face to face with the Renaissance — the small court on the north of the Scala dei Giganti, built in 1520 by Bergamasco, the Scala itself, built by Rizzo in 1484. The whole interior of the Palace with its decorations and pictures belong to the Renaissance city and do not rightly form a part of this chapter but of the next. Yet I think, indeed, that the unity of the Palace, what it stood for in Venice, is of more importance to us than any rigid adherence to a division, valuable though it be, that would necessitate our dealing in separate chapters with the exterior and the interior of the Palace of the Doges. We shall, then, merely remind ourselves that in passing under the Porta della Carta we pass from the Gothic city into the Renaissance and proceed to examine the interior of the Palace with the works of art it contains here rather than elsewhere. It will be remembered that the Palace was burnt out entirely in 1574 and 1577, and all the decorations and pictures which it contained were then destroyed. Venice could scarcely have suffered from an artistic point of view a greater misfortune, yet she more than any other city in Italy was able in some sort to repair her loss. What she lost was the beautiful and exquisite work of the masters of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, the work of Gentile da Fabriano, Vittore Pisano, Carpaccio, the Bellini, Cima, Catena, Bissolo, Giorgione, and Titian : she was able to substitute the work of Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and Palma Giovane. We enter the Palace by the Scala dei Giganti, and thence passing along the loggia to the right, ascend the Scala d' Oro, built by Sansovino in 1556, up which only those might pass whose names were written in the Libro d' Oro. At the top of this glorious staircase we enter the Atrio Quadrato, a great antechamber hung with portraits of Doges by Tin- toretto, while on the ceiling the same artist has painted Doge Lorenzo Priuli (1559) receiving the sword from Justice in THE DOGE'S PALACE 77 the presence of Venice, above S. Mark is on his throne in the heavens. From this antechamber we pass into the Sala delle Quattro Porte, decorated by Palladio in 1575 and restored in 1869. This was an inner antechamber. In the midst of the entrance wall is a great subject-picture : a portrait of Doge Antonio Grimani (1523). The Doge kneels before a figure of Faith holding the Cross and the Chalice. Beside the Doge a page holds the ducal crown. To the left S. Mark, personifying the city, seen in the background, appears with his lion. This work was ordered by the Republic in 1555, not for the place it now occupies but for another apartment. It was still unfinished in 1566, and in that year Vasari saw it in Titian's studio. The two figures at the sides are the work of a pupil. This rather vulgar painting is the only one of the votive pictures still preserved which Titian painted as the Court painter. The others were destroyed in the fires of 1574 and 1577. Another pupil of Titian's is represented by a picture on the right of the entrance, where we see Doge Marino Grimani kneeling before the Virgin, and in the work opposite to it, where we see the conquest of Verona in 1439. The other works in this apartment are of little account ; yet we must not forget the ceiling, originally by Tintoretto, now ruined by restoration. There we see Jupiter giving to Venice the command of the sea. It must once have been one of the glories of the world. From this Sala delle Quattro Porte we enter the Ante- collegio, the waiting-room for ambassadors seeking an audience. It is, I suppose, the most gloriously decorated room in the world. Certainly now nothing that remains of the Palace may bear comparison with it for a moment. Here, better perhaps than anywhere else, we may under- stand what the pride and far-flung greatness of Venice were, the splendour of her achievement, the glory of her name. It has been said by the most profound historian of our day, that what in fact differentiates us from the beasts is not 78 VENICE AND VENETIA the discovery or invention of fire, but the creation of the figure of Prometheus. If that be so we may well claim that all the victories of Venice are as nothing in comparison with the achievement we see within the four walls of this not very large room. It is the myth of Venice that is here expressed. The whole room is a masterpiece by Tintoretto and Veronese. On our left as we enter we see Mercury with the Graces — Venice, the city of great merchants with the Graces which enhance the enjoyment of life by refinement and gentilezza : commerce and civilization in their most splendid form represented by the cunning and virile god and the lovely nude maidens full of the promise of joy. On the other side of the entrance door we see the Forge of Vulcan and the fiery energy of Venice, the strength of the bright steel of her battle forged in the fire and smoke of her workshops. The two by Tintoretto. Passing a dark picture of Jacob and Laban by Leandro Bassano, we come to that splendour of Paolo Veronese, the Rape of Europa. Nothing, I suppose, can be conceived more rich, more sumptuous, more golden, or more sad in its luxuriance than this glorious work, which recalls to us the infamous League of Cambrai, the most unforgivable political act of which the Papacy was ever guilty; and yet for our consolation it recalls too the origins of Venice and is therefore surrounded by a halo of joy. It alone would be enough to exalt any palace in the world above its fellows; yet here it is but one amid a crowd of works which fill this crowded room with such-a dazzle of light that we may scarcely enter it without embarrassment. For close by there shines another miracle by Tintoretto, the Minerva repelling Mars, counsel that is thrusting back cruel barbarian war ; and over against it stands the loveliest of all the treasures of the city — Tintoretto's Bacchus and Ariadne — Ariadne, deserted by Theseus, discovered in Naxos by vine-clad Bacchus crowned by Venus. What else is this than the crowning of Venice lost on her islands as Queen of the Sea ? " Seated on the shore like a deity, Venice receives the ring from the young » .111) » 1 > >•'.> > ft » » • 1 > 1 '•" • ■> ' > > J J THE DOGE'S PALACE 79 vine-crowned god who has descended into the water, while Beauty soars on her wings with the diadem of stars to crown the wonderful alliance." " Look!" says D' Annunzio again ; " Look at the distant ship ! it seems to bring some announce- ment. Look at the body of the symbolic woman ! both seem capable of bearing the germs of a world." From the Antecollegio we enter the Sala del Collegio, where the Doge, seated on his throne surrounded by his Council, received the ambassadors. The glory of this room is its ceiling by Paolo Veronese ; it is, of course, the finest in Venice, and, I suppose, in the world. There we see Venice enthroned on the world with Justice and Peace. In the midst is Faith with other virtues and Neptune and Mars. But the room is not only glorious in its roof. Over the entrance Tintoretto has painted a votive picture with a portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti (1538) before the Blessed Virgin, towards whom S. Mark directs his gaze. On the right stand S. Bernardino of Siena and S. Louis of Toulouse, for the Doge was a Franciscan, and in the midst appears a young martyr with the branch of palm presenting a child to the Virgin. Close by, on the left, is another votive picture by the same great master, with a portrait of Doge Francesco Donato (1545) before S. Mark. On the left is the Marriage of S. Catherine of Alexandria and under is S. Francis. Thus the Doge kneels to the patron of Venice, S. Mark : to the Star of the Sea, the Blessed Virgin ; to the patron of the over-sea dominions of the city, S. Catherine of Alexandria ; and to his own patron, S. Francis, whose name he bears. Another votive picture by Tintor2tto occupies the middle of the wall. There Doge Nicolo da Ponte (1578), presented by S. Mark, kneels to the Madonna. Beside him stands his patron, S. Nicholas, whilst about the Madonna stand S. Antony and S. Joseph. In the background is the city. Next to this masterpiece is another work by the same painter, where Doge Alvise Mocenigo (1570), presented by S. Mark, kneels to Our Lord in glory. On the right kneel the Doge's two brothers, Nicolb and Andrea with their patrons. Behind the Doge stand S. 80 VENICE AND VENETIA Louis of Toulouse, his patron, and S. John the Baptist. The background shows us the Libreria Vecchia and the Campanile. Over the throne Paolo Veronese has painted a picture commemorating the battle of Lepanto, where Doge Sebastiano Venier (1577) is presented by S. Mark kneeling to the Saviour rendering thanks for that victory at which he was present. Beside S. Mark stands the patron of the battle, S. Justina of Padua ; behind her stands S. Catherine with the ducal crown. To the left is Faith with the chalice, and behind her we catch a glimpse of the battle. The Doge is supported by the hero of the fight, Agostino Barbarigo, who holds the banner of S. George. From the Sala del Collegio we pass into the Sala del Senato, which is for the most part decorated by Palma Giovane. In the Senate Hall the throne of the Doge and the stalls of the senators and the procurators occupy still their old place. Above are the portraits of two Doges, Marc Antonio Trevisano and Pietro Lando (1553, 1545), by Tintoretto. In the midst is a very beautiful representation of the Dead Christ supported by angels. On the wall opposite, at the end of the room, we see the Doges Girolamo and Lorenzo Priuli (1559, 1567), kneeling, attended by S. Jerome and S. Lorenzo, before Christ, who appears in the clouds with the Blessed Virgin and S. Mark. This by Palma Giovane. Close by on the window wall is a portrait of the first Patriarch of Venice, S. Lorenzo Giustiniano, painted by Marco Vecelli. Opposite is a votive picture of Doge Pietro Loredan (1567), by Tintoretto. Over the door is another work by Palma Giovane representing in symbol the League of Cambrai, the Doge Lorenzo Loredan (1520) crowned by angels. Beside this is a portrait of Doge Pasquale Cicogna (1592) and a portrait of Doge Francesco Venier (1577) by the same artist. In the midst of the ceiling is a picture by Tintoretto of Venice enthroned as Queen of the Adriatic, full of pride and glory. From the Sala del Senato to the right of the throne we enter the vestibule of the chapel and the chapel of the Doges. THE DOGE'S PALACE 81 In the vestibule are two works by Tintoretto of S. Jerome and S. Andrew and S. Louis, S. Margaret, and S. George. In the chapel itself the only thing that calls for our attention is the statue of the Madonna by Sansovino, a lovely and even a moving piece of work. Hence we return to the Sala delle Quattro Porte through the great doors of the Sala del Senato, and passing thence through an anteroom enter the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci, the Hall of the Council of Ten. For all the terrible fame of that assembly, their Hall is neither very noble in form nor very splendid in its decorations. Only in the ceiling paintings we find a remnant of the work of Paolo Veronese destroyed in the fire of 1577. This fragment shows us an old man leaning his head on his hand. From the Hall of the Council of Ten we pass into the ante- chamber of the Hall of the Council of Three; it contains nothing worthy of note, and we enter at once the room on the right, the Sala dei Capi, the Hall of the Three. The central piece in the ceiling here is of the school of Veronese, and represents an angel driving away vice. To the right is a Madonna and Child, before whom kneels Doge Leonardo Loredan, by Catena, a fine, even a beautiful piece of work. On the left is a curious Giovanni Bellini, a Pieta. Returning hence to the antechamber and thence descend- ing the great staircase, the Scala dei Censori, we enter, on the left, the largest and most magnificent hall in the Palace, the Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Here those whose names were inscribed in the Libro d' Oro met : it was the Venetian House of Lords. On the ceiling Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Bassano, and Palma Giovane have painted the victories of Venice. There, too, Veronese has set Venice herself crowned by Fame, and Tintoretto has painted Doge Niccolb da Ponte (1585) presenting the conquered cities to Venice. The frieze round the room consists of the portraits of seventy-six Doges, begin- ning with Obelerio (810), the ninth Doge of the Venetian confederation and the first of Venice ; while on the eastern wall, over-the dais and the Doge's throne, hangs the vast G 82 VENICE AND VENETIA painting in oils which Tintoretto made to take the place of Guariento's fresco which still in part remains behind the canvas, but which was utterly ruined in the fire. I confess at once that while in the Antecollegio Tintoretto seems to me one of the great painters in the world, a true poet and creator of beauty, here I am altogether at a loss. The vast canvas, almost black and altogether without order or arrangement in its composition, means absolutely nothing to me, it moves me not at all, I get from it no pleasure, nor do I understand it. It is to me like some vast, deep seascape where a life half human, half daemonic might pass before our eyes, swimming hither and thither, eternally restless, eternally in confusion, intent on no business, going nowhither, only continually changing in the murky light as the figures change and mean nothing in a kaleidoscope. For others this picture may be, as I gather it was for Ruskin, a profound revelation of beauty and joy. Me it cannot affect. I am, let me confess it, merely confused and tired by its dim ocean of figures that seem to pass and repass making wild gesticulations — of joy or of sorrow is it ? — I know not why, and if this be Heaven I had looked for a happier place and one full of light. Who for a moment would exchange this our dear world for that far ocean of murky gloom? Let us go to the great window and standing there look at the sunlight lying on the city, the dancing waves of the lagoon, the happy morning joyful along the Schiavone, the shady trees of the gardens, the adventurous Fortuna, the cold, magnificent Salute, the joy of S. Giorgio of the rosy tower, the life of the ships at the Zattere quays, the ways of the little people in the Piazzetta. Is not this a heaven of heavens in comparison with that solemn black chaos within doors? — that pretentious and prideful study in anatomy and movement that has no thought at all of anything in the world or above it save the wonderful capacity as an artist of Messer Jacopo Tintoretto? Yet he is but typical of them all. After the Bellini Venice never possessed a religious painter. Not one of them all, even the greatest, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, is anything but a mediocrity beside Angelico, or Gentile da THE DOGE'S PALACE 83 Fabriano, or Sassetta, or half a dozen Sienese I could name. Infinitely greater than any of these as painters pure and simple they doubtless were, but they have lost the sense of religion, something divine, something without which all is very little more than nothing, and leads only to weariness. Consider the religious paintings of these men : the Assumption in the Academy, the vast, dim, terrible work in the Scuola di S. Rocco, the huge Supper in the House of Simon in the Louvre — do they^mean anything to any living soul as religious pictures ? Does one even remember before them that one is looking at something religious, something supernatural and divine? I am only aware in their presence of the genius of Titian, of the passionate eagerness and tragic strength of Tintoretto, of the splendour and luxuriance and wealth of Veronese's art : I forget God, I forget the origins of my soul, I forget that I have ever wept in humility or desired quietness or called for aid. I remember only the tireless energy of man, his unbreakable pride, and endless achievement : I forget Bethlehem and remember Rome. And this is what they, often unconscious of their intention, finally mean. They are of the high Renaissance : something divine has vanished from the world; God has withdrawn Himself, and there is left only man to worship the work of his own hands. In a sense, too, that is to be only too obvious later, it is the most appalling victory of all, the victory of science over poetry, which in its own way has destroyed every civilization that we have ever contrived. Not so thought the Venetians. Round this their vast council chamber in the pride of their lives they painted only their victories ; they forgot their defeats, they forgot they were men. On the right wall they remind themselves that they had humbled an emperor, on the left that before them had fallen Byzantium, the second Rome. And not to God but to Venice they give glory — to Venice, Queen of the Sea, already tottering to that fall which pride foregoeth. IV PIAZZA DI S. MARCO WE have considered the Church of S. Mark as the type and the flower of Byzantine Venice ; we have taken the Palace of the Doge as the perfect symbol of the Gothic city; we shall now turn to the great Piazza, which in its various parts contains them both, as the type and indeed the sum of the Venice of the Renaissance. That it is, and something more. For though, as we have it to-day, it may be said, and truly, to be of the Renaissance, we must not forget that it was always, even in the earliest times, even in the Byzantine city, the heart and centre of Venice, and that it remains so still even in our day, when Venice has shrunk once more, it might seem, to this group of buildings on the Rivo Alto. The Piazza di S. Marco, in fact, is not merely the centre of modern or of mediaeval Venice ; in many ways it is Venice herself. It not only contains the most famous and the most splendid buildings of the city — the Church, the Palace, the Government offices, the Library, the Bell Tower, and the Clock Tower of Venice — but it is the universal meeting-place and the principal gateway of the calli^ the canals, the lagoons, and the sea. All that is meant by the word Venezia is in truth there summed up and expressed. These considerations would lead us to regard it, even though we did not know it, as the most famous Piazza in Italy and in the world; the most famous and perhaps the most beautiful. Not one of the spacious Piazzas / we 8 4 ! » ••■ »••••••«• » > : »: ' > > ' "• 15 "J ■■ ■ , , , L € d 1 THE PIAZZETTA, VENICE PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 85 know so well in Rome, in Florence, in Siena, in Milan, or in Naples can be compared with it either for renown or for beauty ; and as we tell over their names we have to admit that, after all, they are of no importance beside the Piazza of S. Mark. Even in Rome, where it would seem we might surely expect to find something at least to compare with it, there is, in fact, nothing ; for the Piazza di S. Pietro is a mere vestibule to S. Peter's Church, and has very little to do with the life of the city ; the Piazza Venezia is only a cul de sac> and moreover a ruin, while the Piazza Colonna is just a gap in the Corso, the Piazza di Spagna a wilderness of strangers. There is no Piazza in Rome which may be said to be the centre of the city, or, to sum it up and in fact to stand as a symbol for it in the imagination of mankind, as the Piazza of S. Mark does even to-day sum up and symbolize Venice. The beautiful Piazza, thus so famous, may be said to consist of four parts — the Piazza proper, the Piazzetta, the Molo, or quay, and the Piazzetta dei Leoni. Let us take them in order. Of all the many ways of approaching the great Piazza, that is surely the commonest which brings the traveller through more than one quiet and half-deserted campo — the Campo di S. Maria Zobenigo and the Campo di S. Moise, for instance — past the fantastic facade of the latter church into the dark and narrow street that suddenly leaves him amid a group of heavy columns under a splendid arcade, whence before him stretches far away the great Piazza in all its beauty of order and light, to the great admiration of all who have ever beheld it. Before him, but still a long way off, across that great and beautiful square, rises the Cathedral of S. Mark, with its many domes and gilded balls and crosses, its facade precious with mosaics, splendid with gold, sumptuous with various marbles, which changes so exquisitely with every mood of the day, and before it the great flagstaffs, where on a Sunday float the tricolour standards of Italy that have dis- placed the crimson banners of S. Mark. To the right, before the church, soars the Campanile once more, in all its sober 86 VENICE AND VENETIA majesty, hiding, as it was meant to do, the Piazzetta and the western facade of the Palace, and to the left of the church opens the Piazzetta dei Leoni, where stands the Episcopal Palace, and further still to the left rises the fantastic clock- tower under which runs the principal street of Venice. Such is the noble spectacle before us j but what of the Piazza itself? The northern (left) side of the great square is formed by the long and beautiful line of buildings, the Procuratie Vecchie, which formed the official residence of the Procurators of S. Mark, the chief officers of the Republic. The lower part of this building with its open arcade was built by Pietro Lom- bardo in 1496, the upper by Bartolommeo Buon the younger in 1519, while the whole is closed towards the Piazzetta dei Leoni by the clock-tower which Rizzo of Verona built in 1496. The southern (right) side of the Piazza is formed by the Procuratie Nuove, built in 1584 by Scamozzi as further offices for the Procurators. This building, too, is arcaded towards the Piazza and now forms with its various parts on the Grand Canal the Palace of the King of Italy in Venice, after having served a like purpose for the Emperor of Austria. The western end of the Piazza, facing the church, is a much later addition to the square. It is called the Nuova Fabbrica, and was built in 18 10 by Napoleon as additional offices and to connect the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove. This work of Napoleon brings us straight to realize the fact that the Piazza of S. Marco by no means always appeared as we now see it. It is obvious that even in the eighteenth cen- tury, much more in the fifteenth, it was very different from what it appears to-day ; and, indeed, it differed very greatly. The island on which the Piazza is built was in the earliest time, long before the Venetian Confederation founded itself on the Rivo Alto, known as Morso — that is to say, lasting or tenacious, probably on account of its stability in contrast with the other mud flats of the lagoon. It was early divided by a channel or canal called Batario, crossed by a bridge called the Malpassi) beside which stood as early as 564 a church dedi- cated to S. Teodoro, which nearly three hundred years later PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 87 was either supplanted by or incorporated in the Church of S. Mark. On the other side of the Batario stood the Church of S. Gemignano, dating from about the same time. The open space, or Piazza, in which, divided by the Batario, these churches stood, was then little more than a clearing about half the size of the present Piazza j it was covered with grass and surrounded, or at any rate largely shaded, by trees, and for this reason was called Brolo (the Park). Early in the tenth century this park was protected and closed by Doge Pietro Tribuno (912) against the pirates by a fortified wall which ran from the present Campo di S. Maria Zobenigo to the Riva degli Schiavoni on the sea side of the Piazza. It was not till two hundred years later that the Piazza was enlarged practically to its present size, the Batario filled in, and the Church of S. Gemignano pulled down and rebuilt where the Nuova Fabbrica now stands. Before 1173 the great place was enclosed completely by a colonnade, and in that year the sea- wall was demolished. Nearly a hundred years later, in 1264, the Piazza was paved for the first time — with tiles. By 1382 it was found that the water in the main channel had risen, and the Piazza was much subject to flood. In that year it was raised and repaved, as it was again in 1590. This work of raising and building up the Piazza was again repeated in 1722, when it was first paved with stone, and thus under these continual heightenings the steps that led originally up from the Piazza to the doors of S. Mark's disappeared, so that to-day it is actually necessary to step down from the Piazza into the church, and this although the whole pavement of the square is sloped from the Nuova Fabbrica down to the great facade. It will be noticed too that the shape of the Piazza is not rectangular, but that it is narrower at the Nuova Fabbrica than at the facade of the church. In this it is like all the Venetian palaces, which are broader on their canal front than on the side in the street, and this is, no doubt, a contrivance for the sake of light and beauty. As late as the fifteenth century trees remained in the Piazza, 88 VENICE AND VENETIA and their roots were found as well as the remains of three former pavements in the excavations for the foundations of the new Campanile in 1903. At the end of the quattrocento, as we may see in Bellini's picture of the Procession in the Piazza, now in the Academy, the hospital of Doge Pietro Orseolo was then standing. It adjoined the Campanile, and seems with other buildings to have connected it to the arcade on the southern side of the Piazza. These other buildings were certainly offices of the Procuratori, and since they spoiled the appearance of the square they were pulled down with the hospital in 1582, 1 the latter being removed to the Campo S. Gallo. There the Procuratie Nuove, as has been said, were built, but further back. The Campanile was in this new building left isolated. It seems to have been about this time that shops began to appear in the Piazza under the older arcade ; they now, as every traveller knows, have usurped every building in the place. Nearly eighty years before the demolition of the hospital, the old Church of S. Gemignano was pulled down, in 1505, and rebuilt, only to be pulled down again by Napoleon in 1807, when the Nuova Fabbrica was erected. Let us now consider the buildings and so forth in the Piazza, and first the three flagstaff's. Up to the time Bellini painted his picture their pedestals were simple and in wood, but almost immediately after, in 1505, these were destroyed, and those we now see in bronze, the work of Alessandro Leopardi, were substituted. The staffs bore three splendid banners representing, it is said, Venice, Cyprus, and Crete. But the great treasure of the Piazza was the famous Cam- panile, which came to so tragic an end in July, 1902. The Campanile seems always, even in the earliest times, to have stood where it fell. Tradition tells us that its foundations 1 The reader will find this, among many other particulars of interest concerning the Piazza, in a guide of handy form, published by Messrs. Methuen and written by Mr. H. A. Douglas, "Venice on Foot." I recommend this work to the traveller. The author knows Venice as few have done. PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 89 were laid in 888 in the time of Doge Pietro Tribuno, but the tower does not seem to have been really begun till 1148. From that time onward it was continually under repair — not apparently from any weakness in the foundation, but rather from some fault in the brick used. In the year 1329 we read that the Campanile was " renewed at the hands of an architect called II Mantagnana." In 1400 it was burnt during the festa of Doge Michele Steno, and in 141 7 it was struck by lightning and the upper part, which was of wood, was totally destroyed. It was rebuilt of stone, but was struck again in 1490, and restored in 15 15, when the golden angel was placed on its summit to guard it. Various misfortunes befell it of a minor character, but on 23 April, 1745, it was again very seriously damaged by lightning. A drawing by Canaletto, now at Windsor, shows us how great was the damage done, for the tower is there seen under repair. The angle of the Cam- panile facing the clock-tower of S. Mark's was ripped out from top to bottom, and the Loggia of Sansovino, of which we shall speak in a moment, was damaged by the debris. This must have shaken the whole structure, and probably contributed to the tragedy of July, 1902. That tragic day, when the Campanile rather subsided than fell, will never be forgotten by any who witnessed it. The whole of Venice seemed to be assembled in the Piazza, and very many were weeping. Men wrung their hands in frantic helplessness while the noblest tower in Italy sank, as it seemed, into the sea, weary with age. The excavations which were undertaken previous to the rebuilding, now happily nearly completed, and the scientific examination of the debris have shown that it was no insecurity in the foundations that brought the Campanile down, but rather the great old age of the bricks, many of which were little more than dust, blown through and through by the sea wind. Happily the Campanile is now practically rebuilt — happily : for to think of Venice without the Campanile of S. Mark is to us all almost an impossibility. It was not the Piazza alone that the famous bell-tower dominated, but all Venice too, 90 VENICE AND VENETIA across whose silent ways that bell, sounded by the watchman on the summit every quarter of an hour by day and night, seemed like an assurance of safety, of our civilization, of Europe, and our Faith. For it was, of course, first and fore- most a belfry, and the great bells, that to some extent doubtless contributed by their vast weight to the fall, were the sweetest and noblest voices in Venice. That belfry that Buono made in 15 10 was a beautiful open loggia of four arches on each face, which overlooked all Venice and the islands and might be seen from Asolo ; for the height of the tower was very great, 323 feet on a base of 42 square feet. And it had even to the merest tourist a value, if only for remembrance, that after all too few things nowadays may claim. For four hundred years and more not one of our countrymen has visited Venice without being astonished at its beauty. John Evelyn, for instance, writes thus in his diary, concerning his visit to Venice in 1645 :— " Having fed our eyes with the noble prospect of the island of S. George, the galleys, gondolas, and other vessels passing to and fro, we walked under the cloisters on the other side of this goodly Piazza, being a most magnificent building, the design of Sansovino. . . . After this we climbed up the tower of S. Mark, which we might have done on horseback, as 'tis said one of the French kings did, there being no stairs or steps, but returns that take up an entire square on the arches 40 feet, broad enough for a coach. This steeple stands by itself without any church near it, and is rather a watch-tent in the corner of the Piazza ... on the top is an angel that turns with the wind and from hence is a prospect down the Adriatic as far as Istria and the Dalmatian side, with the surprising sight of this miraculous city lying in the bosom of the sea in the shape of a lute, the numberless islands tacked together by no fewer than 450 bridges." We must not leave the Campanile without mentioning the chebba,) or cage, which was suspended from a wooden pole thrust from one of the windows half-way up, towards the Piazzetta. Here delinquent priests were exposed, and we have PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 91 record of one in the fifteenth century who had been in the cage for a year and was still alive. Beneath the Campanile, on the side facing the Palace, in 1540 Sansovino built a loggia where the Procuratori might wait in the shade the result of deliberations in the Senate or the nobles amuse themselves. It was a beautiful building, in keeping with the Libreria Vecchia, and it will be rebuilt, for it was destroyed when the Campanile fell, with the old stones. The Loggia and the Libreria Vecchia bring us into the Piazzetta. This beautiful square, opening out of the Piazza at right angles and going down to the Molo and the sea, has also been raised and built up, as the Piazza has been, and this explains the stunted appearance of the lower pillars of the Piazzetta facade of the Palace. It contains two major treasures — the columns of S. Theodore and S. Mark towards the sea, and the Libreria Vecchia, which closes it on the west. The two columns with their capitals, among the most beautiful in the world, are spoil of war. They were brought to Venice by Doge Domenico Michiel after the fall of Tyre under the sword of Venice in 1 1 2 7, and were set up here fifty years later by a certain Lombard, Niccolb Barattiere, who as a reward for his skill in engineering claimed to keep a gaming-table between them. The keeping of such tables was contrary to Venetian law, but his request was granted, and the monopoly thus established was only destroyed in 1529. But from the fourteenth century the public executions were made here : possibly to discourage the gamblers, though from what we know of such things that seems an unlikely result. Upon the western pillar is set a statue of S. Theodore standing upon a crocodile. In his left hand is an unsheathed sword, on his right arm is a shield, and this, says Francesco Sansovino, is a symbol of the Republic, who "exerts her strong arm for defence and not for attack." S. Theodore, a favourite saint of the Eastern Church, was a Syrian soldier who in his youth suffered martyrdom under Maximinian. Narses, who visited the lagoons in 553, built where S. Mark's now stands, as is said, a chapel in his honour, and thus made him the earliest patron of 92 VENICE AND VENETIA what was afterwards Venice. The Lion of S. Mark which crowns the other capital is a work of the fifteenth century, though the wings are modern. The Book, in which were of old inscribed the words Pax tibi Marce, was defaced in Napoleon's time, and some revolutionary legend substituted concerning the so-called " Rights " of man. And it was said that the Revolution had compelled even S. Mark to turn over a new leaf. But Venice was then dead, and Napoleon was able to steal the Lion for the Invalides. It came back, with Nero's bronze horses, when England had broken him at Waterloo. The pillars are the most characteristic of all Venetian monuments : similar shafts were erected in all the cities that came under Venetian rule. Before 1529 the site of the Libreria Vecchia was filled with inns. In that year they were cleared away, and in 1535 Sansovino began to build the beautiful Renaissance Library we see to-day with its arcade. Ten years later, however, a good part of it fell suddenly, and Sansovino found himself in prison, from which he was rescued by the efforts of Pietro Aretino. In 1570, however, when he died, the building was still incomplete, and Scamozzi was employed to finish it, which he succeeded in doing in 1582. The Piazzetta originally extended only a few feet beyond the two pillars, but in 1285 the Molo was built, which now extends from the Ponte della Paglia to the garden of the Royal Palace, and the sea was thrust back. The Ponte della Paglia connects the Molo with the Riva degli Schiavoni and crosses the Rio del Palazzo, and is so called, it is thought, because the boats laden with straw moored there or there held their market. It is a work, as we see it, of the nineteenth century. The great treasure of the Molo, however, is the Zecca, or Mint, which adjoins the Libreria and faces the sea. This beautiful Palace was built by Sansovino in 1536 on the site of a building which, used for the same purpose, dated back to 938. Here the gold ducat called the Zecchino was coined as far back as 1284. Only gold was coined in this place, other mints being used where silver or mixed money was coined. Beyond the PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 93 Zecca now stretch the Royal, once the Imperial, gardens. Before 1 340 this space was used as a yard for building galleys, and in 1238, the disastrous year of Curzola, fifteen were built and launched there, close by a lion's den where twenty years later two cubs were born. In 1350 the site was cleared and public granaries were there erected, in which, or rather in prisons erected for the purpose within, the Genoese prisoners after Chioggia were confined. These granaries were not demolished till 1808, when the gardens were made. There remains but one of the four parts of Piazza di San Marco still to examine, the Piazzetta dei Leoni, so called from the two lions in red marble by Giovanni Bonazza which Doge Mocenigo placed here in 1722. It was originally, I fancy, a vegetable market, and the only thing notable in it is the great well head, which is said to cover the deepest well in Venice. At the end is the Palazzo Patriarchale, a building for the most part of 1837, and poor at that ; part of it originally belonged to the Doges. Close by is the very old and now dismantled Church of S. Basso, built in the eleventh century, burned in the fire of 1105, rebuilt and again burned in 1661, to be once more rebuilt and finally closed in 18 10. It is now a sort of Opera for S. Mark's, and part makes a charming antiquity shop. V SESTIERE DI CASTELLO THE SESTIERI — S. ZACCARIA — LA PIEtA — VENETA MARINA — S. GIUSEPPE DI CASTELLO — S. PAOLO DI CASTELLO — THE ARSENAL — S. GIOVANNI IN BRAGORA — S. GIORGIO DEI GRECI — S. GIORGIO DEGLI SCHIAVONI — S. FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA — SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO THE city of Venice has been divided since the twelfth century into six parts, sestieri^ three to the north of the Grand Canal, called Castello, S. Marco, and Cannaregio, and three to the south, called S. Croce, S. Polo, and Dorsoduro. The largest of these divisions which endure till the present day is Castello, which embraces all the north- eastern part of the city. Of the three southern divisions Dorsoduro is now the greatest, for it includes the island of Giudecca, but up till 127 1 S. Croce was its rival in size, for before that year it included the island of Murano. Tt is very roughly to these ancient divisions that we shall adhere in our examination of the city in the following chapters. Roughly, because it will not always be convenient to forgo passing from one sestiere to another in search of a church that lies in our way ; nor is the traveller well used to any such division of the city, which divides itself naturally into but three parts, namely, the regions to the north and south of the Grand Canal and the island of Giudecca. No modern map which I have seen marks the sestieri^ and though their names 94 SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 95 are everywhere emblazoned on the streets, they might seem to have rather a political than a geographical significance. It is convenient to the traveller, however, to examine the city rather in six walks than in three, and for that reason I have roughly taken the sestieri as my guide, glad that in doing so I am following a division so ancient and so enduring. The Cathedral of S. Mark and its surroundings, which we have already dealt with, belong, of course, to that sestiere known as S. Marco. Before dealing with the rest of that sestiere we shall explore the largest of all, the Sestiere di Castello, which includes all the eastern and northern part of Venice lying to the north of the lagoon and the Grand Canal. Roughly, this sestiere may be said to be bounded on the west and south by the Palace of the Doges, the Church of S. Lio, the Rio di S. Maria, and the Rio dei Mendicanti; 1 on the east and north by the sea and the lagoons. It is most easily and obviously entered by the Riva degli Schiavoni, but for our purpose we prefer to start from the Piazza. From the Piazza, then, we proceed at once into the Piazzetta dei Leoni, and passing round the Palazzo Patriarchale we see opposite the Palazzo Trevisani or Bianca Capello, built by pupils of the Lombardi in 1500 and pur- chased from the Trevisani in 1577 by Bianca Capello for her brother. The famous Venetian beauty, who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, however, never lived here herself. Crossing the bridge to the right, which affords us a fine view of the Rio facade of the Ducal Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, we enter the narrow ways, cross the Campo di Santi Filippo e Giacomo, and crossing another canal enter the Campo di S. Provolo, and thence straight forward come to the Campo di S. Zaccaria, over the gateway of which is a fine relief, possibly by Massegne, of the Madonna and Child between S. John Baptist and S. Mark. Here by this gateway Doge Pietro Tradonico was assassinated when returning from Vespers on 13 September, 864. That visit, which ended so disastrously, was the first made by the Doge in recognition, it is said, of 1 See end-paper map. 96 VENICE AND VENETIA hospitality extended by the nuns, for the church was attached to a convent, to Pope Benedict II in 855, who had taken refuge there from the Antipope Anastasius. On the occasion of Doge Pietro Tradonico's visit the nuns presented him with a cap, with which all the Doges thereafter were crowned. This cap was carried in procession when on 13 Septem- ber in each year the Doge visited the church ; but after 1 172 the date was changed and the procession was made on Easter Day. This continued to be the custom till 1797. The old convent, founded in 809, lay to the right of the church ; the later building near the Campanile is now a barracks. The church itself is said to have been founded in the seventh century by S. Magno. However that may be, the Benedictine convent, as we have seen, dates from the ninth century, when Doge Angelo Particiaco placed in the church which he had restored a piece of the True Cross and the body of S. Zaccaria, which had been sent him by the Emperor of Constantinople. The present church, with its beautiful facade, dates from the fifteenth century, and is a spacious though rather gloomy building. Eight Doges lie therein, but its great treasure is the famous altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna and Child enthroned with four saints. It is one of the finest of his works. Completed in 1505, it is in that new manner which came to Bellini in his age as a new vision of the world, caught perhaps from the enthusiasm of his young disciples, who were to revolutionize painting. Our Lady and the Holy Child are still enthroned in that niche with which we are so familiar, but there is something new in the picture which assures us, as it did Vasari, that it is a work in the M modern " manner. Perhaps we find it in the figure of S. Lucia, who stands on the right of the throne, her fair hair lying all gold across her shoulders, the lighted lamp in her hand, the curved palm branch, too, the sign of her martyrdom. Beside her is S. Jerome, his Bible open before him, the father of monasticism. To the left stand S. Catherine of Alexandria and S. Peter. Nor is this all, for in the Cappella di Tarasio, to the right of the nuns' choir, are some old ? i > ' ► «• MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS GIOVANNI BELLINI /S. Zaccaria) SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 97 Venetian paintings by Antonio Vivarini, very bright and lovely things. In the nuns' choir itself, with fine inlaid stalls of the fifteenth century, is a Madonna and Child with saints, possibly by Lorenzo Lotto. From the Campo di S. Zaccaria we proceed due south to the Riva degli Schiavoni, the quay of the Dalmatians. Here in old days there were, as to-day, many inns. As we see it, however, the Riva is not very old, since it only got its present breadth in 1780. Before that it was a narrow quay, paved in 1324, but it had always had, I suppose, its beautiful curved shape, in which half the loveliness of Venice is surely hid. 1 We pass along the Riva, so picturesque in the sunshine, with its many boats and coloured sails and smell of ships, till we come to the Church of La Pieta. Here is a fine work by Moretto, behind the High Altar, of Christ in the house of Simon. It is not a religious picture, but it has its own nobility and beauty and helps to explain much in the later work of Paolo Veronese. It was not painted for this church, or indeed for any church, but for the refectory of S. Fermo at Monselice. So we pass on, crossing the Rio dell' Arsenale, into quite another Venice than any we have yet seen, poorer, dirtier, more ragged, and yet how full of the sun, how fulfilled with the sea ! We pass the Church of S. Biagio, built in 1052 and rebuilt in 1754, and so at last to the end of the Riva, which here ends suddenly in the Via Garibaldi, a street of poor houses in the Veneta Marina, built in 1807 by filling up a canal. Here is the Church of S. Francesco da Paola, a sixteenth-century building which was attached to a convent, suppressed in 1806, which had in its time replaced a hospital for the infirm. Opposite S. Francesco da Paola is the monument to Garibaldi and the shady park which brings us at last into the Giardini Pubblici, which were laid out by order of Napoleon in 1807. More than one church and convent were destroyed to make 1 I describe the way to S. Pietro di Castello on foot along the Riva, but it is a long and tiring walk, and there is not much to be had in the way of pictures. A gondola or steamer may well be taken here on the Riva to S. Pietro di Castello. H 98 VENICE AND VENETIA room for this pleasant recreation ground. Here stood the Churches and Convents of S. Domenico, of S. Niccolb da Bari, of S. Antonio Abate, and the Cappuccine. But one church indeed remains to-day on the island, S. Giuseppe di Castello, where we find an altarpiece by Tintoretto and an Adoration of the Shepherds by Paolo Veronese. Hence we return to the Via Garibaldi and follow it to the end, taking the last bridge on the left, and making our way thence to the bridge that joins the Isola di Castellc to what we may call Venice proper. This picturesque island was one of the largest of those on which Venice was originally founded. It It was called Olivolo and only, I think, Castello when it had been surrounded by walls. There was a small church here called S. Sergio e S. Bacco as early as 650, but this was destroyed, and in 774 a church was built on the site to S. Peter. This church became the Cathedral of Venice. It was destroyed in the sixteenth century, when the present church was built. The Campanile is, however, of the fifteenth century. It was in this church during the tenth century that one of the most amazing raids was made by the Dalmatian pirates. It happened in this way. It was the custom at that time in the city of Venice for all those who wished to marry to get this rite performed on one day, 31 January, the anniversary of the translation of the body of S. Mark, in the Church of S. Pietro d' Olivolo. The whole affair was, as one may imagine, a great festa ; the Doge was present in state, and the whole cere- mony was consecrated by many old customs, among them this, that each bride on that day bore her dowry with her. Now it happened that the pirates who then and later infested these coasts and waters, knowing of this, conceived a plot whereby they might at one attempt possess themselves of a goodly booty of money and jewels and of many fair women, who might be sold for a good price or kept as slaves. Their scheme was nothing less than to carry off the Venetian brides on the morning of 31 January, when, before sunrise, they assembled in the Church of S. Peter to await their betrothed SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 99 husbands. This bold scheme they carried out most success- fully \ they got the maids and the booty aboard their ships, not one escaped, and hoisting sail they set out for home. They had reckoned, however, without the Venetians. The news soon spread, and, headed by the Doge, all male Venice, with the case-makers at their head, set out in pursuit, boats were manned and the race began. Now, as God willed, the breeze that had promised well at sunrise presently came to nothing. Pursued and pursuers took to the oars, and in such a business and in these conditions the Venetians were the better men. They pursued the pirates, came up with them, grappled their ships, and without mercy slew every single Dalmatian, and rescued their brides, who in the hurry had not been hurt. In memory of Venetian courage the Doge went in procession to the church of the case-makers who had headed the pursuit — S. Maria Formosa — on the Feast of the Purification, the 2nd of February — the Feast of the Maries as it came to be called in Venice — and the case-makers then made him a present of straw hats and wine. Nothing of any account remains in S. Pietro save an ancient episcopal chair, to remind us that for many centuries, till 1807, in fact, it was the Cathedral of Venice. From S. Pietro di Castello we return to S. Biagio, and thence make our way through the byways to the right to the Arsenal. First built in 1104 and several times enlarged, so that in its best days sixteen thousand workmen were employed here, it was for many centuries the true naval port and building yard of Venice. On either side the entrance we see the lions which Doge Francesco Morosini brought from Athens in 1687. The sitting lion stood on the inner shore of the harbour of the Piraeus and gave the harbour its name of Porto Leone ; the other was set upon the Sacred Way, a little outside the city. The first is cut and engraved with Norse runes that read: " Hakon with Ulf, Asmund and Orn conquered this port — Piraeus. These men and Harold the Tall (1040) imposed great fines because of the revolt of the Greeks. Dalk has been detained in distant lands. Egil was waging war together ioo VENICE AND VENETIA with Ragnar in Roumania and Armenia. Asmund en- graved these runes in combination with Asgeir, Thorleif, Thord, and Ivar by desire of Harold the Tall, although the Greeks on reflection opposed it." J The Museum, now the only thing to be visited here that is of much interest, contains the remains of the Bucentauro, the ship of the Doge, destroyed by the French, in which he went forth in the name of Venice every Ascension Day to wed the Adriatic. If on coming out of the Arsenal we turn immediately to the right we shall come to the Church of S. Martino, founded by the first fugitives from the mainland. The present building is the work of Jacopo Sansovino, or at least from his designs. To the right of the High Altar there is a Last Supper by Girolamo da S. Croce. Close by, in the now destroyed Cistercian convent La Celestia, Carlo Zeno, the hero of Chioggia was buried by his men in 1418. From S. Martino we pass to S. Giovanni in Bragora, founded by S. Magno in the seventh century, but in its present form dating from the eighteenth. On the piers before the choir chapel are two works, one by Cima, Constantine and S. Helena with the Cross, painted in 1502. Its predella hangs in the left aisle and shows three scenes from the Legend of the Cross. The other, the Resurrection, was painted in 1492 by Alvise Vivarini. Behind the High Altar is another Cima, one of his best works, the Baptism of Christ, painted in 1494. On the left side of the church is a Last Supper by Paris Bordone, and a charming Madonna and Child with SS. Andrew and John Baptist by Bartolommeo Vivarini, painted in 1478. From the Campo di S. Giovanni in Bragora we proceed north past the Church of S. Antonino, which was founded in the ninth century and rebuilt in its present form in 1680, to S. Giorgio dei Greci, built by the Greeks in 1539. The history of the Greek Church in Venice is curious. Here till 1797, it is said, it remained in communion with the Venetian 1 Quarterly Review. SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 101 Church — that is to say, with Rome. The first chapel of the Greeks in the city was the oratory of S. Ursula, and later they were to be found at S. Biagio. S. Giorgio dei Greci, however, is their own national building. We return to S. Antonino and again proceed north to S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the Dalmatian church. It was built in 145 1, and a hundred years later got its present facade by Jacopo Sansovino. It is still adorned by Carpaccio's famous and well-loved paintings illustrating the lives of the three great Dalmatian saints — S. George, S. Jerome, and S. Tryphonius. On the left are three scenes from the life of S. George : — 1. S. George and the Dragon. Mounted on a brown horse the youthful golden-haired saint pierces the dragon with his spear. The princess he has so gallantly rescued stands by still fearful. Far away we see a smiling country, a city and ships. It is the hour of sunset. 2. The captive and tamed dragon is brought into the city to the father and mother of the princess. 3 . The king and the princess are baptized. So much of the story of S. George Carpaccio has painted here. On the right of the church are three scenes from the life of S. Jerome : S. Jerome faces the lion and pacifies him, while his companions flee away ; the Death of S. Jerome, a lovely and simple composition ; S. Jerome in his study. Beside the altar is the picture devoted to S. Tryphonius, who subdues by prayer the Basilisk which devastated Albania. Beside this we see Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane and the calling of S. Matthew. Over the altar is a Madonna and Child by Catena. The upper chamber with its fine ceiling is worth a visit. Close beside S. Giorgio is the Church of S. Giovanni di Malta, which of old belonged to the Knights Templars. The Dalmatians had an altar in this church before S. Giorgio was built. From S. Giorgio we make our way still due north through 102 VENICE AND VENETIA the narrow ways to S. Francesco della Vigna. 1 This church was originally dedicated to S. Mark, and came to the Franciscans from Marco, the son of Doge Pietro Ziani. The Franciscans rebuilt it in 1534 with a facade by Palladio, and an interior by Jacopo Sansovino, and restored the convent, now a barracks. It contains several fine pictures, including a restored Giovanni Bellini, a Madonna and four saints, a restored picture of Christ by Girolamo da S. Croce, and an Adoration of the Magi, also restored, by Paolo Veronese ; but nothing to compare for a moment with the glorious enthroned Madonna by Frat' Antonio da Negroponte, painted in the middle of the fifteenth century, which hangs in the right transept. This is a masterpiece I would walk many miles to see, and for which I would leave any sacred picture by the later great masters of Venice. It has every thing that their works so conspicuously lack, and in every way is what we have learnt in Tuscany to expect an altarpiece of the Madonna to be. It is as though before our eyes the canticle of the Magnificat had become visible, as though in a vision we had seen our hearts' desire. Leaving S. Francesco, we pass now westward through the lanes to SS. Giovanni and Paolo. This is the great Dominican church of Venice, and stands, as always, on one side of the city, as the Frari, the great Franciscan church, does on the other. So it is in Florence and so in Siena. The church was begun as early as 1246 on a piece of land given to the Dominican Order by Doge Giacomo Tiepolo. It was nearly two hundred years in building. But before 1246 there is said to have been a Dominican oratory here dedicated to S. Daniele, and the Doge is said to have had a vision in which he saw this tiny chapel, the Campo covered with flowers, and to have heard a voice which said, " This place I have chosen for My Preachers." However this may be, the Doge gave the ground, then a marsh, to the Dominicans, and was himself buried, as we may see, just without the church by x For an interesting article on this church see A. Tessier in Miscel- lanea Francescana (Foligno), vol. i, p. 71 et seq. • 9 ••••••• >•• • • * > » » » ' • • MADONNA ENTHRONED ANTONIO DA NEGROPONTE (S. Francesco delta Vigna) SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 103 the facade. The church has two other connexions with the Doges. Here they all lay in state, and a great number of them were here buried. If Venice has any other church which may stand for her besides S. Mark's it is this, where so many of her Doges and her admirals lie buried ; while without, as though on guard, rides the noblest of her condottiere, Bartolommeo Colleoni, expressed in eternal bronze by the greatest of Florentine sculptors, Andrea Verrocchio. This, the noblest equestrian statue in the world, is nobly placed in the Campo of the great church that holds so much of the heroism of Venice. There, too, beside the church stands the Scuola di S. Marco, one of the finest early Renaissance buildings in the city, and peculiarly Venetian in style. It is the work of Martino Lombardi, and still fulfils its charitable object, for it is now a hospital. Entering the vast church itself one is struck by its spacious- ness, its monumental effect of largeness and light. Within, to the right, is the fine tomb of the Doge Pietro Mocenigo, the hammer of the Turks, who died in 1476. This tomb with its many statues is the work of Pietro Lombardo. To the left is the tomb of another Mocenigo, Doge Giovanni, who died in 1455. This is the work of Tullio and Antonio Lombardo. Above the entrance lies another Doge of the same House, Luigi Mocenigo, who figured at the battle of Lepanto, but who lost Cyprus. He died in 1577, and his wife is buried with him. In the right aisle we come first to a picture by Bissolo of the Madonna and Child with saints, over the first altar. Then on the left to the monument and tomb of Marc Antonio Bragadino (157 1), who held Cyprus as long as he could, but lost it at last, and was flayed alive by the Turks. Over the second altar is a fine early altarpiece of the school of the Vivarini, and beside it the tomb of the Senator Alvise Michiel (1589). We pass by the vast monument of the Valier, built by the pupils of Bernini in the eighteenth century, and enter the right transept. Here on the wall is a picture of io 4 VENICE AND VENETIA S. Augustine by Bartolommeo Vivarini, painted in 1478. Close by is the tomb of Niccolb Orsini the general, with his equestrian statue. He faced the League of Cambrai and lost. Over the first altar there is a charming Lotto, the Apotheosis of S. Antonino of Florence. Over the door is the tomb of Dionigi Naldo, the general, by Lorenzo Bregno. In the first choir chapel is the tomb of an Englishman, Baron Windsor, who died in 1574. In the choir are the tombs of Doge Michele Morosini (1382), a fine Gothic work with mosaic in the lunette; of Doge Leonardo Loredan (1521); of Doge Andrea Vendramin (1478), one of the loveliest of all Venetian monuments spoiled by Lorenzo Bregno; and of Doge Marco Corner (1368), another fine Gothic work. In the second chapel, to the left of the choir, is the fine Gothic tomb of Jacopo Cavalli, condottiere of the Republic, who died in 1384. It is the work of Massegne. The battle of Lepanto is here commemorated in the Cappella del Rosario, which was founded in memory of that victory in 157 1. The Doge Antonio Venier (1400) lies in the tomb over the entrance ; his wife and daughters lie in the church in the left transept. The chapel was destroyed by fire in 1867. The left aisle, too, is full of monuments. There we have those of DogePasquale Malipiero (1462), Doge Michele Steno (14 1 3), the splendid monument of Florentine work to Doge Tommaso Mocenigo (1423), and the tomb of Doge Niccold Marcello (1474), the last by Pietro Lombardo. Close by is the equestrian statue of Orazio Baglioni (16 17). In the sacristy, to the left of the altar, is a work by Alvise Vivarini of Christ bearing His Cross, a fine work by this rather rare master. VI SESTIERE DI S. MARCO THE MERCERIA — S. ZULIAN — S. SALVATORE — S. BARTOLOMMEO — S. LIO — S. MARIA FORMOSA — S. GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO — FONDACO DEI TEDESCHI — PONTE DI RIALTO — S. VITALE — S. STEFANO THIS is, as it were, the central division of the three sestieri which lie to the north of the Grand Canal. It has to the east the largest of all, the sestiere of Castello, and to the west that of Cannaregio. The Sestiere di S. Marco really comprises all that great promontory of the city which thrusts itself southward from the north into the Grand Canal. Its boundaries are the Rio del Palazzo and the canals which to the left lead out of it just to the north of S. Zulian and enter the Grand Canal just above the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, beyond the Ponte di Rialto. x The best way to examine this region will be by way of the Merceria. The Merceria leaves the Piazza di S. Marco under the clock- tower, and is the oldest and the principal business street of the city. Here the sword-makers, the armourers, and the drapers and merchants in brocades and stuffs of cloth of gold and silver had their shops. Evelyn, who was in Venice in 1645, speaks of it very eloquently : " I passed through the Merceria," he says, " one of the most delicious streetes in the world for the sweetnesse of it, and is all the way on both sides tapistred, as it were, with cloth of gold, rich damasks 1 See end-paper map. 105 106 VENICE AND VENETIA and other silk, which the shops expose and hang before their houses from ye firste floore, and with that variety that for neere half ye yeare spent chiefly in this citty, I hardly remem- ber to have seene ye same piece twice exposed ; to this add the perfumers, apothecaries shops, and the innumerable cages of nightingales which they keepe, that entertaine you with their melody from shop to shop, so that, shutting your eyes, you would imagine yourselfe in the country, when indeede you are in the middle of the sea. It is almost as silent as the middle of a field, there being neither rattling of coaches nor trampling of horses. This streete, paved with brick and exceedingly cleane, brought us through an arch into the famous piazza of St. Marc. Over the arch stands that admir- able clock celebrated next to that of Strassburg for its many movements ; amongst which about 1 2 and 6, which are their houres of Ave Maria, when all the towne are on their knees, come forth the three kinges led by a starr, and passing by ye image of Christ in His Mother's armes, do their reverence, and enter into ye clock by another doore. At the top of this turret another automaton strikes ye quarters ; an honest mer- chant told me that walking in the piazza he saw the fellow who kept the clock struck with this hammer so forceably, as he was stooping his head neare the bell to mende something amisse at the instant of striking, that being stunn'd he 'reel'd over the battlements and broke his neck." It is perhaps difficult for the traveller to realize that this street, which seems so narrow and tortuous, is in fact, as it has been for many centuries, the chief thoroughfare of Venice apart from the canals. It leads from the Piazza di S. Marco past two great churches, S. Zulian and S. Salvatore to the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and the Rialto. And to-day it is divided into three main parts, which get their names from these churches and from the clock-tower whence the Merceria starts ; they are known as the Merceria dell' Orologio, di S. Zulian, and di S. Salvatore. Nor was it merely as the great street of the shops and of the merchants that the Merceria was celebrated. It was the great processional way of Venice, THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 107 apart from the Grand Canal. The Patriarchs and Procuratori made their entry into Venice on their appointment by the Merceria, which was gaily decorated for the occasion. They came from the Rialto bridge, then and till late years the only bridge across the Grand Canal. But this part of the Mer- ceria, the Merceria dell' Orologio, is perhaps most famous as the scene of the Feria dell' Ascensione, the Fair of the Ascen- sion, which accompanied the great ritual of the wedding of the Adriatic which the Doge performed at the Lido every year on that day. We shall speak of that splendid ceremony later; here we shall deal with the fair which accompanied it, advan- tage being taken of the presence of many strangers in Venice drawn thither by the national feast and the Indulgences the Pope had conferred upon all visits paid at that time to the shrine of S. Mark. The fair had its origin in 1180. It was held, as I have said, in the Merceria dell' Orologio and in that part of the Piazza especially into which that street opens. It began on the Vigil of the Ascension, whence its popular name of Sensa arose, and it lasted officially for the eight following days, but actually it was prolonged by the people for fifteen. Innu- merable booths were built in the Piazza, the shops and stalls of the Merceria were decorated, and there were exposed the rarest and loveliest productions of the Orient side by side with Venetian work in cloth of gold and silver, in glass, in iron and armour and the beaks of ships. All was gaiety and profusion, and I suppose that nowhere to-day can such a scene be witnessed, save, perhaps, in Seville at Easter. One strange and characteristic feature of the Venetian fair must not be altogether passed over. In the midst of the Feria a great doll dressed as a woman in the latest fashion was set up, and if we may believe the report served as a sort of model for the mode during the year. One must not, however, confuse this Feria with that which the Senate arranged in 1776 and the following years. This later fair was a much more luxurious and corrupt business. A kind of vast exhibition was then organized in a large building erected here for the io8 VENICE AND YENETIA occasion, of which the celebrated Macaruzzi was part. This was an architectural feature apparently of some beauty. Oval in shape, it was divided into four parts within, where in the innermost circuit the most precious goods were exposed, those of less quality and price being arranged in the exterior parts. But the great feature of this later fair was the exhibition of dolls in the Merceria, all dressed in the latest styles and evidently a development of the great figure that adorned the earlier Feria. They were a sort of fashion plates, and set the mode for men as well as women. The people attended in domino, the women often dressed as men. The fair seems at last to have degenerated into a sort of disgraceful carnival where every sort of licence was allowed and public gambling was the chief attraction. The Merceria is still, I suppose, robbed though it be of all its riches, the busiest street in the city, through which it winds so tortuously that but for the stream of people one would soon lose one's way. After passing the Calle del Cappello Nero, where one of the old inns of Venice, founded in 1341, still plies its trade, we come in the second street on the right to the Church of S. Zulian or S. Giuliano. A church has stood here under this dedication since the ninth century, but the building we see was designed by Jacopo Sansovino in 1553, and was for the most part built by Alessandro Vittoria. Over the door- way is a bronze statue of Thomas of Ravenna, the founder, by Sansovino. Within the church is spacious, though dark. It contains nothing of very great interest : a Madonna and Child with four saints by Boccaccio Boccaccini over the first altar on the left, a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin by Girolamo da S. Croce over the High Altar, and some reliefs and statues by Campagna in the chapel to the north of the High Altar, nothing else, save an early Madonna, a miracle picture, in the chapel at the top of the south aisle. Returning to the Merceria, we come into that part of it which of old was devoted to the sale of hats and of leather work. The first bridge we cross is the Ponte dei Berrettai, SESTIERE DI 8. MARCO 109 whose name commemorates this. Thence we enter the Mer- ceria di S. Salvatore and soon see the noble and lofty choir of the church of that name between the close-packed houses in the vista of the street. There has been a Church of S. Salvatore on this site since very early times. Under the porch of that which stood here in the twelfth century Pope Alexander III is said to have spent the night as a fugitive, and an old shrine on the front of the present church commemorates this ; but S. Sal- vatore is not the only church in Venice which claims this honour. The story goes — it is told in the pictures that deco- rate the north wall of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge's Palace — that in 11 77 Pope Alexander III came to Venice as a refuge from the wrath of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa. He came as a pilgrim, disguised, and having nowhere to lay his head, spent the night in the porch of this church, where in the morning he was recognized and brought with all honour to the Doge. Another tale has it that he served in the kitchen of the convent of S. Maria della Carita for some six months, till indeed he was recognized by a French- man who had once seen him in Rome. All this was in the time of Doge Sebastiano Ziani, who, as the pictures in the Doge's Palace tell us, brought the Emperor to his knees before the Pope in the porch of S. Mark's Church. The present church of S. Salvatore was built by Tullio Lombardo in the first part of the sixteenth century, and is, perhaps, the finest Renaissance church in Venice. The facade, however, is a baroque work of the middle of the seven- teenth century. It contains two works of the highest interest — the Transfiguration, by Titian, in the choir, and the Annun- ciation, by the same master, over the third altar in the right aisle. The first is a work in the master's later style, painted after 1560 but before 1566, when Vasari saw it. It has, how- ever, unhappily been much restored and gravely injured. The Annunciation, painted at the same period, is still perfect. Not one of Titian's religious pictures has the power to move us as any work by Giotto or Simone Martini can do, but if no VENICE AND VENETIA there be any in Venice that may compare with the Entomb- ment, in Paris, for instance, or the tremendous Crowning with Thorns at Munich — it is certainly here in S. Salvatore we shall find it. Titian himself does not seem to have thought much of the Transfiguration, according to Vasari ; but I some- times think that, in spite of its restoration and injury, it is the most profound and powerful of all those works which speak to us so insistently rather of God than of man. Here, for a moment, we seem to forget man altogether in a sudden appari- tion of God Himself. The Son of Man is transfigured indeed, and something for once in the passionate gesture of those who make up that little company impresses us almost with the unction of a Christian hymn. Nor is the Annunciation less profound in conception or less wonderful in achievement. These are works of Titian's age, when maybe the glamour of the world was beginning to be a burden. At any rate they seem to have astonished the Venetians ; the good monks of S. Salvatore even were dissatisfied, for, as they said, the picture seemed to be unfinished. Therefore, so the tale goes, Titian signed it twice. " Titian fecit fecit" we read on the canvas — " Titian made it indeed." That city, already so full of levity, failed to understand the master when at last he turned to express the solitude that fills the soul and cries for some apprehension of the eternal. One other important picture the church possesses. I mean the Supper at Emmaus, attributed to Giovanni Bellini, but really the work of some unknown painter which seems to have fixed, or at least to represent, the type of composition accepted in Venice for those religious subjects in which sacred and profane are mingled. Nor do these three pictures sum up the treasures of the church. The beautiful organ shutters are the work of Fran- cesco Vecelli, Titian's brother, and in their Giorgionesque loveliness are worthy of all attention, though their author seems to have been so little content with his achievement that he gave up the career of an artist for the nobler business of a soldier. SESTIERE DI S. MARCO in And then over the second altar on the right is one of Cam- pagna's Madonnas surrounded by angels, while close by is the monument of Doge Francesco Venier, who died in 1556. In the right transept is the tomb of that Queen of Cyprus, Catharine Cornaro, who in 1489 ceded her island to the Republic in which after all she was born. The bronze monu- ment of the Doges Girolamo and Lorenzo Priuli, who were brothers, is in the left aisle. We come out of the quiet church into the narrow and busy way and pass on to the Campo di S. Bartolommeo with its statue of Carlo Goldoni, placed here in 1883. At the corner is the Church of S. Bartolommeo, which on its foundation in 840 was called S. Demetrio, and only came to S. Bartholomew in 1 1 70. As we see it, however, it is a work of the eighteenth century, and its only possession is the charming work Sebas- tiano del Piombo did here in his youth under the influence of Giorgione. His two pictures, two saints in each, SS. Sinibald and Louis on the right, SS. Bartholomew and Sebastian on the left, hang on either side of the organ. If we turn out of the Campo di S. Bartolommeo sharp to the right and cross a small canal, we shall find ourselves in the Campiello di S. Lio. The little Church of S. Lio here, was, it is said, founded by the Badoer ; it was rebuilt, however, in the eleventh century, when it was dedicated to S. Leo IX. The church we see, however, dates from the seventeenth century, and was restored in the end of the eighteenth. It possesses one precious thing — a picture of St. James the Apostle by Titian. The picture is dirty, but can be fairly well seen in the early morning. It is a work of Titian's late period, painted about 1565 to 1570, and is, according to Dr. Gronau, the most neglected work by the master in Venice. We leave the Campiello by the continuation of the street by which we entered it, and where it ends we turn to the left, cross a canal and come into the Campo di S. Maria Formosa, where stands the church of that name, which is said to have been founded in the seventh century by S. Magno. It was entirely rebuilt in the end of the fifteenth century. S. Maria ii2 VENICE AND VENETIA Formosa was the church of the fruitsellers and case-makers and gunners, whose scuole were close by under the Campanile. It was the case-makers who were chiefly responsible for the rescue of the brides carried off by the pirates from S. Pietro di Castello in the tenth century, 1 and for this cause on 2 February, the Feast of the Purification or Candlemas, the Doge used to visit this church. For us, however, the church is chiefly remarkable, I suppose, as possessing Palma Vec- chio's lovely altarpiece, in the chapel of the gunners in the right aisle. Here we see their patron saint, S. Barbara, with four attendant saints, while above is a Pieta. This picture, which has won the admiration of mankind, was painted under the influence of Giorgione, and is in many ways, I suppose, Palma 's loveliest achievement. It is divided into four compart- ments. In the midst stands S. Barbara crowned, the palm of martyrdom in her hand. Beside the pedestal on which she stands are two cannon of the gunners. And indeed she is worthy to inspire any soldier. On her right are SS. Sebastian and John Baptist, on her left SS. Anthony and Dominic, painted in full length but on a smaller scale than the central figure. Above in the lunette over all lies the dead Christ. There are other fine works in the church, as that altarpiece by Bartolommeo Vivarini, in which we see the Birth of Our Lady, and, again, the Mater Misericordiae, and, again, SS. Joachim and Anne : this over the second altar on the right. In the south transept we find a Last Supper by Leandro Bassano, and in a chapel reached by a staircase a Madonna and Child by Sassoferrato, and, far better, a Madonna and Child by Pietro da Messina. From S. Maria Formosa we make our way back past S. Lio to the Campo di S. Bartolommeo. Following the Merceria here onward, we pass the back of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and crossing a side canal presently come to the Church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, which really stands in the Sestiere di Cannaregio. This church was founded in the eleventh century, but was 1 See supra,) p. 98. SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 113 completely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth by Moro Lom- bardo. Its greatest treasure is an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini. This stands over the second altar on the right, and represents a beautiful country-side in which we see S. Jerome seated, his great book resting on the bough of a fig-tree, while beside him stand S. Augustine and S. Christopher. This work, one of the loveliest by the master in all Venice, where his works are so plentiful, was painted in 15 13, when he was eighty-seven years old. The most serene and dear of all Venetian masters seems to have turned to landscape in his old age with a sudden and new-found joy, as though only when he must leave the world at last had he found how close the hills, the sunshine, and the sea were to his heart. They are like a new thought in all the work of his last period, and they give to his work something of that musical quality which we find in the paintings of Giorgione and the young Titian. Something serene, too S What can be more full of peace and reconciliation than this quiet valley at sunset where these three have fore- gathered as though by chance and are discussing, doubtless, the infinite ways of life, that lead to a common end, as serene, one might dare to hope, as this, while the sun sets over hill and valley ? It is surely in the serenity of such work as this that the soul of Europe is most truly expressed, her faith in God and in herself. I seem to see in such a work the very simplicity and courage of that old Venice, the true city of the sea, which was a stranger to superstition and whom no one could make afraid. S. Giovanni Crisostomo possesses another fine picture in the S. Chrysostom with SS. Augustine, John Baptist, Liberale, Catherine, Agnes, and Mary Magdalen over the High Altar, by Sebastiano del Piombo. This painter had been a pupil of Bellini, but, attracted by the new work of Giorgione, he left his old master to study under the new painter. This splendid altarpiece is the result of that change. There enthroned under avast portico, through which we see the country-side and the hills with a little town upon one of them, is S. Chrysostom writing in his book. About him the saints I have named are grouped, ii4 VENICE AND VENETIA the men before him, the women behind. Here, too, some wonderful serenity seems to be expressed, almost in spite of the painter, by that far-away glimpse of the world through the open loggia. Here, too, we see something new in Venetian painting, something living and yet without violence. The genius of Giorgione has suddenly revealed to all men just for a moment a new charm, a new beatitude in life and in the world. Close by S. Crisostomo, as I said, stands the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the facade of which towards the canal was painted by Giorgione with frescoes whose last colours still stain the waters of the Canalazzo in the shadow of the Ponte di Rialto. Before 1180 there was only a traghetto here, but in that year a bridge of boats was made, and in the middle of the thirteenth century a bridge was built on wooden piles. This was destroyed in the Tiepolo conspiracy, and though it was rebuilt it broke down again in 1450, during the marriage festa of the Marquis of Ferrara. The present stone bridge was begun by Antonio da Ponte in 1588. From the Ponte di Rialto it is well to proceed by gondola or by steamboat to the Accademia Station. After crossing the iron bridge there into the Campo di S. Vitale, we come to the Church of S. Vitale, which was founded in 1084 by the Doge Vitale Falier, rebuilt in 1105, and again, as we see it, in the seventeenth century. It contains behind the High Altar a precious work by Carpaccio of S. Vitale on horseback. There we see the Saint in full armour mounted, with S. Valeria, his wife, and S. George, on one side, and S. James and S. John Baptist on the other. Above, on a balcony over a fine arcade through which we see again a fair country-side, stand S. Vitale's two sons with their guardians, S. Peter and S. Andrew j in the sky appear in glory the Virgin and Child. Beyond S. Vitale the Campo Morosini opens. It is named after the famous Francesco Morosini, but was of old called and is still better known as Campo di S. Stefano, for S. Stephen's Church stands within it. The bullfights were held in this Piazza in Carnival, the last in 1802. SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 115 The first Church of S. Stephen, with its Augustinian convent, was built here in 1294, but not finished till the earlier years of the fourteenth century, when the lovely door of the facade was made. The interior is charming and spacious. Over the beautiful doorway is the equestrian statue of the Doge Con- tarini, a work of the seventeenth cetury ; far finer, however, is the sixteenth-century tomb of Jacopo Suriano the physician close by. Another seventeenth-century Doge, the famous general who now names the Campo, lies beneath the pave- ment of the nave. In the choir are two saints by Bar- tolommeo Vivarini, exquisite fair works. There, too, are some admirable statues by some pupil of Pietro Lombardo, fifteenth- century work. More delightful, however, than anything in the church are the cloisters, which are contemporary with the church and convent, but were restored in 1532. From S. Stefano we pass back into the piazza and then to the left to the Campo di S. Maurizio, with its church of very ancient foundation, which, however, contains nothing to interest us. Thence we proceed straight on past S. Maria Zobenigo, a church founded in 900 and rebuilt by Sardi in 1680 at the expense of Rome, Corfu, Padua, Candia, Spalatro, and Pavia, whose plans we see on the facade. Con- tinuing on our way across the bridges, we come to the Campo di S. Moise, where that church of most ancient foundation, formerly dedicated to S. Vittore, offends the critical with its hideous facade. The old church was built by Moise Venier in the tenth century ; the fagade, however, is the work of Alessandro Tremignan, and was rebuilt at a cost of 30,000 ducats. A Scotsman lies within, John Law by name, the famous financier, who died in Venice in some poverty in 1729. From S. Moise we pass into the narrow way that brings us immediately back into the Piazza di S. Marco. VII SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO S. CANCIANO — S. MARIA DEI MIRACOLI — SS. APOSTOLI — FONDA- MENTA NUOVA — CASA DEGLI SPIRITI — I GESUITI S. CATERINA — S. FELICE — PALAZZO GIOVANELLI — S. MAR- ZIALE— MADONNA DEL ORTO — S. GIOBBE — THE SCALZI — PALAZZO LABIA — S. MARCUOLA THE Sestiere di Cannaregio includes all that part of Venice to the north of the Grand Canal between the railway station and SS. Giovanni and Paolo and S. Giovanni Crisostomo. Here we have a great district, through which passes the Cannaregio and in which of old the Ghetto stood, but which is to-day, I suppose, the part of Venice least fre- quented by the stranger and the poorest in great churches and monuments, yet it includes the SS. Apostoli, the Gesuiti, S. Maria dei Miracoli, the Palazzo Giovanelli, the whole stretch of the Fondamenta Nuova, the Madonna del Orto, S. Mar- cuola, S. Felice, to say nothing of the broadest thoroughfare in Venice, the Via Vittorio Emanuele. The Palaces on that part of the Grand Canal in this district include the Palazzo Vendramin and the Ca d' Oro, and are in no way either in number or splendour inferior to those in any other part of Venice. Yet it cannot be denied that this is the poorest of the sestieri to the north of the Grand Canal, and that in its general character it may be better compared with the southern sestieri than with either S. Marco or Castello. In order to explore this wide region one does well to set out 116 SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 117 from the Piazza di S. Marco for the Rialto either by steamer, gondola, or on foot by the Merceria. Arrived at the foot of the Rialto bridge in the Piazza di S. Bartolommeo with its statue of Goldoni, one follows the Merceria, or rather the continuation of it, past S. Giovanni Crisostomo, when, after crossing a canal, one turns sharply to the right to come in a few minutes into the Campo di S. Canciano before the church of that name. This church is supposed to have owed its foundation to the fugitives from Aquileia; but as we see it, it is, of course, of much later foundation, the facade, for instance, dating from 1760. Nothing of interest remains within the church, but close by at the other end of the Campo stands one of the most beautiful architectural treasures of the city — I mean the church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. This was built in 1480 by Angelo Amadi, the nephew of Elena Badoer, "the most beautiful Venetian of her day," who lived close by in this quarter. He built it to receive a picture of the Madonna supposed to be miraculous, which Francesco Amadi, his uncle, the husband of the beautiful Elena, had painted, concerning which there was a considerable litigation. For it seems that in order to satisfy the crowds who came to worship it, this picture had been hung in a shrine built into the wall of a house here belonging to the Barozzi, so that in time they claimed possession of the picture. It was for this reason that Angelo Amadi, when the case was won, built the church of S. Maria dei Miracoli by the hands of Pietro Lombardo to house the picture, which was still venerable. There is no other Renaissance church in Venice to compare with this; both within and without it is altogether lovely, nor can we suf- ficiently praise its quadrangular domed choir uplifted above the nave, its beautiful ambones, the fine barrel vaulting with its gilded coffers by Girolamo da Treviso, nor the rich marble and carvings with which Pietro Lombardo adorned it. Returning past S. Canciano westward over the Ponte S. Canciano through the Morosini quarter, where that great family had so many of its houses, from the Palazzo Falier, where Doge Marino Falier had his house, to SS. Apostoli, n8 VENICE AND VENETIA a church founded by S. Magno, as the tradition tells us, at the request of the twelve Apostles, who appeared to him in a vision and bade him build a church in their honour where he should observe twelve cranes to assemble. This early build- ing, if it ever existed, had totally disappeared in the sixteenth century, when another church was built here, to be itself destroyed and rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and, indeed, all that remains of the sixteenth-century church is the chapel of the Corner family. Two pictures of much interest and beauty remain there: an altarpiece of the Communion of S. Lucy, an exquisite but restored work by Tiepolo, and to the left of the choir a work by Paolo Veronese, the Manna in the Wilderness. It is here by SS. Apostoli that we enter that broad way, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which was opened in 1871-1872. Here on the right is the church of S. Sofia, of an old founda- tion, rebuilt in 1698. We pass the backs of the Palazzi Sagredo and Ca d' Oro, and then on the right a Campo opens, into which we turn. Quite at the end of it we turn left and then right, and keep on our way till after crossing two canals we come presently out on the Fondamenta Nuova. These splendid quays were built of stone in 1589, when this part of Venice was thought to be wonderfully healthy and was much fre- quented. 1 To-day it is quite deserted by the well-to-do classes, and is delivered over to the poor, but even they do not seem to care for it, and the place is neglected. It looks on the cemetery island and beyond to Murano, and it is from here that the steamers ply to Murano, Burano, and Torcello. At the end of the Fondamenta where we stand we see across the waters of the Sacca della Misericordia the Casino degli Spiriti, a lovely building that stands in the garden of the Contarini del Zaffo, and was built by them at the end of the sixteenth century, and is said and believed by all Venice to be haunted. And, in fact, there is something strange and weird, if only in the extraordinary echo that haunts the house and garden so that you cannot wander there without hearing sudden breath- 1 Cf. H. A. Douglas, op. cit. t p. 208. SESTIERE DI CANNAEEG10 119 less voices that doubtless by some trick of nature or of art come from the Fondamenta, which yet ever seems too far away for any voice to be borne thence to this lonely and deserted abode. The story goes that long and long ago one of the Contarini lived here with his wife, who bore him a child, to whom his friend who had acted as groomsman at his wed- ding stood as godfather or compare di S. Giovanni^ a relationship only less close and sacred than that of father. Now it hap- pened that by and by the lady and the co?npare fell violently in love, and as this relationship was, even in Venetian society, impossible, being indeed a kind of incest, all three — for the husband was aware of it — lived in complete misery. In this misery the lover died, perhaps by his own hand, and hearing this and missing him the lady died also. At the point of death she called to her her maid and bade her see that none but she should watch beside her bier, and when she was assured of this she sighed a little and briefly departed. Now as the maid watched beside her dead mistress, the room being lighted by four torches, one at each corner of the bed, as she mumbled her prayers, even at midnight, the door opened, and she saw the lover enter slowly and softly as ghosts move. She saw him go to the bed where her dead lady lay and raise her up. And she rose, and saying nothing, began to dress ; then taking her by the hand, the ghost led the way, the lady followed, and the maid, seizing a torch, followed also to see what would befall. And they went down into the roots of the house to the last and coldest cellar. There suddenly the lover struck the torch from the maid's hand and she fell down in a swoon. Such is the tale. But there are good reasons why the Casa degli Spiriti should be reputed haunted without pinning our faith to such a poor story as that. To begin with, it is lonely and set in a misty world that is often lost in the fog of the half-dead lagoon when the other side of Venice is in the sun. Then for many years the Venetians were wont to rest their dead just here on their way to S. Michele, and beside all this, it is known to have been a haunt of smugglers for many years — of smugglers who would use all their in- 120 VENICE AND VENETIA genuity to invent, or to encourage belief in, such a story as that I have set out above. None of these tales, however, would seem to explain the fact that even to-day and in the sunlight the Casa degli Spiriti is a weird and curious place where, as you make your way through garden or house, you will often be astonished by a voice at your elbow, by a step at your side for which you will most assuredly be at a loss to account. As one passes along the Fondamenta one presently sees the great statues of the facade of the Church of the Gesuiti up against the sky. It is but a step down a street on the right to the church door. As we see it, the church could, I sup- pose, have been created by no one but the Jesuits; it is so utterly barbarous in its flaming vulgarity and crude, in- solent assurance, its flamboyant splendour. But there was a church here in the twelfth century which belonged to the Crociferi. The place was bought in 1657 on the second expulsion of the Crociferi by the Jesuits, who rebuilt the church as we see it. Their society was suppressed in 1773 in Venice and their convent turned into a barracks. They returned, however, in 1844. Like the cancer, to which Cardinal Manning likened them, they are hard to extirpate, yet with perseverance even this will be accomplished, and the Church from being a Jesuit sect become once more Catholic. There is not much now in the church to attract us. Of old, Tintoretto's Presentation in the Temple hung here, but it has been carried away to the Accademia. There still remain, however, in the left transept an Assumption from nis hand, and better still, in the first chapel on the left in the nave, a dark, spoilt work of Titian's, the Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, painted in 1538. This picture was ordered, as is supposed, by Elisabetta, widow of Lorenzo Massolo, to decorate the chapel her husband had built to S. Lorenzo in the convent of the Crociferi in Venice. Nothing can be made of this once splendid work to-day. In the chapel on the left of the High Altar in this church the Doge Pasquale Cicogna (1595) is buried; his tomb is adorned with his statue by Campagna. Close by the Gesuiti is the Church SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 121 of S. Caterina, where over the High Altar is a splendid and enchanting work by Paolo Veronese, the Marriage of S. Catherine. From S. Caterina we return to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and follow it across the Rio di S. Felice, the broad canal in which is the island where the Church of S. Felice stands, a church founded in the tenth century, rebuilt in the middle of the sixteenth. Keeping straight on across another canal, we have before us on our right the Palazzo Giovanelli, £ very noble building, now including three old Palaces — Palazzi Priuli, Urbino, and Gemiani. The principal of these was the Palazzo Urbino, built originally in the thirteenth century by Filippo Calendario. In 1538 the Republic gave it to Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, whom they had employed with his troops in their wars with the Pope and Milan. He proved a successful general, and among the other gifts and honours rendered him by a grateful Republic was this Palace. It seems that he was escorted from Padua to the Rialto by sixty young men sent by the Republic to meet him. Arrived, he was welcomed by the Doge, the foreign ambassadors, and the people, and was led on board the Bucentauro, a rare honour. " Thus, amid a flotilla of state galleys and gondolas crowded with a lively population in gala attire, they conducted their princely guest along the Grand Canal, its palaces glittering with brocades and arrases, its windows radiant with women. . . ." l So they gave him the palace which in 1548 was the scene of his son's, Guidobaldo II, marriage to Vittoria Farnese, the Pope's niece. In 1560 Jacopo Sansovino restored the Palace, which, however, did not remain in the hands of the Urbino Dukes, but passed to the Dona family by purchase ; they in the seventeenth century passed it on to the Giovanelli, who still hold it and its treasures. Undoubtedly the greatest of these is the picture by Giorgione, which has passed under various names — the Family of Giorgione, or simply the Gipsy and the Soldier — and which in itself sums up all that we 1 Dennistoun's " Dukes of Urbino," ed. Hutton (Lane), vol. ii, p. 431. 122 VENICE AND VENETIA mean by the Giorgionesque in painting. There we see, in a delicious landscape of green and shady valley, of stream and ruin and towered country town, a woman nude but for a cape about her shoulders giving her breast to her child in the shadow of the trees by a quiet stream. On the other side of this jewelled brook a young man like a soldier — or is it a shepherd ? — stands resting on a great lance or crook and seems to converse with her. Close by are the ruins of some classical building overgrown by moss and lichen, and half hidden in the trees, and not far off up the stream in the sunset we see the towers and walls and roofs and domes of a little town with its bridge across the stream leading to the great old fortified gate of the place. But what chiefly attracts us in the work is something new we find there, an air of golden reality, something dreamlike too, though wholly of this our world, an air of music which seems to come to us from the noise of the brook or the summer wind in the trees, or the evening bells that from far off we seem to hear ring Ave Maria. One of the golden moments of life has been caught here for ever and perfectly expressed. Heaven, it seems, the kingdom of Heaven, is really to be found in our midst, and Giorgione has contrived a miracle the direct opposite of that of Angelico ; for he found all the flowers of Tuscany and the byways of the world in far-off Paradise, but Giorgione has found Paradise itself here in our world. And we must remember that such a work as this was the true invention of Giorgione. Before him there was nothing but Church pictures. It is to him we owe these pieces which have nothing directly to do with religion, but were painted to light up the rooms we live in, to bring the sun, if you will, into a cabinet and all the sunset and the quiet out-of-doors into a rich man's study. Here, in truth, we have " humanism " in its essence, and for once perfectly understood and expressed. For humanism does not consist in learning, or indeed in anything but itself : in the wellbeing of man and his brotherhood with nature and with his fellows, in the beauty and quietness and long-established order of the world he has made, * », • » THE SOLDIER AND THE GYPSY GIORGIONE (Palazzo Giovanelli) SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 123 in his pleasure, most truly religious, in such an hour or in such a work as this. This vision of Giorgione's, this view of culture and of life, in some sort came to leaven all the work of the young Titian and the young Tintoretto, the great painters not only of Venice but of Europe in the six- teenth century. It is true that they forsook this perfection for something more real, more passionate, more disastrous, and that they came to cling closer to mere life in their work than Giorgione, who died at the age of twenty-six, had been able or was prepared to do. Yet when we are weary of the tragic and confused work in the Scuola di S. Rocco, when Titian's Assumption seems at last almost insincere in its extraordinary achievement, we return with ever new enthusiasm and pleasure to the work that they have achieved in Giorgione's spirit and with something of his vision — in the Concert of the Pitti, for instance, or the Madonna with S. Bridget and S. Ulphus of Madrid, in the Bacchus and Ariadne of the Ducal Palace or the Mercury with the Graces in the same Hall, where, if we find something harder and more brilliant, we shall discern, too, still that spirit of music, that air of wellbeing, quietness and delight which, in its perfect essence, we find alone, I think, in the work of Giorgione himself, and especially in this masterpiece belong- ing to Prince Giovanelli. Just behind the Palazzo Giovanelli stands the Church of S. Fosca, a fine building of the sixteenth century. We pass out of the Campo di S. Fosca by a bridge on the right, and keeping straight on cross another bridge which brings us into the Campo di Marciliano or S. Marziale. The church here was built in the fourteenth century and restored in the seventeenth and eighteenth. It was far more famous of old than it is to-day, for in memory of the great victories gained on the day of S. Marziale the Doge used to visit the church in state on 1 July. It still holds a miracle picture of the Madonna which came of itself by sea to Venice from Rimini ; but its great treasure is the picture of Tobias and the Angel by Titian. Vasari says that Titian painted this i2 4 VENICE AND VENETIA work in 1507, "at the time of the war of the Emperor Maxi- milian, as he himself tells us." Crowe and Cavalcaselle, however, contradict Vasari, and attribute this picture to the years 15 34-1 5 38. Gronau, again, seems to desire to give it a later birth still, and speaks of the years 1 540-1 543. He finds points of contact between this work and the Annuncia- tion in the Scuola di S. Rocco. It is a work of some charm, and certainly more delightful than the S. Marziale with SS. Peter and Paul over the second altar to the right, which was the last work of Tintoretto. But if we would see Tinto- retto nearly at his best as a religious painter, we must proceed from S. Marziale due north, as directly as we may, to the Madonna dell' Orto, where several of his works remain. This church, originally dedicated to S. Cristoforo, with the convent attached to it, was founded by Tiberio da Parma in the fourteenth century. Its dedication was changed by reason of a miracle image of the Madonna and Child, now in the sacristy, that was found in a garden hard by, and removed to the church. The place has passed through many vicissitudes even in our time. What we see is a building of the fifteenth century, but that was not the first church, which is spoken of as being rebuilt even in the fourteenth. In 1855 it was sup- pressed and turned into a stable, but was reconsecrated in 1869. It contains several works by Tintoretto, whose house was not far away on the Fondamenta dei Mori. Perhaps the loveliest picture here, however, is the S. John Baptist, with SS. Peter, Mark, Jerome, and Paul, by Cima. This is a very characteristic work, full of a quiet love of nature, of flowers, and green leaves. Close by is the seventeenth-century monu- ment of Girolamo Gavazza, and beside the fourth altar is a picture by Francesco Beccaruzzi, a painter who imitated all his great predecessors, of Four Saints and Lorenzo Giustiniani. Over the door of the sacristy is an interesting fifteenth-century bust of the Blessed Virgin. In the choir Tintoretto lies under his great Last Judgment and Adoration of the Golden Calf, two of his best religious paintings, two early works which Ruskin has most eloquently SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 125 praised, and which should be compared with the same painter's Presentation in the Temple, a dramatic work of the same period in the second chapel here in the north aisle. Over the High Altar is an Annunciation by Palma Giovane. In the Contarini chapel, in the north aisle, amid the busts of members of that famous family, is a fine work by Tinto- retto, the Miracle of S. Agnes, and in the fourth chapel is a Lotto of fine colour, a Pieta. On leaving the church the strange Campanile and the fine Gothic fagade with its Annunciation and a statue of S. Chris- topher by Bartolommeo Buon the elder should be noted. We now make our way south-west through the ghettos, past the Tempio Israelitico. The Ghetto Vecchio was probably the first set up in Italy, but the second in the world, for the Jews made the first themselves when they enclosed a great part of Jerusalem and refused strangers admittance. The Ghetto Vecchio, however, only dates from the sixteenth century. Before that time the Jews, who were first admitted to Venice in 1372, lived probably in the Giudecca. This part of Venice is still a huddle of houses, and in its own way extremely picturesque. Thence we proceed due west, along the Cannaregio, which at last we leave, to S. Giobbe, a plague church and convent, built in the middle of the fifteenth century by Doge Cristoforo Moro, the friend of S. Bernardino. The church was restored in 1859, and still contains several interesting and beautiful things, carvings by Pietro Lombardo, reliefs by the Robbia of Florence, the tomb in the choir of Doge Cristoforo Moro and his portrait in the sacristy, where, too, is a fifteenth-century bust of S. Bernardino. S. Giobbe is a plague church dedicated to the Patriarch Job, who, as we know, was plagued with all manner of diseases, and therefore is invoked against them. For is it not written, " Go to My servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering ; and My servant Job will pray for you : for him will I accept " ? It is a Franciscan church, situated, as so many of the churches of this Order were, in the poorest and 126 VENICE AND VENETIA most wretched part of the city ; here in Venice close to the ghetto, as in London next to the shambles. Of old over it;s High Altar stood the famous Giovanni Bellini, now, alas ! in the Accademia (No. 38), of the Madonna enthroned with her Son between S. Job, S. John Baptist, S. Sebastian, S. Francis, and S. Louis of Toulouse. From S. Giobbe we go south to the railway station, and thence along the Grand Canal to the Scalzi Church, built for the Carmelites in 1656 by Baldassare Longhena, a fine speci- men of baroque architecture. On the ceiling is one of those surprisingly light and delicious paintings by Tiepolo, the Miracle of the S. Croce of Loretto. We follow the wide street past the front of the Scalzi till we come to the Campo di S. Geremia, an eighteenth-century building. The Campo here was the place of bullfights. Just beyond it stands the Palazzo Labia in the Cannaregio, with some fine frescoes by Tiepolo of the story of Antony and Cleo- patra in the great hall on the first floor. Here we again cross the Cannaregio. It will be noticed that the name of this canale is spelt with a double " n." It has nothing to do with canale, but is probably derived from the number of reeds, canna, which of old half-filled the way. The bridge here dates from 1255, when it was wood, the first stone bridge being of 1580. The present structure is of the eighteenth century. After crossing the Cannaregio we turn left to S. Marcuola, on the Grand Canal. It is a church of early foundation, rebuilt for the last time in the eighteenth century. It contains an early work by Titian of about the year 1508, the Child Jesus with S. Catherine and S. Andrew, a strange work that should be compared with Titian's Salome in the Doria Gallery in Rome. In the Campo di S. Marcuola wc find a traghetto. Here, then, we may cross to the Museo steamer station, and proceed thence to the Piazza di S. Marco, or set out thence at once to explore the Sestiere di S. Croce. I »• • • •••••?••••• CLEOPATRA TIEPOLO (Palazzo Labbia, Venice) VIII SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO MUSEO CIVICO — S. GIOVANNI DELL' ORIO — S. MARIA MATER DOMINI — S. CASSIANO — S. GIOVANNI ELEMOSINARIO — THE RIALTO — S. POLO — I FRARI — SCUOLO DI S. ROCCO — S. ROCCO THE Sestiere di S. Croce, in which we find ourselves at the Fondaco dei Turchi, now the Museo Civico, on the south of the Grand Canal, includes none of the great and important buildings on this side of Venice, which as a whole, it will be remembered, is divided, as is that part of the city to the north of the Grand Canal, into three parts — the Sestiere di S. Croce, the Sestiere di S. Polo, and the Sestiere di Dorsoduro. For our purpose, the purpose of exploration, however, we shall deal with the Sestiere di S. Polo in this chapter with the Sestiere di S. Croce : this for convenience. There is in S. Polo, however, enough and to spare for a day's pleasure. And first as to the Fondaco dei Turchi, now the Civic Museum. This Palace remains as to its foundation in some obscurity, dates varying from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries being given by historians as that of its inception ; but there seems little doubt that it was built by the Pesaro family. The earliest date seems, indeed, the more likely, if we may judge, as I suppose we may, by its architecture, which is Byzantine. In 1380 it was bought by the Republic for its condotticre Niccolb d' Este, Marquis of Ferrara, but a 127 128 VENICE AND VENETIA hundred years later it reclaimed it, and in 1520 we find it the residence of the Papal legates in Venice. Seven years later the House of Este got it back, but they soon parted with it, and after it had passed through various hands, Doge Antonio Priuli, who had bought it, gave it to the Turks for their fondaco in the city. Under the Turks it suffered much, but as far as might be it was restored in i860, and in 1880 was used by the Government as a museum for the Correr Collection — a not very important collection of curiosities with one or two good pictures — and such it still remains. It always must have been one of the most venerable buildings on the Grand Canal, or indeed anywhere irw Venice. Just behind the Museo stands the church of S. Giovanni Decollato, called S. Zan Degola, and beyond it, on the Rio di S. Giovanni Decollato, the Church of S. Giacomo dell' Orio, which was probably founded in the tenth century and rebuilt by Sansovino in the sixteenth. It has been restored again in our time, but remains a curious and interesting building. It contains nothing of very great interest — a picture of S. Sebas- tian, S. Roch, and S. Lorenzo by Bonconsiglio, a picture by Francesco Bassano of S. John Preaching, and a spoilt and late work by Lotto, a Madonna and saints. From S. Giacomo dell' Orio we proceed to ;S. Maria Mater Domini, founded in the tenth century and rebuilt in 15 10, J probably by Jacopo Sansovino. It contains three interesting pictures, besides a Byzantine relief of the Madonna. Over the second altar to the right is the Martyrdom of S. Cristina, painted in 1520 by Catena, a rather Giorgionesque work, in which we see in a bright landscape S. Cristina, about to be drowned, the mill- stone about her neck, borne up by angels, while Christ Himself appears to comfort her. The whole work is charming, though not apparently in very good condition. In the right transept is a very fine work by Tintoretto, the Finding of the Cross, and opposite a Last Supper by Bonifazio the second of that name. From S. Maria it is but a step to S. Cassiano, which also was founded in the tenth century, where an oratory then stood SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 129 dedicated to S. Cecilia. The Campanile is still a work of the thirteenth century, but the church is now of the seventeenth. Here, too, are three fine pictures : a S. John Baptist with four saints in a lovely landscape by Rocco Marconi, the pupil of Giovanni Bellini and the follower of Palma Vecchio, to whom, in fact, this work was long ascribed; a somewhat affected Visi- tation by Leandro Bassano, and in the choir a magnificent picture of the Crucifixion by Tintoretto. The decorative quality of this work is very striking ; the background of spears may well have given Velasquez a hint for his Breda. We now make our way from S. Cassiano into the Rialto, past the fish and vegetable markets. Just off the latter stands the Church of S. Giovanni Elemosinario, usually called S. Giovanni in Rialto. This church figures early in the history of Venice, but the building we see dates only from the sixteenth century. Its great treasure is the picture of S. John by Titian, which he painted for the High Altar of this church with an inscription dated 1533. Dr. Gronau so well describes this work that I cannot hope to better his words. He says : "The figure of S. John is placed high in the canvas, raised by several steps and towers to an enormous height, against a back- ground of sky covered by fine clouds. The Bishop, with a boy at his side bearing a cross, kept entirely in shadow, is interrupted while reading the Bible by a cripple, who has crept up to him, covered with rags and begging for alms. Titian has taken the moment when the old man is turning to hand the beggar his gift. The gentle bending attitude of the Bishop and the hopeful upward gaze of the beggar seem to unite the two figures more than the contrast of their outward appear- ance divides them. With remarkable artistic audacity Titian has brought the broad white surface of the Bishop's robe into the centre of the picture, treated with great freedom in play of light and shade, and has surrounded it by a brownish red in the under-robe and collar. The few colours employed are blended in splendid harmony with the deep blue of the sky, and so much grandeur is given to the picture by composition in colour and outline that it never fails to make a strong K 130 VENICE AND VENETIA impression, hanging as it does over the High Altar of a fairly large church." Here, too, is a picture of Doge Giovanni giving alms by Rocco Vecelli, and a very fine Pordenone, an altarpiece of St. Sebastian, S. Roch, and S. Catherine. So we pass on through the markets to S. Giacomo di Rialto in the market-place, probably the oldest church in Venice, for it was founded in 421, though some writers have it that S. Pantaeone is older. What we see in S. Giacomo now, however, is alas ! a restoration of the seventeenth century. Close by the church is a curious statue of a hunchback, II Gobbo. This statue, the work of Pietro da Salo in the six- teenth century, supports a pillar from which the laws of the Republic were proclaimed. In the great days of Venice all this district of the Rialto was the centre of her merchandize. Traders and merchants from all over Italy, from Turkey and the East, from Spain and the West thronged these piazzas and streets. The market-place is still a sufficiently busy and picturesque spectacle, but it makes a sorry comparison doubtless with all the busy life that here had its centre in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From S. Giacomo and the Ponte di Rialto we return to S. Giovanni Elemosinario by the Ruga S. Giovanni, which we follow into the Campo di S. Aponal. The church here of that name was first built in 1034 and restored in the fifteenth century. In the nineteenth century it was closed and actually sold by auction. It was bought by certain of the faithful, who reopened it for the honour of God. Over the door is a fifteenth-century group of the Venetian general, Vittorio Capello, kneeling before S. Elena, by Antonio Rizzi. This group does not belong to this church of S. Aponal, but to the old Church of S. Elena, now destroyed. From the Campo di S. Aponal we proceed straight on across two canals to the church and Campo di S. Polo. The Campo, in which are several fine palaces — Palazzo Corner Mocenigo, Palazzo Soranzo, of the fourteenth century — is one of the larger Campi of Venice, and was of old the scene of SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 131 numerous bullfights and tournaments. In July, 1450, a Friar, in imitation, one may suppose, of S. Bernardino, was wont to preach here, and here he lighted a bonfire of false hair, sensuous pictures, books, rich clothes, and I know not what else, which he had persuaded half Venice to destroy. The Campo was, however, the scene of a more tragic affair than that ; for it was here that Lorenzino de' Medici, the murderer of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, was himself assassinated by the hired bravos Cecco Bibboni and Bebo a Volterra. Bibboni gives a very vivid account of the affair, which Symonds translates in his " History of the Renaissance." It seems that the two bravos had watched Lorenzino go into the church from a cobbler's shop in the Campo, and they set upon him as he came out of the south door. " I saw him issue from the church," says Bibboni, " and take the main street ; then came (his uncle) Alessandro Soderini, and I walked last of all ; and when we reached the point we had determined on I jumped in front of Alessandro with the poniard in my hand, crying, ' Hold hard Alessandro, and get along with you in God's name, for we are not here for you ! ' He then threw himself around my waist and grasped my arms and kept on calling out. Seeing how wrong I had been to try to spare his life, I wrenched myself as well as I could from his grip, and with my lifted poniard struck him, as God willed, above the eyebrow, and a little blood trickled from the wound. He in high fury gave me such a thrust that I fell backward, and the ground besides was slippery from its having rained a little. Then Alessandro drew his sword, which he carried in its scabbard, and thrust at me in front and struck me on the corselet, which for my good fortune was of double mail. Before I could get ready I received three passes, which had I worn a doublet instead of that mailed corselet would certainly have run me through. At the fourth pass I had regained my strength and spirit, and closed with him and stabbed him four times in the head, and being so close he could not use his sword, but tried to parry with his hand and hilt. I, as God willed, struck 132 VENICE AND VENETIA him at the wrist, below the sleeve of mail, and cut his hand clean off, and gave him then one last stroke on his head. Thereupon he begged me for God's sake to spare his life, and I, in trouble about Bebo, left him in the arms of a Venetian nobleman, who held him back from jumping in the canal. . . . When I turned I found Lorenzino on his knees. He raised himself, and I, in anger, gave him a great cut across the head, which split it in two pieces and laid him at my feet, and he never rose again." That murder, like so many political assassinations of that time, took place outside a church, and was excused by the immorality of a time which regarded the act of Brutus with reverence and appealed to it on most occasions. The Church of S. Polo, or S. Paolo, was founded in the ninth century, but the present building is of the beginning of the nineteenth. It possesses nothing of much interest — a relief of the twelfth century in the apse, of the Madonna and Child between S. Peter and S. Paul with two angels : almost nothing else. The Campanile, however, belongs to the fourteenth century and is beautiful. From the Campo di S. Polo it is but a short walk across two canals to the great Franciscan church of Venice, S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. The Frari balances SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the great Dominican church on the other side of Venice, to the north of the Grand Canal. The Friars Minor settled in Venice as early as 1227. They came, of course, as beggars, but by 1250 they had so far approved themselves to the Venetians that they were able to begin building the vast church and convent we see, which was founded on the site of an old abbey given them by the Benedictines, and was finished less than a century later, in 1338. The convent is now the Archivio of the city, and I suppose one of the finest in Italy. As for the vast church, it is from an architectural point of view one of the most interesting in the city. Its beauty lies chiefly in its apse, which is a great feature in the church both from within and without. These great bare brick churches of Northern Italy have, I think, much to recommend them if only in their SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 133 restfulness after the often glaring marbles of the Tuscan buildings. But, like the latter, one must not compare them with our northern work, for the intention of their builders was very different from ours, and both were to a larger extent than we recognize at the mercy of their material. No one will care to give as much attention to the mere building of any church in Italy, I think, nor do they demand it, as he will gladly give to Westminster Abbey or Lincoln or Wells. Yet for all that the Italian churches have their own beauty of space and light, which ours — as we see them now at any rate — too often seem to need. In the Frari, as far as the exterior is concerned, the west front has a fine doorway, surmounted by figures of the Risen Christ, the Madonna and Child and S. Francis. To the south stands the beautiful fourteenth-century Campanile of Massegne, and here, too, is a fine Venetian doorway, by which one usually enters the church. Here is a Madonna and Child and a figure of S. Francis. But when all is said the apse remains the finest feature in any view of the building from outside. Within in its vastness the church reminds us again of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. It has one feature rare in Italy, but common in Spain, and to be found in England, in the Abbey, for instance. I mean the choir is set west of the transept, so that it fills a good part of the nave. This is not easily seen at present, and indeed the whole church in its present state is scarce worth a visit, for it is terribly in the hands of the restorers. Most of the pictures have been removed, and have found a temporary resting-place in S. Toma. Our examination, then, must be less thorough than it would otherwise be. One enters by the door in the north aisle, and walking down the length of the church begins one's visit with a tour of the south or right aisle. Such is the usual method, and it is a good one. The holy-water basin here, with its statue of Chastity — or Charity, is it ? — with a lamb, is by Campagna, a work of the end of the sixteenth century. Close by is a vast and hideous monument erected in the first part of the nineteenth century by Ferdinand I to Titian. Beyond the second altar, with its 134 VENICE AND YENETIA picture of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin by Salviati, is a baroque monument to Almerico d' Este, a general of the Republic ; this is of the seventeenth century. Over the third altar is a statue of S. Jerome, which is said to be a likeness of Titian just before his death. It is the work of Alessandro Vittoria. We now pass on into the right transept. Here is the fine early Renaissance tomb of Jacopo Marcello, a fifteenth-cen- tury work by the Lombardi. Beyond it is a work with which it perfectly harmonizes, a triptych by Bartolommeo Vivarini of the Madonna and Child with S. Andrew, S. Nicholas, S. Peter, and S. Paul, with a Pieta above between adoring angels carved in wood and gilded. This, like most of the other pictures, can now be seen in S. Toma. To the right, near the sacristy door, is the Gothic monument and tomb of Beato Fra Pacifico, the finisher, and in some ways the founder almost, of this church. It is a Florentine work of the fifteenth century. In the lunette is a Baptism of Christ, and beneath Faith, Hope, and Charity, with the Resurrection and Christ in Hades ; here also is a relief of the Madonna and Child, and at the sides above an Annunciation, painted. This beautiful tomb of Gothic work passing into Renaissance is unique in Venice. Above the sacristy door is the tomb of Benedetto Pesaro, the Venetian admiral, a sixteenth-century work by Lorenzo Bregno. The figure of Mars to the right is the work of Baccio da Montelupo, a Florentine. Close to the door on the left is a wooden equestrian statue of Prince Paolo Savelli, a Roman noble, a work full of life, already prophesying the full Renaissance. Within the sacristy is a large reliquary of the seventeenth century in marble with reliefs of the Passion. Behind a curtain here stands a fine Renaissance ciborium with a relief of the Pieta and two saints — S. John Baptist and S. Francis. Here, too, stood one of the great treasures of the church, an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, painted in 1488, one of the loveliest of his works. It still carries its original Renaissance SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 135 frame. In the midst is the Blessed Virgin, enthroned, with her little Son standing on her knee. At her feet are two music- making angels of pure delight, while in the side panels are four splendid saints on guard — S. Peter, S. Nicholas, S. Paul, and S. Benedict. Nothing that was ever in the church can have been lovelier than this quiet altarpiece. Returning to the church, we enter the apse. There are six chapels here. In the second are two fine tombs of the four- teenth century, that on the right being the monument of Duccio degli Alberti, that on the left of an unknown knight. These are splendid works of art. In the sanc- tuary itself, over the High Altar, Titian's Assunta, now in the Accademia, once stood. I suppose there is no one who sees it in its present place who does not regret that it was removed from this altar for which Titian painted it. Here are the Gothic tomb of Doge Francesco Foscari on the right and the early Renaissance tomb of Doge Niccolo Tron on the left. They are neither of them very satisfying or masterly works. In the first chapel, to the left of the High Altar, is a Madonna with S. Francis, S. Anthony of Padua, S. Louis of Toulouse, and other Franciscan saints by Pordenone. In the second chapel, the chapel of S. Theodore, lies the deposed patron of the Republic. The altarpiece is of carved and gilded wood, possibly by the Lombardi, but with a fine S. John Baptist by Donatello, and on the left is the monument — one cannot say the tomb — of Melchior Trevisano, a general of the Republic who died in 1500. In the third chapel is a fine altarpiece of S. Ambrose, for the chapel was that of the Milanesi in Venice, with S. George and S. Theodore for Venice, S. Gregory, S. Augustine, and S. Jerome, S. Sebastian, and others, with music-making angels by Alvise Vivarini and Marco Basaiti. Above is a Coronation of the Virgin by some later hand. The left transept is full of the glory of Bartolommeo Vivarini's fine triptych of S. Mark enthroned with S. John Baptist, S. Jerome, S. Peter, and S. Paul. Thence we pass into the Baptistery with its marble altar and Madonna, and 136 VENICE AND VENETIA four saints of the school of Massegne, and its font and statue of S. John Baptist by Sansovino. The left aisle is almost entirely given over to the tombs of the Pesaro family, which was the greatest patron and bene- factor of the Franciscan Order in Venice. Not one of these tombs is of any great beauty or interest, though none is so meaningless, vulgar, and ostentatious as the huge pyramid that covers poor Canova. The great and beautiful thing which recalls us to this aisle of the Frari again and again is Titian's famous Madonna del Pesaro. It was in April, 15 19, that Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, for whom Titian had already painted the votive picture now in the Antwerp Gallery, ordered this great altarpiece for the Church of the Frari, where so many of his family lay. From then to May, 1526, Titian received instalments of his price, and on 8 December of that year a solemn ceremony was performed as the picture was placed over the altar the Pesari had erected. The picture then unveiled was one of the greatest the young Titian was to paint. Under a vast and beautiful Renaissance arch, through which we see a great sky full of snow-white clouds, between two mighty pillars, the Madonna sits enthroned, her little Son standing on her knee laughing with and blessing S. Francis, behind whom is S. Anthony. Bending a little to her right, Madonna holds her Child with both hands gently, firmly, and receives the homage of Bishop Jacopo, who is intro- duced by S. Peter, behind whom a bearded warrior, leading a Turk and a Moor in chains, uprears the standard of the Borgia. On the right of the picture beneath S. Francis kneel the family of the Bishop, three old men, perhaps his brothers, a youth, and a fair-haired child who gazes sweetly out of the canvas, while above one of those great white clouds has sailed into the great portico across the height of the pillars, and upon it, like children on a toy ship, are two winged angiolini bearing the cross. I suppose there is no other work of Titian in Venice which is so consummate a work of art or so wonderfully original a composition as this. Its > > ■> > • • • • • » »• * • > I • ••• » »• » >•> s < Z O H C SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 137 humanity and quietness, the beauty of its colour too, its inexhaustible perfection, are the chief reasons why one continually returns to the Frari. A little way to the left out of the Campo dei Frari stands the Church of S. Toma, which was founded very long ago, but is as we see it a work of the eighteenth century. The whole place is full of relics, there being in all more than ten thousand, I believe. Here now are temporarily conserved the pictures from the Frari. Returning to that great church, we find just behind it the Church of S. Rocco, with the Scuola beside it. As for S. Rocco itself, it is the one church in Venice that is very difficult to see, for it closes early, and I have never yet been able to find the sacristan. This, like S. Giobbe, is a plague church, S. Sebastiano and S. Maria della Salute being the others of the four Venice can boast. It was built in 1489 (but rebuilt again in the eighteenth century, and the facade is even later) to receive the body of S. Roch, which some Venetians had stolen from the city of Montpellier because he was, and is, for what I know, a great champion against the plague. The Scuola, which was already in existence, at once took the name of the Saint, and agreed to pay for the church, and when they had seen to that they further decided to employ Tintoretto to decorate their guild house, which he did during eighteen years, so that after the Ducal Palace, I suppose you may see more of Tintoretto's work in this scuola than anywhere else in the world. It is usual, owing to the growing and most inhospitable custom of the Italian authorities of making you take a ticket even to enter a church, to visit the Scuola first before the church, and since this is the custom, let us abide by it. The cost is a franc. This great hall of the Guild of S. Roch was built in 1491, and rebuilt on a far greater scale in 1516-1549. It consists of two great halls, one above the other, some smaller rooms, and a noble staircase. Practically all these are full of Tintoretto's work — work which here especially won the enthusiastic and beautiful praise of Ruskin, in whose prose it will surely live for ever. It might seem 138 VENICE AND VENETIA doubtful if they will always endure in themselves or in the hearts of men. No one, I suppose, who has ever read those overwhelming pages in "The Stones of Venice" has left the Scuola di S. Rocco without a feeling of woeful disappoint- ment. To begin with, one comes there after seeing the Palace of the Doges, after seeing the Bacchus and Ariadne, therefore, and all the glory of the Antecollegio. There- fore one comes, remembering Ruskin's praise, expecting a similar, if not a greater glory. Instead, one passes before a vast number of great canvases, each one of which is as gloomy as night, in which one can scarce believe the sun ever shone, and these works come to seem at last as full of disappointment as the Paradiso of the Hall of the Great Council. Yet no one, I am sure, has ever given himself to these great, gloomy canvases without feeling their strength and passion, their sure and adventurous draughtsmanship, their marvellous composition, their wonderful technical strength, yes, and their sincerity. But this is not enough ; they may overwhelm us, and indeed they do ; they may draw from us all our praise, as they most surely will ; but when all has been said that can ever be said, they leave us cold, they do not touch our hearts, they are without mystery and beauty. What, after all, do they say to us, these pictures of the life of Christ, of Our Lady, and of S. Rocco — what do they mean to us ? and seeing we are not painters, what joy, what pleasure, what delight, do they bring suddenly, silently into our hearts? They tell us of the tremendous fight Tintoretto had with himself; they tell us of his vast ambition to become a painter; they tell us of his tireless energy and effort to express himself, and of his almost unbearable success. They have really nothing to do with Him who was born so long ago : "With a brightness in His bosom that illumines you and me." We are attracted rather by the wonderful power of that scene of cottage life, a true genre picture, realistic and a little brutal, in which a woman with great red arms just out of the washing-tub masquerades as Madonna. . . . But what need SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 139 to go over them all ? The titles are in every guide-book, only they do not accord with what we see. Yet from this denunciation — if denunciation it be — I would wish to withdraw at least the Crucifixion, that vast and terrible picture which hangs in the Sala dell' Albergo. I can say nothing about it ; it speaks after all for itself, and it is some- thing outside art and outside criticism. It has every quality I hate in a picture ; it is dramatic, full of unruly and over- emphasized gesture ; everything is in confusion, and the whole effect is emphasized and re-emphasized by the chiaroscuro. Yet here at least I bow my head. Let it be what it may be as a picture, this is the Death of the Son of God. I shall never forget that group at the foot of the cross, with its strange, bowed ghostly figure, nor that uplifted victim forgotten by God. I would say, too, if it be not the merest impertinence, that I would except from what I have previously said the Chris before Pilate, also in this room, which seems to me to have much nobility. And of course I except from all I have said with regard to Tintoretto's works the beautiful Annunciation of Titian on the side of the staircase over the first landing It is of the year 1545 or thereabout, according to Dr. Gronau and was bequeathed to the Scuola by a lawyer named Aurelio Cortona in 1555. There is much work by Tintoretto in the Church of S. Rocco, as well as a Betrayal of our Lord, by Titian, which is popularly thought to be miraculous. IX SESTIERE DI DORSODURO S. PANTALEONE — CAMPO DI S. MARGHERITA — THE CARMINE — SCUOLA DEL CARMINE S. SEBASTIANO S. TROVASO I GESUATI — THE ZATTERE S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE SEMINARIO PATRIARCHALE F*ROM the church and Scuola di S. Rocco we pass across the Rio della Frescada into the Sestiere di Dorsoduro which roughly comprises that part of Venice which lies between the Fondamenta delle Zattere on the Canal della Giudecca and the Grand Canal. Going this way, we first come upon the Church of S. Pantaleone in its Campo. This Campo was of old used as a fish-market, and it still remains the threshold of that part of Venice which is, or seems to be, entirely devoted to the sea. The church was of very early foundation, but was rebuilt in the eleventh and again, as we now see it, in the end of the seventeenth century. In the second chapel on the right is a mediocre work by Paolo Veronese of S. Pantaleone healing a boy, while to the left of the High Altar is a fine early triptych by Giovanni and Antonio da Murano of the Coronation of the Virgin. Crossing the bridge at the end of the Campo over the Rio Ca Foscari, we enter the most democratic of all the piazzas of Venice, and, after the Piazza di S. Marco, the largest — the Campo di S. Margherita. The church which gave this Campo its name was first built in 836, but in 18 10 it was closed, and in 1882 it passed into the hands of the Protestants. There is no more picturesque square in Venice than this on a 140 SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 141 Saturday evening, when it is quite filled with people of the poorer classes. Its principal interest for us, however, apart from the beauty and antiquity of several of its palaces, is the church at the far end of it, the Carmine. It was begun in 1298 and finished in 1348, but restored in the sixteenth century, and it holds several pictures of beauty and interest. Over the second altar on the right, for instance, is an Adoration of the Shepherds by Cima da Conegliano, one of the finest things in Venice. In an exquisite landscape, under a steep rock overhung with trees, at dawn Christ is born, and S. Joseph has brought in the shepherds to worship Him. Around stand various saints who are to be among His champions — S. Helena, S. Catherine, and Tobias, with the archangel Raphael. Far away many a little town is still asleep, unmindful of the glad tidings. Over the fourth altar is an early work by Tintoretto, the Circumcision j while in the left aisle, over the second altar there, Lotto has painted an altarpiece, dated 1529, of S. Niccolb with three angels, and S. John Baptist and S. Lucy. Between the first and second altars here is a Deposition, a magnificent relief in bronze by Andrea Verrocchio the Florentine. Before leaving, one should visit the cloisters. Close by the church is the Scuola del Carmine, the house of a guild founded in 1529. Here one may see Tiepolo in all his lightness and beauty and grace, as perhaps nowhere else in Venice, for he painted the ceiling with five panels, with the Madonna and her little Son in the midst. The whole is nearly as lovely as the master's work in the Palazzo Labia. From the Carmine we proceed towards the Zattere, to S. Sebastiano, a plague church like S. Giobbe and S. Rocco. This church was built in the sixteenth century and restored in 1867. It is almost entirely decorated by Paolo Veronese, who is here buried. S. Sebastian was of old the greatest of all the plague saints ; and though the present church dates only from the sixteenth century, one dedicated in his honour was very early founded in Venice. The church was a founda- tion of the Jeronymite Order, whose founder, S. Jerome, 142 VENICE AND YENETIA figures in the decoration as well as S. Sebastian. Paolo Veronese was employed by this Order when he first came to Venice, and he painted his Supper in the House of Simon, now in the Brera, for the Refectory of this monastery. But Veronese was not the only painter the Order employed. Over the altar of the first chapel on the right we see a magni- ficent painting of S. Nicholas by Titian. This picture bears the date 1563, and was painted for Niccolb Crasso, a Venetian lawyer, who had built this chapel. Over the second altar is a delightful Madonna and Child with S. Anthony of Padua and S. Catherine of Alexandria by Paolo Veronese. The S. Anthony is said to be a portrait of the prior of the monastery. Over the third altar is a sculp- tured altarpiece by Tommaso Lombardo, a sixteenth-century work, while over the fourth altar is a fine and moving Crucifixion by Veronese. Beyond the pulpit is a good Renaissance tomb by Sansovino. The choir and High Altar hold three fine works by Veronese. Over the altar is the Apotheosis of S. Sebastian, to whom the Madonna appears in Heaven, surrounded by S. Mark for Venice, S. Jerome for the Jeronymites, S. John Baptist, and S. Catherine of Alexandria. To the right is his martyrdom, and to the left one of the poorest works Veronese ever painted, the Martyrdom of SS. Marcus and Marcellinus, whom S. Sebastian, in the full armour of a Roman soldier, encourages. Veronese painted the organ shutters also with the Purifi- cation of the Blessed Virgin and the Pool of Bethesda, very appropriate subjects for this church, and carried out in a masterly fashion. In the sacristy is a ceiling picture of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and in the second chapel of the left aisle a restored Baptism of Christ by the same master. As though this were not enough, Veronese has covered the whole church with magnificent ceiling pictures of the story of Esther. This great man is buried in the last chapel of the left aisle in a modest tomb, over which a mere bust stands. SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 143 From S. Sebastiano we pass to Ognissanti. This is a Cistercian church with a convent founded by some nuns from Torcello in 1472. It was first built of wood, but in the late fifteenth century the present church was built. In 1807 both convent and church were suppressed, but the Capuchin sisters from S. Giuseppe di Castello, which was suppressed at the same time, presently acquired the church, and made a girls' school of the convent. A little farther on is the Church of S. Trovaso, an early foundation rebuilt in 1028. The present church was begun in 1584. This church stands in the territory both of the Castellani and the Nicolotti, two very ancient factions into which Venice is still in some sort divided. 1 In truth, the Castellani represented the democrats of Tesolo, the Nicolotti the aristocrats of Heraclea. 2 The whole of Venice is divided between them : the Castellan faction can claim the Castello, the district of S. Giovanni in Bragora, the district of S. Gregorio, and the islands ; the Nicolotti the district from SS. Giovanni e Paolo to the railway station and back to the Accademia. Here at S. Trovaso the two territories meet. For this cause S. Trovaso has two doors, one towards the Nicolotti and one towards the Castellani. Mr. Brown tells us that " if a Castellan baby is to be baptized, and the god- father chance to be a Nicolotto, he will not leave the church by the same door as his compare, but each goes out by the door belonging to his faction. Matters were carried even further than this ; and the faction to which a foreigner should belong on arriving in Venice was determined for him by the colour of that quarter where he first left his boat. Most of those who now visit Venice are Castellani. . . ." The church contains three Tintorettos — a Last Supper, an Adoration of the Magi, and S. Joachim expelled from the Temple. From S. Trovaso it is but a step to the Gesuati ; and that is a 1 Cf. Horatio Brown, '« Life on the Lagoons " (Rivington, 1900) : *' A Regatta and its Sequel," pp. 264 et seq. * Cf. supra, pp. 16 et seq. 144 VENICE AND VENETIA good way which takes you along the Fondamenta delle Zattere. This long quay by the side of the Giudecca canal was built in 1 5 19, and gets its name from the wood rafts (zatte) which were moored along this shore. Across the water lies the island of the Giudecca with its great Palladian churches of the Zitelle, the Redentore, and S. Eufemia. It is from the Redentore to the Zattere that the wooden bridge is built on the third Sunday in July for the procession in honour of the Precious Blood. As for the Gesuati, the sons of Blessed Giovanni Columbini of Siena, they were suppressed by Clement IX in 1688, and the present church and convent which bear their name were built by the Dominicans and dedicated to Madonna del Rosario in the eighteenth century. Tiepolo has painted the ceiling, therefore, with the Institution of the festival of the Rosary and a Vision of Madonna and Apotheosis of S. Dominic. Over the first altar to the right, too, we find a delightful altarpiece by the same master of the Madonna and Child with three Dominican nuns. By the third altar to the left is a Crucifixion by Tintoretto. From the Gesuati we follow along the Zattere past the Scuola dello S. Spirito, which was founded in the adjoining church in 1492 and is now a tobacco store, to the church and convent dello Spirito Santo. The church was founded by Maria Caroldo, who was the first superior of the convent close by, which she also built. Here we leave the Zattere and proceed north towards the Grand Canal and S. Maria della Salute. In S. Maria della Salute we have the typical plague church of the city. It was built in gratitude to the Madonna of Health, who, so the Venetians believed, had freed them from the last and the greatest pestilence, that of 1631, which endured for sixteen months and carried off some 140,000 persons. Venice was particularly open to the plague. The great commercial city of Central Europe, she was always in contact with the East and with the infection. More than once, notably in 1348, and in 1571 when Titian was carried off by SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 145 the pestilence in his ninety-ninth year, she was hard put to it to carry on her government, so many died within her dominion. That attack in 1571, however, which had seen the building of the Redentore and the institution of a great festival and proces- sion that in some sort still endures, was less terrible in every way — in its duration as in the number of its victims — than that of 1 63 1. This last pestilence stopped suddenly in November, 1631, after a vow had been made by the Doge that the Republic would build a church to Madonna della Salute if she would deliver them. The Republic observed its promise. A splendid church was immediately planned, a public competition was arranged, and by its means Longhena, a Venetian, a follower of Palladio, was chosen as architect. Meanwhile a wooden and temporary oratory was built upon a piece of land which the Knights Templar had bestowed on the Republic. A bridge of boats was built across the Grand Canal, and on 28 November the Doge, the Senate, the nobles, and the people went in state and in procession from S. Marco to hear Mass. "The letter of a contemporary," says Mr. Horatio Brown, "tells us that the day was cloudlessly fine; and we see this long procession filing across the bridge, the priests in their coloured robes, the silver and gold candle- sticks, the flags of the various companies, the young nobles in their tight hose and slashed doublets, the elders each with a long white taper in his hand. . . ." That November proces- sion endures too, as well as that to the Redentore in July, to our own time, and remains one of the greatest, the most popular, and the most picturesque spectacles still to be seen in this city, which has become so sombre, a mute at its own funeral. And the church which Longhena built, in spite of its period, in spite of its wild ornament, seems more and more as we get to know it better to be one of the finest, most astonishing, and perhaps one of the loveliest buildings which remain in the Venice of to-day. It is a great circular, or, rather, octagonal, church under a vast great dome, flanked by a smaller dome over the sanctuary L 146 VENICE AND VENETTA chapel. It is set on a great platform at the top of a broad flight of steps at the very entrance of the Grand Canal. It reigns there like a queen, high above the gilded Fortuna of the Dogana^ and seems, I often think, better than any other building whatsoever to sum up the later city of which it is at once the crown and the symbol. It is easy to sneer at so light and so popular a thing ; but who can deny its immense success, not with the vulgar alone, but with us all ? We have seen and suffered Venice without the Campanile ; but who could imagine her without the Salute ? If that fell, Venice herself would seem to have suffered some irremediable change. It has stood there only since the seventeenth century, yet it seems as inherent a part of the city as S. Mark's. Within the church is a host of that sort of rubbish which accumulates about every shrine amid things as precious as they are lovely. But even this rubbish takes on a sort of life when we remember the reason of the church and what it stands for in the heart of Venice. As for the precious things, though they be few they are rare enough, yet not all are here by right. These Titians, for instance, come from the Spirito Santo, the island in the lagoon,' for whose friars, as Vasari relates, the painter made them in 1541; in the first we see the Descent of the Holy Spirit : yet it suffered so much, getting darker and darker, that Titian had to paint it afresh. Then behind the High Altar we see eight medallions by the same master made for the same church of the Spirito Santo, the Evangelists and the Fathers of the Church; while in the sacristy are three ceiling pictures by the same master, made, too, for the Spirito Santo, of the Death of Abel, Abraham's Sacrifice, and the Death of Goliath. Here, too, is another Titian, the best in the church, but again belonging to the Santo Spirito, of S, Mark enthroned with four saints. Nor is the Tintoretto in the sacristy, a large and dark picture of the Marriage in Cana of Galilee, really at home here ; it comes from the Refectory of the Crociferi, where it was certainly better seen and probably more in place, for it is without any sense of religion, and better suited to a dining SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 147 room than to a church, for all its Rembrandtesque beauty which, of course, Ruskin praises eloquently. This leaves us with little but rubbish ; yet there is a good Marco Basaiti in the sacristy, a San Sebastian, a fine plague picture, and a curious work by Girolamo da Treviso of S. Rocco, S. Sebastian, and S. Jerome, which are properly in place here. Close by S. Maria della Salute, on the left of the church, stands the beautiful church and abbey of S. Gregorio, which in its present form dates from 1392. This is one of the loveliest fragments of old Venice which remain to us. On the other side of the Salute church is the Seminario Patriarcale. It stands where of old the monastery of the SS. Trinita stood. This was destroyed when the Salute was built, and in 1670 a house was built on the site for the Order which had the new church in its charge. For a few years before 1 63 1 the Seminary had occupied the old monastery of SS. Trinita, but in that year it was transferred to Murano. In 181 7, however, it was restored to Venice, returning to the building we now see, a work of Longhena. This now contains a small picture-gallery — Galleria Manfredini — together with a collection of sculptures, the merest fragments. Only one picture here need detain us more than a moment. It is the retouched and spoilt but still lovely Apollo and Daphne of Giorgione, which for all its delicious landscape and jewel- like quality cannot compare with the Giovanelli picture. Beyond the Seminario stands the Dogana di Mare, the sea custom-house, which was a building of the fourteenth century, restored in 1525, but is now a work of Giuseppe Benoni made in 1675. The Dogana di Terra, a custom-house for goods arriving overland, is in the Rialto. X THE ACADEMY THE Venetian School of Painting which, with its great masters of the sixteenth century, occupies so famous a place in the history of Art, was not only very much later in its development than any other school in Italy, but was essentially different both in its condition and in its intention from any of them, and may be said to have sprung fully armed into existence in the middle of the fifteenth century really without forbears in Venice, and after a brief but very glorious existence of some two hundred years to have passed away, leaving, however, to such men as Canaletto, Guardi, andTiepolo a remembrance, a shadow of its glory which remains as a wonderful afterglow, if we may say so, upon their work. Unlike the schools of Florence, Siena, and Umbria, the Venetian school has little fundamentally to do with religion : it is the first, as it is the only, secular school of Italy, and its chief technical characteristic is neither the power and integrity of its drawing, nor its beauty and delight as decoration, but the splendour of its colour, its continual preoccupation with joy and with life. The school of Florence, the school of Siena early produced each a great master who not only decided the future of painting in both those cities, but in a very real sense summed up in his own achievement what that future was to be. The work of Masaccio, of Michelangelo even, is as implicit in the frescoes of Giotto as the work of Sassetta is in that of Duccio ; but there is nothing in the early Venetians that, even in the 148 THE ACADEMY 149 smallest measure, prophesies the work of Giorgione, of Titian, of Tintoretto. Nor can we assert that Giorgione himself is such a prophecy, and that in the fifteen pictures which we possess from his hand all the work of Titian, of Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese really lies hid. For each of these men is himself a prophecy which is only fulfilled in the work each accom- plished. Giorgione may, it is true, speak for the young Titian ; but who but Titian himself may speak for the later periods of his work? Who but Tintoretto prophesied of Tintoretto? And who but Veronese could have imagined the glory that passes under his name ? Moreover, if in Giorgione we find indeed the Giotto of the school, what are we to make of his so late appearance in 1478, two hundred years and more after the birth of Giotto and Duccio, and how are we properly to explain his forerunners, the Bellini and Carpaccio, for instance, who, if indeed he is their successor, would have been astonished at their progeny ? For the truth is that Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto are each an absolutely new impulse in painting. Fundamentally they owe nothing, accidentally even very little, to their predecessors ; and if, as we have said, Titian and Tintoretto were able to find full expression because of the work of Giorgione, it is only in the way that Shakespeare and Milton may be said to owe something, though it might be difficult to assert precisely what it is, to Spenser ; what they owe to Chaucer, though doubtless they owe much, it might seem impossible to indicate with any clearness. We may say the same of Venetian painting, which in more ways than one resembles very closely the work of our poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Chaucer's debt to Italy, to Boccaccio, is as great as the debt of the early Venetians to the Byzantine masters ; but the work of Shakespeare, the work of Milton, the work of Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto are absolutely new things in the world, the result of a new impulse and a new vision, individual and personal to the last degree, owing little to any school and making little of tradition. They are the great creators in Art, and it is to them that all later masters make their appeal, save Rembrandt 150 VENICE AND VENETIA perhaps, Velasquez as well as Rubens and Vandyck and Reynolds. What, then, do we mean by " the Venetian school " ? If all that is greatest in the Venetian painters is in each case a new and individual effort, owing little to tradition, the Venetian school might seem to be little more than a term without real significance. Yet, in fact, the Venetian school existed for more than two hundred years; only we find that here the term school means something different from what it does in the case of the Florentines, or the Sienese, or the Umbrians : something different, but not something less fundamental or less living. By the Florentine school we mean essentially that long line of painters who worked on the lines Giotto had laid down, who extended them and secured them, but never departed from them ; by the Sienese school we mean that line of painters who worked with the same intention and with the same effect as Duccio had worked j and it is significant that when we come to such men as Sodoma, Girolamo di Benvenuto, Pacchia, and Pacchiarotto we no longer speak of them, Sienese though they be, as of the Sienese school, but confess at once that they have little or nothing to do with it. In Venice it is different. There is nothing essentially of Florence in Florentine painting, there is nothing absolutely of Siena in Sienese work ; but we have only to think of the work of the " Venetian school " to remember Venice. If, indeed, it is from Giotto that the school of Florence springs, if it is to Duccio that the Sienese painters owe the whole of their art, it is to Venice, and to Venice alone, that the Venetian painters look — it is she who has always prophesied of them, and without her they could never have existed at all. When we speak of the Venetian school, then, we mean, in a very precise way, the school of Venice — the painters which Venice produced or, at least, made essentially her own, all of whom were born within her dominion. This definition of what we mean by the Venetian school — the school which owes every- thing to Venice — alone unites such a master as Lorenzo THE ^ACADEMY 151 Veneziano with Carpaccio and the Bellini, and truly connects them all with Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. Nor is it in any sense far-fetched or even strained. For the commercial Republic of Venice was; one of the strongest and one of the most vital of the States ^of the world during many hundreds of years. It was not merely the greatest political power in Italy, but for very many years the greatest commercial power in the world, and, as we have seen, it depended not upon any balance of power in Italy, or even in Europe, but upon both Europe and the East, to which it was the key. Its political decadence sprang at last not from any internal cause, as in Florence or Siena, but from an external misfortune which it was incapable of preventing — the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. And since such were the conditions, the splendid con- ditions of its existence, it was capable of realizing a far more intense, a far richer and more energetic personality than any of the little Republics that, hovering between a despotism and a futile democracy, were able politically to distract Italy for so long, while in culture they achieved for us so much of what is most precious in our lives to-day. Their energies were divided, for their civilization and their culture united at no single point. In Venice, on the contrary, civilization and culture ■ went hand in hand, and thus when Venice expresses herself, whatever language she uses, we realize at once that we are face to face with a living personality at one with itself. It is to this personality we owe the Venetian School of Painting. Precisely what I mean will become evident if for a moment we glance at the Republics of Florence and Venice as per- sonalities. We shall then see at once that the great men of Florence were always greater than their city, whereas Venice was always greater than her greatest men. Florence was incapable of absorbing, often even of using, her greatest sons ; she sends Dante into exile, she cannot keep Leonardo, Michel- angelo she fails either to understand or to comprehend, Galileo she allows to be imprisoned. Venice, on the contrary, 1 By civilization I mean Industry, Economy, Politics. By culture I mean Philosophy, Religion, Ethics, and Art. 152 VENICE AND VENETIA lets not one of her sons escape, she is so profoundly living that she absorbs their energies and they enrich her. Marco Polo she both understands and honours, he dies in her arms ; she absorbs the printers and paper-makers and becomes the printing press of Italy, even the poems of Lorenzo de' Medici are printed first at Venice. She alone of the Italian Republics is capable of producing great statesmen and politicians, but she absorbs them ; they are her servants and not her enemies. For centuries she faces the Church and keeps her liberty, like a nation ; and though the League of Cambrai at last destroyed her, she was able to meet it, and that even though she had received her death-blow long before when the treachery of Pio II overthrew Con- stantinople. What, then, we seem to see in Venice is a nation, the only nation in Italy, and this political and moral fact is decisive for her art, which is as national as the work of the English school of the eighteenth century. But the Venetian school of painting is peculiar among the schools of Italy in something else beside its nationalism. It is civic rather than religious. By this I mean that it was rather the servant of the city and the citizens, of the State, in fact, than of the Church, and thus it became the first secular school of painting in Italy. There is nothing in all Venice, no series of frescoes or pictures which one may put beside the work of Giotto and his followers in S. Croce, of Ghir- landajo in S. Maria Novella. The pictures of Carpaccio in in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni were painted for the Dalmatians in the service of nationalism rather than in the service of religion. As for the mosaics of S. Mark's, they have nothing to do with the Venetian school of painting, are something, in fact, outside of it, and were made, after all, to decorate the chapel of the Doges. If we search for something to put beside the great fresco sequences of the Florentines, we shall find it, not in any church, but in the Doge's Palace, where at least three series of paintings have been destroyed and replaced by the splendid work wholly of national and civic significance which we see to-day. And it is the same through- THE ACADEMY 153 out the city. Not the Church but the secular guilds, the Scuole commissioned and received series of paintings. It is not to the Franciscan Church of the Frari or the Dominican Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo that we go in search of such things, but to the Scuola di S. Rocco and the Scuola di S. Maria della Carita, now the Academy, and, above all, to the Palace of the Doges. Neither the Scuola di S. Maria della Carita nor the Scuola di S. Rocco were Regular or even ecclesiastical communities, they were lay guilds j and though the works they commissioned for the decoration of their guild houses are religious in subject, they are concerned rather with the guild and its intention than with religious teaching. Thus we see that the Venetian school of painting, wholly national in its inception, was altogether civic in its practice. The painters depended not upon the Church or the Religious Orders for their commissions, but upon the Government and the lay guilds of the people. So that in Venice we have the first great school of Italian painting which was in no way the servant of the Church. That this great school was, in fact, to be a national school does not become evident till it was firmly established in the fifteenth century by the Bellini. The earliest work that passes under the name of Venetian, and that was largely done in the service of the Church, was for the most part the work of foreigners. This becomes evident at once if we examine the pictures collected in the Academy in their chronological order. If Niccolo Semilicolo (1 351-1400) is a Venetian one would not be convinced of it by his Coronation of the Virgin (23) or by the smaller works in that collection from his hand. He might seem to have no connexion at all with the work of the Bellini. If in the splendid work of Lorenzo Veneziano (1357- 1379) we seem to find something more national, especially in the beautiful ancona (20) of the Annunciation with saints and scenes from the Old Testament, which comes from the demolished Church of S. Antonio di Castello, he is but an isolated prophecy 6f the splendour that is to be, for in his work what we take to be Venetian might seem rather to be 154 VENICE AND YENETIA Byzantine, and to owe more to Constantinople than to Venice. And if we think it strange that the Byzantine tradition should be still found in Venice on the eve of the fifteenth century, we must remember the geographical position of the city, and that nationalism, which was the secret of her being, had not yet been able to express itself. Yet in a very real sense the Byzantinism of Lorenzo is a blind, but nevertheless a certain, striving for that very thing. Of that we may be certain, for Giotto had long since been in Padua, and there his work remained. Yet Venice preferred what she had long ago made her own and still found in her own buildings and mosaics to Tuscan naturalism. Nevertheless one may be sure that even in regard to Venice Giotto did not paint wholly in vain. We find his influence in the work of Altichiero of Padua, just as we find the influence of two other schools, the Umbrian in the work of Gentile da Fabriano and the German in the work of Johannes Alemannus, whom we call Giovanni da Murano, and it is these masters, in fact, who faintly and very far off influence, as far as any foreigners were able to do, the first painters of the national Venetian school. Paduan work, and still better, work strongly influenced by the Paduans, is to be seen in the Academy ; but it is in the beautiful altarpiece (625) of Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni da Murano that we find perhaps the finest work of these half- Venetian, half-foreign masters. There we see the Madonna enthroned with her Divine Child. Her expression is cold, even insipid, and yet pensive withal. The enclosed garden in which she sits reminds us of many an old German picture, but the whole is in some subtle fashion a prophecy of some- thing warmer and more passionate than anything Germany will know how to produce, and the spell of Venice seems already to have fallen upon men who must have felt their fetters. But it is in the work of Gentile da Fabriano, an Umbrian, that it seems to me Venice was most fortunate in the influence from without. In all the schools of Italy she could have THE ACADEMY 155 found no more congenial prince to awake her. The painter of the glorious Adoration of the Shepherds in the Florence Academy might seem to have been a Venetian almost without knowing it, and his work in the Doge's Palace, where he was employed to paint the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, without doubt exercised the supreme influence upon the first master of the true Venetian school — I mean Jacopo Bellini — as well as upon such masters as Antonio da Negroponte and the later masters of the Murano school. Jacopo Bellini was active between 1430 and 1470 ; he was Gentile's pupil, and came directly under the influence of one of the great masters of Northern Italy, Vittore Pisano of Verona, whom we call Pisanello. Pisanello worked at Venice in conjunction with Gentile da Fabriano, and these two painters may be said to have been the real founders of the Venetian school. For it is in the work of their pupils, and especially in the work of Jacopo Bellini and his pupils, that we find that school to have been established. There remains in Venice, happily, more of the very rare work of Jacopo Bellini than anywhere else. In the Academy there is a Madonna and Child (582) which is rather dis- appointing, and in the Museo Civico (Sala IX, 42) a Cruci- fixion, while a doubtful S. Giovanni Crisogono on horseback remains in S. Trovaso. But if the Venetian character of Jacopo's work seems rather shadowy, we are assured of it at once in the great and plentiful work of his sons, Giovanni (1430-1516) and Gentile (1429-1507). A whole room is devoted to the work of Giovanni Bellini in the Academy, and his work is plentiful in the Museo Civico and in the churches of the city. No one in looking upon it could mistake it for anything but Venetian ; for though Giovanni was formed in Padua under the influence of Dona- tello, he was first his father's pupil, and it is probable that his greatest work was done for the Doge's Palace in his native city. What remains to us in the Academy is the six Madonna pictures and the five small allegories, and there is nothing in any one of them all that any but a master of the Venetian 156 VENICE AND VENETIA school could have painted. The work of his brother Gentile, who was also influenced by the Paduans, is rarer, though not in Venice. In the Academy we have four pictures : the first the picture of Beato Lorenzo Giustiniani (570), painted in 1465 ; the second the wonderfully lovely Corpus Christi Pro- cession in the Piazza (567), painted in 1496; the third the Miracle of the True Cross (508), painted in 1500; and the last the Healing by the True Cross (563), also a pageant picture. In such works as these we see how profoundly national the school was. It is these men and their pupils who make up the school of Venice. But here something must be said of a painter born, and as far as we know bred, in Southern Italy, who came to Venice in 1473, m tn e middle of the career of Giovanni Bellini. This painter was Antonello da Messina, and it was from him that, though we are unable to say how he acquired it, the Venetian painters learned to paint in oil. Only two of his works remain in Venice, an Ecce Homo in the Academy (589), and a Portrait of a Man in the Giovanelli Collection. In contact with the Vivarini and Bellini his style developed; and though it perhaps may be unjust to say that he received as much as he gave, seeing that what he gave was a new means and material in painting, he certainly became a much finer painter, especially a portrait painter, than without Venice it seems likely he would have been. As a colourist, too, and this he would owe as much to that unknown Flemish painter whom we suppose to have been his first master as from the Venetians, he has had few equals, but it is chiefly as the introducer of painting in oils that he is significant in the Venetian school. Among the most famous of his contemporaries, whom thus far at least were his disciples, are Vittore Carpaccio, who was working from 1478 to 1522, and was the pupil and follower of Gentile Bellini and Cima da Conegliano, who worked at the same time, and was the pupil of Alvise Vivarini and the disciple of Giovanni Bellini. The greater • » • > » > • > • • t»»»» »» , ,, ••- • ■••»•• » »\ • • • • • • •••••• • » • • •? » •. O ^ -- P i z < ■? •-! 5: s THE ACADEMY 157 master of the two was Carpaccio, who in the many works by him that remain in Venice shows himself as an ideal painter of genre, which, when all is said, remains the true foundation of the Venetian school. We have seen the delightful work of Carpaccio in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni in S. Giorgio Maggiore and in S. Vitale, two pictures by him are also to be found in the Museo Civico, but his most charming and delightful works are here in the Academy, where the Sala di S. Ursula and part of the old church of the Carita is surrounded by a series of large pictures from his hand con- cerning the story of S. Ursula, the Breton princess whose hand was sought by the son of the King of England, and who perished, with eleven thousand virgins, under the swords of the Huns at Cologne. Nothing, I suppose, in all Venetian art is more characteristic of it at its simplest than the Dream of S. Ursula, where we see a quiet room full of the cool morning light and all the simple furniture a maid would need, and there in bed lies S. Ursula asleep, dreaming of her prince and her pilgrimage to Rome. It is as though in Carpaccio's hands the most fantastic and improbable story of the Dark Age had become true, true to life andLfulLof meaning, a sort of ideal reality which we shall search for in vain, I think, out of Venice. Of other works by the same master some are altogether lacking in this quality. We find it in the Healing of a Madman by the Rialto Bridge (566), painted in 1455 ; in the Meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna (90), painted in 1515; and in the Circumcision (44) of 15 10. Cima, too, is well represented in Venice, for beside his works in the Carmine, in S. Giovanni in Bragora, in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and in S. Maria dell' Orto, which we have already examined, there are six of his works in the Academy : a Madonna and six saints (36), Tobias and the Angel with S. James and S. Nicholas (592), a Madonna and Child (597), a Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Paul (603), a Pieta (604), and a Christ with S. Thomas and S. Magnus (611). Less original, perhaps, than Carpaccio, Cima is nevertheless one of the greatest of Giovanni's 158 VENICE AND VENETIA disciples. In him we see the other great characteristic of the Venetian school, for he is full of enthusiasm for land- scape, the genre painting of out-of-doors, and in this he rivals his master. Over and over again he paints the hills of his birthplace, Conegliano, as though he loved them, and indeed with him landscape painting became one of the secure and great achievements of the Venetian school. We have said that he was the pupil of Luigi or Alvise Vivarini. This painter (1461-1503) was of the Murano school, but he came under the influence of Giovanni Bellini, and thus entered the true Venetian school of the fifteenth century. Many works by him remain up and down Venice, while in the Academy there are four pictures of saints — S. Matthew (619), S. John (618), S. Sebastian, S. Anthony, S. John Baptist, and S. Laurence (621), an early work, S. Clare (593), a Head of Christ (87), a later work, and a Madonna and Child with six saints (607) of 1480. Thus we see the Venetian school of the fifteenth century with a common origin in the Bellini, and especially in Giovanni Bellini. For we have by no means named all the brilliant painters who passed through Giovanni's hands. We have yet to speak of Catena, a native of Treviso, whose first master was a painter of that city, Girolamo da Treviso by name. Catena, however, owes almost everything to Giovanni Bellini, in whose school he continued his education, coming later under the influence of Carpaccio, and later still under that of Giorgione. Catena, who was active certainly from 1495-1531, but the date of whose birth is uncertain, was, in fact, one of the best pupils Giovanni Bellini ever had. His work is not plentiful in Venice, but what there is is chiefly early work; that, for instance, in the Palazzo Ducale, a Madonna with two saints and the Doge Loredan, a Madonna with S. John Baptist and another saint in Palazzo Giovanelli, a S. Trinita in S. Simeone, and a Madonna and Child in S. Trovaso. His work finds no place in the Academy. Vasari praises him for his portraits, but not one of these remains in Venice. THE ACADEMY 159 Another painter born at Treviso, Bissolo (1464-15 28), was also a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, whom, in fact, he assisted in his work. He has not the brilliance of Catena, and is too often a disappointing pupil of his master. His work in Venice is fairly plentiful, and works by him exist in S. Giovanni in Bragora, in S. Maria Mater Domini in the Redentore, and in the Museo Civico, where is a Madonna and Child with S. Peter Martyr. The Academy possesses four of his paintings : a Marriage of S. Catherine (79), a Pieta (88), a Presentation in the Temple (93), and a Madonna with S. James and Job. We find another follower of Bellini in Marco Basaiti, who was active from 147 0-1527. He was probably a native of Friuli, and had passed through the hands of Alvise Vivarini. His work is somewhat hard and dry, yet often severe and full of dignity, but he cannot claim to be among the greater pupils of his great master. His work in the Academy consists of five pictures : a Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (39) and a Christ in the Garden (68), both painted in 15 10, a S. James and S. Antony (68), a Pieta (108), S. George and the Dragon (102), painted in 1520, in which we discern Carpaccio's influence, and a S. Jerome (39). Such were the best masters of the fifteenth century in Venice ; and while all of them may be said to proceed from the studio of the Bellini, there is not one of them who does not show the profound influence of Venice herself. This influence, which makes the Venetian the one great national school of painting in Italy, comes to its own, and is empha- sized in the great painters of the sixteenth century, the true glory of Venice. They too proceed from the school of Giovanni Bellini, and thus complete the direct descent of what is, when all is said, the greatest school of painting that has ever existed in the world. And these painters of the sixteenth century in Venice express the fundamental origins of the school in all their strength. That school, as has been said, was never religious but rather civic in its origin, and it is in these heirs of the 160 VENICE AND VENETIA Bellini, the great pageant painters, that we realize that fact to the fullest extent. For with Giorgione (1478-15 10), the pupil of Giovanni Bellini, who came under the influence of Carpaccio, we have a new creation in Art ; he is the first painter of the true " easel picture," the picture which is neither painted for a church nor to adorn a great public hall, but to hang on the wall of a room in a private house for the delight of the owner. For Giorgione the individual exists, and it is for him, for the most part, he works, and thus stands on the threshold of the modern world. Born in Castelfranco, a walled town of the Veneto not far from Bassano, not far from Treviso, Giorgione lived but thirty-two years, dying of plague, as it is said, in 15 10. In these short thirty-two years, however, he found time to re-create Venetian painting, to re- turn it to its origins, and to make the career of his great fellow- pupil, Titian, whom he may be said to have formed, possible. And with the art of Titian all that was best, most fundamental, and implicit in Venetian painting came to flower. He sums up Venice, and is, in fact, to painting what Shakespeare is to literature, the greatest master of the modern world. Of Giorgione's work, in its subtle and serene rhythm, in its perfect reconciliation of matter and form, musical, aspiring as Pater has so well said, "towards the condition of music," one supreme example remains in Venice — the Gipsy and the Soldier of the Palazzo Giovanelli. If the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario be less fine, we must not fail to note what ravages time and the spoiler have worked upon it ; while the Christ bearing the Cross at S. Rocco remains a lovely, if less characteristic, picture. In the Academy, unhappily, there is but a late work by this rare and delightful master, a picture of a storm stilled by S. Mark (516), which is his in part only, and which was finished by Paris Bordone. But in the Giovanelli and the Seminario pictures we have in Venice perfect examples of those " easel pictures " of which he was the creator — pictures which are concerned with a delightful out-of- doors and foresee so much of what is most delightful in true landscape painting, which are yet genre pictures of the best and ACADEMY 161 most ideal kind, and which were painted for the delight of private persons, to bring light into a house and to make it home. We owe to Giorgione in great part, too, the enormous vogue of the portrait that with him began to take the world by storm. His early Portrait of a Man, in Berlin, his Portrait of Antonio Brocardo, in Buda Pesth, his Knight of Malta, in the Uffizi, his Portrait of a Lady, in the Borghese Gallery in Rome are the great ensamples which Titian followed and at last perfected. Of his actual pupils and scholars the most important was perhaps Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547), who had already passed through the hands of Giovanni Bellini and Cima, and was later to feel the influence of quite another master, Michel- angelo. Probably the best example of his work under Giorgione's influence is afforded by his S. Chrysostom in S. Gio- vanni Crisostomo in Venice, but his work in S. Bartolommeo approaches it in beauty, and if the Visitation of the Academy (95) be really his, it is worthy of him at this period. In Palma Vecchio (1480-1528) we have another painter, strongly influenced by Giorgione, who had passed through Giovanni Bellini's hands. He was probably not a Venetian, but he most truly became one, as his work in S. Maria Formosa is enough to testify, though, as Morelli says of him, he always kept about him something of the mountains where he was born. Three pictures from his hand are to be found in the Academy : S. Peter Enthroned with six saints (302), Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (310), and an Assumption of the Virgin (315), a later work. And with Sebastiano is to be named another master, a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, who later came under Giorgione's influence — I mean that delightful master, Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556). Lotto nowadays owes almost all his reputation to the enthusiasm of Mr. Berenson; unrepresented though he be in the Academy of Venice, we find his strangely moving work in the Carmine there, in S. Giacomo dell' Orio, and in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and never without some thought, I suppose, of all that Venice had re- vealed to him of life, of life which continually demands a God. 162 VENICE AND VENETIA Nor did later painters such as Bonifazio (15 10-1540) and Pordenone (1483-1540) escape the supreme influence of the great master. Bonifazio was a pupil of Palma Vecchio, but all that is really best in him he owes to Giorgione. His finest work in Venice is the Dives and Lazarus of the Academy (291), where also may be found a dramatic Massacre of the Innocents (319) from his hand, and a Judgment of Solomon (295), fine in feeling and rich in colour, which was painted in 1533, and is probably his only in part. As for Pordenone he was probably the pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but his art owes all that is good in it to Giorgione, as the works from his hand in the Academy — a Portrait of a Lady (305), a Madonna and Child with saints and the Ottobon Family (323), S. Lorenzo Giustiniani and three other saints (316), and a Madonna of Carmel (323) — testify. But when all is said, when all Giorgione's pupils have been numbered and the men who in a later time came under his influence named, when even his own work, miraculous though it often seems and altogether beautiful and to be loved, is taken into account, Giorgione's greatest achievement was nevertheless the supreme and living work of Titian — of Titian who was his friend and who entered into his inheritance. This is no place to begin a discussion of Titian's achieve- ment, for that achievement is too wide and various and too generally understood and acknowledged for any words of mine to explain or to insure it. For most of us he remains the greatest painter our world has yet produced, and one of the most human and consoling. Born in the town of Cadore in 1477, Titian came to Venice and entered the botUga of Giovanni Bellini, yet no work we possess certainly from his hand shows him to us at this period of his life. We meet him first as the disciple and friend of his fellow-pupil Giorgione, here in Venice, in the Child Jesus with S. Catherine and S. Andrew of S. Marcuola, and more especially in the earlier work in the sacristy of the Salute, S. Mark Enthroned with four saints. The Academy possesses ACADEMY 163 four of his works, but they are all of a later period, the earliest, the great Assumption, dating from 1518. This vast altarpiece, painted for the High Altar of the Frari, may be said to be the first of Titian's works in his grand, assured style. Yet, seen as it is under a top light in the Academy, I have never been able to really to understand it or to love it as I might have done had I had the fortune to see it in that dim, vast church of the Friars, where Mary must surely have seemed indeed to soar out of the gloom of the earth into the light of Heaven, where He who is the Light of Light stretches His arms to receive her. Another vast but more tender work, the Presentation of the Virgin, here in the Academy, was painted between 1534 and 1538 for the very hall it still occupies in the Scuola della Carita, which we now call the Accademia. Perhaps that is why we care for it so much; and though the general scheme of the work is traditional, we have only to remember what Titian makes of that small, awkward room — a very "street of palaces" — to realize something of his achievement. The S. John the Baptist (314), a work of about 1550, from the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, shows us Titian's use, almost religious in its effect, of landscape, and just there we seem to come again to Giorgione ; while in the Pieta (400) we have a work in his last wonderful manner, begun in 1573, two years before his death at the age of ninety-nine, and finished by Palma Giovane. Titian had painted this great and moving canvas for the tomb he wished to prepare for himself in the Cappella del Crocifisso in the Frari ; but before it could be finished, he died of the plague. And under this last achievement of the mighty painter Palma wrote: "What Titian left unfinished, Palma has completed with reverence, and has dedicated the work to God." Titian was the last of the true Venetian school ; those who came after him, great painters though they were, were foreigners like Paolo Veronese, or eclectics like Tintoretto. Yet among the followers of Titian one disciple from Treviso must be named before we speak of these two painters, though he, 164 VENICE AND VENETIA too, fell later under the all-pervading influence of Michel- angelo. Paris Bordone was born in Treviso in 1495, an d died m 1570. He was absolutely Venetian by education, and owed everything to Titian, yet he took a line of his own, and his masterpiece, now in the Academy, the Fisherman and the Doge (320), an early work, fully justifies his fame, for it is one of the most interesting works in that collection, which also possesses his Paradise (322). But the whole of the art of Venice after the death of Titian is, or seems to us to be, overshadowed by the heroic work, almost completely personal in its vision, of Jacopo Tintoretto, who was born in 15 18, and was perhaps the pupil of Boni- fazio, who passed in turn under the influence of Titian, of Parmigianino, and of Michelangelo, and yet always remained himself. It is, indeed, most characteristic of him that he is himself rather than Venetian. I do not mean that he was unmoved by his environment ; far from it : he was always at the mercy of it ; but he sought to express his own personal impressions of the world, of life, of Venetian life, rather than to be, as it were, the national voice, as Titian had certainly been with such a vast succ :ss. It is characteristic of him in his great spiritual egoism and strength that he was impatient of the art of Titian. The colour of Titian — yes, he cannot but accept that, but he proclaims that he will add to it the design of Michelangelo. In the attempt it seems to me he succeeded only in shadowing forth his discontent, in filling the sky with the light and darkness of his own soul, in thrusting upon man a task too large for him, insisting always that he is rather a demigod than a mortal, a demigod who is never at peace, who has despised small things, and is at home only in the midst of a vast battle of light and darkness in which Heaven, earth, and his own soul are continually involved. He has never understood how to be at peace. How differently Giorgione has regarded the world ! For him the earth, the sky, and the life of man seem to pass into a strain of music; and for Titian, even in his latest period, all is to be understood o » *• z Q < < £ z ^ < g en ^ U U < ACADEMY 165 and expressed by means of beauty or character. It is only Tintoretto who sacrifices everything for energy, and, as it were, by flashes of light and darkness would reveal to us man as a kind of force, tragic and restless and unhappy upon the distracted earth. Yet he painted the beautiful and noble works in the Ante-Collegio of the Ducal Palace and in the year 1578. But he was the child of an unfortunate age. The vast and invincible forces of disaster that threatened Italy and Venice, the cataclysm of the Reformation, the need of a new revela- tion in religion, appealed to him with a terrible and tragic fascination ; before the bitter and overwhelming energy of life he was compelled to express himself and to cry out in the agony of his doubt concerning it. It is this appalling struggle, most of all with himself, with the fierce egoism of his own nature, that we see, I think, in so many of his works. The Church has been challenged, and so successfully that Christianity itself seems to be involved in the disaster. So he will insist on its everlasting certainty and truth, yes, for him himself, with an almost demonic energy and force. He will, like a prophet, call up that new revelation ; and so in the Scuola di S. Rocco we see all we have loved no longer humble and poor, but overwhelming in its exaggeration. The humble and appealing figures of the Gospel story are revealed to us anew, heroic in size, filled with a terrible physical energy and strength, in an overwhelming shadow and light such as no man till then had so much as dreamed of, and all is contrived with so much actuality, so realistically, that we feel it to be unreal and even impossible. These figures with their immense torsos and limbs, their vast gestures, and pride, and strength, are Madonna, Christ and His disciples : — only we do not recognize them. They fail in their appeal to us, they fail in beauty, not in energy or mastery or beautiful effects of painting, but in that beauty which is truth serene, which belongs to that perfect state which lieth in the heavens, seen there by Plato, and which S. Paul has told us is there eternal. Just this neither Titian nor Giorgione had ever willingly sacrificed, nor as I 166 VENICE AND YENETIA think, can any artist of any kind safely forget that it is an essential of our joy. There are many pictures by Tintoretto in the Academy, and among them are several portraits — the Portrait of Carlo Morosini (242), the Portrait of a Senator, a Senator in Prayer (241), the Portrait of Jacopo Soranzo (245), painted in 1564, the Portrait of Andrea Capello (234), an early work, the Por- traits of two Senators (244), and again of two Senators (240), and they are all of very great splendour, painted, it seems, with great swiftness and with a fine reserve. If then, when we remember Titian, these works seem less noble, and full of character though they be, to depend more upon their brilliance and a certain jewel-like quality, they are only less satisfying than those which are the greatest of all. With Tintoretto Venetian painting became both personal and eclectic, so that we can no longer regard it as the work of a national school; in Paolo Veronese it became frankly foreign. Paolo of Verona, born in 1528, never came under the influence of any Venetian master in his youth, he accepted the Spanish invasion with a cheerfulness that recommended his art to the great international religious Orders, and Venice herself in his day seems to have put aside the fear that Tintoretto had so tragically expressed for her. At any rate, she accepted Paolo with delight. And seeing the riot of his pictures on the great coffered ceilings of the palaces and churches of the city to-day, who shall blame her ? Her own art was dead ; she herself was mortally wounded ; only in such countrymen as the Bassanesi was any virtue left ; so Paolo had his fling, and, like the great entertainer he was, he conjured up for her all her vanished pride and assured her she was still Queen of the Adriatic. And for the religious he contrived most cheerful scenes in Heaven full of mastery and delight, and with a richness and splendour that make them still among the brightest things in the world, and to which Tiepolo one day will know how to give a lightness and a laughter and indeed a life as of birds or seraphs on the wing. XI THE ISLANDS OF THE GIUDECCA AND S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE THERE is nothing, I think, that is so effectual in luring us back to Venice again and again as the remembrance of those delicious hours — in early morning before the sun has southed, in the quiet afternoons that pass so slowly and so noiselessly in a city whose streets are the sea, or in the sultry evenings when through the twilight the far-off music of the singers on the Grand Canal comes to us faintly over the water — that are spent in a gondola going nowhither, but lazily " poking about," as we say, among the fishing-boats and broken quays of the Zattere or the Giudecca, in the forgotten side canals, or in the loveliness and silence of the lagoon, when by chance, and not by arrangement, we come upon some lost and tangled garden, some neglected church, or find where we least expect it — for on such expeditions he is wise who leaves his guide-book at home — a mosaic of the thirteenth century, a relief of the fifteenth, a picture by some lesser master of the great period. In Venice itself, in the streets, the piazzas, and the canals, however we go, on foot or in a gondola, there can be no one who has not often been weary. To pass through the great saloons of the Ducal Palace, to wander along the golden aisles of S. Mark's, to trudge through the narrow and ever- winding ways of the city, across numberless bridges, must ever bring with them, for all the continually changing vistas, a measure of boredom and fatigue which after the first surprise 167 1 68 VENICE AND YENETIA is not outweighed altogether by the pleasure we are perhaps too eager and too determined in our search to enjoy. But it is different with the islands, which, whether far or near, hold nothing that is so obviously precious that we must perforce, if we are to get our money's worth, search it out. They remain really for the tourist " not worth seeing," and so at last they become for the less eager and more quiet traveller the most precious memory of his voyage, things which seem to have come to him almost by chance in a quiet hour between sleeping and waking, as it were, between a dream and a vision, swimming into his ken as a mirage might do, wonder- fully, in the brightness of the day or in the quietness of evening, scarcely real, after all, but something, nevertheless, that he will never forget. Such is certainly the remembrance I shall always retain of Murano, of all the further islands, and if it is in a less tranquil mood maybe that most of us recall the islands of the Giudecca and S. Giorgio Maggiore, it is because we turn them into sights to be seen, rather than pleasures to be enjoyed. They lie, from the Piazza, across the very mouth of the Grand Canal, across the busiest sheet of water in all the Venetian lagoon, where many a great ship lies at anchor busily loading or unloading, and where all day long and far into the night, too, the little steamers from all over the Veneta Marina pass and repass, with much blowing of sirens and shouting amid feathers of steam and what seems to be a general confusion. This continually changing scene in all its restlessness that lies between the great and noble buildings of the Piazza and the rosy churches of Palladio upon the two islands is, how- ever, on any spring or summer afternoon redeemed from its mere liveliness and a certain measure of indignity by the impartial sun. On a grey day we see at once that much has been lost since Guardi passed by — and yet it is Guardi, first of all, Guardi and Canaletto, who have painted Venice most faithfully, and have used her least as a mere motive on which to build impossible dreams. But in the spring or summer sunshine there is no other city in the world that has so spark- THE ISLAM) OF S. GIORGIO, VENICE S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE 169 ling, so gay, so sensuous, and so delightful an air as Venice and her islands as seen from the Molo of the Piazzetta. Far away eastward, in an exquisite bow of ivory and blue and gold, stretches the Riva, to the green of the Public Gardens about the blue and green of the lagoon. The countless boats that line that incomparable crescent, their sails hoisted, half hoisted, furled or unfurled, heaped about their gunwales or trailing in the water, seem to be of all colours, from golden red to green and black. A forest of light masts darkens the air. Here and there a great, tall ship, its hull black and red, strains at anchor, meeting the incoming tide. Far away by the Gardens a grey battleship waits on guard, the sunbeams glancing on its brass work, its shadow deep along the sea. Before one the gondolas, beaked and black, pass and repass amid the hurry of the little steamers from the many island ports, from the Lido and the lanes of the city itself. And as one lifts one's eyes, under the sky tranquil and soft, there rises before one the island of S. George with its rosy tower tipped with a golden angel, its great church with the fagade of pale stone, and to the right the Giudecca with its line of houses, its deserted, cool churches, and all in front the great sea lane of the Canal della Giudecca with its line of great ships in the midst of it and its air as of a port or harbour of the sea. In the brilliant heat of the afternoon one is wont to hurry across that great waterway of the Giudecca to the shelter of the narrow canals of the island or the shade of the church of S. George. But at evening, at sunset, it is there rather than anywhere else one should linger watching the twilight come over the city, listening for the Ave bells, passing close under the great ships, talking with some sailor from Istria or the Dal- matian coast, or some sea captain from England, waiting for the sun to dip behind S. Eufemia, to sink behind the Euganean hills ; and then in the twilight one should steal out to the lagoon beyond and listen for the tide and think of the sea. For there, at least, one cannot doubt or question that Venice is a part of the sea; one of those marvellous cities perhaps that are founded there in the depths we may 170 VENICE AND VENETIA not know, of whose towers and citadels and bells sailors from time to time have brought us word with hushed voices and eyes that no longer light up at a sight of home. Only Venice has risen, yes, with the sun, just to the surface of the sea which still lingers about her feet, in whose arms she is still in some sort inviolate. That sense of the sea which is too often absent in the curious and picturesque streets of Venice itself is ever present with us among the islands, and especially so, I always think, on the island of the Giudecca, where so con- siderable a part of the fisher folk of the Veneto seem to live, in whose side canals is gathered so great a gear of boats, and from whose dear gardens all the horizons are wide and endless. On the Giudecca itself there is but one church that anyone ever visits, and it must be confessed that it contains nothing, or very little, of any interest. The Redentore was built in 1576 by Palladio to commemorate the deliverance of Venice from the plague of 15 71. Yet though that festival be still kept on the third Sunday in July, when a bridge of boats joins the church with the Fondamenta delle Zattere and a great pro- cession passes to and fro, the Redentore is not a plague church like the Salute, and almost nothing now within it reminds you of its genesis but its name, the fact of its dedica- tion to "the Redeemer." The Redentore is a Franciscan church with a Franciscan convent — now a barracks — at- tached to it ; and whatever may be thought of its architecture, it makes with S. Giorgio Maggiore a more considerable effect in its cold simplicity than any other building outside the city. Within, it must be confessed, it is chilling and empty. Over the first altar in the right aisle is a rather feeble Nativity by Francesco Bassano; over the third altar we find a Tinto- retto, Christ bound to the Column ; and opposite is an As- cension by the same master, but without enthusiasm. Nor are the fairly good reliefs of the High Altar likely to win our regard, nor the Crucifixion with S. Mark and S. Francis, over the High Altar itself, by Campagna. The real reason why the tourist visits this church, apart from the fact that it is a work S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE 171 of Palladio, would seem to be that in the sacristy there are three pictures of a great loveliness which of old were ascribed to Giovanni Bellini, but which to-day we assign to Bissolo and to Alvise Vivarini. The first, in which is Madonna with her little Son between S. John and S. Catherine, is by Bissolo, as is the second of Our Lady with the Child between S. Francis and S. Mark. The third, however, the most beautiful and the earliest of the three, is the work of Vivarini. There we see Madonna in a red robe with the Child asleep on her knees, while two angels play softly some heavenly lullaby. Over the green curtain which shuts out the world a goldfinch pipes softly in answer to the soft, strange music, and the whole earth has made an offering of her fruits to Him who in the beauty of the lilies is come to His kingdom. The Church of S. Giorgio on the island hard by is of much greater antiquity and interest. Once known, in the eighth century, as the Island of Cypresses, about 790 it became the site of a small church, and in 982 Doge Tribune Memmo gave the island to the Benedictines, who there established a monastery, which proved to be the greatest in Venice. This church and monastery were very much damaged in 1223 by an earthquake, but they were rebuilt at the expense of Doge Pietro Ziani, and finally, in the seventeenth century, by Andrea Palladio of Vicenza, the greatest architect of that age. S. Giorgio Mag- giore has been the scene of more than one great function, but the conclave which elected Pope Pius VII, which was held in the church in 1800, might seem to be the most celebrated. Six years later the convent was suppressed and turned into a barracks, which it has ever since remained. The story of the church is, however, by no means complete with the account given above. Always dedicated to S. George, in n 10 it received the body of S. Stephen from Doge Ordelafo Falier, and that gift gave rise to the great festival in which the Doge went in state procession to the church upon S. Stephen's Day and there heard Mass. The church contains a good many pictures, but nearly all of th em are of inferior merit. In the right aisle are a Nativity i72 VENICE ANJ) YENETIA by Jacopo Bassano and a wooden crucifix by Michelozzo the Florentine. Over the next altar is a Martyrdom of SS. Cosma and Damiano by Tintoretto, who has many pictures in the church, not one of them of any great merit. For instance, there is a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin here in the right transept, a Benedictine picture, and on the right wall of the sanctuary a gloomy Last Supper, and on the left, the best picture in the church, the Gathering of the Manna, by the same master. The choir stalls behind the High Altar are Flemish sixteenth-century work, and are adorned with scenes from the life of S. Benedict. Tintoretto's work is found again in the chapel near the left transept, where he has a Resurrection in which the donors figure, Doge Vincenzo Morosini and his family j while in the left transept itself, near the altar and tomb of S. Stephen, is the martyrdom of that Saint, by the same master. In the left aisle there is nothing of interest save perhaps the monument near the door of Doge Marcantonio Memmo. As for the Campanile, which makes so fine a picture from the Piazzetta, and from which one may have quite the best view of the Veneto, it fell in 1774, killing a monk and in- juring others. It was rebuilt as we see it by Benedetto Buratti. Let no one imagine, however, that when he has seen these two churches he has done with the islands of S. Giorgio and the Giudecca or exhausted all that they have to show. No impression could be more false than this, for the wise traveller will find in their by-ways more of the real Venetian life as it must have been lived by the common people for many cen- turies than he is likely to come upon anywhere else in Venice. And then he who does not know the gardens of the Giudecca, who has not wandered down their deserted alleys along the great sea-wall, or waited there for sunset, looking out over the wide and lonely lagoon to the Lidi and the sea, does not know Venice at all, but has been deceived by a city which more than any other in Italy has become a show-place for Germans and the barbarians and sentimentalists of all ages. THE GIUDECCA 173 For me at least the Giudecca has a charm I find nowhere else ; for beautiful though the Riva or the Fondamenta delle Zattere can be in the early dawn and morning or in the evening twilight, neither the one nor the other has the gift of quietness or any garden at all, save the Giardino Pubblico at the Riva's end, which, as one soon finds, is rather a park than a garden. But in the Giudecca all that you miss in Venice to-day may be found. You cross the often turbulent tide of the great sea lane that divides it from Venice, you creep all up the wonderful great road where the big ships lie at anchor and you may hear on a summer evening so many of the songs of the world, you pass quite by the Redentore and S. Eufemia della Giudecca, which stands up so grandly against the gold of the sky, you come to the Rio di S. Biagio and turn into it, quite full, as it seems, with fishing-boats, its quays laden with sea tackle and nets and baskets and the ropes and gear of ships, among which the children play the games they have always played, dressed in rags of all sorts of colours, their dear tousled heads bending over toys, as we say, the great symbols of life after all and the affairs of men, a tiny ship or a doll, and I know not what else, intent upon their innocent business. In the doorways, in the windows, their mothers gossip and laugh softly, awaiting their men, whom you find everywhere on board those many little vessels, mending nets or sewing at a sail or stepping a new mast or splicing an oar or painting a name. Your gondola passes quite among these humble folk; their wide eyes of the sea gaze almost shyly into yours, you hear the children's voices, a boy with bare feet runs towards you begging for soldi ^ a great bare-legged girl of sixteen insolently throws you a flower, the women stop their talk to watch you, the sailors give you greeting, till suddenly you pass out from between the houses, the quays and their various life, the noise and tumult are gone, and before you the great grey lagoon stretches away and away for ever, with here a little island, there, but very far off, a tiny tower, you know not where, that arises out of the sea to which this road or that, 174 VENICE AND VENETIA marked out by the great grey posts of the lagoon, seems to lead, if one might follow it, into the sunset and the far away clear blue hills. The voices of life, the noise of the world, have died away ; here there is only silence and the sigh of the sea rising and falling along these shallow waters. Your gondolier turns east, but it is the same view that meets you, only, still far off, you may see other islands and what looks like a long, low, narrow coast, over which a band of white foam-mist seems to be stealing : but the whole world here is caught in a smiling and serene light, a touch of gold is on the blue and grey of the waters that lap softly or impatiently about your boat as it turns in answer to the oar. As in a dream you glide along the seashore of the Giudecca. There are no buildings here or houses at all, only a long rosy wall of brick overhung by vines and great fig-tree boughs and the flame-like flowers of the pomegranate. In the soft summer wind the olives shade into silver ; far off against the apse of the Redentore two cypresses sway a little and are still. Your gondolier steers to the left, you enter a quite deserted canal between some old houses under a tower and a broken look-out. The water is like an emerald under the wall where the vines dip their leaves. Presently you come to a little green door of painted wood set in a wall of plaster and hung with an iron ring for knocker and a rusty bell-pull. Here your man gently comes to rest. The bell is rung, the door opened, and you pass with a quiet welcome not into a house, for there is no house, but into what at first sight seems to be a courtyard set about with ilexes and tall oleanders white and red, and between the olives are broken statues covered with golden lichen and stained by the weather, and between the oleanders are set great pots of oranges and lemons, while all before you stretches a green vista of garden, of vineyard, of olive grove, that ends at last in the sea. It is there you find yourself at last always, at the end of that vista, in a little stone temple-like house, with grapes before you on the cool stone table, watching the sun set over the wide and lonely lagoon, waiting for the wind from the sea. THE GIUDECCA 175 At first what you see is a study in purple and gold — the gold of the sunset, of the towers and cupolas of S. Lazzaro, of the sand of the Lidi, and the purple of the sky and of the sea ; but slowly, so slowly that you try to mark each change, the whole world seems to glow and rather to give light to the sky than to receive light from it. The gold burns into flame, the sea changes, and instead of a great purple flower you see a great opal flaming with every colour in your heart; the wind comes out of the mystery of the east, and the whole world seems to be on fire. Then over those beautiful waters come the bells, brazen tongues galloping and vibrating, from the city and the islands, and the light dies out of the sky. All you see is a study in grey and blue, touched faintly here and there by the pale gold of some half-imagined star. As you turn to find your gondola far away over the Lido you see a great bird silently flying into the night. XII THE LIDO, S. LAZZARO, S. SERVOLO, AND S. ELENA IF there be one excursion which is invariably made by all visitors to Venice, it is that to the Lido, which, however, as it is generally undertaken by steamboat and for the purpose either of bathing or of watching others bathe, is scarcely worth the trouble of the journey. Yet the Lido, as it is called, is very well worth a visit if it be rightly seen, and the way thither, if made in a gondola, is as interesting and as pleasant as another. But how many are there among the many thou- sands who visit Venice annually who know how to put this journey and visit to their proper uses ? As I see it there are but two ways of going to the Lido, and both of these should, if possible, be undertaken by the traveller. The first is by gondola, and should occupy an afternoon, the return being made at evening. During this visit the church, fort, and cemetery of S. Niccolb should be visited, and a sight obtained of the Porto di Lido. As for the bathing, after our English seas the sluggish Adriatic might seem but a poor substitute. The second way in which the Lido should be visited is an affair of the journey only. It should be undertaken at night about nine o'clock, and the best way to get the utmost out of it is to embark on one of the little steamers at the Piazzetta station and to go and return in her without landing. Nothing the traveller will see elsewhere by daylight will impress him half so much with the true character of Venice and the won- 176 T**E LIDO 177 derful night beauty of the city as this. It is one of the things the easiest to do and the best worth doing while one is in Venice, and not one in a thousand tourists ever dreams of doing it. Yet it is only on such a dim voyage as this that Venice, the real Venice, can be found, for in such an hour she seems to be risen from the dead. But whether the Lido be visited after all by daylight or dark, the best of the excursion is always the voyage, the journey, say, by gondola in the afternoon past S. Giorgio, down the beautiful crescent of the Riva lined with ships, out past the Public Gardens to the far-away strip of seashore we call the Lido. The islands one passes on the way, S. Lazzaro and S. Servolo, it is best to take on the way home ; on the way out we give ourselves wholly to the glittering, dancing joy of the great sea lane down which we pass in the shadow of the great ships, till at last we drift ashore where that lane turns south and land at the Lido. But what, after all, we may well ask ourselves, is the Lido, and why is it so called ? If it be an island, like S. Lazzaro, S. Servolo, and S. Giorgio Maggiore, why, remembering the great church which stands upon it, is it not called S. Niccolo ; and if it be not an island, what is it ? The Lido, as all the world unites to call it, is, as we shall soon see if we take the trouble to examine it in its entire length of some ten miles, certainly an island, since it is sur- rounded by water, but it differs in this from the true island of the lagoon, that it is surrounded on one side by the waters of the lagoon and on the other by the sea. It is, then, as its name tells us, the true shore of Venice, and a voyage which took in the whole of the lagoon would show us that of all the Lidi, those long and narrow sandbanks which shut in the lagoon from the sea, and between which at the various Porti the tide rushes so swiftly, it is this which is most truly Vene- tian, for in its whole length from S. Niccolo and the Porto di Lido on the north to the Forte Rocchetta and the Porto di Malamocco on the south, it completely defends Venice from the sea, and shuts her into the lagoon. Thus it is that from 178 VENICE AND VENETIA Venice there are but two ways out to sea, but two gates by which the Venetian fleet might sail to meet its enemy : the one was the Porto di Malamocco and the other the Porto di Lido. These two gates are set, as has been said, at the southern and northern extremities of the great sandbank we call the Lido, and they are now, as they always have been, the true gates of Venice, built and kept largely by the labour of man. But the Porto di Malamocco is some ten miles from the city at the end of a long and difficult channel ; it has thus always been the lesser in importance of the two. For the Porto di Lido opposite the Castello and the arsenal of the city, is so close at hand that a fishing-boat sailing out from Veneta Marina can by this gate in less than half an hour gain the open sea. Thus it is that the Porto di Lido has always been, and remains to-day, the great sea gate of Venice ; and though scarcely a tourist among the thousands who visit the Lido ever goes so far as S. Niccolo or gets a sight of the Porto, this is the chief reason for a journey thither, and for me, at least, the sole reason why I ever go there. For, to tell the bare truth, there is nothing particularly Venetian, nothing charming at all in the modern Bagni del Lido and the large and vulgar hotel and Casino, which are all most tourists ever see. The bathing, as I have said, is mediocre, and must be indulged in the company of a host of strange folk from the Germanies and I know not where else, which makes it rather curious than pleasant. A kind of barbarism I have met with nowhere else seems here to be merely the custom. The sight of overfed, fat, and disgusting figures in bathing dresses that fit like a glove can never be a pretty sight. Here all German women of the middle class of forty and upwards use such costumes. We know they have no claim to good taste, but watching them one might think they had never indulged in sea-bathing before. As for the men, only less appalling in appearance than the women, their costume consists for the most part of a pair of small drawers which would scarcely pass on the loneliest Cornish beach. Yet it is the mere barbarism of these people and their ugliness THE LIDO 179 which appals one, till the pathos of it is lost in disgust. I find bathing as delightful as most healthy people, but this mixed crowd of more than naked people of all shapes, sizes, and deformities is so pathetically indecent that one presently finds it only horrible. All this, however, serves our purpose well enough. We could not, if we would, linger over this ugliness, and since there is but little else to do but to bathe and to eat at the Lido, we are compelled in fear of boredom to set out for Forte di S. Niccolo and the Porto di Lido. That is a good way that takes one along the shore beside the sea, but if it seems too tiring there is the road be- hind the theatre. Nevertheless the way by the shore should be taken, for it is not only the more pleasant, but has memories for us of two of our countrymen, Shelley and Byron, who, as the former tells us, would often ride here together : — " I rode one evening with Count Maddalo Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow Of Adria towards Venice. A bare strand Of hillocks heaped from ever-shifting sand, Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, Is this ; an uninhabited sea-side, Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, Abandons. And no other object breaks The waste, but one dwarf tree, and some few stakes Broken and unrepaired ; and the tide makes A narrow space of level sand thereon, — Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down. This ride was my delight. I love all waste And solitary places ; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : And such was this wide ocean, and this shore More barren than its billows. And, yet more Than all, with a remembered friend I love To ride as then I rode ; — for the winds drove The living spray along the sunny air Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 180 VENICE AND VENETIA Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; And from the waves sound like delight broke forth, Harmonizing with solitude, and sent Into our hearts aerial merriment." . . . The Forte S. Niccolb, to which one presently comes along this lean shore, guards the Porto di Lido. Within it is the old Protestant cemetery, where Sir Francis Vincent, almost the last ambassador Great Britain sent to the Republic, lies buried. It is not his grave, however, that has brought us on this long pilgrimage, but the Porto di Lido itself. Here for more than eight hundred years the Doge upon Ascension Day, in the name of Venice, wedded the Adriatic. The ceremony arose in this fashion. As we have seen, before the end of the tenth century Venetian commerce had already grown to be of considerable importance, but it was always at the mercy, sea- borne as it was, of the Dalmatian pirates. This Venice suffered till the great Doge, Pietro Orseolo II, arose in 991, and began to make preparations to stop the pirate raids once and for all. He first of all got a Golden Bull from the Emperor Basil of Constantinople, which conferred extra- ordinary privileges upon the Venetian merchants in the East, and in return the Venetian fleet was to be at the service of Constantinople for the transport of troops. Having thus made treaty with the suzerain power, the Doge decided, with the approval of the people, to suppress the pirates. This was the first war Venice had ever undertaken. On Ascension Day, in the year 998, the fleet, under the command of the Doge, set sail out of Porto di Lido, took Curzola and Lagosta by assault, and was, indeed, entirely successful, the Doge return- ing with the title Duke of Dalmatia, conferred upon him by the grateful Dalmatian towns which the pirates had continually spoilt. For a hundred and eighty years thereafter it was the custom of the Doge, the Bishop, and the officers of the Republic, accompanied by the people in a great crowd, to go out by water to the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, and there to perform a great ceremony in memory of the victory. Such in its origin and beginning was the Wedding of the THE LIDO 181 Adriatic. Then in 1177, in the time of Doge Ziani, when Alexander III was Pope, Frederic Barbarossa, the Emperor, who hated him, proclaimed an antipope, banished Alexander from Italy, and threatened all who gave him shelter. The Pope came to Venice incognito, and is said to have lived as a beggar, or, as others have it, to have taken service with the religious there for some time. When he was recognized the Doge received him with every honour, and since the advan- tage of Venice seemed to jump that way, took his part against Frederic, sent envoys and orators to Pavia to remonstrate with him in the name of the Republic, and to suggest that a meet- ing betwixt Pope and Emperor should take place in Venice. The popular Venetian account is that the Emperor refused to acknowledge Alexander. Then the Doge, when he learned this, determined on war and made it, and defeated the Imperialists at the battle of Salvore, where the Emperor's son was taken prisoner. This, however, is a myth, there was no such battle ; but after a time the Emperor agreed to come to Venice, and was there received in the atrium of St. Mark's by the Pope, supported by the Doge. He knelt humbly and asked forgiveness. Yet it is said he murmured too, " Not to you do I kneel but to Peter" • but the Pope answered, "Both to me and to Peter." And Frederic said no more. Then the Venetian legend tells how the Doge escorted the Pope and Emperor so far as Ancona on the way to Rome, and there the Pope in gratitude presented to the Doge the ring, the symbol of supremacy in and over the Adriatic, which he thus con- ferred upon them. From that time forth the Doge when he went out to Porto di Lido on Ascension Day wedded the sea with this ring, for the legend tells us that this in turn the Pope required, that the Doge should wed the sea in the name of Venice as one weds a wife. Thus the ceremony which endured till Napoleon's time was begotten. The Doge and his suite in a great vessel, later called the Bucentoro^ were rowed by many banks of oars out to the Porto di Lido, followed by the whole concourse of the people. Arrived at the mouth of the Porto, the vessel was turned with its poop 182 VENICE AND YENETIA to the sea, the Bishop blessed the nuptial ring and presented it to the Doge, then he poured holy water into the sea, where the Doge forthwith cast in the ring, saying : " Mare, noi ti sposiamo in segno del nostro vero e perpetuo dominio " (" O sea, we wed thee in sign of our true and everlasting dominion"). Such was the ritual, and thus was built up in the hearts of men a tradition of sea power and sea dominion which endured for so many hundred years. As one makes one's way back along that desolate shore, thinking of Venice then and now, maybe towards sunset, we shall console ourselves only with the lines Shelley wrote, remembering this very place : — M As those who pause on some delightful way, Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood Looking upon the evening, and the flood Which lay between the city and the shore, Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar And airy Alps, towards the north, appeared Through mist — an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared Between the east and west ; and half the sky Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew Down the steep west into a wondrous hue Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent Among the many-folded hills. They were Those famous Euganean hills, which bear, As seen from Lido through the harbour piles, The likeness of a clump of peaked isles. And then, as if the earth and sea had been Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, Around the vaporous sun ; from which there came The inmost purple spirit of light, and made Their very peaks transparent." All the way back to Venice from the Lido at sunset those mountains, like " a clump of peaked isles," stand like a vision on the horizon to the south over the limitless lagoon, but it is S. LAZZARO 183 from the quiet garden of S. Lazzaro that I have most often seen them. The island of S. Lazzaro is close to the Lido landing-place, and there is set an Armenian convent which is famous by reason of the fact that Byron studied Armenian there for some months during his long stay in Venice in 1816-17. " By way of divertissement," he writes to Moore in December, 18 16, "I am studying daily, at an Armenian monastery, the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon ; and this, as the most difficult thing I could discover here for an amusement, I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a rich lan- guage, however, and would well repay anyone the trouble of learning it. I try, and shall go on ; but I answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in the monastery, as well as books ; trans- lations also from great originals now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, etc., besides works of their own people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday, when fifteen of the twenty succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an alphabet — that must be said for them." As for the convent to-day, it is one of the quietest and most delightful places in all the Venetian islands. The monks are busy, cheerful, and most courteous ; they still possess a fine library, for, seeing that the convent is under the protection of Turkey, Italy has not dared to rob them. They also have now a printing press, which in Byron's day they did not possess, if one may judge by the trouble he took to get the Armenian grammar, composed by one of the Fathers, set up and printed in England. It was his design that the faithful Murray, who sent him his tooth powder and his magnesia and published his poems, should publish this work also. This, I 184 VENICE AND VENETIA think, never came to pass. But among Lord Byron's papers there was discovered the Preface he wrote for the work. There he speaks of this convent. " The society of the Convent of S. Lazarus appears to unite," he says, "all the advantages of the monastic institu- tion without any of its vices. The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the brethren of the Order are well fitted to strike a man of the world with the conviction that ' there is another and a better ' even in this life. "The men are the priesthood of an oppressed and noble nation which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the Jews and of the Greeks, without the sullenness of the former and the servility of the latter. The people have attained riches without usury and all the honours that can be awarded to slavery without intrigue. But they have long occupied, nevertheless, a part of 'the House of Bondage ' which has lately multiplied her many mansions. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes than those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace and their vices those of compulsion. . . ." Perhaps we know more of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Armenians to-day than Byron did. At any rate, we are, I hope, less likely to be moved by their " misfortunes " ; but, however that may be, no one who finds himself in Venice should fail to visit the island monastery of S. Lazzaro. Byron, with all his eloquence and his almost daily visits to the con- vent, does not speak of what for most of us always remains, I think, the most charming memory of our visit — I mean the garden of the monks, which is planted with vines, figs, oleanders, almonds, and cypresses, and is one of the quietest and most beautiful places within reach of the city. Thence we see not far away across the lagoon the island of S. Servolo, where the Emperor Otho III stayed in hiding when he came to see the city in 998. He had heard, it seems, of the Venetian treaty with the Eastern Emperor and of the great fleet that Venice was preparing against the Dalmatian pirates that S. SERVOLO 185 was soon J to give her the sovereignty of the Adriatic, and, pondering on these things, half in mere curiosity and half with a political intention, he determined to visit Venice and the great Doge, Pietro Orseolo. One night in the moonlight a boat with eight rowers might have been seen approaching the island of S. Servolo, which at that time was occupied by a half-ruined Benedictine monastery. At the island they landed, and on knocking at the door of the monastery two of them were admitted by a man of great stature. Presently three came out where two had gone in, and, taking a smaller boat that lay in the shadow, they set out with two rowers for the city. Quite through the city they went, " wherever there was anything worthy to be seen," but no one noticed them, or if they did, guessed that the three sitting in the stern were the Emperor Otho III, the Doge Pietro Orseolo, and his secretary, Paul the Deacon, who tells the tale. The island of S. Servolo to-day is occupied by the Lunatic Asylum of Venice, built in 1725. " ■ Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.' I looked, and saw between us and the sun A building on an island ; such an one As age to age might add, for uses vile — A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile ; And on the top an open tower, where hung A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung ; We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue. The broad sun sank behind it and it tolled In strong and black relief. 'What we behold Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,' Said Maddalo, 'and even at this hour Those who may cross the water hear that bell Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell To vespers.'" Further away beyond S. Servolo towards the Public Gardens is the island of S. Elena, once lovely and occupied by a great convent, now a ruin, an island of graves where the Giustiniani and the Loredani sleep in peace. Till the year 1880, indeed, 1 86 VENICE AND VENETIA the island of S. Elena, where S. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, a British woman born at Colchester, was buried, was one of the loveliest of the Venetian islands : "A beautiful Gothic cloister where roses and jessamine poured their masses of blossom over the parapets and a large garden with exquisite views towards S. Pietro and Murano" called every traveller in Venice to this shrine. In that year, however, the cloister was delivered over to an iron foundry, and the whole place has become one with the modern vileness of the world. This same sort of thing is going en with an ever- increasing horror all over Italy, and indeed all over the world. Yet any protest against it seems to excite all the villainy latent in human nature, as though indeed, as one is often tempted to think, before destroying us the gods had made us mad. XIII THE ISLANDS OF S. MICHELE AND MURANO u TO leave Venice behind, with all its curious bustle and air of business, its rushing steamers and pushing tourists, becomes, I think, ever more and more the need of the traveller who has lingered with her perhaps too long, perhaps not long enough, for his content. But you will not leave her behind if you go to the Giudecca, and certainly you will not do so by going to the Lido ; to be free of her, to possess the true lagoon, your road lies northward towards Murano, or, better still, to far Burano and Torcello. I know of few more delicious ways of spending a summer evening" than to order your gondola about four or five o'clock, and after passing quite across Venice to come out by the Fondamenta Nuova and so to pass slowly, slowly, in the lowering sunlight across those bright and silent waters that lie between S. Michele and Venice, between S. Michele and Murano. For it is the lagoon that remains still to us. All else has suffered an immeasurable change. Venice, let us make no mistake about it, is nothing now but make-believe ; the steamers that rush and shriek up and down the Grand Canal are as bad as any motor omnibus, and they have utterly changed what was a city of silence and peace into a worse pandemonium than Naples or Rome ; and if one should be so unfashionable as to abhor all this noise, this crushing of the crowd, this rubbing of shoulders, this much ado about nothing, 187 i88 VENICE AND VENETIA there is but one thing to do, and that is to leave Venice altogether and to escape into the lagoon to discover and to wander among the islands there. Let the traveller, the un- fashionable traveller for whom I have always written, remember — and I think he is not likely to forget it — that he will not be able to see Venice, to enjoy Venice, and to escape all this horrible business by hiring a gondola and rowing about the city. In a gondola to-day he is actually more at the mercy of the crowd than in a steamboat. In the Grand Canal he will always go at the risk of his life or, at any rate, of his comfort, because the wash of these accursed steamboats is such that when one comes by — and one is always coming by, and often two — he will be thrown and hurled about till he is bruised and half sick, and the stench cast up by the churned waters will presently make him heartily sorry he ever set out. Nor will he escape the general beastliness by taking to the side canals; as he passes under the little bridges it will be a miracle if he be not spat upon, and every time he lands to see a church a crowd of wastrels will assault him and demand money not for any reason or service, for they are incapable of either, but because he is a " tourist " and they are " the people." After trying every way and every cunning and expedient, after being battered for weeks by " the people," spat upon, cursed, swamped in the Grand Canal and all but capsized in the Canal della Giudecca, after struggling for my tea every evening for a month in the Piazza, after being awakened every morning at five by the hooters of the factories and the sirens of the steamers, and dazed all day with the all but universal German tongue, I escaped, I escaped to Murano. There at least was the wreck of an old peace, there at least I found a memory of quietness, a shred of decency and politeness, a shadow, some- thing I thought above rubies, of an ancient dignity in human nature, and, above all perhaps, I no longer heard the Piazza di S. Marco referred to on all sides as the " Marcus Platz." I do not claim — far from it — that Murano is perfect ; it only seemed to me something to be thankful for, as even a Liberal Government does after the appalling brutality and ignorance S. MICHELE 189 revealed by a General Election. As a fact, I soon left Murano, for I found something far better, worth, indeed, its weight in gold ; but the ordinary traveller, even though he be unfashion- able, has come to see Venice, which he cannot do from my refuge. To see Venice he must live in Venice ; but Murano and the way thither offers him a delightful rest from his labour and a real consolation, I think, in the midst of his disillusion. C For once out beyond the Fondamenta Nuova all is peace. The steamers are few and very far between and their route is not yours. In your gondola you are free, you may go where you will if the tide be not very low, and the whole of that wide and beautiful world is yours. And how wide it is ! In the foreground and very near, it is true, lies the island of S. Michele, the cemetery island, to which you may see, perhaps, a gondola with a black flag, a priest in the stern, and a flower- covered burden in the bows making its way ; and beyond, but still not very far off, lies Murano with its two beautiful Cam- panili. But to the east there is so wide an expanse of still water, out of which here and there emerge shadowy Campanili or the faintest mirage of a church or a town, that it seems — as indeed it is — a quiet world of dreams. At first all the west is blocked by the great bridge by which the railroad reaches Venice, but presently as you pass further on your way this sinks into its proper insignificance and the world stretches away under the gold of the sun to those blue, far-off, islanded hills that are the Euganean. Here and there in the soft summer sky a great white cloud loiters on its way, and these, like the lovely scene over which they cast so deep a shadow, are eternal things. A flutter of smoke, maybe, hovers over the chimneys of the glass factories at Murano, but even that is very old and has appeared in this landscape for very many centuries. You will meet here no strangers ; you may forget what fools call progress and criminals "progressive politics" and "social movements," for the one is made of noise and lies, and here is quietness and honesty, and the other is all of discontent and hatred, and here is happiness and charity, i For where will you find more love than in the heart of Death, who 190 VENICE AND VENETIA notes all these poor people in Venice and, however noisy and noxious and wicked they be, gives them all quietness at last and establishes them according to their hearts' desire, making them landowners of six foot or so in this island of S. Michele, which, small though it be, has yet room in it for all Venice ? What satisfaction there is in that ! The island of S. Michele, until the year 1810, had been for some six hundred years in the occupation of the Order of the Camaldolesi. In those days the present S. Michele consisted of two islands, S. Michele and S. Cristoforo della Pace ; but in 1 8 10 the canal which divided them was filled up and the whole became a cemetery, the convent of the Camaldolesi passing to the Friars Minor Riformati. The Church of S. Cristoforo, a fine work by Pietro Lombardo, was destroyed, and the precious works of art which it contained either perished with it or were carried and sold out of Italy. Among those destroyed were an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini and another by Francesco Guardi ; but a beautiful Madonna and Child by Alvise Vivarini and a triptych by some followers of Basaiti are now in Berlin. The only work once in S. Cristoforo that still remains in Italy is, I think, the Madonna with Saints, a work by Basaiti, now in S. Pietro Martire at Murano. Then in 1872 a new cemetery embracing the old was built on the island, and is reached from the beautiful fifteenth- century church of S. Michele, where the Cappella Emiliana is the work of Guglielmo Bergamesco. Here are some fine reliefs in the manner of Sansovino. The church was once full of fine paintings. Here of old was the Santa Margherita of Giulio Romano, now in Vienna, a triptych and a Resur- rection by Giovanni Bellini, and a work by Cima. All three are now in the Berlin Gallery. From the church we pass into the beautiful cloister of the Camaldolesi, where Gregory XVI, who was a monk here, must often have walked. It was rebuilt in 1469, and is a work of the Lombardi. But S. Michele will not keep us long, for the true goal of MURANO 191 our journey is Murano, if indeed we have a goal, if the beauty s^ and silence of the way be not in themselves worth all the rest beside. ' In the days of the greatness and splendour of Venice Murano was one of the most famous and one of the most beautiful islands in the lagoon. " In the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries," the Abate Vincenzo Zanelli tells us, " Murano had thirty thousand inhabitants, while to-day it boasts but five thousand." It was chiefly given over to the manufacture of that famous Venetian glass, a craft which in our own time has once more been revived. But it was also full of vineyards and olive gardens, and supported a happy as well as an industrious population. And in those days there were gardens there, on that red and green island, gardens as famous as their owners — Andrea Navagero, Bembo, Aretino, Aldo. Where are they gone, what has become of the luxurious convents where Ancilla Soranzo walked in her laces, where Cipriana Morosini smiled, and Beatrice Falier, Eugenia Muschiera, and Zanetta Balbi listened to the secret love of many a licentious patrician, while the waters lapped the walls of the gardens where they wandered and the wind passed like a ghost through the olives ? They are all gone, their beautiful names are forgotten. Murano knows them no more. To-day all her old life is gone out. Only the flame of her furnaces roars as of old, and the blowing-irons are still busy, and her sons still shape harmonious vases in the shadow and glow of the workshops. Murano is still the island of glass. You may see them there beside the furnace, the men of Murano, the heirs of the great craftsmen, handling their tools even to-day with something of the old mastery. At the end of the blowing-irons, inspired by their breath, the molten glass swells, twists, becomes silvery in a little cloud, shines like a moon, crackles, divides into a thousand fine glittering frag- ments, finer than the webs of the finest dew sprinkled at dawn . The apprentices still place the pear-shaped mass of burning waste in the spot appointed by the master, and the mass at his will still lengthens out, twists, and transforms itself into some i 9 2 VENICE AND VENETIA lovely and useful shape — a perfect vase, or a handle or rim, a spout or a foot or a fragile stem — till you wonder to see it, for in that craft there is no gesture that is not noble, mys- terious, delicate, and full of mastery. It is an old art that the machine has not yet spoiled, that still lies in the hands of man. And its home is this melancholy, half-forgotten island, where the green opalescent water floats over the long weeds in the broad waterways in the midst of the lagoon ■ f ^\ i where the landscape stretches far away, in long lines of silence. f^-Jk \°* ^— """There is little strictly to be seen in Murano. One wanders j*> about the half-deserted streets in a town that is shrunken into itself, that is evidently very old, but with only a few marks here and there of the nobility of age — in the Church of S. Pietro Martire, in the gaunt Duomo of S. Donate Only everywhere the silence and loneliness of the lagoon seem to be at home there; the space of those wide horizons, the dome of that clear sky, like a clear globe of glass, surround it with an immense quietness that nothing would seem able to break. In S. Pietro Martire, a large and simple basilica built in 1507, is a large altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna and Child enthroned under a canopy about which twelve seraphim are floating and beside which two angels make music. Before Madonna the Doge Barbarigo II kneels in his robes of state, introduced by S. Andrea, while on the other side S. Augustine stands holding his book and his crosier • and far away through the gardens and over the hills stretches a delicious landscape in which a little city appears. Here, too, is a fine picture of the Madonna in glory with eight saints, by Marco Basaiti. Madonna is standing on a little cloud that has brought her from Heaven close to the earth, and the eight saints stand in a half-circle beneath her, and all about her, hiding at her feet or in the rosy clouds, are cherubim, and the whole scene is set in a delicious landscape, the hills crowned by towers strangely like those of Castelfranco. Close by is a Madonna and Child enthroned with five saints by the MURANO 193 pseudo-Boccaccino, and not far away a fine picture of S.Jerome in the desert from the hand of Paolo Veronese. But interesting and charming in its quietness though S. Pietro may be, it will not keep us long from S. Donato — SS. Maria e Donato as I think it should rightly be called. This church is of very ancient origin. According to the legend — and why should we doubt it ? — the church was founded by Otho the Great, to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared, bidding him build her a church in this three-cornered meadow, scattered then with scarlet lilies. That a church existed here in the tenth century we cannot doubt, for its incumbent — the incumbent of the Basilica di Santa Maria Plebania di Murano — took an oath of obedience to the Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaged to give the said Bishop his dinner on the Domenica in Albis, the Sunday, that is, next after Easter Day, when the Bishop was used to hold a confirmation in this the " mother church," as it was called, of Murano. So much is history. Thus the church was first S. Maria di Murano; but in 1125 the Doge Domenico Michiel brought hither from Cephalonia the body of S. Donato and the bones of the dragon he had slain, and rebuilt the church, which was thenceforth known as SS. Maria e Donato. The greater part of the church remains of the twelfth century, and in its beauty and antiquity, apart from S. Mark's itself, is not to be rivalled even in Venice. Ruskin, not always to be followed implicitly, but always a rigid upholder of such facts as he possessed, tells us that he believes the mosaic floor of S. Donato, which is dated n 40, to be the latest thing in it. " I believe," he says, " that no part of the ancient church can be shown to be of more recent date than this ; and I shall not occupy the reader's time by any inquiry respecting the epochs or the authors of the destructive modern restorations; the wreck of the old fabric, breaking out beneath them here and there, is generally dis- tinguishable from them at a glance; and it is enough for the reader to know that none of these truly ancient fragments can be assigned to a more recent date than 1140, and that o 194 VENICE AND VENETIA some of them may with probability be looked upon as remains of the shell of the first church erected in the course of the latter half of the tenth century." The church is a large basilica of yellow brick, and both from within and from without its most remarkable feature is its semicircular apse. Without, it consists of two beautiful arcaded stories, the upper balustrated, intersected by a double band of coloured marbles sculptured with exquisite delicacy. Of these bands Ruskin says : " The feature which is most to be noted in this apse is a band of ornament which runs round it like a silver girdle, composed of sharp wedges of marble preciously inlaid and set like jewels in the brickwork ; above it there is another band of triangular recesses in the bricks of nearly similar shape, and it seems equally strange that all the marbles should have fallen from it or that it should have been originally destitute of them. . . . The lower band is fortunately left in its original state, as is sufficiently proved by the curious niceties in the arrangement of its colours, which are assuredly to be attributed to the care of the first builder." He adds that "the subtlety and perfection of artistic feeling in all this are so redundant, that in the building itself the eye can rest upon this coloured chain with the same kind of delight that it has in a piece of the embroidery of Paul Veronese." There can be little doubt that this apse is, apart from the balustrade, part of the original earliest church. Within, the church is vastly disappointing. It is obvious at once that it has suffered from innumerable restorations at all sorts of different times, and that as an architectural monu- ment with any sort of unity it has long since ceased to exist. It has, however, several beautiful and many interesting details. The pavement, irregular as the surface of the sea itself, is still left almost entire, though grievously defaced. It is of very great interest, and dates, as has been said, from 1140. But it is obvious that what was once a complete and perfect work of art, richer than any Eastern carpet, has been broken up in too many places, and at too many different periods, for us to MURANO 195 be able to get more than a vision of what it once was from what remains. It might seem that whenever a new chapel was to be built or a new altar erected the pavement there was ruth- lessly destroyed, for men will never understand that in art especially all " progress " is not only impossible of achieve- ment, but impossible of conception. A work of art is complete and perfect, finished from the beginning, or it does not exist. If one tries to better it, the result is spoliation, for in " better- ing" it one has either made a new thing or one has done nothing. It is only in the futile and mortal things of life that there can be progress, and it is perhaps that which gives us so profound a disgust, so scornful a contempt of them. There is no progress in the soul of man. There is only revelation of what was there from the beginning. There is no progress in nature. What we see to-day our fathers saw, or might have seen. But we are enthralled by the clap-trap of fools, and " progress " is now their favourite self-deception. So it is here, as we see, in the wreck of what was once a very beautiful building of the tenth century. The men of the twelfth century, in the pride of their ignorance, thought they could better it, and they set about this hopeless task instead of devoting themselves to a creation of their own. Then came in the Renaissance, with all the confidence of a nouveau riche^ and decorated the arches with much self-approval, precisely as some vulgarian of to-day redecorates an old Tudor house that we in our folly have allowed him to buy and he in his thinks he can make his own. Though he were as rich as all the children of his house of Israel he can do nothing there, where he will remain an alien, if he remain at all, til' Doomsday. In just the same way, and indeed with no less vulgarity either, the Renaissance appears here as alien as the Jew in Hampshire or Kent. We smile at this upholstery, and, though in so doing we doubtless forget our own, we do right. The stucco roses in squares under the soffits, the egg and arrow mouldings in the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty green and black, with pink-faced cherubs on every key- stone — what are they but ridiculous, ridiculous and a shame ? ^ 196 VENICE AND VENETIA Yet, as many a church up and down Italy can bear witness, as many a church in Venice will assure us, I hope, always, when it began to create anew the Renaissance could achieve things as marvellous as the work of the Middle Age. It is with joy, then, we discover at last that the fussy and vulgar work of the Renaissance here in S . Donato has not overwhelmed quite all its original beauty and delight. In the shadow of the apse, on a dim field of gold, slowly, gradually, we discern a marvellous figure, the Blessed Virgin, who, with uplifted, delicate hands, blesses us from very long ago. Her robe is deep blue fringed with gold ; for as Sansovino tells us, and Ruskin reminds us, "The women, even as far back as 1 1 00, wore dresses of blue with mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and behind." Round the semi-dome runs a finely coloured mosaic border; and there in great letters all may read — "Quos Eva contrivit, pia Virgo Maria redemit; Hanc cuncti laudent, qui Christi munere gaudent." (Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed ; all praise Her who rejoice in the Grace of Christ.) Thus is the church signed as Her own. As for our S. Donato, there is an old wooden tablet carved into a rude effigy of him in the lower part of the tribune. That exquisitely lovely mosaic is the last thing of much in- terest in the church : the frescoes beneath it are of the fifteenth century and uninteresting ; but in the left aisle there is a fine altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with saints and angels by Lorenzo Bastiani ; yet I, for one, though there were nothing else in Murano and it were a desert, would be glad to visit it so that I might gaze upon that mosaic of the twelfth century, might look into that sad face and feel the benediction of those uplifted hands. And in truth there is little else to see. J Murano, once, we hear, "a terrestrial paradise — a place of nymphs and demigods," is now, in fact, nothing more than a rather dreary MURANO 197 little island full of glass-makers. The decline and fall of the Venetian Republic, the decay of Venice herself, has been felt more in these outlying places than in the city ; only they have largely escaped her vulgarisation and are still the poor dwelling-places of the poor who in a certain quietness and sincerity live here as best they may. And I think they are fortunate and happy. The revival of the glass-making has assured them of food and clothing; and if they would be content and refrain from the more glaring absurdities of that Socialistic anarchy which threatens all of us so wilfully, I think there are even many everywhere who might well envy them. For their industry is not a newfangled business thrust upon them by the pity of the charitable : it is in their bones — they are in accord with their ancestors. An Englishman, James Howell, writes thus of Murano in a letter dated from Venice 30 May, 162 1 : "I was, since I came hither, in Murano, a little Island about the distance of Lam- beth from London, where Crystal-Glass is made ; and 'tis a rare sight to see a whole Street, where on the one side there are twenty Furnaces together at work. They say here that altho' one should transplant a Glass-Founder from Murano to Venice herself, or to any of the little Assembly of Islands about her, or to any other part of the Earth besides and use the same Materials, the same Workmen, the same Fuel, the self same Ingredients every way, yet they cannot make Crystal- Glass in that perfection, for beauty and lustre, as in Murano : Some impute it to the quality of the circumambient Air that hangs o'er the Place which is purify'd and attenuated by the concurrence of so many Fires that are in those Furnaces Night and Day perpetually, for they are like Vestal-fire which never goes out. And it is well known, that some Airs make more gratifying Impressions than others. . . ." That letter was written about sixteen years after Girolamo Magnati di Murano had discovered how to colour glass and yet to keep its lustre and transparency. But it is the true art of the Murano workmen to which Howell refers in another letter of the same year. ig8 VENICE AND VENETIA "The art of Glass-making," he tells his brother, "is here highly valued ; for whosoever be of that Profession are Gentle- men ipso facto. . . . When I saw so many sorts of curious Glasses made here I thought upon the Compliment which a Gentleman put upon a Lady in England, who having five or six unruly Daughters, said He never saw in his life such a dainty cupboard of Crystal Glasses. The Compliment pro- ceeds, it seems, from a Saying they have here, That the first handsome Woman that ever was made, was made of Venice Glass which implies Beauty, but Brittalness withal, and Venice is not unfurnish'd with some of that Mould, for no place abounds more with Lasses and Glasses . . . But when I pry'd into the Materials and observ'd the Furnaces and Calcinations, the Transubstantiations, the Liquefactions that are incident to this Art, my thoughts were raised to a higher Speculation ; that if this small Furnace-fire hath virtue to convert such a small lump of dark Dust and Sand into such a precious clear Body as Crystal, surely that Grand Universal Fire which shall happen at the Day of Judgment may by its violent ardour vitrify and turn to one lump of Crystal the whole Body of the Earth ; nor am I the first that fell upon this Conceit." XIV THE ISLANDS OF BURANO, TOR- CELLO, AND S. FRANCESCO DEL DESERTO THE journey to Murano is very easily made even by gondola between the cool of the day and sunset, but that to Burano, Torcello, and S. Francesco del Deserto is somewhat more formidable. This group of islands, the most beautiful and the most interesting in the whole length of lagoons, lies some seven miles or so to the north-east of Venice. It is true that Burano and Torcello are easily reached by steamer — indeed, a boat leaves the Riva every day about two o'clock and returns before dusk ; but though this may be good enough for the mere tourist, it leaves one but little time to see either of the two larger islands and none at all to visit S. Francesco. Most people will, however, refuse to spend a night in Burano, and in that case the only satisfactory way is, I suppose, to take the steamer, though even in such circumstances I should prefer to leave Venice in a gondola, with two rowers, about eight o'clock or earlier, to spend the day among the islands and to row back with songs at twilight. For myself, however, I confess neither of these plans had any appeal. I first saw Torcello from Murano, going by barge and sailing thither, and having once set eyes upon it, my whole thought was to return thither as soon as possible and to remain there — how often one determines on this ! — for ever. I was sick of Venice, that was 199 200 VENICE AND VENETIA the truth — sick of her noise and her tourists and her modern bustle, the fight with the steamers on the Grand Canal, the struggle every morning to get by the touts of the shopkeepers in the Piazza — sick of the sirens of the factories and the guns of the Italian fleet, "L' armata d' Italia Bella e Terribile," as the Mayor of Venice called it in his proclamation which was placarded all over the city — sick most of all of my own disappointment. It was not that I did not feel the beauty and charm of the place, but that I was too much crowded upon by alien things to enjoy it. Murano was, I soon discovered, but a very poor refuge. I knew I could not hold out there for long, and I was thinking already of Castelfranco or Burano when one summer morning, by chance, I went aboard that great barge and we sailed out to Torcello shabbily with a cargo of red pots. And when I had seen it I knew that I had found a true refuge at last. But it is not thus the traveller will, as a rule, come to Torcello. He will leave Venice either by steamer or by gondola and will come first to Burano, where, if he come by steamer, he will have half an hour to spend, and then will go on to Torcello, whence after another half-hour he will set out again for Venice. Such a traveller will have just this much in common with us, that he will go, if the tide serve by much the same road. And that road is a marvel. To begin with, one proceeds much as though going to Murano, but when that red and green island is left behind, the whole loneliness of the lagoon closes upon one, the silence and the glitter and the sunshine over the far-stretching waters make a world of their own which takes you, for all your modernity, completely to itself, till you are confounded with its quietness. It is a world of great and insecure distances, of mirage, of fantastic mists and soft com- pelling winds, and there are scattered strange and shapeless islands covered with golden grass that whispers in the wind just above the blue and opalescent waters, that lap upon the low shores, where there is no life but the life of birds and a human voice is seldom heard. This is the world of the BURANO 201 lagoon, and it seems to stretch away for ever and to form, as in fact it does, a strange universe of its own. Sometimes, far away across the golden marsh, you will descry a sail red and flashing in the sun as it passes down an invisible road to or from Burano or Mestre to the sea ; but such a sail you will seldom or never speak : it will always remain a mystery to you, its road unknown, its business inconceivable. For a road in such a place as this seems the last thing you might look for ; and yet, as you soon discover, without a road, and that well defined, even in a barge you would certainly run ashore. Every- where there are vast beacons standing high above the flood, and between them great piles bound with iron and often bearing the image or the shrine of a saint, the Blessed Virgin, S. Mark, S. Clement, or S. Peter, to keep you amid all the turnings and windings of the way, turnings that seem purpose- less, windings that seem to be part of a game for children, in the deep channel and in safety. To the experienced eye the road is plainly set by day and lighted too by night, if only by the little lamps of the shrines that are set above these lonely waters, and the barge, much more the pushful and noisy steamer, must keep to that road or go aground. It is only the light, adventurous gondola, so individual beside the collectivism of the steamer, that can to a large extent neglect the deep channel and take to the shallows where the grasses float and shine beneath the waters and the fish dart to and fro in the shadow of your boat and often truly between your fingers. And here it is that the gondolier attains to his full height, notation, and majesty. He towers upon the poop like a true lord or captain and becomes, in fact, the most notable landmark anywhere there; visible for miles across the golden marshes, piloting his black argosy to the islands of the blest. It seems to me, as I look back upon them, that the hours spent thus amid the marshes and the islands upon the lagoon were by very much the most beautiful and the most precious of all those I passed in the Veneto. I found all I hoped for and much more than I deserved : songs that are hard to sing, but 202 VENICE AND VENETIA beautiful to hear, old words, old airs, old lullabys, a clear sky, a soft wind, and over all the sun shining in his splendour, without which all else is naught. So it was I came to the island of Burano, to the island of Baldassare Galuppi, one summer morning a little after dawn, where the men are fishermen and the women thread the delicate lace more precious than diamonds and pearls. You may see some fine antique lace for the altar in the church, the work of long ago and of an incredible beauty and loveliness ; but of all the Venetian arts, thanks to a great and noble lady, this is the least forgotten, so that you may see to-day in Burano in the little hands of some dark Buranetta as fine and fair lace in the making as ever was contrived of old, and this is the chief sight in Burano. Let us rejoice at it. Venice, or rather the island of Burano, has been famous for its " point " lace since the sixteenth century, and we may perhaps fix the date of its origin by the sumptuary laws of the Republic in the fifteenth century, when Venice came at last to be a city of infinite luxury and wealth. In 1474 the Provveditori had proscribed certain jewels, and in 15 14 the Republic regulated the toilettes of private individuals as jealously as it had already done that of the Dogaressa ; even the dresses of the courtesans were subject to law. It seems to have been at this period that lace came into fashion and grew in favour, till in the seventeeth century the Venetian " point " was invented. The character of this " punto di Venezia" consists, it seems, in ornaments worked in high relief, modelled with art, and disposed in petals superimposed by fantastic flowers of thread, rich, and marvellously worked and very delicate. All is done with the needle. But long before the invention of the "point," Venice was famous for its lace. In 1483 lace was sent from Venice to England for the Coronation of Richard III, and in the first year of the six- teenth century so universal was the interest taken in the craft that several books were published upon it : such as " Esemplario dilavori "(1529), "Opera nova" (1530), "Gli universal]' dei bei ricami" (1537), and in 1578 we have record of special orders BURANO 203 sent to Venice by Bianca Capello against her marriage with Grand Duke Francesco of Tuscany. The lace-makers of Venice had always been, since the fif- teenth century, under the protection of the Dogaressa ; thus Dandola, the wife of Doge Pasquale Malipiero, had protected the industry, as did later Morosina Morosini, wife of Doge Marino Grimani. It was at this period in the beginning of the seventeenth century that the craft was established at Burano. At that period the house of Ranieri and Gabrieli employed some six hundred persons in the making of lace. But in the decadence of the Republic the craft too decayed, and in 1845 it was only in the island of Burano that any lace was made at all. Twenty-seven years later, in 1872, it was here that, thanks to the noble work of the Contessa Adriana Marcello and the Principessa Maria Chigi-Giovanelli, the industry was revived. It happened in this way. The winter of 1872 was cold and stormy, the lagoons were icebound, and the unfortunate inhabitants of Burano, who for the most part are fishermen, were on the verge of starvation. The Pope and the King of Italy — it was their first effort in common — set the example of subscribing to the fund then raised for the islanders. By means of concerts and benefit performances at the theatres throughout Italy a large sum of money was raised — more, in fact, than was actually necessary to supply present needs. With the surplus Signor Paolo Fambri, who had organized the national subscription, conceived the idea of reviving the ancient industry for which Burano had been so famous. His plan was enthusiastically taken up by the Con- tessa Adriana Marcello and the Principessa Maria Chigi-Gio- vanelli, who founded the first school of lace-making at Burano, to which later Queen Margherita, then Princess of Piedmont, gave her patronage. The Contessa Adriana Marcello especially devoted herself to the revival in Burano, for her husband, the Conte Alessandro Marcello, had already in the sixties attempted this very thing. The chief difficulty then, one of money, was removed, but there remained another, the ques- tion of the tradition. Did it exist any longer? Did any 20 4 VENICE AND VENETIA living person, in fact, know how to make Burano point lace ? After considerable search an old septuagenarian woman, Cencia Scarpariola, was found who still possessed the secret and the tradition of the old punto di Burano. Cencia, how- ever, though she knew how to make the lace, was quite incapable of teaching her craft. The Signora Anna Bellorio d' Este, mistress of the Burano school, gave herself up to the task of watching Cencia at work, and when she had thus learned the art she began to teach eight pupils. The school thus founded has never looked back. Whereas in 1880 it was able to earn some 34,327 lire, in 1906 it earned 154,802, and since 1904 it has established a dependent school at Chioggia, the two schools together employing some eight hundred makers. These girls are divided into seven classes, one of which is entirely composed of married women. A director, a mistress, and certain under-mistresses are responsible for the school, for the maintenance of discipline, and for the teaching of the craft, while three nuns occupy themselves with the education of the girls. All this and much more the visitor will learn at the school, where he may also pass through the workrooms and see the girls at work. It was my good fortune to be led through this most excellent institution by a nun who had, I think, the most beautiful face I have ever seen. And yet it was not really its beauty that struck me most, but its serenity and a sort of light behind it which transfigured it and gave me a memory of the stars. Such people are the salt of the earth, but they are so rare that the world nowadays is in danger of losing its savour. When I looked at her and thought of her useful life, her humble endeavour, and pure, clean soul, and remembered the mob of women I had seen not long before at Westminster I began to be afraid. We need that face in England ; it is too rare there. We have our type beyond compare, it bears a child in its arms; but the pure and splendid woman that is denied motherhood we almost lack. When I saw her thus armed at all points, humble and serene, but very eager, I thought of Florence Nightingale ; but she, I suppose, is out- TORCELLO 205 moded to-day ; our young women would rather break a head than mend one. It is but ten minutes in a gondola, even in what passes here for one it is little more, from Burano to the island of Torcello, and yet what a whole world of difference between the two islands ! Burano to-day is a place of some happiness, it is full of people, the children fill the streets, the women sing as they work at their lace in the deep old doorways. Even in the quietest piazzas there is always a hum of women's voices as they sit at their delicate and beautiful work. And the people are gay too, and yet quiet, as though something had indeed passed into their lives from those white, intricate threads they turn so deftly and so softly into roses. In Torcello I sometimes think there is only silence, a silence only made more audible by the wind among the ruins or the cicale among the vines, and yet there I have spent happier days than anywhere else in all the Veneto. It is there, as nowhere else in this wide country of fen and plain, that I have realized that I am really in Italy. How hard that often is in Venice ! — which, I swear, any stranger dropped there suddenly from an airship might well take for German if he were to judge by the language he would hear. But in Tor- cello there is only silence, only silence and freedom, and a whole garden of vines, and a couple of old churches, and a crazy tall tower. Yet in that garden I have passed many a day of happiness, in that old church I have heard Mass with the children, on the tall and crazy tower I have waited for dawn, I have wished for evening. Is it not in such doings, in such remembrances as these, that all true happiness abides ? Here in Torcello, at any rate, it is secure, abandoned on this ruined island, while in Venice you will too often search for it in vain. It is true that there is next to nothing to see in Torcello — an old and broken church, a ruin and a crazy tower; but then what more can you need ? And if you need more are there not the waterways that sing and sob night and day, calling you, calling you to come and discover a ruined king- 2o6 VENICE AND VENETIA dom, a desert island, and a whole world of forgotten things that the marsh guards and keeps from the destroying hands of men? Yet though Torcello is so silent, and though it has, in fact, nothing to show you, if you stay long enough in the evening shadow when the tourists are all gone back to Venice on their steamer, when the children have finished their evening play, when the mothers are all busy with gossip and the goodmen are half asleep in their doorways, Torcello will tell you her story, and you will understand why the water is always calling you to come away, why there is so much silence, why the tower is so crazy, and one church broken and the other a ruin. For Torcello was built in haste, in the midst of flight, founded upon fear. When the tall towers of Altinum were burned by Attila, when the city went up in flame, and no man thought of standing any more, but all men were in full flight for the marsh and the sea, they came to this island and hastily built what they could, and in memory of their towered home called the place Torcello, and from Torcello is Venice sprung. You may see it all from that crazy tower, where the door swings on its hinges in the evening wind, and no man passes by — Altinum, Torcello, Venice, they all lie at your feet. Those who came so long ago and built the place had known what it was to be utterly dispossessed, to be beaten, to be beggared, to be dishonoured, and by barbarians. At last they had wondered where they should look for a hiding-place. And when by a sort of miracle they came to Torcello they rested and built in haste — always in haste — badly and with what material they could bring from their ruins, a church and a tower that should serve them and remind them a little of their home. Such, doubtless, is the origin of S. Fosca and the Cathedral of S. Maria founded in the seventh cen- tury, such, doubtless, was the beginning of that crazy tower. Then, later, a remnant, a little reassured, repaired, but still hastily, the Church of St. Mary, and repaired for it the Church of S. Fosca as Baptistery, which still lies in ruins beside it. » » • » »\ » > ) ■> > » > » J o- 1 ' »-v:%n ',' • » : • ; ,' * »; ; •- TORCELLO S. FRANCESCO 207 But why then did these poor folk, in such haste too, build two churches ? The legend answers us that when they were all come to Torcello, Our Lady and S. Fosca themselves revealed to the monk Mauro not only that these churches should be built, but where they should stand. S. Fosca is small, almost unique, and very lovely even in ruin. As for the Cathedral of S. Mary, it is a basilica in the early style, supported by columns, and contains still a few remnants of an old glory. For on the western wall are six rows of twelfth century mosaics, and over the episcopal throne in the apse a beautiful Byzantine mosaic of the Blessed Virgin, while in the apse at the end of the right aisle are others of Christ and His Apostles and the Annun- ciation. All these things have been restored, but I think the reliefs on the ambones are untouched. Such things as these are the ghosts of Torcello, they haunt us everywhere, and it is the same in the two tiny and pathetic museums. We have not come for these. We have come for Torcello herself, for the garden of vines and the wind in the rushes, the silence and the voices of the waterways. These alone would make Torcello worth any pilgrimage ; yet I have loved too the old churches and the crazy tower which were friends of mine and are full of peace. I should certainly have found Torcello the most satisfying place in all the lagoon if I had not almost by chance found out S. Francesco del Deserto. I came upon it one morning when I had been to Burano to buy some necessary or other, and coming back in the very ancient flat-bottomed dinghy that I used to explore the islands I spied out this low, long bank with its little white convent and dark cypresses — indeed, it was the cypresses that took my fancy. I found that I had come upon a sanctuary of S. Francis. Here it seems on this once quite desolate island he spent a time of recollection when he came to Venice. It is said by the friars, of whom about thirty remain, that he here repeated too the dear episode of Bevagna and preached to the Venetian birds as he did to those of Umbria. However this may be, S. Fran- 208 VENICE AND VENETIA cesco del Deserto has a miracle of its own, for you are shown a tree there which is nothing else but the staff of the Saint which he thrust into the ground, when it took root and grew as you may see. In the convent the cell of S. Francis is shown, and you may spend many a pleasant afternoon in the two cloisters, one of which has a fine arcade and a well. However, it is almost impossible for one to sleep on the island, and so one's visits there come to be always a matter of going and returning. One can, however, imagine no more delicious spot in which, should you be a friar and love solitude, to spend the last superb autumn of your life. " O solitudo Beato, O Beato solitudo." XV TO CHIOGGIA IF the journey to Burano and Torcello gives one the best chance of seeing the lagoon and the great marshy islands that together form so characteristic a part of the Veneto and so sure a defence of Venice against any enemy from the main- land, the journey to Chioggia allows one to examine the great lidi and sandbanks that protect the city and the lagoon from the sea and to observe two of the three ports which give access through these sandbanks to Venice herself. The first of the three ports, the Porto di Lido, we have already visited; on the way to Chioggia we shall pass the remaining two, namely, Porto di Malamocco and Porto di Chioggia. We shall also on this journey have the opportunity of examining the murazzi, or artificial fortifications, which the Venetians have built from time to time against the rage of the Adriatic, and we shall be able to examine more than one little fishing village along that lean shore, which in the winter, as seen from Venice, appears lost in a mist of foam and the thunder of the great waters. But if we are to achieve all this, we shall need more time than the daily steamer service properly allows. And, in fact, no one who can spare the necessary time should go by steamer at all. Let such an one give two days to this excursion. Let him take a gondola and two men. Let him start early in the morning and rejoice in the sunrise : he will be repaid fourfold. On the first day he will visit Pelestrina and Chioggia, on the second, returning, Alberoni and Malamocco. This I suppose p *°9 210 VENICE AND VENETIA to be a counsel of perfection, there will doubtless be but few who will free themselves from the steamboat. But however one goes, whether by steamer or by gondola, whether in two days or in one, the way is much the same. You start out past S. Servolo and enter there the great road for Malamocco, a broad avenue of pali marking the deep water. The first island you pass on the right will be La Grazia, the second S. Clemente, after which to the left comes the island of S. Spirito, and then again on the right the island of Poveglia, not far from the little town of Malamocco on the Lido. The little island of La Grazia was, like so many of the islands of the lagoon, inhabited from very early times by religious. The ruins that bear witness to their sojourn here are, however, very few and scanty : there only remains an ancient hospice of pilgrims, a cloister of hermits whose successors were the monks of the Congregation of S. Girolamo da Fiesole. But about 1439 some fugitives brought hither from besieged Constanti- nople an image of the Blessed Virgin that was said to be the work of S. Paul, and the island, which had till then been known as S. Maria della Cavana, was renamed by the people S. Maria della Grazia. The Gerolamini were, however, sup- pressed in 1668 and the Republic entered into their inheritance. Not for long, however, for within a year a certain Bianca Spinelli, who was betrothed to Lodovico Contenti, on the eve of her marriage persuaded her lover to release her from her vows in order that she might offer herself to God as a nun under the Rule of St. Francis. This she did with certain of her friends, and they were allowed to take up their abode in the cloister of the Grazia. In 18 10, however, the cloister and the church of the Grazia were ruined, and a little later there was built in their place a polveriera^ a powder magazine, which was blown up in the siege of 1849. Thus was the house of S. Francis turned into a storage for war. But S. Francis has come to his own after all, for to-day the island of La Grazia is a hospital for consumptives. 1 1 See Molmenti e Mantovani, " Le Isole della Laguna Veneta " (Bergamo, 1910). TO CHIOGGIA 211 We have already spoken of the island of S. Clemente. The next island is passed on the left ; it is that of S. Spirito. It too was the home of monks : at first of Augustinians, then in 1409 for a few years of the Cistercians, but in 1429 it came back to the Augustinians and produced that Andrea Bon- dumiero who was first Patriarch of Venice. He did not forget his old home. He began to build, and presently Jacopo Sansovino erected there a very noble church ; Palma Vecchio and Titian painted pictures for it. But in 1656 the monks were suppressed and their treasures taken to Venice and placed in the church of S. Maria della Salute. 1 The island remained ruined and desolate till 1672, when the Senate gave it to those Friars Minor who had fled to Venice from Crete and the cruelty of the Turk. All went well then with Santo Spirito till the universal robber, Napoleon, appeared and in 1806 expelled the friars and filled their old convent with marines. Since then it has, like La Grazia, become a powder magazine. To the left of S. Spirito, under the Lido, stands the little island of Lazzaretto Vecchio. This island was of old the site of a church dedicated to S. Maria di Nazaret and of a hospice for pilgrims to the Holy Land. Later it was converted by the Republic into a hospital for the plague-stricken : this in the thirteenth century, and was probably the first public hospital of the sort established in Europe, and probably gave the name of Nazaretto, which became Lazzaretto, to all similar institutions. On the fall of the Republic the Lazzaretto was transferred to the island of Poveglia, to which we come just before the town of Malamocco on the Lido comes in sight. Poveglia stands forth as very valorous in the defeat of the Frankish attempt on Venice under Pepin in 809. Pepin, the son of Charlemagne, who had jealously watched the rise of the lagoon communities from the mainland, at last resolved to attack them and to make good his claim of allegiance as king of Italy. He got a fleet together at Ravenna, and sailing up 1 See sutra, p. 146. 212 VENICE AND VENETIA the coast took Chioggia and Pelestrina and approached Mala- mocco, then the capital, to overthrow it also. But before he could do so the Doge and the Venetian people transferred themselves and their government to the Rialto, so that when Pepin took Malamocco he found it deserted, save for an old woman who had refused on any consideration to leave her cottage, and was resolved to save Venice. This she is said to have done by counselling Pepin to build a wooden bridge all the way from Malamocco to Rialto. This Pepin achieved, but when he took his army across it the horses, fearful of the water, cast them all into the sea. The more trustworthy account of the affair, however, shows us the heavy Frankish boats aground in the shallow lagoon and the people of Poveglia cutting throats at their ease. Nothing, how- ever, remains that is ancient on the island of Poveglia, for during the war of Chioggia, when Genoa so nearly caught Venice napping, everything was destroyed by order of the Republic and the inhabitants were transported to the contrada di S. Agnese in Venice. 1 All that we see to-day on this green island is rows of Lazar huts. We now slowly approach the town of Malamocco. The vast sandbank of which it is the capital, and which I call the Lido, is now one long, lean island washed on the east by the Adriatic and on the west by the green, sluggish, shallow waters of the lagoon. It stretches from the Porto di Lido without a break to the Porto di Malamocco, some miles south of the town of that name. I call this sandbank the Lido, for that is what it is ; but officially it is only the northern part of it, from the Porto di Lido to the Forte Quattro Fontane, which bears that name, the southern part from the Fort to the Porto di Malamocco being called Littorale di Malamocco. This part is, in fact, only about a quarter of a mile wide till it swells into the headland of Alberoni. This island from Porto di Lido to Porto di Malamocco is the first of the three vast sand- banks which guard the lagoon ; it is also naturally the strongest and firmest. To the south of it lies another long, narrow 1 Molomenti e Mantovani, v.s., p. 40. TO CHIOGGIA 213 sandbank called Littorale di Pelestrina, but this like the third, Littorale di Sotto Marina, is guarded from the inroads of the sea artificially by vast murazzi, great terraces of boulders erected in the end of the eighteenth century at a cost of near a million sterling. But to return to Malamocco. The name is very familiar to us in early Venetian history, 1 but the town we see, has very little to do with the island which then bore its name. That island has been swallowed by the sea. It met with this fate in the midst of an earthquake in the first years of the twelfth century, and then its bishopric perished together with its famous monasteries and churches of S. Rocco, S. Leo, SS. Leonardo ed Erasmo, and S. Cipriano. The new Malamocco, the town we see to-day, and of which we have mention in 1 107, was self-governed by its own Doge, and after 1 139 by a Podesta. To-day it makes a part of the Commune of Venice and has about 3,000 inhabitants, three churches — S. Antonio, S. Vito» and the parish church of Ognissanti. The Palazzo del Podesta still remains on the Piazza, a building of the fifteenth century, and all that even Molmenti can find to say of a place which has inherited a name so glorious is that it is famous for its vegetables and especially for its melons ! It is after leaving Malamocco that one generally comes upon a fleet of those fishing boats which, with their golden sails, blazoned with the Lion and the Book, are the pride and joy of the lagoons, and the only proper means for their explora- tion. Many a happy day, many a quiet star-enraptured night have I spent aboard them in the company I love best in all Venetia. After leaving Malamocco one soon finds oneself off Forte Alberone, and it is here in the road of Porto di Malamocco that the great battleships and cruisers of Italy lie when they are in these waters for manoeuvres. Beyond the Porto lies the Littorale di Pelestrina, the second of those long but lean islands that keep out the sea. The capital is Pele- strina, and there and in the two hamlets of Portosecco and 1 See supra, p. 12. 2i 4 VENICE AND VENETIA S. Pietro live some 7,000 people. Pelestrina is a poor place with almost nothing to recommend it, save its facilities for bathing, which are here to be had at far less cost than at the Lido. The old monastery of S. Antonio has been turned into a sort of bathing establishment, and here in summer the poorer sort of tourist comes to enjoy himself. Pelestrina has decayed with the decay of the Republic, to whom of old she furnished many sailors. Her sons now are wholly given up to fishing — a hard life — or to agriculture, a harder almost in a spot so barren as this. The women are engaged in lace-making as they sit in their doorways talking and keeping a mother's eye upon the- games of the children, as splendid and joyful a little people as is to be found anywhere in Italy. And altogether they with their dear, tousled heads, bright eyes, and flashing teeth, their exaggerated small ges- tures, and their vivid torn clothes, make a picture more joyful than one might suppose. The only work of art worth seeing on the Littorale di Pelestrina is not the Church of Ognissanti, though that is gay enough any Sunday morning, but that part of the sea coast which stretches away for four chilometri behind the church and which was strengthened and rebuilt in 16 18 for the pro- tection of Venice, the last great work of the Republic, called I Murazzi. This vast work, renewed from time to time, boulder laid upon boulder, to defend the unstable sand that the city might not be overwhelmed by her husband the Adriatic, bears the following inscription : — UT SACRA AESTUARIA URBIS ET LIBERALIS SEDES PERPETUUM CONSERVENTUR COLOSSEAS MOLES EX SOLIDO MARMORE CONTRA MARE POSUERE CURATORES AQUARUM AN. SAL. MDCCLI AB URBE COND. MCCLXXX. TO CHIOGGIA 215 And so setting out from Pelestrina and sailing across the deep mouth of the Porto we come to Chioggia. Chioggia is an island, a small island entirely covered by the town on the verge of the mainland where the now canalized Brenta pours into the sea. It may be said to be the capital of the fishing towns of the lagoon, for it is certainly the largest, and the whole of its energy might seem to be given entirely to the business of the sea. Its picturesque fishing boats crowd the molo and the little harbour and, packed like herrings in a barrel, stretch quite through the little town from end to end of it, for it is traversed, as Venice is, by a grand canal, only here it is full of boats, so that one may cross it almost anywhere dry- shod. The structure of Chioggia is indeed simplicity itself. Here is an island traversed from end to end by a great, wide and half-deserted street, called since 1866 Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Parallel to it runs the grand canal of which I have spoken, called II Canale Vena, and this is covered by nine bridges of stone. From these nine bridges either way run the smaller streets across the island to the lagoon on the east, called Canale di S. Domenico, to that on the west, called Canale Lom- bardo. So regular a plan seems astonishing in so old and so dilapidated a place as Chioggia, and, in fact, it robs it of a cer- tain picturesqueness which one certainly expects to find. But what Chioggia lacks in the way of winding streets and shadowy palaces is wholly made up to her by the fishing boats, which with their many-coloured sails, their tall masts, and singing ropes seem to bring the sea itself into the place and to make of it nothing more than a large ship floating on the basin of the port and about to set out for Alexandria on some quest of the Middle Age. Indeed, the fishermen, the fishing boats, the fish market along the Vena are by far the most interesting people and things in Chioggia. Of old Chioggia depended very largely on her salt industry for a living. She depends still upon the sea, but her salt business has gone, while her fish markets remain. And since the revival of lace-making at Burano the Chioggiotte have been largely employed in this craft also. These women are 216 VENICE AND VENETIA often of very considerable beauty, and seem rather than their sisters at Venice to have preserved the Venetian type and the Venetian character. And it is much the same with the men, who appear taller and stronger than the modern Venetians. Perhaps this was always so. Certain it is that we hear that the great masters of the Venetian school of painting used often to come to Chioggia to choose their models, as the Italian and foreign painters do to-day. But there are other sights to be had in Chioggia beside the people and the fishing boats and the town at large. In the Church of S. Domenico, across the Vigo Bridge, there is a fine picture by Carpaccio of S. Paul, his drawn sword in his right hand, the book of his Epistles open in his left, the last work, as is supposed, of the great painter. The picture is signed Victor Carpathius Venetus pinxit MDXX. In the same church, over the High Altar, is a poor work by Tintoretto of Christ with S. Thomas Aquinas and other saints. In the Church of S. Andrea, in the Corso, is a fine work by Palma Vecchio of Christ Crucified, while about the Cross stand the Blessed Virgin, S. John, S. Luke, and S. Daniele. The Duomo of S. Maria was rebuilt in 1633 by Longhena. It, however, contains nothing of much interest, unless it be three reliquaries of the fourteenth century. But what delighted me most among the treasures of Chioggia was an ancient altarpiece conserved in the Church of S. Martino, a fine old brick building with an octagonal lantern and mighty campanile standing before a dilapidated piazza in the Corso. This ancona stands over the High Altar, and consists of ten panels with three predella panels. In the midst is set Our Lady, enthroned with her little Son, and on either side two saints, above S. Martin divides his cloak with a beggar, and on either side are set four scenes from his life, while higher still we see the Crucifixion with Our Lady and S. John beside the cross, and, above all, a half figure of a saint with a book in his hand. In the side panels here are two angels with censers and four more scenes from the life of S. Martin. In the predella are five half TO CHIOGGIA 217 figures of saints. This fine work by some unknown painter is dated 1349. S. Martino must have been built about the time of or not long after the war of Chioggia, which, as we have seen, was brought to an end by the victory of Venice over the Genoese fleet in 1392. Unhappily, the Palazzo Vecchio we see, replaced a building dating a hundred and sixty years before that war. But the huge granary of Chioggia, built in 1322, still remains in the midst of the Piazza, though it has suffered restoration, and is now the main fish market. To the tourist I feel sure Chioggia will seem a very poor place. He will probably grudge the day he has spent in going to see her; but to an artist, or even to a more leisurely traveller, though no one will compare her with Torcello, the best of all, she will seem, nevertheless, something to be thank- ful for. Happy is he who finds himself content with her and in a mood to remain. For him there remain many pleasant and consoling sights : in spring the procession of the Crocefisso that passes over the Ponte di Vigo. In summer the Benedic- tion before the Church of S. Andrea, when all the Chioggiotti and Chioggiotte are dressed in their best, in dresses peculiar to Chioggia, and the old days and the old ways seem still to be with us; and, indeed, when the wind of evening pours over the lagoon, blue as a cold sapphire in the twilight, when the girls are singing on the molo and the fishermen answer from their boats coming in from the sea, and the sky is trembling with the few summer stars, I, for one, could wish to remain in Chioggia always amid these simple and human folk who have been my friends. XVI TO TREVISO THERE is a weariness of the sea. Yes, for all the fading beauty of Venice, the pure delight of the lagoons, the silence and loneliness of the islands, in time one grows weary of them, and is homesick for the hills ; one remembers the long roads that lead on for ever in the sunshine, one regrets the vineyards and the gardens of olives, not this waste of island-sprinkled water but the firm earth is the heart of our desire. To be weary with the length of the way, to set out where the road leads, these are the inalienable needs of a man, and how can Venice ever satisfy them ? For all her beauty and for all her delight, she comes at last to be a kind of prison from which there is no visible escape. The waters lie every- where about her, and the farthest of her islands is but a cell in a fortress not made with hands, where she lies now in durance, and of which she has lost the key. For in a very real sense she is caught at last in her own trap. Once she was sufficient for herself, and in the midst of her natural bastion, the lagoon, she was able for many centuries to defy all comers. But now life has departed from her, she is derelict in the shallow sea, and is wrecked on the shoals that were once her protection, and there is no one who comes to her and remains with her but at last becomes aware that he is a prisoner, that he, too, like any wretched captive, must go round and round, that there is no free way out. Then it is that he knows that he must ere long take ship or deliver himself to the train and escape, for it is escape, and leave these strange and shallow waters, and set foot upon the firm and stable earth whence he TO TREVISO 219 is sprung. It may be a few weeks, it may be a long series of years, that bring this home to him, for men are strangely different, and in Venice only this is sure, that he who is not Venetian born will know that he is a prisoner at last. Then when the narrow ways grow irksome, when the lagoon seems only a desert, something reveals itself suddenly in the heart, and the stranger is restless to be gone. Perhaps it is in the sweet o' the year that this comes to him at last, and a memory of spring in the world he knew, a world of fields and hedge- rows, of valleys and hills, of corn and wine and oil, of the sentient and awakening world, raises rebellion in his heart, and the barren sea seems the way of a fool, for the whole wide world is calling to him, and there is nothing that can prevent him in finding her. Certainly it was the spring that broke for me the spell of Venice. I dreamed of the highways, I desired the hills, when the sweet of the year broke over the valleys red and white, when the green bud began to appear, when the wind came softly from the south, and the birds were come from over the sea. So I set out. One night on the Fondamenta Nuova I found a barge for the mainland. I made friends, I went aboard, and by dawn my foot pressed terra firma. I was in Mestre, on the road to Treviso. Of that road who can say enough? It leads across the plain towards the mountains, it leads through many a pleasant village, and all the way is green with the new sprung corn and red and white with almond blossom, and whispering with the south wind among the vines, among the twisted fig-trees and unchanging cypresses. I breakfasted in Mogliano, a brief handful of houses ; I lunched in Preganziol, and, going slowly, for I was weary after the winter, I came into Treviso at nightfall, into Treviso with its memories of Venice. Treviso, which ever wears an aspect so smiling and so youthful, is nevertheless a city of very ancient foundation, far older than Venice, which is, indeed, the latest born of all those towns which came at last to owe her life and allegiance. In the time of the Empire Treviso — Tarvisium as it was called 220 VENICE AND VENETIA — was a prosperous and important place. With the coming of Attila, however, it, like all the cities of Venetia, fell into ruin. That barbarian entered Italy, crossing the Alps in 452, and, as we have seen, at once laid siege to Aquileia, with an innumerable host. Unskilled as he was in the methods of conducting a regular siege, he was yet able with the enforced assistance of his many prisoners and the impressed provincials of the country places to make a very formidable assault upon the strong walls of that great city with battering-rams, movable turrets, and engines that threw darts and fire. Aquileia was at that time not only one of the richest and most populous of the cities of this coast, but it was also the most formidable fortress on the frontier. It made the most splendid and the most heroic resistance to the Hun, who consumed three months ineffectually before it, and was, indeed, on the verge of starvation and about to raise the siege, when a mere chance gave him the city. " As he rode round the walls," says Gibbon, "pensive, angry, and dis- appointed, he observed a stork preparing to leave her nest in one of the towers, and to fly with her infant family towards the country. He seized with the ready penetration of a statesman this trifling incident which chance had offered to superstition, and exclaimed in a loud and cheerful tone that such a domestic bird, so constantly attached to human society, would never have abandoned her ancient seats unless those towers had been devoted to impending ruin and solitude. The favour- able omen inspired an assurance of victory; the siege was renewed and prosecuted with fresh vigour ; a large breach was made in the part of the wall from whence the stork had taken her flight, and the Huns mounted to the assault with irresis- tible fury ; and the succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia." With the fall and ruin of Aquileia the frontier lay open. Attila apparently crossed the Piave out of Friuli x into Venetia 1 I hope to deal with Friuli in another book. I intended to include it in this volume, but the whole of the frontier province is so rich in interest that it deserves a volume to itself. TO TREVISO 221 proper, and the first city in his way was Tarvisium. This also he overthrew, and marched on to Padua, which he left a heap of stones before he swung westward to destroy the inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, and so to Milan and Pavia, which submitted without resistance. This march of utter destruction is, I imagine, without parallel in the history of Europe. It was like a flight of locusts ; before it was plenty and civilization, behind it starvation, anarchy, and barren ruin. Everything went down, not only the cities, but man and his work of a thousand years. Venetia re- turned to a state of barbarism — Venetia which had been one of the richest and most vigorous provinces of the Empire. As Attila himself boasted, the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod. What exactly was the fate of Tarvisium during the ensuing centuries we do not know. The Dark Ages lay over Europe, and, as has been said, though Charlemagne lifted the veil for a moment and assured the world of the sun, there were many years to pass away after that splendid and heroic coronation in S. Peter's Church, before Europe could again be said to be a living thing. It is, however, part of the irony of history, and also but another proof that none of us really knows what he is doing, that in his destructive and incredible march Attila may be said to have founded Venice, the city and the State which was at length to renew the life of the old Roman Province of Venetia, and to rebuild, perhaps on more secure foundations, the civilization of Rome and of Europe in this corner of the Empire which had suffered more severely than any other in that never to be forgotten disaster. When Treviso next appears upon the stage of history very nearly a thousand years had passed away since Attila laid her low. Venice, which had grown out of the ruin of Aquileia and Altinum, was by the year 1339 about to become mistress of the sea. She had disposed of the Dalmatian pirates, she had broken Constantinople, she was to strew the beaches of Chioggia with the wrecks of the galleys of Genoa. Her trade was paramount in the East, and her many possessions through 222 VENICE AND VENETIA the Levant glittered in the cap of her Doge like jewels. She had become by dint of her enterprise, her virility, and her hard fighting the emporium of Europe. Yet in that year 1339 she was but a kind of fortress in the sea, she held nothing in the ancient province whose name she bore. This, which had for long been her salvation, had come now to be her gravest danger. The old weapon that had always been used against Venice was the threat of starvation; this, she knew, would be used again, and with the consolidation of Italy of the various provinces of Italy, with ever-increasing success. She could not grow corn in the lagoons, she must import it from the mainland. And, moreover, that mainland, so hazily visible across the shallow waters, had lately become of vast importance in this also, that the various powers there, small princelings or great States, were always able to shut the passes of the Alps against her commerce, so that she under- stood what it was to face both starvation and commercial ruin. With the sea almost in her hands, but with Genoa unbeaten, she suddenly turned her attention to this, and, like every other problem that was presented to her before inward decadence and exterior revolutions in the conditions of Europe brought her to nothing, she solved it. Nor was the solution, which she adopted so successfully, any new idea* It was but a revival of an old intention that had always lain in her soul, but that till now she had not been forced to carry out with all her strength. Already in 996 she had secured a port and a market-place on the Sile, which runs through Treviso, and of old flowed into the lagoon at or near Altinum. In 1142 she had for the first time undertaken a war on terra firma to keep the Brenta open for her merchant- men. In 1240 she had fought on the mainland to maintain her commercial rights in Ferrara. The second war of Ferrara in 1308 gives us, according to Mr. Horatio Brown, "the earliest indications of a distinctly aggressive land policy." Before then, certainly, Genoa, we must remember, had defeated Pisa, and was thus become tremendously formidable ; at least as formidable as Germany is to us to-day. It is then, in 1308 TO TKEVISO 223 that we find the Doge, Gradenigo, advocating a policy of territorial expansion j but I think it must always have been the creed of the commercial adventurers, the true heroes of Venice as of England. The Closing of the Great Council gave them their opportunity ; the few, as ever, drove the many, the futile democracy was demolished, and Venice rose up, ready to face even the Pope in the patriotic cause. In 1308 war was declared, though the Pope, in vain, placed the city under an interdict. At first Venice was not successful. The Venetian garrison in the Rocca of Ferrara was put to the sword ; she made peace, and bought her rights again from the Ferrarese. But what she had failed to attain by war, the security of her trade, she, restless, sought at once to achieve by treaty. In 131 7 we find her making treaties with Milan, Brescia, Bologna, Como, and for the political cause of all this we look to Genoa. We hear of her goods in Flanders and in England. Yet more and more the patriotic policy of her merchant adventurers was forced upon her by circumstances, and this because it was the way of life. Those circumstances were indeed formidable enough. On the sea the long Genoese campaigns were yet to be fought and won ; on the mainland the growing trade of Venice, the com- mercial treaties she had made brought her face to face with the military powers of Venetia and of Lombardy, with the Scala of Verona, the Carrara of Padua, the Visconti of Milan. Of these the first to be faced were the Scala of Verona. The greatest member of this great house, Can Grande himself, had by 1328 become master of Vicenza and Padua. In the following year Mastino della Scala took Feltre, Belluno, and Treviso. What did this mean for Venice ? Open any map of Northern Italy, and it will at once be obvious that such a move on the part of Verona gave the lords of that city an absolute command of the westward trade of the lagoons. Venice was completely hemmed in on the mainland. Padua and Vicenza, supported by Verona, held her immediately ; on the north Treviso, backed by the Piave, held the way, while 224 VENICE AND VENETIA Feltre and Belluno closed the mountains against her. This action on the part of the Scala struck at the very existence of Venice, for her wealth was dependent on the markets of the west and north, the roads to which these cities held. For every ounce of merchandise she sent forth she must hence- forth pay Mastino della Scala tribute — an ever-growing tribute. Venice replied at once by cutting off his salt supply, but that was of little effect. Her true reply was war, and she at once prepared to make it. And here, again, Venetian history is very like that of England. There was, we read, a party in Venice which strongly opposed the war. Such creatures seem even then to have been the curse of their country. Apparently a Pro-Scala Doge was in power, but either cir- cumstances were too strong for him or the Venetians had a better and a readier way of dealing with their traitors than we have with ours. We do not read that the Doge was allowed to escape from the angry citizens in the disguise of one of the city police, but we do read that war was declared and Venice saved, and that from this time Venice set herself to found a dominion on the mainland, a dominion which for good government, happiness, and the administration of justice had no equal in any other part of Italy, or perhaps of Europe. The Doge had bolstered up his counsel of non-resistance by the assertion that the Republic had no army and would be compelled to employ mercenaries. In this he was, as it proved, entirely at sea. Venice raised a native army from her own sons between the ages of twenty and sixty years; but her real triumph was one of diplomacy. For now that she showed her readiness and capacity to fight, she was able to find allies in the Florentines, the Rossi of Parma, the Visconti of Milan, and the Gonzaga of Mantua 3 and, as it proved, Rossi of Parma alone was so formidable an enemy, that Mastino della Scala sought terms of Venice. In this business he employed Marsilio di Carrara, his governor in Padua, a member of the family which the Scala had displaced in 1328. Why he chose such an unproved and dangerous TO TREVISO 225 instrument we do not know. What we know is that Carrara turned traitor and came to secret terms with the Doge. He agreed to make Venice mistress of Padua on condition that he himself was established there as Signore. Scala was undone. Visconti was all but in Brescia, which Scala in vain tried to relieve, only to learn that in his absence Rossi of Parma had actually taken Padua and that Venice was in possession of it and the House of Carrara restored. Then Brescia fell. Mastino della Scala sued for peace, which was given him in 1339 on the following conditions so far as Venice was con- cerned. The Republic was to have and to hold as part of her dominion the cities and territories of Treviso and Bassano, and to recover her original commercial rights in Vicenza and Verona. What did this mean to Venice? It meant three things. In the first place Treviso gave her the road from the sea to the mountains, while Bassano gave her the command and control of a great pass over the Alps into the Germanies. In the second place it gave her a vast corn-growing district and a fine pasture land, so that her food supply was assured so long as she could hold what she had won. In the third place it founded her dominion on the mainland. Treviso, then, holds a very important place in the history of Venice, and its acquisition marks the beginning of a new period. Yet I suppose that no one visiting this prosperous little town of 33,000 inhabitants, the capital of a province and see of a bishop, would realize as much to-day as he passed up and down the narrow arcaded streets and in and out of the great bare churches. Yet this, perhaps, would strike him, that Treviso was the birthplace of three great painters of the Venetian school — Lorenzo Lotto, Rocco Marconi, and Paris Bordone. And in noting this fact he would be right. For Venice gained more than security, more than a permanent food supply, more than a free trade route by the war which ended in the annexation of this territory. She gained the energy and genius of its people ; for this follows as the night the day, that to him that hath shall be given. Had Venice Q 226 VENICE AND VENETIA followed the craven and provincial policy of her Doge, she would have lost more than those material advantages for which she waged her war ; she would have lost the new spiritual energy and strength which she thus gathered to herself. She, too, was of the number of those, and they include us all, who do not know what they are doing. If we set out to explore Treviso, as I suppose most travellers do, from the Railway Station, we shall first cross the Canal Polveriera, an artificial branch of the river Sile. We thus enter the city by the Barriera Vittorio Emanuele, and passing through this Borgo and crossing the river itself, we enter the city proper by the Via Vittorio Emanuele. The walls which on all sides, save this which is guarded by the river, surround the city and are flanked by moats or canals are the work of Fra Giocondo, one of the most famous engineers and architects of the Renaissance, born in Verona. They date from the end of the fifteenth century. Following the Via Vittorio Emanuele across another canal — a canal which passes through the whole city — we presently come to a little piazza, out of which on the left the Via Venti Settembre leads into the Piazza dei Signori. If we were to judge of Treviso by the names of its chief streets, we might think that it was scarcely fifty years old. The Piazza dei Signori, however, tells another story. Here stand the Palazzo Pubblico, and behind the Palazzo Pubblico the Monte di Pieta. We pass out of the Piazza by the Via Calmaggiore on the left, which presently brings us straight to the Duomo. The Cathedral of S. Peter, chiefly a building with fine domes by Tullio Lombardo in the fifteenth century, has a fine Renaissance portico, on whose steps are two ancient porphyry lions. Within, by the first pillar on the left, is a statue of S. Sebastian by Lorenzo Bregno, a work of the early sixteenth century. It is at the second altar on the right, however, that we come upon a work by one of those three painters born in Treviso which are part of the glory of the school of Venice. It is a Nativity by Paris Bordone. TO TREVISO 227 Paris Bordone was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in Venice in 1570. And though his education as a painter was Venetian, the provincial shows itself clearly enough in his works in a certain personal way he has of seeing things and expressing them for himself. Even his colour is not altogether Venetian. That delicate rosy tinge in his flesh, the purple and shot tints of his draperies, might seem to be inventions of his own, as are certainly the strangely crumpled folds of his draperies. The greatest of his works, the Fisherman Pre- senting the Ring of S. Mark to the Doge, remains, as is meet and right, in Venice; but here in Treviso we have several of his works, among them this Nativity in the Duomo, and Madonna with SS. Sebastian and Jerome, with some Gospel scenes, and a small picture in the same church, together with a picture in the Gallery. By the second pillar is a relief of the Visitation by one of the Lombardi, and over the third altar on the left a fine work by Francesco Bissolo of S. Justina, S. John the Baptist, and S. Catherine with donor. Close by is the Renaissance Cappella del S. Sagramento, to the left of the choir, by Lorenzo and Battista Bregno of Verona. In the choir itself is the fine tomb of Bishop Zanetto by the Lombardi and some modern frescoes. The Cappella Mal- chiostro, to the right of the choir, contains the terra-cotta bust of the founder, Broccardo Malchiostro, who died in 1520, and some frescoes of that date by Pordenone and Pomponio Amalteo, showing the influence of Michelangelo's work in the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican. In the antechapel, too, is an interesting work — a Madonna by Girolamo da Treviso, a painter of the Paduan school, born here in the fifteenth century. This altarpiece, which has considerable merit, is dated 1487, and would seem to show, for all the Paduan education, a Belli nesque influence. The great treasure of this chapel, however, and indeed of the city of Treviso, is the picture of the Annunciation by Titian which it possesses. This fine picture was painted for Canon Malchiostro, the founder of the chapel, before 151 7, when Titian brought 228 VENICE AND VENETIA the finished picture with him to Treviso. 1 No one, I think, who has ever seen this picture has been satisfied with it. To begin with, the donor insisted, apparently, on being included in the scene. The result is that here we have an impossible situation presented to us. We see a priest lurking behind a pillar, eavesdropping, while Gabriel delivers his message. Nothing could be more revolting. Whether Titian himself felt this or not, who can say ? But he painted Gabriel as coming in with so much haste, and altogether in so great a confusion and so rudely, that we understand why the book has slipped from Mary's hand and why she lays that hand as though in protest upon her gentle breast and is all confused. We have only to remember such masters as Lorenzo Monaco, Simone Martini, Fra Angelico, and Filippo Lippi, and what they have made for all time of this scene — something spellbound, some- thing as wonderfully lovely as the Alma Redemptoris Mater — to be altogether disgusted by this vulgarity with a priest for listener. In the sacristy close by we have something that better contents us : a very interesting picture of a procession in the Piazza del Duomo by a pupil of Paris Bordone. One other work of Titian's, though sadly faded, remains in Treviso. I mean the figure of Christ which he painted on the facade of the Scuola del Santissimo, adjoining the Cathedral, when he came to Treviso in 15 17. This was a representation of the risen Christ ascending triumphantly with the banner of victory in His hand. Titian was more than once in Treviso about this time. In 15 19 he there gave his opinion as an expert in favour of his friend Pordenone in a dispute that painter had with his employer, who had refused to pay for the painting of a fagade, and later he wanted to buy a quantity of land in the neighbourhood from the monks of S. Benedetto. His work, however, is not to be found in the little Galleria Comunale in the Borgo Cavour, which is reached from the Piazza del Duomo by the Via Riccati. This little collection 1 Biscaro, Gazzetta di Treviso, January, i, 1898, quoted by Gronau, "Titian" (1904), p. 297. TO TREVISO 229 contains a fine altarpiece by Paris Bordone, a Nativity by Caprioli, a pupil of Bordone's, painted in 15 18, and, best of all, a fine portrait of a Dominican Friar, painted in 1526 by another of Treviso's sons, Lorenzo Lotto, by whom again there is a very wonderful altarpiece, a lunette of the Dead Christ, an early work, in S. Cristina, some five miles west of Treviso on the road to Padua. From the Gallery we pass to the Via Cavour, where we turn left into the broad Via delle Mura di S. Teonisto, and passing that church come to the great Dominican sanctuary of S. Niccolb. This is one of the largest Gothic brick churches in Italy, and was built by two Dominicans in 1310-1352. Over the High Altar is a picture of the sixteenth century — a Madonna Enthroned with her little Son. To the left is the tomb of Conte d' Onigo (1494) by Tullio Lombardo. Its background is painted by some pupil of Giovanni Bellini. In the chapel to the right of the High Altar is an early work by Sebastiano del Piombo of Christ and S. Thomas with donors. Nothing more of much interest remains in Treviso. Only in S. Maria Maggiore, on the other side of the city, is the tomb of Mercurio Bua, the condottiere, and in the Monte di Pieta is a fine picture of the Dead Christ by Beccaruzzi, another pupil of Pordenone. XVII CASTELFRANCO AND BASSANO THE road from Treviso to Castelfranco is a pleasant way enough in the springtime when the tender green of the new leaf gives the great world of the plain an almost vivid radiance, which it soon loses in the monotonous richness of early summer, the dust and drought of July. Pleasant enough is the road, but it can boast nothing of any moment to diffe- rentiate it from half a hundred others that cross this wide plain; for indeed all this country between Venice and Milan is much the same; it lacks the infinite variety of Tuscany, and indeed of every part of Italy proper, and is, in fact, but a kind of green and living lagoon where desolation has been changed into plenty and misery into happiness. Nor are the little towns one passes on the way between Treviso and Castelfranco of much beauty or interest. There is Paese close to Treviso, there is Istrana not quite half-way, and just off the road there is Vedelago and Salvatronda, but they are all much alike, and, so far as I could find, there is nothing really to be seen in any one of them save their own graciousness and humility. Castelfranco, however, is not as these. To begin with, Castelfranco is a fully developed castello^ a walled town defended by the Musone, with a great borgo on the further side of the river. Moreover, in all this region of the plain there is no more picturesque city than this of Castelfranco. For it is not merely walled but towered, and set, as it seems, 230 CASTELFRANCO 231 on a little eminence out of the plain, which lends it so much dignity and charm that had Giorgione never lived there, had he never painted the beautiful altarpiece that now hangs in the Duomo, still one would go to Castelfranco, I think, for its own sake, and put up at the Albergo Stella d' Oro, that great posting-house, and watch the creepers that wreathe the old topless towers and the cypresses that count the hours on the old red walls, and sit in the cool shade of the sacred plane- trees. Nevertheless it would be but folly to ignore facts as they are, and so it must be admitted that of all the foreign travellers who come to Castelfranco, mostly for a brief day by train from Venice, scarcely one comes for any other reason than that Giorgione was born here, or for any other purpose than to see that fine picture of his in the Duomo, the Madonna enthroned with her little Son between S. Francis and S. Liberale. An extraordinary legend has adorned out of all recognition whatever may have been the brief life-story of perhaps the greatest of Venetian painters. Vasari's " Life," helped out by Ridolfi, makes us acquainted with a biography which is sure in none of its outlines, is delightfully vague in dates and rich in suggestiveness, and for the authenticity of which we have, alas ! not a single tittle of evidence. Vasari, indeed, opens his tale with an assertion that, generally speaking, all who are acquainted with Giorgione's works will readily accept. He says, " The city of Venice obtained no small glory from the talents and excellence of one of her citizens, by whom the Bellini, then held in so much esteem, were very far surpassed, as were all others who had practised painting up to that time in that city." This in reference to Giorgione may be true enough, but it does not carry us very far. Vasari, however, goes on to give us the few facts in his possession. He tells us that " This was Giorgio, born in the year 1478 at Castelfranco, in the territory of Treviso. . . . Giorgio was at a later period called Giorgione, as well from the character of his person as for the exaltation of 232 VENICE AND VENETIA his mind. He was of very humble origin, but was neverthe- less very pleasing in manner and most estimable in character through the whole course of his life. Brought up at Venice, he took no small delight in love passages and in the sound of the lute, to which he was so cordially devoted, and which he practised so constantly, that he played and sang with the most exquisite perfection, insomuch that he was for this cause frequently invited to musical assemblies and festivals by the most distinguished personages." So far Vasari ; let us see what he has told us. He says that Giorgione was born in 1478 at Castelfranco. The date, I think, every one has accepted, but Vedelago, the village on the road to Treviso, claims as well as Castelfranco the honour of being Giorgione's birthplace. However, he is generally called Giorgione da Castelfranco, and no one has yet success- fully contested the general opinion that he was born there. Vasari calls him Giorgio, and adds that he was later called Giorgione for certain of his qualities. He omits altogether to tell us that the painter's family name was Barbarelli, but he emphasizes what for me, at least, is one of the most important things in Giorgione's life — his love of and gift for music, for, according to Vasari, it was this and not his painting which won him his entry into Venetian society. The love of music and the training in that art thus emphasized by Vasari seem to me of as much importance as any date or fact of birth, because they give us the key to the charm of so many of Giorgione's fine works ; they are a kind of visible music. And, indeed, music like a gold thread seems woven into most of them, in the choice of subject, as, for instance, in the " Shepherd with a Pipe " at Hampton Court, or the Fete Champetre of the Louvre, or the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario at Venice, or, again, in those Giorgionesque works now attributed too completely to Titian, the Concert of the Pitti Palace or the Sacred and Profane Love of the Borghese Gallery. But everywhere in the work of Giorgione, whether the mere subject suggests music or no, the treatment and the expression always do, as though he alone had suddenly come CASTELFRANCO 233 to understand that truth expressed for us once and for all by Walter Pater : "All art constantly aspires towards the condi- tion of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a poem, for instance, its subject, namely, its given incidents or situation — that the mere matter of a picture, the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape — should be nothing without the form, the spirit of the handling, that this form, this mode of handling should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter ; this is what all art constantly strives after and achieves in different degrees." This seems to me to be something like the vraie verite, and how well it explains for us the secret of the charm of Gior- gione's pictures ! What, then, is the subject of the Fete Champetre of the Louvre, the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario, the Sacred and Profane Love of the Borghese Gallery, the Concert of the Pitti Palace? Men have con- tended about their titles for centuries. What is the subject of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony or the Third Ballade of Chopin ? I know not ; only those pictures, like these pieces of music, seem to express something that is in the world though in no satisfying measure, to express what is otherwise inexpressible, and without them would cease to exist for us ; for it lives only in their beauty, and by them we are made aware of it. It is almost the same with the Gipsy and the Soldier of Prince Giovanelli, only there, I think, anyone who has ever doubted that Giorgione was born at Castelfranco has his answer, for it is that little towered city beside the Musone that we see in the background, under that gathering storm sweeping down from the hills. This little city, set so deliciously beside a torrent in the midst of a country that in its rhythmical beauty, its vague outline, and submission to the effect and colour of sun and cloud, of dawn and sunset, has itself much of the spirit of a Giorgione 234 VENICE AND VENETIA picture, is the happy possessor of what will ever remain, I suppose, the work that is most certainly his very own — I mean the altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned with her little Son between S. Francis and S. Liberate. This glorious picture was, as is generally admitted, painted in 1504, and, to my mind, is one of the very few Venetian pictures — Giorgione's altarpiece in Madrid is another — which possess that serenity and peace, something in truth spellbound, that is necessary to and helps to make what I may call a religious picture. For something must be added to beauty, something must be added to art, to achieve that end which Perugino seems to have reached so easily, and which almost every Sienese painter knew by instinct how to attain. That quality is serenity, the something spellbound we find here. And Giorgione is the last Venetian master to possess that secret. Is it not the same in music? God forbid that I should claim that Palestrina is a greater master than Mozart, any more than I should claim that Giorgione is greater than Titian. It remains, however, that just as Giorgione, the Sienese and Perugino, to name no others, attained to this effect, while Titian, Tintoretto, Michelangelo, and a host of very great masters could not, so Palestrina, Byrd, and di Lasso could achieve it, yet Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest never once in all their work — something has gone out of the world of which we are ignorant, only we miss it more and more in looking back on the beauty that was in the hearts of our fathers. As for Giorgione, we must picture him as leaving Castel- franco with his lute and his music and going to Venice, where he certainly entered the bottega of Giovanni Bellini, who seems to have loved music too, if one may judge him by his music-making angels, which lie ever at the feet of Madonna like flowers almost. There in Venice he seems to have been welcome, at first at any rate, if we may believe Vasari, for his skill in music, and maybe it was to please those patrons, that he presently invented that new form of picture, the easel picture, only vaguely subjective, concerned really with a sort CASTELFRANCO 235 of music he discerned in that evening hour on the wide plain that was his home, where the cities seem so small and so far away, and the sky and the earth so full of a half-expressed poetry or music. Very few of his works have come down to us, but the earliest we possess, according to Morelli, are the so-called Trial by Fire and the Judgment of Solomon, now in the Uffizi, and the half-length figure of Christ bearing the Cross in the Loschi Collection at Vicenza. These all recall his master, Giovanni Bellini. Then, according to the same critic, comes the Castelfranco picture. All this is, however, nothing but fine conjecture. Whatever else Giorgione did in Venice in his too brief life, he certainly fell in love "with a lady," Vasari says, " who returned his affection with equal warmth, and they were immeasurably devoted to each other." Is it she we see as Madonna in this Castelfranco picture and again in the beautiful altarpiece in Madrid? Tradition has it so, and it is part of my creed to accept tradition. And, as it happens, tradition tells us one fact more, namely, that it was through this lady he came by his early death. For as one story goes, that of Vasari, his mistress was attacked by the plague, which he took from her along with her kisses, and so departed. The other tale is less happy, and we owe its cur- rency to Ridolfi, who says that Giorgione died of despair at the infidelity of his lady and the ingratitude of his disciple, Pietro Luzzo of Feltre, called Zarotto, by whom she had been seduced from him. Lanzi accepts this story, and will have it that Pietro Luzzo is Morto da Feltre ; but the other as tragic but less unhappy story has always held the field, and as there is no tittle of evidence for either, it seems a pity to let it go. Giorgione died, as we think, in 1510-1511, in his thirty-fourth year. His vague story, his exquisite, serene picture, fill our minds in Castelfranco, where, in fact, there is little enough to see and nothing to note save the play of sun and cloud on the old towered and tufted walls that stand so well in the vast plain, and nothing to do but to pray to the mountains. 236 VENICE AND VENETIA For in Castelfranco, as everywhere in that great flatness, it is the mountains that call one, that beseech one night and day, and will not let one be. It was therefore one morning I set out for Montebelluno, which, I told myself, was Portia's Belmont, as I think it is, and for those who think that villa was on the Brenta, I would say that Montebelluno is close to Can Brentettone. Nothing but the hills is to be seen at Montebelluno, but it is a fine point of departure for a delightful drive through Asolo to Bassano. The road crosses the foothills of the Montebello range and at once proceeds to cross the plain to Maser, under the Monti Bassanesi. Here is a great villa, built by Palladio for Marcantonio Barbaro, and painted with frescoes for the same noble by Paolo Veronese. The frescoes are admirably lovely, and the whole villa, with its air of the sixteenth century and ancient luxury, is worth almost any trouble to see, which one is permitted to do by the generous owner. The road from Maser, after finally passing through Crespignaga, climbs some six hundred feet into Asolo, whence there is a great view over all this flat country and of the great mountains in whose shadow the little town lies. Here Queen Caterina Cornaro from Cyprus dwelt in exile. Born in 1454, this unfortunate lady married King James II of Cyprus in 1472. After her husband's death the Venetians claimed the island, and kept Queen Caterina for some time a prisoner, though she was far from unfairly dealt with. Free in 1489, she set up her home in Asolo, and kept there a court of poets. Pietro Bembo, later to be cardinal, here composed his " Asolani." There is little to be seen in the old and shrunken city save some wonderful views, and in the Duomo a spoiled but still charming altarpiece by Lorenzo Lotto of the Madonna and Child with S. Anthony and S. Basil. Leaving Asolo and the memory of its ruined Lady, we pass on by a pleasant road enough under the hills to Bassano. Just before we enter Bassano we may see, if we look south- ward across the plain, the ruined Rocca of Romano, where BASSANO 237 one who had a profound influence on the history not only of Bassano, but of all this country so far as Verona, was born. Ecelino da Romano first saw the light here in 1194. He was the dreadful flower of a dreadful race. He seems at last to have regarded himself " with a sort of awful veneration as the divinely appointed scourge of humanity." After his death he became a name of dread such as none other was but Totila. Yet he founded a state that in its day was perhaps the most powerful in Northern Italy and certainly the most dreaded. This consisted not merely of Bassano and Treviso and their contadi) but of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno. He was a Ghibelline, and his abuse of power became so terrible that the Pope, Alexander IV, issued letters for a crusade against him, and it was actually preached at Ravenna by the Archbishop in 1255. Villani, the Florentine chronicler, says of him : " This Ecelino was the most cruel and redoubtable tyrant that ever was among Christians, and ruled by his force and his tyranny (being by birth a gentleman of the house of Romano) long time the Trevisan March and the city of Padua and a great part of Lombardy; and he brought to an end a very great part of the citizens of Padua and blinded great numbers of the best and most noble, taking their possessions and sending them begging through the world, and many others he put to death by divers sufferings and torments, and burnt at one time 11,000 Paduans; and by reason of their innocent blood by miracle no grass grew there again for evermore. And under semblance of a rugged and cruel justice he did much evil and was a great scourge in his time in the Trevisan March and in Lombardy, to punish them for the sin of ingratitude. At last, as it pleased God by less powerful men than his own, he was vilely defeated and slain, and all his followers were dispersed and his family and his rule came to nought." Such was Ecelino da Romano. We shall find him every- where as we pass through these cities and shall recall his dwarfish, wizened figure of hate never without a shudder. He died in 1260 of his wounds, from which he tore away the 238 VENICE AND VENETIA bandages of his foes. In Dante's universe we find him in the seventh circle of the Inferno. Now of all the places between the mountains and Venice Bassano is the best, and the jolliest to live in. It is not like an Italian town, its great bridge is not like an Italian bridge, nor are its mountains like Italian mountains ; there is something of Germany in all of them, and looking up to the great hills who can wonder at it ? The frontier cannot be ten miles away. Yet for all its air of the north Bassano is a very charming place, full of hospitable folk, too, who are proud of their city, which indeed contains all the usual ingredients of an Italian town — fine and interesting churches, a noble Palazzo Pubblico, towers, palaces, terraces, walks, and as splendid a view as is to be had in all this country, as splendid and as surprising. The story of Bassano has been exceedingly eventful. In the clamour of the end of the Dark Ages it was held in feud by the Ecelini from the Bishops of Vicenza. Their dominion raised the first circuit of walls, of which almost nothing remains but an old tower. When their appalling rule vanished at last in a sea of blood, Bassano was for a little a free Com- mune with a republican form of government. It was, however, but a small place, and as holding the mountains was coveted both by Vicenza and Padua. Padua seems to have prevailed, and when the Scala of Verona seized Padua in the fourteenth century Bassano also was ceded to them. Then, as we know, came Venice, and Bassano with Treviso made, as we have seen, her first acquisitions on the mainland. Bassano knew many vicissitudes after that, however, and fell into hands as various as those of the Carraresi and the Visconti, but in the fifteenth century she gave herself spontaneously to Venice, under whose excellent government she remained till 1797. However one may come to Bassano, one is sure to come first into the long Piazza or market, with its fine old houses still faintly frescoed, for all the roads lead thither. Here are two fine churches, the upper of which, S. Franceso, erected in 1 158 by Ecelino il Balbo, is the finer and historically the BASSANO 239 more interesting. This church was restored at various periods, but it still retains sufficient antiquity to interest us, and its campanile is beautiful. Within the church, on the right, is a fresco by Guariento. Among the other churches S. Donato in Via Angarano, is to be noted. It was built by Ecelino il Monaco in 1208, and there he divided his possessions between his two sons, Ecelino IV and Alberico, in 1223. A Franciscan convent was added to it, and it is said that there S. Francis of Assisi and S. Antonio of Padua stayed. The Duomo to the north of the city is interesting for its pictures by Jacopo Bassano, born here in 1501, who was the pupil of Bonifazio and died at eighty years of age. Like all the Venetian school, he was a painter of genre, only with him that came to mean painting just country scenes about his home, the life of peasants and farmers, out of which he con- trived numberless scenes in the life of Christ or the lives of the Saints. Here in the Duomo are the Assumption of the Virgin, with portraits of Charles V, the Doge of Venice, the Pope, and so forth, which are less characteristic than usual. But on the other side of the church we find him altogether himself in a fine Nativity and a Martyrdom of S. Stephen. There is a fine Crucifix to be seen close by Jacopo's first picture. Close by the Duomo is the old broken palace of the Ecelini, now partly occupied by the Dean of the Cathedral — a picturesque place. As for pictures, one may have one's fill of them in the Museo Civico, not far from S. Francesco, in the convent indeed once attached to that church, built on the site of the cell where S. Francis and S. Antony are said to have stayed. The col- lection is chiefly interesting, as it should be, for the works of the Bassanesi, of whom Francesco, Jacopo, and Leandro were the chief. In the first room we have a picture by Francesco Bassano, the father of the more famous Jacopo, of the Madonna and Child with S. Peter and S. Paul. Here, too, are three 2 4 o VENICE AND VENETIA pictures by Jacopo — S. Valentine Christening a Dumb Girl (15), the Nativity (17), and S. John in the Desert (19), and a Deposition (22) by Leandro Bassano, the son of Jacopo. In the second room is a great painted Crucifix by Guariento of Padua, and some works of the school of Mantegna. The third room is devoted to the memory of Canova, who was born at Possagno, near by, in 1757. His original models for his Venus and Hebe are here and casts of other of his works. It is not these things, however, that would keep a man more than a single day in Bassano. The charm of Bassano lies not in her churches, her palaces, and her pictures, but in herself, in the unique position she occupies in regard to the mountains, and in the great views she commands of mountain and valley. One realizes this at once, and best of all, I think, from the great and lofty terraced road to the north of the city, whence one sees the ruins of the castello of the Ecelini, and, beyond a wide green valley, the sudden rise of the mountains in gigantic precipices and vast cliffs of rugged stone. They stand like a wall which no man could breach, but which the river has broken, so that from the gate of Bassano these mountains may be passed. Nor is the charm of Bassano less felt on the western side of the town, where the little foothills rise in the distance beyond the borgo which the river, crossed here by its strange wooden roofed bridge, divides from the city proper. This bridge over the swiftly flowing Brenta has a long history. No one knows when the first bridge was built here, but we hear of one in 1209 for the first time and of rebuildings in 1450 and 1499. The structure was always of wood, and it was always being burned down, which befell again in 1 5 1 1 in the war of the League of Cambrai. It was rebuilt in 1522, and then again, in stone this time, in 1525, only to be rebuilt in wood in 1 53 1. A flood destroyed it in 1567, and Palladio rebuilt it in 1570. This seems, though repaired, to have lasted till 1748, when a new bridge was built on the old model, only to be burnt in 181 3, and finally rebuilt as we see it in 1 82 1. Passing across this bridge, we come into the Borgo CITTADELLA 241 Angarano, where stands the Church of S. Donato, built, as I have said, in 1208 by Ecelino il Monaco. But I cannot sum up half the charms of Bassano in a brief chapter, for they are composed of very many small things, unimportant in themselves, but when found all together a treasure. Come and see : and then when you have seen and understood Bassano, take, with a good courage, the great road that runs almost due south from Bassano out across the plain for Cittadella and Padua. If you start at dawn you may take lunch in Cittadella, for the road is a good road, though a little monotonous, yet in spring amid the corn and the vines it has much to recommend it. Cittadella, however, has little to offer you but its walls, built by the Carraresi of Padua in 1220 to face the Trevisan fortress of Castelfranco, founded two years earlier. Yet for all its poverty it possesses a picture of some note, as what Italian town does not? This wonder, a Last Supper, by Jacopo Bassano, is to be seen in the Duomo. But Padua called me, and was far — twenty-five miles across the plain. I thought of my long tramp that morning from Bassano, I thought of the Inn I knew in Padua, I thought above all of the dust and length of the way. At three o'clock I found myself in the station of Cittadella awaiting the train, which, not too late, presently bore me through a great green garden all the way to Padua ; and there I came without longing or weariness before nightfall. XVIII PADUA MANY-DOMED Padua, as I like to remember Shelley called it, stands like a curious great casket away from the Brenta to the south of it, still largely surrounded by its old walls, a place still only half awakened by the hurry of the modern world. All sorts of things are to be found in Padua : frescoes, for instance, such as exist nowhere else in all the Veneto, the shrine of a great saint such as in this country only Venice herself can match, more than one cool and beautiful church beside, a ruined amphitheatre now a garden, two noble Piazze, a great and fine Palazzo Pubblico, and a university among the oldest in Europe : what more can anyone ask of any city in the world ? But Padua is something better than a mere subject for sightseeing : she is a treasure-house which contains something more than pictures, frescoes, churches, and curiosities ; she has still something of the strangely bright and sunlit delight of Pisa. Here as there the great church is set apart in the quietest corner of the town, though we miss the meadow that the Tuscan city has spread about her Duomo. We miss, of course, any such glory as the matchless group of buildings there, and we miss the hills. Yet not altogether, after all. For if Pisa boasts the Monti Pisani which form so noble a background to that white city in the marsh, Padua boasts the Monti Euganei, not less lovely though somewhat farther away, and in this has little, if anything, to envy Pisa. But it is the 242 PALAZZO EZZELINO BALBO, PADUA PADUA 243 air, the spirit of qufetness and of well-being common to both, the suggestion of something withdrawn, that brings the two cities together in my mind. Each is on a main line of railway, each is at the door of one of the two greater pleasure cities in Italy, each is but an anteroom to the best of all, and is too often passed by with scarce a disdainful glance ; yet rightly understood there can be but few things in the world more lovely than Pisa, there can be few places in the world more delightful than Padua. It is true they have both seen better days, but then what Italian city has not ? But they remain cities of quiet joy ; and since Padua will be the first to be spoilt, it is well that we should all see and enjoy her while we may. This also the two cities possess in common, that both have had a various and eventful history ; and though the fate of Padua was not so tragic as that of Pisa it was like it in this, that it entailed the loss of her independence and brought her into the power of the great city at whose doors she stood. Flcrence consumed Pisa, Venice consumed Padua j and if Padua was, as is . not to be denied, the happier in her fate, she owed it to the greatness of the republic into whose hands she fell. But Padua had an already ancient story when Venice at last drew her within her domixiion. Indeed, her history was hoary before Venice was. As the legends will have it, Padua was founded by Antenor after the Fall of Troy in B.C. 1199 or 1 184. The city may well have an Euganean origin, but we certainly know that in B.C. 302 she was fighting against Cleomenes of Sparta, that the rostri of his galleys adorned her Temple of Juno, and that she fought among the allies of Rome at the battle of Cannse. In b.c. 45 she was declared a Roman colony. With the Empire she came to great splendour, and is said to have been the richest of all the Italian cities and the most populous after Rome itself. In the time of Augustus she numbered five hundred citizens of the Equestrian order and boasted splendid theatres and mag- nificent baths. She fell, as all this part of the Empire fell, under the invasions of Alaric and Attila, which almost 244 VENICE AND VENETIA destroyed her, and she had a part, and that no small one, in the foundation of Venice, that raft which was constructed in the terror of shipwreck to save what could be saved. Her fate, however, was happier than that of Aquileia — more for- tunate than that of Altinum. She rose again from her ashes, and in the time of Charlemagne was already of some import- ance. During the whole of the disastrous ninth century she continued to endure, though filled again and again with ruins. Her true renaissance begins with the twelfth century, when she got her own magistrates, and in 1164 before any other Italian city she threw off the iron yoke of Barbarossa and pro- claimed herself a republic. In 11 75 she got her first Podesta, Alberto Osa da Milano. This period of liberty was quite spoiled by the continual wars Padua was compelled to wage on its behalf with neighbouring cities. Her most bitter, ter- rible, and relentless enemy was, as we might expect, that "grey, wizened, dwarfish devil Ecelin," of whom we have heard in Bassano. By 1236 he was master of Treviso, Vicenza, and Padua. After twenty years of carnage the oppressed rose against this appalling criminal, and in June, 1259, he was slain. Then Padua for a time had peace ; learning, the arts, manu- facture flourished, and the finest things still left in Padua were built and painted. The peace ended with the advent into Italy of Henry of Luxembourg in 131 1. He wished to impose an imperial vicar upon the Paduans, who would have none of him. Therefore Henry stirred up Cane della Scala of Verona to attack them and the city of Vicenza, with whom they were allied. The war thus begun lasted long with varying fortune, nor did the death of the Emperor end it, for the cupidity of the Scala being aroused and in a sense legiti- mized, it was not to be put off or easily assuaged. Moreover, unhappy Padua in this crisis found herself involved in the Guelf and Ghibelline quarrel. There were many who for their own ends sided with the Emperor and the Scaligers. Among these was the Ghibelline family of the Carraresi, who, at once seeing or hoping that something might be gained, waged suddenly private war against the Alticlini and the PADUA 245 Ronchi, their enemies, within the city. In the midst of this affair Cane descended and led away Marsilio and Jacopo da Carrara as prisoners to Verona. It seems that there Jacopo came to some understanding with Cane, for in 13 18 he was sent back to the city as Lord of Padua. It was just then that Venice came upon the scene. With Padua in the hands of Jacopo da Carrara, a mere nominee of the Scala, she saw her trade route of the Brenta in an enemy's hands. Moreover, as we have seen, the Scala were now supreme not merely in Verona and Padua, but in Vicenza, Feltre, Belluno, and Treviso. Their lordships hemmed in the lagoons and cut Venice off from her great markets. Nor did Scala hold his hand ; he saw how the wealth of Venice might be made to pay an ever-increasing tribute, and at once imposed duties on the transport of Venetian food in the dis- tricts of Treviso and Padua, and actually built a fort and a toll- house on the Po. The reply of Venice was to cut off his supply of salt j but it was not enough. War followed, and as a result of that war Scala was beaten, and as soon as he was beaten his protege, the House of Carrara, proved false to him. Marsilio da Carrara, lately his prisoner in Verona, whose brother Jacopo he had made Lord of Padua, when sent as his ambassador to the Venetians betrayed him, came to secret terms with the Doge, undertook to place Padua in the hands of Venice on condition that he was established as Lord. As we have seen, Scala was beaten and Padua taken. By the treaty of 1339 Treviso and Bassano fell to Venice, the Car- raresi were established in Padua, and the Scaligers ceased to be a danger to Venice. The Brenta and the Padovano were now held by a tributary of Venice, the House of Carrara, which depended for its existence on the protection of Venice ; for if the Scala star was setting, the Visconti star, a far greater luminary, was rising, and without Venice Padua must inevitably have become a part of the new constellation of Milan. There followed a perfect example of what, though it was continually happening and we have hundreds of examples of it, remains an in- 246 VENICE AND VENETIA soluble mystery in. the political history of the Communes of Italy. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the history of diplomacy in Italy is merely a long story of the most bare- faced and childish lying, treason, and disloyalty that is to be found in the history of man. Diplomacy as then understood seems to have consisted merely in telling falsehoods that no one, it might seem, could possibly have believed if he had not himself been so incorrigible a liar as to have deprived him- self of any sense of difference between falsehood and truth. Here were these Carraresi, Jacopo and Marsilio. They had, to begin with, made the most barefaced attempt to establish a tyranny in Padua. They had failed. Carried off as prisoners to Verona, one of them, Jacopo, had so far imposed upon Cane della Scala as to obtain from him the Lordship of Padua under his suzerainty. At the first opportunity he proved false to his trust j yet the Scala chose his brother Marsilio as their ambassador to Venice, ]and, as might have been expected, with the inevitable result that he proved a traitor. With this history in their hands the Venetians must have been convinced, one might suppose, that there was nothing but falsehood and treason to be got from the House of Carrara. Yet they established them in Padua. It is incredible and inexplic- able; but similar things occur everywhere on every page of the history of the time. In the year 1339, then, we have Marsilio da Carrara estab- lished in Padua as tributary Lord by Venice. The result was certain, nor have we long to wait for it. Wherever and when- ever possible the Carraresi sided against the Republic. For instance, the disasters of the Genoese sea war at Sapienza and the conspiracy of Marino Faliero weakened the Republic, so that the Hungarians revived their claims to Dalmatia ; the Carrara refused to ally themselves with Venice, they preferred to remain neutral in a campaign which did not directly con- cern them j but as a fact they did all they could to help the Hungarians in their siege of Treviso. Venice seems to have been surprised at this. It is incredible. The peace of Zara PADUA 247 contained a provision that the Carrara were not to be inter- fered with by Venice. This, if nothing else could, seems finally to have aroused the disgust, anger, and suspicion of the Republic. It was time. Before long Carrara was known to be building forts along the Brenta as far as Oriago. The times were unfavourable, but Venice could not stomach this. She threatened war and made it, when the true relations of things at once became clear. Carrara was supported by the King of Hungary. Here, however, Venice had a stroke of luck. The king's nephew fell into her hands, and as the price of his freedom — perhaps of his life — the king withdrew and left Carrara to make what peace he could. This he accom- plished in 1373; and though it was entirely favourable to Venice, it was too nice to Carrara, for it left him more than his life, it left him his Lordship ; yet he was condemned to pay a large indemnity and to destroy his forts on the Brenta and to cede Feltre to Venice as security for good conduct. In all this Venice acted too leniently. She should have extir- pated the Carraresi breed and taken Padua into her own hands. The final struggle with Genoa proved this. No sooner was the war of Chioggia seen to be going against Venice than Carrara joined the Genoese. He blockaded the lagoons from the mainland, tried to starve Venice out, urged Pietro Doria to the great attack he refused which would have carried the city, fed the Genoese and supported them in Chioggia in the final stage of the war, and all through the campaign besieged Treviso. At last the eyes of Venice were open. When Genoa was broken and she was alone upon the sea she remembered Car- rara and bethought her how she might crush him. Carrara also saw that he must win now or never. In order to save Treviso and Feltre from him Venice had given them to the Duke of Austria. Carrara bought them from him. Bassano came into his hands. What Scala had failed to do he now thought to attempt. But he had reckoned without Visconti. Carrara tried first to deal with him, but he had met a greater rascal than himself. They divided the Scala dominion between 248 VENICE AND VENETIA them. To Visconti went Verona, to Carrara Vicenza. Visconti took them both by force. Immediately both Carrara and Vis- conti turned to Venice for aid to extirpate each the other. Carrara pointed to the obvious danger of so powerful a neigh- bour, Visconti pointed to the equally obvious record of Carrara. He offered Treviso, Feltre, and Ceneda to the Republic. Venice heard him and agreed. Those cities passed into her hands, Visconti took and held Verona, Vicenza, and Padua. But Visconti was altogether too dangerous and strong for Venice to contemplate his dominion in the Veneto as per- manent. She at once seized the opportunity of his attack on Bologna to join Florence against him, and in this crisis restored the Carraresi to Padua. What would have been the issue of such a vast conflict one cannot tell, for just as it was really to be decided in 1402 Visconti died, and his great dominion fell swiftly to pieces. In this breathing space it began to dawn on Venice that now Visconti was removed she had no longer any possible need for Carrara. And this was impressed upon her by his insolent claim to Vicenza, which Visconti's widow held stoutly, appealing to Venice for aid. The Republic demanded Bassano, Vicenza, and Verona from her. She gave them : what else could she do ? Venice then ordered the Carraresi to hold their attack. There were two of them as usual in the affair, most truly their fathers' sons, Francesco and Jacopo. They refused, knowing their hour was struck. Francesco the Republic besieged in Padua, Jacopo in Verona. After fierce fighting both cities fell. The two Carraresi were brought to Venice, where the mob, with a true instinct, howled for their blood. The Govern- ment, it is said, inclined to spare them. A vast plot, however, was early and conveniently discovered, in which both were said to be involved, and the Council of Ten had them both strangled in prison in January, 1405. Thus was the dominion of Venice established, not in Padua alone, nor only in Treviso and Bassano, but through the whole of that great province which bore her name from the Adige to PADUA 249 the Alps, the Tagliamento and the sea. And this dominion she was to hold, to govern wisely and well till her fall. She had become not merely mistress of the seas, but one of the greatest land powers in the peninsula, and by far the most successful State that even till our day has ever existed there since the fall of the Empire. II Such is the history of Padua in its relation to the Veneto. Under Venetian rule it quickly grew and flourished. Its University, already founded, became famous throughout Europe, and the fame of the city in Christendom had long since been established by the shrine of S. Anthony. It is always as the University town or as the city of S. Anthony we come upon Padua in the memoirs of our fathers. There is Evelyn, for instance: "On the . . . June," he writes, "we went to Padua to the Faire of their S. Anthony, in company of divers passengers. The first terra firma we landed at [he came from Venice] was Fusina, being only an inn, where we changed our barge and were drawne up by horses thro' the river Brenta, a straight chanell as even as a line for 20 miles, the country on both sides deliciously adorned with country villas and gentlemen's retirements, gardens planted with oranges, figs, and other fruit belonging to ye Venetians." That is still a fine way to come to Padua from Venice, only now the villas are deserted and ruinous and the way as melancholy though as beautiful as any in the world. Evelyn also speaks of the University : " Ye scholes of this flourishing and ancient university," where especially " ye studie of physic and anatomie" was undertaken. "They are fairly built in quadrangle with cloysters beneath and above with columns. Over the greate gate are the armes of ye Venetian State and under ye lion of S. Marc. . . . About ye court walls are carv'd in stone and painted the blazons of the Consuls of all the nations that from time to 250 VENICE AND VENETIA time have had that charge and honour in the universitie, which at my being there was my worthy friend Dr. Rogers, who here took his degree." That was in 1645. Thirty years before, another English- man, more famous in his day than Mr. Evelyn, had been educated at Padua. This was Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, who afterwards founded a " Protestant Nunnery " at Little Gidding and who is so great a figure in Shorthouse's " John Inglesant." There he studied medicine, geometry, philosophy, and rhetoric. There was an anatomical theatre and a " garden of simples rarely furnished with plants," to which was attached a school of pharmacy, which had been in existence in 16 15 for more than sixty years. There were also two hospitals for the study of clinical medicine, furnished with the " greatest helps and most skilful physicians," as well as subjects to exercise upon. All of which Evelyn saw and described. Such was Padua of old, the city of S. Anthony and of a great University, where, by the way, Tasso was a student. But though for what is left of Catholic Europe — and that is little enough, alas ! — Padua remains the city of S. Anthony, who comes to her to-day to be taught " medicine, geometry, philosophy, and rhetoric " ? It is to no University, but to a tiny chapel in a garden of mulberries that we make our way from the station or from the Inn. It stands in the old Roman Arena, whose shape can still be traced in the oval garden ; and Giotto has painted there, it is said while Dante was in Padua, 1 the story of Madonna and the story of Our Lord, It seems that in 130 1 a certain Enrico Scrovegno, a rich citizen of Padua, had been raised to the rank of a noble by the Republic of Venice. 2 He devoted a part of the wealth he had inherited from his father, Rinaldo Scrovegno, whom Dante places in the Inferno on account of his usury and avarice,3 to the building of a chapel, com- 1 Benvenuto da Imola in Muratori, " Antiq. Ital.," i, p. 1186. 2 Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, " History of Painting in Italy " (ed. Hutton, 1909), vol. i, p. 228. 3 " Inferno," xvii. v, 64. PADUA 251 pleted in 1303 and dedicated to S. Maria Annunziata. Nor did he stop here, for he employed the first painter in Italy to cover the chapel with frescoes, if Benvenuto da Imola is to be believed, in the year 1306. Indeed, it has been suggested, and Crowe and Cavalcaselle seem inclined to accept the state- ment, that Giotto not only decorated but built the chapel. More modern opinion, however, is more doubtful, and is even confused as to the position of Giotto's undoubted frescoes here in the story of his art. Thus it is not absolutely certain whether Giotto painted at Assisi in the Lower Church before or after working at Padua. Mr. Berenson, indeed, with whom more and more I find myself in agreement, denies to Giotto all the work usually given him in the Lower Church at Assisi, and assigns to him in part three frescoes in the Chapel of S. Mary Magdalen there, adding that they were painted "before 1323," but presumably after the work here in Padua. Messrs. Douglas and Strong, on the other hand, accept the frescoes usually given to Giotto in the Lower Church at Assisi and think that they are later than these in the Arena Chapel. Crowe and Cavalcaselle hold that Giotto's work in Padua is later than his work in the Lower Church at Assisi. For my own part I think that Giotto first worked in Rome, then in the Florence Bargello, then in the Upper Church at Assisi, then in Padua, and then in the S. Mary Magdalen Chapel in the Lower Church at Assisi. I should be inclined to accept Benvenuto da Imola's statement, and to find Giotto in Padua about 1306, when Dante was lodging in the Contrada di S. Lorenzo. But whatever the date of these frescoes, this at least is certain, that the frescoes of the Arena Chapel, with the exception, perhaps, of those in the Chapel of S. Mary Magdalen in the Lower Church at Assisi, are the best preserved of all the work Giotto has left us. Before considering them in any detail, let us glance at the chapel they glorify. Built in the form of a single-vaulted aisle, with the choir merely separated from the nave by an arch, the chapel is lighted by six windows in the south wall. 252 VENICE AND VENETIA There is thus a very large space in a building really small, for the fresco painter, and Giotto took every advantage of this. He arranged his subjects according to the tradition of his time, already some centuries old, but with an artistic sense of their value in relation to each other that was all his own. Over the entrance he placed the Last Judgment. Opposite this, on the choir arch, he painted Our Lord in Glory guarded by angels, and beneath, the Annunciation. On the side walls between this arch and the entrance wall he painted in a triple course thirty-eight scenes of the life of the Blessed Virgin and of Our Lord. " These subjects," say Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "were enclosed in a painted ornament of a beautiful kind, interrupted at intervals by little frames of varied forms con- taining subjects from the Old and New Testaments. All rested on a painted marble cornice, supported on brackets and pilasters, in the intervals of which were fourteen figures in dead colour representing the Virtues and the Vices. As in the Chapel of the Podesta, so at the Arena, the wagon roof was spanned by two feigned arches. The field of the vault was blue and starred, adorned in the centre with medallions of the Saviour and the Virgin and on the sides with eight medallions of prophets. By this division of subject and of ornamentation, an admirable harmony was created. The feigned cornice, with its feigned bas-reliefs, illustrates completely the ability with which Giotto combined archi- tecture with sculpture and painting; whilst in the style of the ornaments themselves the most exquisite taste and a due subordination of parts were combined." On entering the Arena Chapel the traveller sees first, as Giotto intended, the Saviour of the world in glory among His angels. He finds this great and majestic splendour, and, bowing his head, dropping his eyes, he sees beneath the Annunciation, the message from Heaven to earth, which brought God down into the world in our likeness. There follow, as I have said, in three courses on either side, the preparation for that message in the life of the Virgin, the result of it in the life of Christ. But what has not been so PADUA 253 generally noticed is the subtle and beautiful manner in which Giotto has mystically caused the one to correspond as it were with the other. Is it here we may see Dante's hand ? For instance, the first fresco on one side of the Annunciation is the Salutation, in which Elizabeth greets Our Lady ; opposite to it the first fresco on the other side is the Salutation of Judas in which he betrayed Our Lord. Such is the wonder- ful method that underlies the decoration of the chapel, an arrangement emphasized by the virtues and vices which face one another on the marble skirting. Now the practice of the virtues leads us towards Paradise. Therefore the first of the virtues, which is Hope, is turned towards that part of the great fresco of the Last Judgment in which we may see Paradise. The pursuit of vice leads to Damnation, therefore the last of the vices, Despair, is drawn by a devil towards the Inferno. It might seem superfluous to name the thirty-eight frescoes with which Giotto has illuminated this chapel, for there can be no one so ignorant of the Christian Legend as not to recognize them at a glance. It will be enough to say that they begin on the topmost course at the right hand of the Christ in glory, and continue on this course quite round the chapel, and so with the second and third courses. Nowhere in Christendom is there a series of frescoes comparable with this for beauty and freshness of colour, for vitality of form and gesture, combined with a superb decorative loveliness. We may prefer the Raising of Lazarus in S. Mary Magdalen's Chapel in the Lower Church at Assisi to that we see here ; we may prefer the Noli me Tangere there to this in Padua; we may even say with Crowe and Cavalcaselle that " though purely and dramatically conceived and executed the Cruci- fixion at Padua is less successfully presented than that of the Lower Church of Assisi," but where in Assisi even, where in Florence, where anywhere in Italy are we to look for a work so complete, so majestic, and so lovely as this frescoed chapel in Padua ? The only thing left to us that may be compared to it is the Upper Church at Assisi, which, so far as it is not a 254 VENICE AND VENETIA ruin, we owe to the same painter, Giotto — but Giotto in his earlier years. Yet the splendour of Giotto's work here must not blind us to the other treasures of the church. The frescoes in the choir of the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin are indeed of no account, but here is a fine monument to the founder of the church, and in the little sacristy close by is a splendid half-figure of the Madonna and Child by Giovanni Pisano, one of his best works. To the same sculptor may be assigned the statue of Scrovegno. Here, too, is a fine Crucifix, perhaps from Giotto's hand, full of the majesty and dignity we seem to miss in the fresco in the chapel. It is always with regret one leaves the Chapel of the Arena, for nothing to compare with it is to be found in Padua, or, indeed, in all Northern Italy. Yet for our consolation we may discover, and that close by, a very interesting if not unique convent of Augustinians, now spoiled and ruined, but, in spite of the Government, containing still many precious and beautiful things. It is true that to-day the convent is given up to the use of the Italian army ; that is not as sur- prising as it is shameful. Italy has accustomed us to this sort of outrage, and some have grown so used to it as to consider it almost virtuous. So that if you or I exclaim at it and make accusation we are to be blamed as rude and vulgar persons unused to the ways of the world ! Yet we will make our accusation all the same, and one day be sure it will have to be answered. The Augustinians, or Austin Friars, to whom the church and convent belonged, although now called Mendicants, are really an Order of hermits, as their true Italian name, degli Eremitani, proves. They derive their origin from S. Augustine, in Tagaste, in the year 388, when that great Doctor brought some persons into his own house and gave them a Rule, which he kept with them. In 1256, about the time that we first hear of them in Padua, Pope Alexander IV PADUA 255 collected together under this Rule all the hermits in Europe, and in 1567 Pius V congregated them with the Mendicant Friars. Their three great saints are S. Augustine, S. Nicholas of Tolentino, and S. Thomas of Villanova. Among their illustri is Pope Eugenius IV. The Church of the Eremitani in Padua dates from the thirteenth century, but it has been much restored, notably so late as 1880. It is a long and spacious building with a painted roof of wood, and it contains several precious works of art. To begin with, over the main door is a fine Giottesque Crucifix, attributed, however, to Guariento, an early painter of this city, who was of so great importance in his day that he was chosen first to adorn the Hall of Great Council in Venice in 1365 with a Paradise. He seems to have executed several works in this church, some allegories of the planets, and in the choir small scenes in monochrome of such subjects as Christ Crowned with Thorns, the Via Crucis, the Ecce Homo, and the Resurrection. A large Crucifixion is to be found above these, also from his hand. He seems to have been very little if at all influenced by Giotto. Close by the entrance of the church are two painted altars of terra-cotta by Giovanni Minello, that to the right with a sixteenth-century fresco. Near to these are the fine late Gothic tombs of Ubertino da Carrara (1 338-1 345) and Jacopo da Carrara (1 345-1 350), by Andreolo dei Santi, of Venice, from the church, now demolished, of S. Agostino. But when all is said, the great treasure of the church remains the frescoes of Mantegna, in the Cappella di SS. Jacopo and Cristoforo. Andrea Mantegna, the greatest of the Paduan painters, whose genius influenced almost every school of art in Italy, was the son of a certain Biagio, "a respectable citizen of Padua," and was born at Vicenza in 143 1. He was adopted as son by Squarcione, the founder of the later Paduan school, in 1441, and married Nicolosa, the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, of Venice. This great man may have been influenced to some extent by his father-in-law, as 256 VENICE AND VENETIA he certainly was by the work of Donatello and of Paolo Uccello, but he is among the most original masters who ever lived, combining a strong realism with a love of antiquity, and a profound feeling for decoration with an extraordinary power over the expression of life. He is said to have painted a Madonna and Child for the High Altar of some church in Padua at the age of seventeen, but the earliest work of his that remains to us is a lunette dated 1452 in the Santo here. The most important and beautiful works of his youth, however, are the frescoes he painted in the chapel of SS. Jacopo and Cristoforo in the Eremitani. This chapel is painted in fresco by more than one hand. The Four Evangelists on the ceiling are doubtless the earliest as they are the feeblest part of the work ; like the four upper sections of the right wall, they are the work of some unknown and feeble scholars of Squarcione's school. The work on the walls and vaultings of the recesses of the choir are also by an inferior hand to Mantegna's, though they are able enough, probably by Niccolb Pizzolo, a Paduan painter who died when still young. The lower pictures on the right wall and all the work on the left are by Mantegna, and it is to these frescoes we shall now confine ourselves. The frescoes on the left wall are concerned with the life of S. James from his call by Our Lord to his martyrdom. They were painted between 1453 and 1459, and the upper scenes are the earlier. The execution and burial of S. Christopher, the lowest pictures on the right wall, are somewhat later work, but their sad condition does not allow us fully to enjoy them. It is in the pictures relating to S. James that we may best see the range and quality of Mantegna's art, his realistic simplicity, his mastery of action, his dignity of composition, and the monumental character of his figures, which might, indeed, all be portraits. Nor is it only in his figures — his children are delicious — that he shows himself to be the great master he is. In his treatment of architecture and ornament he shows him- self to have the finest knowledge of antiquity, and as a whole these works, so full of life, of learning, and of the * * > • 9 » " • • • • » > ! » MARTYRDOM OF S. CRISTOFORO ANDREA MANTEGNA ( Eremitani, Padua) PADUA 257 mastery of expression, are equally splendid as decoration. They fill the chapel with the spaciousness of the sky, with the fine proportions of great palaces, the splendour of great arches, and yet not for a moment do we wish a single figure, a single building, away or different. And the finish of these works remains as splendid as their conception. Yet we do not see them in anything of their freshness, but removed from the walls and transferred to canvas. Leaving the Eremitani by the Via Cittadella, which brings us into the Via Garibaldi, we turn back to the right, and, following the tram lines across the Ponte Molino, come into the Piazza Petrarca. Here is the church and convent of the Carmine. Petrarch, who, as we shall see, died among the Euganean hills at Arqua, spent much time in Padua. It was here Boccaccio found him in 1349 when he came on behalf of the Florentine Republic to offer the poet a chair in the new University. It was to this visit that Boccaccio alluded in a letter written to Petrarch from Ravenna in July, 1353. He there reminds his " best master " of his visit. " I think," he writes, " that you have not forgotten how, when less than three years ago I came to you in Padua, the ambassador of our Senate, my commission fulfilled, I remained with you for some days, and how that those days were all passed in the same way : you gave yourself to sacred studies, and I, desiring your compositions, copied them. When the day waned to sunset we left work and went into your garden, already filled by spring with flowers and leaves. . . . Now sitting, now talking, we passed what remained of the day in placid and delightful idleness, even till night." It is pleasant to think of these two poets passing up and down the Padua streets, talking of Dante, as one may feel sure Boccaccio did not fail to do, perhaps insisting on visiting his lodging in the Contrada S. Lorenzo, while Petrarch wondered why. The great church of the Carmine, which faces this piazza, was first built with its monastery in 1202. In 1300 it was rebuilt, and after earthquakes in 1470, 1503, and 1695 was 258 VENICE AND VENETIA very considerably restored. It contains nothing of much interest. In the Scuola attached to it, entered from the cloister, however, there are several damaged frescoes of the sixteenth century from the hands of Titian, Girolamo da S. Croce, Domenico Campagnola, and Palma Vecchio. The fresco by Titian is a genuine work by the master, painted in 151 1, representing the meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. The landscape is still very fine, and the whole work is thoroughly Giorgionesque. Returning into the city by the Ponte Molino, we notice a tower which Ecelino is said to have built in 1250, and which commemorates his tyranny in the city. Passing thence straight on by the Via Dante, we presently come to the Loggia del Consiglio, a fine Early Renaissance building, and turning there to the left into the Piazza Unita d' Italia, come a little further on into the Piazze dei Frutti and delle Erbe, where stand the sixteenth-century Palazzo del Municipio and the great Salone or Juris Basilica^ built in 11 72-1 2 19, the logge being added in 1306. This great hall is well worth a visit, for it is 273 feet long, 90 feet broad, and 95 feet high. Among other things, it contains the wooden model of Donatello's horse for the Gattamelata statue by S. Antonio. At the end of the Piazza behind the Municipio is the University. Returning to the Via Dante, we follow it into the Piazza del Duomo, built by Andrea della Valle in 1551. It is an unfinished Late Renaissance building, and contains nothing of interest. In the Baptistery hard by, a fine building of the twelfth century, are some fourteenth-century frescoes attri- buted to Giusto Padovano. From the Duomo we return again through the Piazza delle Erbe till we come to the Via S. Francesco, out of which we turn almost at once on the right into the Via del Santo, which brings us straight into the Piazza del Santo before the great many-domed temple that has risen over the shrine of S. Antonio. Before the church stands one of the greatest equestrian PADUA 259 statues in the world, Donatello's Gattamelata. It is a strange position to have selected for the monument of a great captain, this on the threshold of the shrine of a great saint. For Erasmo da Narni General Gattamelata was till his death in 1443 a man of war, a condottiere in the service of the Vene- tians, who granted his family this site in Padua for the monument they wished to erect. And this equestrian statue which Donatello made was what they chose. Nothing more noble could be conceived, and Donatello's task was the more honourable on account of its difficulty. No equestrian statue had been made in bronze in Italy since the Empire. He had no model save the Marcus Aurelius at Rome and Nero's bronze horses in Venice. For about twenty years he laboured at it, with the result we see — a result which is beyond criticism, which we can only love and admire. The tombs of the great soldier and his son we shall find in the church. But what is this church, named, it might seem, so arrogantly II Santo ? To answer that question we must first ask who II Santo was. He was S. Antony of Padua. But that takes us little further, for the barest inquiry shows us that S. Antony was born at Lisbon in 1195, and, moreover, received at his christening the name of Ferdinand. This, however, he changed when he became a son of S. Francis for that of Antony, it is said from devotion to the great Abbot Anthony, the patriarch of monks ; for it was in a chapel under his invocation that S. Antony of Padua was received into the Franciscan Order. His father was an officer, by name Martin de Bullones, who fought in the army of El Consultador. As a youth Antony was one of the community of Canons of the Cathedral of Lisbon, where he had his schooling. But not long after he had, at the age of fifteen, " entered among the regular Canons of S. Austin"; he desired greater seclusion and silence, and so went to the Convent of the Holy Cross, belonging to the Order, at Coimbra. There he appears to have become enamoured of the ascetic life, and to have followed it during eight years. Suddenly a new idea came to him. Don Pedro, Infant of Portugal, about that time brought, 2 6o VENICE AND YENETIA with what pomp and reverence we may imagine, the relics of five Franciscans, lately martyred, from Morocco. Antony was immediately possessed by an enthusiasm for that Order, desiring above all things to lay down his life in the cause of Our Lord. The Franciscans, seeing his enthusiasm, encouraged him to join them, a step from which naturally the Canons of Holy Cross endeavoured to dissuade him. But in all the struggles, both interior and with his fellows, that followed it was the poverty and austerity of the Franciscan Order that attracted him, and that in the end compelled him to desert the Canons. In 1 22 1 he, having obtained the consent of his prior, entered into the Franciscan Order, taking the name of Antony, and, consumed by his enthusiasm, he early set out for Africa, to seek martyrdom and to preach the Gospel. Illness obliged him to return to Spain. In this he saw the hand of God. For by chance the ship in which he sailed, baffled from its course by contrary winds, touched at Messina, where Antony heard that S. Francis, his hero, was holding a " general chapter " at Assisi. Thither he went in spite of his sickness, and having set eyes on the Little Poor Man he desired never again to leave him, and determined not only to forsake his friends but his country also that he might stay near S. Francis. No superior, however, would agree " to be troubled " with him in his condition of illness, till at length a certain Gratiani, from Romagna, sent him to a hermitage on Monte Paolo, near Bologna. Here he buried himself in silence, permitting neither his learning nor his communications with God to be so much as guessed at ; till one day the Franciscans were entertaining some Dominican Friars, and the Franciscan superior, wishing to show his guests honour, desired one of them " to make an exhortation to the company." But they all made excuse, saying they were unprepared. Then the superior desired Antony to speak just as God should direct him, and he too begged to be excused, saying that he had only been used to wash the dishes in the kitchen and to sweep the house. However, he was commanded to proceed under holy obedience, and all were astonished, not alone at PADUA 261 his humility but at his eloquence and learning. All this came to the ears of S. Francis, who sent Antony to Vercelli to study and to teach. Later we find him at Bologna, Padua, Toulouse, and Montpellier. But soon he forsook the schools for preach- ing, and in this his mission he passed through many lands, making many converts and performing many miracles. At last he came face to face with the great devil of the time, Ecelino da Romano. This fiend in human shape had mur- dered more than 1 1,000 persons in Padua in one day, and the city of Verona, too, had "through him lost most of its inhabitants." Antony without fear confronted him and told him his crimes, when, instead of ordering his guards to murder the saint, "to their great astonishment Ecelino descended from his throne, pale and trembling, and, putting his girdle round his own neck as a halter, cast himself at the feet of the humble servant of God, and with many tears begged him to intercede with God for the pardon of his sins. The saint lifted him up and gave him suitable advice to do penance. Ecelino seemed for some time to have changed his conduct, but after the death of the saint relapsed into his former disorders." Well might Pope Gregory IX call Antony the Ark of the Covenant, well may the people of Padua call him II Santo. Antony's last years were unhappy on account of the divisions in the Order then after S. Francis's death suffering from Frate Elias. We hear of a visit to La Verna, in Tus- cany, where S. Francis received the Stigmata, and a little later we find him provincial in Romagna. But presently he retired to Padua, and died there on 13 June, 1231, in his thirty-seventh year. At the news of his death we hear the children ran about the streets crying, u II Santo e morto." He was canonized by Gregory IX in the following year, and about thirty years later the great Church of II Santo was built in Padua, and his relics were there interned. That might seem an uneventful life, in spite of the encounter with Ecelino, to call forth so huge a church, containing, as it does, chapels belonging to all nations, till we remember that 262 VENICE AND VENETIA St. Antony's career really began with his death. The great fact about him for us all is that he finds what is lost, some- times for love and always at a very reasonable rate, and that he devotes these offerings as often as not to the poor. This fact explains at once the vast and ugly church which so hugely covers his poor bones. Huge as it is, however, and ugly, it contains very little worth the trouble of seeing, but that little is most precious. For instance, over the main door in a lunette is a fresco by Mantegna of S. Bernardino and S. Antony holding the mono- gram of Our Lord. Within the church are two fine holy water basins, perhaps by Tullio Lombardo. By the second pillar, on the right, is the simple monument of a very ornate person- age, Cardinal Bembo. The church is curiously full, too, of the tombs of Venetian generals. Alessandro Contarini lies in a sumptuous tomb by the second pillar on the left. In the first chapel, on the right, General Gattamelata sleeps in a fine tomb by Donatello, or rather by some pupil, perhaps Bellano of Padua. The same man made the tomb here of Gattamelata's son, Giovanni. In the left aisle, close to the Cappella del Santo, sleeps Caterina Cornaro. The Cappella del Santo, a late Renaissance work, has little attraction save the religious. The Cappella S. Felice opposite, formerly S. Jacopo, was built in 1372 by Andreola dei Santi, of Venice, but it was dreadfully restored in 1773. It possesses a fine altar with statues of the Madonna and Child with saints of 1503, and is still decorated with frescoes of 1376 by Altichieri and Jacopo d' Avanzo of Verona, but very much restored. They are, however, by far the most interesting paintings in the church. The great treasure of II Santo is, however, the choir with its marble screen, designed by Donatello, and the High Altar, originally a design of the same master's, and still possessing his original sculptures and bronzes. It was for this work that Donatello came to Padua in 1443. Later he was commis- sioned to design and cast the Gattamelata, and altogether he was some ten years in the city. PADUA 263 Beside II Santo is the Scuola, the house of the Guild of S. Antony. This hall was decorated with seventeen frescoes, of which three were by Titian, but they have all been restored in oil, and it would be hard to discover Titian's hand there now. Close by is the Cappella S. Giorgio, once the burial chapel of the Marchesi di Sovagna, built in 1377. It contains some very splendid frescoes by Altichieri and Jacopo d' Avanzo of Verona, representing the story of S. Lucy, the story of S. Catherine, and the story of S. George, with the Crucifixion, the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, the Flight into Egypt, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Nativity. Next door is the Museo, which contains so little of interest as to be scarcely worth a visit if it were not for a Madonna and Child by Marco Basaiti, an injured altarpiece by Squar- cione, a S. Patrick by Tiepolo, a large altarpiece by Romanino, and a few other interesting works. Far better worth visiting is the vast Church of S. Giustina, which, beside some interesting relics of old time, proudly shown by the sacristan, has a splendid altarpiece, the Martyrdom of S. Justina, by Paolo Veronese. XIX TWO POETS AND THE EUGANEAN HILLS THERE is one journey that, if only in memory of two dead poets, all must make who stay more than a single day in Padua. It is a journey to the Euganean hills, and the two poets such a pilgrimage will commemorate are, of course, Petrarch and Shelley. But such a journey made with due piety will be something more than a duty performed, it will be in a very real way its own reward. For of all the various country of Venetia, of sea and seashore and delicate visionary island, of mountain, valley, and plain, nothing may compare for sheer loveliness with these Euganean hills which beckon one so mysteriously from Venice, and which fill every vista of the plain with their strange and mysterious beauty, where " Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair. ..." It was with these lines in my head that one morning when the sun was shining after many days of rain I set out from Padua by Barriera Vittorio Emanuele for Battaglia, Arqua, and Este. The road was broad, straight, and flat, but the world was refreshed, the day young, and all the flowers in the world seemed to have come to meet me. So that for all the monotony of the plain I was not weary, but took courage and lifted mine eyes to the hills, ever growing clearer and more lovely as I 264 TWO POETS 265 approached them; and before midday in very good spirits I came to Battaglia, where I ate frugally but well, and setting out again presently turned out of the straight road west- ward, and a little after found myself at the foot of the delectable mountains, which, after I had passed a little lake, I began to climb, and before long found myself in Arqua Petrarca. Now to describe the beauty of this place, and the hills, in a valley of which it lies, has been the vain attempt of so many of my betters, from Disraeli to Gabriele D' Annunzio, that I shall content myself with bringing the reader hither, giving him what information he should need, and perhaps quoting for my own delight a few lines of Petrarch's, a few verses of Shelley. Arqua is still what it was when Petrarch in his old age first saw it and fell in love with it, a little mountain village and a gracious fountain : " Fonti numen inest ; hospes, venerare liquorem Unde bibens cecinit digna Petrarcha Deis." What fame it has — and since mere beauty is too common in Italy to attract the notice we give it at home, it would other- wise be but little renowned — what fame it has it owes all to Petrarch. That noble, lofty but pedantic poet found here the peace which he had sought in vain his whole successful life long, and here amid his roses in July, 1374, he died. It was in the year 1369 that Petrarch had found out this village in the Euganean hills which ever after became his summer residence, where, indeed, he seems, with his usual generosity, to have kept open house, with something more of lavishness than might be looked for in a "simple canon." The Pope, Gregory XI, a Frenchman, loving him well, seems, indeed, to have been anxious about him, and instructed Fran- cesco Bruno to write and inquire how he did. Petrarch answers that his means are sufficient for a simple canon, but since he has, as he can most truly say, a wider circle of acquaintance than all the rest of the Chapter together, he 266 VENICE AND VENETIA has very many unforeseen expenses. Besides an old priest who lives with him a whole swarm of these acquaintances will often suddenly descend upon him, and he has not the heart to turn them away without their dinner. Then, too, he finds he cannot do without servants, a couple of horses, and five or six scribes. Then he is building a little chapel to the Blessed Virgin, and he must accomplish this though he should be compelled to sell even his books. So he is rather pinched, and age makes pinching the harder. Therefore if Gregory is minded to do something for him he will not say nay. This letter — so characteristic of Petrarch, he will ask for nothing, but, as he had ever done, accept what God sends him — was written from Arqua at Whitsuntide, 1371. That was his third summer there. At first, in 1369, he had stayed in the convent of the Austin Friars, and it was then he was so taken with the beauty of the place that he got one of his friends to buy on his behalf a plot of ground with a vineyard, a garden of olives, and a little orchard. There he built the house we still see above the village on the hill-side under the castello which in his day, unspoilt and unbroken, crowned the summit of the hill. Here he spent his old age, which was already come upon him. He was continually ailing and constantly ready for death. In 1372, however, he had to leave Arqua, for war had broken out between Francesco da Carrara and Venice, and the country was full of marauders. Francesco, as we know, was compelled to surrender, and when called upon to plead before the Venetian Senate he sent his son to Petrarch to ask him to plead for him. Petrarch was much loved in Padua and had received many kindnesses from the Carrara House. He tried, in fact, to help his friend, but was too ill to speak on the day appointed, though his speech was delivered well enough on the following day. This unhappy affair can only have distressed him to the utmost. For Francesco was not only his friend, but in some sort his pupil, and it was to him that Petrarch had addressed the long letter on government, "on the best methods of administering a State," in which, TWO POETS 267 knowing the House of Carrara, we may think he lays great stress upon the moral qualities necessary to a good ruler. In Arqua, doubtless, too, in his quiet chair at night between the vines, and under the olives at morning or at evening, he composed that letter to Posterity which makes so noble an autobiography, so pathetic a plea, too, for remembrance, " what sort of man I was and what was the outcome of my works." There we read of his j home at Arqua : " In one of the Euganean hills," he writes, " near ten miles from the city of Padua, I have built me a house, small, but pleasant and decent, in the midst of slopes clothed with vines and olives, abundantly sufficient for a family not large and discreet. Here I lead my life, and although, as I have said, infirm of body, yet tranquil of mind, without excitements, without distractions, without cares, reading always and writing and praising God, and thanking God as well for evil as for good ; which evil, if I err not, is trial merely, not punishment, and all the while I pray to Christ that He make good the end of my life, and have mercy on me and forgive me and even forget my youthful sins ; wherefore, in this solitude no words are so sweet to my lips as those of the psalm, ' Delicta juven- tutis meae : et ignorantias meas ne memineris? And with every feeling of the heart I pray God when it pleases Him to bridle my thoughts, so long unstable and erring j and as they have vainly wandered to many things, to turn them all to Him — the only true, certain, immutable Good." Such was Petrarch at Arqua, blessed in the quietness which led him thus so perfectly to God. Nor is this merely a mood. His letters to all his friends are full of such words, only less beautiful than when he spoke them to himself and to us. To his best friend, and, in so much, his most devoted disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio, he writes in the same way : "You write that my ill-health makes you sad; I know it and am not surprised, for neither of us can be really well while the other is ailing What I should really like is, not to be younger than I am, but to feel that I had reached old age by a course of more honourable deeds and pursuits ; and nothing 268 VENICE AND VENETIA disturbs me more than that in all this long while I have not reached the goal I ought to have reached. . . . There is no nimbler or more delightful burden than the pen; other pleasures flee away and do you a mischief even while they soothe you ; but your pen soothes you in the taking up and delights you in the laying down of it ; and it works profit not only to its master but to many beside, often even to the absent, and sometimes to posterity after thousands of years. I think I speak absolute truth when I say that of all earthly delights as there is none more honourable than literature, so there is none more lasting or sweeter or more constant; none which plays the comrade to its possessor with so easily gotten an equipment and with so little irksomeness. . . . This do I desire for myself, that when death overtakes me he may find me either reading or writing or, if Christ so wills it, praying and in tears." Petrarch had his wish ; the best supported account of his death tells us that he died in his library turning the pages of his " De Viris Illustribus " on the morning of his seventieth birthday. What his death meant to his friends we may gather best, I think, from that wonderful letter of Boccaccio's which he wrote to Francesco da Brossano, Petrarch's son-in-law. In reading it we may realize perhaps what manner of man Petrarch was. Boccaccio, ill and himself not far from death, writes as one heart-broken : " I received your sorrowful letter, most well- beloved brother . . . and not knowing the writing I broke the seal and looked for the name of the writer, and as soon as I read your name I knew what news you had to tell me, that is to say, the happy passing of our illustrious father and master, Francesco Petrarca, from the earthly Babylon to the heavenly Jerusalem. Although none of my friends had written me save you, since everyone spoke of it I had known it for some time — to my great sorrow — and during many days I wept almost without ceasing, not at his ascension, but for myself thus unhappy and abandoned. And that is not won- TWO POETS 269 derful, for no one in the world loved him more than I . . . . You say that he has ended his days at the village of Arqua in the contado of Padua ; that he wished his ashes to remain always in that village, and that to commemorate him for ever a rich and splendid tomb is there to be built. Alas ! I admit my crime — if it can be called a crime. I who am a Floren- tine grudge Arqua this shining good fortune that has befallen her, rather through his humility than through her merit — the guardianship of the body of the man whose soul has been the favourite dwelling-place of the Muses and of all Helicon. . . . It follows that not only Arqua, almost unknown even to the Paduans, will now be known to all foreign nations however far off, but that her name will be held in honour by the whole universe. One will honour thee, Arqua as without seeing them we honour in our thoughts the hill of Posilipo at the foot of which are placed the bones of Virgil . . . and Smyrna, where Homer sleeps, and other like places. ... I do not doubt that the sailor returning laden with riches from the farthest shores of the sea, sailing the Adriatic and seeing afar the venerable summits of the Euganean Hills, will say to him- self or to his friends : ' These hills guard in their breast the glory of the universe, him who was once the triumph of all knowledge, Petrarch, the poet of sweet words, who by the Consular Senate was crowned in the Mother City with the laurel of triumph, and whose many beautiful works still pro- claim his inviolable renown.' The black Indian, the fierce Spaniard , . . seized with admiration for this sacred name will one day come and before the tomb of so great a man salute with respect and piety the ashes which it holds, com- plaining the while of their misfortune that they should not have seen him living whom dead they visit. Alas ! my unhappy city, to whom it has not been given to guard the ashes of so illustrious a son, to whom so splendid a glory has been refused ; it is true that thou art unworthy of such an honour, thou hast neglected to draw him to thee when he was alive and to give him that place in thy heart which he merited. Ah ! had he been an artisan of crimes, a contriver of 270 VENICE AND YENETIA treason, a past-master in avarice, envy, and bitter ingratitude, thou wouldst have called him to thee. Yet even as thou art I should prefer that this honour had been accorded thee rather than Arqua. . . . But since God has wished it let the name of Arqua live through the centuries, and let her inhabitants preserve always an honour for which they should indeed be thankful. . . ." Florence, however, who had expelled Dante, threatened him with death, and had seen him buried with honour at Ravenna, was not to be so easily resigned to the loss Boccaccio bemoans, though in truth since she expelled Petrarch's father and confiscated his goods she deserved nothing else. Petrarch was buried at Arqua with much ceremony, his coffin was borne by sixteen Doctors of Law, and four Bishops took part in the funeral. He was laid temporarily in the parish church till, six years later, a sarcophagus was made in Padua. For many years Florence watched, hiding her envy and her shame. But one day in 1630, when the tomb had fallen into disrepair, a certain monk, or friar, more like, named Tommaso Mar- tinelli, attempted to steal the body, and actually brought away with him to Florence one of the dead poet's arms, which is said now to be in Madrid. Petrarch no more than Boccaccio — the one for love, the other for hate — was allowed to rest in his grave. There is really very little to be seen within the old house that indubitably was Petrarch's : a few poor frescoes concerned with his life, his bedroom, which is said to be as it was in his day, his study with his broken chair, table, inkstand, and — his stuffed cat. These are all, and these remind us less of him than the landscape does, the byways of the village, the tender vines and quiet gardens, and the beautiful hills he loved. It is to these we shall be wise to give ourselves ; to these and to the road which will presently lead us down into the valley beyond Arqua, and winding about Monte del Cas- tello bring us through Baone to Este on the southern skirts of the Euganean, where another poet had for a brief summer his home. TWO POETS 271 The villa I Cappuccini, which may still be seen, was lent to Shelley by Byron, who had rented it as a summer residence for himself. Writing to Rogers on 3 March, 18 18, Byron says: "The villa you speak of is one at Este which Mr. Hoppner (Consul-General here) has transferred to me. I have taken it for two years as a place of villeggiatura. The situation is very beautiful indeed, among the Euganean hills, and the house is very fair. The vines are luxuriant to a great degree, and all the fruits of the earth abundant. It is close to the old castle of the Estes or Guelphs, and within a few miles of Arqua, which I have visited twice and hope to visit again." Writing from Venice, where, leaving Mrs. Shelley at the Bagni di Lucca, he had gone to meet Byron, Shelley writes to his wife in the late summer of that year : ". . . Pray come instantly to Este, where I shall be waiting in the utmost anxiety for your arrival. You can pack up directly you get this letter and employ the next day on that. The day after get up at four o'clock and go post to Lucca, where you will arrive at six. Then take a vetturino for Florence, to arrive the same evening. From Florence to Este is three days' vetturino journey — and you could not, I think, do it quicker by the post. Make Paolo take you to good inns, as we found very bad ones ; and pray avoid the Tre Mori at Bologna, perche vi sono cose intspressibili nei letti. I do not think you can, but try to get from Florence to Bologna in one day. Do not take the post, for it is not much faster and very expensive. . . * That letter tells us that travelling in Italy was of old as leisurely a business as one could wish. In a letter to Peacock, dated Este, 8 October, 1818, Shelley says : " We have been living this last month near the little town from which I date this letter, in a very pleasant villa which has been lent to us. . . . Behind us here are the Euganean hills, not so beautiful as those of the Bagni di Lucca, with Arqua, where Petrarch's house and tomb are religiously preserved and visited. At the end of our garden is an extensive Gothic castle, now the habitation of owls and bats, where the Medici family resided before they came to 272 VENICE AND VENETIA Florence. We see before us the wide, flat plains of Lom- bardy, in which we see the sun and moon rise and set, and the evening star, and all the golden magnificence of autumnal clouds. ... I have been writing, and indeed have just finished, the first act of a lyric and classical drama to be called 'Prometheus Unbound.'" On 7 November Shelley left Este for Naples. He had written something more than the first act of the "Pro- metheus" at Este, he had composed the "Lines Written among the Euganean Hills," and there we find, as we might expect, one of those strangely vivid pictures that none knew better how to paint of the world that lay before his eyes in those quiet autumn days : — " Noon descends around me now : 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved star Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curved horizon's bound To the point of heaven's profound, Fills the overflowing sky ; And the plains that silent lie Underneath ; the leaves unsodden Where the infant frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; And the red and golden vines Piercing with their trellised lines The rough dark-skirted wilderness ; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air ; the flower Glimmering at my feet ; the line Of the olive-sandalled Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one ; And my spirit, which so long Darkened this swift stream of song, — TWO POETS 273 Interpenetrated lie By the glory of the sky ; Be it love, light, harmony, Odour, or the soul of all Which from heaven like dew doth fall Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe." Yes, it is the memories of two such minds, of two poets, which people for us the Euganean hills. We forget all about that castle, "now the habitation of owls and bats," where Shelley thought the Medici lived before they came to Florence; and though it was indeed the home of a greater race than the Medici, who, in fact, never knew it — of a race from which most of the royal families of Europe have originated, sprung from Alberto Azzo, Marquis of Este, himself descended from the Adalbati Margraves of Tuscany, we think not of it, for this ground is holy with the footsteps of two of those who have revealed to us so much of what is worth having in our own souls, that here, at any rate, we can only remind our- selves of them. "In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade Which shows a distant prospect far away, Of busy cities now in vain display'd, For they can lure no further ; and the ray Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday." XX VICENZA IN his journeyings about Italy to-day, and especially in this northern Italy, so largely composed of a vast plain and lacking in the mystery and surprise of the hills, it is hard to find or to recover the Italy of our dreams, the country that Claude knew well and that somewhere in the heart of every Northerner is hidden away with heaven, a place perhaps that modern "progress" has reduced to a superstition and a vain desire. Yet I think that Italy of our hearts is to be found, and indeed I can swear that once or twice it seems to me that I have seen it, in Tuscany, in Umbria, in the Roman Cam- pagna ; but to look for it in Venetia, to hope for it even, had, I confess, little by little come to seem to me ridiculous. That was before I had seen Vicenza. Vicenza is the place itself. I was to blame : I know it. I had come to Venetia with Tuscany in my heart — what could I have expected ? If a man has given himself to the hills it is not in Lombardy or Venetia he should waste his time. Little by little I had come to realize that. I grew weary : first of the mud, then of the dust, then of the endless vista of every road, the lack of variety, the damnable iteration of city after city, all of the plain and all of a piece. I was home-sick for the outlines of Tuscany, the hills of olives, that are silver in the wind, over the golden corn, the terraces of vines, the line of cypresses against the olives. And in Venetia I found only a world illimitable in which I was a shadow. It was in that hour on a fair summer morning that I came 274 • • •« • > • \ .•• »•• • » I • VICENZA 275 to Vicenza. I found it as a child finds an overlooked gift long forgotten out of mind. It gave me back my heari;. No one writes of Vicenza though it is famous, no one speaks of it though it is a household word, no one goes to it though it is on the highway. Its name is as familiar in the mouth as Padua is, yet it stands for nothing. It is a halt on the road to Venice as Verona is, and far more obvious and ready to hand than Mantua, yet no one marks it. And while Padua, Verona, and Mantua have come to be synonyms for some of the greater names in the true history of the world, so that he who says Padua, Verona, and Mantua says S. Antony, Romeo and Juliet, and Virgil, he who says Vicenza says nothing ; nothing universal, that is, nothing that is as familiar in Rome as in Britain, as secure in the Teutonic as in the Latin heart. That cannot now be mended. Whatever we may do Padua, Verona, Mantua, and Venice will echo in our ears from the verse of Shakespeare while the word Vicenza will be unheard. It is part of the irony of things as they are, that while Padua is exalted Vicenza should be unknown. Yet such a fate has its compensations. You and I, for instance, march into Padua expecting infinite wonders. Wonders we perceive, but are they to be named beside the imagination of our hearts ? We make pilgrimage to the city of Juliet expecting I know not what revelation of beauty. Nor can we remain there unmoved; and yet who that has sojourned in that busy place with its vast entanglement of trams, its extraordinary distances, its terrific new square with its brand new statue of Vittorio Emanuele that dwarfs the very Arena of the Romans, who that has endured these things has not been discouraged, has not returned almost in tears to the pages of Shakespeare con- vinced, and more than convinced, that there alone may Verona truly be found? Now here is the compensation of Vicenza : the incredible good fortune promised by the gods in half a hundred fairy tales from Cinderella downwards and on every living page of the Gospels, as : the meek shall inherit the earth, the last shall be first. 276 VENICE AND VENETIA Thus is it written and thus it is. You enter Padua with trembling, Venice with what life has left you of an outworn reverence, Verona prepared to be impressed; but you come to Vicenza as to any jolly town of God's world without a thought about it most like, seeking food to stay your need and a bed to rest in. And because you have demanded nothing she gives you her whole heart. Now the history of Vicenza, though it is not of history we think in coming to her, may be told here in a few words, for it is one with that of all these cities of the Veneto. Like Padua first she was a free commune, then, like Padua again, she fell into Ecelino's hands. In 1236 Frederic II took her by storm, and when he was departed she fell under the yoke of Padua in the time of the Carraresi. Then Can Grande of Verona seized her in 131 1, and in 1387 she came for a time into the power of the Visconti before she found peace under the benign dominion of the Republic of Venice in 1404. Such is her history. But her story in so far as we may read it to-day is full of peace. As we wander up and down her quiet streets, in and out of her shadowy churches, looking up at her vast palaces, wondering at her great theatre, charmed by her meek pictures, her extraordinary air of aloofness and quiet, it is not of Ecelino and Carrara and Can Grande and Visconti we think, indeed we are scarcely reminded of them, but of two of her own sons who in a better and more enduring, if quieter, way have given her her character, a character which is as visible and remarkable to-day as ever it was. Bartolommeo Montagna and Andrea Palladio are the names that remain in your heart when you have done with Vicenza, and you are not likely to forget them. But in truth most of us who are lucky enough to have found out Vicenza came to her first thinking little of Montagna and not over eager to see the work of Palladio ; yet I think no one has entered her gates but has loved her at first sight, and this I attribute for my part not to any man at all but to God. He put her just where she is, and, rightly understood, that is her secret. VICENZA 277 Consider then : here is a man who has spent many a month in Venice, who has continually passed up and down the great plain between the Piave and the Po, and who after so long, unless indeed he be a Venetian, is weary of all this illimitable world, this vast tyranny of sun and sky and cloud, who would willingly go barefoot if he might but climb a hill, who is home- sick for the mountains, for something of earth visibly to break the monotony of the horizon. Such a man but whets his appetite at Arqua and Este. He is upon the hills it is true, and very far off they shine and shine and disappear each night and day, but all about him is the great plain, "the waveless plain of Lombardy." Now conceive such a man setting out any fair morning from Padua along the great road that runs north-west, a little south of the railway but north of the river Bacchiglione. All the long day he sees little enough but green, he creeps and crawls along in the dust of the way, he is subject to every hedgerow and com- mands nothing. At night he comes into Vicenza. In the morning up he gets and up he looks. His heart stands still, tears fill his eyes. In his sleep the hills have heard him and come about him : and there to the north they stand splendid and terrible, and there to the south they stand soft and lovely, and he may take his fill of them. Is it any wonder that for such a man Vicenza seems in some way to be divine? She has given him the desire of his heart. Standing thus on the flank of the mountains that here are thrust into the plain and attempt to cross it in the great step- ping-stones of the Monti Berici and the Colli Euganei, Vicenza holds a true valley though it knows no river, the valley between the great mountains and the Monti Berici : and her true sign is the great Temple of Madonna, on a spur of those hills, the Madonna del Monte, which beckons for twenty miles or so across the plain and signals where she stands. Coming from the railway station between the hills and the city one enters Vicenza by the Porta del Castello, where to the left is a great old tower of the Scaligers, now the campanile of a church. Once within the gate the one great street, the Corso, 278 VENICE AND VENETIA leaves the Piazza di Castello there and runs quite through the city to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and the Porta degli Angeli. By following this way and leaving it now and then a few paces right or left all that is most notable in Vicenza may be seen in one long morning. To begin with the Piazza del Castello : on the right is the Palazzo Giulio Porto, known as the Casa del Diavolo, a great unfinished building by Palladio. It strikes as it were the keynote of the whole town, pre-eminently Palladian as it is. We begin with the work of this great man as we shall end with it. Palladio was born in Vicenza in 15 18 and died here in 1580. He was the founder of that style of architecture modelled on Roman work or developed from it as taught by Vitruvius, which has had, I suppose, after the decadence of pointed architecture, the greatest influence on the architects of all countries. Certainly in England Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren were Palladio's followers, the former even prepared notes for an English translation of the " Quattro Libri dell' Architet- tura," published in 17 15. In Venice we see Palladio mainly as a builder of churches, in his native city we see him as a builder of palaces, and what- ever we, at the mercy of our time, may think of his work no one, I imagine, will be found to deny it an impressiveness and nobility which he owed less, it might seem, to Vitruvius than to his own genius. No man who sets out to revive in different and new conditions an ancient art can escape the curse of all such artificialities, I mean a lack of spontaneity. What is surprising here in Vicenza is the vitality of so much Palladio resurrected. Goethe, saturated with the classical tradition, and at that time indifferent to the work of the Middle Age, writes during his Italian travels of Palladio as "aman really and intrinsically great, and whose greatness is manifest in his work. There is (he says) something indeed divine in Palladio's designs, which may be compared to the creations of a great poet. . . ." Well, perhaps so. Perhaps we might compare Palladio's work with VICENZA 279 Virgil's : but that would leave us begging the whole question. For I do not think we can compare the derived, adapted, and imitative art of Palladio with that of the Greeks or the Gothic builders any more than we may compare the JEneid with the Odyssey, or for that matter with Shakespeare's plays. Never- theless in Vicenza it is possible to enjoy Palladio's work without an afterthought, for here he is concerned almost altogether with domestic work ; and as a builder of palaces he is, I think, largely successful. As a church builder we have too many incomparable and innocent things in our hearts to bear with the weight of his reminiscences, the cunning of his adaptations, the futile learning that obscured his genius. His native city, however, with all piety helps her son out, and as you pass through Vicenza, not too eager maybe to appreciate his work, you will be continually charmed by the beauty that the people of Vicenza have bestowed upon it : lightening it with a wealth of verdure, a tiny bosco of trees seen through a great portico, a vision of bright flowers filling a heavy courtyard, a sense of space and air given to a shadowy opening by the flash and sound of a fountain running with water. If as we pass down the Corso we turn into the Strada Loschi on the right, we shall find ourselves before the Duomo of Vicenza, a broad and low Gothic church with a Renaissance choir and little indeed to recommend it. Little, but at least this : a picture of the Death of the Virgin by Lorenzo Vene- ziano in the fifth chapel on the right, and in the fourth chapel to the left some frescoes by Bartolommeo Montagna. Bartolommeo Montagna is the most remarkable of the painters of Vicenza. He was not born, it seems, within the city, but certainly established himself there and belongs to the Vicenza school, if indeed that city can rightly be said to have had a school of painting. He came first into prominence in 1470 and developed under the influence of Carpaccio and the Bellini, though he is generally regarded as a pupil of Man- tegna. His work is, however, original in character, and as quiet as an Umbrian's, possessing strange qualities of gem- like colour which belong to it alone. His work is the most 28o VENICE AND VENETIA characteristic in Vicenza, and in any memory of the city it is his pictures we recall. Returning to the Corso, which we continue to follow, we pass on the left the Palazzo Thiene, and then the Casino Vecchio and the Palazzo da Schio, fine Gothic buildings of the fifteenth century : on the right we see the Palazzo Porto, a work by Scamozzi, of the seventeenth century. The last two are beyond the crossing of the Contrada Cavour, which leads to the great Piazza de' Signori, with its Venetian columns and vast Basilica Palladiana, a huge palace consisting of two stories, the lower Doric, the upper Ionic, an early work by Palladio but extended after him and not finished till 1614, enclosing the Gothic Palazzo della Ragione. Here, too, is the Loggia del Capitano, built by Palladio in 1571, and various other public buildings of much later date. Returning to the Corso, and following it to the end, we come to the Casa di Palladio and the great Palazzo Chiericati, which I take to be the master's masterpiece in the way of palaces, but which was restored in 1855. Close by, on the opposite side of the Piazza, is the Teatro Olimpico, begun by Palladio in 1579 and completed by Scamozzi, when it was opened with a performance of the CEdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. Mr. Evelyn thus describes these buildings : " Vincenza is a citty . . . full of gentlemen and splendid palaces, to which ye famous Palladio, borne here, has exceedingly contributed, having ben the architect. Most conspicuous is the Hall of Justice (Palazzo della Ragione); it has a toure of excellent work ; the lower pillars are of the first order ; those of the three upper corridors are Doric; under them are shops in a spacious piazza. The hall was built in imitation of that at Padoa, but of a nobler designe, a la moderna. The next morn- ing we visited ye theatre, as being of that kind the most perfect now standing, and built by Palladio in exact imitation of the ancient Romans, and capable of containing 5,000 spectators. The sceane, which is all of stone, represents an imperial citty, ye order Corinthian decorated with statues. Over the scenario FIVE SAINTS MONTAGNA (S. Corona, Vicenza) VICENZA 281 is inscribed, 'Virtuti ac Genio Olympic* : Academia Theatrum hoc a fundamentis erexit Palladio Architect : 1584.' The sceane declines 1 1 foote, the suffito painted with cloudes. To this there joynes a spacious hall for sollemn days to ballot in, and a second for Academics. In ye Piazza is also the podesth or governour's house, the facia ta being of ye Corinthian order, very noble." A later traveller, and one trained to appreciate to the utmost the intention of Palladio, speaks thus of the teatro-. " The Olympic Theatre is a theatre of the ancients, restored on a small scale, and indescribably beautiful. Compared with our theatres, however, it reminds one of a genteel, rich, well- bred child contrasted with a shrewd man of the world, who, though neither as rich nor genteel nor well-bred, knows better how to employ his resources." With this verdict of Goethe we may well agree. He has spoken our very thought. A theatre to-day is not really a work of art; its aim is not beauty, but use, and it but rarely attempts anything more than to fit itself as commodiously as possible into the space of ground at its disposal. The exterior seldom has any real relation to the interior, and save in one or two instances, no one looking at our theatres in London, for instance, could re- ceive any notion of their true shape or size from their outward appearance. Our most famous buildings of this sort — Covent Garden Opera House or Drury Lane Theatre — have no claim at all on us as works of art : they are well-arranged barns, in which a multitude may be gathered together without too much inconvenience or risk. Palladio's intention was very different from anything of this sort. Founding himself on Vitruvius, whose directions he carried out with the utmost loyalty, he was able to build a theatre which I sup- pose to be as useless for the modern stage as I suspect it to have been for the stage of his day. The Italian theatre, always without a single native tragedy, entirely consisted of a school of artificial comedy — very delightful, but without any sense of grandeur or nobility. For the inauguration of their theatre the Vicenzesi were compelled to fall back on Sophocles 282 VENICE AND VENETIA and to open their new house with a play which still holds the Italian boards. Such a play I imagine to have been in place here, but that only emphasizes the fact that this building had but little, if any, vital relation with the work and life of its own time. And here I think we come upon the truth with regard to the whole work of Palladio. Essentially a scholar, an artist at the mercy of rules long since outmoded, everything he built is an imitation or a revival of a style that was obsolete. His churches have nothing to do with Christianity, and are merely adaptations more or less adequate for its needs. His palaces are certainly more in touch with the need of his time, and even of ours, but they show no creative power, and what nobility they have comes from the fact that mere human nature is much the same in all ages. His theatre was a splendid but forlorn hope ; small as it rightly was, life could not fill it — it was only a tomb. The vast Palazzo Chiericati in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele contains the Vicenza picture gallery. It consists of a small but valuable collection of pictures at present half hung and in the greatest confusion, but among them even now may be distinguished several fine works by Montagna, an early work by Cima, a good Tiepolo, a rare Antonello da Messina, and pictures by Jacopo da Bassano, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. There remain still in Vicenza three churches with impor- tant pictures, and these all stand in that part of the town which lies to the north of the Corso. The first, S. Corona, is close to the Theatre of Palladio. It is a fine Gothic building of brick, erected in the thirteenth century. Here we find, beside some frescoes by Speranza, a follower and imitator of Montagna, a fine altarpiece by Montagna himself of five saints in a Renaissance frame over the second altar on the left, and over the fifth a magnificent work by Giovanni Bellini — the Baptism of Christ. Close to S. Corona stands S. Stefano, with its splendid altarpiece by Palma Vecchio — the Madonna with S. Lucy and S. George. Passing some Palladian palaces, we come to another fine VICENZA 283 thirteenth-century church of brick, S. Lorenzo; here is a fresco by Montagna in the choir chapel on the left j and here Montagna was buried. To the north-east of S. Lorenzo we pass another Palladian palace, Palazzo Valmarana, before we come to the Church of S. Rocco, where over the High Altar is the masterpiece of Buonconsiglio, the best of Montagna's followers. It represents the Madonna enthroned with SS. Sebastian, Bernard, Peter, and Paul, and was painted in 1502. But the best work Vicenza has to offer us, and the most characteristic of her greatest painter, is not within the city wall, but just without it in the great Temple of the Madonna that crowns one of the spurs of the Monti Berici, about a mile from the town. The way thither is steep and perhaps tiring, but it is full of rewards, for the views we get thence over the plain and towards the mountains are finer than anything to be seen in Bassano or, I think, at Arqua. The whole Veneto seems to lie at our feet not divorced from the hills, but indeed their own child, created by them and in a very real way subject to them. A church and convent have stood here since 1428, in which year the Blessed Virgin appeared in a vision on this mountain to some shepherds. In 1688 the church was rebuilt in the latest fashion, that is to say, in the form of a Greek Cross under a dome. The church is coldly interesting, but what we have come to see is the marvellous picture by Montagna — a Pieta, one of the few truly religious pictures painted in the sixteenth century. Beyond the church there is a magnificent walk along the ridge of the hill, where all that is best and most characteristic in the Venetian terra firma, is spread out before you. Vicenza is at your feet, and as evening comes over the vast plain you begin to understand what primarily a city is, why it was built, and whence its origin. XXI VERONA THE road from Vicenza to Verona runs south-west at the foot of the great mountains, which here are thrust into the plain like so many vast bastions, between which deep valleys push their way far into the country of the hills. The road is perhaps the loveliest in all this country of the Veneto just because it is never far from the hills. At first setting out it runs between two ranges of them, for to the south of it rise the island group of peaks we call Monti Berici. And when it leaves them behind and emerges into the plain still in the shadow of the great mountains to the north, it is guarded all the way on the south by the Adige quite into Verona. Following that road afoot, it is a good two days' walk into Verona. But what matters? There are many pleasant places by the way. Montebello has none so poor an inn that it should be despised, and above it rises an old castello of the Montecchi, Shakespeare's Montagues, from whom was Romeo sprung, so that it might seem a place of rest of right for Englishmen. And after Montebello there is Monteforte, there is Soave of the Scaligers, there are the hot springs of Caldiero which the Romans knew, there is S. Martino, and that was a monastery; indeed, there is all the history and the poetry of our Europe if you can but see it, and as a background some of the loveliest scenery in the world. Yet I confess, such is the nature of man, that with so 284 VERONA '285 majestical a prize as Verona at the end of the journey, he is exceptional who can linger by the wayside and count the rivers and sing to the mountains, adore the sun and pluck the flowers, and rejoice in the long way and the great road, and despise the railway. Verona is too much for most of us, and all as nothing that prevents her. But what is Verona? In the memory of the world she is the city of Juliet, of the Two Gentlemen, and remotely of that poor poet — who was all a Mantuan — that Dante spoke of, Sordello ! " A single eye In all Verona cared for the soft sky." We think, and rightly, of Verona as a city of romance, a place inviolate in our dreams, consecrated for ever by the greatest of poets, the home of two people who possibly never existed, but who are much more real to us than most of those who cumber the world. Others less wise but more instructed remember the old vine dresser of Claudian, driven out by the Huns, watching his house burn and his vintage spoiled ; they see the wizened, eager face of the devilish Ecelino, or the proud and noble Can Grande della Scala welcoming the great fugitive Dante Alighieri. Such is Verona as she appears to us in our day-dreams ; but what is the real Verona? The real Verona is now and has always been a fortress ; for that she was born and for that she lives. Any large map of Central Europe will convince us of this. Verona stands at the southern entrance of the greatest and the most famous of all the gates of the Germanies, the gate of the Brenner, which Innspruck holds on the north. Behind Verona the great mountains rise, cloven here by the Brenner Pass. Above that pass rise two rivers — the Adige, which flows down into the Italian plain and the Adriatic, and the Inn, which flows down into the Danube and so into the Black Sea. Here is the frontier, and here is the iron gate which the Goths at last clanged open when they fell upon Italy and the Germanies surged into Europe. That is the real Verona — the fortress by 286 VENICE AND VENETIA the gate ; and this she has been for near three thousand years without a change ; for as she held that gate in the beginning, as she held it, though she failed at last, in the time of the Empire, so she held it in the wars of the nineteenth century, and, armed to the teeth, so she holds it to-day. Verona has always been full of soldiers, and a single walk through her streets any Thursday evening will presently convince the stranger that she no more thinks of disarmament to-day than at any time in her history. Rather is she doubly vigilant. For if the barbarism of the Germanics — which we call Central Europe not necessarily in terms of culture, but in terms of geography — should rise again, it is through this gash in the great hills and across this frontier it must flow like Etna's infernal avalanche upon what, when all is said, is still the fairest country of our world. Verona is very old : she has looked into the face of war for many thousand years. If those few huts on the Colle di S. Pietro represent, as it were, her foundation, to whom do we owe it? Her chroniclers claim for her an antiquity as fabulous as that of any other Italian city, speaking of her as famous before the building of Troy, before the disaster of the Flood. These vague dates mean nothing to us ; yet when in our turn we begin to make examination and to establish her militant here in earth as a fortress of the Etruscans or of the Cimbri or of the Gauls, we are equally at a loss. All we can say is that she is very old and that it seems possible the Etruscans either occupied or founded her some six centuries before the birth of Our Lord. Two centuries later she was certainly in existence, and it seems probable that in the third century B.C. she became part of the Roman world, was garrisoned by Roman soldiers, and accepted Roman pro- tection. She seems to have fought beside Rome at the battle of Cannae, and to have held, or tried to hold, the mountain gate against the Germanies in the end of the second century B.C. From that date at least she must have continually received much Teutonic blood, which may account for much in her later history. VERONA 287 When precisely Verona came under the influence of Rome it seems impossible to determine; but she became a Roman colony in B.C. 89, under the Lex Pompeia^ and after the battle of Philippi, with the rest of the cities in Cisalpine Gaul, it seems that her people were granted Roman citizen- ship. Under the Empire Verona soon became of the greatest importance, for she held the German gate, and most of the North Italian roads met in her streets. The Via Gallica passed through Verona, as did the Via Postumia and the Bologna road. She took her part in all the wars of the Empire: in that which placed Vespasian in the seat of Augustus, in that which saw Philip the Arab dead at her gates, and in that which saw Claudius II victorious over the Barbarians. Even to-day her Roman remains are of the utmost import- ance, including much beside the vast amphitheatre, which is as tremendous a relic of Rome as anywhere exists outside the Eternal City. We shall consider its date later ; it is enough here to note that it alone would be a witness of the Roman importance of the city. This importance is also witnessed by the sieges she has endured; notably that of the year 312, when Constantine came down from the Mont Cenis and found her in his path. Of this siege Gibbon gives us a graphic account : " From Milan to Rome the ^Emilian and Flaminian highways offered an easy march of about four hundred miles ; but though Constantine was impatient to encounter the tyrant [it was Maxentius], he prudently directed his operations against another army of Italians, who by their strength and position might either oppose his progress, or, in case of a misfortune, intercept his retreat. Ruricus Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valour and ability, had under his command the city of Verona and all the troops that were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of Verona. The necessity, the importance, 288 VENICE AND VENETIA and the difficulties of the siege of Verona immediately pre- sented themselves to the sagacious mind of Constantine. The city was accessible only by a narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides were surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He then encom- passed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks with prudent vigour, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus. That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own but the public safety." He returned with a new army, but Constantine was ready for him, and after a very bloody battle remained the victor and received the submission of Verona. Thereafter Verona became a part of the Western Empire, and was often the home of the Emperors in the restless years that followed, for it held the key not only to Germany but to all Upper Italy. With the dawn of the fifth century the city was to under- stand what that position entailed upon her. In 402 she saw Alaric cross the Alps, and may well have divined that he was but a herald. Met and defeated by Stilicho at Pollentia, Alaric, with a great unbroken part of his army, crossed the Apennines to conquer Rome, but Stilicho was at his heels, and arranged terms which sent the Barbarian back across the Po, Stilicho still following him. " The King of the Goths," says Gibbon, " ambitious to signalize his retreat by some splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the important city of Verona, which commands the principal passage of the Rhaetian Alps. ... In the bloody action at a small distance from the walls of Verona the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that which they had sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant king, who escaped by the swift- VERONA 289 ness of his horse, must either have been slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of Alaric had not disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric secured the remains of his army on the adjacent rocks, and prepared himself with undaunted resolution to maintain a siege against the superior numbers of the enemy who invested him on all sides. But he could not oppose the destructive progress of hunger and disease . . . and the retreat of the Gothic king was considered as the deliverance of Italy." That was in 403. Verona had then long been a Catholic city, Christianity having been introduced, according to the legend, in the first age, and had gloried in a bishop appointed by S. Peter himself. Her first eight bishops, in fact, were all canonized, S. Zeno being the last of them, who was bishop in 390. At this time Verona was subject to the Metropolitan See of Milan, which embraced practically all Northern Italy. As we have seen, though Verona was not able to keep Alaric out of Italy, she was not herself at his mercy. It was different with the next and heathen invasion. In 452 Attila with his Huns invaded Venetia by way of Aquileia, and having razed that city to the ground, he flung down also Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo. We do not know what they suffered, all we can see is the figure of that old husbandman which Claudian shows us watching his trees, his old contemporary trees, "burning in his orchard, his vines trampled underfoot, his family, his happiness swept away before his eyes." But life had not done with Verona, as she had with Aquileia. In 476 Odoacer crossed the pass she kept, pro- claimed himself King of Italy, and with his Barbarians made Verona his fortress. Theodoric swept him out and adopted Verona as his own, loving it well and building greatly there, as on the Colle di S. Pietro, where he had his palace. With the decline of the Gothic power Verona once more saw anarchy. Not till the Longobards under Alboin came over the hills did she know anything that could pass for settled rule. Alboin established himself in Verona, and there gave that famous banquet when he bade his wife Rosamund drinki from her 2 9 o VENICE AND VENETIA father's skull, and so compassed his own end, for the queen had him slain in 574 and fled to Ravenna. It was the Longobards who established dukes in Verona, and their rule endured for more than two centuries, till, in fact, Charlemagne came to find his kingdom and to restore the Empire from which Europe was made. Under Carlovingian rule counts took the place of the Longobard dukes, and Charlemagne's son, Pepin, was said to have been buried outside the Church of S. Zeno, where Roland and Oliver still stand on guard. There followed here, as elsewhere in Italy, an appalling darkness, the darkness of the ninth century. Figures pass to and fro in that night, but not one of them stands out till the Empire was re-established out of the confusion, and we suddenly find in the year 1076 Henry IV and Gregory VII face to face. Verona sided with the Emperor, and was faithful to him, hoping to gain the freedom of what had come to be her Commune. But she could not love Frederic Barbarossa, whose cruel work in Milan she witnessed. An attempt to destroy him as he crossed the Adige above the city by the bridge of boats failed, and Verona, fearing his vengeance, joined the Lombard League on its formation in n 64 against him, and took part in the victory of Vigasio in her own terri- tory, which forced Frederic to the Peace of Venice in n 78. Verona had won her freedom from exterior interference, but she was now, and for many years, to be at the mercy of her own factions. By joining the Lombard League she had ceased to be Ghibelline, but in thus forsaking the Imperial cause she was by no means unanimous. Too much was to be gained by division. The most famous factions that now began to prey upon her were those of the Ghibelline Montecchi and the Guelf Cappelletti, Shakespeare's Mon- tagues and Capulets. Every sort of anarchy and private war obtained, and the confusion was only not too great to prevent the renewal of the Lombard League against Frederic II in 1226. Peace was preached not only by the Pope but by the newly-born Orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, and espe- VERONA 291 daily in Verona by a Dominican, Fra Giovanni da Vicenza, who held a vast assembly in this cause a few miles outside the city of Verona, on 28 August, 1233, when not less than 400,000 persons are said to have been present to hear him; the whole population of many cities, according to Sismondi, having gathered there. Fra Giovanni was success- ful in so far that for the moment the factions were afraid, for in his enthusiasm he had sixty members of the principal families, both men and women, burnt alive for heresy. So much for S. Dominic. But there was one about to present himself in Verona before whom Fra Giovanni was as a torchlight to the sun. The Montecchi faction had lately found support in one Ecelino da Romano, whose name is like a red sign in all the history of this country. I have spoken of him elsewhere. 1 If he mur- dered 11,000 persons in Padua be sure Verona did not go free. His name became more terrible than Satan's, more murderous than Attila's. Men said he was the child of the devil, and Dante placed him in his Hell. He became Ghibel- line captain in Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and many another city, till the Pope sent a crusade against him, and he died " like a boar at bay, rending from his wounds the dressings his enemies had placed to keep him alive." In Verona he had married at S. Zeno Selvaggia, the natural daughter of Frederic II, and it was he who hurled down the castello in 1243, so tnat we now see hi s rmn - In Venetia, and indeed in Northern Italy generally, Ecelino serves as a bloody signature to the end of an appalling chapter. He had proved the futility of the Commune, its weakness before the force of a single individuality; what the factions had foretold he fulfilled, and with him end Commune, factions — all. There remained the Signori. These lords came in the old form of Podesta, and the first, Mastino della Scala, was never more, either in name or power. Nevertheless he founded a line of masters and lords that lasted for more than a hundred years, and under whom Verona 1 See supra, p. 237. 292 VENICE AND VENETIA attained her greatest strength and consequent happiness, her greatest fertility, too, in learning and the arts. And first as to the work of Mastino. He curbed the fac- tions and restored a sort of confidence. With a firm hand he crushed rebellion wherever it appeared, and in 1262 he was elected Captain of the People. Nor was he less successful in what we may call his foreign policy. He brought Piacenza under his rule, and persuaded Cremona to join the Ghibelline party; and when in 1267 Conradin, the last of the Hohen- staufen, entered Verona on his way south, he received him nobly, and saw him on his way so far as Pavia, of which Conradin made him Rector. He returned to Verona to subdue the Guelf city of Mantua, where he established his brother Alberto as Podesta. Thus he had founded his dominion when in 1277 he was suddenly murdered. Alberto della Scala of Mantua presently avenged him, and in doing it made himself actual lord of Verona, and before long of Reggio and Parma also, of Vicenza and Feltre and Belluno. This man was a great builder. He built new walls and bridges, and in 1301 began the Casa dei Mercanti. He was a good and strong ruler, and ambitious for his family. The times were on his side. He was able to ally himself through his children with the d' Este and the Visconti, and when he died in September, 1301, he was greeted as the saviour of his people. He was succeeded by his son Bartolommeo, a man of culture and of peace, who had the honour, shared later with his brother, Can Grande, of welcoming Dante to his city, and Dante repaid them in the seventeenth Canto of the " Paradise" Bartolommeo was not a great ruler, but he seems to have been beloved. He was succeeded by his brother Alboino, whom Dante contemned ; he was a sort of Guelf and a weak ruler. He soon associated his great brother, Can Grande, with him in his lordship, a man who was to be among the most splendid princes of his time. The chronicles are full of him from his birth to his death, endless legends grew up about him, and we learn that he was the bravest, the most eager, VERONA 293 and the wisest captain in all Venetia, which to so large an extent he brought under his sway. That he was religious we cannot doubt ; he founded S. Maria della Scala and endowed the Church of S. Fermo. Dante fixed his hopes in him after the death of Henry VII at Bonconvento, praised him in glow- ing verses, quarrelled with him and left him, but dedicated the " Paradiso " to him at last in that Tenth Epistle in which he expresses the meaning of his great poem. Giovanni Villani, the Florentine chronicler, calls him " the greatest lord and the richest and most powerful prince that has been in Lombardy since Ecelino da Romano," while Boccaccio in almost iden- tical terms praises him in the seventh story of the First Day of the " Decameron." A great captain, a great builder, a great sportsman — he kept three hundred hawks — the host of the greatest poet of his age, Can Grande was also a great patron of artists and of scholars. We hear of Doctors of Theology, of Astrologers, of Philoso- phers, and Musicians at his court, and we know that it was at his invitation Giotto came to Verona, though, alas ! there is nothing now left there to remind us of it. This great man died at Treviso in July, 1329, when about thirty-eight years of age. His successors were still very young and were not his sons, for he had no legitimate issue, but his nephews, Mastino and Alberto. Mastino was merely ambi- tious, without wisdom or nobility. Alberto was merely vicious, and cared only for a life of pleasure. They enjoyed a vast income, more than 700,000 florins of gold according to Villani, from the ten towns, including Lucca, which Can Grande had conquered or had ruled, but, not content, they foolishly offended Venice by building a salt factory near Chioggia, and taxed Venetian merchandize as it entered the Brenta. In less than ten years after Can Grande's death Venice with her allies attacked them, and, as we know, through trusting their prisoner, Marsilio da Carrara, lately lord of Padua, with an embassy to the Doge, they lost Padua, Alberto was taken prisoner, and Mastino was forced to break up his dominion, ceding towns to the King of Hungary and 294 VENICE AND VENETIA to the Visconti. Mastino seems to have been driven mad by misfortune. In the August of 1338, in a fit of fury, he mur- dered with his own hand Bishop Bartolommeo della Scala, and brought down upon his head the anger of the ChurcL The Pope excommunicated him, and for long all seemed los< . He managed, however, to marry his daughter to Bernabb Visconti, heir of Milan, and his eldest son, Can Grande II, to the daughter of the King of Bavaria. Then he died, in 1351, and in September of the same year was followed by his brother Alberto. Can Grande II was called the Mad Dog, Cam's Rabidus. He was a hopeless and rapacious ruler, whom Milan and Mantua continually plotted to murder. He it was who built the Castel Vecchio in Verona to ensure his safety. There he spent his life. Yet when he died at last it was by the hand of his own brother. This brother, Can Signorio, got himsel f proclaimed Lord of Verona. He seems to have beeinpbet ruler than his predecessors since Can Grande. At ahy ra he was a great builder. He rebuilt the Ponte delle Navi, an- built the fountain of the Piazza delle Erbe, thus bringing drinking-water into the city. But having murdered one brother to secure his own succession, he murdered anothe- f o secure the succession of his illegitimate sons. When he died in 1375 they reigned for a few years, but the elder was assassinated by the younger in 1381, and the younger was himself compelled to flee the city in 1387, when he gave his town to the King of the Romans, who handed it over to Visconti. He died in 1388. For some years the town remained in the hands of Visconti, and then came into the power of the Carraresi, but in 1404 Venice, having disposed of these, claimed dominion, which she obtained by the Act of Surrender, dated 22 June, 1405. II Such in the merest outline is the story of Verona up to the time she came into the power of Venice. Let us now examine the city herself. VERONA 295 The city of Verona is in form exceedingly like to the city of Venice. That is to say, it is roughly divided into two parts . by the river Adige, as Venice is by the Grand Canal, and the course that river takes through the city is very similar indeed j. to that of the canal. Roughly it may be said to form the f sign 2 . And just as the busiest parts of Venice are those on the great peninsula whose beak is the Rialto, so the chief part of Verona is that on the very similar peninsula whose beak is the Duomo. Yet in Verona as in Venice both sides of the water have been continuously occupied. If we were to begin an examination with the oldest ruins that remain to Verona, we should probably find ourselves on the Castel S. Pietro or in the ravine that separates it from the river, where so much has been disinterred ; but we shall find all the antiquity we can desire in the very centre of the modern city, where one of the most remarkable of Roman gjpomiments to be found in Italy is still standing, substantially ^ as it was two thousand years ago. J^ It seems impossible to decide when the Arena was built, • but it probably dates from the first years of our era. The Arena was built for the spectacle so dear to all the Latin peoples of the fight of beasts, of one beast with another, of the % :« lion with the bear, of the tiger with the elephant, of panthers and crocodiles. It was built of vast blocks of stone, quarried hard by in the mountains, of a slightly oblong shape, and , capable of accommodating some 20,000 persons. 1 The outer wall here consisted of four stories, but of these but three remain, save in one fragment, the rest of the building is in really an excellent state. We know very little of the shows that were given here. We hear of gladiatorial contests cele- brated here in the time of Trajan, and of rumours of fights between men and beasts. We may believe that S. Fermo and S. Rustico were here martyred in the time of Diocletian in 303 a.d., when they were burned alive, and, when the fires 1 The Colosseum, the Flavian amphitheatre, is said to have been capable of seating 87,000 persons ; the Valencia Bull Ring will seat 70,000. 296 VENICE AND YENETIA failed, beheaded. But soon afterwards, with the growth of Christianity, the spectacle of the amphitheatre was abolished. There remained, however, this vast building, which only time could really destroy. We hear that not only the Goths and the Huns spoiled it, but that Theodoric encouraged its destruction; yet without avail. There it stood, to be used later for the trial by fire and for tournaments, and again for public executions. Many of the Paterani, those unfortunate heretics of one of whom Villani tells so pitiful a tale, suffered death by burning in the Arena of Verona. "In the said year 1305," says Villani, "in the territory of Novara in Lombardy, there was one Frate Dolcino which was not a brother of any regular Order, but as it were a monk outside the Orders, and he rose up and led astray a great company of heretics, men and women of the country and of the mountains of small account ; and the said Frate Dolcino taught and preached that he was a true apostle of Christ, and that everything ought to be held lovingly in common, and women also were to be held in common, and there was no sin in so using them. And many other foul articles of heresy he preached, and maintained that the Pope and Cardinals and the other rulers of Holy Church did not observe their duty nor the evangelic life j and that he ought to be made Pope. And he, with a following of more than 3,000 men and women, abode in the mountains, living in common after the manner of beasts ; and when they wanted victuals they took and robbed wherever they could find any j and thus he reigned for two years. At last those which followed the said dissolute life, becoming weary of it, his sect diminished much, and through want of victuals and by reason of the snow he was taken by the Navarese and burnt, with Margaret his companion, and with many other men and women which with him had been led astray." That is one picture. A far other is presented nearly eighty years later by the gxtdXfesta given here by the fratricide, Antonio della Scala, when a vast joust was arranged in honour of the beautiful Samaritanada Polenta, his betrothed. For centuries YERONA 297 the Arena was used for this sort of pageant, and we hear of one even in the eighteenth century. Towards the end of that century, in 1789, the first bull-fight was held here in the same Arena to which seven years before thousands had flocked to receive the blessing of Pius VI. In the beginning of the nineteenth century the great Napoleon gave a bull-fight here and was present at it himself, on 16 July, 1805, feeling like Caesar. The last bull-fight was given in 181 5. But with all its history upon it, what I like to remember best about the Arena is that Eleanora Duse on her fourteenth birthday played Juliet here in the city of Juliet in the light of a few lanterns, and so began her great career. The Arena, now surrounded by the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, formerly the Piazza Bra, the Prato, or meadow, is perhaps the best point in Verona from which to set out on any explora- tion of the city. To the east of the Arena is a fragment — all that is left — of the Roman wall, and the Caserma in the Via Pallone behind the modern Municipio is a part of the medieval wall of the Visconti. Just without this wall, in a chapel of the suppressed Cappuccini convent, is a medieval sarcophagus known as the Tomb of Juliet. It has no interest at all, being very obviously a mere traveller's relic. The supposed house of the Capulets in the Via Cappello, a far more interesting affair, may be reached from the Arena by following the busy Via Nuova, which is closed to wheeled traffic and where the best shops in the city are situated. This street may be compared with the Calle de las Sierpes of Seville, which it very much resembles. The Via Nuova ends at the Church of S. Toma, and, just beyond, the Via Cappello crosses it north and south. Just here on the left is the so- called house of the Capulets, and whether or no it be the home of Juliet, it is an interesting specimen of a medieval mansion, now fallen to very humble use. If we turn back from Juliet's house and follow the Via Cappello northward, in a few steps we shall come into the Piazza of Verona, the Piazza delle Erbe, the Roman Forum, the Medieval Piazza, and the modern fruit and vegetable 298 VENICE AND VENETIA market. Venice has here left her mark and signature in the marble column at the north end of the Piazza, which bears the Lion of S. Mark, a modern copy of an older work. Here the Piazza is closed by the Palazzo Maffei, a building of the seventeenth century. The corner palace to the right, the Casa Mazzanti, was the home of Alberto della Scala. In the six- teenth century it was adorned with frescoes by CavaUi, a disciple of Giulio Romano. The fountain in the midst of the Piazza was rebuilt there by Cansignorio in 1370, but it originally dates from the time of Berengarius I at any rate. Close by, in the midst of the Piazza, is the Tribune, set there in 1307, from which decrees were promulgated and where each of the Scaligers took an oath on his succession. Opposite are two palaces with faded frescoes by Liberale and Girolamo dai Libri. At the corner of the Via Pelliciai is the Casa dei Mercanti, begun by Alberto della Scala in 1301, the year of his death. Opposite stands the fine tower of the Lamberti, but who the Lamberti were or who built this tower is a mystery. The other tower in the Piazza is the Torre del Gardello, built in 1370 by Cansignorio, who fixed therein the first clock in Verona to strike the hours. From the picturesque and busy Piazza delle Erbe we pass mto the deserted Piazza dei Signori under the archway called La Costa. Deserted as it seems, it is crowded with the ghosts of the Scaligers, whose centre of life and government it was. Their palaces, both public and private, surround it, and it is closed by their Church of S. Maria Antica, where they heard Mass and about which they lie in their splendid tombs. In the centre of the Piazza is a modern statue of Dante, wholly without interest. But the first palace on the right as we come from the Piazza delle Erbe is the Palazzo delle Ragione, built in n 83 for the office it still fulfils. The court- yard is beautiful, and contains a magnificent flight of steps of the fourteenth century. This end of the Piazza is closed by the Palazzo de' Giurisconsulti, founded in 1263, but rebuilt in the sixteenth century. On the further side of the Via Dante rises the great tower ) 1 J k ' > > » » * t "> > >, > \ > » > , > VERONA 299 of the Scaligers beside the Palazzo Tribunalizio, which, as an inscription tells us, n Cansignorio della Scala, Podesta and Captain of the People from Dec. 14, 1359, to Oct. 10, 1375, built and inhabited, and which was rebuilt in the sixteenth century by the Venetians." The courts of this building should all be examined with care, as they are by far the most ancient and beautiful parts of the building remaining. Opposite stands La Loggia, the Palazzo del Consiglio, pos- sibly built by Fra Giocondo, one of the loveliest Renaissance buildings in all Italy. It was built by the Venetian Govern- ment in 1497, but was restored in 1873. Once statues surmounted the facade, and busts now are set in the wall in honour of distinguished Veronesi. Originally this palace was intended to fill the whole side of the Piazza, but no more than we see was ever finished. Under the archway in the Via Mazzanti is a fine old fountain of about the same date as the palace, built of the fine red local marble. Turning now back to the Tribunale, we pass down the way beside it to the Church of S. Maria Antica. This very ancient church, the private chapel of the Scaligers, dates from the year 1000 j but it has been recently though reverently restored. Without are the monuments of the famous House which for so long ruled in Verona. The first over the entrance to the church is that of Can Grande, who ruled in Verona from 131 1 to 1329. It is surmounted by an equestrian statue of him who lies in the sarcophagus, the greatest of his race ; and the sarcophagus itself bears his recumbent effigy " with hands clasped fast as if still in prayer." No description can do justice to the simplicity and beauty of the tomb or to that splendid figure in armour and a-horseback which surmounts it: his horse, too, clad for battle; his great sword in his hand, and his helm flung back upon his shoulders. His face is seen as he turns, smiling, as toward some comrade who had gone up with him against Vicenza, which he suddenly sees taken by his cunning. The other tombs, four in all, surround the little churchyard, which, with them, is all fenced in with a marvellous grille of 3 oo VENICE AND YENETIA wrought iron, as fine as anything of the kind in Europe. There we see Mastino I, the founder of the family ; Alberto, who built so much, and died in 1301 ; Mastino II, and last of all, his son Cansignorio, who built his own tomb and set about it that crowd of heroes and virtues. Nor must we forget to note the magnificent wall tomb of Giovanni della Scala, who died in 1350, close to Can Grande's monument. 1 We follow the street that leads straight out of the Piazza dei Signori, past S. Maria Antica, to the Church of S. Anastasia. This church, whose apse is almost a bastion thrust into the rapid Adige, was built with the assistance of Alberto della Scala by the Dominicans in 1261. It is a fine and even an unforgettable example of those Gothic churches in brick which are so noble in these North Italian cities, and not least in Verona. Its fine portal is of marble, and is decorated with reliefs of scenes in the life of S. Peter Martyr and with a fresco in the lunette over the door, of the fourteenth century. Within, the church is spacious and noble, borne by twelve columns. At the foot of the first column on the left is an antique capital, used as a holy-water basin, borne by a gobbo, or dwarf, remarkably grotesque, and attributed to the father of Paolo Veronese. On the right by the first altar is the sixteenth-century monument to the Venetian General Fregoso. Over the third altar are some frescoes by Caroto and an Entombment attributed to Liberale. Over the fourth altar is a picture of S. Martin by Caroto — one of his latest works. In the adjoining early Renaissance Chapel of the Crucifix is a fourteenth-century group of the Entombment in painted terra-cotta and a fine wooden Crucifix of the fifteenth century. Close to this chapel, over the next altar, is a fine picture of the Madonna and Child with SS. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas by Francesco Morone, and near by a fine Gothic tomb. We now come to the chapels about the choir. The second, 1 Ruskin, " Stones of Venice," vol. iii, cap. ii, § 53-56, has described these tombs in his own inimitable way, once and for all. The reader is referred to his splendid prose. VERONA 301 the Cavalli Chapel on the right, contains some interesting frescoes, possibly by Altichieri, of Knights of the Cavalli family kneeling before the Virgin and Child, and other subjects. The Pellegrini Chapel hard by has some remarkable terra-cotta reliefs by some Florentine of the fifteenth century. Here of old was to be seen the beautiful fresco of S. George by Vittore Pisano. It was, in 1901, I think, removed to the sacristy, and then in 1902 replaced. Thus are priceless things fooled with even to-day in Verona. But worse is this : that now it is to be found neither in the sacristy nor in the chapel. Of course, it may have been taken to the Pinacoteca, which is at present in very great confusion. But the priest in charge at S. Anastasia swore he knew nothing of any such work, and was profuse in shruggings and extended hands. This, of old, I have learnt to be a sign that knowledge is not to be imparted, rather than that your shrugger is himself ignorant. I shall be exceedingly glad to hear that Pisanello's fresco is still in Verona ; but I confess I have not much hope of it. It was incomparably the most beautiful and the most interesting work of art in S. Anastasia, and the church does not seem itself without it. The choir, with its fine intarsia stalls, has nothing to show us but a painted monument of General Sarego, said to be the work of a pupil of Donatello. Close by in the Lavagnoli Chapel are some frescoes of the life of Christ by Benaglio, a Veronese painter of the fifteenth century. In the left transept is a fine picture by Liberale of S. Mary Magdalen with the two SS. Catherine, and some early frescoes. Nothing else of interest remains in the church. Without, beside the church over a gateway, is the marble canopied tomb of Guglielmo da Castelbarco, who, friend as he was of the Scaligers, helped to build S. Anastasia. From the Piazza di S. Anastasia we proceed up the Via del Duomo to the Cathedral, past the little oratory of S. Peter Martyr, now part of the Convent of S. Anastasia, and built by the Knights of Brandenburg, whom Can Grande II called into Verona in 1353. 302 VENICE AND VENETIA The cathedral church of Verona, according to tradition, dates from the eighth century, but there is i'ttle or nothing there now that can be earlier than the twelfth century. The choir, apse, side door, and facade are of that date, the latter having pointed windows of a later time, but the nave, and indeed the church as a whole, is a Gothic building of the fourteenth century. The apse, interesting and beautiful both within and without, the side door, and the main facade, with its fine portal resting on gryphons, and its curious statues, two of which on either side the door are thought to represent Roland and Oliver, are by far the more splendid parts of the building. Within the church is spacious, and is borne by eight red marble pillars. Here perhaps the most charming detail is the marble rood-loft designed by Sanmicheli, with its fine Crucifix of bronze by Giambattista of Verona. The church contains but two pictures of any merit : an Adoration of the Magi by Liberale da Verona over the second altar on the right, with wings by Giolfino, and an Assumption by Titian over the first altar on the left. We are largely ignorant of the history of this picture. According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle it belongs to the same period as the Ecce Homo in Verona, that is to say, 1543, but Dr. Gronau would place it, and I agree with him, some twenty years earlier, and compare it with the Vatican picture. At the end of the right aisle is a lovely Gothic tomb, known as the tomb of S. Agata. S. Agata is, however, buried at Catania, and only a few relics lie here. The ancient Baptistery of Verona, S. Giovanni in Fonte, is reached from the choir by a passage on the left. It is a fine and interesting building of the twelfth century, to which date the beautiful sculptured font also belongs. The Romanesque cloisters to the north of the main church should by no means be missed. Beyond them, to the east, stands the Vescovado with its chapel, where are three works by Liberale. To the west stands the Palazzo dei Canonici with a fine library of manuscripts. The Vescovado abuts on the river, just hiding the Duomo • J * , » 5 > ■> > > VERONA 303 from it, but if we proceed round the Palazzo dei Canonici we shall find ourselves on the Lung' Adige, and turning left along it come in a quarter of a mile to the Palazzo Ottolini, behind which stands the Church of S. Eufemia. This church is a Gothic work of the thirteenth century, and contains a rather fine Madonna and Child by Moretto. The cloisters were designed by Sanmicheli and are worth seeing, while the tomb on the left of the main door is by the same master. From S. Eufemia we make our way past the Palazzo Piatti and the Palazzo Guerrieri to the Porta Borsari, a late Roman gate of Verona, built in 265. Beyond opens the Corso Cavour, by which we come first, on the right, to the Church of S. Lorenzo, a small but splendid Romanesque building of per- haps the eleventh century, with round towers at either flank of the facade and an interesting but restored interior, then on the same side to two Sanmicheli palaces — Palazzo Porta- lupi and Palazzo Canossa — and at last to the great fortress of Can Grande II, the Castel Vecchio with its fine bridge across the Adige. Here Can Grande II shut himself up and spent his last years in its safety. Passing the Castel we come into the Rigaste S. Zeno by the river, and presently turning to the left just before we come to a barracks we find ourselves in the Piazza di S. Zeno before S. Zeno's Church. S. Zeno Maggiore is by far the most interesting church in Verona, and is one of the finest Romanesque buildings in Italy. It is said to have been founded by Pepin, son of Charlemagne, and though this might seem far-fetched, much leads us to think that it was begun about the year 900. The whole church in its quietness, simplicity, and isolation is full of charm, and above anything else in Verona might seem to figure the place for us One of the loveliest features in this altogether lovely church is the main portal borne by columns resting on the backs of lions carved from the local red marble of Verona. It is adorned, too, with a splendid series of reliefs that seem to be twelfth-century work. Here Theodoric, the magician of 3 o 4 VENICE AND VENETIA Verona, is riding " headlong to the devil," and over the doors we see the twelve months figured. The doors themselves are covered with reliefs in bronze from the life of S. Zeno. Within we find ourselves in a flat-roofed basilica of various dates, the nave as we see it being of the twelfth, the uplifted choir of the thirteenth century. The nave contains little of interest : an octagonal font, a fourteenth-century fresco of S. Zeno, a holy- water stoup con- trived out of an antique capital, an old vase of porphyry near 30 feet in circumference, and a fine Giottesque Crucifix, while everywhere are remains of frescoes that have now vanished. On the beautiful lofty choir screen are thirteenth-century figures in marble of Our Lord and the Apostles, and below ornaments in a low relief. To the right, high up at the foot of the steps to the choir, is a marble figure of S. Zeno painted. Behind the High Altar we come to the great treasure of the church, though splendid as it is it is not so precious as the church itself — a splendid altarpiece by Mantegna of Madonna enthroned with her Divine Son among many angels and S. Peter, S. Paul, S. John, S. Zeno, S. John Baptist, S. Gregory, S. Lawrence, and S. Benedict. There is nothing finer in Verona. In the great crypt S. Zeno lies, in a humble modern tomb. S. Zeno was a monastic church of the Order of S. Benedict, very famous through all Northern Italy. All that remains of the monastery, however, is the great tower and the cloisters, which are worth seeing. On our way back into Verona, for here at S. Zeno we are on the verge of the city, we turn out of the Via Giuseppe into the Vicolo Lungo S. Bernardino and so come to the church of that name. We enter the church through a cloister, for the place is no longer a Franciscan convent but a boys' school. S. Bernardino is, as we might suppose, a building of the fifteenth century, and for the most part it contains little of interest. It is worth a visit, however, if only to see the Cappella Pellegrini, built in 1557 by Sanmicheli. Another VERONA 305 and a greater monument by the same master stands not far away — I mean the tremendous Porta Palio at the end of the Stradale di Porta Palio. We now return to the Arena, and set out to explore that part of the city on the left bank of the Adige which is known as Veronetta. On our way, however, before crossing the Ponte delle Navi, we shall visit the Church of S. Fermo Maggiore. S. Fermo, which was built early in the fourteenth century for the Benedictines, was later given to the Franciscans. To-day it is served by seculars. The facade is beautiful, and there we see the tomb of Can Grande's physician, Fra Castoro, with its old frescoes. Within the church has been much modernized, but it still preserves a few old frescoes of the Veronese school and even remnants of the fine work of Pisanello. Nothing within the church, however, is so fine as the church itself, which can best be seen from the Ponte delle Navi. We cross the bridge and turning to the right come to the Palazzo Pompei, which contains the Picture Gallery. No detailed account can be given of the precious works here, for the whole Gallery is at present in confusion and without a catalogue. The custode^ however, is very intelligent and help- ful in every way, and will do his best for the visitor, who should insist on seeing the fine Madonna and Child with saints by Mantegna here, the works of the early Veronese masters, which are very charming, and the fine Paolo Veronese Portrait of Guarienti. From the Pinacoteca you turn back up-stream and follow the Via Scrimiari as far as the second cross-road, there turn left and you are before the Church of S. Tommaso, where is a fine picture of S. Sebastian, S. Roch, and Job by Girolamo dai Libri. 1 Turning back from S. Tommaso, which of old stood on an island in the river, along the way we have come, but keeping 1 Another work by the same master, as well as one by Veronese and another by Bonsignori, is to be seen in S. Paolo di Campo Marzo close to the Gallery. x 3 o6 VENICE AND VENETIA straight on down the Via Disciplina, instead of turning into Via Scrimiari, we come presently, a little way to the left, to the Church of SS. Nazaro and Celso. This is a Gothic church, rebuilt in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Its chief interest for us is two works by Montagna — a Pieta and Four Saints. Here, too, is an altarpiece by Bonsignori and some injured frescoes by his master. We now return along the Via Muro Padri past the mys- teriously lovely gardens of the Giusti Palace, which one is always foolish to pass by without a visit, and so at last come to S. Maria in Organo, a very old church, rebuilt by San- micheli. Here are frescoes by Francesco Morone, an altar- piece and some portraits by the same master, and a Madonna and Child by Girolamo dai Libri. S. Maria in Organo used to stand on the brink of the Adige. In those days, not so long ago, for it was only in 1895 tnat tne canal was filled up, S. Tommaso with all its quarter was an island. It is useless to climb up to Castel S. Pietro, for the view is not notably finer than that to be had from the Giusti ter- races under the mysterious cypresses, and there is nothing else to see there. It is better and very pleasant to follow the low road by the river past the old Roman theatre, past the Ponte Pietra, the oldest bridge in Verona, and taking the Via Alessio at last to come to S. Giorgio in Braida. This is another old church rebuilt by Sanmicheli, and it is now as quiet and delicious a little picture gallery as is to be found in all the Veneto. Here is a fine picture by Girolamo dai Libri of the Madonna enthroned between SS. Zeno and Lorenzo Gius- tincani with three angels at Her feet playing music for Her delight. Close by is a fine Moretto, the Madonna with the two Maries, a cool and lovely piece of painting, and best of all, perhaps, is the Paolo Veronese, the martyrdom of S. George which stands over the High Altar. And it is not any picture or church, nor the great palaces about the old Piazza, nor even the Arena itself that come VERONA 307 back into my mind when I hear the name of Verona, but those gardens of the Conti Giusti, where I have spent so many evenings under the cypresses that are as beautiful there as those in Hadrian's garden at Tivoli. Here best of all I have found my desire, and recalled in my heart the Italy that is my fatherland. For the majestic and melancholy cypresses of those gardens have seen all the glory and tears, the victories, the defeats, the captivities of Verona from of old till now, and in their endurance they seem to demand of us just patience with all this sordid and brutal modern world, and in their solemn beauty to remind us of all that which cannot pass away. Here in the Veneto, on the eve, perhaps, of leaving Italy, it is some such re- assurance we need, that we may recall to mind the great Latin people which has created and preserved Europe ,and given us all that is worth having in the world, and sha-fl yet if need be — and there will be need — secure it to tfs again. Here on the frontier let us remember it. , INDEX Acre, 30 Adalbati, the, 273 Adige, the river, 3 Adria, 5 Aias, 68 Alaric, his invasion of Italy, 6, 29, 243, 288 Alberoni, 209, 213 Alberti, Duccio degli, tomb of, 135 Alboin, in Verona, 289 Aldo, 191 Alexander III, Pope, in Venice, 109, 181 Alexander IV, Pope, 237, 254 Alexandria, 20, 45, 215 Alexis, Emperor, 27 Altichiero da Padua, 154 His work in Padua, 262, 263 in Verona, 301 Alticlini, the, 244 Altinum, history of, 5, IX, 14, 206, 221, 244 Amadi, Angelo, 117 Amadi, Francesco, 117 Amalteo, Pomponio, his work in Treviso, 227 Anafesto, Doge, 16 Anastasius, Antipope, 96 Ancona, 181 Angelico, Fra, 82, 122, 228 Antenor, 243 Antonello da Messina, his work in Venice, 156 His work in Vicenza, 282 Antonio da Murano, his work in Venice, 140 Antonio da Negroponte, Frat\ his work in Venice, 102 Antonio da Ponte, his work in Venice, 73, 114 Antwerp Gallery, 136 Aquileia, 5 Bishop of, 45 Sieges of, 8, 10, 117, 220, 244, 289 Patriarchate of, 35, 43 Aretino, Pietro, 92, 191 Armenian Convent, Venice, 183 Arqua, Petrarch at, 257, 264-270 Ascension Day in Venice, 26, 100, 107, 180-182 Asolo, 90, 236 Assisi, Giotto in, 251, 253 Athens, 99 Atrium, origin of the, 52 Attila, his invasion of Italy, 9, II, 206, 220, 221, 243 Augustus Caesar, 5, 287 Avanzo, Jacopo d', his work in Padua, 262, 263 Azzo, Alberto, 273 Baccio da Montelupo, his work in Venice, 134 Badoer, Elena, 117 Badoeri, the, 69, ill Baglioni, Orazio, statue of, 104 Bagni di Lucca, 271 Balbi, Zanetta, 191 Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, 27 Baone, 270 Barattiere, Niccolo, 91 Barbarelli, Giorgio, see Giorgione Barbarigo II, Doge, portrait of, 192 Barbarigo, Agostino, 80 Barbaro, Marcantonio, villa of, 236 Barozzi, the, 117 Basaiti, Marco.his work in Padua, 263 His work in Venice, 135, 147, 159, 192 Basil, Emperor, 180 Bassano, 236 History of, 33, 36, 160, 225, 238, 245, 247, 248 309 3io VENICE AND VENETIA Bassano — continued Sights of, 239-241 Bassano, Francesco, his work in Bassano, 239 His work in Venice, 128, 170 Bassano, Jacopo, his work in Bas- sano, 239-241 His work in Cittadella, 241 in Venice, 172 in Vicenza, 282 Bassano, Leandro, his work in Bas- sano, 239, 240 His work in Venice, 78, 81, 112, 129 Bastiani, Lorenzo, his work in Venice, 196 Battaglia, 264 Bebo da Volterra, 131, 132 Beccaruzzi, Francesco, his work in Treviso, 229 His work in Venice, 124 Beethoven, 233, 234 Bellano of Padua, 262 Bellini, Gentile, his work in Venice, 76, 155, 156 Bellini, Giovanni, his work in the Academy, Venice, 57, 88, 126, 155 His work in Berlin, 190 in the Doge's Palace, Venice, 76,8i in Venetian churches, 96, 102, no, 113, 126, 134, 171, 190, 192 in Vicenza, 282 School of, 149, 151, 153, 156-162, 227, 229, 234, 279 Bellini, Jacopo, his work in Venice, 155, 255 Bellini, Nicolosa, 255 Belluno, 223, 224, 237, 245, 292 Belmont, 236 Bembo, Pietro, Asolani, 236 In Venice, 191 Tomb of, 262 Benaglio, his work in Verona, 301 Benedict II, Pope, 96 Benoni, Giuseppe, his work in Venice, 147 Benvenuto, Girolamo di, 150 Benvenuto da Imola in Muratori> 250 note Benvenuto da Mola, on Giotto, 251 Berengarius I, 298 Berenson, Bernhard, on Giotto, 251 On Lotto, 161 Bergamesco, Guglielmo, his work in Venice, 76, 190 Bergamo, Attila overthrows, 221, 289 Berlin, Gallery at, 161, 190 Bernini, school of, 103 Bevagna, epistle of, 207 Bibboni, Cecco, 131, 132 Biscaro, Gazzetta di Treviso , 228 note Bissolo, Francesco, his work in Treviso, 227 His work in Venice, 76, 103, 159, 171 Boccaccini, Boccaccio, his work in Venice, 108, 193 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Chaucer's debt to, 149 His friendship with Petrarch, 257, 267 On della Scala, 293 Bocconio, Marino, conspiracy of, 69 Bologna, 223, 248, 271 S. Antony at, 260, 26 1 Bonazzo, Giovanni, 93 Bonconvento, 293 Bondumiero, Andrea, 211 Bonifazio, his work in Venice, 128, 162 Pupils of, 164, 239 Bonsignori, his work in Verona, 305 note, 306 Bordone, Paris, his work in Treviso, 225-227, 229 His work in Venice, 100, 160, 164 Borgo Angarano, 241 Bragadino, Marc Antonio, tomb of, 103 Brandenburg, Knights of, 301 Bregno, Battista, his work in Tre- viso, 227 Bregno, Lorenzo, his work in Tre- viso, 226, 227 His work in Venice, 104, 134 Brenner Pass, the, 1, 285 Brenta, the river, 3 Brentettone, Canale, 236 Brescia, 223, 287 Fall of, 34, 225 Brocardo, Antonio, 161 INDEX 3ii Brondolo, 18 Brossano, Francesco da, 268 Brown, Horatio, his works on the Venetian Republic, 17 note, 143 note Quoted, 143, 145, 222 Bruno, Francesco, 265 Bua, Mercurio, 229 Bucentauro, the, 100, 121, 181 Buda Pesth, 161 Bullones, Martin de, 259 Buon, Bartolommeo, his work in Venice, 75, 86, 90, 125 Buonconsiglio, his work in Venice, 128 His work in Vicenza, 283 Buono da Malamocco, 46 Burano, 187, 200, 205 History of, 13, 14 Lace school at, 202-205 Buratti, Benedetto, his work in Venice, 172 Byrd, 234 Byron, Lord, in Venice, 1 79, 183, 184 On I Cappucini, 271 Byzantium, relations with Venice, 15, 16, 18, 27-29, 37, 154 Cadore, 102 Caerano di S. Marco, 236 Cagliari, 31 Caldiero, 284 Caloprini, the, 20 Camaldolesi, the, 190 Cambrai, League of, 78, 80, 104, 152, 240 Campagna, his work in Venice, 108, ill, 120, 133, 170 Campagnola, Domenico, 258 Canaletto, his work at Windsor, 89 His work in Venice, 168 Candia, 115 Candiani, the, 20 Cannae, battle of, 243, 286 Canova, his work in Bassano, 240 Tomb of, 136 Capello, Andrea, portrait of, 166 Capello, Bianca. 95, 203 Cappelletti, the, 290, 297 Cappello, Vittorio, portrait of, 130 Caprioli, 229 Caroldo, Maria, 144 Carole, 14 Caroto, his work in Verona, 300 Carpaccio, Vittore, his work in the Accademia, 76, 157 His work in Venetian churches, 101,114, 152, 216 Position and influence of, 149, 151, 156, 158, 279 Carraresi, the, 238, 255 In Cittadella, 241 In Padua, 244-249 In Vicenza, 276 see Francesco Jacopo,and Marsilio da Carrara Cassiodorus, on Venice, 12 Castelfranco, 160, 192, 200, 230-236 Birthplace of Giorgione, 231-234 Castellani, the, faction of, 143 Castello, 18 Castoro, Fra, 305 Catania, 302 Catena, his work in Venice, 76, 81, 101, 128, 158 Catullus at Sermione, 5 Cavalli, Jacopo, his work in Verona, 298 Tomb of, 104 Ceneda, 248 Cephalonia, 193 Charlemagne, Emperor, in Italy, 9, 17, 221, 244, 290 Charles V, portrait of, 239 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 149 Chigi-Giovanelli, Principessa Maria, 203 Chioggia, early history of, 14, 18, 32 School of lace at, 204, 215 War of, 93, 209, 212, 215-217, 221, 247, 293 Chopin, 233 Cicogna, Doge Pasquale, portrait of, 80 Tomb of, 120 Cima da Conegliano, his work in Berlin, 190 His work in Venice, 76, 100, 124, 141,. 1 57 in Vicenza, 282 Pupils of, 161 Cipoilino, pillars of, 62 Cittadella, 241 Claude, 274 312 VENICE AND VENETIA Claudian, on the fall of the Empire 8 On Verona, 285, 289 Claudius II, 287 Clement IX, Pope, 144 Cleomenes of Sparta, 243 Coimbra, 259 Colleoni, Bartolommeo, statue of, 103 Cologne, 157 Columbini of Siena, Blessed Giovanni, 144 Como, 223 Concordia, II Conegliano, 158 Conradin, in Verona, 292 Constantine, Emperor, 58, 186 Besieges Verona, 287, 288 Constantinople, fall of, 29, 151, Greek Empire, restored in, 30 Intercourse with Venice, 21, 27, 180 ; see also Byzantium Contarini, Alessandro, tomb of, 125, 262 Contarini, Doge, tomb of, 115, 125 Contarini del Zaffo, the, legend of, 1 18-120 Contenti, Lodovico, 210 Corfu, 115 Cornaro, Caterina, Queen of Cyprus, in, 236, 262 Corner, Doge Marco, 118 Tomb of, 104 Correr Collection, 128 Cortona, Aurelio, 139 Council of Ten, the, creation of, 24, 69 Crasso, Niccold, 142 Cremona, 292 Crespignaga, 236 Crete, 29 Cristoforo, Doge, 73, 75 Crociferi, the, in Venice, 120, 146 Cromwell, Oliver, 69 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, on Giotto, 250-253 On Titian, 124, 302 Crusades, the, wealth gained by, 21, 27-29 Curzola, battle of, 26, 30, 68, 93, 180 Cyclades, the, 29 Cyprus, 103, 236 Dalmatia, capture of, 27, 29 Dukedom of, 26 Hungarian claim on, 246 Dalmatian pirates, raids of, 25-27, 98, 180 Dandolo, Doge Andrea, 30, 64, 68 His tomb, 65 Dandolo, Doge Enrico, 29, 58 Dandolo, Doge Francesco, 70 Dandolo, Geronimo, 30 D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 79, 265 Dante, in Padua, 151, 250, 253, 257 In Verona, 151, 285, 292, 298 Inferno, 238, 250, 291 Paradiso, 292 Dennistoun, James, Dukes of Ur- bino, 121 note Desiderio da Settignano, 64 Diocletian, 295 D' Israeli, Benjamin, 21, 265 Dogaressas,the, protect lace-makers, 203 Sumptuary laws for, 203 Doges, the coronation of, 96 Election of, 16, 19-24 Portraits of, 80-82 Tombs of, 103 Doge's Palace, Venice, Bridge of Sighs, 73 Interior of, 76-83 Its courtyard and staircase, 75? 76 Its erection, 68-70, 73 Its facades, 69-75 Its gates, 75 Its predecessors, 68 Its sculpture, 74 Its site, 67 Sala del Maggior Consiglio, 70, 73, 7S.8i. 155 Suffers by fire, 73, 76 Dolcino, Frate, 296 Dolfino, Pietro, Chronicle of, 68 Dona, the, 121 Donatello, his statue of Gattamelata, 258 His work in Padua, 155, 262 in Venice, 135 Influence of, 256, 301 Donato, Doge Francesco, portrait of, 79 INDEX 3i3 Doria, Lamba, 68 Doria, Luciano, 31 Doria, Paganino, 31 Doria, Pietro, 31, 35, 247 Douglas, H. A., 118 note, 251 "Venice on Foot," 88 note Duccio, school of, 148, 150 Duse, Eleanora, 297 Ecelini, the, in Bassano, 238, 239 Ecelino da Romano in Padua, 237, 258 In Verona, 244, 285, 291, 293 In Vicenza, 244, 276 Reproved by S. Antony, 261 Erasmo da Narni, 259 Ermagoras, Bishop of Aquileia, 45 Este, 264, 272, 277 Este, the d', 292 Este, Alberto Azzo, Marquis d', 273 Este, Almerico d', 134 Este, Anna Bellorio d', 204 Este, Niccolo d', 127 Etna, 286 Euganean Hills, 169, 182, 189, 242, 264-273 Eugenius IV., Pope, 255 Evelyn, John, on Padua, 249 On Venice, 90, 105 On Vicenza, 280 Faliero, Beatrice, 191 Faliero, Doge Marino, conspiracy of, 31 > 35. 7o, 246 House of, 117 Faliero, Doge Ordelafo, 171 Faliero, Doge Vitale, 114 Re-discovers body of S. Mark, 48 Fambri, Paolo, 203 Farnese, Vittoria, marriage of, 1 2 1 Feltre, 223, 224, 235, 237, 245, 247, 292 History and position of, 36 Ferdinand I., 133 Feria dell' Ascensione, 107 Ferrar, Nicholas, in Padua, 250 Ferrara, Marquisate of, see d'Este family Wars of, 24, 33, 222, 223 Florence, 19 Giotto in, 251 Her great men, 151, 270 Florence — continued Pitti Palace, 232 Uffizi, 161, 235 University of, 257 Florentine School of Painting, 148, 150 Fortunatus of Grado, 18 Foscari, Doge Francesco, his addi- tions to the Palace, 72, 73, 75 Tomb of, 135 Francesco da Carrara, treachery of, 31, 35, 36, 248, 266 Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, in Venice, 121 Francis I, Emperor, 58 Frederic II, 276, 290 Frederic Barbarossa, Emperor, in Italy, 244, 290 In Venice, 109, 181 Fregoso, General, 300 Friuli, 2, 220 Fusina, 249 Gabrieli, the, 203 Galata, 30 Galileo, 151 Galuppi, Baldassare, 202 Garda, Lago di, 2 Garibaldi, monument to, 97 Gattamelata, General, statue of, 258, 259 Tomb of, 262 Gavazza, Girolamo, 124 Genoa, its rivalry with Venice, 27, 29-35, 212, 217, 221, 223, 246, 247 Genseric, 9 Gentile da Fabriano, his work in Venice, 76, 82, 154, 155 Ghibellines in Verona, 290 Ghirlandajo, 152 Giambattista of Verona, his work in Verona, 302 Gibbon, on Attila, 220 On the siege of Verona, 287-289 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1 1 note Giocondo, Fra, his work in Treviso, 226 His work in Verona, 299 Giolfino, 302 Giorgione, his portraits, 161 314 VENICE AND VENETIA Giorgione — continued His work in Castelfranco, 231 , 234 in Venice, 76-82, 114, 121-123, 147, 149, 160 inVicenza, 235 Life and position of, 160, 231-235 School of, in, 112, 113, 123, 158, 161, 162 Giotto, 109 Date of his works, 251 His work in Padua, 154, 250-254 in Verona, 293 School of, 148, 150, 152, 154 Giovanelli, the, 121 Giovanelli Collection, the, 156, 160, 233 Giovanni, Doge, portrait of, 130 Giovanni da Murano, his work in Venice, 140, 154 Giovanni da Vicenza, Fra, 291 Girolamo da S. Croce, his work in Padua, 258 His work in Venice, 100, 102, 108 Girolamo da Treviso, his school, 158 His work in Venice, 117, 147 in Treviso, 227 Girolamo dai Libri, 298, 305, 306 Giustiniani, the, tombs of, 185 Giustiniani, Lorenzo, portrait of, 124, 156 Goethe, on Palladio, 278, 281 Goldoni, Carlo, statue of, in, 117 Gonzaga, the, 224 Gradenigo I, Doge, policy of, 68-70, 223 Gradenigo II, Doge, 70 Grado, 5, 13, 15 Seat of Patriarchate, 18, 43 Gratiani, 260 Greater Council of Venice, 22-24, 69 Gregory VII, Pope, 290 Gregory IX, Pope, 261 Gregory XI, Pope, 265 Gregory XVI, Pope, 190 Grimani, Doge Antonio, portrait of, 77 Grimani, Doge Marino, 203 Portrait of, 7 J Gritti, Doge Andrea portrait of, 79 Gronau, Dr., on Titian, III, 124, 129, 139, 228 note, 302 Guardi, his work in Venice, 168, 190 Guariento of Padua, his work in Bassano, 239, 240 His work destroyed by fire, 70, 82 His work in Padua, 255 Portrait of, 305 Guelfs in Verona, 290 Guglielmo da Castelbarco, 301 Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino, Hampton Court, 232 Harold the Tall, 99 Heneti, the, 4 Henry III of England, 72 Henry IV, Emperor, 290 Henry VII, Emperor, death of, 293 Henry VIII of England, 21 Henry of Luxembourg, 244 Heraclea, early history of, 14, 16, 17 Hohenstaufen, the, 292 Homer, 269 Hoppner, Mr., 271 Howell, James, on Murano, 197, 198 Hutton, Edward, ed. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy, 250 note ed. Memoirs of Dukes of Urbino, 121 note Florence and Northern Tuscany, 30 note II Gobbo, 130 II Mantagnana, 89 Innocent III, Pope, 28 Innspruck, 285 Isonzo river, the, 4 Istrana, 230 Istria, 14, 90 Jacopo da Carrara, his Lordship of Padua, 36, 245-249 Tomb of, 255 James II, King of Cyprus, 236 Jeronymite Order, the, 141 Jesolo, 16, 17 Jones, Inigo, 278 Jornandes on Aquileia, 1 1 note Jovinus, 10 Julius Caesar, 2 INDEX 315 Lagoons, the Venetian, formation of, 3 Lagosta, 180 Lamberti, the, 298 Lando, Doge Pietro, portrait of, 80 Lanzi, on Giorgione, 235 Lasso, di, 234 La Verna, 261 Law, John, 115 Leo, Pope, 9 Leo V, Emperor, 17, 46 Leonardo da Vinci, 151 Leopardi, Alessandro, 88 Lepanto, battle of, 80, 103, 104 Liberale, his work in Verona, 298, 300, 301, 302 Libro d'Oro, the, 23, 76, 81 Liesina, siege of, 26, 31 Lincoln Cathedral, 133 Lippi, Filippo, 228 Lisbon, 259 Little Gidding, 250 Liutprand the Lombard, his treaty with Venice, 16 Seizes Ravenna, 17 Lombard League, 290 Lombardo, Antonio, his work in Venice, 103 Lombardo, Martino, his work in Venice, 95, 103, 190 Lombardo, Moro, his work in Venice, 113 Lombardo, Pietro, his work in Venice, 86, 103, 104, 117, 134, 135. 190 Lombardo, Tommaso, his work in Venice, 142 Lombardo, Tullio, his work in Padua, 262 His work in Treviso, 226, 227, 229 in Venice, 103, 109 Lombardy, plain of, 2 Longhena, Baldassare, his work in Venice, 126, 145-147, 216 Longinus, 15 Longobards, the, in Verona, 289 Loredan, Doge Leonardo, portrait of, 81, 158 Tomb of, 104 Loredan, Doge Lorenzo, portrait of, 80 Loredan, Doge Pietro, portrait of, 80 Loredani, the, tombs of, 185 Lotto, Lorenzo, his work in Asolo, 236 His work in Treviso, 225, 229 in Venice, 97, 104, 125, 128, 141, 161 Lucca, 271, 293 Luzzo, Pietro, 235 Lysippus, 58 Macaruzzi, the, 108 Maddalo, Count, 179, 185 Madonna del Monte, 277, 283 Madrid, 234, 270 Magnati di Murano, Girolamo, 197 Malamocco, 209, 212, 213 Early settlement on, 12, 14, 16- 18 Malchiostro, Broccardo, 227 Malipiero, Dandola, 203 Malipiero, Doge Pasquale, 203 Tomb of, 104 Manning, Cardinal, 120 Mantegna, Andrea, his work in Padua, 255-257 His work in Verona, 304, 305 School of, 240, 279 Mantegna, Biagio, 255 Mantua, 3, 5, 224, 275, 292 Manuel, Emperor, 21, 28 Marcello, Conte Alessandro, 203 Marcello, Contessa Adriana, 203 Marcello, Doge Niccolo, tomb of 104 Marcello, Jacopo, tomb of, 134 Marconi, Rocco, his work in Tre- viso, 225 His work in Venice, 129 Marcus, the vision of, 14 Marcus Aurelius, 7 Statue of, 259 Margherita, Queen, 203 Marsilio da Carrara treats with Venice, 34, 223-225, 245- 249, 293 Martinelli, Tommaso, 270 Martini, Simone, 109, 228 Masaccio, 148 Maser, 236 Massegne, his work in Venice, 95, 104, 133. 136 316 VENICE AND VENETIA Massolo, Elisabetta, 120 Massolo, Lorenzo, 120 Maurice the Cappadocian, 15 Maurizio, 18 Mauro, vision of, 207 Maxentius, 287 Maximilian, Emperor, 124 Maximus, 10 Medici, the, 19 At Este, 272 Medici, Alessandro de', 131 Medici, Lorenzino de', murder of, 131 Medici, Lorenzo de', poems 01, 152 Memmo, Doge Marcantonio, tomb of, 172 Memmo, Doge Tribune, 171 Meloria, battle of, 30, 68 Messina, S. Francis at, 260 Mestre, 219 Michelangelo Buonarroti, position and influence of, 148, 151, 161, 164, 227, 234 Michelozzo da Firenze, 172 Michiel, Alvise, tomb of, 103 Michiel, Doge Domenico, 91, 193 Michiel II, Doge Vitale, 21 Milan, 2, 223, 290 Attila in, 221 Duchess of, 36 Milton, John, 149 Mincio, the river, 2 Minello, Giovanni, 255 Minio da Padua, 64 Miscellanea Francescana, 102 note Mocenigo, Andrea, 79 Mocenigo I, Doge, 93 His vandalism, 71-73 Mocenigo, Doge Alvise, portrait of, 79 Mocenigo, Doge Giovanni, tomb of, 103 Mocenigo, Doge Luigi, tomb of, 103 Mocenigo, Doge Pietro, tomb of, 103 Mocenigo, Doge Tommaso, tomb of, 104 Mocenigo, Niccolo, 79 Mogliano, 219 Molmenti e Mantovani, Le /sole del la Laguna Veneta, 210 note, 212, 213 Monaco, Lorenzo, 228 Monferrat, Boniface, Marquis of, 29 Monselice, S. Fermo, 97 Montagna, Bartolommeo, his work in Verona, 306 His work in Vicenza, 276, 279, 282, 283 Mont' Cenis Pass, 1, 287 Montebello, 284 Montebelluna, 236 Monte Berici, 284 Montecchi, the, faction of, 284, 290 Monte del Castello, 270 Monteforte, 284 Monte Paolo, 260 Montpellier, 261 Moore, Thomas, 183 Morelli, on Giorgione, 235 On Palma Vecchio, 161 Moretto, his work in Venice, 97 his work in Verona, 303 Morone, Francesco, his work in Verona, 300, 306 Morosini, the, 20 Morosini, Admiral Alberto, 30 Morosini, Carlo, portrait of, 166 Morosini, Cipriani, 191 Morosini, Doge Francesco, his work in Venice, 99, 114 Morosini, Doge Michele, tomb of, 104 Morosini, Doge Vincenzo, portrait of, 172 Morosini, Morosina, 203 Morosini, Ruggiero, 30 Morto da Feltre, 235 Mozart, 234 Munich, no Murano, 94, 168 Charm of, 1 87-189 Glass factories, 189, 191, 197 S. Donato, 192-196 S. Pietro Martiro, 190, 192 Murray, John, 183 Muschiera, Eugenia, 191 Naldo, Dionigi, tomb of, 104 Naples, 187, 272 Napoleon I, his treatment of Venice, 26, 37, 43. 49, 58, 86, 88, 92, 97, 181, 211 In Verona, 297 INDEX 3i7 Narses, 15, 91 Navagero, Andrea, 191 Nero, Emperor, 45 His bronze horses, 56-58, 259 Nicephorus, Emperor, 18 Niccolo da Ponte, Doge, portraits of, 79, 81 Nicolotti, the faction of, 143 Nightingale, Florence, 204 Novara, 296 Obelerio, Doge, 18 Portrait of, 81 Odoacer, 289 Olivolo, 18 Onigo, Conte d', 229 Oriago, 247 Orseoli, the, 20 Orseolo, Doge Pietro, his hospital, 88 Orseolo II, Doge Pietro, curbs the great families, 20 Establishes maritime supremacy, 20, 26, 180-182, 185 Orsini, Niccolo, tomb of, 104 Orso, Doge, 17 Osa da Milano, Alberto, 244 Otho III, Emperor, in Venice, 184, 185, 193 Ottobon family, the, 162 Pacchia, 150 Pacchiarotto, 150 Pacifico, Fra, tomb of, 134 Padovano, the, 2 Padovano, Giusto, 258 Padua, 115,223, 275 History of, 5, 11, 34-36, 225, 237, 238, 243-249, 261 Arena Chapel, 250-254 Attila in, 221, 243 Church of the Carmine, 257 Eremitani, 254-257 Frescoes by Mantegna in, 255-257 Giotto in, 154, 250-254 II Santo, 258, 262 John Evelyn in, 249-251 Palazzo del Municipio, 258 Petrarch in, 257 S. Anthony in, 249, 261 Paese, 230 Paleologus, Emperor, 31 Palestrina, 234 Palladio, Andrea, his bridge over the Brenta, 240 His work in Maser, 236 in Venice, 38, 73, 77, 102, 168, 170, 171 in Vicenza, 276-282 Palma Giovane, his work in the Doge's Palace, 76-82 His work in Venetian Churches, 125, 163 Palma Vecchio, his work in Padua, 258 His work in Venice, 112, 129, 161, 162, 211, 216 in Vicenza, 282 Paphos, Bishop of, 136 Paris, The Louvre, no, 232, 233 Parma, 224, 292 Parmigiano, pupils of, 164 Particiaco, Doge Angelo, 20, 96 Pater, Walter, on art, 160, 233 Paterani, the, in Verona, 296 Paul II, Pope, 65 Paul the Deacon, 185 Paulus, Bishop, 14 Pavia, 115, 181, 221, 292 Pax Romana, the, 6 Peacock, T. L., 271 Pedro, Don, 259 Pelestrina, 18, 209, 213-215 Pentapolis, siege of, 17 Pepin, his expedition against Venice, 17-19, 211 In Verona, 290, 303 vPera, 31 Perugino, 234 Pesari, the, 127 Pesaro, Benedetto, tomb of, 134, 136 Pesaro, Jacopo, commissions Titian, 136 Petrarch in Arqua, 265-270 In Padua, 257 In Venice, 31 Philip the Arab, 287 Philippi, battle of, 287 Piacenza, 292 Piave, the river, 3, 223 Pietro da Messina, 112 Pietro da Salo, 130 Piombo, Sebastiano del, his work in Treviso, 229 His work in Venice, III, 113, 161 3i8 VENICE AND VENETIA Pisa, history of, 27, 222, 242, 243 Pisani, Niccolo, 31 Pisani, Vettor, 31, 32 Pisano, Giovanni, his work in Padua, 254 Pisano, Vittore, his work in Venice, 76, 155 His work in Verona, 301, 305 Pius II, Pope, 152 Pius V, Pope, 255 Pius VI, Pope, 297 Pius VII, Pope, 171 Pizzolo, Niccolo, 256 Po, the river, 1 Pola, 31 Polenta, Samaritanada, 296 Polesine, the, 2 Pollentia, 288 Polo, Marco, 152 Pompeianus, Ruricus, 287 Pordenone, his work in Treviso, 227, 228 His work in Venice, 130, 135, 162 Portosecco, 213 Posilipo, 269 Possagno, 240 Preganziol, 219 Priuli, Doge, Antonio, 128 Priuli, Doge, Girolamo, portrait of, 80 Tomb of, III Priuli, Doge, Lorenzo, portraits of, 76, 80 Tomb of, in Quarterly Review >, 100 note Querini, the, 69 Ranieri, the, 203 Ravenna, 211, 237, 257 History of, 5, 13, 17 Reggio, 292 Rembrandt, 149 Renaissance, the, in Venice, 84 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 150 Rialto, island of, first occupation of, 12, 13, 18 Richard III, 202 Ridolfi on Giorgione, 231, 235 Rimini, 123 Rizzo, Antonio, his work in Venice, 76, 86, 130 Robert, King, Venetian expedition against, 27 Romano, Rocca of, 237 Rogers, Dr., 250 Rogers, Samuel, 271 Roland and Oliver in Verona, 290, 302 Roman Empire, the fall of, 5-9 Romanino, 263 Romano, Giulio, 190 Pupils of, 298 Rome, 44, 115 Borghese Gallery, 161, 232, 233 Colosseum, 295 note Giotto in, 251 Piazze of, 85 Ronchi, the, 245 Rosamund, Queen, 289 Rossi, Pietro, 34 Rossi, the, allied with Venice, 224 Rubens, P. P., 150 Ruskin, John, on S. Donato, 193- 196 On Tintoretto, 124, 137, 147 Stones of Venice, 48 note, 68 note, 70 note, 73 note, 300 note Rustico da Torcello, 46 S. Agata, 302 Salvatronda, 230 Salviati, his work in Venice, 134 Salvore, battle of, 181 Sanmicheli, his work in Verona, 302, 304, 306 Sansovino, Francesco, his work in the Doge's Palace, 73, 76, 81 On Gradenigo I, 68, 69 On Venice, 91, 196 Sansovino, Jacopo, his Loggia, 89, 9i His work in Venice, 90, 92, 100, 101, 102, 108, 121, 128, 136, 142, 211 Santi, Andreolo dei, his work in Padua, 255, 262 S. Antony of Padua, history of, 249, 259-262 In Bassano, 239 Sanuto, Cronica, 72 note Sapienza, battle of, 31, 35, 246 Sardi, his work in Venice, 1 15 Sarego, General, 301 Sassetta, 83, 148 Sassoferrato, his work in Venice, 112 INDEX 3i9 S. Augustine, 254 S. Autolinus, 14 Savelli, Prince Paolo, statue of, 134 S. Bernardino, 131 Scala, Alberto della, career of, 292, * 293, 298, 300 Scala, Alboino della, 292 Scala, Antonio della, 296 Scala, Bartolommeo della, 292, 294 Scala, Can Grande della, career of, 292, 293, 299 Welcomes Dante, 223, 285, 292 Scala, Can Grande II. della, in Verona, 294, 301, 303 Scala, Can Signorio della, in Verona, 294, 298, 299, 300 Scala, Giovanni della, tomb of, 300 Scala, Mastino della, his relations with Venice, 33, 34, 223-225, 245, 291-294, 300 Seizes Padua, 238, 244 Scaligers, the, at war with Venice, 33. 244 In Verona, 284, 298-300 In Vicenza, 277 Scamozzi, his work in Venice, 86, 92 His work in Vicenza, 280 Scarpariola, Cencia, 204 S. Clement, 63 S. Cristina, 229 Scrovegno, Enrico, and Rinaldo, 250, 254 S. Donato, body of, 193 S. Edward the Confessor, 46, 47 Segala, 64 Selvaggia, 291 Semilicolo, Niccolo, 153 Sermione, 5 Seville, 107 S. Fermo, 295 S. Francis of Assisi, his influence on S. Antony, 260, 261 In Bassano, 239 In Venice, 207 S George, patron of Venice, 57 S. Girolamo da Fiesole, 210 S. Giustina, 14 S. Gotthard, the, 1 S. Gregory II, 17 Shakespeare, William, 149, 160 Romeo and Juliet, 284, 290, 297 Two Gentlemen of Verona, 285 S. Helena, 186 Shelley, P. B., at Este, 264, 271-273 In Venice, 179, 182, 271 On Padua, 242 Shorthouse, J. H.,John Inglesant, 250 Sidon, 27 Siena, 19 Sienese School of Painting, the, 148, 150, 234 Simplon, the, 1 S. Jean d'Acre, 59 S. John, martyrdom of, 64 S. John the Baptist, 14 S. Leo IX, in S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, portrait of, 80 S. Magno, foundations by, 96, 100, 111,118 S. Mark, his body brought to Venice, 20, 46-48, 56 Legendary history of, 44 S. Mark's, Venice, Atrium, 52, 59- 61 Baptistery, 64 Bronze horses, 56-58 Chapels of, 63-65 Cupolas of, 61, 65 Its Byzantine character, 48-52 Its construction, 51, 54-56 Its facades, 55-59 Its significance in Venetian his- tory, 43, 52, 65 Mosaics of, 56, 152 Shrine of S. Mark, 62 S. Martino, 284 S. Nicholas of Tolentino, 255 Soave, 284 Soderini, Alessandro, 131 Sodoma, 150 Sophocles, CEdipus Tyrannus, 280- 282 Soranzo, Ancilla, 191 Soranzo, Doge, Giovanni, 70 Soranzo, Jacopo, 166 Sordello, 285 Sovagna, Marquis of, 263 Spalatro, 115 Spenser, Edmund, 149 Speranza, his work in Vicenza, 282 S. Pietro, 214 S. Pietro di Castello, seat of Patriarchate, 43 320 VENICE AND VENETIA ^ Spinelli, Bianca, 210 Spinola, Niccolo, 68 Splligen, the, 1 Sporades, the, 29 Sposalizio del Mare, 26, see Ascen- sion Day Squarcione, school of, 255, 256, 263 S. Roch, body of, 137 S. Rustico, 295 St. Albans, 10 Steno, Doge Michele, 70, 89, 104 S. Theodore, patron saint of Venice, 44, 57, 91 S. Thomas of Villanova, 255 Stilicho, 288 Strabo on Venice, 4 Strasburg, 106 Strong, on Giotto, 251 Suriano, Jacopo, tomb of, 115 Symonds, J. A., History of the Renaissance ', 131 S. Zaccaria, 96 S. Zeno of Verona, 289, 304 Tagaste, 254 Taranto, 25 Tasso in Padua, 250 Tenedor, Island of, 31 Tesolo, 19 Tessier, A., 102 note Theodoric the Great, 12 In Verona, 289, 296, 303 Theodosius, 10 Thomas of Ravenna, 108 Tiberio da Parma, 124 Tiepolo, his work in Padua, 263 His work in Venice, 118, 126, 141, 144, 166 in Vicenza, 282 Tiepolo, Doge Giacomo, vision of, 102 Tiepolo, Lorenzo, 59 Tiepolo conspiracy, the, 69, 1 14 Tintoretto, Jacopo, contrasted with Giorgione, 234 His Paradise, 70 His work in the Accademia, 149, 163-166 in the Doge's Palace, 76-83 in the Scuola di S. Rocco, 137-139, 165 Tintoretto, Jacopo — continued in Venetian churches, 98, 120, 124, 125, 128, 129, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146, 170, 172, 216 in Vicenza, 282 Tomb of, 124 Titian, contrasted with Giorgione, 234 Death of, 144 His work in the Accademia, 149, 162 in the Doge's Palace, 76, 77, 83 in Padua, 258, 263 in Rome, 126 in Treviso, 227, 228 in Venetian churches, 109,111, 120, 123, 129, I35- J 39, 142, 146, 211 in Verona, 302 Influence of Giorgione on, 160, 161 Likeness of, 134 Pupils of, 164 Tomb of, 133 Torcello, 143, 187, 199 History of, 12, 14, 205, 206 Totila, 9, 237 Toulouse, 261 Tradonico, Doge Pietro, murder of, 95 Trajan, Emperor, 58, 295 Tremignan, Alessandro, 115 Trepani, 30 Trevisano, Doge Marc Antonio, portrait of, 80 Trevisano, Melchior, monument of, 135 Treviso, 5, 33, 160, 244, 245, 293 Churches of, 226-229 History of, 219-225 Marches of, 2 Siege of, 246 Tribunes, the, government of, 16 Tribuno, Doge Pietro, 87, 89 Tron, Doge Niccolo, tomb of, 135 Tuscany, Bianca, Grand Duchess of, 95 Francesco, Grand Duke of, 203 Tyre, fall of, 27, 65, 91 Ubertino da Carrara, tomb of, 255 Uccello, Paolo, 256 INDEX 321 Umbrian School of Painting, 148, 154 Urbino, Dukes of, their Palazzo in Venice, 121 Valencia Bull Ring, 295 note Valier, the, tomb of, 103 Valle, Andrea della, 258 Vandyck, 150 Vasari on Bellini, 96 On Catena, 158 On Giorgione, 231, 232, 234 On Titian, 77, 109, no, 123, 146 Vecelli, Francesco, no Vecelli, Marco, 80 Vecelli, Rocco, 130 Vedelago, 230, 232 Velasquez, 129, 150 Vendramin, Doge, Andrea, tomb of, 104 Venetia as a Roman province, 4 Geographical position of, 2 Venetian lace, 202-205 Venetian School of Painting, con- trasted with other schools, 148-154 Influences on, 154-156 Its national character, 151, 153, Veneziano, Lorenzo, his work in Venice, 151, 153 His work in Vicenza, 279 Venice, City of— Accademia, 153-166 Armenian convent, 183 Arsenal, 99 Batario, 86 Bridge of Sighs, 73 Brolo, 87 Bronze Horses, 92 Cad'Oro, 116, 118 Campanile, 85, 88-91 Campo S. Gallo, 88 di S. Margherita, 140 di S. Maria Zobenigo, 85 di S. Moise, 85 diS. Polo, 130-132 Casino degli Spiriti, 118-120 Churches of — Carmine, 141 I Frari, 102, 132-137, 153, 163 I Gesuati, 143, 144 Churches — continued I Gesuiti, 116, 120 La Pieta, 97 Redentore, 145, 170, 173 Scalzi, 126 S. Antonino, 100, 101 S. Aponal, 130 SS. Apostoli, 116-118 S. Bartolommeo, III, 161 S. Basso, 93 S. Biagio, 97, 101 S. Canciano, 117 S. Cassiano, 128 S. Cater ina, 121 S. Cristofero, 190 S. Demetrio, in S. Elena, 130 S. Eufemia, 169, 173 S. Felice, 11 6, 121 S. Fosca, 123 S. Francesco da Paola, 97 S. Francesco della Vigna, 102 S. Geminiano, 87, 88 S. Geremia, 126 S. Giacomo dell' Orio, 128, 161 S. Giacomo di Rialto, 130 S. Giobbe, 125, 137, 141 S. Giorgio dei Greci, 100 S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, IOI, *5 2 S. Giovanni in Bragora, 100 S. Giovanni Crisostomo, 112- 114, 116, 117, 161 S. Giovanni Decollato, 128 S. Giovanni di Malta, 101 SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 102- 104, 161 S. Giovanni in Rialto, 129 S. Giuseppe di Castello, 98, 143 S. Gregorio, 147 S. Leo, in S. Marcuola, 116, 126, 162 S. Margherita, 140 S. Maria della Carita, 109 S. Maria Formosa, 99, in, 112, 161 S. Maria Maggiore, 163 S. Maria Mater Domini, 159 S. Maria dei Miracoli, 116, 117 S. Maria della Salute, 137, 144-147,211 S. Maria Zobenigo, 115 322 VENICE AND VENETIA Churches — con tinned S. Mark's Cathedral, 42-66, see S. Mark's S. Martino, 100 S. Marzida, 123 S. Maurizio, 1 15 S. Michele, 119 S. Moise, 115 S. Niccolo, 176 Ognissanti, 143 S. Pantaleone, 130, 140 S. Pietro di Castello, 98 S. Polo, 132 S. Rocco, 137, 139, 141, 160 S. Salvatore, 106, 109 S. Sebastiano, 137, 141 S. Sofia, 118 S. Stefano, 114,115 S. Teodoro, 47, 86 S. Toma, 133, 134, 137 SS. Trinita, 147 S. Trovaso, 143, 155 S. Ursula, 101 S. Vitale, 114 S. Zaccaria, 95 S. Zulian, 105-108 Clock Tower of, 86, 106 Columns of S. Theodore and S. Mark, 91 Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, 118 Dogana, 146, 147 Doge's Palace, the, 67-83, see Doge Flagstaff's, 88 Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 105, 112, 113 Fondaco dei Turchi, 68, 127 Fondamenta Nuove, 116, 118 Forte S. Niccolo, 180 Galleria Manfredini, 147 Ghetto, 115, 125 Giardini Pubblici, 97, 173 Grand Canal, 168 Giudecca, 94, 125, 144, 168-175, 187 II Molo, 85, 92 I Murazzi, 209, 214 Islands of — Burano, 199 Castello, 98 La Grazia, 210 Lazzaretto Vecchio, 211 Murano, 1 87-1 98 Islands — continued Olivolo, 98 Poveglia, 211 S. Clemente, 210, 211 S. Elena, 185 S. Francesco del Desert o, I3» 199, 207 S. Giorgio Maggiore, 168, 171, 172 S. Lazzaro, 175, 177, 183 S. Michele, 187, 189, 190 S. Servolo, 177, 184, 185 S. Spirito, 211 Lagoon, 3, 201, 209 Libreria Vecchia, 91, 92 Lido, 169, 175-182 Lions, 99 Loggia of Sansovino, 89, 91 Madonna del Orto, 116, 124 Merceria, 105-109 Museo Civico, 127, 155 Nuova Fabbrica, 86, 88 Palazzo Bianca Capello, 95 Corner Mocenigo, 130 Falier, 117 Fasetti, 68 Giovanelli, 116, 121 Labbia, 126, 141 Lo redan, 68 Patriarchale, 93 Sagredo, 118 Soranzo, 130 Trevisani, 95 Urbino, 1 21 Vendramin, 116 Ziani, 68, 71, 72 Piazza di S. Marco, 84-93 Piazzetta, the, 85, 91-93 Piazzetta dei Leoni, 85, 93 Ponte di Rialto, 105, 114, 130 Porto di Chioggia, 209 di Lido, 178, 180 Leone, 99 di Malomocco, 178, 209 Procuratie Vecchie, and Nuove, 86 Rialto, 129 Riva degli Schiavoni, 92, 95, 97 Sacca della Misericordia, 118 Scuola del Carmine, 141 di S. Marco, 103 di S. Rocco, 123, 124, 137- I39.I53. 165 di S. Teodoro, 44 INDEX 323 Sestieri of, 94 di Cannaregio, 94, 112, 116- 126 di Castello, 94-104 di Dorsoduro, 127, 140-147 di S. Croce, 94, 127-132 di S. Marco, 105-115 di S. Polo, 94, 127, 132-139 Seminario Patriarchale, 147, 233 Zattere, 144 Zecca, 92 Venice, Republic of— Contrasted with Florence, 151 Crushes Genoa, 29-35 Foundation of, 10-19, 221 Her Byzantine and Italian periods, 38, 42 Her capture of Constantinople 29 Her commercial importance, 25, 46 Her decay, 38-41 Her division into sestieri, 22 Her independent position, 37 Her libro d'Oro, 23, 76, 81 Her mainland policy, 27, 33-37, 222-226, 245-249 Her maritime power, 19-21, 25-32 Her oligarchic government, 16, 19-24, 69 Her relations with Byzantium, 15, 16, 18, 27-29, 37 Her treaty with Liutprand, 16 Patrons of, 14, 20, 43, 44 Plague in, 144 170 Sumptuary laws of, 202 Venier, Doge Antonio, tomb of, 104 Venier, Doge Francesco, portrait of, 80 Tomb of, ill Venier, Doge Sebastiano, portrait of, 80 Venier, Mois£, 115 Vercelli, 261 Verona, 3, 5, 11, 36 Arena, 287, 295-297, 305 As a Roman colony, 286, 287, 295 Attila in, 221, 289 Duomo, 302 History of, 226. 237, 245, 261, 275, 285-294 Verona — continued Its relations witn Venice, 223, 225, 248, 293, 294, 298 Pinacoteca, 305 Scaligers in, 33 Sieges of, 8, 287-290 S. Anastasia, 300, 301 S. Eufemia, 303 S. Fermo, 305 S. Giorgio in Braida, 306 S. Lorenzo, 303 S. Maria Antica, 299 SS. Nazaro and Celso, 306 S. Toma, 297, 305 S. Zeno, 303 Veronese, Paolo, father of, 300 His work in the Accademia, 149, 163, 166 in the Doge's Palace, 76, 78- 83 at Maser, 236 in Padua, 263 in Venetian churches, 98, 102, 118, ESI, 140, 141, 142, 166, 193 in Verona, 305 in Vicenza, 282 Tomb of, 141, 142 Veronese, the, 2 Verrochio, Andrea, his work in Venice, 103, 141 Vespasian, Emperor, 287 Vicenza, 5, 11, 237, 244, 274-283, 292 Attila overthrows, 36, 221, 289 Birthplace of Mantegna, 255 Charm of, 274-278 Covets Bassano, 238 Loschi Collection, 235 Relations with Venice, 36, 223, 225, 248, 276 Sights of, 277-283 Vienna, 190 Vigasio, battle of, 290 Villani, Giovanni, on della Scala, 293 On Ecelino da Romano, 237 On the Paterani, 296 Vincent, Sir Francis, 180 Virgil, 5, 275 Visconti, Bernabo, 294 Visconti, Giovanni, 31 324 VENICE AND VENETIA Visconti, the, 223, 292 In Verona, 294 Power of, 34, 238, 245, 247, 276 Vitruvius, 278, 281 Vittoria, Alessandro, his work in Venice, 108, 134 Vivarini, Alvise, his work in Venice, 100, 104, 135, 158, 171, 190 Pupils of, 158, 159, 162 Vivarini, Antonio, his work in Venice, 97, 154 Vivarini, Bartolommeo, his work in Venice, 100, 104, 112, 115, . '34, 135 Vivarini, the, school of, 103, 156 Voragine, on S. Mark, 44 Waterloo, 92 Wells Cathedral, 133 Westminster Abbey, 133 Windsor, 89 Windsor, Baron, tomb of, 104 Wren, Christopher, 278 Zanelli, Abate Vincenzo, on Murano, 191 Zanetto, Bishop, tomb of, 227 Zara, capture of, 29 Peace of, 35, 246 Zarotto, 235 Zecchino, the, 92 Zen, Cardinal, tomb of, 58, 65 Zeno, Carlo, 32, 35 Tomb of, 100 Ziani, Doge Pietro, 102, 171 Ziani, Doge Sebastiano, weds the sea, 68, 109, 181 Ziani, Marco, 102 UNW1N BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. TPTC T 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. REC'D LD 0EC2 4'64-2PM APP9 ft 107fi If ** Hfrtxa ivfU ( & pKCPiVS© ffill*70»9PM Loan BIpt: i SEC. SIS, tW* 1 "* ,'AN 1 2 1W ' BH*o CBLf. Nfo 1 ' &'M General Library TOiB?07«6B Urive^rfCjliforni. yiV j / 2zlG6,$o THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY