Villa of Mosolente--The route to Venice.--First view of that
city.--Striking prospect from the Leon Bianco.--Morning scene on
the grand canal.--Church of Santa Maria della Salute.--Interesting
group of stately buildings.--Convent of St. Giorgio Maggiore.--The
Redentore.--Island of the Carthusians.
August 1st, 1780.
The whole morning not a soul stirred who could avoid it. Those who were
so active and lively the night before, were now stretched languidly upon
their couches. Being to the full as idly disposed, I sat down and wrote
some of this dreaming epistle; then feasted upon figs and melons; then
got under the shade of the cypress, and slumbered till evening, only
waking to dine, and take some ice.
The sun declining apace, I hastened to my engagement at Mosolente (for
so is the villa called) placed on a verdant hill encircled by others as
lovely, and consisting of three light pavilions connected by porticos;
just such as we admire in the fairy scenes of an opera. A vast flight of
steps leads to the summit, where Signora Roberti and her friends
received me with a grace and politeness that can never want a place in
my memory. We rambled over all the apartments of this agreeable edifice,
characterised by airiness and simplicity. The pavement encrusted with a
composition as cool and polished as marble; the windows, doors, and
balconies adorned with silver iron work, commanding scenes of meads and
woodlands that extend to the shores of the Adriatic; slender towers and
cypresses rising above the levels; and the hazy mountains beyond Padua,
diversifying the expanse, form altogether a landscape which the elegant
imagination of Horizonti never exceeded.
I gazed on this delightful view till it faded in the dusk; then
returning to Bassano, repaired to an illuminated hall, and heard Signora
Roberti sing the very air which had excited such transport at Padua. As
soon as she had ended, a band of various instruments stationed in the
open street began a lively symphony, which would have delighted me at
any other time; but now, I wished them a thousand leagues away, so
pleasingly melancholy an impression did the air I had been listening to
leave on my mind.
At midnight I took leave of my obliging hosts, who were just setting out
for Padua. They gave me a thousand kind invitations, and I hope some
future day to accept them.
August 2.
Our route to Venice lay winding about the variegated plains I had
surveyed from Mosolente; and after dining at Treviso we came in two
hours and a half to Mestre, between grand villas and gardens peopled
with statues. Embarking our baggage at the last-mentioned place, we
stepped into a gondola, whose even motion was very agreeable after the
jolts of a chaise. We were soon out of the canal of Mestre, terminated
by an isle which contains a cell dedicated to the Holy Virgin, peeping
out of a thicket, whence spire up two tall cypresses. Its bells tingled
as we passed along and dropped some paolis into a net tied at the end of
a pole stretched out to us for that purpose.
As soon as we had doubled the cape of this diminutive island, an expanse
of sea opened to our view, the domes and towers of Venice rising from
its bosom. Now we began to distinguish Murano, St. Michele, St. Giorgio
in Alga, and several other islands, detached from the grand cluster,
which I hailed as old acquaintances; innumerable prints and drawings
having long since made their shapes familiar. Still gliding forward, we
every moment distinguished some new church or palace in the city,
suffused with the rays of the setting sun, and reflected with all their
glow of colouring from the surface of the waters.
The air was calm; the sky cloudless; a faint wind just breathing upon
the deep, lightly bore its surface against the steps of a chapel in the
island of San Secondo, and waved the veil before its portal, as we rowed
by and coasted the walls of its garden overhung with fig-trees and
surmounted by spreading pines. The convent discovers itself through
their branches, built in a style somewhat morisco, and level with the
sea, except where the garden intervenes.
We were now drawing very near the city, and a confused hum began to
interrupt the evening stillness; gondolas were continually passing and
repassing, and the entrance of the Canal Reggio, with all its stir and
bustle, lay before us. Our gondoliers turned with much address through
a crowd of boats and barges that blocked up the way, and rowed smoothly
by the side of a broad pavement, covered with people in all dresses and
of all nations.
Leaving the Palazzo Pesaro, a noble structure with two rows of arcades
and a superb rustic, behind, we were soon landed before the Leon Bianco,
which being situated in one of the broadest parts of the grand canal,
commands a most striking assemblage of buildings. I have no terms to
describe the variety of pillars, of pediments, of mouldings, and
cornices, some Grecian, others Saracenic, that adorn these edifices, of
which the pencil of Canaletti conveys so perfect an idea as to render
all verbal description superfluous. At one end of this grand scene of
perspective appears the Rialto; the sweep of the canal conceals the
other.
The rooms of our hotel are spacious and cheerful; a lofty hall, or
rather gallery, painted with grotesque in a very good style, perfectly
clean, floored with a marbled stucco, divides the house, and admits a
refreshing current of air. Several windows near the ceiling look into
this vast apartment, which serves in lieu of a court, and is rendered
perfectly luminous by a glazed arcade, thrown open to catch the
breezes. Through it I passed to a balcony which impends over the canal,
and is twined round with plants forming a green festoon springing from
two large vases of orange trees placed at each end. Here I established
myself to enjoy the cool, and observe, as well as the dusk would permit,
the variety of figures shooting by in their gondolas.
As night approached, innumerable tapers glimmered through the awnings
before the windows. Every boat had its lantern, and the gondolas moving
rapidly along were followed by tracks of light, which gleamed and played
upon the waters. I was gazing at these dancing fires when the sounds of
music were wafted along the canals, and as they grew louder and louder,
an illuminated barge, filled with musicians, issued from the Rialto, and
stopping under one of the palaces, began a serenade, which stilled every
clamour and suspended all conversation in the galleries and porticos;
till, rowing slowly away, it was heard no more. The gondoliers catching
the air, imitated its cadences, and were answered by others at a
distance, whose voices, echoed by the arch of the bridge, acquired a
plaintive and interesting tone. I retired to rest, full of the sound;
and long after I was asleep, the melody seemed to vibrate in my ear.
August 3.
It was not five o’clock before I was aroused by a loud din of voices and
splashing of water under my balcony. Looking out, I beheld the grand
canal so entirely covered with fruits and vegetables, on rafts and in
barges, that I could scarcely distinguish a wave. Loads of grapes,
peaches and melons arrived, and disappeared in an instant, for every
vessel was in motion; and the crowds of purchasers hurrying from boat to
boat, formed a very lively picture. Amongst the multitudes, I remarked a
good many whose dress and carriage announced something above the common
rank; and upon enquiry I found they were noble Venetians, just come from
their casinos, and met to refresh themselves with fruit, before they
retired to sleep for the day.
Whilst I was observing them, the sun began to colour the balustrades of
the palaces, and the pure exhilarating air of the morning drawing me
abroad, I procured a gondola, laid in my provision of bread and grapes,
and was rowed under the Rialto, down the grand canal to the marble steps
of S. Maria della Salute, erected by the Senate in performance of a vow
to the Holy Virgin, who begged off a terrible pestilence in 1630. The
great bronze portal opened whilst I was standing on the steps which lead
to it, and discovered the interior of the dome, where I expatiated in
solitude; no mortal appearing except an old priest who trimmed the lamps
and muttered a prayer before the high altar, still wrapt in shadows. The
sun-beams began to strike against the windows of the cupola, just as I
left the church and was wafted across the waves to the spacious platform
in front of St. Giorgio Maggiore, one of the most celebrated works of
Palladio.
When my first transport was a little subsided, and I had examined the
graceful design of each particular ornament, and united the just
proportion and grand effect of the whole in my mind, I planted my
umbrella on the margin of the sea, and viewed at my leisure the vast
range of palaces, of porticos, of towers, opening on every side and
extending out of sight. The Doge’s palace and the tall columns at the
entrance of the place of St. Mark, form, together with the arcades of
the public library, the lofty Campanile and the cupolas of the ducal
church, one of the most striking groups of buildings that art can boast
of. To behold at one glance these stately fabrics, so illustrious in the
records of former ages, before which, in the flourishing times of the
republic, so many valiant chiefs and princes have landed, loaded with
oriental spoils, was a spectacle I had long and ardently desired. I
thought of the days of Frederic Barbarossa, when looking up the piazza
of St. Mark, along which he marched in solemn procession, to cast
himself at the feet of Alexander the Third, and pay a tardy homage to
St. Peter’s successor. Here were no longer those splendid fleets that
attended his progress; one solitary galeass was all I beheld, anchored
opposite the palace of the Doge and surrounded by crowds of gondolas,
whose sable hues contrasted strongly with its vermilion oars and shining
ornaments. A party-coloured multitude was continually shifting from one
side of the piazza to the other; whilst senators and magistrates in long
black robes were already arriving to fill their respective offices.
I contemplated the busy scene from my peaceful platform, where nothing
stirred but aged devotees creeping to their devotions, and, whilst I
remained thus calm and tranquil, heard the distant buzz of the town.
Fortunately some length of waves rolled between me and its tumults; so
that I ate my grapes, and read Metastasio, undisturbed by officiousness
or curiosity. When the sun became too powerful, I entered the nave.
After I had admired the masterly structure of the roof and the lightness
of its arches, my eyes naturally directed themselves to the pavement of
white and ruddy marble, polished, and reflecting like a mirror the
columns which rise from it. Over this I walked to a door that admitted
me into the principal quadrangle of the convent, surrounded by a
cloister supported on Ionic pillars, beautifully proportioned. A flight
of stairs opens into the court, adorned with balustrades and pedestals,
sculptured with elegance truly Grecian. This brought me to the
refectory, where the chef-d’œuvre of Paul Veronese, representing the
marriage of Cana in Galilee, was the first object that presented itself.
I never beheld so gorgeous a group of wedding-garments before; there is
every variety of fold and plait that can possibly be imagined. The
attitudes and countenances are more uniform, and the guests appear a
very genteel, decent sort of people, well used to the mode of their
times and accustomed to miracles.
Having examined this fictitious repast, I cast a look on a long range of
tables covered with very excellent realities, which the monks were
coming to devour with energy, if one might judge from their appearance.
These sons of penitence and mortification possess one of the most
spacious islands of the whole cluster, a princely habitation, with
gardens and open porticos, that engross every breath of air; and, what
adds not a little to the charms of their abode, is the facility of
making excursions from it, whenever they have a mind.
The republic, jealous of ecclesiastical influence, connives at these
amusing rambles, and, by encouraging the liberty of monks and churchmen,
prevents their appearing too sacred and important in the eyes of the
people, who have frequent proofs of their being mere flesh and blood,
and that of the frailest composition. Had the rest of Italy been of the
same opinion, and profited as much by Fra Paolo’s maxims, some of its
fairest fields would not, at this moment, lie uncultivated, and its
ancient spirit might have revived. However, I can scarcely think the
moment far distant, when it will assert its natural prerogatives, and
look back upon the tiara, with all its host of scaring phantoms, as the
offspring of a feverish dream.
Full of prophecies and bodings, I moved slowly out of the cloisters;
and, gaining my gondola, arrived, I know not how, at the flights of
steps which lead to the Redentore, a structure so simple and elegant,
that I thought myself entering an antique temple, and looked about for
the statue of the God of Delphi, or some other graceful divinity. A huge
crucifix of bronze soon brought me to times present.
The charm being thus dissolved, I began to perceive the shapes of rueful
martyrs peeping out of the niches around, and the bushy beards of
capuchin friars wagging before the altars. These good fathers had
decorated the nave with orange and citron trees, placed between the
pilasters of the arcades; and on grand festivals, it seems, they turn
the whole church into a bower, strew the pavement with leaves, and
festoon the dome with flowers.
I left them occupied with their plants and their devotions. It was
mid-day, and I begged to be rowed to some woody island, where I might
dine in shade and tranquillity. My gondoliers shot off in an instant;
but, though they went at a very rapid rate, I wished to advance still
faster, and getting into a bark with six oars, swept along the waters,
soon left the Zecca and San Marco behind; and, launching into the plains
of shining sea, saw turret after turret, and isle after isle, fleeting
before me. A pale greenish light ran along the shores of the distant
continent, whose mountains seemed to catch the motion of my boat, and to
fly with equal celerity.
I had not much time to contemplate the beautiful effects on the
waters--the emerald and purple hues which gleamed along their surface.
Our prow struck, foaming, against the walls of the Carthusian garden,
before I recollected where I was, or could look attentively around me.
Permission being obtained, I entered this cool retirement, and putting
aside with my hands the boughs of figs and pomegranates, got under an
ancient bay-tree on the summit of a little knoll, near which several
tall pines lift themselves up to the breezes. I listened to the
conversation they held, with a wind just flown from Greece, and charged,
as well as I could understand this airy language, with many
affectionate remembrances from their relations on Mount Ida.
I reposed amidst fragrant leaves, fanned by a constant air, till it
pleased the fathers to send me some provisions, with a basket of fruit
and wine. Two of them would wait upon me, and ask ten thousand questions
about Lord George Gordon, and the American war. I, who was deeply
engaged with the winds, and a thousand agreeable associations excited by
my Grecian fancies, wished my interrogators in purgatory, and pleaded
ignorance of the Italian language. This circumstance extricated me from
my embarrassment, and procured me a long interval of repose.