M. de Viloison and his attendant Laplander.--Drawings of ancient
Venetian costume in one of the Gradanigo palaces.--Titian’s
master-piece in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo.--The distant
Euganean hills.
August 18, 1780.
It rains; the air is refreshed and I have courage to resume my pen,
which the sultry weather had forced to lie dormant so long. I like this
odd town of Venice, and find every day some new amusement in rambling
about its innumerable canals and alleys. Sometimes I pry about the great
church of Saint Mark, and examine the variety of marbles and mazes of
delicate sculpture with which it is covered. The cupola, glittering with
gold, mosaic, and paintings of half the wonders in the Apocalypse, never
fails to transport me to the period of the Eastern empire. I think
myself in Constantinople, and expect Michael Paleologus with all his
train. One circumstance alone prevents my observing half the treasures
of the place, and holds down my fancy just springing into the air: I
mean the vile stench which exhales from every recess and corner of the
edifice, and which all the incense of the altars cannot subdue.
When no longer able to endure this noxious atmosphere, I run up the
Campanile in the piazza, and seating myself amongst the pillars of the
gallery, breathe the fresh gales which blow from the Adriatic; survey at
my leisure all Venice beneath me, with its azure sea, white sails, and
long tracks of islands shining in the sun. Having thus laid in a
provision of wholesome breezes, I brave the vapours of the canals, and
venture into the most curious and murky quarters of the city, in search
of Turks and Infidels, that I may ask as many questions as I please
about Cairo and Damascus.
Asiatics find Venice very much to their taste, and all those I conversed
with allowed its customs and style of living had a good deal of
conformity to their own. The eternal lounging in coffee-houses and
sipping of sorbets agree perfectly well with the inhabitants of the
Ottoman empire, who stalk about here in their proper dresses, and smoke
their own exotic pipes, without being stared and wondered at as in most
other European capitals. Some few of these Orientals are communicative
and enlightened; but, generally speaking, they know nothing beyond the
rule of three, and the commonest transactions of mercantile affairs.
The Greeks are by far a more lively generation, still retaining their
propensity to works of genius and imagination. Metastasio has been
lately translated into their modern language, and some obliging papa or
other has had the patience to put the long-winded romance of Clelia into
a Grecian dress. I saw two or three of these volumes exposed on a stall,
under the grand arcades of the public library, as I went one day to
admire the antiques in its vestibules.
Whilst I was intent upon my occupation, a little door, I never should
have suspected, flew open, and out popped Monsieur de Viloison, from a
place where nothing, I believe, but broomsticks and certain other
utensils were ever before deposited. This gentleman, the most active
investigator of Homer since the days of the good bishop of Thessalonica,
bespatters you with more learning in a minute than others communicate in
half a year; quotes Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, &c. with formidable
fluency; and drove me from one end of the room to the other with a storm
of erudition. Syllables fell thicker than hail, and in an instant I
found myself so weighed down and covered, that I prayed, for mercy’s
sake, to be introduced, by way of respite, to a Laplander whom he leads
about as a curiosity; a poor harmless good sort of a soul, calm and
indifferent, who has acquired the words of several Oriental languages to
perfection: ideas he has in none.
We went all together to view a collection of medals in one of the
Gradanigo palaces, and two or three inestimable volumes, filled with
paintings that represent the dress of the ancient Venetians; so that I
had an opportunity of observing to perfection all the Lapland
nothingness of my companion. What a perfect void! Cold and silent as the
polar regions, not one passion ever throbbed in his bosom; not one
bright ray of fancy ever glittered in his mind; without love or anger,
pleasure or pain, his days fleet smoothly along: all things considered,
I must confess I envied such comfortable apathy.
After having passed an instructive hour in examining the medals and
drawings, M. de Viloison proposed conducting me to the Armenian convent,
but I begged to be excused, and went to San Giovanni e Paolo, a church
to be held most holy in the annals of painting, since it contains that
masterpiece of Titian, the martyrdom of the hermits St. Paul and St.
Peter.