Giovanni Bellini was his name.
Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every
one knew who was meant; but to those who worked at art he was "The
Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and
muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect, and
there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much
younger. In fact, no one would have believed he had lived over his
threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed
out all around under the close-fitting black cap, and the bronzed
complexion--sun-kissed by wind and by weather--which formed a trinity of
opposites that made people turn and stare.
Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier,
and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him
that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and
that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coarse rye
bread and nuts.
Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least,
and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day,
waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat,
arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing
the little brass lions at the sides. People tried to question the old
hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up
behind and rowed; while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the
guest of honor.
There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe
tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of
the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that
passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your
servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze
medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of
"The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix,
and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely
chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would
have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some
important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a
gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been
perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you
had just passed "the greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the
Master."
Then, if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, the
gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.
The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like
'bus-drivers in Piccadilly--they know everybody and are in close touch
with all the Secrets of State. When you get to the Gindecca and tie up
for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you
this:
The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil,
who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist
the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his
frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the
man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a
glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions
and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who
called him father? Oho!
And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if
Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him
on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to Mestre,
whose business was it! Oho!
Beside that, his name isn't Giorgione--it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And
didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero
Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most
of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the
backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to
sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps
him, too--Carpaccio who painted the loveliest little angel sitting
cross-legged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.
That is genius, you know, the ability to get some one else to do the
work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of
course, Gian knows how to lure the boys on--something has to be done in
order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his
studio is full of their work--better than he can do. Oh, he knows a
good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day,
and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who
introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their
paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with
his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian
Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman
and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who
discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho!
Of course, not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the
boys: some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name--oh, yes,
Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that
very gondola last week just where you sit--they are here in Venice now,
taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there to Nuremberg
and lived a month with Durer--they worked together, drank beer
together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he
does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is
away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot--but they do say they
can paint. Me? I have never been up there--and do not want to go,
either--there are no canals there. To be sure, they print books in
Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy
scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot--those
Germans--they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny,
and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful
sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone--only one
penny extra--think of it!
Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about
sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and
taught others how to design and cast type. This man, Alberto Durer,
helped them, designing the initials and making their title-pages by
cutting the design on a wood block, then covering this block with ink,
laying a sheet of paper upon it, placing it in a press, and then when
the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In
fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print
thousands of them from the one block.
Bellini makes drawings for title-pages and initials for Aldus and
Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing place in the world,
and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book
printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer.
There are two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes
usually four men to a press--two to set the type and get things ready,
and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who
write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from
which they print the pictures for the illustrations. At first, you
know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or
illustrations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first
large initials were printed--before that the spaces were left blank and
the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand.
Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks
for initials--they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there
are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and
paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear--every
once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.
Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand
Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in
the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was
amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a
slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead,
loaning him out for two years, so to speak.
Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand
before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an
equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they
say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated
like a prince.
Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture
of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.
"A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the
Grand Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on
familiar ground.
"Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!"
said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.
"I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other
things I might name," was the reply.
The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from
opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one
approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped
off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its
own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he
did not even remain to examine the severed head for art's sake. The
thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped
through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the
docks he found a sailing vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice.
A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat
secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's
giving thanks to God for his deliverance.
No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue--I only told you what others say. I
am only a poor gondolier--why should I trouble myself about what great
folks do? I simply tell you what I hear--it may be so, and it may not.
God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini--he has a rival studio--and
when that Genoese, Christoforo Colombo, was here and made his
stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that
Colombo was a lunatic, and Bellini another, for encouraging him to
show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has
discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in
conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of
forcing him to go to Spain.
No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite--Pascale's pupils say so, and
once they followed him over to Murano--three barca-loads and my gondola
beside. You see it was like this: Twice a week just after sundown, we
used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind
the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no
companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and
Fridays--always at just the same hour, regardless of the weather--we
would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the
Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take
the oar and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to
the same landing--one of our gondoliers had followed them several
times, just out of curiosity.
Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular
trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale. "It is worse than
that: an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks.
Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age--his
pretended asceticism is but a mask--and at his age!"
The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that
Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one
of them who had spoken ill of the Master.
But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air
was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told
me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was
so bad that I refused to go--the wind blew in gusts, sheet lightning
filled the Eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated
gondoliers, had hied them home.