[Illustration: THE JUMMA MUSJID, INDIA.]
Historic Buildings
As Seen and Described
by Famous Writers
EDITED AND TRANSLATED
BY ESTHER SINGLETON
AUTHOR OF “TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,” “GREAT
PICTURES,” “WONDERS OF NATURE,” “FAMOUS PAINTINGS,”
“PARIS,” “LONDON” AND “A GUIDE TO THE OPERA,” ETC.
_With Numerous Illustrations_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1903
_Copyright, 1903_
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
_Published October, 1903_
Preface
Two principles of selection have guided me in the preparation of this
book, the sixth of a series which has met with a cordial reception.
One is the beauty or interest from an artistic standpoint; the other,
the historical associations. If the reader should miss some famous
edifices, he will kindly remember that a small volume cannot contain
a complete collection of all the historic buildings still standing,
and that many other historic buildings have already appeared in my
former books of this series, _Turrets, Towers and Temples_ and
_Romantic Castles and Palaces_.
I have endeavoured to find descriptions that deal with both views,
giving the history of the building itself, and a description of its
architectural features; and as this book contains, in consequence,
a great variety of buildings of all periods and many countries, the
student of both art and history will doubtless find pleasure in
comparing these various styles of architecture and in composing a
mental picture of events that have occurred within their walls.
Some of the buildings will aid him in realizing more fully, perhaps,
than before some of the various influences that have aided in
developing certain races; for instance, a study of the text and
pictures of the cathedrals of Monreale and Palermo will demonstrate
the presence of Norman and Saracen in Sicily. In other instances, it is
not a long vanished race, but the still-felt presence of some strong
personality like that of Shah Jehan, whose mosques and palaces and Taj
Mahal stand as monuments not only to the great conqueror, but to the
magnificence of his taste.
In this book, I have included several towers and fortresses as well
as castles and baronial halls, and the Certosa of Pavia and La Grande
Chartreuse, from which later historic home the Carthusian monks of
France have lately been driven. In addition to the cathedrals and
temples which have been the scenes of memorable historical events,
I have added the particularly sacred shrines of the Holy Sepulchre,
the Holy House of Loretto and the Campo Santo, Pisa, which attract
thousands of the faithful.
Many of the extracts I have translated expressly for this book, and I
have taken no liberties with the text, except a little cutting for the
sake of space limitations.
E. S.
NEW YORK, _September, 1903_.
Contents
THE JUMMA MUSJID, DELHI 1
G. W. STEEVENS.
SAN DONATO, MURANO 5
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE PALACE OF THE POPES, AVIGNON 20
CHARLES DICKENS.
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM 29
PIERRE LOTI.
LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE 40
WILLIAM BECKFORD.
THE TEMPLES OF HATCHIMAN, KAMAKOURA 54
AIMÉ HUMBERT.
CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS 62
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN.
THE COLISEUM, ROME 75
I. EDWARD GIBBON.
II. CHARLES DICKENS.
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS, LAHORE 84
G. W. STEEVENS.
THE GIRALDA, SEVILLE 92
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE CATHEDRAL OF MONREALE 95
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE LUXEMBOURG PALACE, PARIS 102
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
THE GREAT LAMA TEMPLE, PEKIN 107
C. F. GORDON-CUMMING.
HADDON HALL 112
JOHN LEYLAND.
CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO 125
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE FORTRESS AND PALACE OF GWALIOR 129
LOUIS ROUSSELET.
THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETTO 135
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.
THE ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE 145
EDMUNDO DE AMICIS.
THE TOWER OF BELEM, LISBON 149
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN.
VENETIAN PALACES 156
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
SAINT OUEN, ROUEN 163
L. DE FOURCAUD.
CARISBROOKE CASTLE, ISLE OF WIGHT 172
SIR JAMES D. MACKENZIE.
THE PANTHEON, ROME 178
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
ST. LAURENCE, NUREMBERG 182
LINDA VILLARI.
THE TORRE DEL ORO, SEVILLE 190
EDMUNDO DE AMICIS.
CATHEDRAL OF ORVIETO 193
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE BUILDINGS OF SHAH JEHAN, AGRA 206
G. W. STEEVENS.
THE PRIORY AND CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, LONDON 216
CHARLES KNIGHT.
KUTB MINAR, DELHI 228
I. G. W. STEEVENS.
II. ANDRÉ CHÉVRILLON.
KENILWORTH CASTLE 234
SIR JAMES D. MACKENZIE.
SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE 244
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE 247
A. MOLINIER.
THE CATHEDRAL OF MODENA 254
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN.
THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS 257
LOUIS GONSE.
THE CASTLE OF S. ANGELO, ROME 267
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 276
W. J. LOFTIE.
THE CASTLE OF ANGERS 286
HENRY JOUIN.
THE PAGODA OF TANJORE 294
G. W. STEEVENS.
THE VENDRAMIN-CALERGI, VENICE 300
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
A VISIT TO THE OLD SERAGLIO, CONSTANTINOPLE 303
PIERRE LOTI.
THE DUOMO, LEANING TOWER, THE BAPTISTERY AND THE
CAMPO-SANTO, PISA 310
H. A. TAINE.
ROCHESTER CASTLE 317
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN.
SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE 326
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA 336
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
Illustrations
THE JUMMA MUSJID _India_ _Frontispiece_
PAGE
SAN DONATO _Italy_ 5
THE PALACE OF THE POPES _France_ 20
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE _Palestine_ 29
THE DAÏBOUDHS _Kamakoura_ 54
CATHEDRAL OF WELLS _England_ 62
THE COLISEUM _Italy_ 75
GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS _India_ 84
THE GIRALDA _Spain_ 92
THE CATHEDRAL OF MONREALE _Italy_ 95
THE LUXEMBOURG PALACE _France_ 102
HADDON HALL _England_ 112
CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO _Italy_ 125
FORTRESS AND PALACE OF GWALIOR _India_ 129
THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETTO _Italy_ 135
THE ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE _Spain_ 145
THE TOWER OF BELEM _Portugal_ 149
THE FOSCARI PALACE _Italy_ 156
SAINT OUEN _France_ 163
CARISBROOKE CASTLE _England_ 172
THE PANTHEON _Italy_ 178
ST. LAURENCE _Germany_ 182
THE TORRE DEL ORO _Spain_ 190
CATHEDRAL OF ORVIETO _Italy_ 193
THE PEARL MOSQUE _India_ 206
THE CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW _England_ 216
THE KUTB MINAR _Delhi_ 228
KENILWORTH CASTLE _England_ 234
SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE _Italy_ 244
THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE _France_ 247
THE CATHEDRAL OF MODENA _Italy_ 254
THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS _France_ 257
THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO _Italy_ 267
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL _England_ 276
THE CASTLE OF ANGERS _France_ 286
THE PAGODA OF TANJORE _India_ 294
THE VENDRAMIN-CALERGI _Italy_ 300
FOUNTAIN OF THE OLD SERAGLIO _Turkey_ 303
THE DUOMO, LEANING TOWER,
BAPTISTERY AND CAMPO-SANTO _Italy_ 310
ROCHESTER CASTLE _England_ 317
SANTA CROCE _Italy_ 326
THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA _Italy_ 336
Historic Buildings
THE JUMMA MUSJID
G. W. STEEVENS
Delhi is the most historic city in all historic India.
It may not be the oldest--who shall say which is the oldest among
rivals all coeval with time?--though it puts in a claim for a
respectable middle-age, dating from 1000 B.C. or so. It
has at least one authentic monument which is certainly fourteen or
fifteen hundred years old. At that time Delhi’s master called himself
Emperor of the World, and emperors, at least of India, have ruled
there almost ever since. Mohammed, an Afghan of Ghor, took it in 1193;
Tamerlane, the Mogul, sacked it two hundred years later; Nadir Shah,
the Persian, in 1739; Ahmed Shah Durani, another Afghan, in 1756; the
Marathas took it three years later. Half a century on, in 1803, General
Lake took the capital of India for Britain. And British it has been
ever since--except for those few months in 1857, when Mutiny brought
the ghost of the Mogul empire into the semblance of life again; till
Nicholson stormed the breach in the Kashmir Bastion, and dyed Delhi
British for ever with his blood.
Look from the Ridge, whence the columns marched out to that last
capture: the battered trophy of so many conquerors remains wonderfully
fresh and fair. It seems more like a wood than a city. The rolls of
green are only spangled with white, as if it were a suburb of villas
standing in orchards. Only the snowy domes and tall minarets, the
cupolas and gilded pinnacles, betray the still great and populous city
that nestles below you and takes breath after her thousand troubles.
Let us go back to the city. Here at least is the Jumma Musjid, the
great mosque, saved complete out of the storms--a baby of little more
than two hundred years, to be sure, but still something. It is said to
be the largest mosque in the world--a vast stretch of red sandstone
and white marble and gold upstanding from a platform reached on three
sides by flights of steps so tall, so majestically wide, that they are
like a stone mountain tamed into order and proportion at an emperor’s
will. Above the brass-mounted doors rise red portals so huge that they
almost dwarf the whole--red galleries above them, white marble domes
above them, white marble minarets rising higher yet, with pillars
and cupolas and gilded pinnacles above all. Beside the gateways the
walls of the quadrangle seem to creep along the ground; then, at the
corners, rise towers with more open chambers, more cupolas and gilded
pinnacles. Within, above the cloistered quadrangle, bulge three pure
white domes--not hemispheres, like Western domes, but complete globes,
only sliced away at the base and tapering to a spike at the top--and a
slender minaret flanks each side.
The whole, to Western eyes, has a strange effect. Our own buildings
are tighter together, gripped and focused more in one glance; over the
Jumma Musjid your eye must wander, and then the mind must connect the
views of the different parts. If you look at it near you cannot see it
all; if far, it is low and seems to straggle. The West could hardly
call it beautiful: it has proportion, but not compass. Therefore it
does not abase you, as other great buildings do: somehow you have a
feeling of patronage towards it. Yet it is most light and graceful
with all its bulk: it seems to suit India, thus spread out to get its
fill of the warm sun. It looks rich and lavish, as if space were of no
account to it.
You have passed below the cloud-capped towers, out of the gorgeous
palaces--and here is Silver Street, Delhi’s main thoroughfare. The
pageant fades, and you plunge into the dense squalor which is also
India. Along the houses run balconies and colonnades; here also you see
vistas of pillars and lattice-work, but the stone is dirty, the stucco
peels, the wood lacks paint. The houses totter and lean together. The
street is a mass of squatting, variegated people; bulls, in necklaces
of white and yellow flowers, sleep across the pavements, donkeys stroll
into the shops, goats nibble at the vegetables piled for sale down the
centre of the street, a squirrel is fighting with a caged parrot. Here
is a jeweller’s booth, gay with tawdry paint; next, a baker’s, with the
shopkeeper snoring on his low counter, and everything an inch thick
with dust. At one step you smell incense; at the next, garbage.
Inimitable, incongruous India! And coming out of the walls, still
crumbling from Nicholson’s cannon, you see mill-chimneys blackening
the sky. Delhi, with local cotton, they tell you, can spin as fine as
Manchester. One more incongruity! The iron pillar, the ruined mosque,
the jewelled halls, the shabby street, and now the clacking mill. That
is the last of Delhi’s myriad reincarnations.
[Illustration: SAN DONATO, ITALY.]
SAN DONATO, MURANO
JOHN RUSKIN
We push our way on between large barges laden with fresh water from
Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across, and complicated
boats full of all manner of nets that look as if they could never
be disentangled, hanging from their masts and over their sides;
and presently pass under a bridge with the lion of St. Mark on its
archivolt, and another on a pillar at the end of the parapet, a small
red lion with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up in
the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings
are covered with hair, and in several other points the manner of his
sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little
to the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of
the water-street being usually confined to the first straight reach
of it, some quarter of a mile long, the Cheapside of Murano. We pass
a considerable church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square
opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly
seized by a strong green eddy, and whirled into the tide-way of one
of the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the town of Murano
into two parts by a deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by
one wooden bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current,
looking at the low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly
knowing if there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the
sunshine glows on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and sparkles
on the rushing of the green water by the grass-grown quay. It needs
a strong stroke of the oar to bring us into the mouth of another
quiet canal on the farther side of the tide-way, and we are still
somewhat giddy when we run the head of the gondola into the sand on the
left-hand side of this more sluggish stream, and land under the east
end of the Church of San Donato, the “Matrice” or “Mother” Church of
Murano.
It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from it a few yards, in
a small triangular field of somewhat fresher grass than is usual near
Venice, traversed by a paved walk with green mosaic of short grass
between the rude squares of its stones, bounded on one side by ruinous
garden walls, on another by a line of low cottages, on the third,
the base of the triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have
just landed. Near the point of the triangular space is a simple well,
bearing date 1502; in its widest part, between the canal and campanile,
is a four-square hollow pillar, each side formed by a separate slab of
stone, to which the iron hasps are still attached that once secured the
Venetian standard.
The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the field,
encumbered with modern buildings, small out-house-like chapels, and
wastes of white wall with blank square windows, and itself utterly
defaced in the whole body of it, nothing but the apse having been
spared; the original plan is only discoverable by careful examination,
and even then but partially. The whole impression and effect of the
building are irretrievably lost, but the fragments of it are still most
precious.
We must first briefly state what is known of its history.
The legends of the Romish Church, though generally more insipid and
less varied than those of Paganism, deserve audience from us on this
ground, if on no other, that they have once been sincerely believed
by good men, and have had no ineffective agency in the foundation of
the existent European mind. The reader must not therefore accuse me of
trifling, when I record for him the first piece of information I have
been able to collect respecting the cathedral of Murano: namely, that
the emperor Otho the Great, being overtaken by a storm on the Adriatic,
vowed, if he were preserved, to build and dedicate a church to the
Virgin, in whatever place might be most pleasing to her; that the storm
thereupon abated; and the Virgin appearing to Otho in a dream showed
him, covered with red lilies, that very triangular field on which we
were but now standing amidst the ragged weeds and shattered pavement.
The emperor obeyed the vision; and the church was consecrated on the
15th of August, 957.
Whatever degree of credence we may feel disposed to attach to this
piece of history, there is no question that a church was built on
this spot before the close of the Tenth Century: since in the year
999 we find the incumbent of the Basilica (note this word, it is of
some importance) di Santa Maria Plebania di Murano taking an oath of
obedience to the Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaging at the same
time to give the said bishop his dinner on the Domenica in Albis, when
the prelate held a confirmation in the mother church, as it was then
commonly called, of Murano. From this period, for more than a century,
I can find no records of any alterations made in the fabric of the
church, but there exist very full details of the quarrels which arose
between its incumbents and those of San Stefano, San Cipriano, San
Salvatore, and the other churches of Murano, touching the due obedience
which their less numerous or less ancient brotherhoods owed to St.
Mary’s.
These differences seem to have been renewed at the election of every
new abbot by each of the fraternities, and must have been growing
serious when the patriarch of Grado, Henry Dandolo, interfered in 1102,
and, in order to seal a peace between the two principal opponents,
ordered that the abbot of St. Stephen’s should be present at the
service in St. Mary’s on the night of the Epiphany, and that the abbot
of St. Mary’s should visit him of St. Stephen’s on St. Stephen’s day;
and that then the two abbots “should eat apples and drink good wine
together, in peace and charity.”[1]
But even this kindly effort seems to have been without result: the
irritated pride of the antagonists remained unsoothed by the love-feast
of St. Stephen’s day; and the breach continued to widen until the
abbot of St. Mary’s obtained a timely accession to his authority in
the year 1125. The Doge Domenico Michele, having in the Second Crusade
secured such substantial advantages for the Venetians as might well
counterbalance the loss of part of their trade with the East, crowned
his successes by obtaining possession in Cephalonia of the body of San
Donato, bishop of Eurœa; which treasure he having presented on his
return to the Murano basilica, that church was thenceforward called
the church of Sts. Mary and Donato. Nor was the body of the saint its
only acquisition: St. Donato’s principal achievement had been the
destruction of a terrible dragon in Epirus; Michele brought home the
bones of the dragon as well as of the saint; the latter were put in a
marble sarcophagus, and the former hung up over the high altar.
But the clergy of St. Stefano were indomitable. At the very moment
when their adversaries had received this formidable accession of
strength, they had the audacity “ad onta de’ replicati giuramenti, e
dell’ inveterata consuetudine,” to refuse to continue in the obedience
which they had vowed to their mother church. The matter was tried in
a provincial council; the votaries of St. Stephen were condemned,
and remained quiet for about twenty years, in wholesome dread of the
authority conferred on the abbot of St. Donato, by the Pope’s legate,
to suspend any of the clergy of the island from their office if they
refused submission. In 1172, however, they appealed to Pope Alexander
III, and were condemned again: and we find the struggle renewed at
every promising opportunity, during the course of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries; until at last, finding St. Donato and the dragon
together too strong for him, the abbot of St. Stefano “discovered” in
his church the bodies of two hundred martyrs at once!--a discovery,
it is to be remembered, in some sort equivalent in those days to
that of California in ours. The inscription, however, on the façade
of the church recorded it with quiet dignity:--“MCCCLXXIV. a dì XIV,
di Aprile. Furono trovati nella presente chiesa del protomartire San
Stefano, duecento e più corpi de’ Santi Martin, dal Ven. Prete Matteo
Fradello, piovano della chiesa.”[2] Corner, who gives this inscription,
which no longer exists, goes on to explain with infinite gravity, that
the bodies in question, “being of infantile form and stature, are
reported by tradition to have belonged to those fortunate innocents who
suffered martyrdom under King Herod; but that when, or by whom, the
church was enriched with so vast a treasure, is not manifested by any
document.”
The issue of the struggle is not to our present purpose. We have
already arrived at the Fourteenth Century without finding record of any
effort made by the clergy of St. Mary’s to maintain their influence by
restoring or beautifying their basilica; which is the only point at
present of importance to us. That great alterations were made in it
at the time of the acquisition of the body of St. Donato is however
highly probable, the mosaic pavement of the interior, which bears
its date inscribed 1140, being probably the last of the additions.
I believe 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 authors of the destructive
modern restorations; the wreck of the old fabric, breaking out from
beneath them here and there, is generally distinguishable 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 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.
It is roofed by a concha, or semi-dome; and the external arrangement of
its walls provides for the security of this dome by what is, in fact,
a system of buttresses as effective and definite as that of any of the
northern churches, although the buttresses are obtained entirely by
adaptations of the Roman shaft and arch, the lower story being formed
by a thick mass of wall lightened by ordinary semicircular round-headed
niches, like those used so extensively afterwards in Renaissance
architecture, each niche flanked by a pair of shafts standing clear of
the wall, and bearing deeply moulded arches thrown over the niche. The
walls with its pillars thus forms a series of massy buttresses, on the
top of which is an open gallery, backed by a thinner wall, and roofed
by arches whose shafts are set above the pairs of shafts below. On the
heads of these arches rests the roof. We have, therefore, externally
a heptagonal apse, chiefly of rough and common brick, only with marble
shafts and a few marble ornaments; but for that reason all the more
interesting because it shows us what may be done, and what was done,
with materials such as are now at our own command; and because in its
proportions, and in the use of the few ornaments it possesses, it
displays a delicacy of feeling rendered doubly notable by the roughness
of the work in which laws so subtle are observed, and with which so
thoughtful ornamentation is associated.
We must now see what is left of interest within the walls.
All hope is taken away by our first glance; for it falls on a range
of shafts whose bases are concealed by wooden panelling, and which
sustains arches decorated in the most approved style of Renaissance
upholstery, with stucco roses in squares under the soffits, and egg
and arrow mouldings on the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty
black and green, with a small pink-faced and black-eyed cherub on every
keystone; the rest of the church being for the most part concealed
either by dirty hangings, or dirtier whitewash, or dim pictures on
warped and wasting canvas; all vulgar, vain, and foul. Yet let us not
turn back, for in the shadow of the apse our more careful glance shows
us a Greek Madonna, pictured on a field of gold; and we feel giddy
at the first step we make on the pavement, for it, also, is of Greek
mosaic waved like the sea, and dyed like a dove’s neck.
Nor are the original features of the rest of the edifice altogether
indecipherable; the entire series of shafts marked in the ground plan
on each side of the nave, from the western entrance to the apse, are
nearly uninjured; and I believe the stilted arches they sustain are
those of the original fabric, though the masonry is covered by the
Renaissance stucco mouldings. Their capitals, for a wonder, are left
bare, and appear to have sustained no farther injury than has resulted
from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into each of their
abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax candle two inches thick,
fastened with wire to the wall above. The due arrangement of these
appendages, previous to festa days, can only be effected from a ladder
set against the angle of the abacus; and ten minutes before I wrote
this sentence, I had the privilege of watching the candle-lighter at
his work, knocking his ladder about the heads of the capitals as if
they had given him personal offence. He at last succeeded in breaking
away one of the lamps altogether, with a bit of the marble of the
abacus; the whole falling in ruin to the pavement, and causing much
consultation and clamour among a tribe of beggars who were assisting
the sacristan with their wisdom respecting the festal arrangements.
It is fortunate that the capitals themselves, being somewhat rudely
cut, can bear this kind of treatment better than most of those in
Venice. They are all founded on the Corinthian type, but the leaves
are in every one different: those of the easternmost capital of the
southern range are the best, and very beautiful, but presenting no
feature of much interest, their workmanship being inferior to most of
the imitations of Corinthian common at the period; much more to the
rich fantasies which we have seen at Torcello. The apse itself to-day
(12th September, 1851), is not to be described; for just in front of
it, behind the altar, is a magnificent curtain of a new red velvet with
a gilt edge and two golden tassels, held up in a dainty manner by two
angels in the upholsterer’s service; and above all, for concentration
of effect a star or sun, some five feet broad, the spikes of which
conceal the whole of the figure of the Madonna except the head and
hands.
The pavement is however still left open, and it is of infinite
interest, although grievously distorted and defaced. For whenever a new
chapel has been built, or a new altar erected, the pavement has been
broken up and readjusted so as to surround the newly inserted steps or
stones with some appearance of symmetry; portions of it either covered
or carried away, others mercilessly shattered or replaced by modern
imitations, and those of very different periods, with pieces of the
old floor left here and there in the midst of them, and worked round
so as to deceive the eye into acceptance of the whole as ancient. The
portion, however, which occupies the western extremity of the nave, and
the parts immediately adjoining it in the aisles, are, I believe, in
their original positions, and very little injured: they are composed
chiefly of groups of peacocks, lions, stags, and griffins,--two of
each in a group, drinking out of the same vase, or shaking claws
together,--enclosed by interlacing bands, and alternating with chequer
or star patterns, and here and there an attempt at representation
of architecture, all worked in marble mosaic. The floors of Torcello
and of St. Mark’s are executed in the same manner; but what remains
at Murano is finer than either, in the extraordinary play of colour
obtained by the use of variegated marbles. At St. Mark’s the patterns
are more intricate, and the pieces far more skillfully set together;
but each piece is there commonly of one colour: at Murano every
fragment is itself variegated, and all are arranged with a skill and
feeling not to be taught, and to be observed with deep reverence, for
that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of the church; it bears
its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and is, in my mind, one
of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing thus early, and in
those rude chequers which the bared knee of the Murano fisher wears
in its daily bending, the beginning of that mighty spirit of Venetian
colour, which was to be consummated in Titian.
But we must quit the church for the present, for its garnishings are
completed; the candles are all upright in their sockets, and the
curtains are drawn into festoons, and a pasteboard crescent, gay with
artificial flowers, has been attached to the capital of every pillar,
in order, together with the gilt angels, to make the place look as
much like Paradise as possible. If we return to-morrow, we shall
find it filled with woeful groups of aged men and women, wasted and
fever-struck, fixed in paralytic supplication, half kneeling, half
couched upon the pavement; bowed down, partly in feebleness, partly
in a fearful devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their
faces, ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the
glittering eyes and muttering lips.
Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of Venice, “a
terrestrial paradise,--a place of nymphs and demigods!”
We return, yet once again, on the following day. Worshippers and
objects of worship, the sickly crowd and gilded angels, all are gone;
and there far in the apse, is seen the sad Madonna standing in her
folded robe, lifting her hands in vanity of blessing. There is little
else to draw away our thoughts from the solitary image. An old wooden
tablet, carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies the
central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest of
its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older church. The
faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper tier of the wall of the
apse, are also of comparatively recent date, much more the piece of
Renaissance workmanship, shaft and entablature, above the altar, which
has been thrust into the midst of all, and has cut away part of the
feet of the Madonna. Nothing remains of the original structure but the
semi-dome itself, the cornice whence it springs, which is the same as
that used on the exterior of the church, and the border and face-arch
which surround it. The ground of the dome is of gold, unbroken except
by the upright Madonna, and usual inscription, M R [symbol] V. The
figure wears a robe of blue, deeply fringed with gold, which seems to
be gathered on the head and thrown back on the shoulders, crossing the
breast, and falling in many folds to the ground. The under robe, shown
beneath it where it opens at the breast, is of the same colour; the
whole, except the deep gold fringe, being simply the dress of the women
of the time. Le donne, anco elle del 1100, vestivano _di turchino con
manti in spalla_, che le coprivano dinanzi e di dietro.[3]
Round the dome there is a colored mosaic border; and on the edge of its
arch, legible by the whole congregation, this inscription:
“Quos Eva contrivit, pia Virgo Maria redemit;
Hanc cuncti laudent, qui Christi munere gaudent.”[4]
The whole edifice is, therefore, simply a temple to the Virgin: to her
is ascribed the fact of Redemption, and to her its praise.
“And is this,” it will be asked of me, “the time, is this the worship,
to which you would have us look back with reverence and regret?”
Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to the Virgin, No. Inasmuch as
redemption is a thing desired, believed in, rejoiced in, Yes,--and Yes
a thousand times. As far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God,
No; but as far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the
sense of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of men
than that into Christian and Pagan: we ask what a man worships, we have
to ask whether he worships at all. Observe Christ’s own words on this
head: “God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit, _and_ in truth.” The worshipping in spirit comes first,
and does not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore,
there is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers and
Flesh worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers, the farther
division into Christian and Pagan,--worshippers in Falsehood or in
Truth. I therefore, for the moment, omit all inquiry how far the
Mariolatry of the early church did indeed eclipse Christ, or what
measure of deeper reverence for the Son of God was still felt through
all the grosser forms of Madonna worship. Let that worship be taken at
its worst; let the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as
just in the same sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the
Syrian Queen of Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption, balance
well the difference between those who worship and those who worship
not;--that difference which there is in the sight of God, in all ages,
between the calculating, smiling, self-sustained, self-governed man,
and the believing, weeping, wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed
man;--between the men who say in their hearts “there is no God,” and
those who acknowledge a God at every step, “if haply they might feel
after Him and find Him.” For that is indeed the difference which we
shall find, in the end, between the builders of this day and the
builders on that sand island long ago. They _did_ honour something
out of themselves; they did believe in spiritual presence judging,
animating, redeeming them; they built to its honour and for its
habitation; and were content to pass away in nameless multitudes, so
only that the labour of their hands might fix in the sea-wilderness a
throne for their guardian angel. In this was their strength, and there
was indeed a Spirit walking with them on the waters, though they could
not discern the form thereof, though the Master’s voice came not to
them, “It is I.” What their error cost them, we shall see here-after;
for it remained when the majesty and the sincerity of their worship
had departed, and remains to this day. Mariolatry is no special
characteristic of the Twelfth Century; on the outside of that very
tribune of San Donato, in its central recess, is an image of the Virgin
who receives the reverence once paid to the blue vision upon the inner
dome. With rouged cheeks and painted brows, the frightful doll stands
in wretchedness of rags, blackened with the smoke of the votive lamp at
its feet; and if we would know what has been lost or gained by Italy
in the six hundred years that have worn the marbles of Murano, let us
consider how far the priests who set up this to worship, the populace
who have this to adore, may be nobler than the men who conceived that
lonely figure standing on the golden field, or than those to whom it
seemed to receive their prayer at evening, far away, where they only
saw the blue clouds rising out of the burning sea.
THE PALACE OF THE POPES
CHARLES DICKENS
Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which
one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack: while
gloomy suites of apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old
state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went
there to see state-rooms, nor soldiers’ quarters, nor a common jail,
though we dropped some money into a prisoners’ box outside, whilst
the prisoners themselves, looked through the iron bars, high up, and
watched us eagerly. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in
which the Inquisition used to sit.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF THE POPES, FRANCE.]
A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes--proof
that the world hadn’t conjured down the devil within her, though it
had had between sixty and seventy years to do it in--came out of the
Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys
in her hands, and marshalled us the way that we should go. How she
told us, on the way, that she was a Government Officer (_concierge
du palais apostolique_) and had been for I don’t know how many
years; and how she had shown these dungeons to princes; and how she
was the best of dungeon demonstrators; and how she had resided in the
palace from an infant--had been born there, if I recollect right--I
needn’t relate. But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic
she-devil I never beheld. She was alight and flaming all the time. Her
action was violent in the extreme. She never spoke without stopping
expressly for the purpose. She stomped her feet, clutched us by the
arms, flung herself into attitudes, hammered against the walls with
her keys, for mere emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were
there still: now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had
a mysterious, hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching the
remains of some new horror--looking back and walking stealthily, and
making horrible grimaces--that might alone have qualified her to walk
up and down a sick man’s counterpane, to the exclusion of all other
figures, through a whole fever.
Passing through the courtyard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned
off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and
locked again behind us: and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower
by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the
mouth of a ruined subterranean passage, that once communicated (or
is said to have done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of
the river. Close to this courtyard is a dungeon--we stood within it,
in another minute--in the dismal tower _des oubliettes_, where
Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an iron chain to the very wall that
stands there now, but shut out from the sky which now looks down into
it. A few steps brought us to the Cachots, in which the prisoners
of the Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their
capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken,
even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day
has not got in there yet, they are still small cells, shut in by four
unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively
doored and fastened as of old.
Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a
vaulted chamber, now used as a store-room: once the chapel of the Holy
Office. The place where the tribunal sat was plain. The platform might
have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good
Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition
chambers! But it was, and may be traced there yet.
High up in the jealous wall are niches where the faltering replies of
the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought
out of the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully: along the
same stone passage. We had trodden in their very footsteps.
I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when
Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but
the handle of the key, upon her lips. She invites me, with a jerk, to
follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining--a rugged
room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top to the
bright day. I ask her what it is. She folds her arms, leers hideously,
and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little
company are there; sits down upon a mound of stones; throws up her
arms, and yells out, like a fiend, “La Salle de la Question!”
The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle
the victim’s cries! Oh, Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile in
silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short
legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame
out again.
Minutes! Seconds are not marked upon the Palace Clock, when, with
her eyes flashing fire, Goblin is up in the middle of the chamber,
describing, with her sunburnt arms, a wheel of heavy blows. Thus it
ran round! cries Goblin. Mash, mash, mash! An endless routine of heavy
hammers. Mash, mash, mash! upon the sufferer’s limbs. See the stone
trough! says Goblin. For the water torture! Gurgle, swill, bloat,
burst, for the Redeemer’s honour! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into
your unbelieving body, Heretic, at every breath you draw. And when
the executioner plucks it out, reeking with the smaller mysteries of
God’s own Image, know us for His chosen servants, true believers in the
Sermon on the Mount, elect disciples of Him who never did a miracle
but to heal: who never struck a man with palsy, blindness, deafness,
dumbness, madness, any one affliction of mankind; and never stretched
His blessed hand out, but to give relief and ease!
See! cries Goblin. There the furnace was. There they made the irons
red-hot. Those holes supported the sharp stake, on which the tortured
persons hung poised: dangling with their whole weight from the roof.
“But”--and Goblin whispers this--“Monsieur has heard of this tower?
Yes? Let Monsieur look down then!”
A cold air, laden with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of
Monsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in the
wall. Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the top,
of a steep, dark, lofty tower: very dismal, very dark, very cold. The
Executioner of the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging in her head to look
down also, flung those who were past all further torturing down here.
“But look! does Monsieur see the black stains on the wall?” A glance,
over his shoulder, at Goblin’s keen eye, shows Monsieur--and would
without the aid of the directing key--where they are. “What are they?”
“Blood!”
In October, 1791, when the Revolution was at its height here, sixty
persons: men and women (“and priests,” says Goblin, “priests”): were
murdered, and hurled the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit,
where a quantity of quicklime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those
ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone
of the strong building in which the deed was done remains upon another,
there they will lie in the memories of men, as plain to see as the
splashing of their blood upon the wall is now.
Was it a portion of the great schemes of Retribution that the cruel
deed should be committed in this place? That a part of the atrocities
and monstrous institutions, which had been, for scores of years, at
work, to change men’s nature, should in its last service tempt them
with the ready means of gratifying their furious and beastly rage!
Should enable them to show themselves, in the height of their frenzy,
no worse than a great, solemn, legal establishment in the height of
its power? No worse! Much better. They used the Tower of the Forgotten
in the name of Liberty--their liberty; an earth-born creature, nursed
in the black mud of the Bastille moats and dungeons, and necessarily
betraying many evidences of its unwholesome bringing-up--but the
Inquisition used it in the name of Heaven.
Goblin’s finger is lifted; and she steals out again into the Chapel
of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her
great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the Brave
Courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the
hat with the largest key: and bids him be silent. She assembles us all
round a little trap-door in the floor as round a grave. “Voilà!” she
darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a crash, in her
goblin energy, though it is no light weight. “Voilà les oubliettes!
Voilà les oubliettes! Subterranean! Frightful! Black! Terrible! Deadly!
Les oubliettes de l’Inquisition!”
My blood ran cold as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where
these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside:
of wives, friends, children, brothers: starved to death, and made
the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt
on seeing the accursed wall below, decayed and broken through, and
the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of
victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living,
in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some
high achievement! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the
light that has streamed in on all persecution in God’s name, but which
is not yet at its noon! It cannot look more lovely to a blind man
newly restored to sight, than to a traveller who sees it, calmly and
majestically, treading down the darkness of that Infernal Well.
Goblin, having shown _les oubliettes_ felt that her great
_coup_ was struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood
upon it with her arms akimbo, sniffing prodigiously.
When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the
outer gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building.
Her cabaret, a dark low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the
thick wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney;
its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it;
its household implements and scraps of dress against the wall; and a
sober-looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it with Goblin)
knitting at the door--looked exactly like a picture by OSTADE.
I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream,
and yet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of
which the light, down in the vaults, had given me the assurance.
The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous
strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its
gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity,
awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of its opposite old uses; an
impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place
of torture, the court of the Inquisition: at one and the same time,
a house of feasting, fighting, religion, and blood: gives to every
stone in its huge form a fearful interest, and imparts new meaning to
its incongruities. I could think of little, however, then, or long
afterwards, but the sun in the dungeons. The palace coming down to be
the lounging-place of noisy soldiers, and being forced to echo their
rough talk and common oaths, and to have their garments fluttering from
its dirty windows, was some reduction of its state, and something to
rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of its
chambers of cruelty--that was its desolation and defeat! If I had seen
it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that not that
light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could waste it,
like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber, and its prisons.
Before I quit this Palace of the Popes, let me translate from the
little history I mentioned just now a short anecdote, quite appropriate
to itself, connected with its adventures.
“An ancient tradition relates, that in 1441, a nephew of Pierre de
Lude, the Pope’s legate, seriously insulted some distinguished ladies
of Avignon, whose relations, in revenge, seized the young man and
horribly mutilated him. For several years the legate kept _his_
revenge within his own breast, but he was not the less resolved upon
its gratification at last. He even made, in the fullness of time,
advances towards a complete reconciliation; and when their apparent
sincerity had prevailed, he invited to a splendid banquet, in this
palace, certain families, whom he sought to exterminate. The utmost
gayety animated the repast; but the measures of the legate were
well taken. When the dessert was on the board, a Swiss presented
himself, with the announcement that a strange embassador solicited an
extraordinary audience. The legate, excusing himself for the moment to
his guests, retired, followed by his officers. Within a few moments
afterwards, five hundred persons were reduced to ashes; the whole
of that wing of the building having been blown into the air with a
terrible explosion!”
After seeing the churches (I will not trouble you with churches just
now), we left Avignon that afternoon. The heat being very great, the
roads outside the walls were strewn with people fast asleep in every
little slip of shade, and with lazy groups, half asleep and half
awake, who were waiting until the sun should be low enough to admit of
their playing bowls among the burnt-up trees, and on the dusty road.
The harvest here was already gathered in, and mules and horses were
treading out the corn in the fields. We came, at dusk, upon a wild and
hilly country, once famous for brigands; and travelled slowly up a
steep ascent. So we went on until eleven at night, when we halted at
the town of Aix (within two stages of Marseilles) to sleep.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. PALESTINE.]
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
PIERRE LOTI
The rain is nearly over. The sky is drying sadly and shows the first
blue spaces. It is damp and cold, and water runs all along the base of
the old walls.