IN VENETIA
The mainland background of Venice, in its most comprehensive sense the
region lying north of the Po and south and west of the Austrian
frontier, is not a much-travelled region by any class of tourists in
Italy. The traveller by rail usually comes up from Bologna and Florence
and, with a stop at Padua, makes for Venice forthwith and leaves for the
Italian lake region, stopping en route at Verona. The automobilist too
often does the thing even more precipitately, by taking Padua and Verona
flying, or at least while he is stopping to replenish the inner man or
the inner claims of his automobile. Certain readers of this book who may
perhaps have done the thing a little more thoroughly may claim that this
is an exaggeration, and so far as it applies to their particular case it
may be, but the writer honestly believes that it fits astonishingly well
with the majority of Italian itineraries in these parts. He bases this
on the fact that he has seen tourists in droves in Padua and Verona, and
he has not seen one in Este, Monselice, Battaglia, or even in Vicenza,
Treviso, Asolo or Udine.
[Illustration: PADUA]
Verona, Vicenza and Padua were the capitals of three of the eight
ancient provinces of Venezia.
Padua is built in the midst of a vast plain which merits being called
Italian-Flanders. In everything but climate it is like a section of the
Low Countries, and the city, with its domes and towers, looms up over
the low-lying plain, faint and ghostly from afar, like a mirage of the
desert.
Canals and fortress walls enclose the city even to-day, and the nearer
one approaches, until one actually sees it from within the walls, the
less and less Padua becomes like Italy. The greatest interest of Padua
centres undoubtedly in its church of Sant'Antonio, dedicated to the
pious companion of Francis of Assisi; after that the University which
numbered among its masters Erasmus, Mantius and Galileo, and among its
students Dante, Tasso and Petrarch. Padua is intimately associated with
the name of Petrarch by reason of his having been a student here.
Petrarch died before Chaucer's time, but the Florentine's fame had gone
afield and from the "Clerk's Tale" one recalls the following:
"Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk,
Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete,
Highte this clerk, whose rethorike sweet
Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye."
Padua in spite of its low lying situation is monumental at every turn.
They had courage, the old builders, to plant great buildings down in the
morass, and faith to believe they would last as long as they have.
On Padua's great Piazzas--there are three of them, one leading out of
the other--rise the chief civic buildings of mediæval times. The Loggia
del Consiglio is an astonishingly ample Renaissance work of an early
period, access to its great hall being by a monumental exterior
stairway. An ancient column, with a San Marco lion is immediately in
front.
The Palazzo Capitano, with its sky piercing clock tower of the
fourteenth century, was formerly the residence of the Venetian Governor,
and the Palazzo della Ragione, known as Il Salone, contains one of the
vastest single roofed apartments known. There is a long unobstructed
corridor in the mosque of Saint Sophia at Constantinople which holds the
record in its line, but the Salone of Padua, built in 1420, is
pre-eminent in superficial area.
The ancient Palace of the Carrera, tyrants of Padua, is one of the
things that burn themselves in the mind from the sheer inability of one
to overlook them. When one sees the colossal frescoes of the Entrance
Hall one repeats unconsciously the dictum of Victor Hugo over Madame
Dorval--the beautiful Madame Dorval: _Je ne veux pas mourir_.
It is the fashion to quote Dante and Byron and Shelley in Italy, but a
little of Alfred de Musset is a cheerful relief. Here are some of his
lines on Padua:
[Illustration: In Padua]
"Padoue est un fort bel endroit
Où de très-grands docteurs en droit
On fait merveille;
Mais j'aime mieux la polenta
Qu'on mange aux bords de la Brenta
Sous un treille."
The Albergo Fanti-Stella d'Oro at Padua is all sufficient as a tourist
hotel, but lacks a good deal of what a hotel for automobilists should
be. There is accommodation for one's automobile in the coach house, but
it evidently is a separately owned concern, for when you come to take
your auto out you will be followed like a thief when you try to explain
that you prefer to pay the garage charges when you pay your hotel bill.
You may eat _à la carte_ in the hotel restaurant at any hour, and you
may have a room across the way in the annex, a better room and for a
smaller price than you can have at the Albergo itself. Altogether this
opera bouffe hotel is neither bad nor good, and most confusing as to its
personnel and their conduct. They need to have a "Who's Who," printed in
German, French and English to put into the hands of each guest on
arrival.
The automobilist has not yet reached Venice. The nearest that he may
come to it is to Mestre, where he may garage his automobile in any one
of half a dozen palatial establishments especially devoted to the
purpose. Mestre, of absolutely no rank whatever as a city of art or
architecture or sights for the tourist, has more automobile garages than
any other city in Italy.
The splendour of Venice is undeniable, whether one takes note of its
unique architecture or of its remarkable site. Men with courage to build
gilded and marble palaces on a half submerged chain of isles scarce
above the level of the sea do not live to-day. How well these early
builders planned is evinced by the fact that Venice the magnificent
exists to-day as it always has existed--all but the Campanile. The fall
of this shows what may happen some day to the rest of this regal city.
When? No one knows. Men conquered the morass in the first instance. Can
they hold it in subjection into eternity?
Venice with all its gorgeousness is just the least bit _triste_.
Not a tree worthy of the name, not a garden or a farm yard, not a cart
or a horse--and not an automobile is to be found within its purlieus.
One is as if in prison. A watery barrier surrounds one on every side.
The sea, always the sea, mostly mirror-like or gently lapping its waves
at your very feet--and black gondolas everywhere. Yes, Venice is
gorgeous, if you like, but how sad it is also!
The greatness of Venice dates from the time of the fourth crusade and
the taking of Constantinople. It was then that the Venetian ships became
the chief carriers between the east and the west; its vessels exported
the surplus wealth of the Lombard plain, and brought in return not only
the timber and stone of Istria and Dalmatia, but the manufactured wares
of Christian Constantinople, wines of the Greek isles, and the Oriental
silks, carpets, and spices of Mohammedan Egypt, Arabia and Bagdad.
There used to be an old time saying at Venice that if the Isthmus of
Suez were pierced with a canal the glory of Venice would once more shine
on the commercial world as well as shed its radiance over those who live
in the sphere of art. The Suez Canal has come, but prophets are not
infallible, and the present maritime glory of the Adriatic lies with
Trieste and Fiume, with Venice a shadowy fifth or sixth in the whole of
Italy.
It is an historic fact that may well be repeated here, that Venice, more
than any other city of Italy, has ever been noted for its passion for
amusements and unconventional pleasures. "For quite half of the year,"
said Montesquieu, "everybody wears a masque; manners are very free and
the passion for gaming immense." A more vivid description of all this
Venetian disregard for convention may be found in the memoirs of the
Venetian adventurer Casanova.
The visitor to Venice must seek out for himself the things that interest
him, with the aid of his guide-book, his hotel porter or his gondolier.
Not all its splendours can be pointed out here; the record of the author
and artist is a personal record; others if they will may choose a
different itinerary.
The greatest fascination of all in Venice is undoubtedly the gondola,
though the motor boat is pushing it hard for a place, and there be those
matter-of-fact hurried tourists who prefer the practicality of the
latter to the simplicity and romance of the former. The gondola still
reigns however, and probably always will. It's an asset for drawing
tourists as potent as the lions or horses of San Marco or the pigeons of
the Piazzas.
The Venetian cannot step without his door without taking a gondola, for
his promenade on the Grand Canal, to cross to the Lido, or to go to
church when he marries and when he dies. The gondola is as much a part
of the daily life of the Venetian as is the street car or the omnibus
elsewhere.
Though it doesn't look it, the gondola is the most manageable craft
propelled by man. It snakes in and out of crooked waterways and comes to
a landing with far less fuss than anything ever pushed by steam or
gasoline. All the same they are not as swift, though their pace is
astonishing when one considers their bulk and weight.
It has been the fashion to laud the sweet idealism of the gondola and
all that appertains thereto, not forgetting the gondolier, but when one
has heard that backwater sailor's cajoleries and cadences beneath his
window for most of the long night one's views in the morning will be
considerably modified. "Cousin of my dog!" the gondolier will call his
gondola, "Owl!" "Idiot!" "Sheriff of the Devil!" "Silly Ass!" "Miscreant
of Rhodes!" and "Bag of Bones." Such epithets shouted full and strong,
if only to an inanimate gondola, will take a good deal of idealism out
of nature.
With the Venetian palaces and churches and canals rank in popular
interest its great piazzas. The importance of these great open spaces in
the daily life of the people of the island city cannot be
overestimated. Gaiety, noise and life are the characteristics of each,
whether one is at San Marco or on the Rialto.
Gastronomical delights in Italy are largely of one's own choosing. At
Venice, where, of Italian cities, the tourist is most largely catered
to, one may fare well or ill.
It's a great experience to sit at one of the little tables at Florian's,
or at the Aurora on the opposite side of the Piazza of San Marco, and
leisurely enjoy the spectacle spread out before one. At any time of the
day or night it is the most burning, feverish spot in all the Venetian
archipelago, though at midday, it is true, the sun-baked Piazza is
deserted, even by the pigeons.
In the afternoon, as the shadows lengthen, and a slim suspicion of a
sea-breeze wafts in from the lagunes, it is fairyland, peopled, if not
with fairyfolk, at least with as conglomerate a horde as may be seen in
Europe. As a performance the piece were almost worthy of its setting; it
is a burlesque and a comedy of manners in one. If only you are "out of
season," when the English and Americans and Germans are still by their
own firesides, and the cast of characters is made up of the peoples of
the south and east, the comedy is all the more amusing, and you sip its
charms as you sip your coffee and forget that such a personage as
Baedeker ever existed. Usually tourists come to the Piazza, after they
have done the surrounding stock sights, to buy two soldi-worth of maize
and feed the pigeons. They would do better to watch the passing show
from the vantage point of a little table at Florian's.
Besides its treasures of art and architecture, one of the sights of
Venice is Florian's, celebrated for a hundred and fifty years. The
specialty of Florian's is the _sabaion doro_, made with the yellow of an
egg and a small glass of Malaga. It is not bad, but it is a ladies'
drink, for it is sweet. The _sorbets_, the café turc' and the vanilla
chocolates of the establishment, with the aforementioned golden
concoction, have placed it in the very front rank among establishments
of its class. It remains open, or did a few years ago, all night. At
five o'clock each morning, as the daylight gun went off from the
fortress of the Lido, Florian's put up its shutters, only to open just
before midday.
The names of the great who have gathered within the walls of this famous
café, and left memories behind them, would fill a long roster.
Chateaubriand, Manzoni, Byron, Cimarosa, Canova, Léopold-Robert, Alfred
de Musset, Balzac and others, many, many others. And many have left
behind written souvenirs of their visit.
One thing the stranger to Venice will remark, and that is that here, as
much as in any other place in Italy, one is pestered nearly to
distraction with the little "extras" of their hotel bills, of the
too-importunate guides, of door-openers and door shutters, of guardians
of all ranks, of men and boys who call your gondola for you, and of
mendicant ragamuffins by profession, or merely because occasion offered
and you looked like an "easy mark." It is the one blight on Venice.
The modest inns of other days have given way to the demands of a more
exacting clientèle, but those who would follow Alfred de Musset and
George Sand from the Palace of the Doges to the Hotel Danieli will have
no trouble in getting a lodging in that hostelry. Or they may prefer to
follow the footsteps of Chateaubriand (who in truth was anticipating a
rendezvous with the Duchesse de Berry) to the neighbouring Hotel de
l'Europe.
[Illustration: PALACES _of the GRAND CANAL_ VENICE]
Venice's Grand Canal is naturally the chief delight of the visiting
stranger. The Canalazzo is from fifty to seventy metres wide with a
length of three kilometres. A hundred and fifty or more palaces line
its banks, most of them bearing famous names of history. Shopkeepers and
manufacturers of various sorts occupy many of them, but they are still
capable of staggering any otherwise blasé curiosity-seekers. The
accompanying map with these palaces plainly marked should serve its
purpose better than quires of printed pages.
Shakespeare's "Jew of Venice" was no myth, whatever the shadowy
existence of Juliet and Desdemona may have been. Venice in the middle
ages had its Ghetto (a word which in Hebrew means "cut off" or "shut
off") where the Jews herded together and wore scarlet mantles in public
that they might be known and recognized by faith and profession. The
principal character of "The Merchant of Venice" was a very real entity,
and Shakespeare, believing the saying of Tacitus, wrote him down
truthfully as a man scrupulously faithful to his engagements, charitable
to others of his race, but filled with an invincible hatred towards all
other men.
[Illustration: _The So-called "House of Desdemona," Venice_]
Another Venetian type, not wholly disappeared to-day, is that of the
Venetian blonde of Titian, Veronese and Giorgione, a type of feminine
beauty unknown elsewhere. Italians are commonly brunettes, and indeed
perhaps the Venetians were of the same _teint_ one day. In the
Library of San Marco is a parchment of Cæsar Vecelli, a Cousin of
Titian, coming from the collections of the patrician Nani. It describes
how there were built at Venice many house tops with sun parlours or
_terrazi_. To these _terrazi_ the women of the city of the Doges, who
would bleach their hair by natural means, would repair and let the sun
do its work.
Casanova, too, remarked the feminine beauties of the Queen of the
Adriatic. He said of one of them: "I am content indeed to find so
beautiful a creature. I do not conceive how so ravishing a creature
could have lived so long in Venice without having married ere now."
As night draws down, the scene at Venice changes manifestly from what it
was in the garish sunlight of day. It becomes softer and more fairylike.
Across the Piazzetta the rosy flush still glints from the tower of the
island San Giorgio, though in the immediate neighbourhood day has
practically blackened into night. A sunset gun sounds from seaward and
here and there lights twinkle out when, in the magic of a very short
twilight, another scene is set, a more wonderful, more fairylike scene
than before, with a coming and going of firefly gondolas and boats, a
streaming of arcs and incandescents on shore, and in the midst of it
all a brass band arrives in front of San Marco and begins to bray
ragtime waltzes and serenades. The note may be a false one, but it
reiterates the fact that one may sit before his table at Florian's all
through the livelong day and night and see and hear the whole gamut of
joyousness played as it is nowhere else. The townfolk, the strangers
from the hotels, and sailor folk from the Lido and the Guiadecca all
mingle in a seemingly inextricable maze. These last are the most
picturesque note as to costuming and colouring in all Venice to-day.
The fishermen of the Guiadecca, swarthy hued and scarlet-capped, and
with heavy hoops of gold hanging from their ears, stroll about the
piazza as is their right, mingling with tourists and the "real
Venetians." All move about in lively measure like an operatic chorus,
but with a much more graceful and less conscious gait.
Night on the Piazza or the Piazzetta is not the least of Venice's
charms.
The background hills bordering upon the Venetian plain are a very
interesting corner of northern Italy. Throughout this region souvenirs
are not wanting of the glorious days of the Venetian Republic.
For her own protection Venice conquered the surrounding mainland as she
was laying the foundations of the island metropolis. Treviso fell to her
permanently in 1339, and Udine in 1420, as did later many other towns to
the south. From this time forth the lion of San Marco reared its head
from its pedestal in the market place of each of these allied towns.
Some five thousand square miles of Dalmatia came to Venice at this time
and thenceforth her position was assured. Venice was occupied by the
French in 1797 when Napoleon overthrew the Republic. It was the first
time the city had ever been occupied by an enemy. It was given to
Austria by a succeeding treaty, but later in 1805 was made over
definitely to Italy.
Treviso, on the highroad from Venice to Vienna, is a great overgrown
burg which lives chiefly in the historic past of the days when first it
became a bishop's see and was known as Trovisium, the capital of the
province of the same name.
A story is current of Treviso that once the people, to celebrate one of
the infrequent intervals of peace, had summoned all the neighbouring
populations to a splendid festival. Among other amusements they had
provided a mimic castle of wood, adorned in the most sumptuous manner.
Within this castle were stationed the twelve most beautiful ladies of
Padua, with their attendant maidens, loaded down with all kinds of
flowers and fruits. The chosen youths of the neighbouring cities
advanced in bands to attack the fortress defended by such a garrison.
The ladies made a long and vigorous defence. But finally a band of
Venetians pressed forward through the rain of projectiles, breached the
walls, and planted on them the banner of San Marco. The youth of Padua,
inflamed at this sight, pressed forward in turn to force their way
inside the fortifications. The two bands were crushed together in the
breach; angry words arose; from words both parties came to blows; the
Paduans proved the stronger and in the struggle seized on the banner of
San Marco and tore it to shreds. With difficulty the Trevisans restored
order and drove both parties out of the town. The Venetians flew to arms
to demand satisfaction for the outrage to their flag. The Government of
Padua refused it. Hence a war between the two cities, in which the
Paduans were worsted.
From Treviso to Belluno, and thence by the Ampesso Pass, is one of the
gateways leading from the Italian plain into Austria. Feltre, en route,
has a fine old "Rocca," or castle, with a square donjon tower.
En route to Belluno one should, if he comes this way at all, branch off
to Asolo. Among the many hundreds of visitors to Venice who formerly
climbed to the top of the Campanile of San Marco in order to enjoy the
wonderful panorama of the Venetian plain and mountains which it affords,
few, probably, recall the distant little city of Asolo which the guide
pointed out to them, unless, indeed, they happen to be familiar with
Robert Browning's poems, in which case they will, perhaps, wish to make
a pilgrimage out into these background hills the poet loved so well: "My
Asolo," as he called it in the introduction to the last volume of his
poems, "Asolando," written during his stay there in 1889. A trip among
the Asolan Hills will well repay not only the lover of poetry, but also
the artist and the ordinary traveller with a liking for quiet,
picturesque spots off the ordinary beaten track.
[Illustration: ASOLO]
The Albergo Asolo, in the main street, offers clean and characteristic
accommodation with charges to correspond. One turns off to Asolo from
Cornuda, a station on the Belluno line, or by road from the same place.
The imposing ruined Rocca is well worthy of a visit for the sake of
the extensive view obtainable from the hill on which it stands. On a
clear day the towers of Venice can be seen without a glass, and on every
side the view is remarkably fine. To the north, beyond the nearer range
of mountains, are visible several peaks in the Primiero group of
Dolomites--the Sasso del Mur, Sagron, and others. Another good point of
view is the belfry tower of the old Castello which was the residence of
Queen Cornaro, the deposed Queen of Cyprus, whose gay court made the
name of Asolo famous at the end of the fifteenth century.
From Treviso the road to Udine passes Conegliano, with a fine castle of
imposing proportions and a Triumphal Arch erected in the nineteenth
century to the Emperor of Austria.
Pordenone, ten kilometres farther on, is the old Portus Naonis of the
Romans. This is almost its sole claim to fame, except that "Il
Pordenone," a celebrated fifteenth century artist, was born here.
Codroipo, actually a place of no importance to-day, takes its name from
the crossing of two celebrated Roman roads of antiquity. Codroipo, by a
vague etymological sequence, is supposed to have the same meaning as
carrefour in French, i.e. _quadrivium_.
At Campo Formico, just before Udine is reached, Bonaparte and the
Emperor of Austria signed the treaty, in October, 1797, by which Venice
was so shamefully sacrificed by the French general to Austria. It was
one of the deepest blots in the political history of Napoleon. The mean
house in which this disastrous treaty was concluded is still pointed
out.
It was in the Villa Passarino, near Udine, that this infamous treaty saw
the light. Its gardens to-day are of the mixed formal and landscape
variety, and great renown belongs to it because of the prominence of the
Manins, its early owners. Borghetti restored the fabric in 1763, and it
remains to-day a far more satisfactory structure to look at than many
which are architecturally entitled to rank on a higher plane. Cypress
and oak form the greater part of the verdure of the gardens.
Udine, of the picturesque name, is a city of twenty thousand
inhabitants, once the capital of Friuli, and still surrounded by its
ancient walls. In the centre is the castle, now a prison, built in 1517
by Giovanni Fontana on the height chosen by Attila to view the burning
of Aquileja. Udine presents many features of resemblance in its
buildings to the mother city, to whose rule it was so long subjected:
it has its grand square, its Palazzo Publico, (1457)--a fine Gothic
building on pointed arches instead of the Doge's palace--the two
columns, the winged lion of San Marco, and a campanile with two figures
to strike the hours. Udine is indeed a little Venice, all but the canals
and quays and the Adriatic's waves.
South of Udine, on the marshy shore of the same series of lagoons which
surround Venice itself, is Aquileja. Aquileja was in ancient times one
of the most important provincial cities of Rome, and one of the chief
bulwarks of Italy. Augustus often resided here, and its population was
then estimated at 100,000. It was taken by Attila in 452, and reduced to
ashes by that ferocious barbarian. It contains at present about 1,500
inhabitants, and even they have a hard time clinging to the shreds of
life left them by a climate that is pestilential and damp.
From Venice and Treviso the Strada di Grande Communicazione runs to
Vicenza and Verona, the former 63 kilometres from Treviso and the latter
50 kilometres farther on. At Vicenza the highroad is joined by another
trunk-line from Padua, 32 kilometres to the southwest. All of these
roads are practically flat and are good roads in good weather and bad
roads--O! how bad!--in bad weather.
[Illustration: VICENZA]
Few strangers stop off at Vicenza, on the line from Verona to Venice.
Vicenza, then, is not lettered large in the guide books, and has only
appeared of late in the public prints because of being the home of the
romancer, Antonio Fogazzora. This makes it a literary shrine at all
events, so we stopped to look it over. It was more than this; we first
saw Vicenza by moonlight, and its silhouettes and shadows were as grimly
ancient as if seen in a dream. Daylight discovered other charms. There
were warm, lovable old Renaissance house fronts everywhere, with
overhanging tiled roofs and advanced grilled balconies; and there was
the Piazza dei Signori and its surrounding houses, almost entirely the
work of the architect Palladio.
The Municipio itself was not a dead, dull thing in drab stone, but with
a warm red tower, brought entire, it is said, from Venice, along with
two columns of the façade which are borne aloft on two sculptured lions.
Vicenza, the neglected tourist point, was offering much, and we were
glad we came.
Vicenza, more than any other of the little frequented tourist cities of
Italy, may be counted as _the_ city of palaces. They are of two
non-contemporary styles, the Venetian semi-gothic of a good era, and
Palladio's classical copies, also good of their kind, particularly so
when seen here in their natural environment.
In the Corso is a curious monumental structure called the Casa di
Palladio, built it is said by the great architect for his own use. He
had need for it as his work here was great and long in completion. It
is something more than a mere architect's office or bureau; it is in
fact a palace.
One of the most curious buildings in the city, and certainly one of the
most remarkable with which the name of Palladio is connected, is the
Teatro Olimpico. Contrary to the architect's manner of working, the
edifice has no façade, being entirely surrounded by houses. It was begun
in 1580, but in consequence of his death almost immediately afterwards
it was completed by his son, Scilla.
The scenery, which is fixed, represents the side of a species of piazza,
from which diverge streets of real elevation, but diminishing in size as
they recede in the perspective. A great effect of distance is obtained,
especially in the middle avenue. Daylight, however, by which a traveller
usually sees it, is injurious to the effect.
Palladio's architectural ideas went abroad even to England and many a
"stately home" in Britain to-day is a more or less faithful copy of a
Vicenza sixteenth century palazzo.
[Illustration: _Vicenza_]
The Rotonda Capra, now in ruins, so well known as Palladio's villa, was
copied by Lord Burlington and planted squat down on the banks of the
Thames at Chiswick. It loses considerably by transportation; it were
decidedly more effective at the base of Monte Berico in Venezia.
Palladio himself is buried in the local Campo Santo. His grave should
become an art lover's shrine, but no one has ever been known to worship
at it.
Between Vicenza and Verona runs a charming highway, strewn with villas
of a highly interesting if not superlatively grand architectural order.
A dozen or fifteen kilometres from Vicenza are the two castles of
Montecchio, the strongholds of the family of the name celebrated by
Shakespere as one of the rivals of the Capulets.
At the Bridge of Arcole is an obelisk in commemoration of the battle
when Napoleon went against the Austrians after his check at Caldiero.
Soave, a little further on, is an old walled town as mediæval in its
looks and doings as it was when its great gates and towers and its
castle fortress on the height were built six centuries ago.
Verona is reached in thirty kilometres and has a sentimental, romantic
interest beyond that possessed by any of the secondary cities of Italy.
It has not the great wealth of notable architectural splendours of many
other places, but what there is is superlatively grand, the structures
surrounding the Piazza Erbe and the Piazza dei Signori, for instance;
the old Ponte di Castel Vecchio; the great Roman Arena; and even the
Albergo all'Accademia, where one is remarkably well cared for in a fine
old mediæval palace with a monumental gateway, and an iron and carved
stone well in the courtyard.
[Illustration: _Seal of Verona_]
The glory and sentiment which overshadowed the Verona of another day
have passed, and now the noise of electric trams and the hoot of
automobile horns awaken the echoes in the same thoroughfares where one
day trampled the feet of warring hosts.
"The glory of the Scaliger has passed,
The Capuletti and Montague are naught:"
Instead we have the modern note sounding over all, and, if it is true
that the "fair Juliet sleeps in old Verona's town" hers must be a
disturbed sleep. The romance of Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague was
real enough; that is, there was a real romance of the sort, and there
were real Capulets and Montagues. Just where the scene of this
particular romance was laid one is not so sure.
The "House of Juliet" at Verona, one of the stock sights of the guide
books, is of more than doubtful authenticity. Certainly, to begin with,
it does not comport in the least with the dignified marble palace and
its halls with which the stage-carpenter has built up the settings of
Shakespere's drama or Gounod's opera. Perhaps they embroidered too much.
Of course they did!
In 1905 the "Juliet House" was in danger of collapsing. As it is
nothing more than a picturesque old house, such as northern Italy
abounds in, perhaps it would not have mattered much had it fallen. It is
no more Juliet's house than Juliet's tomb is the tomb of Juliet. This
indeed has latterly been adjudged a mere water-trough. No house, it is
asserted, in Verona to-day can be declared with certainty as the house
of a Montague or a Capulet. Henry James points the moral of all this in
"The Custodians," and whether we can always make head and tail out of
his dialogues or not, his judgments are always sound.
In Verona the very gutters are of white marble. Balustrades,
window-sills and hitching posts are all of white or coloured marbles.
Verona is luxurious, if not magnificent, and its architecture is
marvellously interesting and beautiful, though frequently rising to no
great rank.
The great Roman Arena, so admirably preserved, is surrounded by the
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. The contrast between yesterday and to-day at
Verona is everywhere to be remarked. Its old Arena and the Visconti
gateway seen by moonlight look as ancient as anything on earth, but the
cafés with their tables set out right across the Piazza, with a band
playing on a temporary platform, set up on trestles in the middle, and
electric trams swishing around the corner, are as modern as Earl's Court
or Coney Island, without however many of their drawbacks.
Verona is a city of marble and coloured stone, of terraces and cypresses
and all the Italian accessories which stagecraft has borrowed for its
Shakesperean settings. The cypresses planted around the outskirts of
Verona are said to be the oldest in Europe, but that is doubtful. They
are, some of them, perhaps four hundred years old, but on the shores of
the Etang de Berre, in old Provence, is a group of these same trees,
less lean, greater of girth and denser of foliage. Surely these must
have five hundred years to their credit according to Verona standards.
Verona is one of the cities of celebrated art where the authorities
control one's desire to dig about with a view to discovering buried
antiquities, even in one's own cellar or garden; much less may one sell
an old chimney pot or urn.
Recently a Signor and Signora Castello, who owned an ancient house in
Via del Seminario, sold the magnificent red marble portals and two
balconies without permission from the Government. They were fined two
thousand five hundred lire each, and ordered to replace the objects of
art.
After a long chase the Verona police discovered the articles in a
warehouse where they had been temporarily deposited previous to shipping
them abroad.
The balconies are of the same epoch as the famous one said to have been
the scene of the meeting of Romeo and Juliet. "American collectors keep
off" is the sign the Verona police would probably put up if they dared.