The gaiety and splendour exhibited in the place of St. Mark at Venice on
this anniversary, is extremely attractive. Formerly, among the
remarkable customs in honour of this the patron saint of the city, it
was usual for a man to ascend and descend a rope stretched from the
summit of St. Mark’s tower, and secured at a considerable distance from
the base.
On the last day of February, 1680, the doge, the senate, and the
imperial ambassador, with about fifty thousand spectators, beheld the
annual solemnity. In the first place appeared certain butchers, in their
roast-meat clothes; one of which, with a Persian scimitar, cut off the
heads of three oxen, one after another, at one blow, to the admiration
of the beholders, who had never seen the like either in Venice, or any
other part of the world. But that which caused greater wonder was
this:--A person, adorned in a tinsel riding habit, having a gilt helmet
upon his head, and holding in his right hand a lance, in his left a
helmet made of a thin piece of plate gilded, and sitting upon a white
horse, with a swift pace ambled up a rope six hundred feet long,
fastened from the quay to the top of St. Mark’s tower. When he had
arrived half way, his tinsel coat fell off, and he made a stand, and
stooping his lance submissively, saluted the doge sitting in the palace,
and flourished the banner three times over his head. Then, resuming his
former speed, he went on, and, with his horse, entered the tower where
the bell hangs; and presently returning on foot, he climbed up to the
highest pinnacle of the tower; where, sitting on the golden angel, he
flourished his banner again several times. This performed, he descended
to the bell-tower; and there taking horse, rode down again to the bottom
in like manner as he had ascended.[332]
“Whoever,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “sees St. Mark’s Place lighted up of an
evening, adorned with every excellence of human art, and pregnant with
pleasure, expressed by intelligent countenances sparkling with every
grace of nature--the sea washing its walls--the moon-beams dancing on
its subjugated waves--sport and laughter resounding from the
coffee-houses--girls with guitars skipping about the square--masks and
merry-makers singing as they pass you--unless a barge with a band of
music is heard at some distance upon the water, and calls attention to
sounds made sweeter by the element over which they are brought;--whoever
is led suddenly,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “to this scene of seemingly
perennial gaiety, will be apt to exclaim in Venice, as Eve does to Adam
in Milton,
With thee conversing, I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change--all please alike!”
[332] Malcolm’s Manners of Europe.
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