Venice, with her life and glory but a memory, is still the _citta
nobilissima_,--a city of moods,--all beautiful to the beauty-lover, all
mystic to the dreamer; between the wonderful blue of the water and the
sky she floats like a mirage--visionary--unreal--and under the spell of
her fascination we are not critics, but lovers. We see the pathos, not
the scars of her desolation, and the splendor of her past is too much a
part of her to be forgotten, though the gold is dim upon her
palace-fronts, and the sheen of her precious marbles has lost its bloom,
and the colors of the laughing Giorgione have faded like his smile.
But the very soul of Venetia is always hovering near, ready to be
invoked by those who confess her charm. When, under the glamor of her
radiant skies the faded hues flash forth once more, there is no ruin nor
decay, nor touch of conquering hand of man nor time, only a splendid
city of dreams, waiting in silence--as all visions wait--until that
invisible, haunting spirit has turned the legends of her power into
actual activities.
_THE GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE_
I
Sea and sky were one glory of warmth and color this sunny November
morning in 1565, and there were signs of unusual activity in the Campo
San Rocco before the great church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari,
which, if only brick without, was all glorious within, "in raiment of
needlework" and "wrought gold." And outside, the delicate tracery of the
cornice was like a border of embroidery upon the sombre surface; the
sculptured marble doorway was of surpassing richness, and the airy grace
of the campanile detached itself against the entrancing blue of the sky,
as one of those points of beauty for which Venice is memorable.
Usually this small square, remote from the centres of traffic as from
the homes of the nobility, seemed scarcely more than a landing-place for
the gondolas which were constantly bringing visitors and worshippers
thither, as to a shrine; for this church was a sort of memorial abbey to
the illustrious dead of Venice,--her Doges, her generals, her artists,
her heads of noble families,--and the monuments were in keeping with all
its sumptuous decorations, for the Frati Minori of the convent to which
it belonged--just across the narrow lane at the side of the church--were
both rich and generous, and many of its gifts and furnishings reflected
the highest art to which modern Venice had attained. Between the
wonderful, mystic, Eastern glory of San Marco, all shadows and
symbolisms and harmonies, and the positive, realistic assertions,
aesthetic and spiritual, of the Frari, lay the entire reach of the art
and religion of the Most Serene Republic.
The church was ancient enough to be a treasure-house for the historian,
and it had been restored, with much magnificence, less than a century
before,--which was modern for Venice,--while innumerable gifts had
brought its treasures down to the days of Titian and Tintoret.
To-day the people were coming in throngs, as to a _festa_, on foot from
under the Portico di Zen, across the little marble bridge which spanned
the narrow canal; on foot also from the network of narrow paved lanes,
or _calle_, which led off into a densely populated quarter; for to-day
the people had free right of entrance, equally with those others who
came in gondolas, liveried and otherwise, from more distant and
aristocratic neighborhoods. This pleasant possibility of entrance
sufficed for the crowd at large, who were not learned, and who preferred
the attractions of the outside show to the philosophical debate which
was the cause of all this agreeable excitement, and which was presently
to take place in the great church before a vast assembly of nobles and
clergy and representatives from the Universities of Padua, Mantua, and
Bologna; and outside, in the glowing sunshine, with the strangers and
the confusion, the shifting sounds and lights, the ceaseless unlading of
gondolas and massing and changing of colors, every minute was a
realization of the people's ideal of happiness.
Brown, bare-legged boys flocked from San Pantaleone and the people's
quarters on the smaller canals, remitting, for the nonce, their
absorbing pastimes of crabbing and petty gambling, and ragged and
radiant, stretched themselves luxuriously along the edge of the little
quay, faces downward, emphasizing their humorous running commentaries
with excited movements of the bare, upturned feet; while the gondoliers
landed their passengers to a lively refrain of "_Stali_!" their curses
and appeals to the Madonna blending not discordantly with the general
babel of sound which gives such a sense of companionship in
Venice--human voices calling in ceaseless interchange from shore to
shore, resonant in the brilliant atmosphere, quarrels softened to
melodies across the water, cries of the gondoliers telling of ceaseless
motion, the constant lap and plash of the wavelets and the drip of the
oars making a soothing undertone of content.
From time to time staccato notes of delight added a distinct jubilant
quality to this symphony, heralding the arrival of some group of Church
dignitaries from one or other of the seven principal parishes of Venice,
gorgeous in robes of high festival and displaying the choicest of
treasures from sacristies munificently endowed, as was meet for an
ecclesiastical body to whom belonged one half of the area of Venice,
with wealth proportionate.
Frequent delegations from the lively crowd of the populace--flashing
with repartee, seemly or unseemly, as they gathered close to the door
just under the marble slab with its solemn appeal to reverence,
"Rispettati la Casa di Dio"--penetrated into the Frari to see where the
more pleasure could be gotten, as also to claim their right to be there;
for this pageant was for the people also, which they did not forget, and
their good-humored ripple of comment was tolerant, even when most
critical. But outside one could have all of the festa that was worth
seeing, with the sunshine added,--the glorious sunshine of this November
day, cold enough to fill the air with sparkle,--and the boys, at least,
were sure to return to the free enjoyment impossible within.
A group of young nobles, in silken hose and velvet mantles, were met
with ecstatic approval and sallies deftly personal. Since the beginning
of the Council of Trent, which was still sitting, philosophy had become
the mode in Venice, and had grown to be a topic of absorbing interest by
no means confined to Churchmen; and young men of fashion took courses of
training in the latest and most intellectual accomplishment.
Confraternities of every order were arriving in stately processions,
their banners borne before them by gondoliers gaudy and awkward in
sleazy white tunics, with brilliant cotton sashes--habiliments which
possessed a singular power of relieving these sun-browned sons of the
lagoon of every vestige of their native grace. On such days of Church
festival--and these alone--they might have been mistaken for peasants of
some prosaic land, instead of the graceful, free-born Venetians that
they were, as, with no hint of their natural rhythm of motion, they
filed in cramped and orderly procession through the avenue that opened
to them in the crowd to the door of the church, where they disappeared
behind the great leather curtain.
It was a great day for the friars of the Servi, who were rivals of the
Frari both in learning and splendor, and the entire Servite Brotherhood,
black-robed and white-cowled, was just coming in sight over the little
marble bridge, preceded by youthful choristers, chanting as they came
and bearing with them that famous banner which had been sent them as a
gift from their oldest chapter of San Annunziata in Florence, and which
was the early work of Raphael.
A small urchin, leaning far over the edge of the quay and craning his
neck upward for a better view, reported some special attraction in this
approaching group which elicited yells of vociferous greeting from his
colleagues, with such forceful emphasis of his own curling, expressive
toes, that he lost his balance and rolled over into the water; from
which he was promptly rescued by a human ladder, dexterously let down to
him in sections, without a moment's hesitation, by his allies, who, like
all Venetian boys of the populace, were amphibious animals, full of
pranks.
But now there was no more time for fooling on the quay, for at the great
end-window of the library of the convent of the Frari it could be seen
that a procession of this body was forming and would presently enter the
church, and the fun would begin for those who understood Latin.
A round-faced friar was giving obliging information. The contest would
be between the Frari and the Servi; there was a new brother who had just
entered their order,--and very learned, it was said,--but the name was
not known. He would appear to respond to the propositions of the Frari.
"Yes, the theses would be in Latin--and harder, it was said, had never
been seen. There were the theses in one of those black frames, at the
side of the great door."
"But Latin is no good, except in missals, for women and priests to
read."
The gondolier who owned the voice was undiscoverable among the crowd,
and the remark passed with some humorous retaliation.
Hints of the day's entertainment sifted about, with much more,--each
suggestion, true or otherwise, waking its little ripple of interest,--as
some nearest the curtain lifted it up, went in, and returned, bringing
reports.
"The church is filled with great ones, and Mass is going on," a small
scout reported; "and that was Don Ambrogio Morelli that just went in
with a lady--our old Abbé from the school at San Marcuolo--Beppo goes
there now! And don't some of us remember Pierino--always studying and
good for nothing, and not knowing enough to wade out of a _rio_? The
Madonna will have hard work to look after _him_!"
"Don Ambrogio just wants to cram us boys," Beppo confessed, in a
confidential tone; "but it's no use knowing too much, even for a priest.
For once, at San Marcuolo--true as true, faith of the Madonna!--one of
those priests told the people one day in his sermon that there were no
ghosts!"
The boy crossed himself and drew a quick breath, which increased the
interest of his auditors.
"_Ebbene_!" he continued, in an impressive, awestruck whisper. "He had
to come out of his bed at night--Santissima Maria!--and it was the
ghosts of all the people buried in San Marcuolo who dragged him and
kicked him to teach him better, because he wanted to make believe the
dead stayed in their graves! So where was the use of his Latin?"
"Pierino will be like his uncle, the Abbé Morelli, some day; they say he
also will be a priest."
"I believe thee," said Beppo, earnestly; "and that was he going in
behind the banner, with the Servi."
The little fellows made an instant rush for the door, and squeezed
themselves in behind the poor old women of the neighborhood for whom
festivals were perquisites, and who, maimed or deformed, knelt on the
stone floor close to the entrance, while with keenly observant,
ubiquitous eyes they proffered their _aves_ and their petitions for alms
with the same exemplary patience and fervor--"Per l'amor di Dio,
Signori!"
The body of the church, from the door to the great white marble screen
of the choir and from column to column, was filled with an assembly in
which the brilliant and scholarly elements predominated; and seen
through the marvelous fretwork of this screen of leafage and scroll and
statue and arch, intricately wrought and enhanced with gilding, the
choir presented an almost bewildering pageant. The dark wood background
of the stalls and canopies, elaborately carved and polished and enriched
with mosaics, each surmounted with its benediction of a gilded winged
cherub's head, framed a splendid figure in sacerdotal robes. Through the
small, octagonal panes of the little windows encircling the choir--row
upon row, like an antique necklace of opals set in frosted
stonework--the sunlight slanted in a rainbow mist, broken by splashes of
yellow flame from great wax candles in immense golden candlesticks,
rising from the floor and steps of the altar, as from the altar itself.
From great brass censers, swinging low by exquisite Venetian chainwork,
fragrant smoke curled upward, crossing with slender rays of blue the
gold webwork of the sunlight; and on either side golden lanterns rose
high on scarlet poles, above the heads of the friars who crowded the
church.
On the bishop's throne, surrounded by the bishops of the dioceses of
Venice, sat the Patriarch, who had been graciously permitted to honor
this occasion, as it had no political significance; and opposite him Fra
Marco Germano, the head of the order of the Frari, presided in a state
scarcely less regal.
His splendid gift, the masterpiece of Titian, had been fitted into the
polished marble framework over the great altar, and never had the master
so excelled himself as in this glorious "Assumption." The beauty, the
power, the persuasive sense of motion in the figure of the Madonna,
which seemed divinely upborne,--the loveliness of the infant cherubs,
the group of the Apostles solemnly attesting the mysterious event,--were
singularly and inimitably impressive, full of aspiration and faith,
compelling the serious recognition of the sacredness and greatness of
the Christian mystery.
The choir-screen terminated in pulpits at either side, and here again
the Apostles stood in solemn guardianship on its broad parapet--but
emblems, rather; of the stony rigidity of doctrines which have been
shaped by the minds of men from some little phase of truth, than of that
glowing, spiritualized, human sympathy which, as the soul of man grows
upward into comprehension, is the apostle of an ever widening truth. And
over the richly sculptured central arch which forms the entrance to the
choir, against the incongruous glitter of gold and jewels and
magnificent garments and lights and sumptuous, overwrought details--the
very extravagance of the Renaissance--a great black marble crucifix bore
aloft the most solemn Symbol of the Christian Faith.
The religious ceremonial with which the festival had opened was over,
and down the aisles on either side, past the family altars, with their
innumerable candles and lanterns and censers,--ceaselessly smoking in
memorial of the honored dead,--the brothers of the Frari and the Servi
marched in solemn procession to the chant of the acolytes, returning to
mass themselves in the transepts, in fuller view of the pulpits, before
the contest began. The Frari had taken their position on the right,
under the elaborate hanging tomb of Fra Pacifico--a mass of sculpture,
rococo, and gilding; the incense rising from the censer swinging below
the coffin of the saint carried the eye insensibly upward to the
grotesque canopy, where cumbrous marble clouds were compacted of dense
masses of saints' and cherubs' heads with uncompromising golden halos.
Some of the younger brothers scattered leaflets containing heads of the
theses.
There was a stir among the crowd; a few went out, having witnessed the
pageant; but there was a flutter of increased interest among those who
remained, as a venerable man, in the garb of the Frari, mounted the
pulpit on the right.
The Abbé Morelli sat in an attitude of breathless interest, and now a
look of intense anxiety crossed his face. "It is Fra Teodoro, the ablest
disputant of the Frari!" he exclaimed. "The trial is too great."
The lady with him drew closer, arranging the folds of the ample veil
which partially concealed her face, so that she might watch more
closely. But it was on Don Ambrogio Morelli that she fixed her gaze with
painful intensity, reading the success or failure of the orator in her
brother's countenance.
"Ambrogio!" she entreated, when the argument had been presented and
received with every sign of triumph that the sacredness of the place
made decorous, "thou knowest that I have no understanding of the
Latin--was it unanswerable?"
"Nay," her brother answered, uneasily; "it was fine, surely; but have no
fear, Fra Teodoro is not incontrovertible, and the Servi have better
methods."
"May one ask the name of the disputant who is to respond?" a stranger
questioned courteously of Don Ambrogio.
"It is a brother who hath but entered their order yesterday," Don
Ambrogio answered, with some hesitation, "by name Pierino--nay, Fra
Paolo. He is reputed learned; yet if the methods of the order be strange
to him, one should grant indulgence. For he is reputed learned----"
He was conscious of repeating the words for his own encouragement, with
a heart less brave than he could have wished. But the information was
pleasantly echoed about, as the ranks of the Servi parted and an old
man, with a face full of benignity, came forward, holding the hand of a
boy with blue eyes and light hair, who walked timidly with him to the
pulpit on the left, where the older man encouraged the shrinking
disputant to mount the stair.
There was a murmur of astonishment as the young face appeared in the
tribunal of that grave assembly.
"Impossible! It is only a child!"
It was, in truth, a strange picture; this child of thirteen, small and
delicate for his years, yet with a face of singular freshness and
gravity, his youthfulness heightened by cassock and cowl--a unique,
simple figure, against the bizarre magnificence of the background, the
central point of interest for that learned and brilliant assembly, as he
stood there above the beautiful kneeling angel who held the Book of the
Law, just under the pulpit.
For a moment he seemed unable to face his audience, then, with an
effort, he raised his hand, nervously pushing back the white folds of
his unaccustomed cowl, and casting a look of perplexity over the sea of
faces before him; but the expression of trouble slowly cleared away as
his eyes met those of a friar, grave and bent, who had stepped out from
the company of the Servi and fixed upon the boy a steadying gaze of
assurance, triumph, and command. It was Fra Gianmaria, who was known
throughout Venice for his great learning.
"Pierino!" broke from the mother, in a tone of quick emotion, as she saw
her boy for the first time in the dress of his order, which thrust, as
it were, the claims of her motherhood quite away; it was so soon to
surrender all the beautiful romance of mother and child, so soon to have
done with the joy of watching the development which had long outstripped
her leadership, so soon to consent to the absolute parting of the ways!
She had not willed it so, and she was weary from the struggle.
But the boy was satisfied; the presence of his stern and learned mentor
sufficed to restore his composure; he did not even see his mother's face
so near him, piteous in its appeal for a single glance to confess his
need of her.
"Nay, have no fear," Don Ambrogio counseled, his face glowing with
pride; "the boy is a wonder."
The good Fra Giulio, turning back from the pulpit stairs, saw the faces
of the two whose hearts were hanging on the words of the child; he went
directly to them and sat down beside Donna Isabella, for he had a tender
heart and he guessed her trouble. "I also," he said, leaning over her
and speaking low, "I also love the boy, and while I live will I care for
him. He shall lack for nothing."
It was a promise of great comfort; for Pierino--she could not call him
by the new name--would need such loving care; already the mother's pulse
beat more tranquilly, and she almost smiled her gratitude in the
large-hearted friar's face.
Then Fra Gianmaria, his mentor, seeing that the boy had gained courage,
came also to a seat beside Donna Isabella, with a look of radiant
congratulation; for he had been the boy's teacher ever since the little
lad had passed beyond the limits of Don Ambrogio's modest attainments.
Although she had resented the power of Fra Gianmaria over Pierino, she
was proud of the confidence of the learned friar in her child; already
she began to teach herself to accept pride in the place of the lowlier,
happier, daily love she must learn to do without. Her face grew colder
and more composed; Don Ambrogio gave her a nod of approval.
"It _is_ Pierino!" the bare-legged Beppo proclaimed, pushing his way
between dignitaries and elegant nobles and taking a position, in
wide-eyed astonishment, in front of the pulpit, where he could watch
every movement of his quondam school-fellow, whose words carried no
meaning to his unlearned ears. But his heart throbbed with sudden
loyalty in seeing his comrade the centre of such a festa; Beppo would
stay and help him to get fair play, if he should need it, since it was
well known that Pierino could not fight, for all his Latin!
But the little fellow in robe and cowl had neither eyes nor thoughts for
his vast audience when he once gathered courage to begin--no memory for
the pride of his teachers, no perception of his mother's yearning;
shrinking and timid as he was, the first voicing of his own thought, in
his childish treble voice, put him in presence of a problem and banished
all other consciousness. It was merely a question to be met and
answered, and his wonderful reasoning faculty stilled every other
emotion. His voice grew positive as his thought asserted itself; his
learning was a mystery, but argument after argument was met and
conquered with the quoted wisdom of unanswerable names.
One after another the great men left the choir and came down into the
area before the pulpits, that they might lose nothing.
One after another the Frari chose out champions to confute the
child-philosopher, but he was armed on every side; and the childish
face, the boyish manner and voice lent a wonderful charm to the words he
uttered, which were not eloquent, but absolutely dispassionate and
reasonable, and the fewest by which he might prove his claim.
Again and again his audience forgot themselves in murmurs of applause,
rising beyond decorum, and once into a storm of approbation; then his
timidity returned, he became self-conscious, fumbling with the white
cowl that hung partly over his face, forgetting that it was not a hat,
and gravely taking it off in salute.
The next day it was proclaimed on the Piazza, as a bit of news for the
people of Venice--for which, indeed, those who had not witnessed the
contest in the church of the Frari cared little and understood
nothing--that "in the Philosophical Contest which had taken place
between the Friars of the Frari and the Friars of the Servi, the victory
had been won by Fra Paolo Sarpi, of the Servi, who had honorably
triumphed through his vast understanding of the wisdom of the Fathers of
the Church."
This was also published in the black frame beside the great door of the
Frari and posted upon the entrance to the church of the Servi, while in
the refectories of the respective convents it formed a theme of
absorbing interest.
The Frari discussed the possibilities of childish mouthpieces for
learned doctors, miraculously concealed--but low, for fear of scandal.
The Servi said it out, for all to hear, "that it was a modern wonder of
a Child in the Temple!"
But Fra Gianmaria hushed them, and was afraid; for often while he taught
he came upon some new surprise, for he perceived that the boy's mind
held some hidden spring of knowledge which was to him unfathomable.
"It is most wonderful," he said one evening to Fra Giulio, as they
talked together in the cloister after vespers; "I solemnly declare that
it hath happened to me to ask him a question of which I, verily, knew
not the answer; and he, keeping in quiet thought for some moments, hath
so lucidly responded that his words have carried with them the
conviction that he had made a discovery which I knew not."
"It is some lesson which Don Ambrogio hath taught him."
"Not so--for Don Ambrogio hath little learning; but Paolo will cover us
with honor. In learning he is never weary, yet hath he an understanding
greater than mine own, and in docility he hath no equal. In his duty in
the convent and in the church he is even more punctilious."
"Is it strange--or is it well," asked Fra Giulio with hesitation, "that
in this year he hath spent with us he asks not for his mother, nor the
little maid his sister, nor seemeth to grieve for them? For the boy is
young."
"Nay," answered Fra Gianmaria, sternly; "it is no lack, but a grace that
hath been granted him."
"Knowledge is a wonderful mystery," Fra Giulio answered; but softly to
himself, as he crossed the cloister, he added, "but love is sweet, and
the boy is very young."
The boy was kneeling placidly before the crucifix in his cell when Fra
Giulio went to give him his nightly benediction; but the good friar's
heart was troubled with tenderness because of a vision, that would not
leave him, of a hungering mother's face.