S. MARK'S. I: THE EXTERIOR
Rival cathedrals--The lure of S. Mark's--The façade at night--The Doge's
device--S. Mark's body--A successful theft--Miracle pictures--Mosaic
patterns--The central door--Two problems--The north wall--The fall of
Venice--Napoleon--The Austrian occupation--Daniele Manin--Victor
Emmanuel--An artist's model--The south wall--The Pietra del Bando--The
pillars from Acre.
Of S. Mark's what is one to say? To write about it at all seems indeed
more than commonly futile. The wise thing to do is to enter its doors
whenever one has the opportunity, if only for five minutes; to sit in it
as often as possible, at some point in the gallery for choice; and to
read Ruskin.
To Byzantine architecture one may not be very sympathetic; the visitor
may come to Venice with the cool white arches of Milan still comforting
his soul, or with the profound conviction that Chartres or Cologne
represents the final word in ecclesiastical beauty and fitness; but none
the less, in time, S. Mark's will win. It will not necessarily displace
those earlier loves, but it will establish other ties.
But you must be passive and receptive. No cathedral so demands
surrender. You must sink on its bosom.
S. Mark's façade is, I think, more beautiful in the mass than in detail.
Seen from the Piazza, from a good distance, say half way across it,
through the red flagstaffs, it is always strange and lovely and unreal.
To begin with, there is the remarkable fact that after years of
familiarity with this wonderful scene, in painting and coloured
photographs, one should really be here at all. The realization of a
dream is always amazing.
It is possible--indeed it may be a common experience--to find S. Mark's,
as seen for the first time, especially on a Sunday or fête day, when the
vast red and green and white flags are streaming before it, a little
garish, a little gaudy; too like a coloured photograph; not what one
thinks a cathedral ought to be. Should it have all these hues? one asks
oneself, and replies no. But the saint does not long permit this
scepticism: after a while he sees that the doubter drifts into his
vestibule, to be rather taken by the novelty of the mosaics--so much
quieter in tone here--and the pavement, with its myriad delicate
patterns. And then the traveller dares the church itself and the spell
begins to work; and after a little more familiarity, a few more visits
to the Piazza, even if only for coffee, the fane has another devotee.
At night the façade behaves very oddly, for it becomes then as flat as a
drop scene. Seen from the Piazza when the band plays and the lamps are
lit, S. Mark's has no depth whatever. It is just a lovely piece of
decoration stretched across the end.
The history of S. Mark's is this. The first patron saint of Venice was
S. Theodore, who stands in stone with his crocodile in the Piazzetta,
and to whose history we shall come later. In 828, however, it occurred
to the astute Doge Giustiniano Partecipazio that both ecclesiastically
and commercially Venice would be greatly benefited if a really
first-class holy body could be preserved in her midst. Now S. Mark had
died in A.D. 57, after grievous imprisonment, during which
Christ appeared to him, speaking those words which are incised in the
very heart of Venice, "Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus"--"Peace be to
thee, Mark my evangelist"; and he was buried in Alexandria, the place of
his martyrdom, by his fellow-Christians. Why should not the sacred
remains be stolen from the Egyptian city and brought to Venice? Why not?
The Doge therefore arranged with two adventurers, Rustico of Torcello
and Buono of Malamocco, to make the attempt; and they were successful.
When the body was exhumed such sweetness proceeded from it that all
Alexandria marvelled, but did not trace the cause.
The saint seems to have approved of the sacrilege. At any rate, when his
remains were safely on board the Venetian ship, and a man in another
ship scoffed at the idea that they were authentic, the Venetian ship
instantly and mysteriously made for the one containing this sceptic,
stove its side in, and continued to ram it until he took back his
doubts. And later, when, undismayed by this event, one of the sailors on
S. Mark's own ship also denied that the body was genuine, he was
possessed of a devil until he too changed his mind.
The mosaics on the cathedral façade all bear upon the life of S. Mark.
That over the second door on the left, with a figure in red, oddly like
Anatole France, looking down upon the bed, represents S. Mark's death.
In the Royal Palace are pictures by Tintoretto of the finding of the
body of S. Mark by the Venetians, and the transportation of it from
Alexandria, under a terrific thunderstorm in which the merchants and
their camel are alone undismayed.
Arrived in Venice the remains were enclosed in a marble pillar for
greater safety, but only two or three persons knew which pillar, and,
these dying, the secret perished. In their dismay all the people
grieved, but suddenly the stones opened and revealed the corpse.
Thereafter many miracles were performed by it; Venice was visited by
pilgrims from all parts of the world; its reputation as a centre of
religion grew; and the Doge's foresight and address were justified.
Before, however, S. Mark and his lion could become the protectors of the
Republic, S. Theodore had to be deposed. S. Theodore's church, which
stood originally on a part of the Piazza (an inscription in the pavement
marks the site) now covered by the Campanile and one or two of the
flagstaffs, is supposed to have been built in the sixth century. That it
was destroyed by fire in the tenth, we know, and it is known too that
certain remains of it were incorporated in the present structure of S.
Mark's, which dates from the eleventh century, having been preceded by
earlier ones.
To my mind not one of the external mosaic pictures is worth study; but
some of the mosaic patterns over the doors are among the most lovely
things I ever saw. Look at the delicate black and gold in the arch over
the extreme right-hand door. Look at the black and gold bosses in that
next it. On the other side of the main entrance these bosses have a
little colour in them. On the extreme left we find symbolism: a golden
horseman, the emblems of the four Evangelists, and so forth, while above
is a relief in black stone, netted in: this and the group over the
central door being the only external statuary in Venice to which the
pigeons have no access.
The carvings over the central door are interesting, although they have a
crudity which will shock visitors fresh from the Baptistery doors at
Florence. As in most Venetian sculpture symbolism plays an important
part, and one is not always able to translate it. Here are arches within
arches: one of scriptural incidents--at any rate Adam and Eve and Cain
and Abel are identifiable; one of grotesques and animals; one of uncouth
toilers--a shepherd and woodman and so forth--with God the Father on the
keystone. What these mean beyond the broad fact that religion is for
all, I cannot say. Angels are above, and surmounting the doorway is
Christ. Among all this dark stonework one is conscious now and then of
little pink touches which examination shows to be the feet of reposing
pigeons.
Above is the parapet with the four famous golden horses in the midst;
above them in the architrave over the central recess is S. Mark's lion
with the open book against a background of starred blue. Then angels
mounting to Christ, and on each side pinnacled saints. It is all rather
barbaric, very much of a medley, and unforgettable in its total effect.
Two mysteries the façade holds for me. One is the black space behind the
horses, which seems so cowardly an evasion of responsibility on the part
of artists and architects for many years, as it was there when Gentile
Bellini painted his Santa Croce miracle; and the other is the identity
of the two little grotesque figures with a jug, one towards each end of
the parapet over the door. No book tells me who they are, and no
Venetian seems to know. They do not appear to be scriptural; yet why
should they be when the Labours of Hercules are illustrated in sculpture
on the façade above them?
[Illustration: S. MARK'S FROM THE PIAZZA, THE MERCERIA CLOCK ON THE
LEFT]
The north façade of S. Mark's receives less attention than it should,
although one cannot leave Cook's office without seeing it. The north has
a lovely Gothic doorway and much sculpture, including on the west wall
of the transept a rather nice group of sheep, and beneath it a pretty
little saint; while the Evangelists are again here--S. Luke painting, S.
Matthew looking up from his book, S. John brooding, and S. Mark writing.
The doorway has a quaint interesting relief of the manger, containing a
very large Christ child, in its arch. Pinnacled saints, with holy men
beneath canopies between them, are here, and on one point the quaintest
little crowned Madonna. At sunset the light on this wall can be very
lovely.
At the end of the transept is a tomb built against the wall, with lions
to guard it, and a statue of S. George high above. The tomb is that of
Daniele Manin, and since we are here I cannot avoid an historical
digression, for this man stands for the rise of the present Venice. When
Lodovico Manin, the last Doge, came to the throne, in 1788, Venice was,
of course, no longer the great power that she had been; but at any rate
she was Venice, the capital of a republic with the grandest and noblest
traditions. She had even just given one more proof of her sea power by
her defeat of the pirates of Algiers. But her position in Europe had
disappeared and a terrible glow was beginning to tinge the northern
sky--none other than that of the French Revolution, from which was to
emerge a Man of Destiny whose short sharp way with the map of Europe
must disturb the life of frivolity and ease which the Venetians
contrived still to live.
Then came Napoleon's Italian campaign and his defeat of Lombardy. Venice
resisted; but such resistance was merely a matter of time: the force was
all-conquering. Two events precipitated her fate. One was the massacre
of the French colony in Verona after that city had been vanquished;
another was the attack on a French vessel cruising in Venetian waters
on the watch for Austrian men-of-war. The Lido fort fired on her and
killed her commander, Langier. It was then that Napoleon declared his
intention of being a second Attila to the city of the sea. He followed
up his threat with a fleet; but very little force was needed, for Doge
Manin gave way almost instantly. The capitulation was indeed more than
complete; the Venetians not only gave in but grovelled. The words "Pax
tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus" on the lion's book on S. Mark façade were
changed to "Rights of Man and of Citizenship," and Napoleon was thanked
in a profuse epistle for providing Venice with glorious liberty. Various
riots of course accompanied this renunciation of centuries of noble
tradition, and under the Tree of Liberty in the Piazza the Ducal
insignia and the Libro d'Oro were burned. The tricolour flew from the
three flagstaffs, and the two columns in the Piazzetta were covered with
inscriptions praising the French. This was in May, 1797.
So much for Venice under Manin, Lodovico. The way is now paved for
Manin, Daniele, who was no relation, but a poor Jewish boy to whom a
Manin had stood as godfather. Daniele was born in 1804. In 1805 the
Peace of Pressburg was signed, and Venice, which had passed to Austria
in 1798, was taken from Austria and united to Napoleon's Italian
kingdom, with Eugène Beauharnais, the Emperor's brother-in-law, as ruler
under the title Prince of Venice. In 1807 Napoleon visited the city and
at once decreed a number of improvements on his own practical sensible
lines. He laid out the Giardini Pubblici; he examined the ports and
improved them; he revised the laws. But not even Napoleon could be
everywhere at once or succeed in everything, and in 1813 Austria took
advantage of his other troubles to try and recapture the Queen of the
Adriatic by force, and when the general Napoleonic collapse came the
restitution was formally made, Venice and Lombardy becoming again
Austrian and the brother of Francis I their ruler.
All went fairly quietly in Venice until 1847, when, shortly after the
fall of the Orleans dynasty in France, Daniele Manin, now an eloquent
and burningly patriotic lawyer, dared to petition the Austrian Emperor
for justice to the nation whom he had conquered, and as a reply was
imprisoned for high treason, together with Niccolò Tommaseo. In 1848, on
March 17, the city rose in revolt, the prison was forced, and Manin not
only was released but proclaimed President of the Venetian Republic. He
was now forty-four, and in the year of struggle that followed proved
himself both a great administrator and a great soldier.
He did all that was humanly possible against the Austrians, but events
were too much for him; bigger battalions, combined with famine and
cholera, broke the Venetian defence; and in 1849 Austria again ruled the
province. All Italy had been similarly in revolt, but her time was not
yet. The Austrians continued to rule until Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel
built up the United Italy which we now know. Manin, however, did not
live to see that. Forbidden even to return to Venice again, he retired
to Paris a poor and broken man, and there died in 1854.
The myriad Austrians who are projected into Venice every day during the
summer by excursion steamers from Trieste rarely, I imagine, get so far
as the Campo dominated by Manin's exuberant statue with the great winged
lion, and therefore do not see this fine fellow who lived to preserve
his country from them. Nor do they as a rule visit that side of S.
Mark's where his tomb stands. But they can hardly fail to see the
monument to Victor Emmanuel on the Riva--with the lion which they had
wounded so grievously, symbolizing Italy under the enemy, on the one
side, and the same animal all alert and confident, on the other, flushed
with the assurance which 1866 brought, and the sturdy king riding forth
to victory above. This they cannot well help seeing.
The little piazzetta on the north side of S. Mark's has a famous well,
with two porphyry lions beside it on which small Venetians love to
straddle. A bathing-place for pigeons is here too, and I have counted
twenty-seven in it at once. Here one day I found an artist at work on
the head of an old man--a cunning old rascal with short-cropped grey
hair, a wrinkled face packed with craft, and a big pipe. The artist, a
tall, bearded man, was painting with vigour, but without, so far as I
could discern, any model; and yet it was obviously a portrait on which
he was engaged and no work of invention. After joining the crowd before
the easel for a minute or so, I was passing on when a figure emerged
from a cool corner where he had been resting and held out his hand. He
was a cunning old rascal with short-cropped grey hair, a wrinkled face
packed with craft, and a big pipe; and after a moment's perplexity I
recognized him as the model. He pointed to himself and nodded to the
picture and again proffered his open palm. Such money as I have for free
distribution among others is, however, not for this kind; but the idea
that the privilege of seeing the picture in the making should carry with
it an obligation to the sitter was so comic that I could not repulse him
with the grave face that is important on such occasions. Later in the
same day I met the artist himself in the waters of the Lido--a form of
rencontre that is very common in Venice in the summer. The converse is,
however, the more amusing and usually disenchanting: the recognition, in
the Piazza, in the evening, in their clothes, of certain of the
morning's bathers. Disillusion here, I can assure you.
On the south wall of S. Mark's, looking over the Molo and the lagoon, is
the famous Madonna before whom two lights burn all night. Not all day
too, as I have seen it stated. Above her are two pretty cherubs against
a light-blue background, holding the head of Christ: one of the gayest
pieces of colour in Venice. Justice is again pinnacled here, and on her
right, on another pinnacle, is a charming angel, upon whom a lion
fondlingly climbs. Between and on each side are holy men within
canopies, and beneath is much delicate work in sculpture. Below are
porphyry insets and veined marbles, and on the parapet two griffins, one
apparently destroying a child and one a lamb. The porphyry stone on the
ground at the corner on our left is the Pietra del Bando, from which the
laws of the Republic were read to the people. Thomas Coryat, the
traveller, who walked from Somerset to Venice in 1608 and wrote the
result of his journey in a quaint volume called _Coryat's Crudities_,
adds another to the functions of the Pietra del Bando. "On this stone,"
he says, "are laide for the space of three dayes and three nights the
heads of all such as being enemies or traitors to the State, or some
notorious offenders, have been apprehended out of the citie, and
beheaded by those that have been bountifully hired by the Senate for the
same purpose." The four affectionate figures, in porphyry, at the corner
of the Doges' Palace doorway, came also from the East. Nothing definite
is known of them, but many stories are told. The two richly carved
isolated columns were brought from Acre in 1256.
Of these columns old Coryat has a story which I have found in no other
writer. It may be true, and on the other hand it may have been the
invention of some mischievous Venetian wag wishing to get a laugh out of
the inquisitive Somerset pedestrian, whose leg was, I take it,
invitingly pullable. "Near to this stone," he says, referring to the
Pietra del Bando, "is another memorable thing to be observed. A
marvailous faire paire of gallowes made of alabaster, the pillars being
wrought with many curious borders, and workes, which served for no other
purpose but to hang the Duke whensoever he shall happen to commit any
treason against the State. And for that cause it is erected before the
very gate of his Palace to the end to put him in minde to be faithfull
and true to his country. If not, he seeth the place of punishment at
hand. But this is not a perfect gallowes, because there are only two
pillars without a transverse beame, which beame (they say) is to be
erected when there is any execution, not else. Betwixt this gallowes
malefactors and condemned men (that are to goe to be executed upon a
scaffold betwixt the two famous pillars before mentioned at the South
end of S. Mark's street, neare the Adriaticque Sea) are wont to say
their prayers, to the Image of the Virgin Mary, standing on a part of S.
Mark's Church right opposite unto them."