THE GRAND CANAL. II: BROWNING AND WAGNER
The Palazzo Rezzonico--Mr. and Mrs. Browning--Browning's Venetian
routine--In praise of Goldoni--Browning's death--A funeral service--Love
of Italy--The Giustiniani family--A last resource--Wagner in
Venice--_Tristan und Isolde_--Plays and Music--The Austrians in
power--The gondoliers' chorus--The Foscari Palace.
The Rezzonico palace and one of the Giustiniani palaces which are its
neighbours have such interesting artistic associations that they demand
a chapter to themselves.
Browning is more intimately associated with Florence and Asolo than with
Venice; but he enjoyed his later Venetian days to the full. His first
visit here in 1851, with his wife, was however marred by illness. Mrs.
Browning loved the city, as her letters tell. "I have been," she wrote,
"between heaven and earth since our arrival at Venice. The heaven of it
is ineffable. Never had I touched the skirts of so celestial a place.
The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of water up between
all that gorgeous colour and carving, the enchanting silence, the
moonlight, the music, the gondolas--I mix it all up together, and
maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, not a second
Venice in the world."
Browning left Florence for ever after his wife's death, and to Venice he
came again in 1878, with his sister, and thereafter for some years they
returned regularly. Until 1881 their home was at the Brandolin Rota.
After that they stayed with Mrs. Arthur Bronson, to whom he dedicated
_Asolando_, his last book, and who has written a record of his habits in
the city of the sea. She tells us that he delighted in walking and was a
great frequenter of old curiosity shops. His especial triumph was to
discover a calle so narrow that he could not put up an umbrella in it.
Every morning he visited the Giardini Pubblici to feed certain of the
animals; and on every disengaged afternoon he went over to the Lido, to
walk there, or, as Byron had done, to ride. On being asked by his
gondolier where he would like to be rowed, he always said, "Towards the
Lido," and after his failure to acquire the Palazzo Manzoni he thought
seriously for a while of buying an unfinished Lido villa which had been
begun for Victor Emmanuel. Browning's desire was to see sunsets from it.
Mrs. Bronson tells us that the poet delighted in the seagulls, which in
stormy weather come into the city waters. He used to wonder that no
books referred to them. "They are more interesting," he said, "than the
doves of St. Mark." Venice did not inspire the poet to much verse. There
is of course that poignant little drama entitled "In a Gondola," but not
much else, and for some reason the collected works omit the sonnet in
honour of Goldoni which was written for the ceremonies attaching to the
erection of the dramatist's statue near the Rialto. Mrs. Orr tells us
that this sonnet, which had been promised for an album in praise of
Goldoni, was forgotten until the messenger from the editor arrived for
the copy. Browning wrote it while the boy waited. The day was November
27, 1883.
Goldoni--good, gay, sunniest of souls--
Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine--
What though it just reflect the shade and shine
Of common life, nor render, as it rolls,
Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals
Was Carnival: Parini's depths enshrine
Secrets unsuited to that opaline
Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls.
There throng the people: how they come and go,
Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,--see,--
On Piazza, Calle, under Portico
And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy,
Be honoured! Thou that did'st love Venice so,
Venice, and we who love her, all love thee.
The Rezzonico is the house most intimately associated with Browning in
the public mind, although most of his Venetian life was spent elsewhere.
It was here, on his last visit to his son, that the poet died. He had
not been very well for some time, but he insisted on taking his daily
walk on the Lido even although it was foggy. The fog struck in--it was
November--and the poet gradually grew weaker until on December 12, 1889,
the end came. At first he had lain in the left-hand corner room on the
ground floor; he died in the corresponding room on the top floor, where
there was more light.
[Illustration: VENICE WITH HERCULES AND CERES
FROM THE PAINTING BY VERONESE
_In the Accademia_]
Browning was buried in Westminster Abbey, but a funeral service was held
first in Venice. In his son's words, "a public funeral was offered by
the Municipality, which in a modified form was gratefully accepted. A
private service, conducted by the British Chaplain, was held in one of
the halls of the Rezzonico. It was attended by the Syndic of Venice and
the chief City authorities, as well as by officers of the Army and Navy.
Municipal Guards lined the entrance of the Palace, and a Guard of
Honour, consisting of City firemen in full dress, stood flanking the
coffin during the service, which was attended by friends and many
residents. The subsequent passage to the mortuary island of San Michele
was organized by the City, and when the service had been performed the
coffin was carried by firemen to the massive and highly decorated
funeral barge, on which it was guarded during the transit by four
'Uscieri' in gala dress, two sergeants of the Municipal Guard, and two
firemen bearing torches. The remainder of these followed in their boats.
The funeral barge was slowly towed by a steam launch of the Royal Navy.
The chief officers of the Municipality, the family, and many others in a
crowd of gondolas, completed the procession. San Michele was reached as
the sun was setting, when the firemen again received their burden and
bore it to the principal mortuary chapel."
Later the municipality of Venice fixed the memorial tablet to the wall
of the palace. The quotation, from the poet, cut under his name, runs
thus:--
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, Italy.
The tablet is a graceful recognition of the devotion of Browning and his
wife to their adopted country. Did the authorities, I wonder, know that
Browning's love of their city led him always to wear on his watch-chain
a coin struck by Manin in 1848 commemorating the overthrow of Austrian
power in Venice?
The Rezzonico was built by Longhena, the architect of the Salute. Carlo
Rezzonico, afterwards Pope Clement XIII, lived here. The Emperor Joseph
II stayed here. So much for fact. I like far more to remember the
Christmas dinner eaten here--only, alas, in fancy, yet with all the
illusion of fact--by Browning and a Scandinavian dramatist named Ibsen,
brought together for the purpose by the assiduous Mr. Gosse, as related
with such skill and mischief by Mr. Max Beerbohm.
Next the Rezzonico is the commonplace Nani; then a tiny calle; and then
an antiquity store, one of the three adjoining palaces of the great
Giustiniani family, in the second of which once lived Richard Wagner.
But first a word as to the Giustiniani's great feat, in the twelfth
century, of giving every male member to the Republic. It happened that
in 1171 nearly all the Venetians in Constantinople were massacred. An
expedition was quickly despatched to demand satisfaction for such a
deed, but, while anchored at Scio, the plague broke out and practically
demolished this too, among those who perished being the Giustiniani to a
man. In order that the family might persist, the sole surviving son, a
monk named Niccolò, was temporarily released from his vows to be
espoused to the daughter of the Doge, Vitale Michiel. Sufficient sons
having been born to them, the father returned to his monastery and the
mother sought a convent for herself.
In the first of the three Giustiniani palaces Mr. Howells, moving from
the Casa Falier across the way, wrote his _Venetian Life_. In the next
Wagner wrote part of _Tristan and Isolda_.
Needing solitude for this task, the composer came to Venice in the
autumn of 1858, and put up first at Danieli's. Needing a more private
abode he came here. From his _Autobiography_ I take the story. "I heard
that one of the three Giustiniani palaces, situated not far from the
Palazzo Foscari, was at present very little patronized by visitors, on
account of its situation, which in the winter is somewhat unfavourable.
I found some very spacious and imposing apartments there, all of which
they told me would remain uninhabited. I here engaged a large stately
room with a spacious bedroom adjoining. I had my luggage quickly
transferred there, and on the evening of the 30th August I said to
myself, 'At last I am living in Venice.'
"My leading idea was that I could work here undisturbed. I immediately
wrote to Zürich asking for my Erard 'Grand' and my bed to be sent on to
me, as, with regard to the latter, I felt that I should find out what
cold meant in Venice. In addition to this, the grey-washed walls of my
large room soon annoyed me, as they were so little suited to the
ceiling, which was covered with a fresco which I thought was rather
tasteful. I decided to have the walls of the large room covered with
hangings of a dark-red shade, even if they were of quite common quality.
This immediately caused much trouble; but it seemed to me that it was
well worth surmounting, when I gazed down from my balcony with growing
satisfaction on the wonderful canal, and said to myself that here I
would complete _Tristan_."
The composer's life was very simple. "I worked," he says, "till two
o'clock, then I got into the gondola that was always in waiting, and was
taken along the solemn Grand Canal to the bright Piazzetta, the peculiar
charm of which always had a cheerful effect on me. After this I made for
my restaurant in the Piazza San Marco, and when I had finished my meal I
walked alone or with Karl along the Riva to the Giardini Pubblici, the
only pleasure-ground in Venice where there are any trees, and at
nightfall I came back in the gondola down the canal, then more sombre
and silent, till I reached the spot where I could see my solitary lamp
shining from the night-shrouded façade of the old Palazzo Giustiniani.
"After I had worked a little longer Karl, heralded by the swish of the
gondola, would come in regularly at eight o'clock for a few hours chat
over our tea. Very rarely did I vary this routine by a visit to one of
the theatres. When I did, I preferred the performances at the Camploi
Theatre, where Goldoni's pieces were very well played; but I seldom went
to the opera, and when I did go it was merely out of curiosity. More
frequently, when bad weather deprived us of our walk, we patronized the
popular drama at the Malibran Theatre, where the performances were given
in the daytime. The admission cost us six kreutzers. The audiences were
excellent, the majority being in their shirt-sleeves, and the pieces
given were generally of the ultra-melodramatic type. However, one day to
my great astonishment and intense delight I saw there _Le Baruffe
Chioggiote_, the grotesque comedy that had appealed so strongly to
Goethe in his days at this very theatre. So true to nature was this
performance that it surpassed anything of the kind I have ever
witnessed."
Wagner's impressions of Venice, where, some twenty-four years later, he
was to end his anxious and marvellous life, seem to me so interesting
that I quote a little more: "There was little else that attracted my
attention in the oppressed and degenerate life of the Venetian people,
and the only impression I derived from the exquisite ruin of this
wonderful city as far as human interest is concerned was that of a
watering-place kept up for the benefit of visitors. Strangely enough, it
was the thoroughly German element of good military music, to which so
much attention is paid in the Austrian army, that brought me into touch
with public life in Venice. The conductors in the two Austrian regiments
quartered there began playing overtures of mine, _Rienzi_ and
_Tannhäuser_ for instance, and invited me to attend their practices in
their barracks. There I also met the whole staff of officers, and was
treated by them with great respect. These bands played on alternate
evenings amid brilliant illuminations in the middle of the Piazza San
Marco, whose acoustic properties for this class of production were
really excellent. I was often suddenly startled towards the end of my
meal by the sound of my own overtures; then as I sat at the restaurant
window giving myself up to impressions of the music, I did not know
which dazzled me most, the incomparable Piazza magnificently illuminated
and filled with countless numbers of moving people, or the music that
seemed to be borne away in rustling glory to the winds. Only one thing
was wanting that might certainly have been expected from an Italian
audience: the people were gathered round the band in thousands listening
most intently, but no two hands ever forgot themselves so far as to
applaud, as the least sign of approbation of Austrian military music
would have been looked upon as treason to the Italian Fatherland. All
public life in Venice also suffered by this extraordinary rift between
the general public and the authorities; this was peculiarly apparent in
the relations of the population to the Austrian officers, who floated
about publicly in Venice like oil on water. The populace, too, behaved
with no less reserve, or one might even say hostility, to the clergy,
who were for the most part of Italian origin. I saw a procession of
clerics in their vestments passing along the Piazza San Marco
accompanied by the people with unconcealed derision.
"It was very difficult for Ritter to induce me to interrupt my daily
arrangements even to visit a gallery or a church, though, whenever we
had to pass through the town, the exceedingly varied architectonic
peculiarities and beauties always delighted me afresh. But the frequent
gondola trips towards the Lido constituted my chief enjoyment during
practically the whole of my stay in Venice. It was more especially on
our homeward journeys at sunset that I was always over-powered by unique
impressions. During the first part of our stay in the September of that
year we saw on one of these occasions the marvellous apparition of the
great comet, which at that time was at its highest brilliancy, and was
generally said to portend an imminent catastrophe.
"The singing of a popular choral society, trained by an official of the
Venetian arsenal, seemed like a real lagoon idyll. They generally sang
only three-part naturally harmonized folk-songs. It was new to me not to
hear the higher voice rise above the compass of the alto, that is to
say, without touching the soprano, thereby imparting to the sound of the
chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings
they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola,
stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when requested and paid
for doing so, be it understood), and generally attracted a number of
other gondolas in their wake.
"During one sleepless night, when I felt impelled to go out on to my
balcony in the small hours, I heard for the first time the famous old
folk-song of the _gondolieri_. I seemed to hear the first call, in the
stillness of the night, proceeding from the Rialto, about a mile away
like a rough lament, and answered in the same tone from a yet further
distance in another direction. This melancholy dialogue, which was
repeated at longer intervals, affected me so much that I could not fix
the very simple musical component parts in my memory. However on a
subsequent occasion I was told that this folk-song was of great poetic
interest. As I was returning home late one night on the gloomy canal,
the moon appeared suddenly and illuminated the marvellous palaces and
the tall figure of my gondolier towering above the stern of the gondola,
slowly moving his huge sweep. Suddenly he uttered a deep wail, not
unlike the cry of an animal; the cry gradually gained in strength, and
formed itself, after a long-drawn 'Oh!' into the simple musical
exclamation 'Venezia!' This was followed by other sounds of which I have
no distinct recollection, as I was so much moved at the time. Such were
the impressions that to me appeared the most characteristic of Venice
during my stay there, and they remained with me until the completion of
the second act of _Tristan_, and possibly even suggested to me the
long-drawn wail of the shepherd's horn at the beginning of the third
act."
Later we shall see the palace where Wagner died, which also is on the
Grand Canal.
Now comes the great and splendid Foscari Palace, once also a Giustiniani
home and once also the lodging of a king of France--Henry III, certain
of whose sumptuous Venetian experiences we saw depicted on the walls of
the Doges' Palace. The Foscari is very splendid with its golden borders
to the windows, its rich reliefs and pretty effects of red brickwork,
and more than most it brings to mind the lost aristocratic glories of
Venice. To-day it is a commercial school, with a courtyard at the back
full of weeds. The fine lamp at its corner must give as useful a light
as any in Venice.