THE GRAND CANAL. III: FROM THE RIO FOSCARI TO S. SIMEONE, LOOKING TO THE
LEFT
Napoleon _s'amuse_--Paul Veronese--The Layard collection--The Palazzo
Papadopoli--The Rialto Bridge--The keystone--Carpaccio--The "Uncle" of
Venice--Modern painting--English artists in Venice--The Civic
Museum--Pictures and curiosities--Carnival costumes--Carpaccio and
Ruskin--Historical scenes--A pleasant garden.
The big palace on the other side of the Rio Foscari, next the shabby
brown, deserted house which might be made so desirable with its view
down the Canal, is the Balbi, and it has the distinction that Napoleon
stood in one of its windows to see a Grand Canal regatta, the races in
which ended at this point. Next it is the Angaran, and then a nice
little place with lions guarding the terrace gate, at the corner of the
Rio della Frescada, one of the prettiest of the side canals. Next we
come to another large and solid but very dull house, the Civran
(afterwards Grimani); then the forsaken Dandolo, and we are at the
steamboat station of S. Toma, where the passengers for the Frari and S.
Rocco land.
Hereabouts the houses are very uninteresting. Two more and a traghetto
and the Rio S. Toma; then the Palazzo Giustiniani, a rich Venetian red,
with a glimpse of a courtyard; then the ugliest building in the canal,
also red, like the back of a block of flats; and after passing the
pretty little Gothic Tiepolo palace with blue posts with yellow bands,
and the larger Palazzo Tiepolo adjoining it, we are at the fine
fifteenth-century Pisani Moretta, with a double row of rich Gothic
windows. Here once hung Veronese's "Family of Darius," now No. 294 in
our National Gallery, and, according to Ruskin, "the most precious" of
the painter's works. The story goes that Veronese being driven to make
use of the Pisani villa at Este as a temporary home, painted the picture
while there and left it behind him with a message that he hoped it would
pay for his board and lodging. The Pisani family sold it to the National
Gallery in 1857.
The next palace is the hideous Barbarigo della Terrazza, with a better
façade on the Rio S. Polo: now a mosaic company's head-quarters, but
once famous for its splendours, which included seventeen Titians, now in
Russia; and then the Rio S. Polo and the red Capello Palace where the
late Sir Henry Layard made his home and gathered about him those
pictures which now, like the Darius, belong to our National Gallery.
Next it is the Vendramin, with yellow posts and porphyry enrichment, and
then the desolate dirty Querini, and the Bernardo, once a splendid
palace but now offices, with its Gothic arches filled with glass. The
Rio della Madonnetta here intervenes; then two Donà palaces, the first
dating from the twelfth century. A traghetto is here and a pretty calle,
and soon we come to one of the palaces which are shown to visitors, the
Papadopoli, once the Coccina-Tiepolo, with blue posts and in the spring
a Judas-tree red in the garden.
My advice to those who visit such palaces as are shown to the public is
not to go alone. The rigours of ceremonial can be tempered to a party,
and the efficient and discreet French major-domo is less formidable to
several visitors than to one. The principal attraction of the
Papadopoli Palace is two carnival pictures by Tiepolo; but the visitor
is also shown room after room, sumptuous and unliveable in, with signed
photographs of crowned heads on ormolu tables.
The Rio dei Meloni, where is the Palazzo Albrizzi to which Byron used to
resort as a lion, runs by the Papadopoli. At the other corner is the
Businello, a nice solid building with two rows of round window-arches.
Then the tall decayed Rampinelli and, followed by a calle, the Ramo
Barzizza, and next the Mengaldo, with a very choice doorway and arches,
now a statuary store; then the yellow Avogadro, now an antiquity
dealer's and tenements, with a fondamenta; then a new building, and we
reach the fine red palace adjoining the Casa Petrarca, with its ramping
garden.
These two palaces, which have a sottoportico beneath them leading to S.
Silvestro, stand on the site of the palace of the Patriarchs of Grado,
who had supreme ecclesiastical power here until the fifteenth century,
when the Patriarchate of Venice was founded with a residence near S.
Pietro in Castello.
From this point a fondamenta runs all the way to the Rialto bridge. The
buildings are not of any particular interest, until we come to the last
one, with the two arches under it and the fine relief of a lion on the
façade: once the head-quarters of the tithe collectors.
People have come mostly to speak of the Rialto as though it was the
bridge only. But it is the district, of which the bridge is the centre.
No longer do wealthy shipowners and merchants foregather hereabouts; for
none exist. Venice has ceased to fetch and carry for the world, and all
her energies are now confined within her own borders. Enough to live and
be as happy as may be!
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE]
In beauty the Rialto falls far short of most of the bridges of Venice.
Its hard angle superimposed on the great arch is unpleasing to the eye
accustomed in this city to easy fluid curves. Seen from immediately
below, the arch is noble; from any greater distance it is lost in the
over-structure, angle and curve conflicting.
Ruskin is very enthusiastic over the conceit which placed the Spirito
Santo on the keystone of the bridge, the flight, as he thinks, producing
an effect of lightness. He is pleased too with the two angels, and
especially that one on the right, whose foot is placed with horizontal
firmness. On each side of the bridge is a shrine.
Before this stone bridge was built in 1588 by Antonio da Ponte it had
wooden predecessors. Carpaccio's Santa Croce picture in the Accademia
shows us what the immediate forerunner of the present bridge was like.
It had a drawbridge in the middle to prevent pursuit that way during
brawls.
The first palace beyond the bridge, now a decaying congeries of offices,
has very rich decorative stone work, foliation and festoons. It was once
the head-quarters of the Camerlenghi, the procurators-fiscal of Venice.
Then come the long fruit and vegetable markets, and then the new fish
market, one of the most successful of new Venetian buildings, with its
springing arches below and its loggia above and its iron lamp at the
right corner and bronze fisherman at the left.
A fondamenta runs right away from the Rialto bridge to a point just
beyond the new fish market, with some nice houses on it, over shops, the
one on the left of the fish market having very charming windows. The
first palace of any importance is the dull red one on the other side of
the Calle dei Botteri, the Donà. Then a decayed palace and the Calle
del Campanile where the fondamenta ends. Here is the very attractive
Palazzo Morosini, or Brandolin, which dates from the fourteenth century.
Next is a dull house, and then a small one with little lions on the
balustrades, and then the Rio S. Cassiano. Next is a tiny and very
ancient palace with an inscription stating that the Venetian painter
Favretto worked there; then a calle, and the great pawnshop of Venice,
once the Palazzo Corner della Regina, is before us, with a number of its
own boats inside the handsome blue municipal posts with S. Mark's lion
on each. The Queen of Cyprus was born here; other proud and commanding
Corners were splendid here; and now it is a pawnshop!
The Calle della Regina, two rather nice, neglected houses (the little
pink one quite charming), and we come to the Rio Pesaro and the splendid
Palazzo Pesaro, one of the great works of Longhena. Note its fluted
pillars and rich stonework. This palace we may enter, for it is now the
Tate Gallery of Venice, housing, below, a changing exhibition of
contemporary art, and, above, a permanent collection, to which additions
are constantly being made, of modern Italian painting. Foreign artists
are admitted too, and my eyes were gladdened by Mr. Nicholson's "Nancy,"
a landscape by Mr. E.A. Walton, a melon-seller by Mr. Brangwyn, a lady
in pink by Mr. Lavery, and a fisherman by Mr. Cayley Robinson. A number
of Whistler's Venetian etchings may also be seen here, and much
characteristic work by Mr. Pennell. Here too are the "Burghers of
Calais" and the "Thinker" of Rodin, while a nude by Fantin Latour should
be sought for. One of the most interesting pictures so far as subject
goes represents the bridge of boats to the Redentore on a recent All
Souls' day.
I have been absolutely alone in this building, save for the custodians.
The Venetian can live very easily without picture galleries, ancient or
modern.
The Rio della Pergola washes the other side of the Pesaro palace, and
then come two or three houses, once Foscarini homes, given up to
antiquity dealers, and then the florid white stone façade of the church
of S. Stae (or S. Eustachio) with a delightful little Venetian-red annex
on the left. There is a campo and steamboat station here too. The next
palace has pretty little Gothic windows, and then a small brown house
stands in its garden on the site of a burnt Contarini palace. A good red
brick fifteenth-century palace, now a wine store, is next, and then the
Tron, now an institution, with a garden and well-head seen through the
open door. Great scenes have been witnessed in this building, for the
Trons were a famous and powerful Venetian family, supplying more than
one Doge, and here in 1775 was entertained the Emperor Joseph II.
Then the Rio Tron and then the Palazzo Battagia, with two rich coats of
arms in relief, which is also by Longhena, but I hope that it was not he
who placed the columns on the roof. The tiny Calle del Megio, and we
reach the venerable piece of decay which once was the granary of the
Venetian Republic--one of the most dignified and attractive buildings on
the canal, with its old brick and coping of pointed arches. The Rio del
Megio divides the granary from the old Fondaco dei Turchi, once, after a
long and distinguished life as a palace, the head-quarters of the Turks
in Venice, and now, admirably restored, the civic museum.
It is necessary to visit the collections preserved here, but I cannot
promise any feelings of exultation among them. The Museo Civico might
be so interesting and is so depressing. Baedeker is joyful over the
"excellent illustrative guide (1909), 1 franc," but though it may have
existed in 1909 there is no longer any trace of it, nor could I obtain
the reason why. Since none of the exhibits have descriptive labels (not
even the pictures), and since the only custodians are apparently retired
and utterly dejected gondoliers, the visitor's spirits steadily fall.
One enters to some fine well-heads and other sculpture, not very
different from the stock-in-trade of the ordinary dealer in antiquity
who has filched a palace. On the next floor is a library; but I found
the entrance barred. On the next is a series of rooms, the museum
proper. In the first are weapons, banners, and so forth. In the second
is a vast huddle of pictures, mostly bad copies, but patience may
discover here and there an original by a good hand not at its best. I
noticed a Tiepolo sketch that had much of his fine free way in it, and a
few typical Longhis. For the rest one imagines that some very
indifferent churches have been looted.
Follow four rooms of miscellaneous articles: weapons, ropes, a rather
fascinating white leather suit in a case, and so forth. Then a room of
coins and medals and ducats of the Doges right away from 1279. Then two
rooms (VIII and IX) which are more human, containing costumes, laces,
fans, the death masks of two Doges in their caps, a fine wooden
balustrade from a fifteenth-century palace, a set of marionettes with
all their strings, a Vivarini Madonna on an easel.
[Illustration: S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM WITH SAINTS
FROM THE PAINTING BY PIOMBO
_In the Church of S. Giov. Crisostomo_]
Then some stairs and a set of eighteenth-century rooms with curiously
real carnival costumes in them, like Longhi's pictures come to life, and
a painting or two by Guardi, including what purports to be his own
portrait. Then a Chinese room, and a Goldoni room with first editions
of the little man's plays, his portrait, and other relics. This series
undoubtedly brings Venice of the eighteenth-century very vividly before
one.
Returning to Room X in the main sequence we find wood-carving and
pottery. In Room XI, just inside the door on the left, is a noble
gondola prow in iron, richly wrought, which one would like to see on a
boat once more. Room XII has glass and porcelain; Room XIII has ivories
and caskets; and Room XIV has illuminated manuscripts, in one of which,
No. 158, is a very attractive tiny little Annunciation; and so we come
again to the pictures, in Rooms XV and XVI of which the second contains
the pick. But there is little to cause the heart to beat any faster.
A quaint and ugly but fascinating thing, attributed to Carpaccio and
said to represent two courtesans at home, is the most memorable. Why it
should not equally represent two ladies of unimpeachable character, I
cannot see. Ruskin went beyond everything in his praises, in _St. Mark's
Rest_, of this picture. He suggests that it is the best picture in the
world. But read his amazing words. "I know," he says, "no other which
unites every nameable quality of painter's art in so intense a
degree--breadth with tenderness, brilliancy with quietness, decision
with minuteness, colour with light and shade: all that is faithfullest
in Holland, fancifullest in Venice, severest in Florence, naturalest in
England. Whatever de Hooghe could do in shade, Van Eyck in detail,
Giorgione in mass, Titian in colour, Bewick and Landseer in animal life,
is here at once; and I know no other picture in the world which can be
compared with it."
In the same room is a figure of Christ mourned by two little angels,
ascribed to Giovanni Bellini, but bearing Durer's monogram.
On the stairs are historical Venetian scenes of fires, fights, and
ceremonials which we shall find in more abundance at the Querini
Stampalia. The top floor is given to Canova, Canaletto, Guardi, and
Tiepolo, and is very rich in their drawings and studies. In Canova I
find it impossible to be much interested, but the pencil work of the
others is often exquisite. From some of Canaletto's exact architectural
drawings the Venice of his day could be reconstructed almost stone by
stone.
Before leaving the Museo Civico let me warn the reader that it is by no
means easy of access except in a gondola. Two steamboat stations pretend
to deposit you there, but neither does so: S. Stae, from which it is a
tortuous walk, and S. Marcuola, on the other side of the Canal, which
means a ferry boat.
There is a calle and a traghetto next the museum, and then a
disreputable but picturesque brown house with a fondamenta, and then the
home of the Teodoro Correr who formed the nucleus of the museum which we
have just seen and left it to Venice. His house is now deserted and
miserable. A police station comes next; then a decayed house; and then
the Palazzo Giovanelli, boarded up and forlorn, but not the one which
contains the famous Giorgione. And here, at the nice garden on the other
side of the Rio S. Giovanni Decollato, I think, we may cease to identify
the buildings, for nothing else is important.
Beyond S. Simeone, however, at the corner of the Rio della Croce, is a
large and shady garden belonging to the Papadopoli family which may be
visited on application. It is a very pleasant place.