§ CXXVIII. The reader will observe that this capital is of peculiar

interest in its relation to the much disputed question of the character

of the later government of Venice. It is the assertion by that

government of its belief that Justice only could be the foundation of

its stability; as these stones of Justice and Judgment are the

foundation of its halls of council. And this profession of their faith

may be interpreted in two ways. Most modern historians would call it, in

common with the continual reference to the principles of justice in the

political and judicial language of the period,[159] nothing more than a

cloak for consummate violence and guilt; and it may easily be proved to

have been so in myriads of instances. But in the main, I believe the

expression of feeling to be genuine. I do not believe, of the majority

of the leading Venetians of this period whose portraits have come down

to us, that they were deliberately and everlastingly hypocrites. I see

no hypocrisy in their countenances. Much capacity of it, much subtlety,

much natural and acquired reserve; but no meanness. On the contrary,

infinite grandeur, repose, courage, and the peculiar unity and

tranquillity of expression which come of sincerity or _wholeness_ of

heart, and which it would take much demonstration to make me believe

could by any possibility be seen on the countenance of an insincere man.

I trust, therefore, that these Venetian nobles of the fifteenth century

did, in the main, desire to do judgment and justice to all men; but, as

the whole system of morality had been by this time undermined by the

teaching of the Romish Church, the idea of justice had become separated

from that of truth, so that dissimulation in the interest of the state

assumed the aspect of duty. We had, perhaps, better consider, with some

carefulness, the mode in which our own government is carried on, and the

occasional difference between parliamentary and private morality, before

we judge mercilessly of the Venetians in this respect. The secrecy with

which their political and criminal trials were conducted, appears to

modern eyes like a confession of sinister intentions; but may it not

also be considered, and with more probability, as the result of an

endeavor to do justice in an age of violence?--the only means by which

Law could establish its footing in the midst of feudalism. Might not

Irish juries at this day justifiably desire to conduct their proceedings

with some greater approximation to the judicial principles of the

Council of Ten? Finally, if we examine, with critical accuracy, the

evidence on which our present impressions of Venetian government are

founded, we shall discover, in the first place, that two-thirds of the

traditions of its cruelties are romantic fables: in the second, that the

crimes of which it can be proved to have been guilty, differ only from

those committed by the other Italian powers in being done less wantonly,

and under profounder conviction of their political expediency: and

lastly, that the final degradation of the Venetian power appears owing

not so much to the principles of its government, as to their being

forgotten in the pursuit of pleasure.

§ CXXIX. We have now examined the portions of the palace which contain

the principal evidence of the feeling of its builders. The capitals of

the upper arcade are exceedingly various in their character; their

design is formed, as in the lower series, of eight leaves, thrown into

volutes at the angles, and sustaining figures at the flanks; but these

figures have no inscriptions, and though evidently not without meaning,

cannot be interpreted without more knowledge than I possess of ancient

symbolism. Many of the capitals toward the Sea appear to have been

restored, and to be rude copies of the ancient ones; others, though

apparently original, have been somewhat carelessly wrought; but those of

them, which are both genuine and carefully treated, are even finer in

composition than any, except the eighteenth, in the lower arcade. The

traveller in Venice ought to ascend into the corridor, and examine with

great care the series of capitals which extend on the Piazzetta side

from the Fig-tree angle to the pilaster which carries the party wall of

the Sala del Gran Consiglio. As examples of graceful composition in

massy capitals meant for hard service and distant effect, these are

among the finest things I know in Gothic art; and that above the

fig-tree is remarkable for its sculptures of the four winds; each on the

side turned towards the wind represented. Levante, the east wind; a

figure with rays round its head, to show that it is always clear weather

when that wind blows, raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south

wind; crowned, holding the sun in its right hand; Ponente, the west

wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana, the north wind;

looking up at the north star. This capital should be carefully examined,

if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to

the magnificent verbiage of Milton:

"Thwart of these, as fierce,

Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,

Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,

Sirocco and Libecchio."

I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three young ones on

the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but there is no end to the

fantasy of these sculptures; and the traveller ought to observe them all

carefully, until he comes to the great Pilaster or complicated pier

which sustains the party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say,

the forty-seventh capital of the whole series, counting from the

pilaster of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower

arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad work, but

they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance capital of the

upper arcade: the first new lion's head with smooth ears, cut in the

time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth capital; and that capital, with

its shaft, stands on the apex of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the

Piazzetta side, of which one spandril is masonry of the fourteenth and

the other of the fifteenth century.

§ CXXX. The reader who is not able to examine the building on the spot

may be surprised at the definiteness with which the point of junction is

ascertainable; but a glance at the lowest range of leaves in the

opposite Plate (XX.) will enable him to judge of the grounds on which

the above statement is made. Fig. 12 is a cluster of leaves from the

capital of the Four Winds; early work of the finest time. Fig. 13 is a

leaf from the great Renaissance capital at the Judgment angle, worked in

imitation of the older leafage. Fig. 14 is a leaf from one of the

Renaissance capitals of the upper arcade, which are all worked in the

natural manner of the period. It will be seen that it requires no great

ingenuity to distinguish between such design as that of fig. 12 and that

of fig. 14.

[Illustration: Plate XX.

LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS.]

§ CXXXI. It is very possible that the reader may at first like fig. 14

the best. I shall endeavor, in the next chapter, to show why he should

not; but it must also be noted, that fig. 12 has lost, and fig. 14

gained, both largely, under the hands of the engraver. All the bluntness

and coarseness of feeling in the workmanship of fig. 14 have disappeared

on this small scale, and all the subtle refinements in the broad masses

of fig. 12 have vanished. They could not, indeed, be rendered in line

engraving, unless by the hand of Albert Durer; and I have, therefore,

abandoned, for the present, all endeavor to represent any more important

mass of the early sculpture of the Ducal Palace: but I trust that, in a

few months, casts of many portions will be within the reach of the

inhabitants of London, and that they will be able to judge for

themselves of their perfect, pure, unlabored naturalism; the freshness,

elasticity, and softness of their leafage, united with the most noble

symmetry and severe reserve,--no running to waste, no loose or

experimental lines, no extravagance, and no weakness. Their design is

always sternly architectural; there is none of the wildness or

redundance of natural vegetation, but there is all the strength,

freedom, and tossing flow of the breathing leaves, and all the

undulation of their surfaces, rippled, as they grew, by the summer

winds, as the sands are by the sea.

§ CXXXII. This early sculpture of the Ducal Palace, then, represents the

state of Gothic work in Venice at its central and proudest period, i.e.

circa 1350. After this time, all is decline,--of what nature and by what

steps, we shall inquire in the ensuing chapter; for as this

investigation, though still referring to Gothic architecture, introduces

us to the first symptoms of the Renaissance influence, I have considered

it as properly belonging to the third division of our subject.

§ CXXXIII. And as, under the shadow of these nodding leaves, we bid

farewell to the great Gothic spirit, here also we may cease our

examination of the details of the Ducal Palace; for above its upper

arcade there are only the four traceried windows,[160] and one or two of

the third order on the Rio Façade, which can be depended upon as

exhibiting the original workmanship of the older palace. I examined the

capitals of the four other windows on the façade, and of those on the

Piazzetta, one by one, with great care, and I found them all to be of

far inferior workmanship to those which retain their traceries: I

believe the stone framework of these windows must have been so cracked

and injured by the flames of the great fire, as to render it necessary

to replace it by new traceries; and that the present mouldings and

capitals are base imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at

first, however, restored in their complete form, as the holes for the

bolts which fastened the bases of their shafts are still to be seen in

the window-sills, as well as the marks of the inner mouldings on the

soffits. How much the stone facing of the façade, the parapets, and the

shafts and niches of the angles, retain of their original masonry, it is

also impossible to determine; but there is nothing in the workmanship

of any of them demanding especial notice; still less in the large

central windows on each façade, which are entirely of Renaissance

execution. All that is admirable in these portions of the building is

the disposition of their various parts and masses, which is without

doubt the same as in the original fabric, and calculated, when seen from

a distance, to produce the same impression.

§ CXXXIV. Not so in the interior. All vestige of the earlier modes of

decoration was here, of course, destroyed by the fires; and the severe

and religious work of Guariento and Bellini has been replaced by the

wildness of Tintoret and the luxury of Veronese. But in this case,

though widely different in temper, the art of the renewal was at least

intellectually as great as that which had perished: and though the halls

of the Ducal Palace are no more representative of the character of the

men by whom it was built, each of them is still a colossal casket of

priceless treasure; a treasure whose safety has till now depended on its

being despised, and which at this moment, and as I write, is piece by

piece being destroyed for ever.

§ CXXXV. The reader will forgive my quitting our more immediate subject,

in order briefly to explain the causes and the nature of this

destruction; for the matter is simply the most important of all that can

be brought under our present consideration respecting the state of art

in Europe.

The fact is, that the greater number of persons or societies throughout

Europe, whom wealth, or chance, or inheritance has put in possession of

valuable pictures, do not know a good picture from a bad one,[161] and

have no idea in what the value of a picture really consists. The

reputation of certain works is raised, partly by accident, partly by the

just testimony of artists, partly by the various and generally bad taste

of the public (no picture, that I know of, has ever, in modern times,

attained popularity, in the full sense of the term, without having some

exceedingly bad qualities mingled with its good ones), and when this

reputation has once been completely established, it little matters to

what state the picture may be reduced: few minds are so completely

devoid of imagination as to be unable to invest it with the beauties

which they have heard attributed to it.

§ CXXXVI. This being so, the pictures that are most valued are for the

most part those by masters of established renown, which are highly or

neatly finished, and of a size small enough to admit of their being

placed in galleries or saloons, so as to be made subjects of

ostentation, and to be easily seen by a crowd. For the support of the

fame and value of such pictures, little more is necessary than that they

should be kept bright, partly by cleaning, which is incipient

destruction, and partly by what is called "restoring," that is, painting

over, which is of course total destruction. Nearly all the gallery

pictures in modern Europe have been more or less destroyed by one or

other of these operations, generally exactly in proportion to the

estimation in which they are held; and as, originally, the smaller and

more highly finished works of any great master are usually his worst,

the contents of many of our most celebrated galleries are by this time,

in reality, of very small value indeed.

§ CXXXVII. On the other hand, the most precious works of any noble

painter are usually those which have been done quickly, and in the heat

of the first thought, on a large scale, for places where there was

little likelihood of their being well seen, or for patrons from whom

there was little prospect of rich remuneration. In general, the best

things are done in this way, or else in the enthusiasm and pride of

accomplishing some great purpose, such as painting a cathedral or a

camposanto from one end to the other, especially when the time has been

short, and circumstances disadvantageous.

§ CXXXVIII. Works thus executed are of course despised, on account of

their quantity, as well as their frequent slightness, in the places

where they exist; and they are too large to be portable, and too vast

and comprehensive to be read on the spot, in the hasty temper of the

present age. They are, therefore, almost universally neglected,

whitewashed by custodes, shot at by soldiers, suffered to drop from the

walls piecemeal in powder and rags by society in general; but, which is

an advantage more than counterbalancing all this evil, they are not

often "restored." What is left of them, however fragmentary, however

ruinous, however obscured and defiled, is almost always _the real

thing_; there are no fresh readings: and therefore the greatest

treasures of art which Europe at this moment possesses are pieces of old

plaster on ruinous brick walls, where the lizards burrow and bask, and

which few other living creatures ever approach; and torn sheets of dim

canvas, in waste corners of churches; and mildewed stains, in the shape

of human figures, on the walls of dark chambers, which now and then an

exploring traveller causes to be unlocked by their tottering custode,

looks hastily round, and retreats from in a weary satisfaction at his

accomplished duty.

§ CXXXIX. Many of the pictures on the ceilings and walls of the Ducal

Palace, by Paul Veronese and Tintoret, have been more or less reduced,

by neglect, to this condition. Unfortunately they are not altogether

without reputation, and their state has drawn the attention of the

Venetian authorities and academicians. It constantly happens, that

public bodies who will not pay five pounds to preserve a picture, will

pay fifty to repaint it:[162] and when I was at Venice in 1846, there

were two remedial operations carrying on, at one and the same time, in

the two buildings which contain the pictures of greatest value in the

city (as pieces of color, of greatest value in the world), curiously

illustrative of this peculiarity in human nature. Buckets were set on

the floor of the Scuola di San Rocco, in every shower, to catch the rain

which came through the pictures of Tintoret on the ceiling; while in the

Ducal Palace, those of Paul Veronese were themselves laid on the floor

to be repainted; and I was myself present at the re-illumination of the

breast of a white horse, with a brush, at the end of a stick five feet

long, luxuriously dipped in a common house-painter's vessel of paint.

This was, of course, a large picture. The process has already been

continued in an equally destructive, though somewhat more delicate

manner, over the whole of the humbler canvases on the ceiling of the

Sala del Gran Consiglio; and I heard it threatened when I was last in

Venice (1851-2) to the "Paradise" at its extremity, which is yet in

tolerable condition,--the largest work of Tintoret, and the most

wonderful piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil-painting in the world.

§ CXL. I leave these facts to the consideration of the European patrons

of art. Twenty years hence they will be acknowledged and regretted; at

present, I am well aware, that it is of little use to bring them

forward, except only to explain the present impossibility of stating

what pictures _are_, and what _were_, in the interior of the Ducal

Palace. I can only say, that in the winter of 1851, the "Paradise" of

Tintoret was still comparatively uninjured, and that the Camera di

Collegio, and its antechamber, and the Sala de' Pregadi were full of

pictures by Veronese and Tintoret, that made their walls as precious as

so many kingdoms; so precious indeed, and so full of majesty, that

sometimes when walking at evening on the Lido, whence the great chain of

the Alps, crested with silver clouds, might be seen rising above the

front of the Ducal Palace, I used to feel as much awe in gazing on the

building as on the hills, and could believe that God had done a greater

work in breathing into the narrowness of dust the mighty spirits by

whom its haughty walls had been raised, and its burning legends written,

than in lifting the rocks of granite higher than the clouds of heaven,

and veiling them with their various mantle of purple flower and shadowy

pine.

FOOTNOTES

[99] The reader will find it convenient to note the following

editions of the printed books which have been principally consulted

in the following inquiry. The numbers of the manuscripts referred to

in the Marcian Library are given with the quotations.

Sansovino. Venetia Descritta. 4to, Venice, 1663.

Sansovino. Lettera intorno al Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1829.

Temanza. Antica Pianta di Venezia, with text. Venice, 1780.

Cadorin. Pareri di XV. Architetti. 8vo, Venice, 1838.

Filiasi. Memorie storiche. 8vo, Padua, 1811.

Bettio. Lettera discorsiva del Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1837.

Selvatico. Architettura di Venezia. 8vo, Venice, 1847.

[100] The year commonly given is 810, as in the Savina Chronicle

(Cod. Marcianus), p. 13. "Del 810 fece principiar el pallazzo Ducal

nel luogo ditto Bruolo in confin di S. Moisè, et fece riedificar la

isola di Eraclia." The Sagornin Chronicle gives 804; and Filiasi,

vol. vi. chap. 1, corrects this date to 813.

[101] "Ampliò la città, fornilla di casamenti, _e per il culto d'

Iddio e l' amministrazione della giustizia_ eresse la cappella di S.

Marco, e il palazzo di sua residenza."--Pareri, p. 120. Observe,

that piety towards God, and justice towards man, have been at least

the nominal purposes of every act and institution of ancient Venice.

Compare also Temanza, p. 24. "Quello che abbiamo di certo si è che

il suddetto Agnello lo incominciò da fondamenti, e cost pure la

cappella ducale di S. Marco."

[102] What I call the Sea, was called "the Grand Canal" by the

Venetians, as well as the great water street of the city; but I

prefer calling it "the Sea," in order to distinguish between that

street and the broad water in front of the Ducal Palace, which,

interrupted only by the island of San Giorgio, stretches for many

miles to the south, and for more than two to the boundary of the

Lido. It was the deeper channel, just in front of the Ducal Palace,

continuing the line of the great water street itself which the

Venetians spoke of as "the Grand Canal." The words of Sansovino are:

"Fu cominciato dove si vede, vicino al ponte della paglia, et

rispondente sul canal grande." Filiasi says simply: "The palace was

built where it now is." "Il palazio fu fatto dove ora pure

esiste."--Vol. iii. chap. 27. The Savina Chronicle, already quoted,

says: "In the place called the Bruolo (or Broglio), that is to say,

on the Piazzetta."

[103] "Omni decoritate illius perlustrata."--Sagornino, quoted by

Cadorin and Temanza.

[104] There is an interesting account of this revolt in Monaci, p.

68. Some historians speak of the palace as having been destroyed

entirely; but, that it did not even need important restorations,

appears from Sagornino's expression, quoted by Cadorin and Temanza.

Speaking of the Doge Participazio, he says: "Qui Palatii hucusque

manentis fuerit fabricator." The reparations of the palace are

usually attributed to the successor of Candiano, Pietro Orseolo I.;

but the legend, under the picture of that Doge in the Council

Chamber, speaks only of his rebuilding St. Mark's, and "performing

many miracles." His whole mind seems to have been occupied with

ecclesiastical affairs; and his piety was finally manifested in a

way somewhat startling to the state, by his absconding with a French

priest to St. Michael's, in Gascony, and there becoming a monk. What

repairs, therefore, were necessary to the Ducal Palace, were left to

be undertaken by his son, Orseolo II., above named.

[105] "Quam non modo marmoreo, verum aureo compsit

ornamento."--_Temanza_, p. 25.

[106] "L'anno 1106, uscito fuoco d'una casa privata, arse parte del

palazzo."--_Sansovino_. Of the beneficial effect of these fires,

vide Cadorin, p. 121, 123.

[107] "Urbis situm, ædificiorum decorem, et regiminis æquitatem

multipliciter commendavit."--_Cronaca Dandolo_, quoted by Cadorin.

[108] "Non solamente rinovò il palazzo, ma lo aggrandì per ogni

verso."--_Sansovino_. Zanotto quotes the Altinat Chronicle for

account of these repairs.

[109] "El palazzo che anco di mezzo se vede vecchio, per M.

Sebastian Ziani fu fatto compir, come el se vede."--_Chronicle of

Pietro Dolfino_, Cod. Ven. p. 47. This Chronicle is spoken of by

Sansovino as "molto particolare e distinta."--_Sansovino, Venezia

descritta_, p. 593.--It terminates in the year 1422.

[110] See Vol. I. Appendix 3.

[111] Vide Sansovino's enumeration of those who flourished in the

reign of Gradenigo, p. 564.

[112] Sansovino, 324, 1.

[113] "1301 fu presa parte di fare una sala grande per la riduzione

del gran consiglio, e fu fatta quella che ora si chiama dello

Scrutinio."--_Cronaca Sivos_, quoted by Cadorin. There is another

most interesting entry in the Chronicle of Magno, relating to this

event; but the passage is so ill written, that I am not sure if I

have deciphered it correctly:--"Del 1301 fu preso de fabrichar la

sala fo ruina e fu fata (fatta) quella se adoperava a far el pregadi

e fu adopera per far el Gran Consegio fin 1423, che fu anni 122."

This last sentence, which is of great importance, is luckily

unmistakable:--"The room was used for the meetings of the Great

Council until 1423, that is to say, for 122 years."--_Cod. Ven_.

tom. i. p. 126. The Chronicle extends from 1253 to 1454.

[114] "Vi era appresso la Cancellaria, e la Gheba o Gabbia, chiamata

poi Torresella."--P. 324. A small square tower is seen above the

Vine angle in the view of Venice dated 1500, and attributed to

Albert Durer. It appears about 25 feet square, and is very probably

the Torresella in question.

[115] Vide Bettio, Lettera, p. 23.

[116] Bettio, Lettera, p. 20. "Those who wrote without having seen

them described them as covered with lead; and those who have seen

them know that, between their flat timber roofs and the sloping

leaden roof of the palace, the interval is five metres where it is

least, and nine where it is greatest."

[117] "Questo Dose anche fese far la porta granda che se al intrar

del Pallazzo, in su la qual vi e la sua statua che sta in

zenocchioni con lo confalon in man, davanti li pie de lo Lion S.

Marco,"--_Savin Chronicle_, Cod. Ven. p. 120.

[118] These documents I have not examined myself, being satisfied of

the accuracy of Cadorin, from whom I take the passages quoted.

[119] "Libras tres, soldos 15 grossorum."--_Cadorin_, 189, 1.

[120] Cod. Ven., No. CXLI. p. 365.

[121] Sansovino is more explicit than usual in his reference to this

decree: "For it having appeared that the place (the first Council

Chamber) was not capacious enough, the saloon on the Grand Canal was

ordered." "Per cio parendo che il luogo non fosse capace, fu

ordinata la Sala sul Canal Grande."--P. 324.

[122] Cadorin, 185, 2. The decree of 1342 is falsely given as of 1345

by the Sivos Chronicle, and by Magno; while Sanuto gives the decree

to its right year, 1342, but speaks of the Council Chamber as only

begun in 1345.

[123] Calendario. See Appendix 1, Vol. III.

[124] "Il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento, il quale l' anno 1365

vi fece il Paradiso in testa della sala."--_Sansovino._

[125] "L' an poi 1400 vi fece il cielo compartita a quadretti d'oro,

ripieni di stelle, ch' era la insegna del Doge Steno."--_Sansovino_,

lib. VIII.

[126] "In questi tempi si messe in oro il cielo della sala del Gran

Consiglio et si fece il pergolo del finestra grande chi guarda sul

canale, adornato l'uno e l'altro di stelle, ch' erano l'insegne del

Doge."--_Sansovino_, lib. XIII. Compare also Pareri, p. 129.

[127] Baseggio (Pareri, p. 127) is called the Proto of the _New_

Palace. Farther notes will be found in Appendix 1, Vol. III.

[128] Cronaca Sanudo, No. CXXV. in the Marcian Library, p. 568.

[129] Tomaso Mocenigo.

[130] Vide notes in Appendix.

[131] On the 4th of April, 1423, according to the copy of the

Zancarol Chronicle in the Marcian Library, but previously, according

to the Caroldo Chronicle, which makes Foscari enter the Senate as

Doge on the 3rd of April.

[132] "Nella quale (the Sala del Gran Consiglio) non si fece Gran

Consiglio salvo nell' anno 1423, alli 3 April, et fu il primo giorno

che il Duce Foscari venisse in Gran Consiglio dopo la sua

creatione."--Copy in Marcian Library, p. 365.

[133] "E a di 23 April (1423, by the context) sequente fo fatto Gran

Conseio in la salla nuovo dovi avanti non esta più fatto Gran

Conseio si che el primo Gran Conseio dopo la sua (Foscari's)

creation, fo fatto in la salla nuova, nel qual conseio fu el

Marchese di Mantoa," &c., p. 426.

[134] Compare Appendix 1, Vol. III.

[135] "Tutte queste fatture si compirono sotto il dogado del

Foscari, nel 1441."--_Pareri_, p. 131.

[136] This identification has been accomplished, and I think

conclusively, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has devoted all the

leisure which, during the last twenty years, his manifold offices of

kindness to almost every English visitant of Venice have left him,

in discovering and translating the passages of the Venetian records

which bear upon English history and literature. I shall have

occasion to take advantage hereafter of a portion of his labors,

which I trust will shortly be made public.

[137] See the last chapter of the third volume.

[138] "IN XRI--NOIE AMEN ANNINCARNATIONIS MCCCXVII. INESETBR." "In the

name of Christ, Amen, in the year of the incarnation, 1317, in the

month of September," &c.

[139] "Oh, venerable Raphael, make thou the gulf calm, we beseech

thee." The peculiar office of the angel Raphael is, in general,

according to tradition, the restraining the harmful influences of

evil spirits. Sir Charles Eastlake told me, that sometimes in this

office he is represented bearing the gall of the fish caught by

Tobit; and reminded me of the peculiar superstitions of the

Venetians respecting the raising of storms by fiends, as embodied in

the well-known tale of the Fisherman and St. Mark's ring.

[140] In the original, the succession of words is evidently suggested

partly by similarity of sound; and the sentence is made weighty by

an alliteration which is quite lost in our translation; but the very

allowance of influence to these minor considerations is a proof how

little any metaphysical order or system was considered necessary in

the statement.

[141] It occurs in a prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit,

"That He may keep my soul, and direct my way; compose my bearing,

and form my thoughts in holiness; may He govern my body, and protect

my mind; strengthen me in action, approve my vows, and accomplish my

desires; cause me to lead an honest and honorable life, and give me

good hope, charity and chastity, humility and patience: may He

govern the Five Senses of my body," &c. The following prayer is also

very characteristic of this period. It opens with a beautiful

address to Christ upon the cross; then proceeds thus: "Grant to us,

O Lord, we beseech thee, this day and ever, the use of penitence, of

abstinence, of humility, and chastity; and grant to us light,

judgment, understanding, and true knowledge, even to the end." One

thing I note in comparing old prayers with modern ones, that however

quaint, or however erring, they are always tenfold more condensed,

comprehensive, and to their purpose, whatever that may be. There is

no dilution in them, no vain or monotonous phraseology. They ask for

what is desired plainly and earnestly, and never could be shortened

by a syllable. The following series of ejaculations are deep in

spirituality, and curiously to our present purpose in the

philological quaintness of being built upon prepositions:--

"Domine Jesu Christe, sancta cruce tua apud me sis, ut me defendas.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro veneranda cruce tua post me sis, ut me

gubernes.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua intra me sis, ut me

reficeas.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua circa me sis, ut me

conserves.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro gloriosa cruce tua ante me sis, ut me

deduces.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro laudanda cruce tua super me sis, ut

benedicas.

Domine Jesu Christe, pro magnifica cruce tua in me sis, ut me ad

regnum tuum perducas, per D. N. J. C. Amen."

[142] This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to have been

first made by Archytas. See D'Ancarville's illustration of the three

figures of Prudence, Fortitude, and Charity, in Selvatico's

"Cappellina degli Scrovegni," Padua, 1836.

[143] Or Penitence: but I rather think this is understood only in

Compunctio cordis.

[144] The transformation of a symbol into a reality, observe, as in

transubstantiation, is as much an abandonment of symbolism as the

forgetfulness of symbolic meaning altogether.

[145] On the window of New College, Oxford.

[146] Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek philosophers

under the terms [Greek: phronêei], [Greek: sophia], and [Greek:

epistêmê]; and part of the idea of [Greek: sôphrosonê].

[147] Isa. lxiv. 5.

[148] I can hardly think it necessary to point out to the reader the

association between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to

explain any appearance of contradiction between passages in which

(as above in Chap. V.) I have had to oppose sacred pensiveness to

unholy mirth, and those in which I have to oppose sacred

cheerfulness to unholy sorrow.

[149] "Desse," seat

[150] Usually called Charity: but this virtue in its full sense is

one of the attendant spirits by the Throne; the Kindness here meant

is Charity with a special object; or Friendship and Kindness, as

opposed to Envy, which has always, in like manner, a special object.

Hence the love of Orestes and Pylades is given as an instance of the

virtue of Friendship; and the Virgin's, "They have no wine," at

Cana, of general kindness and sympathy with others' pleasure.

[151] The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half

estimated, because few persons take the pains to think out its

meaning. I have put a brief analysis of the first book in Appendix

2, Vol. III.; which may perhaps induce the reader to follow out the

subject for himself. No time devoted to profane literature will be

better rewarded than that spent _earnestly_ on Spenser.

[152] Inscribed, I believe, Pietas, meaning general reverence and

godly fear.

[153] I have given one of these capitals carefully already in my folio

work, and hope to give most of the others in due time. It was of no

use to draw them here, as the scale would have been too small to

allow me to show the expression of the figures.

[154] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 226.

[155] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. letter IV.

[156] Selvatico states that these are intended to be representative

of eight nations, Latins, Tartars, Turks, Hungarians, Greeks, Goths,

Egyptians, and Persians. Either the inscriptions are now defaced or

I have carelessly omitted to note them.

[157] The comma in these inscriptions stands for a small cuneiform

mark, I believe of contraction, and the small ^s for a zigzag mark

of the same kind. The dots or periods are similarly marked, on the

stone.

[158] Can they have mistaken the ISIPIONE of the fifth side for the

word Isidore?

[159] Compare the speech of the Doge Mocenigo, above,--"first justice,

and _then_ the interests of the state:" and see Vol. III. Chap. II.

§ LIX.

[160] Some further details respecting these portions, as well as

some necessary confirmations of my statements of dates, are,

however, given in Appendix 1, Vol. III. I feared wearying the

general reader by introducing them into the text.

[161] Many persons, capable of quickly sympathizing with any

excellence, when once pointed out to them, easily deceive themselves

into the supposition that they are judges of art. There is only one

real test of such power of judgment. Can they, at a glance, discover

a good picture obscured by the filth, and confused among the

rubbish, of the pawnbroker's or dealer's garret?

[162] This is easily explained. There are, of course, in every place

and at all periods, bad painters who conscientiously believe that

they can improve every picture they touch; and these men are

generally, in their presumption, the most influential over the

innocence, whether of monarchs or municipalities. The carpenter and

slater have little influence in recommending the repairs of the

roof; but the bad painter has great influence, as well as interest,

in recommending those of the picture.

APPENDIX.

1. THE GONDOLIER'S CRY.

Most persons are now well acquainted with the general aspect of the

Venetian gondola, but few have taken the pains to understand the cries

of warning uttered by its boatmen, although those cries are peculiarly

characteristic, and very impressive to a stranger, and have been even

very sweetly introduced in poetry by Mr. Monckton Milnes. It may perhaps

be interesting to the traveller in Venice to know the general method of

management of the boat to which he owes so many happy hours.

A gondola is in general rowed only by one man, _standing_ at the stern;

those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen, for greater speed

and magnificence. In order to raise the oar sufficiently, it rests, not

on the side of the boat, but on a piece of crooked timber like the

branch of a tree, rising about a foot from the boat's side, and called a

"fórcola." The fórcola is of different forms, according to the size and

uses of the boat, and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and

curvature, allowing the oar various kinds of rests and catches on both

its sides, but perfectly free play in all cases; as the management of

the boat depends on the gondolier's being able in an instant to place

his oar in any position. The fórcola is set on the right-hand side of

the boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier stands on a little

flat platform or deck behind it, and throws nearly the entire weight of

his body upon the forward stroke. The effect of this stroke would be

naturally to turn the boat's head round to the left, as well as to send

it forward; but this tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the

oar under the water on the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as

a full spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from

the water only an instant before it again plunges. A _downward_ and

lateral pressure upon the fórcola is thus obtained, which entirely

counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke; and the effort,

after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious, though, as it adds

some labor to the back stroke, rowing a gondola at speed is hard and

breathless work, though it appears easy and graceful to the looker-on.

If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is

given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the

plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface; in either case a

single strong stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed

boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of

one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its

former direction gives it an enormous lee-way, and it drifts laterally

up against the wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has

turned at speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength

or rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of

the foot against the wall itself, the head of the boat being of course

turned for the moment almost completely round to the opposite wall, and

greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as possible, impulse in the

new direction.

The boat being thus guided, the cry "Premi" is the order from one

gondolier to another that he should "press" or thrust forward his oar,

without the back stroke, so as to send the boat's head round _to the

left_; and the cry "Stali" is the order that he should give the return

or upward stroke which sends the boat's head round to the _right_.

Hence, if two gondoliers meet under any circumstances which render it a

matter of question on which side they should pass each other, the

gondolier who has at the moment the least power over his boat, cries to

the other, "Premi," if he wishes the boats to pass with their right-hand

sides to each other, and "Stali," if with their left. Now, in turning a

corner, there is of course risk of collision between boats coming from

opposite sides, and warning is always clearly and loudly given on

approaching an angle of the canals. It is of course presumed that the

boat which gives the warning will be nearer the turn than the one which

receives and answers it; and therefore will not have so much time to

check itself or alter its course. Hence the advantage of the turn, that

is, the outside, which allows the fullest swing and greatest room for

lee-way, is always yielded to the boat which gives warning. Therefore,

if the warning boat is going to turn to the right, as it is to have the

outside position, it will keep its own right-hand side to the boat which

it meets, and the cry of warning is therefore "Premi," twice given;

first as soon as it can be heard round the angle, prolonged and loud,

with the accent on the e, and another strongly accented e added, a kind

of question, "Prémi-é," followed at the instant of turning, with "Ah

Premí," with the accent sharp on the final i. If, on the other hand, the

warning boat is going to turn to the left, it will pass with its

left-hand side to the one it meets; and the warning cry is, "Stáli-é, Ah

Stalí." Hence the confused idea in the mind of the traveller that Stali

means "to the left," and "Premi" to the right; while they mean, in

reality, the direct reverse; the Stali, for instance, being the order to

the unseen gondolier who may be behind the corner, coming from the

left-hand side, that he should hold as much as possible _to his own

right_; this being the only safe order for him, whether he is going to

turn the corner himself, or to go straight on; for as the warning

gondola will always swing right across the canal in turning, a collision

with it is only to be avoided by keeping well within it, and close up to

the corner which it turns.

There are several other cries necessary in the management of the

gondola, but less frequently, so that the reader will hardly care for

their interpretation; except only the "sciar," which is the order to the

opposite gondolier to stop the boat as suddenly as possible by slipping

his oar in front of the fórcola. The _cry_ is never heard except when

the boatmen have got into some unexpected position, involving a risk of

collision; but the action is seen constantly, when the gondola is rowed

by two or more men (for if performed by the single gondolier it only

swings the boat's head sharp round to the right), in bringing up at a

landing-place, especially when there is any intent of display, the boat

being first urged to its full speed and then stopped with as much foam

about the oar-blades as possible, the effect being much like that of

stopping a horse at speed by pulling him on his haunches.

2. OUR LADY OF SALVATION.

"Santa Maria della Salute," Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be a

more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of

the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630 and

1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague;--of course to

the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal

distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal

deliverances.

The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this

building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which is

not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the Giudecca

is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as of

Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the

general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini

which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps

remember having been taken across the Giudecca to the Church of the

"Redentore." But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with

each other, the one built "to the Virgin," the other "to the Redeemer"

(also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576); the

one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one

by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea: the

other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming

an object of interest because it contains three small pictures! For in

the relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we

have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the

Madonna and of Christ, in the modern Italian mind.

Some further account of this church is given in the final Index to the

Venetian buildings at the close of the third Volume.

3. TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO.

The lowest and highest tides take place in Venice at different periods,

the lowest during the winter, the highest in the summer and autumn.

During the period of the highest tides, the city is exceedingly

beautiful, especially if, as is not unfrequently the case, the water

rises high enough partially to flood St. Mark's Place. Nothing can be

more lovely or fantastic than the scene, when the Campanile and the

Golden Church are reflected in the calm water, and the lighter gondolas

floating under the very porches of the façade. On the other hand, a

winter residence in Venice is rendered peculiarly disagreeable by the

low tides, which sometimes leave the smaller canals entirely dry, and

large banks of mud beneath the houses, along the borders of even the

Grand Canal. The difference between the levels of the highest and lowest

tides I saw in Venice was 6 ft. 3 in. The average fall rise is from two

to three feet.

* * * * *

The measures of Torcello were intended for Appendix 4; but having by a

misprint referred the reader to Appendix 3, I give them here. The entire

breadth of the church within the walls is 70 feet; of which the square

bases of the pillars, 3 feet on each side, occupy 6 feet; and the nave,

from base to base, measures 31 ft. 1 in.; the aisles from base to wall,

16 feet odd inches, not accurately ascertainable on account of the

modern wainscot fittings. The intervals between the bases of the pillars

are 8 feet each, increasing towards the altar to 8 ft. 3 in., in order

to allow for a corresponding diminution in the diameter of the bases

from 3 ft. to 2 ft. 11 in. or 2 ft. 10. in. This subtle diminution of

the bases is in order to prevent the eye from feeling the greater

narrowness of the shafts in that part of the nave, their average

circumference being 6 ft. 10 in.; and one, the second on the north side,

reaching 7 feet, while those at the upper end of the nave vary from 6

ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 4 in. It is probable that this diminution in the more

distant pillars adds slightly to the perspective effect of length in the

body of the church, as it is seen from the great entrance: but whether

this was the intention or not, the delicate adaptation of this

diminished base to the diminished shaft is a piece of fastidiousness in

proportion which I rejoice in having detected; and this the more,

because the rude contours of the bases themselves would little induce

the spectator to anticipate any such refinement.

4. DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO.

The first flight to the lagoons for shelter was caused by the invasion

of Attila in the fifth century, so that in endeavoring to throw back the

thought of the reader to the former solitude of the islands, I spoke of

them as they must have appeared "1300 years ago." Altinum, however, was

not finally destroyed till the Lombard invasion in 641, when the

episcopal seat was removed to Torcello, and the inhabitants of the

mainland city, giving up all hope of returning to their former homes,

built their Duomo there. It is a disputed point among Venetian

antiquarians, whether the present church be that which was built in the

seventh century, partially restored in 1008, or whether the words of

Sagornino, "ecclesiam jam vetustate consumptam recreare," justify them

in assuming an entire rebuilding of the fabric. I quite agree with the

Marchese Selvatico, in believing the present church to be the earlier

building, variously strengthened, refitted, and modified by subsequent

care; but, in all its main features, preserving its original aspect,

except, perhaps, in the case of the pulpit and chancel screen, which, if

the Chevalier Bunsen's conclusions respecting early pulpits in the Roman

basilicas be correct (see the next article of this Appendix), may

possibly have been placed in their present position in the tenth

century, and the fragmentary character of the workmanship of the latter,

noticed in §§ X. and XI., would in that case have been the result of

innovation, rather than of haste. The question, however, whether they

are of the seventh or eleventh century, does not in the least affect our

conclusions, drawn from the design of these portions of the church,

respecting pulpits in general.

5. MODERN PULPITS.

There is no character of an ordinary modern English church which appears

to me more to be regretted than the peculiar pompousness of the

furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it generally is, with great

meagreness and absence of color in the other portions of the church; a

pompousness, besides, altogether without grace or meaning, and dependent

merely on certain applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough,

are always in worse taste than even those of our drawing-rooms. Nor do

I understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the wooden

sounding-board attached only by one point of its circumference to an

upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking as if the weight of its

enormous leverage must infallibly, before the sermon is concluded, tear

it from its support, and bring it down upon the preacher's head. These

errors in taste and feeling will however, I believe, be gradually

amended as more Gothic churches are built; but the question of the

position of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion.

I can perfectly sympathise with the feeling of those who wish the

eastern extremity of the church to form a kind of holy place for the

communion table; nor have I often received a more painful impression

than on seeing the preacher at the Scotch church in George Street,

Portman Square, taking possession of a perfect apse; and occupying

therein, during the course of the service, very nearly the same position

which the figure of Christ does in that of the Cathedral of Pisa. But I

nevertheless believe that the Scotch congregation are perfectly right,

and have restored the real arrangement of the primitive churches. The

Chevalier Bunsen informed me very lately, that, in all the early

basilicas he has examined, the lateral pulpits are of more recent date

than the rest of the building; that he knows of none placed in the

position which they now occupy, both in the basilicas and Gothic

cathedrals, before the ninth century; and that there can be no doubt

that the bishop always preached or exhorted, in the primitive times,

from his throne in the centre of the apse, the altar being always set at

the centre of the church, in the crossing of the transepts. His

Excellency found by experiment in Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest of

the Roman basilicas, that the voice could be heard more plainly from the

centre of the apse than from any other spot in the whole church; and, if

this be so, it will be another very important reason for the adoption of

the Romanesque (or Norman) architecture in our churches, rather than of

the Gothic. The reader will find some farther notice of this question in

the concluding chapter of the third volume.

Before leaving this subject, however, I must be permitted to say one

word to those members of the Scotch Church who are severe in their

requirement of the nominal or apparent extemporization of all addresses

delivered from the pulpit. Whether they do right in giving those among

their ministers who _cannot_ preach extempore, the additional and

useless labor of committing their sermons to memory, may be a disputed

question; but it can hardly be so, that the now not unfrequent habit of

making a desk of the Bible, and reading the sermon stealthily, by

slipping the sheets of it between the sacred leaves, so that the

preacher consults his own notes _on pretence_ of consulting the

Scriptures, is a very unseemly consequence of their over-strictness.

6. APSE OF MURANO.

The following passage succeeded in the original text to § XV. of Chap.

III. Finding it not likely to interest the general reader, I have placed

it here, as it contains matter of some interest to architects.

"On this plinth, thus carefully studied in relations of magnitude,

the shafts are set at the angles, as close to each other as possible,

as seen in the ground-plan. These shafts are founded on pure Roman

tradition; their bases have no spurs, and the shaft itself is tapered

in a bold curve, according to the classical model. But, in the

adjustment of the bases to each other, we have a most curious

instance of the first beginning of the Gothic principle of

aggregation of shafts. They have a singularly archaic and simple

profile, composed of a single cavetto and roll, which are circular,

on a square plinth. Now when these bases are brought close to each

other at the angles of the apse, their natural position would be as

in fig. 3, Plate I., leaving an awkward fissure between the two

square plinths. This offended the architect's eye; so he cut part of

each of the bases away, and fitted them close to each other, as in

fig. 5, Plate I., which is their actual position. As before this

piece of rough harmonization the circular mouldings reached the sides

of the squares, they were necessarily cut partly away in the course

of the adjustment, and run into each other as in the figure, so as to

give us one of the first Venetian instances of the continuous Gothic

base.

"The shafts measure on the average 2 ft. 8½ in. in circumference,

at the base, tapering so much that under the lowest fillet of their

necks they measure only 2 feet round, though their height is only 5

ft. 6 in., losing thus eight inches of girth in five feet and a half

of height. They are delicately curved all the way up; and are 2½

in. apart from each other where they are nearest, and about 5 in. at

the necks of their capitals."

7. EARLY VENETIAN DRESS.

Sansovino's account of the changes in the dress of the Venetians is

brief, masterly, and full of interest; one or two passages are deserving

of careful notice, especially the introductory sentence. "For the

Venetians from their first origin, having made it their aim to be

peaceful and religious, and to keep on an equality with one another,

that equality might induce stability and concord (as disparity produces

confusion and ruin), made their dress a matter of conscience, ...; and

our ancestors, observant lovers of religion, upon which all their acts

were founded, and desiring that their young men should direct themselves

to virtue, the true soul of all human action, _and above all to peace_,

invented a dress conformable to their gravity, such, that in clothing

themselves with it, they might clothe themselves also with modesty and

honor. And because their mind was bent upon giving no offence to any

one, and living quietly as far as might be permitted them, it seemed

good to them to show to every one, even by external signs, this their

endeavor, by wearing a long dress, which was in no wise convenient for

persons of a quick temperament, or of eager and fierce spirits."

Respecting the color of the women's dress, it is noticeable that blue is

called "Venetian color" by Cassiodorus, translated "turchino" by

Filiasi, vol. v. chap. iv. It was a very pale blue, as the place in

which the word occurs is the description by Cassiodorus of the darkness

which came over the sun's disk at the time of the Belisarian wars and

desolation of the Gothic kingdom.

8. INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO.

There are two other inscriptions on the border of the concha; but these,

being written on the soffit of the face arch, which, as before noticed,

is supported by the last two shafts of the chancel, could not be read by

the congregation, and only with difficulty by those immediately

underneath them. One of them is in black, the other in red letters. The

first:

"Mutat quod sumsit, quod sollat crimina tandit

Et quod sumpsit, vultus vestisq. refulsit."

The second:

"Discipuli testes, prophete certa videntes

Et cernunt purum, sibi credunt ese futurum."

I have found no notice of any of these inscriptions in any Italian

account of the church of Murano, and have seldom seen even Monkish Latin

less intelligible. There is no mistake in the letters, which are all

large and clear; but wrong letters may have been introduced by ignorant

restorers, as has often happened in St. Mark's.

9. SHAFTS OF ST. MARK.

The principal pillars which carry the nave and transepts, fourteen in

number, are of white alabaster veined with grey and amber; each of a

single block, 15 ft. high, and 6 ft. 2 in. round at the base. I in vain

endeavored to ascertain their probable value. Every sculptor whom I

questioned on this subject told me there were no such pieces of

alabaster in the market, and that they were to be considered as without

price.

On the façade of the church alone are two great ranges of shafts,

seventy-two in the lower range, and seventy-nine in the upper; all of

porphyry, alabaster, and verd-antique or fine marble; the lower about 9

ft., the upper about 7 ft. high, and of various circumferences, from 4

ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. round.

There are now so many published engravings, and, far better than

engravings, calotypes, of this façade, that I may point out one or two

circumstances for the reader's consideration without giving any plate of

it here. And first, we ought to note the relations of the shafts and

wall, the latter being first sheeted with alabaster, and then the

pillars set within two or three inches of it, forming such a grove of

golden marble that the porches open before us as we enter the church

like glades in a deep forest. The reader may perhaps at first question

the propriety of placing the wall so close behind the shafts that the

latter have nearly as little work to do as the statues in a Gothic

porch; but the philosophy of this arrangement is briefly deducible from

the principles stated in the text. The builder had at his disposal

shafts of a certain size only, not fit to sustain the whole weight of

the fabric above. He therefore turns just as much of the wall veil into

shaft as he has strength of marble at his disposal, and leaves the rest

in its massive form. And that there may be no dishonesty in this, nor

any appearance in the shafts of doing more work than is really allotted

to them, many are left visibly with half their capitals projecting

beyond the archivolts they sustain, showing that the wall is very

slightly dependent on their co-operation, and that many of them are

little more than mere bonds or connecting rods between the foundation

and cornices. If any architect ventures to blame such an arrangement,

let him look at our much vaunted early English piers in Salisbury

Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, where the small satellitic shafts are

introduced in the same gratuitous manner, but with far less excuse or

reason: for those small shafts have nothing but their delicacy and

purely theoretical connection with the archivolt mouldings to recommend

them; but the St. Mark's shafts have an intrinsic beauty and value of

the highest order, and the object of the whole system of architecture,

as above stated, is in great part to set forth the beauty and value of

the shaft itself. Now, not only is this accomplished by withdrawing it

occasionally from servile work, but the position here given to it,

within three or four inches of a wall from which it nevertheless stands

perfectly clear all the way up, is exactly that which must best display

its color and quality. When there is much vacant space left behind a

pillar, the shade against which it is relieved is comparatively

indefinite, the eye passes by the shaft, and penetrates into the

vacancy. But when a broad surface of wall is brought near the shaft, its

own shadow is, in almost every effect of sunshine, so sharp and dark as

to throw out its colors with the highest possible brilliancy; if there

be no sunshine, the wall veil is subdued and varied by the most subtle

gradations of delicate half shadow, hardly less advantageous to the

shaft which it relieves. And, as far as regards pure effect in open air

(all artifice of excessive darkness or mystery being excluded), I do not

know anything whatsoever in the whole compass of the European

architecture I have seen, which can for a moment be compared with the

quaint shade and delicate color, like that of Rembrandt and Paul

Veronese united, which the sun brings out, as his rays move from porch

to porch along the St. Mark's façade.

And, as if to prove that this was indeed the builder's intention, and

that he did not leave his shafts idle merely because he did not know how

to set them to work safely, there are two pieces of masonry at the

extremities of the façade, which are just as remarkable for their frank

trust in the bearing power of the shafts as the rest are for their want

of confidence in them. But, before we come to these, we must say a word

or two respecting the second point named above, the superior position of

the shafts.

It was assuredly not in the builder's power, even had he been so

inclined, to obtain shafts high enough to sustain the whole external

gallery, as it is sustained in the nave, on one arcade. He had, as above

noticed, a supply of shafts of every sort and size, from which he chose

the largest for his nave shafts; the smallest were set aside for

windows, jambs, balustrades, supports of pulpits, niches, and such other

services, every conceivable size occurring in different portions of the

building; and the middle-sized shafts were sorted into two classes, of

which on the average one was about two-thirds the length of the other,

and out of these the two stories of the façade and sides of the church

are composed, the smaller shafts of course uppermost, and more numerous

than the lower, according to the ordinary laws of superimposition

adopted by all the Romanesque builders, and observed also in a kind of

architecture quite as beautiful as any we are likely to invent, that of

forest trees.

Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of

superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will shock a

professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in the Renaissance

designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or four times over, and he

thinks this quite right; but the moment he is shown a properly

subdivided superimposition, in which the upper shafts diminish in size

and multiply in number, so that the lower pillars would balance them

safely even without cement, he exclaims that it is "against law," as if

he had never seen a tree in his life.

Not that the idea of the Byzantine superimposition was taken from trees,

any more than that of Gothic arches. Both are simple compliances with

laws of nature, and, therefore, approximations to the forms of nature.

There is, however, one very essential difference between tree structure

and the shaft structure in question; namely, that the marble branches,

having no vital connexion with the stem, must be provided with a firm

tablet or second foundation whereon to stand. This intermediate plinth

or tablet runs along the whole façade at one level, is about eighteen

inches thick, and left with little decoration as being meant for hard

service. The small porticos, already spoken of as the most graceful

pieces of composition with which I am acquainted, are sustained on

detached clusters of four or five columns, forming the continuation of

those of the upper series, and each of these clusters is balanced on one

grand detached shaft; as much trust being thus placed in the pillars

here, as is withdrawn from them elsewhere. The northern portico has only

one detached pillar at its outer angle, which sustains three shafts and

a square pilaster; of these shafts the one at the outer angle of the

group is the thickest (so as to balance the pilaster on the inner

angle), measuring 3 ft. 2 in. round, while the others measure only 2 ft.

10 in. and 2 ft. 11 in.; and in order to make this increase of diameter,

and the importance of the shaft, more manifest to the eye, the old

builders made the shaft _shorter_ as well as thicker, increasing the

depth both of its capital and the base, with what is to the thoughtless

spectator ridiculous incongruity, and to the observant one a most

beautiful expression of constructive genius. Nor is this all. Observe:

the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy of _poise_, not on

breadth or strength of foundation. It is a _balanced_, not a propped

structure: if the balance fails, it must fall instantly; if the balance

is maintained, no matter how the lower shaft is fastened into the

ground, all will be safe. And to mark this more definitely, the great

lower shaft _has a different base from all the others of the façade_,

remarkably high in proportion to the shaft, on a circular instead of a

square plinth, and _without spurs_, while all the other bases have spurs

without exception. Glance back at what is said of the spurs at p. 79 of

the first volume, and reflect that all expression of _grasp_ in the foot

of the pillar is here useless, and to be replaced by one of balance

merely, and you will feel what the old builder wanted to say to us, and

how much he desired us to follow him with our understanding as he laid

stone above stone.

And this purpose of his is hinted to us once more, even by the position

of this base in the ground plan of the foundation of the portico; for,

though itself circular, it sustains a hexagonal plinth _set obliquely to

the walls of the church_, as if expressly to mark to us that it did not

matter how the base was set, so only that the weights were justly

disposed above it.

10. PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY.

I do not intend, in thus applying the word "Idolatry" to certain

ceremonies of Romanist worship, to admit the propriety of the ordinary

Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies as distinctively

idolatrous, and as separating the Romanist from the Protestant Church by

a gulf across which we must not look to our fellow-Christians but with

utter reprobation and disdain. The Church of Rome does indeed

distinctively violate the _second_ commandment; but the true force and

weight of the sin of idolatry are in the violation of the first, of

which we are all of us guilty, in probably a very equal degree,

considered only as members of this or that communion, and not as

Christians or unbelievers. Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not

the mere bowing down before sculptures, but the serving or becoming the

slave of any images or imaginations which stand between us and God, and

it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as "walking after the

_Imagination_" of our own hearts. And observe also that while, at least

on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence granted to the mere

external and literal violation of the second commandment, "When I bow

myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this

thing," we find no indulgence in any instance, or in the slightest

degree, granted to "covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. iii. 5; no

casual association of terms, observe, but again energetically repeated

in Ephesians, v. 5, "No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any

inheritance in the kingdom of Christ"); nor any to that denial of God,

idolatry in one of its most subtle forms, following so often on the

possession of that wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly, "Give

me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say,

'Who is the Lord?'"

And in this sense, which of us is not an idolater? Which of us has the

right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, in spite of which he

nevertheless is not yet separated from the service of this world, to

speak scornfully of any of his brethren, because, in a guiltless

ignorance, they have been accustomed to bow their knees before a statue?

Which of us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship in their

apparent idolatry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in our own

apparent worship?

For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of the feeling

with which another bows down before an image. From that pure reverence

in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, "I can dispense with my hat at the

sight of a cross, but not with a thought of my Redeemer," to the worst

superstition of the most ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series

of subtle transitions; and the point where simple reverence and the use

of the image merely to render conception more vivid, and feeling more

intense, change into definite idolatry by the attribution of Power to

the image itself, is so difficultly determinable that we cannot be too

cautions in asserting that such a change has actually taken place in the

case of any individual. Even when it is definite and certain, we shall

oftener find it the consequence of dulness of intellect than of real

alienation of heart from God; and I have no manner of doubt that half of

the poor and untaught Christians who are this day lying prostrate before

crucifixes, Bambinos, and Volto Santos, are finding more acceptance with

God, than many Protestants who idolize nothing but their own opinions or

their own interests. I believe that those who have worshipped the thorns

of Christ's crown will be found at last to have been holier and wiser

than those who worship the thorns of the world's service, and that to

adore the nails of the cross is a less sin than to adore the hammer of

the workman.

But, on the other hand, though the idolatry of the lower orders in the

Romish Church may thus be frequently excusable, the ordinary subterfuges

by which it is defended are not so. It may be extenuated, but cannot be

denied; and the attribution of power to the image,[163] in which it

consists, is not merely a form of popular feeling, but a tenet of

priestly instruction, and may be proved, over and over again, from any

book of the Romish Church services. Take for instance the following

prayer, which occurs continually at the close of the service of the Holy

Cross:

"Saincte vraye Croye aourée,

Qui du corps Dieu fu aournée

Et de sa sueur arrousée,

Et de son sanc enluminée,

Par ta vertu, par ta puissance,

Defent mon corps de meschance,

Et montroie moy par ton playsir

Que vray confes puisse mourir."

"Oh holy, true, and golden Cross, which wast adorned with God's body,

and watered with His sweat, and illuminated with His blood, by thy

healing virtue and thy power, defend my body from mischance; and by

thy good pleasure, let me make a good confession when I die."

There can be no possible defence imagined for the mere terms in which

this prayer and other such are couched: yet it is always to be

remembered, that in many cases they are rather poetical effusions than

serious prayers; the utterances of imaginative enthusiasm, rather than

of reasonable conviction; and as such, they are rather to be condemned

as illusory and fictitious, than as idolatrous, nor even as such,

condemned altogether, for strong love and faith are often the roots of

them and the errors of affection are better than the accuracies of

apathy. But the unhappy results, among all religious sects, of the habit

of allowing imaginative and poetical belief to take the place of

deliberate, resolute, and prosaic belief, have been fully and admirably

traced by the author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm."

11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.

(1.) _The Terraced House._

The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the Grand Canal is the

Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting his boat lie by the steps of

this great palace, the traveller will see, on the other side of the

canal, a building with a small terrace in front of it, and a little

court with a door to the water, beside the terrace. Half of the house is

visibly modern, and there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar,

between it and the ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the

Byzantine arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having,

as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor, I

shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House.

(2.) _Casa Businello._

To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office) there is a

modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear

again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It

might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday,

the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance

of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the

fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with

unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated in

the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become the residence of

the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally known as the Casa

Businello.

(3.) _The Braided House._

Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola away from

the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and the three houses which

succeed it on the right. The fourth is another restored palace, white

and conspicuous, but retaining of its ancient structure only the five

windows in its second story, and an ornamental moulding above them which

appears to be ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding,

and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are

very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find

(except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and

basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided

House.[164]

(4.) _The Madonnetta House._

On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della

Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a

small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old

shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern

plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious

agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position,

and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It

is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the

least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the

Madonnetta House.

(5.) _The Rio Foscari House._

We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and

enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of

that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the

Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and

time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a

circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of

small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I

have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume,

partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to

it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.

(6.) _Casa Farsetti._

We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As

soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize,

on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form

important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge.

Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part

of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely

modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor

have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been

shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various

small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in

proportion. This building is known in Venice as the Casa Farsetti.

(7.) _Casa Loredan._

The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed with

neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine it

carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the

Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the Gothic, once in the

Renaissance times,--some writers say, even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt

in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonize exquisitely with its

Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade,

to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known

as the Casa Loredan.

* * * * *

The eighth palace is the Fondaco de' Turchi, described in the text. A

ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the

Church of San Moisè, but it was thrown down in the course of

"improvements" a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari's

Guide.

12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.

Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have

defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more

practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and

again to allege in support of many future deductions:

"All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the

objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and

becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other

objects, better attainable with other materials."

Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,--as in

ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of

hair,--is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting,

but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture.

All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the

expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them

be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to

an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given

material,--not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the

most delightful drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have been

of birds' nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to

represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the

effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a

bird's nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach

any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and

intolerable labor. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving

birds' nests as an end, or which, if a bird's nest were required of it,

carved it to the utmost possible point of realization, would be debased.

Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as

could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all.

But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not

working on safe principles, unless he even so far _honors_ the materials

with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty,

and to recommend and exalt, as far as lie can, their peculiar qualities.

If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its

transparency and solidity; if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in

gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful,

and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the

substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass

is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in

mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a

blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly

expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value.

These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when

cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought

always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows, its

transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice,

proclaim one or other of these great qualities.

Consequently, _all cut glass_ is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its

ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished,

and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming

another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light

substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect

accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be

thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render

it susceptible of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate

form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which

when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is

liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the fineness of the forms

given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such

fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and

execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in

their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted

for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with

refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in

gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to

confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its

transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore

not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when

intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour

in the making of any glass vessel.

Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon

are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most

brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into

pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of

this pre-eminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the

Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations

by the loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have

considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a

two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy

appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass.

Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to

the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human

sight and invention can find or require. By its two opposite qualities,

each naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and

opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature; and by its

perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible fulness and

subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the utmost perfection in

the drawing. Glass, considered as a material for a picture, is exactly

as bad as oil paint is good. It sets out by reversing the conditions of

nature, by making the lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the

ungovernableness of its color (changing in the furnace), and its

violence (being always on a high key, because produced by actual light),

render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of working in

it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction of all the

appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial color.

In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true

appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors as far

as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only its great

virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its great spiritual

character; the character by which in church architecture it becomes

most touchingly impressive, as typical of the entrances of the Holy

Spirit into the heart of man; a typical expression rendered specific and

intense by the purity and brilliancy of its sevenfold hues;[165] and

therefore in endeavoring to turn the window into a picture, we at once

lose the sanctity and power of the noble material, and employ it to an

end which is utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true

perfection of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant, like

flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects, and

exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word, this

perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to be surpassed,

if ever again to be approached by human art, of the French windows of

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

FOOTNOTES

[163] I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and

uncharitable contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once

trusted his own staff too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground

for the scorn, or the unkind rebuke, of those who have been taught

from their youth upwards that to hope even in the hem of the garment

may sometimes be better than to spend the living on physicians.

[164] Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari's Guide.

[165] I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the

progress of European art in the present day than the complete

understanding of this sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in

finding it, the other day, fully understood and thus sweetly

expressed in a little volume of poems by a Miss Maynard:

"For still in every land, though to Thy name

Arose no temple,--still in every age,

Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise,

_We_ praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun

Did we assemble duly, and intone

A choral hymn that all the lands might hear.

In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee,

Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood.

But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come,

Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house,

We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise

Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!"

_A Dream of Fair Colors._

These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive

and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art.

* * * * *

CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

Page 58: 'endeavoring to imagine its aspect' corrected from 'aspeet.'

Page 84: 'inadmissible altogether, or objectionable' from

'objecjectionable.'

Page 179: 'the surface sculpture will' corrected from 'wiil.'

Page 188: 'central class will always' originally 'aways.'

Page 191: 'with the rest of the spirit' originally 'spirt.'

Page 204: 'the heart of that languor' originally 'langour.'

Page 263: 'merely noting this one assured fact' changed from 'nothing.'

Footnote 130: Appendi corrected to Appendix.