here,” he added, “has, I believe, been destroyed these many years.
It was the home of Patrizio Grimani--the palace where we saw the
fine portrait of a Doge hanging near the window. That must have been
the room in which the banquet took place. The stage referred to must
have been erected in the room opening out from it. The author Michiel
says, in describing a princely _fête_ that took place here, that
‘after the play’--performed by his private company in his own theatre,
remember--‘the guests were ushered into an adjoining room and the doors
closed. In half an hour the doors were re-opened, discovering a superb
ballroom, with every vestige of the theatre and its appointments swept
away.’
“All years and years ago, _mon ami_,” continued the Professor, closing
the book, “and in the very room that you and I walked through! Think
of the balconies crowded with Venetian beauties in the richest of
brocades and jewels! Imagine that same old ruin of a garden, roofed
over and brilliant with a thousand lanterns! See the canals packed with
gondolas, the torch-bearers lighting the way! Bah! When I think of the
flare of modern gas-jets along the Champs Elysées, and the crush of
_fiacres_ and carriages, all held in check by a score of gendarmes in
black coats; of the stuffy rooms and screeching violins; and then drink
in the memory of these _fêtes_, with their sumptuousness and grandeur,
I can hardly restrain my disgust for the cheap shams of our times.
“And here is another ancient chronicle of quite a different kind,”
opening the other book. “You will find it more or less difficult, for
it is in old Italian, and some of its sentences, even with my knowledge
of the language,”--this with a certain wave of the hand, as if no one
had ever disputed it,--“I can only guess at. This, too, came from the
library in the Doge’s Palace, and is especially valuable as showing
how little change there is between the Venice of to-day and the Venice
of a century and a half ago, so far as localities and old landmarks
go. The customs, I am delighted to say, have somewhat improved. It was
written by one Edmondo Lundy in 1750.[1] He evidently came down to
Venice to try his wings, and from his notes I should say he spread them
to some purpose. He first fell into the clutches of a grand dame,--a
certain noble lady, a _Duchessa_,--who sent for him the day after
he arrived, and who complimented him upon his bearing and personal
attractions. Then she explained that all Venetian ladies of position
had attached to their persons a gentleman in waiting, a sort of _valet
de place_ of the heart, as it were, who made love to them in a kind of
lute-and-guitar-fashion, with ditties and song; that she had seen him
on the Riva the afternoon before, had admired his figure and face, and
being at the moment without any such attendant herself had determined
to offer him the situation. His being a foreigner only increased her
ardor, foreigners being at a high premium for such positions in those
days. Although the _Duchessa_ had already a husband of her own, was
wrinkled, partly bald, and over sixty, Lundy, the gay cavalier, fell
into the scheme. It is delightful to hear him tell of how the strange
courtship progressed, one incident in particular: It was the custom of
the fashionable set of the day to drift out in their gondolas up the
Giudecca in the twilight, right in front of where we now sit; you can
see the spot from this window. Here they would anchor in mid-stream
and listen to recitals of music and poetry by some of the more gifted
cavaliers,--lines from Dante and Tasso,--the servants and gondoliers
serving the ices, which were all brought from this very Caffè Calcina.
See, the name was spelled the same way. Does it not make you feel, as
you sit here, that you have only to shut your eyes to bring it all
back? Oh, the grand days of the Republic! These old vines above our
heads could tell a story!
“But it seems that even the _Duchessa_ palled on so versatile a
cavalier as Lundy. She really bored him to death, so he hunts out
a friend, explains the situation, and begs that he will get him
out of the scrape. The friend writes a letter to Milan, and has it
re-delivered to Lundy, summoning him instantly to the bedside of a
dying relative. This letter is shown to the _Duchessa_, who parts
with him with many tears and protestations, and Lundy leaves Venice.
In three months he returns, hoping that some other equally handsome
and attractive young foreigner has taken his place. Alas! the black
drapings of the _Duchessa’s_ gondola announce her death. And now comes
the most comical part of it all. In her will she left him a thousand
_lire_ to purchase some souvenir expressive of the love and devotion
with which he had inspired her!
“Further on Lundy tells how he watched for hours the efforts of two
priests to get a breakfast. They were strung half way up the Campanile,
suspended outside the tower, between heaven and earth, in an iron cage.
That, it seems, was the punishment inflicted on such unworthy gentlemen
of the Church. They were considered to be better equipped than their
parishioners to resist temptation, and so when they went astray they
were strung up, like birds, in a cage. The only way these Lotharios got
anything to eat was by letting down a string, to which some charitable
soul would tie a flagon of wine or a loaf of bread. This morning the
string was too short, and Lundy had no end of fun watching their
efforts to piece it out with rosaries and sandal-lacings.
“Another time he was stopped by a poet on the Piazza, right in front
of where Florian’s now stands; the same caffè, perhaps, who knows? In
those days, quite as it is now, the Piazza was a rendezvous for all
Venice. All the doctors went there in search of patients, soliciting
their patronage and holding out their diplomas. The mountebanks had
performances on a carpet stretched on the pavement, and the actors
played their parts in little booths erected between the clock tower and
the Loggietta of the Campanile,--the roars of applause could be heard
away out on the lagoons. The professional poets, too, would hand you
copies of their latest productions, and button-hole you long enough to
have you listen to a sample stanza.
“Lundy was beguiled in this way, and an hour later discovered that his
tobacco-box, containing a portrait of his mother, set in brilliants--an
old-fashioned snuff-box, perhaps--was missing. So, under the advice of
a friend, he went to the headquarters of the city guard.
“‘Where did you lose it?’ said the Chief. ‘Ah! the poet. Do not worry.
In two days please come again.’
“When he returned, the Chief said:--
“‘Please take some tobacco.’ It was from his own box!
“Then the Chief explained that in addition to being a poet, the man was
also a member of the _Borsainoli_ (literally translated, ‘the takers’),
from which our own word ‘Bourse’ is derived.
“The same old swindlers still, only our stock-brokers do not stop at
our tobacco-boxes,” added the Professor, laughing.
“Then Lundy goes on to explain that whatever these fellows succeeded in
stealing they must bring to the Chief’s office within three days. If
the article was reclaimed within fifteen days, the thief received only
a small sum, and the article was returned to its owner. If it was never
called for, then it belonged to the thief. If he was detected in the
act, or failed to return it to the office, he was punished.
“‘But why do you permit this?’ continues Lundy, speaking to the Chief.
“‘To encourage an _ingenious, intelligent, sagacious activity among
the people_,’ replied the officer, with perfect seriousness.
“See, I translate literally,” said the Professor, with his finger on
the line, throwing back his head in laughter.
But the day was not over for the Professor. We must go to the Church of
the Frari, the Professor going into raptures over the joyous Madonna
and Saints by Bellini, while I had a little rapture of my own over a
live, kneeling mother, illumined by a shaft of light which fell on
her babe clasped to her breast,--a Madonna of to-day, infinitely more
precious and lovely than any canvas which ages had toned to a dull
smokiness. But then the Professor lives in the past, while I have
a certain indefensible adoration for the present--when it comes to
Madonnas.
Later we idled along between the columns supporting the roof, and
wandered up behind the altar, the whole interior aglow with the
afternoon sun, stopping at the monument of the great Titian and the
tomb of Canova. To his credit be it said, the Professor had no raptures
over this outrage in marble. And around all the other stone sepulchres
of doge, ambassador, and noble, lingering in the open door for a last
glance back into its rich interior--certainly, after San Marco, the
most picturesque and harmonious in coloring of all the churches in
Venice--until we emerged into the sunlight and lost ourselves in the
throngs of people blocking up the Campo. Then we turned the corner and
entered San Rocco.
It was the _festa_ day of the Frari, and the superb staircase of the
_Scuola di San Rocco_, lined with the marvellous colorings of Titian
and Tintoretto, was thronged with people in gala costume, crowding
up the grand staircase to the upper _sala_, the room once used as an
assembly-room by the Brotherhood of the Order. I had seen it often
before, without the Professor, for this was one of my many pilgrimages.
Whenever you have an hour to spare, lose half your breath mounting this
staircase. You will lose the other half when this magnificent council
chamber bursts upon your view. Even the first sight of the floor will
produce that effect.
You have doubtless, in your youth, seen a lady’s brooch, fashionable
then, made of Florentine mosaic,--a cunning, intricate joining of
many-colored stones,--or perhaps a paper-weight of similar intricate
design, all curves and scrolls. Imagine this paper-weight, with its
delicacy of fitting, high polish, and harmony of color, enlarged to a
floor several hundred feet long, by a proportionate width,--I have
not the exact dimensions, and it would convey no better idea if I
had,--and you will get some faint impression of the quality and beauty
of the floor of this grand _sala_. Rising from its polished surface
and running half way up the four walls, broken only by the round
door you entered, with the usual windows and a corner chapel, is a
wainscoting of dark wood carved in _alto relievo_, in the last century,
by Marchioni and his pupils. Above this is a procession of pictures,
harmonizing in tone with the carvings and mosaics, and over all hangs a
scroll-like ceiling incrusted with gold, its seven panels made luminous
by Tintoretto’s brush.
These panels are not his masterpieces. The side walls are equally
unimportant, so far as the ravings of experts and art critics go. Even
the carvings, on close inspection, are labored, and often grotesque.
But to the painter’s eye and mind this single _sala_ of San Rocco,
contrasted with all the other stately banquet halls and council
chambers of Europe, makes of them but shelters to keep out the weather.
Filled with peasants and gala people in brilliant costumes on some
_festa_ day, when all may enter, the staircase crowded, its spacious
interior a mass of colored handkerchief, shawl, and skirt, all flooded
with the golden radiance of the sun, it is one of the rare sights
of Venice. But even empty, with only your footfall and that of the
bareheaded custodian to break the profound stillness, it is still your
own ideal princely hall,--that hall where the most gallant knight of
the most entrancing romance of your childhood could tread a measure
with the fairest ladye of the loftiest, cragged-stepped castle; that
salon where the greatest nobles of your teeming fancy could strut
about in ermine and cloth of gold; where the wonderful knights held
high revel, with goblets of crystal and flagons of ruby wine, and
all the potentates from the spice-laden isles could be welcomed with
trumpet and cymbal. Here you are sure Desdemona might have danced, and
Katharine; and here Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, received the ambassadors
of her promised kingdom. As you stand breathless, drinking in its
proportions, you feel that it is a _sala_ for pomps and ceremonies, not
for monkish rites; a _sala_ for wedding breakfasts and gay routs and
frolicsome masquerades and bright laughter, rather than for whispered
conferences in cowl and frock. Even its polished floor recalls more
readily the whirl of flying slippers than the slow, measured tread of
sandalled feet.
The Professor himself, I regret to say, was not wildly enthusiastic
over this interior. In fact he made no remark whatever, except that the
floor was too slippery to walk upon, and looked too _new_ to him. This
showed the keynote of his mind: the floor was laid within a century
of the preceding generation. Nothing less than two centuries old ever
interests the Professor!
However, despite his peculiarities, it is delightful to go about with
the old fellow, listening to his legends. Almost every palace and
bridge stirs into life some memory of the past.
“Here,” he says, “was where the great Doge Foscari lived, and from
that very balcony were hung his colors the day of his abdication,--the
colors that four hours later were draped in black at his tragic
death. On that identical doorstep landed the ex-Queen of Cyprus on
the eventful morning when she returned to Venice an exile in her own
land.” And did I know that on this very bridge--the _Ponte dei Pugni_,
the bridge of the fisticuffs--many of the fights took place between
the two factions of the gondoliers, the Nicoletti and the Castellani?
If I would leave the gondola for a moment he would show me the four
impressions of the human foot set into the marble of the two upper
steps, two on each side. Here each faction would place its two best
men, their right feet covering the stone outline; then at a given
signal the rush began. For days these fights would go on and the canal
be piled up with those thrown over the railless bridge. Soon the whole
neighborhood would take sides, fighting on every street and every
corner; and once, so great was the slaughter, the tumult could only
be quelled by the Archbishop bringing out the Host from the Church of
Santa Barnaba, not far off, thus compelling the people to kneel.
When the day was over and we were floating through the little canal
of San Trovaso, passing the great Palazzo Contarini, brilliant in the
summer sunset, the Professor stopped the gondola and bade me good-by,
with this parting comment:--
“It was either in this palace, in that room you see half way up the
wall, where the pointed Gothic windows look out into the garden, or
perhaps in one of the palaces of the Procuratie, I forget which, that
the King of Denmark, during the great _fêtes_ attendant upon his
visit in 1708, trod a measure with a certain noble dame of marvelous
beauty, one Catarina Quirini, the wife of a distinguished Venetian. As
he wheeled in the dance his buckle tore a string of priceless pearls
from her dress. Before the King could stoop to hand them to his fair
partner, her husband sprang forward and crushed them with his foot,
remarking, ‘The King never kneels.’ Charming, was it not?”
“What do you think it cost his Highness the next day, Professor?” I
asked.
“I never heard,” he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders; “but what
did it matter? what are kings for?”
“Good-night!”
LIFE IN THE STREETS
THE gondola, like all other cabs, land or water, whether hansom,
four-wheeler, sampan, or caïque, is a luxury used only by the hurried
and the rich. As no Venetian is ever hurried, and few are rich,--very
many of them living in complete ignorance of the exact whereabouts of
their next repast,--almost everybody walks.
And the walking, strange to say, in this city anchored miles out at
sea, with nearly every street paved with ripples, is particularly good.
Of course, one must know the way,--the way out of the broad Campo,
down the narrow slit of a street between tall houses; the way over the
slender bridges, along stone foot-walks, hardly a yard wide, bracketed
to some palace wall overhanging the water, or the way down a flight of
steps dipping into a doorway and so under and through a greater house
held up by stone columns, and on into the open again.
But when you do know all these twists and turns and crookednesses, you
are surprised to find that you can walk all over Venice and never wet
the sole of your shoe, nor even soil it, for that matter.
If you stand on the Iron Bridge spanning the Grand Canal,--the only
dry-shod connection between the new part of Venice which lies along
the Zattere, and the old section about San Marco and the Piazza,--you
will find it crowded all day with hundreds of pedestrians passing
to and fro. Some of them have come from away down near the Arsenal,
walked the whole length of the Riva, rounded the Campanile, crossed
the Piazza, and then twisted themselves through a tangle of these same
little byways and about church corners and down dark cellars,--_sotto
porticos_, the street labels call them,--until they have reached the
Campo of San Stefano and the Iron Bridge. And it is so, too, at the
Rialto, the only other bridge, but one, crossing the Grand Canal,
except that the stream of idlers has here a different current and
poorer clothes are seen. Many of these streets are wide enough for a
company of soldiers to walk abreast, and many are so narrow that when
two fruit venders pass with their baskets, one of them steps into a
doorway.
And the people one meets in these twists and turns,--the people who
live in the big and little streets,--who eat, sleep, and are merry,
and who, in the warm summer days and nights, seem to have no other
homes! My dear friend Luigi is one of these vagrant Bohemians, and so
is Vittorio, and little Appo, with shoulders like a stone Hercules and
quite as hard, and so, also, are Antonio and the rest. When Luigi wants
his breakfast he eats it from a scrap of paper held on the palm of his
hand, upon which is puddled and heaped a little mound of thick soup
or brown _ragout_ made of _fulpe_, or perhaps shreds of fish. He will
eat this as he walks, stopping to talk to every fellow-tramp he meets,
each one of whom dips in his thumb and forefinger with a pinch-of-snuff
movement quite in keeping with the ancient custom and equally as
courteous. Every other poverty-stricken _cavalière_ of the Riva, as
soon as he has loaded down his own palm with a similar greasy mess from
the earthen dish simmering over a charcoal fire,--the open-air caffè of
the poor,--expects that the next friend passing will do the same. When
night comes they each select some particularly soft slab of marble on
one of the seats in the shadow of the Campanile, or some bricked recess
behind San Marco, stuff their hats under their cheeks, and drop into
oblivion, only waking to life when the sun touches the gilded angel
of San Giorgio. And not only Luigi and his fellow-tramps,--delightful
fellows every one of them, and dear particular friends of mine,--but
hundreds of others of every class and condition of royal, irredeemable,
irresponsible, never-ending poverty.
And as to making merry! You should sit down somewhere and watch these
millionnaires of leisure kill the lazy, dreamy, happy-go-lucky hours
with a volley of chaff hurled at some stroller, some novice from the
country back of Mestre in for a day’s holiday; or with a combined,
good-natured taunt at a peasant from the fruit gardens of Malamocco,
gaping at the wonders of the Piazza; or in heated argument each with
the other--argument only ending in cigarettes and _vino_. Or listen to
their songs--songs started perhaps by some one roused out of a sound
sleep, who stretches himself into shape with a burst of melody that
runs like fire in tangled grass, until the whole Campo is ablaze:
_Il Trovatore_, and snatches from _Marta_ and _Puritani_, or some
fisherman’s chorus that the lagoons have listened to for centuries. You
never hear any new songs. All the operas of the outside world, German,
French, and English, might be sung and played under their noses and
into their ears for a lifetime, and they would have none of them.
Then the street venders! The man who stops at some water-steps to wash
and arrange on a flat basket the handful of little silver fish, which
he sells for a copper coin no larger than one of their fins. And the
candy man with teetering scales; and the girl selling the bright red
handkerchiefs, blue suspenders, gorgeous neckties, and pearl buttons
strung on white cards.
And, too, the grave, dignified, utterly useless, and highly ornamental
_gendarmes_, always in pairs,--never stopping a moment, and always with
the same mournful strut,--like dual clog-dancers stepping in unison.
In many years’ experience of Venetian life, I have never yet seen one
of these silver-laced, cockaded, red-striped-pantalooned guardians of
the peace lay his hand upon any mortal soul. Never, even at night,
when the ragged wharf-rats from the shipyards prowl about the Piazza,
sneaking under the tables, pouncing upon the burnt ends of cigarettes
and cigars, and all in sight of these pillars of the state--never, with
all these opportunities, even when in their eagerness these ragamuffins
crawl almost between their legs.
Yes, once! Then I took a hand myself, and against the written law of
Venice too. It was at Florian’s, on the very edge of the sea of tables,
quite out to the promenade line. I was enjoying a glass of _Hofbrau_,
the stars overhead, the music of the King’s band filling the soft
summer night. Suddenly a bust of Don Quixote, about the size of my
beer-mug, was laid on the table before me, and a pair of black eyes
from under a Spanish boina peered into my own.
“_Cinque lire, Signore._”
It was Alessandro, the boy sculptor.
I had met him the day before, in front of Salviati’s. He was carrying
into the great glass-maker’s shop, for shipment over the sea, a bust
made of wet clay. A hurried sojourner, a foreigner, of course, by an
awkward turn of his heel had upset the little sculptor, bust and all,
pasting the aristocratic features of Don Quixote to the sidewalk in
a way that made that work of art resemble more the droppings from
a mortar-hod than the counterfeit presentment of Cervantes’ hero.
Instantly a crowd gathered, and a commiserating one. When I drew near
enough to see into the face of the boy, it was wreathed in a broad
smile. He was squatting flat on the stone flagging, hard at work on
the damaged bust, assuring the offending _signore_ all the while that
it was sheer nonsense to make such profuse apologies--it would be
all right in a few minutes; and while I looked on, in all less than
ten minutes, the deft fingers of the little fellow had readjusted
with marvellous dexterity the crumpled mass, straightening the neck,
rebuilding the face, and restoring the haughty dignity of the noble
_don_. Then he picked himself up, and with a bow and a laugh went on
his way rejoicing. A boy of any other nationality, by the bye, would
have filled the air with his cries until a policeman had taught him
manners, or a hat lined with pennies had healed his sorrows.
So when Alessandro looked up into my face I felt more like sharing my
table with him than driving him away--even to the ordering of another
beer and a chair. Was he not a brother artist, and though poor and with
a very slender hold on fame and fortune, had art any dividing lines?
Not so the gentlemen with the cocked hats! What! Peddling without the
King’s license, or with it, for that matter, at Florian’s, within
sound of the King’s band, the eyes of all Venice upon them! Never! So
they made a grab for Alessandro, who turned his innocent young face
up into theirs,--he was only two days from Milan and unused to their
ways,--and, finding that they were really in earnest, clung to me like
a frightened kitten.