Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal
signs=.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
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[Illustration: CROSSING THE PIAZZA]
VENICE
: BY MORTIMER MENPES :
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND
CHARLES BLACK·LONDON·W
Published May 1904
Reprinted 1906, 1912
CONTENTS
PAGE
ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 3
HISTORY 17
A GLIMPSE INTO BOHEMIA 39
ARCHITECTURE 55
ST. MARK'S 77
PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE 91
STREETS, SHOPS, AND COURTYARDS 125
THE ISLANDS OF THE LAGOON 149
SOCIAL UPS AND DOWNS 173
GONDOLAS AND GONDOLIERS 193
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Crossing the Piazza _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Grand Canal, showing Tower of St. Geremia 2
3. A Pink Palace 4
4. Palazzo Pisani 6
5. The Salute at Sunset 8
6. A Ruined Palazzo 12
7. Palazzi on the Canal 14
8. Giudecca 16
9. San Giorgio Maggiore 20
10. Off the Giudecca 22
11. St. Maria delle Misericordia 26
12. The Custom House and Church of Santa Maria della
Salute 28
13. At Chioggia 30
14. Church of San Geremia 32
15. The Bridge of Sighs and Straw Bridge 34
16. On the Grand Canal 36
17. The Bridge of Sighs 38
18. Palace in a By-Canal 42
19. The Orange Door 44
20. An Unfrequented Canal 50
21. St. Mark's Basin 52
22. Hotel Danieli 54
23. Porta della Carta 56
24. Grand Canal looking towards the Dogana 58
25. A Famous Palazzo 60
26. Entrance to the Grand Canal 62
27. Panorama seen from St. Mark's Basin 64
28. The Dogana and Salute 66
29. Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni 68
30. Santa Maria della Salute 72
31. Palazzo Mengaldo 74
32. Ospedale Civile 76
33. St. Mark's 78
34. Palazzo Danieli 80
35. Francesca 82
36. St. Mark's Piazza 86
37. Scuola di San Marco 88
38. A Quiet Waterway 90
39. Canal Priuli 94
40. Osmarin Canal 98
41. A Sotto Portico 102
42. A Narrow Canal 108
43. Bridge near the Palazzo Labia 110
44. The House with the Blue Door 112
45. Canal in Giudecca Island 114
46. The Orange Sail 118
47. A Quiet Rio 120
48. Humble Quarter 122
49. Rio di San Marina 124
50. A Squero or Boat-building Yard 126
51. The Weekly Wash 128
52. A Back Street 130
53. The Wooden Spoon Seller 138
54. Work Girls 142
55. Chioggia Fish Market 150
56. Chioggia 154
57. In Murano 158
58. Mrs Eden's Garden in Venice 160
59. Timber Boats from the Shores of the Adriatic 162
60. By a Squero or Boat-building Yard 164
61. In a Side Street, Chioggia 166
62. Santa Maria della Salute 168
63. Rio e Chiesa degli Ognissanti 174
64. A Campiello 176
65. Fishing Boats from Chioggia 178
66. A Woman of the People 180
67. Chioggia 184
68. The Fish Market 190
69. Midday on the Lagoon 196
70. A Traghetto 200
71. Marietta 204
72. Bambino 208
73. A Squero or Boat-building Yard in Venice 212
74. Under the Midday Sun 214
75. The Rialto 218
[Illustration: GRAND CANAL, SHOWING TOWER OF ST. GEREMIA]
ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
There is no city more written about, more painted, and more
misrepresented, than Venice. Students, poets, and painters have
combined in reproducing her many charms. Usually, however, Venice is
described in a hurried, careless way: the subject is seldom gone
deeply into, and studied as it should be, before attempting to compile
a book. It is only one who has been there, and observed the life and
characteristics of the people for years, who can gain any true
perception of their character. Those who have not been to Venice must
needs know by heart her attractions, which have been so persistently
thrust before the public; but unless half a dozen really excellent
books have been read concerning her, the city of their imaginations
must be a theatrical Venice, unreal and altogether false. Normally one
feels that the last word about Venice has been said--the last chord
struck upon her keyboard, the last harmony brought out. But this is by
no means the case. There are chords still to be struck, and harmonies
still to be brought out: her charm can never be exhausted. The last
chord struck, no matter how poorly executed it may be, goes on
vibrating in our ears, and all unconsciously we are listening for
another. How strange this is! Why should it be so? What other cities
impress us in the same way? Oxford perhaps, and Rome certainly. These
are the only two which come to my mind at the moment. They are the
cities of the soul, round which endless romantic histories cling,
endless dear and glorious associations. Perhaps the reason why one
never tires of books on Venice, or of pictures of Venice, is that they
none of them fulfil one's desires and expectations--they never express
just what one feels about her--there is always something left unsaid,
something uninterpreted; and one is always waiting for that. It is
impossible to express all one feels with regard to Venice. One feels
one's own incompetence terribly. Try as you may, you can only give one
day, one hour, one aspect of sea and sky, only the four seasons, not
all the myriad changes between;--only four times of the
day--dawn, mid-day, twilight, and night--not the thousand melting
changes, not the continual variations. It is not a panorama, not a
magnificent view permanent before one's gaze. The cloud forms will
never be quite the same as you see them at a certain moment; the water
will never be again of that particular shade of green; the reflection
of a pink palace, with the black barge at its base laden with golden
fruit, will never again be thrown upon the water quite in that same
way; there will not always be that warm golden light bathing sea and
sky and palace; that particular pearly-grey mist in the early morning
will never recur, never quite that deep blue-black of night with the
orange lights and the steely water.
[Illustration: A PINK PALACE]
When one lives in Venice one becomes absolutely in sympathy with the
place. One feels her beautiful colour; but it is quite another story
when one comes to reproduce it. Words cannot describe nor brush
portray it. Thousands have attempted to paint Venice; but few have
succeeded. The Venetians themselves, loving their country, painted her
continually; but even they could only give one aspect of her. The
pictures of Venice by Venetian masters are chiefly of her pomp and
glory, her State functions and her water fêtes. However, one finds
marvellous glimpses of landscape work in some of the great
masterpieces--sweeps of sky above the heads of some of the Madonnas,
skies in which one can feel the shimmer of light so characteristic of
Venice, the blending of the tones and the flaming glory of the sunset
sky. Turner, too, caught the radiant, shimmering, bright and
opalescent qualities of the lagoon scenery; but even his palette could
not cope with the ever-changing colour.
One must be either hot or cold with regard to Venice. You cannot be
lukewarm. The magic of her spell begins to work upon you immediately
you arrive. Most of us imagine what the place will be like before we
reach it. We people it in our dreams, and visualise it for
ourselves--canals, palaces, streets, the general appearance of things.
This imaginary city has no foundations save those which are supplied
by pictures and stories.
[Illustration: PALAZZO PISANI]
One's first impressions are always those which one remembers longest,
and one's first impressions of Venice are surpassingly beautiful. In
the train, arriving, you catch glimpses of flashes of light in the
darkness, more strangely fantastic than anything you could
imagine; you traverse a long causeway stretching over the lagoon; you
see the water on either side of you, jet black, stretching on
indefinitely; the train seems to float on air; you cannot see the
bridge--nothing but sky and water. You arrive at a large terminal
station, and step into the gondola which is to take you into Venice.
Into most cities one arrives in a whirl and shriek of engines amid
smoke and bustle; but Venice is different. One arrives in a gondola.
The water is of a clear pale green; the banks are scrubby grass and
mud. One watches the silver prow of the gondola as it shoots forward,
the sea air blowing keen and salt. You realise that you are in a wide
canal, and that there are buildings on either side of you, looming up
white and gaunt, with here and there a lantern glimmering at their
base. It is strange to see a city rising thus out of the sea. Venice
seems double: one sees it in the substance and in the reflections on
the water.
After gliding along for some time you turn up narrow water lanes,
devious and branching, running by low stonework, very complicated in
their turnings. There are doors with water creeping up their steps,
striped posts looking like spectres, and arches everywhere. Strange
figures, like phantoms in a dream, appear in the gloom; black
gondolas, like funeral biers, lie silently at the base of the houses;
and the water laps dully at the steps. The silence of the waterways is
deathlike after the rush and noise of a long journey; each shape that
passes looks ghostly in the dim light; it is like a city of eternal
sleep, a city of death. What a perfect background it would make for
melodrama or for tragedy! No crime or intrigue could be too terrible
to happen within those unfathomable shadows! A brigand might pass
within that heavy half-opened oak door silently and unnoticed. A
corpse with a stiletto buried in its breast might be gliding by in
that black gondola. One would be quite surprised and somewhat shocked
on lifting the felce to discover a fat and florid tradesman returning
from supper with a friend. Venice is not a fitting background for such
a sordid everyday scene. She is much better suited to the romances of
Maturin, Lewis, and Ann Radcliffe; to the Great Bandit, the stories of
the Three Inquisitors, the Council of Ten, masked spies, and pitfalls.
[Illustration: THE SALUTE AT SUNSET]
In the daytime one recognises Venice as the Venice of Canaletto, of
Bonington, and of Wild. There is that same vague, luminous
atmosphere, full of rays and mists; the coming and going of gondolas
or galiots; the landing-place of the Piazzetta, with its Gothic
lanterns ornamented by figures of the saints, fixed on poles and sunk
into the sea; the vermilion façade of the Ducal Palace, lozenged with
white and rose marble, its massive pillars supporting a gallery of
small columns. With all this one has been familiar through the
pictures of the masters whom I have mentioned; but the real Venice is
still more beautiful, still more wonderful, still more fantastic.
If you climb up on any height and look down upon the lagoon, you will
see a sight never to be forgotten. You will imagine that it is a dream
which has taken shape, a vision of fairy-land. The sea is dotted with
craft of all kinds. There is a continuous movement of boats--gondolas,
sailing vessels, and steam-boats pouring forth volumes of black smoke
and making a disturbance on the peaceful lagoon. The water is limpid,
the light radiant; a row of stakes on the lagoon marks the channels
which are navigable for ships. There is the island of San Giorgio,
with its red steeple, its white basilica, surrounded by a girdle of
boats, and looking like a sheet of burnished silver. There is the
Giudecca, a maritime suburb of Venice, turning towards the city a row
of houses and towards the sea a belt of gardens; it has two churches,
Santa Maria and the Redentore. There is San Clemate, at the back of
the Giudecca, a place of penitence and of detention for priests under
discipline; Poreglia, where the vessels are quarantined; and the
little island of St. Peter, almost invisible in the distance. The only
black cupola is that of St. Simeon the Less. Those of the other
churches are silvery. The clouds and the islands seem to mingle one
with the other, and are as baffling as the mirage in a desert. On a
fine day in Venice there is a certain brilliant crystalline clearness
sharpening every outline; every tower and dome stands out sharp and
clear against the sky, making the colours burn. There is colour
everywhere: even the islands in the distance are blue and distinct.
There is colour in the groups that saunter by, in the sapphire water,
and in the cloudless heavens. The air is warm and still; the streets
are full of people, walking and loitering at the doors of the shops;
sunbeams dance on the rippling water; spring is everywhere. As evening
comes on the colours grow richer and deeper; scarlet clouds float
across the amber sky; the canal takes on the hues of the upper air,
and is a rippling mass of liquid topaz and molten gold, in rapid
succession changing from gold to orange, and from orange to deepest
crimson. In the soft hazy light, against the rose tone of the sky, the
cupolas of the islands and the palaces seem to float, shimmering with
the hues of mother-of-pearl, mysterious, dream-like, not like solid
stone. The soft lap of the water breaks the silence; the vaporous
mists float upwards. Across the light drifts a line of fishing boats,
their great brown sails set. A streak of flame-colour strikes on the
windows of Venice, a flush of orange and rose. Then in a second the
sun is gone, and a brief space of doubt ensues, when day hangs
trembling in the balance; then night settles on the lagoon. A hundred
bells ring out over the city, clashing and clamouring together in one
brazen peal. Soon the peal subsides. The evening breeze springs up
mild and sweet from the sea, and the soft and mellow cry of "Stali! Ah
Stali!" is heard everywhere. It is the hour when all that is poor and
unlovely melts into ethereal beauty. The water is a deep blue-black,
save for rippling trails of light from the lamps, which shine like
golden stars from the prows of the gondolas. The moon rises, nearly
full, and is veiled by hazy clouds; the outlines of the bell towers of
the palaces are pale and delicate in the soft light. The stillness of
the water streets is soothing, and the prattle of the city falls
gently on the ears.
No matter how prosaic or how unimpressionable one may be, one soon
grows into sympathy with the atmosphere of Venice. It is almost
impossible to avoid becoming sentimental as one floats in one's
gondola at night, with the twinkling stars above and the twinkling
splashes below. One almost unconsciously builds romances round the
palaces tottering to decay. Venice is always ready to charm and allure
you. It is hard to believe that somewhere there is a working, active,
busy life going on. But indeed no one in Venice seems to be in
earnest. It is as if the present time does not count, as if it were
but an echo of what passed long years ago. People work without aim or
energy, and when they suffer it seems as if they were but mumming. A
sweetness and a docility steal into one's soul, and one feels that one
can do nothing but drift on for ever in this pleasant idleness. Harsh
voices become modulated; cross-grained, querulous natures are
sweetened; even the flat-faced, spectacled tourists, when they
step from the railway station into a gondola and glide into the mystic
water city, alive with a myriad glistening lights, develop
unconsciously, and despite themselves, into delightful people.
[Illustration: A RUINED PALAZZO]
On the day when I arrived in Venice, as I was wandering down a lane
beyond the Canareggio Canal, I found myself in the Jewish part of the
city. It is a fetid and pestilential place. There is about it nothing
pleasant, or wholesome, or attractive. The stonework is cracked and
rotten. The houses, streaked with dirt, bend over into the water with
the weight of years. Most of them are nine stories high, grimy and
dirty, and speckled with green spots. There is not a straight line
anywhere, and not a whole pane of glass--paper is the substitute. Now
and then one sees a patch of plaster on a house; but for the most part
the plaster has fallen away, revealing the crumbly red bricks beneath.
It gives one a sickening feeling--this terrible poverty, solitude, and
neglect. Everything is strange, sullen, mysterious. Men and women with
curved noses and eyes set like burning coals in their pale faces glide
noiselessly along with furtive glances. The children are half naked,
and play about on benches in the streets. I have seen poverty-stricken
Jewish quarters before, but never anything so sad as this. The
sordidness and terrible despair of it make one's heart ache. There are
no green fields and trees to alleviate the misery of the people. Yet,
I suppose, the condition of the Jew was worse in the old days.
Certainly the injustices and insults which once were prevalent do not
occur now. The Christian to-day is on more or less friendly terms with
the Jew. They meet one another on the exchange; they talk together,
and partake of each other's hospitality.
[Illustration: PALAZZI ON THE CANAL]
The Christian may despise the Jew; but he has the grace to keep the
feeling to himself, for the Jew possesses a great part of the trade of
the city, and in money matters has ever the upper hand. He is
educated, intellectual, patriotic, and calls himself a Venetian. If he
is rich he lives in a fine new house on the Grand Canal and is owner
of other houses. An instinct of the poorer class of Jews in Venice is
to set up pawnshops and lend money to tradesmen in times of necessity.
The Jews are decidedly useful. In the old days they were driven into
exile; but they were soon called back. They were made to wear a yellow
badge, distinguishing them from Christians. They were not allowed
to buy houses or lands, or to exercise any trade or profession
excepting that of medicine. They were given a dwelling-place in the
dirtiest, unhealthiest part of the city, and called it a Ghetto,
meaning a congregation. It was walled in. The gates were kept by
Christian guards, who were paid by the Jews, and opened the doors at
dawn, closing them at sunset. The Jews were not allowed to emerge on
holidays or feast days, and two barges full of armed men watched them
night and day. A special magistracy had charge of their affairs. Their
dead were buried in the sand on the seashore. Thither the baser of the
Venetians made it a habit to go on Mondays in September, to dance and
make merry on the graves. The Jews were made to pay tribute to Venice
every third year.
In spite of all hardships and deprivations, they flourished. As the
Christians became poor, the Jews waxed rich. They were not again
expelled from the city. They were never disturbed in their Ghetto by
actual ill-treatment and violence, excepting on one occasion, when a
charge was brought against them of child murder. So the Jews lived
peacefully in their own quarter until, with the advent of modern
civilisation, their prison walls crumbled away, and some of them went
forth from the Ghetto and fixed their habitations in different parts
of the city. Many Jewish families, however, cling to the spot made
sacred for them by so much suffering and humiliation. Even to this
day, although the Jews are distributed everywhere throughout the
length and breadth of Venice, never a Christian comes to dwell in the
Ghetto. Very many Jews still live there. Some of the women are
handsome, with Oriental grace, delicate, sensitive, highly bred. The
only time when the Ghetto has at all a picturesque appearance is the
autumn. Then the air is filled with white floating particles, feathers
of geese, which seem to be plucked by the whole force of the populace.
You see on every doorstep groups of Hebrew youths plucking geese, and
on looking into the interior you will observe strings of the birds
suspended from the rafters, while an odour of roast goose greets your
nostrils wherever you may go.
[Illustration: GIUDECCA]
HISTORY
With her pomp and pageantry, her wealth of art, her learned academies,
her schools of painting, and her sumptuous style, Venice at the prime
of her life was great, dazzling, splendid. Her navy was supreme. Her
nobles were the richest in Europe. This opulence and this pride led to
her downfall. She was unable to resist the temptation of building
herself an empire on the mainland, thereby causing jealousy among the
other Italian States. Rome became fearful of her own safety, and, with
the intention of crushing the Republic, formed the League of Cambray.
Rome did not achieve her object; but Venice was weakened by the blow,
and misfortune after misfortune fell upon her. The passage round the
Cape of Good Hope was discovered; which took commercial trade with the
East out of her hands, and left her no longer the mart of Europe.
Then came the great battles with the Turk, in which both blood and
money of Venice flowed in vain. Europe was either powerless or too
indifferent to help. Gradually the strength of Venice was broken. She
declined and sank. Still, the rigidity and the power of endurance of
the Venetian constitution were marvellous. She kept a semblance of
life long after the heart had ceased to beat. The constitution of the
State was the most elaborate imaginable, and not easily brought to
nothing. Nevertheless, although there were occasional flashes of the
old brilliancy of Venice, her day was over. The last of her Doges
yielded the State to Napoleon without a blow. Laying the ducal biretta
on the table, he called to his servants, "Take it away: I shall not
use it more."
[Illustration: SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE]
When the first refugees came from the mainland and started life on the
islands of the Archipelago, the mud-banks of Torcello and Rivoalto,
they little thought that they were founding a city which was to be the
admiration of the whole world, that her navy would ride supreme in all
known waters, that Venice was to be the pride of the Adriatic. When
those early people, the Veneti, from whom the Venetians take their
name, drove in their first stakes and built their wattled walls,
they could not have foretold that this was to be the greatest of
mediæval republics, the centre of the commerce of Europe. Nature
helped Venice handsomely. Had the channels been deeper, men-of-war
might have entered and conquered the city. Had the waves been
stronger, the airy structure that we know as Venice would have been
supplanted by the ordinary commercial seaport. Had there been no tide,
for sanitary reasons the city would have been uninhabitable. Had the
tide risen any higher than it rose, there would have been no water
entrances to the palaces, the by-canals would have been filled up, and
the character of the place spoiled.
One's imagination is inclined to run riot in Venice. One gilds, and
romances, and fills the city with pomp and pageantry, ornamenting the
canals with State barges, the piazza with noble men and fair women,
and the Ducal Palace with illustrious Doges. But far more interesting
is it to see Venice as she really is, in her own simple strength.
Think of the more rugged Venice, that city built by strong and patient
men against such terrible odds, and in so wild and solitary a spot. In
order to gain some idea of Venice as she was in those early days, it
is well to go out in a gondola at low tide, when the canal is a plain
of seaweed. As your gondola makes its way down a narrow channel, you
have some conception of the difficulties with which the founders of
Venice had to contend. To the narrow strips of land, long ridges
guarding the lagoon from the sea, ill sheltered from the waves, the
few hundred stragglers came. Their capital, Padua, had been destroyed
by the northern hordes, and they took shelter in the islands of the
lagoon. So desolate and wind-swept were these islands that one can
scarcely imagine men disputing possession of them with the flocks of
sea-birds. They were impelled by no whim, however: they were exiles
driven by necessity. Here they looked for a temporary home, lived much
as the sea-birds lived, and were quite fearless. The soil, composed
chiefly of dust, ashes, and bitumen, with here and there a layer of
salt, was rich and fertile. This was in the fifth century of our era,
of which period there are but few Venetian records.
[Illustration: OFF THE GIUDECCA]
Still, one thing is certain: the Veneti were not a primitive or
barbarous people. Fugitives as they were, they were for the most part
of high birth and associations. They had character and intelligence.
In their mud huts they possessed a social distinction and a
political training such as would have graced the most sumptuous of
palaces. In quite early days they began to put their heads together
and to form a definite system of polity. Year by year the little
community was added to. Battle and bloodshed continued on the
mainland, and men and women flocked to the islands. It is curious to
notice how rank and social distinction assert themselves. Blood will
out. Wherever human beings are gathered together, whether on the
islands of the Adriatic or on those of the South Seas, and however
sorry their plight or great their general misfortune, different grades
will become visible. Men and women will place themselves one above the
other, the master and the man, the mistress and the maid--such is the
law of humanity all the world over. Calamity did not in the long run
have much effect upon the higher class of refugees, and the position
of the lower classes was not bettered. Sympathy had levelled social
distinctions for a time; but that was not for long. Soon, in the
natural course of events, when the little colony grew into a city, and
the origin of the Veneti had faded almost into a tradition, the
various ranks became distinct. True, they lived as sea-birds live, one
kind of food common to both, and one kind of house sheltering both;
but the poor man and the rich did not live in equality.
As the community grew in importance they began to cultivate their
islands and to build unto themselves ships. By force of necessity,
they became expert in all matters of navigation, as agile on the water
as on land, fearless. They acquired a better means of navigation and a
wider knowledge of the lagoons than any other State possessed. Then
they began to be attacked. With great courage and determination,
Venice resisted all her foes--Gothic, Lombard, Byzantine, and Frank.
Her position was peculiar, vague. She acknowledged a certain
allegiance to the Court of Byzantium; yet by her acts she recognised
the supremacy of the kingdoms on the mainland. Neither Byzantium nor
Ravenna, and not Padua, could claim the lagoons. Venice was
marvellously diplomatic. She drew from East and West exactly what she
wanted to make her a nation by herself. While she pretended allegiance
to several empires, she was in reality struggling for independence. In
the stillness of the lagoon and the freedom of the sea air, the germs
of individuality grew and flourished. They had a congenial soil and
fitting nutriment. It is wonderfully interesting to watch the
progress of the little State--the diplomatic way she went to work:
how when she was weak and unable to stand alone she feigned allegiance
to a stronger Power, yet never bound herself by written word; how she
played one Power against the other; and how in the end, when
sufficiently strong, under the shelter of her various foster-mothers,
she struck out for freedom boldly.
There is a letter from Cassiodorus, Prefect of Theodoric the Great,
which throws light upon the relations of Venice with the Goths.
Theodoric endeavoured to veil his power over Venice under the guise of
alliance or of hospitality. At the time of the famine in 520 he came
to their rescue with provisions. This gave him a certain hold over the
Venetian people. It imposed upon them a debt which was not to be
easily discharged. A letter written by Cassiodorus in 523 is neither
more nor less than a demand to the Venetians to bring supplies of oil,
wine, and honey, which the islands possessed, to the Goths. The
letter, which is of florid style, is one long sneer veiled in delicate
flattery. Cassiodorus explains that the Venetians own certain ships,
that they are well built, that the sea is an easy path to them; and he
begs that the vessels will transport the tributes of Istria to the
shores of his country. By this letter one realises that the Venetians
had already a reputation as pilots and mariners, and knew well how to
thread in and out the channels of the lagoons. Theodoric was a
generous and powerful neighbour, and the only homage the Venetians
could give the Goths in return was their water service; but they felt
their weakness and dependence deeply, and were continually waiting for
an opportunity to better their position. Consequently, when the war
broke out, after Theodoric's death, between his successors and the
Greek Emperor, the Venetians struggled to make themselves of value,
and took an active share in the operations. They sided with the
Lombards, and conveyed a large reinforcement of Lombard mercenaries to
their destination. That was the beginning of their intimate connection
with Constantinople. Two churches were erected in commemoration of the
services of the islanders. These were built of costly materials,
probably obtained from buildings on the mainland which were partially
destroyed by the invaders. The Venetians were enabled to transport
these treasures in their ships.
[Illustration: ST. MARIA DELLA MISERICORDIA]
Much to the anger of the Paduans, Venice was growing very rapidly, and
was gradually, by sheer competence, absorbing all the coast and
river trade. Longinus paid a visit to Venice, begging that she would
procure means of transport for his people. This was granted; but he
endeavoured to force the Venetians to accept the suzerainty of his
master, which was immediately refused in a grand and sovereign manner.
The Venetians declared that, amid much toil and labour, and in the
face of many hardships from Hun, Vandal, Goth, and Lombard, God had
helped and protected them in order that they might continue to live in
the watery marshes. They proudly stated that this group of islands was
an ideal habitation, and that no power of emperor or prince should
take it from them. It was impossible to attack them, they maintained,
unless by the sea; and of that they were assured masters. This
reception must have impressed Longinus. In place of a weak little
State requiring the protection of his country, he found the Venetians
a fierce and self-reliant people. He could obtain only a very vague
promise from the diplomatic Venetians. They would acknowledge the
Emperor as overlord, they said, but only on their word of honour: they
would take no oath of fealty. Still, the rule of the Lombard over
Venice was of longer duration than that of any other State.
A great trouble beset Venice at about this period. When the first
settlers began work on the islands, each little group had a separate
life, its people retaining as far as possible the customs, the
religion, and the constitution of their ruined homes on the mainland.
The largest townships which sprang up on the Lido were Heraclea,
Jesolo, and Malamocco. These gradually grew together into a federation
of twelve communes, each governed by its own tribune; and the tribunes
had regularly a general assembly for the settlement of such business
as affected the common interests of the lagoon. Jealousy and civil
feuds, however, sprang up among the islanders, as one after another
endeavoured to acquire supremacy. Heraclea tried to take the lead, and
to destroy Jesolo; but she in her turn was attacked, and razed to the
ground, by Malamocco. The civil trouble well-nigh caused the
destruction of Venice. The tribunes intrigued; family rose against
family, clan against clan; and there was terrible bloodshed. For
nearly two years and a half the Republic was in anarchy. The
constitutional evil sapped the general prosperity, obstructed trade
and industries, and brought property to havoc. Had it continued much
longer, the people would have frittered their strength away in
private quarrels, and the State of Venice might never have emerged;
but pressure from the mainland was brought to bear on Venice, and it
became necessary for the various committees to consolidate as one body
and sweep away the perils that were confronting them. The Lombards
were becoming bolder and bolder. The Monarchy grew and grew, and at
last the Republic of Venice feared that it might desire to add the
islands of the Adriatic to its dominions.
[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE AND CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DELLA
SALUTE]
This awoke Venice from lethargy. It was the peril of the sea that
formed and completed her. The pressure was very severe. East and West
were beginning to ask her very plainly to choose on which side and
under whose protection she intended to place herself, and they did not
intend to wait long for an answer. Venice, subtle and diplomatic, put
off the evil hour as long as she possibly could; but her policy became
obvious soon. She could no longer feign fealty first to one Empire and
then to another, and meanwhile struggle for independence. The time had
come for action. The critical moment was at hand. Either she must put
herself under protection of the East or of the West, or declare her
independence. Any course was dangerous, perhaps fatal. Out of the
three possible issues, Venice chose the most perilous, severing
herself from both East and West. The result was fortunate. Thrown upon
her own resources, she saved herself by energy.
King Pippin invited Venice to join in a war. Venice refused, and
prepared to defend herself, trusting in the courage of her men and the
intricacy of the lagoon. From north and south King Pippin could
concentrate his forces upon Venice, and victory seemed easy; but he
had forgotten the natural defences of the sea-bound city. He did not
know the shoals and deeps of the sea home. A life's study would
scarcely have taught him. A certain noble assumed the lead of the
Venetian people. He commanded them to remove their wives, children,
and goods to a little island in mid lagoon--Rialto, impregnable from
land or sea. This done, the fighting men took up positions on the
outlying islands, and awaited the attack of the Franks. Pippin seized
on Brondolo, Chioggia, and Palestrina, and tried to press his squadron
on to the capital; but the shoals stopped him. His ships ran aground;
his pilots missed the channels; and the Venetians pelted them with
darts and stones. For six months Pippin struggled; but the Venetians
kept him at bay by their network of canals and their oozy
mud-banks. They shook off every assault. In the summer there came a
rumour that an Eastern fleet was approaching. Pippin tried one more
appeal to the Venetians, begging them to own themselves his subjects.
"For are you not within the borders of my kingdom?" he said. "We are
resolved to be the subjects of the Roman Emperor," they answered, "and
not of you." The King was forced to retire. This great victory seemed
to have the effect of consolidating the Venetians effectively. They
agreed thenceforward to work together for the common cause. War had
completed the union of Venice. She had emerged from her trial an
independent State. There was no more internal discord. Venetian men
and Venetian lagoons had made and saved the State. The spirit of the
waters, free, vigorous, and pungent, had passed during the strife into
the being of the people.
[Illustration: AT CHIOGGIA]
This triumph was really the birth hour of Venice, and the people look
back upon it with joy. The victory over King Pippin is cherished to
this day as one of the finest events in history. The Venetians
realised the peril of the sea from this attack. Also they realised the
peril of the mainland from the Hunnish invasion. They then effected a
compromise, and chose as the future home of their State a group of
islands mid-way between the sea and the land, then known as Rialto,
but thenceforth to bear the proud name of Venice. Venice in this union
of her people declared her nature, so infinitely various, rich,
pliant, and free, that to this day she awakens and in some measure
satisfies a passion such as we feel for some person deeply beloved.
Her people then struggled to attain from infancy to manhood. For the
first time they had learned their own power, and union gave them
strength. They began to create their Constitution, that singular
monument of rigidity and durability which endured, with hardly a break
in its structure, for ten centuries. They built with vigour and
enthusiasm that incomparably lovely city of the sea. The aristocracy
of Venice emerged. Her empire extended, following the lines of her
commerce, in the East. St. Mark was substituted for St. Theodore as
patron saint. The crusades were used as a means to conquer Dalmatia,
and to plant the lion in the Greek Archipelago. Venice clashed with
Genoa, and emerged victorious. Wealth flowed into her State coffers
and her private banks. The island of Rialto proved the advantage of
its situation, and established a claim for gratitude as the
asylum of Venice in her hour of need. The Venetians had seen that the
mainland was unsafe, and the attack of Pippin showed that there was
danger on the sea. Thus, experience leading to the choice of the
middle point, in 810 the seat of the Government was removed to Rialto
under Angelo Badoer as Doge. Rialto became a sacrament of
reconciliation between Heraclea and Malamocco. It was the glory of
Venice that of all parts of Italy she alone remained unscathed by the
foreign ravages of the fifth century and the conquest of the eighth.
Venice alone was left out of all Italy's ruin. She alone escaped pure
and undefiled.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN GEREMIA]
This marvellous period of her history--the repulses of the Franks and
the creation of her State--requires no embellishments; yet the
Venetians loved to gather a mythology of persons and events.
Cannon-balls of bread, they say, were fired into the Frankish camp in
mockery of Pippin's hope of strong Rialto surrendering. Then, again,
there are the stories of the old woman who lured the invader to his
final effort when half his forces were lost; of the canal Orfano,
which ran with foreign blood, and won its name from the countless
Frankish hordes that day made desolate; of the sword of Charles, which
was flung into the sea when the Emperor acknowledged his repulse and
cried, "As this my brand sinks out of sight, nor ever shall rise
again, so let all thoughts of conquering Venice fade from out men's
hearts, or they will feel, as I have felt, the heavy displeasure of
God." All these stories were absolutely untrue; but they were born of
a pardonable pride.
The Venetians held their country in a singularly powerful devotion.
Possibly this was because they were so closely shut in on these few
little islands, precious morsels of land snatched from the devouring
sea. Certain it is that they toiled for the State as no other nation
has toiled before or since. They were determined that Venice should be
great, that she should be beautiful; and century after century of
Venetians devoted their lives to this work, sinking their own
interests in hers. The Republic was before everything. Wherever one
goes in Florence, one finds traces of great and famous men of all
periods and of all crafts--painters, poets, writers, statesmen,--in
every square, in every street, you are reminded of them; their spirits
and their works live with you wherever you may go. But in Venice,
where are they? There is the city--yes: there is that; and there are
the archives, the annals of the city, histories without number,
marvellous histories;--but the familiar figures, the great men that we
honour and look for,--they are not here. Venice herself was the centre
of all their aspirations, all their affections. She was erected as
would be a treasure-heap: all the choicest and all the best were
there. One knows but little, for example, of the great painters--the
men, with beautiful thoughts, who filled the churches and the palaces
with untold splendour, glowing sunshine. Their works are left, and
their names; but no more. It seems as if they must have kept one
another down, that Venice alone might shine.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS AND STRAW BRIDGE]
If one wishes to study the history of Venice, there is no difficulty.
Historic documents without number are accessible. Every period, every
vogue, every year, is carefully studied and commented upon by keen
observers, men of the greatest talents. These records glow with life
and energy. In quite early days, when the Republic was in its
infancy,--when there was no aristocracy, no great and powerful
State,--even the fishermen and the merchants and the salt
manufacturers had a longing to chronicle the doings of the community.
The palaces which were being built, and the churches,--all these they
wished to have chronicled for ever. Numberless historians there were,
and all nameless--men of extraordinary skill and genius.
Embellishments and fables abound; but on the whole these histories,
written with great realism, bring back a vivid picture of the State.
No Venetian ever tires, ever did tire, of the history of his country.
It is the one subject that is of endless interest to him. The trade of
Venice, her ceremonies, her treaties, her money, the speeches of her
orators--all are chronicled.
[Illustration: ON THE GRAND CANAL]
Venice was looked upon by Italy very much as we look upon America. She
had no long and glorious history--at least, no history of anything
beyond handicraft--no literature, no ancient manuscripts. The
Florentines, on the other hand, had a great enthusiasm for ancient
history. They were proud of their descent, and gloried in looking back
to a long Etruscan civilisation. When one visits Florence, there is no
difficulty in gathering knowledge concerning her great men of any
period. Their shadows walk in her streets; their memories will never
fade. You meet them everywhere--the painters, the monks, the gallants,
the statesmen,--the individualities of the men who were the makers of
Florence. The Venetians had no sympathy with the Florentines. They
could not understand the Florentine desire to live with the past
rather than the present. There are very few names which stand out
prominently in the history of Venice, names concerning which a great
deal is known; but there are one or two stories that are picturesque
and popular, stories which are ever fresh to the Venetians. One is of
a prince, the beheaded Doge Marino Faliero,--not at all an important
incident in Venetian history, but one that is very dear to the hearts
of the people, because of its melancholy. The prince was a man of
hasty temper and haughty nature, and could brook no slight to his
dignity. Once a bishop kept him waiting, and that worthy, for his
misdemeanour, received, to the astonishment of everyone, a sound box
on the ear. Before he came to the throne, Faliero was of great service
to the State. He was offered the throne of Venice at the age of
seventy-six, and married a young and beautiful woman. The story runs
that a young gallant called Michele Steno, having been turned out of
her presence, insulted the lady and her husband by pinning an impudent
message to the chair of the Doge. The young man was brought before the
"Forty," excused on the plea of his age and impetuosity, condemned to
prison for two months, and banished from Venice for a year
afterwards. This slight punishment for so grave an offence stung
Faliero to the quick. He felt that, though he occupied the Venetian
throne, he had scarcely more power than the beggar at his gate. All
his life he had been an active, energetic man, a ruler of men; his
word had been law, and his counsels listened to with respect and acted
upon. Now he was powerless. He was insulted by the young nobles, and
had no power to punish them; his authority was entirely disregarded.
This state of things grew worse and worse. Two of his old friends also
were insulted by noblemen. At last Faliero's temper could endure no
longer. In the April of 1355 he formed a conspiracy, and tried to
assert his supremacy. Six months after his triumphant arrival in
Venice as Doge, an old man and friendless, enraged at the insults
offered to him, he struck one mad and foolish blow for freedom. The
plot was betrayed on the eve of the catastrophe. The conspirators were
strung up in one long ghastly line on the piazza. Faliero himself was
beheaded at the foot of the stairs where a few short months before he
had sworn the _promissione_ on assuming the office of Doge.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS]
A GLIMPSE INTO BOHEMIA
On one occasion we arrived at Venice early in the morning. I was
frightened at the darkness and the stillness, and the tall black
houses looming high above us: it seemed that brigands must be lurking
there, ready to murder us. Absolute silence reigned, except for
mysterious sounds as if melodious voices were calling a refractory
dog--"Puppy," "Puppy," "Puppy," we heard on every side. It was the
warning of the gondoliers as they passed one another in the darkness.
I longed for some accustomed natural noise. If only something would
fall and make a splash! The silence set one's nerves on edge. We hired
a gondola, and glided swiftly and silently out into the darkness, our
gondolier's ringing voice joining the chorus of "Puppy." And so
dexterously did he handle his dainty craft that, even as we turned
corners and passed other gondolas in the pitch-black darkness, not a
sound was made, not a splash. I felt like beating the water with the
palms of my hands to make a disturbance. This silent gliding went on
for about twenty minutes, until suddenly we drew up by an enormous
silver-grey palace down a side canal, one of the largest palaces in
Venice, with broad marble steps and badly-made deal doors. After some
time the doors were opened, and an old lady appeared, bowing and
talking in rapid Italian. She led us up the steps and through a
colossal hall of marble, all marble, with staircases on either side
leading on to spacious landings, into a suite of rooms that seemed
more like the state apartments of a king than those of an ordinary
hotel.
One of the first things I did when I awoke in the morning was to get
out on to the roof of the palace and look about me. I always ask to be
directed on to the roof when I arrive at a new place. And there I
remained the whole morning, painting, deaf to the pleadings of my
friends that I should come down and eat. It was the chimneys that
fascinated me! From the decorative standpoint they were quite
startling. Chimneys, chimneys, everywhere, and such chimneys--grouped
into pictures in every direction! There were clusters of twos, and
clusters of threes; and wherever there were spaces that could be used
for decoration they were used to the full. Each one of these chimneys
seemed to have its own particular character. Some bulged out at the
top in graceful lines; some were square and stolid; others were light
and airy. At the base of some bloomed a blaze of flowers from the roof
gardens. Each one was different. When I learned that a book had been
published on the chimneys of Venice I was not in the least surprised.
[Illustration: PALACE IN A BY-CANAL]