great work of Venice at this period. The best architects, the best
labourers, and the best painters were employed in beautifying it. At
one time the palace fell into decay, and it was obvious to everyone
that it should be rebuilt and enlarged. But the alteration would be
extremely expensive. Therefore a law was passed preventing anyone
suggesting such alterations unless he had previously paid one thousand
ducats to the State. At last a man arose who cared not for the
thousand ducats, and suggested the necessary alterations. The palace
was then rebuilt. It was palace, prison, senate-house, and office of
public business, all in one. There were thirty-six great pillars
supporting the lower stories alone, all decorated in the richest
possible manner. There was no end to the fantasies of the sculptors at
that period--exquisite curves, studied outlines, graceful but complex,
solid and strong and beautifully proportioned braided work; lilies and
flowers of all kinds intertwined. Much of the sculpture is snow-white,
with gold as a background; some of it has glass mosaic let into the
hollows. The cross is used a good deal; also the peacock, the vine,
the dove.
[Illustration: THE DOGANA AND SALUTE]
The palace of Semitecolo has some beautiful early-Gothic windows,
having false cusps in the arches, so as to make the head a trefoil.
One sees here the gradual growth of the arch until it culminates in
the Doge's Palace type. There are beautiful balustrades to the
balconies, original and belonging to the period. In the
early-Gothic palaces one notices a certain softening of the
angles--that is to say, in the fine fourteenth-century Gothic
buildings. The early Gothic architecture has no cusps to the arches;
it shows a transitional form between Venetian Romanesque and Venetian
Gothic. There are first-floor arcades early-Gothic, with a somewhat
Oriental curve in the arch derived by the early Venetian Gothics from
Alexandria or Cairo. The capitals of the columns are characteristic of
the period: there are dainty balconies with graceful, slender columns,
and cusps to the arches.
These Gothic palaces were built by a people who were laborious, brave,
practical, and prudent; yet they had great ideas of the refinement of
domestic life, and the Gothic palaces remain to-day much the same as
when they were newly built--marble balconies, great strong sweeps of
delicate-looking tracery, clustered arches. It is the Gothic window
that is so perfect, so strong,--built, too, with material that was by
no means good.
There is so much rivalry, vanity, dishonesty, in the present day, that
houses are badly and cheaply built; even in the best of them, bad iron
and inferior plaster are used. How many of them, I should like to
know, will be standing fifty years hence? Mr. Ruskin is much against
our modern windows and the manner in which they are quickly
constructed out of bad materials, and the bricks all placed one on top
of the other slanting anyhow. The doors of Gothic palaces are all
semicircular above. At one time the name of the family was placed over
the entrance, and a prayer inserted for their safety and
prosperity,--also a blessing for the stranger who should pass the
threshold. Inside the houses there is always a large court round which
all the various rooms circle, with a beautiful outside staircase
supported on pointed arches with coned parapets and projecting
landing-places. In the court there is always a well of marble superbly
sculptured.
[Illustration: PALAZZO CONTARINI DEGLI SCRIGNI]
The centres of the early Renaissance architecture were Florence,
Milan, and Venice. Venice is the only city in which important examples
of all three periods of the Renaissance are to be found--the early
period, the culminating period, and the period of decay. The
Renaissance found better expression in Venice than elsewhere in Italy.
In fact, when Florence and Rome had entered upon quite another period,
Venice continued it for fully twenty-five years longer. The Venetians
were ambitious, exceedingly so; and this ambition was a source of
great trouble to the rest of Italy. The balance of power seemed, in
their opinion, to be weighing too heavily in the direction of the
Queen of the Adriatic; and the peace of the peninsula, they felt, was
not by any means assured. The greatest period for Venice was at the
end of the fifteenth century, when she had conquered all the land
about her from Padua nearly to Milan, and seawards to Dalmatia and
Crete. In the market-places of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia,
the Lion of St. Mark was set up as a sign of the subjugation. Even now
one can trace the influence of Venice upon the art of these various
places. But the Venetians certainly learnt a great deal from the
people whom they conquered. Other influences were brought to bear upon
Venetian architecture--as, for example, the Lombardi family, who
probably belonged to some part of Lombardy. Venice seems at this time
to have gathered unto herself many fine suggestions from the rest of
Italy. In fact, Venice absorbed talent from the rest of the world. In
quite early days she adopted Byzantine and Arabic architecture; then,
in the sixteenth century, she took unto herself the art of the
Milanese, who enriched the city with their work.
A truly Renaissance building did not appear in Venice until sixty
years after the first was erected in Florence, and then, strangely, it
had little of the Florentine character. This, after all, is not
extraordinary when one comes to think of the bitter war between
Florence and Venice in 1467. She took her style of architecture from
the countries which she had conquered and naturalised, such as the
district of Lombardy; and in her turn she influenced them. The
adoption of the Greek forms of Roman architecture which originated in
Florence gradually spread and reached Venice; but the Venetians did
not struggle, as did the Florentines, to revive and purify Roman
architecture. Simply the tendency of the general taste inclined in
that direction, and gave to their own Venetian forms of architecture a
certain classic air. In the general form of the work of this period
one cannot detect the classical influence; but, if you examine into it
carefully, you will notice in small details, such as a capital, that
some classical subject has been introduced in place of the usual
symbolical one. You will also detect in purely Gothic composition
signs of the new art influence. For example, in the mouldings there is
an introduction of cupids among the foliage, and all the strange
fables and gods of the heathen are represented there. This was the
period when people were becoming more learned. Later, buildings were
erected on purely classical lines; yet they still kept to the Gothic
arch. Bartolomeo Buono of Bergamo was one of the greatest architects
of his time. In 1520 the work of another architect was noticeable--that
of Guglielmo Bergamasco.
The question of the church exterior was one of the most difficult
problems of the early-Renaissance architect, and he never solved it
quite. The churches of Venice nearly all belong to the Renaissance;
there were many of them rebuilt under the influence of either
Palladian or Jesuit style. Palladio was a great architect; but he had
nothing of the Catholic feeling. He was really more suited to build a
pagan temple than to build a Christian church. The Jesuit style,
moreover, is horrible, with its stumpy columns, bloated cherubs,
unhealthy affectations, and fiery ornaments. It is a display without
beauty or grace, merely overloaded and heavy. The church of the Scalzi
is of extravagant richness. The walls are encrusted with coloured
marble; there are frescoed ceilings by Tiepolo and Sansovino; bright
tones prevail--more appropriate to a ballroom than to a house of
prayer. One can quite imagine a minuet under such a ceiling. Many of
the churches in Italy are built in this style, and are compensated
only by the number and interest of the valuable objects which they
contain. Almost every church has a museum such as would honour the
palace of a king. There one sees Titians, Paul Veroneses, Tintorettos,
Palmas, Giovanni Bellinis, Bonifazios. The church of the Scalzi has a
broad staircase in red brocatelle of Verona, with truncated columns in
marble, gigantic prophets, stone balustrades, and doors of mosaic. The
Romanesque churches are really beautiful, with their pillars of
porphyry, antique capitals, images standing out upon a glitter of
gold, Byzantine mosaics, slender columns, and carved trefoils. The
church of Santa Maria della Salute has been made famous by the picture
of her by Canaletto in the Louvre. One of the most beautiful things
within is a ceiling by Titian. Venetian arabesque ornament of the
Quattri cento is tenderly sculptured, and the friezes are undercut in
a reverent and delicate manner.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE]
One of the most beautiful palaces of the Grand Canal is the Palazzo
Corner-Spinelli. It is especially noticeable because of the number of
windows in the basement,--there is no observable order in the placing
of them. Then, again, there are contrasts in the shape of
balconies. Some are small and curved inwards; others are long and
straight. In 1481 the palaces became of a more advanced character. The
central windows were grouped together; but this last feature is
characteristic of Venetian architecture of all periods. One of
Sammichele's finest works is the Palazzo Grimani, on the Grand Canal.
It was carried out by others after Sammichele's death; nevertheless,
it is very fine. It has great dignity and majesty, and is a
composition such as will be found in Venice alone.
Venice is, architecturally, the most interesting city in Italy. It
contains works of all periods, from the early Christian foundation to
the eighteenth century; and perhaps the best examples of each are
there. First there was the school of the Lombardi; next, that of
Sammichele and Sansovino, quite distinct, an influence direct from
Rome. Then came, closely following, the schools of Palladio and
Scamozzi; and a fourth is that of the seventeenth-century artists, who
did good work in Venice, but on different lines. The best example of
this late period in Venice is Santa Maria della Salute, erected in
token of the cessation of the plague. It is situated at the sea gate
to the presence-chamber of the Queen of the Adriatic. Few churches of
any age can rival it architecturally. The composition is mainly
pyramidal.
The barocco style is nowhere so appalling as in Venice. It is most
untruthful and unprincipled in character. There is a great deal of
ostentation and bombastic pomp about it. A terrible example of this
can be seen in Doge Valiero's tomb, where the marble is made to
imitate silk and cloth wherever possible.
The Palazzo Pesaro was built, rich and gross, typical of the domestic
Renaissance, when architecture tended to decay. Technically it is a
most inferior building. The figures in the sculpture are spasmodic in
action, and restless; there is a projecting, diamond-like rustication,
far too bold in treatment. The angles are an exaggeration of the style
of Sansovino.
[Illustration: PALAZZO MENGALDO]
There are three great causes of the decadence of Venetian
architecture. First of all, it was started by purists who were bound
too firmly to ancient usages, too much regulated by precedent,
coldness, and formality. Secondly, a more disastrous influence was
brought to bear--that of Michael Angelo, the example of freedom to the
verge of licence. This revolution was brought about partly by the
revolt of the public feeling against the restrictions of the
purists, partly by real want of knowledge and failure to understand
traditional weaknesses and systems of design with regard to
construction. The purpose and use of features was misunderstood;
uncontrolled freedom was allowed; ornament was added for its own sake,
instead of being bound up in architectural lines. By such freaks and
caprices almost every building at this time, though not ignoble in
composition, was completely disfigured. Thirdly, the architects made
the fatal mistake of using the excrescences of a weakness of the great
masters and endeavouring to raise them to the dignity of features of
design. Thus Venetian architecture withered and decayed, fading out
into a pale shadow of what it had once been. That glorious art, which
had once been so superb in the hands of the masters, sank into the
execution of feigned architecture, false perspective, and fictitious
grand façades, with bad statues in unreal relief.
[Illustration: OSPEDALE CIVILE]
[Illustration: ST. MARK'S]
ST. MARK'S
When you arrive before the Church of St. Mark's you realise that at
last, after all your travels throughout the length and breadth of the
globe, you have before you a building in which colour and design unite
in forming perfection. Here stands without a shadow of doubt the
finest building in the world, flawless. It is impossible to imagine
that St. Mark's has been built stone by stone, that the brains of mere
men have designed it, and that the hands of mere men have set it up.
It must, you think, have been there from all time just as it
is,--formed as the bubble is formed, and the opal. It is a revelation
to look upon such perfect symmetry, such glorious colouring. Like an
opal, St. Mark's shows no sign of age. It glitters like a new jewel,
and might have been built but yesterday. Unlike most churches, it has
no sombre, frowning air. Its spires do not launch themselves into the
sky. It does not bristle with towers and arched buttresses. Rather the
building seems to stoop and crouch. It is surmounted by domes, as is a
Mohammedan mosque, and is a strange mixture of Oriental ornamentation
and Christian symbolism. Horses take the place of angels; grace and
splendour, the place of austerity and mystery. Who ever heard of gold,
alabaster, amber, ivory, enamel, and mosaic being used in the
construction of a Christian church? Who ever heard of dolphins,
tridents, marine shells, trefoils, cupolas, marble plaques,
backgrounds of vividly coloured mosaics and of gold? It is more like a
fairy palace, or an Alcazar, or a mosque, than a Catholic church; more
like an altar to Neptune than one to the Christian God.
[Illustration: PALAZZO DANIELI]
The ultimate result of this apparent incoherence is a harmonious
whole. Reverence and Christianity are here--an absolute and living
faith. Even the most devout Catholic has no cause for complaint. With
all its pagan art, St. Mark's preserves the character of primitive
Christianity. The exterior is extremely complicated. There are many
porticoes, each with columns of marble, jasper, and other precious
materials; many mosaics on grounds of gold over each doorway;
many historic stories and legends that these mosaics represent;
many fantastic forms of angelic beasts, saints, Byzantine and
Middle-Ages bas-reliefs, magnificent bronze doors, arcades, lamps,
peacocks--so many that it is impossible to attempt to describe them in
detail. Even to tell of the delicate structure and the subtle,
ever-changing, iridescent colour is beyond me. It is almost
bewildering when one thinks that at the time St. Mark's was built
every house in every side street had much of the same extravagant
richness, beauty of colouring, and superb architecture. As Mr. Ruskin
says, it is absurd to imagine that churches were designed in a style
particularly different from that of other buildings. There is nothing
specially sacred in what we call ecclesiastical architecture. All the
houses were built much in the same way. Only, while the houses have
fallen into decay, the church has been preserved by a devoted
populace. It is not often that one sees a coloured building, a
building teeming with colour; but St. Mark's vibrates with colour.
There are no blank spaces of grey stone. Every square inch is
beautiful.
When one enters from the bright sun, St. Mark's appears dim and dark;
but you must not judge by that. To appreciate its beauties, the
student should visit the church day after day. Gradually they will
unfold themselves. That is what constitutes one of the charms of St.
Mark's. It is as though one were in a carved-out cave of gold and
purple, on a voyage of discovery all by oneself. At first you can see
nothing; but as your eyes become accustomed to the darkness, colours
begin to grow upon you out of the gloom. Some minutes must elapse
before you realise that the floor, which at first you took to be of a
deep-toned grey stone, is a mosaic composed of thousands of
differently coloured marbles--that you are walking on precious marbles
of peacock hues. Golden gleams above your head attract you to the
domed ceiling, and, to your delight and amazement, you discover that
it is formed entirely of gold mosaic. You are passing a dim recess,
and you see a blurred mass of rich colour; after a time you realise
that you are looking at a famous masterpiece by one of the great
Italian painters. You sit there as in a dream; and one by one the
pictures and the mosaics, the Gothic images, the cupolas, the arches,
the marbles, the alabaster, the porphyry, and the jasper appear to
you--until what was darkness and gloom appears to be teeming and
vibrating with colour.
[Illustration: FRANCESCA]
St. Mark's carries one away from the everyday world. On the ignorant
and the uninitiated it has a marvellous effect. Men and women and
children flock to it by the thousands daily. Many and fervent are the
worshippers one sees praying before some special saint or beloved
Madonna. Some are weeping, and others kneel for hours on the cold
stones. The unhappy people of Venice have many sins and sorrows, and
there is much that is comforting to them in this rich, majestic
church. The fainting spirit is revived and the most desperate person
stimulated as he looks about him at the sparkling mosaic roof, the
rich walls, and the dimly burning lamps. There is much in precious
stones, music, sculptured figures, in pictures of heaven and hell,
that appeals to these people. An infinite and pitiful God somewhere
about them, these peasants of poor imaginations cannot understand.
They want a faith that they can cling to--almost something that they
can finger and touch. St. Mark's is to the poor of Venice like a
beautifully illustrated Bible. There, in the cupolas, the story of the
Old Testament is presented in mosaic, plainly for every eye to see,
for the youngest and least educated to understand. It touches them,
and appeals to them, and keeps their faith burning bright and clear.
There they have the seven days of creation represented,--mysterious,
weird, and primitive,--discs of gold and silver representing the sun
and the moon. There are the Tree of Knowledge, the Temptation, the
Fall, and the Expulsion from Paradise. Then comes the slaying of Abel
by Cain, Adam and Eve tilling the ground. There is a strange mosaic of
the Ark, with the animals going in two by two on a background of gold;
there are the stories of Abraham, of Joseph, and of Moses, all
quaintly executed, full of detail and without regard to anatomy. There
is no struggle to imitate Nature, and the colouring is good.
In the time when St. Mark's was built there were no cheap Bibles, and,
if there had been any, the poorer classes could not have read them.
Thus the great Church was an endless boon to them, one which could
never be quite exhausted. Many and splendid are the lessons these
mosaics and pictures taught and continue to teach. The mysteries and
beauties of the Bible are impressed upon the mind in a manner that
cannot be effaced. All the virtues are there--Temperance quenching
fire with water; Charity, mother of the virtues, and the last attained
in human life; Patience; Modesty; Chastity; Prudence; Lowliness of
Thought, Kindness, and Compassion; and Love which is Stronger than
Death. These lessons the Venetians have continually before them, to
help them to bear the troubles of this world, and giving them hope for
the peace of another. Most of the pictures in mosaic are typically
Byzantine, mainly symbolical and of the first school of design in
Venice. Upon these pictures the people of Venice live and thrive
spiritually: the pleasure is real and pure. Colour has a great
influence upon the emotions, just as music has; and colour was used in
the earliest times to stimulate devotion and repentance. There are
pictures in which the most profound emotion is expressed. When one
sees the pictures of Christ's life and passion, one cannot but be
touched.
By the medium of paintings in the churches, people began to understand
and appreciate art, and to feel the need of it in their homes. Not
only is St. Mark's an education to the poor and the ignorant: it is
also an education to the student and to the artist. Here you have
pictures of the nation of fishermen at their greatest period; also you
find legends splendidly told, such as the story of the two merchants
who brought the bones of St. Mark from Alexandria under cover of
pork, crying "Swine! swine!" You see the priests, the Doge, and the
people of Venice as they were in the days of her power.
In one of the dim corners of St. Mark's is a statue of an old man on
crutches with a finger on his lip. This is a Byzantine architect who
was sent to Pietro Orseolo from Constantinople, as the cleverest
Eastern builder of his time, to construct St. Mark's Church. He was a
bow-legged dwarf, and undertook to build this marvellous edifice,
unequalled in its beauty, on condition that a statue of himself should
be placed in a conspicuous position in the Church. This was arranged.
One day the Doge overheard the architect say that he could not execute
the work in the way he had intended. "Then," said Orseolo, "I am
absolved from my promise"; and he merely erected a small statue of the
architect in a corner of the Church.
[Illustration: ST. MARK'S PIAZZA]
Think of the makers of St. Mark's--the great men who worked together
with brains and hands to make her what she is! The army of artists,
painting, designing, sculpturing, one after the other from generation
to generation in this great cathedral! Titian, Tintoretto, Palma,
Pilotto, Salviati, and Sebastian were among the painters whose
designs were used for the mosaics; Bozza, Vincenzo, Bianchini,
and Passerini, among the master mosaicists; Pietro Lombardo,
Alberghetti, and Massegna, among the sculptors. Then, the other
thousands, all men of extraordinary talent, of whom astonishingly
little is known, fervent workers! Throughout eight centuries they
worked, and with what care and skill and patience! At what a cost,
too, these masterpieces must have been achieved! Think of the temples
and the quarries that have been robbed of their gold, and of the
marbles, the alabaster, and the porphyry. All the saints and prophets
and martyrs are there; the stories of the Virgin, of the Passion, and
of Calvary; all the scenes from the Old and New Testaments.
The early Venetians seem to have revelled in colour and in rich
materials. The builders laid on the richest colour and the most
brilliant jewels they could find. They were exiles from ancient and
beautiful cities, and when they succeeded in war their first thought
was to bring home shiploads of precious materials. Just as the
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Arabs had an intense love of colour, so
had the early Venetians, who used precious stones in great abundance,
even in their own private houses. A most extraordinary thing is that
there is nothing vulgar about the costliness of St. Mark's. Although
both inside and out it is rich beyond words, rich in precious stones,
rich in every way, the building is full of reserve. There is no
ostentation, no vulgarity. The jewels used in its construction do not
for one moment interfere with one's sense of the beautiful, or with
reverence and religion. They simply give a rare luxurious feeling to
the place, and in the ignorant inspire respect for a Church thus
encased and honoured with the richest in the land.