THE CHARM OF VENICE
THE
CHARM OF VENICE
AN ANTHOLOGY
COMPILED BY
ALFRED H. HYATT
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1908
_All rights reserved_
EDITOR’S NOTE
It is always delightful to read about Venice. This city, so
exceptionally situated, and to which belongs so fascinating a history,
has inspired almost countless authors to extol its many beauties, to
retell its historic episodes, and to recount the treasures of its art
and architecture.
The praise of London is sung by the Londoner, that of Paris by the
Parisian, and so on, city by city. But of the beauty of Venice members
of every nation have written, and perhaps in a greater measure than the
Venetians themselves. It is from these eulogies that I have endeavoured
to place before the reader those prose passages and poems that paint in
a few words some of the varied charms belonging to Venice.
A. H. H.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due to the following publishers and authors for having so
kindly allowed the inclusion of copyright poems and extracts in this
volume:
To Lady Ritchie and Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. for an extract from
‘Miss Angel’; to Lady Lindsay for two poems contained in ‘From a
Venetian Balcony’ (Messrs. Kegan Paul); to Messrs. George Bell and
Sons for extracts from Charles Yriarte’s ‘Venise’ (translated by Mr.
F. J. Sitwell); to Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons for an extract
from ‘The Life of George Eliot’; to Mr. Arthur Symons for poems from
his ‘Collected Poems’ (Mr. W. Heinemann) and an extract from ‘The
Cities of Italy’ (Messrs. Dent); to Mr. W. Heinemann for an extract
from Gabriele D’Annunzio’s ‘The Flame of Life’; to Mr. Horatio F. Brown
and Messrs. Smith, Elder for extracts from J. Addington Symonds’s ‘A
Venetian Medley,’ and a poem from this same author’s volume, ‘Old and
New’; to Messrs. Gay and Bird and Mr. Percy Pinkerton for poems from
‘Adriatica’; to Messrs. Maclehose and Sons for ‘A Vision of Venice’
from David Gray’s ‘Poems’; to Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., for
extracts from Mrs. Oliphant’s ‘Makers of Venice’ and Mr. F. Marion
Crawford’s ‘Gleanings from Venetian History’; to the Rev. Stopford A.
Brooke for poems from his volume published by Messrs. Macmillan and
Co., Ltd.; to Messrs. Duckworth and Co. for extracts from the Rev.
Stopford A. Brooke’s ‘The Sea Charm of Venice’; to Miss Braddon for an
extract from ‘The Venetians’ (Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall); to Messrs.
George Newnes, Ltd., for an extract from Mr. F. Eden’s ‘A Garden in
Venice’; to Mr. W. D. Howells for extracts from ‘Venetian Life’; to
Messrs. Rivingtons for an extract from Mr. Horatio F. Brown’s ‘Life on
the Lagoons’; to Mrs. Lee-Hamilton for a poem by Eugene Lee-Hamilton;
to Miss Margaret Newett for an extract from her translation of
‘Casola’s Pilgrimage’ (the Clarendon Press); to Madame Duclaux (Mary
A. F. Robinson) for ‘A Venetian Nocturne’ from her ‘Collected Poems’
(Mr. T. Fisher Unwin); to Vernon Lee for extracts from ‘The Enchanted
Woods’ and ‘The Sentimental Traveller’ (Mr. John Lane), and ‘Studies of
the Eighteenth Century in Italy’; to Mr. S. Rosen, of Venice, for an
extract from Pompeo Molmenti’s ‘The Renaissance in Venice,’ published
by the Liberia Rosen, Venice; to Mr. Lloyd Mifflin for various poems;
to Mrs. Moulton for an extract from ‘Random Rambles’; to the Baroness
Swift for a poem; to Mr. Fred G. Bowles for the use of his translation
of Hélène Vacaresco’s poem; to Messrs. Chatto and Windus for extracts
from Ouida’s ‘Santa Barbara,’ Beryl de Sélincourt and May Sturge
Henderson’s ‘Venice,’ and Edith Seeley’s translation of Vasari’s
‘Stories of the Italian Artists’; and to Mr. Mackenzie Bell for a
sonnet from ‘Collected Poems’ (the Kingsgate Press).
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CHARM OF VENICE 1
VENICE FROM THE SEA 65
THE SEA SPELL 107
GONDOLA AND GONDOLIER 133
ISLAND AND LAGOON 169
CANAL AND BRIDGE 219
SOME VENETIAN PHASES 231
ARCHITECTURE AND ART 277
A VENETIAN DAY 303
THE SEASONS IN VENICE 321
VENICE OF THE PAST 343
THE ROMANCE OF VENICE 371
INDEX OF AUTHORS 382
TABLE OF CONTENTS 383
_There goes a swallow to Venice--the stout seafarer!
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings._
ROBERT BROWNING.
THE CHARM OF VENICE
The charm of Venice: that subtle dreamy charm ... which no
artist or poet ever can resist.
OUIDA.
I do not know how this should be, but Venice seems made to
prove that ‘_La Vita è un sogno._’ What the Venice dream is
all the world knows. Motion that is almost imperceptible,
colour too deep and gorgeous to strike the eye, gilding
so massive and ancient as to wear a mist of amber brown
upon its brightness, white cupolas that time has turned
to pearls, marble that no longer looks like stone, but
like blocks cut from summer clouds, a smooth sea that is
brighter and more infinite than the sky it reflects--these
are some of the ingredients of the dream which are too
familiar for description. Nothing can describe the
elemental warmth of the days, the sea-kisses of the wind at
evening, the atmosphere of breathless tepid moonlight in
the night.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
Venice is among cities what Shakespeare is among men.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice:
Vinegia, Vinegia,
Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.
SHAKESPEARE.
In this enchanted Venice, it seems to you, no one is ever
sad, or cross, or weary. You think that here, at least, you
could be reconciled to an earthly immortality.
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
This enchanting city of Venice has always the same charm
and the same glamour.... Sun, moon, and stars shed all
they have of glory and of glamour over the romantic
city, painting the smooth lagoons with a rare splendour
of colouring which changes city and sea into something
supernal, unimaginable, dreamlike.
M. E. BRADDON.
SALVE VENETIA!
Venice is the most personal of all cities in the world, the most
feminine, the most comparable to a woman, the least dependent, for her
individuality, upon her inhabitants, ancient or modern. What would
Rome be without the memory of the Cæsars? What would Paris be without
the Parisians? What was Constantinople like before it was Turkish? The
imagination can hardly picture a Venice different from her present self
at any time in her history. Where all is colour, the more brilliant
costumes of earlier times could add but little; a general exodus of
her inhabitants to-day would leave almost as much of it behind. In the
still canals the gorgeous palaces continually gaze down upon their
own reflected images with placid satisfaction, and look with calm
indifference upon the changing generations of men and women that glide
upon the waters. The mists gather upon the mysterious lagoons and sink
away again before the devouring light, day after day, year after year,
century after century; and Venice is always there herself, sleeping or
waking, laughing, weeping, dreaming, singing or sighing, living her
own life through ages, with an intensely vital personality which time
has hardly modified, and is altogether powerless to destroy. Somehow,
it would not surprise those who know her, to come suddenly upon her
and find that all human life was extinct within her, while her own
went on, strong as ever; nor yet, in the other extreme, would it seem
astonishing if all that has been should begin again, as though it had
never ceased to be, if the Bucentaur swept down the Grand Canal to the
beat of its two hundred oars, bearing the Doge out to wed the sea with
gorgeous train; if the Great Council began to sit again in all its
splendour; if the Piazza were thronged once more with men and women
from the pictures of Paris Bordone, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and
Titian; if Eastern shipping crowded the entrance to the Giudecca, and
Eastern merchants filled the shady ways of the Merceria. What miracle
could seem miraculous in Venice, the city of wonders?...
Venice was Venice from the first, and is Venice still, a person in our
imagination, almost more than a place.... ‘Venice’ calls up a dream of
colour, of rich palaces and of still water, and at the name there are
more men who will think of Shylock and Othello than of Enrico Dandolo,
or Titian, or Carlo Zeno, or Vittor Pisani....
Who seeks true poetry, said Rossi, writing on Venice, will find it
most abundantly in the early memories of a Christian nation; and
indeed the old chronicles are full of it, of idyls, of legends, and of
heroic tales. Only dream a while over the yellow pages of Muratori,
and presently you will scent the spring flowers of a thousand years
ago, and hear the ripple of the blue waves that lent young Venice their
purity, their brilliancy, and their fresh young music. You may even
enjoy a pagan vision of maiden Aphrodite rising suddenly out of the
sea into the sunshine, but the dream dissolves only too soon; grace
turns into strength, the lovely smile of the girl-goddess fades from
the commanding features of the reigning queen, and heavenly Venus is
already earthly Cleopatra.
It is better to open our arms gladly to the beautiful when she comes
to us, than to prepare our dissecting instruments as soon as we are
aware of her presence.... And so with Venice; she is a form of beauty,
and must be looked upon as that and nothing else; not critically, for
criticism means comparison, and Venice is too personal and individual,
and too unlike other cities to be fairly compared with them; not
coldly, for she appeals to the senses and to the human heart, and
craves a little warmth of sympathy; above all, not in a spirit of
righteous severity, for he who would follow her story must learn to
forgive her almost at every step.
She has paid for her mistakes with all save her inextinguishable life;
she has expiated her sins of ill-faith, of injustice and ingratitude,
by the loss of everything but her imperishable charm.
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD.
WRITTEN AT VENICE
Not only through the golden haze
Of indistinct surprise.
With which the Ocean-bride displays
Her pomp to stranger eyes;--
Not with the fancy’s flashing play,
The traveller’s vulgar theme,
Where following objects chase away
The moment’s dazzling dream;
Not thus art thou content to see
The City of my love,--
Whose beauty is a thought to me
All mortal thoughts above;--
And pass in dull unseemly haste,
Nor sight nor spirit clear,
As if the first bewildering taste
Were all the banquet here!
When the proud sea, for Venice’ sake,
Itself consents to wear
The semblance of a land-locked lake,
Inviolably fair;
And, in the dalliance of her isles,
Has levelled his strong waves,
Adoring her with tenderer wiles
Than his own pearly caves....
Surely may _we_ delight to pause
On our care-goaded road,
Refuged from Time’s most bitter laws
In this august abode.
Come out upon the broad lagoon,
Come for the hundredth time,
Our thoughts shall make a pleasant tune,
Our words a worthy rhyme;
And thickly round us we will set
Such visions as were seen,
By Titian and by Tintoret,
And dear old Gian Bellin,--
And all their peers in art, whose eyes,
Taught by this sun and sea,
Flashed on their works whose burning dyes,
That fervent poetry;
And wove the shades so thinly-clear
They would be parts of light
In northern climes, whose frowns severe
Mar half the charms of sight.
Did ever shape Paolo drew
Put on such brilliant tire,
As Nature, in this evening view,
This world of tinted fire?
The glory into whose embrace,
The lady seeks to rise,
Is but reflected from the face
Of these Venetian skies.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
VENICE THE ENCHANTRESS
Venice has long borne in the imagination of the world a distinctive
position, something of the character of a great enchantress, a
magician of the seas. Her growth between the water and the sky; her
great palaces, solid and splendid, built, so to speak, on nothing;
the wonderful glory of light and reflection about her; the glimmer of
incessant brightness and movement; the absence of all those harsh,
artificial sounds which vex the air in other towns, but which in her
are replaced by harmonies of human voices, and by the liquid tinkle
of the waves--all these unusual characteristics combine to make her a
wonder and a prodigy. While there are scarcely any who are unmoved by
her special charm, there are some who are entirely subdued by it, to
whom the sight of her is a continual enchantment, and who never get
beyond the sense of something miraculous, the rapture of the first
vision. Not only does she ‘shine where she stands,’ which even the
poorest cluster of human habitations will do in the light of love: but
all those walls, with the mist of ages like a bloom of eternal youth
upon them--all those delicate pinnacles and carven-stones, the arches
and the pillars and the balconies, the fretted outlines that strike
against the sky--shine too as with a light within that radiates into
the clear sea-air; and every ripple on the great water-way, and every
wave on the lagoon, and each little rivulet of a canal, like a line of
light between the piles of masonry, which are themselves built of pearl
and tints of ocean shells, shines too with an ever-varied, fantastic,
enchanting glimmer of responsive brightness. In the light of summer
mornings, in the glow of winter sunsets, Venice stands out upon the
blue background, the sea that brims upwards to her very doors, the sky
that sweeps in widening circles all around, radiant with an answering
tone of light. She is all wonder, enchantment, the brightness and the
glory of a dream. Her own children cannot enough paint her, praise
her, celebrate her splendours; and to outdo if possible that patriotic
enthusiasm has been the effort of many a stranger from afar....
Where is the poet, where the prophet, the princes, the scholars, the
men whom, could we see, we should recognize wherever we met them, with
whom the whole world is acquainted? They are not here. In the sunshine
of the Piazza, in the glorious gloom of San Marco, in the great
council-chambers and offices of State, once so full of busy statesmen,
and great interests, there is scarcely a figure recognizable of all,
to be met with in spirit--no one whom we look for as we walk, whose
individual footsteps are traceable wherever we turn. Instead of the men
who made her what she is, who ruled her with so high a hand, who filled
her archives with the most detailed narratives, and gleaned throughout
the world every particular of universal history which could enlighten
and guide her, we find everywhere the great image--an idealisation
more wonderful than any in poetry--of Venice herself, the crowned and
reigning city, the centre of all their aspirations, the mistress of
their affections, for whom those haughty patricians of an older day,
with a proud self-abnegation which has no humility or sacrifice in it,
effaced themselves, thinking of nothing but her glory....
Though there is no record of that time when Dante stood within the
red walls of the arsenal, and saw the galleys making and mending, and
the pitch fuming up to heaven--as all the world may still see them
through his eyes--yet a milder scholarly image, a round smooth face,
with cowl and garland, looks down upon us from the gallery, all blazing
with crimson and gold, between the horses of San Marco, a friendly
visitor, the best we could have, since Dante left no sign behind him,
and probably was never heard of by the magnificent Signoria. Petrarch
stands there, to be seen by the side of the historian-doge, as long as
Venice lasts: but not much of him, only a glimpse, as in the Venetian
way, lest in contemplation of the poet we should for a moment forget
the Republic, his hostess and protector--Venice, the all-glorious
mistress of the seas, the first object, the unrivalled sovereign of her
children’s thoughts and hearts.
MRS. OLIPHANT.
VENICE
White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden pistils with their seeds.
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
VENETIAN ENCHANTMENT
Can you fancy a city without a horse in it, or a carriage, where not
even a van or a truck disturbs the stillness, where your household
possessions are moved on the witching first of May in boats, and you
drift along in a gondola to your merry-makings or your funerals? Such
a city is Venice, where, as Browning wrote, ‘the sea the street is.’ I
went out of the railroad-station into a gondola, and the enchantment
began. I felt the spell, at once, of this unique city,--this one only
Venice in all the world. Everywhere were gondolas,--gondolas moored
at the quay, waiting for passengers; gondolas drawn up in front of
palaces, waiting for their freight of dark-eyed Venetian girls;
gondolas threading the mazes of the little canals, or sweeping down
the Grand Canal, and drawing near each other now and then for a chat
between the occupants.
All these gondolas are painted black. This is in accordance with
an ancient law of the Republic, passed once upon a time when the
decorations of the fascinating water-carriages were becoming too
sumptuous for Republican morals. But even now many of the gondolas are
very elegant. They are long and slender in shape, with a high beak
pointed with steel; they are often superb in carving. Inside the little
house in which you sit are soft cushions, and gilt-framed mirrors
in which the piquant, dark-eyed faces of the Italian girls behold
themselves in fascinating reflection....
Venice is a city of palaces. Three-quarters of them are unoccupied now,
save by the stranger within her gates, who hires them for a season.
But they are wonderfully beautiful, with their superb architecture and
their great variety of colouring. Nothing could be more delightful than
a sail down the Grand Canal at sunset, unless it be one by moonlight.
At sunset, after the warmest day, the air is cool. The sky is crimson
above you, and the water which laps around your black keel is crimson
also. Everybody has come out to enjoy the delicious coolness and
shadow. You meet your friends, and exchange greetings with them as you
would in the Casino at Florence or the Central Park in New York. The
old palaces catch the sunset glory, and glow in it with a splendour as
radiant as their memories. Busy waiters are arranging the out-of-door
tables in front of the cafés in the grand piazza of San Marco for their
evening custom. You drift on and on, till the sunset glory fades, and a
new glory, purer and paler, has arisen,--the glory of the moon.
Everybody raves about moonlight in Venice, and well they may, for there
is nothing on earth so enchanting. You forget the far-off world,--that
old, hard world, where waggons rattle, and horses stumble and fall,
and people are tired, and duns harass you, and time and tide wait for
no man. In this enchanted Venice, it seems to you, no one is ever
sad, or cross, or weary. You think that here, at least, you could be
reconciled to an earthly immortality. The feeling is universal. A
rich Englishman, while I was there, leased one of the old palaces for
twenty-five years to come, and was busily adorning it with gems of
art. He put into it old Venetian glasses, strange mirrors with nymphs
and roses painted on them, such as were the glory of Venice long ago.
His silver was wrought by the men of Benvenuto Cellini’s time. In his
hall were marble statues sculptured by long-forgotten hands. His chairs
and tables were carved by cunning workmen who had turned to dust.
Everything was of the past, except the flowers, which everywhere ran
riot. Marble vases, rifled from tombs, were full of glowing crimson
roses. Bright-hued blossoms filled the windows, vines trailed over the
walls, fragrance as of a thousand gardens flooded the rooms.
‘Twenty-five years!’ cried a friend, who was looking on at the lavish
adornment of the old palace. ‘Are you sure you will be contented here
so long?’
‘If not, it is hopeless,’ was the answer, ‘for I’ve tried the rest of
the world, and found it wanting. Year after year Venice has drawn me
back again with her charm, always new, though so old. If _she_ fails to
content me, there is nothing left but to go to heaven.’
And there are those who think, having reached Venice, that they have
gone very nigh to heaven. At least, let us fancy it is that Island of
the Blest which the old voyageurs used to seek....
There are few places more prolific of temptations to the purse than
this city by the sea. You could spend a small fortune in photographs;
and no photographs are so beautiful as those of Venice, with her
water-ways, her sumptuous architecture, and her picturesque gondolas.
You go a few steps from the photographer’s, and pause before the window
of a shop for the sale of antiquities. If you have any imagination at
all, you are fascinated at once. You find here quaint rings, as old as
the days of the Doges; lace which generations of by-gone marquises have
worn, and which time has turned to the hue of amber; fans behind which
the dear, dead women, with their red-gold hair that Titian painted,
blushed and bloomed and sighed and flirted. Here are shoe-buckles
glittering with diamonds; here, in short, are a thousand relics of
a beauty-loving and luxurious past; and you cannot turn away from
them until you have bought something by way of talisman, wherewith to
conjure back the shades of dead days and faded glories.
You see long lines of shops, full of the Venetian mosaic, and of the
Venetian gold-work, which is the daintiest that you can imagine. Here
is Salviati’s priceless glass. It is Salviati who has rediscovered the
secrets of the old glass-makers. He will tell you that there can be
no such thing as a lost art, while the human brain retains its former
power; and in this matter of glass-making, at least, he has proved
his own theories. Such wonderful colours, such wonderful shapes, such
exquisite designs, can be found nowhere else. It almost converts one
to Spiritualism, this exceptional success of Salviati’s, and makes
you think that the ghosts of some of the old glass-makers have been
whispering their long-forgotten secrets into his ears. You have
fingered all the morning round this captivating piazza of San Marco,
with its shops full of temptations, and now the bronze Vulcans of the
clock-tower march out and strike the hour of two, and retire again; and
just as they beat their retreat you see one of the prettiest sights
in Venice. Long ago--at the beginning of the thirteenth century, so
the story runs,--Admiral Dandolo, while besieging Candia, received
intelligence by means of carrier-pigeons which greatly aided him. He
then sent the birds to Venice with the news of his success; and since
that period their descendants have been carefully cherished and greatly
prized by the Venetians. Every day, at two o’clock the doves are fed
at the expense of the city.... Venice! You can pass your dreamy days
there in the luxury of an absolute repose. No other place is like it
for beauty, and certainly no other is like it for restfulness....
Gay belles, who have tired themselves out by a busy winter in Rome
or Florence, betake themselves to this City of the Sea, and win back
their roses in its quiet. Its spell is on you from the first moment
you arrive. It seems to me no one could ever leave it willingly; and
if only the post could be abolished, and no letters would come to call
you back to the world outside, you might stay there for ever without
knowing it,--like the monk who laid his ear so close to heaven that he
heard in his dream the songs of Paradise, and awoke to find that he had
been listening to them for a thousand years.
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
A VISION OF VENICE
Behold! a waking vision crowns my soul
With beatific radiance, and the light
Of shining hope;--a golden memoried dream
That clings unto my youth, as clung the strange
Leonine phantom to that mystic man,
Lean Paracelsus. It has grown with me
Like destiny, or that which seems to be
My destiny, ambition: and its glow
Inflames my fancy, as if some clear star
Had burst in silvery light within my brain.
From the smooth hyaline of that far sea
The pictured Adriatic rises, fair
As dream, a kingly-built and tower’d town;
Column and arch and architrave instinct
With delicatest beauty; overwrought
With tracery of interlacèd leaves
For ever blooming on white marble, hush’d
In everlasting summer, windless, cold:
The city of the Doges!
From the calm
Transparent waters float some thrilling sounds
Of Amphionic music, and the words
Are Tasso’s, where he passions for his love,
That lady Florentine so lily-smooth,
Clothed on with haughtiness!
At the black stair
Of palace rising shadowy from the wave,
Two singing gondolieri wait a freight
Of loveliness. A tremulous woman, robed
In dazzling satin, and whose dimpled arms
Shine through their veil diaphanous, floats down
From the wide portal; and the ivory prow
Of the soft-cushion’d gondola (as she
Steps lightly from the marble to her place)
Dips, rises, dips again; and through the blue
Swift glides into the sunset.
Oh, the glow
Of that rich sunset dims whate’er I see
In this my own dear valley! O’er the hills--
Those craggy Euganean hills, whose peaks
Wedge the clear crystalline--a blazonry
Of clouds pavilion’d, folded, interwound
Inextricably, load the breezeless west
With awe and glory. The effulgence gleams
Upon a vision’d Belmont, home of her
Who loved as Shakespeare’s women do; and gleams
Upon those walls wherein Othello’s spear
Stabb’d clinging innocence; where the poor wife,
The lone Cassandra Belvidera, gave
Her soul in martyrdom to love and woe.
And shall I never that far town behold,
Crested with sparkling columns, fiery towers,
Praxitelean masonry?--behold
VENICE, the mart of nations, ere I die?
By Heaven! her common merchants princes were
Unto two continents; her traffickers
The honourable of the earth! she stood
A crownèd city, and the fawning sea
Licked her white feet; and the eternal sun
Kissed with departing beam her brow of snow!
* * * * *
Woe to this Venice, with her crown of pride!
The Lady of the kingdoms, the perfection
Of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth!
Through her pavilions shall the crannying winds
Whistle, and all her borders in the sea
Crumble their Parian wonder. Woe to her,
Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower!
Her sober-suited nightingales, with notes
Of smooth liquidity and softened stops,
Solace the brakes; and ’mid her ancient streets
Tawny, the gleaming and harmonious sea
Makes silvery melody of by-gone days.
Oh, white Enchantment! Ocean-spouse of old!
When thy high battlements and bulging domes,
By sunset purpled, trembled in the wave!
Now o’er thy towers the Lord hath spread His hand,
And as a cottage shalt thou be removed;
Like Nineveh, or cloudy Babylon!
DAVID GRAY.
SPECTRAL VENICE
‘I know another sight,’ said the Moon, ‘the spectre of a city. Whenever
the jetty fountains splash into the marble basins, they seem to me to
be telling the story of the floating city. Yes, the spouting water
may tell of her, the waves of the sea may sing of her fame! On the
surface of the ocean a mist often rests, and this is her widow’s veil.
The Bridegroom of the Sea is dead; his palace and his city are his
mausoleum. Dost thou know this city? She has never heard the rolling of
wheels or the hoof-tread of horses in her streets, through which the
fish swim, while the black gondola glides spectrally over the green
water. I will show you the place,’ continued the Moon, ‘the largest
square in it, and you will fancy yourself transported into the city of
a fairy-tale. The grass grows rank among the broad flag-stones, and
in the morning twilight thousands of tame pigeons flutter around the
solitary lofty tower. On three sides you find yourself surrounded by
cloistered walks. In these the silent Turk sits smoking his long pipe;
the handsome Greek leans against the pillar, and gazes at the upraised
trophies and lofty masts, memorials of power that is gone. The flags
hang down like mourning scarves. A girl rests there; she has put down
her heavy pails filled with water, the yoke with which she has carried
them rests on one of her shoulders, and she leans against the mast of
victory. This is not a fairy-palace you see before you yonder, but a
church; the gilded domes and shining orbs flash back my beams; the
glorious bronze horses up yonder have made journeys, like the bronze
horse in the fairy-tale; they have come hither, and gone hence, and
have returned again. Do you notice the variegated splendour of the
walls and windows? It looks as if Genius had followed the caprices of
a child, in the adornment of these singular temples. Do you see the
winged lion on the pillar? The gold glitters still, but his wings are
tied; the lion is dead, for the King of the Sea is dead; the great
halls stand desolate, and where gorgeous painting hung of yore, the
naked wall now peers through. The _lazzaroni_ sleeps under the arcade,
whose pavement in old times was to be trodden only by the feet of the
high nobility. From the deep wells, and perhaps from the prisons by
the Bridge of Sighs, rise the accents of woe, as at the time when the
mandolino was heard in gay gondolas, and the golden ring was cast from
the Bucentaur to Adria, the Queen of the Seas. Adria! shroud thyself
in mists; let the veil of thy widowhood shroud thy form, and clothe in
the weeds of woe the mausoleum of thy bridegroom--the marble, spectral
Venice!’
HANS ANDERSEN.
A REVERIE IN VENICE
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.
In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone--but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade--but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away--
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er.
For us repeopled were the solitary shore....
The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
And annual marriage now no more renewed,
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood
Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,
Over the proud place where an Emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower.
The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns--
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt
From power’s high pinnacle, when they have felt
The sunshine for a while, and downward go
Like lauwine loosened from the mountain’s belt:
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe.
Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria’s menace come to pass?
Are they not _bridled_?--Venice, lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
Even in Destruction’s depth, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.
In youth she was all glory,--a new Tyre,--
Her very byword sprung from victory,
The ‘Planter of the Lion,’ which through fire
And blood she bore o’er subject earth and sea;
Though making many slaves, herself still free,
And Europe’s bulwark ’gainst the Ottomite:
Witness Troy’s rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto’s fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.
Statues of glass--all shivered--the long file
Of her dead doges are declined to dust;
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,
Have flung a desolate cloud o’er Venice’ lovely walls.
When Athens’ armies fell at Syracuse,
And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
Her voice their only ransom from afar:
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o’ermastered victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar
Starts from his belt--he rends his captive’s chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.
Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
Thy choral memory of the bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations,--most of all,
Albion! to thee: the Ocean Queen should not
Abandon Ocean’s children: in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.
I loved her from my boyhood: she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare’s art,
Had stamped her image in me, and e’en so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance e’en dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.
I can repeople with the past--and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chastened down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,
Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.
LORD BYRON.
IN PRAISE OF VENICE
Though the incomparable and most decantated majestie of this citie
doth deserve a farre more elegant and curious pensill to paint
her out in her colours then mine. For I ingenuously confess mine
owne insufficiency and unworthiness, as being the unworthiest of
ten thousand to describe so beautiful, so renowned, so glorious a
Virgin (for by that title doth the world most deservedly stile her),
because my rude and unpolished pen may rather staine and eclipse the
resplendent rays of her unparalleled beauty, then adde any lustre
unto it; yet since I have hitherto contrived this slender and naked
narration of my observations of five moneths travels in forraine
countries, this noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my
hands, that I should describe her also as well as the other cities I
saw in my journey, partly because shee gave me most loving and kinde
entertainment for the space of sixe weeks, which was the sweetest time
(I must needes confesse) for so much that ever I spent in my life; and
partly for that she ministered unto me more variety of remarkable and
delicious objects then mine eyes ever survayed in any citie before,
or ever shall, if I should with famous Sir John Mandevil our English
Ulysses spend thirty whole yeares together in travelling over most
places of the Christian and Ethnicke world. Therefore omitting tedious
introductions, I will descend to the description of this thrise
worthie citie: the fairest Lady, yea the richest Paragon and Queene
of Christendome. (I call her not thus in respect of any soveraignty
that she hath over other nations, in which sense Rome was in former
times called Queene of the world, but in regard of her incomparable
situation, surpassing wealth, and most magnificent buildings.) Such
is the rareness of the situation of Venice, that it doth even amaze
and drive into admiration all strangers that upon their first arrivall
behold the same. For it is built altogether upon the water in the
innermost gulfe of the Adriatique Sea which is commonly called Gulfo
di Venetia, and is distant from the maine sea about the space of three
miles.... The city is divided in the middest by a goodly faire channel,
which they call Canal il Grande. The same is crooked, and made in the
form of a Roman S. It is in length a thousand and three hundred paces,
and in breadth at least forty, in some places more. The sixe parts of
the City whereof Venice consisteth, are situate on both sides of this
Canal il Grande. The names of them are these, St. Marco, Castello,
Canareio, that lie on one side of it, and those on the other side are
called St. Polo, St. Croce, Dorso Duro. Also both sides of this channel
are adorned with many sumptuous and magnificent Palaces that stand very
neare to the water, and make a very glorious and beautifull shew. For
many of them are of a great height, three or foure stories high, most
being built with bricke, and some few with faire free stone. Besides,
they are adorned with a great multitude of stately pillars made partly
of white stone, and partly of Istrian marble.... There is only one
bridge to go over the great channell, which is the same that leadeth
from St. Marks to the Rialto, and joyneth together both the banks of
the channell. This bridge is commonly called Ponte de Rialto, and is
the fairest bridge by many degrees for one arch that ever I saw, read,
or heard of. For it is reported that it cost about fourescore thousand
crownes, which doe make foure and twenty thousand pounds sterling.
Truely, the exact view hereof ministered unto me no small matter of
admiration to see a bridge of that length (for it is two hundred foote
long, the channell being at the least forty paces broade as I have
before written) so curiously compacted together with only one arch;
and it made me presently call to minde that most famous bridge of the
Emperour Trajan, so celebrated by the auncient historians, especially
that worthy Greeke Authour Dion Cassius, which he built over the river
Danubius, to enter the country of Dacia.... But this incomparable
one-arched bridge of the Rialto doth farre excell the fairest arch
of Trajans both in length and breadth. For this is both forty foote
longer than the arch of his bridge was, and a hundred foote brooder,
as I will anon declare in the more particular description thereof.
But in height I believe it is a little inferiour to the other. I will
proceede with the description of this peereless bridge of Venice. It
was first built but with timber (as I heard divers Venetian gentlemen
report), but because that was not correspondent to the magnificence of
the other parts of the City, they defaced that, and built this most
sumptuous bridge with squared white stone, having two faire rowes
of pretty little houses for artificers, which are only shops, not
dwelling houses. Of these shops there are two rowes in each side of
the bridge till you come to the toppe. On that side of this bridge
which is towards St. Marks, there are ten severall ascents of staires
to the toppe, on the other side towards the Rialto twelve ascents.
Likewise, behind these shops there are very faire staires to the toppe,
which doe reach in length from the back of them to the farthest edge
of the bridge.... At the toppe of the bridge directly above these
rowes of buildings that I have spoken of, wherein the artificers
shops are, there are advanced two faire arches to a prety convenient
height which doe greatly adorne the bridge. In these arches I saw the
portraiture of the heads of two Hunnicall Gyants that came into Italy
with King Attila, very exactly made in the inside of the toppe. There
are in Venice thirteen ferries or passages, which they commonly call
Traghetti, where passengers may be transported in a Gondola to what
place of the City they will.... Certaine little boates which they call
Gondolas [are] the fayrest that ever I saw in any place. For none of
them are open above, but fairly covered, first with some fifteene or
sixteen little round peeces of timber that reach from one end to the
other, and make a pretty kinde of Arch or vault in the Gondola; then
with faire blacke cloth which is turned up at both ends of the boate,
to the end that if the passenger meaneth to be private, he may draw
downe the same, and after row so secretly that no man can see him: in
the inside the benches are finely covered with blacke leather, and the
bottomes of many of them together with the sides under the benches
are very neatly garnished with fine linnen cloth, the edge whereof
is laced with bonelace: the ends are beautified with two pretty and
ingenious devices. For each end hath a crooked thing made in the forme
of a Dolphins tayle, with the fins very artifically represented, and
it seemeth to be tinned over. The water-men that row these never sit
as ours do in London, but alwaies stand, and that at the further
end of the Gondola, sometimes one, but most commonly two; and in my
opinion they are altogether as swift as our rowers about London....
The fairest place of all the citie (which is indeed of that admirable
and incomparable beauty, that I thinke no place whatsoever eyther in
Christendome or Paganisme may compare with it) is the Piazza, that is,
the Market place of St. Marke, or (as our English merchants commorant
in Venice, doe call it) the place of S. Marke, in Latin Forum, or
Platea Di Marci. Truely such is the stupendious (to use a strange
Epitheton for so strange and rare a place as this) glory of it, that
at my first entrance thereof it did even amaze or rather ravish my
senses. For here is the greatest magnificence of architecture to be
seene, that any place under the sunne doth yeelde. Here you may both
see all manner of fashions of attire, and heare all the languages of
Christendome, besides those that are spoken by the barbarous Ethnickes;
the frequencie of people being so great twise a day, betwixt sixe of
the clocke in the morning and eleven, and againe betwixt five in the
afternoon and eight, that (as an elegant writer saith of it) a man
may very properly call it rather Orbis then Urbis forum, that is, a
market place of the world, not of the citie.... But I will descend
to the particular description of this peerelesse place, wherein if I
seeme too tedious, I crave pardon of thee (gentle Reader) seeing the
variety of curious objects which it exhibiteth to the spectator is
such, that a man shall much wrong it to speake a little of it. The like
tediousenesse thou art like to finde also in my description of the
Duke’s Palace, and St. Markes Church, which are such glorious workes,
that I endeavoured to observe as much of them as I might, because I
knew it was uncertaine whether I should ever see them againe, though I
hoped for it. This street of St. Marke seemeth to be but one, but if
the beholder doth exactly view it, he will finde that it containeth
foure distinct and severall streetes in it, which I will thus divide:
The first is that which reacheth from the front of St. Markes Church
to the opposite front of St. Geminians Church. The second from that
notable clocke at the cumming into St. Markes from the Merceria to the
two lofty marble pillars neare to the shore of the Adriatique Gulfe.
These two streetes doe seeme to contend for the superiority, but the
first (in my opinion) is the fairest of them. The third reacheth from
the bridge neare to the prison, along by the South side of the Dukes
Palace, and so by the Sea shore, to the end of that stately building a
little beyond the foresaid pillars. The fourth and the last from one
side of St. Markes Church to the Canons houses. The first of these is
beyond all comparison the fairest of all Europe. For it hath two such
magnificent fronts or rowes of buildings on the North and South sides
opposite each other, especially that on the North side, that they
drove me into great admiration, and so I thinke they doe all other
strangers that behold the same.... The fairest streete of all Venice
saving Sainte Markes, which I have already described, is that adjoyning
to St. Markes place which is called the Merceria, which name it hath
because many Mercers dwell there, as also many Stationers, and sundry
other artificers. This streete reacheth from almost the hither side
of the Rialto bridge to Saint Markes, being of goodly length, but not
altogether of the broadest, yet of breadth convenient enough in some
places for five or sixe persons to walke together side by side; it is
paved with bricke, and adorned with many faire buildings of a competent
height on both sides; there is a very faire gate at one end of this
street even as you enter into St. Markes place when you come from the
Rialto bridge, which is decked with a great deale of faire marble, in
which gate are two pretty conceits to be observed, the one at the very
top, which is a clocke with the images of two wilde men by it made in
brasse, a witty device and very exactly done.... The other conceit that
is to be observed in this gate is the picture of the Virgin Mary made
in a certaine dore above a faire Dial, neare to whom on both sides of
her are painted two Angels on two little dores more. These dores upon
any principall holiday doe open themselves, and immediately there come
forth two Kings to present themselves to our Lady, unto whom, after
they have done their obeysance by uncovering of their heads, they
returne, againe into their places: in the front of this sumptuous gate
are presented the twelve celestial signes, with the Sunne, Moone, and
Starres, most excellently handled.
THOMAS CORYAT (1611).
BEAUTIFUL VENICE
Beautiful Venice,
Fair City of Song!
What memories of old
To thy regions belong:
What sweet recollections
Cling to my heart
As thy fast-fading shores
From my vision depart!
Oh, sweet poesie’s home
Is thy light colonnades,
Where winds gently sigh
As the sweet twilight fades.
I have known many homes,
But the dwelling for me
Is beautiful Venice,
The bride of the sea!
Beautiful Venice,
Queen of the earth!
Where dark eyes shine bright
Amid music and mirth;
Where gay serenaders
By light of the star
Oft mingle their songs
With the dulcet guitar.
All that’s lovely in life,
All that’s deathless in song,
Venetia’s fair isles,
To thy regions belong.
J. E. CARPENTER.
THAT GLORIOUS CITY IN THE SEA
There is a glorious City in the Sea.
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates. The path lies o’er the sea,
Invisible; and from the land we went
As to a floating city--steering in,
And gliding up her streets as in a dream,
So smoothly, silently--by many a dome,
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;
By many a pile in more than Eastern pride,
Of old the residence of merchant-kings;
The fronts of some, though time had shattered them,
Still glowing with the richest hues of art,
As though the wealth within them had run o’er....
Gliding on,
At length we leave the river for the sea.
At length a voice aloft proclaims ‘Venezia!’
And, as called forth, She comes.