by which Torcello is commonly approached. Another, somewhat broader,
and overhung by alder copse, winds out of the main channel of the
lagoon up to the very edge of the little meadow which was once the
piazza of the city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which
present some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity.
Hardly larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and roughly enclosed
on each side by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle and briar, the
narrow field retires from the water’s edge, traversed by a scarcely
traceable footpath, for some forty or fifty paces, and then expanding
into the form of a small square, with buildings on three sides of it,
the fourth being that which opens to the water. Two of these, that on
our left and that in front of us as we approach from the canal, are
so small that they might well be taken for the outhouses of the farm,
though the first is a conventual building, and the other aspires to
the title of the ‘Palazzo publico,’ both dating as far back as the
beginning of the fourteenth century; the third, the octagonal church of
Santa Fosca, is far more ancient than either, yet hardly on a larger
scale. Though the pillars of the portico which surrounds it are of
pure Greek marble, and their capitals are enriched with delicate
sculpture, they, and the arches they sustain, together only raise the
roof to the height of a cattle-shed; and the first strong impression
which the spectator receives from the whole scene is, that whatever
sin it may have been which has on this spot been visited with so utter
a desolation, it could not at least have been ambition. Nor will this
impression be diminished as we approach, or enter, the larger church,
to which the whole group of building is subordinate. It has evidently
been built by men in flight and distress, who sought in the hurried
erection of their island church such a shelter for their earnest and
sorrowful worship as, on the one hand, could not attract the eyes of
their enemies by its splendour, and yet, on the other, might not awaken
too bitter feelings by its contrast with the churches which they had
seen destroyed. There is visible everywhere a simple and tender effort
to recover some of the form of the temples which they had loved, and to
do honour to God by that which they were erecting, while distress and
humiliation prevented the desire, and prudence precluded the admission,
either of luxury of ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior
is absolutely devoid of decoration, with the exception only of the
western entrance and the lateral door, of which the former has carved
sideposts and architrave, and the latter, crosses of rich sculpture;
while the massy stone shutters of the windows, turning on huge rings
of stone, which answer the double purpose of stanchions and brackets,
cause the whole building rather to resemble a refuge from Alpine storm
than the cathedral of a populous city; and, internally, the two solemn
mosaics of the eastern and western extremities,--one representing the
Last Judgment, the other the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands
are raised to bless,--and the noble range of pillars which enclose
the space between, terminated by the high throne for the pastor and
the semicircular raised seats for the superior clergy, are expressive
at once of the deep sorrow and the sacred courage of men who had no
home left them upon earth, but who looked for one to come, of men
‘persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.’ ...
And if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the
dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth
conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of
her arsenals or number of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of
her palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him
ascend the highest tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar
of Torcello, and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble
ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its veined deck with
the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the
strength of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the
pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been
closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of
their homesteads,--first, within the shelter of its knitted walls,
amidst the murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings
of the sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,--rose that
ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices:
‘The sea is His, and He made it;
And His hands prepared the dry land.’
JOHN RUSKIN.
UPON A CUPBOARD OF VENICE-GLASSES
SENT FOR A NEW YEAR’S GIFT TO A CHOICE LADY
MADAME,
If on this New Year’s gift you cast your eye,
You plainly may therein at once descry
A twofold quality; for there will appear
A brittle substance, but the Object clear.
So in the donor, Madame, you may see
These qualities inherent for to be;
His pow’r which brittle little is, Helas,
His mind sincere, and pure as any glass.
The old philosopher did wish there were
A window in his heart of chrystal clear,
Through which his friends might the more clearly see
His inward passions, and integrity.
I wish the like, for there you sure would rest
Of my clear mind, and motions of my breast.
But if it question’d be to what intent
With _Venice_-glasses I do you present,
I answer, that I could no gift perceive
So fit for me to give, you to receive:
For those rare Graces that in you excel,
And _you_ that hold them, one may parallel
Unto a _Venice_-glass, which as ’tis clear,
And can admit no poyson to come near,
So virtue dwells in you, nor can endure
That vice should harbour in a breast so pure.
JAMES HOWELL.
SAN FRANCESCO DEL DESERTO
Two years have gone since on this desert place
We landed, she and I, alone, at one;
But now the wild sea-marshes have no grace,
For she who made their beauty--she is gone.
That day the island in the afternoon
Shone like a gem, and on its point the pine
Kept steadfast watch, while in the clear lagoon
Unwavering lay the shadow and the shrine.
‘How lonely,’ so she said, ‘how still, how fair!
Tell me the story why they call this place
St. Francis of the Desert. Silent air,
And silent light sleep here, and silent space.’
‘Once in his wanderings,’ thus I told the tale,
‘St. Francis, overtaken by the night,
Pushed here his bark to shore and furled his sail,
And wearied, slumbered till the morning light.
‘He woke, and saw his brother, the great Sun
Rise up, full-orbed, refreshed, to praise the Lord,
And so began the Matins: “Is there none
To sing,” he said, “responses?” At the word,
‘The nightingale, the blackbird and the thrush,
And all the little fowl with dancing notes,
Perched joyous on the low acacia bush,
Whereby he knelt, and with full-swelling throats
‘Sang a clear service like the boys in quire;
And Francis, happy as a child, gave thanks
To those sweet children of the heavenly Sire--
Hence grew this shrine upon the wan sea-banks.’
The story pleased her; and the low-roofed church,
The bricked-paved cloister set with balsams round,
The marble well, and silence-guarded porch,
The cypresses that clasped the garden ground,
The soft-leaved poplars rippling in the air,
The white narcissus tufts beneath the trees,
And the lonely waters whispering everywhere;
The blue sky filled to brimming with the breeze
That drove the red-sailed barks along the wave--
All pleased, but most the silent solitude;
The still Franciscan walking slow and grave,
The absent life wherein no cares intrude,
Obedient, chaste and poor--alone with sea
And sky and clouds and winds and God’s still voice;
Unvexèd by the clamorous world, and free
For worship and for work, to die or to rejoice.
‘I would not choose,’ she said, ‘this quiet life;
But if my wheels were broken in the race,
If, having done my best, I failed in the strife,
It would be well to work in this sweet place.
‘But you and I are one--our hopes and need,
Our joy and love are in the world of men;
Let fall the sail and bid the rowers speed,
Life calls aloud--Back to the city then.’
So spake she, bathed in sunshine and delight,
Her hand upon the wooden cross whose shade
Falls on the landing-place. She was so bright
That when I looked on her I was afraid.
Good cause for fear--one little month and then
Dark Ocean quenched her light, and now no more
I see this island in the salt sea-fen,
And think what joy, what love I had of yore.
’Twas summer then and glorious afternoon,
And now ’tis autumn and a dusky eve;
Night rushes swiftly o’er the pale lagoon,
The wet seaweed and lapping waters weave
A mournful song together, and I walk
Beneath the solemn cypress-trees alone;
High overhead the tinkling poplars talk
Of me, and wonder where my love has flown.
I cannot tell them, I have never heard;
My boat has drawn unto a silent shore;
But could she speak to me one little word,
Or could I hope to love her evermore,
Then I might see the sun arise, and sing
Matins of praise, like Francis, o’er the sea;
And every happy bird upon the wing,
And all the angels, would rejoice with me.
STOPFORD A. BROOKE.
SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA
Do you know San Francesco della Vigna, in Venice?
Some say that its tall tower is the first point rising above the waves,
which the returning Venetian sailor sees as he comes homeward from
the south-east, over the foaming bars of Chioggia and Malamocco, one
slender shaft lifted against sky, calling him back to his city and his
home. All the mariners and fishermen, who come and go over the Adrian
waters, have an especial tenderness, an especial reverence, for Saint
Francis of the Vineyard. There is no vineyard now; only one small
square garden, with a cloister running round it, arched, columned,
marble paved, where the dead lie under the worn smooth slabs, and the
box-edges hem in thyme, and balsams, and basil, and carnations, and
thrift, and saxifrage, and other homely hardy plants which need slight
fostering care. The sea winds blow strongly there, and the sea fogs
drift thickly, and the steam and smoke of the foundries round about
hang in heavy clouds, where once the pavilions and the lawns and the
terraces of the patricians of Venice touched the grey-green lagoon; but
this garden of San Francesco is still sweet and fresh: shut in between
its marble colonnades with the deep brown shadow of the church leaning
over it, and the chiming of the bells, and the melody of the organ
rolling above it in deep waves of sound, jarred sometimes by the clash
of the hammers falling on the iron and the copper of the foundries near
at hand, and sometimes sinking to a sweet silence, only softly stirred
by the splash of an oar as a boat passes up or down the narrow canal.
For the sake of that cloistered garden, a gondola came one summer
every day to the landing-place before San Francesco. In the gondola
was an artist, a painter of Paris, Yvon Dorât, who had seen the spot,
and liked it, and returned to paint from it every day, finding an
inexpressible charm in its contrasts of gloom and light, of high brown
walls and low-lying graves, of fresh green herbs and flowers, and
melancholy immemorial marble aisles. He meant to make a great picture
of it, with the ethereal Venetian sky above all, and, between the
straight edges of the bay, a solitary monk passing thoughtfully. Dorât
was under the charm of Venice: that subtle dreamy charm, voluptuous
and yet spiritual, which no artist or poet ever can resist, and these
summer months were to him as a vision of languor, and beauty and rest,
in which the white wings of sea-birds, and the silver of gleaming
waters, and the festal figures of Carpaccio and the golden warmth of
Palma, Vecchio, and the glories of sunsets aflame behind the Euganean
hills, and the mystery of moonless night, with the tide washing against
the weed-grown piles of a Madonna of the lagoon, were all blended in
that confusion of past and present, of art and nature, of desire and
repose, which fills the soul and the senses of those who love Venice,
and live in thrall to her.
OUIDA.
A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI’S
Oh, Galuppi,[2] Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I give you credit, ’tis with such a heavy mind!
Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice, where the merchants were the
kings,
Where St. Mark’s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
Ay, because the sea’s the street there; and ’tis arched by ... what
you call
... Shylock’s bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival!
I was never out of England--it’s as if I saw it all!
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,--
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bellflower on its bed,
O’er the breast’s superb abundance where a man might base his head?
Well (and it was graceful of them) they’d break talk off and afford
--She, to bite her mask’s black velvet, he to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on
sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions--‘Must we
die?’
Those commiserating sevenths--‘Life might last! we can but try!’
‘Were you happy?’--‘Yes.’--‘And are you still as happy?’--‘Yes--And
you?’
--‘Then more kisses’--‘Did _I_ stop them, when a million seemed so
few?’
Hark--the dominant’s persistence, till it must be answered to!
So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
‘Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking, when I hear a master play.’
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death came tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason,--think to take my stand nor swerve
Till I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,
In you come with your cold music, till I creep thro’ every nerve,
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned--
‘Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned!
The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be discerned.
‘Yours for instance, you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,--you’ll not die, it cannot be!
‘As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the
crop.
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
‘Dust and ashes!’ So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what’s become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
ROBERT BROWNING.
[2] Galuppi the musician was a native of Burano, a small
island about a mile from Torcello, where his name is
held in great esteem.--A. H. H.
TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL
The _sandolo_ is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and
lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or ferro
which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above
the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding
motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swanlike
movement of the gondola. In one of these boats--called by him the
_Fisolo_ or _Seamew_--my friend Eustace had started with Antonio,
intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured,
to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew
for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the
Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite
from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls
soft through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind
the Redentore, the islands in front of us, St. Spirito, Poveglia,
Malamocco, seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line.
The Euganeans, far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost
blent with the blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their
work; and soon we reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from
the Adriatic caught us sideways for a while....
Now we are well lost in the lagoons--Venice no longer visible behind;
the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the
mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver
silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour
have disappeared in light irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet
instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of
the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the
suggestion of coastlines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre,
all remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an
inland lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached.
We broke across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead--a
huddled mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed
steadily, the fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for
a twelve hours’ cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came,
with variegated sails of orange, red, and saffron, curiously chequered
at the corners, and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. A little
land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep
colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward
on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea and
scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet
float into a lake, and find their way at large according as each wills.
The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the
whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood
waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia,
which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language
and race and customs have held the two populations apart from these
distant years when Genoa and the Republic of St. Mark fought their
duel to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days,
when your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves
his pipe more than his _donna_ or his wife. The main canal is lined
with substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from
Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and
traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders
of the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter.
Wandering about its wide deserted courts and _calli_, we feel the
spirit of the decadent Venetian nobility....
That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side
by side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole
homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or
slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the
sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing--those
at least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had
trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level
water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad,
and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar
to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some
transcripts from classical operas were even more attractive, through
the dignity with which these men invested them. By the peculiarity
of their treatment the _recitativo_ of the stage assumed a solemn
movement, marked in rhythm, which removed it from the commonplace into
antiquity, and made me understand how cultivated music may pass back by
natural, unconscious transition into the realm of popular melody.
The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above
the Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, and then in strength,
reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us
and let us pass. Madonna’s lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the
harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that
calm--stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the
water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight,
till San Giorgio’s gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the
gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long
enchanted chapter of romance. And now the music of our men had sunk to
one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with the whispers
at the prow.
Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented
darkness of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a
spray of yellow Banksia rose, and put it in my buttonhole. The dew was
on its burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE MIRROR OF THE LAGOON
This strange, soft sea, so tempered into gentlehood, brings through
its quietude another element of charm into Venice. It reflects all
things with a wonderful perfection. Whatever loveliness is by its side
it makes more lovely. Shallow itself, it seems deep; and the towers
and palaces of Venice in all their colours descend and shine among
other clouds and in another sky below. All outlines of sculpture and
architecture, of embossment, in wall and window; all play of sunshine
and shade; all the human life in balcony, bridge or quay, on barge
or boat, are in the waters as in a silent dream--revealed in every
line and colour, but with an exquisite difference in softness and
purity. All Nature’s doings in the sky are also repeated with a tender
fidelity in the mirror of the lagoon--morning light, noonday silver,
purple thunder-cloud in the afternoon, sunset vapours, the moon and
stars of night--and not only on the surface, but also, it seems, in an
immeasurable depth. To look over the side of the boat into the water is
to cry, ‘I see infinite space.’
STOPFORD A. BROOKE.
LAGOON MESSAGE
Not now, but later, when the road
We tread together breaks apart,
When thou, my dearest, distant art,
And tedious days have swelled the load
Upon my heart.
Or haply after that, when I
Am sealed within an earthy bed,
Resting and unrememberèd,
This scene will speak and easily
The whole be said.
Some eve, when from his burning chair
The sun below Fusina slips,
And all the sable poplar-tips
Wave in the warm, vermilion air,
The wind, the lips
Of the soft breeze with wayward touch
Shall tell thee all I longed to own;
And thou, on lurid lakes alone,
Wilt say: ‘Poor soul, he loved me much;
And he is gone.’
PERCY PINKERTON.
ON THE LAGOONS
The afternoons invite us to a further flight upon the water. Both
sandolo and gondola await our choice, and we may sail or row, according
as the wind and inclination tempt us.
Yonder lies San Luzzaro, with the neat red buildings of the Armenian
convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls
against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats
piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are
gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new
wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron--that
curious patron-saint of the Armenian colony--or to inspect the
printing-press, which issues books of little value for our studies. It
is enough to pace the terrace, and linger half an hour beneath the low
broad arches of the alleys pleached with vines, through which the domes
and towers of Venice rise more beautiful by distance.