ponderous roll dilated in long waves along the mirror of the harbour,
vibrated through the masts of the ships, spread afar towards the
infinite lagoon. From San Giorgio Maggiore, from San Giorgio dei
Greci, from San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, from San Giovanni in Bragora,
from San Moise, from the churches of the Salute and the Redentore and
beyond, over the whole domain of the Evangelist, from the far towers
of the Madonna dell’ Orto, of San Giobbe, of Sant’ Andrea, bronze
voices answered, mingling in one great chorus, spreading over the
silent company of stones and water one great dome of invisible metal,
the vibrations of which seemed to reach the twinkling of the earliest
stars. In the purity of evening the sacred voices gave the City of
Silence a sort of immensity of grandeur. From the summit of their
temples they brought anxious mankind the message sent by the immortal
multitudes hidden in the darkness of deep aisles, or mysteriously
troubled by the light of votive lamps; they brought to spirits worn
out by the day the message of the superhuman creatures figured on the
walls of secluded chapels and in the niches of inner altars, who had
announced miracles and promised worlds. And all the apparitions of
the consoling Beauty invoked by unanimous Prayer, rose on that storm
of sound, spoke in that aerial chorus, irradiated the face of the
marvellous night.
* * * * *
One afternoon not long ago, returning from the Gardens along the warm
bank of the Schiavoni, that must often have seemed to some wandering
poet like I know not what golden magic bridge stretching out over a sea
of light and silence to some infinite dream of beauty, I thought, or
rather I stood by and watched my own thoughts as I would an intimate
spectacle,--I thought of the nuptial alliance of Autumn and Venice
under those skies.
A sense of life was diffused everywhere; a sense of life made up of
passionate expectation and restrained ardour, that surprised me by its
vehemence, but yet could not seem new to me, because I had already
found it gathered in some belt of shadow under the almost deathly
immobility of summer, and I had also felt it here vibrating now and
then like a mysterious pulsation under the strange, feverish odour of
the waters. Thus, I thought, this pure City of Art truly aspires to the
supreme condition of that beauty that is an annual return in her as is
the giving forth of flowers to the forest. She tends to reveal herself
in a full harmony as if she still carried in herself, powerful and
conscious, that desire of perfection from which she was born and formed
through the ages like some divine creature. Under the motionless fires
of a summer sky she seemed pulseless and breathless, dead indeed in
her green waters; but my feeling did not deceive me when I divined her
secretly labouring under a spirit of life that would prove sufficiently
powerful to renew the highest of older miracles....
The mutual passion of Venice and Autumn that exalts the one and the
other to the highest degree of their sensuous beauty has its origin in
a deep affinity; for the soul of Venice, the soul fashioned for the
City Beautiful by its great artists is autumnal.
The correspondence between the external and the interior spectacle once
discovered, my enjoyment found itself unspeakably multiplied. The crowd
of imperishable forms that peoples its churches and palaces seemed from
these latter to answer the harmony of daylight with a chord so deep
and powerful that it soon became dominant. And--because the light of
Heaven alternates with shadows, but the light of Art lasts in the human
soul and cannot be extinguished--when the miracle of the hour ceased to
cover all those things, my spirit felt itself alone and ecstatic among
the splendours of an ideal autumn.
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.
FROM A VENETIAN BALCONY
High-tide at Venice; warm wind driving in from the sea.
Hark! the cry of the gulls as they flit o’er the wide canal,
Flit and circle and skim, and dip in their savage glee,
Striking the lead-coloured waves that scatter tempestual,
Striking with sharp white wing like a flail, gorging their prey:
_Frutto di mare_, fruit of the ocean, drift of the way.
Hither and thither wend other wild birds in the storm--
Gondolas black as the swift that floats o’er an autumn sky--
Gondolas silent and shadowy, wondrously slender of form--
Gliding in close-measured rhythm down where the barges lie,
Under the glimmering bridges, and near to the palace walls
That frown in a gloomy dusk, as the sea-mist gathers and falls.
Now, with a burst of voices, clang the _Salute’s_ bells,
From yonder tower-lofts straining, heav’n high as they may go.
Again, to our fretful world, surely the _Angelus_ tells
Patience for need and pain, and solace and calm for woe.
As I listen the peal dies out--alas, and alas! alas!
But from over the pallid sunset the heavy storm-clouds pass.
O weird sea-birds, as ye utter your hoarse and discordant cry,
Do ye wot of the north, and the hearts that are watching your ominous
course?
Or is it enough for ye, birds, as gyrating and slanting ye fly,
To ride the broad Adriatic, and drink of her glamour and force,
Regardless that realms beyond realms, as waves upon waves, in unrest,
Look up for the message of love that God’s angel brings to the blest?
LADY LINDSAY.
AUTUMN IN VENICE
It is now late in October. The days are short but luminous still when
the mists do not drift in from the lagoons of the Lido, or from the
marshes of the low-lying lands beyond Mestre and Fucina. Boats still
come in with rosy sunrise reflection shed on their orange sails,
and take their loads of autumn apples and pears and walnuts to the
fruit-market above Rialto. But soon, very soon, it will be winter, and
the gondolas will glide by with closed felze, and the water will be a
troubled waste between the city and the Lido, and men will hurry with
muffled heads over the square of Saint Mark when the Alpine wind blows,
and the strange big ships creep on their piloted course tediously and
timidly through the snowstorms to their anchorage in the wide Giudecca.
OUIDA.
VENICE AT TWILIGHT
O for the autumn, and twilight and dream,
Where still waters gleam.
O for sky-distances, fading in blue,
With Venice in view.
O for the opal of cloud and lagoon,
With night-shadows strewn.
Palaces, blue-green, and hushed as in sleep,
Keep watch o’er the deep.
O for the autumn, and Venice aglow,
Where silken winds blow.
Like a chrysanthemum droops the fair town
As Night cometh down,
Crushing those petals of watery bloom
In tenderest gloom.
O at this hour, when Venice is blest,
May I, to my breast,
Gather one petal of delicate hue--
To bring, Love--to you!
HÉLÈNE VACARESCO.
_Translated by Fred. G. Bowles_
ALL SOULS’ DAY AT VENICE
They had put a bridge of boats from the northernmost quay of Venice to
the cemetery island. A dense crowd, coming and going across it, black
over the black anchored barges, each two with their yard of pale water
between their tarred hulls. And, as we draw near, as we go beneath, the
seeming silence turns into a murmur, and a rumble.
For this one day in all the year the cemetery island is bridged on to
the islands of the living. This is no mere coincidence, but a real
symbol.
The cloisters and the gardens are full as for a fair, crowds coming and
going, buying tapers, lighting them at the glittering wax-lights before
the chapel, bringing a few flowers.... Surely for these poor folk there
is a reality, if only a negative one, in this suspending of the labour,
cares, the empty grind of life; and their hour of watching by the dead
may be, in some way deeper than words can say, an hour of communing
with the eternities.
While thus the cemetery was given up to the living and to the long
dead, the scarcely dead, the real dead, were arriving here and there
with the real mourners. I noted a mound of fresh earth, with the ritual
trowel sticking in it, a couple of surpliced and shaven Franciscans
reciting the prayers to a few blear, red-eyed people (a nun among
them); all these new-comers and their ministering clergy seeming a
little scared by intruding their own dead man or woman into this great
public feast of those who have long passed beyond. And the crowd, on
its side, looked surprised at this new and definite reality of loss in
the midst of its vaguer mournings; this man or woman, only just dead,
carried in among those shadowy memories.
Very touching also were the little framed photographs, clean and
evidently taken off some poor table or wall, and hung on the cross for
the afternoon; the dead pauper having his effigy also on his grave,
like the rich man among his marble, if only for those few hours.
As we got back into the gondola the crowd was streaming only one way
along the black bridge; away from the cemetery, back into life.
VERNON LEE.
VENICE IN WINTER
In Venice only the melancholy drenching rain of a winter’s day brings
rest to the eye, when water meets water, and sky is washed into sea and
the city lies soaking and dripping between two floods. But soon the
wind shifts to the north-east, out breaks the sun again, and all Venice
is instantly in a glare of light and colour and startling distinctness,
like the sails and rigging of a ship at sea on a clear day.
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD.
VENICE: THE END OF WINTER
There is joy in the heart of each Venetian when the end of winter is
reached at last, and once more are visible, lying like pearls on the
spring-blue ocean, the islands of Murano and Malamocco. They have long
been veiled from view by opal mists, sometimes but half obscured and
lying like a ghostly mirage in the distance. But now they stand out
like bright and beautiful cameos, glistening white on a surface of
blue. Tower and wall and roof, washed clean and new by the refreshing
winter mists, stand ready to receive the sunlight. For these sun-loving
and warmth-loving people the year should be always summer! This first
bright burst of warm sunshine has set the spirit of cheer in the heart
of each gondolier as he stands by his own favourite _traghetto_,
furbishing up his gondola and preparing for the coming glorious seasons
of spring and summer in Venice! He smiles and jokes again; he shouts
once more in his old way to his brother gondolier across the opposite
shore--_É primavera! é primavera!_
ENRICO ALBINI.
VENICE OF THE PAST
Dim phantoms of banners for conquest unfurl’d,
Of brows bright with diamonds, of bosoms empearl’d,
Of Venice, the mistress and Queen of the world;
Of argosies laden with damask and gold,
Of tributes barbaric from kingdoms grown old;
Of spousals fantastic and rings in the tide
Of Venice the bridegroom, and Ocean the bride.
CHARLES MACKAY.
Venice ... a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak--so
quiet,--so bereft of all but her loveliness, that we might
well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the
mirage of the lagoon, which was the City, and which the
Shadow.... It would be difficult to overrate the value of
the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study
of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history
which, in spite of the labour of countless chroniclers,
remains in vague and disputable outline,--barred with
brightness and shade, like the far-away edge of her own
ocean, where the surf and the sandbank are mingled with the
sky.
JOHN RUSKIN.
In Venice ... one cannot think if not in images. They come
to us from all quarters, in countless numbers, in endless
variety, and they are more real, more living, than the
people that elbow us in the narrow street. They let us bend
down to scrutinize the depths of their lingering eyes, and
we can divine the words they are going to say by the curves
of their eloquent lips.
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.
THE ORIGIN OF VENICE
Venice, being a republic, which, both on account of its power and
internal regulations, deserves to be celebrated above any principality
of Italy.... I speak of their (the Venetians’) city from a remote
period.... When Attila, king of the Huns, besieged Aquileia, the
inhabitants, after defending themselves a long time, began to despair
of effecting their safety, and fled for refuge to several uninhabited
rocks, situate at the point of the Adriatic Sea, now called the Gulf of
Venice, carrying with them whatever moveable property they possessed.
The people of Padua, finding themselves in equal danger, and knowing
that, having become master of Aquileia, Attila would next attack
themselves, also removed with their most valuable property to a place
on the same sea, called Rivo Alto, to which they brought their women,
children, and aged persons, leaving the youth in Padua to assist in her
defence. Besides these, the people of Monselice, with the inhabitants
of the surrounding hills, driven by similar fears, fled to the same
rocks. But after Attila had taken Aquileia, and destroyed Padua,
Monselice, Vicenza, and Verona, the people of Padua and others who were
powerful continued to inhabit the marshes about Rivo Alto; and in like
manner all the people of the province anciently called Venetia, drived
by the same events, became collected in these marshes. Thus, under the
pressure of necessity, they left an agreeable and fertile country
to occupy one sterile and unwholesome. However, in consequence of a
great number of people being drawn together into a comparatively small
space, in a short time they made those places not only habitable, but
delightful; and having established among themselves laws and useful
regulations, enjoyed themselves in security amid the devastations of
Italy, and soon increased both in reputation and strength. For, besides
the inhabitants already mentioned, many fled to these places from the
cities of Lombardy, principally to escape from the cruelties of Clefis,
king of the Lombards, which greatly tended to increase the numbers of
the new city; and in the conventions which were made betwixt Pepin,
king of France, and the emperor of Greece when the former, at the
entreaty of the pope, came to drive the Lombards out of Italy, the duke
of Benevenuto and the Venetians did not render obedience to either the
one or the other, but alone enjoyed their liberty. As necessity had led
them to dwell on sterile rocks, they were compelled to seek the means
of subsistence elsewhere; and voyaging with their ships to every port
of the ocean, their city became a depository for the various products
of the world, and was itself filled with men of every nation.
For many years the Venetians sought no other dominion than that
which tended to facilitate their commercial enterprises, and thus
acquired many ports in Greece and Syria; and as the French had made
frequent use of their ships in voyages to Asia, the island of Candia
was assigned to them, in recompense for these services. Whilst they
lived in this manner, their name spread terror over the seas, and
was held in veneration throughout Italy. This was so completely the
case, that they were generally chosen to arbitrate in controversies
arising betwixt the states, as occurred in the difference betwixt
the Colleagues, on account of the cities they had divided amongst
themselves; which being referred to the Venetians, they awarded Brescia
and Bergamo to the Visconti. But when, in the course of time, urged
by their eagerness for dominion, they had made themselves masters
of Padua, Vicenza, Trevisa, and afterwards of Verona, Bergamo, and
Brescia, with many cities in Romanga, and the kingdom of Naples,
other nations were impressed with such an opinion of their power,
that they were a terror, not only to the princes of Italy, but to the
Ultramontane kings. These states entered into an alliance against
them, and in one day wrested from them the provinces they had obtained
with so much labour and expense; and although they have in latter
times re-acquired some portions, still, possessing neither power nor
reputation, like all the other Italian powers, they live at the mercy
of others....
Amongst the great and wonderful institutions of the republics and
principalities of antiquity that have now gone into disuse, was that
by means of which towns and cities were from time to time established;
and there is nothing more worthy the attention of a great prince, or of
a well-regulated republic, or that confers so many advantages upon a
province, as the settlement of new places, where men are drawn together
for mutual accommodation and defence. This may easily be done, by
sending people to reside in recently acquired or uninhabited countries.
Besides causing the establishment of new cities, these removals render
a conquered country more secure, and keep the inhabitants of a province
properly distributed. Thus deriving the greatest attainable comfort,
the inhabitants increase rapidly, are more prompt to attack others,
and defend themselves with greater assurance. This custom, by the
unwise practice of princes and republics, having gone into desuetude,
the ruin and weakness of territories has followed; for this ordination
is that by which alone empires are made secure, and countries become
populated. Safety is the result of it; because the colony which a
prince establishes in a newly acquired country is like a fortress and a
guard, to keep the inhabitants in fidelity and obedience. Neither can a
province be wholly occupied and preserve a proper distribution of its
inhabitants without this regulation; for all districts are not equally
healthy, and hence some will abound to overflowing, whilst others are
void.... With cultivation the earth becomes fruitful, and the air is
purified with fires--remedies which Nature cannot provide. The city
of Venice proves the correctness of these remarks. Being placed in a
marshy and unwholesome situation, it became healthy only by the number
of industrious individuals who were drawn together.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI.
A PILGRIM’S DESCRIPTION OF VENICE
On Wednesday, the 21st of May [1494], I took one of the Milanese
couriers to guide me about Venice, and went to the houses of the
merchants for whom I had letters, and to each one I gave his own. Then,
as I was afraid of not finding a place in the galley, I was immediately
introduced to the Magnificent Don Agostino Contarini, a Venetian
patrician and captain of the Jaffa galley--thus the galley is named
which carries the pilgrims going to Jerusalem--and he ordered my name
to be written in the Pilgrims’ Book. At this time I found that I had
been in too great a hurry to leave home, and that I must wait several
days before the departure of the said galley.
In order that the tediousness of waiting should not make me desire to
turn back and do as the children of Israel did when they went into the
Promised Land, I determined to examine carefully the city of Venice,
about which so much has been said and written, not only by learned men,
but also by great scholars, that it appears to me there is nothing left
to say. And I did this solely to amuse myself during the time I had to
spend in such a great port. I wanted to see everything it was possible
for me to see; and I was aided continually by the company given me by
the Magnificent Doctor and Cavalier, the Lord Tadiolo de Vicomercato,
Ambassador to the aforesaid Signoria of Venice for our most illustrious
Lord the Duke of Milan. I paid him a visit, as was my duty, as soon as
I arrived, and from him, although I did not merit it, I received more
than common attention.
Before going further, I must make excuses to the readers of this my
itinerary, if it should seem to them that I have overpraised this
city of Venice. What I write is not written to win the goodwill of
the Venetians, but to set down the truth. And I declare that it is
impossible to tell or write fully of the beauty, the magnificence or
the wealth of the city of Venice. Something indeed can be told and
written to pass the time as I do, but it will be incredible to anyone
who has not seen the city.
I do not think there is any city to which Venice, the city founded on
the sea, can be compared; nevertheless I appeal always to the judgment
of every person who has been there some time. Although this city is
built entirely in the water and the marshes, yet it appears to me that
whoever desires to do so can go everywhere on foot, as it is well kept
and clean. Anyone, however, who does not want to endure the fatigue can
go by water, and will be entreated to do so, and it will cost him less
than he would spend elsewhere for the hire of a horse. As to the size
of the city, I may say that it is so large, that, after being there so
many days as I was, I made but little acquaintance with the streets. I
cannot give the dimensions of this city, for it appears to me not one
city alone but several cities placed together.
I saw many beautiful palaces, beginning with the Palace of St. Mark,
which is always inhabited by the Doge and his family. The façade of the
said palace has been renovated in part with a great display of gold;
and a new flight of steps is being built there--a stupendous and costly
work--by which to ascend to the said palace from the side of the Church
of St. Mark.... Besides the other notable things in the said palace, I
saw a very long hall whose walls are painted very ornately. And there
is painted the story how Frederick Barbarossa drove away Pope Alexander
the Fourth, who fled in disguise to Venice, and was recognized in
a monastery called the Monastery della Carità. The whole story is
represented with such richness and naturalness in the figures that I
think little could be added. The ceiling of the said hall is decorated
with great gilded pictures. Seats are placed round the said hall, and
in addition there are three rows of double seats, in the body of the
hall, placed back to back. There are two magnificent gilded seats,
one at each end of the said hall; I was told they were for seating the
Doge, one for the winter and the other for the summer. In this hall
sit the Great Council of all the gentlemen, who, it is said, are two
thousand five hundred in number....
I will not attempt to describe the number of large and beautiful
palaces splendidly decorated and furnished, worth, some a hundred,
some fifty, some thirty thousand ducats, and the owners of the same,
because it would be too hard an undertaking for me, and better suited
to someone who had to remain a long time in the said city of Venice. On
the Grand Canal there is the most remarkable beginning of a palace for
the Sforza family, and for the honour of the Milanese I am very sorry
it has not been finished. For after seeing the said foundations, I am
sure that the palace would be very magnificent if it were completed.
The said city, although it is in the water, as I said, has so many
beautiful piazzas, beginning with that of St. Mark, that they would
suffice for any great city placed on the mainland. It is a marvel to
see how long and spacious they are. I have observed that the said city
is so well ordered and arranged, that however much it rains, there is
never any mud.
Something may be said about the quantity of merchandise in the said
city, although not nearly the whole truth, because it is inestimable.
Indeed, it seems as if all the world flocks there, and that human
beings have concentrated there all their force for trading....
As the day of our departure was drawing near, I determined to leave
everything else and study the owners of the many beautiful things I
have noted--that is, the Venetian gentlemen, who give themselves this
title. I have considered the qualities of these Venetian gentlemen. For
the most part they are tall, handsome men, astute and very subtle in
their dealings, and whoever has to do business with them must keep his
eyes and ears well open. They are proud--I think this is on account of
their great dominions--and when a son is born to a Venetian gentleman
they say to themselves, ‘A Lord is born into the world’ (_E le nato un
Signore al Mondo_). They are frugal and very modest in their manner of
living at home; outside the house they are very liberal.