Arrival in Venice--The Water City--Gondola traffic--Past glories--Danieli's
Royal Hotel--St. Mark's Piazza--The Sacred Pigeons--St. Mark's--Mosaics--
The Holy Columns--Treasures--The Chian Steeds--The modern Goth.
Arriving at the station, our luggage was quickly carried to the
canal-side, where there were numbers of gondoliers awaiting us with
their hearse-like gondolas, which, as Byron describes in one of his
letters, "glide along the water, looking blackly just like a coffin
clapt in a canoe, where none can make out what you say or do." (There is
no name in either past or present times more sadly and inextricably
associated with Venice than that of George Gordon, Lord Byron.) It was
indeed a change from the usual noise and confusion at the end of a
railway journey, and it seemed strange not to see the usual array of
omnibuses. "The means of arrival in Venice, indeed, are commonplace
enough, but, lo! in a moment you step out of the commonplace railway
station into the lucid stillness of the water city--into poetry and
wonderland." The gondoliers are quite as clamorous as the liveried
omnibus legion. However, we soon found a representative of the Hotel
Danieli with a handsome gondola waiting to receive us. We stepped in
quickly, though most carefully--nay, even solemnly, and were soon
gliding over the silent water. There was a momentary tremor and
hesitation at first entering the long, slender, black craft with its
funeral-like hood or canopy; but the inside was luxuriously easy, and
the black cushions and drapery so comfortable that we speedily dismissed
our gloomy ideas, and began to enter into the busy moving scene around
us with the greatest delight and interest.
The gondolas were originally put into black by the order of the State,
as a rebuke to the lavish magnificence of the Venetians: they look now
as though they were in mourning for the past glories of the city. The
dress of the gondoliers was fortunately not included in the statute; and
the fine, stalwart fellow, who was quite winning our admiration by his
graceful movements in propelling our gondola, was attired like a
Venetian sailor, with a blue scarf round his waist, trimmed with silver
lace. These gondoliers, for the most part, are a light-hearted and
obliging race. They certainly hand you to your seat with a very solemn
politeness, giving you somewhat the impression of being handed into your
grave; but such thoughts are but for a moment, and soon disappear as a
smile flits over the bronzed, sailor-like countenance, and as the boat
glides rapidly between rows of great houses and marble palaces, which
rise out of the water on your right and left, "Giacomo" obligingly
pointing out the objects of interest as you pass along.
The aqueous road to our hotel lay for some distance down the Grand
Canal, and then turned aside into some of the numerous narrow lanes of
water which branch off in every direction; and it seemed truly
marvellous to us how skilfully the rectangular corners were turned, the
gondolier uttering a brief guttural shout of warning as we shot round,
in case of another gondola approaching from an opposite direction. As it
was, we had several very narrow shaves, and more than once stood in
danger of colliding. We were amused at seeing some of the hotel gondolas
that had preceded us from the station, stopping at the water-side
post-office for letters--woman, the true letter-lover, generally being
the most conspicuous applicant. And now we reach the steps of our hotel,
and are soon comfortably housed.
I feel we are at last really in Venice, and the memory of all her former
glory and greatness flits through my mind as we come under the
fascination of her magical influence. First comes a faint echo from
distant ages, of those ancient Veneti, who were powerful almost a
thousand years before the present Venice came into existence; then a
vision of the old Paduans, fleeing from their once wealthy city before
the devastating conqueror Attila. Driven from the land, they seek the
sea, and take refuge on the long spits of sand lying in a vast lagoon
beyond the mouths of several rivers. Settling down on the Rivo Alto
(Rialto), they commence to build a city, henceforth to be the wonder and
admiration of the world. Then a thousand years of glorious and active
life. There is a thrill almost of amazement at the magnificent courage
and audacity of this wondrous city, risen like Aphrodite from the sea,
and a shudder at the crimes that stain her annals--crimes as unique in
their matchless horror as any other part of her singular history.
Lastly, the gradual decay of her power, and the final catastrophe of her
fall.
Since leaving the train, we had almost been in dreamland, wandering in
the dark ages; but we were very suddenly brought back to bustling
nineteenth-century life, when the dazzling lights of the hotel broke
upon our visions, and we caught a glimpse of the numerous visitors
thronging the staircase--old men and matrons, young men and maidens, all
ascending to _table d'hôte_ in the great dining-room with an air of
pleasing interest and excitement.
Danieli's Royal Hotel, which, I believe, was originally one of the
Doge's palaces, is situated on the quay opposite the harbour, its side
entrance being in one of the narrow canals. In the evening, after
dinner, a band of musicians came into the inner court below, and
serenaded the visitors with Venetian love-songs.
We enjoyed a peaceful night's rest after the fatigues of travel, fully
anticipating a delightful awakening in this wonderful city.
The morrow came, with a lovely blue sky and bracing atmosphere, and
after breakfast we took our first walk in Venice. Crossing the quay and
certain of the little marble bridges that span the canals, and turning
to the right, round the Doge's Palace, we found ourselves in _St. Mark's
Piazza_--a great square, with colonnades of shops and _cafés_ running
round three sides of it; the apartments of the royal palace rising some
three stories on one side, and at the other end the beautiful Byzantine
Temple of _St. Mark's_, with its antique mosaic arches, surmounted by
the famous bronze horses and quaintly hooded domes, rising in exquisite
outline against the clear blue sky. Around and above us flitted
soft-hued pigeons in narrowing circles, alighting on the pavement in
flocks to be fed by the visitors and children, not unfrequently perching
on the hands of those who scattered food among them; and then flying off
once more to "nestle among the marble foliage of St Mark's, mingling the
soft iridescence of their living plumes with the tints, hardly less
lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years." These little
feathered beings are supposed to have some mystic influence over the
welfare of Venice, and are believed by the legend-loving people to fly
three times round the city every day.
At the entrance of the piazza towards the sea are two solitary columns,
supporting the mighty emblems of St. Mark.
"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her love;
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood,
Spared but in mockery of his withered power."
The first step taken towards seeing Venice was to ascend the great
tower. Though its size is imposing, being some 320 feet high, it is an
ugly structure, but commands most splendid views. The ascent is most
easy--no tiresome steps, but simply inclined planes with brick-work
flooring. On arriving at the top and looking down, I saw Venice flooded
with the noonday light--"a golden city paved with emerald," stretching
before me like a realized dream; the innumerable canals running up from
the sea at right angles, while around and beyond lay the Adrian Gulf and
the great sea, dotted with tiny islands covered with buildings;--the
whole one vast lagoon or delta formed by the alluvial soil washed down
from the mountains and deposited by the rivers. The city is built upon
thousands and thousands of piles, the hard and costly wood for which was
brought with vast expense from the East, and driven down into the earth
and sand below. It was at such cost that the Venetians obtained so
admirable a position, and were enabled to command the commerce of the
world. The harbours were full of well-protected shipping, the narrow
passages of deep water by which alone large vessels could pass, being
marked by piles. It was strange to see the city, with its large and
solid buildings and churches, floating as it were on the water:
"Underneath Day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies--
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves."
When I descended the tower, I felt, as when on the Capitol of Rome, that
I now understood more of the position of the city than many books could
have told me.
Of course, it was not long ere we passed under the portal of St. Mark's,
though we lingered long outside, admiring its beautiful proportions,
described by Ruskin in a burst of pure poetry as "a multitude of pillars
and grey-hooded domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of coloured
light: a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold and partly of opal and
mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches,
ceiled with fair mosaics and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as
amber and delicate as ivory--sculpture, fantastic and involved, of palm
leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and
fluttering among the branches, all twined together in an endless network
of buds and plumes; and in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels,
sceptred and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the
gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground
through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning
light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates
were angel-guarded long ago."
This description of the great art-master, I of course accepted as from a
highly cultured æsthetic source; but fear that, from want of true poetic
light and art culture, I did not quite appreciate or realize it in the
interior, though to me the exterior outline and architecture were always
soft and beautiful. Unfortunately, one is greatly pestered outside by a
voracious band of touts, miscalled guides, some of them mere
uneducated-looking, parrot-like roughs, and whom it is laughable to
suppose could have any pretensions to refined knowledge and art
history--irreverent monsters who have no sympathy with, or appreciation
of, anything, except what you may have in your pockets.
The interior of St Mark's reminded me more of an Eastern mosque than a
Christian temple, with its heavy arches, arcades, galleries, colonnades,
and Protean gloom. "A grave and dreamy structure," says Dickens, "of
immense proportions; golden with old mosaics; redolent of perfumes; dim
with the smoke of incense; costly in treasures of precious stones and
metals, glittering through iron bars; holy with the bodies of deceased
saints; rainbow-hued with windows of stained glass; dark with carved
woods and coloured marbles; obscure in its vast heights and lengthened
distances; shining with silver lamps and winking lights; unreal,
fantastic, solemn, inconceivable throughout."
When the eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness, the soft rainbow
colours of the mosaics come stealing out to view one by one. Nearly the
whole of the interior, more especially the vaulting, is beautified by
these millions upon millions of tiny cubes of coloured and gilded glass,
arranged with infinite labour and skill, and wonderfully illustrating
the most beautiful and impressive parts of Holy Writ, with reference to
the history of mankind, from the creation. To blend these soft,
harmonious colours must have been the work of ages, especially those
portions which necessitated the patient artist working on his back,
while fixing each tiny cube into its proper place in the ceiling. The
antique pavement, undulating from sheer age and tread of multitudes of
worshippers in the past, and also probably from a sinking of the
foundation, is likewise tessellated with all the colours of the prism,
arranged in mystic symbols and intricate figuring. But it appeared to
me, at least, that this wonderful, Mosque-like building only wanted
great groups of monster idols, to complete a perfect resemblance to some
vast Hindoo temple of a dark bygone age, when the people's conception of
the Deity was of a being rather to be feared than loved, rather to be
dreaded than trusted.
Various services were going on in the numerous little chapels; and when
the principal morning service at the chancel was over, we ascended the
steps of the high altar in order to examine and admire the ancient
twisted red alabaster pillars, said to have been originally a part of
Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem; for nearly every stone in St. Mark's has
its history. The bronze folding doors came from the Mosque of St. Sophia
at Stamboul; the pillars at the entrance of the baptistery were part of
the booty of Arre; while there are three red flagstones on which
Barbarossa knelt to do reverence to St. Peter, in the person of the
Pope. The guide held a lighted taper on one side of the column, that we
might observe its glowing transparency. I could well enter into the
feeling of noble triumph which must have animated those great and
powerful Doges of past times, in thus being able to beautify their own
Christian temple in Venice at the expense of the unbelieving, barbarous
Turk, whose usurpation of these sacred relics and of the Holy Land was
righteously considered a scandal and a shame to the Christian world.
We visited the Treasure Chapel, and saw the precious things of the
temple--offerings of princes, potentates, and devotees, collected from
all ends of the world. Each apartment was secured by no end of bolts,
bars, and locks. Among other curiosities we were shown a cover of the
books of the Gospels, embellished with gold and jewels, from the Church
of St. Sophia, Constantinople; a crystal vase containing the blood of
the Saviour (!); a silver column supporting a fragment of the pillar at
which Christ was scourged; a cup of agate containing a portion of the
skull of St. John; the sword of the Doge Morocini; cuneiform writings
from Persepolis; an episcopal throne of the seventh century, said to
have been St. Mark's; and many other things, the genuineness of which to
try and believe was of course next to impossible; and one could only
marvel at the credulity of many good men and women, who must have dearly
liked to be deceived, and who almost worshipped these lying relics, and
would only look at them devoutly on their knees. One heartily wishes
that a valiant Luther had arisen amongst them in those days, to set them
free from this miserable bondage, and teach them that Christ's atonement
was surely enough for them.
On leaving the chapel, we were allowed as an exceptional privilege to
ascend the galleries round the interior, and look closely into the
beautiful mosaic-work, most of which is in a wonderful state of
preservation, though some of it is much defaced and decayed by damp. The
mosaics now being used in the restoration are made on a new principle,
being glazed over to preserve the surface and colour from the effect of
the air. We next went out into the open façade gallery, overlooking the
great Piazza, and stood between the famous bronze horses, whose
Arab-like symmetry we greatly admired.
"Before St. Mark's still glow the steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun."
I hardly recognized the justice of Goethe's observation, of their
appearing to be somewhat heavily and clumsily modelled on a close
survey, considering their slender elegance when seen from below.
We found a great many masons and workmen employed, both inside and
outside St. Mark's, on the restoration and repairs. Fragments of the
beautiful mosaic were scattered about in heaps, which it seemed almost
desecration to tread upon. I swept them carefully together, and called
the attention of the workmen to the neglect of such precious bits of
antique workmanship. I believe these restorations are greatly exciting
the anger of lovers of art in England, by the imputed Vandalism of the
committee who are employed in directing the work. As this outcry is
principally raised by many eminent artists, who look on St. Mark's as a
perfect gem of antiquity, there must be some good reason for this
righteous anger, which, however, I much fear will be ineffectual to stay
the hand of the Goth.
I must confess, though with secret misgiving as to how such heresy will
be received, that as a whole, and apart from its antiquity and
interesting historical associations, and the exquisite mosaics, so rich
in colouring and design, I was rather disappointed in St. Mark's.
Certainly the exterior is beyond praise in its beautiful curving
outlines; but the interior is so exceedingly dark and heavy, that the
radiant beauty of the mosaics can only succeed in very partially
relieving the deep gloom. As a perfect specimen of the dark ages,
commend me rather to that little ancient Mosque beside the new Cathedral
modelled from it at Marseilles, with its low-arched domes and roofs, and
"dim, religious light."