were suddenly swept away to some far star, blazing in the firmament; or
if Charon had rowed him over the mystic river and he had entered the
abodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchanted
palace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows on
marble balconies overhanging the Grand Canal. Dainty little tables piled
with current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, stand
around; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenience
of stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guest
in any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardless
of the regulation _salle-a-manger_. One looks across the Grand Canal to
the beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes
against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy
reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were
floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with
throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of
the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, and
here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric
cars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphalt
pavement--no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush
of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an
illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the
heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift--a sky above and a sky
below--on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in the
depths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back,--the very
atmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin's words that "none of
us appreciate the nobleness and the sacredness of color. Of all God's
gifts to man," he continues, "color is the holiest, the most divine,
the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element." If the
enthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the place
that will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious of
being steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One no
longer marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They but
interpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venice
has well said:--
"The aspects of Venice are as various, as manifold, as the hues
held in solution upon her waters beneath a sirocco sky. There is a
perpetual miracle of change; one day is not like another, one hour
varies from the next; there is no stable outline such as one finds
among the mountains, no permanent vista, as in a view across a
plain. The two great constituents of the Venetian landscape, the
sea and the sky, are precisely the two features in nature which
undergo most incessant change. The cloud-wreaths of this evening's
sunset will never be repeated again; the bold and buttressed piles
of those cloud-mountains will never be built again just so for us;
the grain of orange and crimson that stains the water before our
prow, we cannot be sure that we shall look upon its like again....
One day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else. The
revolution of the seasons will repeat certain effects; spring will
chill the waters to a cold, hard green; summer will spread its
breadth of golden light on palace front and water way; autumn will
come with its pearly-gray sirocco days, and sunsets flaming a
sombre death; the stars of a cloudless winter night, the whole vast
dome of heaven, will be reflected in the mirror of the still
lagoon. But in spite of this general order of the seasons, one day
is less like another in Venice than anywhere else; the lagoon wears
a different aspect each morning when you rise, the sky offers a
varied composition of cloud each evening as the sun sets. Words
cannot describe Venice, nor brush portray her ever-fleeting,
ever-varying charm. Venice is to be felt, not reproduced; to live
there is to live a poem, to be daily surfeited with a wealth of
beauty enough to madden an artist to despair."
It was in the autumn of 1882 that the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, later
Bishop of Massachusetts, visited Venice and wrote of San Marco:--
"Strange how there is nothing like St. Mark's in Venice, nothing of
the same kind as the great church. It would have seemed as if,
standing here for so many centuries, and always profoundly loved
and honored, it would almost of necessity have influenced the minds
of the generations of architects, and shown its power in their
works. But there seems to be no sign of any such influence. It
stands alone."
Dr. Brooks noted that Venice had "two aspects, one sensuous and
self-indulgent, the other lofty, spiritual, and even severe. Both
aspects," he continues, "are in its history and both are also in its
art. Titian often represents the former. The loftier, nobler Tintoretto
gives us the second. There is something in his greatest pictures, as,
for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artist
approaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression of
intellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women is
full of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre,
glows with a solemn picturesqueness, and the great Christ, who hangs
like a benediction over the whole, is vocal with a piety which no other
picture in the world displays. And the Presentation of the Virgin, in
Santa Maria dell'Orto, is the consummate presentation of that beautiful
subject, its beauty not lost in its majesty."
Of other pictures Dr. Brooks said:--
"In the Academia there is the sunshine of three hundred years ago.
Paris Bordone's glowing picture of the Fisherman who brings the
Ring of St. Mark to the Doge, burned like a ray of sunlight on the
wall. Carpaccio's delightful story of St. Ursula brought the old
false standards of other days back to one's mind, but brought them
back lustrous with the splendor of summers that seemed forever
passed, but are perpetually here. Tintoretto's Adam and Eve was, as
it always is, the most delightful picture in the gallery, and
Pordenone's great St. Augustine seemed a very presence in the vast
illuminated room."
Tennyson loved best, of all the pictures in Venice, a Bellini,--a
beautiful work, in the Church of Il Redentore; and he was deeply
impressed by the "Presentation of the Virgin," from Tintoretto, in the
Church of the Madonna dell'Orto. "He was fascinated by St. Mark's,"
writes the poet's son, "by the Doge's Palace and the Piazza, and by the
blaze of color in water and sky. He climbed the Campanile, and walked to
the library where he could scarcely tear himself away from the Grimani
Breviary."
Venice, though not containing any single gallery comparable with the
Pitti and the Uffizi, is still singularly rich in treasures of art, and
rich in legend and story. The school of encrusted architecture is
nowhere so wonderfully represented as here, and it is only in this
architecture that a perfect scheme of color decoration is possible. In
all the world there is no such example of encrusted architecture as that
revealed in St. Mark's. It is a gleaming mass of gold, opal, ruby, and
pearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranate
and lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars of
gold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds of
mystic incense fill the air. One most impressive place is the
baptistery, where is the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the Doge
Andrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosen
Doge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, and
the design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while two
angels at the head and the feet hold back the curtains.
The sarcophagus that is said to contain the body of St. Mark is of the
richest description, encrusted with gold and jewels on polished ebony
and marble. There is a legend that after St. Mark had seen the people of
Aguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter;
but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy Bishop
Hennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was driven by
wind to a small island called Rialto, on which were some houses, and St.
Mark was suddenly snatched into ecstasy and heard the voice of an angel
saying, "Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest."
There is also a legend that in the great conflagration which destroyed
Venice in 976 A.D., the body of St. Mark was lost and no one knew where
to find it. Then the pious Doge and the people gave themselves to
fasting and prayer, and assembled in the church, asking that the place
be revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the assemblage took
place. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, and opened to
disclose the sarcophagus,--a chest of bronze. The legend goes on to say
that St. Mark stretched his hand out through the side and that a noble,
Dolfini by name, drew a gold ring off the finger.
The place where this miracle is said to have been wrought is now marked
by the Altar of the Cross.
Ruskin declares that "a complete understanding of the sanctity of color
is the key to European art." Nowhere is this sanctity of color so felt
as at San Marco. The church is like the temple of the New Jerusalem.
The origin of Venice is steeped in sacred history. It is pre-eminently
the city founded in religious enthusiasm. The chronicles of De Monici,
written in 421, give this passage: "God, who punishes the sins of men by
war, sorrow, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to save
the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole
world, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chief
men of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past,
and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearer
islands of the Adriatic, to which, in the last extremity, they might
retreat for refuge.... They laid the foundation of the new city under
good auspices on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to
the mouth of the Brenta, on March 25, 471."
The first Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by the
tribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. The
period of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and
patrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335,
and the last Doge elected was Lodovico Manin in 1789, who exclaimed,
"_Tole questo: no la dopero piu_," as the French Revolution destroyed
the Republic of Venice.
The finest example of Renaissance architecture in Venice is that of the
_Libreria Vecchia_, the work of Jacobo Sansovino, completed in the
sixteenth century. Never were the creations of poet and philosopher more
fittingly enshrined. The rich Doric frieze, the Ionic columns, the
stately balustrade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richness
of ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in the
best classical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is a
picture by Titian representing "Wisdom" as a woman, reclining on a
cloud, her right hand outstretched to take a book that Genius is
offering her. There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and rich
mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro.
Petrarca, returning from his wanderings in 1362, pleaded with the Senate
of Venezia to give him a house, in return for which he offered the
inheritance of his library. This was the nucleus of the fine collection
which since 1812 has been included in the Palace of the Doges. In it are
some magnificent works by Paolo Veronese, one portrait by Tintoretto,
and others by Salviati and Telotti.
The Doge's Palace is a treasure house of history. One enters the Porta
della Carta, which dates back to 1638, erected by Bartolomeo Buon. The
portal is very rich in sculpture, and among the reliefs is a heroic one
of Francesco Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark's. One
recalls his tragic fate and passes on. Perhaps, _en passant_, one may
say that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly in
the scenes of tragedy that he is prone to sink almost into utter
sadness, even, rather than seriousness. The air is full of ghosts. One
feels the oppression of all the life that has there been lived, all the
tragedies that have been enacted in these scenes.
In Renaissance nothing more wonderful in Europe can be found than the
court of the Palace of the Doges. Antonio Rizzo began the east facade of
the building in 1480, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed by
Scarpagnino. "Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of these
sculptures," says Salvatico, "as well as of the single ornaments of the
walls and of the ogres which have been carved so delicately and richly
that they cannot be excelled by the Roman antique friezes."
By the golden staircase one goes to the council chambers,--the hall of
the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Council of Three. In the great
council chamber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world,
"The Glory of Venice," by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In a
frieze are the portraits of seventy-six of the Doges, but in one space
is a black tablet only, with the inscription: "This in place of M. F.,
who was executed for his crimes."
The "Sala del Maggior Consiglio" (hall of the grand council) is very
rich in paintings. Above the throne is Tintoretto's "The Glory of
Paradise," and the walls are covered with battle pieces and symbolic and
allegorical paintings. There is "Venice Crowned by Fame," by Paolo
Veronese, "Doge Niccolo da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envoys of
Conquered Cities to Venice," by Tintoretto; "Venice Crowned by the
Goddess of Victory," by Palma Giovane, and many another of the richest
and most wonderful beauty.
Descending into the prisons and dungeons brings one into a vivid
realization of the grim history of which these were the scenes. The
Bridge of Sighs has two covered passages, one for the political and one
for the criminal prisoners. Here is shown a narrow ledge on which the
condemned man stood, with a slanting stone passageway before him, which,
when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed the
crimson flood into the dark waters of the canal below, while the body
was thrown in the water on the other side. There are the "Chambers of
Lead," where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, and
as intensely cold in the winter. Many of these dark, close, narrow
cells--in which the one article of furniture allowed was the wooden
slanting rack, that served as a bed--still remain. In many of these are
inscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (in
translation): "May God protect me against him whom I trust; I will
protect myself against him whom I do not trust."
The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: "G. M. B. was
confined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it will be
the last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family."
All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:--
"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand."
The piazza of St. Mark's is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe.
It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which are
merely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk is
blockaded with cafes _al fresco_, the ground is half covered with the
dense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The
facade of St. Mark's fills one end--a mass of gleaming color. At one
corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissance
style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa
days three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forth
on the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above,--a very
ingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculptures
and masses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall,
where all the town congregates from morning till midnight.
To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and one
that would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries of
Venice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastiano
lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated
frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his
"Coronation of the Virgin," "The Virgin in the Gloria," "Adoration of
the Magi," "Martyrdom of San Sebastian," and many others. In the Scuola
di San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, "St. Magdalene in the
Wilderness," the "Visitation," and the "Murder of the Innocents."
In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of Titian,--an exquisite grouping
of sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of the
Emperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is Titian's
most famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pessaro," the work of which is
probably, too, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven is
shown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninus
are commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned on
high. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellous
composition render this immortal masterpiece something whose sight marks
an epoch in life. Canova's tomb in San Maria dei Frari is a wonderful
thing. It is a pyramid of purest marble, with a door opening for the
sarcophagus, above which is a portrait of Canova in relief, and on
either side the door angels and symbolic figures are sculptured.
The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, to which one is always
returning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snowy
towers and dome seem to rise out of the water and float in the air.
The fall of the Campanile in 1904 was regarded as a calamity by all the
civilized world. For a thousand years it had stood at the side of St.
Mark's; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to the
condition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found that the vast
area of over fifty thousand square feet of matchless mosaic needed
restoration in order that they should be preserved.
The Palazzo Rezzonico, which dates to Clement XIII, usually known as the
"Browning Palace," has been for many years one of the special interests
to the visitor in Venice. In the early months of 1907 it passed out of
the hands of Robert Barrett Browning, who had purchased it in 1888, and
had held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal associations, since
the death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning is
due the grateful appreciation of a multitude of tourists for his
generous and never-failing courtesy in permitting them the privilege of
visiting this palace in which his father had passed many months of
enjoyment. It was from this residence that the poet Browning wrote, in
October of 1880, to a friend:--
"Every morning at six I see the sun rise; far more wonderfully, to
my mind, than his famous setting which everybody glorifies. My
bedroom window commands a perfect view; the still, gray lagune, the
few sea-gulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow and
the clouds in a long purple rock behind which a sort of spirit of
rose burns up till presently all the rims are on fire with gold,
and last of all the orb sends before it a long column of its own
essence apparently; so my day begins."
Later, of his son's palace, Mr. Browning wrote:--
"Have I told you that there is a chapel which he has restored in
honor of his mother--putting up there the inscription by
Tommaseo,[3] now above Casa Guidi in Florence?"
In this palace Mr. Browning wrote some of his later poems, and it may
well be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes that he
perhaps most deeply felt the ineffable charm of Venice:--
"For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space
Above me...."
It was from these lofty salons in the Browning Palace that the poet
passed to the "life more abundant" on that December day of 1889, on the
very day that his last volume, "Asolando," was published and also the
last volume of Tennyson's. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in a
letter to Lord Tennyson: "The death of Browning on the day of the
appearance of your volume, and we hear of one of his own, is a touching
event."
From the time of Mrs. Browning's death in Florence (in June of 1861) Mr.
Browning never felt that he could see Italy again, until the autumn of
1878, when he, with his sister, Miss Sarianna Browning, came to Venice
by way of the Italian lakes and Verona. At this time they only remained
for a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which was
transformed into the Albergo dell'Universo. This palace was on the Grand
Canal below the Accademia, and here he returned through two or three
subsequent years. Mr. Browning became very fond of Venice, and he
explored its winding ways and gardens and knew it, not merely from the
gondola view, but from the point of view of the curious little dark and
narrow byways, the bridges, and the piazzas.
It was in 1880 that Mr. Browning first met, through the kind offices of
Mr. Story, a most charming and notable American lady, Mrs. Arthur
Bronson (Katherine DeKay), who had domiciled herself in Casa Alvisi, an
old palace on the Grand Canal opposite the Church of Santa Maria della
Salute. She was a woman of very interesting personality, and had drawn
about her a circle including many of the most distinguished people of
her time, authors, artists, poets, and notable figures in the social
world. She was eminently _simpatica_ and her lovely impulses of generous
kindness were rendered possible to translate into the world of the
actual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor.
Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rare
and beautiful friendships that lasted during his lifetime, and to her
appreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of his
later years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning and
his sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in the
Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati--a palace adjoining her own--and each night
they dined and passed the evening with her, with music and conversation
to enchant the hours. After Mr. Browning's death, Mrs. Bronson was the
friend whom all pilgrims to his shrine in Venice felt it a special
privilege to meet and to hear speak of him. In her palace was a large
easy-chair, with a ribbon tied across the arms, in which Browning was
accustomed to sit, and which was held sacred to him. Mrs. Bronson was an
accomplished linguist, and the _habitues_ of her salon represented many
nationalities. Among these was the Princess Montenegro, the mother of
the present Queen of Italy.
It is little wonder that the Browning Palace was for so many years a
focus for all who revered and loved the wedded poets, Robert and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
In the marble court, roofed only by the blue Venetian sky, stood Mr.
Barrett Browning's statue of "Dryope" in bronze, on its marble
pedestal,--a beautiful conception of the Dryope of Keats,--the dweller
in forest solitudes whom the Hamadryads transformed into a poplar. Here
a fountain makes music all day long, and the court is also adorned in
summer by great Venetian jars of pink hydrangeas in full bloom. The
grand staircase, with its carved balustrade and the wide landing where a
rose window decorates the wall, leads to the lofty salons which were yet
as homelike as they were artistic during the residence of the Brownings.
Mr. Story's bust of Mrs. Browning, other portrait busts of both the
poets, sculptured by their artist son, and by others, and other
memorials abound. In the library were gathered many interesting volumes,
autographed from their authors, and many rare and choice editions, among
which was one of the "Sonnets from the Portuguese" in a sumptuous volume
whose artistic beauty found a fitting setting to Mrs. Browning's
immortal sonnets. Among other volumes were a collection of signed
"Etchings" by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema; presentation copies from
Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey De Vere, Walter Savage Landor, and many
another known to fame; and a copy, also, of a study of Mrs. Browning's
poetry[4] by an American writer.
There is one memento over which the visitor always smiled--a souvenir of
a London evening in 1855 when the Brownings had invited Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and his brother and Lord Madox Brown to meet Tennyson and
listen to his reading of his new poem, "Maud," then still unpublished.
During the reading Rossetti drew a caricature representing Tennyson with
his hair standing on end, his eyes glowering and his hand theatrically
extended, as he held a manuscript inscribed,
"I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood."
A reproduction of John Singer Sargent's painting, "The Gypsy Dance,"
bore the inscription, "To _mon ami_, Browning." From the library is a
niche, decorated in gold, with memorial entablatures to the memory of
Mrs. Browning. On the outer wall of the palace is an inscription that
runs:--
"Robert Browning died in this house 12th December, 1889.
"Open my heart and you will see
Graven inside it 'Italy.'"