UNCLE BOB ENLARGES HIS PARTY
In accordance with his promise Giusippe came promptly the next morning
and the four set out for the San Marco. It was a beautiful June day.
The piazza was warm with sunshine, and as groups of tourists loitered
through it the pigeons circled greedily about their feet begging food.
"Why, Uncle Bob, these pigeons are exactly like the ones at home--just
as pretty and just as hungry," Jean said.
"Should you like to stop a moment and feed them, little girl?"
"Oh, do! It will make Hannah think of Boston," begged Jean. "But we
have nothing to give them," she added in dismay.
"I will find you something, señorita," Giusippe declared.
Darting up to an old Italian who was standing near he soon returned
with a small paper cornucopia filled with grain.
"The pigeons of St. Mark's are very tame. See!"
He put some kernels of corn on the top of his hat, and holding more in
his outstretched hands stood motionless. There was a whirr of wings,
and in an instant the boy was quite hidden beneath an eager multitude
of fluttering whiteness.
"I never saw so many pigeons," Jean whispered. "You have many more than
we do at home."
"We Venetians are very fond of the birds," was Giusippe's reply. "So,
too, are the tourists who come to Venice, for they never seem to be
tired of having their pictures taken surrounded by flocks of pigeons."
"Doesn't this make you think of Boston Common, Hannah?" asked Uncle
Bob.
"Yes, a little. But I should feel more as if I were in Massachusetts if
there were not such a babel of foreign tongues about me." Then turning
to Giusippe she demanded: "How did you come to speak English, young
man?"
"I have been expecting you would ask me that," smiled Giusippe. "You
see, I have an uncle who went to America; yes, to Pennsylvania, to seek
his fortune. He stayed there five years and in that time he learned to
speak English well. When he came back he taught me all he knew. Then he
returned with his wife to the United States, and I got books and
studied. When they found at Murano that I could speak English they
often called on me to show tourists over the glass works. In this way I
picked up many words and their pronunciation. Since then I have found
that I could sometimes serve as interpreter for English or American
travelers if I watched for the chance. I was eager for such
opportunities, for it gave me practice, and I often learned new words."
"And why are you so anxious to learn English, Giusippe?" Jean
questioned.
"I hope, señorita, to go some day to the United States. My uncle told
me what a wonderful country it is, and I desire to see it. Perhaps in
that beautiful great land where everything is in abundance I might grow
rich. I now have nothing to keep me here; my parents are dead and I
have no other kinsmen. I want to join my uncle in Pennsylvania as soon
as I have enough money. Part of my passage I have already saved."
"Why, Giusippe!"
"Yes, señorita, I am in earnest. It is lonely here in Venice now that I
have no people. And Murano is not what it was in the golden days of my
ancestors. I am sure I could find work in your country if I should go
there. Do you not think I could, señor?" He turned to Mr. Cabot.
"It is possible," was Uncle Bob's thoughtful answer. "Especially since
you speak English so well. What sort of thing would you like to do?"
"I know my trade of glass-making," was Giusippe's modest answer. "I
know, too, much of coloring stained glass and of mosaic making. These
things I have known from my babyhood up. There must be such work for
persons going to the United States. Perhaps my uncle, who is in
Pittsburgh with a large glass company, could get me something to do
there."
"Pittsburgh!" exclaimed the other three in a breath.
"Yes. My uncle is with the company of a Señor Thomas Curtis, who has
been very kind to him."
"Uncle Tom! It's Uncle Tom!" Jean cried, laying her hand impulsively on
his arm. "Mr. Curtis is my uncle, Giusippe. Did you ever hear anything
so wonderful!"
"It certainly is a strange coincidence," agreed Mr. Cabot. "But why did
your uncle come back, Giusippe, after he once got over there?"
"Ah, it was this way. He went first alone, expecting when he had enough
money to send it back so that the young girl he loved could follow him,
and they could be married. But when at last he had the money saved her
parents became sick. They were old people. She could not leave them to
die here alone, señor. Therefore she refused to go to America, and so
much did my uncle love Anita that he would not stay there without her.
Back he came and worked once more at Murano. Then the father and mother
died, and my uncle and Anita were married and went to the United
States. They wanted to take me, but I pretended that I would rather
remain here. This I did because I feared that if I went with them and
did not find work I might be a burden. All this was several years ago.
My uncle is now a superintendent in one of the Curtis glass factories,
and is happy and prosperous. Still, there are children, and I could not
let him pay my fare to America. As I said, it will not take me much
longer to save the rest of my passage money. Then I shall go and
perhaps become rich. Who knows, señor!" Giusippe broke into a ringing
laugh.
Mr. Cabot made no reply.
He was thinking.
Fearing that he had offended, Giusippe changed the subject.
"But I weary you with my affairs, señor. Pardon. Shall we go on to St.
Mark's?"
It was but a few steps across the piazza, and they were soon inside the
church. Then for the first time Mr. Cabot spoke.
"This church, Jean," said he, "is the link between the old art of the
Mohammedans and the Gothic art of the Christian era. It was planned as
a Byzantine church, and in it one can see many things suggesting St.
Sofia's at Constantinople. When St. Mark's at Alexandria was destroyed
by the Mohammedans many of its treasures fell into the hands of the
Doge of Venice, who promptly proclaimed St. Mark the new patron saint
in place of St. Theodore and set about building a cathedral in which to
put all the beautiful things he had acquired. Some parts of this
ancient cathedral remain, but most of the church was built by Doge
Contarini between 1063 and 1071. To the next Doge, Domenico Selvo, fell
the task of decorating it. You see, over here the building of churches
takes longer than it does at home."
"I should think it did," answered Jean. "Why, we think it is awful if
our churches are not all done in two years."
Giusippe smiled.
"Ah, we build not that way here, señorita," he said. "Three centuries
did our people spend in building into St. Mark's the marble carvings
brought from the East; erecting the altars; and adorning the walls.
These mosaics alone it took workmen two hundred and fifty years to
fashion. Venice was a rich Republic, you see, and could well afford to
put into this cathedral the money she might have spent on war. Above
the slabs of marble are the mosaics, señorita. So it was in St. Sofia,
my father told me; the slabs of marble near the ground and the
decoration above. This whole cathedral of ours is covered on all the
walls with mosaics--pictures made from bits of glass put together to
form scenes from the Bible or from history. Even the most ignorant
people who had had no schooling could read such stories, could they
not?"
Jean nodded.
She was dazzled by the beauty of the place--by the soft light; the
walls rich in gold and color; by the many wonderful things there were
to be seen. She was interested, too, in the smoothly worn, uneven floor
which showed where the piles beneath the church had settled.
"Mosaic makers, you know, Jean, began crude attempts at making pictures
in glass thousands of years ago, for glass-making was familiar to the
Egyptians as well as to the Phoenicans and Syrians. The Greeks and
Romans, too, were great glass-makers. So glass-making came down through
the ages. The Byzantine churches usually were lighted by a row of tiny
glass windows round the base of the dome. Some of this ancient glass
still remains in St. Sofia. The common way of making such windows was
to cut a design in a slab of marble or plaster, and then insert small
pieces of colored glass. Sometimes, too, a pattern for wall decoration
was worked out by sticking fragments of glass into soft stucco. So the
first mosaic work began. We can see some of it in the museums of
England."
"There seems to be a great deal to see in those London museums, Uncle
Bob," Jean gasped.
"I am afraid you will be more convinced of that fact than ever when you
get there," chuckled Uncle Bob. "But to return to Giusippe's mosaics.
You may remember, perhaps, that when the Mohammedans invaded
Constantinople and found how important a part the glass-makers played
in decorating the churches, they at once handed the artisans over to
the caliphs, that they might be set to work adorning their mosques. Now
the Mohammedans believed it a crime to make a copy of either man or
woman in a picture, a carving, or a statue. It was punishable to pay
reverence to sacred figures; therefore all decoration in their churches
took the form of flowers, fruit, or conventional designs. So no great
mosaic pictures with figures such as these were made. Between the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Damascus became the center of
glass-making, and there are in existence in some of the museums old
Arab lamps which hung in the mosques with inscriptions from the Koran
engraved upon them. It is Giusippe's St. Mark's which revived the art
of mosaic making, and served as the bridge between those Pagan days and
the days when with Christianity the arts revived and mosaic makers
began to represent in glass figures of Christ and the saints."
"And then the painters came, as Giusippe has said," put in Jean.
"Yes, the great artists were born, and from that time pictures on
canvas instead of pictures of glass decorated the churches. But the
mosaic makers did an important service to art, for it was they who
indirectly gave to the world the idea of making stained-glass windows.
And in Venice those who ceased to make mosaics made instead the
beautiful Venetian glass of which Giusippe has told us."
"And are there no mosaics made now, Uncle Bob?" asked Jean.
"Yes. When in 1858 it became necessary to restore some of the mosaics
in St. Mark's, a descendant of one of the old Murano glass workers
named Radi, together with a Dr. Salviati, started a factory on the
Grand Canal, where they gradually revived some of the past glory of
Venice. They copied the old time glass products, making Arab lamps such
as hung in the mosques; cameo work similar to the Naples and Portland
vases; and pictures in mosaic. It was they who did The Last Supper for
Westminster Abbey, and the mosaics for Albert Memorial Hall in London."
"But Salviati's mosaics were not like those here, señor," put in
Giusippe, "because the San Marco mosaics were constructed upon the
walls, small cubes of glass being pressed into the moist cement to make
the picture. This gave a rough, irregular surface which artists say is
far more artistic than is Salviati's smooth, glassy work. When Salviati
sent mosaics away he made them here, and then backed them with cement
so they could be placed on a slab of solid material and transported
great distances from Venice. His pictures, it is true, were far more
perfectly done than were the old mosaics--too perfectly, I have heard
glass experts say."
"Undoubtedly they are right, Giusippe, for the roughness in the ancient
mosaics would, of course, break up the great plain surfaces and make
them more interesting. But Salviati did Venice a service, nevertheless,
in reviving the art. And there is, too, another virtue about mosaics,
and that is that they will endure far longer than paintings. Had it not
been for the foresight of Pope Urban, who between 1600 and 1700 had
many of the famous pictures of the Vatican copied in mosaic, these
masterpieces would have been lost to the world."
"I have been told that the church in Ravenna has some fine mosaics, but
I never have seen them," Giusippe ventured.
"I have. They are beautiful, and I hope you may see them some time.
Then there are others scattered through the various churches of Sicily
and Rome; and there are also many beautiful inlays of mosaic decorating
the old churches and palaces of European cities. When we visit
Westminster Abbey, Jean, I must show you the crude early mosaic work on
the tomb of Edward the Confessor. It is very curious, for it is made of
pieces of colored glass set in grooves of marble."
"How much you are to see, señorita," observed Giusippe wistfully.
Mr. Cabot fixed his eyes attentively on the boy.
"Should you, too, like to see all these wonders, Giusippe?" he asked
half playfully and half in earnest.
But Giusippe, who did not catch the banter in his tone, answered
seriously:
"Should I? Ah, señor, it is not for me to envy or be unhappy about that
which I may not have. Some day, perhaps, when I have made my fortune in
your country I can return to the old world and see its marvels. I must
have a little patience, that is all."
The mingling of sadness and longing in the reply touched Uncle Bob;
Jean and the young Venetian chattered on, but Mr. Cabot walked silently
ahead, deep in thought.
"Did I understand you to say, Giusippe," he asked at last turning
abruptly, "that you have no relatives in Venice?"
"None in all the world with the exception of the uncle in America of
whom I told you, señor."
Again there was a pause.
"Suppose I were to take you with us."
"What, señor?"
"Take you with us now, when we leave Venice."
"I do not understand."
"Suppose I asked you to go with us to France and England, and then
across to America."
"But I have not enough money, señor."
"I haven't much, either," Mr. Cabot answered, smiling kindly into the
boy's puzzled eyes. "Still, I think I could get together a sufficient
sum to pay your way until you got to the United States and found work."
"To go--to go with you now, do you mean, señor?"
"Yes. We leave Venice next week for France. You see, I like you,
Giusippe; we all do. And in addition to that you have done us a
service. But more than anything else I feel that, once started, you are
capable of making your way and doing well in life; all you need is a
chance. I have perfect faith that if I took you to America you would
make good. It would cost very little more were you to join us, and no
doubt you could help in many little ways during the trip. Do you speak
French at all?"
"Yes, some; but more German. It is nothing. Many travelers come to
Venice, and one must talk to them. Then, too, here it is not unusual to
speak several languages, because the countries lie near together, and
the people come and go from place to place. With you it is different; a
mighty sea divides you from the rest of the world."
"Despite all your excuses for us, Giusippe, it is quite true that we
Americans are as a rule pitiably ignorant about languages. Here is this
boy, Jean, who knows not only his mother tongue but French, German and
English besides. Isn't that a rebuke to us, with our fine schools and
our college educations? It makes me ashamed of myself. Do you, little
girl, try and do better than I have. Well, young man, what do you say
to my proposition? Will you come with us to America?"
"Señor! Oh, señor! How can I ever----"
"Well, then, that settles it," interrupted Mr. Cabot, cutting him
short. "I will arrange everything. But there is just one condition to
be made, my youthful Venetian patriot. If by chance we see any of those
old mirrors made by the early Frenchmen who stole your art from Murano
you are not to smash them. Remember!"
Giusippe laughed.