Part 14

On every side were objects of interest. The two large columns near the sea were trophies of one conquest; the ranges of little columns on the side of the church were trophies of a hundred more; the great staircase at which we looked through an arch of the palace were the Giant’s Stairs, and the holes in the walls above them the Lions’ Mouths! This huge tower is the Campanile, which has stood there a thousand years rooted in mud; and those spars let into the pavement in front of the church are the very same on which the conquered standards of Cyprus and Candia, and the Morea, were wont to flap. The noble group of horses in bronze above the great door, is _the_ group, restored at last to its resting-place of centuries.

Passing by the side of the palace of the Doges, which fronts the sea, by an arcade walk that lines its whole exterior, which is the celebrated Broglio, where none but the noble once could walk, and where intrigues were formerly so rife, we came to the bridge which spans the canal that bounds the rears of the church and palaces. The covered gallery that is thrown across this canal, connecting, at the height of a story or two above the ground, the palace with the prisons on the other side, was the Bridge of Sighs! By the side of the water-gate beneath were the submarine dungeons, and I had only to look towards the roof to imagine the position of the _Piombi_.

Then there was the port, lighted by a soft moon, and dotted with vessels of quaint rigs, with the cool air fanning the face,—the distant Lido,—and the dark hearse-like gondolas gliding in every direction. Certainly, no other place ever struck my imagination so forcibly; and never before did I experience so much pleasure, from novel objects, in so short a time. A noble military band played in the square; but though the music was, what German instrumental music commonly is, admirable, it served rather to destroy the illusion of magic, and to bring me down to a sense of ordinary things. After passing an hour in this manner, I returned to the _Leone Bianco_, and excited every one’s curiosity to see the same things. Poor W—— issued forth immediately; but, after an unsuccessful search in the maze of lanes, he returned disappointed.

The traveller’s book was brought me to write my name in: and I find that an American or two who had preceded me have been lampooned, as usual, _in English_! One would think pride, in the absence of good taste, would correct this practice.

LETTER XXXI.

Picture of the Assumption, by Titian.—Martyrdom of St. Peter.—Church of St. Mark.—Attention to the countenance by the old masters.—Canova’s Monument.—Palaces.—Arsenal and Museum.—Gondolas and Gondoliers.—Lions’ Mouths.—Concourse in the Square of St. Mark.—Attempt to revive Venice as a free port.—Composition Floors.—Cause of frequent conflagration in America.—Mr. Owen’s social scheme.—Company to erect edifices for lodging mechanics suggested.

We have left the _Leone Bianco_ for lodgings near the Piazza San Marco, where we control our own _ménage_, avoiding the expense and confusion of an inn. I have set up my gondola, and we have been regularly at work looking at sights for the last week. I shall continue, in my own way, to speak only of those things that have struck me as peculiar, and which, previously to my own visit here, I should myself have been glad to have had explained.

In the first place, Titian, and Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese, are only seen at Venice. Good pictures of the first are certainly found elsewhere; but here you find him in a blaze of glory. I shall not weary you with minute descriptions of things of this sort, but one story connected with a picture of Titian’s is too good not to be told. You know, the French carried away every work of art they could. They even attempted to remove fresco paintings; a desecration that merited the overthrow of their power. One great picture in Venice, however, escaped them. It stood in a dark chapel, and was so completely covered with dust and smoke that no one attended to it. Even the servitors of the church itself fancied it a work of no merit.

Within a few years, however, some artist or connoisseur had the curiosity to examine into the subject of this unknown altar-piece. His curiosity became excited; the picture was taken down, and being thoroughly cleaned, it proved to be one of the most gorgeous Titians extant. Some think it his _chef-d’œuvre_. Without going so far as this, it is a picture of great beauty, and every way worthy of the master. The subject is the Assumption, which he has treated in a manner very different from that of Murillo, all of whose Virgins are in white, while this of Titian’s is red. The picture is now kept in the Academy, and imitations of it are seen on half the ornamented manufactures of Venice.

The Martyrdom of St. Peter, (not the Evangelist,) Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced a wonder, in its way; but it stands in a bad light, and it did not strike me as a pleasant subject. All Martyrdoms are nuisances on canvass. Like the statues of men without skins, they may do artists good, but an amateur can scarcely like them. The better they are done, the more revolting they become.

We have visited half the churches, picture-hunting: and a queer thing it is to drive up to a noble portico in your gondola, to land and find yourself in one of the noblest edifices of Europe. Then the sea-breezes fan the shrines; and sometimes the spray and surf is leaping about them, as if they were rocks on a strand. This applies only to those that stand a little removed from the bulk of the town, and exposed to the sweep of the port. But St. Mark’s is as quaint internally as on its exterior. It is an odd jumble of magnificence, and of tastes that are almost barbarous. The imitation mosaics, in particular, are something like what one might expect to see at the court of the Incas. The pavement of this church is undulating, like low waves—a sort of sleeping ground-swell. C—— thinks it is intentional, by way of marine poetry, to denote the habits of the people; but I fancy it is more probably poetic justice, a reward for not driving home the piles. The effect is odd, for you almost fancy you are afloat as you walk over the undulating surface. St. Mark’s, if not the very oldest, is _one_ of the oldest Christian churches now standing. There were older, of course, in Asia Minor; but they stand no longer,—or if they do stand, they have ceased to be Christian churches.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says, if it were the fashion to go naked, the beauties of the human _form_ are so much superior to that of the _face_, that no one would regard the latter. Clothes have produced a different effect on the art of painting. All the painters who create or revive their art commence with the countenance, which they paint well long before they can draw the form at all. You may see this in America, where the art is still in its infancy, in one sense; many drawing good heads, who make sad work with the body and the hands. The works of the old masters exhibit heavenly countenances on spider’s limbs, as any one knows who has ever seen a picture by Giotto. A picture here, by the master of Titian, has much of this about it; but it is a gem, after all. John of Bellino was the painter, and I liked it better than any thing I saw, one fresco painting excepted.

Some of the carvings of the churches, that are in _high relief_, surpass any thing of the sort I have ever seen; and, in general, there is an affluence of ornaments, and of works of merit, that renders these edifices second to few besides those of Rome. A monument by Canova, that was designed for Titian, but which has received a new destination by being erected in honour of the sculptor himself, is an extraordinary thing, and quite unique. Besides the main group, there are detached figures, that stand several feet aloof; and the effect of this work, which is beautifully chiselled out of spotless marble, beneath the gloomy arches of a church, is singularly dramatic and startling. One is afraid to commend the conceit, and yet it is impossible not to admire the result. Still, I think, the admirable thought of Nahl renders his humble Swiss tomb the sublimest thing in Europe.

What shall I tell you of the famous palaces? They are more laboured externally, and have less simplicity and grandeur than I had expected to see; but many of them are magnificent houses. All stand on a canal, very many on the principal one; but they all extend far back towards the streets, and can be entered as well by land as by water. There is a large vestibule or hall below, into which one first enters on quitting the gondola; and it is very usual to see one or more gondolas in it, as one sees carriages in a court. The rooms above are often as rich as those of royal residences, and many capital pictures are still found in them. The floors are, almost invariably, of the composition which I have already mentioned as resembling variegated marble. A much smaller proportion of them than of those at Rome appear to be regularly occupied by their owners.

You may suppose that I have had the curiosity to visit the renowned Arsenal. It stands at one end of the town, and of course commands the best water. The walls enclose a good deal of room, and ships of size can enter within them. An Austrian corvette was on the stocks, but there was no great activity in the building-yard. A frigate or two, however, are here.

There is a museum of curious objects attached to the Arsenal, that is well worth seeing. Among other things, we saw plans, and even some of the ornaments of the Buccentauro, which is broken up, the sea being a widow. One does not know which is the most to be pitied, _la Veuve de la grande armée_, or the bereaved Adriatic.

I have told you nothing of the gondolas. The boats have a canopied apartment in the centre, which will contain several people. Some will hold a large party, but the common gondola may seat six in tolerable comfort. With the front curtain drawn, one is as much concealed as in a coach. The gondolier stands on a little deck at the stern, which is ridged like a roof, and he _pushes_ his oar, which has no rullock, but is borne against a sort of jaw in a crooked knee, and may be raised from one resting-place to another at will. It requires practice to keep the oar in its place, as I know by experience, having tried to row myself with very little success. By his elevated position, the gondolier sees over the roof of the little pavilion, and steers as he rows. If there are two gondoliers, as is frequently the case, one stands forward of the pavilion, always rowing like the other, though his feet are on the bottom of the boat. The prow has a classical look, having a serrated beak of iron, that acts as an offensive defence.

The boats themselves are light, and rather pretty; the mould, a little resembling that of a bark canoe. The colour is almost invariably black; and as the canopy is lined with black cloth, fringed, or with black leather, they have a solemn and hearse-like look, that is not unsuited to their silence and to the well-known mystery of a Venetian. There is something to cause one to fancy he is truly in a new state of society, as his own gondola glides by those of others with the silence of the grave, the gentle plashing of the water being all that is usually audible. My gondolier has a most melodious voice, and the manner in which he gives the usual warning as the boat turns a corner is music itself.

The private gondolas are often larger, and on great occasions, I am told, they are very rich. The livery of a private gondolier used to be a flowered jacket and cap; and a few such are still to be seen on the canals.

Of course we have visited the cells, the halls of the Ducal Palace, and the _piombi_. There are several Lions’ mouths, all let into the wall of the palace, near the Giant’s Stairs; and the name is obtained from the circumstance that the head of a lion is wrought in stone and built into the building, the orifice to receive the paper being the mouth of the animal.

The Square of St. Mark is a delightful place of resort at this season; I pass every evening in it, enjoying the music and the sports. Here you can also see that you are on the eastern confines of Europe, Asiatics and Greeks and European Turks frequenting the place in some numbers. There is one coffee-house, in particular, that appears to be much in request with the Mussulmans, for I seldom pass it without finding several grave turbaned gentlemen seated before it. These men affect Christian usages so far as to sit on chairs; though I have remarked that they have a predilection for raising a leg on one knee, or some other grotesque attitude. They have the physical qualifications, in this respect, of an American country buck, or of a member of Parliament, to say nothing of Congress.

The attempt to revive the importance of Venice, by making it a free port, is not likely to result in much benefit. It requires some peculiar political combinations, and a state of the world very different from that which exists to-day, to create a commercial supremacy for such places as Venice or Florence. Venice does not possess a single facility that is not equally enjoyed by Trieste, while the latter has the all-important advantage of being on the main. The cargo brought into Venice, unless consumed there, must be reshipped to reach the consumer; or, _vice versâ_, it must be shipped once more on its way from the producer to the foreign port, than if sent directly from Trieste. A small district in its immediate vicinity may depend on Venice as its mart, but no extended trade can ever be revived here until another period shall arrive, when its insular situation may make its security from assault a consideration. A general and protracted war might do something for the place, but the prosperity that is founded on violence contains the principle of its own destruction.

I have been so much struck by the beauty of the composition floors that are seen here in nearly every house, as to go to the mechanics, and to employ them to let me see the process of making them. Enclosed you have the written directions they have given me. In addition to this I can add, that the great point appears to be beating the mortar, and to put it on in separate layers. The time required to make a thoroughly good floor of this kind is about two years, though one may suffice; and this, I well know, will be a serious objection in a country like our own. Their great beauty, however, their peculiar fitness for a warm climate, and the protection they afford against fire, are strong inducements for trying them. As they can be carpeted in winter, there is no objection to them on account of the cold; indeed, if properly carpeted, they must be warmer than planks, insomuch as they admit no air when thoroughly constructed.

I have now been in Europe four years, and I have _seen_ but _two_ fires, although most of my time has been passed in London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Naples, &c. &c. It is true, some portion of this exemption from alarms is to be ascribed to the system of having regular corps of firemen, who are constantly on duty, and who go noiselessly to work: but, after making every allowance for this difference, and excluding New York, which is even worse than Constantinople for fires, I am persuaded there are ten fires in an ordinary American town, for one in a European. The fact may be explained in several ways, though I incline to believe in a union of causes. The poor of America are so much better off than the poor of Europe, that they indulge in fires and lights when their class in this part of the world cannot. The climate, too, requires artificial heat, and stoves have not been adopted as in the North of Europe, and where they are used, they are dangerous iron stoves, instead of the brick furnaces of the North, most of which receive the fire from the exterior of the room. But, after all, I think a deficient construction lies at the bottom of the evil with us. Throughout most of Europe, the poor, in particular, do not know the luxury of wooden floors. They stand either on the beaten earth, coarse compositions, stones, or tiles. In Italy, it is commonly the composition; and you may form some idea of the consistency to which the material is brought, by the fact that good roofs are made of it.

It is the misfortune of men to push their experiments, when disposed at all to quit the beaten track, into impracticable extremes, and to overlook a thousand intermediate benefits that might really be attainable. Every one, of any penetration or common sense, must have seen, at a glance, that the social scheme of Mr. Owen was chimerical, inasmuch as it was destructive of that principle of individuality by which men can be induced to bestow the labour and energy that alone can raise a community to the level of a high civilization,—or when raised, can keep it there. Still his details suggest many exceedingly useful hints, which, by being carried out, would add immeasurably to the comfort and security of the poor in towns. What a charity, for instance, would a plan something like the following become!—Let there be a company formed to erect buildings of great size, to lodge the labouring mechanics and manufacturers. Such an edifice might be raised on arches, if necessary, with composition floors. It might enjoy every facility of water and heat, and even of cooking and washing, on a large scale, and, of course, economically. The price of rooms could be graduated according to means, and space obtained for the exercise of children in the greater area of so many united lots. Even entire streets might be constructed on this community-plan, the whole being subject to a company-police. Here, however, the community principle should cease, and each individual be left to his own efforts. America may not need such a provision for the poor; but Europe would greatly benefit by taking the practicable and rejecting the impracticable features of the Owen System. Among other benefits, there would be fewer fires.

LETTER XXXII.

Wearisome calm of Venice.—The Canals and Port the chief resort for recreation.—Garden planted by Napoleon.—Misconception respecting the Rialto.—The Bridge of Sighs.—Palaces.—The canals without footways on their margin.—Intercourse by land.—The Grand Canal.—The Lido.—The Islands.

Although Venice was so attractive at first, in the absence of acquaintances it soon became monotonous and wearying. A town in which the sounds of hoof and wheel are never known, in which the stillness of the narrow ravine-like canals, is seldom broken, unless by the fall of an oar, or the call of the gondolier,—fatigues by its unceasing calm; and although the large canals, the square, and the port offer livelier scenes, one soon gets to feel a longing for further varieties. If I do not remember to have been so much struck with any other place on entering it, I do not recollect ever to have been so soon tired of a residence in a capital. It is true, we knew no one, nor did any one know us; and an exclamation of pleasure escaped me on suddenly meeting the _Grognon_, in the Piazzetta; a pleasure which, I regret to say, did not seem reciprocal. But he had just arrived.

We took boat daily for the last week of our residence, living on the water, and among the palaces and churches. I was surprised to find that the Adriatic has a tide; for banks over which we have rowed at one hour, were bare a few hours later. In all this place, there are but two or three areas in which the population can seek the air, except by resorting to the canals and the port. Napoleon caused a garden to be planted, however, near the northern extremity of the town, which will eventually be a charming spot. It is larger than one might suppose from the circumstances; and here only can a Venetian enjoy the pleasures of verdure and shade.

You will be surprised to hear, that by the Rialto of Shakspeare, one is not to understand the _bridge_ of that name. This bridge is divided into three passages, by two rows of low shops, which are occupied by butchers and jewellers (a droll conjunction,) and the height has rendered broad steps necessary to make the ascents and descents easy. Some travellers describe a small platform on the summit of the bridge as the Exchange, or the place where Shylock extorted gold. I believe this is altogether a misconception. The Rialto is the name of the island at one end of the bridge, and on this island the merchants resorted for the purposes of business; and “meeting me _on_ the Rialto,” did not mean, on the _bridge_, but on the _island_, after which island the bridge, in fact, is named. Mr. Carter, among others, seems to have fallen into this error.

“I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,” &c. &c. &c.

is pure poetry. This bridge is thrown across the narrow dark canal that separates the Ducal Palace from the Prison, and is, in fact, a covered gallery. The description of

“A palace and a prison on each hand,”

though bad grammar, is sufficiently literal. It is bad grammar, because there are _not_ a palace and a prison on _each_ hand, but a palace on one side and a prison on the other. As poetry, the verse is well enough; but you are not to trust too implicitly to either Shakspeare or Byron, if you desire accuracy. The remainder of the description is not to be taken as at all faithful, though so very beautiful. It is morally, but not physically true. The Bridge of Sighs, if open, would be one of the worst places in all Venice to obtain the view described. I mention this, not as criticism, for as such it would be hypercriticism, but simply that you may understand the truth.

“Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,”

is also exaggerated. One or two buildings have been destroyed for the materials, I am told; and one palace remains half demolished, the government having interfered to save it. At least, such is the account of my gondolier. But, beyond this, there is little apparent decay in Venice, except that which is visible in the general inactivity of the business of the port and town.