A Golden Book of Venice

She stood in mute astonishment before the faultless gift, this perfect bit of Beroviero crystal,--opalesque and lucent, reflecting hidden rainbow tints, enhanced by the golden t...

A strange strength seemed to have come to her; a sudden light gleamed in her eyes; she turned from one to the other, as if seeking some one in authority to answer her question,...

Again and again his audience forgot themselves in murmurs of applause, rising beyond decorum, and once into a storm of approbation; then his timidity returned, he became self-co...

It is those others who make trouble; they come, from time to time,--by twos and threes, never alone,--and read for themselves, with lowering brows, but ask no questions. And som...

It was not often that a member won distinction on the day of his entrance to the Gran' Consiglio; the favor shown by the Senate was great; the position of the Ca' Giustiniani am...

And to-day the people gathered in gloomy silence while the great bell of the campanile tolled the call to the solemn funeral pageant by which the Republic offered reparation ove...

"Tell it plainly!" commanded Girolamo, hastening after the retreating figure and violently grasping his arm to detain him. "Have I failed to her in aught? She is soul of my soul...

He had come to San Maurizio to take a gondola from the traghetto, partly that he might be free to wander without comment wherever his search should lead, partly because he was a...

The winds, wandering through the Piazza, sometimes blew lightest whispers from the Broglio into the Council Chambers of the Republic; and so it was decreed that when the beautif...

With an easy conscience, also, he had helped himself to the requisite funds for their journey, amply estimated, from the treasury of the Nicolotti, which was in his keeping; and...

Venice, being more munificent in expenditure than her unassisted treasury would warrant, was at all times ready to receive and encourage private bounties from her wealthy citize...

And through Piero's agents, established under threats as terrible as those of the Ten themselves, had come the news which, from time to time, he unfolded to her; while the same...

Marina had had no share in its decorations, and when consulted before her marriage had expressed but one wish. "These cares of rank are new to me," she had said, with gentle dig...

"Ah, the Castellani!" said Piero, with the contempt that was always ready for any mention of this great rival faction of the people whose division into one or other of these fac...

But if, like other golden youth of his time, he was like a Greek in possession of their liquid tongue and in a mastery of oratory that filled the soul of Giustinian Giustiniani...

Soon, alas! the days grew over-full of pain, and Marina came more often to the Mater Dolorosa, for the little Zuane had not grown stronger with the coming of the spring; sleep c...

"Peace be with thee and to thine house, my daughter," said the Padre Maestro Paolo, spreading out his hands in priestly salutation as he entered the oratory of the palazzo Giust...

"That which hath just occurred within this hall of the Senate shall be for those who have witnessed it as if it had not been, and the secretaries of the day shall not transcribe...

Marcantonio had entered the gondola gaily, with a full, pleasurable sense of the beauty of life, and well content with that portion which had fallen to his lot; for he was easil...

I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to many faithful, loving and able students of Venetian lore, without whose books my own presentation of Venice in the sixteent...

"Is the honor of the Church maintained by standing as a shield to crime? It is Venice who would save the Church; the civil ruler shall purge her sacred courts of such iniquities...

A haze that was not luminous hung in the sky; night was creeping on without a sunset, as they battled their way up the Giudecca against the current which rushed like a boiling t...

The _ridotti_, the informal clubs of Venice in those days, were important centres of influence--political, legislative, and literary; and there was a certain palazzo Morosini, w...

"It may well have been his Excellency the Signor Donato, who was of the Council in those days, but a man too strong to have a mind to the folly of the others, and who walked abo...

This year it was to be a fête more magnificent than usual, for the households of the ambassadors were bidden to the banquet which was prepared in the Great Hall of the arsenal--...