Chapter 13

S. MARK'S. II: THE INTERIOR

Vandal guides--Emperor and Pope--The Bible in mosaic--The Creation of the world--Cain and Abel--Noah--The story of Joseph--The golden horses--A horseless city--A fiction gross and palpable--A populous church--The French pilgrims--Rain in Venice--S. Mark's Day--The procession--New Testament mosaics--S. Isidoro's chapel--The chapel of the Males--A coign of vantage--The Pala d'oro--Sansovino--S. Mark's treasures--The Baptistery--The good Andrea Dandolo--The vision of Bishop Magnus--The parasites.

Let us now enter the atrium. When I first did so, in 1889, I fell at once into the hands of a guide, who, having completed his other services, offered for sale a few pieces of mosaic which he had casually chipped off the wall with his knife somewhere in the gallery. Being young and simple I supposed this the correct thing for guides to do, and was justified in that belief when at the Acropolis, a few weeks later, the terrible Greek who had me in tow ran lightly up a workman's ladder, produced a hammer from his pocket and knocked a beautiful carved leaf from a capital. But S. Mark's has no such vandals to-day. There are guides in plenty, who detach themselves from its portals or appear suddenly between the flagstaffs with promises of assistance; but they are easily repulsed and the mosaics are safe.

Entering the atrium by the central door we come upon history at once. For just inside on the pavement whose tesselations are not less lovely than the ceiling mosaics--indeed I often think more lovely--are the porphyry slabs on which the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa asked pardon of Pope Alexander III, whom he had driven from Rome into an exile which had now brought him to Venice. The story has it that the great Emperor divested himself of his cloak of power and lay full length on these very stones; the Pope placed his foot on his neck, saying, "I will tread on the asp and the basilisk." The Emperor ventured the remark that he was submitting not to the Pope but to S. Peter. "To both of us," said Alexander. That was on July 24, 1177, and on the walls of the Doges' Palace we shall see pictures of the Pope's sojourn in Venice and subsequent triumph.

The vestibule mosaics are not easy to study, as the best are in the domes immediately overhead. But they are very interesting in their simple directness. Their authors had but one end in view, and that was to tell the story. As thorough illustrations they could not be overpraised. And here let me say that though Baedeker is an important book in Venice, and S. Mark's Square is often red with it, there is one even more useful and necessary, especially in S. Mark's, and that is the Bible. One has not to be a very profound Biblical student to keep pace, in memory, with the Old Masters when they go to the New Testament; but when the Old is the inspiration, as chiefly here, one is continually at fault.

The vestibule mosaics are largely thirteenth century. That is to say, they were being fixed together in these domes and on these walls when England was under the first Edwards, and long indeed before America, which now sends so many travellers to see them--so many in fact that it is almost impossible to be in any show-place without hearing the American accent--was dreamed of.

The series begins in the first dome on the right, with the creation of the world, a design spread over three circles. In the inner one is the origin of all things--or as far back as the artist, wisely untroubled by the question of the creation of the Creator, cared to go. Angels seem always to have been. In the next circle we find the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, birds, beasts, and fishes, and finally of man. The outer circle belongs to Adam and Eve. Adam names the animals; his rib is extracted; Eve, a curiously forbidding woman, rather a Gauguinesque type, results; she is presented to Adam; they eat the fruit; they take to foliage; they are judged; the leaves become real garments; they are driven forth to toil, Adam with an axe and Eve with a distaff.

On the sides is the story of Cain and Abel carried back to an earlier point than we are accustomed to see it. Later, to the altar Cain brings fruit and Abel a lamb; a hand is extended from heaven to the fortunate Abel while Cain sulks on a chair. The two brothers then share a sentry-box in apparent amity, until Cain becomes a murderer.

We next come, on the sides, to the story of Noah and the Tower of Babel. Noah's biography is vivid and detailed. We see him receiving Divine instruction to build the ark, and his workmen busy. He is next among the birds, and himself carries a pair of peacocks to the vessel. Then the beasts are seen, and he carries in a pair of leopards, or perhaps pumas; and then his whole family stand by while two eagles are inserted, and other big birds, such as storks and pelicans, await their turn. I reproduce this series. On the other side the rains have begun and the world is drowning. Noah sends out the dove and receives it again; the waters subside; he builds his altar, and the animals released from the ark gambol on the slopes of Ararat. The third series of events in the life of Noah I leave to the visitor to decipher. One of the incidents so captured the Venetian imagination that it is repeated at the eastern corner of the Ducal Palace lagoon façade.

The second dome tells the history of Abraham, and then three domes are given to the best story in the world, the story of Joseph. The first dome treats of his dream, showing him asleep and busy with it, and the result, the pit being a cylinder projecting some feet from the ground. Jacob's grief on seeing the coat of many colours is very dramatic. In the next we find Potiphar's wife, Joseph's downfall, and the two dreaming officials. The third tells of Joseph and Jacob and is full of Egyptian local colour, a group of pyramids occurring twice. On the wall are subsidiary scenes, such as Joseph before Pharaoh, the incident of Benjamin's sack with the cup in it, and the scene of the lean kine devouring the fat, which they are doing with tremendous spirit, all beginning simultaneously from behind.

The last dome relates the story of Moses, but it is by an inferior artist and does not compare with the others. The miracle of the manna on the wall is, however, amusing, the manna being rather like melons and the quails as large as pheasants. On the extreme left a cook is at work grilling some on a very open fire. Another inferior mosaic on the north side of the atrium, represents S. Christopher with his little Passenger. It is a pity that Titian's delightful version in the Doges' Palace could not have been followed.

The atrium is remarkable not only for its illustrations to Genesis. Its mosaic patterns are very lovely, and its carved capitals. The staircase to the left of the centre door of the church proper leads to the interior galleries and to the exterior gallery, where the golden horses are. Of the interior galleries I speak later. Let me say here that these noble steeds were originally designed and cast for a triumphal arch, to be driven by Victory, in honour of Nero. Filched from Rome by Constantine, they were carried to his own city as an ornament to the imperial hippodrome. In 1204 the great Doge Enrico Dandolo, having humiliated Constantinople, brought the horses to Venice as a trophy, and they were transferred to the service of the church. Here, above the central portal of the cathedral, they stood for nearly six centuries, and then in 1797 a more modern Constantine, one Napoleon, carried them to Paris, to beautify his city. In 1815, however, when there was a redistribution of Napoleonic spoils, back they came to Venice, to their ancient platform, and there they now are, unchanged, except that their golden skins are covered with the autographs of tourists.

One odd thing about them is that they and Colleoni's steed are the only horses which many younger and poorer Venetians have ever seen. As to the horselessness of Venice, the last word, as well as one of the first, in English, was written by our old friend Coryat in the following passage: "For you must consider that neither the Venetian Gentlemen nor any others can ride horses in the streets of Venice as in other Cities and Townes, because their streets being both very narrow and slippery, in regard they are all paved with smooth bricke, and joyning to the water, the horse would quickly fall into the river, and so drowne both himselfe and his rider. Therefore the Venetians do use Gondolaes in their streets insteede of horses, I meane their liquid streets: that is, their pleasant channels. So that I now finde by mine owne experience that the speeches of a certaine English Gentleman (with whom I once discoursed before my travels), a man that much vaunted of his observations in Italy, are utterly false. For when I asked him what principall things he observed in Venice, he answered me that he noted but little of the city, because he rode through it in post. A fiction, and as grosse and palpable as ever was coyned."

From the horses' gallery there is a most interesting view of the Piazza and the Piazzetta, and the Old Library and Loggetta are as well seen from here as anywhere.

Within the church itself two things at once strike us: the unusual popularity of it, and the friendliness. Why an intensely foreign building of great size should exert this power of welcome I cannot say; but the fact remains that S. Mark's, for all its Eastern domes and gold and odd designs and billowy floor, does more to make a stranger and a Protestant at home than any cathedral I know; and more people are also under its sway than in any other. Most of them are sightseers, no doubt, but they are sightseers from whom mere curiosity has fallen: they seem to like to be there for its own sake.

The coming and going are incessant, both of worshippers and tourists, units and companies. Guides, professional and amateur, bring in little groups of travellers, and one hears their monotonous informative voices above the foot-falls; for, as in all cathedrals, the prevailing sound is of boots. In S. Mark's the boots make more noise than in most of the others because of the unevenness of the pavement, which here and there lures to the trot. One day as I sat in my favourite seat, high up in the gallery, by a mosaic of S. Liberale, a great gathering of French pilgrims entered, and, seating themselves in the right transept beneath me, they disposed themselves to listen to an address by the French priest who shepherded them. His nasal eloquence still rings in my ears. A little while after I chanced to be at Padua, and there, in the church of S. Anthony, I found him again, again intoning rhetoric.

S. Mark's is never empty, but when the rain falls--and in Venice rain literally does fall--it is full. Then do the great leaden spouts over the façade pour out their floods, while those in the courtyard of the Doges' Palace expel an even fiercer torrent. But the city's recovery from a deluge is instant.

But the most populous occasion on which I ever saw S. Mark's was on S. Mark's own day--April 25. Then it is solid with people: on account of the procession, which moves from a point in front of the high altar and makes a tour of the church, passing down to the door of the Baptistery, through the atrium, and into the church again by the door close to the Cappella dei Mascoli. There is something in all Roman Catholic ceremonial which for me impairs its impressiveness--perhaps a thought too much mechanism--and I watched this chanting line of choristers, priests, and prelates without emotion, but perfectly willing to believe that the fault lay with me. Three things abide vividly in the memory: the Jewish cast of so many of the large inscrutable faces of the wearers of the white mitres; a little aged, isolated, ecclesiastic of high rank who muttered irascibly to himself; and a precentor who for a moment unfolded his hands and lowered his eyes to pull out his watch and peep at it. Standing just inside the church and watching the people swarm in their hundreds for this pageantry, I was struck by the comparatively small number who made any entering salutation. No children did. Perhaps the raptest worshipper was one of Venice's many dwarfs, a tiny, alert man in blue linen with a fine eloquent face and a great mass of iron-grey hair.

This was the only occasion on which I saw the Baptistery accessible freely to all and the door into the Piazzetta open.

One should not look at a guide-book on the first visit to S. Mark's; nor on the second or third, unless, of course, one is pressed for time. Let the walls and the floors and the pillars and the ceiling do their own quiet magical work first. Later you can gather some of their history. The church has but one fault which I have discovered, and that is the circular window to the south. Beautiful as this is, it is utterly out of place, and whoever cut it was a vandal.

But indeed S. Mark's ought to have a human appeal, considering the human patience and thought that have gone to its making and beautifying, inside and out. No other church has had much more than a tithe of such toil. The Sistine Chapel in Rome is wonderful enough, with its frescoes; but what is the labour on a fresco compared with that on a mosaic? Before every mosaic there must be the artist and the glass-maker; and then think of the labour of translating the artist's picture into this exacting and difficult medium and absolutely covering every inch of the building with it! And that is merely decoration; not structure at all.

There are mosaics here which date from the tenth century; and there are mosaics which are being renewed at this moment, for the prosperity of the church is continually in the thoughts of the city fathers. The earliest is that of Christ, the Virgin, and S. Mark, on the inside wall over the central door. My own favourites are all among the earlier ones. Indeed, some of the later ones are almost repulsively flamboyant and self-conscious. Particularly I like the great scene of Christ's agony high up on the right wall, with its lovely green and gold border, touched with red. But all the patterns, especially in the roof arches, are a delight, especially those with green in them. I like too the picture of Christ on a white ass in the right transept, with the children laying their cloaks in His way. And the naïve scene of Christ's temptation above it, and the quaint row of disciples beneath it, waiting to have their feet washed.

Of the more modern mosaics the "Annunciation" and "Adoration of the Magi" are among the most pleasing.

There are some curious and interesting early mosaics in the chapel of S. Isidoro in the left transept. It is always dark in this tiny recess, but bit by bit the incidents in the pictures are revealed. They are very dramatic, and the principal scene of the saint's torture by being dragged over the ground by galloping horses is repeated in relief on the altar. I have failed to find any life of any S. Isidoro that relates the story. Note the little bronze lions on each side of the altar--two more for that census of Venetian lions which I somewhere suggest might be made. The little chapel on the left of S. Isidoro's is known as the Cappella dei Mascoli, or males, for hither come the young wives of Venice to pray that they may bring forth little gondoliers. That at any rate is one story; another says that it was the chapel of a confraternity of men to which no woman might belong. In the mosaic high up on the left is a most adorably gay little church, and on the altar are a pretty baby and angels. On a big pillar close to this chapel is a Madonna with a votive rifle hung by it; but I have been unable to find its story. It might be a moving one.

It is not detail, however lovely, for which one seeks S. Mark's, but general impressions, and these are inexhaustible. It is a temple of beauty and mystery in which to loiter long, and, as I have said, just by the S. Liberale in the gallery of the right transept, I made my seat. From this point one sees under the most favourable conditions the mosaic of the entry into Jerusalem; the choir; the choir screen with its pillars and saints; the two mysterious pulpits, beneath which children creep and play on great days; and all the miracle of the pavements. From here one can follow the Mass and listen to the singing, undisturbed by the moving crowd.

S. Mark's is described by Ruskin as an illuminated missal in mosaic. It is also a treasury of precious stones, for in addition to every known coloured stone that this earth of ours can produce, with which it is built and decorated and floored, it has the wonderful Pala d'oro, that sumptuous altar-piece of gold and silver and enamel which contains some six thousand jewels. More people, I guess, come to see this than anything else; but it is worth standing before, if only as a reminder of how far the Church has travelled since a carpenter's son, who despised riches, founded it; as a reminder, too, as so much of this building is, of the day when Constantinople, where in the eleventh century the Pala d'oro was made, was Christian also.

The fine carved pillars of the high altar's canopy are very beautiful, and time has given them a quality as of ivory. According to a custodian, without whom one cannot enter the choir, the remains of S. Mark still lie beneath the high altar, but this probably is not true. At the back of the high altar is a second altar with pillars of alabaster, and the custodian places his candle behind the central ones to illustrate their soft lucency, and affirms that they are from Solomon's own temple. His candle illumines also Sansovino's bronze sacristy door, with its fine reliefs of the Deposition and the Resurrection, with the heads of Evangelists and Prophets above them. Six realistic heads are here too, one of which is Titian's, one Sansovino's himself, and one the head of Aretino, the witty and licentious writer and gilt-edged parasite--this last a strange selection for a sacristy door. Sansovino designed also the bronze figures of the Evangelists on the balustrade of the choir stalls and the reliefs of the Doge's and Dogaressa's private pews.

There are two Treasuries in S. Mark's, One can be seen every day for half a franc; the other is open only on Fridays and the entrance fee is, I believe, five francs. I have not laid out this larger amount; but in the other I have spent some time and seen various priceless temporal indications of spiritual power. There is a sword of Doge Mocenigo, a wonderful turquoise bowl, a ring for the Adriatic nuptials, and so forth. But I doubt if such details of S. Mark's are things to write about. One should go there to see S. Mark's as a whole, just as one goes to Venice to see Venice.

The Baptistery is near the entrance on the left as you leave the church. But while still in the transept it is interesting to stand in the centre of the aisle with one's back to the high altar and look through the open door at the Piazza lying in the sun. The scene is fascinating in this frame; and one also discovers how very much askew the façade of S. Mark's must be, for instead of seeing, immediately in front, the centre of the far end of the square, as most persons would expect, one sees Naya's photograph shop at the corner.

The Baptistery is notable for its mosaic biography of the Baptist, its noble font, and the beautiful mural tomb of Doge Andrea Dandolo. Andrea, the last Doge to be buried within S. Mark's, was one of the greatest of them all. His short reign of but ten years, 1343 to 1354, when he died aged only forty-six, was much troubled by war with the Genoese; but he succeeded in completing an alliance against the Turks and in finally suppressing Zara, and he wrote a history of Venice and revised its code of laws. Petrarch, who was his intimate friend, described Andrea as "just, upright, full of zeal and of love for his country ... erudite ... wise, affable, and humane." His successor was the traitor Marino Faliero. The tomb of the Doge is one of the most beautiful things in Venice, all black bronze.

It was the good Andrea, not to be confused with old Henry Dandolo, the scourge of the Greeks, to whom we are indebted for the charming story of the origin of certain Venetian churches. It runs thus in the translation in _St. Mark's Rest_:--

"As head and bishop of the islands, the Bishop Magnus of Altinum went from place to place to give them comfort, saying that they ought to thank God for having escaped from these barbarian cruelties. And there appeared to him S. Peter, ordering him that in the head of Venice, or truly of the city of Rivoalto, where he should find oxen and sheep feeding, he was to build a church under his (S. Peter's) name. And thus he did; building S. Peter's Church in the island of Olivolo [now Castello], where at present is the seat and cathedral church of Venice.

"Afterwards appeared to him the angel Raphael, committing it to him, that at another place, where he should find a number of birds together, he should build him a church: and so he did, which is the church of the Angel Raphael in Dorsoduro.

"Afterwards appeared to him Messer Jesus Christ our Lord, and committed to him that in the midst of the city he should build a church, in the place above which he should see a red cloud rest: and so he did, and it is San Salvador.

"Afterwards appeared to him the most holy Mary the Virgin, very beautiful, and commanded him that where he should see a white cloud rest, he should build a church: which is the church of S. Mary the Beautiful.

"Yet still appeared to him S. John the Baptist, commanding that he should build two churches, one near the other,--the one to be in his name, and the other in the name of his father. Which he did, and they are San Giovanni in Bragora, and San Zaccaria.

"Then appeared to him the apostles of Christ, wishing, they also, to have a church in this new city: and they committed it to him that where he should see twelve cranes in a company, there he should build it."

Of the Baptistery mosaics the most scanned will always be that in which Salome bears in the head. In another the decapitated saint bends down and touches his own head. The scene of Christ's baptism is very quaint, Christ being half-submerged in Jordan's waves, and fish swimming past during the sacred ceremony. Behind the altar, on which is a block of stone from Mount Tabor, is a very spirited relief of S. George killing the dragon.

The adjoining chapel is that named after Cardinal Zeno, who lies in the magnificent central tomb beneath a bronze effigy of himself, while his sacred hat is in crimson mosaic on each side of the altar. The tomb and altar alike are splendid rather than beautiful: its late Renaissance sculptors, being far removed from Donatello, Mino, and Desiderio, the last of whom was one of the authors of the beautiful font in the adjoining Baptistery. Earlier and more satisfactory reliefs are those of an angel on the right of the altar and a Madonna and Child on the left which date from a time when sculpture was anonymous. The mosaics represent the history of S. Mark.

One may walk or sit at will in S. Mark's as long as one wishes, free and unharassed; but a ticket is required for the galleries and a ticket for the choir and treasury; and the Baptistery and Zeno chapel can be entered only by grace of a loafer with a key who expects something in return for opening it. The history of this loafer's privilege I have not obtained, and it would be interesting to learn by what authority he is there, for he has no uniform and he accepts any sum you give him. If all the hangers-on of the Roman Catholic Church, in Italy alone, who perform these parasitical functions and stand between man and God, could be gathered together, what a huge and horrible army it would be!