Part 4

The church of S. Agostino degli Eremitani is a solemn building of a single nave three hundred feet in length, which was constructed at the latter end of the thirteenth century. Its sacristy is used by the students of the university as their chapel, and many memorials of the most famous among them cover its walls. The tombs the church contains are very interesting. One with a magnificent canopy is of the fifth Lord of Padua, Jacopo di Carrara, a friend of Petrarch's, while other members of this extinct family lie buried in the church. The Carraras were Lords of Padua for many generations; the last of the great race with his two sons held the city in 1405 against the Venetians, but famine so reduced the garrison that they surrendered themselves to the besiegers and were conveyed prisoners to Venice. The Council of Ten decreed that they should be strangled in their cells, and a member of the noble Venetian family of Priuli performed this disgraceful murder in the dungeons of the Doge's palace.

Sta Maria dell' Arena, or the church of the Madonna of the Arena, stands practically in what was the Roman Amphitheatre. About the year 1306, a certain Enrico Scrovengo, who was owner of the Arena and adjacent land, built within its precincts a chapel of the Annunciation, known as Sta Maria dell' Arena. Giotto was working in Padua at the time, and Enrico recognising his talent employed him to build and decorate the little chapel. It consists of a single nave with a Gothic apse, and tiny sacristy in which is a monument to the founder, whose tomb is behind the altar. It is not the province of this book to deal with the pictorial art of the country, but Giotto's frescoes which cover the walls of this little church stand far above all else--not excepting Fra Angelico's beautiful decorations in the monastic cells of S. Marco at Florence--in the deep piety and tender expression of intense religious feeling they portray.

The greatest church that Padua possesses is the huge building dedicated to S. Antonio--"il Santo," as he is called by the Padovanese. This enormous fabric of marble and brick, stands facing a wide open piazza on two sides of which are low houses--houses of three storeys are very rare in the older parts of the city. Opposite the façade is Donatello's grand equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni, or Gattamelata, bearing his name, "Opus Donatelli Flor." In the piazza is the Scuoio del Santo and the little church of San Giorgio, the sepulchral chapel of the Sograna family; close by which is the tomb of Rolando Piazzola with a fine Gothic canopy.

The seven domes of S. Antonio cluster round a heavy central spire, and two beautiful bell-towers rise elegantly to a height above; from wherever one sees the church, these domes and spires compose and "pile" well. Il Santo died in 1231, and Padua decided to erect a suitable building to hold his sacred remains. Niccolò Pisano was requisitioned for the task, but was not given a free hand. He was informed that he must follow the fashion of the day and produce a real Gothic edifice. His failure to carry out these instructions can be best seen in the façade, where the three portals are very poor; nevertheless, and despite his leanings towards other styles, he was able to introduce something of the Gothic in his bell-towers, in the open galleries round the exterior of the apse, and the arcading of the west front, with a mixed result that has produced a really stupendous church. The best decoration of the exterior is contained in the three west doors of bronze, which are exceedingly good.

The fine interior is most impressive, but what the result will be when the present scheme of decoration, already begun in the choir and apse, is carried out, it is difficult to say. The chapel of Il Santo is half way up the north aisle. Lights burn day and night before the altar, beneath which repose the saint's remains. Four fine columns support the somewhat heavy frieze of the great Renaissance screen by Sansovino, which separates it from the aisle. Two of these columns have a charming idea in their capitals, where little sea-horses take the place of the acanthus leaf. The screen is terminated by two very beautiful pilasters adorned with exquisite arabesques. The interior of this interesting chapel is lined with nine reliefs, one of which, by Sansovino, is rather curious and certainly very gruesome. The sculptor has represented a suicide with a gaping crowd of women surrounding him in his self-inflicted death agonies. Two enormous silver candlesticks, partly of Gothic and partly Renaissance design, stand at the foot of the steps of the altar, and bronze figures and silver angels are placed upon the balustrade. In the vestibule between this chapel and the next hang hundreds of votive offerings of all descriptions, forming a museum of the tangible homage paid to the saint by his devotees. The next chapel is the only part left of an ancient fabric which stood here long before the good Padovanese raised the present magnificent church as a memorial of their venerated saint.

In the south aisle, opposite to and corresponding with Il Santo's chapel, is one dedicated to S. Felix, which is fronted by a good screen decorated with an effective fish-scale pattern of Verona marble. It contains a good altar, placed high above a flight of steps, and some interesting fourteenth-century frescoes. A thick coating of paint quite spoils the well-carved Gothic stalls, and it is to be hoped that when the scheme of decoration reaches this chapel these fine stalls will be scraped and then left in their pristine state. In another chapel are the tombs of Gattamelata and his son; these and two monuments designed by Sanmicheli on two of the piers of the nave are the best in the church.

The presbytery is cut off from the nave by a low balustrade, in the centre of which, rising in a bold sweep, is a very fine bronze gate. The High Altar, impressively placed at the top of some steps, has eight splendid panels containing bas-reliefs by Donatello. The master was also responsible for the fine group of the Madonna and Saints, as well as the huge crucifix, which are placed above it. The magnificent bronze candelabrum, which stands to the left of the altar, is twelve feet high. Its maker, Andrea Riccio, spent ten years over the work before he considered it fit to leave his studio. The figures at the base are symbolical of Music, History, Destiny, and Astrology, forming with those above, a paschal candlestick that is one of the finest pieces of bronze work in any church in the country. The sanctuary beyond the apse was an addition of the year 1693, and occupies the most eastern dome seen in the illustration. Great gilded sliding doors hide a wonderful example of fifteenth-century goldsmith's work, a casket with Il Santo's tongue inside, and many other sacred relics, as well as Gattamelata's marshal's baton. The great doors are surrounded by work of the late seventeenth century, an example of the bad taste and very low ebb ecclesiastical art had sunk to at that period. Cherubs and nude female figures playing stringed instruments--angels apparently--circle round S. Antonio, who is borne aloft by other nudes. The extravagance of the whole thing is a jarring note amongst much that is extremely fine.

The monks of the brotherhood of S. Antonio still inhabit the conventual buildings attached to the church, and their dark-robed figures pass silently to and fro in the cloistered courts of the monastery. The walls of these three courts are lined with fine tombs and memorial slabs, and it was from one of these cloisters the illustration was taken. A great magnolia tree grows on the well-kept grass which covers the ground like green velvet. No sound from the outside world penetrated this sequestered nook. The only note to break the silence was the drowsy hum from a voice at prayer in one of the little green-shuttered rooms above, and the occasional twittering of a canary in its cage. One worked undisturbed at those domes and towers which compose so well and seem to reach up to the very heavens.

Padua's university was founded in 1221 by the Emperor Frederick II. on the site of the Inn of the Ox, and is still called il Bò. Its handsome courtyard, attributed to Palladio, is adorned with armorial bearings of distinguished _alumni_. At the head of the great staircase is a statue to Elena Piscopia, a poetess, musician, and fluent linguist; she received a doctor's degree and died a spinster in 1684. The anatomical theatre is the oldest in Europe. Among other famous men connected with il Bò the names of Baldus, who taught law, and Galileo, who expounded mathematics, must be mentioned.

Padua also possesses the oldest Botanical Gardens in Europe, which were instituted by the Venetian Senate in 1543. Many of the exotics which grow now all over Europe were first established here, brought from the East by Venetian traders, and the botanist can spend many interesting hours in this well cared for and shady retreat.

A vast building with a remarkable history occupies one whole side of the market square. A much-travelled architect and engineer, Fra Giovanni, visited Padua in the fourteenth century, bringing with him drawings of an Indian palace; these so pleased the Padovanese that he was asked to construct a roof to their great hall, the three divisions of which had been destroyed by fire. Fra Giovanni set to work, and his vaulted wooden ceiling, one of the largest in Europe, stands covering the principal chamber of the Palazzo della Ragione, though the roof above was renewed in 1857. The paintings on the walls of this magnificent room have by degrees replaced a series of frescoes by Giotto. They are mostly mystical and symbolical, the best among them being those representing Justice and Prudence. The wooden horse which stands in the hall is supposed to have been the model for Donatello's bronze horse on which Gattamelata is seated in the famous equestrian statue outside S. Antonio. The fine _loggia_ on the ground floor of the palazzo is of later date than the original parts of the building, which were designed by Pietro Cozzo and constructed in the years 1172 to 1219. In a street not far off is another beautiful building, the early-Renaissance Loggia del Consiglio, with its fine stairway and open arcade. In front of this is an antique column with the Lion of S. Mark, the sign that the city at one time belonged to the Republic of Venice. Many other houses in this quaint old town are of great interest, and the windings of its streams as they meander past rose-covered walls and low roofs, with perhaps a tapering _campanile_ or a dome towering above, afford a rare field for endeavours with the pencil and brush.

VENICE

Venice, which has no counterpart in the world, is a city of all others in which one can linger on in a dream taking no count of time. The days run into weeks, these spread themselves into months, and it becomes more and more difficult to tear oneself away from the entrancing "Mistress of the Seas," from her Cathedral and all her other marvellous buildings; from her seductive gondolas and silent canals; from her picture galleries, and alas! from the fragrant coffee we sip idling away the time under the colonnade outside Florian's in the Piazza.

Well, the seductive cup is drained and while our cigarette is alight let us look round. Directly opposite to us, on the north side of this grand square, stretches the long colonnade of the Procuratie Vecchie, built early in the sixteenth century as a habitation for the procurators of S. Mark. It is one of the best examples of early Renaissance architecture in Italy; nobler, simpler than the Procuratie Nuove where we sit, which was built in the last quarter of the same century. An arcaded building in the classical style erected by Napoleon in 1810 connects the western extremities of the two Procuratie. It is a pity that this great Renaissance Piazza should be completed by an inferior bit of modern work instead of such a brilliant gem of the Renaissance style as Sansovino's Libreria Vecchia--at present invisible to us round the corner. To this building, which faces the Doge's Palace, no higher tribute could be given than to say that its perfection fairly distracts the admiration of the onlooker from the wonderful Gothic pile before it.

But all this is _Hamlet_ without the Prince. It is time to leave the shadow of the arches, to step out into the open, and to surrender ourselves to the spell of the great church which draws one with an irresistible fascination from the first moment we set foot in the Piazza. S. Mark's rises bounding the vision at the eastern end of the great square with its gorgeous façade and cool grey domes. So rich is the colouring and so strange the outline that one wonders almost whether architecture has not passed here into the sister art of painting.

Yes, there stands a building surpassingly fascinating, unique and outside all comparison with any other church in the country. Planned as a Greek Cross, like S. Sophia at Constantinople, it is reminiscent of the East far more than any building in the peninsula, or even in Sicily where some with direct Arab influence still exist. The great traders of Venice who lavished their wealth on its decoration, and whose every homeward bound ship brought back from the Orient a choice column, a rare piece of marble, or some such thing as a contribution towards its making, helped to raise it bit by bit until the wonderful church grew to be what we find it to-day, the most seductive ecclesiastical fabric in Italy.

It was not until the year 1807 that S. Mark's became the Cathedral church of Venice. Before this date the Patriarchal seat was the church of S. Pietro di Castello, and S. Mark's simply the chapel attached to the Doge's Palace. In 828 the body of the Evangelist, stolen from Alexandria, was brought to Venice and S. Theodore the tutelary saint deposed to make way for a more important patron. S. Mark's remains were then placed in a church which was destroyed by fire in 976. The following year saw the first stone laid of a building which is perhaps the most interesting in Christendom; but it was not until eighty years had passed that the walls were finished, and seventy more gone by before it was consecrated. The interior sustaining walls are brick, and are lined with marble or covered with mosaics and decorated with every sort of inlay. The _tout ensemble_ of this is an extraordinarily harmonious mixture of styles which compels unceasing admiration.

Standing at the west end of the Piazza one sees, almost stretching across the further side, a marvellous façade of deep shadowed arches; the tympanums seem to sparkle with jewels; the arches are supported by what appears to be a forest of columns, orderly in rank, receding into the shadow. Above, to give quality to this shade, is a flat surface that runs from end to end of the façade, broken by a central semicircular window, and crowned with Gothic turrets, crocketed finials and angels with wings outspread. Then, surmounting all are five wondrous domes, Oriental in themselves, so overpoweringly Oriental that the eye, unable at this distance to discriminate, telegraphs to the brain the magic words--"The East!" Spoils from the East, from Greece, from Syria, from Egypt; mosaics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bronze horses of Roman origin, Gothic saints under canopied turrets, flag poles with the crimson banner and golden Lion of S. Mark, all arranged without disorder, but all succumbing to the majesty of the marvellous domes. More Eastern than European is the Venetian's love of colour, and this is the note most deeply impressed on the mind with regard to S. Mark's--five grey domes, a foil to the brilliant mosaics and many-hued marble columns and walls below, but blending with them so subtly that the whole is one gorgeous chromatic scale.

The effect of the blazing sun pouring down on the façade at midday, casting deep shadows under the arches, is very fine. Again, in the evening when the domes are alight with the last rays of the dying orb and the great Piazza is in cool shade, the glories of the wonderful fabric assume a dramatic effect which becomes almost tragic as the light disappears and everything subsides into a monotone. Colour begets more subtlety in grey weather; every note that might jar on the eye is then diffused among the quieter tones around, and for this reason the pearly sky of a grey day was chosen to depict S. Mark's. The great _campanile_ which fell to the ground on July 14, 1902, is now in course of re-erection. For some years past the necessary but hideous hoarding at its base has interfered with the beauty of the Piazza. The illustration does not show this but depicts the length of the façade, with the beautiful Porta della Carta and corner of the Doge's Palace beyond.

The lowest portion of the façade is formed as a vestibule with seven arches, the last one of which at each end is open through. All the columns and their capitals (spoils from the East) are of much older date than the building. Very few of these capitals fit the _abacus_ on which they rest; most of them are exquisitely carved with foliage free from all imagery. The central arch is larger than the others. Under it is a grand door of forty-eight bronze panels inlaid with silver. The workmanship of the other doors which flank this is also very fine. The intricate Byzantine carving above these forms a scheme of decoration wherein figures, birds, beasts and arabesques run in a perfect riot of fanciful design. The vaulting of the vestibule is covered with mosaics of different periods. Those of the twelfth century are concerned with the Creation of the Firmament and the Creation of Life; the story of Adam and Eve continued on to the Deluge and Noah; the tragedy of Cain and Abel; Joseph's dream, Pharaoh and the story of Moses. The general scheme throughout is of white figures, mostly nude, on a green ground. Although not in any way comparable to the earlier mosaics at Ravenna, these are far better in style and true feeling for the enrichment of a flat surface than those of later date in the lunettes above the façade arches. Here the _raison d'être_ of mosaic has been made subservient to an attempt to imitate the shades and gradations of an oil painting. The most important of these later mosaics is that which was executed from a design by Titian by the brothers Zuccati in the sixteenth century, wherein S. Mark appears in pontifical robes. It is above the centre door. On the pavement beneath is a red and white lozenge of marble marking the spot where Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa were reconciled in July 1177, through the intervention of the Venetian Republic. Many inscribed slabs of marble bearing legends in Greek and Syriac, and Roman bas-reliefs, are let into the walls of the vestibule, evidence of offerings towards the building of the fabric. All the archivolts of the five large arches are decorated with symbolic carvings; the most interesting being that of the main entrance, where a charmingly quaint story illustrative of peasant life in the twelve months of the year tells in a realistic way the labours of those who till the soil. February with a little figure sitting at a fire warming his hands is particularly naïve.

On the south, S. Mark's joins the Doge's Palace by means of the Porta della Carta. At the base of a column which stands in an angle of the wall are four porphyry figures of knights in chain mail with arms round one another's necks. This group is supposed to have come from Acre. Detached from the main building, and not far from its south-west corner, are two short rectangular columns with Greek inscriptions. They were brought from the church of S. Saba at Ptolemais in 1256. Amongst other interesting spoils there is a slab let into the north wall on which Ceres, holding a torch in each hand, appears drawn in a chariot by two dragons. It seems to be a very early Persian work. But the best known, and certainly the finest gift the exterior of the building can boast, is that of the four bronze horses which stand over the principal entrance. Sent from Constantinople in 1204 by order of the Doge Dandolo as part of the spoils of victory when that city fell to the arms of the Venetians in the fourth Crusade, these horses at one time adorned the triumphal arch of Nero in Rome. Both Domitian and Trajan transferred them in turn to arches of their own; and Constantine conveyed them across the seas to his new capital in the East, where he also put them up over an arch. In 1797, when the Republic of Venice was no more, Napoleon took these already much-travelled horses from S. Mark's façade to Paris and placed them on the top of the Arc du Carrousel. After the peace in 1815 the Austrian Emperor, Francis I. caused them to be returned to their former position, and there they remain to-day.

Three doors open into the cathedral from the vestibule, and two on the north side. The interior strikes one at first as being very dark; but when the eye becomes accustomed to the half-light and is familiar with everything within, this wears off, and the senses are rather soothed than otherwise by the mystic gloom. Indeed, it is a great relief to find oneself inside out of the glare of the Piazza, and, seated in a corner perhaps, quietly contemplating the grand mosaics which cover the vaulting from end to end. It is quite impossible to describe these adequately in a short chapter which deals with other things as well, but noting them in guide-book fashion one observes that those in the aisles on either side of the main entrance depict the Acts and Miracles of the Apostles. On the vaulting of the dome which forms, so to speak, the foot of the Greek cross, is the Descent of the Holy Ghost. The great central dome is covered by twelfth-century mosaics of the Ascension, and the vault between this and the first dome with Christ's Passion and Resurrection. The vaulting of the two domes which compose the arms of the cross is decorated by work of later date; that on the north with the history of S. John, and that on the south with the saints. The chapel of S. John which is in the north transept was converted in the seventeenth century into one dedicated to the Miraculous Virgin of Constantinople. In the south transept also a rededication has taken place; the chapel of S. Leonard being turned into that of the Holy Sacrament.

Behind the gorgeous marble screen which divides the presbytery from the body of the church the high altar rises beneath a canopy of _verde antico_ borne by four columns. Two of these columns are eleventh century and are elaborately carved in courses of innumerable figures. They came from Pola when Venice subdued Istria, and are much more interesting than the other two of a later date; the remains of S. Mark rest within this magnificent shrine. On the screen itself stand the Evangelist, the twelve Apostles, and Mary.

At the back of the high altar is the Pala d'Oro, the greatest treasure the cathedral possesses, and the most celebrated golden altarpiece in existence. The upper part came from Constantinople in 976, the lower about the middle of the fourteenth century. It is composed of eighty-three panels of Greek and Byzantine design filled with enamelled figures, studded with uncut gems and precious stones, and covered with Greek and Latin inscriptions. More gorgeous than that of S. Ambrogio in Milan, this magnificent piece of goldsmith's art glitters and sparkles in a wonderful manner when lit up by the candles used at high mass, and is without doubt the most splendid ecclesiastical treasure in Italy.