Chapter 20

"... of gliding and wide-wayed silence With room in the streets for the soul."

The sense of remoteness from common life could hardly be greater if one were suddenly swept away to some far star, blazing in the firmament; or if Charon had rowed him over the mystic river and he had entered the abodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchanted palace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows on marble balconies overhanging the Grand Canal. Dainty little tables piled with current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, stand around; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenience of stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guest in any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardless of the regulation _salle-à-manger_. One looks across the Grand Canal to the beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, and here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric cars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphalt pavement--no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift--a sky above and a sky below--on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in the depths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back,--the very atmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin's words that "none of us appreciate the nobleness and the sacredness of color. Of all God's gifts to man," he continues, "color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element." If the enthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the place that will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious of being steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One no longer marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They but interpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venice has well said:--

"The aspects of Venice are as various, as manifold, as the hues held in solution upon her waters beneath a sirocco sky. There is a perpetual miracle of change; one day is not like another, one hour varies from the next; there is no stable outline such as one finds among the mountains, no permanent vista, as in a view across a plain. The two great constituents of the Venetian landscape, the sea and the sky, are precisely the two features in nature which undergo most incessant change. The cloud-wreaths of this evening's sunset will never be repeated again; the bold and buttressed piles of those cloud-mountains will never be built again just so for us; the grain of orange and crimson that stains the water before our prow, we cannot be sure that we shall look upon its like again.... One day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else. The revolution of the seasons will repeat certain effects; spring will chill the waters to a cold, hard green; summer will spread its breadth of golden light on palace front and water way; autumn will come with its pearly-gray sirocco days, and sunsets flaming a sombre death; the stars of a cloudless winter night, the whole vast dome of heaven, will be reflected in the mirror of the still lagoon. But in spite of this general order of the seasons, one day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else; the lagoon wears a different aspect each morning when you rise, the sky offers a varied composition of cloud each evening as the sun sets. Words cannot describe Venice, nor brush portray her ever-fleeting, ever-varying charm. Venice is to be felt, not reproduced; to live there is to live a poem, to be daily surfeited with a wealth of beauty enough to madden an artist to despair."

It was in the autumn of 1882 that the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, later Bishop of Massachusetts, visited Venice and wrote of San Marco:--

"Strange how there is nothing like St. Mark's in Venice, nothing of the same kind as the great church. It would have seemed as if, standing here for so many centuries, and always profoundly loved and honored, it would almost of necessity have influenced the minds of the generations of architects, and shown its power in their works. But there seems to be no sign of any such influence. It stands alone."

Dr. Brooks noted that Venice had "two aspects, one sensuous and self-indulgent, the other lofty, spiritual, and even severe. Both aspects," he continues, "are in its history and both are also in its art. Titian often represents the former. The loftier, nobler Tintoretto gives us the second. There is something in his greatest pictures, as, for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artist approaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression of intellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women is full of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre, glows with a solemn picturesqueness, and the great Christ, who hangs like a benediction over the whole, is vocal with a piety which no other picture in the world displays. And the Presentation of the Virgin, in Santa Maria dell'Orto, is the consummate presentation of that beautiful subject, its beauty not lost in its majesty."

Of other pictures Dr. Brooks said:--

"In the Academia there is the sunshine of three hundred years ago. Paris Bordone's glowing picture of the Fisherman who brings the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge, burned like a ray of sunlight on the wall. Carpaccio's delightful story of St. Ursula brought the old false standards of other days back to one's mind, but brought them back lustrous with the splendor of summers that seemed forever passed, but are perpetually here. Tintoretto's Adam and Eve was, as it always is, the most delightful picture in the gallery, and Pordenone's great St. Augustine seemed a very presence in the vast illuminated room."

Tennyson loved best, of all the pictures in Venice, a Bellini,--a beautiful work, in the Church of Il Redentore; and he was deeply impressed by the "Presentation of the Virgin," from Tintoretto, in the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto. "He was fascinated by St. Mark's," writes the poet's son, "by the Doge's Palace and the Piazza, and by the blaze of color in water and sky. He climbed the Campanile, and walked to the library where he could scarcely tear himself away from the Grimani Breviary."

Venice, though not containing any single gallery comparable with the Pitti and the Uffizi, is still singularly rich in treasures of art, and rich in legend and story. The school of encrusted architecture is nowhere so wonderfully represented as here, and it is only in this architecture that a perfect scheme of color decoration is possible. In all the world there is no such example of encrusted architecture as that revealed in St. Mark's. It is a gleaming mass of gold, opal, ruby, and pearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranate and lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars of gold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds of mystic incense fill the air. One most impressive place is the baptistery, where is the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosen Doge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, and the design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while two angels at the head and the feet hold back the curtains.

The sarcophagus that is said to contain the body of St. Mark is of the richest description, encrusted with gold and jewels on polished ebony and marble. There is a legend that after St. Mark had seen the people of Aguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter; but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy Bishop Hennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was driven by wind to a small island called Rialto, on which were some houses, and St. Mark was suddenly snatched into ecstasy and heard the voice of an angel saying, "Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest."

There is also a legend that in the great conflagration which destroyed Venice in 976 A.D., the body of St. Mark was lost and no one knew where to find it. Then the pious Doge and the people gave themselves to fasting and prayer, and assembled in the church, asking that the place be revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the assemblage took place. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, and opened to disclose the sarcophagus,--a chest of bronze. The legend goes on to say that St. Mark stretched his hand out through the side and that a noble, Dolfini by name, drew a gold ring off the finger.

The place where this miracle is said to have been wrought is now marked by the Altar of the Cross.

Ruskin declares that "a complete understanding of the sanctity of color is the key to European art." Nowhere is this sanctity of color so felt as at San Marco. The church is like the temple of the New Jerusalem.

The origin of Venice is steeped in sacred history. It is pre-eminently the city founded in religious enthusiasm. The chronicles of De Monici, written in 421, give this passage: "God, who punishes the sins of men by war, sorrow, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to save the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past, and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearer islands of the Adriatic, to which, in the last extremity, they might retreat for refuge.... They laid the foundation of the new city under good auspices on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to the mouth of the Brenta, on March 25, 471."

The first Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. The period of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and patrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335, and the last Doge elected was Lodovico Manin in 1789, who exclaimed, "_Tolè questo: no la doperò più_," as the French Revolution destroyed the Republic of Venice.

The finest example of Renaissance architecture in Venice is that of the _Libreria Vecchia_, the work of Jacobo Sansovino, completed in the sixteenth century. Never were the creations of poet and philosopher more fittingly enshrined. The rich Doric frieze, the Ionic columns, the stately balustrade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richness of ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in the best classical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is a picture by Titian representing "Wisdom" as a woman, reclining on a cloud, her right hand outstretched to take a book that Genius is offering her. There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and rich mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro.

Petrarca, returning from his wanderings in 1362, pleaded with the Senate of Venezia to give him a house, in return for which he offered the inheritance of his library. This was the nucleus of the fine collection which since 1812 has been included in the Palace of the Doges. In it are some magnificent works by Paolo Veronese, one portrait by Tintoretto, and others by Salviati and Telotti.

The Doge's Palace is a treasure house of history. One enters the Porta della Carta, which dates back to 1638, erected by Bartolomeo Buon. The portal is very rich in sculpture, and among the reliefs is a heroic one of Francesco Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark's. One recalls his tragic fate and passes on. Perhaps, _en passant_, one may say that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly in the scenes of tragedy that he is prone to sink almost into utter sadness, even, rather than seriousness. The air is full of ghosts. One feels the oppression of all the life that has there been lived, all the tragedies that have been enacted in these scenes.

In Renaissance nothing more wonderful in Europe can be found than the court of the Palace of the Doges. Antonio Rizzo began the east façade of the building in 1480, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed by Scarpagnino. "Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of these sculptures," says Salvatico, "as well as of the single ornaments of the walls and of the ogres which have been carved so delicately and richly that they cannot be excelled by the Roman antique friezes."

By the golden staircase one goes to the council chambers,--the hall of the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Council of Three. In the great council chamber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world, "The Glory of Venice," by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In a frieze are the portraits of seventy-six of the Doges, but in one space is a black tablet only, with the inscription: "This in place of M. F., who was executed for his crimes."

The "Sala del Maggior Consiglio" (hall of the grand council) is very rich in paintings. Above the throne is Tintoretto's "The Glory of Paradise," and the walls are covered with battle pieces and symbolic and allegorical paintings. There is "Venice Crowned by Fame," by Paolo Veronese, "Doge Niccolò da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envoys of Conquered Cities to Venice," by Tintoretto; "Venice Crowned by the Goddess of Victory," by Palma Giovane, and many another of the richest and most wonderful beauty.

Descending into the prisons and dungeons brings one into a vivid realization of the grim history of which these were the scenes. The Bridge of Sighs has two covered passages, one for the political and one for the criminal prisoners. Here is shown a narrow ledge on which the condemned man stood, with a slanting stone passageway before him, which, when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed the crimson flood into the dark waters of the canal below, while the body was thrown in the water on the other side. There are the "Chambers of Lead," where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, and as intensely cold in the winter. Many of these dark, close, narrow cells--in which the one article of furniture allowed was the wooden slanting rack, that served as a bed--still remain. In many of these are inscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (in translation): "May God protect me against him whom I trust; I will protect myself against him whom I do not trust."

The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: "G. M. B. was confined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it will be the last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family."

All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:--

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand."

The piazza of St. Mark's is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe. It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which are merely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk is blockaded with cafés _al fresco_, the ground is half covered with the dense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The façade of St. Mark's fills one end--a mass of gleaming color. At one corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissance style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa days three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forth on the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above,--a very ingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculptures and masses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall, where all the town congregates from morning till midnight.

To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and one that would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries of Venice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastiano lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his "Coronation of the Virgin," "The Virgin in the Gloria," "Adoration of the Magi," "Martyrdom of San Sebastian," and many others. In the Scuola di San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, "St. Magdalene in the Wilderness," the "Visitation," and the "Murder of the Innocents."

In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of Titian,--an exquisite grouping of sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of the Emperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is Titian's most famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pessaro," the work of which is probably, too, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven is shown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninus are commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned on high. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellous composition render this immortal masterpiece something whose sight marks an epoch in life. Canova's tomb in San Maria dei Frari is a wonderful thing. It is a pyramid of purest marble, with a door opening for the sarcophagus, above which is a portrait of Canova in relief, and on either side the door angels and symbolic figures are sculptured.

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, to which one is always returning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snowy towers and dome seem to rise out of the water and float in the air.

The fall of the Campanile in 1904 was regarded as a calamity by all the civilized world. For a thousand years it had stood at the side of St. Mark's; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to the condition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found that the vast area of over fifty thousand square feet of matchless mosaic needed restoration in order that they should be preserved.

The Palazzo Rezzonico, which dates to Clement XIII, usually known as the "Browning Palace," has been for many years one of the special interests to the visitor in Venice. In the early months of 1907 it passed out of the hands of Robert Barrett Browning, who had purchased it in 1888, and had held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal associations, since the death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning is due the grateful appreciation of a multitude of tourists for his generous and never-failing courtesy in permitting them the privilege of visiting this palace in which his father had passed many months of enjoyment. It was from this residence that the poet Browning wrote, in October of 1880, to a friend:--

"Every morning at six I see the sun rise; far more wonderfully, to my mind, than his famous setting which everybody glorifies. My bedroom window commands a perfect view; the still, gray lagune, the few sea-gulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow and the clouds in a long purple rock behind which a sort of spirit of rose burns up till presently all the rims are on fire with gold, and last of all the orb sends before it a long column of its own essence apparently; so my day begins."

Later, of his son's palace, Mr. Browning wrote:--

"Have I told you that there is a chapel which he has restored in honor of his mother--putting up there the inscription by Tommaseo,[3] now above Casa Guidi in Florence?"

In this palace Mr. Browning wrote some of his later poems, and it may well be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes that he perhaps most deeply felt the ineffable charm of Venice:--

"For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me...."

It was from these lofty salons in the Browning Palace that the poet passed to the "life more abundant" on that December day of 1889, on the very day that his last volume, "Asolando," was published and also the last volume of Tennyson's. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in a letter to Lord Tennyson: "The death of Browning on the day of the appearance of your volume, and we hear of one of his own, is a touching event."

From the time of Mrs. Browning's death in Florence (in June of 1861) Mr. Browning never felt that he could see Italy again, until the autumn of 1878, when he, with his sister, Miss Sarianna Browning, came to Venice by way of the Italian lakes and Verona. At this time they only remained for a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which was transformed into the Albergo dell'Universo. This palace was on the Grand Canal below the Accadémia, and here he returned through two or three subsequent years. Mr. Browning became very fond of Venice, and he explored its winding ways and gardens and knew it, not merely from the gondola view, but from the point of view of the curious little dark and narrow byways, the bridges, and the piazzas.

It was in 1880 that Mr. Browning first met, through the kind offices of Mr. Story, a most charming and notable American lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson (Katherine DeKay), who had domiciled herself in Casa Alvisi, an old palace on the Grand Canal opposite the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. She was a woman of very interesting personality, and had drawn about her a circle including many of the most distinguished people of her time, authors, artists, poets, and notable figures in the social world. She was eminently _simpatica_ and her lovely impulses of generous kindness were rendered possible to translate into the world of the actual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor. Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rare and beautiful friendships that lasted during his lifetime, and to her appreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of his later years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning and his sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati--a palace adjoining her own--and each night they dined and passed the evening with her, with music and conversation to enchant the hours. After Mr. Browning's death, Mrs. Bronson was the friend whom all pilgrims to his shrine in Venice felt it a special privilege to meet and to hear speak of him. In her palace was a large easy-chair, with a ribbon tied across the arms, in which Browning was accustomed to sit, and which was held sacred to him. Mrs. Bronson was an accomplished linguist, and the _habitués_ of her salon represented many nationalities. Among these was the Princess Montenegro, the mother of the present Queen of Italy.

It is little wonder that the Browning Palace was for so many years a focus for all who revered and loved the wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.