CAPITAL OF WINDOW-SHAFT—VENICE.CAPITAL OF WINDOW-SHAFT—VENICE.
By the side of the Ca’ d’Oro there are three ancient houses of considerable interest, and the second from the Ca’ d’Oro,
32. PALAZZZO SEGREDO. VENICE. p. 221.32. PALAZZZO SEGREDO. VENICE. p. 221.
the Palazzo Segredo, was a very good example indeed; it has unhappily, I believe, all been restored and painted, so that now few would believe that it could ever have been (as it was) one of the very best works in Venice of its age. It quite deserves illustration, on account of the extreme vigour and beauty of its great window, which has more of the flavour of the arcade in the Doge’s Palace, than anything else in Venice. These three houses are all more than usually irregular in the arrangement of their windows.
Lower down the Grand Canal, and nearly opposite the Post-office, is the Palazzo Pisani-Moretta—a very late building, in which all the balconies are Renaissance, with ordinary balustrading; but this occurs so often in connection with the latest examples of Gothic work, that I am disposed to believe that they were possibly, after all, contemporary in their erection. This palace, too, is remarkable for its double entrance-doors, with ogee arches, and for the manner in which the central window is carried up in an uninterrupted way to the very cornice; the lower traceries being very fair, those in the upper story very weak and bad.
The Palazzo Falcanon (alla Riva Tonda) is another fine house. It has two water-gates; is four stories in height, the third being the principal floor; the angle shafts are all spiral, and the string-courses all ornamented with cable mouldings, which, as is usual, are twisted in reverse ways from the centre of the front.
The Palazzo Celsi, near the Frari, is, like the Badoer Palace, an example of a fine regularly designed house with its brickwork left in its natural state; and the Palazzo Orfei is an instance of the finest (and a very fine) front being turned towards acampoand not towards a canal. The long group of mediæval houses which formed one side of the Campo Sta. Maria Formosa was equally worthy of admiration, but has lately been modernized—a fate which isonly too rapidly overtaking most of what one used to admire in this once fortunately neglected city!
The window of which I give an illustration, on the Ponte del Fornaro, is a rare but extremely good example of the combination of sculpture and tracery. Here the carvings are good examples of the emblems of the four Evangelists very ingeniously treated, and the whole window has more force than most of the traceried windows.
With notices of two more buildings, the Palazzi Cavalli and Barbaro, I shall conclude my remarks upon the existing examples of Venetian domestic work. Neither of them calls for much remark. The traceries of the Cavalli Palace are heavy and unsatisfactory, and contrast unfavourably with the greater simplicity of the windows in the Palazzo Barbaro. The two palaces stand, however, in a very fine position on the Grand Canal, commanding the view from the Foscari Palace in one direction to the church of the Salute and the mouth of the canal in the other. Nearly opposite them is a very striking house, the Ca’ Dario, built, I imagine, about the commencement of the sixteenth century, before the revived Classic feeling had fully possessed the Venetians, and displaying some effective and beautiful arrangements of constructional decoration with coloured marbles. It is, in fact, an attempt to revive, to some extent, the art of incrustation, as practised at S. Mark’s; and so successful is it, that I wonder much that more examples are not met with.
In the Grand Canal, and near this spot, are many other buildings, all worthy of illustration, but adding, I think, nothing to what we already know. The Ca’ Fasan is the most unlike the other mediæval houses of any; but it pleased me so little that I could not bring myself to waste time by sketching it. It is only fair to say that in its traceried balconies it approaches more nearly to the latest
33. WINDOW. PONTE DEL FORNARO. VENICE. p. 222.33. WINDOW. PONTE DEL FORNARO. VENICE.p. 222.
34. CASA GOLDONI. VENICE. p. 223.34. CASA GOLDONI. VENICE.p. 223.
northern pointed than any other building in Venice, and that it has perhaps at the same time less breadth and dignity than any.
Two fine palaces[55]are now turned into hotels, and that at which I stopped was full of remains of pointed windows; indeed traces of pointed work are singularly plentiful, and I might go on to an interminable length were I to attempt to describe them all. The Arsenal is old, I believe, but has been modernized. It may be visited now for the sake of the grand and quaint old lions which sit before its entrance.
Of the interiors of these houses I cannot say very much. They usually have a great hall in the centre of each floor, into which the various rooms open; and the windows of these halls are generally the most important in the elevation. The frames of the windows were of wood, placed behind the traceries, and the original ceilings were the moulded beams of the floors. I have only seen one good Gothic staircase in Venice. This is in the Casa Goldoni, and has for its balustrade a series of shafts with piers at intervals. Its detail in short is that of the balcony, but sloped up to suit the rise of the steps. Pointed arches of brick carry the steps. This house may well be visited by other than architectural pilgrims, and will be found near the Ponte San Tomà. A fine early Renaissance staircase remains in the Palazzo Minelli, near San Paterniano. This is circular, with continuous open arcades following the rise of the steps, the usual shafted balustrade filling the lower part of the openings between the columns. The chimneys of these palaces are very singular. Not many old examples remain, but they are still copied, and that some of them are really old is proved by the extent to which they are shown in early Venetian paintings, as e.g. in the works of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. In my illustration the examples Figs. 2 and 3are copied from paintings, and Fig. 1 is from a palace near the Ponte Bernardo.
CHIMNEYS—VENICE.CHIMNEYS—VENICE.
And now that we have so far passed in review a series of the finest remains of mediæval architecture in Venice, it is time to inquire how much is to be learnt by what we have seen, and in what degree it differs from the developments of pointed architecture with which we are familiar in Northern Europe.
I think the very first point to be observed is that in Venice architecture was never essentially constructional in the sense in which it was in our own land. The pointed arch is rarely used except in churches, and in its place traceries, increased in size and scale to do their work, are made to carry the entire weight of walling above them, as is the case, to take the foremost example, in the second stage of the Ducal Palace. And it is remarkable that, when the arch was used, from a very early date it was the ogee arch, and not the arch formed by two simple curves; indeed it may almost be said that the pure pointed arch was never used, save where it would have been quite impossible with any other contrivance to bridge the necessary gap, or provide sufficiently for the weight to be supported. How striking a contrast this is to the way in which in England men worked with and exhibited the pointed arch, evidently as if, and because, they loved it!—using it not only as asturdy servant to do heavy work, but as the friend of whose friendship they were ever the most anxious to boast. I do not complain of the flatness and lack of breaks or recesses in the masses of the great Venetian buildings, because this no doubt arose in part from the value of every foot of ground so hardly gathered from the sea, and the difficulty of throwing out buttresses into the narrow depths of the canals out of which they rise. And the same conditions which enforced this flatness are grateful because they involved the charming balconies which are so peculiarly Venetian, and gave a breadth and simplicity to the outline which has its own artistic charm.
In the science of moulding I cannot but think that it is quite useless to compare works executed for the sunny skies of Venice with those fitted for the gloomy sunlessness of a northern climate. The one kind are as properly soft, gentle in their alternations of light and shade, and delicate, as the other are piquant and sharp, rejoicing in the dark shade of deep hollows and endless intricacy of outline and arrangement. But I feel no doubt whatever that, unfair as it may be to compare one school with the other, seeing that each worked for its own wants, it is yet most clear that the Northern architects were developing a much deeper art, and working with much more consummate skill, than were the Venetian. The endless variety of the arrangement of; capitals, and the necessary grouping of mouldings to fit, their varying outlines, was carried to the extreme point of perfection by the one school, whilst in the other not only was there much less depth and relief, but also very much less variety. The abacus of the Italian capital was almost always square in plan, and, as an almost necessary consequence of this, mouldings retained very much the same arrangement and shape for the whole period of the prevalence of the pointed style, and generally rather leaned to the sideof heaviness than of delicacy. Venetian mouldings are composed of the constant combination of a three-quarter bead and a shallow hollow, divided by small fillets, and so invariably arranged in almost exactly the same order, that it requires very great care to decide upon the date of buildings by their mouldings with any sort of approach to certainty.
In addition to simple mouldings, there are also the ever-recurring ornamented mouldings which are so peculiarly characteristic of Venetian works of all dates. These consist generally of sections which in England we should consider Romanesque, but which in Venice appear to be much more common in the latest works than in the earliest; chevrons, cable-mouldings, billets, and the like, are seen everywhere, and suggest the question whether this class of ornamented mouldings, so largely used in the early days of architecture in England and so little afterwards, might not with some advantage be rescued from the contempt into which it has fallen with modern builders. They have the advantage of being within the power of any ordinary workman to execute, and do not, therefore, require the handiwork, which is so rare and so precious, of thoroughly good carvers. Add to this, that some features originally invented for use in the way of holding together marble incrustations, were afterwards used universally for their own sakes as ornamental mouldings, for which office they were in no way fitted, and I think nearly as much has been said as can be of Venetian mouldings in stone. Those in brick are even less satisfactory; but they occur mainly about the churches, and, as I do not recognize anything at all distinctively Venetian in their design or arrangement, it will be better to say more about them after we have seen the brickwork in other cities in the North of Italy, compared with which that at Venice is not of the first order.
In the practice of carving, as in that of moulding, I seeno reason for yielding the palm to the Venetian. It is true indeed, that the Byzantine capitals—of which such magnificent examples exist at S. Mark’s—are some of the most exquisite I have ever seen, true and precise in their sculpture, revelling in the utmost delicacy of intricate work, and always refined and elaborated with great evidence of care and thoughtfulness; but after the earliest school, and those later examples in which they were copied and regarded as models, there appears to me to be much less to admire. There is a confusion and want of fixed purpose about many of those which are commonly referred to as the best types of Gothic sculpture, which is at best not satisfactory; and I confess that I came away much more pleased with some of the Byzantine capitals than with any others. They have some notable points of difference from those to which we are used. They are generally much larger in proportion to the shaft than ours; and instead of having a regular neck-moulding, they rise out of the shaft with a kind of swell, which, as being less definite, is to me less satisfactory than our neck-moulding. The capitals of all dates are very generally similar in their outlines—this in part arising from the constant occurrence of circular columns with capitals whose abaci are square, and in part from the imitation, more or less closely, of Byzantine models. Indeed, it is impossible not to see how great an influence the earliest remaining work—that of the eleventh century—had in Venice until the end of the fourteenth and far into the fifteenth century; the most beautiful and striking arrangements of the former age are reproduced and only slightly modified in the finest work of the latter to a very remarkable extent: and so much more decidedly and frequently than are the traces, in northern pointed, of any hankering after the features of Romanesque buildings, that I think but one conclusion can fairly be drawn from the sculpture of Venice as well as from its architecture,viz. that pointed architecture was never developed as purely and thoroughly in Venice as in the North of Europe; and that, though it retained its sway there nearly as long as it did elsewhere, it never thoroughly understood or felt its own strength, and worked and toiled tied down and encumbered by Byzantine fetters and Classic sympathies. There is much, notwithstanding this, to admire—and, above all else, the greatest beauty of the style, wherein it so far left us behind, the thorough appreciation and unsparing use of the shaft. It is quite astonishing how very little this was ever used in England. Occasionally, indeed, it was freely used in grand buildings, and in some individual features it was frequently seen in thirteenth-century buildings; but at the very period when, if ever, architecture was in its perfection—in the early part of the fourteenth century—it was almost entirely forgotten and thrown aside. All honour, therefore, to the men who so perseveringly and determinedly used it as did the builders at Venice for three centuries! And all shame to us if we do not attempt for the future so far at any rate to follow in their steps! So rare are any but shafted windows in Venice, that at present I hardly remember a single instance of a window with monials formed by the continuous mouldings of the tracery; and it is obvious that this gave occasion, not only to the use of beautiful marbles—never so well used as in shafts—but also to the constant use of carved capitals. In domestic buildings, as I have before remarked, this arrangement of shafted windows is very valuable, because it suggests one obvious way in which we may unite traceried windows with the very newest arrangement of window-frames or sashes in the most comfortable nineteenth-century houses; for in these Venetian palaces the glass was always contained in a separate wooden frame set within the marble shafts and tracery.[56]
Besides the use of the shaft in the ordinary way, I must not forget to say that parapets frequently (or perhaps it were better to say balustrades)—as, e.g., at S. Mark’s—and balconies everywhere, are composed of a vast number of very delicate shafts, set very close to each other, and surmounted by long pieces of stone cut out in imitation of arching, and not really to be regarded as a succession of arch-stones, but rather as coping-stones to hold the shafts together. And, again, they are used very beautifully for the support of open pinnacles, one at each angle, inclosing a figure, just as in the monuments of the Scaligers at Verona. Examples of this are to be seen in the pinnacles which have been added between the gables of S. Mark’s, which are exceedingly good in their effect; and again in the pinnacles which terminate the church of the Madonna dell’ Orto.
One more point is worthy of remark—the treatment, namely, of the angles of buildings. These were almost always marked either by a roll-moulding or by a succession of nook-shafts, sometimes extravagantly chevroned or otherwise ornamented. This, when done simply, was always satisfactory, but, in its later and more elaborate form, was, I think, as unsatisfactory. The delicate rounding off of the angles of walls was a point not unthought of in England. In the thirteenth century a nook-shaft was the common contrivance; in the fourteenth, a chamfer; and in the fifteenth men reverted entirely to the square form. Here, however, there is a great and very interesting variety in this apparently simple feature. The most satisfactory planof all is where a quarter-circle forms the angle, and is finished with a small incision in the form of a V on either side, as it unites simplicity with strength of construction and softness of contour, and does not force itself too prominently upon our observation; and, next to this, the most satisfactory form is where, instead of the moulding being round, it is pointed at the angle. The twisted shafts of the upper stage of the Ducal Palace, and the triple and chevroned shafts of the Ca’ d’Oro, are not improvements upon the refinement of the earlier mode.
I have already spoken of the exquisite beauty of the inlaid marbles in S. Mark’s; nothing can be better than their effect, and nothing seems more wonderful than that they should not have been used more frequently in later buildings. I was, perhaps, a little disappointed in not finding, as I had expected, the marble arranged generally in geometrical patterns; but this is quite the exception; and one sees only, in a medallion here and there, the exquisite beauty which their arrangement in this way may produce. As a rule the walls are faced with thin slabs of marble, each of the size in which it came to hand, sawn into as many slices as its substance would allow, and then riveted to the walls and held in place securely by projecting thin lines of stonework built into the wall, and cut with indented or billet ornaments along their edges. There is, however, a degree of real as well as apparent weakness which is not at all satisfactory in this system of incrustation, and I thought how much more noble such work might well become, were it to be inlaid only where no strong work was required to be done—as, e.g., in spandrels of arches,[57]or within arches—and not as here to the concealment of every one of the necessary constructional features. It is to be observed, however, that the slabs of marble are generally higher than they are wide,so as at once to destroy any thought of their being really constructional.
The south side of S. Mark’s is, perhaps, the place above all others in Venice where this inlaid work may be seen to the greatest advantage. Some of the great arches which stand in place of gables are divided into four or five square-headed lights by shafts supporting semicircular arches, the tympana of which are filled in with delicate and perpetually varied filigree-work in marble, whilst above them a succession of panels or medallions shews all the resources of the rich materials which were to be exhibited. In another case, just over the entrance from the Piazzetta to the church, the tympanum of the arch is filled in with large medallions, one exquisitely carved, the others plain; whilst the arch of the window below the tympanum has its beautiful marble spandrels adorned on either side with medallions which, for exquisite arrangement of vari-coloured marbles in geometrical patterns, are perfectly admirable. There is enough, therefore, in the Venetian system of incrustation, though much unhappily be lost, to give ample food for our study and admiration; and its only weak point is, as I have said, its too frequent neglect or concealment of the constructional features of the buildings it adorns.
It is easy, however, to cavil at particular details, and scan with a critical eye the architectural beauties of Venice; but let it not be thought for an instant that all the wonderful pictures which every new turn or new point of view brings before the eyes are unappreciated. A few days spent there suffice almost to fill a lifetime with reminiscences of all that is novel, beautiful, and strange; and days such as I have spent, year after year, rejoicing in the daytime in the full brilliancy of a September sun, and at night in the calm loveliness of a Venetian night, have been just the most delightful in every way that could be passed.
We were at Venice on the festival of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin—a great feast-day, which it had been my fortune to spend some two or three times before in Roman Catholic countries. I confess that here we were not edified. We came in, as we went from church to church, for rather more than the usual number of thedésagrémenswhich always seem to attend the decoration of the churches, and especially the altars, for such festivities abroad. The strongest impression left on my mind was one of wonder at the paltry character of the long array of what by courtesy are called, I suppose, wreaths of flowers, manufactured of pink gauze, or some equally unnatural material. These, with vulgar draperies hung outside the church doors, and in additional quantity about the altars, with the most noisy and gladsome ringing of bells, completed the external demonstrations; all the shops were most studiously closed, and the churches and open places were thronged with people. At S. Mark’s we heard[58]some abominably light opera-music, which sounded, as may be imagined, very discordant within its solemn walls.
One morning we devoted partly to the ascent of the campanile in the Piazza. The ascent is entirely by inclined planes; the outer walls of the tower are in fact double, and in the space between them these inclined planes are formed; and it is worth notice that to this day, in all buildings which we have seen in progress in this part of the world, inclined boards are used instead of ladders for obtaining access to scaffolding; and in one of the mosaics in the entrance-porch of S. Mark’s, where the building of the Tower of Babel is depicted, precisely the same kind of arrangement is shewn. This is interesting, as shewing the tenacity with which old customs are adhered to. The view, when the top is reached, quite repays the labour of theascent, as it gives the best possible idea of what Venice really is. We get an impression of a very densely populated town, hemmed in on all sides by water, and looking very flat and low; in the distance small islands pave the way to the mainland, or shelter us from the sea; these, where they are more distant, look like mere black spots on the smooth, unrippled expanse of water: and in the far horizon we see to the west the purple outline of the mountains about Vicenza; and to the north of these, and rising grandly into the sky, the snowy peaks of the southern range of the Friulan Alps. Below and around are countless churches, all placed confusedly without respect to orientation—a neglect, if anywhere excusable, surely so here, where land is the exception and water the rule.
The last day we spent in Venice was most enjoyable. We had been all day in our gondola, now stopping to sketch some Gothic palace, anon shooting into some narrow canal to escape the bright heat of the sun, winding our way now here, now there, just as the fancy of the moment seized us, and realizing more than ever that “the longest summer’s day was all too short” for a last day in so fair a place. In the evening, just before sunset, we went out into the Lagoon, and, rowing round the small island of Giudecca, watched the gradually waning light reflected on the smooth, calm water, which seemed too silent and too soft to be disturbed by a word from any of us; and then at last, turning back and coming suddenly through a short canal into the main stream just opposite the Dogana, we moved on gently till we came abreast of the Ducal Palace. It was just dark; the moon was rising behind us in all her beauty, and in front, lamp after lamp was suddenly lit along the Piazzetta, then along the palace-front, all along the Riva dei Schiavoni, until at last, before we landed, as far as we could see, the bright lights, reflected in a hundred gleaming,flashing lines, were fitfully dancing in long streams of light upon the bosom of the waters.
We stepped on shore to find ourselves led on by the sound of military music, and to be tempted by the luxury of ices eatenal frescoin the Piazza; and then, when the crowd gradually dispersed, we too, among the last, found our way to our hotel, charmed so much with our last night in Venice that it is impossible not to recollect that evening with the deepest pleasure.
It is not without purpose that I have held silence with regard to the churches and buildings generally of the Renaissance school in Venice. These have had in their time many more admirers than have the examples of architecture which it was alike my business and my delight particularly to examine; and to the present day I doubt not that nine people out of ten, led by their valets-de-place, go to see what is worst in point of taste, and so reap the reward of allowing themselves to be made to see with another’s eyes, instead of enjoying the intense pleasure of working out and exploring for themselves all the treasures of this mine and storehouse of ancient art. It is partly because I feel the greatest repugnance to the buildings themselves, and partly because I fear to make my notes, already lengthy, far too long for the patience of my readers, that I do not venture upon this additional field of study; but not in the least degree because I doubt the result, for I believe firmly that, tried by the fair rules which must regulate merit in a constructive art, the Renaissance buildings of Venice would be no nearer perfection than those of any other city. Something perhaps there is in the gloomy grandeur of their vast masses rearing their rusticated walls and deeply recessed windows darkly above the comparatively cheerful and bright-looking walls of the neighbouring Gothic palaces, which may impress the mindsof some, but they must be of a sombre temperament who really love them. Still more must they be of a tasteless temperament who can endure with patience the succession of eccentricities with which Palladio and his disciples have loaded their churches. I pretend not, however, to discuss the point. I had not time for everything, and preferred giving up the attempt to like what from my heart I have ever disliked, and what nothing that I saw in Venice would make me dislike at all less heartily.
Neither do I pretend to say anything about Venetian pictures; guides without number may be found of more service and more knowledge, and to their hands I leave their proper charge. A word only upon one point—their adaptation, namely, to the sacred edifices of which they are the most notable ornaments.
Now I must at once say that there is no church, so far as I saw, in Venice, with the single exception of S. Mark’s, which is to be compared in this respect (in its effect, that is, as heightened by colour) with such buildings as the Arena Chapel at Padua or the church of Sta. Anastasia at Verona—the one an example of the very noblest art working under strict architectural limitations; the other, of simple decorative painting. The fact is, that the Venetian pictures give the impression that they might do elsewhere as well as in a church, and therefore entirely fail in identifying themselves with the walls on which they hang; whilst no one can ever think of the noble works of Giotto at Padua, without recalling to mind the religious order of his works and their identification with the building which contains them; and at Verona the result of the system adopted in the painting is marvellously to enhance the effect of the architecture without in any way concealing or damaging it. In Venice the case is quite different. The church of San Sebastiano, in which Paul Veronese is buried, and which internally isalmost entirely covered with his paintings, is an example of what I suppose I must call the best Venetian treatment. This consists, however, of immense oil-paintings covering entire walls, and absolutely requiring, in order that they may be at all properly appreciated, that the spectator should stand in a particular spot—in some cases by the side of the altar—and that the windows should first have blinds drawn down, and then, when he goes to look at another painting, have them drawn up again. This is all very unpleasant. But besides this, there is no very sensible advantage to the colour of the buildings from these decorations; certainly they are far behind mere decorative paintings as vehicles for bringing out the architectural features; and so they are visited very much as pictures in a gallery, and without in any case being identified with the churches in which they are preserved. The mosaics at S. Mark’s are, on the other hand, some of the very grandest examples of the proper mode of decorating interiors with representations of religious subjects, all conceived and arranged with some order and relation to each other. But of the other Venetian churches there does not seem to me to be any one whose artists at all succeeded in equalling the example so early set them.
I do not pretend in these pages to speak at all of paintings irrespective of architecture, or I might find much to say upon the store of works, of a very noble school, in which this great city is so rich. The immense rooms of the Ducal Palace, covered as their walls and ceilings are with the works of Tintoretto, Titian, and Paul Veronese, cannot be forgotten; still less can the many works of Giovanni Bellini, and of other painters in the churches, and in the collection in the Accademia—rich among others in the works of that great and interesting painter Carpaccio—be passed over; whilst the decorated walls of the various Scuole are in many cases of hardly inferior interest. I am sorry that Iwas obliged to take the great merits of some of the grandest works somewhat on faith; it was in vain to think of actually studying them in a short time, and, educated as I have been to love the works of an earlier date and another school more heartily than these, I must confess, barbarous as the confession may appear to be, that I was not thoroughly pleased with what I saw. The magnificence of the chiaroscuro and colouring of these great pictures scarcely atoned to me for the degree to which—owing generally to the immense array of figures and confusion of subject—I failed to carry away distinct conceptions of the story intended to be told. It may be said that this is the result of want of taste or education, but still the feeling is so different when for the first time pictures by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Raffaelle, Perugino, or Francia are looked at, that it is hard to avoid believing that, though their power over colour may have been somewhat less, their power of attaining to the highest point of the true painter’s art—that of leaving indelible impressions on the minds of all beholders—was immeasurably higher. Thus much only by way of excuse for not saying more about what the world in general rightly conceives to be one of the great glories of Venice.
And now I must say farewell, and, doubtful though I may be as to the claims of Venetian art in the Middle Ages to be considered as at all equal to that of the same period in Northern Europe, I am very grateful for many new ideas gathered and much intense pleasure enjoyed in the examination of its treasures; and so, rather sadly laying myself down to sleep for the last time in Venice, I began to deem that my journey henceforward must be rather less interesting than it had been; with Venice a thing of the past, instead of, as it was on my outward course, full of all the beauties with which the liveliest fancy could crowd its walls and palaces by anticipation.
“A seaOf glory streams along the Alpine heightOf blue Friuli’s mountains.”Childe Harold.
“A seaOf glory streams along the Alpine heightOf blue Friuli’s mountains.”Childe Harold.
“A seaOf glory streams along the Alpine heightOf blue Friuli’s mountains.”Childe Harold.
New Roads to Venice—The Pusterthal—Innichen—Dolomite Mountains—Heiligenblut Kötschach—Kirchbach—Gail Thal—Hermagor—Ober Tarvis—Predil Pass—Gorizia—Aquileja—Grado—Udine—Pordenone.
New Roads to Venice—The Pusterthal—Innichen—Dolomite Mountains—Heiligenblut Kötschach—Kirchbach—Gail Thal—Hermagor—Ober Tarvis—Predil Pass—Gorizia—Aquileja—Grado—Udine—Pordenone.
TOthose who wish to find new roads to old haunts let me recommend the road to Venice described in this chapter. A more interesting way for any one who has already travelled through Lombardy to Venice cannot be desired. It affords a sight not only of charming scenery, primitive people, and churches of some interest, but gives an opportunity for a visit to Aquileja, Grado, and Udine, all of them places well worthy to be known by all lovers of architecture. Leaving the Brenner railway at Franzensfeste, we made our way first of all to Innichen. Here I found a very fine Romanesque church which, placed as it is not very far to the north of the distant mountains which one sees from Venice, and full as it is of Italian influence in its general design, may well be included in my notes. It is a cruciform church with a central raised lantern, three eastern apses, a lofty south-western tower, and a fifteenth-century narthex in front of the rest of the west end. The nave is divided from the aisles by columns which are, (1) ten-sided, (2) four halfcolumns attached to a square, and (3) octagonal. The first and third are massive columns decreasing rapidly in size from the base to the capital. The central lantern has an octagonal vault upon very simple pendentives, and the apses have semi-dome roofs. A fine south doorway has the emblems of the four Evangelists, sculptured around Our Lord in the tympanum. Innichen is a small and unimportant village, but boasts, I think, of no less than five churches; and fine as is the mother-church, I suppose most travellers would agree with me in thinking the background of mountains to the south of it, the most delightful feature of the place. Truly I know few things more lovely than the evening view of the church and village, with the tall fantastic peaks of the Dolomite Drei Schuster behind, lighted up with the glowing brilliancy which is so characteristic a result of the Dolomite formation, by the last rays of the setting sun. Below all was gloomy, dark, and shaded; above the whole series of towering peaks seemed to be on fire, and most unearthly did they look. The attraction of such sights as I had seen before compelled me to give a day to an excursion southwards to the Kreuzberg pass, to have a glimpse, at any rate, of the Auronzo Dolomites, and I had no reason to repent the day so spent.
Leaving Innichen and going eastward, we went first to Lienz; then, after adétourto Heiligenblut, we crossed from the Pusterthal to the Gail Thal, and from thence across the Predil pass to the Adriatic at Gorizia. From Innichen till we reached the Italian sea-board, we saw and were much interested in a series of churches, generally of the fifteenth century, and all built apparently by the same school of German architects. They are small mountain churches, and are mainly remarkable for the complicated and ingenious character of their groined roofs. They have usually aisles, columns without capitals, and no distinct arches betweenthem, but only vaulting-ribs. The panels between the ribs are often ornamented with slightly sunk quatrefoils, or in some cases regularly filled with tracery.
One of the best of these churches is that at Heiligenblut, in Carinthia. Here, where the main object of every one is the exploration of the mountains grouped around the beautiful snow-peak of the Gross-Glockner, it is not a little pleasant to find again, as at Innichen, a remarkable church just opposite the inn-door. This was built as a pilgrimage church to contain a phial of the sacred blood, and is extremely interesting architecturally as a church, built with a regular system of stone constructional galleries round the north, south, and west sides of the nave. The aisles are narrow and divided into two stages in height—both groined—and the upper no doubt intended for a throng of people to stand in, and see the functions below. Now, however, just as in most modern galleries, raised tiers of seats are formed in them, and their effect is destroyed. A pretty Retable at the end of the north gallery suggests that originally perhaps they were built in part to make room for side altars, but this was clearly not the primary object. The fronts of the galleries are covered with paintings of no merit, which illustrate the beautiful legend of S. Briccius, who is said to have brought the phial of blood from the East, and to have perished with it in the snow just above Heiligenblut. There is a crypt under the choir, entered by a flight of steps descending from the nave; a grand Sakramentshaus north of the chancel where the holy blood is kept (not over the altar); and there is a lofty gabled tower and spire on the north side of the chancel, whose pretty outline adds not a little to the picturesqueness of the village.
From Heiligenblut, looking at churches by the same hands on the way at S. Martin Pockhorn and Winklern, we made our way back to Lienz, and thence, crossing themountains, descended on Kötschach in the Gail Thal, passing a good church on the road at S. Daniel.
Kötschach is in one of the most charming situations for any one who can enjoy mountains of extreme beauty of outline, even though they are not covered with snow to their base, nor are more than some nine thousand feet in height. To me this pastoral Gail Thal, with its green fields, green mountain sides, wholesome air, and occasional grand views of Dolomite crags, among which the Polinik and Kollin Kofel are the finest peaks, is one of the most delightful bits of country I have ever seen. At Kötschach the architectural feature is a fine lofty gabled steeple with an octagonal spire. It is very remarkable how German these Germans are! Here, close to the Italian Alps, we have a design identical with those of the fine steeples of Lübeck, and as vigorously Teutonic and unlike Italian work as anything can possibly be.
From Kötschach a pleasant road runs down the valley to Hermagor, another charming little town beautifully placed, and with—no small attraction—a capital hostelry. On the road, at Kirchbach, the drivers of the country waggons in which we were travelling pulled up their horses, to my no small delight, in front of a most interesting mediæval churchyard-gate; this is a simple archway overshadowed by a shingled pent-house roof, to whose kindly guardianship we owe it that a fifteenth-century painting of S. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, and several saints under craftily-painted canopies, are still in fair preservation on the wayside gate, making one of the most lovely pictures possible on the road.
At Hermagor, where the grand and massive mountain range of the Dobratsch to the east, and the Gartner Kogel to the west, give never-failing pleasure to the eyes whichever way they turn, there is another fine church, very much of the same character as that at Heiligenblut, but without galleries.
Between Hermagor and Ober Tarvis the churches are not important, but one in the village of S. Paul has the unusual feature of a cornice under the external eaves effectively painted in the fifteenth century, with elaborate and very German traceries in red and buff, which are still fairly perfect.
At Ober Tarvis the Predil Pass is reached; and starting from thence in the morning, passing on the ascent the pretty Raibl See, and on the descent some of the most stupendous and aweful rocky precipices I have ever seen, we reached Flitsch to sleep, and on the following afternoon emerged from the mountains at Gorizia, not far from the head of the Adriatic, after a long and beautiful drive down the valley of the Isonzo.
I found absolutely nothing old to see here. It is a smart town, in which the hand of the improver has been particularly busy in the work of destruction; but it is the most convenient starting-place for a visit to Aquileja and Grado, and provides good horses and vehicles.
It is a drive of about a couple of hours from Gorizia to Aquileja. The country is perfectly flat, but teeming with vegetation, and it is not until the end of the journey is reached that one realizes under what baleful conditions life or existence is endured here. A Roman capital and a fragment or two of Roman columns or mouldings are all that one sees at first to show that one is driving into one of the greatest of the old Roman seaports. Here, where before its destruction by Attila inA.D.452 the population is said to have been about a hundred thousand in number, there are now only a few poor houses, and a sparse population, pauperized and invalided by fever and swamps on every side, whilst the sea has retreated some three miles, and left the place to its misery without any of the compensating gains of commerce. Certainly Torcello is a degree more wretched and deserted,but these two old cities have few compeers in misery, and I advise no one but an antiquary to make the pilgrimage to Aquileja, who is not quite prepared to tolerate dirt, misery, and wretchedness with nothing to redeem them.
PATRIARCH’S THRONE.—AQUILEJA.PATRIARCH’S THRONE.—AQUILEJA.
The one great interest in the city now is the cathedral. This is a great cruciform basilica, with a central and two small apses east of the transept, and eleven arches between the nave and aisles. The arrangements of the apse are interesting; two flights of steps lead up to it from the nave, and in the centre of the east wall is the patriarch’s throne of white marble, well raised on a platform above the seat which goes round the apse. The whole arrangement is singularly well preserved, and looks very well in spite of the destruction ofmost of the mosaic pavement with which originally no doubt the floor was laid, of which only a few tesseræ now remain, and in spite also of the modernization of the rest of the apse. This throne appeared to me to be not earlier than circa 1150, though the church is said to have been built between 1019 and 1042. These dates must, I think, be taken with large allowance for alterations. With the exception of the apse and the crypt under it, I believe the greater part of the church was rebuilt in the fourteenth century; for though the Roman capitals (which were everywhere ready to the hand) were used on the ancient columns, the arches carried by them are pointed, and the clerestory is evidently of the same age. This combination of Classic columns and sculpture with pointed arches is so very unusual, that it is quite worth while to give an illustration of the interior. The columns, capitals, and bases are of varied shapes and sizes, and evidently a mere collection of old materials which happened to be handy for the builder’s use; the arches are rudely moulded, and the clerestory of cinquefoiled windows, each of a single light, is as insignificant as possible, and yet withal there is so grand an area inclosed that the effect is good and impressive. The nave is divided from its aisles by eleven arches on each side, and measures about one hundred and fifty feet in length, by one hundred and five in width. The aisle roofs are modern, but the nave still retains its old roof, a fine example of a cusped ceiling, boarded and panelled in small square panels. The whole of this ceiling is painted, and with extremely good effect, though the only colours used are black, white, and brownish yellow. Each panel is filled with a small painted hexagon filled with tracery painted in black and white, and all the ribs and leading lines are yellow and black. The purlines, which are arranged so as to form the points of the cusps, are very decidedly marked with black. Simple as the treatment is, the effect is admirable, and it appeared to me
35. DUOMO. AQUILEJA. p. 244.35. DUOMO. AQUILEJA.p. 244.
to be owing to the large amount of white in the panels. Near the west end of the north aisle is a singular circular erection, which is said by the cicerone to be the receptacle for the holy oil, but which without this information I should have taken for the baptistery. It is a perfectly plain circular mass of stonework about fifteen feet across, with a doorway on the west side, a moulded base and cornice, and above the latter a series of detached shafts carrying a second cornice of marble. A square projection on the north side abuts against the aisle wall, and seems to have been the special receptacle for the vessel which held the oil. At present it seems to be as little used and understood by the people of Aquileja as it would probably be if it were in some country beyond the Roman pale; a remark by the way on old church arrangements which one finds oneself making almost everywhere, when one contrasts the intentions of the old builders with the uses to which more modern ideas—reformed or deformed, whichever they may be—are in the habit of applying them.
At Aquileja the appropriation of pagan fragments was carried so far that we found Classic capitals doing service as holy-water stoups.
The interior of the eastern part of the church is more interesting than that of the nave. It is all probably of the original foundation, and retains most of the old arrangements. The floor of the choir is raised some ten or twelve steps, with two flights of steps on each side of the centre. At the top of these steps, projecting sideways into the transepts, are tribunes with open balustrades which seem to have served as ambons. The apse has two rows of seats, with the patriarch’s seat raised in the centre, and the altar stands in front of this on the chord of the apse. It is curious that this, which is an apse internally, is a square projection from the transept externally.
A descent on each side under the tribunes leads to thecrypt under the raised choir. This is very small, but is divided into three aisles in width, and four bays in length. The central space is screened round jealously with close grilles reaching from floor to vault, so as to protect the shrine of S. Hermacora, which occupies the centre. But little light steals into this crypt, and that little has to find its way between rank weeds which grow up round the windows; but there is quite enough to reveal vaults covered with paintings of subjects, and to show as picturesque and beautiful anensembleas one need wish to see. Kneeling desks were placed round the shrine, but the cultus of S. Hermacora seems to be no longer popular, and the only pilgrims are curious visitors like ourselves. The paintings on the groining appeared to me to be of not earlier date than the fourteenth century, and are very cleverly contrived to suit the early vaults.
The transepts remain to be mentioned. Each has a small eastern apse near the extreme end, and a tomb or shrine between this apse and the choir-tribune. These are of the thirteenth century, and are enormous blocks of stone, panelled and carved in front, and supported on four detached shafts. In the south transept there are fragments of a Byzantine screen round the altar in the small apse, which are of rare beauty and intricacy. The screen consisted of a solid base, breast-high, covered with carving, and upon which columns stood originally at intervals of six feet, just as in the screen at Torcello, of which I have given a view.
There is an early painting of Our Lord, seated on a throne in the semi dome of this apse, and there are remains of an early wall-painting in the choir-apse, partly covered by a fifteenth-century picture in a good frame. The choir stalls are of elaborate intarsiatura work, and date from the end of the sixteenth century.
A little way to the north of the church stands its campanile,a tall plain mass of masonry, with the dateMDXLVIIII.on the upper stage, and the inscription “Tadeus Luranus hoc o. fecit.” It is worth the climb to the top to get the view over the flat surrounding country, which reveals what one fails to see from the dead level of the road, that the Adriatic is not far off—far enough, it is true, to have ruined the port of Aquileja—but so near as to be a very important element in the fine prospect. From here we saw through the haze the island of Grado, on which I cast longing eyes in vain. My information as to the distance had been all at fault, and I thought that in a long day from Gorizia, I might see both Aquileja and Grado. This is, however, quite impossible, as the boatmen required, they said, three hours for thetrajeteach way. It was a misfortune to miss the church at Grado, which contains much that is worth seeing, and has considerable historical interest, as the seat of a patriarch, whose jurisdiction included Malamocco, Venice, Torcello, and Chioggia—and whose importance is vouched for by its old titles, “Venetæ oræ Istriæque Ecclesiarum caput et mater,” and “Aquileja nova.”
The patriarch’s throne and the ambon or pulpit, which still remain in the church at Grado, are evidently extremely fine examples of Byzantine furniture. The former corresponds with that of Aquileja, but has the rare addition of a flat canopy or tester supported in front by two columns, which rest on the side walls of the steps leading up to the seat. Probably there was a similar canopy at Aquileja. The dignity of the patriarchal throne is not a little increased by the addition, simple as it is in its decorative features. The pulpit is even more striking; it is six-sided, all the sides being arranged in a series of bold circular projections, with sculptures of the Evangelistic emblems on their face. The pulpit is supported by a central shaft, and six smaller columns alternately plain and spiral, and above the pulpit aseries of octagonal shafts are provided to support a canopy or dome over the head of the preacher. These columns carry arches which are of the common Venetian ogee trefoil outline, and, there can be little doubt, are later than the pulpit. The combination is, however, very picturesque, and not the less interesting in that it has a most strangely Eastern look.[59]
The rest of my party went, whilst I was sketching in the cathedral at Aquileja, to look at the baptistery. They reported it to be as completely modernized inside as it certainly is outside, and so I failed to enter it. I believe I lost nothing, though at one time it was well worthy of a visit.
A rapid drive back to Gorizia was made with the advantage of a view of the mountains before us all the way; and we arrived in time to avail ourselves of the last train to Udine, which we did not reach until after dark.
I arrived here in entire ignorance of what might be in store for me in the way of my art. I had seen no drawings of any of its buildings, and I suspect that most of my readers are in the same state of ignorance. It was with no little pleasure, therefore, that my earliest stroll in the morning brought me to a Palazzo Publico, which if not exactly magnificent in scale is at least very important, and has the special merit in my eyes of being all Gothic, and almost unaltered on the outside since its erection. It stands in a piazza which some sixteenth or seventeenth century scenic architect has treated with considerable skill. One or two public buildings and a steep hill behind them have been dealt with in such a way as to call to mind such a disposition of buildings as one sees, e.g., on the Capitol at Rome, and no doubt so as to increase very much the apparent importance
36. PALAZZO PUBLICO. UDINE. p. 24836. PALAZZO PUBLICO. UDINE.p. 248
37. PALAZZO PUBLICO. UDINE. p. 249.37. PALAZZO PUBLICO. UDINE.p. 249.
of this little city. The Palazzo Publico is a building of two stages in height, the lower entirely open with pointed arches resting on columns, and the upper presenting on its principal front a large balconied window, or Ringhiera, in the centre, and smaller windows on each side of it, and at the ends. The cornice and roof are modern, otherwise the whole design is intact, and exactly in the state in which its architect left it. The character of the design is clearly Venetian, and the date about the beginning of the fifteenth century, but still it is not slavishly Venetian as the houses of Vicenza are, but on the face of it the work of a local architect who knew enough of what was being done in Venice to profit by it without absolutely copying.
The lower or ground story is open on three sides, and has ten arches in front, and five at each end. The space inclosed is irregularly divided by a longitudinal line of columns, carrying semicircular arches, which support the walls of the rooms above, the access to which is by a modernized staircase in the rear. The materials of the walls are generally red and white marble. The balustrades between the columns and the staircases leading to them are so good and complete as well to deserve illustration. The upper part of these, including the cusped heads to the openings, is of white marble, whilst the shafts are alternately of the same material and of serpentine. The upper story is modernized within; but one learns to be grateful for small mercies, and it was certainly with every feeling of gratitude to later architects that I sketched this really beautiful building, which they have been good enough to leave so nearly unaltered on the outside.
The state of the cathedral is less a subject for thankfulness! The whole building has been completely modernized within and without, with the exception of the west front and the lower. The former was the façade to a nave with two aisleson either side, or perhaps with one aisle and chapels beyond. All the roofs are of the same flat pitch, and stepped regularly so as to give a broken and bad outline to the mass. The work is mainly of brick, with some good detail in the windows of the outer aisles, of which I give an illustration. The west doorway is of the fourteenth century, with a very steep crocketed gable between pinnacles, and a badly sculptured tympanum with a curious assortment of subjects; in the centre the Crucifixion, right and left of this the Resurrection and an Agnus Dei, and above it the Nativity. Three circular windows light the three centre divisions of the front, and the two lower are connected by a broad band of brick arches which crosses the entire front just below the central circular window. There is not a word to be said in favour of such a design. Itisold, and that is its only virtue!
AISLE WINDOWS—DUOMO, UDINE.AISLE WINDOWS—DUOMO, UDINE.
38. DUOMO. UDINE. p. 250.38. DUOMO. UDINE.p. 250.
The tower is more interesting, though it is only an incomplete fragment. The lower stage is of stone built in dark and light courses, with a large sunk recess on each side. On the west side is a fine doorway built of alternate courses of white marble and serpentine, and there are small circular windows in the cardinal sides just above the lowest stage. Above these the whole is a plain mass of brickwork, of which a very small portion only seems to be original. This tower is no less than fifty-two feet in outside diameter, and its lowest stage is finely groined, with no provision for the passage of bells. It might almost as well have been intended for a baptistery as for a tower! It stands close to the north side of the choir, and by its side is a rather fine doorway leading into the transept, with a good deal of late Gothic sculpture and architectural detail. There are niches and figures in the jambs and round the arch, the Coronation of the Virgin under the latter, and figures of the Annunciation stuck against the wall on either side in a very haphazard fashion. The strange contrast in style between these two doorways will be seen in the illustration which I give. Here we have, side by side, examples of the most pronounced kind of two national styles of Gothic; the door into the tower being as clearly Italian in its beautiful colour and refined simplicity, as that into the church is German in its cleverness, want of repose, and hard angularity of detail.
The only other old churches I could find in Udine were San Giacomo and that of the Ospidale. The former is modernized, but retains an early square brick belfry, arcaded below, and with simple pointed windows of two lights above. The church of the Ospidale is also modernized. The façade has a gable with an old brick eaves-arcade, and the only too common feature of a large circular window inclosed within a square border.
A picturesque Renaissance well-canopy (dated 1487) overthe Fonte di San Giovanni was the only other feature I could find worth sketching or making a note of; and having seen everything, I took the railway on again to Venice.
The views of the Friulan Alps, under which one travels for some distance, are very exquisite. We passed Conegliano, where I once left the railway for a journey through the heart of the Dolomite country to Cortina d’Ampezzo, and, to my regret, hurried past Pordenone, having forgotten that at any rate a tall brick campanile was there, which seemed to promise some reward to the visitor. It is of plain arcaded brickwork below, and the upper stage is slightly battered out with very tall machicoulis, from within the parapet of which a smaller octagonal stage rises, covered with a low spire. The whole composition as one sees it from the railway is unusual and very good, and recalls just a little the campanile of the Palazzo Publico at Siena.