WINDOW—SAN STEFANO.WINDOW—SAN STEFANO.
Perhaps the very worst traceries in Venice—which is saying a good deal—are in the windows of the apse here, where the traceried arches of the head are repeated over the transom, but inverted and standing on their points. More worthy of admiration is a fine tomb corbelled out from the cloister wall to Andreas Contarina, “MCCCLVII.Dux creatus
25. SAN GIACOMO DEL RIALTO. VENICE. p. 187.25. SAN GIACOMO DEL RIALTO. VENICE.p. 187.
MCCCLXXXII.in cœlumn sublatus;” the arched bridge under the choir (which is carried over a canal) should also be noted, as well as the very fine campanile, which, though not boasting of any Gothic detail, is full of the spirit which made the earlier campanili so effective. But if we wish to see the best campanile in Venice, I think we must go back to the Rialto, and there, not far from the Grand Canal, we shall see in that of San Giacomo a perfectly fine example.[40]It is almost entirely of brick, and the fine long lines of its arcades give a great effect of height, whilst the details are all good and quite Gothic in their character.
The other churches in Venice are of less importance than those which I have described, but the number of remains, of which only too many are desecrated, is very large. The Accademia has attached to it the desecrated church of the convent of La Carità. This has three parallel aisles ended with apses, the usual traceries and cornices, and the unusual (I am glad to say) feature of three western gables with arched outlines[41]filled in with much small tracery in brick and terra-cotta. Another desecrated church near this—that of San Gregorio—is more interesting. It is of the same general design as La Carità and, like it, is built of yellowish bricks. The window traceries are of white marble. The most interesting feature here is the cloister, entered by a remarkable doorway from the Grand Canal. The doorway is square-headed, with an ogee trefoiled archway or window on either side, and a sitting figure of a bishop under a slight canopy over the doorway. The cloister has five bays on each side, divided by columns which rest on a marble and brick base, and carry a wooden framework enriched with very good mouldings.
Another desecrated church is that “dei Servi,” which has a fine lofty brick front with a large rose window.
In the Campo Sta. Zaccaria is a portal much like that of San Stefano, save that it has in the tympanum a good figure of the Blessed Virgin with Our Lord with a saint on each side—the two Saints John, I think. The Virgin is seated on a Gothic throne carved in very low relief, and the whole composition is decidedly fine; comparing it with the doorway at Mazzorbo, I should say this must be a work ofA.D.1380. The church of Sta. Zaccaria is an early Renaissance building, with many of its arches pointed. It has an aisle and chapels round the choir, an unusual plan in Venice, but otherwise it has no interest.
The church of l’Abbazia has some fair detail in its cornices, with pinnacles at its west end of the same type as those in the Madonna dell’ Orto, and has poor ogee-headed pointed windows; near it is another of the canopied doorways—the gate of the Corte Vecchia—with an outer arched canopy, within which under an ogee-shaped label stands the Blessed Virgin with Our Lord in an aureole on her breast. Two saints stand at her side, and groups of little figures kneel at her feet, whilst from the upper finial Our Lord gives His blessing. This bears the date of 1505.
I think I have now said enough about these late Gothic churches. I have never been able to interest myself much about them. The work of which they are specimens is so exceedingly poor, cold, and distasteful to me, that I feel much inclined when I attempt to sketch them to give up ecclesiology in despair. The truth is that, S. Mark’s excepted—and of course it is a very wonderful exception—the churches in Venice do not come up to the expectations of any one who has ever experienced the delight of visiting the churches of much smaller cities in France, Germany, and England. True, indeed, there are much interest and a great breadth anddignity about the general effect of such a church as that of the Frari; but for all those lovely points of detail which in every direction amaze us by the art they display and the rich array of beauty with which they clothe the walls of Northern cathedrals, there is here no kind of equivalent.
When I had thoroughly come to this conclusion, and settled in my own mind by repeated inspection that my judgment was not harsh or unfair, I confess I felt a weight off my mind. I was now free to indulge myself to the full in the search for what Venice really has in greater abundance, perhaps, than any other city in Christendom—remains, namely, of mediæval domestic work. Nothing can be conceived more delightful than such a search. You seldom go a hundred yards—often it is much less—without coming upon some remains, or perhaps some nearly perfect example, of an old Venetian palace; and then, with the gondola fastened to one of the great posts which line all the canals, the well-satisfied gondolier lying stretched on his back behind the awning, your friends laughing and talking within its dark recess, you sit most luxuriously, and make your notes and sketches with a degree of quiet comfort which is not a little conducive to accurate and careful sketching, and to diligence in its pursuit.
Venetian palaces divide themselves naturally into two great classes—the Byzantine and the Gothic; and it surprized me very much to find remains so perfect and so extensive of the former class even on the banks of the Grand Canal itself, where change has been ever so frequent and so rife. Indeed, it is singular that nearly all the Byzantine palaces are situated on its banks.
Of these palaces, certainly the most striking by far are the Ca’ Loredan, the Ca’ Farsetti, and the Fondaco de’ Turchi. They all agree singularly in the general idea of their design, and consist of a grand scheme of arcading overthe entire front. Divided generally into two stories in height, they are again divided in a marked manner in width into a centre and wings. This division is effected solely by a great difference in the spans of the arches forming the arcades, which in the wings are much narrower than in the central division. In the upper arcade the spaces between the columns, and indeed the whole arrangement, are often studiously unlike those in the lower range; but, at the same time, there is so very much similarity in the detail of the whole, that this variety, far from being perceived as an irregularity or a fault, does in truth just suffice to give force and vitality to what might otherwise appear to be monotonous and too often repeated, and recalls to mind not a little the very similar kind of difference between the upper and lower order of shafts already described in the west front of S. Mark’s.
We cannot do better than take, as an example of the finest type of a Byzantine palace, the magnificent, though now desolate, decaying, and ruined façade of the Fondaco de’ Turchi, once the palace of the Dukes of Ferrara. The whole front of this was originally cased with a thin facing of marble, like the coeval works at S. Mark’s—a kind of decoration which, neglected as this fine relic has been for years, we cannot be surprized to find almost altogether destroyed; small fragments do, however, still here and there remain to tell of the original magnificence of the work. The lower stage of the Fondaco consists of a continuous arcade of ten open arches, with three narrower arches at either end, forming the wings, so to speak; the upper stage has eighteen arches in the centre, and four in each wing. In the wings the piers supporting the arches are, I think, all moulded pilasters; in the centre all the arches rest upon columns; and throughout the whole building the arches, which are all semicircular, are considerably stilted. The entire building is constructed in brick, which was originally, as I havebefore said, covered all over with a thin veneer of marble; in the spandrels of all the arches this is relieved by small circular medallions delicately carved, and over the upper stage is a string-course, above which there would seem to have been a long series of slightly sunk panels with round-arched heads, filled in with delicately arranged and beautifully sculptured patterns in marble. These panels are immediately below the eaves of the roof. Many of the abaci and string-courses, and all the thin pieces of marble which form the soffeits of the arches, have their projections finished either with a nail-head or dentil moulding, and between the shafts of the upper stage there are traces of balconies.[42]
A very noticeable point in the general effect of the façade of the Fondaco de’ Turchi is that, from the peculiar shape and great projection of the capitals of the shafts and the narrow span of the arches, the whole of the arcading has, at a small distance, almost the effect of a series of trefoils, and so seems to pave the way for the continuous traceries of the Ducal Palace and other later buildings.
There is a ruined fragment of a house of the same age as the Fondaco de’ Turchi in a canal behind the Foscari Palace. Here the centre arch is very wide, has four stilted arches on the sides, the archivolts are all delicately carved, and small sculptured medallions are introduced in the spandrels. Here, I think, the red brick of the walls was always intended to be seen. Of very similar character is a much larger fragment on the right of the Grand Canal after passing under the Rialto. Here there are two stories still remaining. The round-arched doorway has two open and stilted arches on each side, and then a space of blank wall; and the upper stage has a group of seven arches in the centre, and a singlearch at each end over the blank wall below. The labels of these upper arches are turned up at the point into an ogee shape, which, strange as it may seem, must be original, as the detail is early, and they are surmounted by a collection of carved medallions and a carved string-course of early style.[43]
The Ca’ Loredan has two stages in height, above which all is modern—but all the Byzantine arrangements of these two stages are perfect. There are five open arches in the centre, and an arcaded pier on each side; and in the next stage, though the division of centre and wings is preserved, the arches are increased in number, and consequently the columns of this stage do not come above those of the lower stage. The string-courses are formed with a billet mould; the capitals are some of them genuine Byzantine, and some copies of Corinthian. The wall-faces were all inlaid, but they were in part altered in the fourteenth century, when some coats-of-arms and figures were added. Those at the extreme angles are of David and Goliath, and on each side of the centre sitting figures of Justice and Force.
Next to the Ca’ Loredan is the Ca’ Farsetti (now the Municipio), which is, I think, slightly the older building of the two. Here there are three arches resting on shafts in the centre, and an equal number resting on piers on each side, and a continuous arcade of fifteen arches on the upper stage resting on coupled shafts.
The Palazzo Businetto on the Grand Canal opposite the Ca’ Grimani, has remains of Byzantine work in its two lower stages. Here the caps are Byzantine in character, the archivolts flat inlays, with a billet mould on each side, and a carved string-course of running foliage inclosed between two lines of notched or billet mould.
26. BYZANTINE WELL. VENICE. p. 193.26. BYZANTINE WELL. VENICE.p. 193.
This short notice of some of the more important Romanesque and Byzantine remains enables me to make a few general deductions: (1.) These buildings were always of two stages in height. (2.) They had the entrance in the centre, and had generally a distinction between the centre and the wings. (3.) The capitals were generally Byzantine in character, but often copied from Corinthian. (4.) They were of brick, but generally veneered with thin slabs of marble. (5.) They were enriched with circular, square, and arched medallions inclosing carving of foliage and animals, and frequently of coupled birds or animals regarding each other,—a device always indicative of an early date and an Eastern origin; and (6.) The string-courses were generally carved either with continuous running foliage, or with leaves arranged in threes; the centre turning over, the side leaves extended flatwise, and upward. This last string-course is exactly copied from Sta. Fosca, Torcello, and is carved all round S. Mark’s inside; whilst the former, though it is Byzantine in origin, is carried round the wall of the Ducal Palace between the south-east angle and the Bridge of Sighs. The illustration of a Byzantine cistern from the centre of a courtyard which I give, is useful as shewing very clearly the character of the carved foliage which adorns the string-courses and panels of these Byzantine buildings. This is always effectively carved with deep cuttings, which produce bright and sparkling effects of light and shade.
One especial fault of the Venetians seems to have been their proneness to repeat the same architectural idea an infinite number of times; and there is something in this so characteristic of the place and the people, that the reason for it is worthy of some consideration. Venice, surrounded by water, and cut off from that kind of emulation which in other places always has the effect of producing life and change very rapidly in the phases of art, seems to have contented herself, when once she had well done, with theconviction that improvement was either impossible or unnecessary, and so, whilst changes were going on in the mainland, to have rested satisfied with a slight alteration only, and that one of detail always, for centuries; and it is thus that I account for the singular sameness which characterized all the efforts of her Gothic artists. The façade of the Ducal Palace is really precisely the same in its idea as that of the Fondaco de’ Turchi or the Ca’ Loredan, altered only in detail—its very beautiful traceries taking the place of, but doing the same work as, the simple encrusted arcades of its predecessors. And again, in the fronts of other and much smaller palaces—indeed, in all the fronts of the Gothic period—it is singular how exactly the same idea in the general arrangement is always preserved. Let me describe an ordinary palace. It is divided into three or four stories in height, the several stages being generally separated by string-courses. The lower story opens, by an arched doorway in the centre, to the water; and on either side of this doorway a few small windows serve to light the basement. The second stage has a grand window of some five or six lights, divided by shafts of marble, and rich with tracery, in the centre; and on either side, one or two single lights, with tracery corresponding with—and often, as it were, cut out in a slice from—the traceries of the central window. The third stage is nearly a reproduction of the second, though sometimes slightly less important; and the upper stage is either again a repetition of the others, or else consists of a few small windows placed over the others, and very unimportant and unpretending. The whole is crowned by a slightly projecting eaves-cornice, generally very meagre in its character, and with a line of genuine dog-tooth ornament on its lower edge. Above this, probably—for only one or two examples remain at all in their original state—was a parapet like those which still in part remain on the Ca’ d’Oro,at the back of the Ca’ Foscari, and on the Ducal Palace, light and fantastic to a degree, and almost masking the flat roof behind.
Such, as will be seen by the views with which, I doubt not, almost all my readers must be familiar, is the general idea of the Gothic palaces in Venice, and it admits of very slight modification. Occasionally, as in the Ca’ d’Oro, the windows are inclosed within a square line of delicate moulding, the space within which is encrusted with marble, and entirely distinct from the string-courses, so as to give very much the impression of a plain wall veneered here and there with a window; or, again, sometimes the whole central division of the first and second stories is veneered on to a façade in which the other windows are treated constructionally but in all cases from first to last (except, as we shall see, in the Ducal Palace, and for this exception there is some explanation in its vast size and other reasons), the distinction between the centre and the wings was never lost sight of, and never forgotten. This was the great idea of all these buildings, and most perseveringly was it reproduced down to the last, when, gradually losing even the life which beautiful detail had once lent, it sank through successive stages, until at last, easily and well-nigh imperceptibly, it succumbed, without a struggle, to the rise of the Renaissance feeling, giving only in revenge to its successor, the curse of an obligation still to go on building to the last, for whatever want or on whatever occasion, with the conviction that a centre and two wings must ever be necessary to a grand façade. It so happens that, in addition to the large and purely Byzantine palaces in which this arrangement is preserved,—in a delicate manner, it is true,—there still remains one remarkable example of the period of transition from Byzantine to Gothic, in a house which forms one side of the Corte del Remer (facing the Grand Canal just abovethe spot where it is spanned by the Rialto), which serves to shew clearly the first attempt at translation of this Byzantine idea into Gothic.
In the principal story of this house the central feature is the entrance doorway, whose finely ornamented arch of markedly horseshoe outline is very conspicuous. On either side of this, and connected with it in one group, are two windows divided by shafts and with arches of very singular shape; it is as though a stilted semicircular arch had been suddenly turned up in the centre, not with the graceful ogee curve of later days, but with simple, hard, straight lines. Beyond these windows, one of later date, but probably inserted in the place of the original window, completes the similarity which the arrangement of the openings in this house bears to that common in all the later Gothic palaces. The arches which support the staircase in front of this house are entirely executed in brick, and are probably later in date than the house itself, though it is noticeable that they are of a very early and pure type, and that here, as generally throughout the North of Italy, the pointed arch was first used in construction, and then, some time after its first introduction, and very generally in some modified form, for ornamentation also.
And now, having so far cleared the way, let me ask my readers to go with me to the Ducal Palace, and there undertake a somewhat careful examination of its very famous design.
I shall not enter into a general description of the entire building, because, as this has undergone prodigious alterations since its first erection, it is unnecessary to do much more than refer to the two fronts, which still retain, nearly without alteration, their mediæval design, and to those portions only of the interior and courtyard which have not been altered.
27.—CORTE DEL REMER, VENICE. Page 196.27.—CORTE DEL REMER, VENICE.Page 196.
The whole building forms three sides of a hollow square: one side rises out of the deep recesses of the Rio del Palazzo, spanned near its outlet by the famous Bridge of Sighs, and is entirely of Renaissance work; the next side, rising from the Riva dei Schiavoni, faces the Giudecca, and is of the purest Venetian Gothic; and the third, facing the Piazzetta di San Marco—the small square which connects S. Mark’s with the water—is also Gothic, and of the same type. The back or north side of the palace abuts upon S. Mark’s.
I cannot pretend to decide at all absolutely upon the vexed question of the dates of the mediæval portions, because, as the reader will find in an interesting discussion on the subject in the second volume of Mr. Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice,’ it is a source of hot disputes. But the following appear to me to be the main points.
The Ducal Palace was burnt in 1105, restored in 1116, and rebuilt in 1173-1177. The two columns on the Piazzetta were brought to Venice in 1172, about which time the two Piazze were formed. Between this date and 1301, nothing is recorded to have been done to the palace. But even at this date it was a grand building, and is described in 1275 by Maestro Martino da Canale as “Grande e bellissimo a maraviglia.”[44]He was equally enthusiastic about the church of “Monsignore San Marco,” and of his campanile, “so great and so high that one cannot find its equal.” Sivos in his chronicle (A.D.1621) says that the Sala Grande was commenced in 1301, and completed in 1310, at which date the Grand Council consisted of nine hundred members; and one Pietro Baseggio is said to have been the architect between 1309 and 1361; he was succeeded or assisted by Filippo Calandario, and both of them, according to Zanotto, were described as being architects, sculptors, and navigators![45]Calandario had raised himself from thehumble post of shipbuilder at Murano, to that of Capo Maestro of the Ducal Palace, a man of great weight in the city, but finally finished his career only too much in accordance with custom, being convicted as one of Marino Falieri’s fellow-conspirators, and hung from the balcony of the Ducal Palace inA.D.1355.
On the 28th of December, 1340, a decree was issued ordering the construction of a staircase on the east side of the palace to lead to the new rooms, which seems to establish the fact that at this date a considerable portion at any rate of the second stage was built. The plague visited Venice in 1359 and 1361, and stopped all work. In 1362, because the unfinished work was going to ruin, the Council determined to complete the new hall; and in 1365, this being done, Guariento of Padua began to paint it, in the time of the Doge Mario Cornaro.[46]
The capital next the south-west angle of the lower stage bears a date which appears to some[47]to be 1344 (as to which I have never been able to satisfy myself), and long afterwards we find the date, 1404, on the large window of the highest story of the sea-front. Finally, in 1419, there was a great fire which damaged the old portion of the building, so much that a decree was passed to rebuild it in conformity with the rest, and this work was completed in 1423, when the council sat in their great council chamber for the first time; and in 1439-41 the last Gothic work was added to the palace by the Doge Foscari, viz. the Porta della Carta, built (as appears by their contract) by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bons, between the years 1438 and 1443, in the small space which intervenes between the north-west angle of the Ducal Palace and the south side of S. Mark’s. All these dates are important, and I believe undisputed, the only question being as to which parts of the building they refer to.
And now, before I say more about dates, let me describe these two Gothic fronts—the sea-front and the Piazzetta-front—and then we may perhaps see our way to some sort of comprehension of the relative ages of the various portions of the fabric.
The whole design is divided into three stages in height, the upper nearly equal to the united height of the two lower stages, and faced entirely with a delicate diaper of marble cut in small oblong pieces, which look, save in their texture and colour, only too much like bricks. In this marble-faced wall are pierced a number of windows with pointed arches—the tracery of which has been taken out—and in or near the centre of each façade a much larger window and balcony, which look as though they had been subsequently inserted. The lowest stage consists of a long and uniform arcade of very simple pointed arches resting upon circular columns with elaborately carved caps; these have been shortened by some twenty inches of their old height, by the rise of the water, and the consequent elevation of the pavement of the Riva, to the great damage of their effect. The intermediate stage is a magnificent arcade, supporting very vigorous tracery, too well known to everybody to require much description, and divided from the stages above and below it by large and pronounced lines of carved and moulded string-courses.
It is important to observe that up to the top of the second string-course the whole of the architecture is of the very best kind of Venetian pointed; the arches of the lowest stage are well proportioned, and, thoughvery simply, still well moulded; and the detail of the whole of the second stage is, to say the least, not at all inferior. They form together, without exception, I believe, from all I have either seen myself or heard, the very best and truest specimen of Gothic architecture south of the Alps.
Above this noble work the third stage comes, and I confess, to my eye, with patent marks in every stone of which it is composed, that it was designed by some other hand than that which had been so successful below. There is something quite chilling in the great waste of plain unbroken wall coming above the extreme richness of the arcades which support it; and moreover, this placing of the richer work below and the plainer above is so contrary not only to all ordinary canons of architecture, but just as much to the ordinary practice of the Venetians, that I feel sure that the impression which I have had from my first acquaintance with drawings of it is substantially correct, viz. that the line at which alterations and additions have been made is to be looked for rather in a horizontal than in a vertical direction; that in all probability, consequently, the builder ofA.D.1301 commenced with some portion of the sea-façade and gradually carried on the greater part of the building to the height of the two stages as we now see them, leaving his building finished in precisely the same way as the corresponding halls at Padua and Vicenza—two stories in height, with arcades covering the outer walls of the upper as well as of the lower stage; and that when the Council Chamber was found to be too small, and larger rooms were required, another architect suggested the advantage of obtaining them by raising an immense story above the others, and, without destroying much of his predecessor’s work, providing rooms on the most magnificent scale for the Doge and his Council.
The assumption that the Piazzetta-front has been copied from the sea-front involves a belief in a veneration for and exact imitation of older work which is (to say the least) extraordinarily rare, if not unique, in mediæval works. It involves a belief also in the possibility of a spirited and successful copy being made of an old capital by a mediæval sculptor without fresh thought or any fresh invention of any kind. This will be seen if we examine the capitals of the lower stage of the palace. Here at first sight one is struck by what appears to be the astonishing variety of the capitals. They are nearly all adorned with figures or subjects as well as with foliage, and are certainly in both fronts of various degrees of merit; but on closer acquaintance it is perceived that the variety of capitals is not so great as it seems, for that several of those in each front are merely replicas of those in the other. If any portion of the two lower stages had been built before the rest, it would have been the whole of the sea-front and six arches of the Piazzetta-front, for at the end of these there is a column equal in size to those at the angles, and which might therefore by possibility itself have been an angle column for a time. But its larger size may also fairly be accounted for by the fact that it comes under the side wall of the large building above, and was in any case therefore a convenient arrangement if not quite a necessity; but the real difficulty seems to me to be, that if there were any considerable difference in the date of these works, all experience would lead one to expect that the earlier works would be the most uniform and the best, whereas in point of fact this is far from being the case. For instance, in the sea-front there are various capitals which are of poor execution. These are, counting from the south-east angle, the third (large and coarse heads), the eighth (also coarse heads), the thirteenth (lions’ heads), the fourteenth (beasts), and the fifteenth, which is certainly not so fine as the replicain the Piazzetta-front (the twenty-sixth capital, counting as before).[48]
The case for the contemporaneous erection of these two fronts becomes even stronger if we ascend to the open gallery on the first floor and examine the capitals there. They are all similar in general character; and though they become gradually better as one goes from the south-east to the north-west, they give the impression of all being of nearly one date, and moreover they all appear to be later in date than the whole of those in the lower stage.
On the other hand, there seem to be at least two points which make strongly in favour of the later date which has been given to the twelve northern arches of the Piazzetta-front. These are, first, that all the eight capitals which are replicas are in this northern part of the front, and none of them in the first six arches from the south-west angle; and, secondly, that the plate armour in the sculpture above the capital of the north-east angle (Judgment of Solomon) is later in date than the period which I assume for this work, and later than the chain mail shown in the third and eighth capitals of the sea-front. To the first objection a sufficient answer is that some of the best of the capitals to these twelve arches are of original design—not replicas; and in reply to the last objection (which is of much force) the only, but at the same time obvious reply is, that the Trajan capital, just under this late armour, is one of the most beautiful of the entire series, and that on the whole it is much more likely that some of the sculpture was left in block and finished later, than that no difference should be made in any of the mouldings or details of thework of two periods. There is indeed some, though not very strong, evidence that the sculpture of this capital is not earlier than about 1423. There is, according to Zanotto, an inscription on it, “╋ Duo Soci Florentini incise,” and he argues from the use of this last word, that the two men were the same who made the monument to the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, in which, according to Sansovino, they used the same unusual term “inciserunt;” this interpretation of the inscription is the more allowable in that, as I have said, the details of armour in themselves suggest a date not much earlier than this for the sculpture connected with it on the angle just above the cap. This date of course brings this work to very nearly the same period as that of the execution of the Porta della Carta, and it has been assumed by some that these capitals were the work of the Bons who built it. Such an assertion is as wild as that of M. Didron, who says something as to their belonging to the thirteenth century, for the very shortest inspection of the Porta della Carta would convince the most sceptical that no part of the capitals could have been executed by any of the men who wrought at it. In comparing the merits of the carvers of the earliest and the latest capitals, it is due to the latter to say that one of the finest of the whole series is this Trajan capital at the north-west angle, and there is no internal evidence in it which could lead one to suppose it to be the work of a man who would ever condescend to copy another’s work.
No one can examine the building without seeing that there is not only in the detail, but equally in the general design, a marked difference between the two lower stages and the upper stage. In place of the extreme boldness which marks every part of the former, we see mouldings reduced in the latter to the smallest and meanest section possible; the windows of the upper stage are badly designed,whilst the traceries of the second stage are as fine as they can possibly be; the angle-shafts of the upper stage are of the latest type, elaborately twisted and violently defined, instead of being merely delicate roundings off of the hard line of wall, as all the early Venetian angle-shafts are; the parapet, too, is not equal in its design to any of the lower work, and crowns with an insignificant grotesqueness the noble symmetry of the two lower arcades; and finally, the chequer-work of marble which forms the whole of the upper wall is a mode of construction which I have not seen in any early work, though it is seen in the Porta della Carta (a.d.1429), and in one other late work, the Palazzo in the Campo Sta. Maria Mater Domini.[49]
Looking at all the circumstances of the case, I think the fairest explanation of them is, that the whole sea-front and the six arches of the Piazzetta (columns 1 to 24 on the plan) were first built, that the extension to the north (columns 25 to 36 on plan) was then immediately undertaken by the same artists, and finally that the whole upper story was built and the sculpture of its capitals completed before 1423. The capitals of the lower arcade were probably sculptured by degrees, and certainly not by one hand, between the years 1310 and 1361.
There is a confirmation to some extent of this view in a MS. in the Bodleian Library of the fourteenth century (the Romance of Alexander), which contains a curious contemporary view of Venice. This drawing has been engraved at p. 26 of the second volume of the ‘Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages;’[50]here it will be seen, with the usual amount of licence which characterizes most mediæval
28—VENICE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. From the Romance of Alexander. Page 204.28—VENICE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.From the Romance of Alexander.Page 204.
representations of places or towns, that it has nevertheless been intended as an absolute representation of what its draughtsman had seen. The columns with S. Theodore and the lion of S. Mark on their capitals, the bronze horses and the domes of S. Mark’s, the position by the waterside, and the representation of the Ponte di Paglia, are all proofs of this; but the important point for my present purpose is, that he drew the Ducal Palace asa building of two stories in height—the first a simple arcade, the second an arcade with tracery. In the distance behind this, his drawing shews a picturesque assemblage of buildings, whilst figures are represented behind the upper arcade as though it were only a kind of immense balcony. There can be no doubt whatever that this old drawing tells in favour of the view that the upper stage was not built until after a considerable interval; for it is almost impossible—looking at the way in which the rest of the drawing is made—to believe that all reference to it would have been omitted, had it been in existence at the time the artist saw it.
It will be seen that my supposition that the original design of the Ducal Palace was of considerably less elevation than the present building, would tend to make it very much more like the Byzantine type than it is; but even now no one can dispute the family likeness. The amount of constructive art is as nearly as possible the same. The weight is supported by a succession of shafts placed at very short intervals from each other, and in neither is there any approach to the system of pier, arch, and buttress, so distinctive of Gothic art in the North of Europe. The pointed arch is used, it is true, in the palace; but, after all, the mere use of the pointed arch does not make thorough pointed architecture, and therefore, interesting as it is as a variety of the style, the Ducal Palace is, I think, not properly to be placed in the first class of Gothic buildings. Indeed,the second stage, whose exquisite beauty is the charm of the whole building, does not exhibit the pointed arch at all in a properly developed form, and is strong enough to support the great weight of wall above, only by reason of the massy character of its tracery, and not by the proper application of constructional arches. I have already said that there is no approach to buttressing; but the angles require some help, and this is given partly by increasing considerably the size of the shafts, and partly by iron ties at the springing of the arches running for some distance in each direction from the angles.
All the mouldings are very simple; they are generally composed of three-quarter beads, small fillets, and large flat hollows, constantly arranged in the same order. The label of the main arcade is a plain bead. In the string-courses boldly-carved flowers are repeated with a slight interval between each, and the upper string-course has a row of nail-heads in one of its members. The cusping of the tracery is quite square in its section, and the cusps finish with a square end, to which is attached—and with good effect—a small circular ball of red marble. The parapet is of the somewhat peculiar kind I have already mentioned, and I confess I have never been long enough in Venice to accustom myself to, or to admire, its extreme peculiarity of both outline and design.
And now before we leave this subject let me offer a remark, as every one who writes on it must, on the admirable story of these sculptures. I have never sat in front of one of them for any space of time without seeing some wayfarer stop to study the story of some one of the capitals. They are a book at which more thousands have looked with pleasure for some five hundred years than at any other single book in the world, with the one exception of the Bible. And the lesson to architects is obvious. Concentrate your labour andyour story on some one part of your building where all men may read it; tell some simple story and you will interest your readers, if you will but tell it so simply that by good chance they may be able to read it. Lay out a scheme so well that if you die your successor may carry it on. Here, as I believe, the architect completed his two stages of arcades, whilst the sculptor was changed, but kept generally to the scheme of subjects first of all laid down. At the three exposed angles are the three archangels, below them the moral lesson—as much wanted now as then—of the Drunkenness of Noah, and the Story of Tobit (with S. Raphael); at another angle The Fall (under S. Michael); and at the last the Judgment of Solomon (under S. Gabriel). In the lower range of capitals the stories and catalogues of virtues and vices; the illustrations of fruits, animals, every-day life; the labours of the months, trades, sciences, and arts—are all illustrated, and complete a cycle of subjects which, ill-treated, would always have a certain value, and which, well treated as most of them are here, have the very highest charm.
For a building which owes its general impressiveness entirely to the uniform character of its architecture, it is especially fortunate that there should be so much also in the detail to attract and reward constant and minute examination. It is for this reason that the range of great capitals to the columns of the lower arcade is of so much importance. They are so large, so close to the eye, so interesting in their story, and on the whole so carefully and artistically executed, as to afford the greater pleasure the more the building is known. The key-plan to these capitals which I give[51]will be useful to shew what the general arrangement of the subjects is. I have already shewn that there are repetitions of many of the subjects, but it is equally worth notice that the foliage which forms the framework forthe subjects is also repeated. There are, I think, only four varieties in its arrangement. In the first the capitals are arranged very simply—in some cases rudely—with tufts of foliage or heads. The capitals numbered 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27, and 34, are examples of this. In the next the foliage of the lower part grows up vertically, bending slightly out to support the sculptured subjects. These are generally the most graceful of all, and infinitely richer in effect than the first class. The capitals numbered 1, 7, 9, 12, 18, 24, 26, 28, 33, and 36, are examples of these. In the third class the foliage is generally marked by the same feeling, but it rises vertically to the angles, and curls over under the subject; the 19th and 25th capitals are examples of this class. In the fourth class the foliage curves over downwards, both at the angles and under the subject. The neckings below the capitals are wrought on the shaft itself. They are sometimes moulded, sometimes corded, and sometimes delicately carved with foliage; these last are by very much the more beautiful, and generally accompany the best wrought of the capitals, whilst the inferior capitals have, in all cases, the plainer necking.
The capitals in the upper arcade have not so much story as those below. They have generally a head on each side in the midst of foliage, and are square in plan, though the lower caps are octagonal—a few only have their names written over them; but on the ground-story most of the capitals have, or have had, explanatory inscriptions. Some of the upper capitals close to the north-west angle are among the best. The curves of the foliage in the angles of the capitals are admirably wrought, and may be compared, to the damage of the latter, with some of the lower capitals in the sea-front. The upper range of capitals gradually deteriorates from the north-west angle as you go to the south-east. These last are really very bad, having rude gross carvingof the human figure, and foliage feebly massed and treated; but the upper capital of the south-west angle with the figures of the four winds, and the two or three capitals near it, must be excepted from this remark, being superb in design and execution.
The remains of original work in the quadrangle are much less important. The arcade on the first floor remains, but none of its details are good, and on the east side it is a poor Renaissance copy of the other sides. The whole of the lower arcade has been destroyed or altered. But in the upper walls, which are faced with brick, some of the original windows remain; they are small, but of the same sort of detail and character as the larger windows in the outer walls.
The building has lost much by the gradual raising of the pavement. This is now about twenty inches above the old base of the columns, and their proportions are so far altered for the worse. And it has lost immensely also by the destruction of the inlaid marble which once filled all the spandrels of the main arcade. Two panels only of these remain, and both in the sea-front. They are charmingly designed, inclosing circles which exactly touch the labels and strings.
Of the modern additions to this grand building I shall not say anything. They are not beautiful in themselves nor interesting by reason of their decorations, if I except those walls on which Tintoretto has lavished so much of his skill. The architects of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were artists in very deed, and it is with their work only that I can feel any real sympathy.
Such, then, is the Ducal Palace: a building certainly in some respects of almost unequalled beauty, but at the same time of unequal merit; its first and second stages quite perfect in their bold nervous character, and in the almost interminable succession of the same beautiful features inshaft and arch and tracery, forming perhaps one of the grandest proofs in the world of the exceeding value of perfect regularity and of a repetition of good features in architecture, when it is possible to obtain it on a very large scale.
Leaving the Piazzetta, and stepping into the gondola which has been waiting for us hard by, let us now go in search of other palaces; but let us not imagine that we are to see anything equal to the Ducal Palace. There is, it appears to me, a great gap between it and all other Venetian buildings; and yet all others seem to have been founded on it, or on the buildings out of which it grew. Their traceries, seldom absolutely alike, have still so much general similarity that at first one may well fancy that there is no variety at all; and, as I have before said, the general arrangement of their windows and doors is so nearly identical, that this impression is the more likely to grow upon the mind.
We will not attempt to take the buildings as they come; but rather as we think of them, and to some extent in the order of their merit, let us note down a few of the glories of the domestic work of Venice. And first let us stop in this narrow canal, for we have by our side one of the most exquisite little pieces of detail in the whole city. It is an archway, simple and delicate in its proportions, lovely as it is simple, and appropriately placed hard by the bridge called “del Paradiso.” I trust that my sketch is clear enough to shew how pure and good the work is. The main points to be noted are the characteristic flatness of the details, and the line of dentil-moulding, which defines all the leading architectural features, originally invented for borders of incrustations at S. Mark’s, and here, as everywhere in Venice, used for decoration afterwards. The incrusted circles of marble on each side of the figure give great life to the spandrel beneath the arch, and the windows seen behind shew us a late example of the not unfrequent
29—ARCHWAY, PONTE DEL PARADISO, VENICE. Page 21029—ARCHWAY, PONTE DEL PARADISO, VENICE.Page 210
use of the semicircular and ogee arches together in the same window.
Another precious fragment—the Palazzo San Giorgio, I believe—is reached from the land side by passing under an arch somewhat similar to that on the Ponte del Paradiso. This arch is turned between the upper stories of two houses at the end of acalleproperly yclept “dell’ arco detto bon,” and is finished with a steep gable. Beyond it is seen a fragment of wall veneered with marble, with the upper part of an early two-light window, and two circular medallions; and above this a piece of wall veneered in diamonds of red and white marble—so far as I know, a unique example of such a treatment. The window-head is of that earliest form of ogee, a circle just turned up to a point in the centre, which has so manifestly an Eastern origin, and which must not be confounded in date with our English ogee arches.
In another, and rather desolate, canal in the outskirts of the city, wider than usual, and with a footpath at the side of the water, instead of having the walls of the houses running down into it, and forming its boundary, is the Palazzo Cicogna, which I remember gratefully because it is one of the few exceptions to the general rule of regularity. The whole design of this building is very irregular: a detached shaft at one angle supports a portion of the house which overhangs and forms a sort of open passage-way; to the right of this opening is a four-light shafted window, and then a plain wall pierced with two windows, each of a single ogee trefoiled light. The upper story has two single windows over the others, whilst over the larger windows and the passage-way is a large window conspicuous from its size and the peculiarity of its tracery. It is of six lights divided by very good shafts, and properly arched with pure and good trefoiled arches; above these, and inclosed within the perpetual indented or billeted string-course, is acomplicated system of intersecting circles pierced at regular intervals with quatrefoils. The section of this upper part is very much thinner than that of the arches beneath. This window is in a most shaken and decayed state, and not likely, I fear, to be long preserved. The whole elevation is finished with a shallow cornice supported on corbels.
A doorway on the Ponte San Tomà is quite worthy of a visit. It has the usual square opening of reddish marble, and above this is a pointed arch of moulded brick; the tympanum is filled in with a square carved centre panel, and the ground beyond this with quatrefoils of brick or tile very prettily disposed, and quite deserving of illustration.
And now let us go back to the Grand Canal; we shall enter it by the side of the Palazzo Foscari, which, with two other contiguous palaces, occupies quite the post of honour at the bottom of the principal reach of the canal, and commands the whole view of its noble and ever-busy way to where the arch of the Rialto and another bend in the canal close in the view. We will go a few strokes only towards the Rialto, and then turn round to look at the palaces we have just passed. They certainly form a most magnificent group, and are in every way worthy of their conspicuous position. The palace at the junction of the two waters is that of the Foscari; the others belonged, I believe, to two of the Giustiniani family; and but a few yards up the canal, which runs by the side of the former, is one of the smaller remnants of Byzantine work already referred to. This group is so well known as scarcely to need any description—suffice it to say, therefore, that throughout these palaces the windows are shafted, and the glass is fixed in wooden frames behind the stonework. This is beyond all doubt what we ought to do; it is the only sensible and rational mode of adapting the system of traceried and shafted windows for domestic purposes, and
30. DOORWAY. PONTE S.TOMA. VENICE. p. 212.30. DOORWAY. PONTE S.TOMA. VENICE.p. 212.
has here, as elsewhere, the prestige of ancient authority to recommend it to the consideration of those amongst us who will do nothing without it. I have enlarged on this point elsewhere, and will, therefore, say no more upon it now, save that in Venice such a thing as an English monial ordinarily is, was never known. Windows were invariably shafted from the earliest period to the latest, and so far invariably of the highest order, inasmuch as they admitted of the definite expression of the point at which the monial terminated and the arch commenced, and inasmuch, too, as the coloured surface of the detached marble shaft must ever be far more lovely than the lines of tracery mouldings carried down even to the sill.
The angle-shafts of the Palazzo Foscari have caps and bases in each stage of the building; those of the other palaces continue up without interruption.
The date of the smaller palaces, and probably of the large one also, is very early in the fifteenth century; and the latter had, in 1574, the honour of being the grandest palace that the Venetians could find in which to lodge Henry III. of France. They are all three very similar in their design. Their water-gates are pointed, and the windows in the water-stage small and unimportant. The second stage is more important, and has cusped ogee window-heads and balconies. The third stage is, however, thepiano nobile, all the windows having deep traceried heads and large balconies. The fourth stage is very nearly like the first, save that instead of balconies there is a delicate balustrading between the shafts of the windows, which is very frequent in good Venetian work, and always very pretty in its effect. All the windows in these three palaces have ogee-heads generally finished with carved finials, and inclosed within a square outline formed by the small dentilled moulding, and giving what I have before had to refer to—to some extent theeffect of a panel with a window pierced in it, veneered on the front. The Foscari Palace is the only one of these three that has any string-courses. The arrangement of the windows—large in the centre and smaller at the sides—is so nearly regular and of a sort of two-and-two kind of uniformity, that one scarcely notices that nevertheless, when internal arrangements make it necessary, a departure from this strict rule is allowed.
The back entrance to the Foscari Palace is on the side canal. It is of some interest as retaining, in a very perfect state, an example of a very picturesque treatment in brick of the Venetian battlement. This consists of a series of piers finished with a steep gabled outline, and pierced with trefoiled openings. A good example of this sort of battlement remained near the Fondaco de’ Turchi, and deserves illustration. It is quite a Venetian invention, and errs on the side of quaintness.
BRICK BATTLEMENT—VENICE.BRICK BATTLEMENT—VENICE.
In a small courtyard, desolate and dreary, reached after crossing the Ponte di Paglia and one or two other bridges on the Riva dei Schiavoni, is the Palazzo Badoer, a fourteenth-century palace, the ogeed arches of the windows in which are more than usually good; whilst the beauty of the central window, inclosed within a square line ofmoulding, within which the wall is incrusted with marble relieved by medallions, is very great. The structure of this, as of most Venetian palaces, is brick which has been frescoed; but it is now in a very lamentable state of decay. The balconies of the lower windows are clearly modern, but there is a trace of the original balustrade between the shafts of the windows in the second stage; and in front of the side-lights to the upper window is a grille of iron-work taking the place of a balcony, and composed of a combination of quatrefoils. The arrangement of the windows in this front is not absolutely regular, but still the centre is very marked; and though it is of early date, the true use of the arch nowhere appears. The usual[52]dog-tooth cornice finishes the walls under the eaves. In the courtyard of this house are two of the wells which give so much character to all the courts in Venice. They appear generally to be of early date, and look, frequently, like the capitals of large columns, taken down and placed upon the ground. Those in front of the Palazzo Badoer are perhaps more like fonts.
Another palace, also said to belong to one of the Badoer family, placed at the junction of two canals very near the Scuola di San Giorgio and the Greek Church, is remarkable as being now one of the very few houses in which the red brick walls are still in their original state, and not defiled by compo, paint, or whitewash. This house has three fronts, with one old doorway on the canal, and two on the land. The back facing the Campo San Severo has an unusually fine and lofty entrance, a square doorway with a pointed arch above (which I suppose once held tracery), and a group of five windows with circles or disks of marble in their spandrelsabove. Amongst other things it is remarkable as an instance of the way in which windows were sometimes placed absolutely at the very angles of the building. Judging by the similarity of its tracery to that above the Porta della Carta in the Ducal Palace, this angle window must date from about 1400 to 1430. It has a very bold shaft at the angle, whilst the jambs have pilasters ornamented at their angles by a twisted cord-like moulding, which is frequently met with in the later work. There is a small angle-shaft elaborately twisted just above this window, and very much like the angle-shafts of the Ducal Palace.
The composition of the main window in the front of this house is, I think, very striking. The lower window of four lights (one of which is larger and loftier than the others—a curious instance of the junction of regularity with irregularity), and whose arches are ogee trefoils, is surmounted by another window of four lights, with delicate balustrading between the shafts; and on each side of this upper window, and forming part of the composition, is a single light, with projecting balcony. The effect of the whole arrangement is pleasing, and is frequently repeated in other palaces. The marble incrustation over this window is very much like that in the other Palazzo Badoer; and from the centre of the medallions of marble small balls of marble project, fixed with metal, and giving great life and beauty to the medallions, and I think without any sacrifice of truth. The main fabric of this building must be of the latter part of the fourteenth century—the arches of the principal window being of a very excellent though simple type. Venetian balconies, of which this palace affords such good examples, are very beautiful and very characteristic. Nowhere else are they seen in such perfection; nowhere else, perhaps, were they ever so absolutely necessary. The palaces rose out of the dark water which washed against their foundations, and no ground
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BALCONY—VENICE.BALCONY—VENICE.
could be given up for shady arcades as in other Italian cities, nor were there any paths to be strolled along; the only resource was, therefore, to gain from the air that which the land could not afford, and by projections in front of the windows to obtain that power of enjoying the delicious evening atmosphere, so cool and pleasant after the fatigues of the too sultry day. These balconies are almost always very similar, consisting of a number of delicate shafts with carved capitals, supporting a piece of stone whose under side is notched up in a series of trefoils (generally ogee), resting upon the capitals of the shafts. These are divided occasionally by pilasters, under which are corbels jutting out boldly to support their weight; and above which sit, generally, quietly and placidly eyeing the gondolas as they shoot silently by, small lions, dogs, or other animals—a quaint finish which one soon learns to like; their angles are often marked by corded mouldings, and the edges of their floorsand copings are almost always moulded and specked with the perpetual notchings of the nail-head, and their under sides or soffeits are frequently carved or panelled.
There was great variety in the planning of these balconies. In the Palazzo Persico, for instance, in which the central windows of the second and third stages form one great panel, the lower balcony is continuous across all four lights of the window, whilst the outer lights only of the upper window have balconies, the two middle lights having instead a balustrade between their shafts. In other cases the balconies extend to four lights only of a six-light window, whilst in most they are confined to the central windows, to which they give much additional dignity. The Ca’ Fasan affords an almost solitary example[53]of tracery in a balcony; and the effect of this is so vastly inferior to the usual shafted balconies, that it seems scarcely necessary to pause to consider why it should be so. Obviously, however, it is not very convenient to have the fretful points of cusps and traceries set, as it were, to catch every projection or point of your dress whenever you lean over the edge of the balcony to inhale the fresh air or scan the busy scene below.
In the Casa Persico, to which reference has already been made, the central window is an elaborate composition of the same kind; but the lower one is of more importance, and has a continuous balcony; and here I may notice the finials with which the ogee arches of Venetian windows are so often finished. They appeared to me to be invariably tasteless and poor in execution, and very mean in their outline. I did not see one finial in Venice which was satisfying, even when found in conjunction with otherwise fine work; and I used to wish heartily, when I reached some palace not before seen, thatI might find its arches finished without them. There was some reason for the wish, too, in the fact that it is in the later work that these tasteless ornaments are commonest. I saw them first at Verona, and lamented over them there, but at Venice I was positively annoyed by the persevering and endless thrusting of their poverty and badness upon my wearied eyes.
And now let us go again into the Grand Canal, and we shall not have gone very far up the broad water above the Rialto before we shall find, on our right hand, one of the most striking groups of mediæval palaces and houses which can be seen anywhere, even in Venice; this is where the famous Ca’ d’Oro unites with some three or four other houses, of rather earlier date, and gives a very fair idea of what the water-scenery of the ancient city once was. There is some difficulty in criticizing the Ca’ d’Oro, because, in the first place, it has been restored to render it fit for the occupation of Mdlle. Taglioni; and, in the next place, much of the elaborate decoration from which it derived its name, has perished or been destroyed. As it is, however, it is still a very sumptuous example of the later fourteenth-century Gothic. Its whole face is inlaid with squares of red and white marble, and a great amount of carving is spread over the entire surface, round and between the windows. This is very flat, but good in its effect. The arcade on the water-story, and the traceried arcades above, all open into recessed courts—an arrangement peculiar, I think, among Gothic houses, and similar in its purpose to the arcades in the Byzantine palaces. Some of the balconies are good, and the carving of the capitals and moulding of the window-traceries are very characteristic of Venetian pointed. The whole design is one-sided, and gives the impression of a house to which an additional wing has been added. The water-stage consists of an open arcade of five arches, thecentral arch round, the remainder pointed, and on one side of these are two windows with a continuous balcony. The second and third stages have, above the five open arches, elaborately traceried windows, of no less than eight lights in width, filling almost the entire front, the outside lights having balconies, whilst the others have balustrading. Over the two windows of the water-stage are single-light windows in each stage. There are throughout this front many medallions of dark marble, which, let into a field of light marble, are most brilliant in their effect.
The most remarkable features in the Ca’ d’Oro are, however, the triple and elaborately carved and chevroned angle-shafts, which I have nowhere else seen,[54]and the very singular parapet. The height of this is greater about the centre and at the two ends than elsewhere; but this appears to have been done rather with the intention of carrying up to the very top the noticeable division in the building itself than for any other reason. A very small portion only of the parapet is perfect, and this it is rather difficult to get at. The small balls of marble affixed to the outer edge of the trefoils are like those in the tracery of the Ducal Palace, and in the centre of the medallions of marble everywhere throughout the city. Their effect is certainly very piquant.