LEGACIES OF THE PAST
W
“WILL you have the kindness to present Professor Croisac’s profound adoration to the Contessa Albrizzi, and say that he humbly begs permission to conduct his friend, a most distinguished painter, through the noble salons of herpalazzo?”
It was the Professor, standing bareheaded on the landing-steps of the entrance to the Palazzo Albrizzi, the one lonely glove breaking the rounded outline of his well-brushed hat. He was talking to a portly Italian who did duty as Cerberus. As for myself, I was tucked back under thetenda, awaiting the result of the conference, Espero smiling at the old fellow’s elaborate address and manners.
The porter bowed low, and explained, with much earnestness, that theIllustrissimawas then sojourning at her country-seat in the Tyrol; adding that, despite this fact, the whole palace, including the garden and its connecting bridge, from the courtyard to the roof, was completely at the service of theSignor Professore.
“And all for twolire,” whispered Espero,to whom the old gentleman was a constant source of amusement, and who could never quite understand why most of his talking was done with his back bent at right angles to his slender legs. So we followed the porter up the stone staircase, around its many turns, to the grand hall above, with its rich pictures panelled on the walls, and so on through the various rooms of white stucco and old gold brocades, to the grand salon, the one with the famous ceiling.
The night before, over a glass of Torino vermouth at Florian’s, the Professor had insisted that I should not live another day until he had piloted me through all those relics of the past, illustrative of an age in Venice as sumptuous as it was artistic.
First of all I must see the gorgeous ceilings of the Albrizzi; then the curious vine-covered bridge leading out of the Contessa’s boudoir to a garden across the narrow canal, as secluded as the groves of Eden before Adam stepped into them. Then I must examine the grand Palazzo Rezzonico, begun by Longhena in 1680, and completed sixty years later by Massari; once the home of Pope Clement XIII., and again made immortal as sheltering the room in which Browning had breathed his last. There, too, was theBarbaro, with its great flight of stone steps sweeping up and around two sides of a court to the picturesque entrance on the second floor,—the Barbaro, with its exquisite salon, by far the most beautiful in Europe. There was the Palazzo Pisani, built in the fifteenth century, its galleries still hung with Venetian mirrors; and the Palazzo Pesaro, designed by this same Longhena in 1679, the home of an illustrious line of Venetian nobles from Leonardo Pesaro down to the Doge Giovanni, with its uncanny row of grotesque heads of boars, bulls, and curious beasts studded along the water-table of the first story, a hand’s touch from your gondola, so grotesque and quaint that each one looked like a nightmare solidified into stone. There were also the Dandolo, where lived the great Doge Enrico Dandolo, the conqueror of Constantinople,—conqueror at ninety-seven years of age; the Farsetti, where Canova studied, in his time an academy; the Barbarigo, where Titian once held court; the Mocenigo, where Byron lived; not to mention the veritable home of the veritable Desdemona, including the identical balcony where Othello breathed his love.
All these I must see, and more. More in out-of-the-way churches likeSan Giorgiodella Schiavoni, with the Carpaccios that are still as brilliant as when the great painter laid down his brush. More in the Gesuati up the Zattere, with its exquisite Tiepolos. Infinitely more in the school of San Rocco, especially behind the altars and under the choir-loft; in the Frari next door, and in a dozen other picturesque churches; and away out to Torcello, the mother of Venice, with its one temple,—the earliest of Venetian cathedrals,—its theatre-like rows of seats, and the ancient slate shutters swinging on huge hinges of stone.
But to return to the Professor, who is still gazing up into the exquisite ceiling of the salon of the Contessa, pointing out to me the boldness and beauty of the design, a white sheet drawn taut at the four corners by four heroic nude figures, its drooping folds patted up against the ceiling proper by a flutter of life-sized, winged cupids flying in the air, in high relief, or half smothered in its folds.
“Nothing gives you so clear an idea of the lives these great nobles lived,” said the Professor, “as your touching something they touched, walking through their homes—the homes they lived in—and examining inch by inch the things they lived with. Now thisPalazzo Albrizzi is, perhaps, less spacious and less costly than many others of the period; but, for all that, look at the grand hall, with its sides a continuous line of pictures! Its ceiling a marvel of stucco and rich-colored canvases! Do you find anything like this outside of Venice? And now come through the salon, all white and gold, to the bridge spanning the canal. Here, you see, is where my lady steps across and so down into her garden when she would be alone. You must admit that this is quite unique.”
The Professor was right. A bridge from a boudoir to a garden wall, sixty or more feet above the water-line, is unusual, even in Venice.
And such a bridge! All smothered in vines, threading their way in and out the iron lattice-work of the construction, and sending their tendrils swinging, heads down, like acrobats, to the water below. And such a garden! Framed in by high prison walls, their tops patrolled by sentinels of stealthy creepers and wide-eyed morning-glories! A garden with a little glass-covered arbor in the centre plot, holding a tiny figure of the Virgin; circular stone benches for two,and no more; tree-trunks twisted into seats, with encircling branches for shoulders and back,and all, too, a thousand miles in the wilderness for anything you could hear or see of the life of the great city about you. A garden for lovers and intrigues and secret plots, and muffled figures smuggled through mysterious water-gates, and stolen whisperings in the soft summer night. A garden so utterly shut in, and so entirely shut out, that the daughter of a Doge could take her morning bath in the fountain with all the privacy of a boudoir.
“Yes,” said the Professor, with a slight twinkle in his eye, “these old Venetians knew; and perhaps some of the modern ones.”
WIDE PALATIAL STAIRCASESWIDE PALATIAL STAIRCASES
WIDE PALATIAL STAIRCASES
WIDE PALATIAL STAIRCASES
And so we spent the day, rambling in and out of a dozen or more of these legacies of the past, climbing up wide palatial staircases; some still inhabited by the descendants of the noble families; others encumbered with new and old furniture, packing-boxes and loose straw, now magazines for goods; gazing up at the matchless equestrian statue of Colleoni, the most beautiful the world over; rambling through theSan Giovanni e Paolo; stopping here and there to sketch, perhaps the Madonna over the gate next the Rezzonico, or some sculptured lion surmounting the newel-post of a still more ancient staircase;prying into back courts or up crumbling staircases, or opening dust-begrimed windows only to step out upon unkept balconies overhanging abandoned gardens; every carving, pillar, and rafter but so much testimony to the wealth, power, and magnificence of these rulers of the earth.
“And now to the Caffè Calcina for luncheon, Espero.”
When we had dodged into its open door out of the heat, and were seated at one of its little square tables under the grapevines, the Professor fished up two books from that capacious inside pocket of his, and with much explanatory preface of how he had searched through all the book-stalls of the Rialto, finding them at last in the great library of the Doge’s Palace itself, wiped their faded covers with a napkin, and turned the leaves tenderly with his withered fingers.
“And just see what festivities went on in these great palaces! Here is a little book written by Giustina Renier Michiel, and published early in the century. It is especially interesting as throwing some light on the wonderful festivities of the olden time. You remember the Palazzo Nani, the palace we saw after leaving the Dandolo? Well, listen to this account of a wonderfulfêtegiven inthe beginning of the last century at this very palace”—the Professor had closed the book over his finger—he knew the description by heart.
“Michiel says that owing to the intense cold the lagoon was frozen over as far as Mestre, so the hospitable host warmed every part of the palace with huge stoves made of solid silver, elaborately wrought in exquisite designs; and not content with the sum of that outlay, he completed the appointments and decorations in the same precious metal, even to the great candelabra lighting the entrance hall. And then, as a mere freak of hospitality,—he had a large visiting list, you may be sure,—he added ten rooms to his varied suites, in each one of which he placed musicians of different nationalities, just to prevent crowding, you see.
“And now let me read you of another. Part of the palace referred to here,” he added, “has, I believe, been destroyed these many years. It was the home of Patrizio Grimani—the palace where we saw the fine portrait of a Doge hanging near the window. That must have been the room in which the banquet took place. The stage referred to must have been erected in the room opening out from it. The author Michiel says, in describinga princelyfêtethat took place here, that ‘after the play’—performed by his private company in his own theatre, remember—‘the guests were ushered into an adjoining room and the doors closed. In half an hour the doors were re-opened, discovering a superb ballroom, with every vestige of the theatre and its appointments swept away.’
“All years and years ago,mon ami,” continued the Professor, closing the book, “and in the very room that you and I walked through! Think of the balconies crowded with Venetian beauties in the richest of brocades and jewels! Imagine that same old ruin of a garden, roofed over and brilliant with a thousand lanterns! See the canals packed with gondolas, the torch-bearers lighting the way! Bah! When I think of the flare of modern gas-jets along the Champs Elysées, and the crush offiacresand carriages, all held in check by a score of gendarmes in black coats; of the stuffy rooms and screeching violins; and then drink in the memory of thesefêtes, with their sumptuousness and grandeur, I can hardly restrain my disgust for the cheap shams of our times.
“And here is another ancient chronicle of quite a different kind,” opening the other book. “You will find it more or less difficult,for it is in old Italian, and some of its sentences, even with my knowledge of the language,”—this with a certain wave of the hand, as if no one had ever disputed it,—“I can only guess at. This, too, came from the library in the Doge’s Palace, and is especially valuable as showing how little change there is between the Venice of to-day and the Venice of a century and a half ago, so far as localities and old landmarks go. The customs, I am delighted to say, have somewhat improved. It was written by one Edmondo Lundy in 1750.[1]He evidently came down to Venice to try his wings, and from his notes I should say he spread them to some purpose. He first fell into the clutches of a grand dame,—a certain noble lady, aDuchessa,—who sent for him the day after he arrived, and who complimented him upon his bearing and personal attractions. Then she explained that all Venetian ladies of position had attached to their persons a gentleman in waiting, a sort ofvalet de placeof the heart, as it were, who made love to them in a kind of lute-and-guitar-fashion, with ditties and song; that she had seen him on the Riva the afternoon before, had admired his figure and face, and being at the moment withoutany such attendant herself had determined to offer him the situation. His being a foreigner only increased her ardor, foreigners being at a high premium for such positions in those days. Although theDuchessahad already a husband of her own, was wrinkled, partly bald, and over sixty, Lundy, the gay cavalier, fell into the scheme. It is delightful to hear him tell of how the strange courtship progressed, one incident in particular: It was the custom of the fashionable set of the day to drift out in their gondolas up the Giudecca in the twilight, right in front of where we now sit; you can see the spot from this window. Here they would anchor in mid-stream and listen to recitals of music and poetry by some of the more gifted cavaliers,—lines from Dante and Tasso,—the servants and gondoliers serving the ices, which were all brought from this very Caffè Calcina. See, the name was spelled the same way. Does it not make you feel, as you sit here, that you have only to shut your eyes to bring it all back? Oh, the grand days of the Republic! These old vines above our heads could tell a story!
“But it seems that even theDuchessapalled on so versatile a cavalier as Lundy. She really bored him to death, so he huntsout a friend, explains the situation, and begs that he will get him out of the scrape. The friend writes a letter to Milan, and has it re-delivered to Lundy, summoning him instantly to the bedside of a dying relative. This letter is shown to theDuchessa, who parts with him with many tears and protestations, and Lundy leaves Venice. In three months he returns, hoping that some other equally handsome and attractive young foreigner has taken his place. Alas! the black drapings of theDuchessa’sgondola announce her death. And now comes the most comical part of it all. In her will she left him a thousandlireto purchase some souvenir expressive of the love and devotion with which he had inspired her!
“Further on Lundy tells how he watched for hours the efforts of two priests to get a breakfast. They were strung half way up the Campanile, suspended outside the tower, between heaven and earth, in an iron cage. That, it seems, was the punishment inflicted on such unworthy gentlemen of the Church. They were considered to be better equipped than their parishioners to resist temptation, and so when they went astray they were strung up, like birds, in a cage. The only way these Lotharios got anything to eat wasby letting down a string, to which some charitable soul would tie a flagon of wine or a loaf of bread. This morning the string was too short, and Lundy had no end of fun watching their efforts to piece it out with rosaries and sandal-lacings.
“Another time he was stopped by a poet on the Piazza, right in front of where Florian’s now stands; the same caffè, perhaps, who knows? In those days, quite as it is now, the Piazza was a rendezvous for all Venice. All the doctors went there in search of patients, soliciting their patronage and holding out their diplomas. The mountebanks had performances on a carpet stretched on the pavement, and the actors played their parts in little booths erected between the clock tower and the Loggietta of the Campanile,—the roars of applause could be heard away out on the lagoons. The professional poets, too, would hand you copies of their latest productions, and button-hole you long enough to have you listen to a sample stanza.
“Lundy was beguiled in this way, and an hour later discovered that his tobacco-box, containing a portrait of his mother, set in brilliants—an old-fashioned snuff-box, perhaps—was missing. So, under the adviceof a friend, he went to the headquarters of the city guard.
“‘Where did you lose it?’ said the Chief. ‘Ah! the poet. Do not worry. In two days please come again.’
“When he returned, the Chief said:—
“‘Please take some tobacco.’ It was from his own box!
“Then the Chief explained that in addition to being a poet, the man was also a member of theBorsainoli(literally translated, ‘the takers’), from which our own word ‘Bourse’ is derived.
“The same old swindlers still, only our stock-brokers do not stop at our tobacco-boxes,” added the Professor, laughing.
“Then Lundy goes on to explain that whatever these fellows succeeded in stealing they must bring to the Chief’s office within three days. If the article was reclaimed within fifteen days, the thief received only a small sum, and the article was returned to its owner. If it was never called for, then it belonged to the thief. If he was detected in the act, or failed to return it to the office, he was punished.
“‘But why do you permit this?’ continues Lundy, speaking to the Chief.
“‘To encourage aningenious, intelligent,sagacious activity among the people,’ replied the officer, with perfect seriousness.
“See, I translate literally,” said the Professor, with his finger on the line, throwing back his head in laughter.
But the day was not over for the Professor. We must go to the Church of the Frari, the Professor going into raptures over the joyous Madonna and Saints by Bellini, while I had a little rapture of my own over a live, kneeling mother, illumined by a shaft of light which fell on her babe clasped to her breast,—a Madonna of to-day, infinitely more precious and lovely than any canvas which ages had toned to a dull smokiness. But then the Professor lives in the past, while I have a certain indefensible adoration for the present—when it comes to Madonnas.
Later we idled along between the columns supporting the roof, and wandered up behind the altar, the whole interior aglow with the afternoon sun, stopping at the monument of the great Titian and the tomb of Canova. To his credit be it said, the Professor had no raptures over this outrage in marble. And around all the other stone sepulchres of doge, ambassador, and noble, lingering in the open door for a last glance back into its rich interior—certainly, after San Marco, the mostpicturesque and harmonious in coloring of all the churches in Venice—until we emerged into the sunlight and lost ourselves in the throngs of people blocking up the Campo. Then we turned the corner and entered San Rocco.
It was thefestaday of the Frari, and the superb staircase of theScuola di San Rocco, lined with the marvellous colorings of Titian and Tintoretto, was thronged with people in gala costume, crowding up the grand staircase to the uppersala, the room once used as an assembly-room by the Brotherhood of the Order. I had seen it often before, without the Professor, for this was one of my many pilgrimages. Whenever you have an hour to spare, lose half your breath mounting this staircase. You will lose the other half when this magnificent council chamber bursts upon your view. Even the first sight of the floor will produce that effect.
You have doubtless, in your youth, seen a lady’s brooch, fashionable then, made of Florentine mosaic,—a cunning, intricate joining of many-colored stones,—or perhaps a paper-weight of similar intricate design, all curves and scrolls. Imagine this paper-weight, with its delicacy of fitting, high polish, and harmony of color, enlarged to a floor severalhundred feet long, by a proportionate width,—I have not the exact dimensions, and it would convey no better idea if I had,—and you will get some faint impression of the quality and beauty of the floor of this grandsala. Rising from its polished surface and running half way up the four walls, broken only by the round door you entered, with the usual windows and a corner chapel, is a wainscoting of dark wood carved inalto relievo, in the last century, by Marchioni and his pupils. Above this is a procession of pictures, harmonizing in tone with the carvings and mosaics, and over all hangs a scroll-like ceiling incrusted with gold, its seven panels made luminous by Tintoretto’s brush.
These panels are not his masterpieces. The side walls are equally unimportant, so far as the ravings of experts and art critics go. Even the carvings, on close inspection, are labored, and often grotesque. But to the painter’s eye and mind this singlesalaof San Rocco, contrasted with all the other stately banquet halls and council chambers of Europe, makes of them but shelters to keep out the weather.
Filled with peasants and gala people in brilliant costumes on somefestaday, when all may enter, the staircase crowded, its spaciousinterior a mass of colored handkerchief, shawl, and skirt, all flooded with the golden radiance of the sun, it is one of the rare sights of Venice. But even empty, with only your footfall and that of the bareheaded custodian to break the profound stillness, it is still your own ideal princely hall,—that hall where the most gallant knight of the most entrancing romance of your childhood could tread a measure with the fairest ladye of the loftiest, cragged-stepped castle; that salon where the greatest nobles of your teeming fancy could strut about in ermine and cloth of gold; where the wonderful knights held high revel, with goblets of crystal and flagons of ruby wine, and all the potentates from the spice-laden isles could be welcomed with trumpet and cymbal. Here you are sure Desdemona might have danced, and Katharine; and here Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, received the ambassadors of her promised kingdom. As you stand breathless, drinking in its proportions, you feel that it is asalafor pomps and ceremonies, not for monkish rites; asalafor wedding breakfasts and gay routs and frolicsome masquerades and bright laughter, rather than for whispered conferences in cowl and frock. Even its polished floor recalls more readily the whirl of flying slippersthan the slow, measured tread of sandalled feet.
The Professor himself, I regret to say, was not wildly enthusiastic over this interior. In fact he made no remark whatever, except that the floor was too slippery to walk upon, and looked toonewto him. This showed the keynote of his mind: the floor was laid within a century of the preceding generation. Nothing less than two centuries old ever interests the Professor!
However, despite his peculiarities, it is delightful to go about with the old fellow, listening to his legends. Almost every palace and bridge stirs into life some memory of the past.
“Here,” he says, “was where the great Doge Foscari lived, and from that very balcony were hung his colors the day of his abdication,—the colors that four hours later were draped in black at his tragic death. On that identical doorstep landed the ex-Queen of Cyprus on the eventful morning when she returned to Venice an exile in her own land.” And did I know that on this very bridge—thePonte dei Pugni, the bridge of the fisticuffs—many of the fights took place between the two factions of the gondoliers, the Nicoletti and the Castellani? If I wouldleave the gondola for a moment he would show me the four impressions of the human foot set into the marble of the two upper steps, two on each side. Here each faction would place its two best men, their right feet covering the stone outline; then at a given signal the rush began. For days these fights would go on and the canal be piled up with those thrown over the railless bridge. Soon the whole neighborhood would take sides, fighting on every street and every corner; and once, so great was the slaughter, the tumult could only be quelled by the Archbishop bringing out the Host from the Church of Santa Barnaba, not far off, thus compelling the people to kneel.
When the day was over and we were floating through the little canal of San Trovaso, passing the great Palazzo Contarini, brilliant in the summer sunset, the Professor stopped the gondola and bade me good-by, with this parting comment:—
“It was either in this palace, in that room you see half way up the wall, where the pointed Gothic windows look out into the garden, or perhaps in one of the palaces of the Procuratie, I forget which, that the King of Denmark, during the greatfêtesattendant upon his visit in 1708, trod a measure with acertain noble dame of marvelous beauty, one Catarina Quirini, the wife of a distinguished Venetian. As he wheeled in the dance his buckle tore a string of priceless pearls from her dress. Before the King could stoop to hand them to his fair partner, her husband sprang forward and crushed them with his foot, remarking, ‘The King never kneels.’ Charming, was it not?”
“What do you think it cost his Highness the next day, Professor?” I asked.
“I never heard,” he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders; “but what did it matter? what are kings for?”
“Good-night!”