THE PIAZZA OF SAN MARCO
T
THERE is but one piazza in the world. There may be other splendid courts and squares, magnificent breathing spaces for the people, enriched by mosque and palace, bordered by wide-spreading trees, and adorned by noble statues. You know, of course, every slant of sunlight over the plaza of the Hippodrome, in Constantinople, with its slender twin needles of stone; you know thePuerta del Solof Madrid, cooled by the splash of sunny fountains and alive with the rush of Spanish life; and you know, too, the royalPlace de la Concorde, brilliant with the never-ending whirl of pleasure-loving Paris. Yes, you know and may love them all, and yet there is but one grand piazza the world over; and that lies to-day in front of the Church of San Marco.
It is difficult to account for this fascination. Sometimes you think it lurks in the exquisite taper of the Campanile. Sometimes you think the secret of its charm is hidden in masterly carvings, delicacy of arch, or refinement of color. Sometimes the Piazza appeals to you only as the great open-airbricabrac shop of the universe, with its twin columns of stone stolen from the islands of the Archipelago; its bronze horses, church doors, and altar front wrested from Constantinople and the East; and its clusters of pillars torn from almost every heathen temple within reach of a Venetian galley.
When your eye becomes accustomed to the dazzling splendor of the surroundings, and you begin to analyze each separate feature of this Court of the Doges, you are even more enchanted and bewildered. San Marco itself no longer impresses you as a mere temple, with open portals and swinging doors; but as an exquisite jewel-case of agate and ivory, resplendent in gems and precious stones. The clock tower, with its dial of blue and gold and its figures of bronze, is not, as of old, one of a row of buildings, but a priceless ornament that might adorn the palace of some King of the Giants; while theLoggiaof Sansovino could serve as a mantel for his banquet hall, and any one of the three bronze sockets of the flag-staffs, masterpieces of Leopardo, hold huge candles to light him to bed.
And behind all this beauty of form and charm of handicraft, how lurid the backgroundof tradition, cruelty, and crime! Poor Doge Francesco Foscari, condemning his own innocent son Jacopo to exile and death, in that very room overlooking the square; the traitor Marino Faliero, beheaded on the Giant Stairs of the palace, his head bounding to the pavement below; the perfidies of the Council of Ten; the state murders, tortures, and banishments; the horrors of the prisons of thePiombi; the silent death-stroke of the unsigned denunciations dropped into theBocca del Leone—that fatal letter-box with its narrow mouth agape in the wall of stone, nightly filled with the secrets of the living, daily emptied of the secrets of the dead. All are here before you. The very stones their victims trod lie beneath your feet, their water-soaked cells but a step away.
As you pass between the twin columns of stone,—the pillars of Saint Theodore and of the Lion,—you shudder when you recall the fate of the brave Piedmontese, Carmagnola, a fate unfolding a chapter of cunning, ingratitude, and cruelty almost unparalleled in the history of Venice. You remember that for years this great hireling captain had led the armies of Venice and the Florentines against his former master, Philip of Milan;and that for years Venice had idolized the victorious warrior.
You recall the disastrous expedition against Cremona, a stronghold of Philip, and the subsequent anxiety of the Senate lest the sword of the great captain should be turned against Venice herself. You remember that one morning, as the story runs, a deputation entered the tent of the great captain and presented the confidence of the Senate and an invitation to return at once to Venice and receive the plaudits of the people. Attended by his lieutenant, Gonzaga, Carmagnola set out to obey. All through the plains of Lombardy, brilliant in their gardens of olive and vine, he was received with honor and welcome. At Mestre he was met by an escort of eight gentlemen in gorgeous apparel, special envoys dispatched by the Senate, who conducted him across the wide lagoon and down the Grand Canal, to this very spot on the Molo.
On landing from his sumptuous barge, the banks ringing with the shouts of the populace, he was led by his escort direct to the palace, and instantly thrust into an underground dungeon. Thirty days later, after a trial such as only the Senate of the period would tolerate, and gagged lest his indignantoutcry might rebound in mutinous echoes, his head fell between the columns of San Marco.
There are other pages to which one could turn in this book of the past, pages rubricated in blood and black-lettered in crime. The book is opened here because this tragedy of Carmagnola recalls so clearly and vividly the methods and impulses of the times, and because, too, it occurred where all Venice could see, and where to-day you can conjure up for yourself the minutest details of the terrible outrage. Almost nothing of the scenery is changed. From where you stand between these fatal shafts, the same now as in the days of Carmagnola (even then two centuries old), there still hangs a balcony whence you could have caught the glance of that strong, mute warrior. Along the water’s edge of this same Molo, where now the gondoliers ply their calling, and thelasagnonilounge and gossip, stood the soldiers of the state drawn up in solid phalanx. Across the canal, by the margin of this same island of San Giorgio—before the present church was built—the people waited in masses, silently watching the group between those two stone posts that marked for them, and for all Venice, the doorway of hell. Abovetowered this same Campanile, all but its very top complete.
But you hurry away, crossing the square with a lingering look at this fatal spot, and enter where all these and a hundred other tragedies were initiated, the Palace of the Doges. It is useless to attempt a description of its wonderful details. If I should elaborate, it would not help to give you a clearer idea of this marvel of the fifteenth century. To those who know Venice, it will convey no new impression; to those who do not it might add only confusion and error.
Give yourself up instead to the garrulous old guide who assails you as you enter, and who, for a fewlire, makes a thousand years as one day. It is he who will tell you of the beautiful gate, thePorta della Cartaof Bartolommeo Bon, with its statues weather-stained and worn; of the famousScala dei Giganti, built by Rizzo in 1485; of the two exquisitely moulded and chased bronze well-heads of the court; of the golden stairs of Sansovino; of the ante-chamber of the Council of Ten; of the greatSala di Collegio, in which the foreign ambassadors were received by the Doge; of the superb senate chamber, theSala del Senato; of the costly marbles and marvelous carvings; of the ceilings ofTitian, Tintoretto, and Veronese; of the secret passages, dungeons, and torture chambers.
But the greatest of all these marvels of the Piazza still awaits you, the Church of San Marco. Dismiss the old guide outside the beautiful gate and enter its doors alone; here he would fail you.
If you come only to measure the mosaics, to value the swinging lamps, or to speculate over the uneven, half-worn pavement of the interior, enter its doors at any time, early morning or bright noonday, or whenever your practical, materialistic, nineteenth-century body would escape from the blaze of the sun outside. Or you can stay away altogether; neither you nor the world will be the loser. But if you are the kind of man who loves all beautiful things,—it may be the sparkle of early dew upon the grass, the silence and rest of cool green woods, the gloom of the fading twilight,—or if your heart warms to the sombre tones of old tapestries, armor, and glass, and you touch with loving tenderness the vellum backs of old books, then enter when the glory of the setting sun sifts in and falls in shattered shafts of light on altar, roof, and wall. Go with noiseless step and uncovered head, and,finding some deep-shadowed seat or sheltered nook, open your heart and mind and soul to the story of its past, made doubly precious by the splendor of its present. As you sit there in the shadow, the spell of its exquisite color will enchant you—color mellowing into harmonies you knew not of; harmonies of old gold and porphyry reds; the dull silver of dingy swinging lamps, with the soft light of candles and the dreamy haze of dying incense; harmonies of rich brown carvings and dark bronzes rubbed bright by a thousand reverent hands.
The feeling which will steal over you will not be one of religious humility, like that which took possession of you in the Saint Sophia of Constantinople. It will be more like the blind idolatry of the pagan, for of all the temples of the earth, this shrine of San Marco is the most worthy of your devotion. Every turn of the head will bring new marvels into relief; marvels of mosaic, glinting like beaten gold; marvels of statue, crucifix, and lamp; marvels of altars, resplendent in burnished silver and flickering tapers; of alabaster columns merging into the vistas; of sculptured saint and ceiling of sheeted gold; of shadowy aisle and high uplifted cross.
Never have you seen any such interior. Hung with the priceless fabrics and relics of the earth, it is to you one moment a great mosque, studded with jewels and rich with the wealth of the East; then, as its color deepens, a vast tomb, hollowed from out a huge, dark opal, in which lies buried some heroic soul, who in his day controlled the destinies of nations and of men. And now again, when the mystery of its light shimmers through windows covered with the dust of ages, there comes to this wondrous shrine of San Marco, small as it is, something of the breadth and beauty, the solitude and repose, of a summer night.
When the first hush and awe and sense of sublimity have passed away, you wander, like the other pilgrims, into the baptistery; or you move softly behind the altar, marveling over each carving of wood and stone and bronze; or you descend to the crypt and stand by the stone sarcophagus that once held the bones of the good saint himself.
As you walk about these shadowy aisles, and into the dim recesses, some new devotee swings back a door, and a blaze of light streams in, and you awake to the life of to-day.
Yes, there is a present as well as a past.There is another Venice outside; a Venice of life and joyousness and stir. The sun going down; the caffès under the arcades of the King’s Palace and of theProcuratie Vecchieare filling up. There is hardly an empty table at Florian’s. The pigeons, too, are coming home to roost, and are nestling under the eaves of the great buildings and settling on the carvings of San Marco. The flower girls, in gay costumes, are making shops of the marble benches next the Campanile, assorting roses and pinks, and arranging theirboutonnièresfor the night’s sale. The awnings which have hung all day between the columns of the arcades are drawn back, exposing the great line of shops fringing three sides of the square. Lights begin to flash; first in the clusters of lamps illuminating the arcades, and then in the windows filled with exquisite bubble-blown Venetian glass, wood carvings, inlaid cabinets, cheap jewelry, gay-colored photographs and prints.
As the darkness falls, half a dozen men drag to the centre of the Piazza the segments of a great circular platform. This they surround with music-rests and a stand for the leader. Now the pavement of the Piazza itself begins filling up. Out from the Merceria, from under the clock tower, pours asteady stream of people merging in the crowds about the band-stand. Another current flows in through the west entrance, under theBocca di Piazza, and still another from under the Riva, rounding the Doges’ Palace. At the Molo, just where poor Carmagnola stepped ashore, a group of officers—they are everywhere in Venice—land from a government barge. These are in full regalia, even to their white kid gloves, their swords dangling and ringing as they walk. They, too, make their way to the square and fill the seats around one of the tables at Florian’s, bowing magnificently to the old Countess who sits just inside the door of the caffè itself, resplendent, as usual, in dyed wig and rose-colored veil. She is taking off her long, black, fingerless silk gloves, and ordering her customary spoonful of cognac and lump of sugar. Gustavo, the head waiter, listens as demurely as if he expected a bottle of Chablis at least, with the customary commission for Gustavo—but then Gustavo is the soul of politeness. Some evil-minded people say the Countess came in with the Austrians; others, more ungallant, date her advent about the days of the early doges.
By this time you notice that the old French professor is in his customary place;it is outside the caffè, in the corridor, on a leather-covered, cushioned seat against one of the high pillars. You never come to the Piazza without meeting him. He is as much a part of its history as the pigeons, and, like them, dines here at least once a day. He is a perfectly straight, pale, punctilious, and exquisitely deferential relic of a by-gone time, whose only capital is his charming manner and his thorough knowledge of Venetian life. This combination rarely fails where so many strangers come and go; and then, too, no one knows so well the intricacies of an Italian kitchen as Professor Croisac.
Sometimes on summer evenings he will move back a chair at your own table and insist upon dressing the salad. Long before his greeting, you catch sight of him gently edging his way through the throng, the seedy, straight-brimmed silk hat in his hand brushed with the greatest precision; his almost threadbare frock-coat buttoned snug around his waist, the collar and tails flowing loose, his one glove hanging limp. He is so erect, so gentle, so soft-voiced, so sincere, and so genuine, and for the hour so supremely happy, that you cannot divest yourself of the idea that he really is an old marquis, temporarily exiled from some farawaycourt, and to be treated with the greatest deference. When, with a little start of sudden surprise, he espies some dark-eyed matron in the group about him, rises to his feet and salutes her as if she were the Queen of Sheba, you are altogether sure of his noble rank. Then the old fellow regains his seat, poises his gold eyeglasses—a relic of better days—between his thumb and forefinger, holds them two inches from his nose, and consults themenuwith the air of a connoisseur.
Before your coffee is served the whole Piazza is ablaze and literally packed with people. The tables around you stand quite out to the farthest edge permitted. (These caffès have, so to speak, riparian rights—so much piazza seating frontage, facing the high-water mark of the caffè itself.) The waiters can now hardly wedge their way through the crowd. The chairs are so densely occupied that you barely move your elbows. Next you is an Italian mother—full-blown even to her delicate mustache—surrounded by a bevy of daughters, all in pretty hats and white or gay-colored dresses, chatting with a circle of still other officers. All over the square, where earlier in the day only a few stray pilgrims braved the heat, ora hungry pigeon wandered in search of a grain of corn, thepersonnelof this table is repeated—mothers and officers and daughters, and daughters and officers and mothers again.
Outside this mass, representing aclientèlepossessing at least half aliraeach—one cannot, of course, occupy a chair and spend less, and it is equally difficult to spend very much more—there moves in a solid mass the rest of the world: bareheaded girls, who have been all day stringing beads in some hot courtyard; old crones in rags from below the shipyards; fishermen in from Chioggia; sailors, stevedores, and soldiers in their linen suits, besides sight-seers and wayfarers from the four corners of the earth.
If there were nothing else in Venice but the night life of this grand Piazza, it would be worth a pilgrimage half across the world to see. Empty every café in the Boulevards; add all thehabituésof the Volks Gardens of Vienna, and all those you remember at Berlin, Buda-Pesth, and Florence; pack them in one mass, and you would not half fill the Piazza. Even if you did, you could never bring together the same kinds of people. Venice is not only the magnet that draws the idler and the sight-seer, but those who love her just because she is Venice—painters,students, architects, historians, musicians, every soul who values the past and who finds here, as nowhere else, the highest achievement of chisel, brush, and trowel.
The painters come, of course—all kinds of painters, for all kinds of subjects. Every morning, all over the canals and quays, you find a new growth of white umbrellas, like mushrooms, sprung up in the night. Since the days of Canaletto these men have painted and repainted these same stretches of water, palace, and sky. Once under the spell of her presence, they are never again free from the fascinations of this Mistress of the Adriatic. Many of the older men are long since dead and forgotten, but the work of those of to-day you know: Ziem first, nearly all his life a worshiper of the wall of the Public Garden; and Rico and Ruskin and Whistler. Their names are legion. They have all had a corner at Florian’s. No matter what their nationality or specialty, they speak the common language of the brush. Old Professor Croisac knows them all. He has just risen again to salute Marks, a painter of sunrises, who has never yet recovered from his first thrill of delight when early one morning his gondolier rowed him down the lagoon and made fast to a cluster of spiles off the PublicGarden. When the sun rose behind the sycamores and threw a flood of gold across the sleeping city, and flashed upon the sails of the fishing-boats drifting up from the Lido, Marks lost his heart. He is still tied up every summer to that same cluster of spiles, painting the glory of the morning sky and the drifting boats. He will never want to paint anything else. He will not listen to you when you tell him of the sunsets up the Giudecca, or the soft pearly light of the dawn silvering the Salute, or the picturesque life of the fisher-folk of Malamocco.
“My dear boy,” he breaks out, “get up to-morrow morning at five and come down to the Garden, and just see one sunrise—only one. We had a lemon-yellow and pale emerald sky this morning, with dabs of rose-leaves, that would have paralyzed you.”
Do not laugh at the painter’s enthusiasm. This white goddess of the sea has a thousand lovers, and, like all other lovers the world over, each one believes that he alone holds the key to her heart.