ON THE STEPS OF THE REDENTORE.ON THE STEPS OF THE REDENTORE.
Vasari’s accuracy has, however, been vindicated by the recent publication[77]of Gustav Ludwig’s patient and conclusive researches, which demonstrate (1) that Bonifazio Pasini of Verona (1489-1540), the so-called Bonifazio I., could never have left Verona for any length of time between 1515 and his death, and that nothing is now known of his works: (2) that Bonifazio di Pitati of Verona (1487-1553), Morelli’s Bonifazio II., came, a youth of eighteen, with his father, a soldier, to settle in Venice in 1505; learned his craft at Palma Vecchio’s workshop; married a basketmaker’s daughter; became one of the most famous painters in Venice; in 1530 was commissioned to decorate the Palazzo de’ Camerlenghi (Treasury offices); and died, childless, in 1553, leaving the work to be completed by Tintoretto, who for a period adopted Bonifazio’s style: (3) that Bonifazio III. is a mere phantom of Morelli’s imagination. Bonifazio, like all the successful painters of the Renaissance, kept a large number of assistants and pupils to supply the demands of his clients at home and abroad, himself executing the more important parts of his productions, and supervising the work done in his atelier. The paintings assigned to Bonifazio I., such as the Rich Man’s Feast, number 291 in the Accademia, and the Virgin and Child with SS. Omobono and Barbara in the Palazzo Reale, are those executed by Bonifazio di Pitati’s own hand in the days before prosperity had rendered personal execution of the whole of his work impossible. The paintings attributed to Bonifazio II., such as the Woman Taken in Adultery, No. 278 in the Accademia, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Fall, in the Palazzo Reale, works which betray a falling off in vigour and firmness of drawing while retaining the old brilliancy of colour, are those which were partly executed by his assistants. The paintings allotted to Bonifazio III., feeble work, such as the Last Supper in S. Maria MaterDomini, and most of the panels with figures of two or more saints, of which the Accademia possesses so many examples, were painted wholly by assistants during Bonifazio’s lifetime, or after his death. Nearly the whole of those in the Accademia formerly attributed to Bonifazio III., many of which have been post-dated owing to a vicious theory of interpretation, were side panels painted for more important central compositions in the Treasury Offices. The 1903 (Italian) edition of the official catalogue adopts Ludwig’s conclusions.
Bonifazio, who always signs himself “da Verona,” is an eminently naturalistic painter. With perfect art he portrays for us the sensuous magnificence of the Venetian patrician’s life: his luxurious home; his well-nurtured body; his powerful, sagacious intellect; his love of the country; his gorgeous costume; his pet animals; his ideal of female beauty.
A talented pupil of Titian who came under Michael Angelo’s influence was Paris Bordone (1495-1571). He has the distinction of producing the finest of Venetian ceremonial paintings, No. 320 in the Accademia. No picture will evoke in the beholder a deeper sentiment of the peculiar charm of Venice. The magnificent architecture; the dignified Fathers of the State in their rich costumes; the romantic legend it illustrates; the warm, golden, sunny atmosphere in which the whole composition is bathed, make this the most essentially Venetian picture in the world. The Accademia has other works by this artist—the Paradise, No. 322, a poor canvas, and a small panel, No. 311.
Two great artists preserved the power and grandeur of the Venetian school during a time when elsewhere in Italy painting had sunk to nerveless mannerism and mawkish sentimentality.
Alinari, Florence ACCADEMIA—PRESENTATION OF ST MARK’S RING TO THE DOGE By BordoneAlinari, FlorenceACCADEMIA—PRESENTATION OF ST MARK’S RING TO THE DOGEBy Bordone
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), 1518-94, a pupil of Bonifazio, and much influenced by Titian and Michel Angelo, is a painter who may only be studied atVenice. A fine example of his early work painted under Titian’s influence, is the Adam and Eve, No. 43 in the Accademia. In 1552 he painted two panels for the Palazzo Camerlenghi, in continuation of Bonifazio’s work, now in the Anti-Chiesetta of the Ducal Palace; and, a year later, the dramatic Miracle of St Mark, Accademia No. 42. This central work admirably displays the qualities of his genius. The composition is grandly conceived; the drawing stupendously clever and virile. But the craftsmanship is too insistent. The artist aims at displaying his triumph over difficult but non-essential problems of foreshortening and perspective. The whole scene is characterised by that “bustle and tumult” which Reynolds complains of in his criticism of Tintoretto’s work. Other paintings that may be noted are the Marriage of Cana in the sacristy of the Salute; two large and confused canvases, the Last Judgment and the Golden Calf, in the choir of the Madonna dell’ Orto; the charming Ariadne and Bacchus, with its companion pictures, and the colossal Paradise in the Ducal Palace. His last work, S. Marziale, is in the church of that name. Admirers of Tintoretto may sate themselves at Venice. The Accademia and the Ducal Palace are rich in his works. The Scuola of S. Rocco alone is a veritable Tintoretto museum. The sixty-two compositions there, exhibit the painter’s characteristics fully developed, his weakness as well as his strength. Never had sacred history been treated with such uncompromising realism. No one can contemplate these tremendous scenes without being impressed by the power of the genius that conceived them; none can turn away without a feeling of regret that so greatly endowed an artist should, in his later career at least, have been wanting in reverence and in theincredibile diligenza, which Vasari noted in all Titian’s work. He was a passionate, impatient worker, too often unconscionably superficial. His bold, vigorous, rapid execution is such that the practice of painting in his hands seems topartake of the nature of physical exercise. When Goethe was frequenting the official picture-restorers at S. Zanipolo in 1790, it was discovered that Tintoretto had been in the habit of leaving spaces for the more important heads in the large compositions executedin situ(probably by pupils), which he would paint at home and stick on the canvas afterwards. Howpresto e resolutohe was may be learned from the story told by Vasari of the march he stole upon his competitors for the decoration of a room in the Scuola di San Rocco. He had already painted his masterpiece, the Crucifixion, for the Sala dell’ Albergo, and the guild determined to decorate the hall with somethingmagnifica ed onorata. Salviati, Zucchero, Veronese and himself were selected to send in designs. While his rivals were diligently at work, Tintoretto had taken the measurement of the space to be filled, painted his canvas with incredible rapidity and secretly fixed it in its place in the hall. When the masters of the guild met to examine the designs they found his work already finished. To their angry remonstrances the artist coolly replied that that was his way of competing, and if they did not care to pay him he would make them a present of the painting. Even in 1790 much of Tintoretto’s work had become dull, almost leaden in colour, due, Goethe thought, to the artist’s habit of paintingalla primawithout ground colours, or simply on red paint. Tintoretto left many followers, who neither sounding the depths of his knowledge nor possessing the magnanimity of his style, imitated him in his “splendid negligence” and contributed to the final decadence of painting.
S. CATERINA—THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINE By VeroneseS. CATERINA—THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINEBy Veronese
His younger contemporary Veronese (Paolo Caliari), 1530-88, reverts to and develops to an even higher degree the warmer and more brilliant colour of the school. He is the unsurpassed interpreter of the festal pomp of Venetian society. Without possessing the elemental force of Tintoretto he is a more careful artist. How nobly and gently he could conceive, may be seen in thedecoration of the church of S. Sebastiano, painted 1555-65, and in the marriage of St Catherine at the church of that name, his most tender and beautiful work. Of his well-known banquet compositions, the Accademia possesses the finest specimen, the Supper at the House of Levi, No. 203. In this magnificent painting, with its marvellous drawing and spacious architecture, the artist revels in his power of expressing the joy of man in the satisfaction of material existence. This glorification of the pomps and vanities of the world, painted for the refectory of the Dominican friars at S. Zanipolo, did, however, shock the Church, and the head of the Holy Office called on the Prior and severely criticised the picture. On the 8th of July 1573, Master Paolo Caliari was cited before the tribunal of the Inquisition. Being asked his profession, he answered, “I invent and draw figures.” The inquisitor objected to the absence of Mary Magdalene and ordered that she should be substituted for the dog in the foreground; to St Peter carving a lamb; to a fellow dressed like a buffoon, with a parrot on his wrist; to another using his fork as a toothpick, and other indecencies. The artist defended himself stoutly and was ordered to reform his picture within three months. Veronese substituted the name of Levi for that of Simon and altered no more. Veronese was a noted house decorator of his time. None of his work survives at Venice, but visitors to Castelfranco may by a short detour see in the Villa Giacomelli, near Maser, some of the artist’s best fresco work on the walls of a characteristic Palladian country-house.
With the works of the Bassani we reach the beginnings of modern painting. They are moderns not only in their dominant love of landscape, but in their touching affection for lowly peasant life and for the flocks and herds of their native hills. The family consisted of Jacopo da Ponte (1510-92), the father, and his sons Francesco (1549-92) and Leandro (1558-1623). The Accademia has goodexamples of their work, but to appreciate fully these homely and sympathetic artists one must travel to their native city Bassano, in the beautiful hill country north of Venice.
Palma Giovane, 1544-1628, son of Antonio Negretti and of Bonifazio’s niece Giulia, is the last in whom the great traditions faintly survive. Besides his pictures in the Accademia some of the best of his work may be seen in the Oratorio dei Crocifissi. The school is now decadent; its productions feeble and mannered.
Giov. Battisto Tiepolo, 1696-1770, was a famous painter of his time: in the eyes of his contemporaries the equal of Veronese. He was a fine colourist, a bold and skilful draughtsman, with a broad and facile style, an excellent interpreter of the decadent splendour of Venetian life. He was in much demand as a decorator of palaces and churches. His best work may be seen in the frescoes executed for the Palazzo Labia. Among other churches, the Scalzi and the Gesuati have examples of his work in ceiling decoration, and there is a good altar-piece by his hand, St Lucy, in the SS. Apostoli.
Pietro Longhi, 1702-85, is a painter of scenes of intimate Venetian life in the eighteenth century with its trivial artificiality and social inanities. He has been aptly called the Goldoni of Venetian painters. Of Antonio da Canale (Canaletto), 1697-1768, and Francesco Guardi, 1712-93, Venice has few and poor examples. They were patient, excellent craftsmen but without inspiration, who have faithfully transmitted to us the Venice of their day.
Most ancient and important was the art of the glass-worker, peculiarly favoured by the abundance of fine sand and of a marine flora rich in alkaline products. In the thirteenth century so great was the expansion of the industry that it was deemed prudent to transfer the many furnaces working night and day from Rialto to Murano. It was a jealously guarded monopoly. In 1459 the Ten took over the control of the art and forbade under severe penalties (insome cases death) the emigration of workmen or the divulging of the secrets of the craft to foreigners. The craftsmen had their ownlibro d’Oroand ranked with patricians. Some beautiful examples of the masters, whom the genius of Marion Crawford[78]has invested with such dramatic interest, Zorzi il Ballarin and the Berovieri, may be seen at the Murano Museum, and an exquisite blue nuptial goblet in Room XII. at the Correr Museum in Venice. Wondrous stories are told of the subtle art of the craftsmen who were famed to make goblets so sensitive that they would betray by fracture the presence of poison.
The Venetians were great bibliophiles and readers. Soon after the discovery of the art of printing, Venice became its most important centre in Italy. By the end of the fifteenth century more books had been published in Venice than in Rome, Milan, Florence and Naples put together. In 1469 the Senate authorised John of Spires to print books for a period of five years. In 1470 Nicolo Jansen was issuing the Latin classics; in 1471 he published an Italian translation of the whole Bible, and in 1476 an edition of Pliny in the vulgar tongue. In 1490 the great humanist, Teobaldo Pio Manuccio of Rome (Aldus Manutius, or, as he wrote himself, Aldus Romanus), chose Venice as the most appropriate city for the achievement of his stupendous design of editing and printing the whole of the Greek classics. He gathered round him the greatest scholars of the age. Cretan Greeks were employed as designers of his types and compositors. Latin and Italian classics were printed in the type first used in the Virgil of 1501 and known as italics oraldino. It is said to have been modelled on Petrarch’s handwriting and executed by Francia. Erasmus acted for a short time as editor and reader, and the great Dutch humanist had his translations of Euripides and hisAdagiaprinted there. Erasmus and Aldus were good friends and would have beenbetter if the fare provided at dinner had been less Lenten. The scholar’s heart to-day warms to Aldus, whose steady, glowing enthusiasm carried him through his great task amid all the stress of the wars of the League of Cambrai. He founded at his house the famousAccademia di Aldo, where a symposium of humanists met for the study and emendation of the Greek classics. The rules were drawn up and the discussions conducted in Greek. Before Aldus died, in 1515, he had published twenty-eighteditiones principesof the Greek masterpieces. He was the first of modern publishers, the first to break down the monopoly of the rich in books. His charming little octavo volumes with their familiar device of the anchor and the dolphin, so precious to the modern bibliophile, were sold at prices averaging about two shillings of our money. They were well read, for of the 24,000 copies printed of Erasmus’ “Praise of Folly,” only one copy has survived, and that in an imperfect state. He died a poor man and his kinsmen and descendants carried on the good work for a century.
If we turn from printing to literature we are met by a remarkable and impressive fact. Alone among the nations of Europe, Venice has given birth to no great literature. Save her crumbling architecture all that she conceived of the beautiful is expressed in painting. It is a great inheritance and immortalises a people of merchant princes, proud, sensuous, resourceful, with a firm grip of the realities of life, deeply religious in its own way, but without the spiritual idealism of the Tuscan. Through the millennial tale of her existence as a State, no great poet, no great thinker, no great dramatist meets us; none save a fluent and graceful writer of comedies of the Decadence, who was descended from a Modenese, and whose best work was written in a foreign tongue for a foreign capital.[79]
A VENETIAN WOMAN.A VENETIAN WOMAN.
Map of Venice[Larger view (250k)][Largest view (2M)]
“They might chirp and chaffer, come and goFor pleasure or profit, her men alive—My business is hardly with them I trow,But with the empty cells of the human hive;—With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,The church’s apsis, aisle or nave,Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,Its face set full for the sun to shave.”—Browning.
“They might chirp and chaffer, come and goFor pleasure or profit, her men alive—My business is hardly with them I trow,But with the empty cells of the human hive;—With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,The church’s apsis, aisle or nave,Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,Its face set full for the sun to shave.”—Browning.
THATtraveller will best attune himself to the peculiar charm of Venice, who arrives after sunset, when evening has veiled the somewhat unlovely approach to the city by railway. For the great lagoon State ever set her face to the sea and adorned herself to welcome her guests as they were rowed from Fusina, or as they sailed up from the Adriatic, to land at the Molo, the chief landing-stage by the Piazzetta. The modern visitor arriving by train is like one who should enter a stately mansion by the stables. Once, however, in his gondola, the “black Triton” of the lagoons, gliding along the waterways to the strangers’ quarter by lines of houses and palaces, whose walls, timeworn or neglected, sometimes degraded, will be mellowed under the dim light of the infrequent lamps, he will be caught by the spell which Venice casts over those who come to her.
But there are two Venices: the Venice of the canals and the Venice of the streets. The traveller will do well therefore to go on foot to some of the sights he would see, for by no other means can he do justice to the varied beauty of thestreets, the quaint fragmentary remains of ancient architecture, the brilliant patches of colour, the little shrines, and all the countless details that go to make the by-ways of the city so full of surprise and pleasure to the pedestrian. The difficulty of finding one’s way from point to point has been greatly exaggerated. Anyone with a map and a normal sense of direction can with a little patience reach his destination. The churches are usually situated on or near acampo; a stream of people will generally be found passing along the streets and over the bridges between thecampi, and a well-worn track marks the more frequented ways. If he should find himself blocked by a canal or a blind alley, a short deviation to the right or left will generally lead to one of the 380 bridges by which, to use Evelyn’s picturesque phrase, the city is tacked together. Even if hopelessly lost, asoldinogiven to a boy will soon bring him to where he would go.The waterways, 150 in all, are divided intocanaliandrii. Thecanaleis the broader, theriothe narrower stream. Theriiare by far the greater in number. But the pedestrian is more concerned with street nomenclature. Afondamentais a way alongside acanaleorrio; acalleis a street with houses on either side;rugaorrughetta(Frenchrue,ruelle) was first applied to streets with a few new houses here and there; the appellation was retained in later times when the houses or shops became continuous; asalizzadais one of the earliest of the paved streets, generally near a church; ario terra, ariofilled up and paved; apiscina, a fish-pond treated in the same way; aponte, a bridge; acampo, a paved, open place, formerly a field; acampiello, a smallercampo; acorte, a court. Avoid avico cieco, or aviccolo cieco, which have no thoroughfare. The city is divided into sixsestierior wards, subdivided intoparocchieor parishes. The houses are numbered bysestieri, the numbers reaching to thousands. The Merceria, a crowded thoroughfare, leads from under the Clock Tower in St Mark’s Square, after many kinks and turns, to the Rialto bridge over theGrand Canal, which is spanned by two other bridges about equidistant from the Rialto bridge. E. and W. of the Rialto, in addition to these bridges, numerous ferries (traghetti) make either bank of the Grand Canal easy of access, and small steamers (vaporetti) call at frequent piers the whole length of the chief waterway. Travelling by gondola, therefore, is to be regarded as a luxury rather than a necessity. The gondola bears the same relation to Venetian life as does the cab or carriage to the dweller in an ordinary town. The average tide is about twenty inches: on exceptional occasions, the difference between high and low tides has been six feet.
La PiazzettaLa Piazzetta
The Piazza of S. Marco offers to the traveller a scene of unparalleled interest. Eastwards it is adorned by the most wonderful group of Byzantine and Gothic architecture in Europe. To the N. is the rhythmic symmetry of Pietro Lombardo’s Procuratie Vecchie, ending with the Clock Tower[80]; to the S. are the Procuratie Nuove, Scamozzi’s tasteless elaboration of Sansovino’s lovely design for the Libreria Vecchia on the Piazzetta. Westward is the baser structure of Napoleonic times. Opposite the Porta della Carta of the Ducal Palace stood for a thousand years the old Campanile, like a giant sentinel set towards the lagoons to watch over the city. On the morning of July 14th, 1902, to the stupefaction of the Venetians, the huge tower, which in its massive strength seemed to defy the tooth of time, gently collapsed, as though weary of its millennial watch, crushing in its fall Sansovino’s beautiful Loggetta and the N. side of the Libreria Vecchia, but miraculously doing no further hurt. When the Venetians recovered from the shock and learned how mercifully exempt from toll of human life the disaster had been, and that St Mark’s and the Ducal Palace were unscathed, they remembered their protector and said:È stato galant’uomoS. Marco(St Mark has been a good fellow). Ten months later, when the King and Queen of Italy, during their visit to Venice, turned to look at the site of the old tower, a lament was heard in the crowd of people:I varda dove gera el nostro pavaro morto(They are going where our poor dead one lies). The foundations laid a thousand years before, were found to be as sound as ever, and a new Campanile has now been raised to replace, though it cannot restore, the old one, which, with all its dramatic history and romantic associations, has disappeared for ever.
It is not by accident that the chief buildings of Venice stand where they do, for this part of the Rialtine islands, calledil Morso, offered a soil harder[81]and more tenacious than any other. In early ages the Piazza was a grass-grown field, called the Broglio or Garden, scarce a third of its present area, and a large elder tree flourished on the site of the Campanile. It was bounded on the W. by a rio which ran from N. to S. a few yards beyond the Campanile and discharged into the Grand Canal to the W. of the present Zecca (mint). On the W. bank of the rio, facing the basilica of St Mark, stood the old church of S. Giminiano. In 1176 Doge Ziani filled up the rio, razed the fortifications and extended and paved the Piazza, to its present boundary westward. The church of S. Giminiano was rebuilt at the W. end. It was again rebuilt by Sansovino in 1556 and finally demolished by Napoleon I. to extend the Royal Palace. Houses on the S. abutted on the Campanile. The Piazza was enclosed by stately mansions with columns and arcades on the first floor, “where one walked round as in a theatre.”[82]When Scamozzi built the Procuratie Nuove in 1584, the houses on the S. were demolished and the Piazza set back to its present line. If we would restore its aspect in the fulness of Venetian prosperity, we must imaginea scene brilliant with colour. The archivolts, capitals, friezes and sculptures generally of St Mark’s and the Ducal Palace were richly decorated with gold and vermilion and blue. The Porta della Carta glowed so with gold that it was known as thePorta dorata(the gilded portal). The bronze horses were gilded; so was St Mark’s Lion and St Theodore in the Piazzetta. From Leopardi’s beautiful bronze sockets three tall masts upheld the standards symbolising dominion over Greece, Cyprus and Crete.
A throng of merchants and strangers from all the corners of the earth, an ever-changing pageant of quaint and gorgeous costumes, passed and repassed. So many strange tongues would you hear, says an old writer,[83]that the Piazza might not inaptly be called theforum orbis non urbis—not the market-place of a city but of the world. Strange tongues are still heard in the Piazza, but of those who come for the pleasure, not for the business of the world: the heart of commerce no longer beats at Venice. The Piazza is, however, a scene of much animation on public holidays when the band is playing. We will sit outside Florian’s coffee-house, as a good Venetian should, and observe the women of the people passing, with their graceful carriage and simple costume, their wealth of hair so charmingly treated; the gondolier, lithe of body and superb in gait; thesignoreandsignorinewith their more modern finery; the fashionable youth, dressed, as he fondly imagines,all’ inglese; rich and poor,borgheseandpopolano, bearing themselves with that ease of manner, vivacity of spirit and social equality so characteristic of the Venetians. In the height of summer, when the rich merchants of Milan and other cities of North Italy with their women folk come to Venice for the Italian season, the Piazza after dinner and far into the night becomes one vast open-air salon, crowded with visitors in the mostchicof costumes, many of the ladies promenading in evening dress. As one sits in the Piazza at setting sun, the atmosphere,exquisitely delicate and clear, changes from pale blue to amethyst, pink, turquoise, dark blue and indigo; and the night is lovelier than the day.
FEWthings in the history of art are more remarkable than the revulsion of taste that has taken place with regard to the architecture of Venice. In the early part of the nineteenth century, before Ruskin wrote “The Stones of Venice,” an English architect,[84]giving expression to the professional judgment of the age, speaks of “the lumpy form of the Cathedral which surprises you by the extreme ugliness of its exterior; of the lower part built in the degraded Roman we call Norman; of the gouty columns and ill-made capitals, all in bad taste.” “The Ducal Palace is even more ugly than anything previously mentioned,” vastly inferior to Palladio’s churches of S. Giorgio and the Redentore. Disraeli echoes in “Contarini Fleming” the conventional lay praise of Palladio, and writes of the “barbarous although picturesque buildings called the Ducal Palace.” Even to-day the stranger fresh from the North with memories of the massive towers and lofty spires of his own architecture will hardly escape a sense of disappointment as he stands before St Mark’s. The fabric will seem to lack majesty and to be even less imposing than the Ducal Palace. It must, however, be remembered that the raising of the level of the Piazza has somewhat detracted from the elevation of both the basilica and the Palace. Fynes Moryson notes in his Itinerary (1617) that “there were stairs of old to mount out of the market-place into the church till the waters of the channel increasing they were forced to raise the height of the market-place.”
A GONDOLIER.A GONDOLIER.
Whether there were any such intention in the minds of the builders is doubtful, but in all communities where the sense of municipal liberty or of secular independence is strong, the dominant civic power is actualised in architecture. In Flemish towns the Hôtel de Ville and not the cathedral is often the more important structure; even so in Venice the subordinate position of the church is marked by the accessory character of the ecclesiastical building, which in its origin indeed was but the official chapel of the Doge, and only became the Cathedral in 1807, when Napoleon transferred the patriarchate from S. Pietro in Castello—itself a poor thing architecturally—to St Mark’s.
Joseph Woods gave a shrewd criticism of Venetian architecture when he characterised it as showing riches and power rather than just proportions. St Mark’s was erected by a merchant folk, with all the merchant’s love of display of wealth. Their taste was for costly material rather than for nobility and grandeur of design. For centuries the East was ransacked for precious stones to adorn the sanctuary of their patron saint, and the captain of every ship that traded in the Levant was ordered to bring home marbles or fine stones for the builders. St Mark’s is a jewelled casket wrought to preserve the Palladium of the Venetian people.
S. MARCO—MAIN PORTALS. MARCO—MAIN PORTAL
The fabric dates from the early eleventh to the late fourteenth centuries. Its core is of brick, of which most Venetian churches are built, and it is veneered with marble[85]and decorated with mosaic and sculpture. When the eye turns from the whole to examine details, the façade is seen to be composed of two tiers of arches—the lower of seven, the upper of five spans. Of the seven, two form the N. and S. porticos; five the western doors, whose recesses are enriched with rows of columns wanting in unity ofdesign, but of exceeding richness and variety of material. They are mainly the spoils of Eastern churches, and, if closely scrutinised, will be found to be incised with Eastern crosses and curious inscriptions in Greek and oriental characters. The capitals flanking the main portal, with carvingof leaves blown by the wind, are probably from the East, their prototype being at the Church of St Sophia in Thessalonica, built in the later years of Justinian’s reign. The main portal is spanned by an inner triple archivolt and an outer main one. The under side of the inner arc of the former, over the relief of St Mark and the Angel, is wrought with sculptures, whose subjects are symbolical, and will be met with again and again in early Venetian decoration: a naked man and woman seated on dragons; a child in the open jaws of a lion; an eagle pecking at a lamb; a lion devouring a stag; camels and other animals, wild and tame, in various groups. On the outer face are similar carvings of boys fighting and robbing birds’ nests; men shooting birds with bows and arrows, and hunting wild beasts. The work is exceedingly quaint, and affords a fruitful theme for interpretation.
S. MARCO—DETAIL OF ARCHIVOLTS. MARCO—DETAIL OF ARCHIVOLT
The sculptures on the under side of the outer arc symbolise the months of the year, with their appropriate celestial signs. May, a seated figure holding a rose and crowned with flowers by two maidens, is most beautiful and original in treatment.
On the outer face of the archivolt are represented the Beatitudes and the Virtues, eight on either side of the keystone, which symbolises Constancy.
On the under surface of the main archivolt are fourteen most beautiful carvings, representing the chief guilds and crafts of Venice. To the L.,[86]at the bottom, is a seated figure with finger on lip, said by Ruskin to represent the rest of old age; by tradition it is the portrait of the architect of the building, of whom the following story is told. When Doge Pietro Orseolo determined to restore the church after the fire of 976, a queer, unknown man, lame in both legs, offered to make St Mark’s the most beautiful structure ever erected, if, on completion, his statue were placed in a conspicuous part of the building. His terms were accepted, but after the work had progressed some time, the stranger incautiously let fall a remark to the effect that the church would have been much more magnificent if certain difficulties had not intervened. Word was sent to the Doge, and the statue was set in its present obscure position.
S. MARCO—DETAIL OF MAIN DOORS. MARCO—DETAIL OF MAIN DOOR
On either side of the main portal are two doorways, spanned by richly decorated Byzantine arches; that to the L., has the figure of Christ in the keystone and two prophets with scrolls in the spandrils; that to the R. has the keystonedefaced; in the spandrils to the R. and L. are the archangels Michael and Gabriel. The lateral doorway to the L. has in the lunette a winged figure on horseback and symbols of the Evangelists; on the lintel are some fine Gothic reliefs. The pierced screen-work in the lunette windows should be noted, for in olden times the whole of the window spaces in the domes were thus treated. The corresponding doorway to the R. has in the spandrils, carvings of two archangels, and on the keystone the Virgin and Child.
The beautiful lily capitals are at either end of the façade, and support the arches that span the N. and S. porticos.
The late fifteenth-century Gothic additions consist of pinnacles and gables of no structural value. They are seen in Gentile Bellini’s picture,[87]dated 1496, of the Procession in St Mark’s Square, but are absent in the extant thirteenth-century mosaic on the façade.
The mosaics in the lunettes of the five doorways are, with one exception, poor in craftsmanship, but interesting in their storiation. That of the central portal is a feeble representation of the Last Judgment. Salandri, who executed it in 1836-38, had already been mulcted for bad workmanship. The remaining four tell of the discovery and translation of the body of St Mark. In the fifth porch, to the N., the body of the saint being carried into St Mark’s, though largely renewed, is a precious relic of the beautiful thirteenth-century mosaics that covered the front in Gentile Bellini’s time, as may be seen from the picture already referred to. The four mosaics in the lunettes on either side of the great window above, represent the Deposition from the Cross, the Descent into Hades, the Resurrection, the Ascension—all seventeenth-century work. Beneath the great window stand the four bronze horses, part of the spoils sent from Constantinople by Enrico Dandolo in 1204. They are said to be Greek work of the fourth centuryB.C., and to havebeen sent from Rome to the new capital of the Empire by Constantine. They remained in their present position until 1797, when the “gran ladrone,” Napoleon I., sent them to Paris to adorn the Arc du Carrousel. In 1815 they were restored to Venice by Francis I. of Austria, as the Latin inscription under the archivolt beneath tells. A magnificent festa was organised when they were raised to their old position in the presence of the Austrian. The Piazza was bright with gorgeous decorations; a superb loggia erected for the Imperial family; an amphitheatre for the Venetian nobility. Nothing was wanting—but an audience. The amphitheatre was empty; a few loungers idled about the square. Cannons were fired; the bells rang a double peal; the music played; the horses were drawn up—but not a cheer followed them. The Emperor and his suite had the show to themselves.
N.E. BYZANTINE RELIEF, NORTH SIDE, S. MARCON.E.BYZANTINE RELIEF, NORTH SIDE, S. MARCO
In the lunette of the N. portal, which gives on the Piazzetta dei Leoni, with its two double cusped inner arches, is an early relief of the Nativity, a work of great beauty, framed by the vine decoration so beloved of the early sculptors. Among the many Byzantine reliefs with which this façade is jewelled the most perfect is that of the Twelve Apostles, symbolised as sheep, with the Lamb enthroned in thecentre and palm trees on either side. This exquisite carving will be found in the last recess R. of the doorway.
BYZANTINE RELIEF FROM SOUTH SIDE, S. MARCOBYZANTINE RELIEF FROM SOUTH SIDE, S. MARCO
The S. façade, looking as it does towards the Molo, would in olden times arrest the eye of the traveller as he entered the city. It is most lavishly decorated. The reliefs and marble facings towards the Porta della Carta are some of the finest that remain of the ancient basilica. Their lowly position seems to have preserved them from the restorer’s hand. At the angle is a rude Greek relief in porphyry, probably from Acre, of two pairs of armed figures clasping each other. They are said to represent Greek emperors who shared the throne of the East early in the eleventh century. In the foreground stand the two beautifully decorated marble door-posts brought from St Sabbas inAcre. They should, however, change places to occupy the relative position they formerly held in the church. Below the mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the smaller arch above the gallery two lamps burn nightly in perpetual memory of an act of injustice perpetrated by the Ten in 1611, when an innocent man, Giovanni Grassi, was executed. The short porphyry column at the S.W. corner is the old edict stone where the official notices and laws of the Republic were proclaimed to the people.
CAPITALS, ATRIUM, S. MARCOCAPITALS, ATRIUM, S. MARCO
At our feet, as we enter the atrium by the main portal are three slabs of porphyry which mark the legendary, but not the actual, spot where the reconciliation of the Pope and the Emperor Barbarossa took place. The shafts and capitals of the columns in the atrium are among the richest in the basilica. The mosaics, designed to instruct and prepare the catechumen, illustrate Old Testament history, and for their simple beauty will repay perusal.
I TRE PONTI.I TRE PONTI.
In the south cupola are three concentric zones of mosaics which illustrate the six days of Creation, the Institution of the Sabbath, the Fall and the Expulsion from Eden. The number of the day is indicated by a corresponding number of angels standing beside the Creator with hands uplifted in praise. At the institution of the Sabbath the Lord is seen resting from His work with three angels on either side; the seventh kneels receiving the Lord’s blessing.[88]There is a quaint portraiture of the Lord clothing Adam and Eve,—Adam most uncomfortable, and Eve looking reproachfully at the ill-fitting garment.
Five mosaics in the three lunettes under the cupola tell the story of Cain and Abel, and under the vaultings between the first cupola and the central vestibule is the story of Noah.
On the W. side of the next vaulting is the story of the Tower of Babel. Below is the tomb of the Dogaressa Felicia, the young wife of Vitale Falier, who, as the inscription tells, was a true servant of God and of the poor, and who spurned luxury (calcavit luxurium).
The second cupola contains scenes from the life of Abraham. In the lunette over St Peter, above the inner door, Abraham receives the three angels and entertains them. Behind is Sarah at the door of her tent laughing at the promise that she should bear a son. The third cupola tells the story of Joseph, which is continued on the fourth and fifth cupolas to the N. The sixth cupola deals with the story of Moses. In the recess opposite the lunette to the R. once lay the remains[89](whence they were taken and brought to England) of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk—
“Who at Venice gaveHis body to that pleasant country’s earth,And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,Under whose colours he had fought so long.”—Richard II., iv.I.
“Who at Venice gaveHis body to that pleasant country’s earth,And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,Under whose colours he had fought so long.”—Richard II., iv.I.
Returning to the main portal of the atrium—in the lunette is St Mark, executed by the brothers Zuccati in 1545 from a cartoon by Titian. Below in seven niches are the Virgin and Child and six Apostles; lower down on either side of the portal, the four Evangelists. In the lunette, R., Raising of Lazarus; lunette over the outer portal, Crucifixion; lunette L., Burial of the Virgin. These, which are among the finest mosaics of the period, formed part of the work that the Zuccati had to answer for in 1563. They were charged by the Bianchini and Bozza with having used the methods of painting and not of true mosaic to produce certain effects. The most famous tribunal ever brought together in the history of art sat to try the case. It was composed of Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, Jacopo da Pistoia and Schiavone. Although the Zuccati were condemned to remove and replace at their own cost the work that had been gone over with the brush, the honours of the trial rested with them, Titian frankly eulogising their craftsmanship.
No sense of disappointment will be felt at the first view of the interior. The symmetry of the architecture, the gorgeous mosaics, the rich pavement, the precious marbles covering the walls, the manifold variety of the columns, and (if the traveller have the fortune to be present on Easter or St Mark’s Day) the dazzling brilliancy of the Pala d’Oro glittering with jewels make a scene of oriental splendour not easily forgotten. In earlier times, when the windows were filled with pierced screen-work of marble, the church was much darker, for, says Moryson, “the papist churches are commonly dark to cause a religious horror.” Evelyn in 1645 found the interior dark and dismal.
Merely to name the subjects of the 40,000 square feet of mosaics in the interior would weary the reader. We do but indicate the more important and more interesting. The general scheme is designed to illustrate the mysteries of the Christian faith and the story of the patron saint. Over the main entrance is the oldest of the mosaics, probably an eleventh-century work—Christ enthroned between the Virgin and St Mark. In the book held by the Redeemer are the words in Latin, “I am the Door; if any man enter by Me he shall be saved and find pasture.” A similar inscription exists to this day over the Porta Basilica which opens into the nave of St Sophia at Constantinople. In the half dome of the apse the colossal seated figure of Christ in the act of blessing meets the eye of the worshipper as he enters the church and walks towards the sanctuary, even as it did in the apse at St Sophia.[90]In the centre of the dome over the high altar is again the figure of Christ, and, above the windows, the Virgin, and the prophets who foretold Christ’s coming, bearing scrolls inscribed with their testimony. The pendentives bear symbolic figures of the Four Evangelists, that of the Lion of St Mark with a strangely human face, being designed with admirable force and dignity. Scenes in the life of Christ are portrayed on the vault between this and the central dome; the Passion and Resurrection on the vault between the central and western domes. The great central dome is treated with profound thought and fertile invention, and executed with infinite care. In the apex is the glorified Christ seated on a double rainbow, surrounded by exulting angels. Below are the Virgin, the Apostles and the Evangelists alternating with olive and palm trees. The beautiful figure of the Virgin stands between two angels. In the spaces between the windows are the Virtues and the Beatitudes. They may easily be distinguished by their inscriptions and symbols.
The W. dome treats of the Descent of the Holy Ghost. A white dove standing on a book placed on a throne fills the centre, and from this emblem of the Holy Spirit twelve streams of fire descend upon the figures of the Twelve Apostles circling the dome. The men of every nation to whom they spoke, each in his own tongue, are figured at the Apostles’ feet between the windows.
In the dome of the N. transept is figured a Greek cross, in the centre of which are eight Greek letters set in a circle, whose meaning is doubtful. Near this centre, N. and S., is an alpha; E. and W., an omega. On the arms of the cross the Golden Rule is expressed in a curious rhyming Latin paraphrase, beginning on the E. and continuing on the W., N. and S. arms.
The dome of the S. transept bears figures of SS. Leonard, Nicholas, Clement and Blaise. In the pendentives SS. Erasmus, Euphemia, Dorothy and Thecla. While Vicenzo Sebastiani was finishing this last, he fell from the scaffolding and was killed. On the vaultings of the transepts are represented the parables and miracles of Christ. The vaulting to the E., between the S. and the centre domes, has delightfully naive and dramatic representations of the Temptation and the Entry into Jerusalem. On the western side are beautiful representations of the Last Supper and the Washing of the Disciples’ Feet. On the vaultings and the walls of the aisles are stories of the martyrdom of the Apostles.
Modern mosaics illustrating the Book of Revelation, the Last Judgment, Hell and Paradise, cover the vaultings beyond the W. dome and over the W. gallery. They and many other of the mosaics are best seen from the galleries.
On the lower walls of the aisles are repeated the figures of prophets that foretold the coming of Christ bearing the usual scrolls. To the N. are Hosea, Joel, Micah and Jeremiah, with a beautiful representation of the youthful Christ in the centre. S. are Isaiah, David, Solomon and Ezekiel, with the Virgin answering to the figure of Christ.
The story of the patron saint begins on the vaulting ofthe N. organ loft over the choir, where scenes in his life and martyrdom are portrayed. They are, however, partly concealed by the organ. These, perhaps the oldest mosaics in the church, were largely restored in 1879 by the Venezia-Murano Company. Opposite, to the S., on the vaulting, is most quaintly told how the body of the saint came to Venice. The designers are very frank in their story of the Translation of the body.Furenter, “it is stolen” from Alexandria.
On the W. wall of the S. transept opposite the Chapel of the Holy Blood is told the story of the miraculous rediscovery of the body in 1094: The Doge, clergy and people, with solemn fast and prayer, implore divine aid, and a round column in the church opens and discloses the saint’s body. Tradition, however, says that the body was found in the large pier called St Mark’s pillar, to the left of the Chapel of the Holy Blood. An angel’s head in full relief is carved above the spot, and a lamp burns below an inlaid cross. The line of cleavage is still seen. Tradition, however, would seem to be at fault in this matter, for when the pillar was recently stripped of the marble facing, the solid core had clearly never been disturbed.
The Baptistery and the Zeno Chapel, entered from the right aisle, originally formed part of the atrium. The mosaics in the Baptistery were executed by the order of Doge Andrea Dandolo (1343-54), but have been partly restored[91]by the Venezia-Murano Company. In the lunette above the altar is the Crucifixion. Weeping angels hover over the cross; L., are the Virgin and St Mark; R., St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist. At the foot of the cross kneels Doge Andrea Dandolo; at the extreme ends kneel his Grand Chancellor, Riafano Caresini, and a Senator. The table of the altar is formed of a massive block of Egyptian granite from which Christ is said to have preached, brought from the siege of Tyre in 1126. In the centre of the cupola above is Christ enthroned; below is aten-winged angel bearing on his breast the inscription—“Fulness of Wisdom.” This is the first of the nine Intelligences circling the cupola, which in mediæval cosmogony ruled over the nine heavenly spheres.
The story of the Baptist’s life is told in the lunettes and on the walls. The mosaic of the Burial of the Saint’s Body is said by Ruskin to be the most beautiful design of the Baptist’s death that he knew in Italy.
In the centre of the cupola over the font is a figure of Christ seated on a double rainbow and holding a scroll on which is inscribed the injunction to the Twelve to go and preach the gospel to all creatures. Beneath, each is seen obeying the command in that country where tradition places his martyrdom. Quaint local costumes are introduced, and converts are being baptised.
Opposite the entrance is the tomb of Andrea Dandolo, the last Doge buried in St Mark’s. On the workmanship of this beautiful example of fourteenth-century monumental art Ruskin has lavished ecstatic praise. Beneath the noble, peaceful figure of the Doge are the Virgin and Child, two scenes from the Martyrdom of St John the Baptist and of Andrew, the Doge’s patron saint, and an Annunciation. The long Latin epitaph has been attributed to Petrarch.
The vault of the vestibule of the Cappella Zen is decorated with scenes from the life of Christ before His baptism. The tomb in the recess is that of Doge Giovanni Soranzo (1328). The Cappella Zen contains the monument of Cardinal Zeno, executed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The altar is dedicated to the Virgin of the Slipper, whose figure in bronze has a gilded shoe, in perpetual memory of the miraculous alchemy by which her slipper, given to a poor votary, was changed to gold. The Zeno tomb is a fine Renaissance work in bronze which, together with the altar, was designed by the Lombardi and Aless. Leopardi (p.191). The walls of the chapel are decorated with the history of St Mark.
S. GIORGIO MAGGIORES. GIORGIO MAGGIORE
In the little chapel of the Madonna dei Mascoli at the W. angle of the N. transept, where of old a guild of men used to assemble, are some fine fifteenth-century mosaics by Michele Giambono. They are unhappily injured by restoration, but in the main the early Renaissance feeling has been preserved and the more natural modelling of the figures and fuller architectural detail form a pleasing contrast to the stiff and sometimes hard design of the Byzantine workmen.
East of this is the richly decorated chapel of St Isidore founded by the same Doge and scholar who decorated the Baptistery. The work was not, however, completed until 1355 under Dom. Gradenigo. The inscription over the altar tells that the body of the Blessed Isidore was brought from Chios in 1125 by Doge Dom. Michiel and now rests in the tomb below. The sculptured figure of the saint and the reliefs to left and right representing his martyrdom are fine work. The fourteenth-century mosaics so faithfully wrought by the artists of that great epoch have needed but slight repair and remain practically as they left them. Over the altar is Christ seated between S. Mark and Isidore, and balancing this at the opposite end are the Virgin and Child, the Baptist and St Nicholas. The legend of the saint is illustrated on the walls. In this chapel we are standing within part of the actual fabric of the old church of St Theodore. When the S. wall of the chapel was peeled in 1832 it was found to be blackened by exposure to the weather and pierced by a window with an iron grille.
The group of worshippers ever before the altar to the left as the visitor leaves this chapel will tell him that he is approaching the shrine of the Virgin. Under a canopy is the miraculous Nicopeian icon of the Virgin which was captured from Murzuphles and formed part of the spoil of Constantinople. Doge Dandolo sent it to Venice in a specially appointed ship, and in 1618 the present altar was raised by Doge Giov. Bembo. The image (only exposed on Saturdays) wastraditionally painted by St Luke. It is lavishly decorated with precious stones and surrounded by ex-votos.
Passing the altar of St Paul, bearing a statue of the saint and a fine relief of the scene of his blindness, the chapel of St Peter is reached. In front is a screen with statues of the Virgin and Child and four women saints, the Massegne. In the apse of this chapel is the entrance to the Sacristy, one of the most beautiful chambers in Europe. The magnificent mosaic ceiling designed by Titian and wrought with perfect art; the rich marble decorations; the symmetry and proportion of the architecture; the chastened glow of colour will not fail to impress the spectator.
Beyond the altar of St Paul is the great N. pulpit. It is one of the finest architectural features in the church and rich in historical memories. Here Enrico Dandolo and other great Doges and prelates addressed the people in national crises. Another pulpit smaller and simpler in style stands to the S. of the choir screen, and an altar to St James balances that to St Paul on the N. On the architrave of the screen stand the crucifix, statues of the Virgin, St Mark and the Twelve Apostles by the Massegne, signed and dated 1394-97. On either side of the choir are three reliefs in bronze by Sansovino. The great bronze-doors by the same master lead from the L. of the choir to the Sacristy. The canopy of the high altar is borne by four marble columns with reliefs (p.187). The rude timeworn figures tell the story of the life of the Virgin on the N.E. pillar and the life of Christ on the remaining pillars, reading N.W., S.E. and S.W.
The gorgeous Pala d’Oro is exposed to view on Easter Eve and Day, and St Mark’s Eve and Day. It may be seen on other days between twelve and two on payment of 50 centesimi. This magnificent example of the goldsmith’s art was made to the order of Ordelafo Falier by Byzantine craftsmen at Constantinople in 1105. It was added to and restored by Gothic artists under Pietro Ziani in 1209, and under AndreaDandolo in 1345. The gold, estimated to weigh thirty, the silver three hundred pounds, is set with some 1200 pearls and a like number of precious stones. Most of the jewels were, however, looted by the French in 1797 and are replaced by inferior modern stones, which may be detected by the fact that they are cut in facets. The upper compartment has in the centre St Michael surrounded by sixteen medallions of the doctors of the Church. To the L. are three panels: The Feast of Palms, Descent into Limbo, Crucifixion; to the R., other three, the Ascension, Pentecost, Death of the Virgin. The lower and larger compartment is framed on three sides by twenty-seven small panels whose subjects are taken from the lives of St Mark, Christ and the Virgin. In the middle is a large panel with the figure of the seated Christ and four smaller figures of the Evangelists; above are two archangels and two cherubim. On each side of the large panel are two sets of six medallions, the upper and smaller of archangels, the lower and larger of the Apostles. Beneath the figure of Christ in the large panel are three plaques: the centre contains the figure of the Virgin; L. of her is a crowned figure, which a Latin inscription tells is that of Doge Ordelafo Falier; R. of the Virgin is a crowned figure with a Greek inscription stating it to be the Empress Irene. If, however, the observer will scrutinise the figure of the Doge it will be seen that his head has been substituted for that of the Empress’s consort, John Comnenus. On each side of these three central figures are inscriptions which give the history of the Pala d’Oro and six prophets bearing scrolls. The technique of the goldcloisonnéenamels is admirable. They are glorious in colour, partly translucent, and allow the backing of fine gold to shine through.
Behind the high altar is the altar of the Holy Cross, adorned with six columns of precious marble. The two spiral, semi-transparent ones were reputed to come from Solomon’s Temple. The chapel to the S. of the high altaris dedicated to St Clement. Beneath the cornice whence springs the vaulting of the apse is a stern minatory inscription in Latin that met the eye of the Doge, as he entered from the Ducal Palace through an ante-room opening on this chapel. It is now but dimly seen, and runs thus:Love justice, give all men their rights: let the poor and the widow, the ward and the orphan, O Doge, hope for a guardian in thee. Be compassionate to all: let not fear nor hate nor love nor gold betray thee. Thou shalt perish as a flower: dust shalt thou become, and, as thy deeds have been, so after death thy reward shall be.
In the S. transept, answering to the Lady Chapel, is the chapel of the Holy Blood, formerly dedicated to St Leonard.
The old and new crypts open to the public on St Mark’s Day, and at other times on payment of 50 centesimi, are of great interest. In the centre of the new crypt, that of Contarini’s church, is the empty tomb, reaching to the roof, where lay St Mark’s body from 1094 until 1811, when it was removed to the high altar where it now remains. Three steps, topped by a slab of stone worn by pilgrims’ feet, lead to a semi-circular cell with a small window once filled with pierced stone-work. The ancient capitals of the columns of this crypt are of great beauty. The older crypt with its rude brick vaulting that formed part of the ninth-century basilica of Giov. Participazio, was drained and cleared of rubbish, as the inscription tells, in 1890.
The chief object of interest in the Treasury, entered at the W. angle of the S. transept, is the so-called chair of St Mark, wrought from a block of Cipollino marble, said to have been sent to Aquileia from Alexandria by the Empress Helena and to have been carried thence with the other relics to Grado at the time of the Lombard invasion. Some beautiful book-covers from St Sofia; a number of Byzantine chalices made of precious stones; two fine candelabri attributed to Cellini; a ring used at the Wedding of theAdriatic, are among the exhibits. The Treasury was looted at the same time as the Pala d’Oro by the French. The room itself, outside the fabric of the church, is of interest inasmuch as it originally formed part of the tower of the old Ducal Palace. The body of St Mark is said to have lain there from 829 until 832, when the church was ready to receive it.
Before we quit the interior, the old rich mosaic pavement with its quaint and beautiful Byzantine designs is worth notice. The uneven, wavy form is due, not to any intent of imitating the waves of the sea, but to the fact that the pavement is supported by the crypt and has settled into hollows corresponding to the cells of the vaulting which, being filled with loose material, are less rigid than the crown where no settlement has taken place.
TOturn from the fair temple of the Christian faith in Venice, warm with the affection and the presence of her people, to the empty splendour of the Palace where her secular princes sat in state, is to turn from life to death. If a patrician of the great days were to revive and enter St Mark’s he would find the same hierarchy, the same ritual, the same prayers and praise uttered in the same language to the God he knew. But if he sought to enter the Ducal Palace, the servant of a then petty dynasty would demand a silver coin before he were permitted to ascend the Golden Staircase. There, on steps once trod by those alone whose names were inscribed in the Book of Gold, he would meet a strange company. He would find the great palace of Venice a museum; her millennial power a memory; and the gorgeous halls that once echoed to the voices of the masters of landand sea occupied by a crowd of sightseers, alien in race and creed, gazing curiously at the faded emblems and pictures which tell of her pride, her glory and her imperial state.
The earliest official residence of the Tribunes of Rivoalto was situated by the church of the Holy Apostles near the Rio dei Gesuiti, whose northern mouth is opposite the channel leading to Murano. The remains of this fortified building, which was furnished with a great gate, always kept closed, and a guarded postern, still existed towards the end of the sixteenth century, and then served as a prison. In 820, Doge Angelo Participazio built another feudal-like structure on the site of the present Ducal Palace, near the church of St Theodore. Nothing could be less like thepalazzo fabbricato in ariawe know to-day. It and the whole of the Piazza, then but a third of its present area, were enclosed by a strong wall with Ghibelline battlements. One of the old towers is incorporated in the masonry, at whose corner now stand the four figures in porphyry referred to on p. 229.
Angelo’s structure was destroyed by fire during the riots which attended the murder of Doge Pietro Candiano in 976. The rebuilding was undertaken by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, and completed towards the end of the eleventh century by Doge Selvo, who adorned the exterior with marble columns and the interior with mosaics. Doge Sebastiano Ziani extended the buildings in the late twelfth century. Early in the fourteenth, the E. portion of the S. façade was begun under the direction it is believed of the chief mason (Prototaiapiera), Pietro Basseggio, and in the course of about a century the S. wing was completed and the W. façade carried so far as the boundary of Ziani’s building. About 1365 Doge Marco Cornaro had the walls of the Hall of the Grand Council, the necessity for which had been the chief cause of the new buildings, painted with scenes from the story of the reconciliation of PopeAlexander and the Emperor Barbarossa, and the cornice decorated with portraits of the Doges so arranged that his own came exactly over the ducal chair. The Gothic additions made the simple edifice of Ziani look poor in comparison, and a strong desire was evoked to rebuild the old palace; but the Senate, chary of adding to the public burdens, forbade any member to make such a proposal under a fine of 1000 ducats. In 1419 fire injured the old edifice, and the good Doge Tomaso Mocenigo offered to pay the fine, and thus carried a proposal to rebuild Ziani’s portion of the Palace, which reached from the present Porta della Carta to the sixth arch and seventh column N. of the Adam and Eve angle. The Gothic building was completed between 1424 and 1439, under Doge Francesco Foscari, whose kneeling figure (restored) is carved over the Porta.
The ornate façade on the east side, best seen from a gondola or from the Ponte di Canonico, is by Ant. Riccio, and was erected between 1483 and 1500.
After the great fire of 1577, when the conflagration seemed “like Etna in eruption,” the whole structure narrowly escaped demolition to make place for a new building of Palladian architecture. The strenuous opposition of the architects Giovanni Rusconi and Antonio da Ponte alone saved it. The latter’s plans were accepted and the ruin was repaired and redecorated.
The Bridge of Sighs is a later addition by Ant. Contino, about 1600. It is a commonplace structure, and none but commonplace criminals ever crossed it to their doom.
The brick core of the palace may still be seen in the Cortile and from the Ponte della Paglia, on the eastern façade, where Riccio’s beautiful work ends.
The sculptures at the three free angles, the Drunkenness of Noah, the Adam and Eve, and the Judgment of Solomon are placed S.E., S.W. and N.W. The group of the Judgment of Solomon is by two Tuscan sculptors,Pietro di Nicolo di Firenze and Giov. di Martino da Fiesole.
The S. façade, like the W., is composed of a lower arcade and an upper gallery whose columns support the massive walls of the upper storeys, a daring inversion of architectural tradition which is not wholly satisfying. The marble lozenge-shaped incrustation, however, relieves the heaviness. Indeed, from a fourteenth-century drawing[92]in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it is possible the upper storeys may have been originally set back.
The squat appearance of the columns of the arcade is due to the raising of the level of the Piazzetta, which in the days when the palace was built was some thirty inches below the present pavement.[93]The original building was approached by a stylobate of three steps which greatly added to its dignity and proportion. Under this arcade the Venetian nobility were accustomed to meet and talk of public affairs, for meetings in their own houses would have roused the suspicion of the Ten. When the patricians, as they paced up and down, raised their eyes to the capitals just above their heads they saw a series of sculptures which for beauty of design, richness of invention and craftsmanship were unsurpassed in Europe. Even to-day, largely renewed as they are, they will repay careful inspection. The subjects are of the usual symbolical types: children, birds, famous emperors and kings, the virtues and sins, the signs of the Zodiac, the crafts, the seven ages of man under celestial influences, the months and seasons, famous lawgivers—all treated with thenaïvetéand didactic purpose so characteristic of Gothic artists. Most of the carvings bear inscriptions which make the interpretation of the subjects comparatively easy. The artists, however, who wrought the fifteenth-centurycapitals on the W. façade seem to have been lacking in invention, for of the thirteen columns southwards from the Porta della Carta, six are copied from those wrought by the fourteenth-century masons on the S. façade.
PONTE DEI SOSPIRI.PONTE DEI SOSPIRI.
The gallery above is beyond criticism; for originality and grace it is unique in Europe. The eye never tires of its beauty; it adds distinction to the whole structure, and it gives an element of peaceful repose and conscious security so markedly in contrast to the grim civic fortresses of Florence and Siena and other faction-ridden Italian States. The four raised windows of the main storey on the S. are due to the fact that the builders of the Hall of the Great Council cared less for external symmetry than for internal convenience. The two balconied windows, one in each façade, were added soon after the completion of the Porta della Carta. Before 1577 all the windows of the great chamber were decorated with Gothic triforia. It is now proposed to restore them, though the project meets with much opposition.
We pass through the Porta della Carta, enter the Cortile and turn to examine Riccio’s famous statues of Adam and Eve opposite the Giant’s Staircase. The inner façade was begun on the E. side by Riccio and continued by Pietro Lombardo and Scarpagnino. The two cisterns of bronze are fine Renaissance work of 1556-57.
We ascend the stately Scala dei Giganti and pass Sansovino’s statues of Mars and Neptune at the top. Here, between the two pagan deities, the later Doges were crowned. The Doge stood surrounded by the electors, and was acclaimed by the people below in the courtyard; a line of ducal guards kept the staircase.
We mount[94]the Scala d’ Oro to the chambers where the rulers of the Republic held their meetings. Nearly the whole of the architectural decorations and paintingswe shall see are later than 1577, when the disastrous fire occurred which destroyed the priceless works of Gentile da Fabriano, Vittore Pisano and the Bellini. With few exceptions they are all by the later Venetian masters, characterised by vigour and breadth of treatment rather than careful execution and reverent feeling. It was a time when the rulers of Venice, their initiative and courage gone, lived on the traditions of a great past, for Lepanto was but a magnificent episode. In few cases was the artist contemporary with the events he depicted. The paintings do, however, enable us to realise the costumes and architecture of the declining Venice of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They have suffered much at the hands of the restorer. When Goethe was examining Titian’s Death of Peter Martyr in S. Zanipolo in 1790, a Dominican friar addressed him and asked if he would like to see the artists at work above. There in the monastery he found an academy of picture restorers established by the Republic working under a director on the paintings of the Ducal Palace. In 1846 Ruskin saw a picture by Paul Veronese, lying on the floor of a room in the palace, in process of restoration. The restorer was working on the head of a white horse, using a brush fixed at the end of a five-foot stick which he dipped into a common house-painter’s pot.
In the vestibule (Atrio Quadrato) is a fine ceiling-painting by Tintoretto, Doge Lorenzo Priuli receiving the Sword of State from the Hands of Justice, one of a series of allegorical and devotional pictures, the main feature being the portrait of the Doge, which we shall meet with again and again in the decoration of the palace. The walls are hung with portraits of Procurators of St Mark by the same master, who was their official portrait painter. To the R. is the Hall of the Four Doors (Sala delle Quattro Porte), designed by Palladio. On the R. wall is a late work by Titian, Doge Antonio Grimani kneeling before Faith, a beautiful creation: the figures on either side are by hisnephew, Marco Vecelli. Historical and allegorical scenes cover the remaining walls.
DUCAL PALACE—THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINE By TintorettoDUCAL PALACE—THE MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINEBy Tintoretto
The door opposite the entrance leads to a small ante-room (Anti-Collegio) containing some of the most charming pictures in the palace—Tintoretto’s Ariadne and Bacchus, Minerva repelling Mars, and Mercury with the Graces, painted 1578. Sensuous beauty and poetry of line are their main qualities. A famous painting by Veronese, The Rape of Europa, and Jacopo Bassano’s Return of Jacob are on the wall opposite the windows. A foreshadowing of modern naturalism in the treatment of the sheep and horse in the last picture is especially noteworthy. We now enter the room where the Signory received foreign ambassadors (Sala del Collegio). Over the entrance is a portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti kneeling before the Virgin; over the door of exit, the Marriage of St Catherine, with a ceremonial portrait of Doge Francesco Donà, elaborated with the usual accessories, the figure of the Doge’s name saint, in this case St Francis, is common to all these compositions; to the L. is a portrait of Doge Nicolo da Ponte, with the Virgin in glory; farther on, Doge Alvise Mocenigo adoring the Saviour. All these are by Tintoretto; the figures of the Virgin and of St Catherine in the second and third of these pictures are from his favourite model and in his most gracious manner. Over the throne, Doge Sebastiano Venier returning Thanks for the Victory of Lepanto, is by Veronese. The ceiling, designed by Ant. da Ponte and painted by Veronese in his grandiose style, is considered by Ruskin to be the finest in the palace. Parallel to the last two rooms is the Senate hall (Sala del Senato). The paintings here are of but secondary interest: ceremonial portraits of Doges by Palma Giovane, Marco Vecelli and Tintoretto. The central panel of the gorgeous ceiling—Venice, Queen of the Sea—is by Domenico Tintoretto, son of Jacopo. A door R. of the dais gives access to the vestibule of the Doge’s private chapel (Anti-Chiesetta).Here are the two pictures painted by Tintoretto for the Camerlenghi in 1552; over the entrance door, SS. Jerome and Andrew; opposite, St Louis of Toulouse and St George. Two early Madonnas in the chapel are doubtfully attributed to the schools of Boccacino and Bellini. Christ in Limbo and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea are attributed by Mr Berenson to Previtali. These and other paintings in the chapel afford fruitful themes for critical ingenuity.