A Wanderer in Venice Part 9

The eleventh has vices and virtues and is repeated in the ninth on the Piazzetta.

The twelfth has female heads and no lettering.

The thirteenth has named rulers: Octavius, t.i.tus, Trajan, Priam, Darius, and so forth, all crowned and ruling.

The fourteenth has children and no lettering.

The fifteenth has heads, male and female, and no lettering. Above it was once another medallion and three triangles.

The sixteenth has pelicans and no lettering.

The seventeenth and last has children with symbols and no lettering.

Above this, on the corner by the bridge, is the group representing the Sin of Ham. Noah's two sons are very attractive figures. Above the Noah group is the Angel Raphael.

The gateway of the palace--the Porta della Carta--was designed by Giovanni and Bartolommeo Bon, father and son, in the fourteen thirties and forties. Francesco Foscari (1423-1457) being then Doge, it is he who kneels to the lion on the relief above, and again on the balcony of the Piazzetta facade. At the summit of the portal is Justice once more, with two attendant lions, cherubs climbing to her, and live pigeons for ever nestling among them. I counted thirty-five lions' heads in the border of the window and thirty-five in the border of the door, and these, with Foscari's one and Justice's two, and those on the s.h.i.+elds on each side of the window, make seventy-five lions for this gateway alone. Then there are lions' heads between the circular upper arches all along each facade of the palace.

It would be amusing to have an exact census of the lions of Venice, both winged and without wings. On the Grand Ca.n.a.l alone there must be a hundred of the little pensive watchers that sit on the bal.u.s.trades peering down. As to which is the best lion, opinions must, of course, differ, the range being so vast: between, say, the lion on the Molo column and Daniele Manin's flamboyant sentinel at the foot of the statue in his Campo. Some would choose Carpaccio's painted lion in this palace; others might say that the lion over the Giants' Stairs is as satisfying as any; others might prefer that fine one on the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi by the Rialto bridge, and the Merceria clock tower's lion would not want adherents.

Why this lovely gateway was called the Porta della Carta (paper) is not absolutely certain: perhaps because public notices were fixed to its door; perhaps because paper-sellers frequented it; perhaps because the scriveners of the Republic worked hereabouts. Pa.s.sing through it we have before us the Giants' Stairs, designed by Antonio Rizzo and taking their name from the two great figures of Mars and Neptune at the top by Jacopo Sansovino. On the upright of each step is a delicate inlaid pattern--where, in England, so often we read of the virtues of malted milk or other commodity. Looking back from the foot of the stairs we see Sansovino's Loggetta, framed by the door; looking back from the top of the stairs we have in front of us Rizzo's statues of Adam and Eve. This Antonio Rizzo, or Ricci, who so ably fortified Sansovino as a beautifier of Venice, was a Veronese, of whom little is known. He flourished in the second half of the fifteenth century.

Every opportunity of pa.s.sing through the courtyard should be taken, and during the chief hours of the day there is often--but not invariably--a right of way between the Porta della Carta and the Riva, across the courtyard, while the first floor gallery around it, gained by the Giants' Stairs, is also open. For one of those capricious reasons, of which Italian custodians everywhere hold the secret, the delightful gallery looking on the lagoon and Piazzetta is, however, closed. I once found my way there, but was pursued by a frantic official and scolded back again.

The courtyard is inexhaustible in interest and beauty, from its bronze well-heads to the grated leaden prison cells on the roof, the terrible piombi which were so dreaded on account of their heat in summer and cold in winter. Here in the middle of the eighteenth century that diverting blackguard, Jacques Casanova, was imprisoned. He was "under the leads"

over the Piazzetta wing, and the account of his durance and his escape is one of the most interesting parts, and certainly the least improper, of his remarkably frank autobiography. Venice does not seem to have any pride in this son of hers, but as a master of licentiousness, effrontery, adventurousness, and unblus.h.i.+ng candour he stands alone in the world. Born at Venice in 1725, it was in the seminary of S. Cyprian here that he was acquiring the education of a priest when events occurred which made his expulsion necessary. For the history of his utterly unprincipled but vivacious career one must seek his scandalous and diverting pages. In 1755, on an ill-starred return visit to his native city, he was thrown into this prison, but escaping and finding his way to Paris, he acquired wealth and position as the Director of State Lotteries. Casanova died in 1798, but his memories cease with 1774. His pages may be said to supply a gloss to Longhi's paintings, and the two men together complete the picture of Venetian frivolity in their day and night.

The well-head nearer the Giants' Stairs was the work of Alberghetti and is signed inside. The other has the head of Doge Francesco Venier (1554-1556) repeated in the design and is stated within to be the work of Niccol Conti, a son of Venice. Coryat has a pa.s.sage about the wells which shows how much more animated a scene the ducal courtyard used to present than now. "They yeeld very pleasant water," he writes. "For I tasted it. For which cause it is so much frequented in the Sommer time that a man can hardly come thither at any time in the afternoone, if the sunne s.h.i.+neth very hote, but he shall finde some company drawing of water to drinke for the cooling of themselves." To-day they give water no more, nor do the pigeons come much to the little drinking place in the pavement here but go rather to that larger one opposite Cook's office.

Everything that an architect can need to know--and more--may be learned in this courtyard, which would be yet more wonderful if it had not its two brick walls. Many styles meet and mingle here: Gothic and Renaissance, stately and fanciful, sombre and gay. Every capital is different. Round arches are here and pointed; invented patterns and marble with symmetrical natural veining which is perhaps more beautiful.

Every inch has been thought out and worked upon with devotion and the highest technical skill; and the antiseptic air of Venice and cleansing sun have preserved its details as though it were under gla.s.s.

In the walls beneath the arcade on the Piazzetta side may be seen various ancient letter-boxes for the reception of those accusations against citizens, usually anonymous, in which the Venetians seem ever to have rejoiced. One is for charges of evading taxation, another for those who adulterate bread, and so forth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. TRIFONIO AND THE BASILISK FROM THE PAINTING BY CARPACCIO _At S. Giorgio dei Schiavoni_]

The upper gallery running round the courtyard has been converted into a Venetian--almost an Italian--Valhalla. Here are busts of the greatest men, and of one woman, Catherine Cornaro, who gave Cyprus to the Republic and whom t.i.tian painted. Among the first busts that I noted--ascending the stairs close to the Porta della Carta--was that of Ugo Foscolo, the poet, patriot, and miscellaneous writer, who spent the last years of his life in London and became a contributor to English periodicals. One of his most popular works in Italy was his translation of Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_. He died at Turnham Green in 1827, but his remains, many years after, were moved to Santa Croce in Florence.

Others are Carlo Zeno, the soldier; Goldoni, the dramatist; Paolo Sarpi, the monkish diplomatist; Galileo Galilei, the astronomer and mathematician; the two Cabots, the explorers, and Marco Polo, their predecessor; Niccol Tommaseo, the patriot and a.s.sociate of Daniele Manin, looking very like a blend of Walt Whitman and Tennyson; Dante; a small selection of Doges, of whom the great Andrea Dandolo is the most striking; Tintoretto, Giovanni Bellini, t.i.tian, and Paul Veronese; Tiepolo, a big-faced man in a wig whom the inscription credits with having "renewed the glory" of the two last named; Canova, the sculptor; Daniele Manin, rather like John Bright; Lazzaro Mocenigo, commander in chief of the Venetian forces, rather like Buffalo Bill; and flanking the entrance to the palace Vittorio Pisani and Carlo Zeno, the two patriots and warriors who together saved the Republic in the Chioggian war with the Genoese in the fourteenth century.

This collection of great men makes no effort to be complete, but it is rather surprising not to find such very loyal sons of Venice as Ca.n.a.letto, Guardi and Longhi among the artists, and Giorgione is of course a grievous omission.

CHAPTER VII

THE PIAZZETTA

The two columns--An ingenious engineer--S. Mark's lion--S.

Theodore of Heraclea--The Old Library--Jacopo Sansovino--The Venetian Brunelleschi--Vasari's life--A Venetian library--Early printed books--The Grimani breviary--A pageant of the Seasons--The Loggetta--Coryat again--The view from the Molo--The gondolier--Alessandro and Ferdinando--The danger of the traghetto--Indomitable talkers--The fair and the fare--A proud father--The rampino.

The Piazzetta is more remarkable in its architectural riches than the Piazza. S. Mark's main facade is of course beyond words wonderful; but after this the Piazza has only the Merceria clock and the Old and the New Procuratie, whereas the Piazzetta has S. Mark's small facade, the Porta della Carta and lovely west facade of the Doges' Palace, the columns bearing S. Mark's lion and S. Theodore, Sansovino's Old Library and Loggetta; while the Campanile is common to both. The Piazzetta has a cafe too, although it is not on an equality either with Florian's or the Quadri, and on three nights a week a band plays.

The famous Piazzetta columns, with S. Theodore and his crocodile (or dragon) on one and the lion of S. Mark on the other, which have become as much a symbol of Venice as the facade of S. Mark's itself, were brought from Syria after the conquest of Tyre. Three were brought in all, but one fell into the water and was never recovered. The others lay on the quay here for half a century waiting to be set up, a task beyond human skill until an engineer from Lombardy volunteered to do it on condition that he was to have any request granted. His request was to be allowed the right of establis.h.i.+ng a gaming-table between the columns; and the authorities had to comply, although gambling was hateful to them. A few centuries later the gallows were placed here too. Now there is neither gambling nor hanging; but all day long loafers sit on the steps of the columns and discuss p.r.o.nto and subito and cinque and all the other topics of Venetian conversation.

I wonder how many visitors to Venice, asked whether S. Theodore on his column and the Lion of S. Mark on his, face the lagoon or the Merceria clock, would give the right answer. The faces of both are turned towards the clock; their backs to the lagoon. The lion, which is of bronze with white agates for his eyes, has known many vicissitudes. Where he came from originally, no one knows, but it is extremely probable that he began as a pagan and was pressed into the service of the Evangelist much later. Napoleon took him to Paris, together with the bronze horses, and while there he was broken. He came back in 1815 and was restored, and twenty years ago he was restored again. S. Theodore was also strengthened at the same time, being moved into the Doges' Palace courtyard for that purpose.

There are several saints named Theodore, but the protector and patron of the Venetians in the early days before Mark's body was stolen from Alexandria, is S. Theodore of Heraclea. S. Theodore, surnamed Stretelates, or general of the army, was a famous soldier and the governor of the country of the Mariandyni, whose capital was Heraclea.

Accepting and professing the Christian faith, he was beheaded by the Emperor Licinius on February 7, 319. On June 8 in the same year his remains were translated to Euchaia, the burial-place of the family, and the town at once became so famous as a shrine that its name was changed to Theodoropolis. As late as 970 the patronage of the Saint gave the Emperor John I a victory over the Saracens, and in grat.i.tude the emperor rebuilt the church where Theodore's relics were preserved. Subsequently they were moved to Mesembria and then to Constantinople, from which city the great Doge Dandolo brought them to Venice. They now repose in S.

Salvatore beneath an altar.

The west side of the Piazzetta consists of the quiet and beautiful facade of Sansovino's Old Library. To see it properly one should sit down at ease under the Doge's arcade or mount to the quadriga gallery of S. Mark's. Its proportions seem to me perfect, but Baedeker's description of it as the most magnificent secular edifice in Italy seems odd with the Ducal Palace so near. They do not, however, conflict, for the Ducal Palace is so gay and light, and this so serious and stately.

The cherubs with their garlands are a relaxation, like a smile on a grave face; yet the total effect is rather calm thoughtfulness than sternness. The living statues on the coping help to lighten the structure, and if one steps back along the Riva one sees a brilliant column of white stone--a chimney perhaps--which is another inspiriting touch. In the early morning, with the sun on them, these statues are the whitest things imaginable.

The end building, the Zecca, or mint, is also Sansovino's, as are the fascinating little Loggetta beneath the campanile, together with much of its statuary, the giants at the head of Ricco's staircase opposite, and the chancel bronzes in S. Mark's, so that altogether this is peculiarly the place to inquire into what manner of man the Brunelleschi of Venice was. For Jacopo Sansovino stands to Venice much as that great architect to Florence. He found it lacking certain essential things, and, supplying them, made it far more beautiful and impressive; and whatever he did seems inevitable and right.

Vasari wrote a very full life of Sansovino, not included among his other Lives but separately published. In this we learn that Jacopo was born in Florence in 1477, the son of a mattress-maker named Tatti; but apparently 1486 is the right date. Appreciating his natural bent towards art, his mother had him secretly taught to draw, hoping that he might become a great sculptor like Michael Angelo, and he was put as apprentice to the sculptor Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, who had recently set up in Florence and was at work on two figures for San Giovanni; and Jacopo so attached himself to the older man that he became known as Sansovino too. Another of his friends as a youth was Andrea del Sarto.

From Florence he pa.s.sed to Rome, where he came under the patronage of the Pope Julius II, of Bramante, the architect, and of Perugino, the painter, and learned much by his studies there. Returning to Florence, he became one of the most desired of sculptors and executed that superb modern-antique, the Bacchus in the Bargello. Taking to architecture, he continued his successful progress, chiefly again in Rome, but when the sack of that city occurred in 1527 he fled and to the great good fortune of Venice took refuge here. The Doge, Andrea Gritti, welcomed so distinguished a fugitive and at once set him to work on the restoration of S. Mark's cupolas, and this task he completed with such skill that he was made a Senior Procurator and given a fine house and salary.

As a Procurator he seems to have been tactful and active, and Vasari gives various examples of his reforming zeal by which the annual income of the Procuranzia was increased by two thousand ducats. When, however, one of the arches of Sansovino's beautiful library fell, owing to a subsidence of the foundations, neither his eminent position nor ability prevented the authorities from throwing him into prison as a bad workman; nor was he liberated, for all his powerful friends, without a heavy fine. He built also several fine palaces, the mint, and various churches, but still kept time for his early love, sculpture, as his perfect little Loggetta, and the giants on the Staircase, and such a tomb as that in S. Salvatore, show.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. JEROME IN HIS CELL FROM THE PAINTING BY CARPACCIO _At S. Giorgio dei Schiavoni_]

This is Vasari's description of the man: "Jacopo Sansovino, as to his person, was of the middle height, but rather slender than otherwise, and his carriage was remarkably upright; he was fair, with a red beard, and in his youth was of a goodly presence, wherefore he did not fail to be loved, and that by dames of no small importance. In his age he had an exceedingly venerable appearance; with his beautiful white beard, he still retained the carriage of his youth: he was strong and healthy even to his ninety-third year, and could see the smallest object, at whatever distance, without gla.s.ses, even then. When writing, he sat with his head up, not supporting himself in any manner, as it is usual for men to do.

He liked to be handsomely dressed, and was singularly nice in his person. The society of ladies was acceptable to Sansovino, even to the extremity of age, and he always enjoyed conversing with or of them. He had not been particularly healthy in his youth, yet in his old age he suffered from no malady whatever, in-so-much that, for a period of fifty years, he would never consult any physician even when he did feel himself indisposed. Nay, when he was once attacked by apoplexy, he would still have nothing to do with physic, but cured himself by keeping in bed for two months in a dark and well-warmed chamber. His digestion was so good that he could eat all things without distinction: during the summer he lived almost entirely on fruits, and in the very extremity of his age would frequently eat three cuc.u.mbers and half a lemon at one time.

"With respect to the qualities of his mind, Sansovino was very prudent; he foresaw readily the coming events, and sagaciously compared the present with the past. Attentive to his duties, he shunned no labour in the fulfilment of the same, and never neglected his business for his pleasure. He spoke well and largely on such subjects as he understood, giving appropriate ill.u.s.trations of his thoughts with infinite grace of manner. This rendered him acceptable to high and low alike, as well as to his own friends. In his greatest age his memory continued excellent; he remembered all the events of his childhood, and could minutely refer to the sack of Rome and all the other occurrences, fortunate or otherwise, of his youth and early manhood. He was very courageous, and delighted from his boyhood in contending with those who were greater than himself, affirming that he who struggles with the great may become greater, but he who disputes with the little must become less. He esteemed honour above all else in the world, and was so upright a man of his word, that no temptation could induce him to break it, of which he gave frequent proof to his lords, who, for that as well as other qualities, considered him rather as a father or brother than as their agent or steward, honouring in him an excellence that was no pretence, but his true nature."

Sansovino died in 1570, and he was buried at San Gimignano, in a church that he himself had built. In 1807, this church being demolished, his remains were transferred to the Seminario della Salute in Venice, where they now are.

Adjoining the Old Library is the Mint, now S. Mark's Library, which may be both seen and used by strangers. It is not exactly a British Museum Reading-room, for there are but twelve tables with six seats at each, but judging by its usually empty state, it more than suffices for the scholarly needs of Venice. Upstairs you are shown various treasures brought together by Cardinal Bessarione: MSS., autographs, illuminated books, and incunabula. A fourteenth-century Dante lies open, with coloured pictures: the poet very short on one page and very tall on the next, and Virgil, at his side, very like Christ. A _Relazione della Morte de Anna Regina de Francia_, a fifteenth-century work, has a curious picture of the queen's burial. The first book ever printed in Venice is here: Cicero's _Epistolae_, 1469, from the press of Johannes di Spira, which was followed by an edition of Pliny the Younger. A fine Venetian _Hypnerotomachia_, 1499, is here, and a very beautiful Herodotus with lovely type from the press of Gregorius of Venice in 1494. Old bindings may be seen too, among them a lavish Byzantine example with enamels and mosaics. The exhibited autographs include t.i.tian's hand large and forcible; Leopardi's, very neat; Goldoni's, delicate and self-conscious; Galileo's, much in earnest; and a poem by Ta.s.so with myriad afterthoughts.

But the one idea of the custodian is to get you to admire the famous Grimani Breviary--not alas! in the original, which is not shown, but in a coloured reproduction. Very well, you say; and then discover that the privilege of displaying it is the perquisite of a rusty old colleague.

That is to say, one custodian extols the work in order that another may reap a second harvest by turning its leaves. This delightful book dates from the early sixteenth century and is the work of some ingenious and masterly Flemish miniaturist with a fine sense of the open air and the movement of the seasons. But it is hard to be put off with an ordinary bookseller's traveller's specimen instead of the real thing. If one may be so near t.i.tian's autograph and the illuminated _Divine Comedy_, why not this treasure too? January reveals a rich man at his table, dining alone, with his servitors and dogs about him; February's scene is white with snow--a small farm with the wife at the spinning-wheel, seen through the door, and various indications of cold, without; March shows the revival of field labours; April, a love scene among lords and ladies; May, a courtly festival; June, haymaking outside a fascinating city; July, sheep-shearing and reaping; August, the departure for the chase; September, grape-picking for the vintage; October, sowing seeds in a field near another fascinating city--a busy scene of various activities; November, beating oak-trees to bring down acorns for the pigs; and December, a boar hunt--the death. And all most gaily coloured, with the signs of the Zodiac added.

The little building under the campanile is Sansovino's Loggetta, which he seems to have set there as a proof of his wonderful catholicity--to demonstrate that he was not only severe as in the Old Library, and t.i.tanic as in the Giants, but that he had his gentler, sweeter thoughts too. The Loggetta was destroyed by the fall of the campanile; but it has risen from its ruins with a freshness and vivacity that are bewildering. It is possible indeed to think of its revivification as being more of a miracle than the new campanile: for the new campanile was a straight-forward building feat, whereas to reconstruct Sansovino's charm and delicacy required peculiar and very unusual gifts. Yet there it is: not what it was, of course, for the softening quality of old age has left it, yet very beautiful, and in a niche within a wonderful restoration of Sansovino's group of the Madonna and Child with S. John.

The reliefs outside have been pieced together too, and though here and there a nose has gone, the effect remains admirable. The glory of Venice is the subject of all.

The most superb of the external bronzes is the "Mercury" on the left of the facade. To the patience and genius of Signor Giacomo Boni is the restored statuary of the Loggetta due; Cav. Munaretti was responsible for the bronzes, and Signor Moretti for the building. All honour to them!

Old Coryat's enthusiasm for the Loggetta is very hearty. "There is," he says, "adjoyned unto this tower [the campanile] a most glorious little roome that is very worthy to be spoken of, namely the Logetto, which is a place where some of the Procurators of Saint Markes doe use to sit in judgement, and discusse matters of controversies. This place is indeed but little, yet of that singular and incomparable beauty, being made all of Corinthian worke, that I never saw the like before for the quant.i.ty thereof."

Where the Piazzetta especially gains over the Piazza is in its lagoon view. From its sh.o.r.e you look directly over the water to the church and island of S. Giorgio Maggiore, which are beautiful from every point and at every hour, so happily do dome and white facade, red campanile and green roof, windowed houses and little white towers, compose. But then, in Venice everything composes: an artist has but to paint what he sees.

From the Piazzetta's sh.o.r.e you look diagonally to the right to the Dogana and the vast Salute and all the masts in the Giudecca ca.n.a.l; diagonally to the left is the Lido with a mile of dancing water between us and it.