A Golden Book of Venice

Produced by Ted Garwin, Annika and PG Distributed Proofreaders
A Historical Romance of the 16th Century
'This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands, that I should describe her … the fairest Lady, yet the richest Paragon, and Queene of Christendome.'
1900
I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to many faithful, loving and able students of Venetian lore, without whose books my own presentation of Venice in the sixteenth century would have been impossible. Mr. Ruskin's name must always come first among the prophets of this City of the Sea, but among others from whom I have gathered side-lights I have found quite indispensable Mr. Horatio F. Brown's Venice; An Historical Sketch of the Republic, Venetian Studies, and Life on the Lagoons ; Mr. Hare's suggestive little volume of Venice ; M. Léon Galibert's Histoire de la République de Venise ; and Mr. Charles Yriarte's Venice and his work studied from the State papers in the Frari, entitled La vie d'un Patricien de Venise.
Mr. Robertson's life of Fra Paolo Sarpi gave me the first hint of this great personality, but my own portrait has been carefully studied from the volumes of his collected works which later responded to my search; these were collected and preserved for the Venetian government under the title of Opere di Fra Paolo Sarpi, Servita, Teologo e Consultore della Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia and included his life, letters and opinions, and all others of his writings which escaped destruction in the fire of the Servite Convent, as well as many important extracts from the original manuscripts so destroyed and which had been transcribed by order of the Doge, Marco Foscarini, a few years before.
La-Paix, June , 1900.
Venice, with her life and glory but a memory, is still the citta nobilissima ,—a city of moods,—all beautiful to the beauty-lover, all mystic to the dreamer; between the wonderful blue of the water and the sky she floats like a mirage—visionary—unreal—and under the spell of her fascination we are not critics, but lovers. We see the pathos, not the scars of her desolation, and the splendor of her past is too much a part of her to be forgotten, though the gold is dim upon her palace-fronts, and the sheen of her precious marbles has lost its bloom, and the colors of the laughing Giorgione have faded like his smile.