THE BRIDGE OF THE RIALTO
For many years this was the only bridge across the Grand Canal, and it stands for much of the past glory of Venice. It is made of marble, and is over 150 feet long. It was built between the years 1588 and 1592, and is today, as it was in early times, a place of shops. Here Shylocks have bargained and Bassanios have met their friends these many years. More literally speaking, it was not the Bridge of the Rialto that Shylock refers to in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice,” but the district nearby.
It is difficult for anyone who has visited Venice to select single points for comment or description. The city appeals to him as a whole, and each object of beauty in it is a part of the wonderful whole. The essence of Venice is a dreamy, poetic charm,—a charm of light, color, and form, not of sound. Mrs. Oliphant writes:
“Venice has long borne in the imagination of the world a distinctive position, something of the character of a great enchantress, a magician of the seas.… She is all wonder, enchantment, the brightness and glory of a dream.”
THE GRAND CANAL
Looking across the canal we see here an example of the beautiful palaces which line this famous thoroughfare.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
| Studies in the History of Venice | H. R. F. Brown |
| Venice | H. R. F. Brown |
| Makers of Venice | Mrs. Oliphant |
| The Venetian Republic (two volumes) | W. C. Hazlitt |
| Venetian Life | W. D. Howells |
| St. Mark’s Rest | John Ruskin |
| The Stones of Venice | John Ruskin |
| Gondola Days | F. Hopkinson Smith |
| Literary Landmarks of Venice | Laurence Hutton |
| Pen Sketches | Finley Archer |
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
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ST. MARK’S CATHEDRAL, VENICE
VENICE
St. Mark’s Cathedral
ONE
The Church of St. Mark’s is unequaled in the whole world for richness of material and construction. It was originally the private chapel of the Doge or ruler of Venice. One reason for its being so richly adorned is that there was a law in Venice which required every merchant trading with the East to bring back some material for the decoration of the church. Thus it became the final resting place of the adornments from countless other buildings, both in the East and in Italy. The building has been compared to the treasure den of a band of pirates. It forms a museum of sculpture of the most varied kind, from the fourth century down to the latest Renaissance.
In 828 a little wooden church was built to receive the relics of the Apostle Mark. The Moslems had pulled down the church where he was buried in Alexandria; so his remains were brought to Venice, and Saint Mark became the patron saint of the city in place of Saint Theodore. In 976 this wooden church was burned, along with the ducal palace, in the insurrection against Doge Canadiano IV. The church was rebuilt on a larger scale by Pietro Orseolo and his successors. It was a very simple church, in the form of a Greek cross, built of brick in the Romanesque style. It was adorned with lines of colored brick, and brick set in patterns here and there. On it were five low cupolas. St. Mark’s grew in wealth as Venice became rich and important.
Doge Contarini remodeled the cathedral in 1063. Byzantine and Lombard workmen were employed, and the two styles of architecture were joined. The low brick cupolas were covered by high domes of wood roofed with metal. Parts of the walls were sheathed with slabs of alabaster. Incrusted marbles and mosaics were used further to decorate the outside. Then in the fifteenth century the Gothic pinnacles and other florid adornments of the exterior were added. The final result is the finest piece of many-colored architecture in Europe.
The Cathedral of St. Mark is in its present form a Greek cross, surmounted by a dome at each end and one in the center. The west front has five great porches opening upon the Piazza di San Marco. The church contains five hundred columns, mostly in oriental style, with richly ornamented capitals.
The top of the narthex (that part of the church nearest the main entrance) forms a wide gallery, in the center of which stand the four great bronze horses which are said to have belonged to some Greco-Roman triumphal quadriga, and to have been brought to Venice by Doge Enrico Dandolo after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. In 1797 Napoleon carried them to Paris; but they were restored by Francis of Austria in 1815.
The pala d’oro, or retable of the high altar, is one of the chief glories of St. Mark’s, and is one of the most magnificent specimens of goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ work in existence. The famous treasury of St. Mark’s contains a precious collection of church plate, jeweled book bindings, and other artistic treasures of the early Middle Ages.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
THE CAMPANILE AND DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE
VENICE
The Campanile and Doge’s Palace
TWO
On July 14, 1902, the Campanile or bell tower of St. Mark’s Cathedral fell to earth with a crash. Earthquakes and a rotting foundation at length worked its ruin. But its reconstruction was begun in 1905, and the new tower was completed in 1911, nine years after the fall. The Campanile stands, as is usually the case in Italy, detached from the church. The first bell tower on this site was built in 900. The one that fell in 1992 was probably erected in 1329.
The Campanile signified to the Venetians the greatness of Venice. It was used as a watch tower before the year 1000. Then in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it became a bell tower also. Its bells rang out at the first hint of danger to warn the citizens of the republic. During later times these bells announced the taking of Constantinople by Dandolo to a waiting and expectant crowd; the victory of Lepanto, which made Venice master of the East; the establishment of her fights of sovereignty against Rome. They clanged when Martin Paliero, the traitor Doge, was beheaded. They tolled a dirge when the peace of Campoformio ended the Venetian republic forever. When the lagoons were united to the Italian mainland they rang out in announcement.
When the Campanile fell the Venetians were shocked and broken-hearted. There was some question as to whether it could be reconstructed; but the Italians were determined that it should be. In its fall the bell tower inclined toward the north and open piazza. If it had fallen in any other direction, either the Library of Sansovino, or the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Cathedral, or the royal palace would have been destroyed. In fact, some of the debris fell very near St. Mark’s; but did not disfigure it in the least.
The old foundations of the Campanile were used as a nucleus for the new. The shaft outside is a perfect model of the old bell tower; but by modifying the inside the weight has been reduced 20,000 tons.
The nucleus of the first Venice, before it was made the seat of government of the republic, is said to have been the little district about the great bridge over the Grand Canal, which still retains the name Rialto. But as soon as the island group of Rivo Alto became the capital of the Venetian republic a palace for the Doge was erected near the open mouth, on the site that its successor still occupies. This earliest palace was probably built about the year 800. It was burned down in 976 and again in 1106. The present magnificent building was a slow growth over three centuries.
As a whole, the Doge’s Palace as it now stands may be regarded externally as the characteristic typical example of fully developed Venetian Gothic. It is built of brick, and is lined or incrusted with small lozenge-like slabs of variously colored marble.
The interior of the Doge’s Palace is of much later date than is the exterior. On the walls of the chief council chambers are oil paintings by many Venetians, among them Tintoretto’s masterpiece “Bacchus and Ariadne,” and the huge picture of Paradise, the largest oil painting in the world.
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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, VENICE
VENICE
The Bridge of Sighs
THREE
Everyone probably has heard of the Ponte de Sospiri or Bridge of Sighs. It is said that over this bridge walked political prisoners in the days of Venice’s greatness, and these men were never seen again. This bridge, however, is, as W. D. Howells says, “A pathetic swindle.” The Bridge of Sighs dates only from the sixteenth century, and since that time there has been only a single instance (Antonio Foscarini) of political imprisonment. The bridge led from the criminal courts in the palace to the criminal prisons on the other side of the Rio Canal.
The prisons really used for political offenders were the Pozzi, often wrongly described as being beneath the level of the canal. A thick wooden casing to the walls protected the inmates from damp, and the romantic accounts of the horrors of these prisons are probably all imaginary. The best known is that of Charles Dickens:
“I descended from the cheerful day into two ranges, one below another, of dismal, awful, horrible stone cells. They were quite dark. Each had a loophole in its massive wall, where, in the old time, every day a torch was placed, to light the prisoners within, for half an hour. The captives, by the glimmering of these brief rays, had cut and scratched inscriptions in the blackened vaults. I saw them; for their labor with the rusty nail’s point had outlived their agony and them through many generations. One cell I saw in which no man remained for more than twenty-four hours; being marked for dead before he entered it. Hard by, another, and a dismal one, whereto at midnight the confessor came,—a monk brown-robed and hooded,—ghastly in the day and free, bright air, but in the midnight of the murky prison Hope’s extinguisher and Murder’s herald. I had my foot upon the spot where at the same dread hour the shriven prisoner was strangled; and struck my hand upon the guilty door—low-browed and stealthy—through which the lumpish sack was carried out into a boat and rowed away, and drowned where it was death to cast a net.”
The Council of Ten which ruled Venice for many years had its place of assembly during the sixteenth century in one of the smaller apartments of the ducal palace on the second floor, a circular room with large windows, looking on the canal spanned by the Bridge of Sighs. This council had absolute power in administering justice and in governing the Venetian State.
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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE
VENICE
The Grand Canal
FOUR
The Grand Canal, or Canalazzo, the street of the nobles in Venice, is one of the deeper channels in the lagoon. It is the original Rivo Alto, or deep stream, that created Venice, and up which the commerce of all countries was able to reach the city in the days of her splendor. Let us step into a gondola, and, telling our gondolier to keep to the left side till we reach the railway station, ascend the canal. That long, low building flanking the exact end of the canal, looking seaward, is the Dogana di Mare. It was erected in 1676 by Benoni. There on the summit are two Atlases bearing a gilded globe. A bronze Fortuna surmounts this, serving as a weather vane. And over there stands the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. During the plague of 1630 the republic vowed to give a church to Our Lady of Deliverance if the pestilence was removed, and the building was begun in 1631.
Passing along the canal we now come to a large, new palace, the Palazza Genovese, erected in 1898, an imitation of the earlier Gothic buildings.
After this we float by many houses and palaces until we finally reach the mouth of the Rio San Barnaba, where we see the huge and lofty Rezzonico, which was formerly the home of the poet Robert Browning. We float on and on by many more palaces and canals until we reach the Rialto Bridge (Ponte di Rialto). We go under this strikingly picturesque bridge, past the fish market, and finally reach the Fondaco dei Turchi (Warehouse of the Turks). This is a large palace, and got its name in the seventeenth century, when it was let out to the Turkish merchants in Venice. It is representative of the Byzantine period.
Here we are at the railway station. Now we turn and go down the other bank. We pass the broad mouth of the Cannaregio, and come to the gigantic Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi. Wagner, the great composer, died here. At the entrance to the Rio della Maddalena the canal makes an angle, and after passing many buildings and the mouth of the Rio di Noale we come to the Ca’ d’Oro. This is a very ornate building. Its name, the House of Gold, came from the fact that it was once gilded. Then we go by many palaces, and come to the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Guild of the German Merchants in Venice. An earlier Teutonic guild hall existed here from the thirteenth century. Venice imported oriental goods and passed them on to Germany. All the quarter round the Rialto Bridge was the business district, the Wall Street of Venice.
We pass under the Ponte di Rialto again, and after a little while arrive at the Palazzo Loredan, the most beautiful house on the Grand Canal. It is a Byzantine-Romanesque Venetian palace, with a distinct oriental feeling. Finally we come to a dainty little house, which the gondolier tells us is Desdemona’s Palace. This palace is named the Contarini-Fasan.
The rest of the canal is mainly occupied by hotels. Beyond the Hotel de l’Europe we come to the gardens of the Royal Palace. Our trip ends at the Bridge of Sighs.
The palaces on the Grand Canal bear witness to the early peace and civilization of Venice. Her houses were built for beauty and pleasure, when the nations of the earth were still building castles for defense.
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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
THE RIALTO BRIDGE, VENICE
VENICE
The Rialto Bridge
FIVE
The Ponte di Rialto, or Rialto Bridge, gets its name from the part of Venice it is in. This locality was the ancient city of Venice, and derives its name, Rialto, from Rivo Alto, as the land on the left of the canal was called. Even after the city expanded it continued to be the center of commerce and trade, the business heart of Venice. In this quarter were the Fabriche, or warehouses and custom houses, and many of the handsomest buildings, such as the Fondaco dei Turchi (Warehouse of the Turks) and the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (Warehouse of the Germans). It is this part of the city that Shakespeare means, when Shylock says:
“Signor Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys.”
The first Bridge of Rialto was built by an engineer named Barattieri in 1180. Up to this time a bridge of boats had been used. Barattieri’s bridge may be seen in the great picture of Carpaccio in the Accademia. In the sixteenth century there was a great competition for the honor of designing the new bridge. Fra Giocondo, Sansovino, Palladio, Vignola, and even Michelangelo himself contended. Antonio da Ponte obtained the coveted prize, and he began the present Ponte di Rialto in 1588 under Doge Pasquale Cicogna. At its completion it was very much criticized. Soon, however, this criticism was silenced, and on the engravings of the time it is called “Il Famoso Ponte” (The Famous Bridge). The span of the Rialto Bridge is 91 feet; its height is 24½ feet; its width, 72 feet.
The Annunciation on the bridge is by Girolamo Campagna. The angel is at one end of the span, and the Madonna is at the other end. The dove, flying toward the Madonna, forms the keystone of the bridge.
Along the footway of the bridge is a long line of shops.
Close to the Rialto Bridge is the Church of St. Giacomo di Rialto. This church is said to date from the foundation of the town. It possesses no remains of its antiquity. The campanile of the Church of St. Giacomo is a fine example. Built almost altogether of brick, the long lines of its arcades give an effect of great height. The details are good. Their character is Gothic.
Facing the church a statue of a hunchback, “Il Gobbo di Rialto,” supports a pillar. From the back of this statue the laws of the republic were proclaimed, and this was the center of business life in Venice.
And as we gaze upon all these relics of the past we agree with Lawrence Hutton:
“So strange and so strong is the power of fiction over truth, in Venice, as everywhere else, that Portia and Emilia, Cassio, Antonio, and Iago appear to have been more real here than are the women and men in real life. We see, on the Rialto, Shylock first, and then its history and associations; and the Council Chamber of the Palace of the Doges is chiefly interesting as being the scene of Othello’s eloquent defense of himself.”
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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27
A TYPICAL VENETIAN CANAL, VENICE
VENICE
A Typical Venetian Canal
SIX
In Venice one takes a gondola as in America he takes a taxicab: with one difference,—after the gondola ride he still has some money left. A gondola is a long black skiff, with graceful lines and a swanlike prow sweeping up from the water. It is typically Venetian. It is admirably adapted to the work it has to do. There are only two points in all Venice where a gondola may not go even at low water,—one near the great theater of the Fenice, and the other near the Palazza Mocenigo at San Stae.
Two is the best number of passengers for a gondola. The rower is out of sight, behind. All is ideal. There is no noise, no dust, not even the feeling of motion, except the ripple of water past the bow.
The wood of which a gondola is built must be well seasoned and without knots. All gondolas turned out of one workshop are the same length. A new gondola is left unpainted for the first year. This is to prove its newness to any possible buyer. An unpainted gondola can easily be examined for knots. As soon as it is painted its value decreases.
The gondoliers become very attached to their own boats. They learn their peculiarities; for a gondola, like a person, has a character of its own.
Since the earliest days of Venice gondolas have been in use. Their present form has resulted from gradual development. The earliest authentic document relating to Venice mentions the light boats that were to the Venetians “as horses tied to the doors of their houses.” At first these boats were simple in construction; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the gondolas became very sumptuous. Finally, so luxurious did they become that they had to be regulated by law. Now they are longer and speedier, and are usually painted black.
There are about twenty ferries operating across the Grand Canal and the Giudecca. They resemble our cab service. The gondoliers also have guilds or unions. The police license the gondolas; but the real laws of the gondolier are those of his guild. Each guild has its own meeting place, where all questions of hours of work and choice of station are settled. If one member of the union becomes sick, he is cared for out of the public purse, and if he dies he is carried to the grave by his fellow members. These guilds are probably the last survivors of the old medieval crafts of Venice.
The skill of the average Venetian gondolier is marvelous. Rare indeed are collisions. These gondoliers are not the romantic heroes one may imagine them to be. They do not float in the moonlight singing serenades beneath their sweethearts’ windows. They are hardy fellows, thrifty, sober, and laborious, good husbands and fathers, matter-of-fact money makers.
One dollar and forty cents a day is the charge for a gondola and its gondolier in the season; at other times the price is forty cents less. A gondolier earns on an average sixty cents a day. This does not seem very much; but the gondoliers live fairly well, and even put money into the bank.
All the gondoliers of Venice are divided into two factions, the Nicolotti and the Castellani. The rivalry between these two is intense, and the question of supremacy was formerly settled by the knife. Nowadays, however, more peaceable but exciting races are the means. The Nicolotti wear a black sash and cap, and the Castellani wear red. There are four principal races a year. The first is rowed in May for a banner of red and gold; in August two pennons are rowed for, the white and gold, and the green; the blue banner is the prize in October.
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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 27, SERIAL No. 27