OUR TOUR IN NORTH ITALY.
By TWO LONDON BACHELORS.
ST. GIORGIO, MAGGIORE.
Our longing expectations were fulfilled, and we were vouchsafed a lovely evening for our entrance into Venice. By the time the train reached Mæstre all traces of the storm had disappeared, the sky was dark blue, and glittered with innumerable stars and a full moon—just such an ideal night as one would choose for getting one’s first impressions of the most poetical city in the world.
From Padua to Mæstre there is nothing remarkable; the same seemingly eternal plain has to be traversed; but as the train draws near to the last-named city one begins to realise that one is really approaching the Queen of the Adriatic.
At Mæstre we began to feel the sea breezes, and as the train rushed on to St. Giuliana we caught glimpses of the far-off lights of Venice reflected in the water. And now commences the vast bridge which takes the train over the lagune. This bridge is between three and four miles in length, and contains 222 arches.
Our excitement was great when we reached the lagune, and the train seemed actually rushing through the water.
At first the buildings of the distant city looked like huge black rocks, though the hundreds of lights reflected in the water told one of the approach to habitation. But as we drew near, the churches, towers, campanili, and palaces became almost distinguishable, telling out black against the starlit sky, and seemingly rising from the middle of the sea—an exquisitely poetical scene, with which no one could be disappointed.
Of course, we can understand that approaching Venice by day is quite another matter. Then the shallowness of the lagune (the water is sometimes not more than three feet deep) is realised; then all the ruin, shabby detail, bad restoration, and bizarre Gothic work of the city are seen at a glance. The beautiful moonlight night, however, told us of none of these defects, but emphasised the strange poetry of this singular city, with its wonderful history and associations, built in the middle of the sea.
The approach to Venice by gondola in former times must have been even more romantic, as the puffing and the screeching of a steam-engine brings one’s mind back to the nineteenth century. Though, at the same time, rushing across the lagune in a railway-train at night produces a somewhat remarkable sensation.
The train took about nine minutes to cross the bridge, and then glided quietly into the railway station at Venice. There were only about half a dozen passengers besides ourselves, and there was none of that noise and bustle which is usually so great a nuisance in terminal stations. On alighting from our railway carriage a porter, with true Italian politeness, asked us the name of our hotel, and, conducting us to the side of the canal, handed us over to a gondolier.
Everything helped to make the scene as poetical as possible. The night kept glorious, and there was not a sound to be heard. Our gondolier, a tall, dark man with a thick black beard, was a beau ideal of his class, and the hearse-like gondola being drawn up to the landing-stage, the bachelors determined to see a little of Venice by moonlight before going to their hotel.
THE BRONZE HORSES—ST. MARK’S.
In a few minutes we found ourselves in the Grand Canal—the great marble palaces rising on either bank, brilliantly illuminated here and there by the beams of a full moon, and the lights from the graceful Gothic windows reflected in the still water in long streams of light; the domes and campanili of the almost innumerable churches piercing the sky, and looking gigantic, from their details being shrouded in the deep shadows of night; while their outlines were made still more prominent and more distinctly defined by the clear, sharp moonlight.
One of these great campanili had an almost startling effect as the gondola passed it. It seemed to interpose itself between the moon and ourselves. We never saw any building which, for the moment, seemed so gigantic. On we went—past the opening of many a narrow canal, looking on one side into impenetrable gloom, and on the other into almost magical light. Here and there was some exquisitely traceried window, illuminated like burnished silver. The plash of the oar and the ripple of the water against the gondola added to the charm of the scene, and before long the strains of distant music enhanced the poetry of that most lovely night.
A huge arch soon came in sight, spanning the great canal. Need we say that this was the Rialto? The gondola shot beneath it, and wound its way along past a sharp curve in the canal through another bridge, and on our right the Church of the Salute came in sight, and we soon emerged on to the broad and lake-like water of the Giudecca. To our left was a garden, and a little behind it rose the group of domes and the lofty isolated campanili of St. Mark. We knew it was St. Mark’s, and were therefore not surprised at its exquisite beauty, though, owing to the intervening buildings, we could only see its domes and campanile. The Ducal Palace, strange to say, did not present so striking an appearance by moonlight, owing to its somewhat box-like outline. But still the deep gloom of its arcades somewhat repaid the mind for the disappointment experienced in its general aspect.
Of course, we looked out for the Bridge of Sighs, which was buried, as it should be, in profound gloom. It was appropriate that this tragic structure should be hidden in the deepest shadow of our first view of Venice, just as we recollect the dome of the Salute forming its greatest light. On the one side was typified human suffering, human woe, tyranny, cruelty, and oppression, and on the other the salvation which came to us through the Healer, whose purity is rightly symbolled in the clear white dome of the church.
These two buildings, so typical of human life, are rightly placed. The one at the junction of the two great canals, where they expand almost into a lake, lifts its marble dome, soaring up to the skies, and everyone asks as they come in sight of it, “What is that?” The answer is, “That is the Salute” (Salvation). Happy omen for a city where such a sign is always visible amidst the surrounding gloom! The other building, half concealed, and skulking away over a gloomy canal, like secret sin deep buried in the human heart. We know it is there, and that its loathsome presence will be found when sought for, and though the gloom of night may for a time conceal it, yet with the daylight it will be visible, carrying with it condemnation.
More mundane thoughts, however, filled our minds, and we began to realise the fact that in ordering our gondolier to take us a “bit of a round of Venice” before landing us at our hotel, we were running serious risk of going to bed supperless, if not of being shut out altogether. So we directed him to retrace—we can’t say his steps, but let us say his course—and, after passing down one or two narrow canals, we found ourselves at the steps of our hotel.
It was not, however, without a sigh and a kind of feeling almost approaching to dread that we left the bright moonlight of the Grand Canal to penetrate the dark, silent, and gloomy little streams that run between the high walls of the houses. Gloomy they are at all times, these narrow quayless canals, but how infinitely more so in the night, and how their lugubrious aspect impresses itself upon one after emerging from the beautiful scenes which we have just attempted to describe.
The first thing we did on arriving at our hotel was to see whether any of our friends had written to us, and we were pleased to find quite a goodly pile of letters awaiting us. How pleasant it is to hear from our friends when abroad, and how doubly dear those friends seem to us when hundreds of miles separate us from them.
A rather doubtful compliment this. But is it not always true that “distance lends enchantment?” When absent from those we like, we are inclined to think over their good qualities and those characteristics that we admire, and to forget all those differences of opinion and little waywardnesses that are so irritating to us when we are with them. Of course, it is different with those we really love; even then, however, absence intensifies the affection, but from a different reason, arising from an almost nervous anxiety for their health, happiness, and prosperity.
After reading our letters, we began to discuss our first sight of Venice, and we both agreed that, up to the present, our fondest expectations had been more than realised. Little did we think that the morrow would bring its disappointments—that in the short space of twenty-four hours we should underrate Venice, as much as we now exaggerated its beauties—and that we should not gain a correct and “lasting” impression of its peculiar and unique character, until many days had passed away. In fact, one does not entirely form one’s impression of Venice until it has been left, thought over, and compared with other places.
From the city itself we called to our memory the wonderful history of Venice, at one time the first maritime power in Europe, and so like our own country in many ways.
Our girls may remember the importance of Milan and Verona during the periods that the Viscontis and Sforzas ruled the former city, and the Scaligers the latter. The history of these two cities, however, is simply insignificant when compared with that of the great republic of the Doges.
Venice is said to have been founded about the year A.D. 450, by the inhabitants of Aquileia, Padua, Altinum, &c., who were driven out of their cities, and their homes utterly destroyed by the cruel Attila, who was at this time overrunning Italy. The persecuted inhabitants flying before the barbarians, as a last resource crossed the lagune and built a town on the islets which had formed in the Adriatic.
Goethe says, “It was no idle fancy their colonists fled to these islands; it was no mere whim which impelled those who followed to combine with them; necessity taught them to look for security in a highly disadvantageous situation, which afterwards became most advantageous, enduing them with talent, when the whole of the Northern world was immersed in gloom. Their increase and their wealth were the necessary consequence. New dwellings arose close against dwellings, rocks took the place of sand and marsh, houses sought the sky, being forced, like trees enclosed in a narrow compass, to seek in height what was denied to them in breadth. Being niggard of every inch of ground, as having been from the outset compressed into a narrow compass, they allowed no more room for the streets than was absolutely necessary for separating one row of houses from another, and affording a narrow way for passengers. Moreover, water was at once street, square, and promenade. The Venetian was forced to become a new creature, and Venice can only be compared with itself.”
The colonists, under the protection of the Byzantine Empire, must have grown in importance and prosperity, though their early history is very obscure, and it was not until the commencement of the ninth century that Venice became a really important city.
The exact date of the election of the first Dux or Doge (Paulucius Anafestus) is not known, but it must have been either at the end of the sixth or the commencement of the seventh century. The year A.D. 809 was important for Venice, as the colonists in that year defended themselves against Pepin, the son of Charlemagne, and throwing over all foreign influence, they commenced their career of independence.
The next important event was the bringing of the body of St. Mark to Venice in A.D. 828. The evangelist was thenceforth made the patron saint of the city, and his emblem, the lion, became the arms of the republic. The Venetians had not as yet made foreign conquests, but the great Doge, Enrico Dandolo, who went to the Fourth Crusade, conquered Constantinople in 1204, and commenced the grand era of Venice. The breaking up of the Byzantine Empire was a great opportunity for Venice, the republic gaining possession of several islands in the Greek Archipelago, together with numerous cities on the Adriatic.
As can well be imagined, the growing power of the republic was watched with jealous eyes by the other Italian States, especially by Genoa, at this time very powerful. The rivalry between the last-named city and Venice caused innumerable wars and misery to both combatants. At first Genoa was successful, but the Doge Andrea Dandolo completely defeated the Genoese in 1352, an event which made Venice the most powerful city in Northern Italy.
The successor to Doge Andrea Dandolo, Marino Falieri, by secret means endeavoured to upset the government of Venice and make himself king. His plot was discovered, however, and he was beheaded on the Giants’ Stairs in the Palace of the Doges.
The Genoese were at war again with the republic in 1379; but a lasting peace was concluded in 1381. From this year until about 1450 Venice carried everything before it; Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and numerous other North Italian cities, were added to the republic, and by the year 1420 the whole of the east coast of Italy surrendered to the power of Venice. But perhaps the grandest victories were those gained over the Turks, as in these wars Venice undoubtedly saved Italy the calamity of a Mohammedan invasion.
It was during the years 1370 and 1450 that Venice was building up her commercial prosperity, which at the latter date had made her the greatest maritime and commercial city in the world.
But as in individuals, so in countries. We go on increasing in health and strength up to a certain age, after which comes the inevitable decline. “First from age to age we ripe and ripe, and then from age to age we rot and rot.” The decline of Venice is soon told. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, and the discovery of the new Indian sea-routes were terrible blows to the republic, from which, indeed, it never recovered. The Turks, with whom the Venetians were always at war, proved in the end victorious, and took possession of the eastern colonies of the republic.
And then came the great shame of Venice’s history—the alliance with the Turk against the Christian powers, the sacrifice of Rhodes, and the selfish abandonment of that great Christian hero, Lisle Adam; while, as a modern writer says, “the Venetians and other merchants were trafficking their goods and their souls at the same time with the enemies of the Church, and dishonouring their Christian calling.” A sad Nemesis was, however, in store for Venice, and, notwithstanding her crimes, we cannot read unmoved of the last Doge embracing the banner of St. Mark and then flinging it into a grave over which a solemn funeral ceremony was performed. Napoleon, who regarded neither art, poetry, nor history, when they stood in the way of his ambition, was approaching Venice. Resistance was impossible, and the banner which had led the Venetians to so many victories must not fall into the hands of the invader, so, with tears and sighs, it was reverently placed in the grave.
(To be continued.)