LETTER XXIV.
As I approached Venice, I was much delighted with its appearance. Its stately steeples and noble buildings seemed as if just emerging from the sea, and floating on the surface of it; and it required no great stretch of fancy to imagine, that it undulated with the agitated waves of its parent the Adriatic. On all the surrounding coasts, nature and art seemed to have vied with each other in pouring the greatest profusion of their gifts, while thousands of masts, scattered like forests over the surrounding bays, denoted that Venice; not content with her own, shared in the wealth and luxuries of other climes.
It is indeed difficult to conceive a more extraordinary and pleasing appearance than this city makes at a distance, whether you approach it from the sea or from the continent. Built not like towns in Holland, where immense moles and walls push the sea forward, and encroach on his dominion, it stands on piles erected in the sea; and the foundations of the houses almost touching the water, gives it the appearance of floating on its surface. The steeples are seen at sea at the distance of thirty miles; and the appearance[appearance] becomes more beautiful the nearer it is approached——presenting in many views the prospect of floating islands.
To erect a city thus upon the water, while so many thousands of acres stand unoccupied, at first sight seems extraordinary——but all those great and strange deviations from the ordinary path presented by Nature, have their source in necessity; and it is not till long after the necessity has been first lamented, and afterwards obviated, that experience comes into aid, and demonstrates, that, from her, security and utility have often arisen. Thus it is with Venice, who, fortified by her local situation (the effort of necessity), sits secure, and bids defiance to the world.
The place where Venice now stands, is supposed to have been formerly a marshy ground, on which the Adriatic Sea had gradually encroached, leaving the more elevated parts of it above water, and thereby forming a vast number of little islands, hence called Lagunes: on those the fishermen of the neighbouring shores built their huts; and when Italy was invaded by the Goths under Alaric, and afterwards by that barbarous race, the Huns, under Attila, both of whom spread ruin and desolation wherever they came, vast numbers of people from the circumjacent shores of the Adriatic, particularly from Padua and Aquileia, fled hither, and brought along with them immense wealth. Here they laid the first foundations on seventy-two distinct little islands, and certainly with huts, of a city which afterwards stood almost foremost in the naval and commercial world: as those islands were built upon, and became over-peopled, they gradually pushed forward their piles, and built upon them again, till the whole became one vast city, extending to many more of those islands beyond the original seventy-two.
As it was indebted, in a great measure, for its rise and importance to the commerce of the East, which then was carried on by way of the Red Sea and Alexandria, when the passage by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, that trade declined, and Venice declined gradually along with it.
It is amazing, what an extent of territory and accumulation of power the Venetians once possessed. Besides their present possessions, which comprehend the territories of Padua and Verona, the Vincentine, the Brescians, the Bergamases, the Cremasco, the Polesin of Rovigo, Marca Trevigiana, the Patria del Friuli, and Istria, they had under their dominion the islands of Rhodes, Scio, Samos, Mytilene, Andros, Candia, the Morea, and the cities of Gallipoli and Thessalonica: besides which, they, in conjunction with France, took Constantinople, and remained for some time masters of that part of the Empire; and disputed the dominion of Sclavonia, Croatia, Morlachia and Dalmatia, with the Kings of Hungary, and contended with the Genoese for the empire of the sea: but of a great part of these, and their other conquests, they have since been stripped, almost entirely, by the Turks.
As to the government of Venice, I shall not enter into any particulars of its history——It is called a Republic, and was once a Democracy. The name remains, while that which gave it is gone. It is, certainly, now a downright Aristocracy——the privilege of sitting in the great Council being confined to the Nobility; and the Doge, under the name of Head, being no more than a gaudy slave, loaded with fetters: yet, such is the idle fondness of Man for superficial pomp, that this office is sought after with avidity; for though his power be small, his state is very splendid. Hence it is said, that the Doge of Venice is a king in his robes, a senator in council, a prisoner in the city, and a private man out of it; and what is more extraordinary, is, that though he may be deposed, he cannot resign——nor even decline the office, if he be once chosen, without exposing himself to banishment, and his effects to confiscation.
The established religion of this State is the Roman Catholic; but the Venetians are not bigots, and reject the supremacy of the Pope. Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Protestants, are allowed the exercise of their religion there; and, provided they do not intermeddle with state affairs, of which they are extremely jealous, even their Priests, Monks and Nuns, may take almost any liberties they please——a privilege that you may be assured is not neglected by any of them.