When you arrive before the Church of St. Mark's you realise that at last, after all your travels throughout the length and breadth of the globe, you have before you a building in which colour and design unite in forming perfection. Here stands without a shadow of doubt the finest building in the world, flawless. It is impossible to imagine that St. Mark's has been built stone by stone, that the brains of mere men have designed it, and that the hands of mere men have set it up. It must, you think, have been there from all time just as it is,—formed as the bubble is formed, and the opal. It is a revelation to look upon such perfect symmetry, such glorious colouring. Like an opal, St. Mark's shows no sign of age. It glitters like a new jewel, and might have been built but yesterday. Unlike most churches, it has no sombre, frowning air. Its spires do not launch themselves into the sky. It does not bristle with towers and arched buttresses. Rather the building seems to stoop and crouch. It is surmounted by domes, as is a Mohammedan mosque, and is a strange mixture of Oriental ornamentation and Christian symbolism. Horses take the place of angels; grace and splendour, the place of austerity and mystery. Who ever heard of gold, alabaster, amber, ivory, enamel, and mosaic being used in the construction of a Christian church? Who ever heard of dolphins, tridents, marine shells, trefoils, cupolas, marble plaques, backgrounds of vividly coloured mosaics and of gold? It is more like a fairy palace, or an Alcazar, or a mosque, than a Catholic church; more like an altar to Neptune than one to the Christian God.
PALAZZO DANIELI
The ultimate result of this apparent incoherence is a harmonious whole. Reverence and Christianity are here—an absolute and living faith. Even the most devout Catholic has no cause for complaint. With all its pagan art, St. Mark's preserves the character of primitive Christianity. The exterior is extremely complicated. There are many porticoes, each with columns of marble, jasper, and other precious materials; many mosaics on grounds of gold over each doorway; many historic stories and legends that these mosaics represent; many fantastic forms of angelic beasts, saints, Byzantine and Middle-Ages bas-reliefs, magnificent bronze doors, arcades, lamps, peacocks—so many that it is impossible to attempt to describe them in detail. Even to tell of the delicate structure and the subtle, ever-changing, iridescent colour is beyond me. It is almost bewildering when one thinks that at the time St. Mark's was built every house in every side street had much of the same extravagant richness, beauty of colouring, and superb architecture. As Mr. Ruskin says, it is absurd to imagine that churches were designed in a style particularly different from that of other buildings. There is nothing specially sacred in what we call ecclesiastical architecture. All the houses were built much in the same way. Only, while the houses have fallen into decay, the church has been preserved by a devoted populace. It is not often that one sees a coloured building, a building teeming with colour; but St. Mark's vibrates with colour. There are no blank spaces of grey stone. Every square inch is beautiful.
When one enters from the bright sun, St. Mark's appears dim and dark; but you must not judge by that. To appreciate its beauties, the student should visit the church day after day. Gradually they will unfold themselves. That is what constitutes one of the charms of St. Mark's. It is as though one were in a carved-out cave of gold and purple, on a voyage of discovery all by oneself. At first you can see nothing; but as your eyes become accustomed to the darkness, colours begin to grow upon you out of the gloom. Some minutes must elapse before you realise that the floor, which at first you took to be of a deep-toned grey stone, is a mosaic composed of thousands of differently coloured marbles—that you are walking on precious marbles of peacock hues. Golden gleams above your head attract you to the domed ceiling, and, to your delight and amazement, you discover that it is formed entirely of gold mosaic. You are passing a dim recess, and you see a blurred mass of rich colour; after a time you realise that you are looking at a famous masterpiece by one of the great Italian painters. You sit there as in a dream; and one by one the pictures and the mosaics, the Gothic images, the cupolas, the arches, the marbles, the alabaster, the porphyry, and the jasper appear to you—until what was darkness and gloom appears to be teeming and vibrating with colour.
FRANCESCA
St. Mark's carries one away from the everyday world. On the ignorant and the uninitiated it has a marvellous effect. Men and women and children flock to it by the thousands daily. Many and fervent are the worshippers one sees praying before some special saint or beloved Madonna. Some are weeping, and others kneel for hours on the cold stones. The unhappy people of Venice have many sins and sorrows, and there is much that is comforting to them in this rich, majestic church. The fainting spirit is revived and the most desperate person stimulated as he looks about him at the sparkling mosaic roof, the rich walls, and the dimly burning lamps. There is much in precious stones, music, sculptured figures, in pictures of heaven and hell, that appeals to these people. An infinite and pitiful God somewhere about them, these peasants of poor imaginations cannot understand. They want a faith that they can cling to—almost something that they can finger and touch. St. Mark's is to the poor of Venice like a beautifully illustrated Bible. There, in the cupolas, the story of the Old Testament is presented in mosaic, plainly for every eye to see, for the youngest and least educated to understand. It touches them, and appeals to them, and keeps their faith burning bright and clear. There they have the seven days of creation represented,—mysterious, weird, and primitive,—discs of gold and silver representing the sun and the moon. There are the Tree of Knowledge, the Temptation, the Fall, and the Expulsion from Paradise. Then comes the slaying of Abel by Cain, Adam and Eve tilling the ground. There is a strange mosaic of the Ark, with the animals going in two by two on a background of gold; there are the stories of Abraham, of Joseph, and of Moses, all quaintly executed, full of detail and without regard to anatomy. There is no struggle to imitate Nature, and the colouring is good.