At Padua, Donatello's equestrian monument of Gattamelata, erected in 1453, and the sepulchral church of St. Anthony of Padua received special care; likewise the Gate of the Scaligeri, Verona; the early Renaissance Colleoni Chapel and some precious frescoes at Bergamo; Leonardo da Vinci's immortal canvas, "The Last Supper," in the refectory of the abbey-church of Santa Maria della Grazie at Milan; the Fountain of Neptune and the Church of San Petronio at Bologna; the early Christian edifice of San Vitale, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (a queen of the fifth century) and the Tomb of Dante, in the deserted old city of Ravenna; and at Cremona, in the Church of Sant' Agostino, the famously beautiful altar-piece of the Madonna and Two Saints, by Perugino. The most renowned works of art in Rome, including the statue of Caesar in the Capitoline Museum, were padded and boarded up, and from Firenze and Naples rare examples of Italian craftsmanship, guarded through the centuries—manuscripts, statuary, paintings, tapestries, metalware, mosaics, glass—were carried away to safety, some of them to the vaults of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Titian's masterpiece, the "Assumption of the Virgin," was laboriously removed from the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice and transported by boat and wagon to a place of security against attack by the Vandals. Tintoretto's "Paradise," the largest oil painting in the world (72 feet by 23 feet) was unframed and removed from the wall of the Hall of the Great Council in the Palace of the Doges. Ceiling paintings were taken down, rolled around great sticks thirty inches in diameter, hermetically sealed in copper cylinders, and stored in crypts to rest until the joyous day of their unrolling. Altogether, seven thousand square yards of canvas were thus protected from attack and pillage. Statues were wrapped in mattresses and covered by brick flooring; the beloved horses above the doorway of St. Mark's were lowered and taken away. Domes were roofed at an angle of sixty degrees, so that aerial bombs would glance harmlessly off. In the defence of Venetian art treasures alone, sixty men worked for three months to wall in everything delicate and beautiful.
"Even Rheims and Louvain could not offer such tempting morsels to the vandal wrecker as Venice and Rome," writes Herbert Vivian in "Italy at War." "Venice, mistress of medieval art as well as queen of the sea, girded her armor on,—like the army, donned a vesture of gray-green. Just as in Holy Week the more signal emblems veil themselves in respectful mourning for the Passion, so, in war time, the monuments of Venice hide in their hoods, as though to proclaim sympathy with the nation's anxiety. At St. Mark's ... the venerated mosaics on the lunettes are blotted out by modern masonry, the golden cupolas are shapeless bags, the pillars and arches have become a brick fortress that goes on to engulf all that fairy portico of the Doges' Palace hard by. Where are the four famous horses of golden bronze, brought from Constantinople to defy the world through seven centuries from the portals of St. Marks? It was a sad scene when on May 27, 1915, a silent crowd watched their descent for conveyance to a safer stable. In the interior of the holy house heaps and heaps of heavy sandbags huddle against the porphyries and malachites and alabasters, throttle the carved columns, scale walls, bury pulpit, choir, altars and baptistery. Such are the bulwarks which Italian foresight provided against probable forays of the Hun."
PHOTOGRAPH BY CENTRAL NEWS PHOTO SERVICE
CHURCH OF ST MARK'S, VENICE. BOARDED UP FOR PROTECTION
ITALY UNDER WAR CONDITIONS
Venice in War Time
FIVE
IN time of peace all the world flocked to Venice. In war time many changes were necessary. Many of the people who make up the inhabitants of the earth were barred from the city, not only by regulations, but by cannon and walls of steel. It required influence even for an Italian to get into Venice. For an American to enter the city, it was necessary to get special permission from the Minister of Marine, and he had to present the best of reasons before that permission was granted.
Several times the city was menaced by the Austrians and once it was near capture. Time and again, fleets of airplanes dropped bombs, destroying churches, hospitals and other property, as well as killing non-combatants.