Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. I

by F. Marion Crawford

When they came near home, sailing with a fair wind and the blessing of heaven and Saint Mark, they sent

About 828 A.D. Translation of the body of St. Mark, mosaic of the XIIIth century on the façade of the Basilica.

a light boat into the lagoons to inform the Doge that they were bringing the Evangelist’s body; for they were sure that he and their fellow-citizens would gladly forgive them for having disobeyed the imperial decree. Then all the people gathered on the shore as the ship came in; and the noblest of Venice took the priceless burden upon their shoulders and bore it to the private chapel of the ducal palace, where it was to remain in state until a church could be built for it; and a great cry of ‘Viva San Marco’ rang from street to street, and from island to island, even up to Grado and down to Malamocco, and it was ever afterwards the war-cry of Venice. Thus was Saint Mark proclaimed protector of the Republic, and the words which he himself had heard became the nation’s motto; and Saint Theodore took the second rank, though he had been patron of the lagoons ever since the days of Narses and Justinian.

It was clear to those simple believers that Saint Mark had not come among them against his will. Had he been displeased with the change from Alexandria to Venice a storm would surely have arisen in the night, and the holy relics would have disappeared in thunder, lightning, and rain, to return to their former resting-place or to be miraculously transported to another; for such was the pleasure of the saints in the dark ages. But Saint Mark remained where he was, pleased, no doubt, with the homage of that glad young people, and rejoicing already in the glories they should attain under his patronage; and from this complaisance the Venetians naturally concluded that a divine blessing had descended upon them, and they became once more a single family, bonded as brothers to stand and win together.

But before pursuing the great story of what came afterwards, let us stand a while on the threshold of the tenth century and look at Venice as she was a few years after Saint Mark had taken her under his special protection.

In the first place, the alternate currents caused by the tide and the rivers were not yet completely controlled by stone-faced canals, and in many places the soil still consisted of long stretches of unstable mud, upon which the tide threw up masses of seaweed that lay rotting in the sun. The only means of obtaining a firm foundation for a stone building on such ground lay in laboriously driving piles, side by side, and so close that each one touched the next, and the whole formed a solid surface. It was a slow method, it was costly and required considerable skill; but the result was good, and has stood the test of a thousand years, for there are buildings standing to-day on piles driven in the year 900.

It follows that in the tenth century the majority of dwelling-houses were still only light constructions of wood, which could stand upon the mud without danger of sinking. There were many stone buildings already, however, but like their humbler neighbours they mostly had only one story above the ground floor, with small windows on the outside, and larger ones on the inner court, and all alike were roofed with thatch. It is hard to imagine Venice a thatched city, of all cities in the world; yet the reason of the peculiarity is plain enough. Neither brick nor tiles could be made from the soft mud of the lagoons, a wooden house cannot have a flat roof, and the construction of a vaulted roof upon a stone house requires a greater skill in building than the Venetians then possessed.

Sagredo.

In building ordinary dwellings, Sagredo tells us that the usual method was to lay down a floor of heavy planks, upon which a thick layer of mortar and small pebbles was spread out and beaten down to a hard surface; upon this again a second layer of cement mixed with pounded bricks was spread, and this was beaten with heavy wooden beaters till it was perfectly hard and even. Precisely the same method is employed to-day in southern Italy; and it was from this beginning that the so-called ‘Venetian pavement’ soon developed. For rich people caused small pieces of coloured marbles, and even of mother-of-pearl, to be set into the cement of the second layer, which was then no longer beaten, but rolled with a ponderous stone roller and then rubbed down with a smooth stone and sand and water, and at last polished to a brilliant surface. To this day the ‘Venetian pavement’ is made in this way in all parts of the world. The Venetians had probably inherited the art directly from the Romans, together with some knowledge of mosaic, which it roughly resembles. The polished floor of the main room was an especial object of pride in the eyes of good housekeepers.

The Venetian houses resembled those of the Romans in many respects. A covered portico, surrounding a closed court, gave access to the ‘hall of the fireplace,’ as the principal place of gathering for the family was named, and to the kitchens and offices. The upper story consisted entirely of bedrooms, and had a wide balcony called the ‘liago’—a word corrupted from the Greek heliacon, ‘a place of sunshine.’ Here in warm weather the family spent the evening. Higher still, a rustic wooden platform was built over a part of the gabled and thatched roof, and was called the ‘altana.’ It was here that the linen was dried after washing, and later, in Titian’s day, it was here that the Venetian ladies exposed their hair to the sun after moistening it with the fashionable dye.