S. Simeon Piccolo is a rotunda, with a portico attached to one side, and an opposite recess for the altar. The outside is not well proportioned, and the tall, tile-covered dome is very ugly. Internally, the distribution of the smaller parts is not well managed, but it shows something of the beautiful effect of so simple a plan.
Santa Maria del Rosario, called the Gesuati, boasts one of the handsomest fronts in Venice. The inside is not so good; the architect was Giorgio Massari. S. Barnaba is inferior on the outside, but better within. They are both imitations of Palladio. Santa Maria della Salute is a great octagonal church, or oratorio, erected on the cessation of the plague, in 1630, under the direction of Baldissera Longhena. The outside is overloaded in all parts with ornament, and this defect is not redeemed by any peculiar delicacy of sentiment in the distribution. Internally, the dome is supported on eight pillars, the aisle continues all round it, and there are eight recesses, seven of which are chapels, and the eighth forms the entrance. The disposition produces a degree of intricacy without confusion; that is, without rendering it at all difficult to understand the design, which is very favourable to the expression of richness and splendour, and presents some very picturesque, and even beautiful combinations; but the windows, disposed two on each side over the arches of the central octagon, have a bad effect, and it is at present much injured by the abominable whitewash, with which the Venetians daub almost all their churches. Luca Giordano has here exhibited some curious specimens of the versatility of his powers in imitating the styles of other artists.
The church of the Santissimo Salvadore was built at the expense of a merchant of the name of Jacopo Galli, who left by will sixty thousand ducats for this purpose. The architect is uncertain; the front is of two orders, or rather of one order surmounted by an attic of almost equal height, forming a square composition, with an unmeaning pediment over the centre. The columns are very wide apart, as there are only four in the range in the whole front; yet on the whole, the appearance is not bad, though one cannot call it good. The inside has a nave and side recesses, or as Moschini has it, a nave with three transepts, the farthest of which is longer than the others; each intersection is covered with a little dome, and each dome is crowned with a small lantern. The piers which separate these transepts are perforated in both directions with a small arch. The lights are kept high, and the general effect is very good. Where there is a range of lower arches opening into the nave, surmounted by a continued cornice, the simple vault forms by far the finest finish, out in a case like this, where the side arches are as high as the nave, the succession of domes is possibly superior, at least the upper and lower parts seem perfectly suited to each other.
The New Prison was built by Antonio da Ponte in 1589; it is a very handsome building, with rustic arches below, and above these a range of Doric columns on pedestals, and a large cornice with consoles in the frieze. These would be objectionable if the columns were on the ground, or perhaps if the height were divided by any strongly projecting cornice over the rustic arcades, but as it is, forming the only entablature to the whole height, it has a noble effect. The greatest fault of the building is, that it does not look at all like a prison.
In front of the arsenal are four marble lions. Under the two first are inscriptions, telling us they were brought as trophies of victory from the Piræus at Athens; under the third is merely ex Atticis, and the fourth has no inscription. The first is erect; the marble has reddish stains, and but few traces of mica. The second is I think the finest, though it is said, I know not why, to be modern; it is recumbent. The marble has no red stains, but the effect of the mica is very evident. They are both admirable works, and undoubtedly of Pentelic marble. The third appeared to me to represent a panther rather than a lion, the figure is lanky and not beautiful. The fourth is a little thing of not much value, I believe of marmo greco, that is, a large grained, saline marble, of a white not very pure, and marked more or less with grayish stripes.
The number of pictures here is immense, mostly of course of the Venetian school, but of these there are magnificent specimens. The names of Gian Bellino, the two Palmas, and three Bassans, are almost as well known as those of Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoret; but there are also very fine paintings by Andrea Vicentino, Sebastian Ricci, Bonifacio, Aliense, Mario Vecelli, &c.; and Luca Giordano has also left here a great number of his works. But the majority of these fine paintings are very badly lighted. In the churches there is usually a row of wax candles before them; and if on some feast day, when these are lighted, one of them should fall back, and burn a hole in the canvass, nobody seems to care much about it. Many of them are half hid by a statue of white marble, whose colour sadly deadens the tints of the painting; or what is worse, by the painted wax face, white veil, silver crown, and gaudy satin drapery of some wretched Madonna. Sometimes a crown and girdle of gold or silver are stuck on the painting itself, and when this represents, as is often the case, a Madonna in the clouds, they give her a silver moon to stand upon. All the pictures in the churches are wretchedly dirty, and it is provoking to see so little care taken of the finest of them. No English churchwarden can be fonder of whitewash, than those who have the care of the churches in Venice; and if they do not cover their Titians with it, they do almost as bad, in whitewashing all round them. Those returned from Paris are in a better condition. The French are accused of having restored, as well as cleaned; the accusation may be just in some degree, but not to the amount one is led to expect by the complaints made against them. And after all, when the question is between a very beautiful thing, but invisible, and another somewhat less beautiful, which may be seen, I confess that I prefer the latter. These paintings are now at the convent of the Carità, which is converted into an academy of the fine arts, but the building contains no large rooms in which they may be exhibited, and they are laid together in great confusion: a few indeed have been picked out and put in front, where they are tolerably well seen. The San Pietro Martyre was placed upon an easel, in an excellent light, and without any thing to disturb the view of it, so that I enjoyed it in all its perfection. Many of the larger paintings have not been unpacked, and as they cannot be exhibited till a room is erected for their reception, and there is now no Napoleon to order such an erection, and no rich merchant to supply the funds; it is not improbable that they may remain rolled up for these twenty years. I have already said that there is a fine collection of ancient marbles in the ducal palace. There are also one or two excellent private collections of the same sort, and some of the palaces are rich in pictures. One in particular, the Manfrin, has a glorious collection. Besides pictures, the Italians adorn their churches with painted images, to which I have occasionally alluded, and which are dressed out as finely as gold and satin can make them, and with as much taste as you would expect, when a monk undertakes to perform a lady’s toilet. An image of the Madonna in the Santi Apostoli, exhibited a gilt crown, a shawl of white silk was loosely thrown over the head and shoulders, and her gown was of yellow satin with blue stripes, and decorated with roses and other flowers intended to imitate Nature. The child had a gilt glory, and an apron like his mother’s gown. I have not selected this as a remarkable one, but merely in hopes to give you a more distinct idea of these figures by describing an individual.
The Venetians used to paint the outsides of their houses, and Paul Veronese and Tintoret were sometimes employed in this manner; but these paintings have all disappeared, except that here and there some scarcely distinguishable shades attest that such things were. The ceilings of the apartments are always decorated, and they are generally lighter than the walls. I do not mean to include such walls as are enriched with pictures, but those only with decorative painting. The pattern is usually of a darker colour than the ground, and often exhibits a great deal of taste. We sometimes see the joists exposed, either moulded or painted, and the little bits of ceiling between them painted; but never our plain one-coloured surface of plaster.
LETTER XX.
JOURNEY TO BOLOGNA.
Bologna, 13th December, 1816.
My Venetian life ended with the month of November; and on the thirtieth of that month, at eight o’clock in the evening, I got into the courier’s boat for Bologna. Our accommodation consisted of one room for all sorts of passengers, and their luggage, among which we found seats as well as we could. One of the company was a young Venetian widow, a marchesa, who being young and handsome, and left in good circumstances by her first husband, was doubting whether she should marry again, and expressed her doubts to the company. As she spoke in the Venetian dialect, I missed a good deal of her conversation. Another was captain of a trading vessel, who claimed me for a countryman, because he was a Maltese; but his Italian was still more difficult than that of the marchesa. About midnight a new arrangement of the packages was completed, and mats were spread, partly on them, and partly on the floor, and we all lay as we could. Before morning we stuck for three hours on a sand-bank, but in other respects had a most prosperous voyage. About six we stopt at a coffee-house, and most of my companions had some black coffee, i. e. coffee without milk, but as I wanted a little more sleep, I did not follow their example.