From the Oak to the Olive: A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey

by Julia Ward Howe

Little of either had I after a night in the cars between Florence and Venice,—hot, dusty Florence, and cool, glassy Venice,—a night of starts and stops, morsels of sleep set in large frames of uneasy waking. The steep ascent of the Apennines is only partially descried through the darkness. It begins at Pistoia, and when it ends, Pistoia lies vertically under you, at the bottom of what seems in the darkness an abyss, in which its lights shine brightly. Tunnels there are in plenty on this road, and one of these threatens us with suffocation. For the engine was unduly replenished with coal at Pistoia in view of the hard task before it, and the undigested food vented itself in unwholesome gases, which the constraints of the tunnel drove in upon us, filling the lungs with mephitic stuff which caused them to ache for more than an hour afterwards. This part of the journey was made pleasant to us by the presence of a Venetian lady, handsome, intelligent, and cordial. At Bologna we lost her, making also a long stop. The hour was three in the morning; the place, a bare railroad depot. The hour passed there would not have been patiently endured by an American public. But Italians endure every possible inconvenience from the railway management, which is clearly conducted on pessimistic principles. On reaching the cars again, another pleasant companion shortened the time with easy conversation. Not but that we dozed a little after the weary night; and the priest in the opposite compartment fell asleep over his morning prayers. But my new companion and I made our way through a shoal of general remarks to the terra firma of a mutual acquaintance, in whose praises both of us grew warm. And at length we began to see marshes, and waters, and a fortress. "That is Venice," said the captain; and I replied with sincere surprise, "Is it possible?" For Venice, as approached by the railroad, makes no impression, presents no coup d'œil. And this marks a precaution for which the devisers of railroads in this country may deserve praise. Being pure men of business, and not sentimentalists, they do not wish to find themselves mixed up with any emotions consequent upon the encounter of the sublime and beautiful. They cannot become responsible for any enthusiasm. And so, in their entrances and exits, they sedulously avoid the picturesque, and lead the traveller into no temptation towards stopping and lingering by the way. Of two possible routes, they, on principle, choose the more prosaic; so that the railroad traveller nowhere gets less beauty for his money than in this same Italy, the flower-garden of the world.

The arrival even in Venice becomes, therefore, vulgar and commonplace in their management. And soon one gets one's luggage out of the clutches of guardians and porters, and cheaply, in an omnibus gondola, one swashes through a great deal of middling water, landing finally at Hotel Barbesi, where breakfast and the appliances of repose are obtained.

We did not prudently devote this first day to sleep, as we ought to have done. The energy of travel was still in us, and we aroused ourselves, and went forth. The valet de place, with high cheek-bones, a fresh color, and vivacious eyes, led us on foot to the Place and Cathedral of St. Mark, the Ducal Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, and prisons of the condemned. We visited the great council-halls, superb with fretted gilding, and endless paintings by Tintoretto and Bellini. We saw the Lion's Mouth, into which anonymous accusations were dropped; the room of the Ten; the staircase all in white and gold, sacred to the feet of Doge and Dogaressa alone. As magnificent as is the palace, so miserable are the prisons, destitute of light, and almost of air—a series of small, close parallelograms, with a small hole for a window, opening only into a dark corridor, containing each a stony elevation, on which, perhaps, a pallet of straw was placed. Heaven forbid that the blackest criminal of our day should confront the justice of God with so poor a report to make of the mercy of man! In the dreaminess of our fatigue, we next visited a bead factory, and inspected some of its delicate operations. And then came the table d'hôte, and with it a little whiff of toilet and hotel breeding, sufficiently irksome and distasteful. In the evening there was to be a Fresco, or procession of gondolas on the great canal, with lanterns and music, in honor of Prince Plomplon, who was at Danieli's hotel. Uncertain whether to engage a gondola or not, I sat in the garden balcony of Barbesi's, immediately over the canal. I saw the gondolas of high society flit by, gay with flags and colored lanterns, the gondoliers in full livery. Their attitude in rowing is singular. They stand slanting forward, so that one almost expects to see them fall on their faces. In the gondola, however, one becomes aware of the skill and nicety with which they impel and guide their weird-looking vehicles.

The Fresco was to be at nine o'clock; but by an hour earlier the gondolas were frequent. And soon a bark, with lanterns and a placard announcing an association of artists, stopped beneath our balcony, while its occupants, with vigorous lungs, shouted a chorus or two in the Venetian dialect. The effect was good; but when one of the singers asked for a "piccola bottiglia" and proceeded, hat in hand, to collect from each of us a small contribution, we felt that such an act was rather compromising for the artists. In truth, these men were artisans, not artists; but the Italian language has but one word for the two meanings, contriving to distinguish them in other ways.

The stream of gondolas continued to thicken on the canal, and at nine o'clock, or thereabouts, a floating theatre made its appearance—a large platform, brilliantly lighted, and bearing upon it a numerous orchestra and chorus. The chef d'orchestre was clearly visible as he passed, energetically dividing the melody and uniting the performers. This lovely music floated up and down the quiet waters, many lesser lights clustering around the greater ones. Comparison seems to be the great trick of descriptive writing; but I, for my part, cannot tell what the Fresco was like. It was like nothing that I have ever seen.

And I saw it in the intervals of a leaden stupor; for, after the sleepless night and active day, the quiet of Barbesi's balcony was too much for me. Fain would I have hired a gondola, have gone forth to follow the musical crusade, albeit that to homage a Napoleon be small business for an American. But by a new sort of centaurship, my chair and I were that evening one, and the idea of dividing the two presented itself only in the light of an impossibility. Roused by the exclamations of those about me, I awoke from time to time, and mechanically took note of what I have here described, returning to sleep again, until a final wrench, like the partition of soul and body, sent me with its impetus to the end of all days—bed.

The fatigue of this day made itself severely felt in the waking of the next morning. Shaking off a deadly stupor and dizziness, I arose and armed for the day's warfare. My first victim was the American consul, who, at the sight of a formidable letter of introduction, surrendered at discretion. Annexing the consul, I bore him in triumph to my gondola, but not until I had induced him to find me a lodging, which he did speedily; for of Barbesi and many francs per diem I had already enough, and preferred charities nearer home to that of enriching him. I do, moreover, detest hotel life, and the black-coated varlets that settle, like so many flies, upon your smallest movement. I have more than once intrenched myself in my room, determining to starve there rather than summon in the imps of the bell. With the consul's aid, which was, I must say, freely given, I secured to myself the disposal of a snug bedroom and parlor, with a balcony leading into a music-haunted garden, full of shiny foliage, mostly lemon and myrtle trees, having also a convenient access to the grand canal. After this, we proceeded to the Church of the Frari, rich with the two monuments of Titian and Canova. Both are architectural as well as sculptural. That of Canova is a repetition of his own model, executed in the well-known Vienna monument, with the addition, I thought, of a winged lion and one or two figures not included in the other. The monument of Titian stands opposite to that already described. The upper portion of it presents a handsome façade enclosed in three arches, each of which contains a bas-relief of one of his great pictures. The middle one presents the Assumption, in sculpture; that on the right the Entombment of Christ; that on the left the St. Peter Martyr—the picture itself being in the sacristy of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The Frari also contains a curious and elaborate monument to a doge whose name I forget. Above sits the doge in his ducal chair; below, four black slaves clad in white marble, their black knees showing through their white trousers, support the upper part of the monument upon their heads. Two bronze Deaths, between the doge and the slaves, bear each a scroll in white marble, with long inscriptions, which we did not read. The choir was adorned with the usual row of seats, richly carved in black walnut. From this rich and interesting temple we passed to the Academia delle belle Arti.

This institution contains many precious and beautiful works of art. The Venetian school is, however, to the Florentine much as Rossini's Barbière to Dante's Divina Commedia. Here all is color, vitality, energy. The superabundance of life and of temperament does not allow the severer deliberations of thoughtful art. The finest picture of this school, the Assumption of Titian, is the intense embodiment of the present, an ideal moment that presupposes no antecedent and no successor. It is as startling as a sudden vision. But it is a vision of life, not of paradise. The Madonna is a grand, simple, human woman, whose attitude is more rapt than her expression. She stands in the middle of the picture, upon a mass of clouds, which two pendent cherubs deliciously loop up. Above, the Eternal Father, wonderfully foreshortened, looks down upon her. Beneath, the apostles are gazing at the astonishing revelation. All is in the strongest drawing, the most vigorous coloring. Yet the pale-eyed Raphaels have more of the inward heaven in them. For this is a dream of sunset, not of transfiguration. So great a work of art is, however, a boon beyond absolute criticism. Like a precious personality, its value settles the account of its being, however widely it may depart from the standard recognized in other things.

In the same hall is the last work of Titian, a Pieta, or figure of the dead Christ upon his mother's knees. This picture is so badly placed that its effects can only be inferred, absolute glare and darkness putting out its light and shade. Far from the joyous allegro of Titian's characteristic style, the coloring presents a greenish pallor, rather negative and monotonous. The composition of the picture is artistic, tonic, and harmonious; its expression high and pathetic. The ebbing tide of the great master's vitality left this pearl on the shore of time.

The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, by Titian, is another of the famous pictures in this collection. The Virgin is represented as a maiden of ten years, ascending the steps of the temple at Jerusalem. The figure and the steps are both of them seen in profile. Her pale-blue dress is relieved by an oblong glory which surrounds her from head to foot. More famous is a large Paul Veronese, representing Christ at supper in the house of the Pharisee. The richness of the Venetian costumes, the vigor and vitality of the figures, give this picture its great charm. It is no nearer to Christ and Jerusalem "than I to Hercules." A large painting by a French artist, in this hall, replaces the great Paul Veronese taken to Paris by Napoleon I.,—the Cena,—and, to my mind, replaces it very poorly. The huge paintings of Tintoretto are among the things that amaze one in Venice. How one hand, guided by one brain, could, in any average human life, have covered such enormous spaces of canvas, is a problem and a puzzle. The paintings themselves are full of vigor, color, and variety. But one naturally values them less on account of their great number. Of course, in the style of Raphael or Perugino, a single life could not have produced half of them. The Venetian school is sketchy, and its figures often have more toilet than anatomy.