We pause before the Palazzo Pesaro, before La Ça Doro, Il Palazzo Guistiniani, Il Palazzo Foscari. We think we should like to live in them all, and we think what a great lord it would take to live in any one of them.
A tremendous organization is that of Venice still. The fine arsenal that stands boldly out, as one looks down the canal, might say aut pax, aut bellum! The Gallery, a convent turned into a palace of art. It supplied me with an answer once, when I was shown a property in Titians by a friend in London. He confidently inquired of me if I did not think they were genuine works. My answer was, “Go to Venice, look at the Titians there, and on your return ask me the question again.”
Then the churches; they are of course noble, but I cannot love anything that is angular, which to me—but I am only one!—is the fault of ecclesiastical architecture in Italy. I could say much of angularity: all that ranks beneath the human form is angular. As a type, study the features of a cat! Its ears are angular, its eyes are angularly set, its nose, its mouth all form angles. I love the dome,—my own St. Paul’s, St. Peter’s at Rome, S. Maria del Fiore at Florence, the Basilica di San Marco, and the S. Maria della Salute at Venice—all noble churches; and yet the wonderful St. Mark’s is provokingly like the Pavilion at Brighton, only it is not Chinese but Byzantine.
The Doge’s palace, empty but full of reminiscences! Art there takes the place of old Reality: it laughs at the security of living queens and kings. St. Mark’s Square is like another and more charming Palais Royal; its arched windows soothe and fascinate the eyes.
There is a long, broad street in Venice—the Via Garibaldi. It is sixty of my feet wide; and there are two good squares, the Piazza Santo Maurizio and the Piazza Santo Stefano.
I had a very odd sensation on reaching these squares: I felt just as if I was on dry land!
When one thinks of a city of solid houses situated on a network of water, it may naturally recall the moats that surround fortified castles. But an enemy could cross a moat: could he riddle his way through the countless canals of Venezia? How safe must the inhabitants of the interior feel in time of war! If an army starting from the square of St. Marco reached the calle, it would have to march in single file between windows that might be used as loopholes.
Venice was very cold in the month of March. I complained. “Never mind,” was the reply; “we shall have the mosquitoes in April, and they will bring six months of warm weather!”
This is Italy: cold winters and no provision against cold! The natives get hot-through in the six spring and summer months, and it takes the remaining six to cool them.