The wanderer who cares for the more silent and intimate charm of Venice will, on the arrival of the steamer, turn aside from the thronged and dusty road to the bathing pavilion, follow to the N.E. the Via S. Nicolo, and walk[122] along the shore by meadows bright in spring-time with blue salvia and the star of Bethlehem to the restored eleventh-century church of S. Nicolo inside the fort. The tomb of the founder (Doge Dom. Contarini) stands over the portal, and in a small chamber in the L. transept, now used as a lumber room, a short inscription of a dozen words tells that there lie the ashes of the stout old Imperial Vicar, “Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole i’ the world,”[123] who for seven months held Ferrara (p. [77]) for his master, the great Frederick, against the allied forces of the Venetians and of the Lombard League. Here in olden times the galleys and argosies of the Republic called to take in sweet water for the voyage and to pray for protection to the mariners’ patron saint, and here stood a fair and costly lighthouse. We retrace our steps to the Jewish cemetery and turn L. down a country lane which we follow as far as the Villa la Favorita; we turn again L. and reach the shore of the open Adriatic, saturated with indescribable tones of blue, from palest turquoise to deepest ultramarine, and dotted with the rich yellow and orange sails of fishing craft.
The walk may be pursued along the grass-grown ramparts of the old Austrian fort to the left, or we may turn to the more material seductions of the Stabilimento dei Bagni to the right.
SECTION XX
Chioggia
A STILL finer view of the Lidi is obtained by a voyage to Chioggia and back on the steamers which start from the Riva some half-dozen times daily, and if the voyager happen on a sunny, vaporous day he will enjoy a feast of gorgeous colour almost cloying in its richness.
On loosing from the Riva we steam along the canal Orfano, the legendary scene of the slaughter of the Franks and pass the islands of S. Servolo (now the lunatic asylum), S. Lazzaro with the Armenian convent and printing-press, S. Spirito and Poveglia. Beyond the porto of Malamocco on the lido of Pellestrina, a few hundred yards to the south of S. Pietro in Volta, stands the little village of Porto Secco on the filled-up porto of Albiola, where the first stand was made against Pepin and his host (p. 16). The beautiful lines of the low-lying Euganean hills have long been in sight, and the richly coloured sails of the Chioggian fishing craft. We pass the porto of Chioggia and enter the harbour. It is said that the old Venetians were wont to distinguish each of the porti by the colour of the water that flowed through: Tre Porti on the N., which gives on the Torcello and Burano group of islands, being yellow; S. Erasmo (now filled up), blue; Lido, red; Malamocco, green; Chioggia, purple. Chioggia, to the jaded sightseer, has the inestimable advantage of offering nothing of interest save the descendants of a fine and stalwart race of islanders still retaining some of their old characteristic traits of costume and language. The admirable view of Venice as we return in the evening, gradually rising with her domes and towers from the sea, is not the least delightful part of a restful and charming excursion.
L’ENVOI
“THE word Venetia,” says Francesco Sansovino, “is interpreted by some to mean Veni Etiam, which is to say, ‘Come again and again’; for how many times soever thou shalt come, new things and new beauties thou shalt see.”