The charm of Venice

by Unknown

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The genius of Goldoni, like his character and his life, was in perfect harmony with his allotted work.... Given the style, no individual could be imagined more supremely its master: he had the perfect facility of conception, the perfect ease of execution, the absolute facility of finish and detail, the immense fecundity of the providentially sent artist. He was never at a loss for a subject, and never at a standstill for its treatment; a moment at a window, a glance round a drawing-room, a word caught in the street, was sufficient material for a comedy. The sight of the dirty grey-beard Armenian goody-seller, snarling out ‘Baggigi, Abaggigi’ over his basket of lollipops near the clock-tower of St. Mark’s, produced the delightful little play, ‘I pettegolezzi delle donne....’

Goldoni was best pleased with the humblest, forming in this a strange contrast with the French comic writers; the shopkeepers, ridiculous gullible M. Jourdains and Sganarelles in the eyes of Molière, never ceased to be respectable for Goldoni.... This democratic, domestic Goldoni naturally refused to show us the effeminate, corrupt Venice of nobles, and spies, and courtezans, which shameful adventurers like Casanova, heaping up all the ordure of their town and times, have made some of us believe to have been the sole, the real Venice of the eighteenth century. But Goldoni has another Venice to show, a Venice undiscovered by gallant idlers like the Président de Brosses, or pedantic guide-book makers like La Lande. Let us follow Goldoni across the Square of St. Mark’s, heedless of the crowd in mask and cloak, of the nobles in their silk robes, of the loungers at the gilded coffee-houses, of the gamblers and painted women lolling out of windows; let us pass beneath the belfry where the bronze twins strike the hours in vain for the idlers and vagabonds who turn day into night and night into day; and let us thread the network of narrow little streets of the Merceria. There, in those tall dark houses, with their dingy look-out on to narrow canals floating wisps of straw, or on to dreary little treeless, grassless squares, in those houses is the real wealth, the real honour, the real good of Venice; there, and not in the palaces of the Grand Canal, still lingers something of the spirit and the habits of the early merchant princes. Merchant princes no longer, alas! only shopkeepers and brokers, but thrifty, frugal, patriarchal as in olden days, the descendants of the great Pantalone de’ Bisognosi, once clothed in scarlet-lined robe and pointed cap, now dressed austerely in black, without hair-powder, gold lace, swords, or scarlet cloaks; active, honest, gruff, and puritanical.... Let us follow Goldoni yet further from St. Mark’s to the distant wharves, to the remoter canals and campieli, to the further islands of the archipelago of Venice, and he will show us all that remains of the force of the city, of the savage simplicity and austerity of the boatmen, and fishers, and working classes. There are the gondoliers, forming a link between the artisans and the seamen—a strange, Janus-like class which Goldoni loved to depict: servants of the upper classes, devoted, faithful, and pliant; steering along with equal indifference, political conspiracy, household corruption ... beneath the black, tasselled roof of their boats; witnesses of all the most secret life of the nobles and merchants, and, while on their prow, mute and cynical; but, once on shore, independent, arrogant, despising the indoor servants, contemptuous towards their masters, whose secrets they possess, frugal and austere at home, jealous and revengeful among each other. Goldoni has shown us the gondoliers seated on the slimy steps by their moored boats, exchanging witticism on witticism, criticizing the performances at the theatre, discussing city life with ineffable arrogance: he has shown them coming along the Grand Canal, chanting the flight of Erminia through the ancient forest; he has shown them, again, quarrelling in the narrow twisting canals, each refusing to make way for another, yelling and cursing, forcing their passengers to alight in terror, and then pursuing each other with their oars and their short, sharp tatare daggers. The gondoliers, besides being good comic stuff for Goldoni, were an influential part of his audience, and had to be propitiated by being shown on the stage in all their originality and waywardness. The gondoliers lived, when off their boats, among a savage population of ferrymen, bargees, and fishers; poor, violent, and austere, whose daughters had at once the freedom of speech and strength of action of amazons, and the purity—nay prudery—of nuns: large-limbed, sunburnt, barefoot creatures, with the golden tints of hair and cheek of Titian and Palma, with the dark, savage eyes of an animal, with the arms of an athlete and the language of a trooper, of whom Goldoni has painted a magnificent portrait, idealized but intensely real, in his Bettina....

Let us call Goldoni’s favourite gondolier, the rough and caustic Menego Cainello, and bid him steer us through the last canals, among the remotest Venetian islands, leaving the towers of Venice behind us; bid him row us across the shallow open lagoon, with its vast, snake-like rows of sea-corroded posts, its stunted marine reeds, and its tangled sea-grass waving lazily on the rippled water; row on till we get to that tiny other Venice, still perhaps like the greater Venice in the days of her earliest Doges, to the little fishing-town of Chiozza. There, in the port, Goldoni will show us the heavy fishing-boat, grimy and oozy, just returned from a week’s cruise in the Adriatic, with her yellow sail, emblazoned with the winged lion, leisurely flapping, and her briny nets over her sides; the master of the boat, Paron Fortunato, is shouting in unintelligible dialect, Venetian further insularized into Chiozzot, and Chiozzot rarefied on sea into some strange nautical lisping jargon; the rest of the fishermen, Tita-Nane, and Menegheto, and Tonì, are collecting the fish they have brought into baskets, reserving the finest for His Excellency the Governor of Chiozza. And, when the fish are disposed of, follow we the fishermen to the main street of the little town, where, facing the beach, their wives, daughters, and sisters sit making lace on their cushions, chattering like magpies; some eating, others holding disdainfully aloof from the baked pumpkin with which the gallant peasant Toffolo Marmottina regales them. Suddenly a tremendous gabble begins, gabble turning into shrieking and roaring, and upsetting of chairs and cushions; and a torrent of abuse streams forth in dialect, and all is lost in scuffling confusion; the men come up, seize sticks, daggers, and stones, and rush to the rescue of their female relatives, till the police hasten up and separate the combatants. Then let us watch the recriminations of the lovers, hear them accusing each other of perfidy, calling each other dog, assassin, beggar, ginger-bread, jewel, pig, all in turns; clinging and nudging, weeping and roaring, till at length the good-natured little Venetian magistrate of Chiozza, contemptuously called ‘Mr. Wig-of-Tow’ (Sior paruca de stopa), makes up all the quarrels, bids the innkeeper send wine and pumpkins and delicious fried things, and, after regaling the pacified Chiozzoti and Chiozzote, calls for fiddles and invites them all to dance some furlane. Is it reality? Has Menego rowed us over the lagoon? Have we seen the ship come in and the fish put in baskets? Have we seen the women at their lace cushions? Have we heard that storm of cries, and shrieks, and clatter, and scuffling feet? Have we really witnessed this incident of fishing life on the Adriatic? No; we have only laid down a little musty volume at the place marked ‘Le Baruffe Chiozzotte.’

VERNON LEE.

VENETIAN BELLES

Of all the places where the Carnival

Was most facetious in the days of yore,

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,

And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more