So we entred St. Marc’s Church, before which stand two brasse pedestals exquisitely cut and figur’d, which beare as many tall masts painted red, on which upon greate festivals they hang flags and streamers. This church is also Gotic; yet for the preciousnese of the materials being of severall rich marbles, aboundance of porphyrie, serpentine, &c. far exceeding any in Rome, St. Peter’s hardly excepted. I much admired the splendid historie of our Saviour, compos’d all of Mosaic over the faciata, below which and over the chiefe gate are four horses cast in coper as big as the life, the same that formerly were transported from Rome by Constantine to Byzantium, and thence by the Venetians hither. They are supported by eight porphyrie columns of very great size and value. Being come into the Church, you see nothing, and tread on nothing, but what is precious. The floore is all inlayed with achats, lazuli’s, calcedons, jaspers, porphyries and other rich marbles, admirable also for the work; the walls sumptuously incrusted and presenting to the imagination the shapes of men, birds, houses, flowers, and a thousand varieties. The roofe is of most excellent Mosaic; but what most persons admire is the new work of the emblematic tree at the other passage out of the Church. In the midst of this rich volto rise five cupolas, the middle very large and susteyn’d by thirty-six marble columns, eight of which are of precious marbles: under these cupolas is the high altar, on which is a reliquarie of severall sorts of jewells, engraven with figures after the Greeke manner, and set together with plates of pure gold. The altar is cover’d with a canopy of ophit, on which is sculptur’d the storie of the Bible and so on the pillars, which are of Parian marble that support it. Behind these are four other columns of transparent and true Oriental alabaster, brought hither out of the mines of Solomon’s Temple as they report. There are many chapells and notable monuments of illustrious persons, Dukes, Cardinals, &c. as Zeno, Jo. Soranzi, and others: there is likewise a vast baptisterie of coper.... In one of the corners lies the body of St. Isidore, brought hither five hundred years since from the island of Chios.... Going out of the Church they shew’d us the stone where Alexander III. trod on the neck of the Emperor Fred. Barbarossa, pronouncing the verse of the psalm, ‘Super basiliscum,’ &c. The dores of the Church are of massie coper. There are neare five hundred pillars in this building, most of them porphyrie and serpentine, and brought chiefly from Athens and other parts of Greece formerly in their power. At the corner of the Church are inserted into the maine wall foure figures as big as life cut in porphyrie, which they say are the images of four brothers who poysoned one another, by which means there escheated to the Republiq that vast treasury of relicques now belonging to the Church. At the other entrance that looks towards the sea, stands in a small chapell that statue of our Lady, made (as they affirme) of the same stone or rock out of which Moses brought water to the murmuring Israelites at Meriba.... The next day, by favour of the French Ambassador, I had admittance with him to see the Reliquary call’d here Tresoro di San Marco, which very few even of travellers are admitted to see. It is a large chamber full of presses. There are twelve breast-plates, or pieces of pure golden armour studded with precious stones, and as many crownes dedicated to St. Mark by so many noble Venetians who had recovered their wives taken at sea by the Saracens; many curious vases of achats; the cap or cornet of the Dukes of Venice, one of which had a rubie set on it esteemed worth 200,000 crowns; two unicorn hornes; numerous vases and dishes of achat set thick with precious stones and vast pearles, [and] divers heads of Saints inchas’d in gold.
JOHN EVELYN.
THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK
On the 25th of February, 1340, there fell out a wonderful thing in this land; for during three days the waters rose continually, and in the night there was fearful rain and tempest, such as had never been heard of. So great was the storm that the waters rose three cubits higher than had ever been known in Venice; and an old fisherman being in his little boat in the canal of St. Mark, reached with difficulty the Riva di San Marco, and there he fastened his boat, and waited the ceasing of the storm. And it is related that, at the time this storm was at its highest, there came an unknown man, and besought him that he would row him over to San Giorgio Maggiore, promising to pay him well; and the fisherman replied, ‘How is it possible to go to San Giorgio? We shall sink by the way!’ but the man only besought him the more that he should set forth. So, seeing that it was the will of God, he arose and rowed over to San Giorgio Maggiore; and the man landed there and desired the boatman to wait. In a short time he returned with a young man; and they said, ‘Now row towards San Niccolò di Lido.’ And the fisherman said, ‘How can one possibly go so far with one oar?’ and they said, ‘Row boldly, for it shall be possible with thee, and thou shalt be well paid.’ And he went; and it appeared to him as if the waters were smooth. Being arrived at San Niccolò di Lido, the two men landed, and returned with a third, and having entered into the boat, they commanded the fisherman that he should row beyond the two castles. And the tempest raged continually. Being come to the open sea, they beheld approaching, with such terrific speed that it appeared to fly over the waters, an enormous galley full of demons (as it is written in the Chronicles, and Marco Sabellino also makes mention of this miracle): the said barque approached the castles to overwhelm Venice and to destroy it utterly. Anon the sea, which had hitherto been tumultuous, became calm; and these three men, having made the sign of the cross, exorcised the demons, and commanded them to depart, and immediately the galley or the ship vanished. Then these three men commanded the fisherman to land them, the one at San Niccolò di Lido, the other at San Giorgio Maggiore, and the third at San Marco. And when he had landed the third, the fisherman, notwithstanding the miracle he had witnessed, desired that he would pay him, and he replied, ‘Thou art right; go now to the Doge and to the Procuratore of St. Mark, and tell him what thou hast seen, for Venice would have been overwhelmed had it not been for us three. I am St. Mark the Evangelist, the protector of this city; the other is the brave knight St. George, and he whom thou didst take up at the Lido is the holy Bishop St. Nicholas. Say to the Doge and to the Procuratore that they are to pay thee, and tell them likewise that this tempest rose because of a certain schoolmaster dwelling at San Felice, who did sell his soul to the devil, and afterwards hanged himself.’ And the fisherman replied, ‘If I should tell them this, they would not believe me!’ Then St. Mark took off a ring which was worth five ducats, and he said, ‘Show them this, and tell them when they look in the sanctuary they will not find it,’ and thereupon he disappeared. The next morning, the fisherman presented himself before the Doge, and related all he had seen the night before, and showed him the ring for a sign. And the Procuratore having sent for the ring, and sought it in the usual place, found it not; by reason of which miracle the fisherman was paid, and a solemn procession was ordained, giving thanks to God, and to the relics of the three holy saints who rest in our land, and who delivered us from this great danger. The ring was given to Signor Marco Lordano and to Signor Andrea Dandolo, the Procuratore, who placed it in the sanctuary; and, moreover, a perpetual provision was made for the aged fisherman.
MRS. JAMESON.
ST. GEORGE OF THE GREEKS
This Church of St. George of the Greeks is one of Venice’s most wonderful places. One has the impression of a sanctuary which is at the same time a treasure-house; gold everywhere—furniture, eikons, lamps, embroideries—not gilding, but real, heavy gold. The vestments are stiff with it. The bearded golden priest goes backwards and forwards, the gold-embroidered curtains opening and shutting for him, revealing and hiding a number of tapers and incense and shining encrusted walls; while the acolytes, in slender folded linen smocks, with gold stoles crossed over their backs, kneel before the rood-screen. There is a sense of the departed splendours of Judaism, of a Solomon’s Temple behind those half-drawn curtains; and every time that pope came forth a name rose up in my mind—Melchizedek, he who was a priest and also a king. After that service at St. George’s of the Greeks, we walked home through St. Mark’s, entering it by the sacristy. The hot air, smoke of incense and dust, the shuffle of human beings and snuffling of priests caught one by the throat after that fair empty splendour of the Greek church. Caught me at least, subduing, crushing, perhaps rumpling my imagination and feelings, but making them humaner. There is, in this magnificence, a share of shabbiness; in this venerable place the sense of the deciduous, the perishable, which, in a way, is also a sense of the eternal. There is room, in St. Mark’s solemnity, for such as that consumptive girl who made head garlands for cemeteries. And St. Mark’s is the greater for her poor presence.
VERNON LEE.
A VENETIAN DAY
On her still lake the city sits