When I descended the tower, I felt, as when on the Capitol of Rome, that I now understood more of the position of the city than many books could have told me.
Of course, it was not long ere we passed under the portal of St. Mark's, though we lingered long outside, admiring its beautiful proportions, described by Ruskin in a burst of pure poetry as "a multitude of pillars and grey-hooded domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of coloured light: a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaics and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory—sculpture, fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together in an endless network of buds and plumes; and in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels, sceptred and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago."
This description of the great art-master, I of course accepted as from a highly cultured æsthetic source; but fear that, from want of true poetic light and art culture, I did not quite appreciate or realize it in the interior, though to me the exterior outline and architecture were always soft and beautiful. Unfortunately, one is greatly pestered outside by a voracious band of touts, miscalled guides, some of them mere uneducated-looking, parrot-like roughs, and whom it is laughable to suppose could have any pretensions to refined knowledge and art history—irreverent monsters who have no sympathy with, or appreciation of, anything, except what you may have in your pockets.
The interior of St Mark's reminded me more of an Eastern mosque than a Christian temple, with its heavy arches, arcades, galleries, colonnades, and Protean gloom. "A grave and dreamy structure," says Dickens, "of immense proportions; golden with old mosaics; redolent of perfumes; dim with the smoke of incense; costly in treasures of precious stones and metals, glittering through iron bars; holy with the bodies of deceased saints; rainbow-hued with windows of stained glass; dark with carved woods and coloured marbles; obscure in its vast heights and lengthened distances; shining with silver lamps and winking lights; unreal, fantastic, solemn, inconceivable throughout."
When the eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness, the soft rainbow colours of the mosaics come stealing out to view one by one. Nearly the whole of the interior, more especially the vaulting, is beautified by these millions upon millions of tiny cubes of coloured and gilded glass, arranged with infinite labour and skill, and wonderfully illustrating the most beautiful and impressive parts of Holy Writ, with reference to the history of mankind, from the creation. To blend these soft, harmonious colours must have been the work of ages, especially those portions which necessitated the patient artist working on his back, while fixing each tiny cube into its proper place in the ceiling. The antique pavement, undulating from sheer age and tread of multitudes of worshippers in the past, and also probably from a sinking of the foundation, is likewise tessellated with all the colours of the prism, arranged in mystic symbols and intricate figuring. But it appeared to me, at least, that this wonderful, Mosque-like building only wanted great groups of monster idols, to complete a perfect resemblance to some vast Hindoo temple of a dark bygone age, when the people's conception of the Deity was of a being rather to be feared than loved, rather to be dreaded than trusted.
Various services were going on in the numerous little chapels; and when the principal morning service at the chancel was over, we ascended the steps of the high altar in order to examine and admire the ancient twisted red alabaster pillars, said to have been originally a part of Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem; for nearly every stone in St. Mark's has its history. The bronze folding doors came from the Mosque of St. Sophia at Stamboul; the pillars at the entrance of the baptistery were part of the booty of Arre; while there are three red flagstones on which Barbarossa knelt to do reverence to St. Peter, in the person of the Pope. The guide held a lighted taper on one side of the column, that we might observe its glowing transparency. I could well enter into the feeling of noble triumph which must have animated those great and powerful Doges of past times, in thus being able to beautify their own Christian temple in Venice at the expense of the unbelieving, barbarous Turk, whose usurpation of these sacred relics and of the Holy Land was righteously considered a scandal and a shame to the Christian world.
We visited the Treasure Chapel, and saw the precious things of the temple—offerings of princes, potentates, and devotees, collected from all ends of the world. Each apartment was secured by no end of bolts, bars, and locks. Among other curiosities we were shown a cover of the books of the Gospels, embellished with gold and jewels, from the Church of St. Sophia, Constantinople; a crystal vase containing the blood of the Saviour (!); a silver column supporting a fragment of the pillar at which Christ was scourged; a cup of agate containing a portion of the skull of St. John; the sword of the Doge Morocini; cuneiform writings from Persepolis; an episcopal throne of the seventh century, said to have been St. Mark's; and many other things, the genuineness of which to try and believe was of course next to impossible; and one could only marvel at the credulity of many good men and women, who must have dearly liked to be deceived, and who almost worshipped these lying relics, and would only look at them devoutly on their knees. One heartily wishes that a valiant Luther had arisen amongst them in those days, to set them free from this miserable bondage, and teach them that Christ's atonement was surely enough for them.
On leaving the chapel, we were allowed as an exceptional privilege to ascend the galleries round the interior, and look closely into the beautiful mosaic-work, most of which is in a wonderful state of preservation, though some of it is much defaced and decayed by damp. The mosaics now being used in the restoration are made on a new principle, being glazed over to preserve the surface and colour from the effect of the air. We next went out into the open façade gallery, overlooking the great Piazza, and stood between the famous bronze horses, whose Arab-like symmetry we greatly admired.
"Before St. Mark's still glow the steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun."
I hardly recognized the justice of Goethe's observation, of their appearing to be somewhat heavily and clumsily modelled on a close survey, considering their slender elegance when seen from below.