"White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky."
The Queen of the Adriatic.
Of the palaces that we visited, the one in which the poet Browning lived, and in which his son now lives, is the best preserved, and illustrates better than any other the almost regal state in which the wealthy Venetians lived in the day of their commercial supremacy. One of these old palaces on the Grand Canal is now used as a bank. Some are used as warehouses, and others are put to still meaner uses. The Doge's Palace is, of course, the largest and finest, but it is more like a public building than a residence. Next to this stands the chief architectural glory of Venice, the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Mark, with its unequalled profusion of costly materials, and its ominously uneven stone floor, suggesting the painful possibility that it, too, may some day share the fate of the great Campanile, which till last summer lifted its head three hundred and seventy-five feet in the air from the pavement of the square in front. We found the ruins of this graceful structure, up the winding incline of which Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have ridden his horse to the belfry, lying in a heap on the square surrounded by a temporary unpainted board fence. Workmen within were making preparations for the erection of the new bell tower which is to take the place of the old one. On the first Sunday after our arrival we heard the Rev. Dr. Robertson, at the Presbyterian Church, make felicitous use of the fate of the old Campanile in a sermon on the text, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Nowhere are foundations of more importance than in Venice. The whole city is built upon piles. The Rialto Bridge, a great marble arch of a single span, rests upon twelve thousand of these piles, which are driven deep into the mud.
The interior of the Church of the Jesuits made more impression upon us than any other Venetian church except St. Marks. It looks at first view like it was lined throughout with chintz, through which runs a green pattern; but on closer inspection you find that it is all white marble—the pulpit and its heavy curtains, the altar steps, the walls from floor to ceiling, are all of white marble, and the green pattern is nothing less than verd antique.
Some of our young people, who had already wearied of the miles of picture galleries in Europe, manifested but little interest in the rich collection of art at Venice, but I think that all brought away an indelible impression of Titian's splendid "Assumption of the Virgin." They felt a much keener interest in the marvellous skill of the Venetian glass-makers at Murano. But their special delight was the gondolas. They soon had their favorites among the gondoliers, and, with Marco and Pedro propelling them, threaded the innumerable canals in every direction, visited the outlying islands, drifted hither and thither on the broad lagoons, and enjoyed the distant views of this strangely beautiful city, sometimes looming through the mist, at other times standing out sharp and clear against the red sky of a flaming sunset.
DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE.