ROPE-RIDING ON HORSEBACK, ON ST. MARK’S DAY AT VENICE.
The gaiety and splendour exhibited in the place of St. Mark at Venice on this anniversary, is extremely attractive. Formerly, among the remarkable customs in honour of this the patron saint of the city, it was usual for a man to ascend and descend a rope stretched from the summit of St. Mark’s tower, and secured at a considerable distance from the base.
On the last day of February, 1680, the doge, the senate, and the imperial ambassador, with about fifty thousand spectators, beheld the annual solemnity. In the first place appeared certain butchers, in their roast-meat clothes; one of which, with a Persian scimitar, cut off the heads of three oxen, one after another, at one blow, to the admiration of the beholders, who had never seen the like either in Venice, or any other part of the world. But that which caused greater wonder was this:—A person, adorned in a tinsel riding habit, having a gilt helmet upon his head, and holding in his right hand a lance, in his left a helmet made of a thin piece of plate gilded, and sitting upon a white horse, with a swift pace ambled up a rope six hundred feet long, fastened from the quay to the top of St. Mark’s tower. When he had arrived half way, his tinsel coat fell off, and he made a stand, and stooping his lance submissively, saluted the doge sitting in the palace, and flourished the banner three times over his head. Then, resuming his former speed, he went on, and, with his horse, entered the tower where the bell hangs; and presently returning on foot, he climbed up to the highest pinnacle of the tower; where, sitting on the golden angel, he flourished his banner again several times. This performed, he descended to the bell-tower; and there taking horse, rode down again to the bottom in like manner as he had ascended.[332]
“Whoever,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “sees St. Mark’s Place lighted up of an evening, adorned with every excellence of human art, and pregnant with pleasure, expressed by intelligent countenances sparkling with every grace of nature—the sea washing its walls—the moon-beams dancing on its subjugated waves—sport and laughter resounding from the coffee-houses—girls with guitars skipping about the square—masks and merry-makers singing as they pass you—unless a barge with a band of music is heard at some distance upon the water, and calls attention to sounds made sweeter by the element over which they are brought;—whoever is led suddenly,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “to this scene of seemingly perennial gaiety, will be apt to exclaim in Venice, as Eve does to Adam in Milton,
With thee conversing, I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change—all please alike!”
[332] Malcolm’s Manners of Europe.