ST. MARK’S, VENICE, ITALY. This famous cathedral church is a strange jumble of all styles of architecture, Christian as well as Saracenic, yet both without and within breathing a rich and wonderful harmony. The present building, dedicated in 1085, takes the place of an older and simpler structure, that was destroyed by fire in 976. In front of the church, to the southwest, rises the Square Campanile, surmounted with the figure of an angel. To the east of the church the famous Piazzetta, or “Little Square,” extends to the Grand Canal, glorified by the Palace of the Doges, or ancient rulers of the city, which some architects look upon as the finest building in the world. It is from this Piazzetta that the picture is taken. The square in front of St. Mark’s is the grand focus of attraction in Venice, and in summer nearly the entire population congregate here.
GRAND CANAL, VENICE, ITALY. This is the main thoroughfare of the city of the sea. On either side of its serpentine length it is lined by marble-fronted palaces, whose very names awaken a thrill of historic or romantic recollection. Gondolas dart up and down among the waters, and, alas! the disillusionizing modern steamboat puffs its vicious way through the complaining waters. About half-way in its course the canal is crossed by the famous Rialto bridge, a single arch of unique and elegant construction, seventy-four feet in length, resting on twelve thousand piles. This was built in 1588, subsequent therefore to the period of Venice’s greatest glory. The ancient Rialto, which Shakespeare speaks of as the meeting place of the merchants, was not this bridge, but the Exchange which used to go by the same name, and was long the centre of trade and commercial life in this city.
THE DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE, ITALY. At right angles to the Piazza San Marco, at the south-east end, runs the Piazzetta or little square, whereon is situated the former residence of the Doges, an ancient seat of government. Ruskin calls this “the principal work of Venice.” Originally built in 800, five times destroyed and as many times rebuilt in a style of greater magnificence, the present structure dates from the fourteenth century. It is in the Moorish-Gothic style. The form is an irregular square; the west side, facing the Piazzetta (two hundred and thirty feet in length), and the south side, facing the sea (two hundred and twenty feet in length), are flanked by two colonnades, one above the other, with exquisite traceries. The mouldings of the upper colonnade are especially rich. The interior court of the building presents a wilderness of elegant columns, cornices, arches, carvings, sculptures and bas-reliefs. A magnificent collection of Venetian paintings is housed within these walls. On the east side the palace is connected with the prisons by the so-called Bridge of Sighs, which owes most of its fame to Byron’s sentimentality.
CATHEDRAL AND LEANING TOWER OF PISA, ITALY. The Cathedral of Pisa, begun in 1063, and consecrated in 1118, forms, with its Baptistery and Campanile, the most singular group of buildings in the world. Their beauty is equal to their singularity. The church itself is constructed entirely of white marble, with black and colored ornamentation. An elliptical dome covers the centre. The façade, adorned in the lower story with columns and arches, and in the upper story with four open galleries, is of exquisite and dainty beauty. So, likewise, is the Baptistery, a circular structure, surrounded by half columns below and a gallery of small, detached columns above, the whole crowned by a conical dome. But the strangest effect of all is produced by the Campanile, better known as the Leaning Tower, from the fact that it is thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. That this obliquity was accidental and due to the sagging of the foundations is now generally agreed. Aside from this peculiarity the Campanile would arrest attention by its winsome grace.
PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE, ITALY. There is no more picturesque bridge in the world than this. It spans the river Arno at a point where tradition asserts that a Roman predecessor used to exist. Certain it is, that bridges were built here and repeatedly demolished before Taddeo Gaddi erected the present structure of three arches. It is flanked by shops, which have belonged to the goldsmiths and jewelers since the fourteenth century, and is still the centre of their trade. Above the roofs of these shops runs the gallery of the Grand Duke, built as a secret passage between the Uffizi and the Pitti Palaces. The bridge itself might easily be mistaken for a continuous street by the stranger, except for the vacant space over the central arch, which gives a glimpse of the city and the river on each side.
