Italy, the Magic Land Part 20

Petrarca, returning from his wanderings in 1362, pleaded with the Senate of Venezia to give him a house, in return for which he offered the inheritance of his library. This was the nucleus of the fine collection which since 1812 has been included in the Palace of the Doges. In it are some magnificent works by Paolo Veronese, one portrait by Tintoretto, and others by Salviati and Telotti.

The Doge's Palace is a treasure house of history. One enters the Porta della Carta, which dates back to 1638, erected by Bartolomeo Buon. The portal is very rich in sculpture, and among the reliefs is a heroic one of Francesco Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark's. One recalls his tragic fate and pa.s.ses on. Perhaps, _en pa.s.sant_, one may say that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly in the scenes of tragedy that he is p.r.o.ne to sink almost into utter sadness, even, rather than seriousness. The air is full of ghosts. One feels the oppression of all the life that has there been lived, all the tragedies that have been enacted in these scenes.

In Renaissance nothing more wonderful in Europe can be found than the court of the Palace of the Doges. Antonio Rizzo began the east facade of the building in 1480, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed by Scarpagnino. "Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of these sculptures," says Salvatico, "as well as of the single ornaments of the walls and of the ogres which have been carved so delicately and richly that they cannot be excelled by the Roman antique friezes."

By the golden staircase one goes to the council chambers,--the hall of the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Council of Three. In the great council chamber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world, "The Glory of Venice," by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In a frieze are the portraits of seventy-six of the Doges, but in one s.p.a.ce is a black tablet only, with the inscription: "This in place of M. F., who was executed for his crimes."

The "Sala del Maggior Consiglio" (hall of the grand council) is very rich in paintings. Above the throne is Tintoretto's "The Glory of Paradise," and the walls are covered with battle pieces and symbolic and allegorical paintings. There is "Venice Crowned by Fame," by Paolo Veronese, "Doge Niccol da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envoys of Conquered Cities to Venice," by Tintoretto; "Venice Crowned by the G.o.ddess of Victory," by Palma Giovane, and many another of the richest and most wonderful beauty.

Descending into the prisons and dungeons brings one into a vivid realization of the grim history of which these were the scenes. The Bridge of Sighs has two covered pa.s.sages, one for the political and one for the criminal prisoners. Here is shown a narrow ledge on which the condemned man stood, with a slanting stone pa.s.sageway before him, which, when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed the crimson flood into the dark waters of the ca.n.a.l below, while the body was thrown in the water on the other side. There are the "Chambers of Lead," where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, and as intensely cold in the winter. Many of these dark, close, narrow cells--in which the one article of furniture allowed was the wooden slanting rack, that served as a bed--still remain. In many of these are inscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (in translation): "May G.o.d protect me against him whom I trust; I will protect myself against him whom I do not trust."

The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: "G. M. B. was confined very unjustly in this prison; if G.o.d does not help it will be the last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family."

All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:--

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand."

The piazza of St. Mark's is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe.

It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which are merely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk is blockaded with cafes _al fresco_, the ground is half covered with the dense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The facade of St. Mark's fills one end--a ma.s.s of gleaming color. At one corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissance style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa days three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forth on the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above,--a very ingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculptures and ma.s.ses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall, where all the town congregates from morning till midnight.

To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and one that would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries of Venice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastiano lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his "Coronation of the Virgin," "The Virgin in the Gloria," "Adoration of the Magi," "Martyrdom of San Sebastian," and many others. In the Scuola di San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, "St. Magdalene in the Wilderness," the "Visitation," and the "Murder of the Innocents."

In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of t.i.tian,--an exquisite grouping of sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of the Emperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is t.i.tian's most famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pessaro," the work of which is probably, too, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven is shown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninus are commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned on high. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellous composition render this immortal masterpiece something whose sight marks an epoch in life. Canova's tomb in San Maria dei Frari is a wonderful thing. It is a pyramid of purest marble, with a door opening for the sarcophagus, above which is a portrait of Canova in relief, and on either side the door angels and symbolic figures are sculptured.

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, to which one is always returning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snowy towers and dome seem to rise out of the water and float in the air.

The fall of the Campanile in 1904 was regarded as a calamity by all the civilized world. For a thousand years it had stood at the side of St.

Mark's; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to the condition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found that the vast area of over fifty thousand square feet of matchless mosaic needed restoration in order that they should be preserved.

The Palazzo Rezzonico, which dates to Clement XIII, usually known as the "Browning Palace," has been for many years one of the special interests to the visitor in Venice. In the early months of 1907 it pa.s.sed out of the hands of Robert Barrett Browning, who had purchased it in 1888, and had held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal a.s.sociations, since the death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning is due the grateful appreciation of a mult.i.tude of tourists for his generous and never-failing courtesy in permitting them the privilege of visiting this palace in which his father had pa.s.sed many months of enjoyment. It was from this residence that the poet Browning wrote, in October of 1880, to a friend:--

"Every morning at six I see the sun rise; far more wonderfully, to my mind, than his famous setting which everybody glorifies. My bedroom window commands a perfect view; the still, gray lagune, the few sea-gulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow and the clouds in a long purple rock behind which a sort of spirit of rose burns up till presently all the rims are on fire with gold, and last of all the orb sends before it a long column of its own essence apparently; so my day begins."

Later, of his son's palace, Mr. Browning wrote:--

"Have I told you that there is a chapel which he has restored in honor of his mother--putting up there the inscription by Tommaseo,[3] now above Casa Guidi in Florence?"

In this palace Mr. Browning wrote some of his later poems, and it may well be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes that he perhaps most deeply felt the ineffable charm of Venice:--

"For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one s.p.a.ce Above me...."

It was from these lofty salons in the Browning Palace that the poet pa.s.sed to the "life more abundant" on that December day of 1889, on the very day that his last volume, "Asolando," was published and also the last volume of Tennyson's. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in a letter to Lord Tennyson: "The death of Browning on the day of the appearance of your volume, and we hear of one of his own, is a touching event."

From the time of Mrs. Browning's death in Florence (in June of 1861) Mr.

Browning never felt that he could see Italy again, until the autumn of 1878, when he, with his sister, Miss Sarianna Browning, came to Venice by way of the Italian lakes and Verona. At this time they only remained for a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which was transformed into the Albergo dell'Universo. This palace was on the Grand Ca.n.a.l below the Accademia, and here he returned through two or three subsequent years. Mr. Browning became very fond of Venice, and he explored its winding ways and gardens and knew it, not merely from the gondola view, but from the point of view of the curious little dark and narrow byways, the bridges, and the piazzas.

It was in 1880 that Mr. Browning first met, through the kind offices of Mr. Story, a most charming and notable American lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson (Katherine DeKay), who had domiciled herself in Casa Alvisi, an old palace on the Grand Ca.n.a.l opposite the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. She was a woman of very interesting personality, and had drawn about her a circle including many of the most distinguished people of her time, authors, artists, poets, and notable figures in the social world. She was eminently _simpatica_ and her lovely impulses of generous kindness were rendered possible to translate into the world of the actual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor.

Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rare and beautiful friends.h.i.+ps that lasted during his lifetime, and to her appreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of his later years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning and his sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati--a palace adjoining her own--and each night they dined and pa.s.sed the evening with her, with music and conversation to enchant the hours. After Mr. Browning's death, Mrs. Bronson was the friend whom all pilgrims to his shrine in Venice felt it a special privilege to meet and to hear speak of him. In her palace was a large easy-chair, with a ribbon tied across the arms, in which Browning was accustomed to sit, and which was held sacred to him. Mrs. Bronson was an accomplished linguist, and the _habitues_ of her salon represented many nationalities. Among these was the Princess Montenegro, the mother of the present Queen of Italy.

It is little wonder that the Browning Palace was for so many years a focus for all who revered and loved the wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

In the marble court, roofed only by the blue Venetian sky, stood Mr.

Barrett Browning's statue of "Dryope" in bronze, on its marble pedestal,--a beautiful conception of the Dryope of Keats,--the dweller in forest solitudes whom the Hamadryads transformed into a poplar. Here a fountain makes music all day long, and the court is also adorned in summer by great Venetian jars of pink hydrangeas in full bloom. The grand staircase, with its carved bal.u.s.trade and the wide landing where a rose window decorates the wall, leads to the lofty salons which were yet as homelike as they were artistic during the residence of the Brownings.

Mr. Story's bust of Mrs. Browning, other portrait busts of both the poets, sculptured by their artist son, and by others, and other memorials abound. In the library were gathered many interesting volumes, autographed from their authors, and many rare and choice editions, among which was one of the "Sonnets from the Portuguese" in a sumptuous volume whose artistic beauty found a fitting setting to Mrs. Browning's immortal sonnets. Among other volumes were a collection of signed "Etchings" by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema; presentation copies from Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey De Vere, Walter Savage Landor, and many another known to fame; and a copy, also, of a study of Mrs. Browning's poetry[4] by an American writer.

There is one memento over which the visitor always smiled--a souvenir of a London evening in 1855 when the Brownings had invited Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother and Lord Madox Brown to meet Tennyson and listen to his reading of his new poem, "Maud," then still unpublished.

During the reading Rossetti drew a caricature representing Tennyson with his hair standing on end, his eyes glowering and his hand theatrically extended, as he held a ma.n.u.script inscribed,

"I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood."

A reproduction of John Singer Sargent's painting, "The Gypsy Dance,"

bore the inscription, "To _mon ami_, Browning." From the library is a niche, decorated in gold, with memorial entablatures to the memory of Mrs. Browning. On the outer wall of the palace is an inscription that runs:--

"Robert Browning died in this house 12th December, 1889.

"Open my heart and you will see Graven inside it 'Italy.'"

There is a sadness in the fact that this palace, consecrated to the memory of the immortal poets, husband and wife, has pa.s.sed into the hands of strangers; but that is a part of the play in a world in which we have no continuing city. In the spring of 1905, Miss Sarianna Browning died in the home of her nephew, near Florence, and her body was buried in the new Protestant cemetery in that city; the old one, where all that was mortal of Elizabeth Barrett Browning was laid to rest, being now closed. Mr. Barrett Browning, in his Tuscan villa, is again dwelling near Florence, his native city, which must forever hold to him its atmosphere of consecrated beauty as the beloved home of his mother,--the n.o.blest and greatest of all woman poets.

The centenary of Carlo Goldoni was celebrated in Venice in the spring of 1907 by the publication of all his works and a monograph on his life; an exhibition of personal relics; the presentation of one of his dramas set to music by Balda.s.sare Galuppi, the great Venetian composer of his time, and by a procession to lay a wreath of laurel on his monument in the Campo San Bartolommeo. The drama given, ent.i.tled the "Buranello,"

was the last work of the author, and it was presented in the theatre Goldoni. The Munic.i.p.al Council of Venice voted the sum of fifty thousand lire for the _edition de luxe_, which consists of twenty volumes, in octavo. In each volume is a different portrait of Goldoni, facsimile of ma.n.u.scripts, and the reproduction of literary curiosities.

The monograph of Goldoni was issued by the press of the Venetian Inst.i.tute of Graphic Art in a limited number of copies.

It contains more than three hundred printed pages and a series of very interesting ill.u.s.trations. Among these are the reproductions of ancient engravings which are most rare (such as the view of the Grimani Theatre at San Giovanni Crisostomo, a famous theatre existing in the days of the Venetian republic, but now demolished), frontispieces of destroyed editions, and other personal memorials. The revival of the splendid work of the famous artist was one of the attractions of the festa of celebration. The art exhibition of Venice in this spring of 1907 was very picturesque. One special salon was allotted to the artists of Great Britain, and there was a fine loan collection of the portraits of English n.o.blemen painted by Mr. Sargent. This salon was decorated with panels by Frank Brangwyn.

Venice forever remains a dream, a mirage, an enchantment. Has it a recognized social life, with "seasons" that come and go? Has it trade, commerce, traffic? Has it any existence save on the artist's canvas, in the poet's vision? Has it a resident population to whom it is a home, and not the pilgrimage of pa.s.sionate pilgrims?

There are those who find this Venice of all the year round a society of stately n.o.bles whose ancestral claims are identified with the history of the city and who are at home in its palaces and gondolas, but of this resident life the visitor is less aware than of that in any other city in Italy. For him it remains forever in his memory as the crowning glory of June evenings when the full, golden moon hangs over towers and walls, when gondolas freighted with Venetian singers loom up out of the shadows and fill the air with melody that echoes as in dreams, and that vanishes--one knows not when or where. Mr. Howells, in his delightful "Venetian Days," has interpreted much of that life that the tourist never recognizes, that eludes his sight; and the Dream City still, to the visitor who comes and goes, shrouds itself in myth and mystery. One of the poetic visions of Venice is that given in Robert Underwood Johnson's "Browning at Asolo" (inscribed to Mrs. Arthur Bronson), of which the opening stanzas run:--

"This is the loggia Browning loved, High on the flank of the friendly town; These are the hills that his keen eye roved, The green like a cataract leaping down To the plain that his pen gave new renown.

"There to the West what a range of blue!-- The very background t.i.tian drew To his peerless Loves. O tranquil scene!

Who than thy poet fondlier knew The peaks and the sh.o.r.e and the lore between?

"See! yonder's his Venice--the valiant Spire, Highest one of the perfect three, Guarding the others: the Palace choir, The Temple flas.h.i.+ng with opal fire-- Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea."

Edgar Fawcett, always enchanted with his Venetian days, pictures the northern lagoon, some six miles from Venice, as "a revel of pastoral greenness, with briery hedges, numberless wild flowers and the most captivating of sinuous creeks, overarched by an occasional bridge, so old that you greet with respect every moss-grown inch of its drowsy and sagging brickwork. The cathedral, the ineludible cathedral of all Italian settlements, is reached after a short ramble, and you enter it with mingled awe and amus.e.m.e.nt," he continues. "Some of its mosaics, representing martyrs being devoured by flames and evidently enjoying themselves a great deal during this mortuary process, challenge the disrespectful smile. But others are vested with a rude yet sacred poetry, and certain semi-Oriental marble sculptures, adjacent to the altar, would make an infidel feel like crossing himself for the crime of having yielded to a humorous twinge. This duomo dates far back beyond the Middle Ages, and so does the small Church of Santa Fosca, only a step away. What renders Torcello so individual among all the islands and islets of the lagoon, I should say, is her continual contrast between the ever-recurrent idyllicism of open meadows or wilding cl.u.s.ters of simple rustic thickets, and the enormous antiquity of these two h.o.a.ry ecclesiastic fanes. History is in the air, and you feel that the very daisies you crush underfoot, the very copses from which you pluck a scented spray, have their delicate rustic ancestries, dating back to Attila, who is said once to have brought his destructive presence where now such sweet solemnity of desertion and quietude unmolestedly rules."

History and legend and art and romance meet and mingle to create that indefinable sorcery of Venice. It is like nothing on earth except a poet's dream, and his poetic dream is of the ethereal realm. The wonderful music that floats over the "silver trail" of still waters; the mystic silences; the resplendence of color,--all, indeed, weave themselves into an incantation of the G.o.ds; it is the ineffable loveliness of Paradise where the rose of morning glows "and the June is always June," and it is no more earth, but a celestial atmosphere,--this glory of June in Venice.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] This inscription and a description in detail of all the memorials of Elizabeth Barrett Browning are given in full in a volume ent.i.tled "A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning." Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

[4] "A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning." Little, Brown, & Co.