Chapter XIII (1)

We found ourselves early in the morning, after an all-night ride, running over a flat, marshy, sea-shore-looking country, approaching Venice. Venice! There was something magical in the sound of that name, as conjuring up memories of school-boy dreams and youthful imagination, equal in effect to the sonorous boom of the word London, that fills the fancy like the tone of a great cathedral bell, when we felt we were actually to set foot in that great city, which historian, poet, and novelist had made us hunger to see for so many years.

Venice, the scene of so much of Byron's poetry; Venice, that Rogers sang of; Venice, with its Doges, its Council of Ten, its terrible dungeons; Venice, the Merchant of Venice--we should see the very bridge that old Shylock met Antonio upon; Venice, with its great state barges and the Doge marrying the Adriatic; Venice, with its canals, having those water parties in gondolas that we see in engravings representing ladies and gentlemen in silk and velvet attire, with fruit, wine, and musical instruments before them, and broad, embroidered table clothing dragging from the boatside into the water.

The Venice of Shakespeare and Byron, and Rogers and Cooper,--

"Beautiful Venice, the Bride of the Sea."

We rolled in on our train over the great railroad bridge, of two miles in length, which spans the lagoon, and enters Venice on the Island of St. Lucia. This bridge is fourteen feet wide, and upheld by two hundred and twenty-two arches, and its foundation is, of course, built upon piles driven into the muddy bed of the lagoon.

We halt in a great railway station, a conductor pokes his head into the railway carriage, and ejaculates, "_Ven-neat-sear_," and we are at Venice.

Following the advice of an old tourist, we had telegraphed to the Hotel Danieli that we were coming, and to have a conveyance ready at the station. We were, therefore, prepared, by our former experience in Vienna, for the gentlemanly personage who addressed us in English, on alighting, to the effect that he had a gondola in waiting to convey us to the hotel. Our luggage was soon obtained, and safely stowed in the bottom of the long, black craft, with its two oarsmen, one at each end; and in another moment, propelled by their measured and powerful strokes, we were gliding over the great canals of Venice, and having our first ride in a gondola.

The novel sight of tall marble buildings, rising directly from out the water; the numerous gondolas gliding hither and thither; the great reaches of canals, or alleys of water, stretching up between marble buildings; the light iron lattice-work bridges; painted gondola posts; the slowly crumbling and time-defaced fronts of many an ancient palace; the stalwart gondoliers, and their warning shouts at the canal corners,--were all novelties on this our first gondola ride, till we arrived at the hotel, once the palace of the Danieli family, and which we found fronted on the grand canal, and but a short distance from the Square and Church of St. Mark, Doge's Palace, &c.

Every traveller and letter-writer tells about the gondolas and the gondoliers, and some sentimental scribblers do draw the long-bow terribly about them. The long, low water craft, with their easy, comfortable, morroco cushions, upon which you might sit or recline at full length, and be either hidden or exposed to view, as suits the taste, with their gentle, almost imperceptible motion, I found to be the most luxurious and lazy mode of travel I ever experienced. But let not the reader understand that the canals, these water alleys that slash the city in every direction, are its only highways; one may walk all over Venice on foot, although, of course, in passing from certain points to others, he may have to go a more roundabout way in order to cross the bridges than he would have to take in the gondola.

The tall, graceful gondoliers are quite a study, and the marvellous skill with which they manage their long crafts a wonder. The scientific whirl of an oar-blade, a mere twist of the hand, or a sort of geometric figure cut in the water, will wind their narrow craft in and out a crowd of others, or avoid collisions that seem inevitable. The shout of warning of the gondolier as he approaches a corner, or to others approaching, is musically Italian, and much of the charm undoubtedly comes from the athletic forms, the dark Italian faces, deep black eyes, and graceful movements of the rowers, and the swift passage of their mysterious craft past tall palaces, flights of marble steps sloping down to the shining waters, and graceful bridges. Yet one wants to be on the larger or broadest canals to get up anything like poetic fervor in Venice, and then in sunlight, or, as was my good fortune, beneath the gorgeous gilding of the full moon.

When your gondola takes you on a business trip, and you turn off from any of the great canals upon a narrow one for a short cut, in fact, leave the main street for a back or side one, you become aware that there is something besides poetry in the canals of Venice. The water, which was bright and shining in the sunlight, becomes, when shut up between tall buildings, like a great puddle in a cellar, or the dark pool in an abandoned mine; foul greenness and slime stick to the walls of old buildings and decaying palaces, fragments of seaweed and other debris float here and there, the perfume is not of "Araby the Blest," and the general watery flavor of everything causes one to appreciate the Western American's criticism as to what sort of a place he found Venice, who replied, "Damp, sir; very damp."

Dreamily floating upon the Grand Canal, however, beneath the full moon of autumn, with the ducal palace and its pointed arches and columns, making a beautiful picture of light and shade; the tall pillars, bearing St. Theodore and the Winged Lion, shooting up to the deep-blue sky, their summits tipped with silver in the beam; the tall obelisk of the Campanile rising in the background like a sentinel; the canal between the palace and the prison, like a stream of light, revealing the well-known Bridge of Sighs, spanning the gap; and withal the canal itself, a sheet of molten silver, which, disturbed by the gondolier's oar-blade, flashes like a shattered mirror,--and you realize something of what the poet has sung and the novelist written. Then comes the tinkle of a guitar faintly across the water; long, dark gondolas glide silently past your own like magical monsters, guided by dark genii, whose scarcely perceptible motion of a dark wand in the silver sea sends them on with hardly a ripple; the very shout of these fellows heard coming across the water at night has a melody in it, and the tremulous light from tall marble palaces reflected upon the water, with the flitting hither and thither of gondolier lanterns seen upon some of the narrower ebon currents, scarce reached by the moon between the lofty buildings, make the whole scene seem like a fairy panorama, that will vanish entirely before the light of day.

The Grand Canal, the main artery of the city, which varies from one hundred to about two hundred feet wide, seems to wind round through the city, past all the most noted churches and palaces. Over one hundred and fifty other aqueous highways lead out and in to it, and more than three hundred bridges cross them, linking the seventy-two islands of Venice together like the octagon braces of a spider's web.

The flood of memories of what one has read of the ancient glories of Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, its great commercial power, its government and doges, its magnificent palaces, its proud nobles, its wealth, luxury, and art, and, above all, the investment of every monument and palace with historic interest and poetic charm, is apt to cause the tourist to expend his epistolary labor in recalling and rehearsing historic facts and figures relating to the wonderful City of the Sea; for, in these modern days, one can hardly realize, looking at her now, that, in the early part of the fifteenth century, her merchants had ten millions of golden ducats in circulation; that three thousand war ships and forty-five galleys, besides over three thousand merchant ships, flew her proud flag; that fifty-two thousand sailors, over a hundred great naval captains, a thousand nobles, besides judges, lawyers, merchants, and artisans were hers.

"Once she did hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West,"

but now is but an exhibition of the traces of ancient grandeur, power, and magnificence combined with the too evident indications of modern poverty and decay.

The Doge's Palace, Piazetta, Ducal Palace, and the two tall pillars bearing the Winged Lion and the statue of St. Theodore, seen from the water, are such familiar objects from the numerous paintings,--no art collection is complete without one or two,--engravings, and scenic representations, that they seem to be old acquaintances, and at first to lack the charm of novelty. Around the base of the two pillars, when the shade of the buildings falls that way, lay lazzaroni at full length on the flat pavement, while at the edge of the broad platform of stone, that ran out to the water of the canal, were moored groups of gondolas, the gondoliers on the alert for strangers who might wish to visit the Lido, Dogana del Mare, or Rialto.

Rialto! Yes; that is the first place we will visit.

"Many a time and oft upon the Rialto."

"Hey, there, gondolier! _Ponte di Rialto._"

The gondolier certainly understood English, for he said something about "_see_, signore," and prepared the cushions of his gondola for us, upon which we straightway reclined, and in a few moments' time were corkscrewing our way through a crowd of market-boats, gondolas, and 'long-shore-men's craft, near the landing at one end of the celebrated Merchants' Exchange of Shylock's time.

After various remarkable curves, twists, and wonderful windings among the water craft, enlivened with shouts, exclamations, a sparkling of black eyes, and play of swarthy features on the part of the gondoliers, we were brought to the dirty landing, and ascended from it, and stood upon the bridge--the Rialto. Much of the poetry of the Rialto bridge is destroyed by some of the guide-books, which state that the _land_ on the left of the canal passing up was called the Rialto, and was considered the city, and distinguished as such from the _state_ of Venice; and upon this Rialto, _not_ the bridge, were the custom-house, various warehouses, and other establishments connected with trade and commerce; that the real "on 'change," where Antonio and Shylock met, was in the square opposite the Church of San Jacope, which, in olden time, was crowded with merchants, who there transacted their business of weight and consequence.

However, when I was a boy, I always, in my mind, made the rendezvous of the merchant and the Jew on the bridge; but it must have been sadly changed since the time Shakespeare wrote of, unless Shylock came to buy some old clothes, and Antonio to obtain grapes, figs, or onions for dinner. This we thought while standing on the bridge. The view of it from the water, where its single arch of ninety-one feet span, twenty-five feet from the current, lifts up the six arches on each side, rising to the open or central arcade at the top, with the rail and swelled balusters at their base, is so familiar, that, as we looked at it from the gondola, it seemed as if some old scene at the theatre had just been slid together at the sound of the prompter's whistle, or that we were looking at an old engraving through a magnifying-glass.

The romantic imagination of him who fancies that he shall pace over this old structure, and muse on Shylock, Antonio, and Othello undisturbed upon its broad platform, is dispelled when he finds that its seventy-two feet of breadth is divided into three or four passages or streets, and two rows of shops, devoted to the sale of every conceivable thing in the way of provisions, fruit, vegetables, macaroni, clothing, cheap ornaments, beads, dry goods, and china, absolutely crowded with hucksters of every description, giving an amusing panorama of the Venetian retail business in its various departments.

Hard by our hotel was the Doge's Palace, another familiar edifice; and, as we stood within its great court-yard, we could realize something of the luxury and art of Venice in former days.

The marble front of the palace, looking into this enclosure, was a wilderness of elegant carving, armorial bearings, statues, wreaths, elaborate cornices, elegant columns, wrought balustrades, graceful arches, and beautiful bass-reliefs. Here, in the centre of the marble pavement, are the great bronze openings of cisterns, nearly breast high, richly wrought, and five or six feet in diameter. Standing upon this pavement, we look up at the celebrated Giant's Staircase--a superb ascent, and architecturally simple and grand. At its top stand two colossal statues of Mars and Neptune on either side; and it was here, upon this upper step between the two colossi, that the doges were crowned; and here Byron locates the last scene of Marino Faliero, where, when the citizens rush in,

"The gory head rolls down the Giant's Stairs."

The panelling of this grand staircase is of the most elegantly wrought and polished marble, of various hues, artistically arranged. Everywhere the prodigality of rich and costly marbles in panellings, pillars, arcades, arches, colonnades, and luxurious decoration is lavished with an unsparing hand. Opposite the Giant's Stairs are elegant statues of Adam and Eve, while others of great Venetians, or allegorical subjects, appear in various niches. We stood in the Hall of the Great Council, a splendid apartment of over one hundred and seventy-five feet long and eighty-five in width, the walls covered with magnificent paintings--Tintoretto's huge picture of Paradise, eighty-four feet wide and thirty-four high; the Discovery of Pope Alexander, painted by the sons of Paul Veronese; a splendid battle-piece, representing a contest between the Turks and Venetians and Crusaders; the Return of a Doge after a Victory over the Genoese; Paul Veronese's allegorical picture of Venice, and many pictures illustrating the history of Venice, among them one of a great naval battle, full of figures, and quite a spirited composition; others portrayed various scenes illustrating the doges' reception of the pope, and the performance of various acts acknowledging his power.

All around the upper part of the walls ran the noted series of portraits, seventy-two in number, of the Doges of Venice, and, of course, our eyes first sought that of Marino Faliero, or, rather, the place where it should have been. Directly opposite the throne--probably that other doges might take warning--hung the frame, like the others, but in place of the aged face and whitening hairs, crowned with the doge's cap, was the black curtain, on which was painted,--

"_Hic est locus Marini Faletro decapiti pro criminibus._"

This inscription does more to perpetuate the doge's name to posterity than his portrait, or anything else, even had Byron never written his tragedy. Here, among these portraits, are those whose names are famed in Venetian history. Francisco Foscari, who reigned for over thirty-five years; "blind old Dandolo," who, when elected doge, in 1192, was eighty-five years of age, and led the attack on Constantinople in person at ninety-seven. Foscari's tragic story is told by Byron; and there are others whose deeds, and almost very names, are forgotten.

History tells us that of the first fifty doges, five abdicated, five were banished with their eyes put out, five were massacred, nine deposed, and two fell in battle long before the reign of Marino Faliero, who was beheaded. Andrea Dondolo died of vexation. Foscari, after his long and glorious term of service to his country, was rewarded by that circle of demons, the Council of Ten, by fiendishly torturing his son, in the vain hope of extorting a confession, failing in which they deposed the father, who, when the great bell of St. Mark sounded, announcing the election of his successor, fell dead from a rupture of a blood-vessel.

An historical apartment is this Hall of the Great Council, with the painted battles of the once proud republic lining the walls, and the faces of its seventy-two doges looking silently down upon these mimic scenes of their glory and triumph. Here, upon the very platform where I stood, was once the doge's throne. Here he spoke to the council; so would I.

"Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors;"

and Othello's address never had more quiet listeners than the seventy-two red-robed, bell-capped old nobles in the picture frames as my voice echoed in this grand old hall, where theirs had, nearly five centuries ago, been listened to upon affairs of state with rapt attention. A wealth of art in the collection of splendid creations of great artists pervades this ancient home of the doges, which greet the visitor at every turn as he goes from room to room; collections of bronzes, curious carvings, and rich ornamental work are profuse, and in one apartment is an exceedingly curious collection of ancient maps, made in the sixteenth century, and a rare and interesting collection of manuscripts, autographic letters, &c.

But, after having stood upon the doges' throne in the Council Hall, and stepped out on the balcony where the doges were wont to show themselves to the people below, we must see the "Lion's Mouth."

Upon inquiry, we found we had passed it; and no wonder, for not far from the staircase was pointed out to us a narrow slit in the wall, very much like that at a country post-office for the reception of letters, through which the secret denunciations were slipped for the inspection of the terrible Council of Ten.

"But where is the Lion's Mouth?"

"Here is where it _was_," said the guide: and he further told us that government was having a bronze head made to supply the place of the old one, that was long since removed--for travellers would not be satisfied, unless they saw here the real bronze head of a lion, with a fierce mouth, emblematical of the cruel grip of the terrible inquisitorial council, that denunciations which sent a man to the tortures of the rack and the block itself could ever have been thrust through so contemptible a slit in the wall.

Next we sat down in the Hall of the Council of Ten itself--a room with its ceiling richly ornamented with paintings by Paul Veronese, and beautiful paintings by other artists upon its walls. Then we visited the doges' audience chamber, rich in pictures by Paul Veronese; but the best picture we saw here, from this artist's pencil, was the Rape of Europa, in which the soft beauty and rich coloring of the landscape contended with the loveliness of the female figure in exciting the spectator's admiration. This picture is in an ante-room, said to have once been a guard-room, upon the walls of which are also four of Tintoretto's best pictures--Venus crowning Ariadne, Mercury and the Graces, Vulcan at his Forge, and Pallas and Mars.

But it is useless to _enumerate_ paintings in these grand old palaces, as such enumeration becomes but little better than a catalogue. As we have said before, these glorious creations of the great artists waken enthusiasm in the dullest breast. We have nothing at home with which to compare them; they are sights and wonders in foreign lands that are a large portion of the charm of foreign travel. To the lover of, or enthusiast in art, they are a luxurious feast and a joy forever; and the ordinary sight-seer soon ceases, after travelling abroad, to regard what he has before deemed undue praise or admiration of the old masters, as affectation on the part of many of those who utter it. We stand "in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs," and wonder if any modern tourist ever does so without repeating Byron's couplet; slowly we pass over it, glance out at the window at the water flashing beneath, think how many sad hearts have crossed this little span, and follow our guide down into the prison vaults below, down through intricate passages, terrible dungeons in the solid masonry, and dimly lighted from the loopholes of the passage.

"But will signore go down and see the others?"

"Others! Great heavens! can it be that there are any worse than these?"

The guide answers with a significant shrug, and we follow him to a still lower depth.

Here, down below the level of the surface of the canal, are a tier of holes in the solid masonry--one can hardly call these relics of tyranny anything else. A narrow gallery leads past them, from one end of which the only light and air obtained by the inmates were received. These dungeons are about twelve feet long by six in width, and seven feet high, and were formerly lined with wood, with a little wooden platform raised a foot from the floor, upon which the prisoner rested on his straw. We went into one of these hideous dungeons, where some of the wood-work still remained, upon which, by the aid of a candle, we saw some half-obliterated cuttings and inscriptions in Italian, said to be the mementos of unhappy prisoners who had pined in these terrible places. It makes one almost shudder to stand, even now, in one of these fearful prisons, although their grated doors were long since wrenched from their hinges by the French; but the light of day cannot even now reach them, respiration is difficult, and the visitor feels, while standing in them, a nameless horror, or a sensation akin to dread, lest some forgotten door should clap to and fasten him down forever: so we hurry forth, glad to see once more the blue sky above, and chase dull fancies from the brain by an invigorating draught of heaven's pure air.

Across the broad pave, in front of the Doge's Palace, and we come to the two granite pillars, each hewn from a single block, one bearing St. Theodore, and the other the Winged Lion, which, upon their pedestals, must be over sixty feet in height; they form a sort of state entrance, or indicators, as it were, to the grand Square of St. Mark. The end colonnade of the Ducal Palace, towards these towers, at the landing, or mole, ranged along the edge of the canal, forms part of the piazetta, continuation, or grand state opening of the square out to the water side.

We pass between these columns and over the place that has been so often reddened by blood at public executions, and glance up before entering the square, at the elegant architecture of the palace on our left. First, a row of Corinthian pillars upholds a richly-ornamented frieze, and within the pillars Gothic arches form the covered passage for pedestrians; above, the Gothic pillars are repeated, the bend of the inner arches having elegantly sculptured marble figures, in half-reclining positions, and carved heads over the key-stones; above this second tier comes an elegant frieze, ornamented with Cupids holding beautifully-sculptured hanging garlands, and sheltered by an elaborate projecting cornice; above this, the marble carved rail and balusters, with each post surmounted with a full-length marble statue.

This elegant and elaborate workmanship, these two grand columns, and the series of arches of the Doge's Palace, the canal between the palace and the prison, and the Bridge of Sighs, were the first objects that greeted my sight going out from the hotel in the morning; like the gondolas and canals, they seemed of the Venice we read about, as they do even now, as we look at them in one of the photographic mementos of our visit.

The great Square of St. Mark, or "_Pe-at-zir San Marko_," as tourists learn to call it, after they have been there, is five hundred and eighty feet long by about two hundred and seventy wide. It is an elegant enclosure, paved with broad, flat slabs, and surrounded by elegant buildings, the lower stories all around, except beneath one or two public buildings, are arcades, in which are shops, restaurants, and money changers' offices.

At one end of the square, right across the whole space of it, rises the Church of St. Mark, with its arched entrances, florid decorations, bronze horses, and mosque-like cupolas: upon one side extends the Ducal Palace, the lower story on the square utilized into cafés and shops; upon the other side are the Mint and Library, and also the great clock tower, with a huge sun-dial, in blue and gold, upon its square side; above it, in a sheltered niche, is the Virgin and Child; above this, a huge winged lion upon a cornice; and standing high upon the top of the tower, in the open air, is a great bell, beside which stand two huge bronze Moors, armed with hammers, with which they strike the hours on the bell.

Looking towards the Church of St. Mark, we see the lofty Campanile lifting its huge pyramidal top three hundred and twenty feet above the pavement. Here, in this great square, of a cool evening and moonlight night, played a fine band of music, while the public distributed itself about at tables, which were set far out upon the pave, and ordered refreshing ice-creams, delicate cakes, and light wines, from the café waiters, which they enjoyed while listening to the music. Ladies and gentlemen sauntered up and down; lazzaroni stretched themselves at full length in shadowy nooks; pedlers of curiosities, selecting foreigners with unnerring instinct, sought to dispose of their wares at six times their value, reminding one very forcibly of their image-selling brethren in America. A fellow, with a handful of tooth-picks carved out of bone into the shape of a gondola, sauntered up.

"Signore Inglese" (exhibiting his wares), "you buy him?

"No, no" (shaking my head); "don't want it."

Who ever heard of a man's picking his teeth after eating ice-cream? But the peripatetic dealer was not to be repulsed at the first charge.

"Signore, buy; varee sheep."

"How much?"

Unlucky words. He scented a trade at once. His black eyes sparkled, and his white teeth glittered in the moonlight. The rogue understood a little English, too.

"One lira, one franc, sare; magnifique."

"One franc! Quarter of a dollar for a contemptible little tooth-pick! Get out."

"Varee fine, sare; gondola, sare; tree for two lira" (holding up his fingers, and laying the merchandise on the table before me).

"No, no; too dear."

"Vat you give me for him?"

At this moment the café waiter brought me a few copper coins in change, and was profoundly grateful for two of them. I chinked the others in my hand absently.

"Give you four sous."

"Ah, no, signore" (with a deprecatory shrug); "take for half lira--ten sous."

"No; don't want it. Four sous."

He gathered up his tooth-picks, replaced them in his little tray, walked away half a dozen steps--then returned.

"Signore sall have him for four sous."

He pocketed the coins and passed away, and I became possessed of a Venetian memento which I afterwards found could be bought in any of the shops for half what I paid for it. Nevertheless, it was a cheap lesson in the Italian retail trade, which I afterwards profited by.

The reader will recollect that the promenading, and the lounge at the tables in the square, is undisturbed by horses and vehicles. There are no horses in Venice. If one by chance should be brought there, he would be exhibited as a show. The shops around the square are frequented by travellers for the purchase of Venetian jewelry, glass beads, and glass ware.

Little silver gondolas, scarf-pins, with the winged lion in gold, and mosaics, inlaid with figures of beetles, are much bought by tourists. So are the little mother-of-pearl-looking shells, strung together in necklaces and bracelets, and hawked round by the pedlers. But let no one who visits Venice leave without buying some of Carlo Ponti's photographs, the best and cheapest in the world, unless he has changed since we were in his shop, 52 St. Mark's Square. These photographic views were of rare beauty, and of all the interesting views in Venice, public buildings, exteriors and interiors; also all the great paintings, besides views of buildings and paintings in the great galleries of other cities. These beautiful large-sized views, which bring back what they so faithfully represent vividly to mind, we purchased at from thirty to seventy-five cents each. In New York and Boston the price was from three to five dollars each.

We have sauntered all around the great Square of St. Mark, have waited till the hour of two was struck, and seen the cloud of pigeons that come, with their rush of wings like a shower, down to the pavement at one end of the square, to be fed with their daily ration of corn by the government, punctually at the stroke; we have stood before the three huge pedestals of bronze, which are a dozen or twenty feet high, and look like elegantly-wrought gigantic candlesticks, the candles being the tall masts that rise therefrom, from the peaks of which, in the days of Venetian glory, floated the silken gonfalons emblematical of the three dominions under the republic--Venice, Cyprus, and the Morea. These beautifully-wrought pedestals exhibit in bass-relief figures of Tritons, ships, and sea-nymphs at their base, with a circle of the everlasting winged lions further up towards the centre, and above them ornamental leaves and flowers enclosing the medallion portrait of one of the doges.

We entered the Campanile, or bell-tower, after admiring the statues about the base, with some doubts about undertaking its ascent, fearing such a getting up stairs as its lofty altitude would call for. To our surprise, however, we found that there were no stairs whatever, the ascent being made by a brick-paved walk, laid in a series of zigzags, each a gradual ascent from the other. So up we went, the whole three hundred and twenty feet,--a long walk,--to the great pyramid above, and enjoyed a superb view of Venice, and the Gulf of Venice, from the top.

But the lion of Venice (not the winged one) is the grand old Church of St. Mark, with its five great arched doorways, surrounded by magnificent frescoes, its elegant columns, and bronze horses, of historic fame, looking out into the square. This church is said to be a mixture of Grecian and Roman architecture, but its domes give it a suggestion of Saracenic style.

The three huge masts, with their bronze pedestals, stand directly in front of it, and the pavement of the square before the church is fancifully laid out. One great beauty about the entrances is the double row of numerous little columns of various kinds of marble, beautifully wrought. I counted of these fifty-two in the lower tier. They are supported by the same number above, and in the arches of the five doorways are great mosaics, in bright colors, representing the Last Judgment, the Entombment of St. Mark, &c. Above these, over the huge arches of the doors, except the central one, are other rich mosaics, representing the Descent from the Cross, the Ascension, &c. A marble gallery and railing run above the great arches of the doorways; and over the central one, in front of a huge arched window of many-hued glass, stand the four bronze horses of which so much has been written. They are said to have been brought to Rome by Augustus after his victory over Antony, to have adorned a triumphal arch there, and been successively removed by Nero the fiddler, Domitian the fly-catcher, and Trajan, forum and wall-builder, to arches of their own. The Emperor Constantine then carried them to his new capital, Constantinople, which, hundreds of years after, fell into the hands of the Turks, but which, in turn, was taken by the crusaders in the fourth crusade, in 1206, whence they were wrenched from where they stood by knightly plunderers, and brought to Venice, to be again pulled down by the great modern crusader, Napoleon. France, after having them trotting forth from the top of the Arc du Carrousel for eighteen years, had to trot them back to Venice. So that these horses in their day, which is a space of fifteen hundred years, have travelled about the world to some extent. These bronze steeds weigh nearly two thousand pounds each.

Above the upper mosaics, the horses, and upper arches, the fringe or decoration of the arches is crammed and crowded with fret-work, statuary, and ornament. Six open-work, ornamental steeples enclose colossal statues of saints, a fringe and fret-work of angels, palm-branches, saints, and scroll-work run all along the top of the arches; upon the points of four stand four other saintly statues; on the point over the great arch is the statue of St. Mark; under him is his winged lion, with his paw upon the Book, and in every conceivable nook and corner a statue, mosaic, or carving, making this great temple one of florid display, while it is rich with the plundered spoils of the crusaders, wrenched from mosques of the Moslem, and from Constantine's capital, when it fell into their hands. Everywhere in this church the visitor sees evidence of this plunder of the East, or, as the old crusaders might have said, "reclamation from the Moslems." One of the great bronze doors leading into the spacious vestibule is said to have been one brought from the Mosque of St. Sophia in 1203; and the vaulted roof of this vestibule is filled with beautiful mosaic representations of Scripture subjects, while around its walls are elegant columns of rare marbles, brought from the East. The huge portals of entrance are of bronze, and besides the one mentioned above is the elegant central one, of a sort of Moorish workmanship, with its panels inlaid with figures and carvings in silver.

Amid these artistical and historical curiosities, we are pointed to an inlaid red and white place in the pavement, at the principal entrance, marking the spot where Pope Alexander III. and Frederick Barbarossa, the bold, red-bearded emperor of Germany, who did so much to raise the secular power of his kingdom in opposition to arrogated papal supremacy, met and were reconciled. In other words, here is where, in 1177, Frederick rather "knocked under" to the pope.

Passing in at the portal, the spectator is amazed at the vast mass of elegant columns of marble, porphyry, verd antique, agate, and other elegant stone, superb mosaics, gilding and ornament in profusion that meet his view on every side. This church was, in fact, a sort of treasure-house to the Venetians. Every ship that went out from the republic when it was building was enjoined to bring back material for it; the doges lavished their wealth upon it, and great artists left their work upon its walls, while the wealth which rich sinners paid in, in offerings, in the hope of purchasing with money immunity from divine wrath for their cruelties and crime, was expended on it with unsparing hand.

It is like many other old cathedrals in other countries--a monument of the nation of the past, and not of the present. So St. Mark's is a symbol of old Venice as it was, and of which we read in history and romance; and as we stand upon its pavement, uneven in marble billows, we look for solemn, long-bearded doges, priests in their vestments, with swinging censers, moving amid the pillars; or a group of crusaders around the octagon pulpit, with a Maltese cross in its panel, instead of a few modern dressed tourists in the midst of its dim-lighted splendor.

The church is built in the form of a Greek cross, with a great dome over the centre, and also one over each arm of the cross. The walls and columns of the interior are of marbles of the richest and most elegant description; there are said to be five hundred of the columns, and the various portions of the interior, with its different style of architecture, Grecian, Gothic, and Saracenic, would take a volume to describe. In fact the visitor hardly knows where to begin first to examine this incongruous mass of architectural defects, historic interests, splendor, and collection of rare works of art badly displayed. The interior of this wonderful old church can no more be described in a tourist's sketch, than it can be seen in a single visit.

There is the very porphyry basin which holds the holy water set on a pedestal that was once a Greek altar, upon which the Achaians sacrificed to their gods. There is the superb marble colonnade separating the nave from the choir, supported by columns of black and white porphyry, and upholding fourteen elegant marble statues, seven on each side, with a huge cross bearing the figure of the Saviour, in solid silver, in the centre. There is a magnificent high altar; with its four richly-wrought columns, elegant bronze statues, its costly mosaics, its pictures in gems and enamel of scenes in the life of St. Mark, its rich bass-relief and gorgeous canopy. The canopy of another altar is supported by four fluted spiral pillars brought from the Temple of Jerusalem, two of them of translucent alabaster. The sacristy, with its roof covered with rich mosaics; the curious tessellated floor, and the wonderfully decorated roof above; the different chapels and altars, each one of which is a specimen of the art of a different time, are seen here.

There were the splendid tomb of Cardinal Zeno, built in 1515; bronze doors made in Venice in the year 1100; the marble columns taken from Constantinople in 1205; the bronze statue of St. John, by Segala in 1565; the altar table made from a slab of stone brought from Tyre in 1126; monument of the last doge buried in St. Mark in 1354; the figure of Christ, in silver, 1594; Greek, Byzantine, and Gothic specimens of art. The church is a study of marbles, pillars, and colonnades; every part of it seems to have a history, and the eye becomes wearied with an endless succession of different objects, and the mind confused in endeavoring to grasp and retain distinct impressions of various portions, which it only preserves, at last, as one general picture.

In Venice the tourist cannot but be struck, as elsewhere in Italy, with the splendor of the churches, the wealth of gold, silver, and bullion locked up idle, dormant, and useless, contrasted with the abundance of the beggars that in grisly crowds beset the very doors of these splendid temples. Cathedrals, whose wealth would build a hundred such religious edifices as we erect in America, and which contribute nothing to the expense of the state, maintain little more than a corporal's guard of bedizened priests, while hundreds of gaunt, famine-stricken wretches are perishing at their very threshold for the necessaries of life. It seemed wicked to look upon great solid silver busts of forgotten archbishops, gem-crusted crosiers and mitres that make their public appearance but once in a year in a church ceremonial; altars with borders of solid gold and flashing jewels, hidden from public view, and unveiled only on the occasion of church festivals, or for the tourist's shilling, while the poor, ignorant followers of the church vainly plead in misery at its portals.

The wealth that has been lavished here on the churches seems to have been poured out with as free a hand as if the coffers of the church were exhaustless. In the Chiesa de Gesuiti, or Church of the Jesuits, the luxurious magnificence of the interior is almost indescribable. The walls of this edifice are completely sheathed in carved marble, polished to the highest degree, and inlaid with other colored marbles in flowers and running vines. Up, around, and near the pulpit are heavy, massive, and rich hangings, apparently of white and blue brocatelle, graceful, rich, and luxurious; but you find it to be solid inlaid marble, fashioned by the cunning of the artificer into the semblance of drapery. There it is with fringe and fold, tassel and variegated pattern, wrought with costly and laborious toil from the solid stone. Great twisted columns of verd antique uphold the altar, and a costly mosaic pavement covers the space before it; the altar itself is rich with many-colored marbles, agate, and jasper, and all around the church the sculptors have wrought out the marble into a counterfeit resemblance of rich draperies--a wondrous work of art. In this magnificent temple, in front of the great altar, is a slab marking the last resting-place of the last doge of Venice, Manini--the Latin inscription telling that "the ashes of Manini are transmitted to eternity."

The Church of Santa Maria de Frari, built nearly six hundred years ago, is another edifice rich in artistic works and monuments. Here is a mausoleum erected to the doge Pesaro, who died in 1659, and of which all tourists speak; and well they may. It is a great marble temple, eighty feet high, its lower story of a sort of Moorish architecture, open; and in the centre sits a statue of the departed doge upon a sarcophagus upheld by dragons, while two obliging bronze skeletons hold in their bony hands scrolls for the purpose of revealing the virtues of the great departed to posterity. But this is not all of this remarkable monument. At the four corners of the pillars, upholding the temple, stand four huge Nubians carved in marble; their tunics are of white marble, their legs and faces black, and seen through rents in their white marble garments appears the black as of their skins--a novel effect of sculpture, most certainly.

The beautiful monument to Titian, completed in 1853, is another of the artistic wonders of this church. Upon a marble platform of three steps rises, first, a great marble base or pedestal about thirty feet long, at each end of which are seated two allegorical figures of men, with tablets upon which they have written inscriptions. One of the figures is of a man in the full vigor of life, and the other of extreme old age; between these two rises another huge pedestal or ornamental marble cornice, ten feet high, bearing upon its face two angels in bass-reliefs, supporting a wreath enclosing the names of Titian, and King Ferdinand, who completed the monument; upon this second pedestal four richly-decorated Corinthian columns support a lofty Corinthian canopy, looking, in fact, like the grand arched entrance to a temple, the centre being the widest, highest, and composed of an arch. Seated in the centre is a grand statue of the great artist, with the figure of an angel at his side; between, and at the sides of the tall columns supporting the canopy above, are colossal marble statues of four female allegorical figures, and on the background, behind these groups, upon the walls of this marble temple as it were, are sculptured elegant bass-reliefs of the painter's greatest works, the Assumption, Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and Peter Martyr; upon the wings of the great arch, above the column supports, are other beautiful bass-reliefs, and surmounting the whole, the winged lion, in sculptured marble. The whole structure is very beautiful in its workmanship and elaborate in detail, the eight colossal statues finely done, the marble drapery strikingly natural. Even a picture of this elegant monument is something to study and admire, and to be able to stand before the structure itself is more than doubly gratifying.

The same may be remarked also of the monument of Canova, directly opposite, the design of which is almost the same as that of Archduchess Christiana at Vienna. It is a huge pyramid of white marble, and at the right, passing towards its open door, is a procession of life-size figures in marble, representing, I suppose, Art, Religion, Genius, &c. The first, a figure completely shrouded in its white marble drapery, is bearing a funeral urn; next comes a youthful figure ascending the steps, bearing a torch; next to this comes a male and female, walking together in an attitude of grief; bearing a festoon of flowers, and following them two boys with torches. At the left of the open door of the monument rests the winged lion in a crouching attitude, with paws crossed upon a book, and below him a colossal figure of an angel, seated upon loose, flowing drapery thrown upon the marble steps, and leaning, with half-bowed head, upon his extinguished torch. This last figure is most naturally and effectively posed, and, with one of its feet hanging carelessly down from the lower step over the pedestal, and the drapery fluttering beneath it, has an exceedingly natural air, and the figure is beautiful and graceful as one might suppose an angelic visitant would be.

There are many other monuments rich in historic interest in this fine old church. There is that of Francesco Foscari, whose name has been rendered immortal by Byron; and opposite it the tomb of another doge--a colossal structure, forty feet high and twenty-seven feet wide, decorated with a profusion of sculpture, including nineteen full-length figures; the monument of Simeone Dandolo, who was one of the judges of Marino Faliero; the elegant monument in rich marble of Jacopo Pesaro, who died in 1547, and near it a picture over the Pesaro altar, the property of the Pesaro family, representing the Virgin and Child, seated within a magnificent temple, with St. Peter, St. Francis, and other saints standing near, while numerous members of the Pesaro family were kneeling at different points. It was a grand and elegant painting, said to be one of Titian's best works. The little chapels opening out of the church were rich in beautiful pictures, monuments, and sculpture--votive offerings, or to perpetuate the memory of members of some of the great, but now extinct or almost forgotten, Venetian families. Those who have a desire to view the tombs and monuments of the old doges will find many of them in the Church of Santi Giovannio e Paolo, including the splendid one of Andrea Vendramin, who died in 1479.

This great church is three hundred and thirty-one feet long, one hundred and forty-two feet wide in the transepts, and one hundred and twenty-three feet high. Here, on entering at the left, we saw the space that was occupied on the wall by Titian's masterpiece, Peter Martyr, recently destroyed by fire. Owing to some repairs that were to be made in this part of the church, this priceless painting was removed to one of the side chapels for greater safety, which soon after took fire, and was totally destroyed, with all its rich decorations and pictures, the Titian among the rest.

The Santa Maria della Salute, an elegant church, with its great dome supported inside by eight pillars, between which open seven chapels, is beautifully decorated; and here we saw Tintoretto's picture of the Marriage at Cana, Titian's Descent of the Holy Spirit, and the elegantly-sculptured high altar.

We become wearied with paintings at the churches, and saints, martyrs, and Madonnas are at last so monotonous that one ought to take a vacation between a visit to the churches and the Academy of Fine Arts, in which I cannot begin to enumerate the beautiful paintings. Titian's Assumption of the Virgin is one glorious work, however--rich in color and elegant in execution; Tintoretto's Adam and Eve, another; the Fisherman presenting the Ring to the Doge, very fine; and the great picture, by Paul Veronese, of Our Saviour in the House of Levi, an immense painting covering one entire end of a hall,--I should think thirty feet or more long by twenty in height,--a very animated composition; Titian's St. John in the Desert, and Tintoretto's Crucifixion, with the Three Marys, besides an indefinite number of saints, martyrs undergoing tortures, Madonnas, holy families, Virgins, &c., in various styles of art are here.

All the guide-books tell us that Florence is the fairest city of the earth, that it is Florence the Beautiful; so old Genoa is called Genoa Superba; and, in fact, local pride gives many of these old cities grandiloquent or flattering titles, the present significance of which the tourist fails to see. Florence owes its reputation for beauty more to its beautiful surroundings and its charming environs than to any beauties of its own, being in the centre of a sort of pretty valley, as it were, with gentle elevations surrounding it, and the picturesque peaks of the Apennines rising in the distance. From the hill of Fiesole the visitor gets a most charming view of hill, valley, mountain, and plain, and of the city beneath, with the Arno twisting its silver thread through it. The country all around is picturesque in the extreme, with exquisite bits of landscape taking in vineyards and country houses, villages and church spires, gently sloping hill-sides, and distant mountain peaks assuming many strange hues in the sunlight. But the streets of the city itself are generally narrow, and with but little architectural display. The great palaces look like fortresses, and built, as perhaps they were, for the strongholds of royalty.

Our first walk carried us to the Piazza del Gran' Duca, and here rose the huge square, massive-looking building, the Palazzo Vecchio, with great, projecting battlements, and the tall, mediæval-looking watch-tower rising up at one corner, so familiar from the many pictures that have been drawn of it. Right about in this vicinity are many superb works of art in the open air--an equestrian statue of Cosmo I., the Fountain of Neptune, with the god in his car drawn by sea-horses, with nymphs, sea-gods, and tritons sporting about the margin of the basin; and on one side of the door of the palace stands a colossal group of Hercules slaying Cacus, while on the other is a statue of David by Michael Angelo.

This reminds me that we hear this great artist's name at every turn in Florence, see his portrait in every picture store, and prints of his works in the window of every print shop; for are we not in Florence, the birthplace of Angelo--not only of Angelo, but of Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, the artist, and Benvenuto Cellini, the wondrous worker in metals? But I am forgetting the beautiful works of art that stand all about one here in the open street, which I stood gazing at in silent admiration.

In a sort of grand arcade, or "loggia," as it is called, which looks like a house with the two lower stories taken out, and formed into three great arched porticos, is a broad stone platform, gained by an ascent of half a dozen broad steps, and in it some fine statuary. One of the most prominent is a fine colossal bronze, one of Perseus with the head of Medusa; a grand figure executed by Cellini, representing the helmeted figure standing with one foot upon the fallen monster, while with one hand he holds aloft the decapitated head, and the other grasps his sword. The pedestal of this statue is elegantly ornamented. In each of its four sunken panels are small figures of mythological deities. Next comes a marble group of a helmeted warrior bearing away a female figure in his arms, entitled the Rape of the Sabines, Hercules slaying a Centaur, Judith slaying Holofernes, and the Dying Ajax, supported by a Greek warrior. There are also six colossal female statues, and a couple of grandly-sculptured lions. We were full tilt on the way to visit the Uffizi Gallery when these groups arrested us, and were a new sensation--sculpture after so much painting, and a good preparation for what we were to see in that celebrated gallery.

At our first visit here, impatient, we pressed on to the room known as the Tribune, which contains some of the greatest works of art in the world. Those that every looker-in at a city shop window has seen copies of are here in the original. The room is lighted from the top; but it does not appear the most favorable place for an exhibition of these great works. First greeting the visitor as he enters the door is the celebrated Venus de' Medici, one of the most graceful and elegant statues in the world, the pure, modest beauty of which is wonderful. The easy grace of attitude, the modest beauty of the face, and perfect symmetry of the whole figure are faultless. Its height, five feet two inches, was less than I supposed it would be, and the hands, which are a modern restoration, are bad, as all writers agree.

The Apollino, another beautiful figure, shows the numerous seams in it, where it was joined together, after having been broken by a large picture which fell upon it a few years since. And the Dancing Fawn is one of those indescribably natural-looking and faultless pieces of antique sculpture that makes one wonder if we really do have any great sculptors in these modern days; for the position, and every feature, limb, and muscle are so faithfully rendered as to make the marble seem so endowed with life that it would scarce astonish the spectator if it continued its agile motions, and assumed a dozen other attitudes upon the pedestal.