Chapter IX: Part 9

As soon as I passed the Knights’ Hall I stopped. Here there was a singular noise, the more distinct because a sepulchral silence filled the rest of the ruin. It was a weak, prolonged, strident rattle, mingled at moments with a little, dry and rapid hammering, which at times seemed to come from the depths of the darkness, from a far-away copse, or the edifice itself; at times, from beneath my feet between the rifts in the pavement. Whence came this noise? Of what nocturnal creature was it the cry, or the knocking? I am not acquainted with it, but as I listen to it, I cannot help thinking of that hideous, legendary spinner who weaves rope for the gibbet.

However, nothing, nobody, not a living person is here. This hall, like the rest of the Palace, is deserted. I struck the pavement with my cane, the noise ceased, only to begin again a moment afterwards. I knocked again, it ceased, then it began again. Yet I saw nothing but a large frightened bat, which the blow of my cane on the stones had scared from one of the sculptured corbels of the wall, and which circled around my head in that funereal flight which seems to have been made for the interior of ruined towers....

At the moment I descended the flight of stairs the moon shone forth, large and brilliant, from a rift in the clouds; the Palace of Frederick IV., with its double pediment, suddenly appeared, magnificent and clear as daylight with its sixteen pale and formidable giants; while, at my right, Otho’s façade, a black silhouette against the luminous sky, allowed a few dazzling rays of moonlight to escape through its twenty-four windows.

I said clear as daylight--I am wrong. The moon upon ruins is more than a light,--it is a harmony. It hides no detail, it exaggerates no wounds, it throws a veil on broken objects and adds an indescribable, misty aureole of majesty to ancient buildings. It is better to see a palace, or an old cloister, at night than in the day. The hard brilliancy of the sunlight is severe upon the ruins and intensifies the sadness of the statues....

I went out of the Palace through the garden, and, descending, I stopped once more for a moment on one of the lower terraces. Behind me the ruin, hiding the moon, made, half down the slope, a large mass of shadow, where in all directions were thrown out long, dark lines, and long, luminous lines, which striped the vague and misty background of the landscape. Below me lay drowsy Heidelberg, stretched out at the bottom of the valley, the length of the mountain; all the lights were out; all the doors were shut; below Heidelberg I heard the murmur of the Neckar, which seemed to be whispering to the hill and valley; and the thoughts which filled me all the evening,--the nothingness of man in the Past, the infirmity of man in the Present, the grandeur of Nature, and the eternity of God,--came to me altogether, in a triple figure, whilst I descended with slow steps into the darkness between this river awake and living, this sleeping town, and this dead Palace.

_Le Rhin_ (Paris, 1842).

THE DUCAL PALACE.

JOHN RUSKIN.

The charm which Venice still possesses, and which for the last fifty years has rendered it the favourite haunt of all the painters of picturesque subject, is owing to the effect of the palaces belonging to the period we have now to examine, mingled with those of the Renaissance.

The effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance palaces are not more picturesque in themselves than the club-houses of Pall Mall; but they become delightful by the contrast of their severity and refinement with the rich and rude confusion of the sea life beneath them, and of their white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing boats, the black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. But the Gothic palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wield over us an independent power. Sea and sky, and every other accessory might be taken away from them, and still they would be beautiful and strange. They are not less striking in the loneliest streets of Padua and Vicenza (where many were built during the period of the Venetian authority in those cities) than in the most crowded thoroughfares of Venice itself; and if they could be transported into the midst of London, they would still not altogether lose their power over the feelings.

The best proof of this is in the perpetual attractiveness of all pictures, however poor in skill, which have taken for their subject the principal of these Gothic buildings, the Ducal Palace. In spite of all architectural theories and teachings, the paintings of this building are always felt to be delightful; we cannot be wearied by them, though often sorely tried; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or as the principal subject, nor can they be. The building which faces the Ducal Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is celebrated among architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes; it is painted only incidentally, for the completion, not the subject, of a Venetian scene; and even the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark’s Place, though frequently painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and colossal tower. And the Ducal Palace itself owes the peculiar charm which we have hitherto felt, not so much to its greater size as compared with other Gothic buildings, or nobler design (for it never yet has been rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation. The other Gothic structures are as much injured by the continual juxtaposition of the Renaissance palaces, as the latter are aided by it; they exhaust their own life by breathing it into the Renaissance coldness: but the Ducal Palace stands comparatively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic power....

The Ducal Palace, which was the great work of Venice, was built successively in the three styles. There was a Byzantine Ducal Palace, a Gothic Ducal Palace, and a Renaissance Ducal Palace. The second superseded the first totally; a few stones of it (if indeed so much) are all that is left. But the third superseded the second in part only, and the existing building is formed by the union of the two. We shall review the history of each in succession.

1st. The BYZANTINE PALACE.

The year of the death of Charlemagne, 813,--the Venetians determined to make the island of Rialto the seat of the government and capital of their state. Their Doge, Angelo or Agnello Participazio, instantly took vigorous means for the enlargement of the small group of buildings which were to be the nucleus of the future Venice. He appointed persons to superintend the rising of the banks of sand, so as to form more secure foundations, and to build wooden bridges over the canals. For the offices of religion he built the Church of St. Mark; and on, or near, the spot where the Ducal Palace now stands, he built a palace for the administration of the government.

The history of the Ducal Palace therefore begins with the birth of Venice, and to what remains of it, at this day, is entrusted the last representation of her power....

In the year 1106, it was for the second time injured by fire, but repaired before 1116, when it received another emperor Henry V. (of Germany), and was again honoured by imperial praise. Between 1173 and the close of the century, it seems to have been again repaired and much enlarged by the Doge Sebastian Ziani....

2nd. The GOTHIC PALACE.

The reader, doubtless, recollects that the important change in the Venetian government which gave stability to the aristocratic power took place about the year 1297, under the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, a man thus characterized by Sansovino:--“A prompt and prudent man, of unconquerable determination and great eloquence, who laid, so to speak, the foundations of the eternity of this republic, by the admirable regulations which he introduced into the government.”...

We accordingly find it recorded by Sansovino, that “in 1301 another saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo _under the Doge Gradenigo_, and finished in 1309, _in which year the Grand Council first sat in it_.” In the first year, therefore, of the Fourteenth Century, the Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was begun; and as the Byzantine Palace, was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the state, so the Gothic Palace, was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the aristocratic power. Considered as the principal representation of the Venetian school of architecture, the Ducal Palace is the Parthenon of Venice, and Gradenigo its Pericles....

Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in completion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in 1400. They represented the heavens covered with stars, this being, says Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno.... The Grand Council sat in the finished chamber for the first time in 1423. In that year the Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was completed. It had taken, to build it, the energies of the entire period which I have above described as the central one of her life.

3rd. The RENAISSANCE PALACE.

I must go back a step or two, in order to be certain that the reader understands clearly the state of the palace in 1423. The works of addition or renovation had now been proceeding, at intervals, during a space of a hundred and twenty-three years. Three generations at least had been accustomed to witness the gradual advancement of the form of the Ducal Palace into more stately symmetry, and to contrast the works of sculpture and painting with which it was decorated,--full of the life, knowledge, and hope of the Fourteenth Century,--with the rude Byzantine chiselling of the palace of the Doge Ziani. The magnificent fabric just completed, of which the new Council Chamber was the nucleus, was now habitually known in Venice as the “Palazzo Nuovo;” and the old Byzantine edifice, now ruinous, and more manifest in its decay by its contrast with the goodly stones of the building which had been raised at its side, was of course known as the “Palazzo Vecchio.” That fabric, however, still occupied the principal position in Venice. The new Council Chamber had been erected by the side of it towards the Sea; but there was not the wide quay in front, the Riva dei Schiavoni, which now renders the Sea Façade as important as that of the Piazzetta. There was only a narrow walk between the pillars and the water; and the _old_ palace of Ziani still faced the Piazzetta, and interrupted, by its decrepitude, the magnificence of the square where the nobles daily met. Every increase of the beauty of the new palace rendered the discrepancy between it and the companion building more painful; and then began to arise in the minds of all men a vague idea of the necessity of destroying the old palace, and completing the front of the Piazzetta with the same splendour as the Sea Façade.... The Great Council Chamber was used for the first time on the day when Foscari entered the Senate as Doge,--the 3rd of April, 1423, ... and the following year, on the 27th of March, the first hammer was lifted up against the old palace of Ziani.

That hammer stroke was the first act of the period properly called the “Renaissance.” It was the knell of the architecture of Venice,--and of Venice herself....

The whole work must have been completed towards the middle of the Sixteenth Century.... But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the great fire, burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fittings and all the precious pictures of the Great Council Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the Sea Façade, and most of those on the Rio Façade, leaving the building a mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames.... The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were however extensive, and interfere in many directions with the earlier work of the palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace, to the other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The completion of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form....

The traveller in Venice ought to ascend into the corridor, and examine with great care the series of capitals which extend on the Piazzetta side from the Fig-tree angle to the pilaster which carries the party wall of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. As examples of graceful composition in massy capitals meant for hard service and distant effect, these are among the finest things I know in Gothic Art; and that above the fig-tree is remarkable for its sculptures of the four winds; each on the side turned towards the wind represented. Levante, the east wind; a figure with rays round its head, to show that it is always clear weather when that wind blows, raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south wind; crowned, holding the sun in its right hand: Ponente, the west wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana, the north wind; looking up at the north star. This capital should be carefully examined, if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to the magnificent verbiage of Milton:

“Thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,
Sirocco and Libecchio.”

I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three young ones on the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but there is no end to the fantasy of these sculptures; and the traveller ought to observe them all carefully, until he comes to the great pilaster or complicated pier which sustains the party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say, the forty-seventh capital of the whole series, counting from the pilaster of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad work, but they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance capital of the lower arcade; the first new lion’s head with smooth ears, cut in the time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth capital; and that capital, with its shaft, stands on the apex of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the Piazzetta side, of which one spandril is masonry of the Fourteenth and the other of the Fifteenth Century....

I can only say that, in the winter of 1851 the “Paradise” of Tintoret was still comparatively uninjured, and that the Camera di Collegio, and its antechamber, and the Sala de’ Pregadi were full of pictures by Veronese and Tintoret, that made their walls as precious as so many kingdoms, so precious indeed, and so full of majesty, that sometimes when walking at evening on the Lido, whence the great chain of the Alps, crested with silver clouds, might be seen rising above the front of the Ducal Palace, I used to feel as much awe in gazing on the building as on the hills, and could believe that God had done a greater work in breathing into the narrowness of dust the mighty spirits by whom its haughty walls had been raised, and its burning legends written, than in lifting the rocks of granite higher than the clouds of heaven, and veiling them with their various mantle of purple flower and shadowy pine.

_Stones of Venice_ (London, 1851–’3).

THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA.

EDMONDO DE AMICIS.

The Mosque of Cordova, which was converted into a cathedral when the Moors were expelled but which has, notwithstanding, always remained a Mosque, was built on the ruins of the primitive cathedral not far from the Guadalquiver. Abd-er-Rahman began to build it in the year 785 or 786. “Let us build a Mosque,” said he, “which will surpass that of Bagdad, that of Damascus, and that of Jerusalem, which shall be the greatest temple of Islam and become the Mecca of the Occident.” The work was begun with ardour; and Christian slaves were made to carry the stones of razed churches for its foundation. Abd-er-Rahman, himself, worked an hour every day; in a few years the Mosque was built, the Caliphs who succeeded Abd-er-Rahman embellished it, and it was completed after a century of continuous labour.

“Here we are,” said one of my hosts, as we suddenly stopped before a vast edifice. I thought it was a fortress; but it was the wall that surrounded the Mosque, in which formerly opened twenty large bronze doors surrounded by graceful arabesques and arched windows supported by light columns; it is now covered with a triple coat of plaster. A trip around the boundary-wall is a nice little walk after dinner: you can judge then of the extent of the building.

The principal door of this enclosure is at the north, on the spot where Abd-er-Rahman’s minaret rose, from whose summit fluttered the Mohammedan standard; I expected to see the interior of the Mosque at once, and I found myself in a garden full of orange-trees, cypresses, and palms, enclosed on three sides by a very light portico, and shut in on the fourth side by the façade of the Mosque. In the time of the Arabs there was a fountain in the centre for their ablutions, and the faithful gathered under the shade of these trees before entering the temple. I remained there for some moments looking around me and breathing the fresh and perfumed air with a very lively sensation; my heart was beating rapidly at the thought of being so near the famous Mosque, and I felt myself impelled with a great curiosity and yet held back by an indescribable childish trembling. “Let us go in!” said my companions. “Another moment!” I replied. “Let me taste the pleasure of anticipation.” Finally I stepped forward, and without glancing at the marvellous door, which my companions showed me, I entered.

I do not know what I did, or said when I entered; but certainly some strange exclamation must have escaped me, or I must have made some extraordinary gesture, for several people who were near me at that moment began to laugh and turned around to look about them, as if they wanted to discover what caused the excitement I manifested.

Imagine a forest, and imagine that you are in the depths of this forest, and that you can see nothing but the trunks of the trees. Thus, no matter on what side of the Mosque you look, the eye sees nothing but columns. It is a limitless forest of marble. Your glance wanders down the long rows of columns, one by one, which every now and then are intersected by other interminable rows, until it reaches a twilight background where you seem to see the white gleam of still other columns. Nineteen naves extend before the visitor; they are intersected by thirty-three other naves, and the whole building is supported by more than nine hundred columns of porphyry, jasper, _breccia_, and marbles of every colour. The central nave, much larger than the others, leads to the Maksurah, the most sacred spot in the temple, where they read the Koran. A pale ray of light falls from the high windows here and shines upon a row of columns; beyond, there is a dark spot; and, still further away, another ray of light illuminates another nave. It is impossible to describe the mystical feeling and admiration that this sight evokes in your soul. It is like the sudden revelation of an unknown religion, nature, and life, which carries your imagination to the delights of that Paradise, so full of love and voluptuousness, where the blessed ones seated under the shadow of thick-leaved plane-trees and thornless rose-bushes drink from crystal vases that wine, sparkling like jewels, which is mixed by immortal virgins, and sleep in the arms of houris with large black eyes. All these pictures of eternal pleasure, which the Koran promises to the faithful, rush upon the mind at this first sight of the Mosque in such a vital, intense, and bewildering manner that for an instant they give you a sweet intoxication which leaves your heart in a state of indescribable and gentle melancholy. Confusion in the mind and a rushing fire through the veins--that is your first sensation on entering the Cathedral of Cordova.

We begin to wander from nave to nave, observing everything in detail. What variety there is in this edifice, which seemed all alike at the first glance! The proportions of the columns, the designs of the capitals and the forms of the arches, change, so to speak, at every step you take. Most of the columns are ancient and were brought by the Arabs from Northern Spain, Gaul, and Roman Africa; and some of them, it is said, belonged to a temple of Janus on whose ruins was built the church which the Arabs destroyed in order to erect this Mosque. On many of the capitals you can still distinguish the cross, which was carved upon them and which the Arabs erased with their chisels. In some of the columns pieces of curved iron are fixed, to which it is said the Arabs chained the Christians; one, particularly, is exhibited, to which, according to popular tradition, a Christian was chained for many long years, and during this time he dug at the stone with his nails to make a cross, which the guides show you with deep veneration.

We stood before the Maksura, the most complete and marvellous example of Arabian Art of the Tenth Century. There are three adjacent chapels in front of it, with vaulted ceilings of dentelated arches and walls covered with superb mosaics in the form of large bunches of flowers and inscriptions from the Koran. The principal Mihrab, the holy place where the spirit of God dwells, is at the back of the central chapel. It is a niche with an octagon base and arched at the top by an enormous shell of marble. In the Mihrab, and fastened on a stool of aloe-wood, was kept the Koran, copied by the hand of the Caliph Othman, covered with gold and ornamented with pearls; and the faithful made the tour of it seven times on their knees. On approaching the wall, I felt the pavement sink under my feet: the marble is hollowed out!

Coming out of the niche, I stopped for a long time to look at the ceiling and the walls of the principal church, the only portion of the Mosque which is almost intact. It is a dazzling array of crystal of a thousand colours, an interlacing of arabesques which confounds the imagination, a complication of bas-reliefs, of gold-work, of ornaments, and of details of design and hues of a delicacy, a grace, and a perfection to drive the most patient painter to despair. It is impossible to recall clearly that prodigious work; you might return a hundred times to look at it, yet it would only be remembered as an aggregation of blue, red, green, golden, and luminous points, or a complicated embroidery whose patterns and colours are continually changing. Such a miracle of art could only emanate from the fiery and indefatigable imagination of the Arabs.

Again we wandered about the Mosque, examining here and there on the walls the arabesques of the ancient doors, of which you get glimpses from beneath the detestable Christian paint. My companions looked at me, laughed, and whispered to each other.

“You have not seen it yet?” asked one.

“What?”

They looked at each other again and smiled.

“Do you think you have seen the entire Mosque?” said the one who had first spoken.

“I? Yes,” I replied, looking around me.

“Well, you have not seen it all: what remains to be seen is a church--nothing more!”

“A church!” I cried, stupefied, “where is it?”

“Look!” said the other companion, pointing it out, “it is in the very centre of the Mosque.”

“Good heavens! And I had not noticed it at all!”

By that you may judge of the size of the Mosque. We went to see the church. It is very beautiful and very rich, with a magnificent high altar and a choir worthy of ranking with those of Burgos and Toledo; but, like all things which do not harmonize with their surroundings, it annoys you instead of exciting your admiration. Even Charles V., who gave the Chapter permission to build it here, repented when he saw the Mussulman temple. Next to the church there is a kind of Arabian chapel, admirably preserved and rich in mosaics not less beautiful and varied than those of the Maksura; it is said that the doctors of this religion met there to read the Book of the Prophet.

Such is the Mosque of to-day.

What must it have been in the time of the Arabs! It was not enclosed then by a surrounding wall, but it was open in such a way that the garden could be seen from every one of its parts, while from the garden you could see the entire length of the long naves, and the breeze carried the perfume from the orange-trees and flowers to the very arches of the Maksura. Of the columns, which to-day number less than a thousand, there were fourteen hundred; the ceiling was of cedar and larch sculptured and incrusted with the most delicate work; the walls were of marble; the light of eight hundred lamps filled with perfumed oil made the crystals in the mosaics sparkle like diamonds and caused a marvellous play of colour and reflection on the floor, on the arches, and on the walls. “An ocean of splendours,” a poet said, “filled this mysterious enclosure, the balmy air was impregnated with aromas, and the thoughts of the faithful strayed until they became lost in the labyrinth of columns which glimmered like lances in the sunlight.”

_La Spagna_ (Florence, 1873).

THE CATHEDRAL OF THRONDTJEM.

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.

On July 25 we left Kristiania for Throndtjem--the whole journey of three hundred and sixty miles being very comfortable, and only costing thirty francs. The route has no great beauty, but endless pleasant variety--rail to Eidswold, with bilberries and strawberries in pretty birch-bark baskets for sale at all the railway stations; a vibrating steamer for several hours on the long, dull Miosem lake; railway again, with some of the carriages open at the sides; then an obligatory night at Koppang, a large station, where accommodation is provided for every one, but where, if there are many passengers, several people, strangers to each other, are expected to share the same room. On the second day the scenery improves, the railway sometimes running along and sometimes over the river Glommen on a wooden causeway, till the gorge of mountains opens beyond Stören, into a rich country with turfy mounds constantly reminding us of the graves of the hero-gods of Upsala. Towards sunset, beyond the deep cleft in which the river Nid runs between lines of old painted wooden warehouses, rises the burial place of S. Olaf, the shrine of Scandinavian Christianity, the stumpy-towered Cathedral of Throndtjem. The most northern railway station, and the most northern cathedral in Europe.

Surely the cradle of Scandinavian Christianity is one of the most beautiful places in the world! No one had ever told us about it, and we went there only because it is the old Throndtjem of sagas and ballads, and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral.

But the whole place is a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery morning light on the fyord and delicate mountain ranges, the rich nearer hills covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs--that one remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax while all is engraven upon an opal sunset sky, when an amethystine glow spreads over the mountains, and when ships and buildings meet their double in the still transparent water. Each wide street of curious low wooden houses displays a new vista of sea, of rocky promontories, of woods dipping into the water; and at the end of the principal street is the grey massive Cathedral where S. Olaf is buried, and where northern art and poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most pathetic fancies around the grave of the national hero.

The “Cathedral Garden,” for so the graveyard is called, is most touching. Acres upon acres of graves are all kept--not by officials, but by the families they belong to--like gardens. The tombs are embowered in roses and honeysuckle, and each little green mound has its own vase for cut flowers daily replenished, and a seat for the survivors, which is daily occupied, so that the link between the dead and the living is never broken.

Christianity was first established in Norway at the end of the Tenth Century by King Olaf Trygveson, son of Trygve and of the lady Astrida, whose romantic adventures, when sold as a slave after her husband’s death, are the subject of a thousand stories. When Olaf succeeded to the throne of Norway after the death of Hako, son of Sigurd, in 996, he proclaimed Christianity throughout his dominions, heard matins himself daily, and sent out missionaries through his dominions. But the duty of the so-called missionaries had little to do with teaching, they were only required to baptize. All who refused baptism were tortured and put to death. When, at one time, the estates of the province of Throndtjem tried to force Olaf back to the old religion, he outwardly assented, but made the condition that the offended pagan deities should in that case be appeased by human sacrifice--the sacrifice of the twelve nobles who were most urgent in compelling him; and upon this the ardour of the chieftains for paganism was cooled, and they allowed Olaf unhindered to demolish the great statue of Thor, covered with gold and jewels, in the centre of the province of Throndtjem, where he founded the city then called Nidaros, upon the river Nid....

Olaf Trygveson had a godson Olaf, son of Harald Grenske and Asta, who had the nominal title of king given to all sea captains of royal descent. From his twelfth year, Olaf Haraldsen was a pirate, and he headed the band of Danes who destroyed Canterbury and murdered S. Elphege--a strange feature in the life of one who has been himself regarded as a saint since his death. By one of the strange freaks of fortune common in those times, this Olaf Haraldsen gained a great victory over the chieftain Sweyn, who then ruled at Nidaros, and, chiefly through the influence of Sigurd Syr, a great northern landowner, who had become the second husband of his mother, he became seated in 1016 upon the throne of Norway. His first care was for the restoration of Christianity, which had fallen into decadence in the sixteen years which had elapsed since the defeat of Olaf Trygveson. The second Olaf imitated the violence and cruelty of his predecessor. Whenever the new religion was rejected, he beheaded or hung the delinquents. In his most merciful moments he mutilated and blinded them: “he did not spare one who refused to serve God.”...

However terrible the cruelties of Olaf Haraldsen were in his lifetime, they were soon dazzled out of sight amid the halo of miracles with which his memory was encircled by the Roman Catholic Church....

It was when the devotion to S. Olaf was just beginning that Earl Godwin and his sons were banished from England for a time. Two of these, Harold and Tosti, became vikings, and, in a great battle, they vowed that if they were victorious, they would give half the spoil to the shrine of S. Olaf; and a huge silver statue, which they actually gave, existed at Throndtjem till 1500, and if it existed still would be one of the most important relics in archæology. The old Kings of Norway used to dig up the saint from time to time and cut his nails. When Harold Hardrada was going to England, he declared that he must see S. Olaf once again. “I must see my brother once more,” he said, and he also cut the saint’s nails. But he also thought that from that time it would be better that no one should see his brother any more--it would not be for the good of the Church--so he took the keys of the shrine and threw them into the fyord; at the same time, he said, it would be good for men in after ages to know what a great king was like, so he caused S. Olaf’s measure to be engraved upon the wall in the church at Throndtjem--his measure of seven feet--and there it is still.

Around the shrine of Olaf in Throndtjem, in which, in spite of Harald Hardrada, his “incorrupt body” was seen more than five hundred years after his death, has arisen the most beautiful of northern cathedrals, originating in a small chapel built over his grave within ten years after his death. The exquisite colour of its green-grey stone adds greatly to the general effect of the interior, and to the delicate sculpture of its interlacing arches. From the ambulatory behind the choir opens a tiny chamber containing the Well of S. Olaf, of rugged yellow stone, with the holes remaining in the pavement through which the dripping water ran away when the buckets were set down. Amongst the many famous bishops of Throndtjem, perhaps the most celebrated has been Anders Arrebo, “the father of Danish poetry” (1587–1637), who wrote the “Hexameron,” an extraordinarily long poem on the Creation, which nobody reads now. The Cathedral is given up to Lutheran worship, but its ancient relics are kindly tended and cared for, and the building is being beautifully restored. Its beautiful Chapter House is lent for English service on Sundays.

_Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia_ (London, 1885).

LEANING TOWER OF PISA.

CHARLES DICKENS.

From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of the fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies--with Leghorn a purple spot in the flat distance--is enchanting. Nor is it only distance that lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitful country, and rich woods of olive-trees through which the road subsequently passes, render it delightful.

The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we could see, behind the wall, the Leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in school-books, setting forth “The Wonders of the World.” Like most things connected in their first associations with school-books and school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing like so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of the many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner of St. Paul’s Church-yard, London. _His_ Tower was a fiction, but this was reality--and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The quiet air of Pisa, too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two little soldiers in it; the streets, with scarcely any show of people in them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next morning.

I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave, retired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. But, the group of buildings clustered on and about this verdant carpet; comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo; is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and, from being clustered there together away from the ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed out, and filtered away.

SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in children’s books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general appearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an easy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the summit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in a ship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb tide. The effect _upon the low side_, so to speak--looking over from the gallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its base--is very startling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the Tower involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of propping it up. The view within, from the ground--looking up, as through a slanted tube--is also very curious. It certainly inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The natural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were about to recline upon the grass below it to rest, and contemplate the adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up their position under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant.

_Pictures from Italy_ (London, 1845).

THE CATHEDRAL OF CANTERBURY.

W. H FREMANTLE.

The foundation of St. Martin’s Church and the lower part of its walls, which are Roman, stood in 598 as they stand to-day; and they were the walls of the little church which had been given to the Christian Queen Bertha and her chaplain Bishop Luithart, by her pagan husband King Ethelbert. When Augustine passed towards the city, as described by the Venerable Bede, with his little procession headed by the monk carrying a board on which was a rough picture of Christ, and a chorister bearing a silver cross, his heart, no doubt, beat high with hope: but his hope would have grown into exultation could he have looked forward through the centuries, and beheld the magnificent Cathedral which was to spring up where his episcopal throne was fixed, and the energetic and varied Christian life which has issued from this first home of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. To us the scene is full of historical recollections. Between the place where we are standing and the Cathedral are the city walls, on the very site which they occupied in the days of Ethelbert, and the postern-gate through which Queen Bertha came every day to her prayers; in the nearer distance, a little to the right of the Cathedral, are the remains of the great abbey which Augustine founded; to our left is the Pilgrims’ Way, by which, after Becket’s canonization, those who landed at Dover made their way to the shrine of St. Thomas.

The eye glances over the valley of the Stour, enclosed between the hill on which we are placed and that of St. Thomas, crowned by the fine buildings of the Clergy Orphan School; and ranges from Harbledown (Chaucer’s “little town under the Blean ycleped Bob-up-and-down”) on the left to the Jesuit College at Hale’s Place farther to the right; and thence down the valley to Fordwich, where formerly the waters of the Stour joined those of the Wantsome, the estuary separating Thanet from the mainland. This town at the Domesday epoch was a port with flourishing mills and fisheries. There the Caen stone was landed to build the Cathedral, and the tuns of wine from the monks’ vineyards in France were lifted out of the ships by the mayor’s crane....

But it is time that we go into the Cathedral precincts. Making use of a canon’s key, we pass, by Queen Bertha’s Postern, through the old city walls, along a piece of the ancient Queningate lane--a reserved space between the walls of the city and the precincts, along which the citizens and troops could pass freely for purposes of defence: through the Bowling Green, where the tower of Prior Chillenden is seen to have been used as a pigeon-house, into the Cathedral Yard. In so doing we pass under a Norman archway of the date of Lanfranc and the Conqueror, which formerly stood in a wall separating the cemetery of the monks from that of the laity; then along the south side of the Cathedral, passing Anselm’s chapel, and the beautiful Norman tower attached to the south-eastern transept, with its elaborate tracery, which shows how delicate Norman work could be; past the south porch, over which is a bas-relief of the altar where the sword of Becket’s murderer was preserved; and round, past the western door, into the cloister.

The cloister occupies the same space as the Norman cloister built by Lanfranc, but of the Norman work only a doorway remains at the north-east corner; there is some Early English arcading on the north side, but the present tracery and fan-worked roof belong to the end of the Fourteenth Century, when Archbishops Sudbury, Arundell, and Courtenay, and Prior Chillenden (1390–1411) rebuilt the nave, the cloister and the chapter-house. The later work cuts across the older in the most unceremonious way, as is seen especially in the square doorway by which we shall presently enter the “Martyrdom,” which cuts into a far more beautiful portal of the decorated period....

If from the place at which we have in imagination been standing, at the north-west corner of the cloister, we look for a moment behind us, we see in the wall a blocked-up door, with a curious door at the side of it. The hole is said to have been made in order to pass bottles and other articles through from the cellarer’s lodgings, which were on the other side of the wall. The doorway was the entrance from the Archbishop’s Palace, which occupied the space a little further to the west; and through it Becket passed out to his death, on the 29th of December, 1170....

Henry had to do penance, and practically to concede the clerical immunities for which Becket had contended; and Becket became a saint, “the holy, blissful martyr,” himself the worker of a thousand miracles, and his shrine the goal of pilgrimages from all parts of England and of Europe. But, whatever we may think of this, his death was certainly the making of Canterbury and its Cathedral. Four years after Becket’s death the choir was burned down (1174): but the treasure which was poured into the martyr’s church enabled the monks to rebuild it in its present grander proportions; and the city, which before was insignificant, became wealthy, populous, and renowned.

The crypt was the first place of Becket’s interment, and into the crypt we now pass.... The pavement in the centre of the Trinity Chapel (the part east of the screen) is very rough, being composed of the stones which formed the steps and pavement of the shrine; but the marble pavement around it is still as it was when the shrine was standing, and a perceptible line marks the impress of the pilgrims’ feet as they stood in a row to see the treasures. The shrine stood upon a platform approached by three marble steps, some stones of which, grooved by the pilgrims’ knees, are still seen in the flooring. The platform was paved with mosaic and medallions, specimens of which may still be seen in the present pavement. Above this platform was the chased and gilded coffin of the saint, supported by three arches, which were hung with votive offerings of extreme richness, and between two of which sick persons were allowed to pass, so that by rubbing themselves against the stones they might draw forth virtue from the relics of the saint. The whole was covered with an oaken case richly decorated, which at a given signal from the monk whom Erasmus styles the mystagogus, or master of the mysteries, was drawn up and revealed the riches within to the wondering gaze of the pilgrims. In the painted windows of the chapel are the records of the miracles wrought by the intercession of St. Thomas: here, a dead man being carried out to burial is raised; there, the parents of a boy who has been drowned in the attempt to catch frogs in the river are informed of their loss by his companions with eager gestures, and he too is restored to life; and in each case offerings of gold and silver are poured upon the shrine; the madman is seen coming back in his right mind; “Amens accedit, sanus recedit:” and on several occasions the saint himself comes on the scene to heal the sick man on his bed, in one case flying forth from the shrine in his episcopal robes. The worship of Becket was the favourite cultus of the unreformed Church of England; yet, strange to tell, from the day when Henry gave orders to demolish the shrine, and to expunge his name from all the service books and his memorials from all the churches, no one seems to have thought anything more about him. The blow which, to adapt the language of the Old Testament, “destroyed Becket out of Israel,” though violent, was timely.

The Black Prince, whose wife was the Fair Maid of Kent, was especially attached to Canterbury, and founded two chantries in the crypt or undercroft. These now form the entrance to the French Church, where the descendants of the Walloon and Huguenot refugees still worship in the forms of their ancestors. The Prince had desired to be buried below; but, partly from the special devotion which he had to the Trinity, partly that so great a man might have the place of honour, his tomb was erected at the side of Becket’s shrine. He left to the Church of Canterbury his velvet coat embroidered with lions and lilies, his ornamental shield, his lion-crested helmet, his sword and his gauntlets, all of which still hang above his bronze effigy, except the sword, which is said to have been removed by Cromwell, and of which only part of the scabbard remains. The effigy is believed to be a good likeness. It was placed upon the tomb where the body lies soon after his death, which occurred on the 8th of June, 1376, the feast of the Trinity, as recorded in the inscription in the French of his own Aquitaine. The Prince of Wales’s feathers and the lions and lilies, with the Prince’s two mottoes, “Ich diene,” (I serve), and “Houmout,” (High Courage), form the ornaments of the tomb, which is also surrounded by some French verses chosen by the Prince himself, and describing the vanity of earthly glory....

And now we leave the Cathedral, and pass out of the precincts by the Christ Church Gate, still beautiful even in its defacement, and through the narrow Mercery Lane, where stood in old times the booths for the sellers of relics and of the little leaden bottles supposed to contain in their water some drops of St. Thomas’s blood; where also stood the Chequers of the Hope, at which Chaucer’s pilgrims regaled themselves, and of which one fragment, marked by the Black Prince’s emblem of the lion with protruding tongue, may still be seen at the corner of the lane; down the High Street, where we pass the old East Bridge Hospital, founded by Lanfranc, endowed by Becket, and saved from confiscation by Cranmer, with its low Norman doorway and the crypt under its hall; and leave the city by the West Gate, which was erected by Archbishop Sudbury on the line where the eastern wall ran along the Stour; and past the Falstaff Inn, where the sign of the roystering old knight hangs out on some beautiful ancient iron-work, and welcomes the cyclists who specially affect his inn; and so on to the South Eastern Railway Station.

We entered Canterbury on foot with Augustine, we leave it by a modern railway.

Farrar, _Our English Minsters_ (London, 1893).

THE ALHAMBRA.

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

Having passed through the gate, you enter a large square called _Plaza de las Algives_ in the centre of which you find a well whose curb is surrounded by a kind of wooden shed covered with spartium matting and where, for a _cuarto_, you can have a glass of water, as clear as a diamond, as cold as ice, and of the most delicious flavour. The towers of Quebrada, the Homenaga, the Armeria, and of the Vela, whose bell announces the hours when the water is distributed, and stone-parapets, on which you can lean to admire the marvellous view which unfolds before you, surround one side of the square; the other is occupied by the Palace of Charles V., an immense building of the Renaissance, which you would admire anywhere else, but which you curse here when you remember that it covers a space once occupied by a portion of the Alhambra which was pulled down to make room for this heavy mass. This Alcazar was, however, designed by Alonzo Berruguete; the trophies, the bas-reliefs, and the medallions of its façade have been accumulated by means of a proud, bold, and patient chisel; the circular court with its marble columns, where, in all probability, the bull-fights took place, is certainly a magnificent piece of architecture, but _non erat hic locus_.

You enter the Alhambra through a corridor situated in an angle of the Palace of Charles V., and, after several windings, you arrive in a large court, designated indifferently under the names of _Patio de los Arraynes_ (Court of Myrtles), of the _Alberca_ (of the Reservoir), or of the _Mezouar_ (an Arabian word signifying bath for women).

When you issue from these dark passages into this large space flooded with light, the effect is similar to that produced by a diorama. You can almost fancy that an enchanter’s wand has transported you to the Orient of four or five centuries ago. Time, which changes everything in its flight, has altered nothing here, where the apparition of the Sultana _Chaîne des cœurs_ and of the Moor _Tarfe_ in his white cloak would not cause the least surprise....

The antechamber of the Hall of the Ambassadors is worthy of the purpose for which it was intended: the boldness of its arches, the variety and interlacing of its arabesques, the mosaics of its walls, and the work on its stuccoed ceiling, crowded like the stalactite roof of a grotto and painted with azure, green, and red, traces of which colours are still visible, produce an effect both charming and bizarre.

On each side of the door which leads to the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the jamb of the arch itself and where the facing of glazed tiles, whose triangles of glaring colours adorn the lower portion of the walls, are hollowed out, like little chapels, two niches of white marble sculptured with an extreme delicacy. It was here that the ancient Moors left their Turkish slippers before entering, as a mark of deference, just as we remove our hats in places that demand this respect.