Chapter IX: Burano and Torcello

The town of Burano, on the island of the same name, seven miles east of Venice, is now quite the superior of Mazzorbo, from which, in its infancy, it begged a piece of land to build itself on. Its founders were few and very poor, but at present there are about ten thousand Buranelli, who well sustain the reputation for disorderliness which they have inherited; for in the old days, even the women of Burano, who held a market in Venice, caused the magistrates much vexation by their quarrels, and now the Venetian gondoliers usually ascribe any troubles that arise on the canals to the Buranei, unless they know of the presence of those other disturbers, the Chiozzotti.

Burano is noisy and dirty. The people are rough in manner and speech, and the children bold and persistent in following strangers. The muscular development of the Buranelli and their statuesque figures are the only traits that one can admire in them. The men are occupied in fishing and towing barges, filled with lagoon mud, which goes to enrich the soil of Pordenone. They have the reputation of doing good work for reasonable pay.

The women are uproarious in their speech and behavior, and seem unfit to make the soft, lovely lace which is largely their occupation. But as one listens to their speech, it is found to be in a dialect so soft and sweet as to make one wonder how so much noise can be made with {164} vowels alone, for apparently all the consonants have been lost. H. F. Brown says: "They dwell upon the vowels, redoubling and prolonging them, so that their words seem to have no close, but die away in a kind of sigh. For instance, they call their own town Buraâ instead of Buran. The effect is not unpleasant, but is rather too sweet and gripless for our northern ears."

Mazzorbo, which at the founding of Burano was the Urbs Major (the greater city), has gradually disappeared, and is now but the kitchen garden of Venice. Burano has annexed it by a bridge built on piles, and high enough in the centre for boats to pass under. There is scarcely a house left on the island, save the little inn where the boatmen get a glass of wine. Each morning the fruit and vegetable boats go to Venice, and their cargoes are sold near the Rialto. The difference between the people of these two islands is striking. Those of Mazzorbo are gentle and kind in manner, and really beautiful in person. What can make this dissimilarity in the twelve hundred feet which separates them?

But the special interest in Burano is the lace-making, which is now in full revival, thanks to the Countess Marcello, and other benevolent patrons, whose efforts have reproduced the Point de Burano in its old patterns. The hundreds of girls in the Fabbrica di Merletti di Burano are certainly more than good-looking, and are improving in their work each year. Indeed, one may believe that the old-time skill of their ancestors is not lost.

The sacristan of San Martino exhibits some fine bits of old Point de Burano, and the robes of the priests are so exquisite that one need not be a judge of laces in order to appreciate their beauty. One who has ever visited this independent little island will recall its peculiarities, and certainly its lace-makers, in whatever distant part of the globe their handiwork may be seen.

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During the sixteenth century lace-making flourished in all the principal towns of northern Italy, but to Venice belongs the fame of _needle-points_; and Venetian ladies were the first to wear it, in the seventeenth century, from which time the fine Venetian lace-making dates.

Before this time the ladies of Venice had worn lace, as their portraits attest, but not of this particular sort. Artists of the highest order did not disdain to make designs for Point coupé, which was made for ladies of illustrious rank, for princesses and queens; and bits of this exquisite point now bring prices that are simply fabulous, and worse, to any but a collector of laces or a connoisseur in them.

"The special character of this lace consists in high reliefs, ornamental figures either in solid or open work, artistically formed and arranged in petals, overlaid with fantastic flowers of very broad design, the open blossoms of which detach themselves from rich foliage of marvellous workmanship, and are connected by joining threads and very delicate network stitches."

The authorities in this specialty put Venice point above all other laces, on account of its high relief, its softness and suppleness, and a certain velvety quality found only in needle-made laces. For some time the secret of the stitches used in making this lace were known only to the inventors. Its fame reached other countries immediately, and the demand for it naturally caused imitations to spring up. The real Venice point was made entirely with the needle. The foliage, the flower petals, the stems, all the raised parts, and all the connecting threads were made in one stitch. The time necessary for its completion gave it an intrinsic value; and its price was such that only very wealthy persons could pay it, while if exported the duty was also heavy.

In other countries laces were made which from a {166} distance had much the same effect, but could not be compared to the true Venetian point. Louis XIV. gave much attention to this lace, and instructed his ambassadors to give him all possible information about its manufacture. He even wrote letters on this subject with his own hand, and was greatly interested in keeping Venetian lace out of France, thus compelling the use of French point. And on the other hand, the Venetian ambassador to France was able to discover just what workmen the French had induced to go to France to introduce the lace-making, and sent a list of them to the Senate. All this resulted in a decree of the Inquisitors, as follows:--

"If any workman or artist transports his art into a foreign country to the detriment of the Republic, he shall be sent an order to return; if he does not obey, his nearest relatives shall be imprisoned, so as to reduce him to obedience by his interest in them; if he returns, the past will be pardoned, and an establishment in Venice will be procured for him; if, in spite of the imprisonment of his relations, he is still determined to live abroad, an emissary will be charged to kill him, and after his death his relations will be set at liberty."

TORCELLO.

Torcello, that once populous city, now uninhabitable from malaria, is a realization of complete desolation; for the few traces of its past make its present more gloomy than if it had never been other than a desert isle. And yet in spring-time it is full of beauty, when its orchards and thorn-hedges are in bloom and fill the air with fragrance, or in the golden autumn days, when the sea-lavender, with its delicate, feather-like bloom, tinges all the meadows with its purple.

In his book on "Italian Sculptors" Mr. Perkins thus prettily tells the legend of the settlement of Torcello:--

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"Two hundred years after the invasion of Attila had driven many of the inhabitants of Aquileja and Altina from their homes, the province was desolated by the Lombards. The Altinese, alarmed at their approach, anxiously deliberated whether they should remain to face this 'Australis plaga,' or seek safety in flight, when they beheld vast flocks of birds, with their fledglings in their beaks, take flight from the city walls and towers and direct their course seaward. Regarding this as a sign from heaven, some departed to Ravenna, some to Pentapolis, and others to Istria, leaving behind them a band of devout persons, who, in order to obtain a more direct manifestation of the will of Heaven, determined to fast and pray for three days, according to the advice of their bishop, Paulus. At the end of the time they heard a voice like thunder, saying, 'Ascend into the city tower and look at the stars.' They beheld a vision of boats and ships and islands, and taking this as an indication that their course should be directed seaward, they removed their most precious possessions to the island of Torcello.... Paulus, Bishop of Altina, migrated with his flock, their relics and treasure, to Torcello and the neighboring islands, A.D. 641."

The ascent of the tall, square Campanile (eleventh century) is not easy, for its ladders are rickety; but the view from its bell-chamber compensates for all the difficulty of reaching it. To the east lies a large district, which is neither sea nor land, but partly both, crossed and recrossed by broad ditches. These are the _valli_, in which fish are bred. Many little huts stand beside the _valli_, in which Venetian gentlemen live while duck-shooting in the winter. The sport is so fine that, in spite of cold and the absence of all real comfort, a shooting-party usually lasts several days.

To the south the view is over the Adriatic, and the eye follows the line of breakwaters, even to Chioggia. South-west lies Venice, her many towers and palaces cutting an irregular line across the azure sky, with the Euganean {168} Hills for a background. To the north, far away beyond the plain, with nothing to intercept the view, stand the Dolomitic Alps, seen in perfection from Torcello. Tofano, Antelao, and Pelmo stand out boldly, their clear-cut peaks white with snow, and their long, lower ridges dark and shadowy. A more heavenly sky, a lovelier sea, more striking mountain peaks, and a more fancy-stirring city,--can these be found in any one panorama to excel the view from the Campanile of Torcello?

The Cathedral of Torcello was so injured by the repairs under the Austrians that one can find little pleasure in visiting it. The one interesting feature is the arrangement of the chancel, where the semicircular seats rise one above the other, and the bishop's throne in the centre, reached by a steep staircase, towers above all. Authorities agree that the fittings of this apse give a better idea of the way in which apses were originally arranged than does any other church, either of the same period with this (seventh century), or even earlier. It is most unusual; and Ruskin throws such a charm about it that it is pure pleasure to read what he says of it:--

"There is one circumstance which we ought to remember as giving peculiar significance to the position which the episcopal throne occupies in the island church; namely, that in the minds of all early Christians the church itself was most frequently symbolized under the image of a ship, of which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men to whom the spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the midst of a destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the eight souls were saved of old,--a destruction in which the wrath of man had become as broad as the earth and as merciless as the sea,--and who saw the actual and literal edifice of the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the midst of the waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling between them and the shores of their birth, {169} from which they were separated forever, they should have looked upon each other as the disciples did when the storm came down on Tiberias Lake, and have yielded ready and loving obedience to those who ruled them in His name who had there rebuked the winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of her arsenals or numbers of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its ruined deck with the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of their homesteads,--first, within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of the sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,--rose that ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices: '_The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands prepared the dry land._'"

A picturesque cloister connects the Baptistery or Church of St. Fosca with the cathedral. The relics of the virgin martyr are said to rest beneath the low, ancient church. The pillars of the cloisters are so short that a tall man can touch the arches they sustain; but they are of pure Greek marble, with delicately sculptured capitals. Everything seems so small,--the two churches, the tower, an ancient well, and a marble column are all that remain, save one or two old buildings that may now have disappeared, so tumble-down were they when last I saw them. The Piazza (!) around which these buildings stand is such a bit of a grass-grown place! The only street is but a {170} footpath, and yet we reverence Torcello for its age. The banner of Venice has floated here more than a thousand years,--more than six centuries before Columbus discovered our part of the globe.

There is a little museum in which a few antiquities are gathered, where one may rest and think before taking leave of this ghost-haunted island of Torcello, so well described by Helen Hunt:--

"Short sail from Venice sad Torcello lies,
Deserted island low, and still and green.
Before fair Venice was a bride and queen
Torcello's court was held in fairer guise
Than Doges knew. To day death-vapors rise
From fields where once her palaces were seen,
And in her silent towers that crumbling lean
Unterrified the brooding swallow flies."

As we row back to Venice in the lovely evening, with the orange and purple of the after-glow dissolving into paler and colder tints, and the stars peeping out one by one, Giacomo tells us a ghost-story which is familiar to the gondoliers and fishermen, a group of whom we have just met returning from Venice to their strange fishing-ground.

The story runs that once upon a time six men were fishing and living together in a small hut among the _valli_. One of them had a little son who stayed in the hut to cook food for the men whenever they came in. As the night was the best time for fishing, the little fellow was often alone from sunset to dawn. One morning, as it was growing light, the men stopped their work and rowed toward home; and on the way they saw the body of a drowned man, which the tide was taking out to sea.

They lifted the corpse into their boat, and laid it on the prow, the head resting on the arm. The little boy was watching for them; and when he saw the seventh man, {171} he thought he was some other fisherman who had fallen asleep after his night of work.

He cheerily called out, "Breakfast is ready; come along!" and ran to the hut to see that all was right.

When the six were seated at the table, the boy asked, "Where is the other man? Will he not have breakfast too?"

"Why, isn't he here? You had better run and call him," answered one of the men.

The boy ran to the canal and called out loudly, "Breakfast is ready, and there is enough for you. Why do you not come?" Getting no answer, the boy went again to the hut, saying, "What ails him? He will not speak."

"Ah," said another, "the old fool is deaf. You must shout at him and swear a little."

Again the boy went down and shouted, "The others wait for you. Come along, old fool!" But again the man moved not.

The third time back to the hut ran the boy, saying, "Come, one of you! He will not wake for me." But they only laughed and said, "Go shake his leg, and say we cannot wait till doomsday for him."

The boy did as he was bid, and clambered into the boat, and shook the man, who then sat up on the prow and said, "Go back and tell them I am coming." Then the boy hastened back, and found the men all laughing and joking, and he cried out, "It is all right now, and he is coming."

Suddenly the laughter ceased, and the six men turned ashy pale. They heard the footsteps approaching, and soon the dead man came in and sat in the boy's place. The eyes of the others were fixed on him, and they could neither eat nor speak. They could not turn their eyes from the stranger's face, and their blood was gradually chilled in their veins; and when the sun was risen, seven {172} dead men sat around the table, and the poor little boy was alone. It is from this event that the _valle_ is called the Valle dei Sette Morti.

Ghost-stories are rare in Venice. There is another that one usually hears. It concerns a house called "haunted." It stands on the most easterly point of Venice, and is spoken of as the "Casa degli Spiriti." The old women say that "once upon a time" a fine young Venetian lived there with a charming bride, and the friend who had been their groomsman visited them frequently. He was godfather to their first child, which is a very sacred relation in Venice, and is called "Compare di San Zuan." After a time the young wife and the _compare_ fell in love with each other. The husband knew this very well, and all three of them were most unhappy.

Just then the _compare_ died; and so greatly did the lady suffer that she grieved herself ill, and was about to die. Her faithful maid knew all the story of her love and grief, and with her last breath her mistress begged that when she was dead no one else should be permitted to watch beside her; and although the other servants would gladly have kept the vigil, the maid was left alone beside her dead mistress.

At midnight the door opened, and the dead _compare_ came in. The maid could neither move nor cry out, and the ghost raised his dead love up, and she began to dress. When she was ready, the ghost took her arm, and signed to the maid to light them on their way. Then the three went down, down to the very lowest vault beneath the house; and there the _compare_ struck the torch from the hand of the maid, and she swooned on the floor.

Thus runs the story of the old women; but there are other explanations of the name of this old house, which even now bears traces of its former beauty, though the whole edifice is going to wrack and ruin. A second {173} story is quite as gruesome as the first, since it says that here dead bodies were brought by medical students, and autopsies made before they were buried in San Michele, which is very near. This is the view adopted by J. A. Symonds, who says:--

"Yonder square white house, standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, it was the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest before their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many generations of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now no fitting house for living men."

But a pleasanter explanation is, that long ago an artistic and literary society held its meetings here, and from the _beaux esprits_ who habitually gathered beneath its roof, it came to be called the Casa degli Spiriti.

Perhaps the most amusing Venetian ghost-story is that of the parish priest of San Marcuola, who declared his disbelief in ghosts in a sermon, and exclaimed, "Where the dead are, there they stay!" This made the ghosts of those who had been buried in San Marcuola very indignant, and they revenged themselves by going at night, in a body, to the chamber of this priest, whom they dragged out of bed, tossed about, and soundly thrashed for the insult he had put on them.

Meantime, while this story-telling has gone on, it has grown quite dark, and as we come into the canals, the calls, _Stalì_, _Premè_, are very frequent. These cries of the gondoliers are curiously startling, especially at night; but the celerity with which they are obeyed, and the narrow escapes from accidents, prove their usefulness. _Stalir_ means go to the right; _Premier_, go to the left; and _Sciar_, or _Siar_, means that the boat is to be stopped by turning the flat side of the oar against the current. Monckton Milnes prettily explains this in his verses:--

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"When along the light ripple the far serenade
Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid,
She may open the window that looks on the stream,--
She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream;
Half in words, half in music, it pierces the gloom,
'I am coming--stalì--but you know not for whom!
Stalì--not for whom!'

"Now the tones become clearer,--you hear more and more
How the water divided returns on the oar,--
Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair?
Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare?
Oh! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view,
'I am passing--premè--but I stay not for you!
Premè--not for you!'

"Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear,--
Then awake not, fair sleeper,--believe he is here;
For the young and the loving no sorrow endures.
If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours;
May the next time you listen your fancy be true,
'I am coming--sciàr--and for you and to you!
Sciàr--and to you!'"

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