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LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
MRS. ALFRED W. INGALLS
ā¢ā¦*
'>
THINGS SEEN IN VENICE
BACINO DI S. MARCO
(The Basin of St. Mark)
Characteristic gondola in motion, with Punta della Salute in background.
THINGS SEEN IN
VENICE
BY
LONSDALE R^GG, B.D. (Oxon)
PREBENDARY OF BUCKDEN IN LINCOLN CATHEDRAL
AUTHOR OF " DANTE AND HIS ITALY"
AND
LAURA M. RAGG
AUTHOR OF " THE WOMEN ARTISTS OF BOLOGNA "
WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY
31 West Twenty-Third Street
1912
siH
ALLA
CARA AMIGA
ALETHEA WIEL-LAWLEY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS - - - 1?
II. THE G-RAND CANAL - - -39
III. THE HEART OF VENICE - - 78
IV. VENICE ON FOOT - - - 119
V. THE LAGOON - - - - 151
VI. FASTS AND FESTIVALS ā - -184
VII. VARIA - - - - - 218
INDEX - ... - 249
IX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
BACiNo Di s. MARCO- - FroiiUspiece
THE BRONZE HORSES OF ST. MARK - - XV
THE GIUDECCA CANAL - - - 20
A PICTURESQUE CORNER - - - 24
A SIDE-CANAL - - - - 28
A QUIET SPOT - - - -33
GRAND canal: THE " SALUTE " - - 37
LOOKING EASTWARDS FROM THE CAMPANILE - 41
A BEND IN THE GRAND CANAL - - 48
ca' d' ORO - - - - - 52
ca' capello - - - -56
THE RIALTO bridge - - - - 6l
PUNTA DELLA salute - - - 6
A " TRAGHETTO
xi
69
List of Illustrations
PAGE
76
ST. MARK S DOVES
THE PIAZZETTA - - - - 80
THE HEART OF VENICE - - - 84
WITHIN THE COURTYARD OF THE DUCAL PALACE 89
PORTA DELLA CARTA- - - - 93
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS - - - 97
THE BRONZE HORSES - - - 104
INTERIOR OF ST. MARK's - - - 108
INTERIOR OF ST. MARK's - - - 112
A SHRINE IN ST. MARK's - - - 11 7
A VENETIAN BACKYARD - - - 121
AL FRESCO - - - 125
A VENETIAN CORTILE - - - 182
BRIDGE AND " SOTTOPORTICO " - - 136
CANAL AND " SQUERO " OF S. TROVASO - 140
ENTRANCE TO THE ARSENAL - - - 145
OSPEDALE COSMOPOLITANO - - - 149
"the SWAN OF THE LAGOON " - - 153
AT THE GIUDECCA - - - - l60
WAR AND PEACE - - - - l64
xii
List of Illustrations
PAGE
QUATTRO FONT AN E - - - - l68
SUNSET ON THE LAGOON - - - 173
BRONZE GATES - - - - 177
LOGGIA OF THE DOGE's PALACE - - 181
ST. mark's on A FESTIVAL - - - 188
THE BRIDGE OF ST. ANTHONV's DAY - - 192
TWO VOTIVE CHURCHES - - -196
A GALA PROCESSION ON THE GRAND CANAL - 201
A SIDE-CANAL .... 205
A WELL-HEAD .... 209
CANAL OF S. TROVASO - - - 21 6
A BROAD " FONDAMENTA " - - - 220
THE RIALTO - - - 224
A SIDE-CANAL . - - . 229
THE MILK-BOAT . . - - 233
A GONDOLIER ... - 242
Xlll
THE BRONZK HORSES OF ST. MARK
XV
Things Seen in Venice
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
TO be obliged to enter a stately edifice by
its back-door is an unfortunate circum-
stance destructive of any just conception of its
proportions, grandeur, and charm. Yet this
obligation is laid, not only on every pedestrian
visitor who calls on the dwellers in \'enetian
palaces, but on every modem traveller brought
by railway to the City of the Lagoons.
Its visitors of old time were more fortunate.
They approached this " Citta nobilissima e
singolare'' by ways which enabled them to
taste its quality from afar. They saw its
distant campanili as they sailed across the
Adriatic from Trieste ; or they came, like John
Evelyn in 1645, by Brondolo and Chioggia,
17 B
Things Seen in Venice
" over against Malamocco, the chief port and
ankerage where our EngHsh merchantmen He
that trade with V^enice"; and here, entering
the lagoon, they slipped into the Bacino di
S. Marco, the Campanile beckoning them on,
till their progress was arrested by the Custom
House, which looks seaward from the sharp
point of Dorsoduro. Or, like Shakespeare's
Portia, they might come from Padua, travelling
by barge along the Brenta through the level
green water-meadows to Fusina, and there,
embarking on the " common ferry which trades
to Venice," they approached the city by the
broad Giudecca Channel. Or, again, if they
had crossed the Alps by the Brenner Pass, they
left their carriages and all the toils and fatigues
of travel at Mestre, and there entered a gondola,
the revivino^ salt breeze and the masses of heaving
seaweed proclaiming the vicinity of the Adriatic.
Then they rowed across the Lagoon, slowly
nearing the city, which lay like a big lotus-leaf
on its bosom ; not surrounded, like other medieval
towns, by defences of masonry, but having these
shining expanses of water alike for road and
rampart. And when the low shore of the
i8
First Impressions
mainland behind them had become a mere
wavering, neutral-tinted line, the boat swept
into the Canal of C'annareggio, and then past
the Church of San Geremia, into the Grand
Canal, the broadest and most stately street in
Europe.
Yet what the modern traveller loses in
aesthetic satisfaction he gains in sensations of
astonishment. No previous preparation, de-
scriptive or photographic, can seriously diminish
the delightful thrill experienced by the new-
comer to Venice as he leaves the railway plat-
form and emerges on the station quay over-
looking the Grand Canal.
There, by the broad flight of water-steps,
the cabs of Venice, the hired gondolas, are
waiting in a black mass for the arrival of the
express trains. As soon as the first luggage-
laden figure appears on the quay, the mass
becomes agitated. The air is rent with cries :
the offering, " Gondola ! gondola !" from the
water ; from the shore the imperative, " Poppe !
poppe !"' (Boatman !) of blue-vested fcicchini^
anxious to secure a good boat for the signori
who have tipped them well. Or the Christian
21
Things Seen in Venice
name of some private gondolier ā " Francesco !"
" Luigi !'' " Pietro !"' or what not ā is shouted ;
and a reassuring "Eccomi, Signorina !" "Pronto,
Signore !'' comes from some stalwart standing
form, who presently, with marvellous dexterity,
will manage to extricate his gondola from the
crowd, avoid the wash of a steamer making for
the station pontoon to the left, and draw up at
some spot on the outskirts of confusion.
Many of the best hotels now send a steam-
launch as " station bus '' to meet expected
guests. This is an advantage to the traveller
who is going for the bathing season straight
out to the Lido ; otherwise time seems dearly
gained at the expense of the restful motion of
the old-fashioned gondola, one of the most
characteristic and delicious features of life in
the Lagoons. To arrive uncertain of one's
destination ā and without the power to conceal
the fact beneath a mask of assumed decision ā
is to be the victim of the knot of hotel porters
who command the station exit, chanting the
names of their houses, prepared to pounce Hke
spiders on any vacillating fly.
Happy is the man who has come to stay in
22
Topical Press,
A PICTLRESyUE CORNER.
Rio S. Stin.
First Impressions
Venice with some of its residents, and is met
on arrival by his host's private gondola, manned
bv two gondoliers. Happier still is he if his
friends refrain from coming to welcome him in
person. To feel oneself propelled with the easy
speed of the double-oar, to observe without
fully comprehending, to yield oneself silently
to wholly new sensations ā this is the way to
enjoy to the full the luxury of arrival.
Travellers who have crossed the Alps often
come by an express train from Milan, which
reaches Venice near midnight ; those who have
crossed the Apennines often enter with the
dawn. Both hours are favourable to striking
first impressions.
As the night train leaves the station at Mestre
and steams across the bridge built by the Aus-
trians to link their conquest with the mainland,
the lights of Venice gleam brightly in the midst
of a plain of dark water ; and the unique situa-
tion of the City of Refuge is realized more
vividly than when the eye is dazzled by sun-
light and distracted by the unending variations
of cloud and reflection. Then when the restful
gondola is reached, and the traveller begins to
25
Things Seen in Venice
move along the waterway, he is penetrated by
the novelty of its silence. In the darkness he
strains his ears rather than his eyes, and the
only sounds which meet them are the rhythmical
dip of the oar, the lapping of the tide against
marble steps, the weirdly melodious cry of the
gondolier sent forth in warning as he rounds
a corner or overtakes another boat.
Residents in Venice know that the stillness
is fallacious. Experience quickly teaches that
human voices echo through the silence made
by the absence of traffic ; that narrow foot-
passages and waterways are funnels up which
sounds of steps or of revellers' songs ascend to
upper windows ; that Italians seem able to
reduce the hours of sleep to a minimum ; that
when wine-shops disgorge their cheerful occu-
pants vivacious discussion will continue on the
nearest bridge ; that solitary wayfarers are apt
to enliven a night tramp with reproductions ā
allegro and con hr'io ā of the popular operatic
tune ; and, finally, that certain gondoliers are
bound by the laws of the Municipio to be on
duty all night at the traghetti (ferries), and
are determined that some of the inhabitants
26
//. C. White Co.
A SIDE-CANAL, Ul(Ā» S. TROVASO.
Where it debouches into the Grand Canal, with Palazzo Contarini degli Sorigni
on the right.
First Impressions
of the surrounding houses shall share their
vigil.
But the traveller is still ignorant of these
facts, though he may discover some of them all
too soon, when he retires weary to his couch.
For the moment this quiet water transit possesses
him ā this arrival, so unlike the drive from the
station in any other city, seaport, or country
village. He plunges wondering into dim side-
canals, scarcely able to discern the outline of
the masonry through the shadow of which he
passes, all that is mean and ugly hidden by the
darkness, and mystery adding allurement to
beauty half revealed.
Then he emerges again into the moonlight
space of the Grand Canal, with its bordering of
stately palaces. Some are shuttered and light-
less, and the gondola of the house, sparecchiata
ā despoiled of all but its frame ā heaves fastened
to its pall ā the tall posts before the door. Others
have no gondola, while a single light is burning
in the water-entrance ā indications that the
owners are still abroad and are expected home
anon. Or, again, there is a long row of lighted
windows from which issue gusts of laughter,
29
Things Seen in Venice
merriment, and music, while below a black
group of gondolas lies awaiting the close of
an evening reception.
Then, if the traveller is bound for one of the
hotels near St. Mark's, there will intervene
another short cut, another sudden plunge into
a side - canal, till finally he emerges into a
great stretch of scintillating, moon - swept
water, giving back the lights of the Piazzetta
and widening seaward to the shimmering
Lagoon.
But if the traveller come when the shadows
are slipping downwards from the palaces, like
a discarded garment sliding to the feet, and the
expanse of Lagoon and wide channel are grow-
ing grey and faintly luminous, he will find a
quieter station, a less confused embarkation, and
a more refreshing breeze than at any other hour.
Then, too, he will have glimpses of the city's
provisioning ā invisible to later risers ā of barges
bearing milk from the mainland, of boats laden
with market-garden produce, of a bustle, ac-
companied by the sound of many voices, about
the Rial to and the Fish Market. Then, too, if
the weather favour him, he will see two sights
^o
First Impressions
of magical loveliness : looking seawards, the
dome of the church of the Madonna della Salute,
with all its delicate barocco twirls and spirals,
" a wondrous brittle dome of wizardry," out-
lined against a sky whose pale, intensifying
light is veiled in a transparent pearly haze ;
looking landwards, the whole line of the Alps,
white-crested with a sprinkling of newly-fallen
snow, or gleaming in silver and pale purple
through the tremulous white of a summer dawn.
The sunset may show them again, revealing
more clearly to the west the mountains above
Vicenza; but never do they look so ethereal,
so dream-like, as in the pure light of early
morning.
The medal, like every other made of earthly
metal, has its reverse. After the delicious row
from the station comes the reckoning ā often a
disagreeable awakening from a pleasant dream.
The English or American visitor is nowadays
regarded as the rightful prey of the gondolier,
whom he has spoilt by misplaced generosity,
and whom he sometimes irritates by unjust
suspicion. The course from the station to
the fashionable hotels is a long one, and the
31
Things Seen in Venice
foreigner's luggage is often weighty. Some-
times the gondolier is outrageous in his demands ;
sometimes the Jbrestieri are unreasonable in their
withholdings. When a wrangle ensues the latter
are at a disadvantage, for even should they
understand and speak Italian, they are likely
to be worsted when the excited Venetian slips
into his own dialect. The writer remembers
how, not long ago, two young English ladies,
going to a pension not on a canal, besought
the gondolier to carry their trunks from the
landing-place to the door of their lodging.
The man refused to do so unless he were paid
a preposterous extra fee. It was late, and the
frightened girls were about to capitulate, when
two English gentlemen came to the traghetto.
Overhearing the altercation, they dismissed
the gondolier with a threat of report to
the vigili (police), and themselves carried
their compatriots' trunks to the pension
entrance.
Again, if a moonlight night on the Lagoons
holds a charm unknown to the mainland ; if the
dawn seems more magical, the midday sunshine
more effulgentā it cannot be denied that a wet
32
First Impressions
day is drearier and more uncomfortable in \'enice
than in any other European city. There are
days when we would thankfully exchange the
steamer for a rattling bus, and the noiseless
gondola for a snorting taxi-cab ; when all traffic
is dislocated by fog or wind ; when even the
shelter of d^ felze ā the hearse-like hood of the
gondola ā is denied to us, and it is an adventure
to cross the Grand Canal near its mouth, and
impossible to steer across the channel of the
Giudecca. In such weather an arrival at night
is no delicious dream, but a veritable night-
mare. No onondolas are waitino^ at the station
stairs, and the traveller stands dripping and
impatient, while a shivering facchino shouts
'ā¢ Poppe !'' till he is hoarse.
If the wind is strong and gusty, it may be
necessary to employ a second rower ā secondo
rerno ā to a\ oid the wider canals as far as pos-
sible, and to study carefully both wind and
tide. In very wild weather it is safer to leave
one's heavy luggage at the station, and go on
board one of the steamers ā vajjoretti ā which
ply from early dawn to midnight up and down
the Grand Canal, calling at various points.
33
Things Seen in Venice
Very occasionally even this means of locomo-
tion fails us ; in a thick sea-fog there is nothing
for it but to fall back on Shanks' Mare, or, as
the Italians say more picturesquely, the " Cavallo
di S. Francesco/'
36
ā ^ā¢V.Ā«t ^11 '',Ā« j
CHAPTER II
THE GRAND CANAL
IF \ enice is unique as a city, surely there is.
nothing even in \^enice more interesting and
beautiful than the Grand Canal ā " II Canalazzo,"*
as the natives call it. This is the Ringstrasse,
the Unter den Linden of Venice ; its Picca-
dilly and Regent Circus, and I know not what
else, in one.
The beautiful sweep of its curves, combined
with the historic interest and dignity of its
buildings, recalls, perhaps more than anything
else, the immortal " High " at Oxford. But the
comparison is, after all, but a poor one. If by
an inconceivable misfortune the Grand Canal
should at some future date be called to suffer
as some of its humbler colleagues suffered under
the Austrian regime, and be drained and filled
up with rubble and solid paving and converted
into a street ā a '* Rio Terra," as the Venetians
39
Things Seen in Venice
would say ā it would still be far and away the
most glorious street in Europe.
As it is, the quaint and variegated beauty of
its palaces, w^here the twelfth, the fourteenth,
and the eighteenth century jostle one another
in friendly and harmonious juxtaposition, gains
indefinitely from the proximity of the water.
Here, in rare moments of stillness, the whole
architectural line is reflected ; while the dif-
ferent degrees of disturbance caused by light
breeeze or passing gondola have each its
sequence of fantastically broken reflection to
enhance the glow of the picture.
Even the wash of the penny steamer ā the
*' Tram,"' as the natives call it, by a quaint
metaphor ā or of the motor - launch (whose
*' Toot ! toot r^ does its best to assimilate the
noise of Venetian traflic to that of other towns)
cannot entirely destroy the effect, on a bright
sunny day. The general result upon the e3'e is
that of a dark green palette on which the
colours of the architectural harmony above are
fantastically mixed. When a steamer or motor-
launch passes, the mixture is at its weirdest . . .
and you see more of the palette !
40
11*
fl
The Grand Canal
From the steps of the railway-station quay
one sees the Canalazzo winding to the rijrht
hand and to the left. If we follow it to
the right we soon reach its western end, by
turning sharp to the right again past the
purlieus of the goods station, and under a bridge,
and so into the north-western lagoon near the
line of the railway viaduct which stretches in an
apparently endless series of arches towards the
mainland. The left bank of the Grand Canal,
as we move in this direction, is flanked bv
buildings quaintly picturesque, but for the most
part mean and squalid, relieved by the green
patch of the Papadopoli Garden. Adjoining
this is a humble edifice interesting to English-
men as the British Sailors' Institute. The right
bank is monopolized by the offices, sheds, and
^varehouses pertaining to the railway terminus.
If, however, we would see the glories of the
Canalazzo, we must move eastward, turning to
the left as we leave the station steps, under the
useful -but hideous iron bridge. It is rather
north of east that we shall move at first, then
due east, then south beneath the famous Rialto
Bridge, then south with a touch of west for a
43
Things Seen in Venice
longish spell, till by the great Foscari Palace
we sweep round to the south-east and finally,
east, vvith the slightest deflection northwards
past the long line of hotels, to the Piazzetta, the
Doge's Palace, and the sunny Riva degli Schia-
vona. " II Canalazzo Serpenteggia,'' the canal
behaves like a twisted serpent, or a reversed
letter " S.'' This characteristic adds greatly to
its beauty, for it modulates at different points
the lines and the direction of light and shade ;
but it muddles the stranger dreadfully as to the
points of the compass, and distorts most incon-
veniently his impression of the topography of
the city. It also makes the " housing problem ''
very confusing for the ambitious Anglo-Saxon
who wishes to establish himself on the sunny
side of the Grand Canal.
Following the Canal down from the station
towards the Rialto, the buildings on which the
eye rests to the right are, for the first reach,
picturesque rather than important. The mot-
ley line includes not a little architecture that
would well repay attention, but nothing that
forces itself upon our notice, except the classical
facade and disproportionate green dome of the
44
The Grand Canal
eighteenth-century church of S. Simeone Piccolo,
till we reach the fine Byzantine twelfth-century
building which is now the civic museum ā a
museum, by the way, worth more attention
than it usually receives from English visitors.
Meanwhile the left-hand side of the Canal
has been full of interest. Longhena's over-
ornate church of the Scalzi (Barefoot Friars),
adjoining the station, is quickly followed by the
beautifully heterogeneous group of S. Geremia,
its lofty thirteenth-century campanile, with
a modern top, standing sentry over an
eighteenth-century church, and flanked by the
handsome seventeenth-century Labbia Palace.
This group, which marks the entrance to the
Canare^f^io ā the old outlet towards IMestre
and the mainland ere the railway viaduct was
built ā is typical of much that we shall see.
Typical is the dedication of the church : the
Venetians had a fondness* for Old Testament
saints ā " St. Jeremiah "' here has for his col-
leagues " St. Job " (San Giobbe), near by, and
" St. Moses '' (San Moise) and " St. Samuel "" in
* Due, it was said, to their intercourse with the
East.
45 C
Things Seen in Venice
other parts of the town. Typical is the mix-
ture of the stately and the banal in the cluster
of buildings. Typical, above all, is the har-
monious effect produced through the blending
of many tints and styles by the magic of the
Venetian atmosphere.
It would be easy to spend many pages in a
detailed description of the different palaces
which flank the Grand Canal on either hand ā
massive Renaissance structures of the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Prominent
among these are the great Vendramin-Calergi
(1481), with its refreshing green setting of
garden on either side, and its noble motto,
" Nox NOBIS domine" (Ps. cxv. 1); the Pesaro
(1679) ; the Corner della Regina, recalling the
memory of the ill-fated Queen Caterina Cor-
naro, though dating in its present form from
1724 ; and after the Rial to Bridge the Manin
(sixteenth century) ā home of Venice's last
Doge ā now Banca d' Italia ; the Grimani
(sixteenth century), now Court of Appeal ; the
Papadopoli (also sixteenth century), like the
Manin, attributed to Sansovino; the Rezzo-
nico, in which the poet Browning breathed
46
The Grand Canal
his last ; the somewhat less imposing row of
Mocenigo palaces, in one of which Byron
lodged ; and the Corner del la Ca' Grande, now-
official residence of the Prefect. Or, again, we
might make a study of the Gothic structures
of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
These range from the very elaborate Ca' d' Oro
and the magnificent Ducal Palace ; the impos-
ing mass of the Pisani, Foscari, and Giustiniani
Palaces ; the fine Cavalli and its neighbour the
Barbaro, facing the Accademia, to the more
modest but extremely graceful buildings with
pointed or ogee windows that are always
appearing as we pass up and down the Grand
Canal. Or, once more, we might devote our
attention to the precious relics of a still earlier
period, like the Fondaco dei Turchi, already
mentioned, and the Dona' and Saibante to right
and left of the Traghetto of the Madonetta,
all three of which date from the twelfth century.
Nor will the English visitor fail to mark with
interest the sunny and flower-bedecked front of
Ca" Capello, the home of the fine collection of
pictures made by the late Sir Henry Layard.
The churches, too, which flank the Canalazzo,
49
Things Seen in Venice
though not numerous or imposing, have their
interest. Besides those already spoken of near
the station, we pass one on either hand before
reaching the Rialto, and each of these, by its
name, typifies the gymnastic feats of which
the Venetian dialect is capable. That of
S. Eustacchio (St. Eustace), on the right, has
dwindled into S. " Stae " ; while the temple on
the left, dedicated to SS. Ermagora e Fortunato
(Hermagoras and Fortunatus) has transformed
itself compactly in dialect into the single name
of " S. Marcuola'' ! No other churches actually
adjoin the Grand Canal till, after the last bend,
in sight of the iron bridge of the Accademia,
we pass S. Sam uele, with its charming thirteenth-
century belfry, on the left, followed shortly by
S. Vidal (St. Vitalis) at the bridge itself. But
almost directly opposite S. Samuele, we may
obtain a peep down a side-canal, to the right,
of one of the noblest towers in Venice, the
campanile of S. Barnaba. Opposite S. Vidal,
at the other extremity of the iron bridge,
stands what remains of the fourteenth-century
church of the Carita, worked into a most in-
artistic group by modern Italian taste, to form