Thomas Okey

“ In 1644, Crete, the oldest and last remaining of her great possessions in the East, was marked for conquest, and, like an old warrior who takes down his armour and girds himself to make a last stand against his hereditary foes, Venice prepared to resist the Turk to the uttermost. The old heroic times seem to return as we watch the quarter of a century’s struggle, but our admiration is touched with pathos, for we know that the dice are loaded against Venice. A Turkish pilgrim fleet for Mecca had been pillaged by the Knights of Malta, and the pious buccaneers had landed at Crete for provisions. ”

“ Passing the altar of St Paul, bearing a statue of the saint and a fine relief of the scene of his blindness, the chapel of St Peter is reached. In front is a screen with statues of the Virgin and Child and four women saints, the Massegne. In the apse of this chapel is the entrance to the Sacristy, one of the most beautiful chambers in Europe. The magnificent mosaic ceiling designed by Titian and wrought with perfect art; the rich marble decorations; the symmetry and proportion of the architecture; the chastened glow of colour will not fail to impress the spectator. ”

“ Beneath the cornice whence springs the vaulting of the apse is a stern minatory inscription in Latin that met the eye of the Doge, as he entered from the Ducal Palace through an ante-room opening on this chapel. It is now but dimly seen, and runs thus: Love justice, give all men their rights: let the poor and the widow, the ward and the orphan, O Doge, hope for a guardian in thee. Be compassionate to all: let not fear nor hate nor love nor gold betray thee. Thou shalt perish as a flower: dust shalt thou become, and, as thy deeds have been, so after death thy reward shall be. ”

“ The Ducal Palace TO turn from the fair temple of the Christian faith in Venice, warm with the affection and the presence of her people, to the empty splendour of the Palace where her secular princes sat in state, is to turn from life to death. If a patrician of the great days were to revive and enter St Mark’s he would find the same hierarchy, the same ritual, the same prayers and praise uttered in the same language to the God he knew. ”

“ Fortunate are they who have the opportunity of seeing the Grand Canal at the time of a royal visit, or other great occasion when steamer traffic being stopped, the waters regain the placidity we see in old engravings, and the lines of palaces hung with tapestry are mirrored in the sea. The grand bissone (festal gondolas) are brought forth, decked with brilliant colours, some of them manned by a score of gondoliers in gorgeous old Venetian costume, and we then catch a glimpse of what Venice was in her splendour. ”

“ For I would have all men to know, who may travel thither, how the noble city is built; how filled with all good things and how mighty is the lord of the Venetians, the most noble Doge; how powerful are her nobles; how full of prowess her people and how all are perfect in the faith of Jesus and to Holy Church obedient, for within that noble Venice neither heretic, nor usurer, nor murderer, nor thief, nor robber dares dwell. ”

“ Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) is the complementary genius to Giorgione. In him is summed all that the Venetian school promised or attained to. Lacking perhaps the sunny radiance of Giorgione’s temperament, his larger experience of life, his deep, strong nature give him a pathetic insight into the tragedy, as well as the beauty, of existence, so characteristic of great artists and poets. To judge fully of Titian’s life-work one would need to travel over the greater part of Western Europe—to Madrid above all. Venice possesses but a score of his paintings, and these not the very greatest. ”

“ Westward is the baser structure of Napoleonic times. Opposite the Porta della Carta of the Ducal Palace stood for a thousand years the old Campanile, like a giant sentinel set towards the lagoons to watch over the city. On the morning of July 14th, 1902, to the stupefaction of the Venetians, the huge tower, which in its massive strength seemed to defy the tooth of time, gently collapsed, as though weary of its millennial watch, crushing in its fall Sansovino’s beautiful Loggetta and the N. side of the Libreria Vecchia, but miraculously doing no further hurt. ”

“ Scarcely had the echoes of the music and shouting in the Piazza died away when the gaunt spectre of famine hovered over Venice. The wheat harvest had failed in Europe, the Crusaders had devastated Africa, and she appealed to her allies on the mainland for help. A strong state ever fighting for its own hand may win the respect born of fear, but sympathy, never. The entreaties of Venice fell on deaf ears. Strenuous efforts were made to collect cargoes of corn from Dalmatia, Greece and even Asia. ”

“ Through all the vicissitudes of foreign affairs, the decadence of trade, the fear corroding at her statesmen’s hearts, the social and ceremonial life of Venice waxed rather than waned in pomp and splendour. The recurring ravages of plague periodically purged her pride and luxury. Of all the great cities of Europe, Venice bears the deepest traces of the passages of the destroying angel. In her annals no less than seventy visitations are recorded. Two great churches, the Redentore founded in 1575 and the Salute in 1630, are votive offerings to Heaven for salvation from the scourge. ”

“ The King of Jerusalem was a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens and a stirring appeal from the Pope for Venetian help was read in St Mark’s. A year was spent in building and equipping a fleet of forty great galleys, twenty-eight transports, and many smaller craft. It was a magnificent spectacle when the vessels, painted with many colours and bright with banners, set forth bearing a gallant army of knights and footmen, their armour flashing in the sun, the banner of St Mark and the consecrated standard of the Cross waving proudly from the Doge’s ship. ”

“ When Antonello da Messina, about 1473, brought the perfected Flemish method of painting in oils to Venice, Bartolomeo was not slow to adopt the new medium. Alvise Vivarini, his younger kinsman, made further use of Antonello’s innovation, and touched, moreover, by the spirit of the Bellini, the young painter, whose works cover the period between 1464-1502, begins to foreshadow the future glories of Venetian painting. The earnest, severe, almost harsh features become softened, a strange grace and gentleness comes like a breath of springtime and promise over the whole field of Venetian art. ”

“ He would find the great palace of Venice a museum; her millennial power a memory; and the gorgeous halls that once echoed to the voices of the masters of land and sea occupied by a crowd of sightseers, alien in race and creed, gazing curiously at the faded emblems and pictures which tell of her pride, her glory and her imperial state.
The earliest official residence of the Tribunes of Rivoalto was situated by the church of the Holy Apostles near the Rio dei Gesuiti, whose northern mouth is opposite the channel leading to Murano. ”

“ Pope after pope had summoned his children to cease their fratricidal strife and unite to meet the Turkish peril. During the pauses in the fierce clash of Christian passions and ambitions, could be heard, like the beat of muffled drums, the tread of the advancing infidel hosts sounding the doom of an empire. But no state in Europe, least of all Venice, grasped the full significance of the portent. ”

“ Great was the rejoicing in Venice when the triumphant Doge returned bringing the bodies of St Isidore from Chios and of S. Donato from Cephalonia, and such spoil of Eastern magnificence as had never yet been seen there since she rose from the sea. But before we follow him to his retreat and death in the Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore, where to this day may be seen a partially obliterated epitaph to the “Terror of the Greeks and the Glory of Venice,” we may record one domestic innovation worthy of grateful remembrance. ”

“ But there are two Venices: the Venice of the canals and the Venice of the streets. The traveller will do well therefore to go on foot to some of the sights he would see, for by no other means can he do justice to the varied beauty of the streets, the quaint fragmentary remains of ancient architecture, the brilliant patches of colour, the little shrines, and all the countless details that go to make the by-ways of the city so full of surprise and pleasure to the pedestrian. The difficulty of finding one’s way from point to point has been greatly exaggerated. ”

“ The scourge of the plague and sorrow for his son’s impiety embittered the last days of the old Doge, and in 959 he died a broken-hearted man. But scarce was he laid to rest when a splendid fleet, gay with banners, bore a deputation of nobles and clergy to Ravenna to invite the proscribed pirate to become lord of Venice: the pressure of a powerful family and the fear of civil discord had led to the recall of the only prince who seemed strong enough to rule the troubled state. ”

“ On the morrow amid salvos of artillery he embarked for Venice in a great galley manned by four hundred Sclavonians clothed in yellow and turquoise taffety, followed by an immense train of galleys and gondolas decorated with carpets and tapestry, with banners and flags waving in the breeze. The procession of the trade guilds, formed of a hundred and seventy boats resplendent with crimson and silver and gold, was a dazzling pageant. The glass-workers excelled in splendour and invention. ”

“ Few things are more charming to the wayfarer in Venice than the little shrines of the Virgin and Child decked with flowers and lighted by night with an oil lamp in the nooks and corners of the city. Though no longer needed for their original purpose of illuminating the ways, they are still tended by the piety of the people. ”

“ The secretary of Theodoric the Great writes urging them not to fail to transport the tribute of oil, honey and wine from Istria to Ravenna, and expatiates on their great security and the wonderful habitations that he has seen, like sea-birds’ nests, half on land, half on sea, or like the cyclades spread over the broad bosom of the waters. Their land is made not by nature but by man, for the soil is strengthened by flexible withy bands, and they oppose frail dykes to the waves of the sea. Their boats are tied to posts before their doors like horses are on the mainland. ”

“ The summer heats came; the arrows of the sun, more deadly than Venetian arms, wrought havoc among the Franks, whose forces wasted away, and the Carlovingians were baffled. A Greek fleet threatening his rear, forced Pepin to come to terms. He promised to withdraw, to restore the captured territory, and to reaffirm all the ancient trading rights and privileges in his dominions in return for an annual payment. The Venetians emerged from the struggle a victorious and a united people centred at Rialto, and the State of Venice was now firmly rooted in the lagoons. ”

“ The modern visitor arriving by train is like one who should enter a stately mansion by the stables. Once, however, in his gondola, the “black Triton” of the lagoons, gliding along the waterways to the strangers’ quarter by lines of houses and palaces, whose walls, timeworn or neglected, sometimes degraded, will be mellowed under the dim light of the infrequent lamps, he will be caught by the spell which Venice casts over those who come to her. ”

“ We are on safer ground when we examine the Gipsy and Soldier in the Giovanelli Palace. Nothing can be seen at Venice to surpass this superbly beautiful composition for originality, poetic grace and romantic beauty. A fairly convincing work is the Apollo pursuing Daphne, almost ruined by a restorer’s daubing, in the Seminario of the Salute. Of the many frescoes painted on Venetian palaces, especially those on the canal side of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi so eloquently described by Vasari, only a fragment remains, a head, torso and part of the arms, of a female figure. ”

“ The Venetian flagship was fiercely assailed. Venier, spite of his seventy-five years, was seen, sword in hand, pressing to the thick of the fight, heartening his men and with invincible courage striking down his enemies, so that he wrought deeds beyond the belief of man. We cannot here linger on the vicissitudes of the struggle. Scenes of comic relief were not absent from the tragedy. Some Turks, their arms of offence failing, seized upon a quantity of oranges and lemons and threw them at their enemies, who with mocking laughter cast them back. ”

“ If ye will grant that I take the sign of the cross and watch over you and direct you, and that my son remain in my stead to guard the land then will I go to live or die with you and the pilgrims.’ When the people heard him they all cried out, ‘We beseech you in God’s name that ye do even as ye say.’ Then great pity melted the hearts of the people of the city and of the pilgrims, and many tears were shed for this valiant man who had so much cause to remain at home, being old, and though his eyes were beautiful he saw not, because he had lost his sight through a wound. ”

“ Sansovino’s work, however, ends at the sixteenth arch from the Campanile corner. Twelve years after his death it was finished by Scamozzi. He was a most lovable artist, ever ready with help and counsel to those who entreated him; the friend of every great man of his time; in youth a most winning personality; in age venerable and alert. At ninety-three, if we may trust Vasari, his eyes were undimmed, and he bore himself erect as ever. ”