Piazza Navona

“ Ensconced in the shadow of a roofless portico, a relic of the ancient Circus Agonalis, which at one time occupied the site of the Piazza Navona, and regarding the bewildering spectacle which presented itself to his gaze, with the air of one unaccustomed to such scenes, stood a stranger whose countenance revealed little of the joy of life that should be the heritage of early manhood. ”

“ Within half-an-hour Roma had repeated her statement at the Regina Cœli, and the Carabineers, to prevent a public scandal, had smuggled the body of the Baron, under the cover of night, to his office in the Palazzo Braschi, on the opposite side of the piazza.
X
One thought was supreme in David Rossi's mind when he left the Piazza Navona—that the world in which he had lived was shaken to its foundations and his life was at an end. The unhappy man wandered about the streets without asking himself where he was going or what was to become of him. ”

“ The fact that only people owning carriages could drive in the procession and that only the inhabitants of the houses and palaces could invite their guests, limited the number and regulated the quality of the participants in these curious pageants. In the earlier days much license was permitted, and the entertainments lasted through the night, but in Clement XIIFs time, or about 1760, the number of hours was curtailed. With the ringing of the Ave Maria the piazza was drained and the waters once more confined to the basin of Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers. ”

“ But with the evening, from all parts of the city, come those who wish to see the world, to hear the music of the military bands, to dine at the cafés, and meet the friends they are likely to find there. And soon the Piazza is like an immense salon, brilliantly lighted, full of guests of many sorts, from the elegantly dressed ladies with their attendant cavaliers, to the plainly dressed traveller and the unobtrusive Venetians, who come to gaze at all who throng their dear Piazza. The flower-girls, in pretty costumes, offer their nosegays with a deprecating air, which is irresistible. ”

“ It is generally out of such a shadowy street as this that one comes into the dazzling Piazza del Duomo. But indeed, all Pisa is like that. You pass from church to church, from one deserted Piazza to another, and everywhere you disturb some shadow, some silence is broken, some secret seems to be hid. The presence of those marvellous abandoned things in the far corner of the city is felt in every byway, in every alley, in every forgotten court. "Amid the desolation of a city" this splendour is immortal, this glory is not dead. ”

“ The strolling musician or singer, who may be heard every night in other parts of the city, never plies his trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, which is more rife at Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other Italian city, except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza. ”

“ Emerging from the piazza, we found ourselves in the quaint and busy market-place, the Piazza delle Erbe, reminding me of a huge open Covent Garden, only that here the healthy, robust market-women sit under immense umbrellas, whilst vending their fruits and vegetables. All around are houses of different size and form, painted in various colours, the whole making a bright and picturesque scene. In the centre there is a very ancient fountain; at the top are stone columns, which once supported the winged lions—the token of Venetian rule—thrown down on her emancipation. ”

“ To enter Pisa by the Porta Nuova, coming at once into the Piazza del Duomo, is as though at midday, on the highway, one had turned aside into a secret meadow full of a strange silence and dazzling light, where have been abandoned among the wild flowers the statues of the gods. For the Piazza is just that—a meadow scattered with daisies, among which, as though forgotten, stand unbroken a Cathedral, a Baptistery, a Tower, and a Cemetery, all of marble, separate and yet one in the consummate beauty of their grouping. ”

“ A throng of merchants and strangers from all the corners of the earth, an ever-changing pageant of quaint and gorgeous costumes, passed and repassed. So many strange tongues would you hear, says an old writer, [83] that the Piazza might not inaptly be called the forum orbis non urbis—not the market-place of a city but of the world. Strange tongues are still heard in the Piazza, but of those who come for the pleasure, not for the business of the world: the heart of commerce no longer beats at Venice. The Piazza is, however, a scene of much animation on public holidays when the band is playing. ”

“ The fishermen of the Guiadecca, swarthy hued and scarlet-capped, and with heavy hoops of gold hanging from their ears, stroll about the piazza as is their right, mingling with tourists and the “real Venetians.” All move about in lively measure like an operatic chorus, but with a much more graceful and less conscious gait.
Night on the Piazza or the Piazzetta is not the least of Venice’s charms.
The background hills bordering upon the Venetian plain are a very interesting corner of northern Italy. ”

“ It is much in the form of an amphitheatre, and the surface of the ground seems to be slightly scooped out, so that it resembles the shallow basin of a shell. It is thus a much better site for an assemblage of the populace than if it were a perfect level. A semicircle or truncated ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, with arches opening beneath them, through which streets converge hitherward. One side of the piazza is a straight line, and is occupied by the Palazzo Publico, which is a most noble and impressive Gothic structure. ”

“ In the upper part is a range of semicircular-headed windows, and then a flat ceiling with square coffers. The worst part of this composition is in the space between the capitals of the columns, and the cornice, which is altogether ill managed. At the end is a semicircular tribune enriched with mosaics.
The principal front of the Palazzo di Venezia is towards the Piazza. It has an air of solid massive grandeur and of defence, not ill-suited to each other, but there is no other merit. ”

“ In the great Piazza of San Marco, with its hundreds of lights and its hurrying throng, life is gayer than in the day. Crowds come and go under the arcades, loiter at the tables closely set before the brilliant cafes, or stroll with laughter and snatches of song and free Venetian banter where there is less restraint, up and down the broad space of the Piazza, between the colonnade and the burnished Eastern magnificence of San Marco, beyond the reach of the yellow lamp flames—their laughing faces grotesque and weird in the white glare of the moon. ”

“ THE ILLUMINATION.
This is the appropriate end of a really grand festival; and the scene in the Piazza is as beautiful, if not as exciting, as the race or the serenade. So brilliant is the light that not a detail of the architecture is lost. Every column, with all its ornament, each cornice, pillar, and curve is outlined by little jets of golden flame, and even of a deeper tint; and all these lights are flickering just enough to dazzle the eye with an effect like a rippling sea of fire. In weird contrast is the façade of San Marco, lighted by electricity. ”

“ This piazza is a large oblong space, whose houses were covered with flowers and rich red silk hangings, and the background was formed by the splendid marble façade of the church of Santa Croce. The piazza had been boarded and carpeted all over, and raised seats were erected for the spectators who had obtained tickets. When these seats and the windows round the piazza were all filled, principally with ladies, in the most elegant spring toilets, the effect was the gayest imaginable. ”

“ There was such a gallery in the palace of the Duchess of San Severino. After a long day of strolling, lounging, and staring, I found a singularly perfect pleasure in sitting at the door of a café in the warm starlight, eating an ice and making an occasional experiment in the way of talk with my neighbors. I recall with peculiar fondness and delight three sweet sessions in the delicious Piazza dei Signori at Verona. The Piazza is small, compact, private almost, accessible only to pedestrians, paved with great slabs which have known none but a gentle human tread. ”

“ This they surround with music-rests and a stand for the leader. Now the pavement of the Piazza itself begins filling up. Out from the Merceria, from under the clock tower, pours a [52] steady stream of people merging in the crowds about the band-stand. Another current flows in through the west entrance, under the Bocca di Piazza, and still another from under the Riva, rounding the Doges’ Palace. At the Molo, just where poor Carmagnola stepped ashore, a group of officers—they are everywhere in Venice—land from a government barge. ”

“ The great fountain which plays beside the Palazzo, where of old the houses of the Uberti stood, is rich and grandiose perhaps, but in some unaccountable way adds much to the 167 beauty of the Piazza. How gay and full of life it is even yet, that splendid and bitter place, that in its beauty and various, everlasting life seems to stand as the symbol of this city, so scornful even in the midst of the overwhelming foreigner who has turned her into a museum, a vast cemetery of art. Only here you may catch something of the old life that is not altogether passed away. ”

“ You shall find within that fair city a multitude of old men and youths, who, for their nobleness, are much praised; merchants, and bankers, and craftsmen, and sailors of all kinds, and ships to carry to all places, and great galleys to the hurt of her enemies. There, too, are fair ladies, youths and maidens adorned most richly.” The chronicler describes the Piazza much as we see it in Gentile Bellini’s picture (p. 262) . “St Mark’s is the most beautiful square in the world. ”

“ Its narrow busy streets, though they are wanting indeed in the arcading so characteristic of very many other towns we had passed through, have that peculiar charm which life and bustle always give to strange places; the crowds of foot-passengers threading the narrow ways, with no protection from the omnibuses and carts which jostle against them, are full of animation, and lively and picturesque in their costumes. Elbowing our way between them, we soon found ourselves in a piazza, with the Duomo rising before us in all the magnificence of its white marble walls. ”

“ Time has laid his hand lightly indeed upon the City of Flowers, but whenever he has done so he has altered it out of all recognition, and the garish modernity of certain streets and piazzas surely grates to-day upon those who, like myself, knew the old city before the Piazza Vittorio—always the Piazza Vittorio, synonym of vandalism—had been constructed, and the old Ghetto, picturesque if unclean, was still in existence. ”

“ How could a man have the strange taste to walk in the deserted Pincio, on that holiday, at that warm afternoon hour, when everybody was mad with carnival mirth, from the Piazza Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo? The crowd was incredulous of such eccentricity, and refused to let Francesco Sangiorgio pass. ”

“ Through the open-work of the parapet is seen the vast Piazza, with its yellow toy tram-cars, and the small crawling figures which cast inordinately long shadows. All around is a maze of pale brown roofs, and beyond, the green plain blending on the horizon with dove-coloured clouds in a quivering violet haze. ”

“ Nowhere else is the present so alien, so discontinuous, so like a crowd in a cemetery without garlands for the graves. It has no flowers in its hands, but, as a compensation perhaps—and the thing is doubtless more to the point—it has money and little red books. The everlasting shuffle of these irresponsible visitors in the Piazza is contemporary Venetian life. Everything else is only a reverberation of that. The vast mausoleum has a turnstile at the door, and a functionary in a shabby uniform lets you in, as per tariff, to see how dead it is. ”

“ The piazza before it is a wide, gravelled square, where the liberty of Florence, if it really ever had any genuine liberty, came into existence some hundreds of years ago, by the people's taking its own rights into its hands, and putting its own immediate will in execution. The piazza has not much appearance of antiquity, except that the facade of one of the houses is quite covered with ancient frescos, a good deal faded and obliterated, yet with traces enough of old glory to show that the colors must have been well laid on. ”

“ We wandered joyously through the streets and squares of the old town this morning, for here one does not set forth to walk to a given point—one simply wanders at will. We generally cross the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with its heroic statue of Italy's soldier king, stroll along the Corso Vanucci, the main street of the town, and then go down steps, many steps, which descend into narrow winding streets and viali with most alluring names, as Via Curiosa, Via Deliziosa, Via Bontempi, and the like. Angela says that the last sounds delightfully convivial and suggests no end of a good time ”

“ One set commanded the Piazza, with its grey old church (the Cathedral of St. Paul and St. Guy) , its detached campanile, its big central fountain, and, occupying the entire eastern side, the crumbling frescoed front of the Palazzo Rosso. The other set looked across the Riva, and its double row of palms, out upon the bay, with its anchored ships, its fishing-boats, its encircling olive-covered hills, dotted high and low by villages and villas, and its embosomed Islets, Isola Nobile, Isola Fratello, Isola Sorella, the whole wide prospect glowing in the sun. ”