Piazza San Marco

“ The Piazza di San Marco is certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind in the world. It is a good deal in the style of the Palais Royal at Paris, and tho' not so large, is far more striking, from the very tasteful and even sumptuous manner in which the cafés are fitted up, both internally and externally ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us take our stand in the Piazza di San Marco, with its glorious many-domed cathedral, its campanile pointing to the heavens, its ducal palace, clock-tower, Moorish arcades, and that vastness of proportion, whose impressiveness is heightened by the stillness so foreign to our modern life in other cities where horse and vehicular traffic create an incessant, deafening hum. ”

“ The jumbled confusion of flapping blankets and spreads and the splashing colors of fruits and vegetables, and the hawkers screaming—all this was gone. The Piazza was a shell of emptiness. High up in the palace windows the winking lights seemed faraway planets, but in the circle of shops below they burned steady and close together like a necklace of fire opals.
The night was softly warm. A score of small round tables had been set out in front of the café near the Fonte Gaia. Most of them were occupied. Giorgio thought he recognized some of the people from Uncle Marco's audience. ”

“ But the greatest of all these marvels of the Piazza still awaits you, the Church of San Marco. Dismiss the old guide outside the beautiful gate and enter its doors alone; here he would fail you.
If you come only to measure the mosaics, to value the swinging lamps, or to speculate over the uneven, half-worn pavement of the interior, enter its doors at any time, early morning or bright noonday, or whenever your practical, materialistic, nineteenth-century body would escape from the blaze of the sun outside. Or you can stay away altogether; neither you nor the world will be the loser. ”

“ Every window in the Piazza and the Piazzetta was thronged with spectators in gala robes, while under the arcades that stretched from San Marco to the ancient church of San Giminiano across the square, the people surged crowding and jubilant; climbing to the roofs and ledges of every building, the campanile, the churches, the columned palaces, leaving not a space where a man might stand save the avenue through the crowd which the soldiers kept free for the procession. ”

“ Baskets of confectionery are moving about in the crowd, and groups of promenaders saunter along the well-paved and commodious piazza, which has scarcely a particle of dust to soil their beautiful dresses. There in front stands the Cathedral San Marco, now nearly eight hundred years old, with its symmetrical cupolas and façade of porphyry and other antique marbles, its scriptural figures in golden mosaic, and its four bronze horses brought from Corinth, taken to Paris by Napoleon, but afterwards restored. ”

“ San Marco, indeed, in its superb and dazzling harmonies of colour, is almost the only living representative of the Venice of pomegranate and gold which created the Cà d’Oro, of the City of Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, whose cornice-mouldings were interwoven with glittering golden thread, while every side canal gave back a glow of colour from richly-tinted walls.13 The banners of the Lion in the Piazza no longer wave in solemn splendour of crimson and gold above a pavement of pale luminous red ”

“ The Piazza di San Marco, is the most agreeable of breakfast parlours: turn which way you will, something amusing is sure to present itself. Itinerant vendors of odd wares wait upon you every two or three minutes, and no sooner are you fairly seated, and commencing the perusal of some article in the day’s journal, than a dirty-looking fellow flings at your feet a large wooden box, and keeps a steady eye on your boots. This is your Venetian shoeblack. ”

“ That scene often recurred to his memory, and he scoffed not at it, but his heart yearned towards the poor superstitious Capri fisherpeople.
Two hours later the steamer was bearing him swiftly away from their island....
[277]
CHAPTER XV.
To the Piazza San Marco, in all its beauty and grandeur,—the richest jewel of the Adriatic's bride,—we must now turn. It is about nine at night; and beneath the long lines of arcades the gay shops and caffès are brilliantly lighted up. Their illumination—for, indeed, it is like one—contrasts well with the darkness of the great Piazza upon which they give ”

“ On the roofs are hundreds of human beings, and every corner that affords a view of San Marco and the Piazza is fully occupied. Men perch like birds on such slight and insecure footholds that they seem like colored statues made fast to the edifices themselves. Here and there a few proud chargers champ their bits and strive to free themselves from their grooms, who wait impatiently, as we do, for the sound of the trumpets to proclaim the rising of this august conclave. ”

“ She would go through the heart of the city; it was the most direct road, and, besides, in the great Piazza there was a chance of encountering her husband, who, by some possibility to which she still clung, might satisfy her of the Frate's safety, and leave no need for her to go to San Marco. ”

“ The rest of us will go out and rouse the people. I have twenty servants armed whom I told to wait in the piazza; they will come and guard the Palace and give you any help you need. Come!'
I did not know the way to the Countess's chamber, but Marco had been a special favourite and knew well the ins and outs of the Palace. He guided me to the door, where we waited. In a few minutes we heard cries in the piazza, and shouts of 'Liberty.' There came a tramp of feet up the stairs. It was Checco's armed servants. Some of them appeared where we were. I sent Marco to lead the others. ”

“ Not far from the church of St Marco, and near to that angle of the Piazza which connects it with the Piazzetta, stands the famous Campanile or Steeple of San Marco. It is a square building 800 feet in height, from the top of which one has the best view of Venice and its adjacent isles, the distant Alps and the marina dove il Po discende. A Quai, if Quai it may be called, which has a row of houses on each side, one row of which is on the water's edge, leads from the Piazzetta to some gardens, which terminate on a point of land. ”

“ On the appointed day, they were to make affrays amongst themselves here and there, in order that the duke might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco, which are never rung but by the order of the duke; and at the sound of the bells, these sixteen or seventeen, with their followers, were to come to San Marco, through the streets which open upon the Piazza; and when the nobles and leading citizens should come to the Piazza to know the cause of the riot, then the conspirators were to cut them in pieces ”

“ There were times and places, it is true, when the buoyancy of youthful blood, and the levity of the thoughtless, found occasion for their display—nor were they rare; but when men found themselves removed from the temptation, and perhaps from the support of society, they appeared to imbibe the character of their sombre city.
Such was the state of most of the town, while the scene described in the previous chapter was exhibited in the lively piazza of San Marco. ”

“ Note 16.—Marco’s contempt for Patarins slips out in a later passage (Bk. III. ch. xx.) . The name originated in the eleventh century in Lombardy, where it came to be applied to the “heretics,” otherwise called “Cathari.” Muratori has much on the origin of the name Patarini, and mentions a monument, which still exists, in the Piazza de’ Mercanti at Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podestà of that city in 1233, and which thus, with more pith than grammar, celebrates his meritorious acts:—
“Qui solium struxit Catharos ut debuit Uxit.” ”

“ There are also numerous drawings in chiaro-scuro by Fra Bartolommeo still remaining, the greater part of which are now in the monastery of Santa Caterina of Siena, which is situate on the Piazza of vSan Marco; they are in the possession of a nun, [40] who occupies herself with painting, and of whom mention will be made in due course. ”

“ In the Scuola of San Marco, [43] at the upper end of the audience-chamber, Giovanni Mansueti painted a San Marco, whom he represents preaching on the Piazza, he also gives the fa9ade of the church, and among the multitude of men and women who are listening to the saint are Turks, and Greeks,—faces in short of men belonging to divers nations, and clothed in vestments of varied and peculiar character. ”

“ As always in Italian towns, it must be visited early in the day if it is to be seen to advantage. In the morning it is crowded with fruit and vegetable dealers, sitting under bright-coloured umbrellas; in the afternoon it is triste and deserted, save by the cabmen, who pursue the stranger with their importunities. One side of this piazza is occupied by the Palazzo Publico—a large pile of building altogether Gothic in its inclosing walls, I fancy, but they have been so much altered from time to time that not much detail remains. ”

“ 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 water laps gently at her feet, the sky arches blue overhead, and one can dream very good and happy dreams as one gazes up at her. But in San Marco, just as in the Doges’ Palace, one is teased by two things—the necessity of thought and appreciation, and that horrid sense one has in so many places in Italy of all the prying irreverence that expert—sceptic—heretics have brought to bear on it—as if the cleverest ant that ever crawled and builded underground could measure the courses of the stars! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The primitive piles and platform are to stand; but new piles have been driven in all round the original nucleus, and on them are being laid large blocks of Istrian stone, which will be so deeply bonded into the old foundations that hardly more than a central core of the early work will be left ...
In a peculiar fashion the Campanile of San Marco summed up the whole life of the city—civil, religious, commercial, and military—and [Pg 160] became the central point of Venetian sentiment. For the tower served the double needs of the ecclesiastic and the civic sides of the Republic. ”

“ Pauline, sitting beside her uncle among the cushions of state, was so absorbed in the mere joy of this gliding, rhythmic motion, that she scarcely paid due deference to the wonders of the Piazzetta, past which they fared so swiftly. Yes; there were the famous pillars of Saint and Lion, and there, beyond the Ducal Palace, was a passing glimpse of San Marco. ”

“ They admired Palazzo Publico within and without; chiefly from without, for they could never walk from the Cathedral to their hotel without pausing for a time to look down into the picturesque Piazza del Campo where it stands, and admire its lofty walls, so mediæval in character, with battlemented cornice and ogive windows.
They walked down the narrow streets and then climbed them. They drove all over the city within its brown walls; and outside on the road that skirts them and affords such lovely views of the valley and Tuscan hills. ”

“ 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. ”