San Marco

“ 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 flags were still rising and falling on the breeze, unfolding their radiant colours to the declining sun; the deep-throated bell of the campanile, which has sounded so many a summons to great deeds, was solemnly tolling the hour; a Franciscan brother stepped across the pavement, bent doubtless upon an errand of mercy. The young man read a new suggestion in each of these familiar sights and sounds. He turned and looked back at San Marco, at the outline of its clustering domes, at its carvings and mosaics, gleaming in full sunshine. ”

“ The church of San Marco is one of the grandest and most wonderful structures in Italy, and I can only refrain from copying Ruskin's very fine description of it, because his account, though true in every particular, would, to one who has never seen any of the architectural glories of Italy, seem more like the attempt of a poet to depict in glowing language the vagaries of a dream, than like the description of an edifice really in existance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the time that Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the convent for Sant' Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within its cloisters. With San Marco our story has now to deal, for it is impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's life without touching on the well-known history of Savonarola. ”

“ It was a fiery apparition, more fervid and dazzling than that which had glowed in the harbor of San Marco; a flaming force of life, expelled from the deepest recesses of Nature toward the expectant multitude; a vehement zone of light, flashing out from an interior sky to illumine the most secret depths of human will and desire; an unheard word emerging from original silence to say that which is eternal and eternally ineffable in the heart of the world. ”

“ It has penetrated everything she has created of enduring beauty. Go into San Marco and look down at what your feet are treading. Venice, whose streets are paved with sky, must in her church also have sky beneath her feet. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful pavement than the undulating marbles of San Marco; its rich and varied colours bound together with the rarest inspiration; orient gems captured and imprisoned and constantly lit with new and vivid beauty from the domes above. The floor of San Marco is one of the glories of Venice—of the world ”

“ But the brilliant memories of this morning would gladden many a less golden day—Viva San Marco! Their voluble tongues were suddenly unloosed, and those who had been favored with near glimpses of the heroes of the day became centres of animated discussion. Life was good in Venice! "And thou, Nino, forget not that the Madonna hath been 'gentile' to thee! Thou shalt tell thy little ones, when thou art old, that thou hast this day seen, with thine own eyes, the Marconino, who hath given the great galley to the Republic!" ”

“ The people treasure many legends of their saint, and their love and reverence for him survive their knowledge of their former state. San Marco the Saint, San Marco the Cathedral, and San Marco the Piazza remain to them,—facts of which they may well be proud,—but the Doges, the Bucentaur, the coronations, the tournaments, the pomp, luxury, and wealth,—where are they?
If one doubted the miraculous benefits which Saint Mark has conferred on Venice, he need but to listen to some pious Venetian while he recounts in his soft and fascinating dialect the saving of the city in 1340. ”

“ The whole being of San Marco is bound up with the East, and it is another token of the magic of Venice that she has been able to embrace and furnish with a life-giving soil those plants that had been ruthlessly uprooted and had made so long and perilous a journey. ”

“ In spite of the lavishness of gold, of red, and all the varied tones of marbles, bronzes, and mosaics with which San Marco abounds, there are few churches so severe and profoundly impressive. The mystical half-light which pervades it converts what might be a tawdry blaze into harmonious poesy of color, full of the sentiment of impassioned religion. ”

“ They are more, for they lay bare to us a human soul, making the thoughts he thought our own, the devoutness and sympathy he felt a part of our own lives.
THE CRUCIFIXION
Savonarola thundered forth his message from the pulpit of San Marco; Angelico delivered his, more enduring, though hardly less eloquent, on his knees, through the rainbow colors on his palette. In an age when monasteries and convents were an essential part of civilization, it was a mighty contribution that San Marco gave to the world in the earnest preacher, in the angelic painter. ”

“ And so, Stefano, thou thinkest the republic will never plant another mast of triumph in San Marco, or bring more trophies to the venerable church?"
"Napoli herself, with her constant change of masters, is as likely to do a great act on the sea as thy winged beast just now! Thou art well enough to row a gondola in the canals, Gino, or to follow thy master to his Calabrian castle; but if thou would'st know what passes in the wide world, thou must be content to listen to mariners of the long course. The day of San Marco has gone by, and that of the heretics more north has come." ”

“ He embraces His mother so closely that He almost hides Himself in her bosom; in the great azure-surrounded tabernacle of the Linen Guild, He is smiling; while in the fresco of the corridor at San Marco, He has an ingenuous wondering gaze as He holds forth His little hand,—an expression so natural that it shows a happy grafting of ideal representation, on a conscientious and close study of the real. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But what a memorial it is! The city is like a huge volume of history, and we linger over its enchanting pages. Let us now look upon the monuments that reveal to us the soul and genius of Venice of the olden times.
Several of the most important buildings in Venice border the fine square of San Marco, a favourite evening gathering-place of the Venetians.{41} Dominating the piazza is the Cathedral of San Marco, with its magnificent front, a bewildering array of portals, decorated arches, carvings in relief, surmounted by graceful towers and steeples. ”

“ In consequence, Markos has ever since been a favourite Greek name, especially among those connected with the Alexandrian patriarchate. In the days, however, when relic-hunting had become a passion, some adventurous Venetians stole the remains of the Evangelist from the pillar in the Alexandrian church, in which they had been built up, and transferred them to Venice.
Popular imagination does not seem to have supposed the saints to have been one whit displeased at any sacrilegious robberies, for San Marco immediately was constituted the prime patron of the city ”

“ But he attracted no attention there, for “no man is a prophet in his own country.” Shortly afterwards he was recalled and sent to the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. This building is still carefully preserved because of the beautifully designed frescoes which were painted on the walls of the refectory, sacristy, and chapter house, as well as in the cells on the upper floor, by the artist-monk Fra Angelico, who died in 1455, not many years before Fra Girolamo made San Marco his headquarters and home. ”

“ What did one noble matter, less or more? "But it's a gloomy barcarolle that a dead man sings!"
"And one that hath not died his own death!" a woman answered under her breath, as she crossed herself with a shudder.
The wind inflated the empty folds of the crimson robe that draped the bier, carrying it almost into the water, as the gondolas glided away from the Piazzetta.
"San Marco save us! he wanted none of their pomp," said an onlooker scornfully. "The ten good years of his life and a quiet grave in San Michele—the Signoria would buy them dear, to give them to him to-day!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The procession set forth from San Marco on Palm Sunday (led by white-robed children with garlands on their heads) , and went round the city till it came to the cathedral. "And so much joy was there in all hearts that the glory of Paradise seemed to have descended on earth and many tears of tenderness and devotion were shed." ”

“ As the Italian peasant, of all others, cares little for unremunerative toil, and is easily depressed by such sarcasm, we are told, "From that time forth the supposed ruined city of San Marco and its buried treasures were left in peace." ”

“ Mark, one of the most famous is that of Fra Bartolomeo, in the Palazzo Pitti. He is represented as a man in the prime of life, with bushy hair and a short reddish beard, throned in a niche, and holding in one hand the gospel, in the other a pen; the lion is omitted. The Frate painted this picture for his own convent of San Marco at Florence. It is much lauded and celebrated, but the attitude appeared to me rather forced, and the features rather commonplace. ”

“ In the third picture is a torrent of rain, with the dead body of one who has in like manner been devoted to San Marco, and whose soul is seen to be ascending into heaven; here also we have a composition, the figures of which are not without a fair share of merit. In the fourth painting, in which San Marco expels an unclean spirit, there is the perspective view of an extensive Loggia, at the end whereof is a fire by which the Loggia is illuminated, and the reflections of that light fall on various parts of the edifice. ”

“ His own Dominican monastery of San Marco, and then all the Dominican monasteries of Tuscany, became like-minded with himself, and undertook voluntarily the work of inward reform. When we reflect what the monasteries then were, and what measureless difficulty attends the least change where monks are concerned, we are doubly astonished at so complete a revolution. While the reform was still in progress large numbers of Savonarola's followers entered the Order, and thereby greatly facilitated his plans. Sons of the first houses in Florence entered San Marco as novices. ”

“ Fra Bartolommeo was then painting at San Marco, in Florence, a picture with innumerable figures, which is now in the possession of the King of France; [15] it was presented to that monarch after having been kept to be shown in San Marco for several months. He afterwards painted another in the same convent, to replace that which was sent into France; this last also has an infinite variety of figures, among which are children hovering in the air, and holding an open pavilion or canopy; they are very well drawn, and in such powerful relief, that they appear to stand out from the picture ”

“ But the treasure-house of rare and precious antiques in Venice is the Basilica of San Marco. On the exterior, besides the Bronze Horses, there are numerous fragments from more ancient edifices which bear witness to the good taste and the acquisitiveness of the old Venetians. Within and without are more than five hundred pillars of rare marbles, mostly Oriental. During the building of the Basilica all Venetian vessels that sailed to the East were obliged to bring back a contribution to San Marco. ”