FROM Florence we went to Venice—eight days thereafter, to Bologna.

We “did” Venice leisurely and with great delight.

“The one place on the Continent that bored me!” I once heard a young lady declare at an American watering-place;—a sentiment heartily seconded by several others. “You can do everything there in two days!” continued the critic. “After that, it is the stupidest old hole in creation. I thought I should have died!”

Our friend, Miss M—- had been in Venice in December, and described the blackened fronts of palaces dripping and streaming with rain; low clouds excluding the sea-view; lead-colored drains where poets had seen canals, and a depressing silence through which the gondolier’s cry was like—“Bring out your dead!”

We were prepared to behold the ghost of a city, whispering hollowly of a sublime Past;—a monotonous succession of ditches washing the slimy foundations of crumbling walls;—almost the stillness and desolation of a desert. We left Florence on a hot day; the railway train was crowded; the long, dusty ride the least picturesque we had had in Italy. It was late in the afternoon when we alighted at the station-quay and saw our first gondola. It was wedged in with fifty others against the pier, so tightly that the manner of its extrication was a mystery. A bend of the gondolier’s wrist did it all. He had held up his hand, and Caput had nodded. In a minute more he had brought his craft close to our feet, and balanced himself by means of a long pole with a paddle at the end, while he raised his cap and offered his services. He had a family gondola, black as a hearse, a murderous-looking battle-axe, edge outward, fastened to the prow, and seats for six upon the cushions under a striped awning. Our luggage was quickly disengaged from the confused mass discharged from the baggage-car, and stowed away in the bows; we settled ourselves among the cushions and shot out into the canal out of sight and hearing of the noisy station.

We were in Venice! The Bride of the Sea! Venice of the Doges—of the thousand isles—of the cloudy-winged thousand years! Heat, dust, fatigue went out of our minds with the play of the cool air over our faces, the ripple of the salt-water under the keel of our boat. For this was also the Venice of our old-time poetic fancies—not the sad city photographed upon imagination by our friends’ descriptions. The lofty palaces were ancient, blurred and seamed, but not ruinous—the smooth sunniness of the canals allured the eye on to the sea, the highway and bulwark of the city. Groves of masts streaked it here and there, line and spar delicately defined against the flushing west. At longer intervals, government buildings or warehouses sat blackly upon the breast of the water, the tide lapping their thresholds twice a day. Purplish banks, lying close to the horizon in the hazy amber distances, were the lidi and murazzi—(sand hills and embankments)—protecting the Lagune from oceanic irruptions in tempestuous weather. All this was lost, presently, by the narrowing of the watery highway and closer line of buildings. The canals were dull tracks but for the tossing wake in the middle of each as our gondolier cleft a path with his long-armed sweep. His call before turning a corner was a guttural dissyllable, not easy of imitation. Poets—and Mark Twain—say gondoliers used to sing. We never heard them. Our Antonio, our first acquaintance, and our faithful boatman and guide until he deposited us at the station, the morning of our departure—could not sing a note. Nor could any of his professional brethren, he said.

“It was perhaps the sea-fogs that spoiled their throats. Or the exposure in all weathers, signore. The signora would observe that a gondolier’s life was one of hardship, summer and winter. He had no breath to spare for singing. Misericordia, not a great deal! Nor heart for it when the sposa and bambini must have their mouths filled with food. And polenta dearer every season!”

We were Antonio’s friends before we landed at the HÔtel Luna, and had engaged him for a moonlight excursion upon the Grand Lagune that very night. We hired him for the day, next morning, and upon several other successive forenoons.

For Venice did not bore us. The Piazza S. Marco was just around the corner from our quiet but excellent hotel—a matter of a hundred steps, perhaps, on dry land—and the Basilica of S. Marco—the attraction of Venice to us. Prancing over the great entrance are the four bronze horses, stolen from the triumphal arch of Nero by Trajan to adorn his; from Trajan by Constantine for the new city of his founding and name; from Constantine by Doge Dandolo for the Venetian Cathedral; from Venice by Napoleon I. for the arch in the Place Carrousel, finally, restored by the Emperor Francis to St. Mark’s. They are sturdy roadsters, with good “staying” qualities, if one may judge from their build and history, in no wise jaded by their travels and changes of climate, and look fresh, but not impatient for another start.

The pigeons feed in the Piazza at two o’clock every day. It is “the thing” for strangers and native-born strollers to congregate here at that hour to witness the spectacle. About ten minutes before the bell strikes, the birds begin to assemble, crowding the roofs, eaves and window-sills of the surrounding buildings, preening and billing and cooing, with the freedom of privileged guests. At the stroke of the bell they rise, as one bird, into the air for a downward swoop upon the scattered grain. The pavement is covered in an instant with a shifting mass of purple and gray plumage, and the noise of fluttering and murmuring, of pecking bills and clicking feet fills the square. A bevy of their remote ancestors brought, six hundred years ago, dispatches of such importance from the besieged island of Candia to Admiral Dandolo’s fleet, that he sent the carrier-pigeons to Venice with the tidings of his success in taking the island, and the aid they had rendered him. They were put upon the retired list and fed at the public expense—they, their heirs and assigns forever.

The best photographs—and the cheapest—in Italy are to be bought upon the Piazza San Marco. Florian’s celebrated cafÉ, is there, and countless shops for the sale of Venetian glass and beads—bijouterie of all sorts, and for the general robbery of travelers—the rule being to ask twice the value of each article when the customer is a foreigner, and to “come down” should the victim object to the proposed fleecing.

The mosaic floor of San Marco billows like the Mer de Glace, having settled in many places. The decorations of faÇade and interior are oriental in character and color. St. Mark, after much post mortem travel, rests under the high altar. The altar-piece is of enameled silver and gold plate, fretted with jewels. A canopy of verde antique overshadows the holy sepulchre. A second altar is behind the chief shrine. The canopy of this rests upon four columns, curiously twisted. The two forward ones are of alabaster, and semi-translucent.

“Brought hither from Solomon’s Temple after the destruction of Jerusalem,” affirmed our cicerone.

“By whom?”

The inevitable shrug and grimace, embodying civil surprise at the query, and personal irresponsibility for the tradition.

“Ah! the signora can answer that as well as I who have never thought of it until now. Doubtless”—flashing up brilliantly—“San Marco, himself! Who more likely?”

The Battisterio is a gloomy chapel, and as little clean as it is bright. It has more the appearance of a lumber-chamber than a place of worship. But the relics are priceless—the rubbish unique. The bronze font, big enough for a carp-pond, dates from the 16th century, and is presided over by John the Baptist. His head was cut off upon the stone one sees at the left of the altar. Above the latter is another bit of precious quartz or granite, from Mt. Tabor. St. Mark’s has drawn heavily upon the Holy Land, if one-half the valuables stored within the Cathedral are genuine. Sturdy old Doge Dandolo, who pensioned the pigeons after the capitulation of Candia; who, old and purblind, led the Venetians in the recapture of rebellious Zara, and to victory in the siege of Constantinople; who accomplished what Pietro Doria, two hundred years later, boasted that he would do after humbling the arrogant Republic,—bridled the bronze horses and led them whithersoever he would—is entombed in the Baptistery.

With all of what some call its barbaric redundance of ornament and color, and the neglected richness that seems incompatible with the reputed veneration of the Venetians for their renowned Basilica, St. Mark’s works powerfully upon those who are conversant with its history and can appreciate the charm of its quaint magnificence. Talk of “restoration” in this connection is a project to coat the dusky bloom of a Cleopatra with “lily-white.”

One hundred-thirty-and-four years was this thousand-year-old temple in building, and, pending its erection, all homeward-bound vessels were compelled to bring some tribute to the rising structure. The five hundred columns of the faÇade are of rare marbles thus imported, principally from the Orient. The wall between these is gorgeous with mosaics—not frescos. The domes are begirt with a frontlet of pinnacles. Sultana of the Sea, to whom all kingdoms have paid tribute, she sits upon the shore in calm imperiousness befitting the regal estate confirmed by a decade of centuries. The hack of chisel, the corrosion of acids here will be sacrilege. Yet they say it is ordained that she shall endure the outrage. They may smite,—they cannot belittle her.

We disbelieved in the fragment of the true cross set in a silver column exhibited in the “Treasury;” were disposed to smile at the splinter, or chip, of St. John’s frontal bone “adorning” an agate goblet. We shook our heads over St. Mark’s Episcopal throne as we had at St. Peter’s in Rome, and would not look at the crystal urn said to contain some of the Saviour’s blood. Nor were we credulous as to the authenticity of the capitals brought from the Temple at Jerusalem crowning the pillars of the Entrance-Hall.

But we always stayed our steps at the red porphyry slabs embedded in the floor of the vestibule. Here, Frederic Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, and twice-crowned King of Italy,—once by Pope, again by the anti-pope of his own setting-up; Conqueror of Poland and Lombardy; the most accomplished, as he was the most heroic warrior in an era when heroism was knightly duty,—knelt to Pope Alexander III., at the pacific instance of Sebastiano Ziani, Doge of Venice. Ten years of excommunication; the disastrous battle on Lake Como, desertion, treachery and disease had tired out, not quelled the haughty spirit. A twenty years’ war, resulting in irrevocable defeat, probably wrought more potently upon reason and will than the Doge’s arguments. His face was of a more burning red than the hair and beard that earned his nickname, as his knee touched the ground.

Schiller makes Marie Stuart protest, after her betrayal into the like act of subserviency to Elizabeth, that she “knelt not to her, but to God!” The poet may have borrowed the equivocation from Barbarossa’s kingly growl—“Non tibi—sed Petro!”

Alexander was pontiff, diplomatist and magnanimous.

“Et mihi, et Petro!” he said,—raising the humbled monarch and giving him the kiss of peace.

Ah! the languorous noons, when we loitered among the shadows of the great Entrance-Hall, the “court of the Gentiles,” “thinking it all over,” the pigeons cooing and strutting on the hot stones outside, while St. Theodore, on his tall shaft, the Winged Lion of S. Marco on his, stood guard over the deserted Piazzetta, and the breeze came up past them from the Adriatic, the Bride of the Doges!

“In signum veri perpetuique dominii!” Thus ran the ceremony of espousal. The King of all Italy, Vittorio Emmanuele, paid a flying visit to the royal palace on the Grand Canal while we were in the city, and the wedded Adriatic took the event as quietly as she had regarded the usurpation of Austrian and French conquerors. “Perpetual” is a term of varied meanings in this world and life.

Three stately cedar masts arise from ornamental pedestals before the church. They were set up in 1505, and the captured banners of Candia, the Morea and Cyprus used to flaunt there upon state festa-days while the doges ruled Venice and the sea. The flag of United Italy is raised upon each on Sabbaths and holidays. On a certain May morning, more than two-and-half centuries agone, other trees adorned the Piazza S. Marco. They had sprung up during the night, and each bore fruit, at the seeing of which men fled affrighted and women swooned. Many of the spectators had been guiltily cognizant of a conspiracy, headed by Spanish agents, to murder Doge, nobles and Council, when they should come to S. Marco on Ascension-Day. The faces of the strangled men swinging, each from his gallows, revealed the awful truth that the Council of Ten had also known of the plot and marked the ringleaders.

We walked across the Rialto; stopped to cheapen Venetian glasses in the tiny shops crowding the streets leading to and from the bridge; bought here ripe, luscious oranges for a reasonable sum from one Jew, and paid three prices to another for a woven grass basket to hold the fruit. It is a Bowery neighborhood, at the best, from the cheap flashiness of which Antonio would withdraw his aristocratic patronage were he now a merchant of Venice. The Rialto is a steep, covered bridge, lighted by green Venetian blinds, that help to make it a common-looking structure. A bright-eyed Italian offered caged birds for sale on the pier where our Antonio and the gondola waited for us. Upon a tray beside him were heaped white cuttle-fish bones for the use of the canaries.

“I do not want a bird,” I said. “But I will buy some of those”—pointing to the cuttle-fish—“as a souvenir of the Rialto.”

He plucked off his tattered cap in a low bow.

“But the signora should not pay for a souvenir of the Rialto! I will give her as many as she wants—gladly.”

He pressed three of the largest upon me, and absolutely refused to accept so much as a centime in return.

“Buono mano!” insisted Caput, holding out a coin.

The Italian put his hands behind his back. “It is nothing! Let it be a souvenir of the Rialto to the signora from a Venetian.”

“Unaccountable!” sighed Caput, as we dropped upon our cushions under the awning.

“Refreshing!” said I, gazing back at the bird-vender until a turn in the canal hid him.

He stands in the foreground of my mind-picture of the Rialto,—hung about from neck to waist-band with rude wooden cages of chirping linnets, canaries and the less expensive goldfinch, the petted “cardellino” of the lower classes. Their fondness for the lively little creature and his comparative worthlessness in the esteem of bird-fanciers gives meaning to Raphael’s lovely “Madonna del Cardellino,” and interprets the tenderness in the eyes of the Divine Child as He arches His hand over the nestling offered him by John.

S. Giovanni e Paolo ranks second to S. Marco in size, impressiveness of architecture and historical interest. It is the burial-place of the Doges. The last of their number, Manini, sleeps in the more modern church of the Gesuiti (the Jesuits). “Æternitati suo Manini cineres” is his only epitaph. His predecessors repose pompously in the old church, begun in the 13th century and completed in the 15th. It feels and smells like an ocean cave. So strong is the briny dampness of flavor that one would hardly wonder to find sea-weed washed up in the chapel-corners. Pietro Mocenigo,—as great in war as Tomaso Mocenigo was in statecraft and finance, has a liberal share of the right aisle. Fifteen statues surround the mausoleum constructed “from the spoils of his enemies.” In the grave he could not relax his hold upon their throats.

“The only horses in Venice!” said a friend to me, once, in showing a photograph of St. Mark’s “team.”

He had been twice to Venice, but he must have skipped SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Whether or not the Doges were, in life, adepts in noble horsemanship, they are addicted to equestrian statues after death. Very high amid the prevailing dampness, stand and paw their marble coursers on the lids of sarcophagi, as stamping to arouse their slumbering masters, and upon wall-shelves and niches. The Chapel of the Rosary, founded in 1571, as a thank-offering of the Republic for the victory of Lepanto, is now a smoke-blackened shell,—the valuable contents, including the original of Titian’s “Death of St. Petrus, Martyr,” having been destroyed by fire in 1868.

The pictured wealth of Venice had not been conceived of by us prior to this visit. Fresh from Florentine galleries as we were, our day in the Accademia delle Belle Arti was a banquet enjoyed the more because it was unexpected. Our surprise was the result of a want of reflection, since we knew that Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Paul Veronese were Venetians. Still, as men and prophets go, that was hardly a reason why we should behold their master-pieces in honored places in their native, or adopted city. Titian’s “Presentation of Mary in the Temple,” and “John the Baptist in the Wilderness,” Bonifazio’s “Banquet of Dives,” “Jesus in the House of Levi” by Paul Veronese—(how well we all know artists and subjects through the “blessed sun-pictures,” and engravings!) are in the Academy of Fine Arts, a suppressed monastery of modest dimensions and appearance, devoted now to better uses than of yore.

The Bridge of Sighs is another covered bridge, but with a level floor and grated, instead of shuttered windows. A row of gargoyles grin upon the lower arch. An allegorical figure which, we guessed, was St. Mark, occupies the centre of the frieze,—a lion on each hand. The Bridge looks like a place accursed. We did not quite like to pass under it. It spans a narrow canal, shut in from the sunshine by the Palace of the Doges on one side, a dingy, darksome prison on the other. The water is inky-black in their shadow. A chill wind draws through the passage on the hottest day. The last glimpse of the world framed by the barred windows, could not have heightened the hardship of leaving it. The prisons are empty dungeons, the walls exuding cold sweats; badly-lighted and worse-ventilated. There is nothing in them to recompense one for the discomfort and depression of a visit.

We entered the Palace of the Doges by the Giant’s Staircase:—

“The gory head rolled down the Giant’s stairs.”

Of course we quoted the line; knowing the while, that Marino Falieri’s head nor foot ever touched the stately flight. He was beheaded, at eighty years of age, at the top of another staircase the site of which is occupied by this. We saw the place where his name should be in the Great Hall of the Doges. The walls are covered with miles of historical canvas. Tintoretto’s gigantic picture,—said to be the largest oil-painting in the world—of “Paradise” fills one end of the chamber. On the other sides are scenes from the history of the Crusades,—notably of the Venetians’ participation in the Holy Wars. The portraits of the Doges are upon the frieze close to the ceiling. We gave none a second glance. The whole procession of ermine and purple mantles and peaked beards did not interest us one-hundredth part as much as did a sable blank directly over the coronation of Baldwin of Flanders by one of the Dandolos.

“Hic est locus Marino Falieri, decapitati pro criminibus.”

Another Doge, whose craft, or inoffensiveness kept his head upon his shoulders, takes up the indefinite series beyond the accusing tablet.

Many of the historical pictures are by noted artists. Paul Veronese and his pupils appear most prominently in the catalogue, although Tintoretto and Bassano did their part, under princely patronage, toward commemorating the glories, civic, ecclesiastic, and naval, of Venice. So much Doge and Pope drove us from the field of observation by the time we had spent an hour in the immense room. The Voting Hall, visited next, afforded neither change nor relief. Thirty-nine Doges could not be forced into the Council Chamber. The faithful Venetians have made a frieze of them, also, at the end of which we read aloud and thankfully, the name of Manini. We had seen his tomb, and remembered him as the last of the worthy old gentlemen. Here we read the history of the Republic again on ceiling and walls, except where a “Last Judgment”—pertinent, but not complimentary—over the entrance, broke the line of battle, which was, invariably, Venetian victory.

The notorious Bocca di Leone is a slit by the side of a door in a second-story room. We were passing it, without notice, when the guide pointed it out. It is no larger than the “slide” in a post-office door, and like it in shape. If it could give breath to all the secrets it swallowed when the Bridge of Sighs was a populous pathway to the dungeons that meant death; when nocturnal hangings, with no public preamble of trial or sentence, were legal executions—the little hole in the wall would be as the mouth—not of the lion—but of hell!

This Palace, whose foundations were laid A. D. 800, is a superb fabric. It was finished in the fourteenth century. It faces the sea on one side, upon another the Piazzetta, where St. Theodore stands aloft, shield and spear in hand, the crocodile under his feet, and the Winged Lion holds open the Book of the Gospels with his paw. A double colonnade of more than a hundred columns, runs around both of these sides. We counted carefully from the main entrance to the ninth and tenth pillars. They are of rich red marble, and between them, in the prosperous days of the Republic, stood the herald while he cried aloud the sentences of death just decreed in the Great Hall. The Doges were crowned upon the upper landing of the Giant’s Staircase. An inner stairway is known as the Scala d’Oro, or Golden Stairs, and in the same Republican age, none could tread it who were not registered among the nobility. We saw the table around which convened the Council of Ten,—perhaps the same over which the Spanish conspiracy was discussed, and on which the death-warrants were penned.

Then we rejoined patient Antonio at the foot of the Piazzetta, and were rowed—or spirited—by winding ways, to the beautiful church of the Franciscans, to see Canova’s monument. It was erected five years after his death, from his own design for Titian’s tomb. The artist within whose soul the exquisite conception grew into form should rest in this mausoleum and none other. The door of the pyramidal tomb is pushed open by a bending figure, (life-size,) in trailing weeds, who looks longingly, yet fearfully, into the inner darkness. She is followed up the short flight of steps by a procession of mourners,—Poetry, and Sculpture, and Painting, among them,—bearing laurels and funereal emblems. Titian’s monument, in another aisle, is a tasteless monstrosity, in comparison with this “rejected” design.

The Franciscan Monastery adjoining the church, contains the archives of Venice since 883. There are not less than fourteen million documents in the collection. So boast the custodians. Three hundred rooms are appropriated for their accommodation.