In architecture one finds a history of Venice. It is the most definite expression, the most faithful embodiment, of the local genius. It presents realistically the daily life and thought and work of a bygone race. The intense love of the early Venetians for colour shows itself in the gleaming gold, the veined marble, and the white sculpture. Another of their affections is symbolised by the frequent introduction of children in the sculptured works. There are children of all periods, of all appearances, illustrating various of the changes in thought and in ideals that were continually coming to pass. Those of the earlier time are sturdy, strapping youngsters, with a purposeful look about them; whereas the children of the fifteenth century are fat, chubby, and uninteresting.

In the early stage of her history Venice was a Greek rather than an Italian city, and her buildings were of Byzantine type. That is easily explained. During her first great period Venice was connected by sea with Constantinople and the East, but cut off by the lagoons and marshes from Lombardy and the rest of Italy. Only a few of the Byzantine buildings remain. The period is principally marked by the precious stones and coloured marbles encrusted in the brickwork, and by the ancient reliefs inserted in the blank walls of churches and houses. Among Byzantine buildings St. Mark's comes first. The existing building began to be constructed at the close of the tenth century; and Byzantine architects worked at it for nearly a hundred years. It was largely remodelled afterwards, and was altered in decoration during the different reactions of architecture; but the bulk of it belongs to the early period, and is in the pure Byzantine style. Parts of it remind one greatly of St. Sophia in Constantinople, on the lines of which, I believe, St. Mark's was partially modelled. There were many Gothic additions in the shape of pinnacles and pointed gables above the chief arches, just sufficient intrusion of the Gothic element to add a touch of bizarre extravagance; and in the sixteenth century many of the old mosaics were superseded by jejeune Renaissance compositions, of no decorative value, incongruous with the general scheme. Nevertheless, the church as a whole, as I have said, still remains essentially Byzantine. The main fabric of the faÇade represents the original Byzantine Romanesque building, and is in almost every particular similar to the picture of the church given in the thirteenth-century mosaic. The turreted pinnacles and the false gables are Gothic additions of the fifteenth century—merely screens of decoration with no roof behind. The building is truly Oriental. In the shape of a Greek cross with four equal arms, it faces west, and has a high altar and a presbytery at the east end. It was first of all the domestic chapel of the Doge's Palace, and then the shrine of the body of St. Mark the Evangelist. Everywhere one sees the motto, "Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista mea" ("Peace to thee, Mark, my Evangelist"). There are the symbols of all the four evangelists,—Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion; John, an eagle; Matthew, an angel. There are scenes from the life of Christ—the Adoration of the Magi and Annunciation to the shepherds.

Venice in the Byzantine period must have been a city of great architectural wealth and splendour,—far in advance of other Italian towns, although, of course, destitute of the engineering glories of France and Germany. One can tell this by the few remaining Byzantine palaces,—very few of them are purely Byzantine. There is the magnificent Palazzo Loredan, one of the most beautiful of all the palaces on the Grand Canal, and a splendid example of the Byzantine Romanesque period. It has about it a distinct tinge of Oriental feeling; the capitals of some of the columns are exquisitely beautiful, and there are not many Gothic alterations. Next to this palace comes the Palazzo Farsetti, Romanesque of the twelfth century, simpler in style and with less ornamentation. It is really more nearly pure Romanesque than Byzantine, and shows no Oriental influence whatever. It is graceful and dignified. The "Fondaco dei Turchi," a very early Byzantine Romanesque palace, assumed its name in the seventeenth century, when it was let to the Turkish merchants of Venice. Originally a twelfth-century palace, it has recently been so much restored as to have lost all its air of antiquity and the greater part of its earlier interest, although it still represents symbolically the splendid homes of the Byzantine period. It is much like St. Mark's, and is the only surviving example of a building all in one style. The arches, the capitals, the shafts, the parapets and decorative plaques, are modernised, to be sure; but they are typical if not original, and give one a very good idea of what the Grand Canal must have been like before the invasion of the Gothic style and the Renaissance.

One gleans a very good idea by means of these palaces of how extremely civilised and peaceful Venice must have been at that early period. In northern Europe the homes of mediÆval nobles were dark and gloomy castles built mainly for defence, having single heavy oak doors studded with nails, and great iron gates and drawbridges; there were no openings in the ground floors, and the windows above were small and grated. For Venice such fortifications were unnecessary. Her palaces were airy and graceful; for she was protected from the outside by her moat of lagoons, and from the inside by her strong internal Government. These ancient buildings, the "Fondaco dei Turchi" and the rest, were even then gentlemen's palaces, always open and undefended, the homes of pleasure, with free means of access, broad arcades, plenty of light, and presenting a general air of peace and security.

It is interesting to notice the later Venetian architecture (as exhibited in the Libreria and the Procuratie Vecchie), developed from this early open and airy style. The native Venetian ideal seems to have traversed all styles, and persisted through them all in spite of endless architectural changes. The Grand Canal was the street of the nobles—the finest street in the world, in the way of architectural beauties. From end to end there are palaces of all periods, from the Byzantine time to the eighteenth century, and all are palaces of the ancient Venetian nobility. The Grand Canal is to Venice what the Strand is to London and the Rue St. HonorÉ to Paris. It is the most wonderful street in the world. There is nothing so bizarre, so fairy-like, to be seen in any other city through the length and breadth of the globe. It is a marvellous book wherein every family of the Venetian nobility has signed its name. Every wall tells a story; every house is a palace; each was erected by some well-known architect. Pietro Lombardo, Scamozzi, Sansovino, Sammichele (the Veronese), Selva, Vissenti—these were the men who drew the plans and directed the construction of the houses; but unknown architects of the Middle Ages built some of the most picturesque.

There were palaces of all styles. After a palace of the Renaissance comes one belonging to the Middle Ages in Gothic Arab style, much like the Ducal Palace, with balconies, lancet windows, and trefoils. Then there will be a palace adorned with great plaques or medallions of differently coloured marbles; anon a great bare sweep of rose-toned wall. All styles are here—Byzantine, Saracen, Lombard, Gothic, Roman, Greek, and Rococo—fanciful capitals, Greek cupolas, mosaic and bas-relief, classic severity combined with the elegant fantasy of the Renaissance.

It is a gallery open to the sky, full of the art of seven or eight centuries. Think of the genius and money and talent expended on this one street by brilliant artists and munificent patrons! The Grand Canal was originally one of the navigable channels by whose aid the waters found their way, through the mud-banks, past the mouth of the Lido to the open sea. It is the original deep water which first created Venice. Up this canal the commerce of all countries used to reach the city in the days of her splendour. The Rialto, the most beautiful bridge in Venice, bestrides the canal in a single span. It was built by Antonio da Ponte. There are two rows of shops upon it; and one of the most picturesque scenes in the Grand Canal lies round about it—old houses with platformed roofs, bulging balconies, and stairways with disjointed steps.

It is interesting to watch how Byzantine architecture gave place to Gothic when Venice began to conquer on the Italian mainland. Thus Gothic architecture came in, and the conquest of Padua and Verona completed it. The term "Gothic" is very elastic; but there are certain points by which one can tell whether a building is Gothic or not. It is Gothic if the roof rises in a steep gable high above the walls; if the principal windows and doors have pointed arches and gables; if it has a steep roof; if the arches are foliated—that is to say, if the shapes of different leaves are cut into the stone to form a species of delicate tracery like lacework, letting in the daylight. Foliation is especially characteristic of Gothic architecture; some of the windows in Westminster Abbey are foliated. Gothic architecture is very rough and loose and irregular; yet it has a wonderful tenderness and variation of design. Changeableness and variety are the great requirements of perfect architecture. One should be enabled to derive just as much pleasure and instruction from looking at a perfect piece of architecture as from reading one of the finest of classic books. Gothic architecture is essentially truthful and naturalistic. The architects of this period were peculiarly fond of vegetation, which is a sign of gentleness and refinement of mind. Gothic is principally independent. It juts out continually with many pinnacles; there is nothing broad, or uniform, or smooth, about a Gothic building; it is variable, rough, and jutting, though, nevertheless, graceful in the extreme. The materials were rougher then than in the time of the Byzantine architecture, and to atone for this it was necessary to introduce much workmanship.

The artists were enthusiastic in their love of Nature, and felt deeply all her changing and complex moods. For example, you may see the difference between a Renaissance and a Gothic palace by imagining the surroundings of the former, its background, gone. It would then be deprived of its charm; whereas if you took a Gothic palace and placed it anywhere, it would still be beautiful.

The Ducal Palace expresses the Gothic spirit to perfection. It was the great work of Venice at this period. The best architects, the best labourers, and the best painters were employed in beautifying it. At one time the palace fell into decay, and it was obvious to everyone that it should be rebuilt and enlarged. But the alteration would be extremely expensive. Therefore a law was passed preventing anyone suggesting such alterations unless he had previously paid one thousand ducats to the State. At last a man arose who cared not for the thousand ducats, and suggested the necessary alterations. The palace was then rebuilt. It was palace, prison, senate-house, and office of public business, all in one. There were thirty-six great pillars supporting the lower stories alone, all decorated in the richest possible manner. There was no end to the fantasies of the sculptors at that period—exquisite curves, studied outlines, graceful but complex, solid and strong and beautifully proportioned braided work; lilies and flowers of all kinds intertwined. Much of the sculpture is snow-white, with gold as a background; some of it has glass mosaic let into the hollows. The cross is used a good deal; also the peacock, the vine, the dove.

The palace of Semitecolo has some beautiful early-Gothic windows, having false cusps in the arches, so as to make the head a trefoil. One sees here the gradual growth of the arch until it culminates in the Doge's Palace type. There are beautiful balustrades to the balconies, original and belonging to the period. In the early-Gothic palaces one notices a certain softening of the angles—that is to say, in the fine fourteenth-century Gothic buildings. The early Gothic architecture has no cusps to the arches; it shows a transitional form between Venetian Romanesque and Venetian Gothic. There are first-floor arcades early-Gothic, with a somewhat Oriental curve in the arch derived by the early Venetian Gothics from Alexandria or Cairo. The capitals of the columns are characteristic of the period: there are dainty balconies with graceful, slender columns, and cusps to the arches.

These Gothic palaces were built by a people who were laborious, brave, practical, and prudent; yet they had great ideas of the refinement of domestic life, and the Gothic palaces remain to-day much the same as when they were newly built—marble balconies, great strong sweeps of delicate-looking tracery, clustered arches. It is the Gothic window that is so perfect, so strong,—built, too, with material that was by no means good.

There is so much rivalry, vanity, dishonesty, in the present day, that houses are badly and cheaply built; even in the best of them, bad iron and inferior plaster are used. How many of them, I should like to know, will be standing fifty years hence? Mr. Ruskin is much against our modern windows and the manner in which they are quickly constructed out of bad materials, and the bricks all placed one on top of the other slanting anyhow. The doors of Gothic palaces are all semicircular above. At one time the name of the family was placed over the entrance, and a prayer inserted for their safety and prosperity,—also a blessing for the stranger who should pass the threshold. Inside the houses there is always a large court round which all the various rooms circle, with a beautiful outside staircase supported on pointed arches with coned parapets and projecting landing-places. In the court there is always a well of marble superbly sculptured.

The centres of the early Renaissance architecture were Florence, Milan, and Venice. Venice is the only city in which important examples of all three periods of the Renaissance are to be found—the early period, the culminating period, and the period of decay. The Renaissance found better expression in Venice than elsewhere in Italy. In fact, when Florence and Rome had entered upon quite another period, Venice continued it for fully twenty-five years longer. The Venetians were ambitious, exceedingly so; and this ambition was a source of great trouble to the rest of Italy. The balance of power seemed, in their opinion, to be weighing too heavily in the direction of the Queen of the Adriatic; and the peace of the peninsula, they felt, was not by any means assured. The greatest period for Venice was at the end of the fifteenth century, when she had conquered all the land about her from Padua nearly to Milan, and seawards to Dalmatia and Crete. In the market-places of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia, the Lion of St. Mark was set up as a sign of the subjugation. Even now one can trace the influence of Venice upon the art of these various places. But the Venetians certainly learnt a great deal from the people whom they conquered. Other influences were brought to bear upon Venetian architecture—as, for example, the Lombardi family, who probably belonged to some part of Lombardy. Venice seems at this time to have gathered unto herself many fine suggestions from the rest of Italy. In fact, Venice absorbed talent from the rest of the world. In quite early days she adopted Byzantine and Arabic architecture; then, in the sixteenth century, she took unto herself the art of the Milanese, who enriched the city with their work.

A truly Renaissance building did not appear in Venice until sixty years after the first was erected in Florence, and then, strangely, it had little of the Florentine character. This, after all, is not extraordinary when one comes to think of the bitter war between Florence and Venice in 1467. She took her style of architecture from the countries which she had conquered and naturalised, such as the district of Lombardy; and in her turn she influenced them. The adoption of the Greek forms of Roman architecture which originated in Florence gradually spread and reached Venice; but the Venetians did not struggle, as did the Florentines, to revive and purify Roman architecture. Simply the tendency of the general taste inclined in that direction, and gave to their own Venetian forms of architecture a certain classic air. In the general form of the work of this period one cannot detect the classical influence; but, if you examine into it carefully, you will notice in small details, such as a capital, that some classical subject has been introduced in place of the usual symbolical one. You will also detect in purely Gothic composition signs of the new art influence. For example, in the mouldings there is an introduction of cupids among the foliage, and all the strange fables and gods of the heathen are represented there. This was the period when people were becoming more learned. Later, buildings were erected on purely classical lines; yet they still kept to the Gothic arch. Bartolomeo Buono of Bergamo was one of the greatest architects of his time. In 1520 the work of another architect was noticeable—that of Guglielmo Bergamasco.

The question of the church exterior was one of the most difficult problems of the early-Renaissance architect, and he never solved it quite. The churches of Venice nearly all belong to the Renaissance; there were many of them rebuilt under the influence of either Palladian or Jesuit style. Palladio was a great architect; but he had nothing of the Catholic feeling. He was really more suited to build a pagan temple than to build a Christian church. The Jesuit style, moreover, is horrible, with its stumpy columns, bloated cherubs, unhealthy affectations, and fiery ornaments. It is a display without beauty or grace, merely overloaded and heavy. The church of the Scalzi is of extravagant richness. The walls are encrusted with coloured marble; there are frescoed ceilings by Tiepolo and Sansovino; bright tones prevail—more appropriate to a ballroom than to a house of prayer. One can quite imagine a minuet under such a ceiling. Many of the churches in Italy are built in this style, and are compensated only by the number and interest of the valuable objects which they contain. Almost every church has a museum such as would honour the palace of a king. There one sees Titians, Paul Veroneses, Tintorettos, Palmas, Giovanni Bellinis, Bonifazios. The church of the Scalzi has a broad staircase in red brocatelle of Verona, with truncated columns in marble, gigantic prophets, stone balustrades, and doors of mosaic. The Romanesque churches are really beautiful, with their pillars of porphyry, antique capitals, images standing out upon a glitter of gold, Byzantine mosaics, slender columns, and carved trefoils. The church of Santa Maria della Salute has been made famous by the picture of her by Canaletto in the Louvre. One of the most beautiful things within is a ceiling by Titian. Venetian arabesque ornament of the Quattri cento is tenderly sculptured, and the friezes are undercut in a reverent and delicate manner.

SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE