the composition with which they floor the rooms here, resembling marble, and called everywhere in Italy Terrazi Veneziani: this polished uniform surface, whose colouring is agreeable to the eye, gives an air of elegance to the rooms; then, when we go out, we descend a marble staircase to a circular hall of splendid dimensions; and at the steps, laved by the sea, the most luxurious carriage—a boat, invented by the goddess of ease and mystery, receives us. Our gondolier, never mind his worn-out jacket and ragged locks, has the gentleness and courtesy of an attendant spirit, and his very dialect is a shred of romance; or, if you like it better, of classic history: bringing home to us the language and accents, they tell us, of old Rome. For Venice
“Has floated down, amid a thousand wrecks
Uninjured, from the Old World to the New.”[1]
With the world of Venice before us, whither shall we go? I would not make my letter a catalogue of sights; yet I must speak of the objects that occupy and delight me.
First, then, to the Ducal palace. A few strokes of the oar took us to the noble quay, from whose pavement rises the Lion-crowned column, and the tower of St. Mark. The piazzetta is, as it were, the vestibule to the larger piazza.
- ↑ Rogers’s “Italy.”
