Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843/Part 3/Letter 7
LETTER VII.
The Ducal Palace.—The Accademia delle Belle Arti.
I miss greatly the view of the Canale Grande from my window; however, the result, probably, of our being in a narrow canal will be, that I shall see much more of Venice: for were we among its most noble palaces, it would suffice and amply fill the hours, merely to loiter away the day gazing on the scene before us. As it is, though singularly Venetian— the wave-paved streets beneath, the bridge close at hand—the peep we get at wider waters at the opening,—it is but a promise of what we may find beyond, and tempts us to wander.
There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter enchanted ground. We live in a palace; though an inn, such it is: and other palaces have been robbed of delicately-carved mouldings and elegant marbles, to decorate the staircase and doorways. You know 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.
But I spare description of a spot, of which there are so many thousand—besides numerous pictures by Cannaletti and his imitators, which tell all that can be told—show all that can be shown: to know Venice, to feel the influence of its beauty and strangeness, is quite another thing; perhaps the vignettes to Mr. Rogers’s Italy, by Turner, better than any other description or representation, can impart this.
From the piazzetta we entered a grass-grown court, once the focus of Venetian magnificence—for, at the top of that majestic flight of steps which rises from it, the Doges were crowned. The cortile is surrounded by arcades, decorated by two magnificent bronze reservoirs, and adorned by statues. The effect is light and elegant, even now that neglect has drawn a veil over its splendour. Yet Nature here is not neglectful; her ministrations may be said even to aid the work of the chisel and the brush, so beautiful are they in their effects.
The Scala de’ Giganti was before us, guarded by two almost colossal figures of Mars and Neptune, the size of whose statues gives the name to the steps: ascending them, we found ourselves in the open gallery that runs round three sides of the court, supported by the arcades. Yawning before us was the fatal lion’s mouth, receiver of those anonymous accusations, the terror of all, and destroyer of many of the citizens. Ringing a bell, we were admitted into the palace.
We do not visit it once only; day after day we wander about these magnificent, empty halls— sometimes going in by the hall of audience, sometimes ascending the Scala d’Oro, we enter in by the library. Sometimes we give ourselves up to minute view of the many frescoes, which record the history, the glories, and even the legends of Venice. At the dawn of the art, the more than royal government caused the walls to be thus adorned by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and subsequently by Titian: a fire unfortunately destroyed their work in 1577; and the present paintings are by Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and others. On an easel in the library, is a picture in oil by Paul Veronese,—the Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, a daughter of Venice, resigning her crown to the Doge—an iniquitous act enough on the part of the republic; as others, heirs of Cyprus, with claims more legitimate than Catherine’s, existed. There is the grace and dignity, characteristic of this painter, in the various personages of the group. It is to be raffled for, and the proceeds of the lottery are to be given to the infant schools; but the tickets are sold slowly, and the time when they are to be drawn is yet unfixed. There are marbles also, in this room, that deserve attention,—some among them are relics of antiquity; for the Rape of Ganymede is attributed to Phidias, and worthy of him. Sometimes we wander about, content only with the recollections called up by the spot; and we step out on the balconies which now command a view of the piazzetta, now of the inner courts, with a liberty and leisure quite delightful: and then again we pass on, from the more public rooms to the chambers, sacred to a tyranny the most awful, the most silent of which there is record in the world. The mystery and terror that once reigned, seems still to linger on the walls; the chamber of the Council of Ten, paved with black and white marble, is peculiarly impressive in its aspect and decorations: near at hand was the chamber of torture, and a door led to a dark staircase and the state dungeons.
The man who showed us the prisons was a character—he wanted at once to prove that they were not so cruel as they were represented, and yet he was proud of the sombre region over whose now stingless horrors he reigned. A narrow corridor, with small double-grated windows that barely admit light, but which the sound of the plashing waters beneath penetrates, encloses a series of dungeons, whose only respiratories come from this corridor, and in which the glimmering dubious day dies away in “darkness visible.” Here the prisoners were confined who had still to be examined by the Council. A door leads to the Ponte de’ Sospiri—now walled up—for the prisons on the other side are in full use for criminals: years ago I had traversed the narrow arch, through the open work of whose stone covering the prisoners caught one last hasty glimpse of the wide lagunes, crowded with busy life. Many, however, never passed that bridge—never emerged again to light. One of the doors in the corridor I have mentioned leads to a dark cell, in which is a small door that opens on narrow winding stairs; below is the lagune; here the prisoners were embarked on board the gondola, which took them to the Canal Orfano, the drowning-place, where, summer or winter, it was forbidden to the fishermen, on pain of death, to cast their nets. Our guide, whom one might easily have mistaken for a gaoler, so did he enter into the spirit of the place, and take pleasure in pointing out the various power it once possessed of inspiring despair; this guide insisted that the Pozzi and Piombi were fictions, and that these were the only prisons. Of course, this ignorant assertion has no foundation whatever in truth. From the court, as we left the palace, he pointed to a large window at the top of the building, giving token that the room within was airy and lightsome, and said with an air of triumph, Ecco la Prigione di Silvio Pellico!—Was he to be pitied when he was promoted to such a very enviable apartment, with such a very fine view? Turn to the pages of Pellico, and you will find that, complaining of the cold of his first dark cell, he was at midsummer transferred to this airy height, where multitudinous gnats and dazzling unmitigated sunshine nearly drove him mad. Truly he might regret even these annoyances when immured in the dungeons of Spielburg, and placed under the immediate and paternal care of the Emperor—whose endeavour was to break the spirit of his rebel children by destroying the flesh; whose sedulous study how to discover means to torment and attenuate—to blight with disease and subdue to despair—puts to shame the fly-killing pastime of Dioclesian. Thanks to the noble hearts of the men who were his victims, he did not succeed. Silvio Pellico bowed with resignation to the will of God—but he still kept his foot upon the power of the tyrant.
Having visited every corner of the palace, and heard the name given for every apartment, we asked for the private rooms in which the Doge slept and ate, which his family occupied. There were none. A private covered way led from these rooms to an adjoining palace, assigned for the private residence of the Doge. The council were too jealous to allow him to occupy the palace of the republic, except for the purposes of the state.
At other times, turning to the right, when we leave our canal, we are rowed up the Canale Grande to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, to feast our eyes on the finest works of Titian. The picture usually considered the chef-d’œuvre of this artist, the Martyrdom of St. Peter the Hermit, has, for the purpose of being copied, been removed from the dark niche in which it is almost lost in the church of the Saints Giovanni and Paolo, and is here. The subject is painful, but conceived with great power. A deep forest, in which the holy man is overtaken by his pursuers, sheds its gloom over the picture; his attendant flies, the most living horror depicted on his face; the saint has fallen, cut down by the sword of the soldier; an angel is descending from above, and, opening heaven, sheds the only light that irradiates the scene. It is very fine; but in spite of the celestial messenger, there is wanting that connecting link with Heaven,—the rapture of faith in the sufferer’s countenance, which alone makes pictures of martyrdom tolerable.
I was struck by the last picture painted by the venerable artist—Mary visiting the Tomb of Jesus. I was told that I ought not to admire it; yet I could not help doing so: there was something impressive in the mingled awe and terror in Mary’s face, when she found the body of Jesus gone.
The Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese, adorns these walls, removed from the refectory of the suppressed Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore. It is the finest specimen of the feasts which this artist delighted to paint; bringing together, on a large scale, groups of high-born personages, accompanied by attendants, and surrounded by a prodigality of objects of architecture, dress, ornaments, and all the apparatus of Patrician luxury. It is filled, Lanzi tells us, with portraits of princes and illustrious men then living.
We turned from the splendour of the feast to the more noble beauty of Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin—a picture I look at much oftener, and with far greater pleasure, than at the more celebrated Martyrdom. The Virgin, in her simplicity and youth; in the mingled dignity and meekness of her mien, as she is about to ascend the steps towards the High Priest, is quite lovely; the group of women looking at her, are inimitably graceful: there is an old woman sitting at the foot of the steps, marvellous from the vivacity and truth of her look and attitude. In another large apartment is the Assumption of Titian. The upper part is indeed glorious. The Virgin is rapt in a paradisiacal ecstacy as she ascends, surrounded by a galaxy of radiant beings, whose faces are beaming with love and joy, to live among whom were in itself Elysium. Such a picture, and the “Paradiso” of Dante as a commentary, is the sublimest achievement of Catholicism. Not, indeed, as a commentary did Dante write, but as the originator of much we see. The Italian painters drank deep at the inspiration of his verses when they sought to give a visible image of Heaven and the beatitude of the saints, on their canvass.
There are other and other rooms, all filled with paintings of merit. One hall contains the earlier productions of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. The genius and the elevated piety of these painters give expression to the countenances; but the dry colouring, the want of fore-shortening, the absence of grace everywhere except in the faces—which are often touchingly beautiful—all exhibit the infancy of the art.
The Academy contains also a hall for statues; in which the glossy marble of Canova’s Hebe looks, I am sorry to say, shrunk and artificial, beside the mere plaster casts of the nobler works of the Ancients.
- ↑ Rogers’s “Italy.”