A Golden Book of Venice Part 4

There was an instant response from an old man almost past traghetto service, but his age and probable garrulity commended him.

"I will take thee and thy gondola, since thou knowest Murano," said the artist kindly; "but I must go swiftly, and I would not tax thee. Thou shalt have thy fare, but I will pay for another gondolier also from the traghetto; he must be young and l.u.s.ty. Choose thou him--and hasten."

There was a babel of voices and a self-gratulatory proffer of lithe forms, while the old gondolier turned undecidedly from one to another, and the tottering gransiere ostentatiously protected the velvet mantle of the artist as he sprang into the boat. With an impatient gesture the Veronese indicated his choice, and they were soon on their way.

"Come hither, _vecchio mio_, and rest thine old bones; let the young one work for us both," the padrone commanded, as he flung himself down among the cushions. "Do they treat thee well at thy traghetto?"

"Eccellenza, yes; but I am scarce older than the others; it is the young ones who make us trouble; they keep not the Mariegole, and it is only the old one may depend upon."

"_Davvero_, the world is changed then! It used to be good to be young."

"Eccellenza, yes; when I myself was not old, and his excellency also had no beard."

"If age and wisdom might be traded for the time of youthful pranks,"

said the Veronese with twinkling eyes, "I doubt if there were wisdom enough left in Venice to cavil at the barter! Yet thou and I, having wisdom thrust upon us by these same beards, if trouble come to thee, or too soon they put thee at the gransiere service, we will remember this day pa.s.sed together."

"Eccellenza, thanks; the gransiere has not much beside his beard to keep him warm, and the time draws near," the old man answered with pleasant Venetian insouciance.

"Tell me," said the Veronese, turning to the younger man, "why do you young fellows make Venice ring with your scandals? You are cutting off your own 'liberties.'"

"Yes, signore." The gondolier hesitated, glancing doubtfully at the artist's sumptuous attire, which might have indicated a state much greater than he kept; for the Veronese was famed throughout Venice, in quarters where he was better known, for an unfailing splendor of costume which would have made him at all times a model for the pictures he loved to paint. Recently, for bad conduct, the gondoliers had been gradually forfeiting their licenses, or "liberties," as they were called in Venice, and the thought crossed the young fellow's mind that this splendid stranger was possibly one of those government officials who were charged with the supervision of the confraternities of the traghetti.

"It is the first time I have the honor of conducting his Excellency; he is perhaps of the Provveditori al Comun?" These officials collected the government taxes and were viewed with jealous eyes by the gondoliers.

"Nay; I am Paolo Cagliari; I belong to a better craft. But please thyself, for there is much talk of this matter."

"Signore, one must live!" the young fellow exclaimed, with a friendly shrug of his shoulders and a gleam of his white teeth; for it was easy to make friends with the genial artist. "And between the governors and the _provveditori_ one may scarce draw breath! One's bread and onions--"

he added, with a dramatic gesture of self-pity. "It is not much to ask!"

"_Altro_! Nonsense!" the Veronese exclaimed, laughing, for the gondolier looked little like one who was suffering from hunger, as he stood swaying in keen enjoyment of the motion which showed his prowess, of the wind as it swept his bronzed cheek, of the talk which permitted him to exploit his grievances.

"There is the High Ma.s.s, twice in the month; there is the Low Ma.s.s--every Monday, if you will believe me! There are the priests, _for nothing_--Santa Maria, they are not few! The first fare in the day?--always for the Madonna of the traghetto. This _maledetto_ fare of the Madonna suffices for the Madonna's oil, I ask you? Ebbene non! There are the fines--and these, it must be confessed, might be fewer, for the saints are tired of keeping us out of mischief. And little there is for one's own madonna, if one would make gifts!"

"This, then, for thine own madonna," said the artist pleasantly, tossing him a considerable coin. "And may she make thee wiser; for, by thine inventory, which it doth not harm thee to rehea.r.s.e, thou hast a good memory."

"Eccellenza, there is more, if you be not weary. There is the government tax; it takes long to gather--ask the _gastaldo_! There are the soldiers for the navy; how many good men does that leave for the traghetto service? And a license is not little to buy for a poor barcariol who would be his own man; one pays three hundred _lire_--not less. Does it drop into one's hand with the first fare? One must belong to the Guilds--it is less robbery!"

"But for your gastaldo, your great man, for him it is much honor--"

"Eccellenza, believe it not. If the taxes are not there for the provveditori, it is the gastaldo who pays. When the money is little it is the gastaldo who pays much. And the toso--all his faults blamed on the traghetti! Ah, signore, for the gondolier it is a life--Santa Maria!" He threw up his hands with a feint of being at a loss to convey its hardships.

"_Come non c'e altro_!" said the Veronese, laughing; "there is none like it."

"Ebbene--va bene!" the gondolier confessed, joining heartily in the merriment, his grievance, which was nevertheless a real one, infinitely lessened by confession.

Suddenly the old man rose and bowed his head, and both gondoliers crossed themselves. The Veronese also bared his head and made the sign of reverence, for they were pa.s.sing the island of San Michele, toward which a mournful procession of boats, each with its torch and its banner of black, was slowly gliding, while back over the water echoed the dirge from those sobbing cellos. Here, where only the dead were sleeping, the sky was as blue and the sea as calm as if sorrow had never been born in the world.

Before them Murano, low-lying, scattered, was close at hand, the smoke of its daily activities tremulous over it, dimming the beauty of sky and sea.

"His Excellency knows Murano? The Duomo, with its mosaics? Wonderful!

there are none like them; and it is old--'ma antica'! And the stabilimenti?--it is glory enough for one island! Ah, the padrone wishes to visit the stabilimento Magagnati?"

Paolo Cagliari had not known what he would do until the old man's suggestion seemed to make his vision less vaguely inaccessible, and before they reached the landing he had learned, by a judicious indifference which sharpened his companion's loquacity, that Messer Girolamo lived there alone with his daughter, who went about always with a bambino in her arms--the child of a dead sister.

There could be no doubt; yet, to keep the old man talking, he put the question, "She is very beautiful, the donzella?"

"Eccellenza"--with a pause and deprecatory movement of the shoulders--"_cosi_--so-so--a little pale--like a saint--devote. For the poor? Good, _gentile_, the donzel of Messer Girolamo. _Bella_, with rosy colors? _Non_!"

With the Venetians there could be no sharp distinction between the decorative and the fine arts, as the fine arts were employed by them without limit in their sumptuous decorations; and that which elsewhere would have been merely decorative they raised, by exquisite quality and finish, to a point which deserved to be termed art, without qualifications.

The Veronese, who had been knighted by the Doge, could scarcely go unrecognized to any art establishment in any quarter of Venice, and with unconcealed pleasure Girolamo bowed low before this master who had come to do him honor; displaying all that the initiated would hold most precious among his treasures--that design, faded and dim, almost unrecognizable, of those early mosaics of the Master Pietro--he held nothing back. It was a day of honor for his house, and the two were alone in his cabinet.

The Veronese had a gift of sympathy; his heart opened to those who loved art and had conquered difficulties in her service, and the talk flowed freely. "I believe," he said, as together they laid away the parchment, "that in our modern mosaics we should keep to the ma.s.sive lines of these earlier models--greater dignity and simplicity in outline and coloring.

It is a mistake to attempt to confound this art with painting."

"It is good, then, for our art, Messer Cavaliere, that at San Donato, our mother church, we workmen of Murano have our Lady in that old Byzantine type; there is none earlier--nor in all Venice more perfect of its time--and the setting is of marvelous richness and delicacy."

"It is most interesting," said the Veronese. "Sometimes a question has come to me, if an artist cannot do the _all_, is he most the artist who stops below his limitation or beyond it? A question of the earlier hint, or the later realization."

"Between the mosaic and the painting, perhaps?" Girolamo questioned, greatly interested.

"Nay, not between the arts, but of that which is possible to each. It is not a Venetian question. Here all is warmth, color, beauty, joy; here art is the expression of redundancy--it hath lost its symbolism."

"I know only Venice--the Greek and the Venetian types. But I have heard that the Michelangelo was in himself a type?"

"He was a prophet," the Veronese answered reverently, "like the great Florentine--a seer of visions; but at Rome only one understands why he was born. He was a maker, creating mighty meanings under formlessness.

His great shapes seem each a mystery, wrestling with a message."

"I had thought there was none who equaled him in form--that he was even as a sculptor in his painting."

"And it was even so. When I spake of 'formlessness' it was not the less, but the more; as if, _before the visions had taken mortal shape, he, being greater than men, saw them as spirits_."

"Never before have I talked with one who knew this master," said Girolamo, "and it is a feast."

"Nay, I knew him not, for it was not easy to get speech with him, nor a favor a young man might crave. But once I saw him at his work in San Pietro, where he wrought most furiously and would take no payment--'for the good of his soul,' he said, that he might end his life with a pious work. The night was coming on, and already his candle was fastened to his hat, that he might lose no time. They had brought him a little bread and wine for his evening meal, for often he went not home when the mood of work possessed him; and beside him was a writing of the man Savonarola--this and the Holy Evangel and the 'Inferno' fashioned his thoughts. He lived not long after that, for we were still in Rome when they made for him that great funeral in Santa Croce of Florence, the rumor of which is dear to artist hearts. He was great and lonely, and he knew no joy; there hath been none like him."

"And the Tintoretto, at Santa Maria dell' Orto?"

"He, too, is a _furioso_, wonderful in form--and the Michelangelo had not the coloring of our Jacopo. But the terror of the Tintoretto is very terrible and very human. The Michelangelo fills a great gloom with phantasms--they question--and one cannot escape."

"It hath been a morning of delights," Girolamo said with grave courtesy when the talk had come to an end. "I thank the master for this honor."

"Nay," answered the knightly Veronese; "it is I who have received. And more, yet more would I ask. I know not if in this chamber of treasures I may leave the trifle which I came to bring for the bambino?" he added with hesitation, as he placed upon the table his little inlaid box of baubles and his bunch of spicy flowers. "Yet it was a promise."

And while Girolamo listened in astonishment he told abruptly the story of his meeting with Marina and the little one, unconsciously weaving his thoughts into such a picture as he talked, that Girolamo recognized the inspiration and was already won to plead his cause.

"This," continued the artist, unfolding a letter, "is the order which hath been sent me by Fra Paolo Sarpi, of the convent of the Servi, a man most wise and of high repute in Venice. 'The face,' this learned friar sayeth, 'must be full of consolation and one to awaken holy thoughts.

And I, being not an artist' (which, because he is greater than so many of his craft, he hath the grace to acknowledge!), 'have no other word to say, save that it shall be n.o.ble and most spiritual, as befitteth our religion.' And such a face till now, Messer Girolamo Magagnati--so beautiful and holy--I have not found. But now it is a vision sent to me from heaven, quite other than any picture I have ever dreamed, and I will paint no other for this Madonna of the Servi. I also, like the Angelo, would give my holiest work for the good of my soul; for the days of man are numbered, though his blood be warm in his veins like wine! It would be a pious act for the maiden; and if she will most graciously consent, the picture shall be an offering for the altar of the chapel of Consolation in the Servi."