Italy, the Magic Land Part 19

Opposite the Duomo of Perugia, on the other side of the piazza, is the Palazzo Municipio, with a Gothic facade, a beautiful example of thirteenth-century architecture. Here also is the colossal fountain with three basins, decorated with pictorial designs from the Bible by Niccolo Pisano and Arnolfo of Florence, and in the shadow of this fountain St.

Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Bernardino often met and held converse.

Perugia easily reads her t.i.tle clear to artistic immortality in having been the home of Perugino, the master of Raphael. Here he lived for several years working with Pinturicchio in the frescoes that adorn the Collegio del Cambio, now held as a priceless treasure hall of art. They still glow with rich coloring,--the Christ seen on the Mount of Transfiguration; the Mother and Child with the adoring magi; and the chariot of the dawn driven by Apollo a century before Guido painted his "Aurora" in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome.

From the parapets of Perugia are views of supreme poetic beauty. The play of light and color on the picturesque hills and mountains of the Umbrian country; the gray-green gleam of olive orchards and the silver threads of winding streams; the towers and ruins and castles of a dozen towns and villages that crown the slopes, and the violet shadows of deepening twilight, with a.s.sisi bathed in a splendor of rose and gold,--all combine to make this an ever-changing panorama for the poet and painter.

No journey in Italy is quite like that to the lovely Umbrian valley and its Jerusalem, a.s.sisi, the shrine which, with the single exception of Rome, is the special place of pilgrimage for the entire religious world.

Perugia offers the charm of art, and attracts the visitor, also, by an exceptional degree of modern comfort and convenience; but a.s.sisi is the shrine before which he kneels, where the footsteps of saints who have knelt in prayer make holy ground, and where he realizes anew the consecration of faith and sacrifice. The very air is filled with divine messages, and in lowly listening he will hear, again, those wonderful and thrilling words of St. Francis:--

"By the holy love which is in G.o.d I pray all to put aside every obstacle, every care, every anxiety, that they may be able to consecrate themselves entirely to serve, love, and honor the Lord G.o.d, with a pure heart and a sincere purpose, which is what He asks above all things."

_White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of palaces and strips of sky; I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets Seen in mirage, or towers of clouds uplifting In air their unsubstantial masonry._

LONGFELLOW.

_Fair as the palace builded for Aladdin, Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor-- Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, Color on color, column upon column, Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to!

Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero.

Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stonework.

High over all the slender Campanile Quivers, and seems a falling shaft of silver._

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

_As one who parts from Life's familiar sh.o.r.e, Looks his last look in long-beloved eyes, And sees in their dear depths new meanings rise And strange light shine he never knew before; As then he fain would s.n.a.t.c.h from Death his hand And linger still, if haply he may see A little more of this Soul's mystery Which year by year he seemed to understand; So, Venice, when thy wondrous beauty grew Dim in the clouds which clothed the wintry sea I saw thou wert more beauteous than I knew, And long to turn and be again with thee.

But what I could not then I trust to see In that next life which we call memory._

PHILLIPS BROOKS.[2]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From "Life of Phillips Brooks," by kind permission of Messrs. E. P.

Dutton & Co.

VI

THE GLORY OF A VENETIAN JUNE

I have been between Heaven and Earth since our arrival at Venice.

The Heaven of it is ineffable--never had I touched the skirts of so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of water up between all that gorgeous color and carving, the enchanting silence, the music, the gondolas,--I mix it all up together, and maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, no second Venice in the world.

MRS. BROWNING, in the June of 1850.

The first glimpse of enchanted Venice, as her towers and marble palaces rise wraith-like from the sea, is an experience that can never fade from memory. Like a mirage, like a vision invoked by some incantation or magician's spell, the scene prefigures itself, bringing a thrill of some vague and undefined memory, as if a breath floated by,--

"An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me, Of a splendor that came and went; Of a life lived somewhere,--I know not In what diviner sphere,-- Of memories that stay not and go not,"

which eludes all translation into words. Nor does the spell dissolve and vanish when put to the test of one's actual sojourn in the Dream City.

It is an experience outside the boundaries of the ordinary day and daylight world, as if one were caught up into the ethereal realm to find a city

"... of gliding and wide-wayed silence With room in the streets for the soul."

The sense of remoteness from common life could hardly be greater if one were suddenly swept away to some far star, blazing in the firmament; or if Charon had rowed him over the mystic river and he had entered the abodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchanted palace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows on marble balconies overhanging the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Dainty little tables piled with current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, stand around; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenience of stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guest in any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardless of the regulation _salle-a-manger_. One looks across the Grand Ca.n.a.l to the beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pa.s.s, and here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric cars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphalt pavement--no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift--a sky above and a sky below--on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in the depths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back,--the very atmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin's words that "none of us appreciate the n.o.bleness and the sacredness of color. Of all G.o.d's gifts to man," he continues, "color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element." If the enthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the place that will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious of being steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One no longer marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They but interpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venice has well said:--

"The aspects of Venice are as various, as manifold, as the hues held in solution upon her waters beneath a sirocco sky. There is a perpetual miracle of change; one day is not like another, one hour varies from the next; there is no stable outline such as one finds among the mountains, no permanent vista, as in a view across a plain. The two great const.i.tuents of the Venetian landscape, the sea and the sky, are precisely the two features in nature which undergo most incessant change. The cloud-wreaths of this evening's sunset will never be repeated again; the bold and b.u.t.tressed piles of those cloud-mountains will never be built again just so for us; the grain of orange and crimson that stains the water before our prow, we cannot be sure that we shall look upon its like again....

One day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else. The revolution of the seasons will repeat certain effects; spring will chill the waters to a cold, hard green; summer will spread its breadth of golden light on palace front and water way; autumn will come with its pearly-gray sirocco days, and sunsets flaming a sombre death; the stars of a cloudless winter night, the whole vast dome of heaven, will be reflected in the mirror of the still lagoon. But in spite of this general order of the seasons, one day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else; the lagoon wears a different aspect each morning when you rise, the sky offers a varied composition of cloud each evening as the sun sets. Words cannot describe Venice, nor brush portray her ever-fleeting, ever-varying charm. Venice is to be felt, not reproduced; to live there is to live a poem, to be daily surfeited with a wealth of beauty enough to madden an artist to despair."

It was in the autumn of 1882 that the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, later Bishop of Ma.s.sachusetts, visited Venice and wrote of San Marco:--

"Strange how there is nothing like St. Mark's in Venice, nothing of the same kind as the great church. It would have seemed as if, standing here for so many centuries, and always profoundly loved and honored, it would almost of necessity have influenced the minds of the generations of architects, and shown its power in their works. But there seems to be no sign of any such influence. It stands alone."

Dr. Brooks noted that Venice had "two aspects, one sensuous and self-indulgent, the other lofty, spiritual, and even severe. Both aspects," he continues, "are in its history and both are also in its art. t.i.tian often represents the former. The loftier, n.o.bler Tintoretto gives us the second. There is something in his greatest pictures, as, for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artist approaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression of intellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women is full of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre, glows with a solemn picturesqueness, and the great Christ, who hangs like a benediction over the whole, is vocal with a piety which no other picture in the world displays. And the Presentation of the Virgin, in Santa Maria dell'Orto, is the consummate presentation of that beautiful subject, its beauty not lost in its majesty."

Of other pictures Dr. Brooks said:--

"In the Academia there is the sunshine of three hundred years ago.

Paris Bordone's glowing picture of the Fisherman who brings the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge, burned like a ray of sunlight on the wall. Carpaccio's delightful story of St. Ursula brought the old false standards of other days back to one's mind, but brought them back l.u.s.trous with the splendor of summers that seemed forever pa.s.sed, but are perpetually here. Tintoretto's Adam and Eve was, as it always is, the most delightful picture in the gallery, and Pordenone's great St. Augustine seemed a very presence in the vast illuminated room."

Tennyson loved best, of all the pictures in Venice, a Bellini,--a beautiful work, in the Church of Il Redentore; and he was deeply impressed by the "Presentation of the Virgin," from Tintoretto, in the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto. "He was fascinated by St. Mark's,"

writes the poet's son, "by the Doge's Palace and the Piazza, and by the blaze of color in water and sky. He climbed the Campanile, and walked to the library where he could scarcely tear himself away from the Grimani Breviary."

Venice, though not containing any single gallery comparable with the Pitti and the Uffizi, is still singularly rich in treasures of art, and rich in legend and story. The school of encrusted architecture is nowhere so wonderfully represented as here, and it is only in this architecture that a perfect scheme of color decoration is possible. In all the world there is no such example of encrusted architecture as that revealed in St. Mark's. It is a gleaming ma.s.s of gold, opal, ruby, and pearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranate and lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars of gold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds of mystic incense fill the air. One most impressive place is the baptistery, where is the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosen Doge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, and the design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while two angels at the head and the feet hold back the curtains.

The sarcophagus that is said to contain the body of St. Mark is of the richest description, encrusted with gold and jewels on polished ebony and marble. There is a legend that after St. Mark had seen the people of Aguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter; but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy Bishop Hennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was driven by wind to a small island called Rialto, on which were some houses, and St.

Mark was suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed into ecstasy and heard the voice of an angel saying, "Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest."

There is also a legend that in the great conflagration which destroyed Venice in 976 A.D., the body of St. Mark was lost and no one knew where to find it. Then the pious Doge and the people gave themselves to fasting and prayer, and a.s.sembled in the church, asking that the place be revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the a.s.semblage took place. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, and opened to disclose the sarcophagus,--a chest of bronze. The legend goes on to say that St. Mark stretched his hand out through the side and that a n.o.ble, Dolfini by name, drew a gold ring off the finger.

The place where this miracle is said to have been wrought is now marked by the Altar of the Cross.

Ruskin declares that "a complete understanding of the sanct.i.ty of color is the key to European art." Nowhere is this sanct.i.ty of color so felt as at San Marco. The church is like the temple of the New Jerusalem.

The origin of Venice is steeped in sacred history. It is pre-eminently the city founded in religious enthusiasm. The chronicles of De Monici, written in 421, give this pa.s.sage: "G.o.d, who punishes the sins of men by war, sorrow, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to save the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past, and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearer islands of the Adriatic, to which, in the last extremity, they might retreat for refuge.... They laid the foundation of the new city under good auspices on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to the mouth of the Brenta, on March 25, 471."

The first Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. The period of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and patrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335, and the last Doge elected was Lodovico Manin in 1789, who exclaimed, "_Tole questo: no la doper piu_," as the French Revolution destroyed the Republic of Venice.

The finest example of Renaissance architecture in Venice is that of the _Libreria Vecchia_, the work of Jacobo Sansovino, completed in the sixteenth century. Never were the creations of poet and philosopher more fittingly enshrined. The rich Doric frieze, the Ionic columns, the stately bal.u.s.trade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richness of ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in the best cla.s.sical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is a picture by t.i.tian representing "Wisdom" as a woman, reclining on a cloud, her right hand outstretched to take a book that Genius is offering her. There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and rich mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro.