The Mintage Part 10

In exultation she exclaimed, "I have kissed thy lips!"

He who influences the thought of his time influences the thought of all the time that follows. And he has made his impress upon eternity.

THE MASTER

Giovanni Bellini was his name.

Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every one knew who was meant; but to those who worked at art he was "The Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect, and there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much younger. In fact, no one would have believed he had lived over his threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed out all around under the close-fitting black cap, and the bronzed complexion-sun-kissed by wind and by weather-which formed a trinity of opposites that made people turn and stare.

Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier, and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coa.r.s.e rye bread and nuts.

Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and ta.s.sels, and polishing the little bra.s.s lions at the sides. People tried to question the old hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up behind and rowed; while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the guest of honor.

There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that pa.s.sage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of "The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix, and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just pa.s.sed "the greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master."

Then, if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, the gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.

The ca.n.a.ls of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like 'bus-drivers in Piccadilly-they know everybody and are in close touch with all the Secrets of State. When you get to the Gindecca and tie up for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you this:

The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil, who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a gla.s.s-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who called him father? Oho!

And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to Mestre, whose business was it! Oho!

Beside that, his name isn't Giorgione-it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps him, too-Carpaccio who painted the loveliest little angel sitting cross-legged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.

That is genius, you know, the ability to get some one else to do the work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of course, Gian knows how to lure the boys on-something has to be done in order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his studio is full of their work-better than he can do. Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day, and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with his dark, l.u.s.trous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho!

Of course, not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the boys: some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name-oh, yes, Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that very gondola last week just where you sit-they are here in Venice now, taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there to Nuremberg and lived a month with Durer-they worked together, drank beer together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot-but they do say they can paint. Me? I have never been up there-and do not want to go, either-there are no ca.n.a.ls there. To be sure, they print books in Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot-those Germans-they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny, and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone-only one penny extra-think of it!

Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and taught others how to design and cast type. This man, Alberto Durer, helped them, designing the initials and making their t.i.tle-pages by cutting the design on a wood block, then covering this block with ink, laying a sheet of paper upon it, placing it in a press, and then when the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print thousands of them from the one block.

Bellini makes drawings for t.i.tle-pages and initials for Aldus and Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing place in the world, and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer.

There are two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes usually four men to a press-two to set the type and get things ready, and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from which they print the pictures for the ill.u.s.trations. At first, you know, the books they printed in Venice had no t.i.tle-pages, initials or ill.u.s.trations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first large initials were printed-before that the s.p.a.ces were left blank and the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand.

Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks for initials-they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear-every once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.

Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead, loaning him out for two years, so to speak.

Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated like a prince.

Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.

"A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the Grand Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on familiar ground.

"Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!"

said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.

"I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other things I might name," was the reply.

The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he did not even remain to examine the severed head for art's sake. The thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the docks he found a sailing vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice.

A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's giving thanks to G.o.d for his deliverance.

No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue-I only told you what others say. I am only a poor gondolier-why should I trouble myself about what great folks do? I simply tell you what I hear-it may be so, and it may not.

G.o.d knows! There is that Pascale Salvini-he has a rival studio-and when that Genoese, Christoforo Colombo, was here and made his stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that Colombo was a lunatic, and Bellini another, for encouraging him to show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of forcing him to go to Spain.

No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite-Pascale's pupils say so, and once they followed him over to Murano-three barca-loads and my gondola beside. You see it was like this: Twice a week just after sundown, we used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays-always at just the same hour, regardless of the weather-we would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take the oar and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to the same landing-one of our gondoliers had followed them several times, just out of curiosity.

Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale. "It is worse than that: an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the gla.s.sworks.

Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age-his pretended asceticism is but a mask-and at his age!"

The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one of them who had spoken ill of the Master.

But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was so bad that I refused to go-the wind blew in gusts, sheet lightning filled the Eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated gondoliers, had hied them home.

I refused to go.

Had I not seen Gian the painter go not half an hour before? Well, if he could go, others could too.

I refused to go-except for double fare.

He accepted and placed the double fare in silver in my palm. Then he gave a whistle and from behind the corners came trooping enough swashbuckler students to swamp my gondola. I let in just enough to fill the seats and pushed off, leaving several standing on the stone steps cursing me and everything and everybody.

As my boat slid away in the fog and headed on our course, I glanced back and saw the three barca-loads following in my wake.

There was much m.u.f.fled talk, and orders from some one in charge to keep silence. But there was pa.s.sing of strong drink, and then talk, and from it I gathered that these were all students from Pascale's, out on one of those student carousals, intent on heaven knows what! It was none of my business.

We shipped considerable water, and some of the students were down on their knees praying and bailing, bailing and praying.

At last we reached the Murano landing. All got out, the barcas tied up, and I tied up, too, determined to see what was doing. The strong drink was pa.s.sed, and a low, heavy-set fellow who seemed to be captain charged all not to speak, but to follow him and do as he did.

We took a side street where there was little travel and followed through the dark and dripping way, fully a half-mile, down there in that end of the island called the sailors' broglio, where they say no man's life is safe if he has a silver coin or two. There was much music in the wine-shops and shouts of mirth and dancing feet on stone floors, but the rain had driven every one from the streets.

We came to a long, low, stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under which the light streamed.

We had received our orders, and when we got to the landing we stood there just an instant. "Now we have him-Gian the hypocrite!" whispered the stout man in a hoa.r.s.e breath. We burst in the doors with a whoop and a bang. The change from the dark to the light sort of blinded us at first. We all supposed that there was a dance in progress of course, and the screams from women were just what we expected; but when we saw several overturned easels and an old man, half-nude, and too scared to move, seated on a model throne, we did not advance into the hall as we intended. That one yell we gave was all the noise we made. We stood there in a bunch, just inside the door, sort of dazed and uncertain. We did not know whether to retreat, or charge on through the hall as we had intended. We just stood there like a lot of driveling fools.

"Keep right at your work, my good people. Keep right at your work!"

called a pleasant voice. "I see we have some visitors."

And Gian Bellini came forward. His robe was still tucked up under the blue sash, but he had laid aside his black cap, and his tumbled gray hair looked like the aureole of a saint. "Keep right at your work," he said again, and then came forward and bade us welcome and begged us to have seats.

I dared not run away, so I sat down on one of the long seats that were ranged around the wall. My companions did the same. There must have been fifty easels, all ranged in a semicircle around the old man who posed as a model. Several of the easels had been upset, and there was much confusion when we entered.