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Stones of Venice [introductions]

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There is visible everywhere a simple and tender effort to recover some
of the form of the temples which they had loved, and to do honor to God
by that which they were erecting, while distress and humiliation
prevented the desire, and prudence precluded the admission, either of
luxury of ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely
devoid of decoration, with the exception only of the western entrance
and the lateral door, of which the former has carved sideposts and
architrave, and the latter, crosses of rich sculpture; while the massy
stone shutters of the windows, turning on huge rings of stone, which
answer the double purpose of stanchions and brackets, cause the whole
building rather to resemble a refuge from Alpine storm than the
cathedral of a populous city; and, internally, the two solemn mosaics of
the eastern and western extremities,--one representing the Last
Judgment, the other the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are
raised to bless,--and the noble range of pillars which enclose the space
between, terminated by the high throne for the pastor and the
semicircular raised seats for the superior clergy, are expressive at
once of the deep sorrow and the sacred courage of men who had no home
left them upon earth, but who looked for one to come, of men "persecuted
but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed."

SECTION IV. For observe this choice of subjects. It is indeed possible
that the walls of the nave and aisles, which are now whitewashed, may
have been covered with fresco or mosaic, and thus have supplied a series
of subjects, on the choice of which we cannot speculate. I do not,
however, find record of the destruction of any such works; and I am
rather inclined to believe that at any rate the central division of the
building was originally, decorated, as it is now, simply by mosaics
representing Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles, at one extremity, and
Christ coming to judgment at the other. And if so, I repeat, observe the
significance of this choice. Most other early churches are covered with
imagery sufficiently suggestive of the vivid interest of the builders in
the history and occupations of the world. Symbols or representations of
political events, portraits of living persons, and sculptures of
satirical, grotesque, or trivial subjects are of constant occurrence,
mingled with the more strictly appointed representations of scriptural
or ecclesiastical history; but at Torcello even these usual, and one
should have thought almost necessary, successions of Bible events do not
appear. The mind of the worshipper was fixed entirely upon two great
facts, to him the most precious of all facts,--the present mercy of
Christ to His Church, and His future coming to judge the world. That
Christ's mercy was, at this period, supposed chiefly to be attainable
through the pleading of the Virgin, and that therefore beneath the
figure of the Redeemer is seen that of the weeping Madonna in the act of
intercession, may indeed be matter of sorrow to the Protestant beholder,
but ought not to blind him to the earnestness and singleness of the
faith with which these men sought their sea-solitudes; not in hope of
founding new dynasties, or entering upon new epochs of prosperity, but
only to humble themselves before God, and to pray that in His infinite
mercy He would hasten the time when the sea should give up the dead
which were in it, and Death and Hell give up the dead which were in
them, and when they might enter into the better kingdom, "where the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

SECTION V. Nor were the strength and elasticity of their minds, even in
the least matters, diminished by thus looking forward to the close of
all things. On the contrary, nothing is more remarkable than the finish
and beauty of all the portions of the building, which seem to have been
actually executed for the place they occupy in the present structure.
The rudest are those which they brought with them from the mainland; the
best and most beautiful, those which appear to have been carved for
their island church: of these, the new capitals already noticed, and the
exquisite panel ornaments of the chancel screen, are the most
conspicuous; the latter form a low wall across the church between the
six small shafts whose places are seen in the plan, and serve to enclose
a space raised two steps above the level of the nave, destined for the
singers, and indicated also in the plan by an open line _a b c d_. The
bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions, two
face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description,
though not expressive of very accurate knowledge either of leonine or
pavonine forms. And it is not until we pass to the back of the stair of
the pulpit, which is connected with the northern extremity of this
screen, that we find evidence of the haste with which the church was
constructed.

SECTION VI. The pulpit, however, is not among the least noticeable of
its features. It is sustained on the four small detached shafts marked
at _p_ in the plan, between the two pillars at the north side of
the screen; both pillars and pulpit studiously plain, while the
staircase which ascends to it is a compact mass of masonry (shaded in
the plan), faced by carved slabs of marble; the parapet of the staircase
being also formed of solid blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich,
but not deep, exterior carving. Now these blocks, or at least those
which adorn the staircase towards the aisle, have been brought from the
mainland; and, being of size and shape not easily to be adjusted to the
proportions of the stair, the architect has cut out of them pieces of
the size he needed, utterly regardless of the subject or symmetry of the
original design. The pulpit is not the only place where this rough
procedure has been permitted: at the lateral door of the church are two
crosses, cut out of slabs of marble, formerly covered with rich
sculpture over their whole surfaces, of which portions are left on the
surface of the crosses; the lines of the original design being, of
course, just as arbitrarily cut by the incisions between the arms, as
the patterns upon a piece of silk which has been shaped anew. The fact
is, that in all early Romanesque work, large surfaces are covered with
sculpture for the sake of enrichment only; sculpture which indeed had
always meaning, because it was easier for the sculptor to work with some
chain of thought to guide his chisel, than without any; but it was not
always intended, or at least not always hoped, that this chain of
thought might be traced by the spectator. All that was proposed appears
to have been the enrichment of surface, so as to make it delightful to
the eye; and this being once understood, a decorated piece of marble
became to the architect just what a piece of lace or embroidery is to a
dressmaker, who takes of it such portions as she may require, with
little regard to the places where the patterns are divided. And though
it may appear, at first sight, that the procedure is indicative of
bluntness and rudeness of feeling,--we may perceive, upon reflection,
that it may also indicate the redundance of power which sets little
price upon its own exertion. When a barbarous nation builds its
fortress-walls out of fragments of the refined architecture it has
overthrown, we can read nothing but its savageness in the vestiges of
art which may thus chance to have been preserved; but when the new work
is equal, if not superior, in execution, to the pieces of the older art
which are associated with it, we may justly conclude that the rough
treatment to which the latter have been subjected is rather a sign of
the hope of doing better things, than of want of feeling for those
already accomplished. And, in general, this careless fitting of ornament
is, in very truth, an evidence of life in the school of builders, and of
their making a due distinction between work which is to be used for
architectural effect, and work which is to possess an abstract
perfection; and it commonly shows also that the exertion of design is so
easy to them, and their fertility so inexhaustible, that they feel no
remorse in using somewhat injuriously what they can replace with so
slight an effort.

SECTION VII. It appears however questionable in the present instance,
whether, if the marbles had not been carved to his hand, the architect
would have taken the trouble to enrich them. For the execution of the
rest of the pulpit is studiously simple, and it is in this respect that
its design possesses, it seems to me, an interest to the religious
spectator greater than he will take in any other portion of the
building. It is supported, as I said, on a group of four slender shafts;
itself of a slightly oval form, extending nearly from one pillar of the
nave to the next, so as to give the preacher free room for the action of
the entire person, which always gives an unaffected impressiveness to
the eloquence of the southern nations. In the centre of its curved
front, a small bracket and detached shaft sustain the projection of a
narrow marble desk (occupying the place of a cushion in a modern
pulpit), which is hollowed out into a shallow curve on the upper
surface, leaving a ledge at the bottom of the slab, so that a book laid
upon it, or rather into it, settles itself there, opening as if by
instinct, but without the least chance of slipping to the side, or in
any way moving beneath the preacher's hands. Six balls, or rather
almonds, of purple marble veined with white are set round the edge of
the pulpit, and form its only decoration. Perfectly graceful, but severe
and almost cold in its simplicity, built for permanence and service, so
that no single member, no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are
firm and uninjured as when they were first set together, it stands in
venerable contrast both with the fantastic pulpits of mediaeval
cathedrals and with the rich furniture of those of our modern churches.
It is worth while pausing for a moment to consider how far the manner of
decorating a pulpit may have influence on the efficiency of its service,
and whether our modern treatment of this, to us all-important, feature
of a church be the best possible. [Footnote: Appendix V., "Modern
Pulpits."]

SECTION VIII. When the sermon is good we need not much concern ourselves
about the form of the pulpit. But sermons cannot always be good; and I
believe that the temper in which the congregation set themselves to
listen may be in some degree modified by their perception of fitness or
unfitness, impressiveness or vulgarity, in the disposition of the place
appointed for the speaker,--not to the same degree, but somewhat in the
same way, that they may be influenced by his own gestures or expression,
irrespective of the sense of what he says. I believe, therefore, in the
first place, that pulpits ought never to be highly decorated; the
speaker is apt to look mean or diminutive if the pulpit is either on a
very large scale or covered with splendid ornament, and if the interest
of the sermon should flag the mind is instantly tempted to wander. I
have observed that in almost all cathedrals, when the pulpits are
peculiarly magnificent, sermons are not often preached from them; but
rather, and especially if for any important purpose, from some temporary
erection in other parts of the building:--and though this may often be
done because the architect has consulted the effect upon the eye more
than the convenience of the ear in the placing of his larger pulpit, I
think it also proceeds in some measure from a natural dislike in the
preacher to match himself with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the
sermon should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will rather
hold of the colossal sculptures, and pyramids of fantastic tracery which
encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German churches, than of the
delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of the Romanesque basilicas, for
when the form is kept simple, much loveliness of color and costliness of
work may be introduced, and yet the speaker not be thrown into the shade
by them.

SECTION IX. But, in the second place, whatever ornaments we admit ought
clearly to be of a chaste, grave, and noble kind; and what furniture we
employ, evidently more for the honoring of God's word than for the ease
of the preacher. For there are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as
a human composition, or a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as
the first, and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care
and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect, we
shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness in its
delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a
golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the
sermon be not fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed upon the
cushion in a majestic manner before beginning; all this we shall duly
come to expect: but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus
prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without
restlessness for half an hour or three quarters, but which, when that
duty has been decorously performed, we may dismiss from our minds in
happy confidence of being provided with another when next it shall be
necessary. But if once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his
faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life
or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge
over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an
hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make some endeavor
to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage
on the side of God after his flock have been exposed for six days
together to the full weight of the world's temptation, and he has been
forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and
to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by
this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary
with the week's labor they give him this interval of imperfect and
languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts
of a thousand men, to convince them of all their weaknesses, to shame
them for all their sins, to warn them of all their dangers, to try by
this way and that to stir the hard fastenings of those doors where the
Master himself has stood and knocked yet none opened, and to call at the
openings of those dark streets where Wisdom herself hath stretched forth
her hands and no man regarded,--thirty minutes to raise the dead
in,--let us but once understand and feel this, and we shall look with
changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture about the place from
which the message of judgment must be delivered, which either breathes
upon the dry bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains
recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener
alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear
with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of
oratory in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his words may
be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he
speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have
gathered in their thirst.

SECTION X. But the severity which is so marked in the pulpit at Torcello
is still more striking in the raised seats and episcopal throne which
occupy the curve of the apse. The arrangement at first somewhat recalls
to the mind that of the Roman amphitheatres; the flight of steps which
lead up to the central throne divides the curve of the continuous steps
or seats (it appears in the first three ranges questionable which were
intended, for they seem too high for the one, and too low and close for
the other), exactly as in an amphitheatre the stairs for access
intersect the sweeping ranges of seats. But in the very rudeness of this
arrangement, and especially in the want of all appliances of comfort
(for the whole is of marble, and the arms of the central throne are not
for convenience, but for distinction, and to separate it more
conspicuously from the undivided seats), there is a dignity which no
furniture of stalls nor carving of canopies ever could attain, and well
worth the contemplation of the Protestant, both as sternly significative
of an episcopal authority which in the early days of the Church was
never disputed, and as dependent for all its impressiveness on the utter
absence of any expression either of pride or self-indulgence.

SECTION XI. But there is one more circumstance which we ought to
remember as giving peculiar significance to the position which the
episcopal throne occupies in this island church, namely, that in the
minds of all early Christians the Church itself was most frequently
symbolized under the image of a ship, of which the bishop was the pilot.
Consider the force which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of
men to whom the spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the
midst of a destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the
eight souls were saved of old, a destruction in which the wrath of man
had become as broad as the earth and as merciless as the sea, and who
saw the actual and literal edifice of the Church raked up, itself like
an ark in the midst of the waters. No marvel if with the surf of the
Adriatic rolling between them and the shores of their birth, from which
they were separated for ever, they should have looked upon each other as
the disciples did when the storm came down on the Tiberias Lake, and
have yielded ready and loving obedience to those who ruled them in His
name, who had there rebuked the winds and commanded stillness to the
sea. And if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the
dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth
conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of
her arsenals or number of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her
palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend
the highest tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of
Torcello, and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble
ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its veined deck with
the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the
strength of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the
pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been
closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of
their homesteads,--first, within the shelter of its knitted walls,
amidst the murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of
the sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,--rose that
ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices:

THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT,
AND HIS HANDS PREPARED THE DRY LAND.




CHAPTER IV.

ST. MARK'S.


SECTION I. "And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus." If as
the shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of prophecy had
entered into the heart of the weak disciple who had turned back when his
hand was on the plough, and who had been judged, by the chiefest of
Christ's captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the
work, [Footnote: Acts, xiii. 13; xv. 38, 39.] how wonderful would he
have thought it, that by the lion symbol in future ages he was to be
represented among men! how woful, that the war-cry of his name should so
often reanimate the rage of the soldier, on those very plains where he
himself had failed in the courage of the Christian, and so often dye
with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea, over whose waves, in
repentance and shame, he was following the Son of Consolation!

SECTION II. That the Venetians possessed themselves of his body in the
ninth century, there appears no sufficient reason to doubt, nor that it
was principally in consequence of their having done so, that they chose
him for their patron saint. There exists, however, a tradition that
before he went into Egypt he had founded the Church at Aquileia, and was
thus, in some sort, the first bishop of the Venetian isles and people. I
believe that this tradition stands on nearly as good grounds as that of
St. Peter having been the first bishop of Rome; [Footnote: The reader
who desires to investigate it may consult Galliciolli, "Delle Memorie
Venete" (Venice, 1795), tom. ii. p. 332, and the authorities quoted by
him.] but, as usual, it is enriched by various later additions and
embellishments, much resembling the stories told respecting the church
of Murano. Thus we find it recorded by the Santo Padre who compiled the
"Vite de' Santi spettanti alle Chiese di Venezia," [Footnote: Venice,
1761, tom. i. p. 126.] that "St. Mark having seen the people of Aquileia
well grounded in religion, and being called to Rome by St. Peter, before
setting off took with him the holy bishop Hermagoras, and went in a
small boat to the marshes of Venice. There were at that period some
houses built upon a certain high bank called Rialto, and the boat being
driven by the wind was anchored in a marshy place, when St. Mark,
snatched into ecstasy, heard the voice of an angel saying to him: 'Peace
be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest.'" The angel goes on to
foretell the building of "una stupenda, ne più veduta Città;" but the
fable is hardly ingenious enough to deserve farther relation.

SECTION III. But whether St. Mark was first bishop of Aquileia or not,
St. Theodore was the first patron of the city; nor can he yet be
considered as having entirely abdicated his early right, as his statue,
standing on a crocodile, still companions the winged lion on the
opposing pillar of the piazzetta. A church erected to this Saint is said
to have occupied, before the ninth century, the site of St. Mark's; and
the traveller, dazzled by the brilliancy of the great square, ought not
to leave it without endeavoring to imagine its aspect in that early
time, when it was a green field cloister-like and quiet, [Footnote: St.
Mark's Place, "partly covered by turf, and planted with a few trees; and
on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or Broglio, that is to
say, Garden." The canal passed through it, over which is built the
bridge of the Malpassi. Galliciolli, lib. I, cap. viii.] divided by a
small canal, with a line of trees on each side; and extending between
the two churches of St. Theodore and St. Geminian, as the little piazza,
of Torcello lies between its "palazzo" and cathedral.

SECTION IV. But in the year 813, when the seat of government was finally
removed to the Rialto, a Ducal Palace, built on the spot where the
present one stands, with a Ducal Chapel beside it, [Footnote: My
authorities for this statement are given below, in the chapter on the
Ducal Palace.] gave a very different character to the Square of St.
Mark; and fifteen years later, the acquisition of the body of the Saint,
and its deposition in the Ducal Chapel, perhaps not yet completed,
occasioned the investiture of that chapel with all possible splendor.
St. Theodore was deposed from his patronship, and his church destroyed,
to make room for the aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal
Palace, and thenceforward known as "St. Mark's." [Footnote: In the
Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella."]

SECTION V. This first church was however destroyed by fire, when the
Ducal Palace was burned in the revolt against Candiano, in 976. It was
partly rebuilt by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, on a larger scale; and
with the assistance of Byzantine architects, the fabric was carried on
under successive Doges for nearly a hundred years; the main building
being completed in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till
considerably later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October, 1085,
[Footnote: "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the
Protector St. Mark."--_Corner_, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the
reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have
consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing on the church
itself:

"Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno
Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,"

is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much
probability, to have perished "in qualche ristauro."] according to
Sansovino and the author of the "Chiesa Ducale di S. Marco," in 1094
according to Lazari, but certainly between 1084 and 1096, those years
being the limits of the reign of Vital Falier; I incline to the
supposition that it was soon after his accession to the throne in 1085,
though Sansovino writes, by mistake, Ordelafo instead of Vital Falier.
But, at all events, before the close of the eleventh century the great
consecration of the church took place. It was again injured by fire in
1106, but repaired; and from that time to the fall of Venice there was
probably no Doge who did not in some slight degree embellish or alter
the fabric, so that few parts of it can be pronounced boldly to be of
any given date. Two periods of interference are, however, notable above
the rest: the first, that in which the Gothic school had superseded the
Byzantine towards the close of the fourteenth century, when the
pinnacles, upper archivolts, and window traceries were added to the
exterior, and the great screen, with various chapels and
tabernacle-work, to the interior; the second, when the Renaissance
school superseded the Gothic, and the pupils of Titian and Tintoret
substituted, over one half of the church, their own compositions for the
Greek mosaics with which it was originally decorated; [Footnote: Signed
Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, etc.] happily, though with no good
will, having left enough to enable us to imagine and lament what they
destroyed. Of this irreparable loss we shall have more to say hereafter;
meantime, I wish only to fix in the reader's mind the succession of
periods of alteration as firmly and simply as possible.

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