Venice

Front matter

Class jj^_i~L2<.

Book

VENICE

Introduction

THE object and plan of these Historical Handbooks is somewhat different from that of any other guides at present before the public. They do not compete or clash with such existing works ; they are rather intended to supplement than to supplant them. My purpose is not to direct the stranger through the streets and squares of an unknown town towards the buildings or sights which he may desire to visit ; still less is it my design to give him practical information about hotels, cab fares, omnibuses tramways, and other everyday material conveniences. For such details the traveller must still have recourse to the trusty pages of his Baedeker, his Joanne, or his Murray I desire rather to supply the tourist who wishes to use his travel as a means of culture with such historical and antiquarian information as will enable him to understand, and therefore to enjoy, the architecture, sculpture, painting, and minor arts of the towns he visits. In one word, it is my object to give the reader in a very compendious form the result of all those inquiries which have naturally suggested themselves to my own mind during thirty-five years of foreign travel, the solution of which has cost myself a good deal of research, thought, and labour, beyond the facts which I could find in the ordinary handbooks.

For several years past I have devoted myself to collecting and arranging material for a set of books to embody the idea I had thus entertained. I earnestly hope they may meet a want on the part of tourists, especially Americans, vi INTRODUCTION

who, so far as my experience goes, usually come to Europe with an honest and reverent desire to learn from the Old World whatever of value it has to teach them, and who are prepared to take an amount of pains in turning their trip to good account, which is both rare and praiseworthy. For such readers I shall call attention at times to other sources of information.

These guide-books will deal more particularly with the Great Towns where objects of art and antiquity are numerous. In every one of them, the general plan pursued will be somewhat as follows. First will come the inquiry why a town ever gathered together at all at that particular spot— what induced the aggregation of human beings rather there than elsewhere. Next, we shall consider why that town grew to social or political importance and what were the stages by which it assumed its present shape. Thirdly, we shall ask why it gave rise to that higher form of handicraft which we know as Art, and towards what particular arts it especially gravitated. After that, we shall take in detail the various strata of its growth or development, examining the buildings and works of art which they contain in historical order, and, as far as possible, tracing the causes which led to their evolution. In particular, we shall lay stress upon the origin and meaning of each structure as an organic whole, and upon the allusions or symbols which its fabric embodies.

A single instance will show the method upon which I intend to proceed better than any amount of general description. A church, as a rule, is built over the body or relics of a particular saint, in whose special honour it was originally erected. That saint was usually one of great local importance at the moment of its erection, or was peculiarly implored against plague, foreign enemies, or some other pressing and dreaded misfortune. In dealing with such a church, then, I endeavour to show what were the circum-

stances which led to its erection, and what memorials of these circumstances it still retains. In other cases it may derive its origin from some special monastic body — Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan— and may therefore be full of the peculiar symbolism and historical allusion of the order who founded it. Wherever I have to deal with such a church, I try as far as possible to exhibit the effect which its origin had upon its architecture and decoration ; to trace the image of the patron saint in sculpture or stained glass throughout the fabric ; and to set forth the connection of the whole design with time and place, with order and purpose. In short, instead of looking upon monuments of the sort mainly as the product of this or that architect, I look upon them rather as material embodiments of the spirit of the age — crystallisations, as it were, in stone and bronze, in form and colour, of great popular enthusiasms.

By thus concentrating attention on what is essential and important in a town, I hope to give in a comparatively short space, though with inevitable conciseness, a fuller account than is usually given of the chief architectural and monumental works of the principal art-cities. In dealing with Paris, for example, I shall have little to say about such modern constructions as the Champs Elysees or the Eiffel Tower ; still less, of course, about the Morgue, the Catacombs, the waxworks of the Musee Grevin, and the celebrated Excursion in the Paris Sewers. The space thus saved from vulgar wonders I shall hope to devote to fuller explanation of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle, of the mediaeval carvings or tapestries of Cluny, and of the pictures or sculptures in the galleries of the Louvre. Similarly in Florence, whatever I save from description of the Cascine and even of the beautiful Viale dei Colli (where explanation is needless and word-painting superfluous), I shall give up to the Bargello, the Uffizi, and the Pitti Palace. The passing life of the moment does not enter into my plan ;

viii INTRODUCTION

I regard each town I endeavour to illustrate mainly as a

museum of its own history.

For this reason, too, I shall devote most attention in every case to what is locally illustrative, and less to what is merely adventitious and foreign. In Paris, for instance, I shall have more to say about truly Parisian art and history, as embodied in St. Denis, the He de la Cite, and the shrine of Ste. Genevieve, than about the Egyptian and Assyrian collections of the Louvre. In Florence, again, I shall deal rather with the Etruscan remains, with Giotto and Fra Angelico, with the Duomo and the Campanile, than with the admirable Memlincks and Rubenses of the Umzi and the Pitti, or with the beautiful Van der Goes of the Uffizi Gallery. In Bruges and Brussels, once more, I shall be especially Flemish ; in the Rhine towns, Rhenish ; in Venice, Venetian. I shall assign a due amount of space, indeed, to the foreign collections, but I shall call attention chiefly to those monuments or objects which are of entirely local and typical value.

As regards the character of the information given, it will be mainly historical, antiquarian, and, above all, explanatory. I am not a connoisseur — an adept in the difficult modern science of distinguishing the handicraft of various masters, in painting or sculpture, by minute signs and delicate inferential processes. In such matters, I shall be well content to follow the lead of the most authoritative experts. Nor am I an art critic — a student versed in the technique of the studios and the dialect of the modelling-room. In such matters, again, I shall attempt little more than to accept the general opinion of the most discriminative judges. What I aim at rather is to expound the history and meaning of each work — to put the intelligent reader in such a position that he may judge for himself of the aesthetic beauty and success of the object before him. To recognise the fact that this is a Perseus and Andromeda,

INTRODUCTION ix

that a St. Barbara enthroned, the other an obscure episode in the legend of St. Philip, is not art criticism, but it is often an almost indispensable prelude to the formation of a right and sound judgment. We must know what the artist was trying to represent before we can feel sure what measure of success he has attained in his representation.

For the general study of Christian art, alike in architecture, sculpture, and painting, no treatises are more useful for the tourist to carry with him for constant reference than Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, and Legends of the Madonna (London, Longmans). For works of Italian art, both in Italy and elsewhere, Kugler's Italian Schools of Painting is an invaluable vade mecum. These books should be carried about by everybody everywhere. Other works of special and local importance will occasionally be noticed under each particular city, church, or museum.

I cannot venture to hope that handbooks containing such a mass of facts as these will be wholly free from errors and misstatements, above all in early editions. I can only beg those who may detect any such to point them out, without unnecessary harshness, to the author, care of the publisher, and if possible to assign reasons for any dissentient opinion.

Contents

Introduction

How to Use these Guide-Books .

I Origins of Venice ....

Appendix

• • 283 r

. 291

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FETE ClIAMPETRE AT THE LOUVRE Photograph : Mansell.

Frontispiece s

TO FACE PAGE •

Capital from Justinian's Church of S. Vitale

Ravenna .

Photograph: Alinari.

Italo-Byzantine Capital from the Atrium, S. Marco

Photograph: J. W. Cruickshank.

Byzantine Relief of Madonna

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

Italo-Byzantine Carving of a Symbolical Character

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

Romanesque Figure of the "Labour

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

Byzantine-Romanesque Carving, S. Marco

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

Pan t el from S. Apollinare Nuova, Ravenna

Photograph : Alinari.

Panel from S. Marco

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

View in the Choir, S. Vitale, Ravenna .

Photograph : Alinari.

View in the Choir and Transept of S. Marco

Photograph : Anderson.

Head of King Solomon.

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

Madonna and Child, by Giorgione

Photograph : Anderson.

14 14 of December 22 /

28,

28 /

96/

ILL USTRA TIONS

TO FACE

The Bridal Couple, by Lorenzo Lotto

Photograph : Anderson.

"Dorothea," by Sebastiano del Piombo .

Photograph : Hanfstaengl.

From the Equestrian Statue of Gattamelkta at Padua, by Donatello

Photograph : Anderson.

Sinner Going Down to Hell, by Michael Angelo

Photograph : Anderson.

Portrait of Loredano (Doge 1501-21), by Bellini

Photograph : Mansell.

Portrait of Pope Paul III., by Titian

Photograph : Anderson.

Head of Christ in the Church of S. Rocco

Photograph : Anderson.

"La Zingarella," by Titian

Angels from the Coronation of the Virgin

Photograph : Brogi.

Angels from the Assumption of the Virgin

Photograph : Anderson.

Adam and Eve, by Rubens .

Photograph : Anderson.

Madonna by Botticelli

Photograph : Brogi.

Detail from "The Concert," by Titian

Photograph : Anderson.

"Flora," painted in 1523 by Titian .

Photograph : Anderson.

Portrait of Imhoff, by Durer .

Photograph : Anderson.

St. Catherine, by Carlo Crivelli

Photograph : Brogi.

"DANAE," PAINTED IN 1554 BY TlTIAN .

Photograph : Anderson.

ILL USTRA TIONS xv

TO FACE PAGE

Madonna and Child in the Chapei, of the Arena at Padua, by Giovanni Pisano .... 272 /

Photograph : Alinari.

Italo-Byzantine Mosaic. Madonna and Child . 272^

Photograph : J. W. Cruickshank.

HOW TO USE THESE GUIDE- BOOKS

r I "HE portions of this book inte?ided to be read at ■*■ leisure at home, before proceeding to explore each town or monument, are enclosed in brackets [thus]. The portion relating to each principal object should be quietly read and digested before a visit, and referred to again afterwards. The portion to be read on the spot ' is made as brief as possible, and is printed in large legible type, so as to be easily read in the dim light of churches, chapels, and galleries. The key-note words are printed in bold type, to catch the eye. Where objects are numbered, the numbers used are always those of the latest official catalogues.

Baedeker's Guides are so printed that each principal portion can be detached entire from the volume. The traveller ivho uses Baedeker is advised to carry in his pocket one such portion, referring to the place he is then visiting, together tvith the plan of the town, while carrying this book in his hand. These Guides do not profess to supply practical information.

Individual works of merit are distinguished by an asterisk (*) ; those of very exceptional interest and merit have two asterisks. Nothing is noticed in this book which does not seem to the writer worthy of attentio?i.

See little at a time, and see it thoroughly. Never attempt to " do " any place or any monument. By following strictly the order in which" objects are noticed in this book, you will gain a conception of the historical evolution of the town which you cannot obtain if you go about looking at churches and palaces haphazard. The order is arranged, not quite chronologically, but on a definite plan, which greatly facilitates comprehension of the subject.

I

ORIGINS OF VENICE

THE very name of Venezia or Venice by which we now know the city of the lagoons is in its origin the name, not of a town, but of a country. Upon the proper comprehension of this curious fact depends a proper comprehension of much that is essential in the early history of the city and of the Republic.

The rich and fertile valley of the Po had for its commercial centre from a very remote period the town of Mediolanum or Milan. But its port for the time being, though often altered, lay always on the Adriatic. That sea derives its name, indeed, from the town of Hatria (later corrupted into Adria), which was the earliest centre of the Po valley traffic. Hatria and its sister town of Spina, however, gave way in imperial Roman times to Padua, and again in the days of the lower empire to Aquileia, near Trieste, and to Altinum, on the mainland just opposite Torcello. Padua in particular was a very prosperous and populous town under the early emperors ; it gathered into itself the surplus wealth of the whole Po valley.

The district between Verona and the sea, known to the Romans as Venetia, seems in the most ancient times of which we have any record to have been inhabited by an Etruscan population. Later, however, it was occupied by the Veneti, an Illyrian tribe, whose name still survives in that of Venice and in the district known as II Veneto. But much Etruscan blood must have remained in the land even after their conquest : and it is doubtless to this persistent Etruscan element that the Venetians owe their marked artistic faculty. The country of the Veneti was assimilated and

2 ORIGINS OF VENICE [i.

Romanised (by nominal alliance with Rome) in the third century before Christ. Under the Romans, Venetia, and its capital Padua, grew extremely wealthy, and the trade of the Lombard plain (as we now call it), the ancient Gallia Cisalpina, was concentrated on this district.

The Po and the other rivers of the sub-Alpine region bring down to the Adriatic a mass of silt, which forms fan-like deltas, and spreads on either side of the mouth in belts or bars (the Lidi), which enclose vast Lagoons of shallow water. These lagoons consist near the mainland of basking mudbanks, more or less reclaimed, and intersected by natural or artificial canals ; further out towards the bars or Lidi, they deepen somewhat, but contain in places numerous low islands. During the long troubles of the barbaric irruptions, in the fourth, fifth, and subsequent centuries, the ports of the lagoons, better protected both by land and sea than those of the Po, began to rise into comparative importance ; on the south, Ravenna, on the north, Altinum, acquired increased commercial value. The slow silting up of the older harbours, as well as the dangers of the political situation, brought about in part this alteration in mercantile conditions.

When Attila and his Huns invaded Italy in 453, they destroyed Padua, and also Altinum ; and though we need not suppose that those cities thereupon ceased entirely to exist, yet it is at least certain that their commercial importance was ruined for the time being. The people of Altinum took refuge on one of the islands in the lagoon, and built Torcello, which may thus be regarded in a certain sense as the mother=city of Venice. Subsequent waves of conquest had like results. Later on, in 568, the Lom = bards, a German tribe, invaded Italy, and completed the ruin of Padua, Altinum, and Aquileia. The relics of the Romanised and Christian Veneti then fled to the islands, to which we may suppose a constant migration of fugitives had been taking place for more than a century. The Paduans, in particular, seem to have settled at Malamocco. The subjugated mainland became known as Lombardy, from its,

I.] ORIGINS OF VENICE 3

Germanic conquerors, and the free remnant of the Veneti, still bearing their old name, built new homes in- the flat islets of Rivo Alto, Malamocco, and Torcello, which were the most secure from attack in their shallow waters. This last fringe of their territory they still knew as Venetia or Venezia; the particular island, or group of islands, on which modern Venice now stands, bore simply at that time its original name of Rivo Alto or Rialto, that is to say, the Deep Channel.

The Romanised semi-Etruscan Christian Republic of Venezia seems from the very first to have been governed by a Dux or Doge (that is to say, Duke), in normal subjection to the Eastern Emperor at Constantinople. The Goth and the Lombard, the Frank and the Hun, never ruled this last corner of the Roman world. The earliest of the Doges whose name has come down to us was Paulucius Anafestus, who is said to have died in 716, and whose seat of government seems to have been at Torcello. Later, the Doge of the Venetians apparently resided at Malamocco, a town which no longer exists, having been destroyed by submergence, though part of the bank of the Lidi opposite still retains its name. Isolated in their island fastnesses, the Venetians, as we may now begin to call them, grew rich and powerful at a time when the rest of Western Europe was sinking lower and lower in barbarism ; they kept up their intercourse with the civilised Roman east in Constantinople, and also with Alexandria (the last then Mohammedanised), and they acted as intermediaries between the Lombard Kingdom and the still Christian Levant. When Charlemagne in the eighth century conquered the Lombards and founded the renewed (Teutonic) Roman Empire of the West, the Venetians, not yet established in modern Venice, fled from Malamocco to Rivo Alto to escape his son, King Pepin r whom they soon repelled from the lagoons. About the same time they seem to have made themselves practically independent of the eastern empire, without becoming a part of the western and essentially German one of the Carlovingians. Not long after, Malamocco was deserted, partly, no doubt, owing to

4 ORIGINS OF VENICE [i.

the destruction by Pepin, but partly also perhaps because it began to be threatened with submergence : and the Venetians then determined to fix their seat of government on Rivo Alto, or Rialto, the existing Venice. For a long time, the new town was still spoken of as Rialto, as indeed a part of it is by its own inhabitants to the present day ; but gradually the general name of Venezia, which belonged properly to the entire Republic, grew to be confined in usage to its capital, and most of us now know the city only as Venice.

Pepin was driven off in 809. The Doge's palace was transferred to Rialto, and raised on the site of the existing building (according to tradition) in 819. Angelus Participates was the first Doge to occupy it. From that period forward to the French Revolution, one palace after another housed the Duke of the Venetians on the same site. This was the real nucleus of the town of Venice, though the oldest part lay near the Rialto bridge. Malamocco did not entirely disappear, however, till 1107. The silting up of the harbour of Ravenna, the chief port of the Adriatic in late Roman times, and long an outlier of the Byzantine empire, contributed greatly, no doubt, to the rise of Venice : while the adoption of Rivo Alto with its deep navigable channel as the capital marks the gradual growth of an external commerce.

The Republic which thus sprang up among the islands of the lagoons was at first confined to the little archipelago itself, though it still looked upon Aquileia and Altinum as its mother cities, and still acknowledged in ecclesiastical matters the supremacy of the Patriarch of Grado. After the repulse of King Pepin, however, the Republic began to recognise its own strength and the importance of its position, and embarked, slowly at first, on a career of commerce, and then of conquest. Its earliest acquisitions of territory were on the opposite Slavonic coast of Istria and Dalmatia; gradually its trade with the east led it, at the beginning of the Crusades, to acquire territory in the Levant and the •Greek Archipelago, This eastern extension was, mainly

I.] ORIGINS OF VENICE 5

due to the conquest of Constantinople by Doge Enrico Dandolo during the fourth Crusade (1204), an epoch-making event in the history of Venice which must constantly be borne in mind in examining her art-treasures. The little outlying western dependency had vanquished the capital of the Christian Eastern Empire to which it once belonged. The greatness of Venice dates from this period ; it became the chief carrier between the east and the west ; its vessels exported the surplus wealth of the Lombard plain, and brought in return, not only the timber and stone of I stria and Dalmatia, but the manufactured wares of Christian Constantinople, the wines of the Greek isles, and the oriental silks, carpets, and spices of Mohammedan Egypt, Arabia, and Bagdad. The Crusades, which impoverished the rest of Europe, doubly enriched Venice : she had the carrying and transport traffic in her own hands ; and her conquests gave her the spoil of many eastern cities.

It is important to bear in mind, also, that the Venetian Republic (down to the French Revolution) was the one part of western Europe which never at any time formed a portion of any Teutonic empire, Gothic, Lombard, Frank, or Saxon. Alone in the west, it carried on unbroken the traditions of the Roman empire, and continued its corporate life without Teutonic adulteration. Its peculiar position as the gate between the east and west made a deep impress upon its arts and its architecture. The city remained long in friendly intercourse with the Byzantine realm ; and an oriental tinge is thus to be found in all its early buildings and mosaics. St. Mark's in particular is based on St. Sophia at Constantinople ; the capitals of the columns in both are strikingly similar ; even Arab influence and the example of Cairo (or rather of early Alexandria) are visible in many parts of the building. Another element which imparts oriental tone to Venice is the number of imported works of art from Greek churches. Some of these the Republic frankly stole ; others it carried away in good faith during times of stress to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Mohammedan con-

6 ORIGINS OF VENICE [i.

querors. The older part of Venice is thus to some extent a museum of applied antiquities ; the bronze horses from Constantinople over the portal of St. Mark's, the pillars of St. John of Acre on the south facade, the Greek lions of the Arsenal, the four porphyry emperors near the Doge's Palace, are cases in point ; and similar instances will meet the visitor in the sequel everywhere. Many bodies of Greek oi eastern saints were also carried off from Syria or Asia Minor to preserve them from desecration at the hands of the infidel ; and with these saints came their legends, unknown elsewhere in the west ; so that the mosaics and sculptures based on them give a further note of orientalism to much of Venice. It may also be noted that the intense Venetian love of colour, and the eye for colour which accompanies it, are rather eastern than western qualities. This peculiarity of a pure colour-sense is extremely noticeable both in Venetian architecture and Venetian painting.

The first Venice with which the traveller will have to deal is thus essentially a Romanesque- Byzantine city. It rose during the decay of the Roman empire, far from barbaric influences. Its buildings are Byzantine in type ; its mosaics are mostly the work of Greek or half- Greek artists ; its Madonnas and saints are Greek in aspect ; often even the very lettering of the inscriptions is in Greek, not in Latin. And though ecclesiastically Venice belonged to the western or Roman church, the general assemblage of her early saints (best seen in the Atrium and Baptistery of St. Mark's) is thoroughly oriental. We must remember that during all her first great period she was connected by the sea with Constantinople and the east, but cut off by the lagoons and the impenetrable marshes from all intercourse with Teutonised Lombardy and the rest of Italy. In front lay her highway : behind lay her moat. At this period, indeed, it is hardly too much to say that (save for the accident of language) Venice was rather a Greek than an Italian city.

I strongly advise the tourist, therefore, to begin by forming a clear conception of this early Greekish Venice

I.] ORIGINS OF VENICE 7

of the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and then go on to observe how the later Italianate Venice grew slowly out of it. Mediaeval Italy was not Roman but Teutonised : influences from this Teutonic Italy were late in affecting the outlying lagoon-land.

The beginnings of the change came with the conquests of Venice on the Italian mainland. Already Gothic art from the west had invaded the Republic with the rise of the great Dominican and Franciscan churches (San Giovanni e Paolo and the Frari) : the extension of Venice to the west, by the conquest of Padua and Verona (1405) completed the assimilation. Thenceforward the Renaissance began to make its mark on the city of the lagoons, though at a much later date than elsewhere in Italy. I recommend the visitor accordingly, after he has familiarised himself with Byzantine Venice, to trace the gradual encroachment of Gothic art, and then the Renaissance movement. This Guide is so arranged as to make such a task as easy as possible for him. But while chronological comprehension is thus important, a strictly chronological method is here for many reasons both difficult and undesirable. I have tried rather to suggest a mode of seeing Venice which will unfold the story in the most assimilable order.

It is best, then, to begin with the architecture, sculpture, and mosaics of St. Mark's ; in connection with which the few remaining Byzantine palaces ought to be examined. The Byzantine period is marked by the habit of sawing up precious marbles and other coloured stones (imported for the most part from earlier eastern buildings), and using them as a thin veneer for the incrustation of brick buildings ; also, by the frequent employment of decorations made by inserting ancient reliefs in the blank walls of churches or houses. The eastern conquests of Venice made oriental buildings a quarry for her architects. The Gothic period is marked by a peculiar local style, showing traces of Byzantine and Arab influence. The early Renaissance work at Venice is nobler and more dignified than elsewhere in Italy. The baroque school of the seven-

8 ORIGINS OF VENICE [i.

teenth century, on the other hand, is nowhere so appalling.

Venice was essentially a commercial Republic. Her

greatness lay in her wealth. She flourished as long as she was the sole carrier between east and west ; she declined rapidly after the discovery of America, and of the route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, which made the Atlantic supersede the Mediterranean as the highway of the nations. As Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London rose, Venice fell. The reopening of the Mediterranean route by the construction of the Suez Canal has galvanised her port into a slightly increased vitality of recent years ; but she is still in the main a beautiful fossilbed of various strata, extending from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries.

The rise and progress of Venetian painting will be traced in detail when we come to consider the Academy; but its earliest origins and first motives must be looked for in the ancient mosaics of St. Mark's and of Murano.

Whoever enters Venice by rail at the present day ought to bear in mind that he arrives (across the lagoon) by the back door. The front door was designed for those who came by sea ; there, Venice laid herself out to receive them with fitting splendour. The ambassadors or merchants who sailed up the navigable channel from the mouth of the Lido, saw first the Piazza, the Piazzetta, the two great granite columns, the campanile, St. Mark's, and the imposing facade of the Doge's Palace, reinforced at a later date by the white front of San Giorgio Maggiore and the cupolas of the Salute. This, though not perhaps the oldest part of the town, is the nucleus of historical Venice; and to it the traveller should devote the greater part of his attention. I strongly advise those whose stay is limited not to try to see all the churches and collections of the city, but to confine themselves strictly to St. Mark's, the Doge's Palace, the Academy, the four or five major churches, and the tour of the Grand Canal, made slowly in a gondola.