Every Trade Or Profession, In Short, Had A Barge And
Appropriate Flag And Costumes.
A quantity of private barges and gondolas
followed this procession.
The Archduke and his staff occupied the
Government barge, which is very magnificent and made in imitation of the
Bucentaur. Musicians were on board of many of the barges, and the houses on
both banks of the Canale Grande were filled with beautiful women and
other spectators waving their handkerchiefs. Guns were fired on the
embarkation of the Viceroy from the Piazzetta di San Marco, and on his
return. The Piazza itself was splendidly illuminated, and the cafes
which abound there, and which constitute one half of the whole quadrangle,
were superbly and tastefully decorated.
The Piazza di San Marco is certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind
in the world. It is a good deal in the style of the Palais Royal at
Paris, and tho' not so large, is far more striking, from the very tasteful
and even sumptuous manner in which the cafes are fitted up, both
internally and externally; they have spacious rooms with mirrors on all
sides, some in the shape of Turkish tents, others in that of Egyptian
temples. The Piazza, forming an oblong rectangle, is arcaded on the two
long sides, and of the two short ones, one presents a superb modern palace
built by Napoleon, and richly adorned with the statues of all the heathen
Gods on the top, which Palace was usually occupied by Eugene Napoleon; the
other presents the church of St Marco and the old palace of Government,
where in the time of the Republic the Doge used to reside. The church of St
Mark is unique as a temple in Europe, for it is neither Grecian nor Gothic,
but in a style completely Oriental, from the singularity of its structure,
its many gilded cupolas and the variety of its exterior ornaments. At
first sight it appears a more striking object than either St Peter's in
Rome or St Paul's in London. On the top of the facade, which is singularly
picturesque, stand the four bronze horses which have been brought back from
Paris to their old residence.
I ascended the top of the facade in order to examine them. They are
beautifully formed, in very good cast and have not at all been damaged by
the journey. The Piazza is paved with broad flagged stones. The Doge's
palace is a vast building, very picturesque withal, and seems a melange
of Gothic and Moorish architecture. At right angles to it and facing the
Piazzetta, which issues from the Piazza and forms a quai to the Canale
Grande, stands the famous state prison and Ponte de 'Sospiri. On the
Piazzetta and fronting the landing place stand two columns of white
marble, on one of which stands the winged Lion of St Marco and on the other
a crocodile, emblematical of the foreign commerce and possessions of the
Republic. The space between these two columns was allotted for the
execution of State criminals. Not far from the church of St Marco, and near
to that angle of the Piazza which connects it with the Piazzetta,
stands the famous Campanile or Steeple of San Marco. It is a square
building 800 feet in height, from the top of which one has the best view of
Venice and its adjacent isles, the distant Alps and the marina dove il Po
discende. A Quai, if Quai it may be called, which has a row of houses on
each side, one row of which is on the water's edge, leads from the
Piazzetta to some gardens, which terminate on a point of land. This Quai
is very broad and well paved, and is the only thing that can be called a
street in all Venice. The Piazza di San Marco, therefore, this Quai and
the garden before mentioned form the only promenades in Venice. This garden
moreover has trees, and these are the only trees that are to be met with in
this city. In this garden are two Cafes.
The variety of costume is another very agreeable spectacle at Venice. Here
you meet with Albanians, Greeks, Turks, Moors, Sclavonians and Armenians,
all in their respective national costumes. The first Armenian I met with
here was sitting on a stone bench on the Piazza di San Marco, and this
brought forcibly to my recollection the Armenian in Schiller's
Ghost-seer.
These Cafes and Casinos on the Piazza are open day and night. Ices
and coffee superiorly made and other refreshments of all kinds at very low
prices are to be had. Some of these casinos are devoted to gaming. The
first families in Venice repair to the Piazza in the evening after the
Opera, female as well as male. They promenade up and down the Piazza or
sit down and converse in the Cafes and Casinos till a late hour. Few go
to bed in Venice in the summer time before six In the morning, so that
sleep seems for ever banished from the Piazza. Music and singing goes
forward in these casinos, and the ear is often charmed with the sound of
those delightful Venetian airs, whose simple melody ravishes the soul. The
Venetian dialect is very pleasing, and scarcely yields in harmony to the
Tuscan. It contains a great many Sclavonic words. It is the only dialect of
Italy that is at all pleasing to my ear, for I do not at all relish the
nasal twang and truncated terminations of the Piedmontese and Lombard
dialects, nor the semi-barbarous jargon of the Genoese and the Neapolitan
and, least of all, the execrable cacophony of the Bolognese.
I visited of course the Arsenal and the Doge's Palace. The apartments in
the latter are very spacious and ornamented in the Gothic taste of
grandeur. The chamber of the Council is peculiarly magnificent. There is a
good deal of tapestry and some fine paintings and statues: among the former
I particularly noticed an allegorical picture, representing the triumph of
Venice over the league of Cambray.
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