Wished to go to the Piazza di San Marco I
removed to another inn, close to it, called L'Osteria della Luna, which
stands on the banks of the Canale grande and is not twenty yards from the
Piazza.
I then hired a gondola for four days successively and visited every canal
and every part of the city. Almost every family of respectability keeps a
gondola, which is anchored at the steps of the front door of the house.
After the Piazza di San Marco, of which I shall speak presently, the
finest buildings and Palaces of the nobility are on the banks of the
Canale grande, which, from its winding in the shape of an S, has all the
appearance of a river. The Rialto is the only bridge which connects the
opposite banks of the Canale grande; but there are four hundred smaller
bridges in Venice to connect the other canals.
The Rialto, the resort of the money changers and Jews, is a very singular
and picturesque construction, being of one arch, a very bold one. On each
side of this bridge is a range of jewellers' shops. A narrow Quai runs
along the banks of the Canale grande.
I have visited several of the Palazzi, particularly those of the families
Morosini, Cornaro, Pisani, Grimani, which are very rich in marbles of
vert and jaune antique; but they are now nearly stripped of all their
furniture, uninhabited by their owners, or let to individuals, mostly
shopkeepers; for since the extinction of the Venetian Republic almost all
the nobility have retired to their estates on the terra firma, or to
their villas on the banks of the Brenta; so that Venice is now inhabited
chiefly by merchants, shopkeepers, chiefly jewellers and silk mercers,
seafaring people, the constituted authorities, and the garrison of the
place.
Tho' Venice has fallen very much into decay, since the subversion of the
Republic, as might naturally be expected, and still more so since it has
been under the Austrian domination, yet it is still a place of great
wealth, particularly in jewellery, silks and all articles of dress and
luxury. In the Merceria you may see as much wealth displayed as in
Cheapside or in the Rue St Honore.
I have had the pleasure of witnessing a superb regatta or water fete,
given in honour of the visit of the Archduke Rainier to this city, in his
quality of Viceroy of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. There were about one
hundred and fifty barges, each fitted up by some department of trade and
commerce, with allegorical devices and statues richly ornamented,
emblematical of the trade or professions to which the barge belonged.
