The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3)

On another coin the swan type of the reverse is associated with the youthful head of a river-god, inscribed “Hipparis” on the obverse. On some smaller coins we have the swan flying over the rippling waves, which are represented by the wave moulding. When we examine the chart of Sicily, made by the Admiralty survey, we find marked down at Camarina, a lake through which the river Hipparis flows.

We can hardly doubt that the inhabitants of Camarina represented both their river and their lakes on their coins. The swan flying over the waves would represent a lake; the figure associated with it being no doubt the Aphrodite worshipped at that place: the head, in a circle of wave pattern, may express that part of the river which flows through the lake.

Fountains are usually represented by a stream of water issuing from a lion’s head in the rock: see a vase (Gerhard, Auserl. Vasenb., taf. CXXXIV.), where Hercules stands, receiving a shower-bath from a hot spring at Thermæ in Sicily. On the coins of Syracuse the fountain Arethusa is represented by a female head seen to the front; the flowing lines of her dishevelled hair suggest, though they do not directly imitate, the bubbling action of the fresh-water spring; the sea in which it rises is symbolized by the dolphins round the head. This type presents a striking analogy with that of the Camarina head in the circle of wave pattern described above.

These are the principal modes of representing water in Greek mythography. In the art of the Roman period, the same kind of figurative and symbolic language is employed, but there is a constant tendency to multiply accessories and details, as we have shown in the later representations of harbors and river-gods cited above. In these crowded compositions the eye is fatigued and distracted by the quantity it has to examine; the language of art becomes more copious but less terse and emphatic, and addresses itself to minds far less intelligent than the refined critics who were the contemporaries of Phidias.

Rivers in Roman art are usually represented by reclining male figures, generally bearded, holding reeds or other plants in their hands, and leaning on urns from which water is flowing. On the coins of many Syrian cities, struck in imperial times, the city is represented by a turreted female figure seated on rocks, and resting her feet on the shoulder of a youthful male figure, who looks up in her face, stretching out his arms, and who is sunk in the ground as high as the waist. See Müller (Denkmäler d. A. Kunst, i., taf. 49, No. 220) for a group of this kind in the Vatican, and several similar designs on coins.

On the column of Trajan there occur many rude representations of the Danube, and other rivers crossed by the Romans in their military expeditions. The water is imitated by sculptured wavy lines, in which boats are placed. In one scene (Bartoli, Colonna Trajana, Tav. 4) this rude conventional imitation is combined with a figure. In a recess in the river bank is a reclining river-god, terminating at the waist. This is either meant for a statue which was really placed on the bank of the river, and which therefore marks some particular locality, or we have here figurative representation blended with conventional imitation.

On the column of Antoninus (Bartoli, Colon. Anton., Tav. 15) a storm of rain is represented by the head of Jupiter Pluvius, who has a vast outspread beard flowing in long tresses. In the Townley collection, in the British Museum, is a Roman helmet found at Ribchester in Lancashire, with a mask or vizor attached. The helmet is richly embossed with figures in a battle scene; round the brow is a row of turrets; the hair in the forehead is so treated as to give the idea of waves washing the base of the turrets. This head is perhaps a figurative representation of a town girt with fortifications and a moat, near which some great battle was fought. It is engraved (Vetusta Monum. of Soc. Ant. London, iv., Pl. 1-4).

In the Galeria at Florence is a group in alto relievo (Gori, Inscript. Ant. Flor. 1727, p. 76, Tab. 14) of three female figures, one of whom is certainly Demeter Kourotrophos, or the earth; another, Thetis, or the sea; the centre of the three seems to represent Aphrodite associated, as on the coins of Camarina, with the element of fresh water.

This figure is seated on a swan, and holds over her head an arched veil. Her hair is bound with reeds; above her veil grows a tall water plant, and below the swan other water plants, and a stork seated on a hydria, or pitcher, from which water is flowing. The swan, the stork, the water plants, and the hydria must all be regarded as symbols of fresh water, the latter emblem being introduced to show that the element is fit for the use of man.

Fountains in Roman art are generally personified as figures of nymphs reclining with urns, or standing holding before them a large shell.

One of the latest representations of water in ancient art is the mosaic of Palestrina (Barthélemy, in Bartoli, Peint. Antiques) which may be described as a kind of rude panorama of some district of Upper Egypt, a bird’s-eye view, half man, half picture, in which the details are neither adjusted to a scale, nor drawn according to perspective, but crowded together, as they would be in an ancient bas-relief.

22. ARABIAN ORNAMENTATION

I do not mean what I have here said of the Inventive power of the Arab to be understood as in the least applying to the detestable ornamentation of the Alhambra.105 The Alhambra is no more characteristic of Arab work, than Milan Cathedral is of Gothic: it is a late building, a work of the Spanish dynasty in its last decline, and its ornamentation is fit for nothing but to be transferred to patterns of carpets or bindings of books, together with their marbling, and mottling, and other mechanical recommendations. The Alhambra ornament has of late been largely used in shop-fronts, to the no small detriment of Regent Street and Oxford Street.

23. VARIETIES OF CHAMFER

Let B A C, Fig. LXXII., be the original angle of the wall. Inscribe within it a circle, p Q N p, of the size of the bead required, touching A B, A C, in p, p; join p, p, and draw B C parallel to it, touching the circle.

Then the lines B C, p p are the limits of the possible chamfers constructed with curves struck either from centre A, as the line Q q, N d, r u, g c, &c., or from any other point chosen as a centre in the direction Q A produced: and also of all chamfers in straight lines, as a b, e f. There are, of course, an infinite number of chamfers to be struck between B C and p p, from every point in Q A produced to infinity; thus we have infinity multiplied into infinity to express the number of possible chamfers of this species, which are peculiarly Italian chamfers; together with another singly infinite group of the straight chamfers, a b, e f, &c., of which the one formed by the line a b, passing through the centre of the circle, is the universal early Gothic chamfer of Venice.

Again. Either on the line A C, or on any other lines A l or A m, radiating from A, any number of centres may be taken, from which, with any radii not greater than the distance between such points and Q, an infinite number of curves may be struck, such as t u, r s, N n (all which are here struck from centres on the line A C). These lines represent the great class of the northern chamfers, of which the number is infinity raised to its fourth power, but of which the curve N n (for northern) represents the average condition; the shallower chamfers of the same group, r s, t u, &c., occurring often in Italy. The lines r u, t u, and a b may be taken approximating to the most frequent conditions of the southern chamfer.

Fig. LXXII.

It is evident that the chords of any of these curves will give a relative group of rectilinear chamfers, occurring both in the North and South; but the rectilinear chamfers, I think, invariably fall within the line Q C, and are either parallel with it, or inclined to A C at an angle greater than A C Q, and often perpendicular to it; but never inclined to it at an angle less than A C Q.

24. RENAISSANCE BASES

The following extract from my note-book refers also to some features of late decoration of shafts.

“The Scuola di San Rocco is one of the most interesting examples of Renaissance work in Venice. Its fluted pillars are surrounded each by a wreath, one of vine, another of laurel, another of oak, not indeed arranged with the fantasticism of early Gothic; but, especially the laurel, reminding one strongly of the laurel sprays, powerful as well as beautiful, of Veronese and Tintoret. Their stems are curiously and richly interlaced—the last vestige of the Byzantine wreathed work—and the vine-leaves are ribbed on the surfaces, I think, nearly as finely as those of the Noah,106 though more injured by time. The capitals are far the richest Renaissance in Venice, less corrupt and more masculine in plan, than any other, and truly suggestive of support, though of course showing the tendency to error in this respect; and finally, at the angles of the pure Attic bases, on the square plinth, are set couchant animals; one, an elephant four inches high, very curiously and cleverly cut, and all these details worked with a spirit, finish, fancy, and affection quite worthy of the middle ages. But they have all the marked fault of being utterly detached from the architecture. The wreaths round the columns look as if they would drop off the next moment, and the animals at the bases produce exactly the effect of mice who had got there by accident: one feels them ridiculously diminutive, and utterly useless.”

The effect of diminutiveness is, I think, chiefly owing to there being no other groups of figures near them, to accustom the eye to the proportion, and to the needless choice of the largest animals, elephants, bears, and lions, to occupy a position so completely insignificant, and to be expressed on so contemptible a scale,—not in a bas-relief or pictorial piece of sculpture, but as independent figures. The whole building is a most curious illustration of the appointed fate of the Renaissance architects,—to caricature whatever they imitated, and misapply whatever they learned.

25. ROMANIST DECORATION OF BASES

I have spoken above (Appendix 12) of the way in which the Roman Catholic priests everywhere suffer their churches to be desecrated. But the worst instances I ever saw of sacrilege and brutality, daily permitted in the face of all men, were the uses to which the noble base of St. Mark’s was put, when I was last in Venice. Portions of nearly all cathedrals may be found abandoned to neglect; but this base of St. Mark’s is in no obscure position. Full fronting the western sun—crossing the whole breadth of St. Mark’s Place—the termination of the most noble square in the world—the centre of the most noble city—its purple marbles were, in the winter of 1849, the customary gambling tables of the idle children of Venice; and the parts which flank the Great Entrance, that very entrance where “Barbarossa flung his mantle off,” were the counters of a common bazaar for children’s toys, carts, dolls, and small pewter spoons and dishes, German caricatures and books of the Opera, mixed with those of the offices of religion; the caricatures being fastened with twine round the porphyry shafts of the church. One Sunday, the 24th of February, 1850, the book-stall being somewhat more richly laid out than usual, I noted down the titles of a few of the books in the order in which they lay, and I give them below. The irony conveyed by the juxtaposition of the three in Italics appears too shrewd to be accidental; but the fact was actually so.

Along the edge of the white plinth were a row of two kinds of books,

Officium Beatæ Virg. M.; and Officium Hebdomadæ sanctæ, juxta Formam Missalis et Breviarii Romani sub Urbano VIII. correcti.

Behind these lay, side by side, the following:

Don Desiderio. Dramma Giocoso per Musica.

Breve Esposizione della Carattere di vera Religione.

On the top of this latter, keeping its leaves open,

La Figlia del Reggimento. Melodramma comica.

Carteggio di Madama la Marchesa di Pompadour, ossia raccolta di Lettere scritte della Medesima.

Istruzioni di morale Condotta per le Figlie.

Francesca di Rimini. Dramma per Musica.

Then, a little farther on, after a mass of plays:—

Orazioni a Gesu Nazareno e a Maria addolorata.

Semiramide; Melodramma tragico da rappresentarsi nel Gran Teatro il Fenice.

Modo di orare per l’Acquisto del S. Giubileo, conceduto a tutto il Mondo Cattolico da S. S. Gregorio XVI.

Le due illustre Rivali, Melodramma in Tre Atti, da rappresentarsi nel nuovo Gran Teatro il Fenice.

Il Cristiano secondo il Cuore di Gesu, per la Pratica delle sue Virtu.

Traduzione dell’ Idioma Italiana.

La chiava Chinese; Commedia del Sig. Abate Pietro Chiari.

La Pelarina; Intermezzo de Tre Parti per Musica.

Il Cavaliero e la Dama; Commedia in Tre Atti in Prosa.

I leave these facts without comment. But this being the last piece of Appendix I have to add to the present volume, I would desire to close its pages with a question to my readers—a statistical question, which, I doubt not, is being accurately determined for us all elsewhere, and which, therefore, it seems to me, our time would not be wasted in determining for ourselves.

There has now been peace between England and the continental powers about thirty-five years, and during that period the English have visited the continent at the rate of many thousands a year, staying there, I suppose, on the average, each two or three months; nor these an inferior kind of English, but the kind which ought to be the best—the noblest born, the best taught, the richest in time and money, having more leisure, knowledge, and power than any other portion of the nation. These, we might suppose, beholding, as they travelled, the condition of the states in which the Papal religion is professed, and being, at the same time, the most enlightened section of a great Protestant nation, would have been animated with some desire to dissipate the Romanist errors, and to communicate to others the better knowledge which they possessed themselves. I doubt not but that He who gave peace upon the earth, and gave it by the hand of England, expected this much of her, and has watched every one of the millions of her travellers as they crossed the sea, and kept count for him of his travelling expenses, and of their distribution, in a manner of which neither the traveller nor his courier were at all informed. I doubt not, I say, but that such accounts have been literally kept for all of us, and that a day will come when they will be made clearly legible to us, and when we shall see added together, on one side of the account book, a great sum, the certain portion, whatever it may be, of this thirty-five years’ spendings of the rich English, accounted for in this manner:—

To wooden spoons, nut-crackers, and jewellery, bought at Geneva, and elsewhere among the Alps, so much; to shell cameos and bits of mosaic bought at Rome, so much; to coral horns and lava brooches bought at Naples, so much; to glass beads at Venice, and gold filigree at Genoa, so much; to pictures, and statues, and ornaments, everywhere, so much; to avant-couriers and extra post-horses, for show and magnificence, so much; to great entertainments and good places for seeing sights, so much; to ball-dresses and general vanities, so much. This, I say, will be the sum on one side of the book; and on the other will be written:

To the struggling Protestant Churches of France, Switzerland, and Piedmont, so much.

Had we not better do this piece of statistics for ourselves, in time?

1

Appendix 1, “Foundation of Venice.”

2

Appendix 2, “Power of the Doges.”

3

Sismondi, Hist. des Rép. Ital., vol. i. ch. v.

4

Appendix 3, “Serrar del Consiglio.”

5

“Ha saputo trovar modo che non uno, non pochi, non molti, signoreggiano, ma molti buoni, pochi migliori, e insiememente, un ottimo solo.” (Sansovino.) Ah, well done, Venice! Wisdom this, indeed.

6

Daru, liv. xii. ch. xii.

7

Daru, liv. xvi. cap. xx. We owe to this historian the discovery of the statutes of the tribunal and date of its establishment.

8

Ominously signified by their humiliation to the Papal power (as before to the Turkish) in 1509, and their abandonment of their right of appointing the clergy of their territories.

9

The senate voted the abdication of their authority by a majority of 512 to 14. (Alison, ch. xxiii.)

10

By directing the arms of the Crusaders against a Christian prince. (Daru, liv. iv. ch. iv. viii.)

11

Appendix 4, “San Pietro di Castello.”

12

Tomaso Mocenigo, above named, § V.

13

“In that temple porch,(The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,)Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off,And kneeling, on his neck receive the footOf the proud Pontiff—thus at last consoledFor flight, disguise, and many an aguish shakeOn his stone pillow.”

I need hardly say whence the lines are taken: Rogers’ “Italy” has, I believe, now a place in the best beloved compartment of all libraries, and will never be removed from it. There is more true expression of the spirit of Venice in the passages devoted to her in that poem, than in all else that has been written of her.

14

At least, such success as they had. Vide Appendix 5, “The Papal Power in Venice.”

15

The inconsiderable fortifications of the arsenal are no exception to this statement, as far as it regards the city itself. They are little more than a semblance of precaution against the attack of a foreign enemy.

16

Mémoires de Commynes, liv. vii. ch. xviii.

17

Appendix 6, “Renaissance Ornaments.”

18

Appendix 7, “Varieties of the Orders.”

19

The reader will find the weak points of Byzantine architecture shrewdly seized, and exquisitely sketched, in the opening chapter of the most delightful book of travels I ever opened,—Curzon’s “Monasteries of the Levant.”

20

Appendix 8, “The Northern Energy.”

21

Appendix 9, “Wooden Churches of the North.”

22

Appendix 10, “Church of Alexandria.”

23

Appendix 11, “Renaissance Landscape.”

24

Selvatico, “Architettura di Venezia,” p. 147.

25

Selvatico, p. 221.

26

The older work is of Istrian stone also, but of different quality.

27

Appendix 12, “Romanist Modern Art.”

28

Appendix 13, “Mr. Fergusson’s System.”

29

Appendix 14, “Divisions of Humanity.”

30

Triglyph. Literally, “Three Cut.” The awkward upright ornament with two notches in it, and a cut at each side, to be seen everywhere at the tops of Doric colonnades, ancient and modern.

31

Pediment. The triangular space above Greek porticoes, as on the Mansion House or Royal Exchange.

32

Appendix 15: “Instinctive Judgments.”

33

Many walls are slightly sloped or curved towards their tops, and have buttresses added to them (that of the Queen’s Bench Prison is a curious instance of the vertical buttress and inclined wall); but in all such instances the slope of the wall is properly to be considered a condition of incorporated buttress.

34

On the eastern side: violently contorted on the northern and western.

35

The experiment is not quite fair in this rude fashion; for the small rolls owe their increase of strength much more to their tubular form than their aggregation of material; but if the paper be cut up into small strips, and tied together firmly in three or four compact bundles, it will exhibit increase of strength enough to show the principle. Vide, however, Appendix 16, “Strength of Shafts.”

36

Appendix 17, “Answer to Mr. Garbett.”

37

Yet more so than any other figure enclosed by a curved line: for the circle, in its relations to its own centre, is the curve of greatest stability. Compare § XX. of Chap. XX.

38

In saying this, it is assumed that the interval is one which is to be traversed by men; and that a certain relation of the shafts and intervals to the size of the human figure is therefore necessary. When shafts are used in the upper stories of buildings, or on a scale which ignores all relation to the human figure, no such relative limits exist either to slenderness or solidity.

39

Vide the interesting discussion of this point in Mr. Fergusson’s account of the Temple of Karnak, “Principles of Beauty in Art,” p. 219.

40

I have assumed that the strength of similar shafts of equal height is as the squares of their diameters; which, though not actually a correct expression, is sufficiently so for all our present purposes.

41

How far this condition limits the system of shaft grouping we shall see presently. The reader must remember, that we at present reason respecting shafts in the abstract only.

42

The capitals being formed by the flowers, or by a representation of the bulging out of the reeds at the top, under the weight of the architrave.

43

I have not been at the pains to draw the complicated piers in this plate with absolute exactitude to the scale of each: they are accurate enough for their purpose: those of them respecting which we shall have farther question will be given on a much larger scale.

44

The largest I remember support a monument in St. Zeno of Verona; they are of red marble, some ten or twelve feet high.

45

The effect of this last is given in Plate VI. of the folio series.

46

The entire development of this cross system in connexion with the vaulting ribs, has been most clearly explained by Professor Willis (Architecture of Mid. Ages, Chap. IV.); and I strongly recommend every reader who is inclined to take pains in the matter, to read that chapter. I have been contented, in my own text, to pursue the abstract idea of shaft form.

47

Appendix 19, “Early English Capitals.”

48

In this case the weight borne is supposed to increase as the abacus widens; the illustration would have been clearer if I had assumed the breadth of abacus to be constant, and that of the shaft to vary.

49

At least I cannot find any account of it in Maffei’s “Verona,” nor anywhere else, to be depended upon. It is, I doubt not, a work of the beginning of the thirteenth century. Vide Appendix 19, “Tombs at St. Anastasia.”

50

Appendix 17

51

I do not speak of the true dome, because I have not studied its construction enough to know at what largeness of scale it begins to be rather a tour de force than a convenient or natural form of roof, and because the ordinary spectator’s choice among its various outlines must always be dependent on æsthetic considerations only, and can in no wise be grounded on any conception of its infinitely complicated structural principles.

52

I shall not be thought to have overrated the effect of forest scenery on the northern mind; but I was glad to hear a Spanish gentleman, the other day, describing, together with his own, the regret which the peasants in his neighborhood had testified for the loss of a noble stone-pine, one of the grandest in Spain, which its proprietor had suffered to be cut down for small gain. He said that the mere spot where it had grown was still popularly known as “El Pino.”