Stones of Venice, Volume 3 — Chapter 03, Grotesque Renaissance, part 1

GROTESQUE RENAISSANCE.

§ I.

In the close of the last chapter it was noted that the phases of transition in the moral temper of the falling Venetians, during their fall, were from pride to infidelity, and from infidelity to the unscrupulous _pursuit of pleasure_.

During the last years of the existence of the state, the minds both of the nobility and the people seem to have been set simply upon the attainment of the means of self-indulgence.

There was not strength enough in them to be proud, nor forethought enough to be ambitious.

One by one the possessions of the state were abandoned to its enemies; one by one the channels of its trade were forsaken by its own languor, or occupied and closed against it by its more energetic rivals; and the time, the resources, and the thoughts of the nation were exclusively occupied in the invention of such fantastic and costly pleasures as might best amuse their apathy, lull their remorse, or disguise their ruin.

§ II.

The architecture raised at Venice during this period is amongst the worst and basest ever built by the hands of men, being especially distinguished by a spirit of brutal mockery and insolent jest, which, exhausting itself in deformed and monstrous sculpture, can sometimes be hardly otherwise defined than as the perpetuation in stone of the ribaldries of drunkenness.

On such a period, and on such work, it is painful to dwell, and I had not originally intended to do so; but I found that the entire spirit of the Renaissance could not be comprehended unless it was followed to its consummation; and that there were many most interesting questions arising out of the study of this particular spirit of jesting, with reference to which I have called it the _Grotesque_ Renaissance.

For it is not this period alone which is distinguished by such a spirit.

There is jest--perpetual, careless, and not unfrequently obscene--in the most noble work of the Gothic periods;

and it becomes, therefore, of the greatest possible importance to examine into the nature and essence of the Grotesque itself, and to ascertain in what respect it is that the jesting of art in its highest flight, differs from its jesting in its utmost degradation.

§ III.

The place where we may best commence our inquiry is one renowned in the history of Venice, the space of ground before the Church of Santa Maria Formosa; a spot which, after the Rialto and St. Mark's Place, ought to possess a peculiar interest in the mind of the traveller, in consequence of its connexion with the most touching and true legend of the Brides of Venice.

That legend is related at length in every Venetian history, and, finally, has been told by the poet Rogers, in a way which renders it impossible for any one to tell it after him.

I have only, therefore, to remind the reader that the capture of the brides took place in the cathedral church, St. Pietro di Castello; and that this of Santa Maria Formosa is connected with the tale, only because it was yearly visited with prayers by the Venetian maidens, on the anniversary of their ancestors' deliverance.

For that deliverance, their thanks were to be rendered to the Virgin; and there was no church then dedicated to the Virgin, in Venice, except this.

[27] Neither of the cathedral church, nor of this dedicated to St. Mary the Beautiful, is one stone left upon another.

But, from that which has been raised on the site of the latter, we may receive a most important lesson, introductory to our immediate subject, if first we glance back to the traditional history of the church which has been destroyed.

§ IV.

No more honorable epithet than "traditional" can be attached to what is recorded concerning it, yet I should grieve to lose the legend of its first erection.

The Bishop of Uderzo, driven by the Lombards from his Bishopric, as he was praying, beheld in a vision the Virgin Mother, who ordered him to found a church in her honor, in the place where he should see a white cloud rest.

And when he went out, the white cloud went before him; and on the place where it rested he built a church, and it was called the Church of St. Mary the Beautiful, from the loveliness of the form in which she had appeared in the vision.

[28] The first church stood only for about two centuries.

It was rebuilt in 864, and enriched with various relics some fifty years later; relics belonging principally to St. Nicodemus, and much lamented when they and the church were together destroyed by fire in 1105. It was then rebuilt in "magnifica forma," much resembling, according to Corner, the architecture of the chancel of St. Mark;[29] but the information which I find in various writers, as to the period at which it was reduced to its present condition, is both sparing and contradictory.

§ V.

Thus, by Corner, we are told that this church, resembling St. Mark's, "remained untouched for more than four centuries," until, in 1689, it was thrown down by an earthquake, and restored by the piety of a rich merchant, Turrin Toroni, "in ornatissima forma;" and that, for the greater beauty of the renewed church, it had added to it two façades of marble.

With this information that of the Padre dell' Oratoria agrees, only he gives the date of the earlier rebuilding of the church in 1175, and ascribes it to an architect of the name of Barbetta.

But Quadri, in his usually accurate little guide, tells us that this Barbetta rebuilt the church in the fourteenth century; and that of the two façades, so much admired by Corner, one is of the sixteenth century, and its architect unknown; and the rest of the church is of the seventeenth, "in the style of Sansovino."

§ VI.

There is no occasion to examine, or endeavor to reconcile, these conflicting accounts.

All that is necessary for the reader to know is, that every vestige of the church in which the ceremony took place was destroyed _at least_ as early as 1689; and that the ceremony itself, having been abolished in the close of the fourteenth century, is only to be conceived as taking place in that more ancient church, resembling St. Mark's, which, even according to Quadri, existed until that period.

I

would, therefore, endeavor to fix the reader's mind, for a moment, on the contrast between the former and latter aspect of this plot of ground; the former, when it had its Byzantine church, and its yearly procession of the Doge and the Brides; and the latter, when it has its Renaissance church "in the style of Sansovino," and its yearly honoring is done away.

§ VII.

And, first, let us consider for a little the significance and nobleness of that early custom of the Venetians, which brought about the attack and the rescue of the year 943: that there should be but one marriage day for the nobles of the whole nation,[30] so that all might rejoice together; and that the sympathy might be full, not only of the families who that year beheld the alliance of their children, and prayed for them in one crowd, weeping before the altar, but of all the families of the state, who saw, in the day which brought happiness to others, the anniversary of their own.

Imagine the strong bond of brotherhood thus sanctified among them, and consider also the effect on the minds of the youth of the state; the greater deliberation and openness necessarily given to the contemplation of marriage, to which all the people were solemnly to bear testimony; the more lofty and unselfish tone which it would give to all their thoughts.

It was the exact contrary of stolen marriage.

It was marriage to which God and man were taken for witnesses, and every eye was invoked for its glance, and every tongue for its prayers.

[31] § VIII.

Later historians have delighted themselves in dwelling on the pageantry of the marriage day itself, but I do not find that they have authority for the splendor of their descriptions.

I cannot find a word in the older Chronicles about the jewels or dress of the brides, and I believe the ceremony to have been more quiet and homely than is usually supposed.

The only sentence which gives color to the usual accounts of it is one of Sansovino's, in which he says that the magnificent dress of the brides in his day was founded "on ancient custom."

[32] However this may have been, the circumstances of the rite were otherwise very simple.

Each maiden brought her dowry with her in a small "cassetta," or chest;

they went first to the cathedral, and waited for the youths, who having come, they heard mass together, and the bishop preached to them and blessed them: and so each bridegroom took his bride and her dowry and bore her home.

§ IX.

It seems that the alarm given by the attack of the pirates put an end to the custom of fixing one day for all marriages: but the main objects of the institution were still attained by the perfect publicity given to the marriages of all the noble families; the bridegroom standing in the Court of the Ducal Palace to receive congratulations on his betrothal, and the whole body of the nobility attending the nuptials, and rejoicing, "as at some personal good fortune; since, by the constitution of the state, they are for ever incorporated together, as if of one and the same family."

[33] But the festival of the 2nd of February, after the year 943, seems to have been observed only in memory of the deliverance of the brides, and no longer set apart for public nuptials.

§ X.

There is much difficulty in reconciling the various accounts, or distinguishing the inaccurate ones, of the manner of keeping this memorable festival.

I shall first give Sansovino's, which is the popular one, and then note the points of importance in the counter-statements.

Sansovino says that the success of the pursuit of the pirates was owing to the ready help and hard fighting of the men of the district of Sta.

Maria Formosa, for the most part trunkmakers; and that they, having been presented after the victory to the Doge and the Senate, were told to ask some favor for their reward.

"The good men then said that they desired the Prince, with his wife and the Signory, to visit every year the church of their district, on the day of its feast.

And the Prince asking them, 'Suppose it should rain?'

they answered, 'We will give you hats to cover you; and if you are thirsty, we will give you to drink.'

Whence is it that the Vicar, in the name of the people, presents to the Doge, on his visit, two flasks of malvoisie[34] and two oranges; and presents to him two gilded hats, bearing the arms of the Pope, of the Prince, and of the Vicar.

And thus was instituted the Feast of the Maries, which was called noble and famous because the people from all round came together to behold it.

And it was celebrated in this manner:...."

The account which follows is somewhat prolix; but its substance is, briefly, that twelve maidens were elected, two for each division of the city; and that it was decided by lot which contrade, or quarters of the town, should provide them with dresses.

This was done at enormous expense, one contrada contending with another, and even the jewels of the treasury of St. Mark being lent for the occasion to the "Maries," as the twelve damsels were called.

They, being thus dressed with gold, and silver, and jewels, went in their galley to St. Mark's for the Doge, who joined them with the Signory, and went first to San Pietro di Castello to hear mass on St. Mark's day, the 31st of January, and to Santa Maria Formosa on the 2nd of February, the intermediate day being spent in passing in procession through the streets of the city; "and sometimes there arose quarrels about the places they should pass through, for every one wanted them to pass by his house."

§ XI.

Nearly the same account is given by Corner, who, however, does not say anything about the hats or the malvoisie.

These, however, we find again in the Matricola de' Casseleri, which, of course, sets the services of the trunkmakers and the privileges obtained by them in the most brilliant light.

The quaintness of the old Venetian is hardly to be rendered into English.

"And you must know that the said trunkmakers were the men who were the cause of such victory, and of taking the galley, and of cutting all the Triestines to pieces, because, at that time, they were valiant men and well in order.

The which victory was on the 2nd February, on the day of the Madonna of candles.

And at the request and entreaties of the said trunkmakers, it was decreed that the Doge, every year, as long as Venice shall endure, should go on the eve of the said feast to vespers in the said church, with the Signory.

And be it noted, that the vicar is obliged to give to the Doge two flasks of malvoisie, with two oranges besides.

And so it is observed, and will be observed always."

The reader must observe the continual confusion between St. Mark's day the 31st of January, and Candlemas the 2nd of February.

The fact appears to be, that the marriage day in the old republic was St. Mark's day, and the recovery of the brides was the same day at evening;

so that, as we are told by Sansovino, the commemorative festival began on that day, but it was continued to the day of the Purification, that especial thanks might be rendered to the Virgin; and, the visit to Sta.

Maria Formosa being the most important ceremony of the whole festival, the old chroniclers, and even Sansovino, got confused, and asserted the victory itself to have taken place on the day appointed for that pilgrimage.

§ XII.

I doubt not that the reader who is acquainted with the beautiful lines of Rogers is as much grieved as I am at the interference of the "casket-makers" with the achievement which the poet ascribes to the bridegrooms alone; an interference quite as inopportune as that of old Le Balafré with the victory of his nephew, in the unsatisfactory conclusion of "Quentin Durward."

I am afraid I cannot get the casket-makers quite out of the way; but it may gratify some of my readers to know that a chronicle of the year 1378, quoted by Galliciolli, denies the agency of the people of Sta.

Maria Formosa altogether, in these terms: "Some say that the people of Sta.

M.

Formosa were those who recovered the _spoil_ ("predra;" I may notice, in passing, that most of the old chroniclers appear to consider the recovery of the _caskets_ rather more a subject of congratulation than that of the brides), and that, for their reward, they asked the Doge and Signory to visit Sta.

M.

Formosa; but _this is false_.

The going to Sta.

M.

Formosa was because the thing had succeeded on that day, and because this was then the only church in Venice in honor of the Virgin."

But here is again the mistake about the day itself; and besides if we get rid altogether of the trunkmakers, how are we to account for the ceremony of the oranges and hats, of which the accounts seem authentic?

If, however, the reader likes to substitute "carpenters" or "house-builders" for casket-makers, he may do so with great reason (vide Galliciolli, lib.

ii.

§ 1758); but I fear that one or the other body of tradesmen must be allowed to have had no small share in the honor of the victory.

§ XIII.

But whatever doubt attaches to the particular circumstances of its origin, there is none respecting the splendor of the festival itself, as it was celebrated for four centuries afterwards.

We find that each contrada spent from 800 to 1000 zecchins in the dress of the "Maries" entrusted to it; but I cannot find among how many contrade the twelve Maries were divided; it is also to be supposed that most of the accounts given refer to the later periods of the celebration of the festival.

In the beginning of the eleventh century, the good Doge Pietro Orseolo II.

left in his will the third of his entire fortune "per la Festa della Marie;" and, in the fourteenth century, so many people came from the rest of Italy to see it, that special police regulations were made for it, and the Council of Ten were twice summoned before it took place.

[35] The expense lavished upon it seems to have increased till the year 1379, when all the resources of the republic were required for the terrible war of Chiozza, and all festivity was for that time put an end to.

The issue of the war left the Venetians with neither the power nor the disposition to restore the festival on its ancient scale, and they seem to have been ashamed to exhibit it in reduced splendor.

It was entirely abolished.

§ XIV.

As if to do away even with its memory, every feature of the surrounding scene which was associated with that festival has been in succeeding ages destroyed.

With one solitary exception,[36] there is not a house left in the whole Piazza of Santa Maria Formosa from whose windows the festa of the Maries has ever been seen: of the church in which they worshipped, not a stone is left, even the form of the ground and direction of the neighboring canals are changed; and there is now but one landmark to guide the steps of the traveller to the place where the white cloud rested, and the shrine was built to St. Mary the Beautiful.

Yet the spot is still worth his pilgrimage, for he may receive a lesson upon it, though a painful one.

Let him first fill his mind with the fair images of the ancient festival, and then seek that landmark the tower of the modern church, built upon the place where the daughters of Venice knelt yearly with her noblest lords; and let him look at the head that is carved on the base of the tower,[37] still dedicated to St. Mary the Beautiful.

§ XV.

A head,--huge, inhuman, and monstrous,--leering in bestial degradation, too foul to be either pictured or described, or to be beheld for more than an instant: yet let it be endured for that instant;

for in that head is embodied the type of the evil spirit to which Venice was abandoned in the fourth period of her decline; and it is well that we should see and feel the full horror of it on this spot, and know what pestilence it was that came and breathed upon her beauty, until it melted away like the white cloud from the ancient fields of Santa Maria Formosa.

§ XVI.

This head is one of many hundreds which disgrace the latest buildings of the city, all more or less agreeing in their expression of sneering mockery, in most cases enhanced by thrusting out the tongue.

Most of them occur upon the bridges, which were among the very last works undertaken by the republic, several, for instance, upon the Bridge of Sighs; and they are evidences of a delight in the contemplation of bestial vice, and the expression of low sarcasm, which is, I believe, the most hopeless state into which the human mind can fall.

This spirit of idiotic mockery is, as I have said, the most striking characteristic of the last period of the Renaissance, which, in consequence of the character thus imparted to its sculpture, I have called grotesque; but it must be our immediate task, and it will be a most interesting one, to distinguish between this base grotesqueness, and that magnificent condition of fantastic imagination, which was above noticed as one of the chief elements of the Northern Gothic mind.

Nor is this a question of interesting speculation merely: for the distinction between the true and false grotesque is one which the present tendencies of the English mind have rendered it practically important to ascertain; and that in a degree which, until he has made some progress in the consideration of the subject, the reader will hardly anticipate.

§ XVII.

But, first, I have to note one peculiarity in the late architecture of Venice, which will materially assist us in understanding the true nature of the spirit which is to be the subject of our inquiry;

and this peculiarity, singularly enough, is first exemplified in the very façade of Santa Maria Formosa which is flanked by the grotesque head to which our attention has just been directed.

This façade, whose architect is unknown, consists of a pediment, sustained on four Corinthian pilasters, and is, I believe, the earliest in Venice which appears _entirely destitute of every religious symbol, sculpture, or inscription_; unless the Cardinal's hat upon the shield in the centre of the impediment be considered a religious symbol.

The entire façade is nothing else than a monument to the Admiral Vincenzo Cappello.

Two tablets, one between each pair of flanking pillars, record his acts and honors; and, on the corresponding spaces upon the base of the church, are two circular trophies, composed of halberts, arrows, flags, tridents, helmets, and lances: sculptures which are just as valueless in a military as in an ecclesiastical point of view; for, being all copied from the forms of Roman arms and armor, they cannot even be referred to for information respecting the costume of the period.

Over the door, as the chief ornament of the façade, exactly in the spot which in the "barbarous" St. Mark's is occupied by the figure of Christ, is the statue of Vincenzo Cappello, in Roman armor.

He died in 1542; and we have, therefore, the latter part of the sixteenth century fixed as the period when, in Venice, churches were first built to the glory of man, instead of the glory of God.

§ XVIII.

Throughout the whole of Scripture history, nothing is more remarkable than the close connection of punishment with the sin of vain-glory.

Every other sin is occasionally permitted to remain, for lengthened periods, without definite chastisement; but the forgetfulness of God, and the claim of honor by man, as belonging to himself, are visited at once, whether in Hezekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, or Herod, with the most tremendous punishment.

We have already seen, that the first reason for the fall of Venice was the manifestation of such a spirit; and it is most singular to observe the definiteness with which it is here marked,--as if so appointed, that it might be impossible for future ages to miss the lesson.

For, in the long inscriptions[38] which record the acts of Vincenzo Cappello, it might, at least, have been anticipated that some expressions would occur indicative of remaining pretence to religious feeling, or formal acknowledgement of Divine power.

But there are none whatever.

The name of God does not once occur; that of St. Mark is found only in the statement that Cappello was a procurator of the church: there is no word touching either on the faith or hope of the deceased; and the only sentence which alludes to supernatural powers at all, alludes to them under the heathen name of _fates_, in its explanation of what the Admiral Cappello _would_ have accomplished, "nisi fata Christianis adversa vetuissent."

§ XIX.

Having taken sufficient note of all the baseness of mind which these facts indicate in the people, we shall not be surprised to find immediate signs of dotage in the conception of their architecture.

The churches raised throughout this period are so grossly debased, that even the Italian critics of the present day, who are partially awakened to the true state of art in Italy, though blind, as yet, to its true cause, exhaust their terms of reproach upon these last efforts of the Renaissance builders.

The two churches of San Moisè and Santa Maria Zobenigo, which are among the most remarkable in Venice for their manifestation of insolent atheism, are characterized by Lazari, the one as "culmine d'ogni follia architettonica," the other as "orrido ammasso di pietra d'Istria," with added expressions of contempt, as just as it is unmitigated.

§ XX.

Now both these churches, which I should like the reader to visit in succession, if possible, after that of Sta.

Maria Formosa, agree with that church, and with each other, in being totally destitute of religious symbols, and entirely dedicated to the honor of two Venetian families.

In San Moisè, a bust of Vincenzo Fini is set on a tall narrow pyramid, above the central door, with this marvellous inscription: "OMNE FASTIGIVM VIRTVTE IMPLET

VINCENTIVS FINI."

It is very difficult to translate this; for fastigium, besides its general sense, has a particular one in architecture, and refers to the part of the building occupied by the bust; but the main meaning of it is that "Vincenzo Fini fills all height with his virtue."

The inscription goes on into farther praise, but this example is enough.

Over the two lateral doors are two other laudatory inscriptions of younger members of the Fini family, the dates of death of the three heroes being 1660, 1685, and 1726, marking thus the period of consummate degradation.

[Illustration: Plate III.

NOBLE AND IGNOBLE GROTESQUE.

] § XXI.

In like manner, the Church of Santa Maria Zobenigo is entirely dedicated to the Barbaro family; the only religious symbols with which it is invested being statues of angels blowing brazen trumpets, intended to express the spreading of the fame of the Barbaro family in heaven.

At the top of the church is Venice crowned, between Justice and Temperance, Justice holding a pair of grocer's scales, of iron, swinging in the wind.

There is a two-necked stone eagle (the Barbaro crest), with a copper crown, in the centre of the pediment.

A huge statue of a Barbaro in armor, with a fantastic head-dress, over the central door; and four Barbaros in niches, two on each side of it, strutting statues, in the common stage postures of the period,--Jo.

Maria Barbaro, sapiens ordinum; Marinus Barbaro, Senator (reading a speech in a Ciceronian attitude); Franc.

Barbaro, legatus in classe (in armor, with high-heeled boots, and looking resolutely fierce); and Carolus Barbaro, sapiens ordinum: the decorations of the façade being completed by two trophies, consisting of drums, trumpets, flags and cannon; and six plans, sculptured in relief, of the towns of Zara, Candia, Padua, Rome, Corfu, and Spalatro.