TREASURES OF VENICE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2663, 7 January 1916, Page 7

TREASURES OF VENICE

PROTECTED ' BY SANDBAGS. A special correspondent of "The iimes recently sent that journal an. description of a visit which He had paid to Venice. Venice, ho says, is shrouded in a grey pa I. Tbo dazzling gold of former days, the redundant richness of tono of colour, is gone.. It is the Venice of: the Venetians. Tho true Venice at her' post in the front rank of battlo. Calm resolute, sincere, she has put aside her finery, covered her jewelled splendour oo Venice must havo looked when she had maimed her galleys to fight tho lurk. | But a more ruthless enemy is readv to assault her. As I look skyward, following the line of the Campanile to its cornice, I catch sight of an airplane, circling high over tlio city. Then I remember that Venico is barely an hour, distant from the enemy's air base. Enemy aircraft, have bombarded the city. Bismarck s pronouncement regarding laris comes to my riiiiul. If Paris was not spared, what of Venice? But the Venetians have long since thought of this, and provided in consequence. Venice is not afraid for herself, but for her art treasures. These she is safeguarding from enemy destruction.

The Loggetta of-the Campanile looks like a well-prepared dug-out. Layers or sandbags, 30ft. in_ heiglkt, protect the treasured Sansovino bronzes. St. Mark's has been transformed. Tho northom portal of the main facade is protected by sandbags; tho delicate marble arches/ are supported by columns of brick masonry 3ft. thick, in order to prevent collapse in case the building is hit. The mosaics are covered over.. The four gilded bronze horses'-havo left their Ssdostals—"gone to fight tho Austrians," as the Venetians say, though,as a matter of fact, they are comfortably stabled in tho main entrance archway of tho Doges' Palace, carefully covered and walled in behind thick brick walls. . The interior of the Duomo presents a aspect. Everywhere sandbags, pilod tier upon tier. In the nave ono massive pillar is supported by a solid embattlemont of sandbags, 20ft. in diameter. The capitals of tho columns aro encased in metal receptacles. The statues on tho screens aro swathed in thick protecting cloths. Tho Pala d'Oro Las removed. The altars and pulpits arcr. burie.d beneath sandbag parapets. Yet from the- choir tho low moaning chant of Latin litanies rises and falls evenly. At <t side chapel, women dressed in sombre garments, sailors in linen suits, kneel, silent. From behind the sandbag entrenchments of another altar the voice of tho officiating priestrises, and tho jncenso wafts heavenwards, curling about the jagged edges of tho sandbag buttresses. The Palace of tho Doges looks like a fortress: _ Between each arch a heavy pile of brick masonry has beon elected, while at tho corners, brick-towers, 20ft. in height and 3ft. thick, stand cut. Tho Loggia is supported by wooden reinforcements. 11l tile courtyards the two well-heads aro hidden under a mcuntain of sandbags, as is tho Sea la dci Giganti. Colleom, on his horse, ?'s suffocating under tho weight of a hundred sandbags. And the work of.'entreiuhing continues.