WHERE TAXIS ARE GONDOLAS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4348, 18 January 1938, Page 7

WHERE TAXIS ARE GONDOLAS

THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE MOST UNIQUE STREET IN EUROPE Henry James was careful to point out that while the Grand Canal is not technically a street, still less is the Piaza, writes “ H.K.”, in the Melbourne ‘ Age.’ The poet says, “ The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, ebbing and fibwing.” There are narrow lanes (colli) where pedestrians may walk, but the taxi is a gondola. This Grand Canal, nearly two miles and a half long, 100 to 230 ft wide, and with an average depth of 17ft, is the high road of Venice. So says Muirheed. Its course through the city winds like an S. Imagine this noble waterway flanked with nearly 200 palaces, Gothic or Lombardesque in style, mostly dating from the 14th to the 15th century, though a few date back to the 12th. At every turn the traveller feels that nothing in the world can equal these varied and changing vistas. The posts in front of the palaces bear the colours of the owners, and are designed for tying up the gondolas. One may travel down the canal by motor launch, but while this has an advantage when a train must be caught, it is too speedy for sight-seeing. The gondola is ideal, and the gondolier will name the palaces as they are approached. All the world knows the favourite and convenient description of Venice as consisting of 117 islands joined together by 400 bridges. Barbarian invasions drove many Italians to take refuge in marshes, and the islands round the Rialto provided in time a new capital for the Venetians. Their political, commercial, and naval ability soon gave them mastery along the Dalmatian coast, the honour of leading the ships to the conquest of Constantinople in 1201, and making Venice the chief bulwark of Christianity. The discovery of America and the Cape route led to the decadence of the Republic. The present population is about 160,000. The first buildings were entirely ol wood and supported on rafts or piles. This type was used up till the fifteenth century. About that time the wealthier citizens began to build stone houses on higher islands or on terraces of dried mud protected by dykes. Pagan buildings in neighbouring districts were made to supply pillars and other useful remainders and beauty rose amid the waters. Old Thomas Coryat declared that the sight of Venice with her monuments, antiquities, and resplen dent charms more contented his mind and satisfied his desires than the possession of four of the richest manors in Somerset would have done.

Books about Venice are legion, and one of the most informing and delightful is ‘ A Wanderer in Venice,’ by that brilliant author, E. V. Lucas. To him the Grand Canal is the river of Venice, its Thames, its Seine, its Arno. One enters Venice at the railway station, and should follow the recommendation to make acquaintance with the left bank first, from the Custom House to the station. Ruskin raised a protest against the introduction of steamers on the Grand Canal, and the same outcry followed the coming of the motor boats. Critics of a very balanced type contend that petrol has an insidious and deteriorating influence on character. It calm and leisure, and in that respect is decivilising. In Venice the wash caused by motor boats is said to weaken and undermine the foundation of the houses on each side ol the canals. One of the most impressive buildings on this route is the Church of St. Maria della Salute second only to St Mark’s. Its name reminds all generations since the church was built that it was decreed as a votive offering to the Virgin for staying the plague. One of the attractions of the interior is Tintoretto’s ‘ Marriage in Cana, which is profoundly admired for a row of beautiful women sitting side by side at the banqueting table with a lovelv soft light upon them. On his first visit to Italy, Browning brooded over Sordello among the ruined palaces. Later in life he and his sister accepted from Mrs Bronson the use of rooms in the Palazzo Ginstiniani Recanati, where rich associations appealed to his imagination. Jt was his custom to walk in the public gardens after breakfast, and at ” o’clock the gondola took him to the Lido, where he would walk for two hours, even in wind and ram. When one reaches the Rezzonica Palace the name of Browning is again recalled, for it was here that on his last visit to his son the poet died, ihe November fog was too severe, andhe passed away on December 12. 1889. Westminster holds his dust, but a funeral service offered by the municipality of Venice was acceptedheld in one of the halls of the Rezzonica, and attended bv the high authorities, civil, military arid naval. The municipality affixed to the wall of the palace a memorial tablet bearing the lines— Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, Italy. A palace near to that of Browning was the home in which Wagner wrote part of Tristan and Isolde. His custom, he says, was to work till 2 o'clock; “ then I got into the gondola that was always in waiting, and was taken along the solemn Grand Canal to the bright Piazzetta, the peculiar charm of which always had a cheerful effect on me.” Wagner came to Venice 24 years later, and died in another palace in 1882. Almost every palace on the Grand Canal has a history, partly of Venetian families, but partly also of dintinguished foreigners who had at one time lived in Venice. The Palazzo Balbi is the one in which Napoleon stood to watch a Grand Canal regatta. The races ended near by. Not far away is the former home of Sir Henry Bayard, when he secured the picture now in the National Gallery in London. The Palazzo Benyon was often visited by Byron, and it was to this house he brought Moore, In one of three Mocenigo palaces Byron settled in i RlB, wrote Beppo, and began Don Juan. “ and did not a little mischief ” A common rumour has it that he was attracted to Venice because he could go everywhere by water, and his lameness would not be noticed. The Rialto-bridge of the present day occupies the site of one standing there in Marco Polo’s early years. It was a mere passageway, built on boats. The present bridge was built more than three centuries ago. What attracts attention is the single arch. 90 feet, in span and 24 feet high, with a roadway above divided into three lanes by two

rows of shops. It must be remembered that the Rialto is a district of which the bridge is the centre. Merchants gather not there nowadays. Shylock was moved. The Rialto is not the most beautiful bridge in Venice, but its big arch provides good shelter for watermen in wet weather. It is impossible to write of Venice without mentioning the Ca d’Oro, or Golden House. It gets its name from the amount of gold used in its decoration. Built in 1425. it is said to be the most beautiful Gothic building in the city, but it has passed through many hands, and suffered thereby. It beoama a dramatic academy, and in the middle of last century Taglioni lived in it, and not only made it squalid, but sold certain of its treasures.” Its famous marble staircase has disappeared, A wealthv Italian did his best to restore it. The finest feature in the building is its facade. It is rich, but not too ornate, and its little chapel contains a wonderful painting of St. Sebastian by Mantegna. The Grand Canal leaves on the visitor a variety of impressions, but the dominant one is that Venice possesses a unique collection of palaces—2oo it is said —many of them being sadly in need of repair. Nevertheless, they represent the rise of the Republic’s commerce in the east and west, and with it not only the abounding wealth of those former times, but the Venetian love of the beautiful in architecture and painting. The Grand Canal may fairly be called the most unique street in Europe. The city of which it is the ornament began in marshes and lagoons, and rose to be one of the most powerful in Europe One would need a long holiday to make acquaintance with the treasures and history of the buildings that fringe the Grand Canal.