Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-12-18
VENICE s.. GRAPHIC DESCRIP.
TION OF THE CITY.

| Correspondence OF the N. Y. Tribune
Venice is collection of III islets, d.
vided by l49 canals, connected by $50
bridges, and pierced by 2050 infinitely
narrow and labyrinihine streets. Almost
every foot of the city is built upon piles.
Each of its fifteen thousand houses is
washed by the sea water, and of its $780,
900 people not one ever rode upon
wheels down the mainland of this city.
Making abroad spiral ribbon of blue sea,
thrice as wide as Broadway, through the
longest diameter of Venice, passes the
Grand Canal, the most wonderful water
panorama in the world-in no degree
like the dull brick facing of the Flemish
and Dutch city canals, but highway to
marble palaces, into which are burned
idness of the Goth blossoms in their arch
itecture. Three bridges only cross this
Grand Canal, two of them practical and
modern; the middle bridge, famed in all
lands as the Rialto, high archway of
shops and multitudes, under which, like
docile crocodies, gondolas shoot their
beaks of steel. Upon the surface of this
peopled archipelago there are 294 open
places of cdmpi Most Of them we're
spaces to give some church perspective;
but two.thirds of the way down the city,
where it narrows to almost its smallest
girth, lies the only square of greater
length than sling throw, the wondrous
Piazza of San Marco. The Piazza is
like nothing in America. From the days
of Petrarch, who loved it, it has been a
marvel. 1t is great oblong square, 600
feet long by 230 feet wide, paved with
hewn blocks of marble, bordered on three
sides by marble palace, faced with long
arcades, which show gilded cafes and
splendid shops of jewelry beneath them;
and on the third side, or rather at the
head of it, the Cathedral of ST. Mark, the
patron of Venice, rises-venerable and
plentiful of domes, the richest, if not the
purest religious edifce in the world.
Before it career the bronze horses of
St. Mark, part of the plunder of the Cru
sades, and from the paved space before
them, set aside so as not to mar the pros
pective, rises the great Campanile or bell
tower nearly thousand years old, and
to the hight of three hundred and fifty
feet-about twice that, if l do not mis-
take, of Trinity Church, on Broadway.
A second tower near by holds zodiacal
clock, rung by Moorish giants, and facing
it from the opposite corner of the piazza,
reaches at right angles quite down to the
harbor side, the piazetta of ST. Mark, a
smaller area, hanked with the Doge's
palace, grand edifice, many hued,
huilt IN nointed arohaa and reaphinp IN
its further end along the quay. This pie
zetta is closed, almost at the water S edge,
by tive granite columns, each Of single
stone, crested, the one with statue of
st. George, the other with winged lion.
Going down between them, in past times,
the hoary Admirals have been escorted
to their gondolas, followed by the anx-
ious Doge, and sailed from the very
shadows of these columns to fight out
the quarrel of the republic on distant
seas, Behind the ducal palace are the
prisons of State, whose outlet is the
famed Bridge of Signs, of late the Sc
pulchers of tho Italian patriots. From
this Mold, or State quay, the view is
wonderful of the domes and campaniles
on three opposite islands, and the broad
blue paths of the canals, plowed with
swift gondolas. Far down the island is
the arsenal, where the Venetians fitted
out their fleets, as Dante describes them.
This is Venice, labyrinth of islands,
palaces, churches, founded by fugitives
who grew up sea. dogs and are now to
be ushered into the first day of inde-
nendenoe.