Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-10-04
A LEGEND OF VENICE.

pires isolated and practically buried popu-
lous and wealthy cities, and remapped
continents. The Adratic once fioated the
tonnage of the world and her ports were
once the distributing points for the pro-
ducts of the Orient. Where can greater
change be found than in Venice, (Which
was a naughty, magnificent, invincible
Republic for nearly fourteen hundred
| years" Once her princely merchants
controlled the commerce of the world, and
her noiseless streets were frequented by
the conquerors of empires and rulers from
every cline.
Now she sets surrounded with stagnant
| lagoons, her piers rotting away, her mer-
chants peddlers ofglass beads and trinkets
| for curious travellers. Her neatness has
departed, her wealth has followed the
| course of empire in her westwood march.
But in the midst of her poverty and
interest to tourists.
First, as the most noted feature of Ven
ice, is her noiselsss streets" Thousands
of gondolas glide swiftly through them,
and though there is life and motion every
where, there is a stiffness as of death. On
a moonlight night, when each of these
gondolas has its score of colored lanterns,
with music and gaily dressed ladies, when
the mellow moonlight throws over the
dusty and stained palaces of marble a poet
ic coloring, Venice is again the beautiful
city of song and story.
Venice has her Bridge of Signs, her
Grand Square of st. Mark and her Ducal
Palace. In this palace is her ancient SEN
ate Chamber, where her great Senators and
Doges deliberated, her hall for her Council
of Ten, and her internal den where her
Council of Three, at night, masked in scar
let robes, held their secret courts, from
whose dread sentence there was no appeal
or hope of escape.
Under the altar of the Great Cathedral
of st. Mark repose the ashes of st. Mark.
Connected with these is a curious legend
concerning the foundation of Venice,
which it is worth while here to relate.
st. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt.
He was martyred. However, that has
nothing to do with the legend. About the
founding of the city of Venice-say four
hundred and fifty years after Christ-(for
Venice is much younger than any other
italian city, a priest dreamed that an
angel told him that until the remains of
st. Mark were brought to Venice, the city
could never rise to high distinction among
the nations; that the body must be cap
tured, brought to the city, and a mag
nificent church built over it; and that if
ever the Venetians allowed the Saint to
be removed from his new resting-place, in
that day Venice would perish from off the
face of the earth. The priest proclaimed
his dream, and forthwith Venice set about
procuring the corpse of st. Mark. One
expedition after another tried and failed,
but the project was never abandoned dur
ing four hundred years. At last it was
secured by strategem, in the year eight
hundred and something. The commander
of a Venetian expedition disguised him
self, stole the bones, separated them and
packed them in vessels filled with lard.
The religion of the Mahomet causes its
devotees to abhor anything that is in the
nature of pork, and so when the Christian
was stopped by the officers at the gates of
the city, they only glanced once into his
precious baskets, then turned up their
noses at the unholy lard and let him go.
The bones were buried in the vaults of the
grand cathedral, which had been waiting
long years to receive them, and thus the
safety and the greatness of Venice were
secured. And to this day there be those
in Venice who believe that if those holy
ashes were stolen away, the ancient city
would vanish like dream, and its founda-
tons be buried forever in the unremem-
bering sea.
FROM the very beginning of the excite
ment Occasioned by the lamentable TRACE