The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-04-13

Letter From DIR. Goldsmith.

Letter From DIR. Goldsmith.
VENICE, March "a.
Editor Of Rntland Globe This is land
of disenchantments. Venice looks pretty
much as you see it in pictures, except that
pictures do not show the filth or the filth's
belongings. In photographs, even, beg
gary gets poetic halo. You hear a deal
about the palace of the Doges, of the winged
lion on the column in front of it, of the
lions mouth, the Bridge of Signs, and of
the Rialto. They arc, when you come to
see them, pretty much as you expected to
sec them, only that the glamour is stripped
off them. The palace of the Doges is
black, seedy old building, not half so por-
tentous looking as you expected. The
winged lion on the column has not enough
of the terrific to be respectable. 1t looks
more like one of those impossibilties which
adorn Japanese art. The "lon's mouth" is
but slit in a wall, NJ more awe-inspiring
than that in ones front door at home, which
is the inlet to a letter-boX. 1t is nothing
more OF less than the hole to shove letters
through into box inside. The Rialto is a
wide stone bridge, lined with shops, in
which you buy "corn dodgers" and pea
nuts. The Bridge of Signs is the most re-
spectacle of the antiquities 1t is about
| .-~--.. &c. ,~--o--,,-s s'""~' ""e" +" "''"so
as Cramton might build to connect
the upper part of his hotel with
the offices in Bakers bank, only
that it is of carved marble and has two
gloomy dungeon-like passages, through
which the prisoners of the lnquisition
might pass to and from the cells to the halls
of the councils without the risk of meeting
and recognizing one another. The rooms
of the councils of its Three and its councils
of the Ten are no more august than the
Jury rooms of Vermont court house. and
differ chiefly in having their walls covered
with Venetian carved and fresco work. AS
you 60 through them you can't help saying
aloud, "what a bloody lot of old Sound
rcls these councillors must have been, and
the obsequious castillion merely smiles his
acquiescence. You jeer the memory Of
the Three by breathing defiance through
the "lion's mouth" You speak contemptu
ously of the Inquisition and proclaim you
protestant heresies, and perhaps one would
do still more absurd things, but that, afte
letting off a little such harmless 1S75.repub
lican- American protestant bravado, he be
thinks him of the kind of individuals i
is who additionally kicks dead lion.
The Cathedral is well worth seeing i
looks so old, so seedy, SO faded out. l
looks the veriest temple of rack-rcnt. |
it was not so dingy it would be tawdry
and yet it has wondrous wealth of gid
ing, carving and mosaic. The pictures il
mosaic which fill every great concave o
the mighty arches have a look of misplace'
setting, something as one of Horace Verne
great battle peices, would have if hun
upon the walls of a large New Englan
barn. The floor, once even and smooth
was covered with mosaic as beautiful an
eluDOTulC us tllul vi CcutCl tuDlSoj btb ~"
, by reason of the settling of the ground,
, 10 as hillocky as a COW pasture and tn
broken pavement is mended here and ther
, with slabs of stone or with tiles Of brick
I A part of this pavement has been restore
a and it is only from this there flashes GU
the past beauty of the rest. After all tn
: beauty of the mosaic pictures don't in
D press you 80 much as the idea of their in
4 mensc cost does. In many the subject
poorly rendered. Take for instance til,
Q representing in one of the concayes, I'll
Y genealogy of the Virgin. Imagine it rel
s dered thus A scrub oak tree with vic
e spreading leallees limbs on each OF whic
!, some Abrahamic ancestor sits astradl'
d like a family council of solemn apes, al
d with bar-maid for Virgin limne
IS atop, yet that picture may well have bee
/. a kings ransom, SO vast a sum il must hay
Z, cost. Then there is the mosaic OF Jud
J hanging with rope round his neck, on
Is sour apple tree limb, his feet Resin
lie comfortably on the ground and his face G
n pressing, lit is long time betwee
al drinks about as much as anything Il
n unaided Imagination could devise. Neve
a. theless you do not forget that the temple
" one erected to God. God alike to Veneti
Of and Vermonter.
" The canals look pretty much as you C
&C pected to see them, but the houses look
O. deal more "dockey" about their found
7, lions, and smell decidedly more 80, a
ns with several additions. The whole city b
as a seedy sort Of look, as If every house W
lg for rent and the people who stayed in the
10 were only staying to sign the leases a
IN "git up and git. And yet, in these seed
old habitatons there are wondrous gath
ly ings, of the ruins, remnants, and troph
d. of a glorious past, a past made illustrio
oh by commerce, by art, by arms. All th'
In. ] nponle do well IN guard an ipalOusly tht