The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-29

just, 1 put the Furies beneath my
throne" This sentiment has charac-
terized the Venetians in all their his
tory.
Upon entering the building you are
shown the golden stairway" which
leads to what were formerly the pri-
vate apartments of the Doges. You
are not specially interested In this,
and so pass on to the great halls. Here
your imagination is most active. You
people these gorgeous rooms with the
stately patricians of hoary past. One
moves as in dream amid Illustra-
lions of a refinement of art which
the modern world can but poorly I'M
itate. The walls are adorned with
paintings produced by the genius OF
I1tlan, T1ntorretro, viceutfo, Paul Yer
onese and other masters, who died and
left the world no succession in their
art divine" Every hall and gallery
Is gorgeously painted or frescoed tn e
mellowing influence of time giving to
all a subtle enchantment
We pass from the realm of Arts be-
wltching charms to other points of his
toric interest in this old palace.
Here Is the hall OF the Chief Three -
where so many dark tragedies were COM
mitted In the name of the Venetian in
QUESTION While the ceiling and frieze
OF this hall are glorious in color, yet here
fingers the odor of human blood, and
memory recalls mans inhumanity to
man. 1t was here that Foscari, with
his wrists unjointed by torture, upon his
knees, in the presence of his wife and
children. piteously pleaded that he be
permitted to live. On the side of the wall
one sees the Lions Mouth and apar-
ture through which secret charges were
thrust and descended to the state board
of inquisitors of whose mercilessness the
whole world has read.
Yonaer is a narrow doorway, through
which we pass 1t leads to the dungeons
of the doges palace. AS it closes behind
us we are enshrouded with zimmerman
darkness. We advance in single file, SO
narrow Is the passage that leads to the
dungeons. These latter dismal places are
unlike the cells of any other prison. They
are not down in the basement of the
palace, with the sullen sea beating
against them and hanging their black
walls with slime; instead they are inn
mediately below the lead-covered roof of
the great building Does one fancy that
this was suggested as more humane
method of providing for the unfortunate
ones who had offended against Venice?
Perish the thought 1t WAS the sugges-
ton of the genius of cruelty:
There burning suns day after day, beat
unrelentingly;
Turning all things to dust and scorching
The brain till reason fed, and the viii
yell
And wilder laughter, burst out on every
side,
Answering each other in mockery."
The heat pouring down from the fiery
Venetian skies upon the lead roof made
the prison cell a bake-oven.
We have now come to the cells lining
the narrow passageway. We look through
small square window into one of the
dungeons. Here is the concentrated
gloom of ages lingering like a pail of
death. Never did a ray of sunlight pene-
trate this essence of blackness. In times
of old a dark-robed priest, guided by a
torch bearer, was permitted to tread this
pathway of gloom. to hear the confess
slons Of men doomed by the state to en-
dure their hopeless sufferings. The square
window, or oophole. was in ancient
times, and Is now, the only entrance to
one of these cells. One character in his
tory was confined in this impenetrable
blackness for 16 years, and was then led
forth to his execution. What relief
death was to him.
remembered when standing before
one of these loopholes. of having read
that Lord Byron when inspecting this
prison requested the guide to go on and
leave him there for the night in the
ghost-haunted gloom. l thought that
should like to be Byronic. Therefore,
climbing through the loophole, into a
dungeon / permitted the guide and the
lurid flanbeau to pass on, leaving me in
the awful silence of the Plutonian gloom.
1t was something indescribabe the emo
ton that followed the disappearance of
the last ray of the torchlight. l must
disclose my cowardice. / did not spend
the night there, nor even an hour. But |
tarried long enough to echo the last
words of Goethe, Light light and
never was light so beautiful as when |
beheld 1t again.
At the extreme end of the passage
there is low browed narrow doorway.
with a dark oaken. worm eaten sill.
Upon this sill, or beam, many an I'M
happy prisoner was executed by