Year: 1878

Flemish Tapestry-weavers I'm Venice.


Tie chronicles tell us of colony


of Flemish weavers down there in


the quarter of San Salvatore, near


the Rialto. / can picture them, with


their flowing yellow hair, and blue


Northern eyes, and coarse dark dress,


with tongues unused to the soft


lagoon speech, passing the long days


in the low shops where the great


bright webs stretched from floor to


ceiling, feeling the soft wind blow


from the mainland, bringing breath


of mountains, and thought of home


sickness, and dream of the rich


grass growth and the gabled cabins


of .he Flemish plains. A gentle


company-stalwart men and soft


eyed women, like the Northern Ma


donnas, and fsir-haired children whom


the young colorists, passing by on


their way across the Rialto to the
great hospitable painter-houses, beg
ged from their parents fer days
posing as angels in their Holy fami-
lies.


The gold-locked Flemish maiden
looking up from her bright warp,
would find 1.-the shape at the win
dow dsrkening the room-some mad
Young fellow, with dark eyes aud
flowing locks, and saucy plume in
his hat-an art student on his way
to one of the great studios across the
canal. And the girl would leave her


weaving, and grasp the glowing red
carnations that were flung at her
feet. The shape glided away, and
the girl laid the flowers against her
golden hair and her white throat,
and wove the burning hue into the
d.apery she wrought, and piled her
shuttle to the rhythm of an old love
ballad. And if there be knot in
the smooth texture, will not posterity
know tha. here hand touched the
hand of the weaver,or a quick caress
turned her eyes from the even mesh !
They will hot be hard on the poor
child, those gray-beard senators for
whom the tapestry is ordered, for
they too have been young, and have
flung the passionate carnations in at
fair women's windows in the dear
lagoon fashion.


Sometimes a mightier shadow
would darken the low rooms, and a.
the open door would stand some great
paiLter-Titian, perchance, or Por-
denone, or ii Robusti himself, aud the
gentle Northern people would rise
from their looms and bid him well
come, and listen to his judgment on
their work, for which he himself
might have furnished the design.
And they would bring forth their
red wine and their pale green salad,
like the color they wrought into their
And the painter sat among
them, with the children. on his knee,
and smiled on the fair young girls,
and helped the patient mothers with
their stumbling Yenitian speech, so
difficult for their Northern mouths.
And anon some stately red-robed SEN
ator would issue from his gondola
shell and erter the low dwelling to
inspect the work that was to adorn
the reverend halls of justice and
smile benignly upon the group. Ay,
it was beautiful, the large-hearted-
ness of that old-time genius that did
not fear to brush its skirts against
the door-stone of the toiling artisan.


| wonder if then as now, there
were cafe on the piazza before the
Rialto, this side the Fondaco of the
German merchants, and ifthe weavers
took their wives and children there
for fiesta nights treat after so many
days spent in the dingy shops of San
Salvatore. l can fancy how, on Sun
day mornings after they had said
their prayers in the old market church
among the dusky canvases of Fra Sc
bastino, some great numbering barge
would pause at the nearest rivs, and
the pale weaver with his wife and
children would enter it with their
slaves and pilgrim wallets. and bid
the dark ragged oarsmen push off
and they would thread the canals to
the lagoon behind the city, where the
Alps tower blue in the morning air,
and their homesick hearts would leap
with Joy, and across the lagoon they
would find the Towering meadows Of
the mainland, with corn fields and
lily grown bitches like those of Flan-
iers, and vines wreathing their luxu-
rant arms about the mulberry trees
with the added glory of the South,
and there, lying close to nature, they
would dream themselves far away in
the hazy Northern meadows-Char-
Iotte Adams, in Harper's Magazine
for March.