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ruby rays of the setting sun, or repose in the silvery moonlight; at Ave 

 Maria, when the bells proclaim the hour of prayer, or music sends forth 

 its streams of harmony from the crowded Piazza ; or at midnight, when 

 the impassioned notes of some gondolier's song or lover's serenade alone 

 break the prevailing tranquility ; — the sounds and the emotions which are 

 then heard and experienced — the purity and intensity of which are in- 

 creased by a profound silence and a still atmosphere — impress this city 

 of poetry and song for ever upon our recollection. 



Venice is proverbial, even in Italy, for the beauty of her sunsets, and 

 it will not be a matter of surprise to those who consider the influence of 

 external objects over the feelings and imagination, why the Venetian 

 painters — Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, &c, — acquired such perfection of 

 colouring, and warmed the subjects depicted on their canvas with the 

 resplendent hues of their native skies. A clear perception of the beautiful 

 in nature ; a lively fancy easily captivatid by the charms of that colour 

 which surrounded them, joined to a power of imitation which enabled 

 them to express it in their productions, making their pictures look as 

 though the sun shed its dyes of gold, vermilion, and purple upon them, — 

 stamped the golden period of the Venetian school of painting with a 

 magical brilliancy and splendoui of colouring, which, as it sprung out of 

 natural feelings, and was grounded on the most poetical associations, so 

 it was the beautiful and striking feature that characterized this school ; 

 a palm of merit which none other has been able to dispute with them. 

 Although belonging to the ornamental style — placed by Keynolds in the 

 second rank next to the grand style, and considered inferior to the Roman — 

 yet " the national genius," as Lanzi says, " always lively and joyous, 

 sought to develope itself in more brilliant colours than those of any other 

 school ;" and we trace this feeling not only in their architecture and in the 

 architectural accessories of their pictures, but tind it entering into every 

 thing they undertake, and investing with greater show and pomp their 

 favourite festivals, their regattas, processions, and all their public exhibi- 

 tions. Besides, the climate and scenery of Venice — without even referring 

 to those popular games and festivals, which were so many theatres for 

 poetry and opportunities for displaying the artistic talent of the people — 

 demanded from the arts a degree of splendour which in other places 

 would have been deemed superfluous and ostentatious. Those arts, more- 

 over, in contributing to the scenery, were in return heightened by the 

 climate ; all received additional lustre from the pure light under which 

 they were exhibited. It is this which so strongly augments the effect of 

 every feature of the landscape ; and, at the same time, leaves such vivid 

 impressions on the spectator : which makes the foliage of the trees glow 

 like emerald ; and the islands and gardens seem as though they floated in 

 a sea of sapphire. 



It is this climate — the luminous, phosphoric haze that warms and gilds 

 and shines upon Venice — as well as the oriental aspect of the city — 

 which the traveller gazing upon knows to be the chosen abode of the 

 genius of the arts and poetry ; and as such, although the hackneyed 

 sounds of the world are removed from it — though it never hears the tramp 

 of horse or the "car rattling o'er the stony street" — yet he will not expe- 

 rience the melancholy and depression that is engendered beneath the 

 gloom of the lengthened arcades of Bologna, or the solitary, deserted 

 streets of Ferrara. 



The poet or artist, yielding to the charms which are scattered over 

 Venice in such profusion ; looking upon the pearls and precious stones 

 which shine in the crown of the Queen of the Adriatic ; the dazzling robe 

 in which she is arrayed, as she sits " enthroned on her hundred isles ;" as 

 be listens to the tones of sweetest melody, and catches the perfume of 

 delicious fragrance as he glides over canals meandering 



■ by many a dome 



Mosque-like, and many a stately portico. 



The statues rang'd along an azure sky; 



By many a pile in more than Eastern pride, 



Of old the residence of merchanc-klngs ; 



The fronts of some, tho' Time had shatter'd them. 



Still glowing with the richest hues of art. 



As tho' the wealth within them had run o'er ;"* 



will feel that this city, selected as it was for enacting, as it must have 



enhanced, those pageantries and ceremonials for which it was renowned 



in the days of its republic, must suggest to the Venetians of the present 



day, when thinking of its faded glories, the lamentation, so applicable to 



many other cities of the past — Venezia! Venezia.' Venezia/ Venezia, 



non i piil com' era prima ! 



* Rogers's poem of " Italy." 



It cannot be unprolitable or uninteresting to allude to some of the arts 

 which adorn this beautiful city,— arts of which it has been miserably; 

 despoiled by wars ; yet of which, sufficient remains to convince us that 

 they were cultivated and brought by the Venetians to a very high degree 

 of splendour. Sausovino, their historian, acquaints us, that in the most 

 flourishing period of Venice, there was not a city in the world which pos- 

 sessed so many works collected from antiquity, or could boast of such 

 large galleries of pictures, statues, bassi-relievi, bronzes, engraved stones 

 and metals, mosaics, tapestries, and all kinds of inlaid work ; and that 

 the opulent citizens and wealthy patricians, ambitious to amass everything 

 that was a token of wealth, indication of commerce, or evidence of refine- 

 ment, endeavoured to outvie each oiher in the number and beauty of these 

 productions. But these were acquired, perhaps, more from foreign, than 

 from the sources of their own country : and the slightest investigation into 

 the history of this city, and the causes of ils greatness and wealth, soon 

 lays open to us the beneticial tendency of commerce upon the arts — and 

 through this channel, a way to their increase and prosperity. The enter- 

 prising and "devoted bands of patriots," who, driven by Attila, set to 

 work, like beavers, and built Venice on wooden piles in the ebbing and 

 flowing tide, would not be wanting, nor their sons neither, in their com- 

 mand over the riches of the East, inc., by ploughing the ocean and navi- 

 gating along the ancient seats of the fine arts upon the Asiatic and 

 Grecian coasts, the shores of the tropical peninsulas, and the islands 

 which stud the Archipelago, for the purpose of there founding colonies 

 and emporiums of commerce — by means of intercourse with which, their 

 first city would grow rich, beautiful, and prosperous. And such was the 

 case. The treasures of art and the relics of antiquity, accumulated 

 from foreign countries, were contributed towards the adorning of churches 

 and public edifices ; were the cause of that ornamental character, yet 

 heterogeneous mixture, which we see in many of the buildings ; and many 

 of them enriched, and slill exist in, the galleries of the old palaces of the 

 Pisani, Contarini, Cornari, Grimani, and of other ancient patrician fami- 

 lies ; — each of which, whilst displaying an example of curious and 

 beautiful architecture in itself, contains also a museum for the study 

 and admiration of the antique. 



The influence of commerce over the fine arts of Venice was great; and 

 although the state could not boast of much extent of territory, nor a large 

 amount of population — yet, by extending their commercial relations with 

 other countries, and imitating as it were the example of ancient Tyre or 

 Carthage, their fame and their sovereignty was conspicuous, and excited 

 the envy of many a cotemporary republic. The skilled pilots who traf- 

 ficked in the marts of the Levant, and brought home cunning artificers 

 from Arabia, and Grecian artists from the Lower Empire, were the tru« 

 pioneers of civilization. To the labours of these foreigners, Venice and 

 the Venetians are greatly indebted, — not only for the Byzantine architec- 

 ture of St, Mark (of which they are so justly proud), and of many other 

 of the earlier edifices in this style, but likewise to the curious art of 

 mosaic and various tesselated work with which it abounds. These 

 picture-like representations, so particularly appropriate to the decorations 

 of either Gothic or Byzantine churches, possess distinguished advantages 

 over frescoes, in point of permanency of colour. Many very ancient 

 specimens still remain — even such as have been exposed to the action of 

 the open air, although their durability is seldom put to this trial ; yet, in 

 the case of fresco-paintings which have been exposed to the sirocco and 

 the sea-breezes, the vividness of their original tints has entirely faded 

 away, — the subject, under such influences, being sometimes scarcely 

 discernible. 



The early mosaics extant in Venice are considered by some writers as 

 being the first essays of the art of painting in that city ; but, as Lanzi 

 remarks, in his account of the Venetian painters— "the artificers, however 

 rude, must have been acquainted, in some degree, with the art of painting; 

 none being enabled to work in mosaic who had not previously designed 

 and coloured, upon pasteboard or cartoon, the composition they intended 

 to execute."* 



The same author mentions some mosaics of Grado, wrought in the sixth 

 century (a century or more after the foundation of Venice, which was 

 about A. D. 451), those of Torcello, and a few other specimens that appeared 

 in Venice, in the islands, and in Terra Firma, produced at periods subse- 

 quent to the increase of the grandeur of the Venetian state, which attained 

 its climax soon after the taking of Constantinople, in 1204. About tk* 



* Roscoe's Translatioa. 



