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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the most colossal edifice upon piles that 

 the world has ever seen. In order to sup- 

 port the enormous weight put upon them, 

 it was necessary to choose only the 

 mightiest trunks and the finest sorts of 

 Avood, which were brought from foreign 

 lands by the enormous sea commerce of 

 Venice ; and it happened in the last cen- 

 tury that a noble family resolved to pull 

 down their splendid palace on the Canal 

 Grande in order to get at the precious 

 cedar stems on which it is built, and thus 

 rescue themselves from a slough of debt ; 

 but the Republic forbade this desperate 

 measure. 



Among the palaces on the Grand Canal 

 two have an international importance — 

 that is to say, they reveal to us not only 

 the enchantment of beauty and the lux- 

 ury to which Venice attained at home, 

 but the world-wide commerce which the 

 city of the lagoon once commanded. The 

 Fondaco dei Tedeschi, close to the Rialto 

 Bridge, was the chief place of meeting 

 foi* -the German merchants and the cen- 

 tral' point of their commerce. 



The whole traffic of the Levant with 

 the North passed through Venice, and the 

 Turks, as well as the Germans, had their 

 nationaLhouseon the Canal Grande — the 

 Eondaco dei Turchi. This house, too, 

 was the property of the Republic, and 

 wzs by its hospitality dedicated to the use 

 of the Mussulmans. Here the Koran was 

 read and the praises of Allah recited; it 

 was the focus of Oriental life in A^enice. 

 The building is tolerably well preserved, 

 but it shares the fate of all the palaces 

 on the Grand Canal — it has fallen into 

 tine hands of strangers. 



When the gondola has glided on be- 

 neath the Ponte di Rialto, we come upon 

 yet more beautiful palaces — the Ca' d' 

 Oro (page 573), with its wonderfully 

 richly sculptured facade, and the Palazzo 

 Pesaro, with its heavy, massive walls ; 

 but the finest of all is the Vehdramin- 

 Calergi. The gondola silently pauses be- 

 fore the marble steps ; we enter the co- 

 lossal doorway, and a porter shows us 

 the way and greets us in the most unde- 

 niable French. This is the palace of the 

 Duchess de Berri, now the property of 

 the Count de Chambord. 



It would be foolish to calculate the 



worth of such a building by the price 

 that it fetches ; but to show the deep fall 

 from its glories of former days which 

 Venice has experienced, I know no more 

 striking comparison than that furnished 

 by the figures concerning the Palazzo 

 Vendramin. This palace, which was sold 

 joo years' ago for 60,000 ducats, came 

 into the possession of the Duchess de 

 Berri in recent times for 6,000 ducats ! 



A Two-MiLi; bridge; 



And so we hasten ouAvard between the 

 long rows of palaces to the end of the 

 Grand Canal, to the island of Santa 

 Chiara, where the lagoon opens out and 

 the sea begins. Great red buoys, which 

 serve to mark the way for navigators, 

 balance themselves on the waves, and the 

 arches of the huge railway bridge reach 

 across to where terra firma shows dimly 

 in the distance. It is one of the longest 

 bridges in the world, for it measures 

 nearly 12,000 feet in length and has more 

 than 200 arches. Xerxes' idea of bridg- 

 ing over the Hellespont has been, as it 

 were, realized by modern Venice, for we 

 roll on iron rails over the waters right 

 into the interior of the town. 



A very different aspect of Venice re- 

 veals itself to us when on leaving the 

 Piazza of St. Mark — always the point of 

 departure — we plunge into the commer- 

 cial parts of the town. We pass through 

 an archway in the clock-tower that forms 

 so characteristic a feature of the north 

 side of the piazza, with its great bronze 

 figures that strike the hours, and get into 

 the merceria leading to the Ponte di 

 Rialto. 



the; oi.de;st bank in Europe; 



Here we are in the midst of the pres- 

 ent, with its manifold requirements and 

 feverish haste. The watchword here is 

 not "to be," but "to have ;" not the dig- 

 nity, but rather the keenness, of the old 

 Venetians predominates here. It is well 

 known that the first idea of great finan- 

 cial transactions originated in Italy, but 

 in this field of commerce also Venice 

 ranked foremost ; she had the oldest 

 bank in Europe, which dates back to the 

 days of Barbarossa and the development 

 of which is a considerable factor in the 



