The Complete Travel Books of W.D. Howells (Illustrated Edition). William Dean Howells

of professional idling in Venice

7 Origine delle Feste Veneziane, di Giustina Renier-Michiel

8 The term for those idle people in Italian cities who relieve long seasons of repose by occasionally acting as messengers, porters and day-laborers.

9 St. Theodore was the first patron of Venice, but he was deposed and St. Mark adopted, when the bones of the latter were brought from Alexandria. The Venetians seem to have felt some compunctions for this desertion of an early friend, and they have given St. Theodore a place on one of the granite pillars, while the other is surmounted by the Lion, representing St. Mark. Fra Marco e Todaro, is a Venetian proverb expressing the state of perplexity which we indicate by the figure of an ass between two bundles of hay.

10 In Republican days the palaces of the Procuratori di San Marco.

11 The soldo is the hundredth part of the Austrian florin, which is worth about forty-nine cents of American money.

12 Comedy by the yard.

13 Where the street entrance is in common, every floor has its bell, which being sounded, summons a servant to some upper window with the demand, most formidable to strangers, ”Chi xe?“ (Who is it?) But you do not answer with your name. You reply, ”Amici!“ (Friends!) on which comforting reassurance, the servant draws the latch of the door by a wire running upward to her hand, and permits you to enter and wander about at your leisure till you reach her secret height. This is, supposing the master or mistress of the house to be at home. If they are not in, she answers your ”Amici!“ with ”No ghe ne xe!“ (Nobody here!) and lets down a basket by a string outside the window, and fishes up your card.

14 The noble floor—as the second or third story of the palace is called.

15 The gondola landing-stairs which descend to the water before palace-doors and at the ends of streets.

16 Padrone in Italian. A salutation with Venetian friends, and the title by which Venetian servants always designate their employers.

17 Little champagne,—the name which the Venetian populace gave to a fierce and deadly kind of brandy drunk during the scarcity of wine. After the introduction of coal-oil this liquor came to be jocosely known as petrolio.

18 I confess a tenderness for this dish, which is a delicater kind of hash skillfully flavored and baked in rolls of a mellow complexion and fascinating appearance.

19 The cardinal-patriarch officiates in the Basilica San Marco with some ceremonies which I believe are peculiar to the patriarchate of Venice, and which consist of an unusual number of robings and disrobings, and putting on and off of shoes. All this is performed with great gravity, and has, I suppose, some peculiar spiritual significance. The shoes are brought by a priest to the foot of the patriarchal throne, when a canon removes the profane, out-of-door chaussure, and places the sacred shoes on the patriarch’s feet. A like ceremony replaces the patriarch’s every-day gaiters, and the pious rite ends.

20 After hearing these masses, curiosity led me to visit the Casa di Ricovero, in order to look at Soldini’a will, and there I had the pleasure of recognizing the constantly recurring fact, that beneficent humanity is of all countries and religions. The Casa di Ricovero is an immense edifice dedicated to the shelter and support of the decrepit and helpless of either sex, who are collected there to the number of five hundred. The more modern quarter was erected from a bequest by Soldini; and eternal provision is also made by his will for ninety of the inmates. The Secretary of the Casa went through all the wards and infirmaries with me, and everywhere I saw cleanliness and comfort (and such content as is possible to sickness and old age), without surprise; for I had before seen the Civil Hospital of Venice, and knew something of the perfection of Venetian charities. At last we came to the wardrobe, where the clothes of the pensioners are made and kept. Here we were attended by a little, slender, pallid young nun, who exhibited the dresses with a simple pride altogether pathetic. She was a woman still, poor thing, though a nun, and she could not help loving new clothes. They called her Madre, who would never be it except in name and motherly tenderness. When we had seen all, she stood a moment before us, and as one of the coarse woolen lappets of her cape had hidden it, she drew out a heavy crucifix of gold, and placed it in sight, with a heavenly little ostentation, over her heart. Sweet and beautiful vanity! An angel could have done it without harm, but she blushed repentance, and glided away with downcast eyes Poor little mother!

21 “When will this war ever be ended? what blood! what horror!” I have often heard the question and the comment from many Italians who were not cats.

22 Goldoni’s family went from Venice to Chioggia when the dramatist was very young. The description of his life there form some of the most interesting chapters of his Memoirs.

23 Mora is the game which the Italians play with their fingers, one throwing out two, three, or four fingers, as the case may be, and calling the number at the same instant. If (so I understood the game) the player mistakes the number of fingers he throws out, he loses; if he hits the number with both voice and fingers he wins. It is played with tempestuous interest, and is altogether fiendish in appearance.

24 “Shylock, old fellow, good-day. Glad to see you.”

25 Galliciolli, Memorie Venete.

26 Mutinelli.

27 Del Commercia del Veneziani. Mutinelli.

28 Members of the family of Tintoretto are actually buried in this church; and no sacristan of right feeling could do less than point out some tomb as that of the great painter himself.

29 It is convenient here to attest the truth of certain views of religious sentiment in Italy, which Mr. Trollope, in his Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar, quotes from an “Italian author, by no means friendly to Catholicism, and very well qualified to speak of the progress of opinions and tendencies among his fellow-countrymen.” This author is Bianchi Giovini, who, speaking of modern Catholicism as the heir of the old materialistic paganism, says: “The Italians have identified themselves with this mode of religion. Cultivated men find in it the truth there is in it, and the people find what is agreeable to them. But both the former and the latter approve it as conformable to the national character.