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

hence, I venture to affirm that the exterior forms of it will be pretty nearly the same as those which prevail at present, and which did prevail twenty centuries ago.” Mr. Trollope generously dissents from the ”pessimism“ of these views. The views are discouraging for some reasons; but, with considerable disposition and fair opportunity to observe Italian character in this respect, I had arrived at precisely these conclusions. I wish here to state that in my slight sketch of Sarpi and his times I have availed myself freely of Mr. Trollope’s delightful book—it is near being too much of a good thing—named above.

30 The triumph was such only so far as the successful resistance to the interdict was concerned; for at the intercession of the Catholic powers the Republic gave up the ecclesiastical prisoners, and he allowed all the banished priests except the Jesuits to return. The Venetians utterly refused to perform any act of humiliation or penance. The interdict had been defied, and it remained despised.

31 The wife of Titian’s youth was, according to Ticozzi, named Lucia. It is in Mutinelli that I find allusion to Cecilia. The author of the Annali Urbani, speaking of the friendship and frequent meetings of Titian and Sansovino, says,—“Vivevano . . . allora ambedue di un amore fatto sacro dalle leggi divine, essendo moglie di Tiziano una Cecilia.” I would not advise the reader to place too fond a trust in any thing concerning the house of Titian. Mutinelli refers to but one house of the painter, while Ticozzi makes him proprietor of two.

32 Mutinelli, Del Costume Veneziano. The present sketch of the history of Venetian commerce is based upon facts chiefly drawn from Mutinelli’s delightful treatise, Del Commercio dei Veneziani.

33 Certain foreigners living in Venice were one day astonished to find their maid-servant in possession of a mass of this chain, and thought it their business to reprove her extravagance. “Signori,” she explained paradoxically, “if I keep my money, I spend it; if I buy this chain, it is always money (è sempre soldi).”

34 “Siccome,” says the editor of Giustina Renier-Michiel’s Origine delle Feste Veneziane,—“Siccome l’illustre Autrice ha voluto applicare al suo lavoro il modesto titolo di Origins delle Feste Veneziane, e siccome questo potrebbe porgere un’ idea assai diversa dell’ opera a chi non ne ha alcuna cognizione, da quello che è sostanzialmente, si espone questo Epitome, perchè ognun regga almeno in parte, che quest’ opera sarebbe del titolo di storia condegna, giacchè essa non è che una costante descrizione degli avvenimenti più importanti e luminosi della Repubblica di Venezia.” The work in question is one of much research and small philosophy, like most books which Venetians have written upon Venice; but it has admirably served my purpose, and I am indebted to it for most of the information contained in this chapter.

35 Annali Urbani di Venezia.

36 Feste Veneziane.

37 Feste Veneziane

38 Annali Urbani.

39 As the author of the Feste Veneziane tells this story it is less dramatic and characteristic. The clergy, she says, reminded the Doge of the occasion of his visit, and his obligation to renew it the following year, which he promised to do. I cling to the version in the text, for it seems to me that the Doge’s perpetual promise to rebuild the church was a return in kind for the pope’s astute answer to the petition asking him to allow its removal. So good a thing ought to be history.

40 Selvatico and Lazari in their admirable Guida Artistica e Storica di Veneza, say that the pope merely lodged in the monastery on the day when he signed the treaty of peace with Barbarossa.

41 That which follows is a translation of the report given by Cesare Cantù, in his Grande Illustrazione del Lombardo-Veneto, of a conversation with the author of Feste Veneziane. It is not necessary to remind readers of Venetian history that Renier and Michiel were of the foremost names in the Golden Book. She who bore them both was born before the fall of the Republic which she so much loved and lamented, and no doubt felt more than the grief she expresses for the fate of the last Bucintoro. It was destroyed, as she describes, in 1796, by the French Republicans and Venetian Democrats after the abdication of the oligarchy; but a fragment of its mast yet remains, and is to be seen in the museum of the Arsenal.

42 The gate of the Ducal Palace which opens upon the Piazzetta next St. Mark’s.

43 A gauze of gold and silk.

44 One of the sops thrown to the populace on this occasion, as we learn from Mutinelli, was the admission to the train of gilded barges following the Bucintoro of a boat bearing the chief of the Nicolotti, one of the factions into which from time immemorial the lower classes of Venice had been divided. The distinction between the two parties seems to have been purely geographical; for there is no apparent reason why a man should have belonged to the Castellani except that he lived in the eastern quarter of the city, or to the Nicolotti, except that he lived in the western quarter. The government encouraged a rivalry not dangerous to itself, and for a long time the champions of the two sections met annually and beat each other with rods. The form of contest was afterwards modified, and became a struggle for the possession of certain bridges, in which the defeated were merely thrown into the canals. I often passed the scene of the fiercest of these curious battles at San Barnaba, where the Ponte de Pugni is adorned with four feet of stone let into the pavement, and defying each other from the four corners of the bridge. Finally, even these contests were given up and the Castellani and Nicolotti spent their rivalry in marvelous acrobatic feats.

45 Once bearing the standards of Cyprus, Candia, and Venice.

46 These exaggerations of the fashions of 1862 have been succeeded by equal travesties of the present modes.

47 The love-making scenes in Goldoni’s comedy of Il Bugiarda are photographically faithful to present usage in Venice.

48 Literally, That in Italian, and meaning in Venetian, You! Heigh! To talk in Ciò ciappa is to assume insolent familiarity or unbounded good fellowship with the person addressed. A Venetian says Ciò a thousand times in a day, and hails every one but his superior in that way. I think it is hardly the Italian pronoun, but rather a contraction of Veccio (vecchio), Old fellow! It is common with all classes of the people: parents use it in speaking to their children, and brothers and sisters call one mother Ciò. It is a salutation between friends, who cry out, Ciò! as they pass in the street. Acquaintances, men who meet after separation, rush together with “Ah Ciò!” Then they kiss on the right cheek “Ciò!” on the left, “Ciò!” on the lips, “Ciò! Bon di Ciò!”