HISTORICAL NOTES ΤΟ CANTO THE FOURTH. 1. STATE DUNGEONS OF VENICE. "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; Stanza i. lines 1 and 2. THE Communication between the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is by a g oomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dungeons, called " pozzi," or wells, were sunk in the thick walls of the palace; and the prisoner when taken out to die was conducted across the gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled up; but he passage is still open, and is still known by the name of the Bridge of Sighs. The pozzi are under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve, but on the first arrival of the French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however, descend by a trap-door, and crawl down through holes, half-choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there; scarcely a ray of light gir mers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet, raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors tell you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the republicans descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen years. But the inmates of the dungeons beneath had left traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still visible, and may, perhaps, owe something to recent ingenuity. Some of the detained appear to have offended against, and others to have belonged to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, but from the churches and belfries which they have scratched upon the walls. The reader may not object to see a specimen of the records prompted by so terrific a solitude. As nearly as they could be copied by more than one pencil, three of them are as follows: 1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PENSA e TACI 1607. ADI 2. GENARO. FUI RETENTO P' LA BESTIEMMA P' AVER DATO DA MANZAR A UN MORTO IACOMO. GRITTI. SCRISSE. 2. UN PARLAR POCHO et UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA A NOI ALTRI MESCHINI The copyist has followed, not corrected, the solecisms; some of which are, ever, not quite so decided, since the letters were evidently scratched in the It only need be observed, that bestemmia and mangiar may be read in the firs scription, which was probably written by a prisoner contined for some act of im committed at a funeral; that Cortellarius is the name of a parish on terra f near the sea; and that the last initials evidently are put for l'iva la santa C Katolica Romana. The well-known song of the gondoliers, of alternate stanzas from Tasso's Je lem, has died with the independence of Venice. Editions of the poem, with the nal in one column, and the Venetian variations on the other, as sung by the men, were once common, and are still to be found. The following extract will to show the difference between the Tuscan opic and the "Canta alla Barcariol ORIGINAL. Canto l'arme pietose, e 'l capitano Che gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo. S'armo d' Asia, e di Libia il popol misto, VENETIAN. L'arme pietose de cantar gho vogia, E de Goffredo la immortal braura Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, take up and continue a stanza of t peat, and, said the poor fellow, "look at my clothes and at me; I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit alone can make attractive. The recitative was shrill, screaming, and monotonous; and the gondolier behind assisted his voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The carpen ter used a quiet action, which he evidently endeavoured to restrain but was too much interested in his subject altogether to repress. From these men we learnt that singing is not confined to the gondoliers, and that, although the chant is seldom, if ever voluntary, there are still several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with few stanzas. It does not appear that it is usual for the performers to row and sing at the same time. Although the verses of the Jerusalem are no longer casually heard, there is yet much music upon the Venetian canals; and upon holydays, those strangers who are not near or informed enough to distinguish the words, may fancy that many of the gonio a still resound with the strains of Tasso. The writer of some remarks which appeared in the "Curiosities of Literature" must excuse his being twice quoted; for, with the exception of some phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description. "In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. But this talent seems at present on the decline:—at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than two persons who de vered to me in this way a passage from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to me a passage in Tasso in the manner, as he assured me, of the gondoliers. "There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished. I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song: when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invariably returned, but, according to the subject matter of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe as the object of the poem altered. "On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse and screaming: they seemed in the manner of all rude uncivilised men, to make the excellency of their singing in the force of their voice: one seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs; and so far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box of the gondola.) I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. "My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance being very desirous 'o keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this singing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing against one another, and I kept walking up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood still and hearkened to the one and to the other. "Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like. plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas that moved like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of the scene; and amidst all these circumstances, it was easy to confess the character of this wonderful harmony. It suits perfectly well with an idle, solitary mariner. lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and porti al stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror, and as a'l is still around, he is as it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot Dassengers; a silent gon lola is now and hon by hi u, of which he splashings of the oars are scarcely to be heard. "At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melod verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the responsive echo i foriner, and exerts himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit vention they alternate verse for verse; though the song should last the whole through, they entertain themselves without fatigue: the hearers, who are passin tween the two, take part in the amusement. "This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpres charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plain but not dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from t My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said unexpectedly: E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto più quando lo car meglio. I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides the A atic from the Lagoons,* particularly the women of the extreme districts of M mocco and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of Tasso to these and si tunes. 66 They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit a the shore in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a tance." The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of Venetians, even amo the tuneful sons of Italy. The city itself can occasionally furnish respectable a ences for two and even three opera-houses at a time; and there are few even private life that do not cail forth a printed and circulated sonnet. Does a physi or a lawyer take his degree, or a clergyman preach his maiden sermon, has a surg performed an operation, would a harlequin announce his departure or his benefit, you to be congratulated on a marriage, or a birth, or a lawsuit, the Muses are invo to furnish the same number of syllables, and the individual triumphs blaze abroa virgin white or party-coloured placards on half the corners of the capital. The cursy of a favourite " prima donna" brings down a shower of these poetical bu es from those upper regions, from which, in our theatres, nothing but cupids snow storms are accustomed to descend. There is a poetry in the very life Venetian, which, in its common course, is varied with those surprises and char so recommendable in fiction, but so different from the sober monotony of northern istence; amusements are raised into duties, duties are softened into ainusements, every object being considered as equally making a part of the business of life, is nounced and performed with the same carnest indifference and gay assiduity. Venetian gazette constantly closes its columns with the following triple advert ment: Charade. Exposition of the most Holy Sacrament in the church of St. When it is recollected what the Catholics believe their consecrated wafer to we may perhaps think it worthy of a more respectable niche than between poetry a the playhouse. The writer meant Lido, which is not a long row of islands, but a long islan littus, the shore. Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii. p. 156, edit. 1807; and Appendix xxix. to Black Life of Tasso. III. THE LION AND HORSES OF ST. MARK'S. "St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stanza xi, line 5. The ion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides but the gospel which sup ported the paw that is now on a level with the other foot. The Horses also are returned to the ill-chosen spot whence they set out, and are, as before, half hidden under the porch of St. Mark's church. Their history, after a desperate struggle, has been satisfactorily explored. The decisions and doubts of Erizzo and Zanetti, and lastly, of the Count Leopold Cicognara, would have given them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree not more ancient than the reign of Nero. But M. de Schlegel stepped in to teach the Venetians the value of their own treasures, and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever, the pretension of his countrymen to this noble production.* M. Mustoxidi has not been left without a repiv; but, as yet, he has received no answer. It should seem that the horses are irrevocably Chian, and were transferred to Constantinople by Theodosius. Lapidary writing is a favourite play of the Italians, and has conferred reputation on more than one of their literary characters. One of the best specimens of Budoni's typography is a respectable volume of inscriptions, all written by his friend Pacciudi. Several were prepared for the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the best was not selected, when the following words were ranged in gold letters above the cathedral porch: QUATUOR EQUORUM SIGNA A VENETIS BYZANTIO CAPTA AD TEMP. O MAR AR'S MCCIV POSITA QUE HOSTILIS CUPIDITAS MDCCHIC AB TULERAT FRANCI IMP PACIS ORBI DATE TROPHÆUMA MDCCCXV⚫ VICTO KEDUXIT. Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be permitted to observe, that the injustice of the Venetians in transporting the horses from Constantinople was at least eual to that of the French in carrying them to Paris, and that it would have been nore prudent to have avoided all allusions to either robbery. An apostolic prince should perhaps, have objected to affixing over the principal entrance of a metropolitan rhurch an inscription having a reference to any other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than the pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism. IV. SUBMISSION OF BARBAROSSA TO POPE ALEXANDER III. "The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — Stanza xii. lines 1 and 2. After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians entirely to throw off the yoke o Frederic Barbarossa, and as fruitless attempts of the Emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa; and the former having received a safe-conduct, had already arrived *Su i quattro cavalli della Basilica di S. Marco in Venezia, Mustoxidi Corcuese. Pa lua, per Bettoni e compag.... 1816. Lettera di Andrea |