MOLMENTI'S " VENICE."* Lovxas of Venice already owe a large
debt of gratitude to Mr. Horatio Brown, and it is increased by his translation of this valuable book. That the translation itself is excellent goes without saying. The reader's pleasure is interfered with by no heaviness of style, no awkward turn of a sentence. The
Venice: its Individual Growth from the Bodied Beginning. to the Fell of the Re• public. Parts L and IL, 't The Middle Ages." By Pomba* Hohnenti. Translated by Horatio B. Brown. 2 vole. London John Murray. Ibis. net.) straightforward tale of the old Venetians, the most interesting community in Europe, is told with a frank simplicity, and yet with every detail that can be desired by a careful student. No doubt there are, and will be, many more words to be said about the early history of Venice, for it seems as if the subject were inexhaustible ; but when one closes these volumes of Signor Molmenti's it is difficult to believe that anything has been left out Every page in the book is full of curious knowledge, com- municated without the slightest affectation or air of teaching anybody anything. It is all facts,—facts mostly in themselves so picturesque that they require no fine language to display them; facts, too, which by the impression they make on the mind prove themselves more valuable than any amount of t'wory. As to the mind of Venice, the spirit which built her churches and palaces, founded her laws, and guided her politics, all that is mostly left to be deduced from a true picture of the outside of things. Signor Molmenti is not of the imaginative, sentimentalising school. His logical intellect has nothing to do with the dreams of those Northern minds which have endowed Italy, and Venice more especially, with more poetry and devotion than she ever, probably, possessed or consciously desired. At the same time be is sincerely patriotic, and jealous for the honour of the Venetian race. He is not at all to be placed among those who believe that the religion of the founders of Venice was little more than a formalism completely in bondage to their commercial instincts. They were not superstitions, he says; they were enemies of mysticism; but their religion, their faith in the ideal, was none the less real for that. "In every detail of life" he ascribes to them "greatness and gentleness," and he is very angry with the hard and unjust words of such a contemporary critic as Salimbene, who called them rude, avaricious, and grasping. He defends them, with varied evidence, from the charge of utter indifference to the spirit of the Crusades. No doubt they were "a cautious nation of merchants" :— "To be sere, the Venetians never forgot their commercial and political interests in their zeal for the faith; they intended to secure for themselves a market in every corner of the globe. But their so-called egoism displayed itself in a profound attachment to their country and their race ; and these greedy hucksters, these selfish adventurers—as they are sometimes unjustly called—had at bottom a genuine belief in objects high and serious ; the
merchant not seldom became a hero These lords of the sea knew how to wed the passion of Christianity to commercial enterprise, and welded the aspirations of the faith with the interests of their country."
It must be remembered that these two beautifully printed volumes, full of illustrations which really illustrate the subject —old plans and maps, a delight to study, specimens of archi- tecture, mosaic, and painting—are in fact the first volume of the whole work, being the two parts belonging to mediaeval Venice, bringing the history down to the end of the fifteenth century. Therefore it may fairly be said that they cover the finest and best, if not the most gorgeous, period of the life of
Venice :—
" By the end of the fifteenth century the mistress of the seas had reaped the harvest of her energy, of her activity, of her sacrifices ; but her splendour, which had already touched its apogee, now began to pass into the region of culture and of art, and already held in itself the earliest germs of decay."
The historian of Venice has a subject unrivalled from its very beginnings in romantic interest. In a long introduction Signor Molmenti has given his account of "the origins," from the half-mythical story of the settlement of the Veneti in Italy ; then, as history begins to be clearer, their submission to the Roman Empire ; then their struggles with the barbarian invaders, and the fascinating, varied tale of their seeking refuge among the lagoons, the islets, the Zia of the Adriatic. Among the confused chronicles of races and colonies and factions in those early days it is not easy to follow the thread that leads straight to the choice of Rivo-alto as the centre and home of the community which grew in time into the great city of Venice. But we have never read a clearer or better account of these puzzling " origins."
"The Aspect and Form of the City " is the subject of the first chapter; then, when old Venice, as represented in a very ancient plan found in the Library of St. Mark, is outlined with tolerable clearness to our minds, we go on to a more detailed account of what the buildings were which sprang up on the many small islands along the course of the dividing canals. The first houses were built with great care and caution, mostly on platforms of larch. It seems that the custom of building on piles did not become general till later, and that the houses were low, mostly of wood, the inhabitants living in fear of earthquakes, such as that in 1102, when the sea engulfed Malamocco. It was only by degrees, as the art of laying foundations was thoroughly learned, that Venice became a city of stone and marble. With the art of building grew the art of furnishing, of which Signor Molmenti gives many interesting details.
He goes on to the constitution of ancient Venice, her laws, commerce, and navigation, her finance and economic policy, with many curious particulars as to the currency, illustrated by a page of Venetian coins. Her nobles and citizens, with all their rules of life and civilisation, have a chapter to them- selves, followed by one on martial games, sports, and festivals. A very delightful chapter is that on "Costume." Here, assisted by illuminations and many reproductions of mosaics and of rare old prints, we can really know the old Venetians in their habit as they lived. From the early days of the Veneti, blue was the favourite colour. "Among the Romans ' blue' and 'Venetus ' were synonymous, and at Rome the blue faction in the circus was called the Venetian faction." There was a certain dignified simplicity in their dress which lasted for centuries, at any rate among the lesser citizens. The richer classes followed Eastern fashions, brought in by their great trade with the Levant. The official robes were very magnificent, the Doge and the Dogaressa being clothed like an Emperor and Empress of the East. After these Oriental fashions went out, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, other much less graceful modes of dress took their place, and may be studied in many a quaint old picture and illustration. At length sumptuary laws were framed by both Church and State to restrain the luxury and the bizarre extravagance of both patricians and plebeians throughout the city. There is an amusing story of the middle of the fifteenth century that the ladies of Venice, suffering under the severity of the Doge and the Patriarch, petitioned the Pope to give them leave, "for the honour of their caste, the reverence due to their parents and their own beauty, to wear their gorgeous robes, their jewels, circlets, rings, brooches, sandals. &a. The Pope, on payment of four ducats and one grosao, gave the .permission they sought for three years' time."
The larger part of Signor Molmenti's second volume deals with the domestic manners and customs of the Venetians, introducing much curious detail, and with the industrial arts, the fine arts, and the culture of the Venetian State, the latter including literature, music, and song. Venice, we know, never produced a great poet; and from her earliest records anything of actual verse is absent; but she had many fanciful, poetical legends, and there was a great deal of verse- and song-making within the period covered by this book. Troubadour poetry found welcome and imitation. Christine de Pisan (Cristina Pisani) was a Venetian, though she lived in France and wrote her poems in French. Quirini, Dante's friend, wrote charming ballads, and he was only one of a band of poets famous in their own generation, though almost forgotten now. But it was of course the mediaeval builders, painters, sculptors, and mosaic-workers of Venice who did most to exalt their marvellous city in the world of art.
We look forward with interest and expectation to the remaining volumes of this important and delightful book.
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