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Updated: June 20, 2025
Caterina Regina!" Venice was outdoing herself in triumph, showering regal honors upon her: the bells of all the Campanili were ringing a jubilee: music greeted her from the shores as they glided by the portals wreathed with festal garlands, the beautiful city a glory of light and color; for the storm of the evening had passed and the morning had dawned in sunshine, and along the Riva the people were thronging to welcome her the Queen who had bestowed the gift of her kingdom upon Venice!
He joined her quite naturally, as if by appointment, and they had walked on, instinctively finding their way out of the crowd. They had walked on and on, now and then exchanging remarks, waiting for a full explanation, wondering what form it would take. Cypresses and campanili defined themselves in the landscape as the evening advanced.
As a general thing, I favour little the fashion of attributing moral qualities to buildings; I shrink from talking about tender cornices and sincere campanili; but one feels that one can scarce get on without imputing some sort of morality to Saint-Sernin. As it stands to-day, the church has been completely restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
To the left, beyond the torrent Paillon, is situated modern Nice, with its quays, leviathan hotels, and an almost interminable line of villas marking the celebrated Promenade des Anglais. The background of the scene is filled up by a semicircle of well-wooded hills, verdant with vines, fig, orange, olive and pomegranate trees, and sparkling with white country-seats, convents, and campanili.
They belong to one period and one style, although this is a transitional one: the slender pillars of the porches resting on crouching lions, the round-headed arches, the plain, square, soaring campanili, a majestic boldness and simplicity in general effect, an unconscious quaintness in detail, the line of the prevailing red marble contrasting gratefully with the layers of many-toned gray spread by time over the walls, produce a combination of form and color delightful to the eye.
The grandeur of the decayed sea-city, where folly had danced Parisianly of old, spread brooding along the waters in morning light; beautiful; but with that inner light of history seen through the beauty Venice was like a lowered banner. The great white dome and the campanili watching above her were still brave emblems.
But the Lagoon was as beautiful from the noisy, fussy little steamboat as from a gondola, the sails of the fishing boats touching it with as brilliant colour, the Islands lying as peacefully upon its shining waters, the bells of the many campanili coming as sweetly to our ears, the sky above as pure and radiant; and it mattered not how we reached the Islands, they were as enchanting when we landed.
The rejoicings of the people speeded her; the bells of all the campanili of Venice came echoing to the shores of the Lido; a tumult of voices the voices of the popolazzo, shrill and jubilant, called down the blessings of all the saints upon her of Santa Caterina her own name-saint, fair patron of Betrothals; of charming San Luigi the blessed guardian of love; of San Nicolò, Saint of the Sea; of Messer San Marco and San Tadoro; and shrilly, above them all, rose the babel of women's voices, invoking the Madonna, "Star of the Sea, Sancta Maria!"
From the terraces of Arqua the eye ranges across olive-trees, laurels, and pomegranates on the southern slopes, to the misty level land that melts into the sea, with churches and tall campanili like gigantic galleys setting sail for fairyland over 'the foam of perilous seas forlorn. Let a blue-black shadow from a thunder-cloud be cast upon this plain, and let one ray of sunlight strike a solitary bell-tower; it burns with palest flame of rose against the steely dark, and in its slender shaft and shell-like tint of pink all Venice is foreseen.
Every kind of rocket is there: rockets which simply soar with a rush, burst into stars and fall; rockets which when they reach the highest point of their trajectory explode with a report that shakes the city and must make some of the campanili very nervous; rockets which burst into a million sparks; rockets which burst into a thousand streamers; rockets whose stars change colour as they fall; rockets whose stars do not fall at once but hang and hover in the air.
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