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It was not in general use even in the seventeenth century here. Coryat the traveller saw it among the Italians, and deemed it a luxury and a notable fact. The precepts delivered by Lydgate and others for demeanour at table were in advance of the age, and were probably as much honoured in the breach as otherwise.
The upper part seems to be as it was: the water floor, or sea storey, has evidently been badly botched. Its glorious possession is, however, its balconies, particularly the lower. Of the Grand Canal balconies, the most beautiful of which is, I think, that which belongs to this little palace, no one has written more prettily than that early commentator, Coryat.
Following the clergy, in capes exceeding rich, came many couples of little singing choristers, which, pretty innocent punies, were so egregiously deformed that moved great pity in any relenting spectator, being so clean shaved round about their heads that a man could perceive no more than the very rootes of their hair." At the royal suburb Coryat saw "St.
"In both these things," says Coryat, "they differ much from us Englishmen. For whereas they have but one color, we use many more than are in the rainbow, all the most light, garish, and unseemly colors that are in the world. Also for fashion we are much inferior to them. For we wear more fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted."
"In both these things," says Coryat, "they differ much from us Englishmen. For whereas they have but one color, we use many more than are in the rainbow, all the most light, garish, and unseemly colors that are in the world. Also for fashion we are much inferior to them. For we wear more fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted."
Coryat found the use of the fork nowhere else in Christendom, and when he returned, and, oftentimes in England, imitated the Italian fashion, his exploit was regarded in a humorous light.
The two-pronged implement long outlived Coryat; and it is to be seen in cutlers' signs even down to our day. The old dessert set, curiously enough, instead of consisting of knives and forks in equal proportions, contained eleven knives and one fork for ginger. Both the fork and spoon were frequently made with handles of glass or crystal, like those of mother-of-pearl at present in vogue.
The four affectionate figures, in porphyry, at the corner of the Doges' Palace doorway, came also from the East. Nothing definite is known of them, but many stories are told. The two richly carved isolated columns were brought from Acre in 1256. Of these columns old Coryat has a story which I have found in no other writer.
The porphyry stone on the ground at the corner on our left is the Pietra del Bando, from which the laws of the Republic were read to the people. Thomas Coryat, the traveller, who walked from Somerset to Venice in 1608 and wrote the result of his journey in a quaint volume called Coryat's Crudities, adds another to the functions of the Pietra del Bando.
Before Coryat left Paris he rode a sorry jade to Fontainebleau which, "though I did excarnificate his sides," would not stir until a gentleman of the court drew his rapier and ran him to the "buttock." At the palace he saw the "Dolphin whose face was full and fat-cheeked, his hair black, his look vigorous and courageous."
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