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Updated: July 14, 2025
Even in spring, to come in a book upon the name of Balbec sufficed to awaken in me the desire for storms at sea and for the Norman gothic; even on a stormy day the name of Florence or of Venice would awaken the desire for sunshine, for lilies, for the Palace of the Doges and for Santa Maria del Fiore.
And Francesco Foscari, who worked nobly for thirty-five years and wuz then abused shameful by the Ten and turned out of office. Them old Doges had their ups and downs; riz up to power, throwed down agin. Mean as the Old Harry, some on 'em, and some workin' well for the public.
He travelled toward Venice, the noiseless city, the city without birds or verdure, toward that silent country of sky, marble, and water; but once there, the reality seemed inferior to his dream. He had not that shock of surprise and enthusiasm in the presence of St. Mark's and the Doges' palace which he had hoped for.
Those who saw only one half of the evidence would have concluded that the Plantagenets were as absolute as the Sultans of Turkey: those who saw only the other half would have concluded that the Plantagenets had as little real power as the Doges of Venice; and both conclusions would have been equally remote from the truth.
Our course led, not through serpentine canals and past Doges' palaces, gaudy with the lavish adornments of tricky Byzantine architecture; nor could we expect to see "lions" as historical as those which ornament the facade of Saint Mark's.
I could well enter into the feeling of noble triumph which must have animated those great and powerful Doges of past times, in thus being able to beautify their own Christian temple in Venice at the expense of the unbelieving, barbarous Turk, whose usurpation of these sacred relics and of the Holy Land was righteously considered a scandal and a shame to the Christian world.
The Bridge of Sighs, a little way upon which one may venture, is more interesting in romantic fancy than in fact, and its chief merit is to span very gracefully the gulf between the Palace and the Prison. With the terrible cells of the Doges' Palace, to which we are about to descend, it has no connexion. When Byron says, in the famous line beginning the fourth canto of "Childe Harold,"
I believe we should not have been here, but we have no other place so suitable for her sufferings as this jail." "Gelsomina, thou art happier than I, even in thy prison. I am fatherless motherless I could almost say, friendless." "And this from a lady of the Tiepolo!" "All is not as it seems in this evil world, kind Gelsomina. We have had many Doges, but we have had much suffering.
As we float away through the watery streets, old Shylock shuffles across the bridge, black barges glide by us in the silent canals, groups of unfamiliar faces lean from the balconies, and we hear the plashing waters lap the crumbling walls of Venice, with its dead Doges and decaying palaces. Again we stir the fire, and feel it is home all about us.
Nevil read on, distrustful of the perspicuity of his own ideas. 'Ah, but, said she, 'when these Venetians were rough men, chanting like our Huguenots, how cold it must have been here! She hoped she was not very wrong in preferring the times of the great Venetian painters and martial doges to that period of faith and stone-cutting.
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