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And for acceptance 'must we accept it for the Caterina? thou dost ask it is an empty word! The will of Venice is set to do this thing." "Yet our cousin Marco the child's own father goeth not heavily; he hath no fear." "He is mad with the glory of it after Venice's own temper."
But as time slipped by in apparent tranquillity and growing prosperity, with constant evidences of judicious thought bestowed by the Queen upon the well-being of her subjects with the coming and going of artists and men of letters to her court, and the resuming of all those ancient Cyprian customs that might minister to the content of the nobles whom it was ever most needful to satisfy with a sufficient show of gaiety there had nevertheless been an imperceptibly increasing tightening of the threads of government which stretched far across the waters to Venice's own blue Adriatic, into the very Council-Chambers of the Palazzo San Marco.
Her people, moreover, that basso popolo which nowhere in the world is more free from crime, more patient in suffering, more intelligent and public-spirited than in Venice, was anxious and ready to resist; when the nobles offered themselves a sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the proposed democratic institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor scared into hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and attempted a righteous reaction, which was only smothered when the treacherous introduction of French troops by night on board Venetian vessels settled the doom of Venice's independence.
Yet how had the Republic kept faith with Cyprus? Step by step, through the years, drawing the velvet clasp closer closer until there was scarce life left smiling the while: gathering in the revenues of the rich land amply, with no care to spend them on the welfare of the island, or for its increase: slowly, strenuously, with deft insinuations of filial duty, striving to dominate the young Queen's moral judgments and press the claims which were of Venice's own creation jealously watching lest she become too popular, and hampering her action through the very officers sent in guise of help lest through freedom she should in truth grow strong to rule: Year by year stealthily smiling under a cloak of splendor which the Cyprians loved, Venice had grasped at power a little more, and a little more until resistance was impossible.
Titian's was painted in 1540; this afterwards, and the painter cheerfully accepted the standard set by the earlier work. Were I in the position of that imaginary millionaire whom I have seen in the mind's eye busy in the loving task of tenderly restoring Venice's most neglected masterpieces, it is this "Presentation" with which I should begin.
The pretty little Palazzo Valmarana comes next, and then the gigantic, sombre Grimani with its stone as dark as a Bath or Bloomsbury mansion, which now is Venice's Court of Appeal. The architect was the famous Michele Sammicheli who also designed the Lido's forts.
This first bit of the wonderful coloring which glowed and flashed when the light shot through it, as if some living fire were caught in its heart; or that curious, tortured shape, with its dragon-eyes of jewels, and its tongue forever thrusting at you some secret which it almost utters, yet withholds; this fragment of tenderest opalescence which is of no color, yet blending all, as if a shower of petals were blown across a rainbow in spring; that one frosted in silver and gold pink, with the yellow sunshine in its core; here the aquamarine, lucent as Venice's own sea!
Dmitry and two Italian footmen waited, and everything was done with the greatest state. A regal magnificence was in the lady's air and mien. She spoke of the splendours of Venice's past, and let Paul feel the atmosphere of that subtle time of passion and life. Of here a love-scene, and there a murder.
In normal times a quarter of Venice's 150,000 inhabitants are paupers, and this percentage must have enormously increased, for, notwithstanding the relief measures which the Government has taken, unemployment is general, the prices of food are constantly increasing, and coal has become almost impossible to obtain.
Nor was he unique among Venice's builders in this matter; they mostly either forgot it or allowed their jealousy of a sister art to influence them. "Light, more light," is as much the cry of the groping enthusiast for painting in this fair city, as it was of the dying Goethe. The story of Tintoretto's connexion with the Scuola illustrates his decision and swiftness.
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