Venice by Marie-José Gransard

Author:Marie-José Gransard [Gransard, Marie-José]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 20th Century, Social History, Travel, Europe, Italy, Special Interest, Literary
ISBN: 9781788318839
Google: s7UyEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2019-10-29T01:12:25+00:00

17 Ca’ da Mosto, formerly Al Leone Bianco

Venice seemed exotic to Beckford, with ‘St Mark’s a mosque; and the neighbouring palace, some vast seraglio.’ At night from his balcony he was entertained by an impromptu sons et lumières:

As night approached, innumerable tapers glimmered through the awnings before the windows. Every boat had its lantern, and the gondolas, moving rapidly along, were followed by tracks of light, which gleamed and played on the waters. I was gazing at these dancing fires, when the sounds of music wafted along the canals, and, as they grew louder and louder, an illuminated barge, filled with musicians, issued from the Rialto, and, stopping under one of the palaces, began a serenade, which was clamorous, and suspended all conversation in the galleries and porticos; till rowing slowly away, it was heard no more. The gondoliers, catching the air, imitated its cadences, and were answered by others at a distance, whose voices, echoed by the arch of the bridge, acquired a plaintive and interesting tone.

A keen musician, Beckford was taken by a Venetian friend, M. de Benincasa, to the Mendicanti, ‘one of the four conservatorios, which gave the best musical education conceivable to near one hundred young women’. The concert remained with him, ‘I still seem to hear its sacred melody.’

He also marvelled at the convenient way Venetians were able to retire to their ‘casinos’:

Many of the noble Venetians have a little suite of apartments in some out of the way corner, others near the grand piazza, of which their families are totally ignorant. To these they skulk in the dusk, and revel undisturbed with the companions of their pleasures [. . .] Surely, Venice is the city in the universe best calculated for giving scope to the observations of a Devil upon two sticks. What a variety of lurking-places.

The pleasure he took in the exotic atmosphere of the mysterious city, with all its hidden treasures, was dampened by his visit to the prisons in the Doge’s Palace. He was appalled at the sight of the prisons and the Bridge of Sighs: ‘Horrors and dismal prospects haunted my fancy upon my return. I could not dine in peace, so strongly was my imagination affected; but snatching my pencil, I drew chasms and subterraneous hollows, the domain of fear and torture, with chains, racks, wheels, and dreadful engines in the style of Piranesi.’ These nightmarish sights did not, however, completely spoil his enjoyment of the city: ‘I like this sad town of Venice and find every day some new amusement in rambling about its innumerable canals and alleys.’

Never far from trouble, he became involved with the widow of the Austrian ambassador, Giustina Wynne, or Madame de Rosenberg, who had a dubious reputation in the city. She introduced him to Venetian salons, where the young English aristocrat, although not a stranger to scandal, was himself scandalised at the sight of women ‘negligently dressed, their hair falling freely about them, and innumerable adventures written in their eyes’, and at men ‘lolling upon the sophas, or lounging about the apartment [.

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