CHAPTER VIII.

The Sun of Venice set!—Many short-lived Doges and Dogaressas—Games at Cards—A stout unwieldy Dogaressa!—Another Hero-Doge—The Morea conquered—“Woman maketh Man!”—A wrinkled face—Loss of Candia—Universal idleness and indulgence—Venice dying as a whirling ballet-dancer!—A virtuous Dogaressa—Her cell a treasure-house—A Princess-costumier—A dress of solid gold!—A costly wedding—The Tragedy of Madonna Francesca Grimani-Mocenigo—A Lady-bountiful—A Cultured Dogaressa—Polissena—A Rope-dancer Dogal spouse, Margherita Delmaz—“Stop that bell!”—Agnello Emo the last Captain of Venice—The Last Scene—Feeble Doge Lodovico Manin—A despairing Dogaressa—The roar of cannon!—Abdication of the Doge—The Regalia burnt—Buonaparte hands Venice over to Austria—“La Republica xe Morta” 292–314

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

An Ideal Portrait—Dogaressa Teodora Selvo, Frontispiece

La Maga Irene holding a Reception, To face page 4

Il Sposalizio—The Betrothal Ring, „ 24

La Cazza del Toro—Bull-running, „ 36

A Typical Family Group, „ 46

The Dogaressa and her Maids of Honour, „ 62

Going to a Masked Ball, „ 76

A Mystic Dance, „ 92

Doge Reniero and Dogaressa Aloicia Zeno, „ 102

A Court Ball Parade, „ 118

Doge Francesco and Dogaressa Elisabetta Dandolo, „ 138

Two Courtesans and Pets, „ 152

Festa Campestre—Picnic on the Brenta, „ 162

La Ninfa—A Love Affair, „ 176

Marriage Reception in a Palace, „ 192

Fashionable Hair-dressing, „ 208

Dance in a Villa Garden, „ 216

Le Novizze—Brides in Gondolas, „ 226

A Bride’s Debut, „ 238

Dogaressas Zilia Dandolo-Priuli; Loredana Marcello-Mocenigo; and Cecilia Contarini-Venier, „ 254

Dogaressa Loredana Marcello-Mocenigo, „ 268

Dogaressa Morosina Morosini-Grimani, „ 282

A Game at Cards—“La Trappola,” „ 294

The Fortune-Teller, „ 304

INTRODUCTION

VENICE—“THE CITY OF VENUS!”

The “Queen of the Adriatic” came into being quite as mysteriously and almost as miraculously as did the “Queen of Beauty.”

Where the iridescent bubbles of the light zephyr-borne foam of the ever-flowing sea-wash disperse, with intangible impact, upon the golden strand of shallow shoals, all strewn with opal-hued sea-shells—making plaintive cadences in the keen sea-breeze—there, there, was Venus born—so too was Venice!

The fair form of the fascinating goddess lay prone—partly in and partly out, of the generating water until the breath of life, skimming over the crested ripples, exhilarated her blushing limbs. Most delicate sprays of aromatic seaweed intermingled with the abundant tresses of her rich auburn hair, flawless pearls of the ocean threaded themselves around her shapely arms and bosom, her cincture was a cunning veil of coloured sea-mist, and her feet were covered with glittering scales of gold and silver fish.

Upon the aqueous shore the Four Seasons wait with their twelve attendant lunar nymphs to cast about their “Venus calva” the emerald and topaz girdle of virginity, and the ruby and sapphire mantle of royalty. A merrily dancing chorus of seven times fifty-and-two dainty fairies of the day, hand-in-hand, are ready to escort their Queen through the amber grotto to her royal throne beneath the myrtle-grove.

All this is metaphorical of the “City of Venus”—Venice—for, to quote Shelley’s tender ode:—

“Underneath day’s azure eyes, Ocean’s darling, Venice, lies.”

Sea and silt united were the parents of the “daintie Citie.” Ebbing, ever ebbing, the brackish head-waters of the gulf heaped up grain on grain of terra-firma—the detritus of many a fruitful river and the shifting rolling sea-sand. Thus was Venice formed, “born,” as Goethe says, “out of the water.” “Venice calva” laid along the lagunes, her graceful form reposed upon the velme or barene of Rivo-Alto, Olivolo, and Poveglia—sand and seaweed submerged; her shapely feet rested upon the firmer ground of Malamocco and Chioggia; and her comely hands grasped the tumbe or sedge-growth,—seldom covered by the tide,—of Torcello, Burano, and Mazzorbo.

Rivo-Alto, or Rialto, was the first of sixty sisters of the languishing lagunes. Over them silence and solitude reigned supreme, but the sun shone with generous warmth and the breeze blew with healthful vigour, and, almost imperceptibly variegated moss clothed the naked rive and lidi. Green math and rush covered the golden dunes, flowers of the sea,—pinks and anemones,—and blossoms of the land,—lavender and poppies, imparted colour and fragrance to the wastes of mud.

For hundreds of years, and hundreds more, those oozy quicksand swamps were nesting-grounds for wild birds of the sea—the feeding-place of feathered visitants migrating to other climes. The depths were choked with fish, and the shallows reeked with creeping things, but no hold was there for foot of man or spoor of beast.

Then, in historic times, into those sandy shifting channels came strange forms, scaring both fish and fowl away—the coracles of daring aborigines, from the contiguous shores in quest of food and what-not. Uncouth men cast their nets and spread their snares amidst struggles for proprietorship—the lagunes had changed their character.

Another era dawned, that of fire and storm, and fugitives from the devastating wrath of Alaric and the Goths fled, crouching, scared, and breathless, for sanctuary to the lagune fastnesses. With them appeared corsairs of the coast, preying upon the hunted men and women and seeking hiding-places for their pelf. Thus a ribald population grew up amid the trackless ways of no-man’s land.

For bare existence had they to fight—no weakling child, no thriftless woman, no loafing man could long endure that fierce survival of the fittest. Stripped to their loin-cloths men worked to give stability to their foothold in the swamp. Balks of timber from submerged forests were clamped together and great piles of wood driven deep, deep down into the ooze and silt. Women girding up their skirts waded knee-deep in the sea-wash, weaving osier basket-work to retain what grains of gravel rested beneath their feet. Children fetched and carried.

Flotsam and jetsam all came ready to hands which clawed and thewed for mutual advantage. Shelters of dry mud or baked sunslime with boarded roofs, windowless and without doors, were the homes of these strenuous people. Then, by degrees, every safest stretch of sand had its dotting of cottages and its hamlets. Besides the daily struggle to keep the greedy water out and the slender soil retain, there was much to do for one and all. Fishing, bird-snaring, carrying and piloting of goods and craft were obvious occupations; and then came the rendering of salt and bitumen, and the gradual cultivation of the bleak wind-swept islets.

Some sort of constitution was in force from the earliest date: the best man of each collection of dwellings was looked upon as head and guide, and he gathered the wisdom that he lacked from men next him in years and influence. The people of the lagunes were not savages—they were the descendants of men and women highly civilised. Invention and creation were instinct in them all, and they were Christians too. Their legislation and religion were based upon the examples of their forebears in the mainland. All looked to Rivo-Alto,—the port of Padua, it was called,—as the centre of their geographical economy, and there, too, in 421, Padua sent consuls to regulate the lives and property of the water-settlers and to safeguard the common weal from inroads of barbarians.

VENICE—“THE CITY OF SAINTS!”

is quite as appropriate a title as any other bestowed upon the “Queen of the Adriatic.” The translation of the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria, in 829, excited in every class of the population a fervid emotion and an insatiable ambition for the possession of relics of the Saints, not alone as objects of devotion but as mascots for protection.

Bodies—more or less entire—were exhumed, purchased, or stolen, from scenes of fierce martyrdom, or from quiet resting places, and reverently conveyed in Venetian galleys to the Lido for distribution among the churches of the Lagunes. Each translation was an exhibition of manly abasement and womanly devotion: Doge and Dogaressa, no less than the poorest of the poor, took part in the ecstatic ceremonies.

Each saintly personage had ascriptions of peculiar benevolence, and became the centre of special devotions; indeed many of the holy shrines were regarded as objects of perpetual pilgrimages. Venetian manners, Venetian poetry and literature, and Venetian vernacular, were all marked by the hagiography of the saintly city.

In a very curious volume published in Venice by Giacomo Zoppi, in 1519, entitled “Viaggia da Vinegia al Santo Sepolcro et al Monte Sinai,” and illustrated by quaint wood-cuts of cities, peoples, and animals, encountered by the way, is a list of the bodies of Saints enshrined in Venetian Churches, in the following order:—

San Marco “Messer San Marco”—St. Mark the Evangelist, from Alexandria, under the high altar; (2) The glorious Martyr Sant’ Isidoro, from the Island of Chios, in the Chapel of the Crucifixion—(1125).

San Pietro di Castello:—SS. Sergio and Bacco, in a marble tomb in the crypt of the Confession.

San Danicle:—San Giovanni, martyr from Alexandria.

San Giovanbattista in Bragora:—San Giovanni the Almsgiver, Patron of Alexandria.

Sant’ Antonino:—“Messer San Sabba,” Abbot of Acre—(992).

SS. Trinita:—Venerable monk and martyr, Sant’ Anastatio.

San Zaccaria:—(1) “Messer San Zaccaria,” father of St. John Baptist; (2) San Gregorio Nazanzino, Patriarch of Constantinople; (3) San Teodoro, confessor, from the Island of Samos; (4) San Pancrazio, martyr, in a marble sarcophagus; (5) Santa Sabina, martyr of Acre, in a marble sarcophagus; (6) San Tharaso, martyr, of Roumania, in the crypt; (7) San Ligerio, martyr.

San Lorenzo:—SS. Giorgio, Barbaro, and Paul—Bishop, martyrs all from Constantinople.

San Sebastiano:—Venerable Sebastiano, rector of San Giovanni (head wanting!)

Santa Marina:—Venerable nun and patient martyr Marina, in the choir, from Greece.

San Salvadore:—San Teodoro, martyr, from Constantinople,—martyr et cavalier di Dio.

San Paterniano:—SS. Gondino and Epimaeo.

San Giuliano Martiro:—(1) San Floriano, martyr, from Greece; (2) San Paolo, hermit (head wanting!)

San Canciano:—San Maximo, bishop and martyr.

San Maria delli Crocichieri (Formosa):—

Venerable virgin and martyr Santa Barbara,—in a “bella cappella.”

San Geremia:—Venerable Magno—Bishop of Altino, builder of the first church in Venice.

Santa Lucia:—Venerable Santa Lucia, virgin and martyr, in a chapel. Translated from Saragossa to Constantinople, and thence to Venice.

SS. Gervasio e Prothasio—called “Sa Trovasi”—Santo Grisogono, martyr from Zara.

San Niccolo dai Mendigoli:—San Niceto, martyr.

San Raffaelo:—Santa Niceta, virgin and martyr from Nicomedia.

San Basileo:—San Costantio, confessor, from Ancona, in a coffer before the high altar.

Sant’ Apollinare—called “San Aponal”:—San Gioria, prophet.

San Simeone Propheto:—(1) San Simeone, from Constantinople—in a marble sarcophagus before the high altar; (2) San Hermoleo, priest and martyr, from Nicomedia—in a marble sarcophagus in the middle of the nave.

Sant’ Elena:—“The glorious Queen Sant’ Elena”—(1205).

San Niccolo di Lio (Lido):—(1) San Niccolo Magno, Archbishop of Mirraea (1100); (2) San Niccolo, Bishop and Abbot of Mount Sinai; (3) San Theodoro, Archbishop of Morea.

San Giorgio Maggiore:—(1) San Stefano, first martyr, in a special chapel (1105); (2) San Paolo, Duke and martyr of Constantinople; (3–4) SS. Cosimo and Damiano, martyrs; (5) San Cosima, confessor and virgin, from Constantinople.

San Clemente Papa:—Sant’ Aniano, Patriarch of Alexandria, disciple of Saint Mark.

San Servilio:—San Leo, Bishop of Modon—(819).

San Secondo:—San Secondo, martyr, from Aste.

Santa Maria di Murano:—(1) San Donato, bishop and martyr, in the crypt—(1125); (2) San Gerardo, Bishop of Moravia and martyr—a Venetian by birth.

Sant’ Albano di Burano:—(1) Sant’ Albano, Bishop; (2) Sant’ Orso, martyr; and (3) San Domenigo, hermit and confessor, both from Armenia.

Santa Maria di Torcello:—Sant’ Eliodoro, Bishop of Altino and martyr.

Basilica di Torcello:—San Fosca, virgin and martyr from Aquileia.

Sant’ Antonio di Torcello:—Santa Cristina, virgin and martyr, from Armenia.

Basilica di Grado:—(1) San Hermacoro, Patriarch of Aquileia; (2) San Fortunato, archdeacon—both in the crypt.

Santa Croce della Zecca:—“The body of the most holy Doctor Saint Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria.”

Basilica di Chiosa (Chioggia):—SS. Felice and Fortunato (?) from Aquileia.

San Rocco di Chiosa:—San Rocco.

In addition to these Bodies were very many other relics of Saints, for example; arms of St. Andrew the Apostle, St. Barnabas the Apostle, St. George of Cappadoccia, heads of St. Sixtus the martyr, S. Simeon the Apostle, etc., etc. Every Church has its reliquary for veneration, and in it a fragment of the True Cross.

Venice, moreover was a nursery of Saints: she numbered among her honoured dead scions of nearly every noble family who, for one good reason or another, had attained to the pre-eminence of Sanctity. Such were San Pietro Orseolo, San Lorenzo Guistiniani and San Vincentio Ferrar—to name but three. A religious atmosphere pervaded the islands of the Lagunes and kept alight many a kindled shrine on mud-bank pile and at casa corner. Inside the homes of the Venetians also, according to orthodox custom, were Ikons and Anconas with candles burning in honour of favourite saints.

Nevertheless, and in spite of such a wealth of saintly environment, the Venetians were undoubtedly backward in sending their sons to fight the battles of the Cross in Palestine. On the other hand they were ready with no niggard contributions in aid of Crusaders from other lands. Venetian gold, Venetian ships, and Venetian seamen, carried the armies of the Cross to foreign ports; and Venetian alms endowed hospitals and funds for the benefit of the wounded and the sad, upon the islands of the Lagunes.

In the “Viaggia da Vinegia” is a very simple but doubtless efficacious recipe for the treatment of weary Crusaders:—“For pilgrims suffering from the heat and tender feet, anoint with wine-lees mixed with olive oil overnight; then, in the morning wash in a bath of sweet herbs and sweet water.”

Perhaps the reason for the apparent luke-warmness in the defence of the Holy Sepulchre may be seen in the isolation of the lagune dwellers. They were not in such close touch with other communities as are nations with artificial boundaries. Their charity began at home, and their customs were unlike those of their neighbours. All islanders are so differentiated from inhabitants of continents: citizens of the British Isles are remarkable to-day for insular idiosyncrasies.

Venice is still one of the most religious cities in all Italy. Prayer never ceases, the Blessed Sacrament is perpetually exposed, the churches are open night and day, and the devotions have little that is merely perfunctory.

Saint Giustina was one of the saintly patrons of Venice. She was a Paduan maiden of Royal birth—a daughter of King Vitalicinio. Haled before the Roman Emperor she professed herself a Christian: in vain did he strive to shake her resolution. Sentenced to be beheaded the sword of her executioner turned upon himself, and this occurred three times in succession. Eventually, in 303, she was cast into the sea and drowned.

Mariners sailing along the Venetian Coast still, it is said, hear at the hour of Vespers, the sighs of the holy martyr, and the devouter sort cross themselves reverently and crave her guidance and patronage. In Venetian art Saint Giustina accompanies Saint Mark, Saint George, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria as assistants at the throne of the Virgin Queen of Heaven. The unicorn generally accompanies her—the mystic emblem of chastity.

The first church dedicated to her honour was built at Padua in 453 by Orpillo, a pious citizen, in times of unrest and disaster. In Venice Saint Giustina’s church was erected by Dogaressa Elena, spouse of Doge Agnello Badoero: it was situated in the Calle del Te Deum but suppressed and dismantled in the seventh century.

A very pretty legend is linked to the memory of Saint Giustina. It is recorded that when the people of Altino and the other towns threatened by the Longobards flew disconsolately to the islands of the lagunes, a white cloud appeared to two holy priests Germaniano and Mauro and out of it proceeded the sweetest of all voices—that of Saint Mary the Consoler. With her conversed Saint Peter the Apostle, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Antonio of Padua, and other holy martyrs. Saint Giustina joined the sacred conclave and was deputed to indicate to the faithful clerics the spots whereupon it was the will of Heaven that churches should be built. Torcello, Burano and Mazzorbo owe their sacred edifices to the girl Saint’s instruction. She also told Bishop Magnus of Altino that wherever he found a vine there to erect a church. At Padua one may see the prison of the Saint—a dungeon seven feet by three. The martyrdom of Saint Giustina has tenderly inspired the pen of the poet and the brush of the painter, and they have together handed down a delightful tradition for Saint Giustina was regarded as the “Patroness of the Dogaressa.”

VENICE—“THE CITY OF ‘FAIR’ WOMEN!”

The two things most famous and most remarkable in Venice, throughout the whole of her fascinating story, are first of all the beauty of her women, and secondly the splendour of her palaces. No city in the wide wide world, ever did, or ever can, compare with Venice in the number and magnificence of her palaces. They are as unique and as majestic, individually and collectively, as is the Queenly City herself. Concerning them, that trenchant epigram of Francesco Sansovino, the historian, “Veni Etiam” is a truism—Come again and again, and you shall always find some fresh beauty, some unimagined delight.

Venice had a greater distinction far, than the elegance of her private and public buildings,—she was always full of beautiful women. “I never beheld,” exclaimed the Cardinal of Lorraine to Doge Pasquale Malipiero, “such a number of lovely women as I see everywhere in your bewitching city!”

Nicolo Ciccio d’Arezzo, a poetaster of the fifteenth century, invited all true poets to sing with him the praise and glory of “Tanta Donna,” as he suggestively calls the woman-effigy of Venice. He unites with Jacopo d’Albiggotto, and Guido da Firenze, in the enthusiastic refrain:—

“Di tutta Italia, Lombardia, e Toscana. Secondo che si vede per effeto Vinegia e la piu nobile e sovrana.”

Gianni Alfani, a poet of the thirteenth century, in his “Gentildonne di Vinegia,” writes thus:—“I wish to sing with you about my Mistress, because she is adorned with every virtue and every charm.”

The women of Venice were always distinguished for their natural quickness and intelligence, their sprightliness and vivacity of manner, their talkativeness and coaxing ways, and their fondness of music, song and dance. Perhaps their most characteristic talent however was their devotion to the toilet—their love of beauty and of clothes!

In person they were usually somewhat short of stature, but endowed with grace of carriage. Their figures, especially their bosoms, were full even to the degree of stoutness. This was in a great measure due to the softness of the Venetian climate, which induced a natural and becoming indolence. Nevertheless they were vigorous in action and quite able to give a good account of themselves in marital and other squabbles!

Their features were clearly cut and yet not too severe, their heads well shaped and borne, their eyes blue like their skies or grey like their seas, and their hands and feet were small. Their most attractive attributes were the fair satin peach-like delicacy of their skin, and the brilliant lustre and golden sheen of their abundant light auburn hair. Speaking of the consummate art and artifice of Venetian women Pietro Aretino exclaimed:—

“Sotto il nero trasparente velo Veggonsi in carne gli angeoli del cielo!”

That most fallacious saying,—“Beauty is but skin deep,”—never applied to Venetian women. Their fair beauty, like all real beauty, not only covered the whole person externally but it was instinct in their blood, their muscle, and their nerve,—moreover it was hereditary. The early parents of the race, or rather intermingled races, were Trojans and Greeks: then Teutonic-Lombard fathers mated with mothers of Veneto and the Lagunes, and the stock became stable in its properties of strength, grace, and beauty. Pliny, of old time, truly cast their horoscopes when he wrote of the first mothers of Venice thus:—“They are chaste, simple, and modest, they never give themselves away even when their men folk are idle and lascivious, their character and demeanour are marked by Grecian calmness.” Surely he had in view the line of the Dogaressas!

The treatment of the skin was a speciality of the Venetian women. The use of the bath was one of their inheritances, they bathed the whole body frequently, sometimes in the sea at the Lido, but every house had its bath—in humble homes of wood or common metal, in patrician palaces of porcelain, glass, or silver. With the water they mixed simple or exotic perfumes. One of their secrets was to remain, with the whole body immersed and motionless, for at least half an hour; and another was, they never rubbed the skin but just dabbed it and let it dry naturally. Then the nostrums of the masseusses’ art were exploited. A not uncommon custom was to lay a slice of raw veal, dipped in new milk, upon the face at night! For richer women other artifices followed suit—puffs and powders to gently temper the epidermis or hide unsightly blotches, and pigments,—rouge and others,—with which art might most effectively colour crude or enervated nature.

Every woman and girl in Venice, at all times, painted,—even the poorest of them. The cult is still practised at Chioggia, where you never see a woman without artificial colour. There, by the way, may be seen still the true Venetian type of female beauty, and the old Venetian trait of sitting leisurely, under shade or shelter, while some sympathetic voice reads Ariosto or some other favourite poet.

One very delightful attribute of Venetian women was their fragrance,—their skins and their hair were always perfumed. Wherever a gentildonna passed she left behind her a delicious aroma, if she paused the air around her became saturated with sweetest odours. This seductive charm is still characteristic of the real Venetian: her love of scent is hereditary and delightful. In a very real sort of way the Venetian gentildonna was a living embodiment of Venus—“the fairest and the sweetest of all the Goddesses:” hence Venice has been quite aptly called the “City of Venus,—the City of Fair Women.” A couplet from San Gemignano is quite applicable to this delightful fancy:—

“Donzellette, giovane, e garzoni Servir portare amorose ghirlande.”

There was one especial favourite among all the delicious perfumes which dispersed their sweet aroma all over Venice, and Count Lorenzo Magalotti, in his “Fiore d’Arancio” tells us how it was made. “Take,” he says, “the empty skin of an orange, with a little powdered benzoin, with two pounded cloves, and a small stick of cinnamon, cover them with the finest rose water and set to boil upon a brazier.” In the sixteenth century the far-famed Portuguese buccheri got to Venice,—little charms of sweet-smelling clay—and they very soon became every woman’s treasures. The odour dispersed when a bucchero was dipped in hot water was very refreshing, and resembled the aroma which arises from parched ground on a hot summer’s day after a copious shower of rain. When dipped in essences they gave forth for ever so long the sweetest of perfumes: women wore them in their bosoms, and were accustomed to place them often upon their lips, so that their kisses might be scented too!

Not only were the girls and women of “Venice—the City of Saints” much drawn to the general claims and duties of religion but, in particular, they were exponents of some of its minor behests. The Apostle speaks of the hair of women and says it was given them to be a protection and a glory. The Venetians exactly carried out the apostolic injunction.

From the very first foundation of Rivo-Alto, away in the fifth century, the women of the lagunes were accustomed to resort daily to the altane, or flat-roofs of their dwellings, and there spend much time in combing and dressing their hair in the sunshine. This habit they undoubtedly inherited from their Greek ancestresses. Homer sings about “the beautiful fair hair of the Greeks,” and he has painted the captivating Helen of Troy with abundant locks of gold. The general colour of Grecian women’s hair was brown,—light and dark,—and such naturally was the hue of Venetian women’s tresses. The poets however made a dead set against that tint, and stated their case so broadly, that brown hair was regarded with aversion as appertaining to traitors, murderers, and other evil doers! The painters took up the cue, and we rarely see in the pictures of Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto or Veronese women with brown hair.

Auburn, or, as they called it,—golden, hair,—was the most popular, most beautiful and most expressive. The more it glittered the better was it liked, and what Nature marred Art embellished. A primitive but withal most effective device in the Venetian artifices of the toilet was the superimposition upon the top of the head,—the hair being well combed-out and rippling over the shoulders,—of a crownless, wide-brimmed straw hat called solana,—“sun-frame.” The brim shielded the neck and bosom, while the sunlight, not the heat, got at the roots of the hair and blanched its growth. Every altana had its group of animated “mushrooms”—each woman and girl sitting thus, and ever and anon damping the exposed hair and cuticle with a small sponge, stuck at the end of a spinning-spindle or some such sceptre, and dipped in cunning tinctures. Beneath the brim of the solana big long-toothed combs of yellow tortoiseshell were used to keep the hair supple, or frizzing-irons, or bones to make it curl or wave. This method was admirably effective, and it is still adopted privately by many a beautiful Venetian girl and buxom dame. With respect to the recipes employed in the concoction of the tinctures little can be authoritatively said, for each fair one kept her elixir and its secret to herself. Anyhow, generally speaking, one may say that the finest of fine Lido golden sand, crushed vitreous plaques of Murano, ivory sawdust, pounded sea-shells and,—in exuberant and extravagant humour,—even powdered pearls, and precious gold dust were employed. Vegetable compounds—the juice of grapes, berberis, ivy-berries, lemon-squash and orange-flavour, with aromatic powders of all sorts and kinds were also used. Dyes, strictly so called, were not in favour: their effect was ephemeral.

Venetian women and girls owed a good deal to Dogaressa Teodora Selvo, in the eleventh century, for she introduced toilet batteries, fully furnished with all the requisites for skin, hair, and teeth,—together with delicious Eastern perfumes. Giovanni Marinello of Modena, in the sixteenth century, gathered up all that was known of the artifices of the coiffure in his classical work “Gli Ornamenti delle Donne.”

Venetians were past-mistresses in the mysteries of hair-dressing. The Greek style was always the most in favour, where the hair, not being too dry nor too tightly plaited, was drawn off the face and neck, tied in a ribbon at the back, and then coiled round and round the head, and stuck fast with combs and pins. The hard line of the forehead was tempered by a small row of curls under a semi-diadem, fillet, or crescent—called gabbia—literally “a cage”—and usually made of precious metal and jewelled. This style Titian painted in the well-known portrait of his daughter Lavinia presenting a golden dish of ripe fruit.

Another fashion affected by gay and opulent courtesans was called al Corno, with reference to the conventional head-dress of the Dogaressas. Sometimes only one horn was projected, at others two or even three or more. An invisible bandeau was hidden under the hair, bearing spikes of tortoiseshell or whalebone, up which single strands of hair were twisted and curled until they assumed the appearance of vine spirals and tendrils. This vogue lasted quite a long time—certainly from 1540 to 1630. It was a very difficult feat to arrange these horns becomingly, so as to avoid any idea of the ridiculous, the animal, or the demoniacal: crescenti they were euphemistically called, as suggestive of the crescent moon of Diana,—the Huntress of the Gods! The painters never admired this style of hair-dressing, and very few of them, if any, have depicted the al Corno. Giacomo Franco and other engravers, however, have preserved for us illustrations of this peculiar mode.

A third manner of hair-dressing was popular amongst quite young girls and aged women—the two extremes—the cap of Juliet. The hair was combed out and smoothed down, and then tight-fitting jaunty caps or nets were fitted close over the head behind the ears, leaving the long locks of hair spread out like fans upon the neck behind or in small ringlets. These caps were usually very beautifully made, as often as not of gold or silver thread or net, or wire and gemmed. A favourite style was a delicate net of silk or very small artificial flowers of blue, as contrasting most serenely with the golden glitter of the hair.

Fashionables always carried fans,—not those with which we are familiar,—but little flags set on stems or poles; ventolini—“windguards”—they were called. Strong sea-breezes, not strong sunbeams, were to be warded off, for they disturbed the hair and roughened the skin. Venetian beauties never, as we say, fanned themselves: they had no need to do so, because the sea air always tempered the sun’s heat. These fans were from six to twelve inches square, and were made of cloth of gold, richly embroidered silk, Burano lace, or feathers: they were fringed with beads and shells, through which the wind whistled musically when shaken in the air. The stem,—a foot or more long,—was usually of tortoiseshell, carved cedar-wood or of gold and silver, and jewelled for State occasions. In 1522 the Provvidetori delle Pompe published a decree of the Council regulating extravagant decoration of the ventolini.

Venetians never used parasols or sunshades; they wore their dress sleeves short in order to expose the arm,—with its jewelled bracelets above the elbow,—and their bare or lace-covered breasts, to the soft sea air of the lagunes and the not too ardent rays of the golden sun—nature’s assistants in the labours of the toilet.

“O fairest of the fair was she, Dream of gold and cremisini; Peach-silk her skin, golden her hair, Gentildonna di Venezia.”

THE DOGARESSAS OF VENICE