Read the book: «The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3)», page 32

25. ROMANIST DECORATION OF BASES

I have spoken above (Appendix 12) of the way in which the Roman Catholic priests everywhere suffer their churches to be desecrated. But the worst instances I ever saw of sacrilege and brutality, daily permitted in the face of all men, were the uses to which the noble base of St. Mark’s was put, when I was last in Venice. Portions of nearly all cathedrals may be found abandoned to neglect; but this base of St. Mark’s is in no obscure position. Full fronting the western sun—crossing the whole breadth of St. Mark’s Place—the termination of the most noble square in the world—the centre of the most noble city—its purple marbles were, in the winter of 1849, the customary gambling tables of the idle children of Venice; and the parts which flank the Great Entrance, that very entrance where “Barbarossa flung his mantle off,” were the counters of a common bazaar for children’s toys, carts, dolls, and small pewter spoons and dishes, German caricatures and books of the Opera, mixed with those of the offices of religion; the caricatures being fastened with twine round the porphyry shafts of the church. One Sunday, the 24th of February, 1850, the book-stall being somewhat more richly laid out than usual, I noted down the titles of a few of the books in the order in which they lay, and I give them below. The irony conveyed by the juxtaposition of the three in Italics appears too shrewd to be accidental; but the fact was actually so.

Along the edge of the white plinth were a row of two kinds of books,

Officium Beatæ Virg. M.; and Officium Hebdomadæ sanctæ, juxta Formam Missalis et Breviarii Romani sub Urbano VIII. correcti.

Behind these lay, side by side, the following:

Don Desiderio. Dramma Giocoso per Musica.

Breve Esposizione della Carattere di vera Religione.

On the top of this latter, keeping its leaves open,

La Figlia del Reggimento. Melodramma comica.

Carteggio di Madama la Marchesa di Pompadour, ossia raccolta di Lettere scritte della Medesima.

Istruzioni di morale Condotta per le Figlie.

Francesca di Rimini. Dramma per Musica.

Then, a little farther on, after a mass of plays:—

Orazioni a Gesu Nazareno e a Maria addolorata.

Semiramide; Melodramma tragico da rappresentarsi nel Gran Teatro il Fenice.

Modo di orare per l’Acquisto del S. Giubileo, conceduto a tutto il Mondo Cattolico da S. S. Gregorio XVI.

Le due illustre Rivali, Melodramma in Tre Atti, da rappresentarsi nel nuovo Gran Teatro il Fenice.

Il Cristiano secondo il Cuore di Gesu, per la Pratica delle sue Virtu.

Traduzione dell’ Idioma Italiana.

La chiava Chinese; Commedia del Sig. Abate Pietro Chiari.

La Pelarina; Intermezzo de Tre Parti per Musica.

Il Cavaliero e la Dama; Commedia in Tre Atti in Prosa.

I leave these facts without comment. But this being the last piece of Appendix I have to add to the present volume, I would desire to close its pages with a question to my readers—a statistical question, which, I doubt not, is being accurately determined for us all elsewhere, and which, therefore, it seems to me, our time would not be wasted in determining for ourselves.

There has now been peace between England and the continental powers about thirty-five years, and during that period the English have visited the continent at the rate of many thousands a year, staying there, I suppose, on the average, each two or three months; nor these an inferior kind of English, but the kind which ought to be the best—the noblest born, the best taught, the richest in time and money, having more leisure, knowledge, and power than any other portion of the nation. These, we might suppose, beholding, as they travelled, the condition of the states in which the Papal religion is professed, and being, at the same time, the most enlightened section of a great Protestant nation, would have been animated with some desire to dissipate the Romanist errors, and to communicate to others the better knowledge which they possessed themselves. I doubt not but that He who gave peace upon the earth, and gave it by the hand of England, expected this much of her, and has watched every one of the millions of her travellers as they crossed the sea, and kept count for him of his travelling expenses, and of their distribution, in a manner of which neither the traveller nor his courier were at all informed. I doubt not, I say, but that such accounts have been literally kept for all of us, and that a day will come when they will be made clearly legible to us, and when we shall see added together, on one side of the account book, a great sum, the certain portion, whatever it may be, of this thirty-five years’ spendings of the rich English, accounted for in this manner:—

To wooden spoons, nut-crackers, and jewellery, bought at Geneva, and elsewhere among the Alps, so much; to shell cameos and bits of mosaic bought at Rome, so much; to coral horns and lava brooches bought at Naples, so much; to glass beads at Venice, and gold filigree at Genoa, so much; to pictures, and statues, and ornaments, everywhere, so much; to avant-couriers and extra post-horses, for show and magnificence, so much; to great entertainments and good places for seeing sights, so much; to ball-dresses and general vanities, so much. This, I say, will be the sum on one side of the book; and on the other will be written:

To the struggling Protestant Churches of France, Switzerland, and Piedmont, so much.

Had we not better do this piece of statistics for ourselves, in time?