The Complete Travel Books of W.D. Howells (Illustrated Edition). William Dean Howells
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number of patricians received invitations to the dinner, and those for whom there was no room were presented with fish and poultry by the Doge. The populace were admitted to look on during the first course, and then, having sated their appetites with this savory observance, were invited to withdraw. The patriotic Giustina Renier-Michiel of course makes much of the courtesy thus extended to the people by the State, but I cannot help thinking it must have been hard to bear. The banquet, however, has passed away with the Republic which gave it, and the only savor of dinner which Venetian poverty now inhales on St. Stephen’s Day, is that which arises from its own proper pot of broth.
New Year’s is the carnival of the beggars in Venice. Their business is carried on briskly throughout the year, but on this day it is pursued with an unusual degree of perseverance, and an enterprise worthy of all disinterested admiration. At every corner, on every bridge, under every door-way, hideous shapes of poverty, mutilation, and deformity stand waiting, and thrust out palms, plates, and pans, and advance good wishes and blessings to all who pass, It is an immemorial custom, and it is one in which all but the quite comfortable classes participate. The facchini in every square take up their collections; the gondoliers have their plates prepared for contribution at every ferry; at every caffè and restaurant begging-boxes appeal to charity. Whoever has lifted hand in your service in any way during the past year expects a reward on New Year’s for the complaisance, and in some cases the shop-keepers send to wish you a bel capo d’anno, with the same practical end in view. On New Year’s Eve and morning bands of facchini and gondoliers go about howling vivas under charitable windows till they open and drop alms. The Piazza is invaded by the legions of beggary, and held in overpowering numbers against all comers; and to traverse it is like a progress through a lazar-house.
Beyond encouraging so gross an abuse as this, I do not know that Venice celebrates New Year’s in a peculiar manner. It is a festa, and there are masses, of course. Presents are exchanged, which consist chiefly of books—printed for the season, and brilliant outside and dull within, like all annuals.
Chapter 19.
Love-making and Marrying; Baptisms and Burials
The Venetians have had a practical and strictly business-like way of arranging marriages from the earliest times. The shrewdest provision has always been made for the dower and for the good of the State; private and public interest being consulted, the small matters of affections have been left to the chances of association; and it does not seem that Venetian society has ever dealt severely with husbands or wives whom incompatibilities forced to seek consolation outside of matrimony. Herodotus relates that the Illyrian Veneti sold their daughters at auction to the highest bidder; and the fair being thus comfortably placed in life, the hard-favored were given to whomsoever would take them, with such dower as might be considered a reasonable compensation. The auction was discontinued in Christian times, but marriage contracts still partook of the form of a public and half-mercantile transaction. At a comparatively late period Venetian fathers went with their daughters to a great annual matrimonial fair at San Pietro di Castello Olivolo, and the youth of the lagoons repaired thither to choose wives from the number of the maidens. These were all dressed in white, with hair loose about the neck, and each bore her dower in a little box, slung over her shoulder by a ribbon. It is to be supposed that there was commonly a previous understanding between each damsel and some youth in the crowd: as soon as all had paired off, the bishop gave them a sermon and his benediction, and the young men gathered up their brides and boxes, and went away wedded. It was on one of these occasions, in the year 944, that the Triestine pirates stole the Brides of Venice with their dowers, and gave occasion to the Festa delle Marie, already described, and to Rogers’s poem, which every body pretends to have read.
This going to San Pietro’s, selecting a wife and marrying her on the spot, out of hand, could only have been the contrivance of a straightforward, practical race. Among the common people betrothals were managed with even greater ease and dispatch, till a very late day in history; and in the record of a certain trial which took place in 1443 there is an account of one of these brief and unceremonious courtships. Donna Catarussa, who gives evidence, and whom I take to have been a worthless, idle gossip, was one day sitting at her door, when Piero di Trento passed, selling brooms, and said to her, “Madonna, find me some nice girl.” To which Donna Catarussa replied, “Ugly fool! do you take me for a go-between?” “No,” said Piero, “not that; I mean a girl to be my wife.” And as Donna Catarussa thought at once of a suitable match, she said, “In faith of God, I know one for you. Come again to-morrow.” So they both met next day, and the woman chosen by Donna Catarussa being asked, “Wouldst thou like to have Piero for thy husband, as God commands and holy Church?” she answered, “Yes.” And Peter being asked the like question, answered, “Why, yes, certainly.” And they went off and had the wedding feast. A number of these betrothals takes place in the last scene of Goldoni’s “Baruffe Chiozzotte,” where the belligerent women and their lovers take hands in the public streets, and saluting each other as man and wife, are affianced, and get married as quickly as possible:—
“Checa (to Tofolo). Take my hand.
“Tofolo. Wife!
“Checa. Husband!
“Tofolo. Hurra!”
The betrothals of the Venetian nobles were celebrated with as much pomp and ceremony as could possibly distinguish them from those of the people, and there was much more polite indifference to the inclinations of the parties immediately concerned. The contract was often concluded before the betrothed had seen each other, by means of a third person, when the amount of the dower was fixed. The bridegroom elect having verbally agreed with the parents of the bride, repaired at an early day to the court-yard of the Ducal Palace, where the match was published, and where he shook hands with his kinsmen and friends. On the day fixed for signing the contract the bride’s father invited to his house the bridegroom and all his friends, and hither came the high officers of state to compliment the future husband. He, with the father of his betrothed, met the guests at the door of the palace, and conducted them to the grand saloon, which no woman was allowed (si figuri!) at this time to enter. When the company was seated, the bride, clad in white, was led from her rooms and presented. She wore a crown of pearls and brilliants on her head, and her hair, mixed with long threads of gold, fell loose about her shoulders, as you may see it in Carpaccio’s pictures of the Espousals of St. Ursula. Her ear-rings were pendants of three pearls set in gold; her neck and throat were bare but for a collar of lace and gems, from which slid a fine jeweled chain into her bosom. Over her breast she wore a stomacher of cloth of gold, to which were attached her sleeves, open from the elbow to the hand. The formal words of espousal being pronounced, the bride paced slowly round the hall to the music of fifes and trumpets, and made a gentle inclination to each of the guests; and then returned to her chamber, from which she issued again on the arrival of any tardy friend, and repeated the ceremony. After all this, she descended to the courtyard, where she was received by gentlewomen, her friends, and placed on a raised seat (which was covered with rich stuffs) in an open gondola, and thus, followed by a fleet of attendant gondolas, went to visit all the convents in which there were kinspeople of herself or her betrothed. The excessive publicity of these ceremonies was supposed to strengthen the validity of the marriage contract. At an early day after the espousals the betrothed, preceded by musicians and followed by relatives and friends, went at dawn to be married in the church,—the bridegroom wearing a toga, and the bride a dress of white silk or crimson velvet, with jewels in her hair, and pearls embroidered on her robes. Visits of congratulation followed, and on the same day a public feast was given in honor of the wedding, to which at least three hundred persons were always invited, and at which the number, quality, and cost of the dishes were carefully regulated by the Republic’s laws. On this occasion, one or more persons were chosen as governors of the feast, and after the tables were removed, a mock-heroic character appeared, and recounted with absurd exaggeration the deeds of the ancestors of the bride and groom. The next morning ristorativi of sweetmeats and confectionery were presented to the happy couple, by whom the presents were returned in kind.
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