Italy, the Magic Land

l a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of water up between all that gorgeous color and carving, the enchanting silence,

ng, in the

rience that can never fade from memory. Like a mirage, like a vision invoked by some incantation or magician's sp

from Drea

the ghost s

or that cam

ved somewher

diviner

that stay no

test of one's actual sojourn in the Dream City. It is an experience outside the boundaries of th

ding and wide

the streets f

of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, and here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric cars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphalt pavement-no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift-a sky

sed piles of those cloud-mountains will never be built again just so for us; the grain of orange and crimson that stains the water before our prow, we cannot be sure that we shall look upon its like again. . . . One day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else. The revolution of the seasons will repeat certain effects; spring will chill the waters to a cold, hard green; summer will spread its breadth of golden light on palace front and water way; autumn will come with its pearly-gray sirocco days, and sunsets flaming a sombre death; the stars of a cloudless winter n

r. Phillips Brooks, later Bishop of Massachu

nding here for so many centuries, and always profoundly loved and honored, it would almost of necessity have influenced the minds of t

his greatest pictures, as, for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artist approaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression of intellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women is full of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre, glows with a

ctures Dr.

. Carpaccio's delightful story of St. Ursula brought the old false standards of other days back to one's mind, but brought them back lustrous with the splendor of summers that seemed forever passed, but

he Virgin," from Tintoretto, in the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto. "He was fascinated by St. Mark's," writes the poet's son, "by the Doge's Palace and the Piazza,

s no such example of encrusted architecture as that revealed in St. Mark's. It is a gleaming mass of gold, opal, ruby, and pearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranate and lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars of gold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds of mystic incense fill the air. On

le of Aguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter; but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy Bishop Hennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was drive

to fasting and prayer, and assembled in the church, asking that the place be revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the assemblage took place. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, a

said to have been wrought is now

r is the key to European art." Nowhere is this sanctity of color so fe

both to save the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past, and in dread of future distress, to establish state

of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and patrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335, and the last Do

c frieze, the Ionic columns, the stately balustrade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richness of ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in the best classical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is

fered the inheritance of his library. This was the nucleus of the fine collection which since 1812 has been included in the Palace

o Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark's. One recalls his tragic fate and passes on. Perhaps, en passant, one may say that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly in the scenes of tragedy that he

80, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed by Scarpagnino. "Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of these sculptures," says Salvatico, "as well as

mber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world, "The Glory of Venice," by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In a frieze are the portra

ed with battle pieces and symbolic and allegorical paintings. There is "Venice Crowned by Fame," by Paolo Veronese, "Doge Niccolò da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envo

im, which, when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed the crimson flood into the dark waters of the canal below, while the body was thrown in the water on the other side. There are the "Chambers of Lead," where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, and as intensely cold in the winter. Many of these

confined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it w

gloomy dungeons reca

nice on the Br

a prison on

e doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The fa?ade of St. Mark's fills one end-a mass of gleaming color. At one corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissance style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa days three figures, the Three Wise Men, pr

lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his "Coronation of the Virgin," "The Virgin in the Gloria," "Adoration of

, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven is shown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninus are commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned on high. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellous composition render this immortal mast

rning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snow

de of St. Mark's; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to the condition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found

rowning, who had purchased it in 1888, and had held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal associations, since the death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning is due the grateful appreciation of a multitude of tourists for

ew; the still, gray lagune, the few sea-gulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow and the clouds in a long purple rock behind which a sort of spirit of ro

n's palace, Mr.

tored in honor of his mother-putting up there the inscri

t may well be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes

help me, and th

night i

ce' streets to

me.

ery day that his last volume, "Asolando," was published and also the last volume of Tennyson's. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in a lett

na. At this time they only remained for a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which was transformed into the Albergo dell'Universo. This palace was on the Grand Canal below the Accadémia, and here he returned through two or three s

were rendered possible to translate into the world of the actual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor. Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rare and beautiful friendships that lasted during his lifetime, and to her appreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of his later years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning and his sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati-a palace adjoining her own-and each night they dined and pa

so many years a focus for all who revered and loved t

ade and the wide landing where a rose window decorates the wall, leads to the lofty salons which were yet as homelike as they were artistic during the residence of the Brownings. Mr. Story's bust of Mrs. Browning, other portrait busts of both the poets, sculptured by their artist son, and by others, and other memorials abound. In the library were gathered many interesting volumes, autographed from their authors, and many rare and choice editions,

is brother and Lord Madox Brown to meet Tennyson and listen to his reading of his new poem, "Maud," then still unpublished. During the reading Rossetti drew

ful hollow behind

mon ami, Browning." From the library is a niche, decorated in gold, with memorial entablature

ied in this house

eart and y

nside it

g of 1905, Miss Sarianna Browning died in the home of her nephew, near Florence, and her body was buried in the new Protestant cemetery in that city; the old one, where all that was mortal of Elizabeth Barrett Browning was laid to rest, being now

great Venetian composer of his time, and by a procession to lay a wreath of laurel on his monument in the Campo San Bartolommeo. The drama given, entitled the "Buranello," was the last work of the author, and it was presented in the theatre Goldoni. The M

he press of the Venetian Institute of Gr

ing in the days of the Venetian republic, but now demolished), frontispieces of destroyed editions, and other personal memorials. The revival of the splendid work of the famous artist was one of the attractions of the festa of celebration. The art exhibition of Ven

at come and go? Has it trade, commerce, traffic? Has it any existence save on the artist's canvas, in the po

s the crowning glory of June evenings when the full, golden moon hangs over towers and walls, when gondolas freighted with Venetian singers loom up out of the shadows and fill the air with melody that echoes as in dreams, and that vanishes-one knows not when or where. Mr. Howells, in his delightful "Venetian Days," has interpreted much

e loggia Br

lank of the f

hills that his

ke a catarac

hat his pen ga

West what a

ackground

ss Loves. O t

hy poet fo

he shore and th

his Venice-th

of the per

others: the

flashing wi

foam of the

presenting martyrs being devoured by flames and evidently enjoying themselves a great deal during this mortuary process, challenge the disrespectful smile. But others are vested with a rude yet sacred poetry, and certain semi-Oriental marble sculptures, adjacent to the altar, would make an infidel feel like crossing himself for the crime of having yielded to a humorous twinge. This duomo dates far back beyond the Middle Ages, and so does the small Church of Santa Fosca, only a step away. What renders Torcello so individual among all the islands and i

l realm. The wonderful music that floats over the "silver trail" of still waters; the mystic silences; the resplendence of color,-all, indeed, weave themselves into an incantation of the god

The sound of

th balm of Me

ment, height and

mine. Supreme i

the cold

Decem

lear spirit burns wi

rted land, who

ion with the

m from prosy

beckoning to

dost hold

sper in

se that lies beyon

nderwood

anic idea. Enlarge the horizon of the peoples. Liberate their conscience from the mat

zz

globe, or any globe, falls into niches and comes before the procession of Souls along the grand roads of the universe. . . . Of the

Whi