Read Ebook: Een Reisje door de Republiek Costa-Rica De Aarde en haar Volken 1907 by Saillard M

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Wanneer in de toekomst de Amerikanen, die reeds zooveel groots hebben tot stand gebracht, de doorgraving der landengte van Panama zullen voleindigen, die door Franschen is begonnen, zal geheel Midden-Amerika tot verhoogden bloei geraken; maar zeker zal van de vijf kleine republieken Costa-Rica, dat aan hun spits staat, door zijn verlichte denkbeelden en zijn materieele welvaart, het allermeest genieten van de meerdere voorrechten, hierdoor ten deel gevallen aan deze rijk gezegende streken, die nog aan zoo weinigen goed zijn bekend.

Q. Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other similar figures in this picture?

A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought proper; now it is very large and can contain many figures.

Q. Should not the ornaments which you were accustomed to paint in pictures be suitable and in direct relation to the subject, or are they left to your fancy, quite without discretion or reason?

A. I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them.

Q. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such absurdities?

A. Certainly not.

Q. Then why have you done it?

A. I did it on the supposition that those people were outside the room in which the Supper was taking place.

Q. Do you not know that in Germany and other countries infested by heresy, it is habitual, by means of pictures full of absurdities, to vilify and turn to ridicule the things of the Holy Catholic Church, in order to teach false doctrine to ignorant people who have no common sense?

A. I agree that it is wrong, but I repeat what I have said, that it is my duty to follow the examples given me by my masters.

Q. Well, what did your masters paint? Things of this kind, perhaps?

A. In Rome, in the Pope's Chapel, Michel Angelo has represented Our Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and the celestial court; and he has represented all these personages nude, including the Virgin Mary, and in various attitudes not inspired by the most profound religious feeling.

Q. Do you not understand that in representing the Last Judgment, in which it is a mistake to suppose that clothes are worn, there was no reason for painting any? But in these figures what is there that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit? There are neither buffoons, dogs, weapons, nor other absurdities. Do you think therefore, according to this or that view, that you did well in so painting your picture, and will you try to prove that it is a good and decent thing?

A. No, my most Illustrious Sirs; I do not pretend to prove it, but I had not thought that I was doing wrong; I had never taken so many things into consideration. I had been far from imagining such a great disorder, all the more as I had placed these buffoons outside the room in which Our Lord was sitting.

These things having been said, the judges pronounced that the aforesaid Paolo should be obliged to correct his picture within the space of three months from the date of the reprimand, according to the judgments and decision of the Sacred Court, and altogether at the expense of the said Paolo.

Et ita decreverunt omni melius modo.

The existing picture proves that Veronese paid no attention to the recommendations of the Court, for I find that it contains every figure referred to.

After this brief review of the more serious offices of the Republic, I pass on to speak of a tribunal which, though in reality much less serious, gave itself airs of great solemnity, and promulgated a great number of laws. This was the Court of the 'Provveditori delle Pompe,' established in the sixteenth century to deal with matters of dress and fashion. As far back as the end of the thirteenth century, the 'Savi,' the wise men of the government, had feebly deplored the increase of luxury. Their plaintive remarks were repeated at short intervals, and on each occasion produced some new decree against foolish and unreasonable expenditure.

The length of women's trains, the size and fulness of people's sleeves, the adornment of boots and shoes, and all similar matters, had been most minutely studied by these wise gentlemen, and the avogadors had their hands full to make the regulations properly respected. One day a lady was walking in the square of Saint Mark's, evidently very proud of the new white silk

gown she wore. She was stopped by two avogadors who gravely proceeded to measure the amount of stuff used in making her sleeves. It was far more than the law judged necessary. The lady and her tailor--there were only male dressmakers in Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--were both made to pay a fine heavy enough to make them regret the extravagance of their fancy. I quote this story from Signor Molmenti. Marin Sanudo tells of another similar regulation in his journal under the month of December 1491: 'All those who hold any office from the State, and those who are finishing their term of service, are forbidden to give more than two dinner-parties to their relations, and each of these dinners shall not consist of more than ten covers.'

At weddings it was forbidden to give banquets to more than forty guests. Some years later another regulation was issued on the same subject. It was decreed 'that at these wedding dinners there shall not be served more than one dish of roast meats and one of boiled meats, and in each of these courses there shall not be more than three kinds of meat. Chicken and pigeons are allowed.'

For days of abstinence, the magistrates take the trouble to inform people what they may eat, namely, two dishes of roast fish, two dishes of boiled fish, an almond cake, and the ordinary jams. Of fish, sturgeon and the fish of the lake of Garda are forbidden on such days, and no sweets are allowed that do not come under one of the two heads mentioned. Oysters were not allowed at dinners of more than twenty covers. The pastry-cooks who made jumbles and the like, and the cooks who were to prepare a dinner, were obliged to give notice to the provveditors, accompanied by a note of the dishes to be served. The inspectors of the tribunal had a right to inspect the dining-room, kitchen, and pantry, in order to verify all matters that came under their jurisdiction.

As if all this were not enough, considerable fines were imposed on those who should adorn the doors and outer windows of their houses with festoons, or who should give concerts in which drums and trumpets were used. In noting this regulation in his journal, Sanudo observes that the Council of Ten had only succeeded in framing it after meeting on three consecutive days in sittings of unusual length. One is apt to connect the Council of Ten with matters more tragic than these; and one fancies that the Decemvirs may have sometimes exclaimed with Dante--

Le leggi son, ma chi pon mano ad esse?

The Council judged that there was only one way of accomplishing this, namely, to create a new magistracy, whose exclusive business it should be to make and promulgate sumptuary laws. For this purpose three nobles were chosen who received the title of Provveditori delle Pompe.

M. Armand Baschet, whose profound learning in matters of Venetian law is beyond dispute, is of opinion that the new tribunal helped Venice to be great, and hindered her from being extravagant. I shall not venture to impugn the judgment of so learned a writer, yet we can hardly forbear to smile at the thought of those three grave nobles, of ripe age and austere life, who sat down day after day to decide upon the cut of women's gowns, the articles necessary to a bride's outfit, and the dishes permissible at a dinner-party.

'Women,' said their regulations, 'shall wear clothes of only one colour, that is to say, velvet, satin, damask, of Persian silk woven of one tint; but exception is made from this rule for Persian silk of changing sheen and for brocades, but such gowns must have no trimming.'

Shifts were to be embroidered only round the neck, and it was not allowed to embroider handkerchiefs with gold or silver thread. No woman was

allowed to carry a fan made of feathers worth more than four ducats. No gloves were allowed embroidered with gold or silver; no earrings; no jewellery in the hair. Plain gold bracelets were allowed but must not be worth more than three ducats; gold chains might be worth ten. No low-neck gowns allowed!

Jewellers and tailors and dealers in luxuries did their best to elude all such laws, but during a considerable time they were not successful, and it is probable that the temper of the Venetian ladies was severely tried by the prying and paternal 'Provveditori.' The only

women for whom exceptions were made were the Dogess and the other ladies of the Doge's immediate family who lived with him in the ducal palace. His daughters and grand-daughters were called 'dozete,' which means 'little dogesses' in Venetian dialect, and they were authorised to wear what they liked; but the Doge's more distant female relations had not the same privilege.

At the coronation of Andrea Gritti, one of his nieces appeared at the palace arrayed in a magnificent gown of gold brocade; the Doge himself sent her home to put on a dress which conformed with the sumptuary laws. Those regulations extended to intimate details of private life, and even affected the furnishing of a noble's private apartments. There were clauses which forbade that the sheets made for weddings and baptisms should be too richly embroidered or edged with too costly lace, or that the beds themselves should be inlaid with gold, mother-of-pearl, or precious stones.

Then the gondola came into fashion as a means of getting about and at once became a cause of great extravagance, for the rich vied with each other in adorning their skiffs with the most precious stuffs and tapestries, and inlaid stanchions, and the most marvellous allegorical figures.

In the thirteenth century the gondola had been merely an ordinary boat, probably like the modern 'barca' of the lagoons, over which an awning was rigged as a protection against sun and rain. The gondola was not a development of the old-fashioned

boat, any more than the modern racing yacht has developed out of a Dutch galleon or a 'trabacolo' of the Adriatic. It had another pedigree; and I have no hesitation in saying, as one well acquainted with both, and not ignorant of boats in general, that the Venetian gondola is the ca?que of the Bosphorus, as to the hull, though the former is rowed in the Italian fashion, by men who stand and swing a sweep in a crutch, whereas the Turkish oarsman sits and pulls a pair of sculls of peculiar shape which slide in and out through greased leathern strops. The gondola, too, has the steel ornament on her stem, figuring the beak of a Roman galley, which I suspect was in use in Constantinople before the Turkish conquest, and which must have been abolished then, for the very reason that it was Roman. The 'felse,' the hood, is a Venetian invention, I think, for there is no trace of it in Turkey. But the similarity of the two boats when out of water is too close to be a matter of chance, and it may safely be said that the first gondola was a ca?que, then doubtless called by another name, brought from Constantinople by some Greek merchant on his vessel.

In early times people went about on horses and mules in Venice, and a vast number of the small canals were narrow and muddy streets; but as the superior facilities of water over mud as a means of transportation became evident, the lanes were dug out and the islands were cut up into an immense number of islets, until the footways became so circuitous that the horse disappeared altogether.

In the sixteenth century there were about ten thousand gondolas in Venice, and they soon became a regular bugbear to the unhappy Provveditori delle

Pompe, who were forced to occupy themselves with their shape, their hangings, the stuff of which the 'felse' was made, the cushions, the carpets, and the number of rowers. The latter were soon limited to two, and it was unlawful to have more, even for a

wedding. The gondola did not assume its present simplicity and its black colour till the end of the seventeenth century, but it began to resemble what we now see after the edict of 1562.

As usual, a few persons were exempted from the sumptuary law. The Doge went about in a gondola decorated with gold and covered with scarlet cloth, and the foreign ambassadors adorned their skiffs with the richest materials, the representatives of France and Spain, especially, vying with each other in magnificence. To some extent the youths belonging to the Compagnia della Calza--the Hose Club before mentioned--were either exempted from the law, or succeeded in evading it. Naturally enough, the sight of such display was odious to the rich noblemen who were condemned by law to the use of plain black; and on the whole, the study of all accounts of festivities held in Venice, down to the end of the Republic, goes to show that the Provveditori aimed at a most despotic control of dress, habits, and manners, but that the results generally fell far short of their good intentions. They must have led harassed lives, those much-vexed gentlemen, not much better than the existence of 'Jimmy-Legs' on an American man-of-war.

One naturally returns to the Doge after rapidly reviewing such a legion of officials, each of whom was himself a part of the supreme power. What was the Doge doing while these hundreds of noble Venetians were doing everything for themselves, from directing foreign politics to spying upon the wardrobes of each other's wives and auditing the accounts of one another's cooks?

It would be hard to ask a question more embarrassing to answer. It would be as unjust to say that he did nothing as it would be untrue to say that he had much to do. Yet the Venetians themselves looked upon him as a very important personage in the Republic. In a republic he was a sovereign, and therefore idle; but he was apparently necessary.

I am not aware that any other republic ever called its citizens subjects, or supported a personage who received royal honours, before whom the insignia of something like royalty were carried in public, and who addressed foreign governments by his own name and title as if he were a king. But then, how could Venice, which was governed by an oligarchy chosen from an aristocracy, which was the centre of a plutocracy, call herself a republic? It all looks like a mass of contradictions, yet the machinery worked without breaking down, during five hundred years at a stretch, after it had assumed its ultimate form. If a modern sociologist had to define the government of Venice, he would perhaps call it a semi-constitutional aristocratic monarchy, in which the sovereign was elected for life--unless it pleased the electors to depose him.

What is quite certain is that when the Doge was a man of average intelligence, he must have been the least happy man in Venice; for of all Venetian nobles, there was none whose personal liberty was so restricted, whose smallest actions were so closely watched, whose lightest word was subject to such a terrible censorship.

Francesco Foscari was not allowed to resign when he wished to do so, nor was he allowed to remain on the throne after the Council had decided to get rid of him. Even after his death, his unhappy widow was not allowed to bury his body as she pleased. Yet his was only an extreme case, because circumstances combined to bring the existing laws into play and to let them work to their logical result.

From the moment when a noble was chosen to fill the ducal throne, he was bound to sacrifice himself to the public service, altogether and till he died, without regret, or possible return to private life, or any compensation beyond what might flatter the vanity of a vulgar and second-rate nature. Yet the Doges were very rarely men of poor intelligence or weak character.

At each election, fresh restrictions were imposed by 'corrections' of the ducal oath. M. Yriarte says very justly that the tone of these 'corrections' is often so dry and hard that it looks as if the Great Council had been taking measures against an enemy rather than editing rules for the life of the chief of the State. He goes on to say, however, that the principle which dictated those decrees protected both the Doge and the nobility, and that the object at which each aimed was the interest of the State. He asks, then, whether those binding restrictions ever prevented a strong personality from making itself felt, and whether the long succession of Doges is nothing but a list of inglorious names.

It may be answered, I think, with justice, that the Doges of illustrious memory, during the latter centuries of the Republic's existence, had become famous as individual officers before their elevation to the throne. The last great fighting Doge was Enrico Dandolo, the conqueror of Constantinople, who died almost a hundred years before the closure of the Great Council. In the war of Chioggia, Andrea Contarini's oath not to return into the city till the enemy was beaten had the force of a fine example, but the man himself contributed nothing else to the most splendid page in Venetian history.

There were Doges who were good historians and writers, others who have been brave generals, others like Giovanni Mocenigo who were good financiers; but the fact of their having been Doges has nothing to do with the reputation they left afterwards. The sovereignty, when it was given to them, was a chain, not a sceptre, and from the day they went up the grand staircase as masters, their personal liberty of thought and action was more completely left behind than if they had entered by another door to spend the remainder of life in the prisons by the Ponte della Paglia, beyond the Bridge of Sighs.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century the Doge Michel Steno was told in open Council to sit down and hold his peace. No change in the manners of the counsellors had taken place sixty years later when

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