Venice: Pure City полностью

Venice in every sense represented cultural and social heterogeneity. By some it was considered to be Oriental, with the basilica of Saint Mark as the very model of a mosque and the Rialto as a souk. That was why the city was so distrusted by other European nations. It contained within itself intimations of “the Other.” It is pertinent and suggestive that the Arabic words that penetrated the Venetian dialect are largely concerned with trade—so we have zecca (mint) and doana (customs house) and tarifa—or concerned with luxuries such as “sofa” and “divan” and “caravanserai.” “Alas Venetian race,” Pius II wrote in 1458, “how much of your ancient character have you lost! Too much intercourse with the Turks has made you the friend of the Mohammedans.” The façade of the ducal palace, facing the lagoon, is Muslim in inspiration. There are in fact borrowings and adaptations—of Islamic architecture and Islamic art—throughout the city. Even the Venetian colours, ultramarine blue and gold, are derived from the Middle East. The trade routes, the organised seagoing caravans, even the craft guilds, of Venice were Muslim in origin. There was a genuine sympathy with, and admiration for, Islamic civilisation that was not unconnected with distaste for papal pomp. In the paintings of Carpaccio, for example, Venetian interiors are shown to be decorated with objects of eastern provenance; the throne of the Virgin in Gentile Bellini’s “Virgin and Child Enthroned” is placed carefully on a Turkish carpet or prayer rug.

Venice was in many respects akin to Byzantium. It borrowed both concepts and practices from the ancient city, to the rule of which it had once submitted. It was even known as the second Constantinople. It was a hierarchical, rather than a feudal, society. The influence of Byzantine civilisation was noticeable in the way that the young girls of Venice were kept secluded, and in the custom of separating men and women at church services; it can be seen, too, in the stiffness and pomp of the religious ceremonies where the rituals and relics of the Byzantine Church are to be found in abundance. There is something Oriental, too, about the stateliness and symbolism of Venetian political life with its elaborate bureaucratic machinery and its solemn practices of election. Was the doge not also a form of emperor? He could be seen in a similarly sacred light. In Holy Week the doge impersonated the last days of Christ. This was also the role of the Byzantine emperor.

The basilica of Saint Mark was based upon the model of the Apostoleion in Constantinople. The chroniclers of Venice also report that the church was the work of an architect from that city, but the claim is disputed. There seems to be no doubt, however, that there were Muslim artisans resident at the time. The religious polity of Venice, with its notion of a state Church, is based upon Byzantine example; the head of that Church was known as the patriarch, as at Constantinople.

There are many other derivations. The notion of the Arsenal, an arms manufactory funded by the government, is taken from Byzantine practice. The long black cloak, worn by the male patricians of the city, is taken from the model of the Byzantine kaftan. The ritual scattering of coins to the people, on the occasion of the election of the doge, is a practice borrowed from the eastern emperors. The art of keeping detailed records is surely derived from the early experience of Byzantine bureaucracy. The word itself—“Byzantine”—has become a synonym for excessive detail. In Venice, too, everything was committed to writing. When Venetian males grew beards, at times of national or personal sorrow, they were following their eastern contemporaries. The love of puppets and of puppet theatre has an ancient ancestry. Of course Italians in general have long maintained a tradition of puppetry and mask theatre, but Venetians acquired their love of puppets from the more spectral tradition of Byzantium that emphasises the melancholy aspect of the inanimate doll until human desire gives it breath.

Until very recent times there was always a sense of brotherhood among the people of Venice. It was the merest cliché to state that they all represented one family. Everyone noticed it. It manifested itself in an air of sociability. The popolani were the “children” of the republic, and the male patricians were their fathers; Goethe described the doge as “the grandfather of the race.” The provision of public health care, and the foundation of orphanages for fatherless children, testify to the fact that the state considered itself to be in essence one extended family. The governors of these institutions strove to create little families within the larger family. This was the Venetian way.