nobilissima_,--a city of moods,--all beautiful to the beauty-lover, all
mystic to the dreamer; between the wonderful blue of the water and the
sky she floats like a mirage--visionary--unreal--and under the spell of
her fascination we are not critics, but lovers. We see the pathos, not
the scars of her desolation, and the splendor of her past is too much a
part of her to be forgotten, though the gold is dim upon her
palace-fronts, and the sheen of her precious marbles has lost its bloom,
and the colors of the laughing Giorgione have faded like his smile.

But the very soul of Venetia is always hovering near, ready to be
invoked by those who confess her charm. When, under the glamor of her
radiant skies the faded hues flash forth once more, there is no ruin nor
decay, nor touch of conquering hand of man nor time, only a splendid
city of dreams, waiting in silence--as all visions wait--until that
invisible, haunting spirit has turned the legends of her power into
actual activities.





_THE GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE_



I

Sea and sky were one glory of warmth and color this sunny November
morning in 1565, and there were signs of unusual activity in the Campo
San Rocco before the great church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari,