cardinal-patriarch officiates in the Basilica San Marco with some
ceremonies which I believe are peculiar to the patriarchate of Venice, and
which consist of an unusual number of robings and disrobings, and putting
on and off of shoes. All this is performed with great gravity, and has, I
suppose, some peculiar spiritual significance. The shoes are brought by a
priest to the foot of the patriarchal throne, when a canon removes the
profane, out-of-door _chaussure_, and places the sacred shoes on the
patriarch's feet. A like ceremony replaces the patriarch's every-day
gaiters, and the pious rite ends.] The basilica, however, is not in every
thing the edifice best adapted to the Romish worship; for the incense,
which is a main element of the function, is gathered and held there in
choking clouds under the low wagon-roofs of the cross-naves.--Yet I do not
know if I would banish incense from the formula of worship even in St.
Mark's. There is certainly a poetic if not a religious grace in the
swinging censer and its curling fumes; and I think the perfume, as it
steals mitigated to your nostrils, out of the open church door, is the
reverendest smell in the world.

The music in Venetian churches is not commonly very good: the best is to
be heard at St. Mark's, though the director of the choir always contrives
to make so odious a slapping with his _baton_ as nearly to spoil your
enjoyment. The great musical event of the year is the performance
(immediately after the _Festa del Redentore_) of the Soldini Masses.
These are offered for the repose of one Guiseppe Soldini of Verona, who,
dying possessed of about a million francs, bequeathed a part (some six
thousand francs) annually to the church of St. Mark, on conditions named
in his will. The terms are, that during three successive days, every year,
there shall be said for the peace of his soul a certain number of masses,
--all to be done in the richest and costliest manner. In case of
delinquency, the bequest passes to the Philharmonic Society of Milan; but