After Waterloo: Reminiscences Of European Travel 1815-1819, By Major W. E Frye













































































































 -  At right angles to it and facing the
Piazzetta, which issues from the Piazza and forms a quai to the - Page 236
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At Right Angles To It And Facing The Piazzetta, Which Issues From The Piazza And Forms A Quai To The Canale Grande, Stands The Famous State Prison And Ponte De 'Sospiri.

On the Piazzetta and fronting the landing place stand two columns of white marble, on one of which stands the winged Lion of St Marco and on the other a crocodile, emblematical of the foreign commerce and possessions of the Republic.

The space between these two columns was allotted for the execution of State criminals. Not far from the church of St Marco, and near to that angle of the Piazza which connects it with the Piazzetta, stands the famous Campanile or Steeple of San Marco. It is a square building 800 feet in height, from the top of which one has the best view of Venice and its adjacent isles, the distant Alps and the marina dove il Po discende. A Quai, if Quai it may be called, which has a row of houses on each side, one row of which is on the water's edge, leads from the Piazzetta to some gardens, which terminate on a point of land. This Quai is very broad and well paved, and is the only thing that can be called a street in all Venice. The Piazza di San Marco, therefore, this Quai and the garden before mentioned form the only promenades in Venice. This garden moreover has trees, and these are the only trees that are to be met with in this city. In this garden are two Cafes.

The variety of costume is another very agreeable spectacle at Venice. Here you meet with Albanians, Greeks, Turks, Moors, Sclavonians and Armenians, all in their respective national costumes. The first Armenian I met with here was sitting on a stone bench on the Piazza di San Marco, and this brought forcibly to my recollection the Armenian in Schiller's Ghost-seer.

These Cafes and Casinos on the Piazza are open day and night. Ices and coffee superiorly made and other refreshments of all kinds at very low prices are to be had. Some of these casinos are devoted to gaming. The first families in Venice repair to the Piazza in the evening after the Opera, female as well as male. They promenade up and down the Piazza or sit down and converse in the Cafes and Casinos till a late hour. Few go to bed in Venice in the summer time before six In the morning, so that sleep seems for ever banished from the Piazza. Music and singing goes forward in these casinos, and the ear is often charmed with the sound of those delightful Venetian airs, whose simple melody ravishes the soul. The Venetian dialect is very pleasing, and scarcely yields in harmony to the Tuscan. It contains a great many Sclavonic words. It is the only dialect of Italy that is at all pleasing to my ear, for I do not at all relish the nasal twang and truncated terminations of the Piedmontese and Lombard dialects, nor the semi-barbarous jargon of the Genoese and the Neapolitan and, least of all, the execrable cacophony of the Bolognese.

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