A Golden Book of Venice. Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
have relinquished his hereditary place in the state, his possible part in its glory—the dream which came to all young noblemen of the portrait in that splendid Sala di Consiglio of his own face grown venerable, wearing the ermine and the ducal coronet, in token of that supremacy so dear to each Venetian heart, but jealously held by every noble of the Republic within confines which lessened with each succession, until the crown was assumed in trembling and ignominious restriction—if with external pomp and honor that might befit a king.
But he wanted time; he wanted liberty to choose his own life or enjoy his restlessness, and he realized the more keenly, from the sense of power that was so chafed in the curbing, that he was too young to be forced into such ruthless service; and he could not but acquiesce the less fervently because it was not open to him to give himself, since the claim of Venice was absolute and resistance was a crime.
But with quite other sentiments the preparations for the fête were progressing in that ancient family of Giustiniani, where the day was awaited with an impatience which increased the fervor and the pomp of preparation, but was not otherwise manifested in any sign of undignified eagerness. No house in Venice had held this right for more generations; no house was princelier in its bearing, nor more superbly republican! No member of that Supreme Council was more esteemed than the stern Giustinian, who had been again and again elected to the most important missions of the state; no donna nobile of all the Venetians was prouder, more highly born, more beautiful, nor more coldly gracious than the mother of Marcantonio.
In such an environment there was but one career possible for the only son of the house, who had been carefully trained, according to the traditions that made culture for the young Venetian of those days; he had even attended courses of those philosophical conferences which had become the fashion since the sittings of the famous Council of Trent, and which had been conducted in various convents by distinguished professors from Padua and Bologna, and even by some of the learned men of Rome; it was a species of amusement creditable for a young nobleman—it would quicken the reasoning powers and give more subtlety in debate, when government problems should later absorb his gifts.
But if, like other golden youth of his time, he was like a Greek in possession of their liquid tongue and in a mastery of oratory that filled the soul of Giustinian Giustiniani with satisfaction, the young patrician himself had acquired this learning, less with a thought of one day shining in the Senate than because it pleased him as a touch of finish. He was, in some sort, a reaction from the proud and typical Venetian so ably represented by the elder Giustinian, who claimed unchallenged descent from the Emperor Justinian, upheld by the traditions of that long line of ancestry and by the memory of many honorable offices most honorably discharged by numerous members of his house. Marcantonio, on the contrary, was handsome, winning, pleasure-loving—after an innocent fashion, which brought some sneers from his compeers, the gay "company of the hose;" but he thought life not made for pain, nor ugliness, nor hardness of any sort; he was bred to luxury, yet his intellectual inheritance made learning easy for him; he was many sided and vacillating, an exquisite in taste and the science of trifles. His affectionate nature, repressed and chilled, refused absolute subjection to that purpose which the elder Giustinian held relentlessly before him; he wished to live for himself a little, and not wholly for Venice. He was an embodiment of that late time of Venetian culture when its magnificence, its artistic and intellectual development had touched their height, and the hint of decadence shadowed its splendor with a pathos unguessed except by the thoughtful few.
He had dabbled a little in costly manuscripts—a taste for an exquisite in those days, when Venice was the envy of the world for the marvels of her press; and already he possessed a volume or two, for his cabinet, from the atelier of Aldus Manutius—that famous edition of Aristotle, the first ever printed in Greek, with the Aldine mark of anchor and dolphin on the title-page. But a volume more precious still, with its dainty finish and piquant history, conferred distinction, it was said, among the literati, upon its youthful owner; this was no less a treasure than that first copy of "Le Cose Volgare di Messer Francesco Petrarca," most exquisitely printed in type modeled after the poet's own elegant handwriting, and the volume had been superintended by many learned heads—awaited with impatience, as a triumph for its makers—and thought a thing rare enough to be offered, like a jewel, to the learned and illustrious lady, Isabella of Mantua. Marcantonio was no pedant, but these treasures simply had their place in the richly painted cabinet, beside many other bits of exquisite workmanship, because rare things in every art were beautiful to our dilettante, and possessions of all kinds came to him easily.
There lay the golden necklace presented by Henry III. of France to a Giustinian who had been one of the young nobles set apart for the household of the king, when on his visit to Venice; and beside it a curious volume of songs, all in honor of France and of the king, entitled "Il Magno Enrico III., difensore di Santa Chiesa, di Francia è di Polonia Re christianissimo." Here was also preserved that still more curious allegorical drama which had been given at the grand fête at the Ducal Palace in honor of this over-adulated monarch. It was natural that some of these literary curiosities, of which the visit of Henry III. had been prolific, should have remained in possession of the masters of the palace which had been tendered for his residence. The volume, bound in azure velvet, embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis and seeded with pearls, lay open at the page "Chapter in which the Most Holy Catholic Religion is introduced conversing with the most Christian, most powerful and most holy Henry III., the most glorious King of France and Poland."
The noble lady Laura Giustiniani, who looked with pride upon these costly trifles of the cabinet of Marcantonio, was a Venetian in every throb of her patrician veins—first a patriot and then a mother—she earnestly coveted for her son that he should render vast services to the state, receive in his early years the Patriarch's blessing upon his alliance with some ancient Venetian house, and close his noble career with the Doge's coronet. She admitted reluctantly to herself, although she would never have confessed it openly, that in these latter days of the Republic the ermine was not likely to be offered to one so stern and masterful as her husband; while she also knew, and the knowledge held its compensation, that Giustinian Giustiniani could not be spared from the Councils of his government. She knew her history well, and she realized that the days of the Michieli and Orseoli were over, and that the supreme honor was no longer for the strong but for the pliant; this had made her the more willing that her son should partake of the facile and gracious mood of this time of Renaissance, and had led her to shape his education more in consonance with his natural tastes than with her own views of fitness for a Venetian noble. She knew that this was weakness for a Giustinian; but it was hard to see the noble line pass down through the centuries without that coveted sign of honor—the minikin Lion of San Marco, the mighty symbol—carved upon their palaces.
Meanwhile, for a suitable alliance there were already schemes on foot, and mothers of noble young Venetian ladies paid frequent court to the stately Lady Laura in her palace on the Canal Grande; and fathers, in the Senate, in moments of unbending, discussed the probability of the immediate rise of the young Giustinian upon his admission to the Consiglio—he was competent and not positive, gracious and no fool, he could be made to see the wisdom of other people's opinions, which, with the elder Giustinian, was unheard of!
Among the maidens who should grace the banquet to be given on Marcantonio's birthnight, more than one had sat for hours in some high balcony of her palace, preparing for Venetian belle-ship with a patience worthy of a better cause—her long locks, mysteriously treated, streaming over the broad brim of the great, crownless hat which protected her fair face, while the sun bestowed its last touch of beauty in bleaching the dark tresses to that rich, red, burnished gold which the Venetians prized.
The young patrician was already esteemed a connoisseur in the most exquisite industries of Venice, and the Lady Laura had confided to her son the ordering of a set of goblets of girasole for the banquet—a new opalescent glass, with iridescent borderings, such as had never yet been seen at any Venetian fête.
Thus the gondola of the Giustiniani floated for long hours before the famous establishment of Girolamo Magagnati, so delicate and intricate was the work that had been ordered from him; and the gondoliers, meanwhile, in their splendid liveries, held converse with other gondoliers in lazily drifting barks, with hatchments of other noble houses embroidered on