Venice has always [L3 408 / fascinated], intrigued, and bewitched writers, provoking the strongest emotions of delight, astonishment or bewilderment. They were enchanted with its eccentricities, for example the [L3 401 / Venetian whim of turning a cat, Nini, into a celebrity] in the late 19th century. Its brooding melancholia and living memory of a once great empire attracted romantic writers.
When the English poet Byron visited Venice in 1817, he immediately fell in love with the city - its decadence, its crumbling elegance, its mixtures of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance architecture, its majestic palaces, its dark waterways and most of all its still lagoon over which a heavy mist hung in winter. He saw Venice as the shadow of a city which had once been great but was now a glorious memory. It was in Venice that Byron began his most famous work, `Don Juan,' no doubt based on the debauched aristocratic life which he enjoyed in the city. Byron enjoyed the Venetian taste for eccentricity and would often amuse Venetians by throwing himself into canals fully clothed and challenging his friends to swimming races, holding a lantern in one hand to warn gondoliers of his approach. His letters, journals and [L3 402 / poems] about the city illustrate both the grandeur and the melancholy of Venice. [L3 403 / William Wordsworth took a similar theme in his poem on Venice], mourning a decaying nation.
Many writers and travellers aspired to visit Venice which became almost a legendary dream-like city. [L3 404 / Samuel Rogers poem on Venice] written in 1822, beautifully illustrates the city's dream-like quality. Marcel Proust, the French writer expressed his love of the city which he moved to in 1900, writing: `When I went to Venice - my dream became my address.' For Lady Morgan, an English noblewoman who visited the city in 1820, Venice remained illusory. `As a city, even when seen, it still appears rather a phantom than a fact.'
Others enjoyed its tranquility due to the lack of noisy carriages found in other European cities. John Evelyn, the famous English diarist wrote of the city in 1645 `... so shutting your eyes, you would imagine yourself in the country, when indeed you are in the middle of the sea: besides there being neither rattling of coaches nor trampling of horses, tis almost as silent as the field.'
The initial reaction as the newcomer glided across the lagoon and saw the city for the first time was usually of astonishment. [L3 405 / Charles Dickens] wrote about his first view of the city with unconcealed delight, and [L3 406 / Arthur Symons], a celebrated English travel writer was mesmerized by the city in 1903.
Not every visitor was as complimentary and some found the city pompous and vulgar. `Expected to see a gay clean-looking town, with quays on either side of the canals, but was extremely disappointed; the houses are in the water, and look dirty and uncomfortable on the outside; the innumerable quantity of gondolas, too, that look like swimming coffins, added to the dismal scene, and I confess Venice on my arrival struck me with horror rather than pleasure' wrote Elizabeth Lady Craven a disappointed English noblewoman in 1789. Edward Gibbon the English historian visited Venice in 1765, writing: `Of all the towns in Italy, I am the least satisfied with Venice;...Old and in general ill built houses, ruined pictures, and stinking ditches dignified with the pompous denomination of canals; a fine bridge, spoilt by two rows of houses upon it, and a large square decorated with the worst architecture I ever yet saw, such are the colours I should employ in my portrait of Venice.' [L3 407 / Mark Twain, writing on Venice] in 1869 was merely perplexed.
John Ruskin still provides the most comprehensive guide to Venice in his book `The Stones of Venice,' written during a long stay in the city in 1849. He was writing about a city in decline and used Venice as an example to the world of what a fate could befall a great nation. Ruskin saw Venice as a meeting point of east and west, and a chronicle of the rise of a great [M 008 / sea-faring trading power] with its own empire and aristocracy and of its fall and decline, believing that Venice had been a truly great nation with lofty ideals of justice, humanity and the service of God. Once she lost these ideals, he believed Venice sunk into decadence which led to her fall from power. Later visitors derided the romantic aspect of Venice, concentrating on the city's ruthless grasping character. Desmond MacCarthy wrote in 1935: `The whole of Venice... was one vast explosion of cut-throat competition in luxury and swagger; that was why Ruskin had gone about it cursing and lamenting, and inventing strange theories to excuse himself for yielding to its charm.' John Betjeman, the English poet made fun of the old-fashioned aristocratic life-style which still lingered in the city as late as 1958:
`When the bell notes from the belfries and the [G 05 / campaniles] chime,
Still today we find Venetians elegantly killing time.'
The last word on Venice goes to Robert Benchley, the American humorist who is believed to have sent the following telegram to an acquaintance in New York on arriving in Venice in 1947:
`Wonderful city, streets full of water, please advise.'
