136 THE STONES OF VENICE

comprehended unless it was followed to its consummation; and that there were many most interesting questions arising out of the study of this particular spirit of jesting, with reference to which I have called it the Grotesque Renaissance. For it is not this period alone which is distinguished by such a spirit. There is jest-perpetual, careless, and not unfrequently obscene-in the most noble work of the Gothic periods;¹ and it becomes, therefore, of the greatest possible importance to examine into the nature and essence of the Grotesque itself, and to ascertain in what respect it is that the jesting of art in its highest flight differs from its jesting in its utmost degradation.

§ 3. The place where we may best commence our inquiry is one renowned in the history of Venice, the space of ground before the Church of Santa Maria Formosa; a spot which, after the Rialto and St. Mark’s Place, ought to possess a peculiar interest in the mind of the traveller, in consequence of its connexion with the most touching and true legend of the Brides of Venice. That legend is related at length in every Venetian history, and, finally, has been told by the poet Rogers, in a way which renders it impossible for any one to tell it after him. I have only, therefore, to remind the reader that the capture of the brides took place in the cathedral church, St. Pietro di Castello; and that this of Santa Maria Formosa is connected with the tale, only because it was yearly visited with prayers by the Venetian maidens, on the anniversary of their ancestors’ deliverance. For that deliverance, their thanks were to be rendered to the Virgin; and there was no church then dedicated to the Virgin in Venice except this.*

Neither of the cathedral church, nor of this dedicated to St. Mary the Beautiful, is one stone left upon another.

* Mutinelli, Annali Urbani, lib. i. p. 24; and the Chronicle of 1378, quoted by Galliciolli: “Attrovandosi allora la giesia de Sta. Maria Formosa sola giesia del nome della gloriosa Vergine Maria.”

¹ [See Vol. X. ch. vi. p. 72, where a discussion of this subject was promised.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]