Gondola Days Author:Francis Hopkinson Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PIAZZA OF SAN MARCO ftHERE is but one piazza in the world. There may be other splendid courts and squares, magnificent breathing spaces for the peopl... more »e, enriched by mosque and palace, bordered by wide-spreading trees, and adorned by noble statues. You know, of course, every slant of sunlight over the plaza of the Hippodrome, in Constantinople, with its slender twin needles of stone ; you know the Puerto, del Sol of Madrid, cooled by the splash of sunny fountains and alive with the rush of Spanish life ; and you know, too, the royal Place de la Concorde, brilliant with the never-ending whirl of pleasure-loving Paris. Yes, you know and may love them all, and yet there is but one grand piazza the world over; and that lies to-day in front of the Church of San Marco. It is difficult to account for this fascination. Sometimes you think it lurks in the exquisite taper of the Campanile. Sometimes you think the secret of its charm is hidden in masterly carvings, delicacy of arch, or refinement of color. Sometimes the Piazza. appeals to you only as the great open-air bricabrac shop of the universe, with its The twin columns of stone stolen from the is-fa lands of the Archipelago ; its bronze horses, Marco church doors, and altar front wrested from Constantinople and the East; and its clusters of pillars torn from almost every heathen temple within reach of a Venetian gal- ley. When your eye becomes accustomed to the dazzling splendor of the surroundings, and you begin to analyze each separate feature of this Court of the Doges, you are even more enchanted and bewildered. San Marco itself no longer impresses you as a mere temple, with open portals and swinging doors ; but as an exquisite jewel-case of agate and ivory, resplendent in gems and precious stones. The clock tower,...« less