11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.

(1.) _The Terraced House._ The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the Grand Canal is the Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting his boat lie by the steps of this great palace, the traveller will see, on the other side of the canal, a building with a small terrace in front of it, and a little court with a door to the water, beside the terrace. Half of the house is visibly modern, and there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar, between it and the ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the Byzantine arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having, as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor, I shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House. (2.) _Casa Businello._ To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office) there is a modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday, the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated in the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become the residence of the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally known as the Casa Businello. (3.) _The Braided House._ Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola away from the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and the three houses which succeed it on the right. The fourth is another restored palace, white and conspicuous, but retaining of its ancient structure only the five windows in its second story, and an ornamental moulding above them which appears to be ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding, and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find (except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided House.[164] (4.) _The Madonnetta House._ On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position, and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the Madonnetta House. (5.) _The Rio Foscari House._ We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume, partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House. (6.) _Casa Farsetti._ We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize, on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge. Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in proportion. This building is known in Venice as the Casa Farsetti. (7.) _Casa Loredan._ The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed with neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine it carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the Gothic, once in the Renaissance times,--some writers say, even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonize exquisitely with its Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade, to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known as the Casa Loredan. * * * * * The eighth palace is the Fondaco de' Turchi, described in the text. A ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the Church of San Moisè, but it was thrown down in the course of "improvements" a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari's Guide.