Brenta

Owing to the Sirocco which blew across the water, the air was cool and sweet.

Human beings, however, are ever the slaves of custom, and it was the fashion for Venetian noblemen to spend the summer months on the Brenta.

the river scenery had a fascination for them just as the thames has for londoners all along the banks were rows of little bright stuccoed villas somewhat flimsy each with its patch of garden and its shrubbery at the back where the family sat all day now and then one saw a nobleman's palace breaking the line of somewhat uninteresting houses such was the magnificent villa at str belonging to a princely venetian family with its great sweeps of green lawns its orangeries its alleys and quaintly cut yews venetians love nature when it has been trimmed by man certainly the banks of the brenta are very beautiful especially in spring when the water is covered with lilies of yellow and white and the banks are lined with scented flags and the larks tip the surface of the water with violet wings and sing as they mount against the sun it is not unlike the scenery of some quiet english stream this custom of spending the summer months in the suburbs of venice was called villeggiatura it was one of the gayest times of the year for the venetians they lived by night all day long they lay behind closed blinds while the sun parched and baked the ground only from five o'clock in the afternoon until four in the morning could they be said to live then they held dances card-parties and flirtations during these hours when the temperature was low amusement and pleasure reigned supreme but no sooner did the sun begin to rise than as surely as cinderella disappeared at the stroke of twelve the gay society of the brenta vanished and the place lay dead and silent once more under the intolerable glare how different society in venice was in the early days then the houses were marvels of luxury the finest wit the most brilliant conversation and the most delightful music were to be heard in venice it was not in the houses of the old aristocracy that the most brilliant people painters writers poets and politicians assembled it was in the houses of women who were looked upon as more or less shady persons whom no venetian gentleman would dream of introducing to his wife the wives of the aristocracy were seldom seen except at public functions they took much the same position in society as the honoured interior takes in japan at the present day the geisha although she is infinitely more entertaining has no social status whatever the venetian lady of quality unlike the honoured interior dressed in the most magnificent style in the estimate of her husband nothing was too gorgeous or too costly for her to wear among all those of the larger towns of northern italy venetian women of the sixteenth century were the first to wear needle-points although the ideal woman of that time had to be tall a venetian mother never troubled herself about the height of her daughter at any moment she could transform the girl's dwarfish stature to that of a splendid giantess by the use of a pair of high patterns which were unnoticed beneath the long stiff dress neither was the colour of the hair a source of inconvenience should a girl's locks be of a mousy nondescript shade her mother instead of using injurious dyes made her daughter sit every day for three hours in the front balcony where the sun shone the brightest dressed in a crownless hat so that her tresses might be pulled through it and a very broad brim in order that her face should not be tanned then the damsel's maid would sit and comb her mistress's hair bleaching in the sun girls were never dressed so richly as their mothers in fact the uniform dress was very simple generally plain black or white when they went to church they wore long white veils or falzulo and on ordinary occasions long gauzy silk ones through which they could see yet not be seen on her marriage day the girl was first introduced into society and saw the bridegroom for the first time after marriage the rules which ordered her life were not nearly so restricting In 1614 certain regulations were passed with regard to dress and household extravagances.

The amount of money to be spent on dress, liveries, gondolas, jewellery, feasts and entertainments, gold and silver plate, and even the dishes and the menus of dinner parties.

Venice.

We went down the Brenta in a barge that brought us in eight hours to Venice, the first appearance of which revived all the ideas inspired by Canaletti, whose views of this town are most scrupulously exact, those especially which one sees at the Queen of England's house in St. James's Park, to such a degree indeed that we knew all the famous towers, steeples, etc., before we reached them.

St. Mark's Place, after all I had read and all I had heard of it, exceeded expectation.

Such a cluster of excellence, such a constellation of artificial beauties my mind had never ventured to excite the idea of within herself.

Seat of enchantment, headquarters of pleasure, farewell.

Leave us as we ought to be, leave the Britons rough and free.

It was on the 21st of May, then, that we returned up the Brenta in a barge to Padua, stopping from time to time to give refreshment to our conductors and their horse, which draws on the side, as one sees them at Richmond, where the banks are scarcely more beautifully adorned by art than here by nature.

Though the Brenta is a much narrower river than the Thames at Richmond, and its villas are justly celebrated, far less frequent.

So it's actually not in Venice.

It's on the Riviera del Brenta.

The Riviera del Brenta is a famous area outside of Venice, along the Brenta River, where between the 1500s and 1600s, the Venetians built all their summer villas.

Most of them are Palladians.

They're beautiful.