The Story of Glass Part 6

"Uncle Tom! It's Uncle Tom!" Jean cried, laying her hand impulsively on his arm. "Mr. Curtis is my uncle, Giusippe. Did you ever hear anything so wonderful!"

"It certainly is a strange coincidence," agreed Mr. Cabot. "But why did your uncle come back, Giusippe, after he once got over there?"

"Ah, it was this way. He went first alone, expecting when he had enough money to send it back so that the young girl he loved could follow him, and they could be married. But when at last he had the money saved her parents became sick. They were old people. She could not leave them to die here alone, senor. Therefore she refused to go to America, and so much did my uncle love Anita that he would not stay there without her.

Back he came and worked once more at Murano. Then the father and mother died, and my uncle and Anita were married and went to the United States. They wanted to take me, but I pretended that I would rather remain here. This I did because I feared that if I went with them and did not find work I might be a burden. All this was several years ago.

My uncle is now a superintendent in one of the Curtis gla.s.s factories, and is happy and prosperous. Still, there are children, and I could not let him pay my fare to America. As I said, it will not take me much longer to save the rest of my pa.s.sage money. Then I shall go and perhaps become rich. Who knows, senor!" Giusippe broke into a ringing laugh.

Mr. Cabot made no reply.

He was thinking.

Fearing that he had offended, Giusippe changed the subject.

"But I weary you with my affairs, senor. Pardon. Shall we go on to St.

Mark's?"

It was but a few steps across the piazza, and they were soon inside the church. Then for the first time Mr. Cabot spoke.

"This church, Jean," said he, "is the link between the old art of the Mohammedans and the Gothic art of the Christian era. It was planned as a Byzantine church, and in it one can see many things suggesting St.

Sofia's at Constantinople. When St. Mark's at Alexandria was destroyed by the Mohammedans many of its treasures fell into the hands of the Doge of Venice, who promptly proclaimed St. Mark the new patron saint in place of St. Theodore and set about building a cathedral in which to put all the beautiful things he had acquired. Some parts of this ancient cathedral remain, but most of the church was built by Doge Contarini between 1063 and 1071. To the next Doge, Domenico Selvo, fell the task of decorating it. You see, over here the building of churches takes longer than it does at home."

"I should think it did," answered Jean. "Why, we think it is awful if our churches are not all done in two years."

Giusippe smiled.

"Ah, we build not that way here, senorita," he said. "Three centuries did our people spend in building into St. Mark's the marble carvings brought from the East; erecting the altars; and adorning the walls.

These mosaics alone it took workmen two hundred and fifty years to fas.h.i.+on. Venice was a rich Republic, you see, and could well afford to put into this cathedral the money she might have spent on war. Above the slabs of marble are the mosaics, senorita. So it was in St. Sofia, my father told me; the slabs of marble near the ground and the decoration above. This whole cathedral of ours is covered on all the walls with mosaics--pictures made from bits of gla.s.s put together to form scenes from the Bible or from history. Even the most ignorant people who had had no schooling could read such stories, could they not?"

Jean nodded.

She was dazzled by the beauty of the place--by the soft light; the walls rich in gold and color; by the many wonderful things there were to be seen. She was interested, too, in the smoothly worn, uneven floor which showed where the piles beneath the church had settled.

"Mosaic makers, you know, Jean, began crude attempts at making pictures in gla.s.s thousands of years ago, for gla.s.s-making was familiar to the Egyptians as well as to the Phoenicans and Syrians. The Greeks and Romans, too, were great gla.s.s-makers. So gla.s.s-making came down through the ages. The Byzantine churches usually were lighted by a row of tiny gla.s.s windows round the base of the dome. Some of this ancient gla.s.s still remains in St. Sofia. The common way of making such windows was to cut a design in a slab of marble or plaster, and then insert small pieces of colored gla.s.s. Sometimes, too, a pattern for wall decoration was worked out by sticking fragments of gla.s.s into soft stucco. So the first mosaic work began. We can see some of it in the museums of England."

"There seems to be a great deal to see in those London museums, Uncle Bob," Jean gasped.

"I am afraid you will be more convinced of that fact than ever when you get there," chuckled Uncle Bob. "But to return to Giusippe's mosaics.

You may remember, perhaps, that when the Mohammedans invaded Constantinople and found how important a part the gla.s.s-makers played in decorating the churches, they at once handed the artisans over to the caliphs, that they might be set to work adorning their mosques. Now the Mohammedans believed it a crime to make a copy of either man or woman in a picture, a carving, or a statue. It was punishable to pay reverence to sacred figures; therefore all decoration in their churches took the form of flowers, fruit, or conventional designs. So no great mosaic pictures with figures such as these were made. Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Damascus became the center of gla.s.s-making, and there are in existence in some of the museums old Arab lamps which hung in the mosques with inscriptions from the Koran engraved upon them. It is Giusippe's St. Mark's which revived the art of mosaic making, and served as the bridge between those Pagan days and the days when with Christianity the arts revived and mosaic makers began to represent in gla.s.s figures of Christ and the saints."

"And then the painters came, as Giusippe has said," put in Jean.

"Yes, the great artists were born, and from that time pictures on canvas instead of pictures of gla.s.s decorated the churches. But the mosaic makers did an important service to art, for it was they who indirectly gave to the world the idea of making stained-gla.s.s windows.

And in Venice those who ceased to make mosaics made instead the beautiful Venetian gla.s.s of which Giusippe has told us."

"And are there no mosaics made now, Uncle Bob?" asked Jean.

"Yes. When in 1858 it became necessary to restore some of the mosaics in St. Mark's, a descendant of one of the old Murano gla.s.s workers named Radi, together with a Dr. Salviati, started a factory on the Grand Ca.n.a.l, where they gradually revived some of the past glory of Venice. They copied the old time gla.s.s products, making Arab lamps such as hung in the mosques; cameo work similar to the Naples and Portland vases; and pictures in mosaic. It was they who did The Last Supper for Westminster Abbey, and the mosaics for Albert Memorial Hall in London."

"But Salviati's mosaics were not like those here, senor," put in Giusippe, "because the San Marco mosaics were constructed upon the walls, small cubes of gla.s.s being pressed into the moist cement to make the picture. This gave a rough, irregular surface which artists say is far more artistic than is Salviati's smooth, gla.s.sy work. When Salviati sent mosaics away he made them here, and then backed them with cement so they could be placed on a slab of solid material and transported great distances from Venice. His pictures, it is true, were far more perfectly done than were the old mosaics--too perfectly, I have heard gla.s.s experts say."

"Undoubtedly they are right, Giusippe, for the roughness in the ancient mosaics would, of course, break up the great plain surfaces and make them more interesting. But Salviati did Venice a service, nevertheless, in reviving the art. And there is, too, another virtue about mosaics, and that is that they will endure far longer than paintings. Had it not been for the foresight of Pope Urban, who between 1600 and 1700 had many of the famous pictures of the Vatican copied in mosaic, these masterpieces would have been lost to the world."

"I have been told that the church in Ravenna has some fine mosaics, but I never have seen them," Giusippe ventured.

"I have. They are beautiful, and I hope you may see them some time.

Then there are others scattered through the various churches of Sicily and Rome; and there are also many beautiful inlays of mosaic decorating the old churches and palaces of European cities. When we visit Westminster Abbey, Jean, I must show you the crude early mosaic work on the tomb of Edward the Confessor. It is very curious, for it is made of pieces of colored gla.s.s set in grooves of marble."

"How much you are to see, senorita," observed Giusippe wistfully.

Mr. Cabot fixed his eyes attentively on the boy.

"Should you, too, like to see all these wonders, Giusippe?" he asked half playfully and half in earnest.

But Giusippe, who did not catch the banter in his tone, answered seriously:

"Should I? Ah, senor, it is not for me to envy or be unhappy about that which I may not have. Some day, perhaps, when I have made my fortune in your country I can return to the old world and see its marvels. I must have a little patience, that is all."

The mingling of sadness and longing in the reply touched Uncle Bob; Jean and the young Venetian chattered on, but Mr. Cabot walked silently ahead, deep in thought.

"Did I understand you to say, Giusippe," he asked at last turning abruptly, "that you have no relatives in Venice?"

"None in all the world with the exception of the uncle in America of whom I told you, senor."

Again there was a pause.

"Suppose I were to take you with us."

"What, senor?"

"Take you with us now, when we leave Venice."

"I do not understand."

"Suppose I asked you to go with us to France and England, and then across to America."

"But I have not enough money, senor."

"I haven't much, either," Mr. Cabot answered, smiling kindly into the boy's puzzled eyes. "Still, I think I could get together a sufficient sum to pay your way until you got to the United States and found work."

"To go--to go with you now, do you mean, senor?"

"Yes. We leave Venice next week for France. You see, I like you, Giusippe; we all do. And in addition to that you have done us a service. But more than anything else I feel that, once started, you are capable of making your way and doing well in life; all you need is a chance. I have perfect faith that if I took you to America you would make good. It would cost very little more were you to join us, and no doubt you could help in many little ways during the trip. Do you speak French at all?"

"Yes, some; but more German. It is nothing. Many travelers come to Venice, and one must talk to them. Then, too, here it is not unusual to speak several languages, because the countries lie near together, and the people come and go from place to place. With you it is different; a mighty sea divides you from the rest of the world."

"Despite all your excuses for us, Giusippe, it is quite true that we Americans are as a rule pitiably ignorant about languages. Here is this boy, Jean, who knows not only his mother tongue but French, German and English besides. Isn't that a rebuke to us, with our fine schools and our college educations? It makes me ashamed of myself. Do you, little girl, try and do better than I have. Well, young man, what do you say to my proposition? Will you come with us to America?"

"Senor! Oh, senor! How can I ever----"