THE AUSTRIANS IN VENICE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 690, 13 March 1852, Page 4

THE AUSTRIANS IN VENICE.

[From the Times, November 21.] There are certain towns and monuments of antiquity to which so much historical interest is attached that they would seem guarded by the common opinion of mankind from any unnecessary act of desecration or violence. Take the case of Rome but tbe other day during tbe progress of tbe French siege. The cry of indignation which arose throughout Europe upon this event was not only directed against the unjustifiable nature of the assault in a political sense ; we exclaimed at the barbarism of a people who boasted so loudly of their refinement and civilisation, and yet who did not scruple to plant their artillery against buildings in which tbe most noble monuments of human art lay enshrined for the admiration of the world. It was unfitting that a French gunner should be able to destroy in one moment of time those works which had required the utmost creative powers of a Raffaelle or a Correggio to produce, and which the reverence of mankind had preserved intact through so many generations. The feeling was acknowledged both by besiegers and besieged. On the one side, the utmost exertions were made to prove to the satisfaction of Eorope that no effort had been spared to divert the assault from the more sacred portions of the Eternal City ; on the other, that every attempt had been made to protect the treasures of art from the descent of shot and shell. So again with Venice. During the long siege to which this town was recently exposed, whatever diversity of opinion might exist as to the political nature of the dispute, all at least were agreed as to the enormity of’ choosing the facade of St. Mark’s, or the Assumption of Titian, as targets for ball practice. Happily but little mischief was done. The position of this beautiful city, insulated as it stands in the midst of her shallow

lagunes, was the best safeguard of its monu- i ments and palaces. The results of the ordinary experience of Europe in the late revolutionary times would hold good with tenfold forceof a town so peculiarly situated as Venice. From what capital city of the European continent were not the troops of the Executive Government driven out at the first out-burst-ing of the revolutionary storm ? In what single instance were fortresses and lines of defence of the slightest avail ? King Louis Philippe tested the merits of such a policy to the utmost, and we all know the history of the Parisian fortresses in February, 1848. The experiment might have been taken as deciuet’. The Austrians, however, are about to renew it at Venice in the teeth of experience, of policy," and of that spirit of veneration for the monuments of antiquity which is supposed to characterise every civilised nation. We take it that the leading features of Venetian scenery are familiar to every educated Englishman. In these days of rapid travelling most of us have found time to steal a few weeks from our ordinary avocations and to employ them in a pilgrimage to a city so pregnant with historical and poetical recollections. Of the paintings of Canaletti more have been preserved in England than in any other country of Europe. These have brought the principal points of Venice in the most complete manner before the imagination of the English Spectator. He can scarcely conceive that some portion of his life has not been spent among objects to the representation ol which his eye has been so long accustomed. On a first visit to Venice, as your gondola glides quietly down the Gieat Canal, you can name the objects as you pass. There is tbe Rialto as it stood when Antonio rated Sbylock upon it for his usance and pitiless thrift, there the Foscari Palace, the church of Santa Maria della Salute, the pillars of the Pizzetta, the Ducal Palace, and the Basilica of Saint Mark. Although the English traveller may never have seen them before he recogn ses them all by Canaletti’s aid, as he knows the chief features of Piccadilly or of the Parisian Boulevards. M e assume this as a fact, and without wasting time in topographical description may venture to inform our readers of the spot chosen by the Austrian engineers for the erection of a monster battery to keep the town in subjection. The situation chosen for this effort of engineering skill is in front ot the island on which stands the church of San Georgio Maggiore, so that the guns may be brought to bear at once upon the Piazzetta, the Ducal Palace, the Dogana, and command the entrance of the Great Canal. At the first discharge the Austrian garrison would have the satisfaction of reducing the chief monuments of the town to a heap of ashes. Can nothing be done to avert this threatened act of Vandalism? In ordinary cases, to be sure, other nations have not a right to interfere between any Government and the measures it may think fit to adopt for the coercion of its subjects. But Venice is in some respects common European property. Mere it battered to pieces by Austrian shot and shell, one of the most beautiful links which unite the present with the past history of civilised man would be destroyed for ever. Let Austria erect fortresses elsewhere as she will ; we may speak of such a measure as injudicious, impolitic, as one likely to lead to much bloodshed and much hum in suffering without a result ; we may venture to point out that within our recent experience of revolutionary warfare the fortifications erected by a Government have always been turned against it by its insurgent subjects. Surely the recent example of Vienna, and tbe recollection of the siege conducted under the auspices of Prince Windischgratz, can scarcely have been thrown away. M’e lay it down as a dogma to which the history of the last four years will not furnish any single exception, that it costs a Government as much money to retake its own fortifications as they originally cost in erection. General considerations of sound policy such as these would apply to ordinary cases, but it is really too bad that the palaces and buildings which have been dear to the imagination of Europeans for so many centuries should be sacrificed from mere stupidity, and without any corresponding benefit in a military point of view. There is no point in Venice on which an Austrian bullet would impinge without causing irretrievable mischief. We do not speak only of its immortal works of art, but of the caskets in which these treasures are contained. In Venice all issacred.— “Simonumentum queeris, circumspice:"