This house, which is now hemmed in by larger buildings of later date, had in the painter’s time an incomparably “lovely and delightful situation.” Standing near the northern boundary of the city, it looked out over the lagoon,--across the quiet isle of sepulchres, San Michele,--across the smoking chimneys of the Murano glass-works, and the bell-towers of her churches,--to the long line of the sea-shore on the right and to the mainland on the left; and beyond the nearer lagoon islands and the faintly penciled outlines of Torcello and Burano in front, to the sublime distance of the Alps, shining in silver and purple, and resting their snowy heads against the clouds. It had a pleasant garden of flowers and trees, into which the painter descended by an open stairway, and in which he is said to have studied the famous tree in The Death of Peter Martyr. Here he entertained the great and noble of his day, and here he feasted and made merry with the gentle sculptor Sansovino, and with their common friend, the rascal-poet Aretino. The painter’s and the sculptor’s wives knew each other, and Sansovino’s Paola was often in the house of Cecilia Vecellio; [Footnote: The wife of Titian’s youth was, according to Ticozzi, named Lucia. It is in Mutinelli that I find allusion to Cecilia. The author of the _Annali Urbani_, speaking of the friendship and frequent meetings of Titian and Sansovino, says,--“Vivevano ... allora ambedue di un amore fatto sacro dalle leggi divine, essendo moglie di Tiziano una Cecilia.” I would not advise the reader to place too fond a trust in any thing concerning the house of Titian. Mutinelli refers to but one house of the painter, while Ticozzi makes him proprietor of two.] and any one who is wise enough not to visit the place, can easily think of those ladies there, talking at an open window that gives upon the pleasant garden, where their husbands walk up and down together in the purple evening light.
In the palace where Goldoni was born a servant showed me an entirely new room near the roof, in which he said the great dramatist had composed his immortal comedies. As I knew, however, that Goldoni had left the house when a child, I could scarcely believe what the cicerone said, though I was glad he said it, and that he knew any thing at all of Goldoni. It is a fine old Gothic palace on a small canal near the Frari, and on the Calle del Nomboli, just across from a shop of indigestible pastry. It is known by an inscription, and by the medallion of the dramatist above the land-door; and there is no harm in looking in at the court on the ground-floor, where you may be pleased with the picturesque old stairway, wandering upward I hardly know how high, and adorned with many little heads of lions.