Having all these associations with San Pietro in mind, I had long wished to go there, but I found little to detain me. The Campanile (1474) is stately and fine, but the church (1594-1621) is not interesting. There is little to notice within. Two pictures by Marco Basaiti are soft and graceful, as are all his works; and the faces of the saints seem to express enjoyment of their placid melancholy. Near one of the altars is an ancient Arabian seat or throne, said to have been used by Saint Peter at Antioch. It was given to the Doge Pietro Gradenigo by Michele Paleologo in 1310. The curious inscriptions on the back are thought to be in Arabic. {213} Retracing our steps to the Via Garibaldi, we turn into the corte nuova, and soon stand where one is sure to be impressed with the power and grandeur of Mediæval Venice. The first Doge of the Falieri had the honor to found the Arsenal, than which nothing could be more important in that "City of the Sea." There is a fascination in thinking of the time when the ringing hammers were swung by brawny arms, when the pitch was always boiling, and the primitive vessels of the Middle Ages were built with a miraculous rapidity; but in the eight centuries that have rolled away since its foundation there has never been a time when the Arsenal of Venice was not of great interest, as it still is. Formerly, more than now, it seemed to be the ever-flowing fountain of Venetian greatness; for no matter by what enemy the Republic was threatened or attacked, no matter whether the danger was to her commerce or her territory, it was to the Arsenal she turned for strength. To repulse her own enemies, whether they were Saracens from the East, Genoese from the West, or pirates from all quarters, her Arsenal must furnish her with ships and arms; and in order to increase her wealth, the sea must be an open field to traffic and enterprise. To insure this, her ships must be many and fine; and, in short, but for her Arsenal she could never have attained or preserved her empire of the waters. And now, although the workshops are not teeming with artisans, and the forges are not blazing as of old, it is not difficult to imagine the thousands and tens of thousands of men who here forged and welded the real strength of the beloved Republic. The Venetians, among modern nations, first built ships on a truly great scale. Their galleys were enormous in power; their transport ships could carry a thousand men {214} with their stores; their galeasses permitted sixteen hundred men to fight on board, while they carried fifty pieces of heavy artillery, and had their prows made cannon proof. Naturally the nations with whom they disputed the sea endeavored to build ships equal to those of Venice; but she always had one advantage, in that even the small vessels bore at least fifteen guns, and the Venetian gunners were good marksmen.