Again to the Piazza, to note what we may not yet have seen. The two Procuratie and the Piazza walls are like sheets of fire, for the lamps of the square have globes of crimson glass. Surely nowhere else has one seen such {80} color, so splendid and fascinating, so blinding and confusing, that late though it be we bid our good gondolier make a giro in the quiet canals, which seem to welcome us as old friends do, and restore the equilibrium which the regatta, the serenade, and the illumination have somewhat disturbed; and in this quiet there come back to us the lines we learned so long ago, writ by another pilgrim in this same Venice,-- I can repeople with the past,--and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And meditation chastened down, enough; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colors caught. LORD BYRON. THE MADONNA DELLA SALUTE. The plague of 1630 was the seventieth, and the last great plague of Venice. Eighty-two thousand victims had died in the city and the neighboring islands, and sixteen months of horror and suffering had passed since its outbreak. Not a sound of joy was heard in all the extent of Venice when special public prayers were made, and the Senate vowed to the Holy Virgin--"Mary, the Mother of Health"--that a church should be built in her honor if she would but stay the plague. And lo! suddenly, in November, 1631, the scourge was stayed. Fifty-five years before, the votive church of the Redentore had been built in gratitude to a similar answer to their prayers; and now the people were determined to erect a still more splendid church, upon a piece of land on the point of the Dogana, which the Knights Templars had given to the Republic. But it would take a long time to build a church, and the people were in haste to put all their sadness behind them, and to have one festal {81} day without delay. Accordingly, the 28th of November was appointed, and a wooden structure erected hastily, in which to celebrate the jubilee. [Illustration: _Church of Santa Maria della Salute._] The procession left the high altar of San Marco; and when it reached the centre of the Piazza, the health officers announced that the plague was stayed by the Virgin. This announcement was welcomed by salvos of artillery, peals of bells, and blare of trumpets. The procession then moved on, and crossing the Grand Canal by a pontoon bridge, it reached the wooden church.