San Donato, Murano by Esther Singleton

JOHN RUSKIN

We push our way on between large barges laden with fresh water from / Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across, and complicated / boats full of all manner of nets that look as if they could never / be disentangled, hanging from their masts and over their sides; / and presently pass under a bridge with the lion of St. Mark on its / archivolt, and another on a pillar at the end of the parapet, a small / red lion with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up in / the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings / are covered with hair, and in several other points the manner of his / sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little / to the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of / the water-street being usually confined to the first straight reach / of it, some quarter of a mile long, the Cheapside of Murano. We pass / a considerable church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square / opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly / seized by a strong green eddy, and whirled into the tide-way of one / of the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the town of Murano / into two parts by a deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by / one wooden bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current, / looking at the low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly / knowing if there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the / sunshine glows on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and sparkles / on the rushing of the green water by the grass-grown quay. It needs / a strong stroke of the oar to bring us into the mouth of another / quiet canal on the farther side of the tide-way, and we are still / somewhat giddy when we run the head of the gondola into the sand on the / left-hand side of this more sluggish stream, and land under the east / end of the Church of San Donato, the "Matrice" or "Mother" Church of / Murano.