At the sign of the "Nave d'oro," in the Merceria, where the vast
commercial interests of Venice were the absorbing theme, and strangers
from every clime and merchants just returned from distant ports were
eager now, as in the days when Marco Polo had so valiantly entertained
the goodly company, to rehearse the tale of their adventures--it was
neither merchant nor noble who stood forth on the bizarre background of
brilliant baubles and gold-woven tissues as the centre of this ridotto,
but a friar, learned in languages and sciences, of whom it was
pleasantly affirmed that "he was the only man in Venice who could
discuss any subject in any tongue!"
As this friar, unattended and on foot, turned out of the narrow calle
from San Samuele into the Campo San Stefano, the Giustiniani, father and
son, were just landing from their gondolas in the midst of a gay
retinue, on the steps of the palazzo Morosini; other gondolas of other
nobles were floating in full moonlight before the quay; and to Fra
Paolo, who did not share the Venetian love of color and of art, the
elaborately frescoed facade of an opposite palace--an extravagant freak
of the Veronese's which the Venetians were already beginning to cherish
as the work of their great artist who would paint no more--seemed an
impertinence unworthy of that dazzling illumination.
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