Baedeker, like Murray (and most other guidebook writers), airs a harder view, when he says that the second-class hotels, ‘thoroughly Italian in their arrangements, are much cheaper, but they are rarely very clean or comfortable. The inns in the smaller towns will often be found convenient and economical by the voyageur en garçon, and the better houses of this class may be visited even by ladies. If no previous agreement has been made an extortionate bill is not uncommon. The landlord is generally prepared to have his first offer beaten down by the traveller, and in that expectation usually asks more at first than he will afterwards agree to accept. The recommendations of landlords as to hotels in other towns should be disregarded. They are not made with a single eye to the interests of the traveller.’
On the obsessive topic of cleanliness, Baedeker prepares those who leave the beaten track for privations. ‘Iron bedsteads should if possible be selected, as they are less likely to harbour the enemies of repose. Insect powder, or camphor, somewhat repels their advances. The gnats are a source of great annoyance, and often of suffering, during the summer and autumn-months. Windows should always be closed before a light is introduced into the room. Light muslin curtains round the beds, masks for the face, and gloves are employed to ward off the attacks of these pertinacious intruders. The burning of insect powder over a spirit-lamp is also recommended.’
Should one wish to communicate with home, or any other place: ‘A cautious traveller will take important letters to the post-office himself, or drop them into some of the letter boxes that are now distributed through an Italian town, since if given to an untrustworthy person to carry to the post-office they run the risk of being made away with for the sake of the stamps.’
We are told how useful it would be to climb, ‘some tall steeple or tower’ so as to get an idea of the layout of a city. Sight-seeing called forth more advice from Murray about behaviour in churches: ‘The clergy do not like to have the churches considered as shows, nor are the congregations at all indifferent, as had been asserted, to the conduct of strangers, in walking about and talking during Divine Service. It might perhaps, too, be suggested to our Protestant countrymen, that they are not protesting against Roman Catholic errors by behaving indecorously in churches; and to reflect how they would like to see their own places of worship made objects of show during Divine Service.’
One of the first places the tourists made for, whether sons and daughters of manufacturers from the north of England, or offspring of county families (or anyone else for that matter), was Venice. Many no doubt had read Byron, and some Ruskin, but one assumes that nearly all had either Murray or Baedeker to browse over and take notice of. That being so, one can’t help but sympathize with those whose living depended on extracting as much money as possible from tourists and travellers, by fair means or unfair, a process certainly made difficult by Murray’s advice that: ‘Travellers should insist on being taken to the shops etc. where they wish to go, and should be careful not to be imposed upon by, or accept the recommendations of, valets de place, gondoliers, and hotel servants, some of whom are in the pay of dishonest persons … N.B. Many of the shopkeepers will take two-thirds or even less of the price asked. The prices in the Piazza of S. Mark greatly exceed those in parts of the city less frequented by strangers.’
The drinking water at Venice was said to contain ‘a small quantity of iron and some vegetable matter, the latter derived from the peaty stratum through which it niters, and strangers should avoid drinking it without wine. Mosquito-curtains are usually provided to the beds; but if not, a request should be at once made for them.’
Lampugnini’s guidebook Venice and the Lagoon, 1905, was presumably translated into English by someone whose native language was not English, since the quirkiness of style, especially in the placement of commas, is at times amusing.
‘Venice is situated at the end of the lagoons of the Adriatic Sea; the lagoons are kinds of lakes or better still of, gulfs deeply surrounded with banks of sand and the lagoon is called living or dead according to the tide which it feels more or less, from this it, becomes divided into two parts, little by little from the same extension.’
The gondola, we are told, is one of the characteristic features of Venice, being ‘a light boat long and narrow, in the centre is a little cabin which raises or lowers as you desire, the seats of the best are upholstered in leather and have seats for four persons, all the gondolas are painted black in conformity to a law of the XV century and, it is not permitted to have any colour, so it is impossible to know the mystery of a closed gondola, the gondolier remains on foot at the poop with a heavy rowlock of iron if, there are two gondoliers one is at the prow and the other at the poop, the gondola glides smoothly and rapidly on the waves, if there is only one person you feel a slight rolling at every stroke of the oar; at the corner of a canal or when nearing a bridge the gondoliers have a particular cry to warn and avoid collision.’
Murray says that all gondoliers must carry the police tariff, and show it if required. ‘Complaints for misbehaviour or overcharge may be made to the Guardie Municipale, or at the office of the Municipality.’
Lampugnini’s prose has a breathlessness which paces the blood in his account of the artistic treasures of the city. The Campanile of San Marco, we are told, ‘existed until the 14th. of July 1902; the day of its fall, was situated at the point of entrance to the square and the Piazzetta; it was commenced in the X centy and finished in 1178, it was, in gothic style and had an height of 319 feet … From the top of this belfry, which gave a splendid view of Venice, the lagoons and the Alps; was, by its fall a real artistic disaster to the city; the construction has been decreed, and the work begun but, will certainly never be possible to say of this new monument that, it will have the merit of the first one.’
Language verging on the operatic suggests an engraving by Piranesi, when he tells us that the prison by the Bridge of Sighs was built in the late sixteenth century so as to
fill in the pond of the Ducal Palace; the front of this edifice towards the canal is severe and gloomy, but the entrance towards the bank of the Schiavoni is more elegant; this part of the Palace was destined to be the residence of the six magistrates called Gentlemen of the night criminals … The terrible Pond was the antique prison for political offences, it is still existing in the cellar, with the torture room and that of execution, here you go down by the corridor stated above; here are the dark cells on a level with the soil and the level of the water above, a low door is still shown to visitors; on the canal, by which the corpses were passed through and conveyed by gondola to the Orfano canal; one of these cells served for the prisoners of Carmagnola who were tortured and then afterwards decapitated, on the Piazzetta between two columns.
Should the visitor feel the urge to swim, Lampugnini is reassuring: ‘An important thing to know about everything else, is that the Lido has not any Mosquitoes. The bathing establishment contains more than 600 rooms, placed on the sea in two long lines, from one part to the other is a very large hall, where select concerts are given every day. There is a first class Coffee Restaurant, with a ladies saloon on the terrace facing the sea which is the general rendezvous of the foreign elette society. Near the Grand Baths is erected the new Hydro-electric-Therapeutic Establishment; for massage cure, mud baths, vapour baths, light baths and the cures with the X Rays.’