To M. Ye. Chekhov, 1891. Venice.

Part of the well-known 1891 series of travel letters Chekhov sent during his trip through Italy and France.

writing from Venice, Chekhov sends his uncle a picture postcard of St. Mark’s Church and describes it at some length – its age and beauty, the three bronze flagstaffs before it (once flying the flags of the Venetian Republic, now Italian flags on Sundays), the four over-life-size bronze horses above the main doors, and the cathedral’s priceless splendor, which the Venetians themselves say gives the city its very reason for being. He notes Venice’s famous absence of streets and horses – water and gondolas in their place – and the equally priceless art and monuments of the city’s other churches, singling out the tomb of the sculptor Canova and its grieving marble lion. He gives his onward itinerary (Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily) and the fine weather, asks when he will finally get to see his uncle in Taganrog, sends greetings to the household, apologizes for writing briefly for lack of time, and closes with an affectionate blessing.

The addressee, given in the dateline as "M. Ye. Chekhov" and addressed in the body as "dear uncle" ("дорогой дядя"), is Chekhov’s uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, the Taganrog merchant already established in this corpus as (first appearance; also addressee of the neighboring). Reuse that entity; do not create a separate cousin entity for these initials.