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 VENICE 
 
 THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE
 
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 VEN 
 
 
 
 WW'
 
 THE ANGELS OF THE SALUTE
 
 VENICE 
 
 THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 
 
 SALVE • VENETIA 
 
 GLEANINGS 
 FROM VENETIAN HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD 
 
 WITH 22J ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSEPH PENNELL 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. II 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 C< (PYRIGH I , 1905 AND 1909, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotypecl. Published December, 1905. Reprinted 
 January, 1906; Marcl 
 
 Xortoooti press 
 
 J. s. Cashing & Co.— Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ii. 
 in. 
 
 IV. 
 
 v. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 * IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 INDEX 
 
 The Aristocratic Magistracies at the Beginning 
 of the Sixteenth Century 
 
 Gleanings from Venetian Criminal History 
 
 Venetian Diplomacy . 
 
 The Arsenal, the Glass-Works, and the Lace- 
 Makers ....... 
 
 Concerning some Ladies of the Sixteenth Century 
 
 A Few Painters, Men of Letters, and Scholars 
 
 The Triumphant City .... 
 
 The Hose Club — Venetian Legends 
 
 The Decadence ..... 
 
 The Last Homes « — The Last Great Ladies 
 
 The Last Carnivals — The Last Fairs — The 
 Last Feasts 
 
 The Last Magistrates 
 
 The Last Sbirri 
 
 The Last Doges 
 
 The Last Soldiers . 
 
 The Last Diplomatists 
 
 The Last Hour 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 The Doges of Venice 
 
 Table of the Principal Dates in Venetian His 
 
 TORY 
 
 I 
 5 1 
 
 11 
 
 95 
 117 
 
 •32 
 168 
 189 
 207 
 232 
 
 266 
 288 
 310 
 
 334 
 348 
 361 
 380 
 41 2 
 421 
 
 425 
 
 433
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PLATES 
 
 
 
 
 The Angels of the Salute ..... Frontispiece 
 
 The Last Rays, St. Mark's 
 
 
 
 To face page 35 
 
 Palazzo Ressonico . 
 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 Steamers coming in 
 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 Afterglow, the Grand Canal 
 
 
 
 
 134 
 
 Venice from the Garden . 
 
 
 
 
 « 140 
 
 Entrance to the Sacristy, Frari . 
 
 
 
 
 149 
 
 Campiello delle Ancore . 
 
 
 
 
 208 
 
 The Salute from the Riva 
 
 
 
 
 ' 246 
 
 Fondamente Nuove 
 
 
 
 
 313 
 
 From San Georgio to the Salute 
 
 
 
 
 326 
 
 Ponte Canonica 
 
 
 
 
 356 
 
 Out in the Lagoon .... 
 
 
 
 
 382 
 
 IN TE 
 
 XT 
 
 
 
 
 S. Maria degli Scalzi, Grand Canal 
 Hall of the Great Clocks, Ducal Palace 
 Hall of the Pictures, Ducal Palace 
 The Stair of Gold, Ducal Palace 
 Rio S. Atanasio .... 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 20
 
 \ 111 
 
 (il KAXIWkS from history 
 
 S. Samuele 
 
 On the Zatterc 
 
 Rio del Rimedio 
 
 Mouth of the Grand Canal 
 
 The Rialto at Night 
 
 From the Balcony of the Ducal Palace 
 
 The Columns, Piazzetta . 
 
 The Salute from the Giudecca 
 
 A Garden Wall 
 
 Palazzo Dario 
 
 Calle Beccheria 
 
 Ponte del Cristo 
 
 S. Michele . 
 
 Venice from Murano 
 
 The Duomo Campanile, Murano 
 
 Murano, looking towards Venice 
 
 Murano .... 
 
 The House of Beroviero, Murano 
 
 The Palaces . 
 
 The Rialto Steps 
 
 Noon on the Rialto 
 
 At the Rialto 
 
 Evening off S. Georgio 
 
 Casa Weidermann . 
 
 The Grand Canal in Summer 
 
 Euganean Hills from the Lagoon, Low Tide 
 
 House of Tintoretto 
 
 House of Aldus 
 
 S. Giacomo in Orio 
 
 Doorway of the Sacrisrv, S. Giacomo in Orio 
 
 Fondamenta Sanudo ....
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 IX 
 
 A Holiday on the Riva . 
 
 Door of the Carmine 
 
 Interior of the Carmine . 
 
 Campo behind S. Giacomo in Orio . 
 
 The Piazza ..... 
 
 Pigeons in the Piazza 
 
 Sotto Portico della Guerra 
 
 Ponte S. Antonio .... 
 
 S. Zobenigo ..... 
 
 Ponte delP Angelo, Giudecca, Old Wooden Bridg 
 
 Rio S. Sofia, Night 
 
 Santa Maria Formosa 
 
 Grand Canal looking towards Mocenigo Palace 
 
 The Fondamenta S. Giorgio, Redentore in Distance 
 
 Steps of the Redentore 
 
 The Nave of S. Stefano . 
 
 The Riva from the Dogana 
 
 Campo S. Bartolomeo, Statue of Goldoni 
 
 SS. Giovanni e Paolo 
 
 Night on the Riva . 
 
 Rio della Toresela .... 
 
 A Narrow Street, near the Academy . 
 
 Grand Canal .... 
 
 Church of the Miracle 
 
 The Procession of the Redentore 
 
 Near the Fenice .... 
 
 Grand Canal from the Fish Market 
 
 S. Barnabo . 
 
 Instituto Bon, Grand Canal 
 
 When the Alps show Themselves, Fondamenta Nuove 
 
 Cafe on the Zattere ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 168 
 
 •7 + 
 
 177 
 18] 
 
 ,85 
 187 
 189 
 
 •93 
 197 
 202 
 207 
 21 1 
 217 
 222 
 224 
 229 
 232 
 
 2 33 
 2 43 
 244 
 
 253 
 259 
 266 
 271 
 276 
 286 
 288 
 289 
 
 293 
 300 
 301
 
 CI 1 VNINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 The Dogana . 
 Rio della Sensa 
 
 R'm S. Stir. . 
 
 Rio della Guerra 
 
 \ ia Garibaldi 
 
 The Pesaro Palace, Grand Canal 
 
 Marco Polo's Court 
 
 Ponte della Pieta 
 
 From the Public Garden at Sunset 
 
 Boat-Builders 
 
 The Vegetable Market 
 
 Fondamenta Weidermann 
 
 The Salute from S. Giorg 
 
 From the Ponte della Pieta 
 
 On the Way to Fusina, from the Mouth of 
 
 A Lonely Canal 
 
 Evening 
 
 The Salute from the Lagoon 
 
 From the Ponte S. Rocco 
 
 Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo 
 
 So-called House of Desdemona 
 
 Sails .... 
 
 A Gateway , 
 
 the Brenta 
 
 PACE 
 
 3°3 
 310 
 
 3'3 
 3«» 
 3 2 5 
 334 
 339 
 344 
 348 
 353 
 355 
 357 
 361 
 
 365 
 369 
 
 374 
 380 
 
 385 
 397 
 
 4° 3 
 407 
 412 
 
 4»3
 
 VENICE 
 
 THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE
 
 S. MARIA DEGLI SCALZI, GRAND CANAL 
 
 THE ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES AT THE 
 BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Like other aristocracies, the Venetian government rarely 
 destroyed or altogether abolished any office or regula- 
 tion which had existed a long time. When a change 
 was needed the duties or powers of one or more of the 
 Councils were extended, or a committee of the Council
 
 2 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 of Ten was appointed and presently turned into a 
 separate tribunal, as when the Inquisitors of State were 
 created. 
 
 In one sense the government of Venice had now 
 existed in a rigid and unchangeably aristocratic form 
 during two centuries, and that form never changed to 
 the very end. But in another sense no government in 
 the world ever showed itself more flexible under the 
 pressure of events, or better able to provide a new 
 legislative weapon with which to combat each new 
 danger that presented itself. This double character of 
 an administration which inspired awe by its apparent 
 immutability and terror by its ubiquity and energy, no 
 doubt had much to do with its extraordinarily long 
 life; for I believe that no civilised form of government 
 ever endured so long; as that of Venice. 
 
 It is therefore either frivolous or hypocritical to seek 
 the causes of its ultimate collapse. It died of old age, 
 when the race that had made it was worn out. It 
 would be much more to the point to inquire why the 
 most unscrupulous, sceptical, suspicious, and thoroughly 
 immoral organisation that ever was devised by man 
 should have outlasted a number of other organisations 
 supposed to be founded on something like principles of 
 liberty and justice. Such an inquiry would involve an 
 examination into the nature of freedom, equity, and 
 truth generally; but no one has ever satisfactorily 
 defined even one of those terms, for the simple reason 
 that the things the words are supposed to mean do not 
 anywhere exist; and the study of that which has no
 
 i ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES 3 
 
 real existence, and no such potential mathematical exist- 
 ence as an ultimate ratio, is absolutely futile. 
 
 The facts we know about the Venetian government 
 are all interesting, however. It had its origin, like all 
 really successful governments, in the necessities of a 
 small people which held together in the face of great 
 dangers. It was moulded and developed by the 
 strongest and most intelligent portion of that people, 
 and the party that modelled it guessed that each 
 member of the party would destroy it and make him- 
 self the master if he could, wherefore the main thing 
 was to render it impossible for any individual to succeed 
 in that. The individual most likely to succeed was the 
 Doge himself, and he was therefore turned into a mere 
 doll, a puppet that could not call his soul his own. The 
 next most probable aspirant to the tyranny would be 
 the successful native-born general or admiral. A 
 machinery was invented whereby the victorious leader 
 was almost certain to be imprisoned, fined, and exiled 
 as soon as his work was done and idleness made 
 him dangerous. Pisani, Zeno, Da Lezze are merely 
 examples of what happened almost invariably. If a 
 Venetian was a hero, any excuse would serve for locking 
 him up. 
 
 Next after the generals came the nobles who held 
 office, and lastly those who were merely rich and in- 
 fluential. They were so thoroughly hemmed in by a 
 hedge of apparently petty rules and laws as to their rela- 
 tions with foreigners, with the people, and with each other, 
 that they were practically paralysed, as individuals, while
 
 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 remaining active and useful as parts of rlu- whole. No 
 one ever cared what the people thought or did, for they 
 were peaceable, contented, and patriotic. Every measure 
 passed by the nobles was directed against an enemy 
 that might at any moment arise amongst themselves, 
 or against the machinations of enemies abroad. Of 
 all Italians the Venetians alone were not the victims of 
 that simplicity of which I have already spoken. 1 hey 
 believed in nothing and nobody, and they were not 
 deceived. They were not drawn into traps by the 
 wiles of the Visconti as Genoa was, and as many of the 
 principalities were; they were not cheated out of their 
 money by royal English borrowers as the Florentines 
 were; they were not led away out of sentiment to ruin 
 themselves in the Crusades as so many were; on the 
 contrary, their connection with the Crusades was very 
 profitable. For a long time they could be heroes when 
 driven to extremities, but they never liked heroics; 
 they were good fighters at sea, because they were admir- 
 able merchant sailors, but on land they much preferred 
 to hire other men to fight for them, whom they could 
 pay ofF and get rid of when the work was done. 
 
 Like other nations, their history is that of their rise, 
 their culmination, and their decline. Like other nations, 
 Venice also resembled the living body of a human 
 being, of which it is not possible to define with absolute 
 accuracy the periods of youth, prime, and old age. 
 But we can say with certainty that each of those stages 
 lasted longer in the life of Venice than in the life of 
 any other European state, perhaps because no one of
 
 i ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES 5 
 
 the three periods was hastened or interrupted by an 
 internal revolution or by the temporary presence of a 
 foreign conqueror. 
 
 It can be said, however, that Venice was, on the 
 whole, at the height of her glory about the year 1500, 
 and it would have needed a gift of prophecy to fore- 
 tell the probable date of the still distant end. At that 
 time the Great Council was more than ever the incarna- 
 tion of the State, that is, of the aristocracy; and every 
 member of the great assembly had a sort of 'cultus' 
 for his own dignity, and looked upon his family, from 
 which he derived his personal privileges, with a venera- 
 tion that bordered on worship. The safety and pros- 
 perity of the patrician houses were most intimately 
 connected with the welfare of the country; a member 
 of the Great Council would probably have considered 
 that the latter was the immediate consequence of the 
 former. As a matter of fact, under the government 
 which the aristocrats had given themselves, it really was 
 so; they were themselves the State. 
 
 It was therefore natural that they should guard their 
 race against all plebeian contamination. From time to 
 time it became necessary to open the Golden Book and 
 the doors of the Great Council to certain families which 
 had great claims upon the public gratitude, as happened 
 after the war of Chioggia; but the book was opened 
 unwillingly, and the door of the council-chamber was 
 only set ajar; the newcomers were looked 
 
 1 • 1 L L • J J R0 '"- lV - * 6<? - 
 
 upon as little better than intruders, and 
 
 the 'new men,' while they were invested with the
 
 6 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 outward distinctions of rank before the law, were not 
 received into anything like intimacy by their colleagues 
 of the older nobility. 
 
 It is a law of the Catholic Church that baptism 
 creates a relationship, and therefore a canonical impedi- 
 ment to marriage, between the baptized person or his 
 parents on the one hand, and the godfathers and god- 
 mothers on the other, as well as between each of the 
 godparents and all the rest. But it was the custom 
 of Venice to have a great many godfathers and god- 
 mothers at baptisms, and the nobles were therefore 
 obliged by law to choose them from the burgher and 
 artisan classes. It was perfectly indifferent that a young 
 patrician should contract a spiritual relationship with 
 a hundred persons — there were sometimes as many 
 godparents as that — if these persons were socially so far 
 beneath him that he must lose caste if he married one 
 of them; but it was of prime importance that the law 
 should forbid the formation of any spiritual bond 
 whereby a possible marriage between two members of 
 the aristocracy might be prevented, or even retarded. 
 Every parish priest was therefore required to ask in a 
 loud voice, when he was baptizing a noble baby, whether 
 there were any persons of the same social condition as 
 the infant amongst the godparents. If he omitted to 
 do this, or allowed himself to be deceived by those 
 present, he was liable to a very heavy fine, and might 
 even be imprisoned for several months. 
 
 The Avogadori now replaced their old-fashioned 
 register by the one henceforth officially known as the
 
 ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES 
 
 7 
 
 Golden Book, in which were entered the marriages of 
 the nobles and the births of their children. Every 
 noble who omitted to have his marriage registered 
 within. one week, or the birth of his children within 
 the same time, was liable to severe penalties. But the 
 
 HALL OF THE GREAT CLOCKS, DL'CAL PALACE 
 
 names of women of inferior condition who married 
 
 nobles were not entered in those sanctified pages, since 
 
 the children of a burgher woman could not sit in the 
 
 Great Council. Nevertheless, it happened now and 
 
 then that a noble sacrificed the privileges 
 
 of his descendants for the present advantage 
 
 of a rich dowry; and as this again constituted a source 
 
 Afolmoiti, Dog.
 
 8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 of anxiety for the State, the amount of a burgher 
 girl's marriage portion was limited by law to the sum 
 of two thousand ducats. 
 
 The young aristocrats received a special education, 
 to ht them for their future duties and offices. We 
 have already seen that young men not yet old enough 
 to sit in the Great Council were admitted to its 
 meetings in considerable numbers, though without a 
 vote. The instruction and education of 
 
 Yrtarte, Vie 
 
 d'un Patricien young nobles were conducted according to 
 
 de Venise, 67. r 1 • 1 1 1 • 1 
 
 a programme or which the details were 
 established by a series of decrees, and especially by one 
 dating from 1443; and in the Senate very young noble 
 boys were employed to carry the ballot-boxes, in which 
 office they took turns, changing every three months. 
 There were probably not enough noble children to 
 perform the same duty for the Great Council, which 
 employed for that purpose a number of boys from the 
 Foundling Asylum. 
 
 The young nobles were brought up to feel that 
 they and their time belonged exclusively to the State, 
 and when they grew older it was a point of honour 
 with them not to be absent from any meeting of the 
 Councils to which they were appointed. Marcantonio 
 Barbaro, the patrician whose life M. Yriarte has so 
 carefully studied, missed only one meeting of the 
 Great Council in thirty years, and then his absence 
 was due to illness. When one considers that the Great 
 Council met every Sunday, and on everv feast day 
 except the second of March and the thirty-first of
 
 i ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES 9 
 
 January, which was Saint Mark's day, such constant 
 regularity is reallv wonderful. 
 
 HALL OF THE PICTURES, DUCAL PALACE 
 
 During the summer the sittings were held from 
 eight in the morning until noon, in winter from noon 
 to sunset; this, at least, was the ordinary rule, but the
 
 io GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 Doge's counsellors could multiply the meetings to 
 any extent they thought necessary, and we know that 
 when a doge was to be elected the Great Council 
 sometimes sat fifty times consecutively. 
 
 The public were admitted to the ordinary sittings 
 of the Great Council, and in later times one could 
 even be present wearing a mask, as may be seen in 
 certain old engravings. But no outsiders were admitted 
 when an important subject was to be discussed, and on 
 those occasions a number of members were themselves 
 excluded. If, for instance, the question concerned the 
 Papal Court, all those who had ever avowed their 
 sympathy for the Holy See, or who had any direct 
 relations with the reigning Pope, or who owed him 
 any debt of gratitude, were ordered to leave the 
 hall. Such persons were called 'papalisti,' and were 
 frequently shut out of the Great Council in the 
 sixteenth century, a period during which the Republic 
 had many differences with Rome. 
 
 In 1526, for instance, the Patriarch of Venice laid 
 before the Great Council a complaint against the 
 Signors of the Night, who refused to set at liberty 
 a certain priest arrested by them, or even to inform 
 the ecclesiastical authorities of the nature of his 
 misdemeanour. That would have been one of the 
 occasions for excluding the 'papalisti.' The Patriarch 
 seems to have been a hot-tempered person, for on 
 finding that he could get no satisfaction from the Great 
 Council, he excommunicated the Venetian government 
 and everybody connected with it, and posted the
 
 i INQUISITORS OF STATE n 
 
 notice of the interdict on the columns of the ducal 
 palace. The matter was patched up in some way, 
 however, for on the morrow the notice disappeared. 
 
 The Senate met twice a week, on Wednesdays and 
 Saturdays. I find among their regulations a singular 
 rule by which the beginning of every speech had to be 
 delivered in theTuscan language, after which the speaker 
 was at liberty to go on in his own Venetian dialect. 
 
 I have already spoken at some length of the Council 
 of Ten; it is now necessary to say some- Fviin, studu, 
 thing of the Inquisitors of State, to whom iSji (unfinished). 
 the Ten ceded a part of their authority in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 In the first place, the Inquisitors of State never 
 had anything to do with the 'Inquisition,' nor with 
 the 'Inquisitors of the Holy Office,' a tribunal, oddly 
 enough, which was much more secular than ecclesiastic, 
 and which belongs to a later period. 
 
 Secondly, the so-called 'Statutes of the Inquisitors 
 of State,' published by the French historian Daru, in 
 good faith, and translated by Smedley, were 
 afterwards discovered to be nothing but 
 an impudent forgery, containing several laughable 
 anachronisms, and a number of mistakes about the 
 nature of the magistracies which prove that the forger 
 was not even a Venetian. 
 
 Thirdly, the genuine Statutes have been discovered 
 since, and are given at length by Romanin. Thev do 
 not bear the least resemblance to the nonsense pub- 
 lished by Daru. No one except Romanin would have
 
 iz GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 attempted to whitewash the Inquisitors and the Coun- 
 cil of Ten, and even he is obliged to admit that for 
 'weighty reasons of state' they did not hesitate to 
 order secret assassinations; but they were not fools, 
 as the 'Statutes' of Daru make them appear. 
 
 The proof that the Statutes published bv Romanin 
 are genuine consists in the fact that two independent 
 copies of them have been found; the one, written out 
 by Angelo Nicolosi, secretary to the Inquisitors, with a 
 dedication to them dated the twenty-fifth of September 
 1669; the other, a pocket copy, written out in 161 2, 
 with his own hand, by the Inquisitor Niccolo Dona, 
 nephew of the Doge Leonardo Dona. The Statutes in 
 these two copies are identical; the earlier one, which 
 belonged to Dona, contains also a number of interesting 
 memoranda concerning the doings of the tribunal in 
 that year. 
 
 Lastly, it is conjectured by Romanin that the author 
 of the forgery that imposed on Daru and others was 
 no less a personage than Count Francesco della Torre, 
 the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire. He died 
 in Venice in 1695. 
 
 These facts being clearlv stated, we can pass on to 
 inquire how and why the court of the Inquisitors of 
 State was evoked, it being well understood that although 
 they were not the malignant fiends described by Daru, 
 who seems to have had in his mind the German tales 
 of the 'Wehmgericht,' yet, in the picturesque language 
 of their native Italy, 'they were not shinbones of saints' 
 either.
 
 INQUISITORS OF STATE 
 
 *3 
 
 Most historians consider that 'Inquisitors of the 
 Council of Ten' were first appointed by that Council 
 
 --■ 
 
 & 
 
 THE STAIR OF GOLD, DUCAL PALACE 
 
 in 13 14, and it is generally conceded that they did not 
 take the title 'Inquisitors of State' and begin to be re- 
 garded unofficially as a separate tribunal till 1539. The
 
 i 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 mass of evidence goes to show that these two dates are, 
 at least, not far wrong, and during more than two 
 hundred years between the two, the members of the com- 
 mittee were called indifferently either the 'Inquisitors,' 
 or the ' Executives' of the Ten. 
 
 They were at first either two, or three; later they 
 were always three, and they were commissioned to 
 furnish proofs against accused persons, and occasion- 
 ally to make the necessary arrangements for secretly 
 assassinating traitors who had fled the country and 
 were living abroad. At first their commission was 
 a temporary one, which was not renewed unless the 
 gravity of the case required it. Later, when they 
 became a permanent tribunal of three, two of their 
 number were always regular members of the Council of 
 Ten, and were called the 'Black Inquisitors,' because 
 the Ten wore black mantles; the third was one of the 
 Doge's counsellors, who, as will be remembered, were 
 among the persons always present at the meetings of 
 the Ten, and he was called the 'Red Inquisitor' from 
 the colour of his counsellor's cloak. 
 
 The fourteenth century was memorable on account 
 of the great conspiracies, and it is at least probable that 
 after 1320 the secret committee of the Ten became 
 tolerably permanent as to its existence, though its 
 members were often changed. Signor Fulin has dis- 
 covered that during a part of the fifteenth century they 
 were chosen only for thirty days, and that the utmost 
 exactness was enforced on those who vacated the office. 
 A long discussion took place at that time as to whether
 
 i INQUISITORS OF STATE 15 
 
 the month began at the midnight preceding the day of 
 the Inquisitor's election, or only on the morning of 
 that day; since, in the latter case, an Inquisitor at the 
 end of' his term would have the right to act until 
 sunrise on the thirty-first day, whereas, in the other, he 
 would have to resign his seat at the first stroke of mid- 
 night. The incident is a good instance of the Venetian 
 manner of interpreting the letter of the law. 
 
 So long as the tribunal was merely a committee 
 depending on the Ten it had no archives of its own, 
 and whatever it did appeared officially as the act of the 
 Council, of which the Inquisitors were merely executive 
 agents. They were dismissed at the end of their month 
 of service with a regular formula : — 
 
 'The Inquisitors will come to the Council with what 
 they have found, and the Council will decide what it 
 thinks best with regard to them.' 
 
 In those times they received no general authorisation 
 or power to act on their own account, and their office 
 must have been excessively irksome, since a heavy fine 
 was exacted from any one who refused to serve on the 
 committee when he had been chosen. Though they 
 were not, as a rule, men of over-sensitive conscience, 
 they felt their position keenly and served with ill- 
 disguised repugnance, well knowing that they were 
 hated as a body even more than they were feared, and 
 that their lives were not always safe. 
 
 In early times their actual permanent power was 
 very limited, though the Ten could greatly extend it 
 for any special purpose. For instance, they could not,
 
 16 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY' i 
 
 of their own will, proceed even to a simple arrest; 
 they could not order the residence of a citizen to be 
 searched ; and they could not use torture in examining 
 a witness, without a special authorisation from the Ten 
 on each occasion. 
 
 Their work then lay almost wholly in secretly 
 spying upon suspected persons; and it often happened 
 that when such an one was at last arrested the whole 
 mass of evidence against him was already written out 
 and in the hands of the Ten. It also certainly happened 
 now and then that a person was proved innocent by the 
 Inquisitors who had been suspected by the Ten, and 
 who had never had the least idea that he w T as in danger. 
 
 The machinery did not always work quickly, it is 
 true, especially after the accused was arrested and 
 locked up. Trials often dragged on for months, so 
 that when the culprit was at last sentenced to a term of 
 prison, it appeared that he had already served more 
 than the time to which he was condemned. This 
 abuse, however, led to a vigorous reform by a series 
 of stringent decrees, the time of inquiry was limited, 
 for ordinary cases, to three days, and for graver 
 matters to a month, and ruinous fines were imposed 
 on Councillors and Inquisitors who were not present 
 at every sitting of the Court. 
 
 It was towards the close of the sixteenth century 
 that the Inquisitors, being then elected for the term of 
 a year, were given much greater power than theretofore. 
 Though they were still closely associated with the Ten, 
 they now had a sort of official independence, including
 
 i INQUISITORS OF STATE 17 
 
 the right to a method of procedure of their own, with 
 secret archives quite separate from those of the Ten. 
 The year .1596 is generally given as the date at which 
 the separate tribunal was definitely created, with per- 
 manent instructions to watch over the public safety, 
 and to detect all plots and conspiracies that might 
 threaten the ' ancient laws and government of Venice.' 
 
 It cannot be said that the procedure of the Ten, or of 
 the Inquisitors, was arbitrary, and the supreme Venetian 
 tribunals have not deserved all the obloquy that has 
 been heaped upon them; but at a time when the most 
 inhuman methods were used to obtain evidence, they 
 certainly did not give an example of gentleness. 
 
 Signor Fulin, to whose recent researches all students 
 of Venetian history are much indebted, says, with 
 perfect truthfulness, that torture was by no means 
 used with moderation. He cites a document signed by 
 the Ten and the Inquisitors, dated the twenty-fifth of 
 April 1445: — 
 
 'We have received a humble petition- from Luigi 
 Cristoforo Spiaciario, sentenced to two years' imprison- 
 ment and ten years of exile for unnatural crimes. The 
 said convict has passed two years in prison according 
 to his sentence, and five years more in the corridors of 
 the prisons, because his feet having been burnt and his 
 arms dislocated by torture, he could not leave Venice. 
 The said convict petitions that, out of regard for so 
 much suffering, he may be pardoned the last five years 
 of his condemnation.' 
 
 The same writer also tells us that in spite of the 
 VOL. 11. — c
 
 i8 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 precautions which were supposed to be taken, torture 
 often ended in death ; and in the archives of the 
 Ten there are instances of horrible mutilations besides 
 public decapitations, secret stranglings, and hangings 
 and poisonings; there are also some cases of death 
 inflicted by drowning, though these were less frequent 
 than has been supposed; and lastly, the quiet waters of 
 the canals have more than once reflected the blaze of 
 faggots burning round the stake. 
 
 Romanin's industry has left us an exact list of the 
 official drownings that took place between 155 1 and 
 1604, a period of fifty-three years. As it is not long, 
 I append it in full. The list is made out from the 
 register of deaths which is preserved in the church of 
 Saint Mark's. 
 
 In 1 55 1 there were secretly drowned 2 persons 
 
 !554 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 2 " 
 
 1555 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 2 " 
 
 1556 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 3 " 
 
 1557 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 4 
 
 1558 
 
 
 (( 
 
 
 cc 
 
 I " 
 
 1559 
 
 
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 cc 
 
 8 « 
 
 1560 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 7 " 
 
 1569 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 6 » 
 
 1571 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 4 " 
 
 J573 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 7 " 
 
 From 1574 to 
 
 1584 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 12 " 
 
 1584 to 
 
 1594 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 55 
 
 1 594 to 
 
 1600 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 50 « 
 
 1600 to 
 
 1604 
 
 cc 
 
 
 cc 
 
 40 " 
 
 Total 
 
 number 
 
 of d 
 
 rowned 
 
 203 during 53 years
 
 i INQUISITORS OF STATE 19 
 
 The last person who suffered death by drowning 
 was a glass-blower of Murano in the eighteenth 
 century.- 
 
 Before going on to say a word about the prisons in 
 the sixteenth century it is as well to call attention to 
 the fact that the Inquisitors of State twice found them- 
 selves in direct relations with the English government; 
 once, in 1587, when they called the attention of 
 England to a conspiracy which was brewing in Spain; 
 and again, a few years later, in connection with the 
 tragedy of Antonio Foscarini in which they played such 
 a deplorable part. Is it not possible that there may be 
 some documents in the English Record Office bearing 
 upon those circumstances, and likely to throw more 
 light upon the tribunal of the Inquisitors ? 
 
 In connection with the prisons, I take the following 
 details, among many similar ones, from documents 
 found by Signor Fulin in the archives of the Inquisitors 
 of State. He says, in connection with them, that they 
 are by no means exaggerated. One of the most 
 characteristic is a case dated towards the end of the 
 fifteenth century, and it will serve as an example, since 
 it is known that no great changes were made in the 
 management of the prisons until much later. 
 
 'There has been found in the prisons a youth named 
 Menegidio Scutellario, whom the Council of Ten had 
 sentenced to twenty-five blows of the stick, which 
 he received, and to a year's imprisonment. He was 
 transferred from the new prisons to the one called 
 Muzina, where he contracted an extremely painful
 
 20 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 inflammatory disease which has produced running sores. 
 He has several on his head, and his face is much 
 
 RIO S. ATANASIO 
 
 swollen. Moreover, this boy is shut up in the prison 
 with twenty-five men of all ages, which is very dangerous
 
 i INQUISITORS OF STATE 21 
 
 for him from a moral point of view. A widow, who 
 says she is his mother, comes every day to the Palace 
 begging and imploring that her son may not be left in 
 this abominable prison, lest he die there, or at least 
 learn all manner of wickedness in the company of so 
 many criminals. We consequently order that in view 
 of the justice of these complaints the boy be kept in the 
 corridor of the prisons till the end of his year.' 
 
 As in the Tower of London, so also in the 
 gloomy dens of the Pozzi, former prisoners have left 
 short records of themselves. For instance: Mutineiu, 
 '1576, 22 March. I am Mandricardo AnnaiiUrb. 
 Matiazzo de Marostega' ; 'Galeazzo Avogadro and 
 his friends 1584'; and lower down the following mis- 
 spelt Latin words, 'Odie mihi, chras tibi (sic)' - -'My 
 turn to-day, to-morrow yours.' 
 
 Occasionally some daring convict succeeded in 
 escaping from those deep and secure prisons. In his 
 journal, under the fifth of August 1497, Marin Sanudo 
 writes : — 
 
 It has happened that in the prisons of Saint Mark a num- 
 ber of convicts who were to remain there till thev died have 
 plotted to escape ; they elected for their chief that Loico 
 Fioravante, who killed his father on the night of Good Friday 
 in the church of the Frari. There was also Marco Corner, 
 sentenced for an unnatural crime; Benedetto Petriani, thief, 
 and many others. On the evening of the fourth, when the 
 jailers were making their usual rounds, the prisoners succeeded 
 in disarming and binding them, and went on from one prison 
 to another, their numbers increasing as they went, till they 
 reached the last (novissima) ; there they found arrows and
 
 22 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 other arms, and began to discuss a plan of escape. Now it 
 chanced that two Saracens who were amongst them wished to 
 get out more quickly, without waiting for the deliberations of 
 their comrades. One of them was almost drowned in the 
 canal, the other took fright and began to cry out for help. A 
 boat of the Council of Ten which was just passing picked up 
 the half-drowned man ; the fact that he was a Saracen suggested 
 that he might be a fugitive, and he was frightened into con- 
 fessing. The plot was now revealed and the guard was 
 immediately informed. On the following morning the chiefs 
 of the Ten, Cosimo Pasqualigo, Niccolo da Pesaro, Domenico 
 Beneto, went to the prisons with a good escort, but they could 
 not get in, for the prisoners defended themselves. Then wet 
 straw was brought, and it was lighted in order that the smoke 
 might suffocate them. And they were advised to yield before 
 the order of the Council of Ten was repeated thrice, for other- 
 wise they would all be hanged. Marco Corner was the first to 
 surrender, and after him all the others. They were taken 
 back, each to his prison, under a closer watch. 
 
 In Marco Corner's case the love of liberty must have 
 been strong, for in the same journal of Sanudo we find 
 that in little more than a year after their unsuccessful 
 attempt at flight, he and some companions actually 
 succeeded in getting out and made their exit through 
 the hall of the Piovego, that is to say, through the 
 Doge's palace. Their numbers were considerable, and 
 six of them were sentenced to imprisonment for life. 
 During the night they reached the monastery of Saint 
 George, and at dawn they were already beyond the 
 confines of Venetian territory. 
 
 Having disposed of the Inquisitors of State, I shall
 
 i . THE HOLY OFFICE 23 
 
 now endeavour to explain the position and duties of 
 the Inquisitors of the Holy Office, with whom the 
 ordinary reader is very apt to confound them. 
 
 In the first place, the Holy Office in Venice was a 
 much milder and more insignificant affair than it was 
 at that time in other European states. In Venice it 
 seems to have corresponded vaguely to the modern 
 European Ministry of Public Worship. There are 
 some amusing stories connected with it, but no very 
 terrible ones so far as I can ascertain. 
 
 The Republic had long resisted the desire of the 
 Popes to establish a branch of the Holy Inquisition 
 in Venice, but by way of showing a conciliatory 
 spirit, while maintaining complete independence, the 
 government had created a magistracy which was respon- 
 sible for three matters, namely, the condition of the 
 canals, the regulation of usury, and — of all things - 
 cases of heresy. It is perfectly impossible to say why 
 three classes of affairs so different were placed under 
 the control of one body of men. Considering the 
 gravity of the Venetian government we can hardly 
 suppose that it was intended as a piece of ironical wit 
 at the expense of the Holy See. It may, at all events, 
 be considered certain that the Savi all' Eresia, literally 
 the Wise Men on Heresy, of the thirteenth century, had 
 not accomplished what was expected of them, since in 
 1289 the government recognised the necessity of estab- 
 lishing a special court to deal with affairs of religion, 
 presided over, at least in appearance, by a person 
 delegated for that purpose from the Vatican. The
 
 24 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 Holy Office was thereby accepted in Venice, hut with 
 restrictions that paralysed it. 
 The tribunal was, in principle, composed of three 
 
 persons, the Apostolic Nuncio, the- Patriarch, and the 
 MoimmH, Father Inquisitor, all three of whom had to 
 
 stud.eRic. De approved by the Republic. As a first 
 step towards hindering them from acting rashly, they 
 were strictly forbidden to discuss or decide anything 
 whatsoever, except in the presence of three Venetian 
 nobles, who were appointed year by year, and preserved 
 their ancient title of Wise Men on Heresy. Next, 
 the Holy Office was not allowed to busy itself about 
 
 Rom.u.252, any religious matter except heresy, in the 
 
 a/uizuii.jfS. str j ctest sense; it could not interfere in 
 connection with any violation of the laws of the Church, 
 not even in cases of sorcery or blasphemy, for magicians 
 fell under the authority of the Signors of the Night, and 
 blasphemers were answerable to the Executives against 
 Blasphemy. 
 
 These laws had not changed in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and the Holy Office had less to do than most of 
 the contemporary tribunals. An examination of the 
 documents preserved in its archives shows that from 
 the year 1541 to the fall of the Republic there were 
 three thousand six hundred and twenty trials, of which 
 fifteen hundred and sixty-five fell in the sixteenth 
 century, fourteen hundred and ninety-seven in the 
 seventeenth, and only five hundred and sixty-one in the 
 eighteenth. In the majority of cases the testimony was 
 declared insufficient; in others, the accused hastened to
 
 i THE HOLY OFFICE 25 
 
 abjure their errors. Sometimes, however, we find long 
 trials in the course of which torture was used as by the 
 other tribunals, and in these cases the end was frequently 
 a sentence of death or a condemnation to the galleys. 
 No heretic was ever burned alive in 
 
 \t • 11 • n- 11 i" Molmenti, Stud. 
 
 Venice; death was mtiicted by strangling, e Ric.,and 
 beheading, or hanging. Each Doge pro- Cecchetti, Corte 
 mised, indeed, on his election, to burn all 
 heretics, but it is amply proved that only their dead 
 bodies or their effigies were really given to the flames. 
 
 m co m 
 
 Door used by the |UUUUUUUUUU| 
 
 Father Inquisitor, the I 
 
 Nuncio's Auditor, the J L Door used bv the 
 
 Patriarch's Vicar, ( ~. 7T 77i T7Z \ Patriarch, the 
 
 the Commissioner ^ Court of the Holy Office J Nuncio, and the 
 
 of the Inquisition, "I T three Senators. 
 
 and the Clerk of 
 the Exchequer. 
 
 The tribunal of the Holy Office sat in a very low 
 vaulted room in the buildings of Saint Mark's, which 
 was reached by a narrow staircase after passing through 
 the Sacristy. The Court had no prisons of its own. 
 Persons who were arrested by it, or sentenced by it to 
 terms of imprisonment, were confined in the prisons of 
 the State, probably in those of the Ponte della Paglia. 
 It is likely that the Court had at its disposal two or
 
 26 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 three cells near its place of sitting, tor the detention of 
 the accused during the trials. Signor Molmenti has 
 ascertained precisely how the members ot the tribunal 
 were placed, and has published a diagram which I here 
 reproduce for the benefit of those who like such curious 
 details. 
 
 As will be seen by the diagram, one half of the 
 personages used one entrance, and the rest came in by 
 the other. Until the year 1560, the Inquisitor him- 
 self was a Franciscan monk, but afterwards he was 
 always a Dominican. 
 
 The hall was gloomy and ill-lighted, the furniture 
 poor; it did not please the Republic to spend money 
 for the delectation of a court which it did not like. 
 
 It was here that two famous trials took place in the 
 sixteenth century, namely, that of Giordano Bruno, the 
 renegade monk, dear to Englishmen who have never 
 read the very scarce volume of his insane and filthy 
 writings, a'nd that of the celebrated painter Paolo 
 Veronese. The contrast between these two documents 
 is very striking, but both go to prove that the Holy 
 Office in Venice was seldom more than a hollow sham, 
 and that its proceedings occasionally degenerated to- 
 wards low comedy. 
 
 Having escaped from Rome, Giordano Bruno left 
 the ecclesiastical career which he had dishonoured in 
 Previa, vita di every possible way, and wandered about in 
 Giordano Bruno. searcn f money and glory. In the course 
 of time he came to London, where his coarseness and his 
 loose life made him many enemies. Thence he went on
 
 i THE HOLY OFFICE 27 
 
 to Oxford, where, by means of some potent protection, 
 he succeeded in obtaining the privilege of lecturing on 
 philosophy; but the university authorities were soon 
 scandalised by his behaviour and frightened by the extra- 
 vagance of his doctrines ; in three months he was obliged 
 to leave. He revenged himself by writing a libel called 
 'La Cena delle Ceneri,' in which he described England 
 as a land of dark streets in which one stuck in the mud 
 knee-deep, and of houses that lacked every necessary ; the 
 boats on the Thames were rowed by men more hideous 
 than Charon, the workmen and shop-keepers were 
 vulgar and untaught rustics, always ready to laugh at 
 a stranger, and to call him by such names as traitor, 
 or dog. In this pleasing pamphlet the Englishwoman 
 alone escapes the writer's foul-mouthed hatred, to be 
 insulted by his still more foul-mouthed praise. One 
 may imagine the sort of eulogy that would run from 
 the pen of a man capable of describing woman in 
 general as a creature with neither faith nor constancy, 
 neither merit nor talent, but full of more pride, 
 arrogance, hatred, falseness, lust, avarice, ingratitude 
 and, generally, of more vices than there were evils in 
 Pandora's box; one might quote many amenities of 
 language more or less senseless, as, for instance, that 
 woman is a hammer, a foul sepulchre, and a quartan 
 fever; and there are a hundred other expressions which 
 cannot be quoted at all. 
 
 Towards 1 59 1 , the patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, 
 an enthusiastic collector of books, found in the shop of 
 a Dutch bookseller a little volume, entitled Eroici Furori,
 
 28 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 which contains some astrological calculations and sonic- 
 hints on mnemonics. The purchaser asked who the 
 author might be, learned from the bookseller that it 
 was Giordano Bruno, entered into correspondence with 
 him, and at last invited him to Venice. 
 
 Bruno, it is needless to say, accepted the invitation 
 eagerly, as he accepted everything that wasoffered to him, 
 hut it was not long before Mocenigo regretted his haste- 
 to be hospitable. He had begun by calling his visitor his 
 dear master; before long he discovered the man to be 
 a debauchee and a blasphemer. Now it chanced that 
 Mocenigo had sat in the tribunal of the Holy Office 
 as one of the three senators whose business it was to 
 oversee the acts of the Father Inquisitor, and he was 
 not only a devout man, but had a taste for theology. 
 He began by remonstrating with Bruno, but when the 
 latter became insolent, he quietly turned the key on 
 him and denounced him to the Holy Office. A few 
 hours later the renegade monk was arrested and con- 
 veyed to prison. He was examined several times by 
 the tribunal, but was never tortured, and as the judges 
 thought they detected signs of coming repentance they 
 granted him a limit of time within which to abjure 
 his errors. But the trial did not end in Venice, 
 for the Republic made an exception in this case and 
 soon yielded to a request from the Pope that the 
 accused should be sent to Rome. He was ultimately 
 burnt there, the only heretic, according to the most 
 recent and learned authorities, who ever died at the 
 stake in Italy. He was in reality a degenerate and
 
 i THE HOLY OFFICE 29 
 
 a lunatic, who should have ended his days in an 
 asylum. 
 
 M. Yriarte has published in the appendix to his 
 study of the Venetian noble in the sixteenth century 
 the verbatim report of the proceedings of the Holy 
 Office on the eighteenth of July 1573. The prisoner 
 at the bar was Paolo Veronese. I quote the following 
 from M. Yriarte's translation : — 
 
 Report of the sitting of the Tribunal of the Inquisition on 
 Saturday July eighteenth, 1573. 
 
 This day, July eighteenth, 1573. Called to the Holy 
 Office before the sacred tribunal, Paolo Galliari Veronese 
 residing in the parish of Saint Samuel, and being asked as to 
 his name and surname replied as above. 
 
 Being asked as to his profession : — 
 
 Answer. I paint and make figures. 
 
 Question. Do you know the reasons why you have been 
 called here ? 
 
 A. No. 
 
 Q. Can you imagine what those reasons may be? 
 
 A. I can well imagine. 
 
 Q^ Say what you think about them. 
 
 A. I fancy that it concerns what was said to me by the 
 
 reverend fathers, or rather by the prior of the monastery of 
 
 San Giovanni e Paolo, whose name I did not Sutter 
 
 know, but who informed me that he had been in the house 
 
 here, and that your Most Illustrious Lordships „ °/ Sn """- 
 ' J ' Paolo I eronese ; 
 
 had ordered him to cause to be placed in the Accademia, 
 picture a Magdalen instead of the dog; and I 
 answered him that very readily I would do all that was needful 
 for my reputation and for the honour of the picture ; but that I
 
 JO 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 did not understand what this figure of Magdalen could be doing 
 
 J aittfl 
 
 I IP11J 
 
 •t^"" 
 
 >v 
 
 WOES)! 
 
 
 '^ f * fl ft 
 
 hji! 
 
 
 M£%JSM 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 S'i^^ip^ 
 
 S. SAM TELE 
 
 here ; and this for many reasons, which I will tell, when occa- 
 sion is granted me to speak.
 
 i THE HOLY OFFICE 31 
 
 Q. What is the picture to which you have been referring? 
 
 A. It is the picture which represents the Last Supper of 
 Jesus Christ with His disciples in the house of Simon. 
 
 Q. Where is this picture ? 
 
 A. In the refectory of the monks of San Giovanni e Paolo. 
 
 Q. Is it painted in fresco or on wood or on canvas ? 
 
 A. It is on canvas. 
 
 O. How many feet does it measure in height ? 
 
 A. It may measure seventeen feet. 
 
 Q. And in breadth ? 
 
 A. About thirty-nine. 
 
 Q. In this Supper of our Lord, have you painted (other) 
 persons ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. How many have you represented ? And what is each 
 one doing ? 
 
 A. First there is the innkeeper, Simon ; then, under him, 
 a carving squire whom I supposed to have come there for his 
 pleasure, to see how the service of the table is managed. There 
 are many other figures which I cannot remember, however, as 
 it is a long time since I painted that picture. 
 
 Q. Have you painted other Last Suppers besides that 
 one ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. How many have you painted ? Where are they ? 
 
 A. I painted one at Verona for the reverend monks of 
 San Lazzaro ; it is in their refectory. Another is in the 
 refectory of the reverend brothers of San Giorgio here in 
 Venice. 
 
 Q. But that one is not a Last Supper, and is not even 
 called the Supper of Our Lord. 
 
 ,, A. I painted another in the refectory of San Sebastiano in 
 Venice, another at Padua for the Fathers of the Maddalena. I 
 do not remember to have made any others.
 
 32 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e 
 Paolo, what signifies the figure of him whose nose is bleeding? 
 
 A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some acci- 
 dent ? 
 
 O. What signify those armed men dressed in the fashion 
 of Germany, with halberds in their hands ? 
 
 A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words. 
 
 O. Say them. 
 
 A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, 
 and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other 
 eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, 
 because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master 
 of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnifi- 
 cent, should have such servants. 
 
 Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on 
 his wrist, why did you put him into the picture ? 
 
 A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such 
 figures. 
 
 Q. Who are the persons at the table of Our Lord ? 
 
 A. The twelve apostles. 
 
 Q. What is Saint Peter doing, who is the first ? 
 
 A. He is carving the lamb in order to pass it to the other 
 part of the table. 
 
 Q. What is he doing who comes next? 
 
 A. He holds a plate to see what Saint Peter will give him. 
 
 Q. Tell us what the third is doing. 
 
 A. He is picking his teeth with his fork. 
 
 Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to 
 have been present at this Supper ? 
 
 A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles ; 
 but when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it 
 with figures of my own invention. 
 
 O. Did some person order vou to paint Germans, buffoons, 
 and other similar figures in this picture?
 
 i THE HOLY OFFICE 33 
 
 A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought 
 proper ; now it is very large and can contain many figures. 
 
 O. Should not the ornaments which you were accustomed 
 to paint in pictures be suitable and in direct relation to the 
 subject, or are they left to your fancy, quite without discretion 
 or reason ? 
 
 A. I paint my pictures with all the considerations which 
 are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence 
 understands them. 
 
 O. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our 
 Lord, to represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and 
 other such absurdities ? 
 
 A. Certainly not. 
 
 Q. Then why have you done it ? 
 
 A. I did it on the supposition that those people were out- 
 side the room in which the Supper was taking place. 
 
 Q. Do you not know that in Germany and other countries 
 infested by heresy, it is habitual, by means of pictures full of 
 absurdities, to vilify and turn to ridicule the things of the Holy 
 Catholic Church, in order to teach false doctrine to ignorant 
 people who have no common sense ? 
 
 A. I agree that it is wrong, but I repeat what I have said, 
 that it is my duty to follow the examples given me by my masters. 
 
 Q. Well, what did your masters paint ? Things of this 
 kind, perhaps ? 
 
 A. In Rome, in the Pope's Chapel, Michel Angelo has 
 represented Our Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and 
 the celestial court ; and he has represented all these personages 
 nude, including the Virgin Mary, and in various attitudes not 
 inspired by the most profound religious feeling. 
 
 Q. Do you not understand that in representing the Last 
 
 Judgment, in which it is a mistake to suppose that clothes are 
 
 worn, there was no reason for painting any? But in these 
 
 figures what is there that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit ? 
 
 vol. n. — n
 
 3+ GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 There are neither buffoons, dogs, weapons, nor other absurdi- 
 ties. Do vou think therefore, according to this or that view, 
 that you did well in so painting your picture, and will you try 
 to prove that it is a good and decent thing? 
 
 A. No, my most Illustrious Sirs ; I do not pretend to prm e 
 it, but I had not thought that I was doing wrong ; I had never- 
 taken so many things into consideration. I had been far from 
 imagining such a great disorder, all the more as I had placed 
 these buffoons outside the room in which Our Lord was sitting. 
 
 These things having been said, the judges pronounced that 
 the aforesaid Paolo should be obliged to correct his picture 
 within the space of three months from the date of the repri- 
 mand, according to the judgments and decision of the Sacred 
 Court, and altogether at the expense of the said Paolo. 
 
 Et ita decreverunt omni melius modo. (And so they decided 
 everything for the best !) 
 
 The existing picture proves that Veronese paid no 
 attention to the recommendations of the Court, for I 
 find that it contains every figure referred to. 
 
 After this brief review of the more serious offices of 
 the Republic, I pass on to speak of a tribunal which, 
 though in reality much less serious, gave itself airs of 
 great solemnity, and promulgated a great number of 
 laws. This was the Court of the ' Provveditori delle 
 Pompe,' established in the sixteenth century to deal 
 with matters of dress and fashion. As far back as the end 
 of the thirteenth century, the 'Savi,' the wise men of 
 the government, had feebly deplored the increase of 
 luxury. Their plaintive remarks were repeated at 
 short intervals, and on each occasion produced some 
 new decree against foolish and unreasonable expenditure.
 
 THE LAST RAYS, ST. MARK'S
 
 
 
 

 
 i SUMPTUARY LAWS 35 
 
 The length of women's trains, the size and fulness of 
 people's sleeves, the adornment of boots and shoes, and 
 all similar matters, had been most minutely studied by 
 these wise gentlemen, and the avogadors had their 
 hands full to make the regulations properly respected. 
 One day a lady was walking in the square of Saint 
 Mark's, evidently very proud of the new white silk 
 gown she wore. She was stopped by Moimenti, Vita 
 two avogadors who gravely proceeded Priv - 
 
 to measure the amount of stuff used in making her 
 sleeves. It was far more than the law judged 
 necessary. The lady and her tailor — there were only 
 male dressmakers in Venice in the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries — were both made to pay a fine heavy 
 enough to make them regret the extravagance of their 
 fancy. I quote this story from Signor Moimenti. 
 Marin Sanudo tells of another similar regulation in his 
 journal under the month of December 1491 : 'All 
 those who hold any office from the State, and those who 
 are finishing their term of service, are forbidden to give 
 more than two dinner-parties to their relations, and each 
 of these dinners shall not consist of more than ten covers.' 
 At weddings it was forbidden to give banquets 
 to more than forty guests. Some years later another 
 regulation was issued on the same subject. It was 
 decreed 'that at these wedding dinners there shall not 
 be served more than one dish of roast meats and one 
 of boiled meats, and in each of these courses there shall 
 not be more than three kinds of meat. Chicken and 
 pigeons are allowed.'
 
 36 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 For days of abstinence, the magistrates take the 
 trouble to inform people what they may eat, namely, 
 
 two dishes of roast Hsh, two dishes of boiled fish, an 
 almond cake, and the ordinary i a ins. Of Hsh, sturgeon 
 and the hsh of the lake of Garda are forbidden on such 
 days, and no sweets are allowed that do not come under 
 one of the two heads mentioned. Oysters were not 
 allowed at dinners of more than twenty covers. The 
 pastry-cooks who made jumbles and the like, and the 
 cooks who were to prepare a dinner, were obliged to 
 give notice to the provveditors, accompanied by a 
 note of the dishes to be served. The inspectors of 
 the tribunal had a right to inspect the dining-room, 
 kitchen, and pantry, in order to verify all matters that 
 came under their jurisdiction. 
 
 As if all this were not enough, considerable fines were 
 imposed on those who should adorn the doors and outer 
 windows of their houses with festoons, or who should 
 give concerts in which drums and trumpets were used. 
 In noting this regulation in his journal, Sanudo observes 
 that the Council of Ten had only succeeded in framing 
 it after meeting on three consecutive days in sittings of 
 unusual length. One is apt to connect the Council of 
 Ten with matters more tragic than these; and one 
 fancies that the Decemvirs may have sometimes ex- 
 claimed with Dante — 
 
 Le leggi son, ma chi pon mano ad esse ? 
 
 ('There are laws indeed, but who enforces them?') 
 The Council judged that there was only one way of
 
 i SUMPTUARY LAWS 37 
 
 accomplishing this, namely, to create a new magistracy, 
 whose exclusive business it should be to make and 
 promulgate sumptuary laws. For this purpose three 
 nobles were chosen who received the title of Provveditori 
 delle Pompe. 
 
 M. Armand Baschet, whose profound learning in 
 matters of Venetian law is beyond dispute, is of opinion 
 that the new tribunal helped Venice to be great, and 
 hindered her from being extravagant. I shall not 
 venture to impugn the judgment of so learned a writer, 
 yet we can hardly forbear to smile at the thought of 
 those three grave nobles, of ripe age and austere life, 
 who sat down day after day to decide upon the cut of 
 women's gowns, the articles necessary to a bride's 
 outfit, and the dishes permissible at a dinner-party. 
 
 'Women,' said their regulations, 'shall wear clothes 
 of only one colour, that is to say, velvet, satin, damask, 
 of Persian silk woven of one tint; but exception is 
 madefrom this rule for Persian silk of changing sheen and 
 for brocades, but such gowns must have no trimming.' 
 
 Shifts were to be embroidered only round the neck, 
 and it was not allowed to embroider handkerchiefs with 
 gold or silver thread. No woman was 
 
 ... - 1 r r 1 Mutinelli, Less. 
 
 allowed to carry a fan made of feathers 
 worth more than four ducats. No gloves were allowed 
 embroidered with gold or silver; no earrings; no 
 jewellery in the hair. Plain gold bracelets were allowed 
 but must not be worth more than three ducats; gold 
 chains might be worth ten. No low-neck gowns 
 allowed !
 
 38 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 Jewellers and tailors and dealers in luxuries did their 
 best to elude all such laws, but during a considerable 
 time they were not successful, and it is probable that 
 the temper of the Venetian ladies was severely tried 
 by the prying and paternal ' Provveditori.' The only 
 Moimenti, Vita women for whom exceptions were made 
 Privata. W ere the Dogess and the other ladtes of 
 the Doge's immediate family who lived with him in the 
 ducal palace. His daughters and grand-daughters were 
 called ' dozete,' which means 'little dogesses' in 
 Venetian dialect, and they were authorised to wear 
 what they liked ; but the Doge's more distant female 
 relations had not the same privilege. 
 
 At the coronation of Andrea Gritti, one of his nieces 
 appeared at the palace arrayed in a magnificent gown of 
 gold brocade; the Doge himself sent her home to put 
 on a dress which conformed with the sumptuary laws. 
 Those regulations extended to intimate details of private 
 life, and even affected the furnishing of a noble's 
 private apartments. There were clauses which forbade 
 that the sheets made for weddings and baptisms should 
 be too richly embroidered or edged with too costly 
 lace, or that the beds themselves should be inlaid w r ith 
 gold, mother-of-pearl, or precious stones. 
 
 Then the gondola came into fashion as a means of 
 getting about and at once became a cause of great 
 extravagance, for the rich vied with each other in 
 adorning their skiffs with the most precious stuffs and 
 tapestries, and inlaid stanchions, and the most mar- 
 vellous allegorical figures.
 
 SUMPTUARY LAWS 
 
 39 
 
 In the thirteenth century the gondola had been 
 merely an ordinary boat, probably like the modern 
 'barca' of the lagoons, over which an awning was 
 rigged as a protection against sun and rain. I he 
 gondola was not a development of the old-fashioned 
 
 I* > W f 
 
 ON THE ZATTERE 
 
 boat, any more than the modern racing yacht has 
 developed out of a Dutch galleon or a 'trabacolo' of 
 the Adriatic. It had another pedigree; and I have no 
 hesitation in saying, as one well acquainted with both, 
 and not ignorant of boats in general, that the Venetian 
 gondola is the caique of the Bosphorus, as to the hull,
 
 4 o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 though the former is rowed in the Italian fashion, 
 by men who stand and swing a sweep in a crutch, 
 whereas the Turkish oarsman sits and pulls a pair of 
 sculls of peculiar shape which slide in and out through 
 greased leathern strops. The gondola, too, has the 
 steel ornament on her stem, figuring the beak of a 
 Roman galley, which I suspect was in use in Con- 
 stantinople before the Turkish conquest, and which 
 must have been abolished then, for the very reason that 
 it was Roman. The 'felse,' the hood, is a Venetian 
 invention, I think, for there is no trace of it in Turkey. 
 But the similarity of the two boats when out of water is 
 too close to be a matter of chance, and it may safely be 
 said that the first gondola was a caique, then doubtless 
 called by another name, brought from Constantinople 
 by some Greek merchant on his vessel. 
 
 In early times people went about on horses and 
 mules in Venice, and a vast number of the small canals 
 were narrow and muddy streets; but as the superior 
 facilities of water over mud as a means ot trans- 
 portation became evident, the lanes were dug out and 
 the islands were cut up into an immense number of 
 islets, until the footways became so circuitous that the 
 horse disappeared altogether. 
 
 In the sixteenth century there were about ten thousand 
 
 gondolas in Venice, and they soon became a regular 
 
 bugbear to the unhappy Provveditori delle 
 
 Mutinelli, Less. . r , . 
 
 Pompe, who were forced to occupy them- 
 selves with their shape, their hangings, the stuff of which 
 the 'felse' was made, the cushions, the carpets, and the
 
 SUMPTUARY LAWS 
 
 4i 
 
 number of rowers. The latter were soon limited to 
 two, and it was unlawful to have more, even for a 
 
 RIO DEL RIMEDIO 
 
 wedding. The gondola did not assume its present 
 simplicity and its black colour till the end of the seven-
 
 42 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 teenth century, but it began to resemble what we now 
 see after the edict of 1562. 
 
 As usual, a few persons were exempted from the 
 sumptuary law. The Doge went about in a gondola 
 decorated with gold and covered with scarlet cloth, 
 and the foreign ambassadors adorned their skiffs with 
 the richest materials, the representatives of France and 
 Spain, especially, vying with each other in magnificence. 
 To some extent the youths belonging to the Compagnia 
 della Calza ■ — ■ the Hose Club before mentioned — were 
 either exempted from the law, or succeeded in evading 
 it. Naturally enough, the sight of such display was 
 odious to the rich noblemen who were condemned by 
 law to the use of plain black; and on the whole, the 
 study of all accounts of festivities held in Venice, down 
 to the end of the Republic, goes to show that the Prov- 
 veditori aimed at a most despotic control of dress, 
 habits, and manners, but that the results generally fell 
 far short of their good intentions. They must have led 
 harassed lives, those much-vexed gentlemen, not much 
 better than the existence of 'Jimmy-Legs' on an 
 American man-of-w 7 ar. 
 
 Now and then, too, the government temporarily 
 removed all restrictions on luxury, as, for instance, 
 w 7 hen a foreign sovereign visited Venice; and then the 
 whole city plunged into a sort of orgy of extravagance. 
 This happened when Henry III. of France was the 
 guest of the Republic. Such occasions being known 
 and foreseen, and the nobles being forced by the Prov- 
 veditori to save their money, they spent it all the more
 
 i THE DOGE 43 
 
 recklessly when they were allowed a taste of liberty — 
 like a child that breaks its little earthenware savings-box 
 when it is full of pennies. 
 
 One naturally returns to the Doge after rapidly 
 reviewing such a legion of officials, each of whom was 
 himself a part of the supreme power. What was the 
 Doge doing while these hundreds of noble Venetians 
 were doing everything for themselves, from directing 
 foreign politics to spying upon the wardrobes of each 
 other's wives and auditing the accounts of one another's 
 cooks ? 
 
 It would be hard to ask a question more embarrass- 
 ing to answer. It would be as unjust to say that he 
 did nothing as it would be untrue to say that he had 
 much to do. Yet the Venetians themselves looked 
 upon him as a very important personage in the 
 Republic. In a republic he was a sovereign, and 
 therefore idle; but he was apparently necessary. 
 
 I am not aware that any other republic ever called its 
 citizens subjects, or supported a personage who received 
 royal honours, before whom the insignia of something 
 like royalty were carried in public, and who addressed 
 foreign governments by his own name and title as if he 
 were a king. But then, how could Venice, which was 
 governed by an oligarchy chosen from an aristocracy, 
 which w r as the centre of a plutocracy, call herself a 
 republic ? It all looks like a mass of contradictions, yet 
 the machinery worked without breaking down, during 
 five hundred years at a stretch, after it had assumed its 
 ultimate form. If a modern sociologist had to define
 
 44 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 the government of Venice, he would perhaps call it a 
 semi-constitutional aristocratic monarchy, in which trie- 
 sovereign was elected for life — unless it pleased the 
 electors to depose him. 
 
 What is quite certain is that when the Doge was 
 a man of average intelligence, he must have been the 
 least happy man in Venice; for of all Venetian nobles, 
 there was none whose personal liberty was so restricted, 
 whose smallest actions were so closely watched, whose 
 lightest word was subject to such a terrible censor- 
 ship. 
 
 Francesco Foscari was not allowed to resign when 
 he wished to do so, nor was he allowed to remain on 
 the throne after the Council had decided to get rid 
 of him. Even after his death, his unhappy widow was 
 not allowed to bury his body as she pleased. Yet his 
 was only an extreme case, because circumstances com- 
 bined to bring the existing laws into play and to let 
 them work to their logical result. 
 
 From the moment when a noble was chosen to fill 
 the ducal throne, he was bound to sacrifice himself to 
 the public service, altogether and till he died, without 
 regret, or possible return to private life, or any com- 
 pensation beyond what might flatter the vanity of a 
 vulgar and second-rate nature. Yet the Doges were 
 very rarely men of poor intelligence or weak character. 
 
 At each election, fresh restrictions were imposed by 
 'corrections' of the ducal oath. M. Yriarte says very 
 justly that the tone of these 'corrections' is often so 
 dry and hard that it looks as if the Great Council had
 
 i THE DOGE 45 
 
 been taking measures against an enemy rather than 
 editing rules for the life of the chief of the State. 
 He goes on to say, however, that the principle 
 which dictated those decrees protected both the Doge 
 and the nobility, and that the object at which each 
 aimed was the interest of the State. He asks, then, 
 whether those binding restrictions ever prevented a 
 strong personality from making itself felt, and whether 
 the long succession of Doges is nothing but a list of 
 inglorious names. 
 
 It may be answered, I think, with justice, that the 
 Dages of illustrious memory, during the latter centuries 
 of the Republic's existence, had become famous as 
 individual officers before their elevation to the throne. 
 The last great fighting Doge was Enrico Dandolo, 
 the conqueror of Constantinople, who died almost a 
 hundred years before the closure of the Great Council. 
 In the war of Chioggia, Andrea Contarini's oath not 
 to return into the city till the enemy was beaten had 
 the force of a fine example, but the man himself con- 
 tributed nothing else to the most splendid page in 
 Venetian history. 
 
 There were Doges who were good historians and 
 writers, others who have been brave generals, others like 
 Giovanni Mocenigo who were good financiers; but the 
 fact of their having been Doges has nothing to do with 
 the reputation they left afterwards. The sovereignty, 
 when it was given to them, was a chain, not a sceptre, 
 and from the day they went up the grand staircase as 
 masters, their personal liberty of thought and action
 
 46 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 was more completely left behind than if they had 
 entered by another door to spend the remainder of life 
 in the prisons by the Ponte della Paglia, beyond the 
 Bridge of Sighs. 
 
 At the beginning of the fifteenth century the Doge 
 
 Michel Steno was told in open Council to sit down 
 
 and hold his peace. No change in the manners oi 
 
 the counsellors had taken place sixty years later when 
 
 the Doge Cristoforo Moro objected to 
 
 Tassini, under © J 
 
 'Moro: accompanying Pius the Second's projected 
 crusade in person, and was told by Vittor 
 Cappello that if he would not go of his own accord he 
 should be taken by force. 
 
 It is hard to imagine a more unpleasant position than 
 that of the chief of the State. Suppose, for instance, 
 that by the choice of the Council some post or dignity 
 was to be conferred on one of his relatives, or even on 
 one of his friends; he was literally and categorically 
 forbidden to exhibit the least satisfaction, or to thank 
 Yriarte.ViecFun the Council, even by a nod of the head. 
 Patr ><- iet! >359> }\ e was to preside at this, and at many 
 
 and Marin r J 
 
 sanudo. other ceremonies, as a superbly-dressed lay 
 figure, as a sort of allegorical representative of that 
 power with which every member of the government 
 except himself was invested. And as time went on this 
 part he had to play, of the living allegory, was more 
 and more defined. He was even deprived of the 
 title 'My Lord,' and was to be addressed merely as 
 'Messer Doge,' 'Sir Doge.' From 1501 onward he was 
 forbidden to go out of the city, even for an hour in his
 
 i THE DOGE 47 
 
 gondola, without the consent of the Council, and if he 
 disobeyed he had to pay a fine of one hundred ducats; 
 he was not allowed to write a letter, even to his wife or 
 his children, without showing it to at least one of his 
 six counsellors, and if he disobeyed he was to pay a 
 fine of two hundred ducats, and the person, his wife or 
 his own child, to whom the letter was addressed, was 
 liable to be exiled for five years. 
 
 After 1 52 1 the Doge was never allowed to speak 
 without witnesses with any ambassador, neither with the 
 foreign representatives who came to Venice, nor with 
 Venetian ambassadors at home on business or leave; 
 and when he spoke with any of them in public, he was 
 warned only to make commonplace remarks. 
 
 The Dogess never had any official position in Venice, 
 but during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries she 
 was made use of as an ornamental personage at public 
 festivals. After that time she returned to the retire- 
 ment in which the wives of the early Doges had lived. 
 An outcry was raised against the custom of crowning 
 her when she entered the ducal palace, and from that 
 time forth she never appeared beside her husband on 
 state occasions; and if any foreign ambassador, sup- 
 posing that he was acting according to the rules of 
 ordinary court etiquette, asked to be presented to her, 
 she was bound to refuse his visit. 
 
 Everything in the life of the Doge was regulated by 
 the Great Council. That august assembly once even 
 remonstrated with the so-called sovereign because the 
 Dogess bore him too many children. If any one hesitates
 
 48 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 to believe these amazing statements he may consult 
 Signor Molmenti's recent historical work, La Dogaressa, 
 which is beyond criticism in point of accuracy. 
 
 At certain fixed times the Doge was allowed the 
 relaxation of shooting, but with so many restrictions 
 and injunctions that the sport must have been intoler- 
 ably irksome. He was allowed or, more strictly speak- 
 ing, was ordered to proceed for this purpose, and about 
 Christmas time, to certain islets in the lagoons, where 
 wild ducks bred in great numbers. On his return he 
 was obliged to present each member of the Great Council 
 with five ducks. This was called the gift of the 'Oselle,' 
 that being the name given by the people to the birds in 
 question. In 1521, about five thousand brace of birds 
 had to be killed or snared in order to fulfil this require- 
 ment; and if the unhappy Doge was not fortunate 
 enough, with his attendants, to secure the required 
 number, he was obliged to provide them by buying 
 them elsewhere and at any price, for the claims of the 
 Great Council had to be satisfied in any case. This 
 was often an expensive affair. 
 
 There was also another personage who could not 
 have derived much enjoyment from the Christmas shoot- 
 ing. This was the Doge's chamberlain, whose duty it 
 was to see to the just distribution of the game, so that 
 each bunch of two-and-a-half brace should contain a 
 fair average of fat and thin birds, lest it should be said 
 that the Doge showed favour to some members of the 
 Council more than to others. 
 
 By and by a means was sought of commuting this
 
 i THE DOGE 49 
 
 annual tribute of ducks. The Doge Antonio Grimani 
 requested and obtained permission to coin 
 
 1 . i /■ r Portrait of 
 
 a medal of the value of a quarter of a Antonio Grimani 
 ducat, equal to about four shillings or one r^J^, Titian ; 
 dollar, and to call it 'a Duck,' 'Osella,' Saiadeiu 
 
 ... • -r i i • 11 Quattro Porte. 
 
 whereby it was signified that it took the 
 place of the traditional bird. He engraved upon his 
 medal figures of Peace and Justice, with the motto 
 justitia et Pax osculatae sunt,' ' justice and Peace 
 have kissed one another,' in recollection of the sen- 
 tence he had undergone nineteen years previously 
 as Admiral of the fleet defeated at Parenzo. In 
 1575 the Doge Luigi Mocenigo engraved upon 
 his Osella the following inscription referring to the 
 victory of Lepanto: 'Magnae navalis victoriae Dei 
 gratia contra Turcos'; the reverse bears the arms of 
 the Mocenigo family, a rose with five petals. Later, 
 in 1632, the Doge Francesco Erizzo was the first to 
 replace his own effigy kneeling before Saint Mark by 
 a lion. In 1688 Francesco Morosini coined an Osella 
 bearing on the obverse a sword, with the motto 'Non 
 abstinet ictu,' and on the reverse a hand bearing 
 weapons, with the motto 'Quern non exercuit arcus.' 
 In 1684 Marcantomo Giustiniani issued an Osella 
 showing a winged lion rampant, bearing in the one paw 
 a single palm, and in the other a bunch of palms, 
 with the motto 'Et solus et simul,' meaning that 
 Venice would be victorious either alone or joined with 
 allies. 
 
 The successor of Antonio Grimani, Andrea Gritti, 
 
 VOL. II. — E
 
 5 o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY i 
 
 chose for his Osella to have himself represented as kneel- 
 ing before Saint Mark; the reverse bore 
 
 Andrea Gritti, , . • 1 1 1 
 
 praying, "is name with the date. 
 Tintoretto; Saia ]} ut f resn trouble now arose. It came 
 
 del Collegw. 
 
 to pass that some nobles sold their medals 
 or used them for money, and disputes even took place 
 as to the true value of the ducal present. The Council 
 of Ten was obliged'to examine seriously into the affair. 
 As it appeared certain that it would be impossible to 
 avoid the use of medals as money, it was decided to re- 
 place them definitely by a coin having regular currency.
 
 MOUTH OF THE 
 
 II 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN CRIMINAL 
 HISTORY 
 
 The records of the different tribunals of Venice are a 
 mine of interesting information, and it is to be wondered 
 that no student has devoted a separate volume to the 
 subject. I shall only attempt to offer the reader a few 
 gleanings which have come under my hand, and which 
 may help to give an impression of the later days of the 
 Republic. 
 
 5*
 
 52 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 There were two distinct classes of criminals in Venice, as 
 elsewhere namely, professional criminals, who helped 
 
 each other and often escaped justice; and, on the other 
 hand, those who committed isolated crimes under the 
 influence of strong passions, and who generally expiated 
 their misdeeds in prison or on the scaffold. 
 
 Though the professionals were infinitely more dan- 
 gerous than the others, it is a remarkable fact that they 
 enjoyed the same sort of popularity which was bestowed 
 upon daring highwaymen in England in the coaching 
 days. They were called the ' Bravi,' they were very 
 rarely Venetians by birth, and they had the singular 
 audacity to wear a costume of their own, which was 
 something between a military uniform and a mediaeval 
 hunting-dress. One might almost call them condottieri 
 in miniature. They sold their services to cautious 
 persons who wished to satisfy a grudge without getting 
 into trouble with the police, and they drew round them 
 all the good-for-nothings in the country. 'Bandits' — 
 that is, in the true interpretation of the word, those 
 persons whom the Republic had banished from Venetian 
 territory — frequently returned, and remained unmo- 
 lested during some time under the protection of one of 
 these bravi. The most terrible and extravagant crimes 
 were committed in broad day, and the popular fancy 
 surrounded its nefarious heroes with a whole cycle of 
 legends calculated to inspire terror. 
 
 The government cast about for some means of 
 checking the evil, and hit upon one worthy of the 
 Inquisitors of State. The simple plan consisted in
 
 II 
 
 CRIMINAL HISTORY 
 
 53 
 
 giving a free pardon for all his crimes to any bravo 
 who would kill another. We even find that a patrician 
 of the great house of Quirini, who had been exiled for 
 killing one of Titian's servants, obtained leave to come 
 back and live peacefully in Venice by assassinating a 
 
 THE RIALTO AT NIGHT 
 
 bravo. It is easy to imagine what crimes could be 
 committed under this law, and the government soon 
 recognised the mistake and repealed it in pmeiu, Raccoita 
 1549, in order to protect 'the dignity of diLe ^ iCrim - 
 the Republic, and the goods and lives of its subjects. ' 
 Thereafter the bravi and the bandits led more quiet 
 lives, and returned to their former occupations.
 
 54 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 ii 
 
 There existed at that time a statue of a hunchback 
 modelled by the sculptor Pietro di Salo, which had been 
 used to support a ladder, or short staircase, by which 
 the public criers ascended the column of the Rialto, in 
 order to proclaim banns of marriage and other matters 
 
 FROM THE BALCONY OF THE DUCAL PALACE 
 
 which were to be made public. From 1541 to 1545 
 thieves were usually sentenced to be flogged through 
 the city from Saint Mark's to the Rialto, where the 
 ceremony ended by their being obliged to kiss the 
 statue of the hunchback. In order to get rid 
 of this degrading absurdity a small column was set 
 up near by, surmounted by a cross, in order that
 
 II 
 
 CRIMINAL HISTORY 
 
 55 
 
 'sinners might undergo their sentence in a Christian 
 spirit.' 
 
 On the sixteenth of December 1560, the Council of 
 Ten met to discuss the question of the bravi. It was now 
 admitted that the government no longer had isolated 
 criminals to deal with, but regular bands of ruffians con- 
 
 W 
 if 
 
 . J<"L~3t» 
 
 
 TMWBPiH 
 
 Its *J&m%t3g»\ 
 
 THE COLUMNS, PIAZZETTA 
 
 tinually on the look-out for adventures. The Ten pub- 
 lished an edict by which all bandits were formally warned 
 that any one who exercised the profession of a bravo, 
 whether a subject of the Republic or not, would be taken 
 and led in irons to the place between the columns of the 
 Piazzetta, where his nose and ears would be carved off. 
 He would then be further sentenced to five years at the 
 oar on board one of the State galleys, unless some physical
 
 56 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 defect made this impossible for him, in which case he \\ as 
 Horatio Brown, to have one hand chopped off and to be ini- 
 Venetian studies. p r j S oned for ten years. In passing, I call 
 attention to the fact that life between decks on a State 
 galley cannot have been pleasant, since five years of 
 it were considered equivalent to the loss of a hand 
 and ten years of imprisonment. 
 
 These terrific penalties inspired little or no fear, for 
 the bravi were infinitely quicker and cleverer than the 
 sbirri of the government, and were very rarely caught. 
 Besides, they had powerful supporters and secure refuges 
 from which they could defy justice, for they were 
 sheltered and protected in the foreign embassies, where 
 they knew how to make themselves useful as spies, and 
 occasionally as professional assassins, and it was not an 
 uncommon thing to see a sbirro standing before the 
 French or the Spanish embassy and looking up at a 
 window whence some well-known bravo smiled down 
 on him, waved his hat, and addressed him with ironical 
 politeness. The picture vividly recalls visions of a cat 
 on top of a garden wall, calmly grinning at the frantic 
 terrier below. 
 
 Then, too, the bravi were patronised by the 
 'signorotti' of the mainland, a set of rich, turbulent, 
 and licentious land-owners, who could not call them- 
 selves Venetian nobles and would not submit to be 
 burghers, • but set themselves up as knights, and 
 lived in more or less fortified manors from which 
 they could set the police at defiance. They em- 
 ployed the bravi in all sorts of nefarious adventures,
 
 ii • CRIMINAL HISTORY 57 
 
 which chiefly tended to the satisfaction of their brutal 
 tastes. 
 
 It was a second period of transition, as Molmenti 
 very justly says, and in the beginning of the decadence 
 the knight had already ceased to be knightly. Those 
 rough lordlinp-s were neither without fear nor without 
 reproach, says the learned Italian writer, but were 
 altogether without remorse, and if they were ever bold 
 it was only in breaking the law. From time Tassini, Con- 
 to time one of them was caught perpetrating da "" e Lil P' tal '- 
 some outrageous crime, and was dragged barefooted, in a 
 long black shirt and blackcap, to the scaffold, as an awful 
 example, there to be flogged, hanged, and quartered. 
 Such horrors had long ceased to have any effect in an age 
 that saw blood run in rivers. By way of increasing the 
 disgrace of a shameful death, a gibbet was set up which 
 was so high that the victim had to mount thirty-two 
 steps, and it was painted scarlet. The first miscreant 
 who adorned it was one of the chiefs of the sbirri 
 himself, who had used his position to protect a whole 
 gang of thieves with whom he divided the plunder. 
 
 I abridge from Signor Molmenti's work the follow- 
 ing; story, in which more than one type of 
 
 ° . J m J r Molmenti, 
 
 the sixteenth-century criminal makes his BandM e Bravi. 
 appearance. 
 
 The village of Illasi is situated in a rich valley in 
 the territory of Verona. At the end of the sixteenth 
 century its castle was inhabited by a certain Count 
 Geronimo and his beautiful lady, Ginevra. From time 
 to time the couple introduced a little variety into their
 
 58 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 solitude by receiving Virginio Orsini who, though 
 a Roman noble, was in the service of Venice as 
 Governor of Verona. He was, I believe, a first 
 cousin of that Paolo Giordano Orsini who murdered 
 his wife Isabella de' Medici in order to marry Vittoria 
 Accoramboni. I have told the story at length in 
 another work. 
 
 Virginio, the Governor, fell in love with the 
 Countess Ginevra before long; but she, though 
 strongly attracted to him, tried hard to resist him, 
 would not read his letters, and turned a deaf ear to 
 his pleadings. 
 
 On a certain Saturday night, when Count Gero- 
 nimo was away from home and Ginevra sat by the 
 fire in her own chamber, having already supped and 
 said her prayers, the curtain of the door was raised and 
 two men came in. The one was Grifo, the man-at- 
 arms whom the Count trusted and had left to guard 
 her; the other was Orsini. Ginevra sprang to her feet, 
 asking how the Governor dared to cross her threshold. 
 
 'Madam,' he said, coming near, 'as you would not 
 answer my letters, I determined to tell you face to face 
 that if you will not hear me you will be my ruin.' 
 
 'Sir,' answered the Countess, 'that is not the way 
 to address a lady of my condition. You are basely 
 betraying my noble husband, who entertains for you 
 both friendship and esteem.' 
 
 Here Grifo joined in the conversation and began to 
 persuade the Countess that every noble lady of the 
 time had her 'confederate knight.' No doubt he
 
 ii CRIMINAL HISTORY 59 
 
 knew that she loved Orsini in spite of herself, and 
 when he had done speaking he went away, and the two 
 were alone together in the night. 
 
 An hour later Virginio took his leave of her, and 
 now he told her. with words of comfort that he would 
 presently send her poison by the hand of Grifo, that 
 she might do away with her husband; for otherwise he 
 must soon learn the truth and avenge himself on them 
 all three. But Ginevra was already stung by remorse. 
 
 'I have dishonoured my husband for you,' she 
 answered. ' But I will not do the deed you ask of 
 me. It is better that I should myself die than that I 
 should do murder.' 
 
 'In that case,' answered Orsini, ' I myself must put 
 him beyond the possibility of harming you.' 
 
 Thereupon he left her; but she was tormented by 
 remorse, until at last she went to her husband and told 
 him all, and entreated him to kill her. He would not 
 believe her, but thought she had gone mad, though she 
 repeated her story again and again; and at last he rose 
 and went and found Grifo, the traitor, and dragged him 
 to her room. 
 
 'Is it true,' she asked, 'that you brought the 
 Governor here to my chamber unawares?' 
 
 The man denied it with an oath. Then Ginevra 
 snatched up a dagger and set the point at Grifo's breast. 
 He saw that he was lost, and told the truth, and then 
 and there the woman whose ruin he had wrought did 
 justice on him and was avenged, and stabbed him again 
 and again, that he died.
 
 60 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 There ends the story, for that is all we know. 
 After that the chronicle is silent, ominously silent; and 
 when the castle of Illasi was dismantled a walled niche 
 was found in one of the towers, and within the niche 
 there was a woman's skeleton. That is known, surely; 
 hut that the bones were those of the Countess Ginevra 
 there is no proof to show. 
 
 I should say that Grifo belonged to the type of the 
 
 bravi, so that the crimes of passion which his betrayal 
 
 MoimenH, caused were connected, through him, with 
 
 Vecciue storie. t h ose f tne professional type. But others 
 were committed, then as now, in passion, quick or slow. 
 As an example of them, here is a story from another of 
 Signor Molmenti's exhaustive works. 
 
 It is first mentioned by the Bishop Pietro Bollani in 
 a letter addressed to his noble friend Vincenzo Dandolo, 
 in the month of July 1602: — ■ 
 
 'A certain Sanudo, who lives in the Rio della Croce, 
 in the Giudecca, made his wife go to confession day 
 before yesterday evening; and she was a Cappello by 
 birth. During the following night, at about the fifth 
 hour (one o'clock in the morning at that season accord- 
 ing to the, old Italian sun-time), he killed her with a 
 dagger-thrust in the throat. He says that she was 
 unfaithful, but every one believes that she was a 
 saint.' 
 
 We learn that the poor woman was thirty-six, and 
 that Giovanni Sanudo had been married to her eighteen 
 years. The Council of Ten ordered his arrest, but he 
 had already escaped beyond the frontier, and he was
 
 IT 
 
 CRIMINAL HISTORY 
 
 61 
 
 condemned to death in default and a prize of two 
 thousand ducats was offered for his head. 
 
 £» 
 
 AA 
 
 J'* I 
 
 
 xJ mi «! in J «^^^i,w-,. **/3tT^v.'i 
 
 ^W"*.-; 1 
 
 W.[:j*S 
 
 « 
 
 Willi 
 
 THE SALUTE FROM THE GIUDECCA 
 
 He had left five children in Venice, three boys 
 and two girls; and the oldest, a daughter christened
 
 6 2 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 Sanuda, addressed a petition to the Ten which is worth 
 translating : — 
 
 Must Serene Prince (the Doge), Most Illustrious Sirs (the 
 Ten), and most merciful my Masters (the Counsellors, the 
 High Chancellor, and the Avogadors) : 
 
 Never did unfortunate petitioners come to the feet of \our 
 Serenity and of your most excellent and most clement Coun- 
 cil, more worthy of pity than we, Sanuda, Livio, Aloi'se, 
 Franceschino and Livio second, the children of Messer 
 Giovanni Sanudo ; misfortune has fallen upon our house 
 because our father having been accused of taking our mother's 
 life, the justice of your Serenity and of your most excellent 
 Council has condemned him to death ; wherefore we, poor 
 innocent children, have lost at once our father and our mother, 
 and all our possessions ; and we assure you with tears that we 
 should have to beg our bread unless certain charitable souls 
 helped us. Therefore I, the unhappy Sanuda, who have 
 reached the age of eighteen years, and my brothers and sisters 
 who are younger than I, shall all be given over to the most 
 abject poverty and exposed to the greatest dangers unless your 
 Serenity and your most excellent Council will consent to help 
 us for the love of religion and justice. And so, in order to 
 prevent five poor and honest children of noble blood from 
 perishing thus miserably, we prostrate ourselves at the feet of 
 your Serenity and of your most Illustrious Lordships, imploring 
 you, by the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, to allow our 
 unhappy father to come back to Venice for two years, that he 
 may provide for the safety of his family and especially of his 
 daughters, whose honour is exposed to such grave peril in that 
 state of neglect in which they are now living. We pray that 
 the good God may grant your Serenity and your Lordships 
 long and happy life. 
 
 The Council of Ten was apparently moved by the
 
 ii CRIMINAL HISTORY 63 
 
 appeal. It answered the petition by the following 
 resolution : — 
 
 'The case of Sanuda, Livio, Aloise, Franceschino, 
 and Livio second, brothers and sisters, the children of 
 Giovanni Sanudo, condemned to death by this Council 
 on July twenty-ninth, is so serious; the petition of 
 these poor children is so humble, so honest and so 
 reasonable, that it behooves the piety and clemency of 
 our Council to grant the said Giovanni Sanudo a safe- 
 conduct, good for two years, in order that during 
 this period he may provide for the future of his 
 family.' 
 
 Sanudo came back, and before the two years had 
 expired he obtained a prolongation of the grace for two 
 years more, at the end of which time he presented 
 another petition worded in the same manner, which 
 was also granted; and so on from two years to two 
 years until 162 1, nineteen years after the crime, he 
 being still technically under sentence of death. 
 
 Now, however, he obtained a formal pardon from 
 his wife's family, the Cappello. This curious document 
 reads as follows : — 
 
 In the name of God and of the Holy Trinity, March 
 thirtieth, 1621. 
 
 I, Carlo Cappello, son of the late Pietro Cappello, consid- 
 ering the weakness and the lamentable vicissitudes to which 
 humanity is subject, and desirous of forgiving the shortcomings 
 and misdeeds of others, in order that the Lord our God mav 
 protect me also, and desiring, too, the full pardon of every sin: 
 do forgive my brother-in-law, Giovanni Sanudo, the offences
 
 6 + GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 he may have committed against me, promising henceforth u> 
 bear him neither hatred nor malice, and I pray God to grant 
 
 us buth a good Easter and the pardon of every sin. 
 
 (Signed) Carlo Cappello. 
 Pietro Cappello. 
 
 Livio Cappello. 
 
 Having obtained forgiveness of his wife's familv, 
 Giovanni Sanudo now looked about for a means of 
 extorting a final pardon from the Council of Ten. 
 There existed in the Venetian states a small town, 
 called Sant' Omobono, which had received, as the 
 reward of some ancient service rendered to the 
 Republic, the privilege of setting at liberty every year 
 two outlaws or two bravi. Sanudo succeeded in 
 winning the good graces of the municipality, and was 
 then presented by the mayor and aldermen to the 
 Signory as one of the yearlv candidates for a free 
 pardon. The Council of Ten then permanently ratified 
 its decree of immunity, and Giovanni Sanudo was once 
 more a free man. Considering the usual character of 
 the Council, it is hard not to surmise that it had found 
 some cause for regretting the sentence it had passed. 
 The poor murdered woman had confessed and received 
 absolution before death : may we not reasonably 
 suppose that, after all, there had been something to 
 confess ? 
 
 There is ground for believing it possible that 
 Shakespeare may have used the original murder as part 
 of the groundwork of his Othello. If we compare the 
 dates and glance at the history of Italian literature, we
 
 ii CRIMINAL HISTORY 65 
 
 may reasonably conclude that Shakespeare, after per- 
 haps planning his tragedy on a tale of Giraldi's, was 
 much struck by the details of Sanudo's crime, and 
 especially by the murderer's wish that his wife should 
 confess before dying. 
 
 Mr. Rawdon Brown supposed the poet to have used 
 another incident, related by Marin Sanudo in his 
 voluminous journal, but the hypothesis involves an 
 anachronism. Othello is thought by good authorities 
 to have been first played in London in the autumn of 
 1602, only a few months after the crime in the 
 Giudecca; whereas Mr. Rawdon Brown's heroine was 
 not murdered until thirteen years later. 
 
 The legend of the Fornaretto belongs to the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century, a hundred years earlier. 
 Travellers will remember being told by their guides how 
 a poor little baker's boy, who was carrying bread to 
 a customer on a January morning in 1507, stumbled 
 over the body of a noble who had been stabbed by an 
 unknown hand. The sheath of the dagger lay on the 
 pavement, and the boy was imprudent enough to pick 
 it up and put it into his pocket, for it was richly 
 damascened and very handsome. The police found it 
 upon him, it was considered to be conducive circum- 
 stantial evidence, the poor boy confessed under torture 
 that he had committed the crime, and he was hanged on 
 his own confession. 
 
 A few days later the real murderer was arrested 
 and convicted; and thereafter, in recollection of the 
 tragic injustice that had been done, whenever the
 
 66 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 magistrates were about to pass a sentence of death, they 
 were admonished to remember the poor Fornaretto. 
 
 By way of making the story more complete, the 
 guide usually adds that the little lamp which always 
 burns before an image of the Blessed Virgin on one 
 side of the Basilica was lighted as an offering in ex- 
 piation of the judicial murder, and that it is for the 
 same reason that a bell is rung during twenty minutes 
 on the anniversary of the baker boy's execution. 
 
 Strangely enough, there is hardly a word of truth in 
 this story. The only record in the archives of the Ten 
 which faintly suggests it is the trial and execution of a 
 baker named Pietro Fusiol, who had murdered a man 
 of the people in January 1507, and there is no refer- 
 ence to any mistake on the part of the court. The 
 ringing of the bell and the little lamp which burns day 
 and night before the image, are a sort of ex voto offer- 
 ings left by certain seamen in recollection of a terrible 
 storm from which they escaped. 
 
 I pass on to speak of the political prisoners of the 
 
 Republic, who were not by any means all treated alike, 
 
 since some of them were confined in places 
 
 Dr. Ilehirich l 
 
 Thode,Der Ring of tolerable comfort, whereas others were 
 treated little better than common criminals. 
 The story of Cristoforo Frangipane shows that political 
 delinquents were not judged according to any parti- 
 cular code, and that each case was examined as being 
 entirely independent from any other. 
 
 I must recall to the reader that during the league of 
 Cambrai the Emperor Maximilian was commissioned
 
 n POLITICAL PRISONERS 67 
 
 to win back Friuli, Istria, and other provinces 
 annexed by the Republic. Though the league had 
 been formed in great haste, Venice was Venice defying 
 not taken by surprise, for it had long Europe, Paima 
 
 , , T-, & Giovane; Sala 
 
 been apparent that the European powers de- del Pregadi, 
 sired her destruction and dismemberment. a ^ a 
 During the war which followed the Venetian army 
 was at one time under the orders of Bartolomeo 
 d' Alviano, and that of the Emperor was commanded 
 by Cristoforo Frangipane. Now the Frangipane 
 family held lands in fee from Venice as well as from 
 the Emperor, and owed feudal service to both ; so 
 that the Republic was justified in considering Cristoforo 
 as a traitor according to feudal law, since he was in 
 command of a hostile army. 
 
 A learned German student, Doctor Heinrich Thode, 
 has discovered and told with great charm the follow- 
 ing story concerning the imperial general. In 1892, 
 Doctor Thode being then in Venice, certain peasants of 
 the village of Osopo, near Pordenone, showed him a gold 
 ring of marvellous workmanship and in the style of the 
 sixteenth century, which they had found in a field. 
 The ring consisted of two spirals, one within the other, 
 which could be taken apart, so that a lock of hair or 
 a relic could be placed between them. On the outer 
 spiral of the ring were engraved the words, 'Myt 
 Wyllen deyn eygen,' which may be translated, * By 
 mine own will thine own.' Doctor Thode bought the 
 ring, but for a long time could make nothing of it. 
 At last, however, his industry was rewarded by the
 
 68 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 discovery of an interesting passage in the almost in- 
 exhaustible diary of Mann Sanudo, of which I shall 
 abridge the substance as much as possible. 
 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century the 
 Emperor Maximilian met in Augsburg a very beauti- 
 ful girl named Apollonia von Lange, with whom he 
 fell deeplv in love. He caused her to come to the 
 Court of Vienna, where she behaved so admirably that, 
 according to the chronicler, all the Austrian nobles 
 wished to marry her. As a matter of fact she was 
 married in 1503 to the Count of Lodron, who happens 
 to be the very person whom the Cappelletti of Verona 
 wished to marry to their Juliet in spite of her promise 
 to Romeo Montecchi. 
 
 The Count of Lodron died soon after his marriage, 
 leaving no children. The Emperor continued to ex- 
 tend to the young widow his honourable protection, 
 and in 1514 he married her to his favourite general 
 Cristoforo Frangipane. It was no doubt on this 
 occasion that the warrior received from her the ring of 
 which the motto answered a question that had often 
 been on his lips. He might, indeed, reasonably have 
 supposed that she was marrying him in deference to 
 the Emperor's wishes; he must have asked her if this 
 were true, and no doubt more than once she answered, 
 'Of my own will I am thine own.' The marriage had 
 scarcely taken place when Frangipane was obliged to 
 take command of the imperial army and to leave his 
 wife. The first battle of the campaign was fought near 
 Pordenone in the Venetian territory. Marin Sanudo
 
 POLITICAL PRISONERS 
 
 69 
 
 narrates that on that clay Frangipane lost a precious 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 I 
 
 < ^aH fc*B imj ? M 
 
 
 
 9 ffc 
 
 i h\ d 
 
 j\| 
 
 .iT 
 
 
 
 A GARDEN WALL 
 
 relic, a fact which he considered to be of bad augury 
 for the future. 
 
 Only a few days later, when reconnoitring the
 
 7 o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 position of the enemy, he was climbing over a boulder 
 which overlooked the valley. It either gave way with 
 him, or else some large piece of stone rolled against 
 him and threw him down. The accident was seen 
 from a distance, and it was at once reported to Venice 
 that he was dead. But he was only wounded, and 
 was carried in a litter to Goritz, whither his wife 
 hastened at once. Under her loving care he soon 
 recovered, but before he was able to ride again the 
 Venetians took the town and made him prisoner. He 
 was conveyed to Venice, and was confined in the tower 
 of the ducal palace which overlooked the Ponte della 
 Paglia. In his confinement he kept up a constant 
 correspondence with his wife, which, it is needless to 
 say, was carefully examined by the government; every 
 letter which came or went was read aloud before the 
 Senate, so that Marin Sanudo had ample opportunity to 
 copy the documents for his journal, as he frequently 
 did. 
 
 The beautiful Apollonia was in a state bordering on 
 despair, the grief of the separation preyed upon her 
 mind, and she fell into a state of terrible languor and 
 depression. Amongst many tender messages she makes 
 mention of the ring. 
 
 'As for the ring,' she wrote, 'most gracious and 
 beloved husband, let me tell you that the one ordered 
 of John Stephen Maze should be a little smaller than 
 the old one, and on it must be engraved the words 
 with which I answered the question you asked me, and 
 which is graved on the ring I always wear on my finger.
 
 ii POLITICAL PRISONERS 71 
 
 I wish you to wear the ring in memory and for love of 
 me, but as we have no good jewellers here, I entreat 
 you to order it yourself.' 
 
 In the face of such evidence it is hardly possible to 
 doubt that the ring found at Osopo is the identical one 
 given to Frangipane by his bride, and is the 'relic' 
 which he lost in his first engagement with the 
 Venetians. 
 
 The correspondence of the loving couple, passionate 
 and sad, continued during six months, at the end of 
 which time Apollonia wrote to the Signory imploring 
 permission to share her husband's prison; but this was 
 refused her, though her request was supported by the 
 warmest recommendations from the Emperor himself. 
 Exasperated, Frangipane attempted to escape from 
 prison, but his plan was discovered, and he was only the 
 more closely watched. Apollonia now requested the 
 favour of a safe-conduct that she might, at least, come 
 to Venice as a traveller and visit her husband; this 
 also was refused, not once only, but again when she 
 wrote a second time. 
 
 There was now but one thing left for her to do, 
 and she determined to risk coming to Venice without a 
 safe-conduct. She arrived in the depth of winter in 
 15 1 6, with four maids of honour, her chamberlain, her 
 physician, and twenty-two servants. As the Council 
 of Ten was ashamed to imprison her it placed her in 
 the keeping of the patrician Dandolo, who was the 
 general inspector of the ducal prisons, and he placed 
 at her disposal his palace on the Grand Canal, which
 
 -i GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 is now the Hotel Danieli. She- took up her quarters 
 there on the thirteenth of January with her suite, and 
 on the twentieth she appeared before the Doge and his 
 counsellors arrayed in a magnificent silk gown and a 
 black satin mantle lined with sable; a heavy gold 
 chain hung down upon her bosom, and a golden coif 
 was set upon her hair in the German fashion; three 
 young girls dressed in black cloth followed her, one 
 after the other, and an old duenna, the physician, and 
 the chamberlain brought up the rear. 
 
 The fair Countess addressed the Doge with feminine 
 eloquence and tact. She began by rendering thanks 
 for the kindness and consideration shown to her hus- 
 band, and she requested permission to see him twice 
 a week. She argued that this permission was absolutely 
 necessary to her, for she said that she was very ill, and 
 that the treatment ordered by her doctor was of such a 
 nature that she entirely declined to submit to it except 
 in the presence of her husband. The Doge and his 
 counsellors had never had to face such arguments 
 before; they felt themselves absolutely powerless, and 
 yielded at once. 
 
 But on the morrow old Dandolo, the inspector of 
 prisons, appeared before them in a condition of inde- 
 scribable dismay and excitement. He said that when 
 the Countess was at last in her husband's prison, on the 
 previous evening, she had made such a scene in order to 
 be allowed to stay all night that he, Dandolo, had 
 yielded much against his will and had left the couple 
 together. And now, in the morning, he had found the
 
 PALAZZO RESSONICO
 
 
 
 
 
 00'
 
 II 
 
 POLITICAL PRISONERS 73 
 
 Countess still in bed, declaring that she was dangerously 
 ill, and demanding that her doctor should be sent to 
 her without delay. 
 
 The Doge and his counsellors were in a quandary, 
 and Dandolo was tearing his hair. Sanudo informs us 
 that 'there was much noise in the council' that morning, 
 and it is easy to believe that he was telling the truth. 
 Almost half of the grave magistrates were in favour of 
 leaving the Countess with her husband; the rest, with 
 a very small majority, voted that she must quit the 
 prison. The motion passed, but it was one thing to 
 decide what she should do, and quite another thing to 
 make her do it. She declared that since she was inside 
 the tower, no power on earth should get her out of 
 it, and she defied the Doge, the Council of Ten, and 
 all their works. Before such portentous obstinacy the 
 government of Venice retired in stupefaction, and she 
 was left in peace. 
 
 But she was human, after all, and under prolonged 
 imprisonment her health broke down, and she was 
 obliged to leave the tower each year to go to the 
 waters of Abano; but even then she refused to go out 
 until a formal promise had been given her that she 
 should be allowed to return immediately after the cure. 
 
 No doubt it was owning to her presence that 
 Frangipane's confinement became by degrees less 
 rigorous, and that he was even allowed to watch the 
 procession of Corpus Domini from the balcony of the 
 Library. 
 
 Apollonia had come in January 1516, and the pair
 
 74 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 were not liberated till more than two years later. 
 Germany, France, and Venice signed a truce of five 
 years; and agreed to exchange prisoners and give hostages 
 on the thirty-first of July 1518. Francis I. asked that 
 Germany should hand him over Frangipane as security 
 for keeping the peace, promising that he should not 
 be imprisoned, but should be merely a prisoner of 
 the King on parole. It was not freedom yet, but such 
 a change was more than welcome, and the negotiations 
 with the Signory for Frangipane's delivery were com- 
 pleted on the third of September. The words he wrote 
 in the embrasure of the window of his prison may still 
 be read, says Dr. Thode, who copied the inscription 
 which I reproduce: — 
 
 Fo inchluso . qua . in . torise . . . fina . . terzo 
 zorno de . setembro . del . M.D. XVIII . io . Christoforo . Frang- 
 -epanibus Chonte . de . Veglia . Senia . et Modrusa 
 Et io . Apollonia . Chonsorte . de sopradicto signor . chonte . 
 Vene . far . chompagnia . a . quelo . adi . XX . Zenar . MDXVI perfina 
 sopra dicto setembro . Chi mal . e . ben . non . sa . patir . a . gra- 
 -nde honor . may . pol . venir . anche . ben . ne . mal . de . qui . per . 
 sempre . non . dura. 
 
 I translate literally as follows : — 
 
 I was shut up here in the Torrisella till the third day of 
 September of 15 18, Christopher of the Frangipane, Count of 
 Veglia, Senia, and Modrusa. And I, Apollonia, wife of the 
 aforesaid lord Count, came to keep him company on the 
 twentieth of January 15 16 until the said September. 'Who 
 cannot bear good and ill fate, Will never come to honour 
 great.' Also, Nor good nor evil lasts for ever here.
 
 ii POLITICAL PRISONERS 75 
 
 Frangipane seems to have written this record during 
 one of his wife's absences at Abano, being perfectly 
 sure that he was about to be set at liberty. But there 
 had been a hitch in the negotiations. Venice was not 
 ready to hand him over, and meanwhile, when Apol- 
 lonia came back she was refused admittance. Dandolo 
 again offered her a home in his palace, and did all he 
 could to help her. Frangipane, deprived of her com- 
 forting presence, fell ill and went almost mad. Even 
 the Doge himself supported his request to be allowed 
 to be taken to a private dwelling. It was in vain; but 
 Apollonia was at last allowed to return to her husband. 
 They left no means untried to obtain the fulfilment of 
 the treaty, and at last Dandolo became so exasperated 
 with the Council of Ten that he resigned his post of 
 inspector of prisons, telling the councillors to their faces 
 that of twelve thousand prisoners who had been in his 
 keeping, first and last, Frangipane was the only one 
 who had been able to complain of injustice. 
 
 The Ten accepted his resignation almost without 
 comment, and replaced him by two nobles. Then the 
 couple tried to escape, but were discovered and again 
 separated. At last the government consented to ask 
 the King of France what was to be done with his 
 hostage, whom he seems to have quite forgotten. He 
 answered by requesting that Frangipane should be 
 sent to Milan and handed over to the French governor, 
 De Lautrec. 
 
 The loving pair were allowed to meet in the prison 
 again, two days before the departure, but Apollonia
 
 76 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY n 
 
 was not permitted to follow her husband t<> Milan, and a 
 heart-rending farewell took place- ar Lizzafusina, on the 
 frontier. Having reached his destination, the unlucky 
 Frangipane found himself in a much worse prison than 
 the one he had occupied so long in Venice. Again his 
 faithful wife succeeded in joining him, to share his 
 captivity. But her strength was far spent, and she died 
 on the fourth of September 1519, in the fortress of 
 Milan; and soon afterwards Frangipane succeeded at 
 last in escaping by sawing through the bars of his 
 window and letting himself down by a rope.
 
 
 
 
 T^ >"V0P»ft oll- EROE^AeT DUE WONDWi 
 
 III 
 
 VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 
 
 Before quitting the subject of Venetian official life, 
 I must devote a few pages to the diplomacy of the 
 Republic, which has remained famous in history. 
 
 The kings of France often confided diplomatic 
 missions to the clergy, but the Venetian diplomatists 
 were always laymen, without a single exception. The 
 Signory constantly professed the most devout faith 
 in Catholic dogma, and as constantly exhibited the 
 most profound distrust of the popes. The Vatican was, 
 indeed, the chief object of the government's suspicion. 
 From the fifteenth century onward, any noble who 
 
 77
 
 7 8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY m 
 
 entered holy orders lost his sear in the Great Council, and 
 Ce'.cheM, cortt I have already explained that during the 
 
 Romano. discussion of matters relating to Rome, 
 all the 'papalisti' were ordered to withdraw. When 
 Sixtus V. was elected Pope in 1585, and the Republic 
 sent four ambassadors together to congratulate him, the 
 sixteen nobles who attended the mission were most 
 carefully chosen from among those who never could be 
 'papalisti.' 
 
 In answer to any criticism of her methods, Venice 
 was almost always able to bring forward the unanswer- 
 able argument of success ; but the pages which record 
 her diplomatic relations with other powers are not the 
 fairest in her history. Her dealings with her neighbours 
 were regulated by strictly business principles; and 
 'business' is, I believe, the art of becoming legally 
 possessed of that which is not our own. 
 
 The marvellous accuracy with which the Venetian 
 ambassadors related to their government the details of 
 what they observed abroad is proverbial, and has been 
 a godsend to students of history, such as M. Yriarte, to 
 whom the world is so much indebted for his study of 
 Marcantonio Barbaro. 
 
 The post of foreign representative was a most 
 honourable one, but there were overwhelming responsi- 
 bilities connected with it. In early times, when diplo- 
 matic relations were less close and less continuous, the 
 Republic had sent permanent embassies only to Rome 
 and Constantinople; to other capitals special envoys 
 were only despatched when some matter was to be
 
 in VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 79 
 
 discussed. But in the sixteenth century Venice had 
 ambassadors everywhere, and each week brought long 
 letters from all countries teeming with details, not only 
 of political or military events, but concerning social 
 festivities, manners, customs, court intrigues, and every 
 sort of gossip. 
 
 These letters were read aloud on Saturday to the 
 Senate, which thus assisted at a sort of consecutive 
 series of lectures on the history of the times; and as it 
 was customary to choose the ambassadors from among 
 the senators, it was tolerably sure that when chosen 
 they would always be well informed, up to the latest 
 moment. 
 
 The missions of the Republic were limited to a 
 residence of two years in any one foreign capital; but 
 this short time was amply sufficient to bring about the 
 financial ruin of the ambassador if he was not very 
 rich. It was his duty to display the most boundless 
 magnificence for the greater glory of the Republic, and 
 his expenses bore no proportion to his salary. 
 
 The following instructions, according to M. Yriarte, 
 were given to Marcantonio Barbaro on his departure 
 for the court of France : — 
 
 'You are to keep eleven horses for your service, 
 including those of your secretary and his servant, and 
 four mounted messengers. You will Yriarte, vie 
 receive for your expenses two hundred d "" 1>atncun - 
 gold ducats monthly (about £1800 yearly), of which 
 you are not required to render an account. You will 
 receive a thousand gold ducats for presents, and three
 
 So GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 hundred for the purchase of horses, harness, and saddle 
 cloths.' 
 
 1 he Secretary of Embassy was also named by the 
 Senate, and though the attaches might be chosen by 
 the ambassador, his choice had to be confirmed by the 
 government. He was not allowed to take his wife 
 with him, as her presence might have distracted him 
 from business, and also because it might possibly have 
 been a little prejudicial to the keeping of secrets; but 
 he was allowed to take his cook. These same instruc- 
 tions appear as early as the thirteenth century. 
 
 Modern diplomatists, and especially Americans, will 
 be interested to know that the post of ambassador was 
 so little desired as to make it necessary to impose a 
 heavy fine on anv noble who refused it when he was 
 appointed; and it actually happened more than once 
 that men paid the fine rather than ruin themselves 
 altogether in the service of their sordid government. 
 Once having left Venice, however, no resignation was 
 allowed, and the ambassador dared not return unless 
 he was ordered to do so. Requests for leave were 
 very rare, and were only made under the pressure of 
 some very exceptional circumstances. Such a petition 
 was considered so serious a matter that when one arrived 
 from abroad all persons related to the ambassador were 
 ordered to leave the Senate, lest their presence should 
 interfere with the freedom of discussion; but the 
 request was never granted unless two members of the 
 family would swear that the reasons alleged in the 
 petition were genuine.
 
 in YKNETIAN DIPLOMACY Si 
 
 Legend assures us that each ambassador received, 
 together with his credentials, a box full of gold coin 
 and a small bottle of deadly poison. This is childish 
 nonsense, of course, so far as the portable realities were 
 concerned, but ambassadors were instructed to hesitate 
 at nothing which could accomplish the purpose of the 
 State, neither at spending large sums which would be 
 placed at their disposal when necessary, nor at what the 
 Senate was good enough to call measures of exceptional 
 severity — namely, murder. 
 
 The most important post in Venetian diplomacy was 
 the embassy at Constantinople, where the chief of the 
 mission enjoyed the title of Bailo, together with the 
 chance of making a fortune instead of losing one. 
 The Bailo of Constantinople and the ambassador to 
 the Pope took precedence over all other Venetian 
 diplomatists, and they were expected to make an even 
 greater display, especially at the pontifical court. The 
 four ambassadors sent to congratulate Sixtus V. on 
 his election had each four noble attaches, four armed 
 footmen, and five-and-twenty horses, and the one of 
 the four who was already the resident in Rome was 
 indemnified for his expenses in order that he might 
 appear as magnificently as his three newly arrived 
 colleagues. 
 
 On their return from a foreign mission the envoys 
 of the Republic were bound to appear at the chancery 
 of the ducal palace, and to inscribe their names there 
 in a special register; and within a fortnight they were 
 required to render an account of what they had seen
 
 Sz GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 and learnt abroad, and of the affairs with which they 
 had dealt. These accounts, called 'relaziom,' were 
 brief recapitulations of their weekly letters to the 
 Senate; the first phrases were always written in Latin, 
 but the body of the discourse might be in Italian, 
 or even in dialect. The ambassador presented him- 
 self in full dress, wearing his crimson velvet mantle 
 and bringing the manuscript of his speech, which he 
 afterwards handed to the High Chancellor; for as 
 early as the fifteenth century all public speeches were 
 required to be written out, in order that they might 
 be preserved exactly as they had been spoken, or rather 
 read, for it was not even allowable to recite them by 
 heart. I need hardly add that no stranger was ever 
 admitted to hear an ambassador's account of his 
 mission, and the senators swore a special oath of 
 secrecy for the occasion, even with regard to the most 
 insignificant details. 
 
 Any one who examines a number of these documents 
 will soon see that they all begin with a portrait of 
 the sovereign to whom the envoy was accredited, and 
 there is often a great deal about the royal family, its 
 surroundings, tastes, and habits. Almost invariably 
 also the account ends with a list of the presents and 
 titles or decorations bestowed upon the ambassador at 
 the close of his mission, and all these he was required 
 to hand over intact to the Signory. Not uncommonly, 
 however, the presents were returned to him; but as no 
 foreign titles could be borne by Venetians, the recipient 
 of them was usually created a Knight of the Golden
 
 Ill 
 
 VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 
 
 *3 
 
 Stole, the only heraldic order recognised by the 
 Republic and in the gift of the government. 
 
 It would be curious to examine into the first causes 
 
 PALAZZO DARIO 
 
 of the relations between Venice and the other European 
 states. It was the exchange of raisins for wool which 
 obliged England and Venice to send each other
 
 S + GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 permanent diplomatic missions. Up to that time 
 only occasional special envoys had been necessary. 
 The first time that England addressed a letter to the 
 Signory she employed as her official agent a Neapolitan 
 monk, the Bishop of Bisaccia, chaplain to King Robert, 
 and this was in 1^40. The envoy came to say that 
 King Edward the Third of England had the honour to 
 inform the Doge Gradenigo that he had defied Philippe 
 de Valois to say that he was the anointed of the Lord. 
 The envoy further stated that the two- rivals were 
 about to invoke the judgment of God, either by 
 going unarmed into a den of wild beasts, who would 
 of course respect the Lord's anointed and promptly 
 Rawdon Brown, devour the pretender, or else by 'touch- 
 
 Arckives. j n g f or King's Evil.' Beginning in the 
 fifteenth century there is a long list of English 
 ambassadors and ministers resident in Venice. The 
 last English diplomatic representative in Venice was 
 Sir Richard Worsley, of whom I shall have occasion 
 to speak hereafter. 
 
 All the foreign diplomatists in Venice were con- 
 stantly on the look-out for the arrival of the special 
 mounted messengers attached to each foreign embassy. 
 These were celebrated throughout Europe for their 
 speed and discretion. In the fifteenth century they 
 were thirty-two in number, and formed a small guild 
 which was under the protection of Saint Catharine ; and 
 they were almost all natives of Bergamo, a city which 
 is still singularly noted for the honesty and faithfulness 
 of its inhabitants, and which even now furnishes Venice
 
 Ill 
 
 VENETIAN DIPLOM \CV 
 
 85 
 
 with trusty house-porters and other servants of whom 
 responsibility is required. 
 
 CALLE BECCHERIA 
 
 In the Souvenirs of iM. Armand Baschet, I find that 
 the courier who brought the news of the signing of
 
 86 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 the treaty of Cambrai from Blois to Venice covered the 
 distance in eight days, the best previous record to Paris, 
 which is about the same distance, having been nine, 
 and the usual time employed being fifteen. The em- 
 ployment of State courier could be bought and could 
 be left by will. 
 
 Each ambassador of the Republic seemed to possess 
 a part of the marvellously universal vision that belonged 
 to the Council of Ten. Mr. Rawdon Brown made 
 a special study of the weekly letters of the Venetian 
 ambassadors in England, and found, for instance, that 
 one of the Republic's representatives succeeded in 
 regularly copying the letters which Queen Elizabeth 
 wrote to her lovers, which were therefore read aloud 
 to the Senate with the greatest regularity, together with 
 many other curious details of English court life. 
 
 I shall give two specimens, translated from the 
 weekly letters in the Alberi collection. In 153 1 the 
 patrician Ludovico Falier came to render an account of 
 his mission to the Court of Henry VIII. He expresses 
 himself as follows, concerning that King and the 
 English: — 
 
 In order that my discourse may be better understood I shall 
 divide it into two chief parts, of which the one concerns my 
 journey, and the other the most puissant King Henry VIII., 
 and the manners and customs of his country from the year 
 1528 to 1 53 1 . . . . On the tenth of December I reached 
 Calais [he had left Venice in the middle of October, but had 
 travelled by short stages with a numerous suite] ; it is a citv 
 of the French coast which belongs to the most serene King of
 
 in VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 87 
 
 England, as I shall have occasion to repeat hereafter. There 
 I went on board a vessel to cross the ocean, which after 
 behaving furiously during the passage at last threw me upon 
 the English shore. I therefore arrived at Dover much more 
 tired by these few hours of navigation than by a journey of 
 ninety days on dry land. Having rested a little at Dover I got 
 on horseback to go to London. At St. George's I met my 
 most illustrious predecessor Venier with several personages of 
 the Court, including the most reverend the Cardinal (Thomas 
 Wolsey), and we all entered the city together, and they 
 accompanied me to my house. I was ordered almost at once 
 to go to the Cardinal, in order to kiss his hand, for this cere- 
 mony always preceded that of an audience with the King; 
 such is the power of this prince [of the Church]. On leav- 
 ing his apartment I was conducted to his most serene Majesty, 
 with whom I then had the interview which I described in 
 detail in my letter to your Signory and to this glorious Senate. 
 
 The ambassador goes on to speak in the past tense 
 of Cardinal Wolsey, who had fallen into disgrace in the 
 interval. He goes on to speak of the Queen, who was 
 then Catharine of Aragon. 
 
 My lady the Queen is small of stature, and plump, and has 
 an honest face ; she is good and just, aftable and pious. She 
 speaks fluently Spanish, Elemish, French, and English. Her 
 subjects love her more than they ever loved anv Queen ; she 
 is five and forty years old, and she has already lived thirty-five 
 years in England. 
 
 The ambassador speaks of the King next. 
 
 God has united in King Henrv VIII. beauty of soul with 
 beauty of body, so that everv one is astonished by such won- 
 ders ... he has the face of an angel, for it would not be 
 enough to say that he is handsome ; he resembles Caesar, his
 
 88 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 look is calm, and contrary to English fashion, he wears his 
 beard ; who would not admire so much beauty accompanied 
 with so much strength and grace ? He rides very well, jousts 
 and handles a lance with great skill ; he is a very good shot and 
 an excellent tennis player. He has always cultivated the ex- 
 traordinary qualities with which nature has adorned him from 
 his birth, for he thinks that nothing is more unnatural than a 
 sovereign who cannot dominate his people by his moral and 
 physical qualities. 
 
 And here the ambassador seems to have thought 
 that he had gone rather far, for he finds something to 
 say about Henry's less admirable characteristics. 
 
 Unhappily this prince, so intelligent and reasonable, is given 
 up to idleness, has allowed himself to be led away by his pas- 
 sions, and has left the government of the State in the hands 
 of a few favourites, the most powerful of whom was the 
 Cardinal, until he fell into total disgrace. Since then, from 
 having been generous, he has become miserly, and whereas 
 formerly all those who treated of affairs with him went away 
 satisfied and covered with gifts, he now allows all to leave the 
 Court with discontent. He makes a show of great piety, 
 hears two low masses every day, and high mass also, on feast 
 days. He gives to the poor, to orphans, widows, young girls, 
 and infirm persons, and for these charities he gives his almoner 
 ten thousand ducats yearly. He is beloved by all. He is 
 forty years of age and has reigned twenty-two. 
 
 Falier speaks next of the climate of Great Britain 
 and the products of the country, and gives a long 
 description of a brewery. He briefly but sufficiently 
 describes the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 
 and gives some account of the British Constitution. He
 
 Ill 
 
 VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 
 
 89 
 
 gives also a statement of the King's sources of income 
 with their amount, and the accuracy of the figures 
 suggests that he must have got access' to papers not 
 intended for his perusal. 
 
 His Majesty may count upon over five hundred thousand 
 ducats [i^375>OOo] a year, divided as follows: — 
 
 From the Crown (Lands) 
 
 Customs . 
 
 Vacant Benefices 
 
 Privy Seal 
 
 Rebels (Confiscations, etc.) 
 
 Lands on the Continent 
 
 Fines for Crimes 
 
 Royal Guards . 
 
 Tota 
 
 Ducats. 
 
 190,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 40,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 25,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 525,000 
 
 I cannot tell exactly what he gets from taxes, but from 
 information which I have endeavoured to obtain from grave 
 and experienced persons, His Majesty exacts from his subjects 
 about a million of ducats ; for the six millions of ducats which 
 he had inherited from his father were all spent in the wars with 
 France, Flanders, and Scotland. His Majestv usuallv spends 
 425,000 ducats for his Court, which consists of five hundred 
 men ; namelv, twenty-six chamberlains, of whom one is Treas- 
 urer of the Chamber [keeper of the privy purse?], one is a 
 Majorduomo called a c Steward,' his assistant, who carries a 
 little white stick as a sign of his dignity; the Treasurer Gen- 
 eral, who pavs all accounts; the accountant who distributes 
 [the payments] ; the ' cofFerers ' in charge of the said accounts ; 
 the Master of the Horse who has the management of the royal 
 stables. There are three hundred horses, between Arabs, Turk-
 
 9° 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 in 
 
 ish horses and racers, hackneys and others. His Majesty has 
 also eight chaplains, of whom one distributes his charities, and 
 there are main persons lor his service of whom I do not speak 
 in detail lest I should fatigue Your Serenity. His Majesty has 
 always in his pay three hundred halberdiers who are on guard 
 by tens at a time for the King's person, and pass the night in 
 the private antechamber. 
 
 His Majesty spends as follows: — 
 
 For the Maintenance of his Court 
 Presents ..... 
 Horses ..... 
 Parks, and Packs of Hounds 
 Soldiers who guard the Fortresses 
 His Majesty's Chamber (Privy Purse) 
 Buildings .... 
 
 Charities .... 
 
 Embassies and King's Messengers 
 Expenses of the Queen (Catharine of Aragon), and 
 the Princess (Mary) . 
 
 Total 
 
 
 Ducats. 
 
 • 
 
 100,000 
 
 . 
 
 120,000 
 
 . 
 
 20,000 
 
 . 
 
 50,000 
 
 . 
 
 30,000 
 
 . 
 
 30,000 
 
 . 
 
 10,000 
 
 . 
 
 10,000 
 
 . 
 
 40,000 
 
 30,000 
 440,000 
 
 In case of war his Majesty could arm four thousand light 
 horse and sixty thousand infantry. The latter would fight in 
 the old-fashioned way, with bow, sword, shield, helmet, and 
 with pikes of one or two points which are excellent against 
 charges of cavalry. They are now beginning to use guns and 
 artillery. The English do not fear death. As soon as the 
 battle commences, they provoke the enemy and charge furi- 
 ously ; in very quick engagements they are generally victorious, 
 but they often yield if the war drags on. They have not the 
 slightest fear of Frenchmen, but they are much afraid of the 
 Scotch.
 
 hi VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 91 
 
 During forty days they are obliged to scve in the army 
 without receiving pay ; after that time they receive three 
 crowns and a half for a period of service determined before- 
 hand. The fleet consists of one hundred and fifty vessels. 
 
 It now only remains for me to tell you who are the friends 
 of the King, and what consequences his divorce might have, 
 and I shall then add a few words on the most Reverend the 
 Cardinal York. 
 
 Since the affair of the divorce has come up [Falier is writing 
 in 1 53 1, and Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn the next year] 
 the Pope [Clement VII.] is not in his Majesty's good graces. 
 If the Holy Father will not grant the King permission to divorce, 
 the result will be a very great advantage for the English crown, 
 and a great danger to the Roman Church, for the King will 
 detach himself from the latter, and will seize all the revenues 
 of the ecclesiastical benefices; this will yield the Crown more 
 than six million ducats [,£4,500,000]. 
 
 Falier was not mistaken, unless, perhaps, in his 
 figures. He proceeds to speak of the relations between 
 England and all the other European states, after which 
 he returns to the question of the divorce, expressing him- 
 self in a very singular way for a Catholic. It must be 
 remembered, however, that he was a Venetian, and 
 therefore a man of business first, and a baptized Chris- 
 tian afterward. 
 
 The Englishman [Henrv VIII.] must necessarily divorce, 
 for he wishes to have a legitimate son, and he has lost all hope 
 of one being born to him by the Lady Catharine [of Aragon] . 
 He will therefore marry his favourite [Anne Boleyn] the 
 daughter of the Earl of Vuilcer (sic) [Wiltshire — note the 
 Venetian's phonetic spelling !] as soon as possible. He will 
 have trouble, for the faction that is for the Queen will rise.
 
 92 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY m 
 
 It is quite clear that Venetian diplomatists did not 
 indulge themselves in sentiment, and the information 
 they presented to the Senate was as brutally frank and 
 coldly precise as a medical diagnosis. They sought for 
 facts and did not philosophise about them. Here is 
 Falier's opinion of Cardinal Wolsey : — 
 
 The King and the kingdom were in his hands, and he dis- 
 posed of everything as the King himself might have done, or 
 the Pope. All the princes were obliged to bow down to him. 
 He received one hundred and fittv thousand ducats yearly over 
 and above the gifts which he had from the English and the 
 foreign princes. He counted much on France, with which 
 kingdom he kept up extremely affectionate relations. His 
 court was magnificent, more magnificent than the King's. 
 He spent all his income, he was very proud, and he wished to 
 be adored like a god rather than respected as a prince. 
 
 In connection with the great Cardinal, I shall trans- 
 late a passage of the letter in which Falier had informed 
 the Senate of his disgrace. The fragment has some 
 value also, from the light it throws on the comparative 
 values of coins at that time. It must be remembered 
 that the value of the gold ducat never changed to the last, 
 while that of all other European coins varied greatly. 
 
 The King of England has had the Cardinal put in prison, 
 has deprived him of the government, and has confiscated all his 
 property. His fortune is valued at forty thousand pounds 
 English, equal to twenty thousand of our grossi [the silver 
 mark], or two hundred thousand [silver] ducats ; in these forty 
 thousand pounds must be included thirty thousand pounds 
 English in cash, that is, fifteen thousand of ours or one hun-
 
 in VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 93 
 
 dred and fifty thousand [silver] ducats. His real estate has 
 also been confiscated, consisting of his Archbishopric, which 
 brought him a very large sum. 
 
 At the risk of wearying my readers I give a short 
 extract from the report of another ambassador to 
 England, Jacopo Soranzo, which was read before the 
 Senate on the ninth of August 1554 (Queen Mary 
 then reigning). The Venetian expresses his surprise 
 at the way in which trials by jury were conducted in 
 England. 
 
 Crimes are tried before twelve judges who may not leave 
 the court, nor eat, nor drink, until they, all agree, without one 
 exception, on the sentence to be passed. . . . When sentence 
 has been passed, the judges execute it immediately, but without 
 ever resorting to the mutilation of a member or exile. If the 
 accused is innocent, he is acquitted ; if he is guilty, he is con- 
 demned to death. 
 
 I need not lav stress on the defective form of such trials ; 
 your Lordships see for yourselves how reprehensible such a 
 mode of procedure is, for it often happens that eleven persons 
 who wish to acquit the accused decide to condemn him to 
 death in order to be of the opinion of the twelfth, who is 
 determined to bear starvation till this verdict is given. 
 
 Before closing this chapter it is worth while to note 
 that if the Venetian ambassadors abroad succeeded in 
 knowing almost everything that was happening, the 
 government took good care that foreign A% Bascket, 
 representatives residing in Venice should Archives. 
 not follow their example. They were never told any- 
 thing in the way of news, und though honours and
 
 94 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY in 
 
 privileges were heaped upon them, they were kept at 
 arm's length. As far hack as the fourteenth century 
 there was a law forbidding all patricians to have any 
 acquaintance or social intercourse with any foreign 
 representative except under the most exceptional 
 circumstances, and M. Baschet has found material 
 in the Archives sufficient to prove that the foreign 
 ambassadors lived in something very like the seclusion 
 of exile, and were altogether banished from all inter- 
 course with the upper classes. The same writer adds 
 that the diplomatists resented this rude exclusion, and 
 that the practice of it made the Republic not a few 
 enemies. 
 
 To such a criticism Venice would have answered, as 
 usual, by the argument of success on the whole during 
 many centuries. Those who care to examine the point 
 more closely may read M. Baschet's interesting work 
 on the Secret Chancery.
 
 
 I'ONTE DEL CKlsTO 
 
 IV 
 
 THE ARSENAL, THE GLASS-WORKS, AND 
 THE LACE-MAKERS 
 
 The old Arsenal is such a museum of shadows nowa- 
 days that it is hard to realise what it once meant to 
 the Venetians. Six hundred years ago, the sight of it 
 inspired one of Dante's most vivid descriptions of 
 activity, and I have sometimes wondered whether in his 
 day the three dwelling-houses of the Provveditors were 
 already nick-named Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, as 
 they were always called at a later date. 
 
 95
 
 96 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 The Arsenal was founded in the twelfth century, and 
 from the- very Hist was one of the institutions most 
 jealously watched over by the government. In the 
 sixteenth century it had grown to he a vast enclosure 
 of docks and hasins, protected by a crenellated wall, and 
 having but one entrance, which was guarded by senti- 
 nels. In the interior, the houses of the Provveditors 
 had grown to be three great palaces, built round a 
 courtyard, each officer occupying one of them during 
 the thirty-two months of his term of office. 
 
 The Provveditors were nobles, of course, but they 
 must necessarily have been men who thoroughly under- 
 stood nautical matters, for it was their duty to oversee 
 all work done in the place, to the minutest details, and 
 they had absolute control of all the vast stores accumu- 
 lated for building and fitting the fleet of the Republic. 
 Everv manufactured article was stamped with the arms 
 of the Republic as soon as it was made or purchased, 
 and not a nail, not a fathom of rope, not a yard of canvas 
 could be brought out of the storehouses without the 
 consent of one of the Provveditors. If anything was 
 found outside the w-alls of the Arsenal with the public 
 mark on it, the object was considered by law to be 
 stolen, an inquiry was made, and if the culprit who had 
 committed the misdemeanour could be caught, he was 
 condemned to the galleys. 
 
 In order to enforce the rigid regulations the govern- 
 ment not only required all three Provveditors to inhabit 
 constantly the palaces assigned to them, but insisted that 
 one of them should remain day and night within the
 
 
 STEAMERS COMING IN
 
 
 
 
 

 
 iv THE ARSENAL 97 
 
 boundaries of the yard, during a fortnight, without 
 going out at all. This service was taken in turn, and 
 the official who was on duty was called the 'Patron di 
 Guardia.' Into his hands all the keys were given every 
 evening- when work was over. 
 
 The artisans of the government ship-yard were the 
 finest set of men in Venice, and their traditions of 
 workmanship and art were handed dow 7 n in their 
 families from father to son for generations, as certain 
 occupations still are in Italy. I know of a man-servant, 
 for instance, whose direct ancestors have served those 
 of the family in which he is still a servant for more 
 than two hundred years without a break. In the 
 Venetian Arsenal, it sometimes happened that an old 
 man was foreman of a department in which his son was 
 a master smith or carpenter, and his grandson an 
 apprentice. 
 
 There was something military in the organisation, 
 which bound the artisans very close together, for they 
 trained themselves in fencing and gymnastics, and also 
 in everything connected with extinguishing fires and 
 saving wrecks or shipwrecked crews, for in any case of 
 public danger it was always the 'Arsenalotti' who were 
 called in. They were sober and courageous and exces- 
 sively proud of their trade, and the government could 
 ahvays count on them. Twice, towards the end of the 
 sixteenth century, the ducal palace took fire, and would 
 have burnt down but for the prodigious energy of the 
 workmen from the government docks. On the first 
 occasion they proudly refused the present of five 
 
 VOL. II. — H
 
 98 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 hundred ducats which the Doge offered them, but 
 gratefully accepted an invitation to dine with him in a 
 body; and as they numbered over fifteen thousand the 
 Doge did not save money by the arrangement. Three 
 years later, all their efforts could not hinder the hall of 
 the Great Council from burning, and priceless works of 
 art by such men as the two Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, 
 and Pordenone were destroyed in a few moments. But 
 the Arsenalotti saved the rest of the building, and 
 again refused any recompense for their services. 
 
 When Henry III. of France came to Venice, the 
 Arsenal employed about sixteen thousand men, and could 
 count on a budget of two hundred and twenty-four 
 thousand gold ducats, of which one hundred and twenty- 
 four went to pay the wages of the workmen, and the rest 
 was expended for materials. Those were large sums 
 in the sixteenth century, but Venice looked upon the 
 Arsenal as the mainspring of her power, and spared 
 nothing to keep it in a state as near perfection as 
 possible. In the long struggle with Genoa, the enemy 
 used every art to bring about its destruction, but always 
 in vain. The men who guarded the docks were 
 absolutely incorruptible. In the sixteenth century it 
 seemed as if the pure blood of the old Venetians ran 
 only in their veins, and as if they alone still upheld the 
 noble traditions of loyalty and simplicity which the 
 founders of the Republic had handed down from braver 
 days. 
 
 Next to the construction of her war-ships and 
 merchant fleets, one of the most important matters to
 
 IV 
 
 GLASS-WORKS 
 
 99 
 
 the commerce of Venice was the manufacture of glass, 
 which brought enormous profits to the State and to 
 
 
 S. MICHEI.E 
 
 individuals, as is usually the case when a valuable pro- 
 duct is made out of cheap materials by processes which 
 are secret, and therefore have the effect of a monopoly.
 
 100 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 IV 
 
 As early as the fourteenth century the government 
 had understood the immense importance of the art, 
 and the glass-blowers of Murano were protected and 
 favoured in a most especial way. As in one part of 
 France, a sort of nobility was inherent in the occupation, 
 and an early law sanctioned the marriage of a master 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 VENICE FKOM Ml'KANO 
 
 glass-blower's daughter with a patrician by allowing 
 their children to be entered in the Golden Book. 
 
 The glass-works were all established in the island 
 of Murano, as their presence in the city would have 
 caused constant danger of fire at a time when many 
 of the houses were still built of wood, and the whole 
 manufacture was subject to the direct supervision of 
 the Council of Ten, under whose supreme authority 
 Murano governed itself as a separate city, and almost as a
 
 IV 
 
 GLASS-WORKS 
 
 101 
 
 separate little republic. Not only were the glass-blowers 
 organised in a number of guilds according to the special 
 
 branches of the profession, such as bead-making, bottle- 
 blowing, the making of window-panes and of stained 
 glass, each guild having its own 'mariegola' or charter;
 
 io2 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 but over these the Muranese had their own Great 
 Council and Golden Book, in which the names of one 
 hundred and seventy-three families were inscribed, and 
 their own Small Council, or Senate. The Ten gave 
 Murano a ' Podesta,' but he had not the power which 
 similar officers exercised in the other cities and islands 
 of the Dogato, and it is amusing to see that the people 
 of Murano treated him very much as the Venetians 
 themselves treated their Doge. He was required to 
 be of noble blood; he was obliged by law to spend 
 three days out of four in Murano; he was forbidden 
 to go to Venice when important functions were going 
 on ; he could not interfere in any affair without the 
 permission of both the Councils of Murano, and al- 
 together he was much the same sort of figure-head 
 as the Doge himself. On the other hand, Murano 
 supported a sort of consul in Venice with the title of 
 Nuncio, whose business it was to defend the interests 
 of the island before the Venetian government. 
 
 Neither the Missier Grande, the chief of the Venetian 
 police, nor the 'sbirri,' were allowed to exercise their 
 functions on the island. Offenders were arrested and 
 dealt with by the officers of the Murano government, 
 and were handed over to the Venetian supreme govern- 
 ment only in extreme cases, most trials taking place 
 on the island. 
 
 The heraldic arms of Murano displayed on an azure 
 field a cock with red legs, wearing a crown of silver. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the population was about 
 thirty thousand souls, and the little city" had a great
 
 IV 
 
 GLASS-WORKS 
 
 I0 3 
 
 reputation for the beauty of its churches and especially 
 of its gardens, in which quantities of exotic plants and 
 flowers w y ere cultivated. 
 
 The two most powerful families amongst the glass- 
 blowers were those of Beroviero and Ballarin. I have 
 told at length in the form of a romance the true story 
 
 Ml'KANO, LOOKING TOWARDS VENICE 
 
 of Zorzi Ballarin and Marietta Beroviero, availing 
 myself only of the romancer's right to be the apologist 
 of his hero. The facts remain. Angelo Beroviero, a 
 pupil of Paolo Godi, the famous mediaeval chemist, 
 worked much alone in his laboratory, noting the results 
 of his experiments in a diary which became extremely 
 valuable. By some means this diary came into the
 
 104 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 IV 
 
 hands of Zorzi Ballarin, so-called by his comrades on 
 account ot his lameness. He loved Marietta, and she 
 loved him, but he was poor, and moreover, as far as 
 I have been able to ascertain, he was of foreign birth, 
 and could therefore not become a master glass-blower. 
 When he found himself in possession of the precious 
 
 secrets, he used his power to extort Beroviero's consent, 
 he married Marietta, obtained the full privileges of a 
 master, lived a highly honourable life, and became the 
 ancestor of a distinguished family, one of whom was a 
 Venetian ambassador, as may be read in the inscription 
 on his tomb in Murano. Beroviero's house, with the 
 sign of the Angel, is still standing in Murano, and I 
 think the ancient glass-works nearly opposite were 
 probably his. As for Zorzi Ballarin, I daresay that the
 
 IV 
 
 GLASS-WORKS 
 
 105 
 
 process by which he really got possession of the diary 
 was not strictly legal, but love has excused worse mis- 
 deeds than that, and Beroviero does not seem to have 
 suffered at all in the end. If there had been any 
 foundation for the spiteful story some chroniclers tell, 
 
 
 THE HOUSE OF BEROVIERO, MURANO 
 
 a man of Beroviero's power and wealth could have 
 had Zorzi imprisoned, tortured, and exiled without the 
 slightest difficulty. 
 
 Venice was almost as famous for her lace as for her 
 glass. On the admittedly doubtful authority of Daru 
 and Laugier, Smedley gives an anecdote of the Emperor 
 Frederick III. for what it is worth. It at least illustrates 
 the fact that all foreigners did not esteem Venetian
 
 106 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 glass as highly as the \ enetians themselves. When 
 Frederick visited the- city <>n his way to Rome, he 
 was most magnificently entertained, and amongst other 
 presents offered to him was a very beautiful service of 
 Murano glass. The Emperor was not pleased with 
 the gift, which, to his barbarous ignorance, seemed of 
 no value; he ordered his dwarf jester to seem -to 
 stumble against the table on which the matchless glass 
 was set out, and it was all thrown to the ground and 
 smashed to atoms. 'If these things had been of gold 
 or silver, they could not have been broken so easily,' 
 said the imperial boor. 
 
 In contrast with this possibly true story of the 
 fifteenth century, I find that the lace collar w T orn by 
 Louis XIV. at his coronation was made in Venice, and 
 was valued at an enormous sum. He afterwards bribed 
 Murano glass-blowers to settle in France. 
 
 In those times, more or less as now, women made 
 lace at home, and brought the results of their long and 
 patient labour to the dealers, who bought and sold it at 
 a fabulous profit. A few specimens of the finest lace 
 of the sixteenth century are still in existence, and are 
 worn on great occasions by Italian ladies whose ances- 
 tresses wore them more than three hundred years ago; 
 but the art of making such lace is extinct. Glance 
 only, for instance, at a picture by Carpaccio, in the 
 Museo Civico of Venice, representing two patrician 
 ladies of the fifteenth centurv, one of whom wears white 
 lace on her gown. It is of the kind known as 'point 
 coupe' or cut point, and is the same which Francesco
 
 iv LACE 107 
 
 Vinciolo taught the French a hundred years later when 
 it was no longer thought fine enough, in Venice, for 
 ornamenting anything but sheets and pillow-cases. It 
 is inimitable now. Or look at the exquisite lace of 
 network stitch with which Gentile Bellini loved to 
 adorn the women he portrayed. Yet in the sixteenth 
 century still further progress had been made, and the 
 'air point' was created, which surpassed in fineness any- 
 thing imagined before then, and for which fabulous 
 prices were paid. The collar of Louis XIV. was of 
 this point, and it is said that as no thread could be 
 spun fine enough for it, white human hair was used. 
 There is also a story to the effect that the Emperor 
 Joseph II., who ascended the throne in 1765, ordered 
 a set of air point worth the improbable, though not very 
 great price of J7,JJJ francs. As neither Austrians nor 
 Venetians used the franc, the story is most likely of 
 French origin. 
 
 Another lace greatly valued in Venice was the 'rose 
 point,' which is probably the best known of the ancient 
 laces. It was preferred, for collars, both by high officials 
 and great ladies, and the Dogesses often used it for 
 their veils. The Doge Francesco Morosini possessed 
 some wonderful specimens of it, which I am told are 
 still in the possession of his descendants. 
 
 One more stitch was invented in the sixteenth 
 century, which oddly enough obtained the generic 
 name of 'Venetian point.' There is a pretty story 
 about it. A sailor, says the legend, came home from 
 a long voyage and brought his sweetheart a kind of
 
 io8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 seaweed known to botanists by the name of Halimedia 
 Opuntta, of which the little branches were so Hue that 
 the people called the plant 'Siren's hair.' The man 
 sailed again on another voyage, and the girl, full of 
 loving and anxious thoughts for him, occupied herself 
 by copying the dried plant with her needle, and in so 
 doing created the Venetian point. 
 
 The minister Colbert introduced it into France a 
 century later, under Louis XIV., and gave it his own 
 name ; and the King and the Republic quietly quarrelled 
 about this French infringement of a Venetian monopoly. 
 In the end, the Inquisitors of State issued a decree which 
 was intended to recall errant and erring Venetian lace- 
 workers and glass-blowers to the security of their 
 homes : — - 
 
 'All workmen or artisans who carry on their trade 
 in foreign countries shall be ordered to come back; 
 should they disobey, the members of their families 
 shall be imprisoned, and if they then return, they shall 
 be freely pardoned and again employed in Venice. But 
 if any of them persist in living abroad, messengers 
 shall be sent to kill them, and when they are dead their 
 relations shall be let out of prison.' 
 
 The glass-blowers who were to be murdered were 
 men, but the lace-makers were women, and the decree, 
 which was made about 1673, is a fine instance of Venetian 
 business principles, since the killing of men and women 
 by assassination was a measure introduced solely for 
 the protection of trade. 
 
 Coloured bobbin lace was also made in Venice,
 
 IV 
 
 LACE 
 
 109 
 
 with dyed silk thread and threads of gold, in the 
 fifteenth century, and Richard III. of England desired 
 his queen to wear it on her cloak at their coronation 
 in 1483. 
 
 The modern Burano lace was first made after the 
 
 THE PALACES 
 
 end of the Republic, and is almost the only sort which 
 is now manufactured in any quantity. Some of the 
 finer points are imitated, it is true, and are vastly 
 advertised, advertisement having taken the place of 
 assassination in business methods as a means of creating 
 a fictitious monopoly; but in spite of some really good 
 pieces of needlework wrought with great care — as
 
 no GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 advertisements — the mass of the work turned out is 
 of a cheap and commercial character. 
 
 The policy of \ enice with regard to her manu- 
 factures was one of protection, as has been seen, and 
 the result was on the whole very satisfactory to the 
 people as well as to the great merchants. Very heavy 
 duties were levied on almost all imported articles, and 
 among the very few excepted were the silk fabrics 
 from Florence known by the name of 'ormesini.' This 
 material was in such common use in Venice that the 
 local silk weavers could not meet the demand for it. 
 One of the reasons why the working people of Venice 
 were always satisfied was that they were almost always 
 prosperous; the price of labour was high, while that 
 of necessities was relatively low, and the people accord- 
 ingly lived in comfort without excessively hard work. 
 
 On the other hand, some of them were always 
 extravagant, as some of the nobles were, and some were 
 unfortunate; and though there was no pauperism, there 
 were many families of hopelessly poor persons. In a 
 measure the hospitals, hospices, and orphan asylums 
 provided for those in want, but in Venice, as in modern 
 cities, the candidates for charity were always just a little 
 more numerous than the shares into which charity could 
 divide herself. 
 
 There were also those who, if not exactly poor, were 
 in difficulties, the class that for ever feeds the pawn- 
 broker and the small money-lender. The Republic 
 exercised the strictest supervision over these industries, 
 and few cities in the world ever turned a harder face
 
 iv THE JEWS in 
 
 against the inroads of the Hebrews. It was with the 
 greatest unwillingness and with many precautions that 
 Jews were ever admitted into the city at all, and a 
 special code provided the most extraordinary and cruel 
 penalties for the most ordinary misdemeanours when 
 committed by them. They were forced to wear a 
 special dress with a large patch of yellow on the chest, 
 and they could only follow the meanest occupations. 
 In mediaeval Rome it was the business of the Jews to 
 bury the Christian dead, but it often happened that the 
 Pope's private physician was a Hebrew. I do not find 
 that in Venice they were ever forced to be grave- 
 diggers for the poor, but they were forbidden to act as 
 physicians except for their own sick. Both Church 
 and State rigorously forbade their intermarriage with 
 Christians, and, so far as the happy ending of the love 
 story is concerned, Lorenzo and Shylock's daughter 
 could never have married. More than once, before 
 the sixteenth century, the Jews were expelled from 
 Venice and made to live in Mestre, which seems to 
 have been their regular headquarters, but they were 
 allowed to come into the city during the time of certain 
 public fairs. If they prolonged their stay beyond the 
 limit, however, they became liable to fine or imprison- 
 ment. Some of these measures had been partly relaxed 
 by the middle of the sixteenth century, but the Jews 
 never enjoyed anything like equality with the other 
 citizens. 
 
 Oddly enough the money-lender of the lower 
 classes in Venice was the wine-seller, whom the
 
 I 12 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 IV 
 
 people called the Bastionero. In the wine-shop it 
 was customary to pawn objects for wine and money 
 
 THE RIALTO STEPS 
 
 simultaneously, one-third of the value being given 
 in wine, which was generally watered. If the pledge 
 were not redeemed within three months, the amount
 
 IV 
 
 PAWNBROKERS 
 
 "3 
 
 to be paid for getting it back was increased, and again 
 at the end of the next three months, and so on, until, 
 
 NOON ON THE RIALTO 
 
 at the end of the year, the original sum lent was 
 doubled. If it was not paid, the wine-seller had a 
 right to sell the object for what it would bring. 
 
 vol. 11. — r
 
 ii 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY iv 
 
 A modern Eastern proverb says that one Greek can 
 cheat any ten jews, but that one Armenian can cheat 
 ten Greeks. Considering that Venice had a distinctly 
 oriental character during the Middle Ages, and since 
 we know that the small money-lending wine-sellers 
 w r ere not Jews, I suspect that they were principally 
 Greeks and Armenians, the more probably so as we 
 know that great quantities of Greek and Armenian 
 wine were imported into Venice, and that those wines 
 will bear a good deal of watering. The latter is an 
 important point, for it is manifest that when the 
 pledge was redeemed within the first three months, 
 the lender's profit was the difference between the 
 nominal and the real value of the w T ine which formed 
 one-third of the loan. 
 
 The government which tolerated this ignoble occu- 
 pation exhibited the most extraordinary prejudice 
 against the government pawnbroking offices which 
 were common in other Italian cities. Historians 
 have in vain endeavoured to discover why this 
 prejudice went so far that, in 1524, the Council of 
 Ten published a decree threatening with death on the 
 scaffold any one who should even propose the creation 
 of such an establishment. Without entering into 
 any ingenious speculation, it seems possible that the 
 Venetians, who were wise if not virtuous, considered 
 that while it was impossible to prevent the poor from 
 borrowing small sums on their little possessions, to 
 authorise such borrowing by making the government 
 the lender would greatly increase the temptations of
 
 IV 
 
 THE RIALTO 
 
 "5 
 
 that more shiftless class to whom borrowing seems to 
 be a prime necessity of existence. 
 
 AT THE RIALTO 
 
 The centre and heart of all this activity, good and 
 bad, was the bridge of the Rialto. We find it hard to
 
 n6 GLEANINGS I ROM HISTORY iv 
 
 realise that until near the end of the sixteenth centurv 
 it was still built of wood with a movable drawbridge 
 in the middle to admit the passage of larger vessels. 
 Carpaccio, who lived in the fifteenth century, has left 
 us a faithful representation of it as it remained 
 for nearly a hundred years afterwards. It would be 
 interesting to place beside that picture Turner's lost 
 painting of the same subject, a very beautiful canvas 
 which I have twice had the good fortune to see in 
 the course of its more than mysterious peregrinations. 
 I last heard of it, though not certainly, as being in the 
 south of France. 
 
 The present bridge w^as begun after infinite hesita- 
 tion in 1588, and was built after the designs of 
 Antonio da Ponte, whose name was certainly prophetic 
 of his career. Twelve thousand elm piles had to be 
 driven into the soil on each side of the canal to a depth 
 of sixteen feet to make the foundations of the arch. 
 The construction occupied three years, and is said to 
 have cost 250,000 ducats, presumably of silver. The 
 bridge as it stands is a remarkable piece of work, and 
 would be beautiful if the hideous superstructure of 
 shops could be removed. It is interesting to note that 
 fifty years before its completion, Michelangelo offered 
 the Doge Andrea Gritti a plan for a bridge, as is 
 amply proved by the existence of a picture in the 
 Casa Buonarotti in Florence representing the subject.
 
 EVENING OFF S. GEORGIO 
 
 V 
 
 CONCERNING SOME LADIES OF THE 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The clever modern Italian playwright, Signor Martini, 
 makes one of his witty characters say that there are 
 'women,' but that there is no such thing; ...„,. 
 
 ° Martini, ' Chi sa 
 
 as 'woman' in the abstract. In other Ugmoconon 
 words, women are a fact, but woman 
 is a myth. Though this may be a little paradoxical, 
 
 117
 
 1 18 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 there are certainly distinct types of women in each 
 class of life. The smart society woman of to-day and 
 the labourer's wife, like the Venetian patrician lady of 
 the sixteenth century and the fisher-wives of Chioggia, 
 have in common only their sex, their weaknesses and 
 their sufferings; there is very little resemblance between 
 their virtues, and none at all between their joys. 
 
 The noble ladies of Venice in the sixteenth century 
 were as idle and frivolous as Orientals. The fact must 
 be admitted by any one who studies the times; and if 
 it is not of a nature to please those who idealise that 
 period, it may be partly excused by the consideration 
 that the Venetian nobleman treated his womankind 
 very much as a Turk treats his harem. He was not 
 jealous, as lovers understand jealousy; granted a 
 certain degree of beauty and a dowry of a certain 
 value, he cared very little whom he married. When 
 Kugler, the famous art critic, says of Titian's picture 
 of the Schiava, the Slave, in the Barberini Gallery in 
 Rome, that the name is utterly meaningless, he shows 
 that he knew nothing of Venetian life. The slave in 
 the sixteenth century not seldom meant everything, 
 where the wife meant nothing; and if the wives were 
 idle and frivolous, we must remember that when they 
 were young and good-looking, they often found them- 
 selves in competition with beautiful Georgian and 
 Circassian women for their masters' favour. Where 
 women are plentiful, beautiful, and not clever, the men 
 who love them are rarely jealous. But those grave 
 and magnificent Venetians, who had not a scruple in
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 119 
 
 politics, nor in matrimony, were excessively sensitive 
 about anything which touched their technical honour, 
 and it seemed to them altogether safer and wiser to 
 teach their wives and daughters what they were pleased 
 to call 'habits of domestic seclusion.' To be plain, 
 they encouraged them to stay at home; and sometimes, 
 by way of making obedience easier, they locked them 
 up. M. Yriarte says with partial truth that their 
 'seclusion' was that of the harem, not that of the classic 
 gynaeceum; he did not realise that the latter was 
 nothing but a harem too, and that if the Greeks kept 
 their wives at home, it was that they might sup un- 
 disturbed in the society of Phryne. 
 
 The influence of the East on everything con- 
 nected with private life in Venice increased with the 
 Renascence, and is even more perceptible then than 
 during the nominal domination of the Byzantine 
 Empire, when Roman traditions still had great force, 
 and new currents of thought reached Venice from the 
 Lombards. 
 
 Yet in one respect there was nothing oriental about 
 the Venetian noble of the sixteenth century. When 
 he ordered his women to appear in public at all, he 
 sent them out adorned like those miraculous images 
 which are covered with 'ex voto' offerings, and they 
 mixed in the crowd that filled the Piazza of Saint 
 Mark's, shoulder to shoulder with the shameless free. 
 
 The Venetian gentleman, so sensitive about his 
 technical honour, was not even displeased when the 
 chronicler, the reporter of his day, confounded ladies
 
 iio GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 and courtesans in pompous praise oi rheir beauty and 
 dress. One of the nobleman's principles seems to 
 have been that a woman was never in danger in 
 public, nor when her door was locked on the outside 
 and the key was in her husband's pocket, but that any 
 intermediate state of partial liberty was fraught with peril. 
 
 At home the Venetian ladies suffered the pains of 
 boredom in common with the Georgians and Cir- 
 cassians, who not infrequently lived under the same 
 roof, but who presumably saw something more of 
 their masters. The young mother had not even a 
 resource in her children, for it was necessary that the 
 latter should be brought up to be precisely like their 
 fathers and mothers, and in order to accomplish this 
 the fathers kept the boys with themselves, and made 
 them serve in the Senate when they were still quite 
 small; whereas it seems that the girls were brought up 
 largely in convents, such as that of the Vergini, lest 
 they should learn too well from their mothers what it 
 meant to be the w T ife of a member of the Great 
 Council. 
 
 Does any one remember, in all the portraits of 
 Venetian ladies by Carpaccio, Tintoretto, Veronese, or 
 Titian, to have seen a mother accompanied by her 
 little child ? There is the conventional flower, there is 
 the jewel, there is often the lap-dog; but the child is 
 as conspicuously absent as the effigy of Brutus at 
 Junia Tertia's funeral. Children were born and were 
 splendidly baptized; but after that they had no part in 
 their mothers' lives. And the ladies themselves had
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 121 
 
 no great part in Venetian social life, except on its 
 great occasions of baptisms, marriages, and funerals, or 
 in public ceremonies, when they appeared in a body, 
 by order of the Ten, in their richest clothes and as a 
 part of the decoration. It is no wonder that they had 
 few friends and were bored to extinction. 
 
 As a specimen of what a young and noble Venetian 
 girl could become if emancipated, one cannot do 
 better than take Bianca Cappello. She was Mutmein, 
 born in 1548 in the magnificent palace Annah. 
 which her father, Bartolommeo Cappello, had built for 
 himself near the Ponte Storto. Her mother died when 
 Bianca was a little child, a misfortune which probably 
 had no very great influence on the girl's education or 
 character, seeing how little the Venetian ladies occupied 
 themselves with their children. She received the usual 
 teaching, and learned to read and write after a fashion, 
 and such of her letters as have been preserved show 
 that her writing was anything but good. No doubt 
 she had the usual number of pet birds and lap-dogs 
 to play with, and plenty of sweetmeats, and when 
 she was sixteen she was very like other girls of her 
 class and age. 
 
 In Italy young girls are taught not to look out of 
 the window in town. Bianca was terribly bored, and 
 she looked out of the window. Opposite her father's 
 palace was a house occupied by two Florentine 
 burghers, uncle and nephew, Bonaventuri by name, who 
 represented the great Tuscan banking-house of Salviati. 
 
 Bianca looked out of her window, dreaming, no
 
 122 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 doubt, of the dancing lessons which she would be 
 allowed to have when she should be married, and 
 of other similar and harmless frivolities; and young 
 Pietro Bonaventuri also looked out of the window, 
 neglecting his ledgers. 
 
 The girl was very lonely and excessively bored. 
 
 She never left the palace except to go with her father 
 
 Gaiiiccioii, to their villa in Murano for a few weeks 
 
 in. 210. j n tne fj ne season> She was not even 
 
 taken to church, because, some eighty years earlier, a 
 young girl called Giovanna di Riviera, when going to 
 mass with her mother on the morning of the third of 
 March 1482, had been picked up and literally carried 
 off by a too enterprising lover. After that, young girls 
 of good birth were not allowed to go to church, and 
 mass was said for them in a little chapel at home. 
 
 Bianca was so terribly bored that. she began to make 
 signs to Pietro from her window. She had nothing 
 else to do. One of her most important occupations 
 was to sun her hair on the high 'altana.' That was a 
 real pleasure, for the palace was gloomy, though it was 
 new, and her room felt like a prison cell; but she 
 could not be always sunning her hair. 
 
 The young banker's clerk responded to her signals 
 of distress with alacrity, and a dumb love affair began, 
 apparently highly approved by the youth's uncle, who 
 was a man of business. On the night 
 between the twenty-eighth and the twenty- 
 ninth of December the two eloped and got away from 
 Venice without being caught.
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 123 
 
 Bartolommeo Cappello's appeal to the Council 
 of Ten is extant. I give the most interesting part 
 of it: — 
 
 'I shall here expose, and not without tears, the 
 cruel and atrocious deed of which I was the victim 
 on the night of December the twenty-ninth. The 
 scoundrel Pietro Bonaventuri, with the consent of his 
 uncle, Giovanni Battista, and of accomplices whom I 
 know not . . . entered my house, which is almost 
 opposite his, and carried off my only daughter, sixteen 
 years old; he first took her to his house and then hid 
 her from place to place, to my great dishonour and 
 that of all my family.' 
 
 The document goes on in a strain of lamentation, 
 and ends with the request that the Council of Ten 
 should set a price on the head of the seducer, and 
 bring the girl back to be locked up in a convent; and 
 the unhappy father offered a prize of six thousand lire 
 to any one who would bring him Pietro Bonaventuri, 
 alive or dead. The letter expresses more hatred of 
 the lover than sorrow for the lost child. 
 
 The Ten proceeded in the matter without delay; 
 Pietro's uncle was thrown into prison, and died there 
 soon afterwards of a putrid fever. Bianca's woman- 
 servant and the latter's husband, who was a gondolier, 
 and who had, of course, both been acquainted with 
 the plan of her flight, were arrested and tortured; as 
 for Pietro and Bianca, they had been already some time 
 in Florence, where they learned that they had both 
 been condemned to death by default. The Ten had
 
 i2 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 proceeded against the insignificant banker's clerk with 
 terrible energy. 
 
 But Bianca, who had been so dreadfully bored, now 
 had too much to do. Pietro's affairs did not prosper, 
 and after selling the jewels she had brought with her, 
 she was obliged to work with her hands in his house, 
 which was not at all what she had bargained for. 
 Chance favoured her, however, and she helped chance 
 as well as she could, and succeeded in attracting the 
 notice of Francesco de' Medici. He was the son of 
 Cosmo, the Grand Duke, and the brother of Isabella, 
 then not yet drowned in her own basin by Paolo 
 Giordano Orsini,and of Cardinal Ferdinando, who after- 
 wards poisoned his brother and became Grand Duke. 
 Francesco lost his heart to the beautiful Bianca, and 
 she had no objection to winning it; Pietro Bona- 
 venturi, who was a man of business instincts, but not 
 sufficiently cautious, had no objection either. But old 
 Cosmo, the Duke, was much scandalised by his son's 
 behaviour, though he himself had been accused of 
 nothing less than loving his own daughter Isabella, and 
 he remonstrated with Francesco. 
 
 'You know,' he said, 'that I do not wish to weary 
 you with preaching, but when things go too far you 
 must learn what I think of you.' 
 
 Francesco learned, but does not seem to have been 
 much affected by the knowledge, for he presently 
 installed Bianca and her complaisant husband almost 
 under the same roof with his wife. Pietro, however, 
 was really so superfluous that he was soon suppressed,
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 125 
 after which his widow occupied an official position in 
 
 1 
 
 CASA WEIDERMANN 
 
 the court of Tuscany as the acknowledged mistress of 
 the heir to the throne. Francesco now attempted to
 
 i 2 6 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 get a reversal of the sentence passed on Bianca by the 
 Council of Ten, and employed an influential person to 
 plead the cause; but it was thought improper that 
 such a case should be treated in the name of old 
 Cosmo while he insisted on ignoring Bianca's 
 existence. Cosmo died in 1574, but still nothing was 
 done. 
 
 It may be doubted whether any woman in Bianca's 
 situation ever went to such extremes of treachery 
 and effrontery. Her victim, the gentle Archduchess 
 Giovanna of Austria, Francesco's wife, died at last in 
 1578, possibly without being helped out of the world, 
 and Francesco married Bianca secretly two months later; 
 but the marriage was not announced to the people until 
 the year of mourning was over. Bianca was Grand 
 Duchess of Tuscany. 
 
 The effect of the news in Venice was magical. The 
 Senate made the following curious declaration : — 
 
 'The Grand Duke of Tuscany having deigned to 
 choose as his consort the lady Bianca Cappello, of 
 noble Venetian family, endowed with such great 
 qualities that we judge her worthy of that dignity, it 
 is but right that our Republic should exhibit its 
 satisfaction at the honour conferred upon it by this 
 important and prudent decision of the said Grand 
 Duke. We therefore decree that the aforesaid illus- 
 trious and puissant lady, Bianca Cappello, Grand 
 Duchess of Tuscany, be declared the adopted and 
 beloved daughter of our Republic' 
 
 Bianca's father, who, being a good Venetian, was
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 127 
 
 almost as good a man of business as Salviati's murdered 
 clerk, and much more prudent, wrote a letter full of 
 touchingly tender feeling to the daughter whom he 
 had cursed so loudly and so long; he and his sons, 
 Bianca's brothers, were made Knights of the Golden 
 Stole, and all the records of the scandalous trial that had 
 taken place fifteen years earlier were burnt. Bianca's 
 public marriage and coronation took place on the twelfth 
 of October 1579, and the Republic sent two ambassadors 
 and the patriarch Grimani to show the Grand Duchess 
 that all old scores were forgotten. She was thirty-one 
 years old. 
 
 We know even more than is necessary of Bianca's 
 life and intrigues. She survived her triumph eight 
 years, till she and her ill-gotten husband died of poison 
 within a few hours of each other; but whether the 
 drug was administered by the Cardinal Ferdinando, 
 Francesco's brother, or whether the two meant to give 
 it to him and took it by mistake, is not clear. He 
 himself declared that he had not poisoned anybody. 
 It is at least certain that he would not allow Bianca to 
 be interred in the Medici vault, but had her privately 
 buried in the crypt of San Lorenzo. 
 
 The Venetian Republic did not go into mourning 
 for its 'well-beloved adopted daughter,' since it was 
 best not to quarrel with the Cardinal Grand Duke, 
 who had probably suppressed her, though his physician 
 made an autopsy and assured the public that she had 
 died of frightful excesses of all sorts. 
 
 The moral of this unpleasing tale is that the
 
 i 2 8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 manner of bringing up Venetian girls in the sixteenth 
 century was not of a kind to develop their better 
 instincts, for there is nothing; to show that Hianca 
 Cappello was very different from other girls of her 
 time, except in the great opportunities for doing harm 
 which fell to her share. 
 
 Probably the most enjoyable weeks of a noble 
 Venetian girl's life were those which preceded her 
 marriage, and were chiefly spent in the preparation of 
 her wedding outfit. The age was eccentric as to dress; 
 it was the time of the huge Elizabethan ruffle and 
 hoops; in Venice it was especially the time of clogs. 
 
 The latter had been introduced in the fourteenth 
 
 century on account of the mud in the still unpaved 
 
 Tr , . , streets, and they continued to be worn 
 
 Uibain de J 
 
 Gkeitof, and grew to monstrous dimensions after 
 their usefulness had very much decreased. 
 It became the rule that the greater the lady was, the 
 higher her clogs must be, till they turned into some- 
 thing like stilts, and she could no longer walk except 
 leaning on the shoulders of two servants. In China, 
 the Chinese men, as distinguished from the Tartars, 
 encourage the barbarous breaking of girls' feet, because 
 it makes it impossible for them to gad about the town 
 when they are older, and still less to run away. The 
 Venetian noblemen approved of clogs for the same 
 reason. 
 
 M. Yriarte tells how a foreign ambassador, who was 
 once talking with the Doge and his counsellors in 1623, 
 observed that little shoes would be far more convenient
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 129 
 
 than the huge clogs in fashion. One of the counsellors 
 shook his head in grave disapproval as he answered : 
 ' Far too convenient, indeed ! Far too much so.' 
 
 The civic museum in Venice contains two pairs of 
 clogs, one of which is twenty inches in height, the 
 other seventeen. Some were highly ornamented, and 
 the Provveditori alle Pompe made sumptuary regula- 
 tions against adorning them with over-rich embroidery 
 or with fine pearls. At the same time, shoemakers 
 were warned that they would be liable to a fine of 
 twenty-five lire for any pair of clogs not of proper 
 dimensions and becoming simplicity. Yet they con- 
 tinued to be worn of extravagant size and excessively 
 ornamented till the end of the seventeenth century, when 
 they suddenly sank to nothing, so that a clever woman 
 of the time complained that the Venetian ladies were 
 beginning to wear shoes no thicker than a footman's. 
 
 They were especially affected by the nobles, for the 
 burgher class wore them of much more moderate size. 
 Altogether the life of the burghers' wives was far more 
 enjoyable; they occupied themselves with music and 
 painting; they held gatherings at which men and 
 women really exchanged ideas, and 'academies' at 
 which women with a turn for poetry or science could 
 compare themselves with the most gifted men of 
 Venice. 
 
 The most alive of the noble women of the sixteenth 
 century, the one of whom we have the most vivid 
 impression, was assuredly Bianca Cappello, who was a 
 monster of iniquity. The others, who had not her 
 
 VOL. II. — K
 
 i 3 o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY v 
 
 opportunities for great crime, all seem like lay figures, 
 or common odalisques, who lived a sensuous existence 
 that was never disturbed by an idea. But the burgher 
 women amused themselves, and thought, and wrote, and 
 sometimes even allowed themselves a little sentiment. 
 
 As for the women of the people, we know nothing 
 about them, as there are no documents regarding them, 
 but it seems probable that they were, on the whole, 
 both happy and honest. 
 
 There was one more category of women in Venice, 
 as elsewhere, a class that numbered eleven thousand 
 six hundred and fifty-four members, towards the end 
 of the century, all young, many of them fair, all 
 desirous of pleasing, and all, strange to say, present at 
 every public festival — the class of those who were 
 outside of class, the gay and shameless free. A 
 Venetian of those days made a catalogue ' of all the 
 chief and most honoured courtesans of Venice . . . 
 their names . . . the lodgings where they live . . . 
 and also the amount of the money to be paid by 
 noblemen and others who desire to enter into their 
 good graces.' This list is dedicated 'to the most 
 magnificent and gracious Madam Livia Azzalina, my 
 most respected patroness and lady . . . the princess 
 of all Venetian courtesans.' Moreover, at the end of 
 the pompous dedication, the writer, who signs only 
 his initials, adds that he kisses the gay lady's ' honoured 
 hands.' 
 
 Some authors, taking this for a catalogue made out 
 by the government, inform us that the Venetian Senate
 
 v LADIES OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 131 
 
 always gave courtesans the title of 'deserving.' Lord 
 Orford refuted this calumny in a curious pamphlet 
 quoted by Mr. Horatio Brown in his valuable and 
 delightful Venetian Studies. The catalogue contains 
 two hundred and fifteen names; at number two hun- 
 dred and four stands the name of the famous Veronica 
 Franco — 'that skilled writer of the sonnet and curiously 
 polished verses which say so little and say it so beau- 
 tifully,' says Mr. Brown. 
 
 Tassini tells an anecdote in point. Two gentlemen 
 were walking one day over the bridge near the Church 
 of Saint Pantaleo, and they were confiding to each other 
 their conjugal troubles. 'Do you know who is the 
 only honest woman in Venice?' asked one of them. 
 'There she is!' He painted to a little marble head 
 which is still visible in the front of a house below the 
 bridge. The story went the rounds, and the bridge 
 itself was re-christened 'II Ponte di Donna Onesta.' 
 
 The elegance of the gay ladies was incredible, and 
 it was in order to be distinguished from them that 
 respectable women little by little adopted the black silk 
 gown and veil which they wore to the end of the 
 Republic. The veil was black for married women and 
 white for young girls. 
 
 I find in some statistics for the year 1581 the 
 following statement as to the women of the better 
 classes. There were 1659 patrician ladies, 1230 noble 
 girls, 2508 nuns, and 1936 women of the burgher 
 class. What could they do against 11,654? The note 
 adds that all the others were women of the people.
 
 IHE GRAND CANAL IN Sl'.MMEK 
 
 VI 
 
 A FEW PAINTERS, MEN OF LETTERS, 
 AND SCHOLARS 
 
 According to some trustworthy authorities, Raphael, 
 Martin Luther, and Rabelais were born in the same 
 year. The fact that they were certainly contem- 
 poraries with each other and with many other men of 
 genius of contradictory types is one of the principal 
 features of that most contradictory age. Signor 
 Molmenti compares the gifts of Carpaccio and the two 
 
 132
 
 vi PAINTERS 133 
 
 Bellini to rays that warm and gladden, those of Titian 
 and Tintoretto to lights that dazzle but give no heat. 
 In two centuries that immense change in art had taken 
 place; from having spoken to the soul it had come to 
 appeal to the eye. 
 
 The best painters of the fifteenth century touch us, 
 and remain impersonal to us. What do we know, for 
 instance, of Carpaccio's dreams or struggles or suffer- 
 ings while he was painting his great picture of Saint 
 Ursula and her maiden company ? We gaze upon 
 those virgin faces, those crowns of martyrdom, those 
 tenderly smiling women's lips, those almost childlike 
 gestures, and they touch us deeply. Perhaps we should 
 like to ask them the secret of Carpaccio's melancholy 
 soul. But the lips move not, nor do the eyes answer; 
 the eleven thousand maidens seem rather to beckon us 
 away to that place of refreshment, light and peace, 
 where we may hope that the great painter's sadness 
 ended at last. They tell us not of him, nor of them- 
 selves, but of heaven. 
 
 A hundred years have gone by, and still artists 
 paint pictures; but they tell us no longer of anything 
 but their own selves, their own lives, their own pas- 
 sions. It is the world that has changed; perhaps it is 
 not faith that is gone, faith the evidence of things 
 unseen, but most assuredly belief has taken flight 
 and left men sceptical, the belief which is the mother 
 of all bright dreams, and which must see in order to 
 believe, if only in imagination, and, believing, cannot 
 fail to see.
 
 ij4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 The time had come when the artists were interesting 
 for their own sakes as well as for what they did, and 
 when the reporter-chronicler thought it worth while to 
 note every anecdote of their daily lives, to put down 
 the names of their models, to tell us who sat to them 
 for their Madonnas. And those names are mostly 
 names of good and honest women, and we know to a 
 nicety why they chose this face for one purpose and 
 that for another. There is an end of all the legends 
 of saintly heads begun by the artist and finished before 
 morning by an angel's hand. There is an end, too, of 
 dreams of refreshment, light and peace. The artists 
 of the sixteenth century are the most human of man- 
 kind, the most subject to humanity's passions, its 
 weaknesses and even its madness, and their works 
 bear the stamp of the sensuous naturalism in which 
 they lived. 
 
 The patrician Alvise Pisani possessed a beautiful 
 house at San Cassian, standing on a tongue of land 
 called Biri Grande. From the embrasured windows 
 Murano could be seen, and the island of San Cristoforo, 
 and of Pace; beyond these, in the distance, rose the 
 tall tower of Torcello, and a dark line along the water 
 marked the forest of the distant island called Deserto; 
 to the left rose the Euganean Hills, to the right 
 stretched a long beach of gleaming sand. The fisher- 
 men used to say that when the mysterious glow spread 
 over the waters of the lagoon at night, the Fata Morgana 
 had floated up the Adriatic and was bathing in the 
 dark.
 
 AFTERGLOW, THE GRAND CANAL
 
 
 

 
 ^*> 
 
 %
 
 vi PAINTERS 135 
 
 All those things might be seen from the windows 
 of Alvise Pisani's house; and there dwelt Titian, no 
 longer the thoughtless gallant of his earlier days, but 
 grave now, stately and magnificent. Violante is for- 
 gotten, he lives honourably with his wife Cecilia, but he 
 
 EUGANEAN HILLS FROM THE LAGOON, LOW TIDE 
 
 still keeps his love of conversation, his luxurious tastes, 
 his lordly manner; and now he feels himself the equal 
 of the great of the earth, and it amuses him to exchange 
 letters with princes. For secretaries he has poets, 
 historians, and even a cardinal; he is the Titian who 
 will allow an emperor to stoop for the brush that has 
 fallen from his hand. But few men ever had such
 
 136 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 grace and winning charm, and his house is ever open 
 to his countless friends, a place of gathering, of wit and 
 of good talk, where ladies are received, some of whom 
 a later age will call blue-stockings, ladies who are 
 members of learned academies, and ladies that play 
 the lute. 
 
 Such was Titian, and such the house in which he 
 was rarely alone. He had among many friends two at 
 least with whom he was really intimate, the sculptor 
 Sansovino, and Pietro Aretino the man of letters. 
 The former was the friend of his heart and of his 
 artistic intelligence; the latter he himself regarded 
 as a sort of wild beast whom he had tamed and whom 
 he kept to frighten his rivals and his enemies. He 
 could not let a day go by without seeing both, and the 
 three were generally together. If one of them was 
 asked to dinner, he invariably begged his host to invite 
 the other two. 
 
 They certainly did not resemble one another. 
 Aretino was an adventurer who had tried most things: 
 in his boyhood he had forged and stolen; in his young 
 prime he had been a renegade monk, and then a 
 courtier; in his maturity, to use one of his own ex- 
 pressions, he earned his living by the sweat of his ink. 
 The Grand Duke of Tuscany had hired a house for 
 
 Tassini, under him at the Riva del Carbon, for sixty soldi 
 
 Carbon. yearly, on the Grand Canal, and it was 
 
 there that he followed an occupation which procured 
 
 him all the necessaries and some of the luxuries of life. 
 
 He made it his business to address the most abjectly
 
 vi PAINTERS 137 
 
 flattering panegyrics to eminent persons, and even to 
 sovereigns like Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V., 
 and they rewarded him with presents of money or old 
 wine. Or if some unlucky aspirant to office was in 
 need of popularity or favour, Aretino quietly explained 
 to him that a little article from his own pen could 
 make or mar success; and there was nothing to be 
 done but to pay, and to pay handsomely. Between 
 the composition of one libel and the next, the amiable 
 Tuscan lived riotously on his latest earnings with his 
 two daughters Adria and Austria; in plain language 
 he was a blackmailer, a voluptuary, a man of the 
 highest taste, and of the lowest tastes. 
 
 No one loved him, but he was generally feared, and 
 was therefore much sought after. His house was 
 always full, and it was said that it was MutineiH, 
 impossible to go there without meeting Annah. 
 a scholar, a soldier, and a monk. He himself said 
 pleasantly that the steps of his house were as much 
 worn by the feet of visitors as the pavement before the 
 Capitol was by the cars of triumphing Roman generals. 
 Nor was it only those that could pay blackmail who 
 mounted the stairs. The man was full of contra- 
 dictions; the poor crept up to his door and did not 
 return empty-handed. Aretino was charitable. 
 
 He could not bear to see a child crying for cold or 
 hunger, nor to see men or women sleeping shelterless 
 in the streets, and often he took in under his roof 
 pilgrims and poor wandering gentlemen. On Easter 
 day he never failed to feed eighteen little beggar children
 
 138 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 at his table. But when he was tired of his visitors, 
 rich or poor, he took refuge with Titian at San Cassian, 
 for Titian was the only human being whom he 
 loved sincerely, and all the resources of his venomous 
 wit and cruel pen were at the disposal of this one 
 friend. As for Titian's other friends, Aretino spared 
 them, but the artist's enemies he harassed without 
 mercy. 
 
 He was a physical coward, of course, as all such 
 men are. He hated Jacopo Tintoretto for two reasons, 
 first, because his growing reputation was beginning to 
 be a source of anxiety to Titian, and secondly, because he 
 was too poor to be blackmailed and too proud to show 
 himself in Titian's house with the threadbare clothes 
 which his wife, good soul, made him wear for economy's 
 sake. Aretino accordingly abused him, and Tintoretto 
 heard of it and determined to put an end to it in his 
 own way. 
 
 One day he met Aretino in the street, stopped him, 
 and proposed to paint his portrait. The blackmailer 
 was delighted, as the picture would cost him nothing 
 and would certainly be valuable, and he at once made 
 an appointment to go to Jacopo's studio. On the 
 appointed day he appeared punctually, and seeing an 
 empty canvas ready for the portrait, sat down in a 
 becoming attitude. But the painter's turn had come. 
 'Stand up!' he said, and Aretino obeyed. Then 
 Tintoretto pulled out a long horse-pistol. 'What is 
 this?' asked Aretino, alarmed. 'I am going to 
 measure you,' replied the artist, and he proceeded to
 
 vi PAINTERS 139 
 
 measure his adversary by the length of the pistol. 
 'You are two pistols and a half high,' he observed; 
 'now go!' and he pointed to the door. Aretino was 
 badly frightened, and lost no time in getting out of the 
 house; and from that day he neither wrote nor spoke 
 any word that was not flattering to Jacopo Tintoretto. 
 Aretino received another lesson one day from the 
 famous Andrea Calmo. The latter was an extremely 
 original personage, half man of letters, half actor, whose 
 improvised speeches in the character of Pantaloon were 
 so remarkable as to give rise to the mistaken belief 
 that he had invented that mask. He also wrote open 
 letters to prominent men, as Aretino did, and published 
 them, and as his were quite as libellous as the Tuscan's, 
 and sometimes even more witty, they had 
 
 T r r 1 Loves Labour's 
 
 an immense success. In hrty years they Lost, Act iv.sc.2 
 went through fifty editions, and there is ^ am6ruf £ e s 
 
 te J edition, 1863). 
 
 positive proof that Shakespeare was ac- 
 quainted with them, for he quotes a line and a half 
 from one of Calmo's works : — 
 
 Venetia, Venetia, 
 Chi non ti vede non ti pretia. 
 
 Calmo's chief virtue was neither patience nor for- 
 bearance, and it appears that Aretino irritated him 
 exceedingly. One day his nerves could „,, M . ^ J . 
 
 J •> Molmenti, Studt, 
 
 bear no longer with the Tuscan, and he and Nuovi 
 
 h r ,. . ... Studi. 
 
 is reelings in an ironical 
 
 open letter addressed to the object of his dislike. 
 
 Here is a fragment of it : —
 
 i 4 o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 'You are not a rational, natural human being, but 
 aerial, celestial, deified, a devout man and a calm one, 
 esteemed by all, adorned with every treasure and with 
 all the virtues that no one being possesses, from the 
 East to the West. You are the temple of poetry, the 
 theatre of invention, a very sea of comparisons — and 
 you behave in such a manner as to scare even the 
 dead !' 
 
 Titian's other friend, Jacopo Sansovino, the celebrated 
 architect, was also a Tuscan by birth, but was of quite 
 another stamp. His youth had been wild, but he had 
 then married a woman of great beauty and refinement 
 whose name was Paola, and who completely dominated 
 him. The couple were often seen at the house at San 
 Cassian, as Titian and Cecilia his wife often visited 
 them in their dwelling in Saint Mark's Square close 
 by the clock tower. 
 
 Sansovino was handsome still, and rather a fashion- 
 able person, but excitable withal and a brilliant talker; 
 his life had been saddened for some length of time by 
 the wild doings of his son, but to his great relief the 
 young man at last took to literature and the art of 
 printing. The Sansovino couple also made their 
 house the general meeting-place of many friends, as 
 Titian did. 
 
 » Though Jacopo was a Tuscan, Venice made every 
 effort to monopolise his time and industry after he had 
 become famous throughout Italy, and he was appointed 
 the official architect of Saint Mark's. He was charged 
 with the erection of the Mint and the Library, and of
 
 VENICE FROM THE GARDEN
 
 . 
 
 
 -
 
 vi PAINTERS 141 
 
 a new Loggia to replace the very simple one in which 
 the patricians had been accustomed to gather before the 
 meetings of the Great Council, ever since the thirteenth 
 century. How well he succeeded in that, the beautiful 
 construction which fell with the Campanile amply 
 showed. 
 
 While he was at work on the Library, Titian was 
 called to Rome to execute an important commission, 
 and set out in the certainty that on his return he 
 should find the building finished and his friend covered 
 with glory. The construction grew indeed, and was 
 soon finished, with its two stories, of Doric and Ionic 
 architecture, and the balustrade that crowns the edifice, 
 and the reallv royal staircase, and all the rest. 
 
 But unhappily, on the night of the eighteenth of 
 December 1545, the vault of the main hall fell in, 
 with no apparent reason. Instantly all Sansovino's 
 rivals raised a terrific outcry, accusing him of having 
 neglected the most elementary rules of his art, and 
 assertingthat the accident was altogether due to his negli- 
 gence and incapacity. The zealous magistrate whose 
 duty it was to oversee the construction of public build- 
 ings did not even wait for a proper warrant, but seized 
 Sansovino instantly and sent him to prison. 
 
 Paola was in despair, and when the news was 
 generally known, early on the following morning, the 
 indignation of the architect's friends knew Mutineiu, 
 no bounds. In a few hours Aretino wrote Annan. 
 a consoling letter to Paola, another to Titian, explaining 
 to him what had happened, and a series of libellous
 
 142 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 articles against every architect in Venice except Sanso- 
 vino himself. No one escaped who could be supposed 
 to have uttered a single word against the reputation 
 of the artist in trouble. There was a certain architect 
 called Sanmichele, a man of great piety — greater per- 
 haps than his talent — a frequenter of Titian's house, 
 a rich man, too, such as Aretino delighted to fleece. 
 Possibly also the good old artist's character was irritat- 
 ing to the evil Tuscan, who could not see why a man 
 should be both distinguished and virtuous, nor why 
 Sanmichele should have a special mass said when 
 he was about to begin an important work. One 
 of Aretino's favourite tricks was to use the most 
 frightful language before the mild old man, till the 
 latter, having exhausted entreaty and finding reproach 
 useless, was driven to buy the blasphemer's silence 
 with a handsome present of rare old wine. 
 
 The occasion of Sansovino's imprisonment seemed 
 to Aretino an excellent opportunity for venting his 
 spleen against the devout artist, and at the same time 
 for obtaining a lucrative return for his industry. He 
 therefore accused Sanmichele of being the direct cause 
 of his friend's arrest, and the abuse heaped upon him 
 was so virulent and so persistent that its victim was 
 obliged to have recourse to the usual bribe, which this 
 time consisted of a fine basket of fish. 
 
 Sansovino's friends soon triumphed, for they were 
 many and powerful. I do not know whether a vaulted 
 ceiling only just constructed can suddenly collapse and 
 fall in of itself without some fault on the part of the
 
 vi PAINTERS 143 
 
 architect, but Sansovino was unanimously declared to 
 be entirely innocent, and the unlucky magistrate who, 
 with some show of reason, had ordered his arrest was 
 thrown into prison in his place. 
 
 His brilliantly successful career continued until he 
 was eighty years of age, when, being too old for work, 
 he was succeeded in the post of architect to the Republic 
 by the celebrated Palladio. After that he lived eleven 
 years longer in the society and friendship of Titian, who 
 was two years older then he. On the register in the 
 church of San Basso is to be found the following 
 entry: 'On November the seventh 1570 died Jacopo 
 Sansovino, architect of the Church of Saint Mark; he 
 was ninety-one years old and he died of old age.' 
 
 Aretino's life had come to an abrupt close fourteen 
 years earlier. I find inTassini under the name ' Carbon,' 
 Aretino's place of residence, a statement of the singular 
 fact that Aretino's death was predicted a few months 
 before it took place, though he was at that time per- 
 fectly well. The author of the Terremoto, addressing the 
 Tuscan man of letters, says : ' In this year LVI thou shalt 
 die; for the appearance of the star to the 
 Wise Men at the birth of Our Lord was held 
 to be a great sign, and I now hold the comet of this year 
 to be a little sign which comes on thy account, because 
 thou art against Christ.' In that year Aretino actually 
 died. It is said that his death was caused by his falling 
 off his chair when convulsed with laughter at an 
 abominable story, and though there may be some 
 exaggeration about the tale, the physiognomy of the
 
 144 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 man might justify it. No one regretted him. In the 
 State Archives of Florence a letter from a Venetian has 
 been found which says: 'The mortal Pietro Aretino 
 was taken to another life on Wednesday evening at the 
 third hour of the night by a (literally) cannonade of 
 apoplexy, without leaving any regret or grief in any 
 decent person. May God have pardoned him.' 
 
 Titian died six years after Sansovino, surviving to be 
 the last of the triad of inseparable friends. He was then 
 ninety-nine years of age, and was carried off by the 
 plague when, judging from the picture he was painting 
 at the time of his death, he was still in full possession 
 of his amazing powers. Of all the victims of the 
 terrible epidemic, amongst tens of thousands of dead, 
 he was the only one to whom the Republic granted a 
 public funeral. 
 
 If we ask what was the 'social standing' of Titian 
 and of some of the most famous Venetians, we shall 
 find that they were simple members of a Guild, and 
 were reckoned with the working men. The Golden 
 Book was the register of the nobles, the Silver Book 
 was reserved for the class of the secretaries, that is, of 
 the burghers or original citizens; but he who exercised 
 an art such as painting, sculpture, or architecture, 
 belonged to the people. Like the commonest house- 
 painter, or the painter of gondolas and house furniture, 
 Titian and Tintoretto were subject to the 'Mariegola,' 
 or charter of their Guild, and had to pass through 
 the degrees of apprentice and fellow-craftsman before 
 becoming masters.
 
 VI 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 H5 
 
 The law was that 'no painter, either Venetian or 
 foreign, should be allowed to sell his paintings unless 
 he was inscribed on the register of painters and had 
 sworn to conform to the rules of that art,' in other 
 words, to the charter of the Guild. Furthermore, if 
 
 
 HOUSE OF TINTORETTO 
 
 he sold his work anywhere except in his shop, he was 
 liable to a fine of ten lire. 
 
 We know that neither Titian nor any of the great 
 artists of his time rebelled against these regulations. 
 They were all their lives 'brethren' of their Guild, and 
 every one of them was obliged to obey the chief of the 
 corporation in all matters concerning that fraternity, 
 
 VOL. II. — L
 
 146 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 though he might be a mere painter of doors and 
 windows. Jt was not until the eighteenth century that 
 the artist painters organised themselves in a separate 
 body called the College of Painters. The examination 
 of Paolo Veronese, which I have translated in speaking 
 of the Holy Office, shows clearly enough what a poor 
 opinion the authorities had of artistic inspiration. 
 
 Many writers, amongst whom Monsieur Yriarte is 
 an exception, have told us that literature and the 
 sciences were not cultivated with any success in Venice 
 during the sixteenth century. It is at least true that 
 the few who occupied themselves with those matters 
 displayed qualities not far removed from genius. 
 
 It was very common for the great Venetian nobles 
 to play patron to poets, painters, and architects, and 
 almost every name that became famous in the arts 
 and sciences recalls that of some patrician or secretary 
 who protected the artist, the writer, or the student. 
 The Republic was often the refuge of gifted men w T hom 
 political or personal reasons had exiled from their 
 homes. Roman, Tuscan, and Lombard celebrities 
 spent their lives in Venice and added their glory to 
 hers. Who remembers that Aldus Manutius was a 
 Roman ? Or that Gaspara Stampa, who is always 
 counted as one of the best of Venetian poets, was born 
 in Milan ? The Venetians, too, showed a wonderful 
 tact in the degree of the hospitality they accorded. 
 One need only compare the reception Petrarch met with 
 in the fourteenth century, which was nothing less than 
 royal, with the good-natured toleration shown to Pietro
 
 VI 
 
 MEN OF LETTERS 
 
 147 
 
 Aretino two hundred years later. The Republic's 
 treatment of the two men is the measure of the distance 
 that separates the immortal poet from the brilliant and 
 vicious pamphleteer. If the latter spent some agreeable 
 years in Venice, that was due much more to the pro- 
 tection of a few friends than to any privileges granted 
 him by the government. 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 % * 
 
 
 ■'•!*|Rt i r } 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 HOUSE OF ALDUS 
 
 There were certainly a great many intellectual centres 
 in Venice at that time, and one might fill many pages 
 with the names of the so-called academies that were 
 founded and that flourished for a time. Almost every 
 Special tendency of human thought was represented by 
 one of them, from the Aldine, devoted enthusiastically
 
 148 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 to classic Greek, to those academies which adorned their 
 emptiness with such titles as 'The Seraphic,' 'The 
 Uranian,' and the like, and which gave themselves up 
 to the most unbridled extravagance of taste. Of such 
 follies I shall only quote one instance, which I find in 
 Tassini under the name 'Bernardo.' 
 
 In the year 1538 the will of that academician was 
 opened. He therein directed his heirs to have his 
 body washed by three famous physicians with as much 
 aromatic vinegar as would cost forty ducats, and each 
 physician was to receive as his fee three golden sequins 
 absolutely fresh from the mint. The body was then to 
 be wrapped in linen clothes soaked in essence of aloes, 
 before being 'comfortably' laid to rest in a lead coffin 
 and enclosed in one of cypress wood. The coffin was 
 then to be placed in a marble monument to cost six 
 hundred ducats. The inscription was to enumerate 
 the actions and virtues of the deceased in eight Latin 
 hexameters, of which the letters were to look tall to 
 a spectator placed at a distance of twenty-five feet. 
 The poet who composed the verses was to receive 
 one sequin for each. Moreover, the history of the 
 dead man's family was to be written out in eight 
 hundred verses, and seven psalms were to be composed 
 after the manner of the Psalms of David, and twenty 
 monks were to sing them before the tomb on the first 
 Sunday of every month. 
 
 We read without surprise that this will was not exe- 
 cuted to the letter, and the tolerably reasonable monu- 
 ment erected to Pietro Bernardo by his descendants,
 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE SACRISTY, FRARI
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 

 
 vi SCHOLARS 
 
 149 
 
 twenty years after his death, may still be seen in the 
 church of the Frari. 
 
 There were also academies which bore names, devices, 
 and emblems of a nature that might well shock and 
 surprise us, were they not the natural evidences of that 
 coming decadence, moral and artistic, whereof all Italy, 
 and Venice in particular, already bore the germs. 
 
 Amongst the great names that belong to the end of 
 the fifteenth century, as well as to the sixteenth, hardly 
 any has more interesting associations for scholars than 
 that of Aldus Manutius. 
 
 The founder of the great family of scholars and 
 printers was born at Sermoneta in the Pontifical States 
 in 1449, and was over forty years old when Firmin-Didot, 
 he finally established himself in Venice. Aldc A/a "" ce - 
 He had been tutor in the princely family of Pio, 
 where he had educated the eldest son, and he himself 
 added the name to his own, though he did not transmit 
 it to his descendants. 
 
 One of the legends about the origin of printing tells 
 that it was invented in the Venetian city of Feltre, by 
 a certain Castaldi, who was robbed of his invention by 
 Germans, presumably Faust and Guttenberg. There is 
 probably no foundation for this tale, but it is certain 
 that the Venetians brought the art of printing to some- 
 thing near perfection within a few years of its creation, 
 and that the government protected it by laws of singular 
 wisdom and great severity, in an age when the idea of 
 copyright was in its infancy. 
 
 Aldus was neither a money-maker nor a man given
 
 150 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 up to ambition; he was a true artist, and cared only for 
 perfecting his art. When he first invented the italic 
 type he was almost beside himself with delight, and 
 instantly applied to the Council of Ten for letters patent 
 to forbid any imitation of his work during ten years. 
 The petition is curious, for Aldus went as far as to 
 suggest to the Ten the penalties to be incurred by any 
 one who defrauded him of his rights, and they were by 
 no means light. 
 
 He dreamed of never allowing any work to leave 
 his press which was less than perfect at all points. 
 When he meditated the printing of a Greek classic, he 
 gathered about him all the most conscientious men of 
 letters in Venice; such men as Sabellico and Sanudo, 
 the highly accomplished Cardinal Bembo, and Andrea 
 Navagero all worked at comparing the best texts, in 
 order to produce one that should be beyond criticism. 
 In the course of such profound study, learned discussions 
 arose and conclusions were reached which were destined 
 to influence all scholarship down to modern times. Little 
 by little, and without any artificial encouragement or 
 intention, the workshop of Aldus became the gravest 
 of classical 'academies'; a vast amount of work was 
 done there, and a very small number of books were 
 very wonderfully well printed. 
 
 In two years five publications appeared, among 
 which was the first Greek edition of Aristotle's works. 
 That Aldus might have done better is possible, and 
 every reader of ancient Greek must deplore the selection 
 of type he made for printing in that language. It is 

 
 vi SCHOLARS 151 
 
 ugly, unpractical, and utterly inartistic, but such was 
 the man's influence that he imposed it upon scholars, 
 and it is by far the most commonly used type to this 
 day. Aldus might have done better; but, on the other 
 hand, the unquestionable fact stands out that no one, in 
 those days, did half so well, and that if his Greek type 
 is unpleasing, his italic is beautiful and has never been 
 surpassed; finally, good copies of his best publications 
 bring high prices at every modern sale. 
 
 He and his friends were busy men, and spent whole 
 days shut up together, thereby rousing much curiosity, 
 and attracting many unwelcome visitors. At last Aldus 
 was wearied by their importunity, and the loss of time 
 they caused became a serious matter. He composed 
 the following notice and put it up outside his press: — 
 
 'Quisquis es, rogat te Aldus etiam atque etiam : ut 
 si quid est quod a se velis perpaucis agas, deinde actutum 
 abeas : nisi tanquam Hercules defesso Atlante, veneris 
 suppositurus humeros. Semper enim erit quod et tu 
 agas, et quotquot hue attulerunt pedes.' 
 
 I quote the Latin from Didot. It is hardly worthy 
 of the editor, printer, and publisher of Aristotle, but 
 Aldus himself printed it in the preface, addressed to 
 Andrea Navagero, which precedes the edition of Cicero's 
 Rhetoric, published in 1514. Here is a translation 
 of it: — 
 
 'Whoever you are, Aldus begs you again and again, 
 if you want anything of him, to do your business with 
 few words and then to go away quickly; unless, indeed, 
 you come as Hercules to tired Atlas, to place your
 
 1 52 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 shoulders under the burden. For there will always be 
 something to do even for you, and for as many as bend 
 their steps hither.' 
 
 The story even goes so far as to say that Erasmus 
 came one day to Aldus's door with the manuscript of 
 his Adagia under his arm, but that he was discon- 
 certed by the notice and was going away, when the 
 great printer himself caught sight of him and made 
 him come in. 
 
 Aldus, who was not a Venetian, was not a man of 
 business, and did not grow rich by his work. He gave 
 his time lavishly, for no true artist, such as he was, ever 
 said that time was money; and his expenses were very 
 heavy, not the least being that incurred for the fine 
 cotton paper he got from Padua. On the other hand, 
 he hoped to encourage learning and to disseminate 
 a general love of the classics. Some of his prices, how- 
 ever, were very high; for instance, a complete Aristotle 
 sold for eleven silver ducats, which Didot considers 
 equal to over ninety francs in modern French money. 
 But a copy of the Musaeus, which would perhaps sell 
 to-day for forty pounds sterling, could be bought for a 
 little more than one 'marcello.' 
 
 Aldus had established himself in Venice about 1490. 
 Eight years later, a visitation of the plague decimated 
 the population, and the great printer himself sickened 
 of it. Believing himself all but lost, he vowed that if 
 he recovered he would abandon his art, which would 
 be by far the greatest thing he could give up, and 
 would enter holy orders. He recovered, but the sacri-
 
 vi SCHOLARS 1 53 
 
 fice was greater than he could make, though he was a 
 good man, of devout mind. He at once addressed a 
 petition to the Pope, begging to be released from his 
 vow, and M. Didot discovered in the Archives of the 
 Council of Ten the favourable answer returned by 
 Alexander VI., who, it will be remembered, was the 
 Borgia Pope, of evil fame. It was, of course, addressed 
 to the Patriarch, and it reads as follows : — 
 
 Venerable Brother : 
 
 Our beloved son Aldus Manutius, a citizen of Rome, set 
 forth to us some time ago that when the plague was raging 
 he, being in danger of death, took an oath that if he escaped 
 he would enter the holy orders of priesthood. Seeing that 
 since he has recovered his health, he does not persist in his 
 vow, and seeing that in his condition of poverty he cannot 
 subsist otherwise than by the work of his hands, whereby he 
 earned his living, now therefore he desires to remain a layman, 
 and we have granted his petition. We commission you there- 
 fore and command your fraternity to absolve in our name the 
 said Aldus from the vow he took, if he humbly requests you to 
 do so, and if things stand as he says, requiring of him a return 
 by such other acts of piety as it shall seem good to your con- 
 science to impose, and this if there be no other obstacle. 
 
 Given in Rome, August the eleventh, 1498, in the sixth 
 year of our Pontificate. 
 
 It is characteristic of the far-reaching power of the 
 Council of Ten that this curious document should have 
 been found in their Archives. 
 
 One year after having been released from his vow, 
 Aldus married Maria, daughter of Andrea Torresano. 
 I do not know whether an attachment which perhaps
 
 i 5 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 dated from before the plague could have had anything 
 to do with the great printer's aversion to fulfilling his 
 vow; if so, the world is deeply indebted to his wife. 
 There was, however, a considerable interval in his career 
 after 149H, during which no books were issued by the 
 Aldine press, and those belonging to the first period 
 have a much higher value than the rest. 
 
 Possibly children were born to the couple and died 
 between the time of their marriage and the birth of 
 their son Paulus Manutius in 15 12, three years before 
 the death of his father Aldus. The dates show the 
 absurdity of the story that Aldus brought up his son to 
 be a scholar and a printer like himself. He died when 
 that son, who was destined to be famous also, was less 
 than four years old. He breathed his last on the sixth of 
 January 15 16, being not yet sixty-seven years old, sur- 
 rounded by his faithful friends and his manuscripts. 
 Owing to his having married so late, and to his son not 
 having been born till thirteen years after his marriage, 
 the lives of the father and son cover the period between 
 1449 and 1574, no less than one hundred and twenty- 
 five years. 
 
 Prince Pio, his former pupil and one of the most 
 distinguished members of the Aldine Academy, claimed 
 the honour of burying him at Carpi, a feudal holding 
 of the Pio family. His body was carried thither with 
 great pomp, and he was laid in state in the church of 
 Saint Patrinian, surrounded by bo"bks, and was finally 
 buried in the Prince's family vault. 
 
 Another and very original type of scholar was Marin
 
 vi SCHOLARS 1 55 
 
 Sanudo, whose name occurs so constantly in all writings 
 that deal with the sixteenth century in ,, , „ 
 
 J Marin Sanudo, 
 
 Venice. He was of a patrician family, and Diario ,- Muti- 
 
 i i • j i i nelli. Annali, 
 
 was so early predisposed to observe and 
 note everything of interest that when he was only eight 
 years old he copied the inscriptions which Petrarch had 
 written under the pictures in the hall of the Great 
 Council, and it is thanks to his childish industry that 
 we know the nature of those great works which were 
 destroyed in the fire of 1474. 
 
 As the child grew up he cultivated the habit of 
 making notes of all he saw and heard; and, though he 
 strictly adheres to the principle of relating daily events 
 briefly and clearly, he constantly reveals himself to us 
 as a man of broad views and keen sight, cautious, 
 slightly sceptical, and thoroughly independent. As 
 soon as he had attained the required age he was 
 admitted to the Council, and he kept a journal of 
 everything that happened there. It is surprising to 
 find that a government which knew everything should 
 allow any one such full liberty to make notes. Possibly 
 the value of his work was not at first understood, but 
 when it was, the manner in which appreciation showed 
 itself was not flattering to the chronicler. 
 
 The Republic always employed a regular official 
 historian whose business it was to narrate the deeds 
 and misdeeds of the government in a manner uniformly 
 pleasant to Venetian vanity. One of the most successful 
 writers in this manner was the untrustworthy Sabellico, 
 and when he died Marin Sanudo aspired to succeed
 
 156 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 him, being in poor circumstances, and having on several 
 occasions rendered services to the Republic. But to 
 his infinite mortification Cardinal Bembo was appointed 
 to the post, and, as if to add insult to injury, Sanudo 
 was requested to place his valuable diaries at the disposal 
 of the new public historian. Sanudo was deeply hurt, 
 as may be imagined, but he w 7 as poor and in debt, and 
 the paternal government of his business-like country 
 easily drove him to the wall. For the use of his diary, 
 and for his promise to bequeath it to the State at his 
 death, he accepted a pension of one hundred and fifty 
 ducats (£112) yearly. This small stipend was not 
 enough to lift him out of poverty. The expense of 
 the paper which he used for his notes was a serious 
 item in his little budget, and the binder's bill was a 
 constant source of anxiety. He was often obliged to 
 borrow money, and once he was imprisoned for debt. 
 On the latter occasion he made the following entry in 
 his journal : — 
 
 'December eighteenth, 1516. — On this day in the 
 morning a dreadful thing happened to me. I was going 
 to Saint Mark's to hear mass as usual when I was recog- 
 nised by that traitor Giovanni Soranzo, to whom I have 
 owed a hundred ducats for ten years, and forty-seven 
 for a debt before that. Now I had solemnly promised 
 that I would pay him the money, but in order to 
 shame me he had me imprisoned till next day in San 
 Cassian. I vow to be avenged upon him with my 
 own hands.' 
 
 Having vented his wrath on paper, Sanudo promptly
 
 VI 
 
 SCHOLARS 
 
 '57 
 
 forgot his sombre vows of vengeance. For many 
 years afterwards he went backwards and forwards 
 
 S. GIACOMO IN ORIO 
 
 between the ducal palace and his own house at San 
 Giacomo in Orio, where he had collected books and 
 prints to a very great value. He was almost forgotten
 
 158 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 until very recent times, when he was rediscovered in his 
 diary, and treated with the honour he deserves by his 
 own countrymen. 
 
 There was no university in Venice, but the govern- 
 ment encouraged those teachers who established them- 
 selves in the city and gave instruction in their own 
 homes. In this way they formed little schools which 
 quarrelled with each other over definitions, syllogisms, 
 and etymologies in the most approved fashion. There 
 is a good instance of one of these miniature civil wars 
 in connection with the historian Sabellico. He was 
 
 ckogna, ferociously jealous of a certain learned 
 iscriziom, 1. j.//. p r i est called Ignatius, who taught litera- 
 ture, as he did, and had many more scholars. In his 
 lectures Sabellico attacked Ignatius furiously, and did 
 his best to destroy his reputation. The priest on his 
 side held his tongue, and waited for a chance of giving 
 his hot-headed adversary a lesson. At last Sabellico pub- 
 lished a very indifferent work, of which the priest wrote 
 such a keen criticism that the book was a dead failure. 
 The State historian's rage broke out in the most violent 
 invectives, and from that time Ignatius was his night- 
 mare, and the mere mention of his name drove him 
 into uncontrollable fury, until, dying at last, Sabellico 
 realised that his hatred of the priest had been the 
 mortal sin of his life, and on his deathbed he sent for 
 him and asked for a reconciliation. Ignatius freely 
 pardoned him, and even delivered a very flattering 
 funeral oration over his body a few days later. 
 
 A distinguished man of this period who deserves
 
 vi SCHOLARS 159 
 
 mention was Federigo Badoer, who may almost be said 
 
 
 2LJ&3 
 
 DOORWAY OF THE SACRISTY. S. GIACOMO IN ORK 
 
 to have been educated in the printing press of Aldus,
 
 160 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 and afterwards became the friend of Paulus Manutius. 
 Like all Venetian nobles, he learned from his boyhood 
 how he was to serve the State, and became acquainted 
 with the working of its administration, and he was soon 
 struck by the condition of the Code. The laws had 
 multiplied too much, and were often obscure, and the 
 whole system was in great need of revision. Badoer 
 conceived the idea of founding an academy for the 
 purpose of editing and printing the whole body of 
 MuHneili, Venetian Law; the Council of Ten gave 
 Annah. him their approval, and he founded the 
 Academy of 'La Fama' — of Fame — with the singularly 
 inappropriate motto, 'I fly to heaven and rest in God.' 
 The printing of the new Code was entrusted to Paulus 
 Manutius. 
 
 My perspicuous reader, having recovered from his 
 astonishment at the unexpected liberality of the Council 
 of Ten, has already divined that such a fit could not 
 last long, and that Badoer and his noble academy were 
 doomed to failure. Badoer was not rich enough to 
 bear the expense of such an undertaking alone, and the 
 Ten had no intention of helping him. Moreover, he 
 and the scholars of his academy kept up a continual 
 correspondence with doctors of law in other countries. 
 It would have seemed narrow-minded, however, to 
 suppress the academy by a decree; it was more in 
 accordance with the methods of the Council to accuse 
 Badoer of some imaginary misdeed for which he could 
 be brought to trial. Accordingly, though he had 
 sacrificed his own fortune in the attempt, he was
 
 VI 
 
 SCHOLARS 
 
 161 
 
 accused of having embezzled the academy's funds, and 
 in three years from the time of his setting to work the 
 
 
 
 FONDAMEN'TA SANl'DO 
 
 academy was crushed out of existence, and he was a 
 ruined man. 
 
 Another shortlived but celebrated literary society 
 
 VOL. II. — M
 
 1 62 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 was that of the 'Pellegrini,' the 'Pilgrims,' whose 
 pilgrimage led them only from their solemn palaces 
 in Venice to the pleasant groves of Murano, and was 
 performed by moonlight when possible. The pilgrims 
 were Titian, Sansovino, Navagero, Gaspara Stampa, 
 the old Trifone, Collaltino di Collalto, and some others, 
 and it is very unlikely that their evening meetings had 
 any object except pleasant converse and intellectual re- 
 laxation. We know something about the lovely Gaspara 
 and Collalto, at all events, and it can be safely said that 
 they were more pleasantly occupied than in conspiracy, 
 and that what they said to each other concerned neither 
 the Doge nor the Council of Ten. 
 
 Though there was no university in Venice, the 
 Republic possessed one of the most renowned in 
 Europe by right of having conquered and annexed 
 Padua; and it is interesting to note that because that 
 great institution of learning was not situated in Venice 
 itself, it was allowed a degree of liberty altogether 
 beyond Venetian traditions. 
 
 Padua was temporarily obliged to submit to Louis 
 XII. of France at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, but the Republic took it again in 1509, and 
 from that date until 1797 there was never the least 
 interruption in the academic courses. The only in- 
 fluence exercised upon the university by the Venetian 
 government was intended to give it a more patrioti- 
 cally Venetian character. In earlier times the Bishop 
 of Padua had been ex officio the Rector of the uni- 
 versity; he was now deprived of this dignity, which was
 
 vi SCHOLARS 163 
 
 conferred jointly on three Venetian nobles, who were 
 elected for two years, and were required to reside in 
 Venice and not in Padua, lest they should be exposed 
 to influences foreign to the spirit of the Republic. 
 Their title was ' Riformatori dell' Universita,' and great 
 care was exercised in choosing them. They were also 
 the official inspectors of the Venetian schools and of the 
 national libraries, and it was their business to examine 
 candidates for the position of teachers in any authorised 
 institution. 
 
 They were no doubt terrible pedants, inwardly 
 much dignified by a sense of their great responsibilities, 
 and to this day, in northern Italy, it is said of a man 
 who wearies his family and his acquaintances with per- 
 petual 'nagging' — there is no dictionary word for it — ■ 
 that he is like a 'Riformatore' of the University of 
 Padua, though the good people who use the phrase 
 have no clear idea of what it means. 
 
 These three patricians had an official dress of their 
 own, which was a long robe, sometimes black and 
 sometimes of a violet colour, changing Yriaru,Vie; 
 according to some regulation which is Rom - w - *&' 
 not known, but always made with sleeves of the 
 'ducal' pattern; and they put on a black stole over it. 
 If one of them was a Knight of the Golden Stole, as 
 often happened, his robe was of velvet and his stole 
 was of cloth of gold. 
 
 The Holy See was not much pleased by the way 
 in which the Republic treated the Bishop of Padua, 
 and constantly complained that the students of the
 
 1 64 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 University were allowed too much license to express 
 opinions that ill accorded with Catholic dogma. Like 
 all commercial countries, Venice was Protestant in 
 so far as any direct interference of the Vatican was 
 concerned. Mr. Brooks Adams was, I think, the 
 first to point out the inseparable connection between 
 Protestantism and commercial enterprise, in his extra- 
 ordinary study, The Law of Civilization and Decay. 
 The peculiarity of Venice's religious position was that 
 it combined an excessive, if not superstitious, devotion 
 to the rites of the Church with something approaching 
 to contempt of the Pope's power. 
 
 The University of Padua was resorted to by stu- 
 dents of all nations, including many English gentle- 
 men. In the Archives of the Ten a petition has been 
 found signed by a number of foreign students in Padua 
 to be allowed to wear arms, and we find that the 
 Rom. iv. 449, necessary permission for this was granted 
 note S . \ n j^g to gj r Thomas Wyatt, 'a Knight 
 
 of the English Court,' Sir Cotton, Sir John 
 
 Arundel, Christopher Mayne, Henry Williams, and 
 John Schyer ( ?). 
 
 It is amusing to find that the French students in 
 Padua excelled in fencing, riding, dancing, and music, 
 but apparently not in subjects more generally considered 
 academic. 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without saying a few 
 words about Galileo Galilei, who was for some time in 
 the employ of the Republic. I quote from his life, 
 written by his pupil Viviani, but not published till 1826.
 
 vi SCHOLARS 165 
 
 After lecturing in Pisa for three years Galileo was 
 appointed by the Venetian government to be professor 
 of mathematics in Padua for a term of six 
 years, during which he invented several 
 machines for the service of the Republic. Copies of 
 his writings and lectures of this time were scattered 
 by his pupils throughout Italy, Germany, France, and 
 England, often without his name, for he thought them 
 of such little importance that he did not even protest 
 when impostors claimed to be the authors of them. 
 During this period, says Viviani, he invented 'the 
 thermometers (sic) . . . which wonderful invention 
 was perfected in modern times by the sublime genius 
 of our great Ferdinand II., our most serene reigning 
 sovereign . . .,' the Cardinal Grand Duke who 
 poisoned his brother and Bianca Cappello. 
 
 At the end of his term Galileo was re-appointed for 
 six years more, and during this time he observed a 
 comet in the Dragon, and made experi- 
 ments with the magnet. He was re- 
 appointed again and again with an increase of salary. 
 
 In April or May, in 1609, when he was in Venice, 
 it was reported that a certain Dutchman had presented 
 Maurice of Nassau with a sort of eyeglass which made 
 distant objects seem near. This was all that was known 
 of the invention, but Galileo was so much interested by 
 the story that he returned to Padua at once, and in the 
 course of a single night succeeded in constructing his 
 first telescope, in spite of the poor quality of the lenses 
 he had, and on the following day he returned to Venice
 
 166 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vi 
 
 and showed the instrument to his astonished friends. 
 After perfecting it he resolved to present it to the 
 reigning Doge, Leonardo Dona, and to the whole 
 Venetian Senate. 
 
 I translate literally the letter he wrote to the Doge 
 to accompany the gift. 
 
 Most Serene Prince : Galileo Galilei, your Serenity's most 
 humble servant, labouring assiduously and with all his heart 
 not only to do his duty as lecturer on mathematics in the 
 University of Padua, but also to bring your Serenity some 
 extraordinary advantage by means of some useful and signal 
 discovery, now appears before you with a new device of eye- 
 glass, the result of the most recondite theories of perspective ; 
 the which [invention] brings objects to be visible so near the 
 eye and shows them so large and distinct, that what is distant, 
 for instance, nine miles, seems as if it were only one mile 
 away, a fact which may be of inestimable service for every 
 business and enterprise by land and sea ; for it is thus possible, 
 at sea, to discover the enemy's vessels and sails at a far greater 
 distance than is customary, so that we can see him two hours 
 and more before he can see us, and by distinguishing the num- 
 ber and nature of his vessels, we can judge of his forces and 
 prepare for a pursuit, or a battle, or for flight. In the same 
 manner, on land, the quarters and the defences of the enemy 
 within a strong place can be descried from an eminence, even 
 if far away ; and even in the open country, it is possible with 
 great advantage to make out every movement and preparation ; 
 moreover, every judicious person will clearly perceive many 
 uses [for the telescope] . Therefore, deeming it worthy to be 
 received and considered very useful by your Serenity, he 
 [Galileo] has determined to present it to you, and to leave it 
 to your judgment to determine and provide concerning this
 
 vi SCHOLARS 167 
 
 invention, in order that, as may seem best to your prudence, 
 others should or should not be constructed. And this the 
 aforesaid Galilei presents to your Serenity as one of the fruits 
 of the science which he has now professed in the University 
 of Padua during more than seventeen years, trusting that he 
 is on the eve of offering you still greater things, if it please the 
 Lord God and your Serenity that he, as he desires, may spend 
 the rest of his life in the service of your Serenity, before whom 
 he humblv bows, praving the Divine Majesty to grant you the 
 fulness of all happiness. 
 
 The letter is not dated, but on the twenty-fifth of 
 August 1609 the Signory appointed the astronomer 
 professor for life, with 'three times the highest pay 
 ever granted to any lecturer on mathematics.' 
 
 It was in Padua that Galileo invented the micro- 
 scope, observed the moon's surface, and the spots on 
 the sun, discovered that the milky way and the nebulae 
 consist of many small fixed 'stars, discovered Jupiter's 
 moons, Saturn's rings, and the fact that Venus revolves 
 round the sun, 'and not below it, as Ptolemy believed.' 
 
 Much has been written of late about Galileo, but 
 most of what has appeared seems to be founded on this 
 life by his pupil Viviani.
 
 « zn_ ^ 
 
 VII 
 
 THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 
 
 When Philippe de Commines came to Venice in 1495 
 as ambassador of Charles VIII. he wrote: 'This is the 
 most triumphant city that ever I saw.' 
 
 He meant what he said figuratively, no doubt, for 
 in that day there was something overwhelming about 
 the wealth and splendour, and the vast success of the 
 Republic. But he meant it literally too, for no state
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 169 
 
 or city of the world celebrated its own victories with 
 such pomp and magnificence as Venice. 
 
 The Venetians had never been altogether at peace 
 with the Turks, in spite of the treaty which had been 
 made soon after the fall of Constantinople; 
 but when Venice herself was threatened 
 by all the European powers together, it was with the 
 highest satisfaction that she saw the Moslems attack 
 her old enemies the Hungarians. Yet her joy was 
 of short duration, for the Emperor soon made peace 
 with the Sultan. It will be remembered that the 
 Imperial throne had then already been hereditary in the 
 Hapsburg family for many years. 
 
 The character of Turkish warfare in the Mediter- 
 ranean was always piratical, of the very sort most 
 certain to harass and injure a maritime commercial 
 nation like Venice, and the latter began to lose ground 
 steadily in the Greek archipelago, and now found her- 
 self obliged to defend the coasts of the Adriatic against 
 the Turks as she had formerly defended them against 
 the pirates of Narenta. From time to time a Turkish 
 vessel was captured, and hundreds of Christian slaves 
 were found chained to the oar. 
 
 There were also other robbers along the Dalmatian 
 coast, who exercised their depredations against Turks 
 and Christians alike, with admirable Niccoibda 
 
 /-r^i 1 11 1 <tt Ponte triumphs 
 
 equity. 1 hese were the so-called Us- over the Uscocchi; 
 cocchi,' a name derived from a Slav root Tmtore ^ IIa ' 1 
 
 of tin' 
 
 meaning to 'leap out' — hence, those who Great Council. 
 had escaped and fled their country and were outlaws.
 
 i;o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 About this time the island of Cyprus had fallen 
 
 in part under Turkish domination. The Turks had 
 
 Ocogna, her. made a piratical descent upon Nicosia, and 
 
 Ven. in. ij.f. } ia( j carr j e( l ff all the women who were 
 
 still young enough for the Eastern market. But one 
 of these, a heroine whose name is lost, fired the ship's 
 powder-magazine and saved herself and her com- 
 panions from outrage by causing the instant death 
 of every soul on board. This was in the latter half 
 of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Thirsting for vengeance, the Venetians now eagerly 
 
 joined Philip II. of Spain in the league proposed by 
 
 Death of m trie P°P e - The three fleets were to meet 
 
 Bragadin,un- at Messina, and much precious time was 
 
 known; Church . . *_ 
 
 ofss. Giovanni lost, during which the 1 urks completed 
 e Paolo. the},- conquest of Cyprus, which was 
 heroically defended by Marcantonio Bragadin. His 
 fate was horrible. His nose and ears were cut off, 
 and he was obliged to witness the death of his brave com- 
 panions, Tiepolo, Baglione, Martinengo, and Quirini. 
 They were stoned, hanged, and carved to shreds be- 
 fore his eyes, and a vast number of Venetian soldiers 
 and women and children were massacred before him 
 during the following ten days. At last his turn 
 came to die; he was hung by the hands in the public 
 square and slowly skinned alive. It is said that he 
 died like a hero and a saint, commending his soul to 
 God, and forgiving his enemies. 
 
 The ferocious Mustapha, by whose orders these 
 horrors were perpetrated, ordered his skin to be stuffed
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 171 
 
 and had it carried about the streets, under a red 
 umbrella, in allusion to the arms of the Moimmti, 
 Bragadin family. The hideous human doll **■ VenUr ' 
 was then hoisted to the masthead of Mustapha's ship 
 as a trophy and taken in that way to Constantinople. 
 
 But in his lifetime Bragadin had ransomed a certain 
 man of Verona from the Turks, and had earned his 
 undying gratitude. This Veronese, hearing of his 
 benefactor's awful end, swore to bring home his skin, 
 since nothing else remained, and with incredible skill 
 and courage actually entered the Turkish arsenal at 
 Constantinople, where the trophy was kept, stole it and 
 brought it home. It is related that the skin was found 
 as soft as silk and was easily folded into a small space; 
 it is preserved in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo. 
 
 The vengeance of the league was slow, but it was 
 memorably terrible; in 1571 Don John of Austria, a 
 stripling of genius, scarcely six and twenty 
 years of age, commanded the three fleets a. vuentini; 
 
 1 1 1 /"11 • T ducal palace. 
 
 and led Christianity to victory at JLepanto. 
 One of the decisive battles of the world, checked the 
 Mohammedan power for ever in the Gulf of Corinth, 
 and the blood of eighty thousand Turks avenged the 
 inhuman murder of Bragadin and the self-destruction 
 of the captive Venetian women. 
 
 Not many days later, on the eighteenth of October 
 1571, the great 'Angel Gabriel,' a galley of war, came 
 sailing into the harbour of Venice, full Moimmti, 
 dressed with flags, and trailing in her wake Seb - Venter - 
 a long line of Turkish standards, and turbans and coats.
 
 1 72 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 Then the cannon thundered, and the crew cried 
 'Victory! Victory!' and the triumphant note went 
 rolling over Venice, while Onofrio Giustiniani, the 
 commander of the man-of-war, went up to the ducal 
 palace. Then the people went mad with jov, and 
 demanded that all prisoners should be set free in 
 honour of the day; and the Council allowed at least 
 all those to be liberated who were in prison for debt. 
 Then, too, the people cried 'Death to the Turks!' and 
 would have massacred every Mussulman in the Turks' 
 quarter; but to the honour of Venice it is recorded 
 that the government was strong enough to hinder that. 
 And then the Doge, Aloise Mocenigo, found his 
 way through the closely packed crowd to the Basilica, 
 Aioise Mocenigo, and fifty thousand voices sang 'Te Deum 
 Praying mtor. i aU( } arnus Domine,' till the triumphant 
 
 etto ; Sala del l 
 
 Coiiegio. strain must have been heard far out on the 
 lagoon. During four days processions marched through 
 the streets and hymns of victory and thanksgiving were 
 sung; the greatest battle of the age had been fought 
 and won on the feast of Saint Justina, who was one 
 of the patrons of Venice. In return for her military 
 assistance an enthusiastic and devout people resolved to 
 set up a statue of her in the Arsenal and to build her a 
 church in Padua, as she already had one in Venice. 
 
 Religious obligations being thus cancelled, the 
 
 universal rejoicing manifested itself in civic pageantry, 
 
 and, to use a modern expression, the Vene- 
 
 Rom.vi.317. . 111 1 1 •! • • r 1 
 
 tians held a general exhibition or their 
 treasures. The square of the Rialto was draped with
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 173 
 
 scarlet cloth, on which were hung the pictures of the 
 most famous masters, at a time when some of the great- 
 est that ever lived were alive in Venice and at the height 
 of their glory. In the midst of the square a trophy 
 was raised, composed of Turkish arms and banners, 
 turbans, slippers, jewels, and all sorts of ornaments 
 taken from the slain. From the jewellers' lane to 
 the bridge a canopy of blue cloth covered with golden 
 stars was spread high across the way, the most precious 
 tapestries were hung on the walls of the houses, the shops 
 showed all their most artistic wares in their windows. 
 The German quarter was so crammed with beautiful 
 objects that it seemed one great enchanted palace. To 
 increase the general gaiety, the government made a 
 special exception and allowed masks in the streets. 
 
 When it is remembered that Venice really obtained 
 little or no immediate advantage from the battle of 
 Lepanto, her frenzy of triumph may seem exaggerated; 
 yet it was moderate compared with the reception Rome 
 gave to the commander of the Papal fleet, Marcantonio 
 Colonna. The Venetian captain, Sebastian Venier, was 
 not present, and there was not the least personal note 
 in the rejoicings ; that, indeed, would have been very 
 contrary to the usual behaviour of the Republic towards 
 her own sons, for if they failed she disowned them or 
 put them to death, and if they succeeded it was her 
 motherly practice to disgrace them as soon as possible, 
 and generally to find an excuse for imprisoning them, 
 lest they should grow dangerous to herself. 
 
 We cannot help reproaching her for that; yet out
 
 174 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 VII 
 
 of her magnificent past comes back ever that same 
 answer: she succeeded, where others failed. She bred 
 
 DOOR OF THE CAkMlNE 
 
 such men as Enrico Dandolo, Vittor Pisani, Carlo 
 Zeno, and Sebastian Venier, yet she was never enslaved 
 by one of her own children. Rome served her Caesar,
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 175 
 
 and her many Caesars; France, her Bonaparte; Russia, 
 her Ivan Strashny, the Terrible; Spain, her Philip II.; 
 England, her Richard III. — and her Cromwell, Pro- 
 tector and Tyrant. But Venice was never subject to 
 any one Venetian man beyond the time needed to 
 compass his destruction and death, which was never 
 long, and sometimes was awfully brief. 
 
 Venier did not return to Venice till long after the 
 
 o 
 
 battle of Lepanto, and his presence was necessary in 
 the Archipelago in order to protect such Venier returns 
 colonies as were left to the Republic. j^SL; 
 For though the Turks had suffered a SaiadeiPregadi. 
 disastrous defeat, final in the sense that their advance 
 westwards was checked as effectually as the spreading 
 of the Moorish conquest had been by Charles Martel 
 at Poitiers, yet they were still at the height of their 
 power in Constantinople, and were strong on the eastern 
 side of the dividing line which was now drawn across 
 the Mediterranean, and which marked the eastern limit 
 of Christian domination. When Venier returned, the 
 Turks were absolute masters of the island of Cyprus, 
 and Venice was already beginning to pay what was 
 really a war indemnity, destined to reach the formidable 
 sum of three hundred thousand ducats. As Montes- 
 quieu truly says, it looked as if the Turks had been 
 the victors at Lepanto. 
 
 Three years after that battle Venice was again 
 adorned in her best to greet Henry III. of 
 
 F, ••11 • • t 1 Rom. vi. jjf. 
 
 ranee, who visited the city in July 1574, 
 
 the year of his accession. The King was to make his
 
 176 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 entry on the eighteenth, and he was requested to stop 
 Horatio Brown, at Murano on the previous evening, in the 
 Venetian studies. p a l azzo Cappello, which was all hung 
 with silk and cloth of gold in his honour. Forty young 
 nobles were attached to his person and sixty halberdiers 
 mounted guard, dressed in yellow and blue, which were 
 regarded by the Venetians as his colours, and wearing a 
 
 Hemy in. ca P w i fn a white tuft for a cockade. Their 
 visits Venice, weapons were taken from the armoury 
 
 Saiadeiu of the Council of I en. There were also 
 eighteen trumpeters and twelve drummers 
 dressed in the King's colours. 
 
 Henry III. was still in mourning for his brother 
 Charles IX., and appeared very plainly clad in the midst 
 of all this display. The chronicles have preserved the 
 details of his costume; he wore a brown mantle that 
 fell from his neck to his feet, and beneath it a violet 
 tunic of Flemish cloth with a white lace collar. He 
 also wore long leathern boots, perfumed gloves, and 
 an Italian hat. 
 
 The night was passed in feasting, during which the 
 French and the Venetians fraternised most closely, and 
 on the following morning a huge galley was ready to 
 take the King to Venice by way of the Lido. 
 
 On the high poop-deck a seat was placed for the 
 King, covered with cloth of gold; on his right sat the 
 Papal Nuncio, who was the Cardinal San Sisto, then 
 came the Dukes of Nevers and Mantua; on his left the 
 Doge and the Ambassadors. Four hundred rowers 
 pulled the big vessel over, and fourteen galleys followed
 
 VII 
 
 THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 
 
 *77 
 
 bringing the Senators and many others. To amuse the 
 King during the short passage, the glass-blowers of 
 
 K THE CAK.MINE 
 
 Murano had constructed on rafts a furnace in the shape 
 of a marine monster that belched flames from its jaws 
 and nostrils, while the most famous workmen blew 
 
 VOL. II. — N
 
 178 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 beakers and other vessels in the beast's body, of the 
 finest crystal glass, for the King and his suite. 
 
 Just when he might be thought to be weary of this 
 spectacle a long array of decorated boats began to 
 manoeuvre before his eyes, with sails set and banners 
 flying. These belonged to the various guilds and were 
 wonderfully adorned. One represented a huge dolphin ; 
 on its back stood Neptune driving two winged steeds, 
 while four aged boatmen in costume stood for the four 
 rivers of the Republic, Brenta, Adige, Po, and Piave. 
 Some of the boats had arrangements for sending up 
 fireworks, others were floating exhibitions of the richest 
 and most marvellous tapestries and stuffs. 
 
 The royal vessel, instead of proceeding straight to 
 Venice, went round by the Lido to the landing of Saint 
 Nicholas, where the State architect Palladio had erected 
 a triumphal arch which Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese 
 had covered with ten beautiful paintings. Here the 
 King was invited to leave his galley in order to go on 
 board the Bucentaur. Tintoretto was in the crowd, 
 looking out for a chance of sketching the King, pre- 
 cisely as a modern reporter hangs about the docks and 
 railway stations to get a snapshot at royalty. 1 in- 
 toretto did not disdain the methods of a later time 
 either; he succeeded in exchanging his threadbare 
 cloak for the livery of one of the Doge's squires or 
 footmen, by which trick he managed to get on board 
 the Bucentaur. Once there he made a sketch in pastels 
 of the King which pleased the royal treasurer, De 
 Bellegarde, and the latter persuaded his master to sit to
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 
 
 '79 
 
 the artist for a full-length portiait, which was presented 
 to the Doge on the King's departure, in recollection of 
 the visit. 
 
 During the following days nothing was omitted 
 which might amuse the Sovereign or tend to strengthen 
 the pleasant impression he had already received. Every 
 sort of Venetian game was played, and all the traditional 
 contests of strength and skill between Niccolotti and 
 Castellani were revived, and with such earnestness on 
 both sides as to lead to a fresh outbreak of their 
 hereditary hate. Two hundred men fought with sticks 
 at the Ponte del Carmine, as savagely as if the safety 
 and honour of their wives and children depended on 
 the result. At the most critical moment the fisherman 
 Luca, the famous chief of the Niccolotti, fell into the 
 canal, his followers were momentarily thrown into dis- 
 order by the accident, and the Castellani won the day. 
 
 Afterwards a banquet was given to the King, of 
 which the remembrance remains alive amongst the 
 people to our own time. The gondoliers and fishermen 
 of to-day describe the feast, its magnificence, the beauty 
 of the patrician ladies, the splendour of the service, as 
 if they were speaking of something that happened 
 yesterday instead of more than ten generations ago. 
 
 The tables were set in the hall of the Great Council 
 for three thousand persons. The King sat in the 
 middle of the hall under a golden canopy. We are 
 told that the bill of fare set forth twelve hundred 
 different dishes, and that all the company ate off solid 
 silver plates, of which there were enough for all without
 
 180 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 having recourse to the reserve which had been set up 
 for show on a huge sideboard at the end of the hall. 
 After the feast, the King assisted at the performance of 
 the first opera ever given in Italy, composed by the 
 once famous master Zarlino da Chioggia. 
 
 The banquet and the music must have occupied 
 several hours; yet we are amazed to learn that so short 
 a time sufficed for putting together a whole galley, of 
 which Henry had seen the pieces, all taken apart, just 
 before sitting down to table. When he left the ducal 
 palace, he saw to his stupefaction the vessel launched 
 into the canal on rollers, and towed away towards the 
 Lido. 
 
 Not surfeited by the official amusements offered him 
 by the Republic, the King diverted himself on his own 
 account and went about the city in disguise, 
 like Otho of old. The government had 
 directed the jewellers and merchants to have in readi- 
 ness their finest wares in order that when the King 
 sent for them, he might buy objects worthy of the 
 reputation of the Venetian shops; and the shopkeepers 
 inquired with feverish anxiety when they were to go to 
 the Palazzo Foscari. 
 
 But Henry preferred to go out shopping himself. 
 One morning the jeweller at the Sign of the Old 
 Woman on the Rialto Bridge was visited by a noble 
 stranger, who inquired the price of a marvellously 
 chiselled golden sceptre: apparently the Venetian 
 jewellers kept sceptres in stock in case a king should 
 look in. The price of this one was twenty-six thousand
 
 VII 
 
 THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 
 
 181 
 
 ducats, or between eighteen and nineteen thousand 
 pounds, which seems dear, even for a sceptre. But the 
 noble stranger was not at all surprised, thought the 
 matter over for a few seconds, nodded quietly, and 
 ordered the thing to be sent to the Foscari palace, to 
 
 CAMPO BEHIND S. GIACOMO IN ORIO 
 
 the inexpressible joy of the jeweller, who knew the 
 address well enough. 
 
 At that time there dwelt in Venice a branch of the 
 famous Fugger family of Augsburg, the richest bankers 
 of the sixteenth century. They owned all Mtaineiu, 
 the district of the city round the church Annaii. 
 of San Giacomo, and had even protected themselves by
 
 182 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 a sort of wall. There they had built a bank, a hospital, 
 and houses for their numberless retainers, and they 
 lived in a kind of unacknowledged principality of their 
 own which was respected both by the State and the 
 people. 
 
 The family had the most magnificent traditions of 
 hospitality. When the Emperor Charles V. passed 
 through Augsburg in the earlier part of the same century, 
 he lodged in the Fuggers' house, and as it was winter, 
 his hosts caused his fires to be made only of aromatic 
 wood imported as a perfume from Ceylon. Henry III. 
 visited the Fuggers in Venice, and they were neither 
 surprised by his unannounced visit nor unprepared t<; 
 receive a royal guest. 
 
 While in Venice the King spent much of his time 
 with Veronica Franco, the celebrated poetess and 
 courtesan. She, on her side, fell deeply in 
 love with the man who was to be the worst 
 of all the French kings. But he was only twenty-three 
 years old then, he was half a Medici by blood, and all of 
 one by his passionate nature. Veronica loved him with 
 all her heart, and amidst all the evil he did there was at 
 least one good result, for when he was gone she would 
 not be consoled, nor would she ever look on another 
 man, but mended her life and lived in a retirement to 
 which she sought to attract other penitent women. 
 
 She had a picture of the King painted, and no doubt 
 he was vividly present in her thoughts when she wrote 
 the following sonnet, which is attributed to her, and 
 which I do into prose for greater accuracy : —
 
 vii THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 183 
 
 Begone, deceiving thoughts and empty hope, 
 Greedy and blind desires, and bitter cravings, 
 Begone, ye burning sighs and bitter woes, 
 Companions ever of my unending pain. 
 
 Go memories sweet, go galling chains, % 
 
 Of a heart that is loosed from you at last, 
 
 That gathers up again the rein of reason, 
 
 Dropped for a while, and now goes forth in freedom. 
 
 And thou, mv soul, entangled in so many sorrows, 
 Unbind thyself and to thy divine Lord 
 Rejoicing turn thy thoughts ; 
 
 Now bravely force thy fate, 
 
 Break through thy bonds ; then, glad and free, 
 
 Direct thy steps in the securer way ! 
 
 In order to gi-ve my readers some idea of what was 
 done to furnish the Palazzo Foscari for Henry's visit, I 
 quote some items of the expenditure from the Souvenirs 
 of Armand Baschet: — 
 
 'Crimson silk and gold hangings, fifty-eight pieces 
 making three hundred and seven braccia and a half at a 
 ducat for each braccio and twelve inches. White silk 
 and silver stuff; shot-silk and silver stuff; white satin 
 with gold lines, etc. Cushions of brocade embroidered 
 with gold and of blue velvet with gold and fringes etc. 
 at forty ducats each. A bed quilt with gold lines and 
 scarlet checks, twenty ducats. Yellow damask with 
 little checks at one ducat the braccio. A rep rug of 
 gold edged with blue velvet and lined with red silk, 
 sixty ducats. A tablecloth of silver and gold brocade 
 with white and gold fringe, thirty-four ducats. Green
 
 i8 + GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 and blue velvet for the floor, at one ducat the braccio. 
 Complete hangings for a room of yellow satin with gold 
 and silver fringe and gold lace, over seven hundred and 
 thirtv ducats.' 
 
 Further, we find for the royal gondolas the following 
 items : — 
 
 'Felse of scarlet satin, one hundred and fifty-six 
 ducats. A boat's carpet of violet Alexandria velvet; a 
 felse of the same velvet lined with silk, fifty-five ducats. 
 Another velvet carpet of the same colour, two canopies, 
 one of violet satin fringed and embroidered with gold, 
 the other of white satin, and two cushions of scarlet 
 satin and gold.' 
 
 These things were put away in boxes, an inventory 
 was taken, and they were valued at four thousand 
 two hundred sequins, or more than three thousand 
 pounds. The King on his side was generous. When 
 he went away he presented each of the young noble- 
 men who had attended him with a chain worth a 
 hundred ducats, and gave a collar worth three hundred 
 to his host, Foscari. The captain of his guard received 
 a silver basin and ewer worth a hundred crowns. For 
 the halberdiers of the guard there were three hundred 
 crowns, eighty for the trumpeters and sixty for the 
 drummers. His Majesty left a thousand crowns for 
 the workmen of the Arsenal, two hundred for the rowers 
 of the Bucentaur, one hundred for the major-domo, and 
 fifty to the chief steward of the house. 
 
 The Duke of Savoy, who accompanied the King of 
 France, also left some splendid presents. To the wife
 
 i*5
 
 1 86 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 of Luigi Mocenigo, in whose house he had been 
 staying, he gave a belt composed of thirty gold 
 rosettes, ornamented with Hue pearls and valuable 
 precious stones. The Duke was doubtless unaware 
 that as soon, as he was gone the handsome ornament 
 would have to be handed over to the Provveditori 
 delle Pompe, not to be worn again unless a special 
 and elaborate decree could be obtained for the 
 purpose. 
 
 In the first year of the reign of Sixtus V. Japan 
 sent ambassadors to the Pope 'to recognise him offi- 
 l5 8 5i dally as Christ's vicar on earth.' These 
 
 Rom.v1.j87. personages, who were converts to Chris- 
 tianity, were received with demonstrations of the 
 greatest joy and esteem when they visited Venice, and 
 were regaled with spectacles which were partly religious 
 in character and partly secular. A procession was 
 organised against which the Pope himself protested in 
 the most formal manner; but the Republic paid no 
 more attention than usual to this expression of papal 
 displeasure. It was always the dream of Venice to be 
 Roman Catholic without Rome. 
 
 The Japanese envoys looked on while all the clergy 
 
 of the city passed in review before them, as well as all 
 
 „. „ n . the guilds bearing the images of their 
 
 Giustina Renter o 00 
 
 Michiel, patron saints and their standards; these 
 
 Origin 1. r 11 J u 
 
 were followed by cars carrying enormous 
 erections of gold and silver vessels, built up in the 
 form of pyramids, and of columns, stars, eagles, lions, 
 and symbolic beasts. Other cars came after these with
 
 VII 
 
 THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 
 
 187 
 
 platforms, on which actors represented scenes from 
 the lives of saints, even including martyrdom. The 
 
 PIGEONS IN THE PIAZZA 
 
 Japanese may have been more amazed than edified by 
 these performances. 
 
 The Venetians always loved processions, and it is to
 
 188 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vn 
 
 one of these pageants that the pigeons of Saint Mark's 
 owe their immunity. As early as the end of the four- 
 teenth century it was the custom to make a great pro- 
 cession on Palm Sunday, in the neighbourhood of Saint 
 Mark's. A canon of the Cathedral deposited great 
 baskets on the high altar, containing the artificial palms 
 prepared for the Doge, the chief magistrates, and the 
 most important members of the clergy. The Doge's 
 palm was prepared by the nuns of Sant' Andrea, and 
 was a monument of patience. The leaves were plaited 
 with threads of palm, of gold, of silver, and of silk; 
 and on the gilded handle were painted the arms of the 
 Doge. According to the appointed service the proces- 
 sion began immediately after the distribution of the 
 palms; and while the choir chanted the words 'Gloria, 
 laus et honor' of the sacred hymn, a great number of 
 pigeons were sent flying from different parts of the 
 facade down into the square, having little screws of paper 
 fastened to their claws to prevent them from flying too 
 high. The people instantly began to catch the birds, 
 and a great many were actually taken; but now and 
 then, one stronger than the rest succeeded in gaining 
 the higher parts of the surrounding buildings, enthusi- 
 astically cheered by the crowd. Those who had once 
 succeeded in making their escape were regarded as sacred 
 for ever with all their descendants. The State provided 
 them with food from its granaries, and before long, lest 
 by some mistake any free pigeons should be caught 
 on the next Palm Sunday, the Signory decreed that 
 other birds than pigeons must be used on the occasion.
 
 *2JH 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE HOSE CLUB — VENETIAN LEGENDS 
 
 In the fourteenth century, life in Venice was simple 
 and vigorous, and found its civic expression in the 
 formation of the Guilds which united in Moimenti, 
 close and brotherly bonds men of grave and Vlta Pnrafa - 
 
 J <p Sansovitio. 
 
 energetic character, devoted to their country GaWctioii, 
 and to its advantage. In the fifteenth and %% MuHnem 
 sixteenth centuries the tendencies of the Lessuo. 
 later Venetians took visible shape in brotherhoods of 
 joyous and not harmless amusement, and chiefly in that
 
 190 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY viii 
 
 known as the 'Compagnia della Calza,' in plain English 
 the 'Hose Club.' 
 
 The learned Professor Tomassetti of the University 
 of Rome, whose authority in all that concerns the 
 Middle Ages in Italy is indisputable, informs me that 
 he believes the Tight of wearing hose of two or more 
 colours, as one leg white and one leg red, or quartered 
 above and below the knee, belonged exclusively to free 
 men, and that the fashion was adopted by them in 
 order that they might be readily distinguished from 
 the serf-born, in crowds and in public places. This is, 
 indeed, the only reasonable explanation of the practice 
 which has ever been offered, and is borne out by a 
 careful examination of the pictures of the time. The 
 'Hose Club' distinguished themselves and recognised 
 one another by their hose, which were of two colours, 
 one leg having at first a peacock embroidered on it, 
 whence the whole company was sometimes nicknamed 
 'The Peacocks.' 
 
 The Doge Michel Steno, who painted his four 
 hundred horses yellow, and had been concerned in the 
 libel against the nephew of Marin Faliero, 
 had been counted among the gayest youths 
 of his day ; and when he was elected the rich young men 
 of Venice, knowing by hearsay from their fathers that 
 he had been wild in his youth, determined to celebrate 
 the accession of a former dandy in a manner suited 
 to their own tastes. They agreed upon the dress 
 which afterwards became famous, and each paid a 
 sum of two thousand ducats into a general fund
 
 viii THE HOSE CLUB 191 
 
 which was entirely spent in pageantry, banqueting, and 
 masquerades. 
 
 They had not at first intended the Club to be 
 permanent, but when the anniversary of the Doge's 
 coronation came round in the following year, they met 
 again to consider the advisability ot prolonging an 
 institution which made such an agreeable contrast to 
 the general gravity of Venetian life. 
 
 They now composed a sort of charter or constitution, 
 which would have made the heads of the artisan 
 Guilds tremble with indignation, and might 
 well have caused the fathers of Venetian 
 families to look even more grave than usual. 
 
 The Club was to be always a Company of twenty 
 members, chosen for four years only; for as soon as a 
 young Venetian married, or took his seat in the Great 
 Council, he put on the long gown of older years and 
 more dignified habits, which effectively eclipsed his 
 brilliant legs from the public gaze. Each Company 
 was to choose its name, an emblem, and a motto. 
 There were to be officers, a president, a secretary, and 
 a treasurer; and as the Venetians had a mania for 
 sanctioning even the most frivolous doings by means 
 of some religious exercise, each Company was to have 
 a chaplain to celebrate a solemn mass at the admission 
 of each young scapegrace who joined. The chaplain 
 also administered the oath which every Companion was 
 bound to take on admission. 
 
 The smallest infraction of the rules entailed a heavy 
 fine, and the fines were, of course, periodically spent
 
 192 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 in riotous amusements. As for the dress, the hose 
 always remained a part of it, but the greatest latitude 
 was allowed in the matter of colour and embroidery, 
 or other ornamentation. 
 
 The formation of the joyous Companies was a natural 
 reaction after the huge efforts, the strenuous labours, 
 the awful dangers that had filled the fourteenth century, 
 and had placed Venice high among the European 
 powers. From the foundation of the first of the 
 Company, that of the 'Peacocks,' to the dispersion of 
 the ' Accesi,' the 'Ardent,' which was the last, a hundred 
 and eighty-six years went by, which may be called six 
 generations, during which forty-three Companies suc- 
 ceeded each other, and the 'Hose Club' became famous 
 throughout Europe for its extravagance, and for the 
 fertility of its festive inventions. 
 
 It made it its especial business to adorn with its 
 presence in a body the public baptisms of noble children, 
 and important weddings, the visits of illustrious person- 
 ages, and even elections where there was much at stake. 
 When a foreign sovereign stopped in Venice, he asked 
 to be made an honorary member of the Company, he 
 sometimes adopted its dress, and he took home with 
 him its emblem and its motto. 
 
 The most famous of all the Companies was that of 
 
 the 'Reali,' the 'Royals,' which was in existence about 
 
 ckogna, the year 1530. The members wore a red 
 
 her. in. 366. stocking on tne right leg, and a blue one 
 on the left, which was embroidered on one side with 
 large flowers of violet colour, and on the other the
 
 VIII 
 
 THE HOSE CLUB 
 
 l 9Z 
 
 emblem of the Company, which was a cypress, over 
 which ran the motto, 'May our glorious name go up 
 
 ttfS&l I" 8* ' rfe- T I \*W % 
 
 s^*U^' 
 
 
 
 jfo: 
 
 
 SftJ 
 
 £2 
 
 
 
 •'■V 
 
 
 
 FONTE S. ANTONIO 
 
 to heaven.' The members wore a vest of velvet em- 
 broidered with gold and fine pearls, and the sleeves 
 were fastened on by knots of ribband of different colours, 
 
 VOL. II. — O
 
 194 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY viu 
 
 a fashion permitting the wearer to display his shirt of 
 gossamer linen, exquisitely embroidered. 
 
 A leathern or a gilded girdle was worn too, orna- 
 mented with precious stones, and over the shoulder 
 was carelessly thrown a short mantle of cloth of gold, 
 or damask, or brocade, with a hood thrown back, in 
 the lining of which was seen again the emblematic 
 cypress. 
 
 Last of all the 'toga,' the great cloak, was red, and 
 was fastened at the neck by a small golden chain, from 
 the end of which a handsome jewel hung down below 
 the ear, over one shoulder. The boots were of em- 
 broidered or cut leather, and were made with very 
 thin soles. 
 
 Venice had to thank the Companions of the Hose 
 Club for some of the first real theatrical performances 
 ever given, which gradually led to the creation of 
 the ' ridotti,' and were more or less aristocratic 
 gambling clubs in connection with the theatres. We 
 read that in 1529 the Companions played a comedy 
 with immense success in the house of one of the 
 Loredan family. In the following year the Duke of 
 Milan visited the city, and the Club determined to out- 
 do all its previous festivities. A Giustiniani was then 
 the president of the 'Royals,' and he appeared with a 
 deputation before the Doge and the Signory. After 
 announcing that the Club had determined to produce 
 the spectacle of a naval combat, he requested the 
 government to lend for the purpose forty of the light 
 war-pinnaces from the Arsenal. As if this were nothing
 
 VIII 
 
 THE HOSE CLUB 195 
 
 unusual, he went on to ask for the use of the hall of 
 the Great Council for a dance, of the Library for a 
 supper, and of the Square of Saint Mark's for a 
 stag-hunt. 
 
 The Hose Club evidently had large ideas. The 
 Doge, however, granted all that was necessary for the 
 naval show, but said that he should have to think over 
 the other requests ! 
 
 It is needless to say that the ladies of Venice had 
 their share in the gay doings of the Club, first as 
 invited guests only, but later as honorary Companions, 
 wearing the emblem embroidered on their sleeves and 
 on the scarlet 'felse' of their gondolas, until the 
 sumptuary laws interfered. 
 
 There were times when the Signors of the Night 
 and the Council of Ten thought fit to limit the Club's 
 excessive gaiety, and it was found necessary to issue 
 a decree which strictly prohibited any of the eleven 
 thousand light ladies of the city from being received 
 as Companions, or asked to its entertainments; for, 
 oddly enough, the reputables do not seem to have 
 resented the presence of the disreputables in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 Now and then the Companions fell out among 
 themselves. Marin Sanudo, in his diary, mentions 
 that in February 1500 the Companions Marin S anudo, 
 dined in the house of Luca Gritti, son of Ui -*>39- 
 the late Omobono; and after dinner Zuan Moro, the 
 treasurer of the Club, went out with Angelo Morosini, 
 Andrea Vendramin, and Zacaria Priuli; and they
 
 196 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 quarrelled about a matter concerning which I refer 
 my scholarly reader to his Muratori, and Zuan Moro 
 was wounded in the face, and turned and gave his 
 assailants as good as he had got, to the infinite scandal 
 of the whole city, for these Companions were all the 
 young husbands of beautiful women, and they dis- 
 figured each other! 
 
 We learn also from Sanudo that the Companions 
 frequented the parlours of nunneries as well as the 
 palaces of their noble relations and friends, and that 
 in 15 14, for instance, they played a comedy by Plautus 
 in the convent of Santo Stefano. The Company of 
 the 'Sempiterni,' the 'Eternals,' wished to give a per- 
 formance of Pietro Aretino's 'Talanta' in one of the 
 monasteries, but this was more than the monks could 
 endure, which will not surprise any one who has read 
 Aretino's works ; they might as well have proposed 
 to give one of Giordano Bruno's obscene comedies; 
 and perhaps they would, if he had then already lived 
 and written. Refused by the monks, the Companions 
 hired a part of an unfinished palace on the Canarregio 
 for their performance. 
 
 At first sight, what surprises us is the impunity 
 enjoyed by these young gentlemen of pleasure, and we 
 ask what the three 'Wise Men on Blasphemy' were 
 doing. They were the Censors of the Republic, and 
 it is amusing to note that they acted in regard to 
 licensing plays precisely as the modern English govern- 
 ment censorship does, for whereas they allowed a 
 scandalous piece by Aretino to be performed un-
 
 VIII 
 
 THE HOSE CLUB 
 
 T 97 
 
 challenged, they most strictly forbade the presentation 
 of any biblical personage or subject on the stage. The 
 stories of Judith, of Jephthah's daughter, and of Samson 
 were those of which the wise magistrates most particu- 
 larly disapproved, I know not why. 
 
 The first theatre Venice had was built bv the Com- 
 
 S. ZOBEN1GO 
 
 panions in 1560 after the designs of Palladio, of wood, 
 in the court of the monastery of the Carita, but after a 
 few years it took fire, and the monastery itself was 
 destroyed with it. 
 
 I find that the Companions were great 'racket' 
 players; but I apprehend that by 'rackets' the 
 chroniclers intended to describe court tennis, which
 
 198 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 was played in Venice, whereas in most other Italian 
 cities the game of 'Pallone' was the favourite, and 
 has survived to our own time. It is played with a 
 heavy ball which the player strikes with a sort of 
 wooden glove, studded with blunt wooden pins and 
 covering most of the forearm. 
 
 To return to the question of the large freedom and 
 impunity granted to the Club by the government, the 
 reason of such license is not far to seek. Young men 
 who spend their time in a ceaseless round of amuse- 
 ment do not plot to overthrow the government that 
 tolerates them. The Signory, on the whole, protected 
 the Companions even in their wildest excesses, and no 
 doubt believed them to be much more useful members 
 of society than they thought themselves, since their 
 irrepressible gaiety and almost constant popularity 
 helped to keep the people in a good humour in times 
 of trouble and disturbance. 
 
 At the time of the league of Cambrai, for instance, 
 when Pope Julius II., the Emperor Maximilian, Louis 
 XII. of France, and Ferdinand of Aragon agreed to 
 destroy the Venetian Republic, and when it looked as 
 if they must succeed, the Company of the 'Eternals' 
 produced a mummery which was highly appreciated 
 both by the government and the population. 
 
 They gave a sumptuous feast, after which the 
 dining-hall was, as by magic, turned into an impro- 
 ve vised theatre. In the middle of the stage 
 Rom. v. 2/6. sat a y OLiri g noble who personated the 
 King, splendidly arrayed in the Byzantine fashion,
 
 vin THE HOSE CLUB 199 
 
 and attended by his counsellors, his chancellor, and 
 his interpreter. Before him there came in state one 
 who played the Papal Legate, dressed as a bishop 
 in silk of old-rose colour, and he presented a brief 
 and his credentials; whereupon, after crowning and 
 blessing the King, he observed that he should like to 
 see a little dancing, and two of the Companions at 
 once danced for him with two of the fairest ladies. 
 The Legate was followed by the Ambassador of the 
 Holy Roman Empire, and the Ambassadors of France, 
 Spain, Hungary, and Turkey arrived in turn; each 
 spoke in the language of his country, and his speech 
 was interpreted to the King. Last of all came the 
 Ambassador of the Pigmies mounted on a tiny pony 
 accompanied by four dwarfs and the professional 
 buffoon Zanipolo. We must suppose the speeches 
 to have been very witty, and the dwarfs and buffoons 
 highly comic, since this incomprehensible nonsense 
 was a stupendous success and was talked of long 
 afterwards. 
 
 The taste for these 'momarie,' literally 'mum- 
 meries,' grew in Venice. Marin Sanudo describes one 
 which was produced in the Square of Saint Mark's 
 on the Thursday before Lent in 1532. I translate a 
 part of the list of the masks, to give an idea of the 
 whole. 
 
 First, the goddess Pallas Athene with her shield 
 and a book in her hand, riding on a serpent. 
 
 Second, Justice riding on an elephant, with sword, 
 scales, and globe.
 
 200 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY viii 
 
 Third, Concord, on a stork with sceptre and globe. 
 
 Fourth, Victory on horseback, with sword, shield, 
 sceptre, and palm. 
 
 Fifth, Peace riding a lamb, and holding a sceptre 
 with an olive branch. 
 
 And so on. Then Ignorance, riding an ass, and 
 holding on by the tail, met Wisdom and fought and 
 was beaten. And Violence appeared on a serpent, and 
 Mars on a horse, and Want on a dog with a horn full 
 of straw for its emblem. And Violence was soundly 
 beaten by Justice, Discord by Concord, and Mars by 
 Victory, and Abundance drove Want from the field. 
 
 Such were the shows that amused the Venetians, 
 while written comedy was slowly growing out of 
 infancy. 
 
 The Companions of the Hose Club revenged them- 
 selves cruelly on any one of their own number who 
 „. . . , showed signs of meanness. Sanudo tells 
 
 Tassmi, under __ ° - 
 
 Osteria deiia the following anecdote. Alvise Moro- 
 
 Campana. • r 1 < t^ i > i 
 
 smi, one of the hternals, on the occa- 
 sion of his marriage with a daughter of the noble 
 house of Grimani, gave his fellow-Companions a very 
 meagre dinner. Not long afterwards they got into 
 the Grimani palace and carried off two magnificent 
 silver basins; these were placed in the hands of pro- 
 fessional buffoons who paraded the city with them, 
 informing the public that the bridegroom meant to 
 pawn them to pay for the dinner which the Com- 
 panions were going to eat at the sign of the Campana 
 instead of the dinner which they should have eaten at
 
 VIII 
 
 THE HOSE CLUB 201 
 
 the Palazzo Morosini, and also to pay for wax torches 
 for taking home the fair ladies who were to be asked 
 to the feast. 
 
 The paternal and business-like government of 
 Venice, seeing how much the Companions contributed 
 to the national gaiety, allowed them to transgress the 
 sumptuary laws which were so binding on every one 
 else. For instance, ordinary mortals were forbidden 
 to ask guests to more than one meal in the twenty- 
 four hours, but the Companions eluded the law — with 
 the consent of the police — by keeping an open table all 
 night, so that breakfast appeared to be only the end 
 of supper. Even in the matter of the gondolas, 
 the rule was that the 'felse' should be of black 
 cloth, yet the Companions covered theirs with scarlet 
 silk and the Provveditori delle Pompe had nothing 
 to say. 
 
 Then, suddenly, the government had a fit of 
 morality, and in 1586 the Hose Club was abolished 
 by law, all privileges were revoked, and the decree was 
 enforced. Venice lost some amusement and much 
 beautiful pageantry, and gained nothing in morality. 
 It was not very long before the grave senators who 
 objected to the Companions were seen in their scarlet 
 togas presiding over authorised gambling establish- 
 ments in the 'ridotti.' 
 
 The Venetians were an imaginative people who 
 delighted in fables, amusing, terrible, or pious, as the 
 case might be. Their stories differ from those of other 
 European races in the Middle Ages by the total absence
 
 202 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 of the element of chivalry upon which most other 
 peoples largely depended for their unwritten fiction. 
 One can make almost anything of a business man 
 except a knight. 
 
 Near the Ponte dell' Angelo in the Giudecca stands 
 a house which shows great age in spite of much 
 
 PONTE DELL* ANGELO, GIUDECCA, OLD WOODEN BRIDGE 
 
 modern plastering. The windows are gothic, of the 
 Tassim, under ogival design, and on the facade there is 
 'Angelo: an i ma o;e of the Virgin with the infant 
 Christ in her arms. Higher up, a bas-relief represents 
 an angel standing with outstretched wings as if he 
 were about to fly away after blessing with his right 
 hand the globe he holds in his left.
 
 vni VENETIAN LEGENDS 203 
 
 In the year 1552 this house was inhabited by a 
 barrister of the ducal court who professed unbounded 
 devotion to the Madonna, and practised the most 
 indelicate methods of improving his fortunes. 
 
 One day the lawyer asked to dinner a holy Capuchin 
 monk who enjoyed the highest reputation for sanctity. 
 Before sitting down to table he explained to the good 
 friar that he had a most wonderful servant in the shape 
 of a learned ape, that kept his house clean, cooked for 
 him, and did his errands. The holy man at once 
 perceived that the ape was no less a personage than the 
 Devil in disguise, and asked to see him; but Satan, 
 suspecting trouble, hid himself till at last he was 
 found curled up in his master's bed, trembling with 
 fright. 
 
 'I command thee,' said the monk, 'in the name of 
 God, to say why thou hast entered this house.' 
 
 'I am the Devil,' answered the ape, seeing that 
 prevarication would be useless, 'and I am here to take 
 possession of this lawyer's soul, which is mine on 
 several good grounds.' 
 
 The monk inquired why the Devil had not flown 
 away with the soul long ago, but the fiend replied that 
 so far it had not been possible, because the lawyer 
 said 'Hail, Mary,' every night before going to bed. 
 Thereupon the Capuchin bade the Devil leave the 
 house at once; but the Devil said that if he went he 
 would do great damage to the building, as the heavenly 
 powers had authorised him to do. But the monk was 
 a match for him.
 
 20+ GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 'The only damage you shall do,' said the friar, 
 'shall be by making a hole in the wall as you leave, 
 which shall be a witness of the truth of what we have 
 seen and heard and of the story we shall tell.' 
 
 The Devil obeyed with alacrity and disappeared 
 through the wall with a formidable crash, after which 
 the lawyer and his guest sat down to table, and the 
 monk discoursed of leading a good life; and at last he 
 took the table-cloth and wrung it with both hands, and 
 a quantity of blood ran out of it which he said w r as the 
 blood the lawyer had wrung from his clients. Then 
 the sinner began to shed tears and promised to make 
 full reparation, and he told the monk that if the hole 
 in the wall were not stopped up, he feared the Devil 
 would come in by it again. So the friar advised him 
 to place a statue of the Madonna before the hole and 
 an angel over it, to scare the Devil away. And so 
 he did. 
 
 Another Venetian legend of slightly earlier date tells 
 
 how there was once in the confraternity of Saint John 
 
 Tassini, under the Evangelist a man who led a bad life, 
 
 ' San Lio: to t ] ie g reat scandal of all who knew him. 
 One of the brethren having died, the Superior hoped 
 to touch the heart of that wicked man by asking him 
 to bear the Cross in the funeral procession. 'I will 
 neither walk in the procession to-day,' answered the 
 sinner, 'nor do I wish to be so accompanied when the 
 Devil carries me off.' After some time he died, and 
 the brethren proceeded to bury him, walking in proces- 
 sion after the Cross; but when they reached the bridge
 
 viii VENETIAN LEGENDS 205 
 
 of San Lio it became so heavy that it was impossible to 
 lift it from the ground, much less to carry it. The 
 Superior now remembered the words of the blasphemer, 
 and told the story to the brethren while Picturerepresent . 
 they halted. So they all decided that the i»g the scene, 
 
 -~, 1-111 • Man suet i ; 
 
 Cross must not follow the procession, and Accademia deiu 
 thereupon it instantly became light again, belle Artl - 
 and was carried back to the chapel of Saint John the 
 Evangelist. 
 
 The fireside is the natural place for telling stories, 
 and there is certainly some connection in the human 
 mind between firelight and the fabulous. Dante tells 
 that in his time the women of Venice consulted the fire 
 in order to know the future. When a girl was engaged 
 to be married she appealed to one of the burning logs, 
 and decided from the augury whether she was to be 
 happy or unhappy. Those who wanted money struck 
 the log with the tongs, calling out softly, 'Ducats! 
 ducats!' If the sparks flew out abundantly there was 
 some hope that a rich relation might die and leave the 
 inquirer a legacy. When the sparks were few and 
 faint, poverty was prophesied. 
 
 Unlike all other Italians, who believe that hunch- 
 backs bring good luck, the Venetians feared them 
 excessively. A Venetian proverb says, 'Leave three 
 steps between thyself and those whom God has marked, 
 eight if it is a hunchback, and twenty-eight if the man 
 be lame.' 
 
 One of the pretty superstitions of Venetian mothers 
 was that if they took their little children out before
 
 2o6 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY vm 
 
 dawn on Saint John's Day, the twenty-fourth of June, so 
 that the morning dew might dampen their cheeks and 
 hair, they would have lovely complexions and golden 
 locks. There are old Venetian lullabies that promise 
 babies the midsummer dew.
 
 1FIA, NIGHT 
 
 IX 
 
 THE DECADENCE 
 
 The seventeenth century, like the fourteenth, was one 
 of transition ; but whereas the earlier period was one of 
 improvement, the latter was one of decay. When time 
 at last began to do its work upon the Republic, Venice 
 had been independent nine hundred years; she was 
 still at the height of her glory, still in the magnifi- 
 cence of her outward splendour, but the long-strained 
 machinery of government was beginning to wear out. 
 
 207
 
 2 o8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 At the commencement of the seventeenth century 
 
 all Italy seemed to be threatened by war; the peace 
 
 *5<?8- patched up between Philip II. of Spain 
 
 Rom.vii. 5 . an( j Henry IV. of France at Vervins had 
 been of an unsatisfactory and precarious nature; the 
 Holy See was more and more on its guard against the 
 Protestant powers, and Spain took advantage of this in 
 order to sow discord between the court of Rome and 
 other governments. Venice was especially involved in 
 these difficulties, because she had signed in 1589 a 
 commercial treaty with the Grisons which had greatly 
 displeased Spain, the latter being then in 
 possession of Milan. The Republic was 
 accused of being too obliging to Protestants, and her 
 enemies assured the Pope that she had seriously 
 endangered the safety of the Catholic Church by 
 allowing the English ambassador to have an Anglican 
 Church service in his private oratory. The com- 
 plaints of Clement VIII. and Paul V. were received 
 with stony indifference by the Republic, which never 
 had the slightest respect for Rome. The latter had 
 many causes of complaint. Venice had been granted 
 in former times the privilege of trying priests for 
 ordinary crimes in the ordinary courts, on condition 
 that the Patriarch should sit among the judges. Little 
 by little the Venetian government stretched this privi- 
 lege to make it apply to all suits whatsoever brought 
 
 Rom.vii.43, against ecclesiastics, and in most cases the 
 
 notes. Patriarch was not even represented. It 
 
 chanced, at the very time when the Pope had com-
 
 CAMPIELLO DELLE ANCORE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 he 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 $ \ .i&I CAMHELLO 
 
 x \ \\ »\
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 209 
 
 plained of the liberty granted to the English ambas- 
 sador, that two priests were accused of an abominable 
 crime, and were tried like ordinary delinquents. 1 his 
 encroachment upon the bulls of Innocent VIII. and 
 Paul III. took place just when the Senate was pass- 
 ing a law which greatly restricted the holding of 
 property by the clergy. As if these facts were not 
 enough to show the Pope that the Venetian flock 
 intended to manage its own corner of the Catholic 
 fold in its own way, the government, on the death 
 of the Patriarch, named as his successor a member 
 of the house of Vendramin, and merely announced 
 the fact to the court of Rome, although the old 
 canonical law required that in cases where govern- 
 ments were authorised to appoint their bishops, the 
 latter should be examined and approved by the Pope's 
 delegates. 
 
 Spain took advantage of all these circumstances to 
 bring about a complete rupture between Venice and 
 the Holy See. Paul V. now hesitated no Rom% viL 45< 
 longer, and discharged a major excommu- 5 °~ 51 - 
 nication against the whole Venetian State. This meas- 
 ure produced little impression on the Senate, and none 
 at all on the Doge Leonardo Dandolo. He declared 
 openly that the sentence was unjust, and therefore null 
 and void. The Capuchin, Theatin, and Jesuit orders 
 closed their churches in obedience to the Pope, and 
 were immediately expelled from Venetian territory by 
 the government. The Pope's wrath was as tremendous 
 as it was futile, and it is impossible to say how far 
 
 VOL. II. — P
 
 210 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 matters might have gone if Henry IV. had not used 
 his influence to bring about a reconciliation. It was 
 his interest to do so in order that Venice, being friendly 
 to him, might in a measure balance the power of hostile 
 Spain, and he sent the Cardinal de Joyeuse to Italy to 
 try and obtain from the Pope some concession which 
 might facilitate an act of submission on 
 the part of the Republic. Spain was play- 
 ing a double game as usual, but the Cardinal was too 
 much for the Spanish diplomatists, and he brought 
 about an arrangement by which Venice handed over 
 to the Pope the two priests who were on trial, and 
 permitted"' the Patriarch to undergo the 
 
 Row. vii. 64. . -ill "11 
 
 examination required by the canonical law. 
 On his side the Pope exempted from that examination 
 all future Patriarchs. 
 
 It is a singular fact that the usually docile Venetian 
 population greatly resented the attitude taken by the 
 government towards the Holy See. The Doge him- 
 self was hissed and howled at when he went to the 
 church of Santa Maria Formosa on the Feast of Candle- 
 mas. 'Long live the Doge Grimani, the father of the 
 poor,' yelled the rabble, for Grimani had been a man 
 of exemplary piety and had been dead and buried for 
 some time. 'The day will come when you shall wish 
 to go to church and shall not be able!' screamed 
 others. Even after the reconciliation with the Pope, 
 
 Spain did not cease to conspire against 
 
 Rom. vii. 251. r . 
 
 the Republic, and while persecuting the 
 Catholics in Valtellina tried to make out that the
 
 [X 
 
 THE DECADENCE 
 
 211 
 
 Republic was allied with the Protestant powers because 
 it opposed those persecutions. 
 
 It is impossible to speak of the quarrels between 
 Venice and Rome without mentioning the monk Paolo 
 Sarpi who played so large a part in them. At the 
 
 J9 
 
 %> 
 
 SANTA MARIA FORMOSA 
 
 time when the attitude of the Pope made it clear that 
 serious trouble was at hand, the Signory felt the need 
 of consulting a theologian in order to give her resistance 
 something like an orthodox shape. There was at that 
 time in Venice a monk well known for his profound 
 learning and austere life. He had entered the order of 
 the Servites as a novice at the age of thirteen, and was
 
 212 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 n<>\\ fifty-four years old. In more than forty years 
 
 his love of retirement and study and his 
 
 profound devotion had suffered no change. 
 
 He was brought from his seclusion by an order from 
 
 the Senate to give his opinions on the burning questions 
 
 of the moment. Fra Paolo Sarpi vigorously sustained 
 
 the cause of the Republic, and was at once denounced 
 
 to the Pope as a sectarian and a secret partisan of the 
 
 Protestants. Fanatics attempted to assassinate him, 
 
 and the government spread the report that the murder 
 
 statue of Fm had been attempted by the court of Rome. 
 
 Paolo sarpi These reports further exasperated the 
 
 erected in 1812 . f_ 
 
 in the chmck of Vatican against him, while the Republic 
 
 nTa'rtiulTo't supported him all the more obstinately 
 
 where he anc | consulted him on every occasion. He 
 
 narrowly escaped . 1 1 1 • 1 ■ 1 ■ in 
 
 assassination, was installed in a little house in the Square 
 of Saint Mark's in order to be within easy 
 reach of the ducal palace, and the severest penalties 
 were threatened for any attempt against his life. 
 
 In spite of these precautions two more attempts 
 were made to assassinate him, and he was heard to say 
 that death would be preferable to the existence which 
 the government obliged him to lead. Nevertheless 
 he lived sixteen years in the service of the Republic. 
 The unbounded confidence which was placed in him 
 is amply proved by the fact that he, and he only, in 
 the history of the Council of Ten, was allowed free 
 access to its archives, a privilege which, oddly enough, 
 proved fatal to him ; for it was while working on his 
 own account amongst those documents that he caught
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 213 
 
 a cold from which he never recovered, and he died 
 three months afterwards in the winter of 1622. On 
 the fourteenth of January he felt his end approaching, 
 and the news was at once known throughout the city. 
 The Signory at once sent for Fra Fulgenzio, his most 
 intimate friend. 'How is Fra Paolo?' inquired the 
 Ten. 'He is at the last extremity,' answered the 
 monk. 'Has he all his wits?' 'As if he were quite 
 well,' answered Fra Paolo's friend. 
 
 Immediately three questions regarding an important 
 affair were sent to the dying man, who concentrated 
 his mind upon them and dictated the answers with 
 marvellous clearness and precision. His last words 
 were a prayer for his country's enduring greatness. 
 'Esto perpetual' he prayed as he closed his eyes for 
 ever. 
 
 The government gave him a magnificent funeral, 
 and ordered the sculptor Campagna to make a marble 
 bust of him for the church of the Servites; but the 
 Venetian ambassador in Rome advised the Republic 
 not to rouse the Pope's anger again by such a tribute 
 to the great monk's memory. We are not called upon 
 to decide upon the orthodoxy of Fra Paolo's opinions, 
 but he was undeniably one of the greatest and most 
 gifted Italians of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The troubles with Rome, and the general excom- 
 munication which had brought them to a crisis, had 
 disturbed the confidence of the Venetian people in 
 their government more than anything that had hap- 
 pened for years; and soon afterwards matters were
 
 2i 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 made worse by the terrible judicial murder of Antonio 
 Foscarini, in which England was deeply concerned. 
 
 Foscarini was a fine specimen of the patriotic 
 Venetian noble, devoted to his country, imbued with 
 the most profound respect for the aristocratic caste to 
 which he belonged, haughty and contemptuous towards 
 most other people, as the following anecdote shows. 
 He was in Paris as ambassador when Maria de' Medici, 
 the wife of Henry IV., was crowned, and as he had 
 only recently arrived he was not acquainted with all 
 his diplomatic colleagues when he met them in the 
 church of Saint Denis. After the ceremony he bowed 
 to the Spanish Ambassador, who inquired who the 
 stranger was who saluted him. Foscarini introduced 
 himself. 'Oh,' exclaimed the Spaniard, 'the Ambas- 
 sador of the Pantaloons ! ' ' Pantaloon ' was a Venetian 
 theatrical mask, and the word had become a contempt- 
 uous nickname for the Venetians. But the Spaniard 
 
 Moimenti, had counted without his host, for Foscarini 
 
 st.ekic f e ]j U p 011 him then and there. He de- 
 scribed what he did in a letter to his government: 'I 
 loaded the Spanish Ambassador with vigorous blows 
 and kicks, as he deserved.' 
 
 A Venetian, Pietro Gritti, who was in Foscarini's 
 suite, wrote a letter at the same time in which he said 
 that his chief kicked the Spanish Ambassador down the 
 whole length of the court. 
 
 Foscarini was afterwards ambassador in England, 
 and the long series of circumstances which led to his 
 tragic end dates from that period. He was still young,
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 215 
 
 he was inclined to be fond of amusement, and for some 
 unknown reason the secretaries of embassy who were 
 sent with him hated him and calumniated him in the 
 basest manner, accusing him to the Council of Ten 
 of being a Protestant in secret, and of carrying on a 
 treacherous correspondence with the Spanish govern- 
 ment. But there was worse than this. A famous 
 French spy, La Foret, bribed Foscarini's valet, Robazza, 
 got access to the ambassador's rooms when he was out, 
 and copied his most important letters for the French 
 government. 
 
 His second secretary of embassy, Muscorno, ob- 
 tained leave to return to Venice on pretence of visiting 
 his father who was ill, and when Foscarini was suddenly 
 recalled he found the ground prepared for an abominable 
 action against him. He himself, his valet, and his 
 chaplain were all imprisoned, and his trial for high 
 treason began. It proceeded very slowly, but he was 
 acquitted after having been in prison three years, for 
 Robazza confessed his treachery without being tortured. 
 Having been declared innocent of high treason, Foscarini 
 had little difficulty in disproving some minor accusations 
 that were brought against him; and a few weeks after 
 his release he appeared before the Senate to give an 
 official account of his embassy in England. Muscorno, 
 who had accused him falsely, was condemned to two 
 years' imprisonment in a fortress; Robazza, the valet 
 who had been bribed, had his right hand struck off and 
 was exiled for twenty years. 
 
 James I. of England sent Foscarini especial con-
 
 216 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 gratulations, and he was again employed in important 
 affairs. Unhappily, however, Museorno had a succes- 
 sor worthy of him in the person of Girolamo Vano, a 
 professional spy in the service of the Republic. If by 
 any chance the smallest State secret was known abroad, 
 it was always insinuated by Foscarini's enemies that he 
 was responsible for divulging it, and it was quite in 
 keeping with the ordinary practice of the Venetian 
 government to employ spies to watch a man who had 
 been once suspected, even though he had been declared 
 innocent and was again in high office. 
 
 The spy Vano took advantage of Foscarini's friend- 
 ship, or affection, for the English Countess of Arundel, 
 as a means of making out a strong case 
 
 Rom.vii.183. . ••Ill u 
 
 against him. roscarmi had known her in 
 London, and she had afterwards made long visits to 
 Venice, in order to be near her sons, who were making 
 their studies at the university of Padua. At her 
 house Foscarini often met the Envoy of Florence and 
 the secretaries of the Spanish and Austrian embassies. 
 
 She did. not spend all her time in Venice, however, 
 but was often many months in England. It was when 
 she was returning to Venice after one of these absences 
 that she was stopped at some distance from the city 
 by a messenger from the English ambassador, Sir 
 Henry Wotton, who entreated her to turn back. The 
 unfortunate Foscarini had been convicted of high 
 treason and strangled, and his corpse was that very 
 morning hanging between the two red columns of the 
 fatal window in the ducal palace. Lady Arundel's
 
 IX 
 
 THE DECADENCE 
 
 217 
 
 name had been connected during the trial with that of 
 the condemned man, and the ambassador was anxious 
 to save her any possible trouble. 
 
 But she was not of the sort that turns back from 
 danger at such times, and that very evening she reached 
 
 GRAND CANAL, LOOKING TOWARDS MOCENIGO PALACE 
 
 the English Embassy and demanded an audience of 
 the Doge; it was with the greatest difficulty that she 
 could be made to understand the impossibility of being 
 admitted until the next morning, and she reluctantly 
 retired for the night to her hired house, that Mocenigo 
 palace which was afterwards successively inhabited by 
 Ladv Mary Wortley Montagu and by Lord Byron.
 
 2i8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 On the morrow the ambassador went with her to 
 the ducal palace, and she must have passed below the 
 window from which the body of her friend had hung 
 all the previous day. She was admitted to the presence 
 of the Signory, and the Doge made her sit on his right 
 hand. She now learned that she was believed to have 
 allowed Foscarini to use her house as a place from 
 which to carry on intrigues with foreign courts. Sir 
 Henry Wotton spoke in the Countess's defence, and 
 proved that her relations with Foscarini had always 
 been of the most honourable character, and that the 
 two had not met for many months. England's star 
 was in the ascendant, Elizabeth had reigned, and it was 
 not good to contradict an English ambassador nor to 
 speak lightly of an English lady. The Doge made 
 the Countess his most humble excuses and promised to 
 send them to her husband, the Earl Marshal, through 
 the Venetian ambassador in London. 
 
 The Senate took cognisance of the affair also, and 
 voted a small sum of money to be expended in a 
 present of comfits and wax to the Countess, this being 
 the custom for all persons of quality who appeared 
 before the Signory. But that was all. Lady Arundel 
 had exculpated herself, but so far Foscarini's guilt 
 seemed to be so incontrovertibly proved, that Fra 
 Paolo Sarpi refused to accept a legacy which the 
 unhappy patrician had left him in his last will. 
 
 But as time went on the whole of Vano's fabricated 
 evidence began to go to pieces. The Inquisitors of 
 State themselves seem to have been the first to suspect
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 219 
 
 that they had made a mistake, and before long the 
 dreadful truth was only too clear. Foscarini , 
 
 J Rom. int. /go ; 
 
 had been perfectly innocent and had been Armand Baschet, 
 
 ..... T .hen. 631. 
 
 murdered by justice. It was not a case 
 
 that could be hushed and put out of the way, either, 
 
 for too many people knew what had happened. 
 
 The Council of Ten made amends : let us give 
 them such credit as we can for their public repentance, 
 without inquiring too closely what pressure was brought 
 to bear upon them by the public, and not improbably 
 by England. Monsieur Baschet becomes lyric in his 
 praise of their magnanimity. For my part, I do not 
 think it would have been safe for the Council to try 
 and hide its mistake. The Ten apologised amply 
 before the world : that is the important matter. Mon- 
 sieur Baschet gives the original text of the apology, 
 of which I translate a part from the Italian : — 
 
 'Since the Providence of our Lord God has disposed, 
 by means truly miraculous and incomprehensible to 
 human intelligence, that the authors and promoters of 
 the lies and impostures machinated against our late 
 beloved and noble Antonio Foscarini should be dis- 
 covered . . ., it behoves the justice and mercy of 
 this Council, whose especial business it is, for the 
 general quiet and safety to protect the immunity of the 
 honour and reputation of families, to rehabilitate as far 
 as possible those who lie under the imputation of an 
 infamous crime . . .,' and so on. 
 
 The Ten also decreed that an inscription should be 
 set up in the church of Sant' Eustachio, recording the
 
 220 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 error of the court, a unique example of such a public 
 and enduring retractation. 
 
 Other circumstances occurred to prove that organisa- 
 tion of the Venetian tribunals was beginning to wear 
 out. Too many conflicting regulations had been 
 introduced, and there were too many magistracies. 
 Venice was 'over-administered,' as generally happens 
 to old countries, and sometimes to new ones that are 
 too anxious to be scientifically governed. The jurisdic- 
 tions of the difFerent officials often encroached upon 
 one another. The three Inquisitors of State were 
 frequently at odds with the other seven members of 
 the Council of Ten, and in the confusion which this 
 caused it was impossible that the laws should be as 
 well administered as formerly. 
 
 About this time a grave case enlightened the public 
 as to certain abuses of which the existence had not 
 Rom.vii.210, been previously suspected. The Council 
 215,223,220. f Ten was always charged with the duty 
 of seeing that the Doge performed to the letter the 
 promises of the 'Promission ducale.' These solemn 
 engagements were several times violated by the Doge 
 Corner for the advantage of his sons. He allowed one 
 of them to accept the dignity of the Cardinalate while 
 two others were made senators, but as the Council of 
 Ten did not like to interfere, one of its heads, Renier 
 Zeno, took upon himself to impeach the Doge. The 
 latter was accused of illegal acts in contradiction with 
 the 'Promission,' and the question was taken up by the 
 whole aristocracy and discussed before all the difFerent
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 221 
 
 Councils. The opposite parties were fast reaching a 
 state of exasperation, when one of the Doge's sons 
 attempted the life of Renier Zeno. He and his 
 accomplices were merely exiled to Ferrara, and the 
 lenity of the sentence sufficiently shows the weakness 
 of the government. 
 
 At the same time Renier Zeno was arbitrarily for- 
 bidden, contrary to all law, to call into question the 
 conduct of the courts in general, but he was too proud 
 and energetic to submit to such despotism, and what it 
 pleased the Council of Ten to call his 'pride' served 
 his adversaries as a pretext for accusing him. The 
 Council had the imprudence to condemn him to ten 
 years' imprisonment in the fortress of Cattaro; but 
 this was too much, and the Ten were soon forced to 
 revoke the sentence as completely as they had annulled 
 that of the unfortunate Foscarini. But the world saw, 
 and the prestige of the Council was gone; the govern- 
 ment cast about in vain for some means of restoring 
 it, and could find nothing to do except to make a few 
 reforms and changes in its old system of spying and 
 repression. 
 
 Ever since the fourteenth century there had been a 
 locked box with a slit in it, placed in a public part of 
 the ducal palace, into which any one might drop an 
 anonymous written accusation against any one else, 
 from the Doge down. Little by little the use of this 
 means of 'informing' developed, until it had now 
 become common to try cases on the mere strength of 
 such unsupported accusations. The boxes were called
 
 222 
 
 (il h.WINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 IX 
 
 the Lions' Mouths on account of the shape they had 
 taken, and there was much talk about them when it 
 was attempted to reform the Code of Laws in the 
 seventeenth century. A decree of the year 1635 
 restored the old regulations as to the nature of the 
 misdeeds which might be thus denounced. 
 
 THE FONDAMENTA S. GIORGIO, REDENTORE IN DISTANCE 
 
 It was decided that if the accusation was signed, 
 four-fifths of the judges must agree before the case 
 could be brought to trial ; if the information was 
 anonymous there could be no trial without the consent 
 of the Doge, his counsellors, and the chiefs of the Ten 
 to bring the case before the Great Council, and the trial 
 could not be opened unless it were voted necessary by
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 223 
 
 five-sixths of the assembly. These measures were no 
 doubt prudent, but it was the system itself that was at 
 fault; any Venetian was authorised by it to take upon 
 himself the duties of a detective, and was encouraged to 
 spy on his neighbours, because the courts generally 
 rewarded the informer after a conviction. 
 
 It is always a fault in a government to make laws 
 unchangeable like those of the Medes and Persians, 
 and some authors have said that the Venetian Republic 
 never looked upon any of its decrees as immutable. 
 This is true as regards the form, for no government 
 ever remodelled its laws more often in their text. Some- 
 times the same decree appears in more than one hundred 
 shapes, but neither the spirit nor the point of view is 
 modified. A law passed against the freemasons in the 
 eighteenth century is conceived in precisely the same 
 spirit as the decrees against the conspirators in the days 
 of Baiamonte Tiepolo and Marin Faliero; the last 
 Missier Grande of the police was very like the sbirri of 
 the Middle Ages in character and in methods. The 
 Republic was growing old; the tree might still bear 
 fruit, but the fruit it bore had no longer within it the 
 seeds of future life. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Venetian diplomacy was 
 better of its kind than Venetian magistracies. During 
 the thirty years' war, for instance, 
 
 tt • , • 1 r 1 Rom.vii.27s. 
 
 Venice never once lost sight of the great 
 object it had in view, which was to abase the closely 
 related powers of Spain and Austria, while skilfully 
 avoiding any action which might bring about reprisals.
 
 224 
 
 (,l I WIMi.s FROM HISTORY 
 
 IX 
 
 On the other hand, it was impossible to remain 
 neutral in the war of succession to the Duchy of 
 Mantua, in which Carlo Gonzaga, Duke 
 of Nevers, was supported by France, and 
 Ferrante Gonzaga by the Emperor. As Austria's 
 
 Rohi. vii. 276. 
 
 ^ 
 
 s V 
 
 
 
 -. 
 
 '- V 
 
 - 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 STEPS OF THE REDENTOKE 
 
 enemy, Venice naturally backed the former. Venice 
 furnished him abundantly with money and soldiers, and 
 between the month of November 1629 ar, d trie month 
 of March following, spent six hundred and thirty- 
 eight thousand ducats to support the party which was 
 defending the cause of Italian independence against 
 the Empire. Austria nevertheless succeeded, and got
 
 rx THE DECADENCE 225 
 
 the better of the formidable coalition; but though the 
 Imperials took possession of Mantua at the time, they 
 were obliged to give it up to Carlo Gonzaga soon after- 
 wards, in April 1631, by the treaty of Cherasco. 
 
 About the same time Venice suffered another 
 terrible visitation of the plague, and more than thirty- 
 six thousand persons perished in the city 
 
 . /-%••! • • I Rom. vii. 302. 
 
 alone. On a similar occasion in 1575 the 
 Venetians had vowed a church to the Redeemer if the 
 plague was stayed, and the church they built is that of 
 the Redentore; in 1630 a church was vowed to the 
 Blessed Virgin, under the name of the Madonna della 
 Salute. This was at first only a wooden 
 
 ..... . 1 • 1 1 1 • • Rom.vii.jo6. 
 
 building, in which a great thanksgiving 
 
 took place on the first of November. The present 
 
 church was not finished until 1687. 
 
 Amongst the many circumstances which hastened 
 the decadence of the Republic during the seventeenth 
 century was the terrible war in Crete. In 
 that memorable struggle with the Turks 
 for the possession of the island the Venetians displayed 
 much of their old heroism and good generalship, but 
 the Republic was no longer young, and could not 
 make such gigantic efforts with impunity; Venice was 
 permanently weakened by that last great war. It 
 originated in a piece of rash imprudence on the part of 
 the Knights of Malta, who seized a number of Turkish 
 vessels; it lasted twenty-five years, and it cost the 
 Republic her best generals and her bravest soldiers, 
 besides vast sums of money. Yet the enthusiasm was 
 
 VOL. II. — Q
 
 226 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 boundless; mindful of Enrico Dandolo and Andrea 
 Contarini, the aged Doge Francesco Erizzo determined 
 to take command himself, but death overtook him 
 on the eve of his departure. 
 
 Prodigies of valour were performed. Tommaso 
 Morosini, with a single ship, victoriously resisted the 
 attack of forty-five Turkish galleys, but lost his life in 
 the engagement. Lorenzo Marcello took eighty-four 
 Turkish vessels and their crews with a far inferior 
 force, but like Morosini he was killed in the fight. 
 Ten thousand Turks were slain and five thousand were 
 taken prisoners. 
 
 Europe looked on in amazement and admiration, 
 and many brave captains and soldiers thought it an 
 honour to serve under the standard of Saint Mark. 
 There were more Germans and Frenchmen among 
 these volunteers than soldiers of other nations, and 
 Louis XIV. himself hoped to associate his name with 
 the campaign. He sent the Due de Beaufort with a 
 considerable fleet, twelve of his best regiments, and a 
 detachment of the Guards, besides a great number of 
 volunteers under the command of the Due de Noailles. 
 Yet all was in vain, and after a quarter of a century of 
 fighting Venice was obliged to yield Crete to the 
 Turks. 
 
 The peace was of no long duration, for the Turks 
 attacked Austria next, and, though the brave Sobieski 
 drove them away from Vienna, they allied themselves 
 with the Hungarians, and became so dangerous to the 
 Empire that the Pope himself was in anxiety for the
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 227 
 
 safety of Christianity in general. Exhausted by her 
 long war in Crete, the Republic attempted to decline 
 all requests that she should join a league against the 
 Turks, but was at last obliged to yield, and war was 
 renewed in the Archipelago and the Peloponnesus. 
 
 Francesco Morosini, the same general who a few 
 years earlier had been obliged to evacuate Crete after 
 the most heroic efforts, was placed in 
 
 1 r 1 17 r 1 Rom. vii. ./go. 
 
 command or the Venetian forces and com- 
 missioned to drive the Turks from the islands of Santa 
 Maura and other strong places in the Ionian Sea. On 
 the eleventh of August 1687 a swift felucca brought to 
 Venice news that Morosini had taken Patras and 
 Corinth, besides Santa Maura. In joyful Bust of Francesco 
 enthusiasm the Senate forthwith voted the ^c££? 
 victor a bronze bust, which was placed in °f 7en - 
 the hall of the Council of Ten, with the standard taken 
 from the Turks. It bears the inscription: — 
 
 Francisco Mauroce-no 
 
 Peloponnesiaco adhuc viventi 
 
 Senatus. 
 
 Another monument in Venice recalls the glorious 
 war of the Peloponnesus. After having taken Athens, 
 Morosini hastened to the Parthenon, for he Qu a dri, 3 o2; 
 appears to have been a man of highly cul- K07n.vu.4g1. 
 tivated tastes. To his inexpressible disappointment he 
 found the temple half ruined, for the Turks had used it 
 as a powder magazine, and a Venetian bomb had blown 
 it up. Morosini was so much overcome that he broke
 
 228 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 out into lamentations over a loss which nothing could 
 replace. But there amidst piles of ruins he saw two 
 splendid lions of marble from Pentelicus, which he at 
 once caused to be placed on board his vessel, rather to 
 save them, perhaps, than to exhibit them as trophies. In 
 Venice they were set up on each side of the gate of the 
 Arsenal. 
 
 Morosini was one of the few Venetian generals 
 
 who was not made to suffer for his success. When 
 
 r 688. at the very height of his triumph he 
 
 Rom.vii.504. i earnt t h at ne was elected Doge, and 
 
 though he had little success in the campaign after that, 
 and was even dangerously ill, he was magnificently 
 received when he returned to Venice. Pope Alexander 
 VIII., Ottoboni, sent him the staff and military hat 
 which it was customary to give to generals who had 
 distinguished themselves in war against infidels. But 
 it was clear that in his absence nothing could be 
 accomplished, and he soon obtained permission of the 
 government to take command of the Venetian forces 
 once more. His departure on the twenty-fourth of 
 May 1693 was a sort °f national festivity. The 
 Senate went to fetch him in his own apartment, and a 
 long procession accompanied him to Saint Mark's. 
 Preceded by halberdiers, singers, files of servants in 
 liveries of scarlet velvet and gold, many priests, canons, 
 and the Patriarch himself, besides the traditional silver 
 trumpets, the Doge walked between the Pope's nuncio 
 and the French ambassador. He wore the full dress 
 of a Venetian commander-in-chief, which was of gold
 
 IX 
 
 THE DECADENCE 
 
 229 
 
 brocade with a long train. But even in his glory the 
 Venetians noticed with displeasure and suspicion that he 
 carried in his hand the staff of the General, which he 
 evidently preferred to the sceptre of the Doge, and 
 which suggested to the crowd the thought that he 
 might seize the supreme power. 
 
 On the following day he embarked upon the 
 Bucentaur, which took him on board his flagship amidst 
 the applause of the crowd, the pealing of the church 
 bells, and a salute of artillery from the fort of Saint 
 Nicholas on the Lido, as his vessel got under way. 
 
 The expedition proved of little advantage to the
 
 230 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY ix 
 
 Republic, and cost Morosini his life, for his health was 
 undermined by the fatigues of his previous campaigns, 
 and he died in the Greek province of Romania, where 
 he had hoped to rest for a few weeks. His body 
 was brought back to Venice, and buried with great 
 pomp in the church of Santo Stefano. 
 
 The war went on under his successor, Silvestro 
 Valier, but it now entered upon a new phase, for the 
 Czar Peter the Great threatened the Turks on their 
 northern frontier, while the Venetian fleet held them in 
 check in the south. A treaty of peace was signed at 
 Carlowitz in 1699, by which the Republic kept her 
 conquests in the Morea as far as the isthmus of Corinth, 
 including the islands of Egina, Santa Maura, and other 
 less important places. Dalmatia was also left to her, 
 but she was obliged to withdraw her troops from 
 Lepanto and Romania on the north side of the Gulf of 
 Corinth. 
 
 From all this it is clear that the military spirit was 
 
 still alive in Venice, when the administration had almost 
 
 completely broken down. Nothing gives 
 
 Rom. vn. 370, r / _ o o 
 
 371,487; the measure of the situation better than 
 h 293- t j ie f act t j lat j n or( j er to meet the expenses 
 
 of the war in Crete any Venetian who would engage 
 to support a thousand soldiers for o,ne year, or any 
 foreigner who would support twelve hundred for the 
 same period, was allowed thereby to have and hold all 
 the privileges of nobility. This speculation was never 
 sanctioned by law, and was even rejected by the Great 
 Council when proposed, but it was nevertheless actually
 
 ix THE DECADENCE 231 
 
 practised, and a number of seats in the Great Council 
 were sold to the highest bidder. The government 
 went one step farther, and sold the office of procurator 
 of Saint Mark. The decadence had reached the point 
 of decay.
 
 THE KIVA l'KOM THli DOGANA 
 
 X 
 
 THE LAST HOMES— THE LAST GREAT 
 LADIES 
 
 Two men, a painter and a dramatist, have left us the 
 
 means of knowing exactly what the eighteenth century 
 
 Pictures of was in Venice. It is not a paradox to 
 
 VmU ££k£ h sa y that Longhi painted comedies, and 
 
 Accademia.Room that Goldoni wrote portraits. Both were 
 
 XI V., and Museo -r T • r 1 1 1 1 
 
 Correr, Rooms Venetians, and they had the courage to 
 
 n. and ix. depict and describe respectively the glaring 
 
 faults of their own people, not realising, perhaps, that 
 
 232
 
 THE LAST HOMES 
 
 233 
 
 the general corruption was beyond remedy, and that 
 the end was at hand. 
 
 i m mm ■ ■ 
 
 fi h$[4 
 
 < " m » *£*- 
 
 mmm W 
 
 " * 'tWV" R»( fcKPF ^^ . 
 
 
 CAMTO S. BAKTOLOMEO. STATUE OF GOLDON1 
 
 Look at Longhi's 'Fortune-Teller' or 'Dancing- 
 Master,' at his 'Tailor,' his 'Music-Master,' or his 
 'Toilet,' and you may see precisely what the Republic
 
 234 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 was when it died of old age; there are all the succes- 
 sions of light colours, as in a pastel-painter's box; you 
 can hear the high running laughter that rings from 
 rosy lips, you can guess what dreams of pleasure fill 
 those pretty heads, and yet there is something sad 
 about it all; unless one belongs to that little band of 
 human beings who love the eighteenth century, it sets 
 one's teeth on edge — like the dance music in the ' Ballo 
 in Maschera,' danced while Riccardo is dying. Some- 
 thing rings false; I think there is too much discrepancy 
 between what we see or read and what we really know 
 about that time. About other centuries, even the 
 nineteenth and twentieth, we can still have illusions, but 
 the eighteenth was all a sham that went to pieces with 
 the French Revolution. 
 
 As for the position of women at that time, it was 
 never low T er. They were dolls, and nothing more. 
 They were perhaps more neglected in the sixteenth 
 century, but, at least in theory, there was still some 
 respect for them. In the eighteenth they existed only 
 to adorn places of amusement, theatres, and gambling 
 houses. The biographer of that remarkable woman, 
 Giustina Renier Michiel, says they were so little 
 esteemed that it seemed useless to teach them any- 
 thing, and he adds that the Signory looked upon an 
 educated woman as a being dangerous to society and 
 the State. 
 
 Most young girls of noble family were brought up in 
 convents, where the most crass ignorance accompanied 
 the loosest ideas of morality. The greater number of
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 235 
 
 these convents were only nominally connected with 
 
 the ecclesiastical authorities. In practice 
 1 11 j 1 1 • R0m.mU.351. 
 
 they were controlled by lay inspectors, 
 
 'Provveditori sopra Monasteri,' who were commissioned 
 by the government to superintend the morals of con- 
 vents in general, but found it much more diverting to 
 help in undermining them. 
 
 While the girls were being brought up in such 
 places, their father was chiefly preoccupied in assuring 
 and increasing the fortune which was to be inherited by 
 his eldest son. The natural consequence of this was 
 that the marriage portions of the daughters became 
 smaller and smaller, so that it was found hard to marry 
 them at all, and much less troublesome to leave them 
 in their convents for life. Each of the fashionable 
 convents was a little court of noble ladies; in the one, 
 Her Most Reverend Excellency * the Mother Abbess 
 was a Rezzonico; in another, the Noble Dame Eleonora 
 Dandolo was Mistress of the Larder. 
 
 The scholars did not leave the convent at all while 
 their education lasted, but nothing was neglected which 
 could amuse them, and their principal lessons were in 
 dancing, singing, and reciting verses. In Carnival, the 
 convent parlours were turned into theatres or ball- 
 rooms; dames and cavaliers danced the minuet or the 
 'furlana'; 'Punch,' 'Pantaloon,' and 'Pierrot' vied 
 with each other to make the bevies of aristocratic 
 young ladies laugh at jests they should never have 
 understood. 
 
 Even during the rest of the year the convents were
 
 236 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 what would now be called brilliant social centres, to 
 
 MuHnelli, which married women came accompanied 
 
 w.92. ky tne j r officially recognised 'cicisbei,' 
 
 while voung gentlemen of leisure flirted with the 
 Mutineiu, scholars. It was even common for the 
 uit.61-62. gi r l s to keep up a regular correspondence 
 
 with their admirers. 
 
 Take the following passage which I translate 
 
 from Goldoni's autobiography, a book which may 
 
 Goidoni,voi.i. be trusted and is singularly free from 
 
 chap.xix. exaggeration. The adventure happened to 
 
 him in Chioeeia. 
 
 I had always cultivated the acquaintance of the nuns of 
 Saint Francis, where there were some very beautiful scholars, 
 and the Signora B. (one of the nuns) had one under her direc- 
 tion who was very lovely and very rich and amiable. She 
 would have been exactly to my taste, but my youth, my con- 
 dition, and my want of fortune did not allow me to entertain 
 any illusions. 
 
 However, the nun did not refuse me hope, and when I went 
 to see her she always made the young ladv come down to the 
 parlour. I felt that I should become attached to her in good 
 earnest, and the governess (the nun) seemed glad of it ; and vet 
 I could not believe it possible. But one day I spoke to her 
 of my inclination and of my timidity; she encouraged me and 
 confided the secret to me. This young lady had good qualities 
 and property, but there was something doubtful about her birth. 
 ' This little defect is nothing,' said the veiled lady ; ' the girl is 
 well behaved and well brought up, and I will be surety to you 
 for her character and conduct. She has a guardian,' she con- 
 tinued, ' and he must be won over, but leave that to me. It is 
 true that this guardian, who is very old and ruined in health,
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 237 
 
 has some pretensions as to his ward, but he is wrong, and — 
 well, as I am also interested in this — leave it to me,' she re- 
 peated, ' and I will manage for the best.' I confess that after 
 this talk, after this confidence and this encouragement, I began 
 to think myself happy. The Signorina N. did not look 
 unkindly on me, and I considered the matter as settled. All 
 the convent had noticed my inclination for the pupil, and there 
 were some young ladies who knew the intrigues of the parlour 
 and had pity on me, and explained to me what was happening; 
 and this is how they did it. The windows of my room were 
 precisely opposite the belfry of the convent. In building it 
 there had been placed in it several casements of cloudy glass 
 through which one could vaguely make out the outlines of 
 people who came near them. I had several times noticed at 
 those apertures, which were oblong, both figures and gestures, 
 and in time I was able to understand that the signs represented 
 letters of the alphabet, and that words were formed, and that 
 one could talk at a distance : almost every day I had half an 
 hour of this mute conversation, in which, however, we con- 
 versed properly and decently. 
 
 By means of this hand-alphabet I learned that the Signorina 
 N. was verv soon to be married to her guardian. Angry at 
 the Signora B.'s way of acting, I went to see her during the 
 day in the afternoon, quite determined to show her all my dis- 
 pleasure. She is sent for, she comes, she looks steadily at 
 me, and perceiving that I am angry, guessing what had hap- 
 pened, she does not give me time to speak but is the first to 
 attack me vigorously, with a sort of transport. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' she said to me, ' you are displeased, I see it in 
 your face ' — I tried to speak, but she does not hear me, raises her 
 voice and goes on — 'Yes, sir, the Signorina N. is to be mar- 
 ried, and she is going to marry her guardian.' I tried to raise 
 my voice too. 'Hush, hush,' she cries, 'listen to me; this 
 marriage is my doing : after having reflected upon it, I helped
 
 238 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 it on, and on your account I wished to hasten it.' ' On my 
 account? ' I said. ' Hush,' she replied, 'you shall understand 
 the conduct of a prudent woman who has a liking for you. 
 Are you,' she went on, l in a position to take a wife ? No, 
 for a hundred reasons. Was the Signorina to wait your 
 convenience? No, she had not the power to do so; it was 
 necessary to marry her; she might have married a young man 
 and you would have lost her forever. She marries an old man, 
 a man in his decline and who cannot live long; and though I 
 am not acquainted with the joys and disappointments of mar- 
 riage, yet I know that a young wife must shorten the life of an 
 old husband, and so you will possess a beautiful widow who 
 will have been a wife only in name. Be quite easy on this 
 point, therefore ; she will have improved her own affairs, she 
 will be much richer than she is now, and in the meantime you 
 will make your journey. And do not be in any anxiety about 
 her; no, my dear friend, do not fear; she will live in the world 
 with her old fellow and I shall watch over her conduct. Yes, 
 ves ! She is yours, I will be surety to you for that, and I 
 
 give you my word of honour ' 
 
 And here comes in the Signorina N. and approaches the 
 grating. The nun says to me with an air of mystery, c Con- 
 gratulate the young lady on her marriage ! ' I could bear it 
 no longer; I make my bow and go away without saying more. 
 I never saw either the governess or her pupil again, and thank 
 God it was not long before I forgot them both. 
 
 After reading such stories and looking into the 
 
 archives of the 'Superintendents of Convents/ it is easy 
 
 to understand that Pope Gregory XIII. 
 
 Rom. vi. j6o. . . . . . . . ( T „ 
 
 should have exclaimed bitterly, 1 am lope 
 everywhere except in Venice'; and more than one of 
 his successors in the eighteenth century had cause to
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 239 
 
 repeat his words. The Church protested in vain 
 against the abuse of the veil by Venetian ladies, for the 
 State protected them on the specious pretext of super- 
 intending their morals, and the remonstrances of the popes 
 and of the patriarchs of Venice were not even heard 
 within the walls of those sham cloisters. With such a 
 system of education and such examples the bankruptcy 
 of morality was merely a question of time. The 
 number of marriages diminished amongst the aristocracy, 
 and when a young man made up his mind to matrimony 
 he consulted nothing but his financial interests. 
 
 The expenses of a fashionable marriage were con- 
 siderable. There were always several festive ceremonies 
 in the bride's house. The first was the 
 
 r , , , Mufinelli, 
 
 signature of the contract; the second, uit.86; 
 which followed soon afterwards, was a Goldof!l - vol : *• 
 
 chap. xxvi. 
 
 gathering of all the relations and friends of 
 the two families with a sort of standing collation, and 
 it was on this occasion that the future bridegroom gave 
 his betrothed the first present, which was generally a 
 big diamond set in other stones, and was called the 
 'ricordino,' the 'little remembrance.' 
 
 A few days before the wedding the two families and 
 their friends met again, and if the man's mother was 
 still alive it was she who gave the bride a pearl necklace; 
 otherwise the duty fell to one of his near female 
 relations. This pearl necklace was thought absolutely 
 indispensable for the honour of the family, and the bride 
 was bound to put it on at once and to wear it till the end 
 of the first year of her marriage. Where it would have
 
 2 + o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 caused financial difficulty it was simply hired for the 
 time, and was returned to the jeweller at the end of 
 the year. 
 
 After her marriage every well-horn woman took a 
 
 'cicisbeo' or 'cavalier servente.' These cavaliers were 
 
 in most cases, especially at the be<nnnin<>; 
 
 Rom. ix. 13. . . • , 11 
 
 or the century, neither young, nor hand- 
 some, nor the least lover-like, though there were 
 Tassini, under exceptions to the rule. The choice of 
 ' Grass 1 : them was often the occasion of the first 
 conjugal dispute, and a lady of the Condulmer family 
 retired to a convent for life because her husband objected 
 to the cavalier whom she wanted. 
 
 The serving cavalier accompanied his lady on all 
 
 occasions, for the husband never did, and the two were 
 
 seen everywhere together, and especially 
 
 joj^anT'x^'; under the felse of the gondola; for ladies 
 
 Moimenti, Vita never usec | tne gondola uncovered, even 
 
 Priv. , b 
 
 on beautiful summer evenings. And they 
 were perpetually out, so that grave historians inform 
 us that they only spent a few hours of the night in their 
 palaces, and during the day the time they needed for 
 dressing. When required, the 'cicisbeo' waited on his 
 lady instead of her maid; her smallest caprices were 
 his law, and she dragged him after her everywhere, to 
 mass, benediction, and the sermon. 'The object of 
 mass is to go to walk,' said Businallo in one of his 
 satires, after saying that the proper purpose of pilgrim- 
 ages was to make a great deal of noise. 
 
 Not unfrequently the cicisbei were mere adventurers
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 241 
 
 who pretended to be great nobles from other Italian 
 cities, and to have left their homes in consequence of 
 some misfortune. 
 
 Goldoni wrote a comedy called 'II Cavaliere e la 
 Dama' on the subject of the 'cicisbei,' whom he calls 
 'singular beings, martyrs to gallantry, and slaves to the 
 caprices of the fair sex.' In speaking of this piece, in 
 his autobiography, he observes that he could not have 
 printed the word 'cicisbeatura' on the bill for fear of 
 offending the numerous class whom he intended to 
 satirise. 
 
 He goes on to say of his play that a man is pre- 
 sented who is the husband of one lady and the serving 
 cavalier of another, and the mutual satisfaction of the 
 two women is exhibited. 'A married woman,' Goldoni 
 says, 'complains to her cicisbeo that one of her lacqueys 
 has been disrespectful to her; the cavalier answers that 
 the man should be punished. "And whose business is 
 it but yours to see that I am obeyed and respected by 
 my servants?" cries the lady.' 
 
 The playwright no doubt heard the speech in actual 
 life. The cavalier was the real master of the house in 
 many families, yet now and then a husband could be 
 jealous, though not in the least in love. 
 
 Goldoni says that there were husbands who put up 
 with their wives' cavaliers in a submissive spirit, but 
 that there were others who were enraged Goldoni, vol. a. 
 by those strange beings, who were like chap.x. 
 second masters of the house in disorganised families. 
 
 It is certain that the Venetian ladies cared more for 
 
 VOL. II. — R
 
 242 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 gambling than for adornment, or anything else. In the 
 morning they wore a dress of more or less rich stuff, hut 
 always black, and when they went out they wore a long 
 scarf, also black, which they disposed with much grace 
 upon their heads, crossed upon their bosom, and knotted 
 loosely behind the waist. 1 his dress went by the general 
 name of 'Cendaleto,' and it was the custom to apply 
 the appellation also to those who wore it. They said, 
 for instance, that there were so many 'Cendaleti' 
 at a ceremony, meaning that number of ladies. 
 Giustina Renier Michiel, the historian of all that was 
 left of grace and beauty in Venice, says that the scarf had 
 the magic power of making the plainest women pretty. 
 Though dress was simple enough on ordinary 
 occasions, conforming to certain rules, yet on gala 
 occasions the latest fashions were consulted. 
 
 A'om.viii.joj. .. . T 7 • l l l r 1 ■ 
 
 In earlier times Venice had set the fashion 
 for the world, and beautifully dressed dolls had been 
 sent by the Venetian women's tailors as models to 
 Paris. In the eighteenth century Paris sent dolls 
 to Venice. These dolls were exhibited at the fair of 
 the Ascension, near the entrance to the Merceria, 
 and took the place of fashion-plates and dressmakers' 
 journals. The men wore the cut-away coat, breeches, 
 silk stockings, shoes with buckles, wigs, and three- 
 cornered hats, then common throughout Italy and 
 France; but they had invented a singular fashion of 
 their own, which was that of throwing a light mantle of 
 velvet, satin, or cloth over their hat and wig. It was 
 called the 'velada,' and was adorned with embroidery,
 
 THE LAST HOMES 
 
 ^4.} 
 
 lace, or a fringe. In the end, it was sometimes made 
 of lace only. As the law did not allow any member of 
 the Great Council to appear in public without his toga, 
 the nobles introduced a fashion which soon became 
 common in all classes ; they wore a black or white mask, 
 
 GIOVANNI E PAOLO 
 
 and covered themselves entirely with a black silk mantle 
 having a hood, on the top of which they 
 placed the three-cornered hat. This gar- Lasieal 
 ment was nothing, in fact, but a domino. °- R ; Michiel > 
 Of course the women soon discovered the 
 advantages of a dress in which they could not only 
 disguise themselves but could even pass for men. The
 
 244 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 'Cendaleto' remained as the proper dress for going out 
 in the morning, but in the afternoon and evening, at 
 
 NIGHT ON THE HIVA 
 
 the theatre, at the ridotti, or in the piazza, the mask 
 and domino became indispensable, and men and women 
 wore precisely the same three-cornered hat.
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 245 
 
 It was soon noticed, however, that the domino did 
 not tend to improve the public morals, and a decree 
 was issued limiting its use to the period between the 
 first Sunday in October and Advent Sunday, and during 
 Carnival and the festivities which took place at the 
 Ascension. 
 
 The women, no doubt, amused themselves in various 
 ways, not excepting that form of diversion in which 
 women have such marked advantages over men; but 
 their chief enjoyment, if not their principal occupation, 
 was gambling. Games of chance were played for very 
 high stakes in the ridotti, which were gaming-clubs, 
 not much better than the 'hells' of modern cities. The 
 most celebrated was that connected with the theatre of 
 San Moise, which the government protected as a useful 
 social institution. A patrician, generally a senator, 
 presided in his toga at the tables, in order to see that 
 there was no cheating. The singular rule of admission 
 was that one must be either noble or masked, and the 
 consequence was that the Venetian ridotti were fre- 
 quented not only by the Venetians themselves, but by 
 half the gamblers, adventurers, and blacklegs in Europe. 
 
 King Frederick IV. of Denmark once visited San 
 Moise disguised in a domino, and won a large sum of 
 money from a Venetian noble who was Tassini, under 
 risking the last remains of his fortune. ' Rldott ° : 
 On being told the circumstances, he pretended to 
 stumble, upset the table with all the money on it, 
 and disappeared, leaving the embarrassed gentleman to 
 pick up his gold again, which he did with marvellous
 
 246 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 alacrity. The number of players at San Moise was 
 so great that in 1768 the government enlarged 
 the place, using for the purpose the proceeds of 
 property confiscated from the nuns, which terribly 
 scandalised the population and provoked some bitter 
 epigrams. At the ridotto the most illustrious patrician 
 ladies quarrelled for places at the table with ladies of 
 no character at all, and a contemporary observes that 
 in order to pay their gambling debts and continue to 
 MuHneiu, amuse themselves, they were reduced to 
 wt.54- the last extremity. He adds that they 
 played from the hour of tierce, which is half-way 
 between dawn and noon at all times of the year. 
 
 In 1780, when the Republic had but a few years 
 more to live, the two ridotti of San Moise and San 
 Rom. via. joj, Cassian, which had been protected and 
 and ix. 11. superintended by the government, were 
 suppressed, but the only result was that a new class of 
 gaming-houses came into existence called Casini, which 
 were much worse in character than the old establish- 
 ments. Ruined nobles borrowed enormous sums from 
 usurers, and even from plebeians, sharing the winnings 
 with the lender when successful, and being entirely at 
 his mercy if they lost. Some women kept private 
 Casini of their own, to which they invited 
 
 Mutinelli, Ult. . . . 
 
 men and women; and while they played 
 at Pharaoh, Basset, and Biribissi within, the gondoliers 
 played Morra at the landing outside. 
 
 Venice slept little, and was devoured day and night 
 by the fever of pleasure. The lighting of the city
 
 ^^■•^W^r^r \, 
 
 THE SALUTE FROM THE RIVA
 
 246 
 
 ala( 
 
 so 
 
 th< 
 
 P r 
 sc 
 
 e 
 
 1 
 
 > 
 
 
 •JA2 3ht
 
 "
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 247 
 
 was paid for by the proceeds of the lotto, which had 
 been introduced in 1734. Goldoni says that the 
 shops were always open until ten o'clock Goidoni.voi. *. 
 at night, while a great many did not close cha *- xxxv - 
 till midnight, and some never shut at all. In Venice, 
 he continues, you would find eatables exposed for sale 
 at midnight exactly as at midday, and all the eating- 
 houses were open. It was not the custom to give 
 many dinners or suppers in Venetian society, but a few 
 such occasions have remained famous, and the invited 
 guests appear to have behaved with as little restraint 
 as if they had been in a common eating-house. A 
 certain noble, of the Labia family, once gave a supper 
 at which he showed all his finest plate, and the guests 
 could not refrain from admiring the magnificent 
 chiselled pieces of gold and silver that covered the 
 table. Suddenly, as the gaiety increased, the master of 
 the house jumped up and began to throw the plates 
 and dishes through the open windows into the canal, 
 accompanying this mad proceeding with one of the 
 worst puns ever made in the Italian Tassini, under 
 language, or rather in the Venetian dialect: 'Labia: 
 'L'abia o non l'abia, sarb sempre Labia' — the words 
 mean, 'Whether I have it or not I shall always be Labia.' 
 The conditions of married life in the decadence 
 were such amongst the nobles that it is best not to 
 inquire too closely as to what went on. In „ 
 
 t J horn, vi 11. joj ; 
 
 a great number of cases husband and wife Mutmeiu, 
 
 were like strangers to each other, and the 
 
 children were utterly neglected, when there were any.
 
 248 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 When divorce becomes common, the family, which is 
 the first of social institutions, soon ceases to exist, and 
 no country has ever shown vitality or long endurance 
 where society was not based on the relations of father, 
 mother, and children to each other. There never was 
 any divorce law in Italy, but there was, and is, such 
 a thing as the annullation of marriage. In Venice, 
 between 1782 and 1796, the Council of Ten registered 
 two hundred and sixty-four applications for annullation, 
 and the great part of them were admitted. 
 
 As generally happens when a form of government 
 is exhausted and is about to go to pieces, the Venetian 
 
 Mutineiu, people retained ideas of morality longer 
 uu. 71. than the wealthy burghers or the worn-out 
 nobility; the wives of the artisans necessarily lived 
 more at home than their richer sisters, and were 
 generally able to keep their husbands. The love of 
 pleasure was too universal to admit of excepting a 
 whole class from its influence, and to the last the 
 working people seem to have been very prosperous 
 under cne old government; but their amusements were 
 harmless and their pleasures innocent compared with 
 those of the upper thousands. The women of the 
 people organised their diversions with a good deal of 
 system, forming groups among themselves, each of 
 which had a presidentess and a treasuress, who collected 
 the subscriptions, kept the money in safety, and made 
 out the accounts when, at intervals, the little fund was 
 drawn upon for excursions and parties of pleasure, to 
 which men were not invited.
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 249 
 
 On the morning of one of those appointed days, 
 the women and girls met at the landing from which 
 they were to start, all dressed very much alike. Those 
 who belonged to the class of the better artisans wore 
 a rather dark cotton skirt, a blouse of scarlet cloth, 
 a chintz apron with a design of large flowers, and 
 lastly, a white linen kerchief called the 'niziol,' which 
 was to them what the black 'cendal' was to the 
 Venetian ladies; and from 'niziol' the word 'nizioleto' 
 was formed, like 'cendaleto,' and meant a pretty woman 
 or girl of the people. Of course, when they met for 
 a day's pleasure they wore whatever ornaments they 
 possessed. 
 
 The women of the poorest class wore over the dark 
 skirt a very wide apron which covered it entirely when 
 let down, but which they pulled up over their heads 
 like a sort of hood when they went out. 
 
 The fathers, husbands, and brothers of the women 
 came with them as far as the boat, but left them then, 
 as the people would have thought it highly 
 improper that decent women should amuse 
 themselves in the company of the other sex. Yet for 
 their protection two elderly men of unexceptionable 
 character went with them, as well as the necessary 
 rowers, and it was a common practice to be rowed 
 about for a time before leaving the city, singing songs 
 together. 
 
 The principal diversions of the day were the picnic, 
 which was a solid affair, a dance, generally the country 
 'villotta,' accompanied by the singing of couplets, and
 
 250 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 the return to Venice in the boat, illuminated with 
 festoons of little coloured lanterns. At the landing 
 they parted, dividing what was left of the provisions, 
 lest anything should be lost, and no doubt each good 
 wife did her best to bring home a few titbits for the 
 men of her household, if only to make them envy her 
 for beinsr a woman. 1 find no record of what the men 
 did with themselves on picnic days, but it must have 
 been very quiet in the house, and they may have felt 
 that there were compensations even for being left 
 at home. 
 
 Another time of gaiety was the evening after a 
 regatta. Then the houses of the winners were decked 
 with garlands of green, and the doors were open to 
 every friend ; the silk flag, which was the token of 
 victory, was hung in a conspicuous place for all visitors 
 Moimenti, Nuovi to admire, and when it grew late they all 
 
 studi,3i8. sat down to a plentiful supper, which on 
 those occasions generally consisted principally of several 
 dishes of fish washed down with copious draughts of 
 the island wine. The last homes of Venice, in any 
 real sense, were the homes of the working people. 
 
 Life in the country did little to bring the members 
 of a noble family nearer together, but there was a good 
 deal of it, such as it was. At a time when France set 
 the fashions, which she was before long to impose on 
 the greater part of Europe, every rich Venetian noble 
 dreamt of making a little Versailles of his own villa. 
 The residences of the Marcello, the Corner, the 
 Gradenigo, the Foscarini, and the Pisani, on the road
 
 x • THE LAST HOMES 251 
 
 to Treviso and on the banks of the Brenta, were so 
 many little courts, in which every element was repre- 
 sented from the sovereign to the parasite, from the 
 parasite to the buffoon, and the lesser nobles imitated 
 the greater throughout a scale which descended from 
 the sublime to the ridiculous. The villas themselves 
 were often decorated by the greatest artists. In the 
 hall of the Pisani's country-house at Stra, for instance, 
 Tiepolo had painted a wonderful picture representing 
 the reception of Henry III. in Venice. 
 
 In going from the city to the villas, people went by 
 water as far as it was possible, and each family had a 
 sort of light house-boat for this purpose, Moimmti, uit. 
 called a 'burchiello,' and fitted with all 112,116. 
 possible comfort. The travellers dined and supped 
 sumptuously on board, and spent most of their time 
 in playing cards; and when the end of the journey 
 was reached a long round of pleasures and amusements 
 began, in which the 'cicisbei' played an important and, 
 one would think, a terribly fatiguing part. They 
 were assisted by regular relays of parasites who were 
 invited for a few days at a time, and who were expected 
 to pay with ready flattery and story-telling for the 
 hospitality they received. 
 
 Eating then played a much larger part in what was 
 called pleasure than we moderns can well understand. 
 We are ourselves no great improvement MoimenH, 
 on our fathers, in respect of manly virtue, VitaPHv. 
 faith in things divine, or honesty when it does not 
 happen to be the best policy; but as an age of men we
 
 252 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 are not greedy of food. The Venetians were. Not 
 only did they employ French cooks and spend much 
 time in considering what things to eat, but their dinners 
 were so interminably long, and the courses they ate 
 were so numerous, that they found it convenient to use 
 three dining-rooms in succession for the same meal, the 
 first being for the soup and the beef, the second for the 
 roast meats and vegetables, and the third for the pudding 
 and dessert. 
 
 The Venetians were near their end when they ceased 
 to be men of business and turned into gamblers and 
 spendthrifts. All this extravagance, especially in the 
 country, led to financial embarrassment at the end of 
 the season; and in order to satisfy the creditors who 
 then appeared in force, it was necessary to rackrent 
 the peasants or to sell property and produce at 
 ruinous prices. In one of his comedies Goldoni makes 
 a ruined nobleman say again and again to his steward, 
 'Caro vecchio, fe vu ' — 'My dear old man, manage it 
 yourself.' The expression was so true to life that not 
 one but a number of nobles complained to the govern- 
 ment that they were being publicly libelled by a 
 playwright. 
 
 Everything was in a state of decay already approach- 
 ing ruin. When the Princess Gonzaga came to Venice 
 Archivio stor. she had such an abominable reputation that 
 selfe's, voLxvi. no Venetian lady had the courage to present 
 p.180. ner to the society of the capital. At last, 
 however, the Signora Tron, the wife of a procurator of 
 Saint Mark, offered to do so. She introduced the
 
 x THE LAST HOMES 253 
 
 Princess with these historic words: 'Ladies, this is the 
 
 - 
 
 P* 
 
 vpfL 
 
 fiiw -^<»« ! • ' Wi 
 
 s 
 
 RIO DELLA TORESELA 
 
 Princess Gonzaga. She belongs to an illustrious family.
 
 254 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 As for the rest, I will not answer for her, nor for you, 
 nor for myself.' 
 
 She was wise in refusing to answer for herself, at all 
 events, for she was accused of setting a higher price on 
 Horatio Brown, ner DOX at the theatre than on herself. 
 sketches. 'That is true,' she answered, 'for I some- 
 times give myself for nothing.' 
 
 It is comprehensible that where great ladies talked 
 like this, a burgher dame should have put up her 
 
 Mutinein, daughter's honour at a lottery, for which 
 at. 82. tne t j c k ets W ere sold at a sequin, about 
 fifteen shillings, each. 
 
 The decadence was turning into final degeneration, 
 
 and everything morbid was hailed with enthusiasm. 
 
 Carrer, Two lovers committed suicide, for instance, 
 
 Annait,34. an( j immediately handkerchiefs were sold 
 everywhere adorned with a death's head in one corner, 
 and embroidered in the middle with the lovers' initials 
 surrounded with stains of the colour of blood. 
 
 The average Venetian lady was at once ignorant and 
 witty, yet here and there one succeeded in cultivating 
 her mind by reading and intercourse with the famous 
 foreigners who spent much time in Venice at the end 
 of the eighteenth century. Giustina Renier Michiel 
 was undoubtedly the most remarkable and admirable 
 Venetian woman of her times. She was born in 1755, 
 the daughter of Andrea Renier, afterwards Doge, and 
 the niece of Marco Foscarini. At the age of three she 
 was sent to a convent of Capuchin nuns at Treviso; at 
 nine she was brought back to Venice and placed in a
 
 x THE LAST GREAT LADY 255 
 
 fashionable boarding-school kept by a Frenchwoman, 
 where she learned French badly, and Italian not at all. 
 But the girl was a born bookworm, and even in her 
 school succeeded in reading a vast number of books, 
 and in filling her girlish imagination with a vast store <>l 
 ideals. She naturally hated complication and prejudice, 
 and aspired to be simple and just. Like many women 
 of independent mind, she could not help associating 
 dress with moral qualities and defects; and when she 
 was old enough to please herself, she always wore a long 
 straight garment of woollen or white linen, according to 
 the season, and adorned her beautiful hair with a crown 
 of roses. Such a costume might surprise us nowadays, 
 but she loved flowers, and deemed that to wear them 
 brought her nearer to nature. If she was obliged to 
 wear fashionable clothes for some public occasion, she 
 spoke of them as a disguise, and hastened to 'take off 
 her mask and domino,' as she expressed it, as soon as 
 she reached home. ' Moliere may say that a Countess 
 is certainly something,' she wrote in French to a friend ; 
 ' he should have written that a Countess is very little, or 
 a Count either!' She often used to say: 'I should 
 like to know why every one does not try to please 
 me, since it would take so little to succeed!' One 
 of her hobbies was not to give trouble, and she 
 pushed this admirable virtue so far that one day, 
 when her frock caught fire, she would not call any 
 one, but rolled herself on the carpet till the flames were 
 extinguished. 
 
 She had a great admiration for the Cavalier Giusti-
 
 256 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 niani, the same who faced Bonaparte so bravely a few 
 years later, but she did not marry him. 
 
 She is said to have been very beautiful, but short, 
 a fact which disturbed her unnecessarily, to judge by a 
 note found in one of the commonplace books in which 
 she copied passages from her reading and wrote out her 
 own reflections. 'A monarch who was rather famous 
 in the last century,' she wrote with child-like simplicity, 
 'forbade his soldiers to marry short women; on the 
 other hand, he rewarded them if they married gigantic 
 women. Can it be because people fear that short women 
 will turn out more mischievous than tall ones ?' 
 
 At the age of twenty she was married to Marcantonio 
 Michiel, and a few months later she accompanied him 
 to Rome, where her father, Andrea Renier, was am- 
 bassador. She made a profound impression on Roman 
 society, and soon went by the name of 'Venerina 
 Veneziana,' the little Venetian Venus. In Rome she 
 met the genial poet Monti, then very young, and recom- 
 mended to the Venetian ambassador by Cardinal 
 Braschi. To fill her idle hours, the industrious little 
 lady studied engraving on wood. 
 
 Not long after her return from Rome her paternal 
 uncle was elected Doge. He was not a very estimable 
 personage, and as he had married a dancer whom the 
 people refused to accept as the Dogess, his niece Giustina 
 did the honours of the ducal palace when occasion 
 required. 
 
 In her early youth she began several literary works, 
 among which a rather inaccurate translation of some of
 
 x THE LAST GREAT LADY 257 
 
 Shakespeare's plays has come down to us. She was a 
 literary personage, however, when still young, and the 
 drawing-rooms of the Palazzo Michiel were frequented 
 by all that was most distinguished in Venice, as well as 
 by the best of the foreign element. Giustina, like all 
 women whosucceed ingathering intellectual people about 
 them, encouraged the discussion of all sorts of subjects 
 from the broadest point of view. At that time she was 
 slightly inclined towards the new order of ideas, and 
 boasted of being somewhat democratic; but if this was 
 true, it did not prevent her from sincerely lamenting 
 the fall of the Republic a few years later. 
 
 On the twelfth of May 1797, after the fatal 
 session which ended the history of Venice, a few nobles 
 gathered at her house to mourn over the sudden end. 
 While they sat together, heavy-hearted and conversing 
 in broken sentences, they heard the rabble in the street 
 ' below, howling at those whom it called the assassins of 
 Saint Mark. The little group upstairs understood the 
 danger, and after a moment's silence Giustina called 
 upon them to save the city at least, if they could no 
 longer save the Republic. Her cousin Bernardino 
 Renier was there, and was temporarily charged with 
 seeing to the safety of the city. The only means he 
 could think of for preventing pillage was violence, and 
 he swept the streets with artillery. 
 
 For a while Giustina cherished the vain hope that 
 Bonaparte would help Venice to rise from her ashes. 
 That fact explains why she was willing to receive in her 
 house the handsome, fair-haired Marina Benzon, who 
 
 VOL. II. — S
 
 258 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 danced round the tree of liberty in the Square of Saint 
 Mark's with the ' Carmagnola' on her head, on the day 
 that saw the Venetian flag replaced by the Phrygian 
 cap of liberty. It explains, too, why Giustina was in 
 the square ten years later, when Napoleon 
 came to Venice a second time. It was a 
 singular meeting enough. 
 
 When the Emperor was passing his troops in review 
 in the square, Bernardino Renier pointed out his cousin 
 Giustina, who was in thecrowd looking on, and Napoleon 
 at once sent two officers to bring her to him. The 
 story is that the Emperor planted himself before her 
 with his arms crossed and his legs apart. 
 
 'What are you celebrated for?' he asked roughly. 
 
 'I, sire? Celebrated?' cried the lady. 
 
 'Yes, you. But to what do you owe your celebrity ?' 
 
 'To friendship, no doubt, which attributes to me an 
 importance I do not possess.' 
 
 'What have you written?' demanded the Emperor. 
 
 ' Little things not worth mentioning,' answered 
 Giustina. 
 
 'Verse or prose ?' 
 
 'In prose, sire. I never was able to write a verse 
 in my life.' 
 
 'Ah, then you improvise, you improvise, do you ?' 
 
 'I wish I could, sire! for I should have an excellent 
 opportunity to-day of covering myself with glory!' 
 
 'Come, what have you written ?' asked the Emperor 
 impatiently. 
 
 'A few translations.'
 
 A NARROW STREET, NEAR THE ACADEMY 
 259
 
 2 6o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 'Translations ?' 
 
 'Of tragedies,' answered Giustina. 
 
 'The tragedies of Racine, I suppose?' 
 
 'I beg your majesty's pardon, I have translated from 
 the English.' 
 
 The eye-witnesses of this meeting say that when 
 the Emperor received this answer he turned on his 
 heel and left the high-born lady standing there. 
 
 The final state of Giustina's mind was somewhat 
 contradictory, for her frankly democratic dreams had 
 faded away, yet there remained an unlimited indulgence 
 for the most contradictory opinions which were some- 
 times expressed in her presence, together with the greatest 
 indignation against those who judged Venice by modern 
 standards, whether they were Venetians or foreigners. 
 She seemed to make it her duty to prevent anything 
 from disturbing the ghost of the defunct Republic. 
 
 When Chateaubriand made his first visit to Venice 
 he had the bad taste to write an article 
 in the Mercure de France, from which I 
 translate a few extracts : — 
 
 Trieste, July thirtieth, 1806. — In Venice there had just 
 been published a new translation of the Genie du Christianisme. 
 This Venice, unless I am mistaken, would please you as little 
 as it pleases me. It is a city against nature ; one cannot take 
 a step without being obliged to get into a boat, or else one is 
 driven to go round by narrow passages more like corridors than 
 streets ! The Square of St. Mark alone is by its general effect 
 worthy of its reputation. The architecture of Venice, which 
 is almost altogether Palladio's, is too capricious and too varied ;
 
 x THE LAST GREAT LADY 261 
 
 it is as if two or three palaces were built one upon the other. 
 And the famous gondolas, all black, look like boats that carry 
 coffins ; I took the first one I saw for a corpse on the way to 
 burial. The sky is not our sky beyond the Apennines. Rome 
 and Naples, my dear friend, and a bit of Florence, there you 
 have all Italy. There is, however, one remarkable thing in 
 Venice, and that is the number of convents built on the islands 
 and reefs round the city, just as other maritime cities are sur- 
 rounded with forts which defend them ; the effect of these 
 religious monuments seen at night over a calm sea is picturesque 
 and touching. There are a few pictures left by Paolo Veronese, 
 Titian. . . . 
 
 Giustina was filled with indignation on reading these 
 lines, which were signed by an author whose sentimental- 
 ism had found an echo in her heart. A lady who 
 admired Foscolo's Jacopo Ortis would naturally be 
 pleased with the Genie du Christianisme. The attack 
 on her beloved native city seemed all the more unkind 
 for that, and she hastened to reply in a long letter 
 written in French, which she published in Pisa in the 
 Gwrnale dei Letterati. She answered Chateaubriand 
 categorically, concluding with the following words : — 
 
 I know that vou have promised to return here ; come then, 
 but come in a mood less sad, in a spirit less weary, with feelings 
 less cold. ... I do not flatter myself that you will exclaim 
 with that Neapolitan poet that Venice was built by the gods, 
 but I hope at least that you will find here something more 
 interesting than the convents on the islands and the translation 
 of your works. 
 
 Giustina had been in her grave eighteen years when 
 Chateaubriand returned to Venice, with a spirit indeed
 
 262 CLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 less weary, and allowed himself to grow enthusiastic, 
 and wrote a beautiful description of the city in his 
 Mhnoires £ Outre Totnbe. 
 
 At one time Napoleon ordered a species of inquiry 
 to be made on the following and similar questions : — 
 What are the prejudices of the Venetians ? What are 
 their political opinions ? What are their dominant 
 tastes ? 1 he well-known and learned writers, Filiasi and 
 Morelli, were commissioned to answer these inquiries, 
 but they refused on the ground that such questions 
 admitted no answer. Giustina's interest and ambition 
 were roused at once, and during several weeks she 
 worked hard at a book on moral statistics which has 
 never been published, but which, no doubt, suggested 
 to her the excellent work she afterwards produced on 
 the origin of Venetian feasts, a book which I have often 
 quoted in these pages. She worked at this with enthu- 
 siasm, bent on evoking in the minds of future genera- 
 tions the memory of beautiful and touching ceremonies 
 long disused when the Republic fell. In that age 
 which loved epithets and classic parallels, the lady who 
 had been nicknamed in Rome the little Venetian Venus 
 was now called the Venetian Antigone. Indeed, she 
 made it her business to defend Venice and Venetian 
 history too. But as she grew old her enthusiasm got 
 the better of her, and she wrote such terrible answers 
 to people who made small mistakes that she could not 
 always get her articles printed. In particular, the 
 tragedian Niccolini published in 1827 a tragedy upon 
 the story of Antonio Foscarini, in which he held up
 
 x THE LAST GREAT LADY 263 
 
 the court that condemned and executed that innocent 
 man to execration, but by methods not honestly 
 historical. Giustina was now over seventy years of age, 
 but she wrote such a furious article on Niccolini's play 
 that no one dared to publish it. 
 
 She was fond of Englishmen, and called them the 
 Swallows, because they came back to Venice at regular 
 intervals, and she used to say that England seemed to 
 her the sister of the ancient Republic of Venice. She 
 had known the Duke of Gloucester when he was a mere 
 child, and when he returned to Venice in 18 16 his first 
 visit was for her. I translate the note she wrote in 
 answer to his message announcing his visit: — 
 
 A message from H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester, delivered 
 at the theatre last night, and saying that he wished to honour 
 the Michiel with his presence, has filled her with lively exalta- 
 tion. She much desired to see him again. If H.R.H. had not 
 become the great Prince he is in virtue of his birth ; if he were 
 still that amiable little boy whom she so often embraced, she 
 would have let him know by this time that she desired to 
 embrace him affectionately. And indeed she might have said 
 so now, since the difference of ages is always the same. Then 
 he was a child and she was young and pretty ; now he is young 
 and charming and she is a little old woman, and also somewhat 
 deaf. There might therefore still be the purest innocence in 
 the sweetest embrace. But setting aside this jesting, which is 
 indeed too familiar, H.R.H. will please to accept in advance 
 the thanks of Giustina Renier Michiel for the honour which 
 he intends to do her this evening, and she is impatiently await- 
 ing that desired moment. 
 
 Though Giustina had begun life by giving signs of
 
 264 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x 
 
 being emancipated, she behaved with the greatest devo- 
 tion to her daughter and her grandchildren. 'I have 
 hardly any company but that of children,' she wrote to 
 a friend. 'I think very highly of their patience, since 
 there is between me and them the same distance of 
 age which exists between them and me. I find I 
 have nothing in common with them but the taste for 
 "anguria," and this is a good argument for the truth 
 of what I say.' 
 
 Her most intimate friend was Isabella Teodochi 
 Albrizzi. This lady was born in Greece, and was a 
 passionate worshipper of the beautiful; her taste in all 
 matters seems to have been more delicate than Giustina's 
 and her character was much more gay and forgetful. 
 Giustina lived in the past, Isabella in the present. 
 Everything about Giustina was Venetian, the mantilla 
 she wore on her head, the furniture she had in her 
 house, the refreshments she offered her friends; to the 
 very last everything connected with her belonged to the 
 eighteenth century. With Isabella Albrizzi nothing, on 
 the contrary, was Venetian, nothing was durable; at 
 one moment the French taste ordered her furniture, 
 her bibelots, and her books, and provided her with 
 subjects of conversation; at another, everything about 
 her was English. 'When you left the Michiel's draw- 
 ing-room you had learned to love Venice,' says her 
 biographer; 'when you left Madame Albrizzi's draw- 
 ing-room you had learned to love Madame Albrizzi.' 
 
 They died nearly at the same time. Giustina breathed 
 her last at the age of seventy-seven on April sixth,
 
 x THE LAST GREAT LADY 265 
 
 1832, surrounded by her grandchildren and her friends. 
 Andrea Maffei wrote that the death of Giustina Michiel 
 was indeed a public loss. 'To the excellence of her 
 mind she united in a high degree the beauty of her 
 character, and I know of no writer who more dearly 
 loved his country than she.'
 
 GRAND CANAL 
 
 XI 
 
 THE LAST CARNIVALS — THE LAST FAIRS 
 THE LAST FEASTS 
 
 No people ever combined business with pleasure, so 
 advantageously as the Venetians, and few governments 
 have understood as well as theirs how to make use of 
 amusement in managing the people; indeed, the method 
 was so convenient that at last the Signory preferred 
 it to all others, and took most pains to promote the 
 
 266
 
 xi THE LAST FAIRS 267 
 
 public gaiety just when the Republic was on the verge 
 of dissolution. There is something un- 
 
 I • 1 L 1 J K0 '"- **' 2lJ - 
 
 natural in the contrast between the outward 
 life and the inward death of Venice in those last years; 
 something that reminds one of the strangest tales ever 
 told by Hoffmann or Edgar Poe. 
 
 Never dull, even at the last, all Venice went mad with 
 delight at the feast of the Ascension, when the great fair 
 was held. It will be remembered that Pope 
 
 . . JI 77- 
 
 Alexander III., on the occasion of his visit 
 to Venice, issued a brief granting numerous indulgences 
 to all persons who would pray in the basilica of 
 Saint Mark between the hour of Vespers on the eve of 
 Ascension Day and Vespers on the day itself; and the 
 brief concluded by invoking the malediction of heaven 
 on any one who should oppose this practice or destroy 
 the document itself. 
 
 With their usual keen eye for business, the Venetians 
 saw at once that while their souls were profiting by the 
 much-needed indulgence, their pockets could be con- 
 veniently filled without vitiating that state of grace 
 which is especially necessary during such religious 
 exercises. Many strangers from the mainland would 
 visit the city on the anniversary, and by holding out a 
 rational and sufficient inducement they could be made 
 to come again, in greater numbers, year after year. 
 Nothing was so sure to attract a rich class of pilgrims 
 as a great annual fair, and to make their coming abso- 
 lutely certain it was only necessary to suspend the 
 duties on imported wares during eight days.
 
 268 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 The first Ascension Fair was held in the year 11S0, 
 when Orio Mastropiero was Doge, and it was a vast 
 financial and popular success. Merchants of all the 
 nations of the earth spread out their merchandise 
 for sale in booths and tents, and under every sort of 
 improvised shelter. For more than a week the Square 
 of Saint Mark's was a vast bazaar of little shops, 
 following the most irregular and winding lanes, just wide 
 enough for two persons. Every merchant, foreign or 
 Venetian, was free to set up his booth as he pleased and 
 where he pleased, and there were thousands of them, in 
 each of which at least one person had to sleep at night. 
 The effect of it all must have been vastly picturesque, 
 as many things were when effect was never thought of. 
 The annual fair was held in this same way for about 
 five hundred years, during which time it did not occur 
 to any of the Signory that the contrast between the 
 amazing irregularity of the bazaar and the solemn sym- 
 metry of the surrounding architecture was disagreeable. 
 Then in the Barocco age came artificial 
 taste and set things to rights, and the Senate 
 issued a decree ordering that the -shops should be set 
 up in straight lines, and by squares, like Chicago; and 
 it seems to me that about that time the Ascension Fair 
 turned itself into the first Universal Industrial Exhibi- 
 tion. From that time there was a commission estab- 
 lished to which all exhibitors were required to send a 
 detailed list of their merchandise. There were no prizes 
 and no medals, yet I have no doubt but that the result 
 was much the same, and that certain houses of mer-
 
 xi THE LAST FAIRS 269 
 
 chant-manufacturers made their reputations and their 
 fortunes on the strength of the impression they created 
 at the Venetian Fair. 
 
 It was destined to be still more like a modern 
 exhibition. In 1776 the Signory commissioned an 
 architect to put up a vast oval building of wood, like a 
 double portico, looking both inwards and outwards, and 
 almost filling the Square of Saint Mark's. It was very 
 practically arranged, for to those who sold the more 
 valuable objects shops were assigned on the inside of 
 the oval, where they were better protected, and the shops 
 on the outside, facing the porticoes of the Procuratie, 
 were filled with the more ordinary wares, which would 
 naturally attract more buyers from the lower classes. 
 
 On this occasion painters and sculptors exhibited 
 their work, and Canova, who was then but nineteen 
 years old, is said to have shown one of G.R.Mickiei, 
 his earliest groups. But we learn without voi.i.279. 
 surprise that the products offered for sale by Venetians 
 were of inferior quality, and that there Marble Group, 
 
 bj 1 ..11 Daedalus and 
 
 ad contrast between the showy Icarus Accade . 
 
 architectural shops and the poor wares mia,RoomXVU, 
 they contained. The end was at hand, and Venetian 
 manufacture was dead. 
 
 But the people cared not for that, and w r ere as gay 
 and happy over the Fair as their ancestors had been 
 hundreds of years ago. It mattered nothing to them; 
 if the wares were poor, the charlatans who cried them 
 up were wittier than ever. There was one in particu- 
 lar, a certain Doctor Buonafede Vitali of Parma, who
 
 270 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 employed four celebrated actors, one of whom was 
 Rubini, famous in Goldoni's companies; tliey were 
 dressed in the four Italian theatrical masks, and by their 
 clever improvisations and witty sallies they advertised 
 the doctor's miracles, and amused the clients that waited 
 to be cured by him. 
 
 There were professional jesters, too, who joked on 
 their own account, and there was usually somewhere 
 a black African buffoon-contortionist; and there were 
 long-legged tumblers, called 'guaghe,' absurdly dressed 
 as women, who kept the crowd laughing, and while the 
 people looked on they chewed the pods of carobs, which 
 were sold off trays with nuts and other things by the 
 Armenians who moved about in the throng. In the 
 motley multitude nobles and magistrates 
 
 Mutinelli, Ult. . r . . ,, , , 
 
 and foreign ambassadors elbowed each 
 other, and great ladies and light ladies, all effectually 
 disguised under the 'tabarro,' the 'bauta,' and the 
 mask, which were allowed in public during the Fair. 
 
 The Espousal of the Sea was the great ceremony of 
 the week, and the one which most directly recalled the 
 visit of Alexander III. It was last performed by the 
 last Doge in 1796, the six-hundred-and-eighteenth time, 
 I believe, since its institution, and all the ancient cere- 
 monial was carefully followed. 
 
 On the eve of the Ascension, the Bucentaur was 
 hauled out of the Arsenal and anchored off the Piazzetta 
 
 Mutineiu, m full view of the delighted population. 
 
 LessUo. j t was no ] on g er t he 'Busus aureus,' built 
 
 by the Senate in 131 1, and towed by a small boat from
 
 XI 
 
 THE LAST FAIRS 
 
 271 
 
 Murano, called the 'peota.' In four hundred years new 
 ones had been constructed several times, and the last 
 
 
 
 «;■ 
 
 K'i* lr * *^ j ^ i 1 'i'Is A '- ' ' ' l^~ 1 all wff I . - fit n" 
 
 «* S*P 
 
 f 
 
 
 CHURCH OF THE MIRACLE 
 
 Bucentaur was built in 1728. It was about one hundred 
 and fifteen feet over all, with twenty-two feet beam,
 
 272 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 and was twenty-six feet deep from upper poop-deck to 
 
 keel. In length and beam it had therefore about the 
 dimensions of a fair-sized schooner yacht, but it was 
 vastly higher out of water, and was flat-bottomed, so as 
 to draw very little. The consequence was that even in 
 smooth water it might have been laid over by a squall, 
 and it was never used except in absolutely fine weather. 
 It w 7 as rowed by one hundred and seventy-eight free 
 artisans from the Arsenal, who swung forty-two oars, 
 each of which, however, according to the model now 
 preserved, consisted of three, linked and swung together 
 in one rowlock. The rowers occupied what we should 
 call the main deck, and the upper deck was fitted up 
 G.R.MicMei, as one l° n g cabin or saloon, taking the 
 Origim,t.ii)j. wno i e length of the vessel, but rising by a 
 step at the after end, and having a small window at the 
 stern from which the Doge threw out the ring in the 
 course of the ceremony. His throne was further raised 
 by two steps. Over the cabin were spread enormous 
 draperies of crimson velvet, ornamented with gold 
 fringe, gold lace, and gold tassels. In the stern, within 
 the cabin, was figured a marine Victory with appropriate 
 trophies, and two carved babies, of the rotund and well- 
 creased breed dear to the eighteenth century, supported 
 a huge shell as a canopy over the throne. The fair 
 Giustina Michiel's description of the decorations makes 
 one's blood run cold. Prudence and Strength stood 
 sentinels at the Doge's elbows. In the ceiling of the 
 saloon Apollo smiled upon the nine Muses, pleased to 
 consider the Bucentaur as his temple; the Virtues were
 
 xi THE LAST FAIRS 273 
 
 inappropriately present, too, and with more reason the 
 Arts, or Occupations, of Shipbuilding, Fishing, Hunting, 
 and the like. The saloon had no less than forty-eight 
 windows, from which the numerous party of ambas- 
 sadors, magistrates, and distinguished strangers who 
 accompanied the Doge could see all that went on. 
 Lastly, the vessel's figurehead was a colossal wooden 
 statue of Justice, 'protecting goddess of every well- 
 regulated government,' says the lady Giustina, and 
 therefore as inappropriate there as the Virtues them- 
 selves. 
 
 At the hour of tierce, which was somewhere near 
 eight o'clock in the morning at Ascension, all the 
 bells began to ring, except, I think, that solemn one 
 that tolled while condemned men were being led to 
 death; and excepting, too, that one of lighter tone, the 
 ' Bankrupt's Bell,' which was rung every day for half 
 an hour about noon, during which time debtors might 
 walk abroad and sun themselves without being arrested. 
 
 Then the Doge came from his palace preceded by 
 his squires, and the silver trumpets, and the standards, 
 and the bearer of the ducal sword, and the 
 
 M.^, . . . . Carrer, Annali. 
 
 issier (jrande, who was nothing more nor 
 
 less than the head constable of Venice; and after his 
 
 Serenity came the High Chancellor, the Pope's Nuncio, 
 
 the ambassadors, and the principal magistrates. When 
 
 all were on board the Bucentaur, a salute of artillery 
 
 gave the signal of departure, and the huge oars began 
 
 to swing and dip; and after the big barge came the 
 
 smaller one of the 'Doge' of the fishermen, the 
 
 VOL. II. — T
 
 274 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 Niccolotti, the little ' peota ' of the Murano glass-blowers, 
 and the barges and boats of the Signory, and all the 
 gondolas of Venice, richly draped for that one day. So 
 all moved slowly out; and when they passed the statue 
 of the Virgin before the Arsenal all the people sang, 
 and sent up prayers and invocations with suppliant 
 gestures 'to the Great Mother of Victories,' and the 
 sailors cheered and yelled. Then they went on to Saint 
 Helen's island. 
 
 There the Patriarch was waiting with his flat boat, 
 and the monks of Saint Helen served him a collation 
 of chestnuts and red wine, which, at eight or nine 
 o'clock in the morning, was cruelly ungastronomic; and 
 the Patriarch gave his sailors bread and fresh broad 
 beans in the shell. 
 
 The Patriarch sent acolytes to the Doge with a 
 nosegay of Damascus roses; and his flat boat having 
 been taken in tow by the Bucentaur, and another boat 
 in which a choir sang the hymns composed for the 
 occasion, they all moved out towards the open sea. 
 
 Then, in profound silence, the Doge opened the 
 
 little stern window behind his throne, and the Patriarch, 
 
 Horatio Brown, wno na d come on board, poured holy water 
 
 Venice. j nto t Yi e sea anc | p ra yed, saying, 'Lord, 
 
 vouchsafe calm and quiet weather to all them that 
 
 journey by sea'; after which prayer the Patriarch 
 
 handed the ring to the Doge, who dropped 
 
 Carrer, Annali. . . . & . i i i i 
 
 it into the sea just where the holy water 
 had been poured, saying, 'We espouse thee, O Sea, in 
 token of perpetual sovereignty.'
 
 xi THE LAST FAIRS 275 
 
 The guns of the fortresses thundered out a salute, and 
 all the thousands of spectators cheered for Saint Mark, 
 and all the young men waved flags ; then the whole 
 company began to throw flowers, freshly cut, from boat 
 to boat, and the Patriarch presented great silver dishes 
 full of flowers to the Doge; and all went ashore at San 
 Nicola on the Lido to hear the pontifical high mass, after 
 which every man went home to his own house. 
 
 That was the ceremony at which the Venetians assisted 
 in 1796, little guessing that they saw it for the last 
 time. A few months later a vandal mob 
 
 Rom. x.joj; 
 
 beached the Bucentaur on the island of San Mutineiu, 
 
 Gtv it • 1 • 1 • r 11 • Lessit o and (Jit. 
 
 lorgio Maggiore, and stripped it or all its 
 
 ornaments, to burn them and get the gold. The hull 
 
 was then armed with four heavy old guns, and was 
 
 turned into a. sort of floating battery and sailors' prison 
 
 at the entrance of the harbour. On her stern was 
 
 painted her new name 'Idra,' the Hydra, and there she 
 
 rotted for years. A few fragments of the old vessel are 
 
 now preserved in the Arsenal. More than two hundred 
 
 men worked at reducing the Bucentaur and the two big 
 
 carved boats of the Signory to the democratic standard 
 
 of beauty. 
 
 The last pilot of the Bucentaur was Andrea Chiribini, 
 
 who, like all his predecessors, called himself 'admiral,' 
 
 and was a ruffian not worth the rope with Mutineiu, ua. ; 
 
 which he should have been hanged when Bembo < Ben - ^s- 
 
 he was young. He was one of the worst types in the 
 
 Venetian revolution; and after living all his life on the 
 
 bounty of the Signory, he was the first to help in
 
 276 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 XI 
 
 breaking up the Bucentaur, and in sacking the Arsenal. 
 In order to reward him for these noble arts of patriotism, 
 and in the absence of appropriate funds, he was given 
 a magnificent carved jewel of oriental chalcedony from 
 the treasure of Saint Mark. The talisman did not bring 
 the fellow luck. After wandering about for nearly 
 thirty years, living more or less dishonestly by his wits, 
 
 
 THE PROCESSION OF THE REDENTORE 
 
 he presented himself one day in 1826 at one of the 
 asylums for the poor, where he spent a day; but when 
 towards evening he was requested to put on the dress 
 of the establishment, he flew into such a terrible rage 
 that he had fever all night, and had to be watched. On 
 the following morning he shook the dust from his feet 
 and departed, declaring that a gentleman like himself 
 could not live among such brigands. During two vears 
 the workmen of the Arsenal subscribed to give him a
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS 
 
 277 
 
 pittance; at the end of that time, feeling that his clays 
 were numbered, he consented to enter the little hospice 
 of Saint Ursula, which a pious person of the fourteenth 
 century had founded for the perpetual support of three 
 poor old men. 
 
 It is said that the last Carnival of Venice was the 
 gayest in all her history, and fully realised the condition 
 of things described by Goldoni some years earlier in his 
 comedy La Mascbcrata. I translate the couplet into 
 prose : — 
 
 Here the wife and there the husband, 
 Each one does as best he likes ; 
 Each one hastens to some partv, 
 Some to gamble, some to dance. 
 Provided every one in Carnival 
 May do exactly as he chooses, 
 It would not seem a serious matter 
 Even to go raving mad. 
 
 A good many different traditional and legendary 
 feasts amused the Venetians in old times, but the only 
 one that has survived to our own day is G . g m Mkkiei, 
 the Festa del Redentore, the feast of the »"-j*9- 
 Redeemer, which was instituted as a thanksgiving after 
 the cessation of the plague in 1576, and is kept even now 
 both as a civil and religious holiday. The serenades, 
 illuminations, and feasts in the island of the Giudecca 
 certainly delight the Venetian populace of to-day as 
 much as in the times when the old flag of Saint Mark 
 floated over everything, and the little movable kitchens 
 on wheels were adorned with the symbols of the Evan-
 
 2;S (CLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 gelist prettily outlined with flowers on a ground of 
 green leaves. 
 
 The central point of all amusement in Carnival was 
 the theatre, for the Venetians always had a passion for 
 spectacles, and, at a time when the worst possible taste 
 debased the stage throughout Italy, the reform which 
 has since raised the Italian theatre so high began in 
 Venice with Goldoni's comedies. Properly speaking, 
 there was no dramatic art in Italy before him. As I 
 have explained in speaking of the sixteenth century, the 
 Hose Club founded the first theatre, but most of the per- 
 formances were what we still call mummeries, in which 
 more or less symbolic personages said anything witty or 
 profound that occurred to them, or talked nonsense in 
 the absence of inspiration. Pantaloon was the national 
 mask of Venice, and was always supposed to be a doctor 
 who became involved in the most astonishing adventures. 
 Valaresso, a man of taste in those days, produced a play 
 that ended with a battle supposed to be fought behind 
 the scenes. In his satire the poet makes the prompter 
 appear upon the stage carrying a little lamp. ' Ladies and 
 Aureii, vita gentlemen,' he says, 'I see that you are ex- 
 dei Pergoieti. p ec ting some one to bring you news of the 
 battle ; but it is of no use to wait, for every one is dead.' 
 Thereupon he blows out his lamp, and goes off to bed. 
 
 In his memoirs Goldoni explains the rules then 
 followed by dramatic authors. He had occasion to 
 
 Goidoni, i. learn them himself when he read his first 
 
 xxviu. ^ piece, Amalasunta, to Count Prata, director 
 of one of the large theatres in Milan.
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS 279 
 
 ' It seems to me,' said the Count, ' that you have studied 
 tolerably well the Poetics of Aristotle and the Ars Poetica of 
 Horace, and that you have written your composition according 
 to the true principles of tragedy. Then you did not know 
 that a musical drama is an imperfect work, subject to rules and 
 traditions which have no common sense, it is true, but which 
 must be followed to the very letter. If you had been in 
 France you might have thought more of pleasing the public, 
 but here you must please actors and actresses, you must satisfy 
 the composer of the music, you must consult the scene-painter; 
 everything has its rules, and it would be a crime of lese majest'e 
 against the art of playwriting to dare to break them or not to 
 submit to them. Listen to me,' he continued, ' I am going 
 to point out to you some rules which are unchangeable, and 
 which you do not know. Each of the three principal charac- 
 ters in the drama must sing five airs — two in the first act, two 
 in the second act, and one in the third. The second actress 
 and the second " man " soprano can only have three, and the 
 third parts must be satisfied with one, or two at the most. 
 The author of the words must provide the musician with the 
 different shades which form the chiaroscuro of the music, 
 taking good care that two pathetic airs shall not follow each 
 other. It is also necessary to separate with the same care 
 showy airs, airs of action, of undefined character, minuets, and 
 rondeaux. One must be especially careful to give no airs of 
 affection or movement nor showy airs nor rondeaux to the sec- 
 ond parts. These poor people must be contented with what is 
 assigned to them, for they are not allowed to make a good figure.' 
 
 Count Prata would have said more, but Goldoni 
 stopped him, for he had heard quite enough. He 
 went home in that state of mind which some young 
 authors have known, and obtained a sort of morbid 
 satisfaction from burning his manuscript.
 
 280 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 'As I was poking the pieces of my manuscript together to 
 complete the burning,' he savs, ' it occurred to me that in no 
 case had any disappointment made me sacrifice mv supper. I 
 called the waiter, and told him to lay the cloth and bring me 
 something to eat at once. ... I ate well, drank better, went 
 to bed and slept with the most perfect tranquillity.' 
 
 Goldoni was of the strong, to whom is the race. 
 Portrait of Goi- From the ashes of his Amalasunta rose 
 d °T f ' ?'„ n"f-l'' the comedies that reformed the Italian 
 
 Aluseo Ctvico, 
 
 Room ix. stage. 
 
 The composers were not much better off than the 
 playwrights. 
 
 'The modern master,' says Marcello, 'must make his 
 
 manager give him a large orchestra of violins, hautboys, horns, 
 
 Teat™ alia and so forth, saving him rather the expense of 
 
 moda, Benedetto t ^ e double basses, as he need not use these except 
 
 Marcello, quoted . . . 
 
 byMolmentiin for giving the chords at the beginning. I he 
 Nuovi studi. Symphony is to consist of a French time, or 
 prestissimo of semiquavers in major, which as usual must be 
 succeeded by a piano of the same key in minor, closing finally 
 in a minuet, gavotte, or jig, again in the major, thus avoiding 
 fugues, legature, themes, etc., etc., as old things outside of the 
 modern fashion. He will endeavour to give the best airs to 
 the prima donna, and if he has to shorten the opera he will 
 not allow the suppression of airs or roundels.' 
 
 The same master observes wittily that the authors 
 of the words to accompany this sort of music generally 
 excused themselves from reading the works of older 
 writers, on the ground that the latter had not been able 
 to read their successors, but had, nevertheless, done
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS 281 
 
 very well. When the playwright or musician had 
 succeeded in pleasing the actors, the actresses, the 
 manager, the scene-painter, and all the rest of the 
 company, he still had to please the Council of Ten, 
 not to mention the Inquisitors of State and the 
 Inquisitors of the Holy Office, for they all had some- 
 thing to say in the censorship of the theatre. 
 
 The infamous Jacopo Casanova, who amongst a 
 number of ignoble occupations acted as a confidant or 
 spy to the Council of Ten, called attention Moimenti, Nuovi 
 in 1776 to a piece called Coriolanus, which Studt,joo. 
 was being given in the theatre of San Benedetto. It 
 appears to have been a sort of pantomime, which 
 presented on the stage a starving population, a cruel 
 nobility, the unjust condemnation of Coriolanus, the 
 tears of Virgilia and Volumnia, everything, in short, 
 which, according to the scrupulous Casanova, could 
 pervert the Venetian people; and the Inquisitors 
 accordingly suppressed the piece. 
 
 Sometimes these gentlemen shut up the provincial 
 theatres altogether for a time with a view to stopping 
 the advance of modern ideas. Here is an edict relating 
 to these measures of prudence, signed by the Doge 
 one year before the fall of the Republic. The first 
 paragraph is in Latin, the rest is in Italian. 
 
 Ludovicus Manin, by the grace of God Doge of Venice, 
 to the noble and wise man, Federicus Bembo, by Moimenti, 
 his commission Podesta and Captain of Mestre, Nuovi Studi. 
 Fid. Dil. Sal. et Dil. Aff. \Fideli dilecto salutem et dilectionis 
 affectum.^
 
 282 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 Seeing that the Austrian troops now coming down from 
 Friuli are about to enter the Trevisan province, to which some 
 of the French troops may also move, and it being according 
 to the zealous forethought of the government to remove all 
 inducements which give individuals of the troops the desire to 
 come still nearer to these lagoons, the Council of Ten, consid- 
 ering that one inducement might be the reopening of the theatre, 
 orders you to put it off as long as may seem best to the pru- 
 dence of the Hcaus of the said Council. 
 
 Given in our Ducal Palace on the twenty-seventh of Sep- 
 tember in the fifteenth year of the Indiction, 1796. [I find 
 that the year of the Indiction does not correspond with the date.] 
 
 There was another magistracy which also had to do 
 with the theatres. The ' Provveditori di Commun' 
 
 MutineiH. fixed the price of the libretto of the play. 
 Lessico, • Teatro: j t was tne Council of Ten, however, that 
 named the hour at which the performance was to begin 
 and end. 
 
 The lighting of the theatres was wretched and the 
 boxes were completely dark, which appears to have 
 
 Moimenti, given the ladies a considerable sense of 
 Nuovistudi. security, for I find that in 1756 the noble 
 dame Pisani Grimani, who owned the theatre of San 
 Benedetto, was forbidden by the Inquisitors of State to 
 stand at the door of her box in a costume which might 
 'produce grave disorder.' 
 
 In 1776 the government made an effort to limit 
 such extreme views of comfort in warm weather, and 
 an edict was issued commanding ladies to wear modest 
 dresses, with domino and hood, at the theatre. The 
 noble ladies Maria Bon Toderim and Elisabetta Labia
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS Z83 
 
 Priuli were put under arrest in their own houses in the 
 following year for having, in their boxes, thrown back 
 their hoods and allowed them to slip down upon their 
 shoulders. 
 
 The musicians' desks were lighted with candles of 
 Spanish wax, from Segovia in Castile. The stage was 
 illuminated by lamps fed with olive oil. In the dim 
 house there seems to have been a good deal of rough 
 play, and the patricians in the boxes occasionally threw 
 'projectiles' — possibly hard sweet-meats are meant — - 
 at the people in the pit. The lights were put out as soon 
 as the curtain fell on the last act, and the spectators 
 groped their way out in the dark as they could, helped 
 by the big brass lanterns which the gondoliers brought 
 to the door when they came to wait for their masters. 
 
 Plays were not advertised at all. A small bill 
 giving the name of the play and the names of the 
 authors was pasted up in the Piazzetta, and another 
 was to be seen at the Rialto, but that was all. It was 
 the business of the State to provide foreign ambassadors 
 and ministers with boxes, and a vast deal of care was 
 bestowed on this matter, which was full of difficulties; 
 for the boxes were generally the property of private 
 families that did not at all like to give them up. But 
 the government always reserved the right to take any 
 boxes it chose for the use of the Diplomatic Corps. 
 In Venice, the smallest affairs were always conducted 
 according to a prescribed method, and there was a 
 regular rule by which the boxes were distributed. The 
 document has been found by Signor Molmenti in the
 
 284 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi 
 
 Archives of the Inquisitors of State, docketed and 
 labelled: 'Theatres. Foreign Ambassadors. Boxes.' 
 Here it is : — 
 
 The Ambassadors present themselves with a formal request 
 (memoriale) to the Most Excellent Council. By the latter, 
 through a Secretary of the Senate, His Serenity is requested to 
 draw the lots for the boxes of each. He puts into the ballot- 
 box the numbers of all the boxes on that row which corre- 
 sponds to the rank of the Minister who applies, and he draws 
 one number. The proscenium boxes are excepted, and the bal- 
 cony, the boxes occupied by other Ministers, and the one that 
 belonged to the Minister who last went away. Afterwards, by 
 the method explained hereinafter, notice (of the number drawn) 
 is sent to the Minister, the owner (of the box), and the Council. 
 
 When the Minister does not like the box drawn for him, he 
 lays before the Council his request that it may be changed, 
 and by the same method His Serenity is requested to draw 
 again. In that case he only puts in the numbers of the boxes 
 opposite which are free, he draws again and sends the notices 
 to that effect, informing the owner of the second box that he 
 may use the one first drawn. 
 
 When the box was at last drawn and had been 
 accepted by the Minister, the owner of it received a 
 notice in the following form : — 
 
 This day . . . (date). Bv order of the Most Excellent 
 Savi (literally, ' Wise Men ') notice is given to Your Excel- 
 lency the Noble Sir, etc., etc. ... (or Noble Dame, or Your 
 Illustrious Worship, or other proper title), that His Serenity 
 has drawn Box No. . . . Row ... in the . . . theatre be- 
 longing to Your Excellency (or other title) for His Excellency 
 the Ambassador (or Minister) of . . ., and this notice is sent 
 you for your guidance.
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS 2X5 
 
 The feelings of the box-owner, dispossessed by this 
 formal nonsense, may be guessed, for the indemnity 
 paid by the ambassadors was very small. Mutineiu, 
 It seems that even the Council anticipated Lessuo. 
 that he would use bad language, for the underling who 
 took him the notice was a Comandator-Portier, and 
 was made to wear a red cap with the arms of the 
 Republic as a badge 'to protect him against abuse'! 
 
 In 1 791, when a company formed of nobles under- 
 took to build the Fenice Theatre, using part of the ruins 
 of the old theatre of San Benedetto, they presented to 
 the Doge a memorandum concerning the boxes for the 
 Diplomatic Corps, of which I give an extract for the 
 sake of its monumental absurdity, translating the terms 
 quite literally: — 
 
 The reverend Company of the New Theatre is disposed to 
 meet the public commands with submissive obedience, and will 
 therefore at all times venerate whatsoever Your Serenity may 
 be pleased to prescribe. . . . 
 
 In order to continue the building begun, it is necessary to 
 sell the new boxes which have been added to those which 
 formed the last theatre, and the greatest profit that may be 
 hoped for lies in those situated in the first and second rows ; 
 but, as those places are subject to the dispositions above alluded 
 to, which take from the owners the use of their own boxes, 
 without fixing the measure of the corresponding indemnity, 
 the sale of those boxes would be rendered impossible in the 
 present state of things, to the incalculable damage of the sink- 
 ing companv, which would thus see removed the hope of soon 
 finishing the building begun, or else would be put to new and 
 enormous expense which would cause to vanish those expecta-
 
 2 86 
 
 (il IWIViS FROM HISTORY 
 
 \i 
 
 tions of profit which the Sovereign Clemency of the Most 
 Excellent Council of Ten had benignly permitted the Company 
 to entertain. . 
 
 NEAR THE F-ENICE 
 
 The memorandum ends with the rather startling 
 statement that the pretensions of the ambassadors, if
 
 xi THE LAST CARNIVALS 2N; 
 
 admitted, would cause the Company to lose eleven 
 thousand ducats. 
 
 The Doge, who afterwards showed small alacrity 
 to act when the country was in mortal danger, was 
 apparently much moved on receiving the Company's 
 petition, and forthwith summoned the Senate to consider 
 the weighty matter; it is true that if he had done 
 anything for the petitioners without appealing to that 
 body, he would have been naturally suspected of being 
 a shareholder. 
 
 The Senate decided that, without making any change 
 in the method of drawing boxes, and without prejudice 
 to the existing system in any other theatre, ambassadors 
 should pay owners one hundred and sixty ducats for 
 boxes in the first row, and that ministers should pay 
 eighty ducats for those in the second ; whereby, said the 
 Senate, which still preserved traditions of business, the 
 owners of the said boxes would be getting four per 
 cent on the money they had invested. 
 
 The construction of the famous Fenice lasted twenty 
 months, and the new theatre opened with an opera by 
 Paisiello on a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.
 
 i i 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■**^iS^«ll 
 
 
 Yf 
 
 GRAND CANAL FROM THE FISH MARKET 
 
 XII 
 
 THE LAST MAGISTRATES 
 
 The philosophical reader will naturally ask what 
 elements composed the Great Council of the Venetian 
 Republic at a time when France was on the brink of 
 the Revolution, and all Europe was about to be shaken 
 by the explosion of the first new idea that had dawned 
 on mankind since Christianity. I shall try to answer 
 the question. 
 
 288
 
 0* b*M 
 
 J i M j 
 
 • ess 1 m 
 
 \\\\\ 
 
 
 S. BARNABb 
 
 VOL. II. U 
 
 289
 
 2qo GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xu 
 
 There were three classes of men in the Council : first, 
 
 the ancient aristo-plutocracy which, though with a few 
 
 additions to its numbers, and though itself 
 
 Rom. ix. 7. . D 
 
 divided into two parties, had on the whole- 
 steered the Republic through eleven hundred years of 
 history; secondly, a number of families, mostly of 
 'new men,' though they had sat in the Council four 
 hundred years and more, but who had all been more or 
 less occupied with the legal profession since they had 
 existed; thirdly and lastly, the poor nobles called the 
 ' Barnabotti,' from the quarter of San Barnabb, where 
 most of them were lodged at the public expense. 
 
 The first category generally held the posts of highest 
 dignity, many of which implied a salary by no means 
 small, but never sufficient to pay for the display which 
 the position required, according to accepted customs. 
 The traditional splendour which the Venetian ambas- 
 sadors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had in- 
 augurated was dear to the Senate, and had come to be 
 officially required, if not actually prescribed in so many 
 words. These great families had long been accustomed 
 to play the leading parts, and as the business spirit 
 which had made Venice the richest power in Europe 
 died out, their pride was often greater than their sense 
 of responsibility. These and many other causes lowered 
 the standard according to which young Venetians had 
 been brought up during centuries to understand the 
 administration of their country; and the result was that 
 they were not fit to fill the offices to which they were 
 called, and therefore handed over their work to private
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 291 
 
 secretaries, who were generally ambitious and intriguing 
 men. To be a member of the Great Council had now 
 only a social value, like those hereditary coats of arms 
 in which there had once been such deep meaning. 
 Throughout ages the aristocracy of Venice had differed 
 altogether from the nobility of other countries, but as 
 decadence advanced to decay, and decay threatened 
 destruction, the Venetian senator grew more and more 
 like the French marquis of the same period. 
 
 In an access of greatness Louis XIV. is reported to 
 have said, 'L'etat c'est moi!' but the State continued 
 to exist without him. The Venetian nobles might 
 have said with much more truth, and perhaps with more 
 reasonable pride, 'We nobles are the Republic!' For 
 when they degenerated into dolls, the Republic soon 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 The second category of nobles comprised by far the 
 sanest and most intelligent part of the aristocracy, and 
 it was generally from their ranks that the Quarantie 
 were chosen, as well as the 'Savi,' and those magistrates 
 from whom special industry and intelligence were re- 
 quired, or at least hoped. 
 
 The Barnabotti had nothing in common with the 
 two other classes, except their vanity of caste, which 
 was so infinitely far removed from pride. As I have 
 said, they owed their name to the parish Moinunti, Nwmi 
 which most of them inhabited. Their studt,jos. 
 nobility was more or less recent and doubtful, and 
 almost all had ruined themselves in trying to rival the 
 richer families. The majority of them had nothing
 
 292 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 but a small pension, paid them by the government, 
 and barely sufficient to lift them out of 
 
 Horatio Brown, _ J 
 
 Venue, iog; actual misery. It was especially for them 
 that the College of Nobles had been founded, 
 in which their sons were educated for nothing, with all 
 the usual imperfections of gratuitous education. Like 
 the 'New Men' of the fourteenth century, they felt 
 that an insurmountable barrier separated them from the 
 older and richer classes, and the humiliations to which 
 they were often exposed by the latter kept alive in 
 them the sort of hatred which was felt in other parts of 
 Europe by the agricultural population for the owners 
 of the land. Their poverty and rancorous disposition 
 made them especially the objects of bribery when any 
 party in the Great Council needed the assistance of 
 their votes against another. 
 
 The better sort of Venetians were well aware of the 
 evils that were destroying the governing body. In 
 1774 a member of the Council made a speech on the 
 subject, in which he said that the greatest damage the 
 Republic had suffered had been caused by the action 
 of time; it lay in the already very sensible diminution 
 in the numbers of the Great Council, which was, in fact, 
 the government itself. He pointed out that within one 
 century a large number of patrician families had become 
 extinct, and that the condition of the aris- 
 
 Cecchetti, qttoting . 
 
 Arch. Ven. tocracy must clearly continue to go from 
 
 bad to worse. It could not be otherwise, 
 
 since marriages were yearly becoming less numerous. 
 
 A family was looked upon as a calamity, because
 
 XII 
 
 THE LAST MAGISTRATES 
 
 293 
 
 it meant a division of fortune, and therefore inter- 
 fered with those ancient traditions of almost royal 
 
 
 
 
 MMm ■ II km 
 
 INSTITUTO BON, GRAND CANAL 
 
 magnificence which appealed to the vanity of younger 
 men.
 
 294 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 The speech to which I have alluded was delivered 
 not very many years after the time when a number of 
 seats in the Grand Council had been sold in order to 
 meet the expenses of the Turkish war. In 1775, in 
 order to increase the numbers of the Council, it was 
 proposed to admit to it forty noble families from the 
 provinces, provided they could prove that they had a 
 yearly income of ten thousand ducats. The proposal 
 was energetically opposed by a Contarini. If the sons 
 of ancient families showed so little zeal for the public 
 welfare, he argued, what could be expected of strangers ? 
 Was it wise to display to all Europe the evils from 
 which the Republic was suffering ? Moreover, even 
 if the bill were passed, would it be easy to find forty 
 families willing to leave their homes and establish them- 
 selves in the capital to the great damage of their 
 fortunes ? And if they were found, would their admis- 
 sion not result in impoverishing the provinces by the 
 amount of their incomes which would be spent in 
 Venice ? It was luxury and extravagance that were 
 ruining the country, he said. 
 
 A lively discussion followed. 'Beloved sons,' cried 
 one old noble, 'for us who are old there may be a little 
 of the Republic left, but for you children it is com- 
 pletely finished!' The bill passed, but Contarini had 
 been right; only about ten families asked to be in- 
 scribed in the Golden Book. 
 
 Satirists and lampooners made merry with the 
 proceedings of the Great Council. After the stormy 
 sittings just referred to, the caricatures of the five
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 295 
 
 patricians entrusted with framing measures of reform 
 were to be seen everywhere in the city, and 
 
 .... . .. T Rom.viii.2iz, 
 
 a copy of the cut is still in the Archives. It 
 
 represents the most eloquent and zealous of the com- 
 mittee, Alvise Emo, urging his horse against an enor- 
 mous marble column; two of his colleagues follow 
 him in a post-chaise and observe his movements with 
 a spy-glass; a fourth, who is lame, is trying to follow 
 the carriage on foot, and the fifth comes after him, 
 beating him to make him mend his pace. 
 
 On the twenty-second of May 1779 the secretary 
 of the Inquisitors of State wrote to his brother Giuseppe 
 Gradenigo, then in France: 'If these gentlemen do 
 not seriously think of taking measures to meet the 
 events which are brewing, if they do not introduce 
 some order into the affairs of the army and navy, the 
 Republic will be lost as soon as an enemy appears on 
 land or by sea.' 
 
 This letter was prophetic. The idleness and in- 
 dolence of the nobility were such that it was hard to 
 obtain an attendance at meetings of the Great Council 
 or the Senate. The members were accustomed to spend 
 their nights in gambling-dens and cafes, and it was a 
 hard matter for them to get up in the morning. Their 
 physicians recommended rest, which they indeed needed; 
 and as they could not take any at night, they devoted a 
 large part of the day to following the doctor's advice. 
 Yet as it was necessary that the government should 
 go on in some way, it became habitual to leave every- 
 thing to the Savi of the Council, who on their part fell
 
 296 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 into the habit of not always rendering an account of 
 what they did. By obligingly saving their colleagues 
 the trouble of getting out of bed, they made themselves 
 the arbiters of the Republic's final destiny. 
 
 With regard to the other magistracies, a few anec- 
 dotes will give a good idea of what they had become. 
 My readers know that the Avogadori enjoyed very great 
 consideration, and that it was their business to see that 
 all the tribunals did their work smoothly and regularly. 
 One of these important officers, Angelo Quirini, who 
 was at the same time one of the most distinguished 
 members of the Senate, exhibited his power and courage 
 by banishing from Venice a little milliner who had made 
 a mistake in trimming certain caps for a great lady in 
 whom he was interested. From her exile the woman 
 wrote a protest to the Inquisitors of State, who did her 
 justice and recalled her. Quirini now lost his temper 
 with these gentlemen and swore that they were encroach- 
 ing upon his rights. Just at this time a 
 
 Rom. viii. 104. . , r , 5 , -urc \r t 1 
 
 rich member of the parish of ban Vitale 
 
 departed this life, and the sacristans prepared to bury 
 his body; but the deceased belonged to a confraternity 
 called La Scuola Grande della Carita, and his brethren 
 claimed the right of burying him to the exclusion of 
 the parish sacristans. The Inquisitors of State and the 
 Council of Ten took the matter up; the Provveditori 
 alia Sanita, who were the health officers, declared that 
 the matter concerned them only; the elders and judges 
 of the guilds and corporations took part in the dis- 
 cussion, and a general quarrel ensued, which was only
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 297 
 
 brought to a close by the authority of the Council 
 of Ten. But this did not please Angelo Ouirini, who 
 violently attacked the Council and began to give himself 
 the airs of a popular tribune, though not possessing 
 the popularity which is essential for the position. The 
 people, in fact, would have none of him. One night 
 the Council of Ten caused him to be quietly taken from 
 his palace and carried off under a good escort to the 
 fortress of Verona. The matter now had to be brought 
 before the Great Council, and a regular trial was held 
 to ascertain how the Council of Ten and the Inquisitors 
 were in the habit of performing their duties. 
 
 t-. • , , , r> . . Rom, viii. 108. 
 
 During several days the Lorregiton re- 
 ceived all the complaints that were handed in, and 
 examined the archives of the two tribunals. Those of 
 the Ten were found to be in perfect order, but those 
 of the Inquisitors were in the utmost con- 
 fusion. The whole city discussed the affair 
 excitedly, and nothing else was spoken of in the streets, 
 in the cafes, and in drawing-rooms. It was the first time 
 in history that the tribunal of the Inquisitors of State 
 had been put under an inquiry, and this tremendous 
 result had been produced because a little milliner had 
 made a cap that did not fit. 
 
 Endless discussions followed. A number of patri- 
 cians declared that if the Council of Ten and the 
 Inquisitors of State were abolished, they themselves 
 would not stay another day in Venice, as there would 
 no longer be any check on the violence and the 
 intrigues of men of their own class : a confession which
 
 298 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 suddenly exhibits the whole aristocracy in its true 
 
 lisdit. 
 
 Others proved beyond all question that a tribunal 
 
 which was particularly charged with the preservation of 
 
 the State from danger could not always 
 
 do its work with the miserable tardiness 
 
 of the other magistracies, and they recalled the many 
 
 Rom. via. ij6- cases in which the Ten had saved Venice. 
 
 JJ7 - One of the debates was prolonged for five 
 
 consecutive hours. At last the Conservative party 
 
 carried the day. 
 
 The wild enthusiasm of the population, on learning 
 that the Ten and the Inquisitors were to remain in 
 existence, shows well enough what the people thought; 
 their only protection against the nobles lay in the two 
 tribunals. Six thousand persons waited in the Square 
 of Saint Mark's to learn the result of the contest, and 
 when it was known proceeded to burn fireworks before 
 the palaces of the nobles who had been the chief 
 speakers in defence of the Ten — Foscarini, Marcello, 
 and Grimani. The populace then declared that it 
 would set fire to the houses of the nobles who had 
 tried to do away with the only institution they still 
 feared, and the palaces of the Zen and the Renier were 
 only saved from fire and pillage by the energetic inter- 
 vention of the Inquisitors of State, whose office those 
 aristocrats had attempted to abolish. 
 
 I know of no more convincing answer to the 
 numerous dilettante historians who have accused the 
 Council of Ten of oppressing the people.
 
 XII 
 
 THE LAST MAGISTRATES 
 
 299 
 
 If the Council and the Inquisitors were in need of 
 an excuse for occasionally overstepping their powers in 
 order to act quickly, they had a good one in the absurdly 
 cumbrous system of the magistracies, as they existed in 
 the eighteenth century. As a curiosity, 
 I give a list of the principal magistracies, 
 taken by Romanin from an almanack of 1796, the last 
 year of the Republic: — 
 
 Rom. viii. jgg. 
 
 The Doge's Counsellors 
 
 Savi of the Council . 
 
 Procurators of Saint Mark 
 
 'Criminal' Quarantia 
 
 'Old' Civil Quarantia 
 
 'New' Civil Quarantia 
 
 Colleges of the XXV. and the XV. 
 
 Senate 
 
 ' Zonta,' supplementary to Senate 
 
 Council of Ten 
 
 Inquisitors (of Ten) . 
 
 Avogadori of the Commonwealth 
 
 Total 
 
 6 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 40 
 40 
 60 
 60 
 10 
 3 
 _3 
 
 3 2 7 
 
 besides the whole of the Great Council, which consisted 
 of all nobles over twenty-five years of age, and of the 
 younger men chosen by lot to sit without a vote. 
 
 And these are only the principal magistracies. The 
 secondary ones comprised over five hundred officials, 
 divided between something like one hundred and thirty 
 offices, such as Provveditors, or inspectors of some 
 forty different matters, from artillery to butchers' shops, 
 from 'Ancient and Modern Justice' to oats: Savi,
 
 300 
 
 (ILKANINCJS KROM HISTORY 
 
 XII 
 
 Inquisitors ol all matters except religion, Auditors, 
 Executors, Correctors, Reformers, Deputies, and Syn- 
 dics; a perfect ant-hill of officials who were perpetually 
 in one another's way. 
 
 Here is an instance of the manner in which ordinary 
 justice was administered, even by the Council of Ten. 
 
 WHEN THE ALPS SHOW THEMSELVES, FONDAMENTA NUOVE 
 
 On the sixth of March 1776 a patrician called 
 Semitecolo, who was a member of one of the Ouarantie, 
 and therefore a magistrate, was walking in the Fonda- 
 menta Nuove when he saw a big butcher named Milani 
 unmercifully beating a wretched peddler of old books. 
 He stopped and expostulated; the butcher took his
 
 XII 
 
 THE LAST MAGISTRATES 
 
 3 01 
 
 interference ill, and delivered a blow with his Hst which 
 caused the blood to gush abundantly from the magis- 
 trate's nose. Semitecolo was taken into a neighbouring 
 house, and the butcher walked off. 
 
 Still covered with blood, Semitecolo hastened to lay 
 the matter before the Council of Ten, demanding the 
 
 •jVr^JS ft $4 ■ ^l^Ifl^^l 
 
 
 CAFE ON THE ZATTERE 
 
 arrest of Milani. But Pier Barbarigo, who was one of 
 the Capi for the week, while sympathising deeply, ex- 
 cused himself from arresting the culprit, on the ground 
 that a detailed account of the affair signed by witnesses 
 must be laid before the Council ; and, moreover, the 
 Council was busy just then, he said, owing to the 
 arrival of the Pope's Nuncio, and there would be no
 
 302 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 meeting on the next day. Semitecolo could not even 
 get an order to have the butcher watched by the police, 
 and the culprit had full time and liberty to leave Venice 
 before anything was done. Note that he himself did 
 not expect impunity, but only a very long delay before 
 his arrest was ordered. 
 
 The public followed the affair and was indignant, 
 and freely criticised the Ten in public places; where- 
 upon the Inquisitors ordered all the cafes to be closed 
 two hours after dark. This was especially galling to 
 the Venetians, who were fond of sitting up late, and 
 loved the bright lights of the cafes. 
 
 One morning a notice appeared on the walls, drawn 
 up in the following terms : — 
 
 'The Guild of the Night-Thieves wishes to thank his 
 
 Excellency the "Capo" Barbarigo for having provided 
 
 them with much more sufficient and con- 
 
 Rom. viii. 196. . r .... 1 1 • 
 
 venient means of earning their bread during 
 the present hard times.' 
 
 The Inquisitors' ordinance was soon modified so as 
 to allow the cafes to remain open till midnight. 
 
 As for the minor courts, Goldoni, who was brought 
 up to be a lawyer, says that there were nearly as many 
 different ones as there were different kinds of suits 
 possible. They paralysed each other, and could not 
 have worked well even if they had been honest. 
 
 But they were not. An Avogador acquitted a man 
 
 Mutineiii accused of theft. The Signors of the 
 
 Utt.143. Night — the chiefs of police — who had 
 
 committed the accused for trial believed him guilty and
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 303 
 
 determined to examine the papers relating to the trial. 
 
 w< 
 
 
 THE DOG ANA 
 
 With this intention they made a search in the house of
 
 30 + GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xu 
 
 the Avogador and confiscated the private accounts in 
 
 which he set clown the profit and loss of his judicial 
 industry; for he was a very careful man. Surely 
 enough, the Signors found an entry of one hundred 
 and fifty sequins (£112: 10s.) received for acquitting 
 the thief. 
 
 About the same time there was a very beautiful 
 dancer called the Cellini at the theatre of San Cassian. 
 
 Mutineiu, A magistrate who exercised the righteous 
 uit.ii/. functions of an 'Executor against Blas- 
 phemy' became anxious to get into her good graces, 
 but as she would have nothing to do with him, he 
 brought an accusation against her in his own court, 
 tried her, and condemned her to a severe penalty. But 
 she appealed to the Council of Ten, proved her inno- 
 cence, and was acquitted. Thereupon the Venetians 
 began to swear 'by the holy Virgin Cellini.' 
 
 With such a state of things in Venice, it w T as only 
 to be expected that the condition of justice in the 
 provinces should be still worse. When 
 Goldoni was Secretary to the Chancery 
 of Feltre, in the Venetian territory, there was a huge 
 scandal about a whole forest cut down and sold without 
 any order or authority from the government. An 
 inquiry was attempted and begun; it was found that 
 more than two hundred persons were implicated, and 
 as it soon became apparent that the same thing had 
 been done before them, within the century, it was 
 judged better to draw a veil over the whole affair. 
 
 This naturally encouraged others. In 1782 the
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 305 
 
 Provveditor Michiel informed the Senate that the 
 Podesta of the city of Usmago had calmly pocketed 
 the price of an oak forest, which he had asked leave 
 to cut down on pretence of using the funds for 
 repairing his official residence. 
 
 Finally, a number of posts, especially in the ducal 
 household, were openly sold; in the last years of the 
 Republic even the office of a procurator of Saint Mark 
 could be bought. 
 
 In close connection with the magistracies and the 
 legal profession generally, I give the following amusing 
 extract from Goldoni's memoirs. 
 
 He begins by telling us that although he had been 
 entered at a lawyer's office for two years, he left it 
 fitted for the profession in eight months, 
 
 , ...... . Goldotii, i. 23. 
 
 because the administration interpreted the 
 two years to mean the dates of two consecutive 
 years, without any regard to the months. Young 
 Goldoni then took a lodging in the lawyers' quarter 
 near San Paterniano, and his mother and aunt lived 
 with him. 
 
 I put on the toga belonging to my new station (he contin- 
 ues), and it is the same as that of the Patricians ; I smothered 
 my head in an enormous wig and impatiently awaited the day 
 of my presentation in the Palace. The novice must have 
 two assistants who are called in Venice Compari di Palazzo 
 [ l Palace godfathers '] . The young man chooses them amongst 
 those of the old lawvers who are most friendly to him. . . . 
 
 So I went between mv two sponsors to the foot of the 
 grand staircase in the great courtyard of the Palace, and for an 
 
 VOL. II. — X
 
 3 o6 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 hour and a half I made so main' hows and contortions that my 
 back was broken and my wig was like a lion's mane. Every 
 one who passed before me gave his opinion of me; some 
 said, Here is a youth of good character; others said, Here is 
 another Palace sweeper; some embraced me, some laughed 
 in my face. To be short, I went up the stairs and sent the 
 servant to find a gondola, so as not to show myself in the 
 street in such a dishevelled state, naming as a place of meeting 
 the Hall of the Great Council, where I sat down on a bench 
 whence I could see every one pass without being seen by any 
 one. During this time, I reflected on the career I was about 
 to embrace. In Venice there are generally two hundred and 
 forty lawyers entered on the register ; there are ten or twelve 
 of the first rank, about twenty who occupv the second ; all 
 the others are hunting for clients ; and the poorer Procurators 
 gladly act as their dogs on condition of sharing the prev. . . . 
 
 While I was thus alone, building castles in the air, I saw 
 a woman of about thirty approaching me, not disagreeable in 
 face, white, round, and plump, with a turned-up nose and 
 wicked eyes, a great deal of gold on her neck, her ears, her 
 arms, her fingers, and in a dress which proclaimed that she was 
 a woman of the common class, but pretty well oft. She came 
 over and saluted me. 
 
 'Sir, good day ! ' 
 
 ' Good day, Signora ! ' 
 
 ' Will you allow me to offer you my congratulations ? ' 
 
 1 For what ? ' 
 
 'On your entrance into the Forum; I saw you in the 
 courtvard when you were making your salaams. Per Bacco ! 
 Sir, your hair is nicely done.' 
 
 ' Isn't it ? Am I not a handsome voung fellow ? ' 
 
 ' But it makes no difference how your hair is done ; Signor 
 Goldoni always cuts a good figure.' 
 
 ' So you know me, Signora ? '
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 307 
 
 ' Did I not see you four years ago in the land of the law- 
 yers, in a long wig and cloak ? ' 
 
 ' True ; you are right, for I was then in the house of the 
 Procurator.' 
 
 ' Just so ; in the house of Signor Indrie ' [Goldoni's uncle] . 
 
 ' So you know my uncle too ? ' 
 
 ' In this part of the world I know every one, from the Doge 
 to the last copyist of the Courts.' 
 
 ' Are you married ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 1 Are you a widow ? ' 
 
 'No.'' 
 
 ' Oh — I do not dare ask more ! ' 
 
 ' All the better.' 
 
 ' Have you any business ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' From your appearance I took you for a well-to-do person.' 
 
 ' I really am.' 
 
 'Then you have investments ? ' 
 
 ' None at all.' 
 
 ' But you are very well fitted out ; how do you manage to 
 do it ? ' 
 
 ' I am a daughter of the Palace, and the Palace supports me.' 
 
 ' That is very strange ! You say you are a daughter of the 
 Palace ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir ; my father had a position in it.' 
 
 ' What did he do ? ' 
 
 ' He listened at the doors and then went to take good news 
 to those who were expecting pardons, or verdicts, or favourable 
 judgments; he had capital legs and always got there first. As 
 for my mother, she was always here, as I am. She was not 
 proud, she took her fee, and undertook some commissions. I 
 was born and brought up in these gilded halls, and, as you see, 
 I also have gold on me.'
 
 308 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xn 
 
 'Yours is a most singular story. Then you follow in your 
 mother's footsteps ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir. I do something else.' 
 
 ' That is to say ? ' 
 
 1 1 push lawsuits.' 
 
 ' Push lawsuits ? I do not understand.' 
 
 ' I am as well known as Barabbas. It is very well under- 
 stood that all the lawyers and all the Procurators are my friends, 
 and a number of people apply to me to obtain advice for them 
 and counsel for defence. Those who come to me are gener- 
 ally not rich, and I look about amongst the novices and the 
 unemployed [lawvers] who want nothing but work in order 
 to make themselves known. Do vou know, sir, that though 
 you see me as I am, I have made the fortunes of a round 
 dozen of the most famous lawyers in the profession. Come, 
 sir, courage, and if you are willing, I shall make yours too.' 
 
 It amused me to listen to her, and as my servant did not 
 come, I continued the conversation. 
 
 ' Well, Signorina, have you any good affairs on hand 
 now ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I have several, indeed I have some excellent 
 ones. I have a widow who is suspected of having occultated 
 her monkey ; another who wishes to prove a marriage contract 
 got up after the fact ; I have girls who are petitioning for a 
 dowry ; I have women who wish to bring suits for annulment 
 of marriage ; I have sons of good families who are persecuted 
 by their creditors ; as you see, you need only choose.' 
 
 ' My good woman,' I said, ' so far I have let you talk ; now 
 it is my turn. I am young, I am about to begin my career, 
 and I desire occasions for showing myself and obtaining occu- 
 pation ; but no love of work nor fancy for litigation could 
 make me begin with the disgraceful suits you offer me.' 
 
 1 Ha, ha!' she laughed, 'you despise my clients because I 
 warned you that there was nothing to earn ; but listen ! My
 
 xii THE LAST MAGISTRATES 309 
 
 two widows are rich, you will be well paid, and shall be even 
 paid in advance, if you wish.' 
 
 I saw my servant coming in the distance ; I rose and 
 answered the chattering woman in a fearless and resolute tone. 
 
 ' No, you do not know me, I am a man of honour. . . .' 
 
 Then she took my hand and spoke gravely. 
 
 1 Well done ! Continue always in the same mind.' 
 
 1 Ah ! ' I exclaimed, ' you change your tone now ? ' 
 
 4 Yes,' she replied, ' and the tone I take now is much better 
 than the one I have been using. Our conversation has been 
 somewhat mysterious ; remember it and see that you speak to 
 no one about it. Good-bye, sir. Always be wise, be always 
 honourable, and you will be satisfied with the result.' 
 
 She went away, and I was left in the greatest astonishment. 
 I did not know what all this meant ; but I learned later that 
 she was a spy and had come to sound me ; yet I never knew, 
 nor wished to know, who sent her to me.
 
 
 
 
 ~' v5 »*t-»J« 
 
 »u 
 
 RIO DELLA SENSA 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE LAST SBIRRI 
 
 It is worth while to glance at the agents of the police, 
 of the Council of Ten, and of the Inquisitors of State 
 Mutineiu, at the end of the Republic. The two 
 Lessuo. Councils had six in their service, called 
 the Fanti de' Cai, the footmen of the Heads, and one 
 of them was at the beck and call of the Inquisitors. 
 This particular one was the famous Cristofolo de' 
 
 310
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 311 
 
 Cristofoli, whose name is connected alike with all the 
 tragedies and the comic adventures of the last days. 
 
 He was a sort of general inspector of freemasons, 
 rope-dancers, circus-riders, antiquaries, bravi, and 
 gondoliers, and he exercised in his manifold functions 
 all the civility of which a detective can dispose. He 
 was a giant in body, a jester and a wit by nature, 
 a combination certainly intended for the stage rather 
 than the police. 
 
 His especial bugbear was freemasonry, together 
 with all the secret societies which were then largely in 
 the pay of France, employed by her to promote general 
 revolution. A manuscript preserved in the Museo 
 Correr gives an account of the first discovery of a 
 Lodge. 
 
 A patrician named Girolamo Zulian, says this docu- 
 ment, when returning one night from a meeting of the 
 Lodge left upon the seat of his gondola a piece of 
 paper on which were drawn certain incomprehensible 
 signs. The gondoliers found the paper, and supposed 
 that the symbols w 7 ere those of some kind of witchcraft. 
 One of the men took the scrap to a monk he knew and 
 begged him to decipher the signs, or at least to give 
 his advice as to what should be done with the thing, 
 as it might be fatal even to destroy a spell of black 
 magic. The monk told the gondolier to take it to 
 the Inquisitors of State. The man did so, and one 
 of them kept him in a garret of his house, to protect 
 him against any possible vengeance on the part of the 
 secret society, and Cristofolo de' Cristofoli was com-
 
 312 CLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xin 
 
 missioned to clear 'up the mystery. On the following 
 night he raided the house indicated by the gondolier 
 with thirty Sbirri, and found there assembled a large 
 meeting of the brethren, one of whom had the presence 
 of mind to throw into the canal the heavy register 
 containing a complete list of their names. Cristofoli 
 took a quantity of papers, however, together w T ith the 
 paraphernalia of the Lodge, and he afterwards, says the 
 manuscript, dictated from memory the names of the 
 persons he had seen at the meeting. But he must 
 have made mistakes, since several of the persons he 
 designated are known to have been absent from 
 Venice on foreign missions at the date of the raid, 
 May sixth, 1785. 
 
 Another manuscript, published by Dandolo, gives a 
 different account of the affair, under the same date. 
 It was copied by the famous Cicogna, and is amusing 
 for its language : — 
 
 It was the anniversary of the feast of the principal Pro- 
 tector of this most serene dominion, Saint Mark the Evangelist, 
 April the twenty-fifth, 1785, when it was discovered that the 
 public Arsenal of Venice had been treacherously set on fire; 
 the fire was eventually discovered by a certain woman, who 
 was rewarded for life [i.e. with a pension] by the public muni- 
 ficence ; and by the discovery of it, a fire was prevented which 
 might have been fatal to a large part of the city, and which 
 was not to have broken out till the night following the 
 twenty-fifth, but which showed itself after noon on account of 
 an extraordinary wind which had temporarily arisen from the 
 east and which blew with fury all day. 
 
 Such an accident, as fatal as its prevention by the Evangelist
 
 
 FONDAMENTE NUOVE
 
 
 
 
 
 It 
 
 
 ' 
 
 HaMAdUCH
 
 . 
 
 .'X'? 
 
 • • • ■ • ' 
 

 
 XIII 
 
 THE LAST SBIRRI 
 
 3U 
 
 Saint Mark was miraculous, not only moved the public vigi- 
 lance to guard that public edifice under more jealous custody, 
 but also [to watch] all the quarters of the city ; to this end 
 multiplying watchmen and spies, in order to discover, it* that 
 
 RIO S. STIN 
 
 might be possible, the perpetrators of such an horrible and ter- 
 rifying felony. 
 
 In the inquiries, it was observed by trustworthy spies on 
 the night of the [date omitted in the original] May, that a 
 certain palace situated in Riomarin, in the parish of San Simon
 
 3 i4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 Grande, was entered from time to time after midnight by 
 respectable-looking persons, for whom the door was opened at 
 the simple signal of a little tap. Information of this being 
 given to the Supreme Tribunal, the latter ordered the most 
 circumspect inquiries; when, on the same morning, informa- 
 tion was given to the Secretary of the said Supreme Magis- 
 tracy by a certain ship's carpenter that having, on commission 
 of N. N., finished making a large wardrobe, he inquired of that 
 cavalier where he was to bring it in order to set it up properly ; 
 and that he had been told to bring it to a certain palace in 
 Riomarin and to leave it in the entrance (gateway) of the 
 same, and that he would be sent for later to place it where 
 it was to go ; that seeing several days go by without receiving 
 that notice, and yielding to curiosity, he stole near in the night 
 to see if the wardrobe were still in the entrance of the palace, 
 where he had placed it, and he convinced himself that it had 
 been taken elsewhere; and being displeased with this, because 
 some other workman might have handled his work, and guess- 
 ing from a hint of the gentleman's that the wardrobe had 
 been intended to be placed against the windows of a balconv, 
 and observing in this palace a balcony of just about the length 
 of the wardrobe made by him, he tried to get into the apart- 
 ment above the one where the balcony was [let to some one], 
 explaining to the people who lived in that house that his sus- 
 picion induced him to ask their permission to make a hole 
 with a gimlet, in order to see whether his wardrobe had been 
 put up where he guessed it must be ; and that he had obtained 
 consent to this request, because the lodgers in that second 
 apartment had conceived some curiosity to know who the per- 
 sons might be who met there only at night time ; that there- 
 fore he betook himself to that dwelling on the night of the 
 fourth of May, having previously made a hole, and stopped 
 there till the first-floor apartment was opened, and he saw that 
 after midnight a hall was lighted up which was hung with
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 315 
 
 mourning and furnished with a throne covered with blue cloth 
 and with other symbols or death, and here and there were dis- 
 posed small lanterns, and persons also sitting here and there, 
 dressed in black robes; so that at this horrid sight he was ter- 
 rified, and he heard him who sat on the throne say these very 
 words : ' Brethren, let us suspend our meeting, for we are 
 watched' ; and in that room he saw indeed his wardrobe placed 
 against a balcony. 
 
 And that he left the lodgers in that second apartment in 
 consternation, and he himself, full of amazement and terror, 
 and still surprised by the novelty of the things, and supposing, 
 in his simplicity, that witchcraft was practised there and the 
 works of the devil, he was scandalised, and went to the parish 
 priest of San Simon Grande, his confessor, and that having 
 told him all he had seen, heard, and observed, he (the priest) 
 advised him to quickly lay before the government all that he 
 had chanced to see and hear. 
 
 The good man did so, and told all to the Secretary of the 
 Inquisitors of State. A warrant was therefore issued on that 
 same morning of the sixth of May by the Supreme Tribunal 
 to its own officer Cristofoli, to go thith'er (to Riomarin), 
 accompanied by the Capitan Grande and twenty-four men. 
 Having entered that apartment, where he surprised a nobleman 
 who guarded the place, he (Cristofoli) discovered a lodge of 
 freemasons. 
 
 Emanuele Cicogna [the distinguished historian] copied this 
 on the twenty-fourth of August 1855, from two codices exist- 
 ing in his collection. 
 
 On the following day, the Inquisitors publicly 
 burned the black garments, the utensils, the 'con- 
 juring books,' as they are described, and 
 
 J UU 'ri Mutinelh.W. 
 
 all the booty Lnstofoli had confiscated, 
 
 while the populace, believing that it was all a case of
 
 316 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 witchcraft, danced round the fire and cheered for 
 Saint Mark. 
 
 The persons implicated were treated with the 
 greatest indulgence, and Malamani observes that in 
 the whole affair it was the furniture that got the 
 worst of it. 
 
 About the same time Cristofoli made a vain attempt 
 to arrest the notorious Cagliostro. 
 
 This man, whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, 
 was born in Palermo on the eighth of June 1743. His 
 youth was wild and disreputable. He tried being a 
 monk, but soon tired of it, and threw his frock to the 
 nettles, as the French say, in Caltagirone, in Sicily; 
 after that he lived by theft, by coining false money, and 
 by every sort of imposture. In Rome he married a girl 
 of singular beauty, Lorenza Feliciani, who became his 
 tool in all his intrigues. 
 
 The French freemasons made use of the singularly 
 intelligent couple to propagate the doctrines of the 
 revolution. Pretending to change hemp into silk, and 
 every metal into gold, and selling marvellous waters 
 for restoring the aged to youth and beauty, the two 
 got into many excellent houses, changing their names 
 and their disguises whenever they were compromised. 
 
 Balsamo arrived in Venice in 1787 or 1788, under 
 
 the name of Count Cagliostro, and began an active 
 
 Mutineiu, revolutionary campaign, to the great annoy- 
 
 uit.31. ance of the Inquisitors, who fancied they 
 
 had suppressed the w r hole movement when Cristofoli 
 
 had discovered the famous Lodge. He was less for-
 
 xni THE LAST SBIRRI 317 
 
 tunate this time. He tracked the Count everywhere, 
 but could get no substantial evidence against him, 
 till he suddenly came upon positive proof that the 
 impostor had stolen a thousand sequins from a rich 
 merchant of the Giudecca. And then, at the very 
 moment when the great policeman was sure of his 
 game, the man disappeared as into thin air and was next 
 heard of beyond the Austrian frontier. 
 
 The chief of the Sbirri had better luck when he 
 raided the Cafe Ancilotto, which was a favourite place 
 of meeting for the revolutionaries. They Tassini, under 
 tried to open a reading-room there, fur- 'Ancilotto: 
 nished with all the latest revolutionary literature, but 
 Cristofoli got wind of the plan, called on the man who 
 kept the cafe, and informed him that the first person 
 who entered the 'reading-room' would be invited to 
 pay a visit to the Inquisitors of State. After that, no 
 one showed any inclination to read the French papers. 
 In connection with Cristofoli, we also come upon the 
 curious fact that he arrested, at the Cafe Tassini, under 
 of the Ponte dell' Angelo, a number of 'Cafetero: 
 Barnabotti, who were preaching suspicious doctrines. 
 As usual, the poor nobles were the class most easily 
 bribed and most ready to betray their country. 
 
 Cristofoli was occasionally entrusted with missions 
 more diplomatic than the arrest of revolutionaries. He 
 was sometimes sent to present his respects to great 
 nobles who did not guess that they had attracted the 
 eyes of the police. 
 
 It was the business of the Inquisitors to watch over
 
 i8 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 XIII 
 
 the artistic treasures of the capital. During the last 
 year of the Republic a number of nobles sold precious 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *& f * i *'5£5»ti 
 
 ' ■ 
 
 •5?-«- 
 
 
 $ 
 
 '< : . 
 
 RIO DELLA GITEKKA 
 
 objects to strangers, such as paintings and statues, of 
 which the government much regretted the loss to the
 
 xin THE LAST SBIRRI 319 
 
 city. A few measures were passed for preventing this 
 dispersion of private collections, but it happened only 
 too often that priceless things were suddenly gone, 
 leaving no trace of their destination, except in the 
 pockets of the former owners. 
 
 The Grimani family possessed some magnificent 
 statues and a wonderful library of rare books, inherited 
 from Cardinal Domenico Grimani, who 
 
 statue of 
 
 died in 1523. Shortly before the fall of M.Agrippa; 
 
 i t-> ii- r • 1 11 Museo ( 'orrer, 
 
 the Republic a foreigner bought the statue 
 of Marcus Agrippa; the boat which was to take it on 
 board an outward bound ship was at the door of the 
 palace, and the men who were to take it down from its 
 pedestal and box it were ready, when Cristofolo Cristofoli 
 appeared at the entrance, gigantic and playful. 
 
 He walked straight to the statue, took off his cap to 
 it and bowed gravely before he delivered his message 
 to the marble: 'The Supreme Tribunal of the In- 
 quisitors, having heard that you wish to leave this city, 
 sends me to wish a pleasant journey, both to you and 
 his Excellency Grimani.' 
 
 'His Excellency Grimani' did not relish the idea of 
 exile; the workmen disappeared, the boat was sent 
 away, and the statue remained. It was destined to be 
 left as a gift to the city by another Grimani, less 
 avaricious than 'His Excellency.' 
 
 In spite of his good-humour, Cristofoli inspired 
 terror, and his mere name was often Moimmti, studi 
 used to lend weight to practical jokes. e R,ccrche - 
 It is related, for instance, of the famous Montesquieu,
 
 320 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 the author of the Esprit des Lots and the friend of 
 King Stanislaus Leczinski, that when he was making 
 notes in Venice his friend Lord Chesterfield managed 
 to cause a mysterious message to he conveyed to him, 
 warning him to he on his guard, as the Chief of the 
 Ten employed spies to watch him, and Cristofoli was 
 on his track. And thereupon, says the story, the 
 excellent Montesquieu burned all his most compromis- 
 ing notes, and fled straight to Holland with the 
 remainder of his manuscripts. 
 
 The Council of Ten and their Shirri had not yet done 
 with the Bravi. They were numerous in the provinces, 
 and when they were caught they were tried and hanged 
 in Venice. The 'Signorotti' -the rich landowners, 
 who were not Venetian nobles, but called themselves 
 'knights' -were many and prosperous, and were the 
 professional murderers' best clients. Indeed, the 
 Venetian mainland provinces and much of Lombardy 
 presented a case of arrested development; at the end 
 of the eighteenth century they had not emerged from 
 the barbarism of the early fifteenth. 
 
 The lordlings entertained Bravi, and when there was 
 no more serious business on hand, they laid wagers with 
 each other as to the courage of their hired assassins. 
 A bet of this kind was made and settled in 1724 
 between an Avogadro and a Masperoni, two country 
 'knights' who lived on their estates in the province of 
 Brescia. One evening the two were discussing the 
 character of a ruffian whom Masperoni had just taken 
 into his service. His new master maintained that the
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 321 
 
 fellow was the bravest man in the 'profession.' 
 Avogadro, on the other hand, wagered that he would 
 not be able to traverse the road between his master's 
 castle and Lumezzane, which belonged to Avogadro. 
 Masperoni took the bet, and explained the situation to 
 the man. The latter, feeling that his reputation was at 
 stake, started at once, carrying on his shoulder a basket 
 of fine fruit as a present from Masperoni to his friend, and 
 he took his way across the hills of Valtrompia. When 
 he was a few miles from Lumezzane he was met by 
 two well-armed fellows, who ordered him to turn back, 
 but he was not so easily stopped. He set down his 
 basket, and in the twinkling of an eye killed both his 
 adversaries, after which he quietly pursued his journey. 
 
 Avogadro was very much surprised to see him, and 
 asked with curiosity what sort of trip he had made. 
 
 'Excellent,' he answered. 'I met a couple of good- 
 for-nothings who wanted to stop me, but I killed them, 
 and here I am.' 
 
 Avogadro, filled with admiration, gave him a purse 
 of gold and sent him back to Masperoni MoimenH, 
 with a letter of congratulation. Bandit 1, 289. 
 
 Incidents of this kind occurred long afterwards, even 
 after the fall of the Republic. The name of Cristofoli 
 is associated with that of Count Alemanno Gambara in 
 a story which could not be believed if the documents 
 that prove it were not all preserved in the various 
 archives, and principally in those of the Inquisitors. 
 
 The Gambara family was of Lombard origin, and 
 had always been very influential in the neighbourhood
 
 322 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 of Brescia. The race had produced fine specimens 
 of all varieties — soldiers, bishops, cardinals, murderers, 
 and one woman poet, besides several bandits, traitors, 
 and highwaymen. In the late sixteenth century two 
 brothers of the family, Niccolo and Lucrezio, had 
 a near relative, Theodora, an orphan girl of fourteen 
 years and an heiress, who was in charge of a guardian. 
 On the twenty-second of January 1569 the two brothers 
 went to the guardian and ordered him to give up the 
 girl. On his refusal they threw him down his own 
 stairs, wounded his people who tried to defend him, 
 broke down the door of the girl's room, and carried 
 her off. 
 
 I only quote this as an instance of the family's 
 manners. The last scion of the race who lived under 
 the Republic, and who outlived it, was Count Alemanno, 
 a young monster of perversity. He was born after his 
 father's death at the castle of Pralboino, on a feudal 
 holding belonging to his house. His mother was soon 
 married again to Count Martinengo Cesaresco, and she 
 took the boy with her to her new home. He was 
 naturally violent and unruly; at fifteen he was an 
 accomplished swordsman, and was involved in every 
 quarrel and evil adventure on the country side. When 
 still a mere boy his conduct was such as to give the 
 government real trouble, and the authorities imposed a 
 guardian upon him in the person of a priest of his 
 family, who was instructed to teach him the ordinary 
 precepts of right and wrong; but the clergyman soon 
 announced that he was not able to cope with his young
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 323 
 
 relative, and the Council of Ten learned that the boy's 
 violent character showed no signs of improvement. 
 
 He was now arrested, brought to Venice, and con- 
 fined in one of the Piombi, his property being ad- 
 ministered under the direction of the government. The 
 Inquisitors of State examined the record of the 
 complaints laid against him, and concluded that his 
 faults were due to his extreme youth; they therefore 
 ordered him to reside within the fortress of Verona, 
 but gave him control of his fortune. 
 
 The Captain of Verona, knowing the sort of prisoner 
 he had to deal with, and being made responsible for 
 him, sent for an engineer and asked his opinion as 
 to the possibilities of escape for a prisoner who was 
 not locked up in a cell. The engineer wrote out a 
 careful criticism of the fortress, concluding with an 
 extremely practical remark: 'With good means of 
 escape,' he observed, 'a man may escape from any 
 place, but without means it is not possible to escape 
 at all.' 
 
 The Captain, only partially reassured, set to work to 
 convert his prisoner, and sent him a good priest to 
 teach him his Catechism and exhort him to the practices 
 of Christianity; but the young Count would have 
 neither exhortation nor religious instruction. The 
 Council of Ten now sent him to the fortress of Palma 
 for a change of air, and the commander of that place 
 inherited the feverish anxiety about his charge which 
 had tormented the Captain of Verona. He did not 
 consult an engineer, however, and one morning the
 
 324 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 prisoner was not in his room, nor in the fortress, nor 
 anywhere in the neighbourhood of Palma. 
 
 The Inquisitors now sent Sbirri in all directions 
 throughout the Venetian territory. They could not 
 catch Alemanno, but he wearied of eluding them, and 
 judged that he could get better terms by submitting 
 to the Inquisitors. He did so, using the offices of* his 
 aunt, Countess Giulia Gambara, who was married to 
 a gentleman of Vicenza. The Podesta of the latter 
 city sent an officer and six soldiers to the place desig- 
 nated by Alemanno, and he surrendered, and was taken 
 first to Padua, and then to Venice. As soon as he 
 landed at the Piazzetta he was put in charge of Cristo- 
 foli and the Sbirri, who took him before the Inquisitors. 
 
 They exiled him to Zara, and wrote to the Governor 
 of Dalmatia : 'We desire him to have a good lodging. 
 . o . See that he frequents persons of good habits, 
 thanks to whom he may not wander from the right 
 path on which he has entered, and in which we wish 
 him to continue.' 
 
 The Inquisitors, good souls, so mildlv concerned for 
 the wild boy's moral welfare, were soon to learn what 
 Alemanno considered the 'right path,' for the Governor 
 of Dalmatia kept them well informed. Before long 
 they learned that a certain fisherman, who had refused 
 to let the Count's butler, Antonio Barach, have a fine 
 fish which was already sold to another client, had been 
 seized, taken into the Count's house, and severely 
 beaten. 
 
 But the Inquisitors were inclined to be clement and
 
 XIII 
 
 THE LAST SBIRRI 
 
 3^5 
 
 paid no attention to the accounts of his doings. In 
 1756 he was authorised to return to his domains of 
 
 &*< r^ n 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 1 <m m 
 
 
 
 V \ ) >/ i *j\s& 
 
 
 r^vv? 
 
 IN 
 
 \S{ 
 
 
 % 
 
 VIA GARIBALDI 
 
 Pralboino and Corvione, and his real career began. 
 His first care was to engage as many desperate Bravi 
 as he could find. One of these having had a little
 
 326 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 difficulty with the police, and having been killed during 
 the argument, Alemanno captured a Sbirro, and so 
 handled him that he sent him back, to his post a cripple 
 for life. 
 
 Scarcely a year after his return from Zara, he rode 
 through the town of Calvisano, and without answering 
 the Customs officer, whose duty it was to ascertain if he 
 were carrying anything dutiable, he galloped on and 
 escaped recognition. His servant, who followed him 
 at a little distance, was stopped, and as he answered 
 the Customs men very rudely he was locked up in jail. 
 But when the officer in charge learned who the man 
 was, his fright was such that he not only set him at 
 liberty at once, but conversed with him and treated him 
 in the most friendly manner. 
 
 The young Count was of course delighted to learn 
 that his name spread terror amongst government 
 officials, and by way of showing what he could do, 
 he sent fifteen of his Bravi to Calvisano with orders 
 to besiege the Customs men. In the fighting that 
 followed, one of the latter was killed and their officer 
 narrowly escaped. 
 
 The Council of Ten now interfered, and summoned 
 Count Alemanno Gambara to appear before them, and 
 if he refused, the local authorities were ordered to take 
 him and send him by force. Instead of obeying, he 
 fortified his two castles, increased the numbers of his 
 band of Bravi, and defied the law. With his ruffians at 
 his back he rode through the length and breadth of the 
 Brescian territory as he pleased, and once even traversed
 
 
 FROM SAN GEORGIO TO THE SALUTE
 

 
 xin THE LAST SBIRRI 327 
 
 the city itself with his formidable escort. No one 
 dared to meddle with him. His neighbours in the 
 country were completely terrorised, and he and his 
 head ruffian, Carlo Molinari, committed the wildest 
 excesses. 
 
 Alemanno seems to have especially delighted to 
 watch the effect of fright on his victims. One day 
 his men chased a priest of Gottolengo and three 
 friends, who had been shooting in the woods not far 
 beyond the boundary of the estate of Corvione. The 
 fugitives succeeded in reaching the church of Gottolengo, 
 in which they took refuge, barricading the door against 
 their pursuers. But the Bravi starved them out, and 
 they were obliged to surrender unconditionally. They 
 were then led out to a lonely field and were exhorted 
 to commend their souls to God, as they were about to 
 be killed and buried on the spot. Alemanno watched 
 their agony with delight, concealed behind a hedge. 
 When he was tired of the sport, he came out of con- 
 cealment and ordered his men to beat and kick them 
 back to Gottolengo. 
 
 A retired colonel lived quietly on a small estate near 
 one of Gambara's. His servants accidentally killed one 
 of the Count's dogs; he had them taken, cruelly beaten, 
 and sent back to their master after suffering every 
 indignity. The colonel thought of lodging a complaint 
 with the Council of Ten, but on reflection he gave up 
 the idea as not safe, for Gambara's vengeance w 7 ould 
 probably have been fatal to any one who ventured to 
 give information of his doings. No one was safe
 
 j2S' GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 within his reach, neither man, nor woman, nor child. 
 A volume might be tilled with the list of his crimes. 
 
 At last, in 1762, the municipality of the town of 
 Gambara, from which he took his title, resolved to 
 petition the Council of Ten for help and protection 
 against him. When he learned that this was their 
 intention, he rode into the town with his escort, and 
 halting in the market-place addressed the citizens; 
 his threats of vengeance w 7 ere so frightful, and he was 
 so well able to carry them out, that the chief burghers 
 fell upon their knees before him, weeping and im- 
 ploring his forgiveness. 
 
 One day several Sbirri traversed some of his land in 
 pursuit of a smuggler who sought his protection. He 
 met them smiling, and cordially invited them to spend 
 a night under his roof. With the childlike simplicity 
 which is one of the most endearing characteristics of 
 most Italians, they fell into the trap. On the next day, 
 a cart loaded with greens entered Brescia, and stopped 
 opposite the house of the Venetian Podesta. The horses 
 were taken out and led away, without exciting any 
 remark, and the cart remained w'here it had been 
 left, till the foul smell it exhaled attracted attention. 
 It was unloaded, and underneath the greens were found 
 the bloody corpses of the Sbirri who had accepted 
 Gambara's hospitality. 
 
 This time the Inquisitors of State took matters 
 seriously, and sent a squadron of cuirassiers and a 
 detachment of Sbirri, under the command of an officer 
 called Rizzi, to arrest him and his henchman Molinari.
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 329 
 
 Rizzi came to Pralboino and broke down the gates, 
 but the two men were already gone, and the expedition 
 ended in the confiscation of a few insignificant letters 
 found in Alemanno's desk. 
 
 He had understood that he must leave Venetian 
 territory for a time, and riding down into the Duchy 
 of Parma he sought the hospitality of his friend, 
 the Marchese Casali, at Monticelli. He next visited 
 Genoa, and judging that it was time to settle in life, he 
 married the Marchesa Carbonare, whom he judged, with 
 some reason, to be a woman worthy of his companion- 
 ship. 
 
 They returned together to Monticelli, where they 
 led 1 a riotous existence for some time. Being one day 
 short of money, Alemanno stopped the messengers who 
 were conveying to Venice the taxes raised in Brescia, 
 and sent them on after giving them a formal receipt 
 for the large sum he had taken from them. But this 
 was too much for the Duke of Parma, who now re- 
 quested the couple to spend their time elsewhere than 
 in his Duchy. 
 
 They consulted as to their chances of getting a free 
 pardon for the crimes the Count had committed on 
 Venetian territory and against the Republic, and the 
 Countess addressed a petition to the Doge which begins 
 as follows: 'Every penitent sinner who sincerely 
 purposes to mend his life obtains of God mercy and 
 forgiveness; shall I, Marianna Carbonare, the most 
 afflicted wife of Count Alemanno Gambara, not feel 
 thereby encouraged to fall upon my knees before the
 
 330 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 august Throne of your Serenity ? . . .' And much 
 more to the same effect. 
 
 Another petition signed by both was addressed to 
 the Inquisitors, and a third, signed only by Alemanno, 
 to the Doge and the Inquisitors together. In this 
 precious document he calls them 'the most perfect 
 image of God on earth, by their power.' 
 
 The object of these petitions was that the Count might 
 be sent into exile, anywhere, so long as he were not shut 
 up in a fortress, a sentence which would soon kill him, 
 as he was in bad health. 
 
 He had certainly committed many murders and had 
 killed several servants of the Republic in the perform- 
 ance of their duties; and he had stolen the taxes 
 collected in Brescia. Amazing as it may seem, his 
 petition was granted, and he was exiled to Zara for two 
 years, after which he w T as allowed to come to Chioggia 
 on the express condition that he should not set foot 
 outside the castle, and should see no one but his wife 
 and son. He remained in Chioggia just a year, from 
 the twenty-fifth of September 1777, to the twenty- 
 sixth of September 1778, after which the Inquisitors 
 were kind enough to give him his liberty if he would 
 present himself before their Secretary, which he did 
 with alacrity. 
 
 My readers need not be led into a misapprehension 
 by the touching unanimity which the loving couple ex- 
 hibited in the petitions they signed. They never agreed 
 except when their interests did, and were soon practi- 
 callv separated in their private life. The Countess took
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 331 
 
 Count Miniscalchi of Verona for her lover, while 
 Alemanno showed himself everywhere with the Countess 
 of San Secondo. In the end they separated altogether, 
 and the son, Francesco, remained with his father, who 
 educated him according to his own ideas. 
 
 So far as can be ascertained, the man never changed 
 the manner of his life. After his pardon he returned 
 to his estates in the province of Brescia, where he found 
 his old friends, who were few, and the recollections of 
 his youth, which were many. In a short time Pralboino 
 and Corvione were once more dens of murderers and 
 robbers as of old, and as in former days he had been 
 helped in his blackest deeds by Carlo Molinari, his 
 chief Bravo, so now he was seconded by his steward, 
 Giacomo Barchi, who kept the reign of terror alive in 
 the country when it pleased the Count to reside in 
 Venice. 
 
 He was sleeping soundly in his apartment in the 
 capital one morning towards the end of March 1782, 
 after having spent most of the night at a gambling 
 house by the Ponte dell' Angelo — he never slept more 
 than four hours — when he was awakened by an un- 
 expected visit from Cristofolo de' Cristofoli, who re- 
 quested him to appear at once before the Secretary of 
 the Inquisitors. An examination of conscience must 
 have been a serious affair for Alemanno, and not to be 
 undertaken except at leisure; and it appears that on 
 this occasion he really did not know what he was to be 
 accused of doing. The Secretary of the Inquisitors 
 merely commanded him not to leave the city on pain
 
 332 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xm 
 
 of the Tribunal's anger, and on the morrow he learned 
 that his steward Barchi had also been arrested. 
 
 For some reason impossible to explain, nothing was 
 done to either, and before long even the steward was 
 set at liberty. The Inquisitors confined themselves to 
 threatening the two with 'the public indignation' and 
 their own severest measures, if the Count did not dismiss 
 his Bravi and 'reform his conduct.' 
 
 After that, history is silent as to his exploits. He 
 was no longer young, and even the zest of murder and 
 rapine was probably beginning to pall on his weary 
 taste. We know that he sincerely mourned the fall of 
 the Republic which had been so consistently kind to 
 him, and he never plotted against the government. 
 He could not but feel that it would have been an 
 exaggeration to accuse it of having been hard on him. 
 
 His son Francesco, on the contrary, turned out to 
 be one of the most turbulent of revolutionaries, and 
 helped to lead the insurrection at Bergamo. But for 
 the intervention of Bonaparte himself, he would have 
 been killed by the inhabitants of Salo, who remained 
 faithful to the Republic, when they repulsed the in- 
 surgents. He was one of the five delegates whom the 
 city of Brescia sent to Bonaparte, to name him president 
 of the Cisalpine Republic. He died in 1848, after 
 having written a life of his father, which was published 
 eleven years later in Trieste. One cannot but feel that 
 in composing a memoir of his parent, filial piety led 
 him too far. 
 
 In concluding this chapter, which has dealt with
 
 xiii THE LAST SBIRRI 
 
 333 
 
 criminals, I shall take the opportunity of observing that 
 the places in which criminals were confined in Venice- 
 shared in the general decay of everything connected 
 with the government. In the seventeenth century and 
 earlier all prisoners had been carefully kept separate 
 according to their misdeeds; in the eighteenth, mere 
 children were shut up with adult criminals, and debtors 
 were confined with thieves. In the women's prisons 
 lunatics were often imprisoned with the sane, a state of 
 things that led to the most horrible scenes. 
 
 The gaolers of the Pozzi and the Piombi did not 
 even keep the prisons clean, and the state of the cells 
 \vas such that I do not care to disgust the reader by 
 describing it. In the other prisons, or attached 
 to them, a regular tavern was tolerated and perhaps 
 authorised, as a place of gathering for the prisoners, 
 and here games of chance were played, even 
 
 . r i • i i i i • i Mutindli, lit. 
 
 such as were forbidden elsewhere in the 
 city. The archives of the Ten show how many crimes 
 were committed in the very places where men were 
 confined to expiate earlier offences. As for the gaolers, 
 they were one and all corruptible. One of the Savi, 
 the patrician Gritti, denounced to the Senate, in 1793, 
 a gaoler who let the healthiest and most airy cells to 
 the highest bidders.
 
 THE PESAKO PALACE, GRAND CANAL 
 
 XIV 
 
 THE LAST DOGES 
 
 Between the beginning of the eighteenth century and 
 
 the end of the Republic eleven Doges occupied the 
 
 throne. Of these the only one who might 
 1700-1797. jj- 
 
 have saved the government or retarded its 
 
 fall was the very one who reigned the shortest time. 
 
 Let us say that if he had lived, he might have so far 
 
 restored the strength of the ancient aristocracy as to admit 
 
 of its perishing in a struggle instead of dying of old age. 
 
 This Doge was Marco Foscarini, who was elected 
 
 334
 
 xiv THE LAST DOGES 335 
 
 on the thirty-first of May 1762, and died on the thirty- 
 first of the following March. He was a man whose 
 integrity was never questioned, even by 
 
 . ... . . . . Rom.viii. 142. 
 
 the revolutionaries, and he accepted the 
 Dogeship with the greatest regret. He was a man of 
 letters, and the endless empty ceremonial of the ducal 
 existence obliged him to leave unfinished his noble 
 work on Venetian literature. Even had the Dose's action 
 not been hopelessly paralysed by the hedge of petty 
 regulations that bristled round him, Foscarini's experi- 
 ence of affairs in the course of occupying many exalted 
 posts had left him few illusions as to the 
 
 f c , . <-ri- -11 Rom.viii. 302. 
 
 future of his country. 1 his century will 
 
 be a terrible one for our children and grandchildren,' 
 
 he wrote some time after his election. 
 
 Like many of the Doges he was a very old man 
 when he was elected, and was over eighty-eight years 
 of age when he died, apparently much surprised at 
 finding himself at his end, though not unprepared for 
 it. He complained that his physicians had not told 
 him how ill he was, and he asked for a little Latin 
 book, De modo bene moriendi, which had been given him 
 by his friend Cardinal Passionei; presently he tried to 
 dictate a few reflections to his doctor, but was too weak, 
 and expired whispering, 'My poor servants!' He 
 had apparently not provided for them as he would have 
 done if he had not been taken unawares. 
 
 His successor was Aloise IV. Mocenigo, who had 
 been Ambassador to Rome and to Paris. His election 
 was celebrated in a manner that recalled the festivities
 
 336 CLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xiv 
 
 of the sixteenth century. A secretary was sent to the 
 Mocenigo palace to announce the news to 
 his family, and the Dogess took four days 
 in which to complete her preparations, after which she 
 came to the ducal palace accompanied by her two 
 married nieces, her sisters, her mother, all her own 
 female cousins, and all those of her husband; and this 
 battalion of noble women in their gondolas was followed 
 down the Grand Canal by an innumerable fleet of 
 gondolas and boats. All the male relations were wait- 
 ing at the landing of the Piazzetta to escort the ladies 
 to the palace, where the Dogess, seated on a throne, 
 received the homage of the electors and of all the nobility. 
 She did not wear the ducal insignia on that day. In 
 the evening there was a ball, which she opened with one 
 of the Procurators of Saint Mark. 
 
 A series of festivities began on the following day, at 
 which she appeared in a memorably magnificent dress: 
 a long mantle of cloth of gold, like the Doge's 
 own, with wide sleeves lined with white lace, opened 
 to show a skirt and body all of gold lace-w r ork; a 
 girdle of diamonds encircled her waist; her head-dress 
 was a veil, arranged like a cap, but the two ends hung 
 clown to her shoulders, and were picked up and 
 fastened to her back hair by two diamond clasps. 
 
 On three consecutive evenings there were balls at 
 
 the palace, and at each the Dogess danced only one 
 
 minuet, with a Procurator of Saint Mark, 
 
 Rom, viii. i/8. . -iii 
 
 as etiquette required when there were no 
 foreign princes in Venice.
 
 xiv THE LAST DOGES 337 
 
 This reminds one of old times; it is even true that 
 in some ways the display at the ducal palace was 
 greater than it had ever been. The G . r. Mickiel, 
 banquets especially took the importance of U2S9 - 
 public spectacles, and were always five in number, given 
 at the leasts of Saint Mark, the Ascension, Saint 
 Vitus, Saint Jerome, and Saint Stephen, after the last 
 of which the distribution of the 'oselle' took place, 
 representing the ducks of earlier days, as the reader 
 will remember. At these great dinners there were 
 generally a hundred guests; the Doge's counsellors, 
 the Heads of the Ten, the Avogadors and the heads of 
 all the other magistracies had a right to be invited, but 
 •the rest of the guests were chosen among the func- 
 tionaries at the Doge's pleasure. 
 
 In the banquet-hall there were a number of side- 
 boards on which was exhibited the silver, part of which 
 belonged to the Doge and part to the State, and this 
 was shown twenty-four hours before the feast. It was 
 under the keeping of a special official. The glass 
 service used on the table for flowers and for dessert 
 was of the finest made in Murano. Each service, 
 though this is hard to believe, is said to have been used 
 in public only once, and was designed to recall some 
 important event of contemporary history by trophies, 
 victories, emblems, and allegories. I find this stated 
 by Giustina Renier Michiel, who was a contemporary, 
 was noble, and must have often seen these banquets. 
 
 The public was admitted to view the magnificent 
 spectacle during the whole of the first course, and the 
 
 VOL. II. — Z
 
 33$ GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xi\ 
 
 ladies of the aristocracy went in great numbers. It 
 was their custom to walk round the tables, talking with 
 those of their friends who sat among the guests, and 
 accepting the fruits and sweetmeats which the Doge 
 and the rest offered them, rising from their seats to do 
 so. The Doge himself rose from his throne to salute 
 those noble ladies whom he wished to distinguish 
 especially. Sovereigns passing through Venice at such 
 times did not disdain to appear as mere spectators at 
 the banquets, which had acquired the importance of 
 national anniversaries. 
 
 Between the first and the second courses, a majestic 
 chamberlain shook a huge bunch of keys while he 
 walked round the hall, and at this hint all visitors 
 disappeared. The feast sometimes lasted several hours, 
 after which the Doge's squires presented each of the 
 guests with a great basket filled with sweetmeats, fruits, 
 comfits, and the like, and adorned with the ducal arms. 
 Every one rose to thank the Doge for these presents, 
 and he took advantage of the general move to go back 
 to his private apartments. The guests accompanied 
 him to the threshold, where his Serenity bowed to them 
 without speaking, and every one returned his salute in 
 silence. He disappeared within, and all went home. 
 
 During this ceremony of leave-taking, the gondoliers 
 
 of the guests entered the hall of the banquet and each 
 
 G.R.Mkhiei, carried the basket received by his master 
 
 Origim l J02. to some l ac Jy indicated by the latter. 
 
 'One may imagine,' cries the good Dame Michiel, 
 
 'what curiosity there was about the destination of the
 
 XIV 
 
 THE LAST DOGES 
 
 339 
 
 baskets, but the faithful gondoliers regarded mystery 
 as a point of honour, though the basket was of such 
 
 MARCO rOLO S COURT 
 
 dimensions that it was impossible to take it anywhere 
 unobserved; happy were they who received these 
 evidences of a regard which at once touched their
 
 3+0 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xiv 
 
 feelings and flattered their legitimate- pride! The 
 greatest misfortune was to have to share the prize with 
 another.' 
 
 The reign of Aloise Mocenigo was the one in which 
 the question of reforms was the most fully discussed, 
 but many of the discussions turned on theories, and 
 though a few led to the passage of measures which 
 somewhat affected commerce and public instruction, no 
 real result was produced. The Republic, I repeat, was 
 dying of old age, which is the only ill that is universally 
 admitted to be incurable. 
 
 At the death of Mocenigo, three candidates were 
 proposed for the ducal throne, namely, Andrea Tron, 
 Girolamo Venier, and Paolo Renier. If the people had 
 been consulted, Venier would have been acclaimed, 
 though I do not pretend to say that his election 
 would have retarded the end. Nothing is easier than to 
 speculate about what 'the people' might have done at 
 any given point in history; nothing is harder than to 
 guess what they are going to do; nothing, on the 
 whole, is more certain than that the voice of the 
 people never yet turned the scale at a great moment 
 in a nation well out of its infancy. No one pretends 
 nowadays that the French revolution was made by 
 'the people.' 
 
 The many in Venice w r ere vastly surprised to hear 
 of Paolo Renier's candidacy, for he had a very indifferent 
 reputation; to be accurate, the trouble was that it was 
 not indifferent, but bad. He was, indeed, a man of keen 
 penetration, rarely eloquent, and a first-rate scholar.
 
 xiv THE LAST DOGES 341 
 
 He knew Homer by heart, and he had translated Plato's 
 Dialogues, which latter piece of work ,, ... 
 
 6 I R. -.■111. 240, 
 
 might partly explain, without excusing, *#/; Mutineiu, 
 his deplorable morals; but it was neither 
 from Plato nor from Homer that he had learned to 
 plunder the government of his country. One of his 
 contemporaries, Gratarol, described him as possessing 
 'the highest of talents, the most arrogant of characters, 
 and the most deceptive of faces.' 
 
 It was commonly reported in Venice that when he 
 had been Bailo at Constantinople he had taken advan- 
 tage of the war between Turkey and Russia, under 
 Catherine the Great, to enrich himself in a shameful 
 manner, and the ninety thousand sequins he made on 
 that occasion afterwards served him,accordingto popular 
 report, for bribing the Barnabotti in the Great Council 
 in order that the forty-one electors chosen might be 
 favourable to him. He was certainly not the inventor 
 of this plan, but he is generally said to have just out- 
 done his predecessors in generosity, without over- 
 stepping the limits of strict economy. The general 
 belief is that he bought three hundred votes at fifteen 
 sequins each, which was certainly not an excessive 
 price. It appears, too, that he distributed money to the 
 people in order to soothe the irritation his candidacy 
 caused. If all these accusations were not clearly 
 proved, they were at least the subject of contemporary 
 satire. 
 
 A certain priest in particular wrote biting verses on 
 him, in Venetian dialect, describing the righteous anger
 
 342 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xiv 
 
 of the late Marco Foscarini's ghost at the election of 
 
 such a successor. The shade of the honour- 
 Malamani. r ...... . 
 
 able man tears orr the ducal insignia in 
 disgust, and bitterly reproaches Venice. 
 
 'Ah, foolish Venice!' it exclaims, 'a Renier is 
 Doge of our country, one who with ribald heart and 
 iniquitous words sought to undo that tribunal which 
 defends our country from all evil ! Ah, mad Venice ! 
 Now indeed I do repent me of having been Doge one 
 year ! Strike my name from the series of the Doges, 
 for I disdain to stand among traitors/ 
 
 After his election Paolo Renier had his first 'osella' 
 coined with a peculiarity in the superscription which 
 irritated the public. The words ran : ' Paulus Reinerius 
 principis munus/ his name being in the nomina- 
 tive case, a grammatical mistake which had always 
 been regarded as the special privilege of kings and 
 emperors. 
 
 He made money of everything, by selling posts, 
 
 franchises, and licenses to beg at the door of the 
 
 Basilica of Saint Mark. The Dogess was 
 
 MutinelH, Ult. . . . . . . . . , 
 
 not a person likely to increase her husband s 
 popularity, for she had been a rope-dancer, and never 
 appeared at public ceremonies. As I have explained 
 elsewhere, it was the Doge's niece who did the honours 
 of the palace, Dame Giustina, who was beloved and 
 esteemed by all Venetians, but 'the Delmaz,' as the 
 Doge's wife was called, interfered in a hundred details 
 of the administration. 
 
 It is told, for instance, that the priest of the church
 
 xiv THE LAST DOGES 343 
 
 of San Basso used to have the bell rung for mass very 
 early in the morning, and that it had a 
 peculiarly harsh and shrill tone which dis- 'SanBasso'; 
 turbed the Dogess's slumbers. She sent for f° ^° 1 ^ 
 
 o Vecchie ±>torte. 
 
 him and promised to make him a canon of 
 Saint Mark's if he would only have the bell moved, 
 or not rung. The good man promised and went away 
 delighted, but when, after a time, the canonry was not 
 given to him, he began ringing again, and doubtless 
 enjoyed the thought that every stroke set the faithless 
 Dogess's teeth on edge. 
 
 The people revenged themselves on the Renier family 
 for its many misdeeds in scathing epigrams, and when at 
 last the Doge lay dying in long agony, the 
 
 & . J - f . 1 > 1 Mutinelli, Ult. 
 
 gondoliers said that his soul refused to 
 leave without being paid. The truth is that as his death 
 took place in Carnival week, on February eighteenth, 
 1789, it was decided to keep his death a secret not 
 only over Ash Wednesday, but until the first Monday 
 in Lent, in order not to disturb the merry- 
 
 Rom. viii. joo. 
 
 making, nor the reaction which was sup- 
 posed to follow it; and he was buried without much 
 ceremony and with no display in the church of the 
 Tolentini. 
 
 The candidates proposed for election to succeed him 
 were numerous, but not of good quality. One of them, 
 Sebastiano Mocenigo, was such a bad 
 
 11111 . T7 . Rom. viii. 301. 
 
 character that when he had been in Vienna 
 
 as Ambassador the Empress Maria Teresa had asked 
 
 the Republic to recall him. The truth was that the
 
 34+ 
 
 (il 1 VXINC.S I K< »\1 HISTORY 
 
 XIV 
 
 few who were fit for the Dogeship would nor accept it, 
 or were opposed by the whole body of the corruptible. 
 
 
 of 
 
 PONTE DELI. A IMETA 
 
 As a specimen of what went on during the election 
 the last Doge of Venice, I subjoin an official list
 
 XIV 
 
 THE LAST DOGES 
 
 345 
 
 of what were considered the legitimate expenses of the 
 electors. The fijrures are from Mutinelli 
 
 & _, . . Mutinelli, Ult. 
 
 and may be trusted. I hey are given m 
 
 Venetian 'lire,' one of which is considered to have been 
 
 equal to half a modern Italian 'lira,' or French franc. 
 
 Ven. Lire. 
 
 Bread, wine, oil, and vinegar 
 
 Fish ........ 
 
 Meat, poultry, game ..... 
 
 Sausages, large and small .... 
 
 Preserved fruits and candles .... 
 
 Wines, liquors, coffee ..... 
 
 Spices, herbs, fruit, flowers .... 
 
 Wood and charcoal ..... 
 
 Utensils hired, worn, and lost 
 
 Small expenses ...... 
 
 Given to footmen and to workmen of the guilds 
 Tobacco and snuff ..... 
 
 Poem c La Scaramuccia ' (The Skirmish) 
 Almanacks ...... 
 
 Gameof Rocambole(saidtohavebeenakindofOmbre) 
 Nightcaps ........ 
 
 Felt caps . 
 
 Socks .000.0.. 
 
 Black silk wig-bags . . . . . . 
 
 French, German, and Spanish snuff-boxes 
 Combs ' a la royale,' for wigs, and for caps 
 Essence of rose, carnation, lavender, and 
 
 olive gum and gold powder . 
 Rouge . 
 
 One rosary ..... 
 
 Total . . . 389,926 
 
 vanilla ; 
 
 29,421 
 
 24,410 
 
 20,370 
 
 3,9^0 
 
 47,670 
 
 63*845 
 
 6,3 H 
 
 3 1 > 8 5i 
 
 41,624 
 
 45,3 2 7 
 63,583 
 
 4,93 J 
 
 48 
 
 8 
 
 550 
 
 450 
 
 56 
 16 
 48 
 
 3,077 
 2,150 
 
 173 
 
 9 
 15
 
 346 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 XIV 
 
 Romanin, probably with another copy of the account 
 which he does not give in items, and writing earlier 
 than Mutinelli, makes the sum a little smaller. In any 
 case it is certainly one of the most extraordinary bills 
 ever brought in by a Republic for electing its chief. 
 
 In view of modern methods it will interest some 
 
 Kom.viii.jo2, °f m y readers to see how the expenses of 
 
 note. Venetian elections increased towards the 
 
 end, according to Romanin : — 
 
 Election of Carlo Ruzzini in 1732 
 
 " Aloise Pisani " 1 734 
 
 " Pietro Grimani " 1741 
 
 " Francesco Loredan " 1752 
 
 " Marco Foscarini " 1762 
 
 " Aloise Mocenigo " 1763 
 
 " Paolo Renier " 1779 
 
 " Ludovico Manin " 1789 
 
 Vcn. lire. 
 68,946 
 70,629 
 70,667 
 134,290 
 
 120,868 
 
 125,234 
 222,410 
 
 37^3«7 
 
 Greatly increased expenditure for successive elections 
 during half a century can only mean one. of two things, 
 the approach of a collapse, or the imminence of a 
 tyranny. The greater the proportionate increase from 
 one election to the next, the nearer is the catastrophe. 
 The election of the last Doge of Venice cost five and a 
 half times as much as that of Carlo Ruzzini. It would 
 be interesting to know what proportion Julius Caesar's 
 enormous expenses, when he was elected Pontifex 
 Maximus, bore to those of a predecessor in the same 
 office fifty years earlier. 
 
 The Venetian electors who managed to consume, or 
 make away with, nearly eight thousand pounds' worth
 
 xiv THE LAST DOGES 347 
 
 of food, drink, tobacco, and rose-water in nineteen 
 days, chose an honest man, though a very incompetent 
 one, and the public showed no enthusiasm for the new 
 Doge, in spite of the great festivities held for his 
 coronation. The Venetian people, too, preserved their 
 artistocratic tendencies to the very last, and always 
 preferred a Doge of ancient lineage to one who, like 
 Manin, came of the 'New men.' 
 
 He was not fortunate in his choice of a motto for 
 his first 'osella.' He, who was to dig the grave of 
 Venetian liberty, chose the single word 'Libertas' for 
 the superscription on his first coin; and on that which 
 appeared in the last year but one of the independ- 
 ence of Venice were the words 'Pax in virtute tua,' 
 which, as Mr. Horatio Brown has pointedly observed, 
 'reads like a mocking epitaph upon the dying 
 Republic' 
 
 Manin was a weak and vacillating man, though 
 truthful, generous to a fault, and not a coward. As 
 Doge, he w 7 as bound hand and foot, and only a man of 
 great character could have broken through such bonds 
 to strike out an original plan that might have prolonged 
 his country's life. He gave his fortune without stint, 
 but the idea of giving anything else did not occur to 
 him. Before the tremendous storm of change that 
 broke with the French revolution and raged throughout 
 Europe for years, he bowed his head, and Venice went 
 down. No man is to be blamed for not being born a 
 hero; nor is the mother of heroes in fault when she is 
 old and can bear them no more.
 
 XV 
 
 THE LAST SOLDIERS 
 
 During the eighteenth century Venetian diplomacy 
 succeeded in preserving the Republic's neutral position 
 in spite of the great wars that agitated Europe. Her 
 only war was with the Turks, and it was disastrous. 
 
 Early in the century the Turks attacked the Pelo- 
 ponnesus, and Venice lost her richest colonies in rapid 
 succession. Her navy was no longer a 
 power, and she was almost without allies, 
 for the European powers were exhausted by the recent 
 
 348
 
 xv THE LAST SOLDIERS 349 
 
 war of the Spanish succession, and though Malta and 
 the Pope befriended her, the help they could give was 
 insignificant. It was not until the Turks attacked 
 Hungary that she received any efficient assistance; by 
 uniting her forces with those of the Empire she 
 obtained some success, and the desperate courage of 
 Marshal Count von Schulenburg, a Saxon general in 
 the Venetian service, saved Corfu. The Turks, beaten 
 at sea by the Venetians, and on the Danube by the 
 Hungarians at Temesvar, made peace, and the treaty 
 of Passarowitz put an end to the war. 
 
 I7/S 
 
 But Venice had for ever lost the Pelopon- 
 nesus, Crete, and other valuable possessions. 
 
 After this disastrous struggle, it was impossible 
 to preserve any further illusions as to the future. 
 Venice felt that she was in full decadence, and only 
 endeavoured to hide its outward signs. Instead of 
 trying to beat against the current, she allowed 
 herself to drift; things w T ent from bad to w T orse, and 
 before long the army, the navy, and the Arsenal were 
 completely disorganised, though their expenses had not 
 in the least diminished. A contemporary says that a 
 regiment looked like a company, and a Mutmein, uit. 
 company like a corporal's guard, whereas 'sow- 
 the Republic was paying for regiments with their full 
 complement of men. 
 
 The service of the hired troops was beneath con- 
 tempt. In Padua the students of the MuHnelH, uit. 
 University defied the garrison. On one /76 - 
 occasion, in a hideous orgy, they accidentally or in-
 
 350 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 tentionally did to death a pretty beggar girl; but when 
 a detachment of Croatian soldiers attempted to arrest 
 the culprits, the students treated them with such utter 
 contempt that their commander was terrified, fled with 
 his men to the safety of the barracks, and bolted and 
 barred the doors. 
 
 If such things happened on Venetian territory one 
 may fancy what the state of things was in the colonies. 
 Corfu was supposed to be defended by a company of 
 Venetian soldiers and two companies of Albanians. 
 From 1724 to 1745 the latter were represented by two 
 men, a major and a captain, whose sole business was to 
 draw the pay of the whole force. The two officers 
 embezzled the sums allowed for the men's food and 
 uniforms, and the pay was sent to the soldiers, who lived 
 in their own homes in the mountains. No trouble 
 was taken even to identify them, and when one died it 
 was customary for another to take his name and receive 
 his pay. The two companies thus literally earned im- 
 mortality, and the names on the rolls never changed. 
 Several Albanians who drew their pay as Venetian 
 mercenaries enrolled themselves also in the so-called 
 'Royal Macedonian' regiment, in the service of the 
 King of Naples, and were never found out by the 
 Republic. In twenty-one years these imaginary troops 
 cost Venice 54,300 sequins, or over £40,000. 
 
 The colonial garrisons economised their gunpowder 
 by abolishing all target practice, and consisted chiefly 
 of utterly untrained old men who were absent most 
 of the time. The fortresses were not more serviceable
 
 xv THE LAST SOLDIERS 351 
 
 than the troops that were supposed to defend them. On 
 the mainland, the frontier fort of Peschiera 
 was half dismantled, the drawbridges had iUld TasHni, 
 long rusted in their positions and could , „ u " der 1 . , 
 
 o r Bombardiere. 
 
 not be raised, and the ramparts were 
 so overgrown with trees and shrubs as to be im- 
 passable; at one time the fort did not even possess 
 a flag to show its nationality. Ninety of its guns had 
 no carriages; the gunners lived quietly at their homes 
 in Venice, and if they ever remembered that the}' were 
 supposed to be soldiers it was because the government 
 dressed them up on great occasions as a guard of 
 honour for the ducal palace. Their number was 
 between four and five hundred. 
 
 As for the fort of Corfu, it was robbed by a common 
 thief. In 1745, a certain Vizzo Manducchiollo pro- 
 mised the Turks two good guns, one of Mutmeiu, uit. 
 bronze and one of iron. With the help l6g - 
 
 of his gang he scaled the wall of the Raimondo Fort 
 one night, carried off the cannon, and sold them to the 
 Turks for twenty-seven sequins. * 
 
 The workmen of the Arsenal in Venice, who had 
 formerly been the best-organised body of men 
 in the Republic, had completely come to grief 
 in the eighteenth century. The Arsenal was sup- 
 posed to be governed by a voluminous code of laws, 
 most of which were now either altogether disregarded, 
 or were administered with culpable leniency. The 
 disorder was incredible. Every son of a workman in 
 the Arsenal had an hereditary right to be employed
 
 352 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 there, but the officials who were in command did nor 
 take any means oi checking the men's attendance; they 
 paid so much a head tor every workman on the pay- 
 roll, according to his age, whether he ever appeared 
 except on pay-days or not. In this way the State paid 
 out vast sums to men who only entered the gates once 
 a month to draw their wages for doing nothing. Many 
 of them had other occupations, at which they worked 
 regularly and industriously. Some were even actors, 
 and one of the cleverest 'Pantaloons' w r as officially 
 known as one of the best-paid Arsenal hands. 1 he 
 six hundred apprentices who were supposed to attend 
 the technical schools attached to the different depart- 
 ments of the yard, only looked in now 7 and then. 
 When the time came for them to pass for the certificate 
 of master workman they paid the sum of thirty-four 
 Venetian lire, in consideration of which the Examiners 
 pronounced them competent. In this way, as Mutinelli 
 
 Mutinein,w. truly says, ignorance became hereditary, 
 
 145* *53- as employment in the Arsenal already 
 
 was, and the yard became a mere monument of 
 
 former generous initiative, very expensive to maintain. 
 
 At the fall of the Republic, Bonaparte seized and 
 sent to France a large number of vessels. When 
 
 Rom.x.162, the Arsenal was sacked in 1797 it was 
 note 2, and 304. f ounc J t o contain 5293 pieces of artillery, 
 of which 2518 were of bronze, and the rest of iron; 
 and at the last there were brought from the docks 
 ten ships of seventy guns, eleven of seventy-six, one 
 of fifty-five, thirteen of forty-two, two of thirty-two,
 
 XV 
 
 THE LAST SOLDIERS 
 
 153 
 
 twenty-three galleys, one floating howitzer battery, two 
 'cutters,' whatever the Italian writer may have meant, 
 
 
 
 <*eJ*. 
 
 ''fee; 
 
 ^m S.-.'-V 
 
 
 KSfl 
 
 
 BOAT-BUILDERS 
 
 twelve gunboats, three brigs of sixteen to eighteen 
 guns, one fore-and-aft schooner, seven galleons and 
 
 Vol.. II. — 2 A
 
 354 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 as many 'zambecchi,' five feluccas, many boats armed 
 with grenade mortars, ten floats with two guns, and 
 one floating-battery of seven guns. 
 
 If these vessels were not all badly built, they 
 were certainly badly fitted out and badly sailed 
 when they went to sea. The Provveditori and 
 Inquisitors Extraordinary, sent from time to time by 
 the Senate to inspect the fleet, complained that they 
 found neither good carpenters nor good sailors. One 
 frigate, which had a nominal crew of one hundred 
 and fifty-seven men, the Concordia, was found to have 
 barely thirty, and not able seamen at that. As for the 
 convicts who pulled the oars on the war-galleys, they 
 were kept half-clothed and shelterless when ashore; 
 but being only carelessly guarded they often ran away, 
 and not unfrequently succeeded in finding employment, 
 under assumed names, in the smaller ports of the 
 Republic. Some are known to have become house- 
 servants. Nevertheless the overseer of each gang 
 regularly pocketed the money allowed for their food 
 and clothing:. 
 
 In 1784 it was proved that for a long time from sixty 
 to seventy thousand fagots of wood and an immense 
 number of barrel staves had disappeared yearly, no one 
 knew how. The workmen of the Arsenal did not 
 think "it necessary to buy firewood when it could be 
 had for nothing. 
 
 In 1730, the Provveditor Erizzo was ordered to 
 one of the Eastern colonies on an important mission, 
 with several larsje vessels. Almost at the moment of
 
 XV 
 
 THE LAST SOLDIERS 
 
 355 
 
 starting, the officers of one of these galleys came and 
 begged him to give them a captain not belonging to the 
 
 
 THE VEGETABLE MARKET 
 
 navy, as they should not otherwise feel safe to go 
 to sea. 
 
 Yet at this very time Goldoni wrote that every one
 
 356 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 sang in Venice: 'They sing in the squares, in the 
 Goidoni.i.chap. streets, on the canals; the shopkeepers 
 sing as they sell their wares; the work- 
 men sing as they leave their work ; the gondolier sings 
 while he waits for his master. The characteristic of 
 the nation is its gaiety.' 
 
 In the midst of this laughing decadence, in the very 
 depth of this gay and careless disintegration of a 
 country's body and soul, we come across one devoted, 
 energetic character, a fighting man of the better days, 
 who reminds us of what Venice was in her greatness. 
 
 Angelo Emo was great, considering the littleness of 
 Venice in his time. If we compare him with Vittor 
 Pisani, Carlo Zeno, or Sebastian Venier, he seems small 
 as a leader; but as a plain, brave man, he is not dwarfed 
 by comparison with men who were colossal in an age 
 of giants. 
 
 He was born in 1731, and was brought up by his 
 father to dream of older and greater times, and to know 
 more of his country's history than most 
 youths of his day. He travelled early and 
 far, often employed on business of the State, and he 
 was able to compare the condition of Venice with that 
 of other European countries, especially England and 
 France, in regard to military and naval matters. 
 
 He was not yet thirty years old when the government 
 sent him to Portugal to study the means of re- 
 viving the commercial relations between that kingdom 
 and Venice. Sailing down the Adriatic, he put into 
 Corfu, probably for fresh provisions; but on learning
 
 
 PONTE CANONICA
 
 
 I 
 
 

 
 • I! ft1 
 
 H 
 
 ^ mm 
 
 /i 

 
 xv THE LAST SOLDIERS 557 
 
 that many intrigues were already on foot to deprive 
 
 
 FONDAMENTA WEIDERMANN 
 
 him of his mission, he set sail again at once for the 
 Mediterranean in order to be beyond reach of recall.
 
 358 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 He passed the Straits of Gibraltar, but fell in with a 
 gale of wind in the ocean which nearly put an end to 
 his sailing for ever. The Venetian vessels were not 
 remarkable for their seaworthiness at best, and ocean 
 weather was almost too much for Emo's ship. He 
 himself describes the frightful confusion in the storm, 
 and the difficulty he had in managing his men. To 
 make matters worse, the freshwater tanks were sprung 
 and most of the supply was lost, so that water was 
 served out in rations, while the food consisted princi- 
 pally of what the British sailor terms 'salt horse.' 
 Then the vessel lost her rudder, and things' looked 
 badly; but the gale moderated and died out at last, 
 and the ship brought to near a wooded coast, whence 
 Emo was able before long to get a tree, which was 
 rough hewn to serve as a rudder, and he got his 
 vessel into port at last, 'with the admiration and 
 applause of every one,' says Romanin, after describing 
 the affair of the jury-rudder as only a landsman can 
 describe an accident at sea. 
 
 His mission to Portugal was successful, and Emo 
 
 returned to Venice; but when he tried to direct the 
 
 attention of the government to reforms of which the 
 
 army and navy stood in urgent need, he could obtain 
 
 no practical result, so that when he was 
 
 I78d 
 
 placed in command of a fleet, with orders 
 to punish the Bey of Tunis and the Algerian pirates, 
 he was well aware that his force was by no means what 
 it appeared to be to the inexperienced public. In the 
 course of the campaign his largest ship, La Forza, ill-
 
 xv THE LAST SOLDIERS 359 
 
 equipped and worse officered, sank before his eyes off 
 Trapani, and none of the other vessels could be relied 
 on to do any better. Yet with such material and such 
 men he sustained a conflict that lasted three years, and 
 if he was unable to destroy the Bey of w „ ,„ 
 
 J _ J Mut nielli, ( It. 
 
 Tunis, he at least' humbled him, brought tso.andRom. 
 him to terms, and obtained from him a 
 formal treaty engaging to put down piracy on the 
 African coast. France profited much by the result of 
 this expedition, and one of the last documents signed 
 by Louis XVI. before he fell was a letter to the Doge 
 Manin, in which Angelo Emo was praised to the skies 
 for the good work he had done. 
 
 The Admiral was rewarded with the title of Cavaliere, 
 the only one the Republic ever conferred, and with the 
 office of Procurator of Saint Mark's, but I cannot find 
 that his advice as to reforms was ever listened to. A 
 few years later, the Bey of Tunis broke his promise in 
 regard to piracy, and Emo was again sent with a fleet 
 to chastise him, but was suddenly taken ill in Malta, 
 and died in a few days. He was poisoned, it is said, 
 by Condulmer, his principal lieutenant, who at once 
 succeeded him as admiral. 
 
 The last Venetian fighting man was of average 
 height and lean, and stooped a little; he „ 
 
 fo . r ' Statue of Emo, 
 
 was pale, his forehead was broad, and he Canova; 
 had blue eyes and black eyebrows, particu- 
 larly thick and bushy. His mouth was strong, but the 
 lips were thick and coarse. 
 
 His remains were carefully embalmed in Malta and
 
 360 (CLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xv 
 
 were brought home to Venice on his flagship, the Tama 
 — 'fame' — which came to anchor on the twenty-fourth 
 
 of May 1792. The bodv was followed from the mole to 
 Saint Mark's by the clergy, the schools, the magistracies, 
 and a vast concourse of people. The funeral mass was 
 sung in the presence of the Doge, and the vast pro- 
 cession wended its way to the church of the Serviti. 
 To the martial sound of drums and the solemn roar of 
 the minute gun, Venice laid her last captain to rest 
 beside his fathers.
 
 
 •v.,. 
 
 THE SALUTE FROM S. GIORGIO 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 During the seventeenth century the Republic had no 
 doubt of her own military strength, but nevertheless 
 trusted much to her diplomacy; in the eighteenth the 
 latter was the last good weapon left her of the many 
 that had once been in her armoury, and skilled as her 
 diplomatic agents were, their efforts could not prevent 
 her from spoliation by the Turks, whose simple rule 
 was to take first and to talk about rights afterwards. 
 
 361
 
 362 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 In a measure, too, Venice's position as a neutral 
 power was dearly bought, and more than once in the 
 war of the Spanish succession her territory was the 
 
 Rom.viii.5, scene of fighting between French and 
 sqq - Germans. The same skill kept her out 
 
 of the field during the quarrels for the succession of 
 Parma, of Tuscany, of Poland, and of Austria, and 
 obtained for Venetian Ambassadors a place of honour 
 in the congresses that resulted in the treaties of Utrecht, 
 Vienna, and Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 During the American war of independence, there 
 were constant diplomatic relations between the Republic 
 and the American deputies who came to France for the 
 congress of Versailles. The Venetian archives contain 
 a letter signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
 and Thomas Jefferson, by which the Americans hoped 
 to lay the foundations of a commercial treaty; but 
 owing to the excessive caution of Venice the attempt 
 had no result. The Republic of the Adriatic had 
 almost always looked eastward for her trade, and 
 distrusted the new world which she had declined 
 to help to discover. The original letter, written in 
 the English language, and addressed to the Venetian 
 Ambassador in Paris, Daniele Dolfin, has not been 
 published, I believe; and I shall not insult the memory 
 of such writers by attempting to turn Romanin's 
 
 Rom. via. 229, trans ' at i° n back into their language. The 
 
 2 3°- letter explains that the three signers are 
 
 fully empowered by their government to negotiate a 
 
 friendly treaty of commerce, and will be glad to enter
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 363 
 
 upon the negotiation as soon as the Venetian Ambas 
 sado.r is properly authorised to do so; in signing they 
 use the form, 'your most obedient, humble servants.' 
 For the benefit of any American who may wish to get 
 at the original, I may add that Romanin found the 
 letter in the Archives of the Senate, with the despatches 
 from Fiance of Daniele Dolfin, envelope 261. 
 
 A letter from another Venetian Ambassador in 
 Paris, Cappello, prophetically dated July fourteenth, 
 1788, exactlv one year before the destruc- 
 
 . Rom. ix. 153. 
 
 tion of the Bastille, to the very day, 
 sounds the first warning alarm of the approaching 
 revolution; few writers have better summed up the 
 condition of the French monarchy when it was on 
 the brink of the abyss, and no diplomatist could have 
 given his own country better advice. 
 
 The Committee of the Savi, who concentrated all 
 power into their own hands, did not even communicate 
 this letter to the Senate. Cappello spoke still more 
 clearly when he made his formal report in person, on 
 returning from his mission and after leaving Paris just 
 when the King was to be asked to sign the Constitution, 
 a document for which the Ambassador confesses that 
 he can find no name. 'It is not a monarchy,' he says, 
 'for it takes everything from the monarch; it is not a 
 democracy, because the people are not the legislators; 
 it is not that of an aristocracy, for the mere name is 
 looked upon in France not as treason against the King, 
 but as treason against the nation. . . . The National 
 Assembly began by encroaching upon all powers, and
 
 364 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 by confounding within itself all the attributes of sover- 
 eignty, usurping the administrative functions from the 
 executive power, and from the judiciary the right of 
 judging criminal cases.' 
 
 It is easy to understand the impression made by 
 such a report, in the course of which the Ambassador 
 narrated the scenes that took place in Versailles and at 
 the Tuileries after the night of October sixth, 1789. 
 The aristocratic Venetian Republic sympathised pro- 
 foundly with the dying French monarchy; but it was 
 impossible to believe that such a state of things would 
 last long, and the government was painfully surprised 
 by the letter in which Louis XVI. announced that he 
 accepted the situation. That letter is in existence. 
 In it the King declares that he has accepted the new 
 form of government 'of his own free will; that the 
 National Assembly is only a reform of the ancient 
 States General, and will ensure the happiness of the 
 nation and the monarchy.' The King adds, as if to 
 hide his weakness from himself, that what is called a 
 'revolution' is mostly only the destruction of a mass 
 of prejudices and abuses which endanger the public 
 wealth, and that he was therefore proud to think that 
 he should leave his son something better 
 than the crown as he had inherited it from 
 his ancestors, namely, a constitutional monarchy. 
 
 This letter, with its artificial enthusiasm, is dated 
 March fourteenth, 1791, three months before the 
 King's flight and his arrest at Varennes, and less than 
 two years before his murder on the scaffold.
 
 Hi!) 
 
 8 
 
 niSQ 
 
 l> t 
 
 ^' HliPi 
 
 31111, 
 K If^fl ill 
 
 FROM THE PONTE DELLA PIETA
 
 366 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY x\i 
 
 Cappello's successor as Ambassador in Paris, Alvise 
 Pisani, continued to keep his government informed of 
 what occurred. On the twenty-fifth of September 
 1 79 1 , Louis XVI. addressed another letter to his 'most 
 dear friends, allies, and confederates,' the Vene- 
 tians, in which he expresses the ceitainty that 
 they will be rejoiced to hear of his having signed the 
 Constitution, which had so greatly shocked Cappello. 
 In spite of the painful impression produced by these 
 documents, it was necessary to answer them, if onlv as 
 a matter of etiquette. 
 
 The position of the Republic was a difficult one. 
 Prudence required the strictest neutrality as to the 
 affairs of other nations; but the mere fact that every 
 one recognised this as Venice's only possible position 
 exposed her to perfidious and secret attacks of all sorts. 
 France maintained a vast number of secret agents to 
 propagate revolutionary doctrines in the Venetian ter- 
 ritory, and at the same time lost no opportunity of 
 trying to pick a quarrel with the Republic, by insulting 
 her flag. On the twenty-ninth of November 1792, the 
 captain of a French man-of-war, bearing a Spanish name, 
 the Buenos Ayres, asked permission to land with eight 
 men on the Venetian shore, but refused to submit to the 
 regulations of the Health Office. His request was 
 refused. Thereupon he proceeded to abuse the 
 Venetian government from the deck of his ship. He 
 wound up by declaring that there was no such thing 
 existing as a Sovereign Government, that all men were 
 equal, and that he was a magistrate, as good as any
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 367 
 
 senator. He chose to land, and he would land if he 
 
 chose. A Venetian galley hindered him 
 
 from doing so, but as he made off he 
 
 cried out: 'You will change your minds in a year!' 
 
 Poor France ! She herself was to learn a century 
 later that all men are equal — in the eyes of German 
 Jews. 
 
 At that time Austria allied herself with Piedmont 
 to oppose the French invasion which was imminent, 
 and the Venetian Envoy at the court of Turin con- 
 tinually advised his government to join this league, 
 which alone could save the Republic and the other 
 Italian powers. 
 
 The Committee of the Savi who had absorbed the 
 government of Venice simply by saving trouble to all 
 the other officials, allowed the Senate to 
 discuss this proposition, probably because 
 they understood its vast importance. But the Senate 
 declared for strict neutrality, and the Savi felt that after 
 this they were free to do as they pleased, and from that 
 time they decided according to their own judgment 
 as to the question of showing any despatch to the 
 Councils or of suppressing it in order to avoid public 
 discussions. 
 
 Nevertheless, they felt the danger of the moment 
 enough to recall the Venetian vessels stationed at 
 Malta and Corfu, in order to defend the approaches 
 to Venice, a measure which displeased France on the 
 ground that it was a preparation for hostilities. Thus 
 the success of the French army in Savoy obliged the
 
 368 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 Savi to call in the Senate again, to discuss the public 
 safety. The 'fathers of their country' were at that 
 time mostly in their country places, thoroughly enjoying 
 themselves; but they too must have felt that there was 
 clanger in the air, for they answered the summons of 
 Francesco Pesaro, the presiding Savio for the week. 
 A lively discussion took place, but once more neutrality 
 was voted by a strong majority, and the government 
 of the Savi now entered upon a course of half measures 
 more dangerous in reality than any one mistake could 
 have been. Permission was granted to the Imperial 
 troops to transport provisions from Trieste to Goro, 
 and with a last revival of the business spirit the 
 Republic violated the neutrality she had voted by 
 selling corn and oats to the Austrians. At this the 
 Venetian Ambassador withdrew to London for safety, 
 leaving his secretary in charge. 
 
 An incident now occurred in Venice 
 
 Rom. ix. 203. 111 1 • 
 
 which was calculated to bring matters to 
 a crisis. 
 
 The French Ambassador, who had quitted Venice, 
 had left in charge of the Embassy a certain Monsieur 
 Henin, who had taken as his private secretary a priest 
 called Alessandn. On the tw T enty-ninth of December 
 1792 this priest was sent for in haste by the Superior 
 of the bare-footed Carmelites of the monastery of San 
 Geremia, close to the palace occupied by the French 
 Embassy. He was introduced with some mystery, 
 but with no loss of time, and was conducted to the 
 Superior's room, where he was warned that unless he
 
 XVI 
 
 THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 3 6 9 
 
 left Venice by the sixth of January, he would be 
 assassinated. There was a plot to kill him, but one of 
 the intended murderers had confessed to the Superior 
 himself, and under the seal of confession had begged 
 the monk to save Alessandri's life. 
 
 The priest, who does not seem to have been timid, 
 was much surprised, but promised nothing as to leaving 
 the city, though he appears to have at once considered 
 
 OS THE WAY TO FUSINA, FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BRENTA 
 
 the means of getting away. But on that same evening 
 the Superior received an anonymous note with these 
 words: 'Either the Abbe Alessandri will leave Venice 
 to-morrow, and at once quit Venetian territory, or 
 something serious will happen to him.' The Superior 
 sent for Alessandri again. The note, strange to say, 
 had been delivered together with fifteen gold sequins, 
 which the unknown writer sent to help the priest's 
 flight. 
 
 The priest now lost no time, but left at once for 
 
 VOL. II. — 2 B
 
 3/0 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 Fusina on the mainland, and finding no means of 
 getting on at once, pursued his journey on foot. He 
 had left with the monk a written receipt for the money, 
 which he had been forced to accept, and he had also 
 informed his employer, Monsieur Henin, of the cause 
 of his sudden departure. 
 
 Monsieur Henin was furious, and not without some 
 reason. He wrote a violent letter to the Venetian 
 Government, inquiring how an unknown person could 
 dare anything so outrageous in a well-regulated com- 
 munity. Who was instigating the outrageous crime ? 
 What monster had paid fifteen sequins to have the 
 murder committed ? What was the meaning of the 
 pretended confession ? Why did the villainous author of 
 the abominable plan drag a monk into the plot ? This 
 was the gist of Monsieur Henin's letter, and he ended 
 by demanding the immediate arrest and condign punish- 
 ment of the murderer, or murderers, and the recall of 
 his fugitive secretary, who, he insisted, must be so well 
 guarded by the government as not to be in fear of 
 his life. 
 
 The Secretary of Embassy certainly had right on 
 his side so far, but he followed up his letter in an 
 interview with one of the Inquisitors, in which he 
 declared his belief that it was the government itself 
 that threatened Alessandri. The Inquisitors might 
 have answered that they disposed of much simpler and 
 surer means than the hand of a hired assassin whenever 
 they wished to be rid of an obnoxious person'. Henin 
 suggested, too, that the outrage w T as instigated by
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 371 
 
 Austria in order to exasperate France, an idea which 
 seems deficient in logic. 
 
 Henin appears to have been a violent sort of person, 
 and anything but a diplomatist. Of course he had 
 right on his side, but Alessandri, on inquiry, turned out 
 to be a bad character, and anything but the 'mild, 
 tranquil, reticent, and retiring' creature of fifty-six, 
 whom the Frenchman represented him to be. He 
 had been obliged to leave his native city, Trent, for 
 debt and various misdemeanours ; he was a violent 
 revolutionary, and in his 'tranquil retirement' he 
 dwelt with a disreputable woman of the people, whom 
 he had enticed away from her family; from which 
 facts it was easy to argue that he had made himself the 
 object of some private vengeance. 
 
 Nevertheless, and although Henin had not at that 
 time any proper credentials as Charge d'affaires, the 
 Inquisitors thought it best 'to avoid disturbance, and 
 Alessandri was brought back and properly protected. 
 Almost immediately upon this Henin received credential 
 letters from his government, and asked to present them 
 to the Senate. 
 
 The Savi, who detested the man, were much dis- 
 turbed ; and as the Senate and the Great Council left the 
 matter to them, they asked the assistance 
 
 Rout. ix. 207. 
 
 of those of their colleagues who had served 
 their time and retired. • As they wore black cloaks the 
 people nicknamed them the 'Consulta Nera,* the 
 'Black Cabinet.' 
 
 Not to receive the official representative of the new
 
 j 7 2 (JLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 French government would have been contrary to the 
 policy of strict neutrality adopted by the Venetian 
 Republic; to receive him was to irritate Austria and 
 to expose Venice to an attack from that side. She had 
 pursued a policy of half measures, and the end of half 
 measures is always a fall between two stools. The fall 
 was precipitated by the soothing eloquence of one of the 
 speakers, who assured his colleagues that all Europe would 
 understand and forgive them for yielding to necessity. 
 
 The Senate accordingly voted with the Black 
 Cabinet that Henin should be received, but instructed 
 its ambassadors at the various European courts to con- 
 vey information of the fact with all the circumspection 
 possible, and in such a way as to palliate the action of 
 the Venetian government in the eyes of the world. 
 
 While this was going on, the secretary whom the 
 Venetian Ambassador Pisani had left in charge at Paris, 
 wrote an eloquent letter describing the 
 death of Louis XVI., and he sent at the 
 same time a scrap of the cloak which the King had 
 worn on his w r ay to the scaffold. This caused the most 
 profound emotion. In the Senate, Angelo Ouirini 
 loudly declared that all diplomatic relations with a 
 government of hangmen and executioners must be 
 instantly broken off. 
 
 The matter was still in discussion when Henin 
 demanded, in the name of his government, the authorisa- 
 tion to place the arms of the French Republic over the 
 door of his residence. As his credentials had been 
 accepted it was impossible to refuse this request, but
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 373 
 
 the general indignation of the better sort of the people 
 was unbounded. 
 
 There were now two parties in Venice. On the one 
 hand, the secret emissaries of France preached revolu- 
 tionary doctrines, and stirred up the criminal classes; 
 on the other, a vast literature of pamphlets, articles, 
 satires, and caricatures, all attacking the French, were 
 openly circulated throughout the city. In the hope 
 of diverting the attention of the whole population 
 from political matters the Savi made frantic and ex- 
 travagant efforts to amuse everybody. The very last 
 carnival before the end was the most magnificent ever 
 remembered. 
 
 In the year of the French King's murder, Bona- 
 parte was a captain of artillery, and France was about 
 to face the first coalition of the powers, after putting 
 down the royalists in Vendee. 
 
 Henin continued to annoy the Signory in every 
 possible w r ay, and made the smallest incidents the sub- 
 jects of official complaint and protest. He was at last 
 recalled, but his successor was a man called Noel, who 
 was such a notoriously bad character that the Venetian 
 Senate put off receiving his credentials again and again 
 on all sorts of grounds, doubtless believing, too, that 
 the French revolutionary government was not going to 
 last even so long as it did. To gain time was to save 
 dignity, thought the Senators. But Noel grew tired 
 of waiting, and abruptly returned to Paris in a very 
 bad humour, to stir up against Venice the resentment 
 of the Committee of Public Safety.
 
 374 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 It was now no longer an easy matter to keep up 
 
 A LONELY CANAL 
 
 appearances of neutrality. England, especially, lost no 
 opportunity of urging Venice to join the European
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 375 
 
 League, and Worsley, the last English Minister, was 
 perpetually insisting on a rupture with France. 
 
 Another circumstance occurred to increase the 
 difficulty of Venice's position. The Comte de Lille, 
 afterwards Louis XVIII., who styled himselt Regent 
 of France during the captivity of his nephew, the 
 unfortunate child Louis XVII. , being obliged to leave 
 Piedmont, asked permission to reside in Verona, and 
 the Signory, anxiously hoping for a restoration in 
 France, received him with the honours due to his rank. 
 and the welcome a friend might expect. At this the 
 French Republic took umbrage and protested violently, 
 but the Venetians answered that the presence of the 
 Comte de Lille in Verona, where he led a retired life, 
 was no violation of neutrality. 
 
 The Savi now had more on their hands than they 
 could manage, for they were obliged at one and the 
 same time to watch the movements of the revolutionary 
 propaganda and to keep themselves informed of the 
 doings of the royalist party who plotted in Venice to 
 restore the French monarchy. And meanwhile, in 
 spite of a nominal press censorship, the Postiglione 
 newspaper satirised the French Republic in the 
 bitterest manner, giving Robespierre constant cause 
 of complaint. 
 
 Diplomatic relations were now strained almost to 
 the breaking point. Pisani was still supposed to be 
 the Venetian Ambassador in Paris, though R0m.ix.2j1- 
 he resided in London, and the French 
 Envoy in Venice had left in disgust at not being
 
 376 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 received. On the latter point the French yielded, 
 and sent another and more respectable representative, 
 a certain Lallement, whom the Signory consented 
 to receive in spite of the objections of the English 
 Minister. 
 
 The question now arose, who was to succeed Pisani 
 in Paris, and how the new envoy was to be styled. 
 Lallement had brought very simply worded credentials, 
 and had agreed to assume any designation which the 
 Signory desired. The Savi were much distressed 
 about this matter, but they selected Aloise Ouirini for 
 the mission, and at last decided that he should be 
 addressed neither as Ambassador nor Minister, but 
 simply as 'the Noble Ouirini.' They could hardly 
 have chosen a title better calculated to irritate a govern- 
 ment which held that nobility was a worse crime than 
 forgery or assassination. 
 
 The Noble Quirini accordingly went to Paris with a 
 very magnificent salary, and with instructions to keep up 
 the splendid traditions of former Venetian representa- 
 tives abroad. 
 
 But meanwhile the child Louis XVII. had dis- 
 appeared from the scene, and the Comte de Lille, or 
 the Comte de Provence as he was called 
 
 Rom. ix. 252. .... 
 
 when not travelling incognito, was a 
 source of much anxiety to Venice. He was now 
 undoubtedly the legitimate King of France, and his 
 modest residence in Verona had become a court at 
 which every point of etiquette was most rigorously 
 observed. The European powers encouraged him in
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 377 
 
 his efforts to restore the monarchy in his own person, 
 and England, Austria, and Russia sent envoys to him 
 in Verona without in the least considering the clirH- 
 culties which their action might cause the Venetian 
 government. 
 
 At this juncture France invented another form of 
 government, and Lallement appeared before the Senate 
 with an entirely' new set of credentials as 
 the Envoy of the Directory, which, he 
 declared, was no less disposed than its predecessors in 
 power to remain 'in perfect understanding and on the 
 most friendly terms' with the Venetian Republic. 
 The man who was to end the hideous and grotesque 
 succession of butcheries and farces which had lasted 
 seven years was in favour with this last-hatched and 
 half-fledged government, and his dominating influence 
 was beginning to be felt. Bonaparte was now twenty- 
 six years old ; he was grown up. 
 
 A few months earlier Lallement had read before 
 the Venetian Senate a proclamation which the 'Repre- 
 sentatives of the People' sent to the army 
 of the Alps, as a general warning against 
 the Genoese, the Tuscans, and the Venetians, who, in 
 spite of their protestations of friendship, allowed their 
 ships to capture and plunder French vessels on the 
 high seas. By the end of 1795 the French were 
 masters of the Riviera, having beaten the Austrians 
 very badly. 
 
 Venice was now accused of having violated her 
 neutrality by allowing the passage of Austrian troops
 
 378 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvi 
 
 through her dominions. She answered that she had 
 acted in accordance with a very ancient treaty which 
 accorded the Empire the use of the road to ( rambara, 
 and that she was as neutral as ever; but this the 
 French found it hard to believe. When further accused 
 of favouring royalist intrigues, the Signory made a show 
 of punishing the authors of a few libels on the 
 Directory. 
 
 As for Louis XVIIL, as the Comte de Lille was 
 now called by his adherents, Venice was reluctantly 
 obliged to ask him to leave her territory, as the 
 Directory threatened war if he remained. 
 
 He departed, shaking the dust from his feet. He 
 demanded that the name of his family should be 
 Smediey, sketches erased from the Golden Book, and that 
 
 from Venetian 1 c \ ' u j\t 
 
 History a trie armour of his ancestor Henry IV. 
 chap. xx. note, should be given back to him. This armour 
 Smediey rightly conjectures to have been the sword 
 worn by Henry IV. at the battle of Ivry, with which 
 he had knighted the Venetian Ambassadors after his 
 accession, and which he then presented to the Treasury 
 of Saint Mark's. 
 
 The Signory entirely refused to accede to the Comte 
 de Lille's demands. It could not deprive itself, it 
 replied, of the satisfaction of counting the royal family 
 of France amongst its nobility, and it could not bring 
 itself to part with such a valuable gift as it had received 
 from Henry IV.; and with this quiet answer to the 
 Russian envoy who represented him the Comte de 
 Lille had to be satisfied.
 
 xvi THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 379 
 
 But France was not, and the Inquisitors received 
 many private warnings to the effect that the French 
 government would seize upon any pretext for attack- 
 ing Venice. 'Arm, if you hope not to be trodden 
 under foot!' Such was the burden of these fruitless 
 messages. 
 
 Austria, Sardinia, Naples, and Pius VII. openly 
 allied themselves together, and the Duchies of Parma 
 and Modena secretly promised their help. Genoa was 
 paralysed by the vicinity of the French army; Tuscany 
 was playing the game of neutrality, like Venice. 
 
 The Signory had great confidence in the army of 
 the allies and in its chief. Bonaparte was only a boy; 
 the old general Beaulieu would easily beat him. 
 
 But the Signory was mistaken. The boy had grown 
 up — 'Napoleon, Apollyon, destroyer of Cities, being 
 a Lion roaming about,' as the barbarous Greek jest on 
 his name has it.
 
 XVII 
 
 THE LAST HOUR 
 
 The end was at hand when Bonaparte crossed the river 
 Po. One is apt to forget that he had already showed 
 I7g 6. himself to be much more than a victorious 
 Rom. ix. 284. general^ an d t na t throughout the campaign 
 he displayed that marvellous skill in dealing with men 
 which so often ensured him an enthusiastic reception 
 in places where he could not have been expected to be 
 welcome. 
 
 380
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR ^\ 
 
 He had soon realised the horrible impression pro- 
 duced everywhere outside of France by the Revolution, 
 thfe Terror, and the Committee of Public Safety, and 
 he hastened, by his numberless agents, to exalt the 
 virtues of the Directory. They were not a herd of 
 bloodthirsty ruffians, he taught, but an assemblage of 
 the future saviours of mankind, who were to emancipate 
 the world from all those ancient political and social 
 prejudices which had so long held it in bondage. 
 
 He could not unteach the scum of the Italian 
 populace what the agents of the Revolution had taught 
 it with such lavish expenditure in disreputable taverns 
 and worse resorts, but he could control the teachers 
 and gradually change the direction of the education. 
 The Venetian gondoliers could be taught something, 
 too, and the Venetian Barnabotti could be bribed to 
 learn anvthing, and to impart what they learned. 
 
 'No organisation,' says Bonnal, 'was ever superior 
 to his (Bonaparte's), no revolutionary organisation was 
 ever more formidable. We mean "revolu- , , „ 
 
 Bonnal, Chute 
 
 tionary" as regards the legitimate govern- d'une RipuMique, 
 ments existing in Italy, with which we were 
 not at war, and as regards the means used. ... It was 
 at Milan that his svstem became a definite official 
 service, both political and military. Thence arose 
 two principal offices exactly answering the aim he 
 was pursuing, that is, the political propaganda and the 
 military propaganda. By means of the political propa- 
 ganda he sought to bring about either the substitution 
 of one domination for another, or the modification of
 
 382 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 the forms of government. . . . Lombardy is an example 
 of the first case, the Italian Duchies of the second. By 
 his military propaganda he roused the populations to 
 arms, sometimes against the legitimate sovereign, ;is 
 happened in Venice and Parma, sometimes against a 
 foreign power, as at Milan.' 
 
 Once more, as in the war of the Spanish succession, 
 the Venetian territory became a refuge and a provision 
 market for two hostile armies. The fortresses, as has 
 been seen, were really at the mercy of any one who 
 chose to occupy them. On the ninth of May the 
 Imperial troops, yielding to the request of Contarini 
 the Governor of Crema, and supposing the place to be 
 capable of defence, consented to pass by the city with- 
 out entering it. If they had insisted no one could have 
 hindered them, and the letter Contarini afterwards wrote 
 to the Venetian government disturbed even the astound- 
 ing optimism of the Savi. The latter were shocked 
 when they thought of the risk they had run, and by 
 way of getting rid of all further responsibility they 
 appointed a Provveditor to watch over the safety of 
 the Venetian territory. More than this their worst 
 enemies could not have expected them to do. They 
 selected a Foscarini for the office, and were particularly 
 careful to admonish him that he must 'preserve intact 
 the tranquillity of the Republic, and administer comfort 
 and consolation to its subjects.' I translate literally 
 the phrase, which sounds like the drivelling of an old 
 man in second childhood. 
 
 The imperial troops were barely out of sight of
 
 
 OUT IN THE LAGOON
 
 
 
 
 11 TUQ
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 383 
 
 Crema when the French appeared, and Contarini 
 renewed his request that the city might not be entered. 
 Berthier consented, hut requisitioned provisions and 
 forage. Soon afterwards came Bonaparte himself and 
 he also consented to pass on, hut not until he had 
 squeezed every particle of available information out of 
 the governor, whose letter narrating the interview 
 gives a remarkably clear idea of the great young man's 
 conversation. 
 
 The Senate wrote to the Commander of the fortress 
 of Peschiera not to allow any foreign soldiers to enter 
 under anv circumstances. I have described the condi- 
 tion of the place elsewhere, and the unlucky colonel at 
 once answered, inquiring what in the world he was to do 
 in order to prevent the passage of the Imperial troops. 
 
 The Austrian general Liptay found it convenient to 
 install himself in Peschiera for some time, and when 
 the Republic protested, he answered with admirable 
 coolness and much truth that the place was not a 
 fortress at all, and that he was encamped there as the 
 French were in the fields towards Brescia. 
 
 Even Bonaparte understood the absurdity of this 
 case. 'The truth about the affair of Peschiera,' he 
 wrote to the Directory, 'is that the Vene- /,>„„,. IV , 2g7 - 
 tians have been duped by Beaulieu ; he 2 "- 
 
 asked leave to pass with fifty men and then made him- 
 self master of the city.' 
 
 In spite of this conviction, Bonaparte took advantage 
 of the incident to declare to the Provveditor Foscarini 
 that he would burn Verona to punish the Venetians
 
 384 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 for having favoured the Austrian troops; and Fos- 
 carini, obliged to act on the spur of the moment and 
 without consulting the government, opened the gates 
 of Verona to Massena on receiving the latter's assur- 
 ance that the city should not be burned. He probably 
 fancied that he had obtained a great concession, and did 
 not understand that Verona was absolutely necessary 
 to the French as a base from which to advance on 
 Mantua, held by the Imperial troops. 
 
 The news of the occupation of Verona produced the 
 utmost alarm in Venice, yet the Great Council was not 
 summoned, nor was there a regular sitting of the 
 Senate. The days had gone by when the great bell of 
 Saint Mark's was rung backward to call every fighting 
 man to arms, and every aged Senator to the Council. 
 The handful of scared and vacillating men who had 
 steered Venice to her end met stealthily by night in the 
 Casino Pesaro, more like conspirators than defenders 
 of their country. Most of them fancied the French 
 already in the lagoons, if not in the city; some, for- 
 getting that they had neither troops nor captains, were 
 for defence to the death; some, who had secretly 
 adopted revolutionary ideas and principles, rejoiced at 
 heart because the end was so near. 
 
 Such a meeting of such men could come to nothing; 
 and nothing was decided except that Foscarini, the 
 Provveditor, should be assisted bv two other nobles, 
 commissioned to negotiate with Bonaparte. 
 
 They went and found him apparently in the mildest 
 and most friendly humour, but the report of their
 
 XVII 
 
 THE LAST HOUR 
 
 385 
 
 interview with him reached the Senate together with 
 a communication from the Inquisitors explaining 
 Bonaparte's plan for taking possession of the fort of 
 
 THE SALUTE FROM THE LAGOON 
 
 Legnago, making sure of the free navigation of the 
 Adige, and threatening to destroy Venice in order to 
 extort a sum of five or six millions of francs. 
 
 VOL. II. — 2 C
 
 386 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 So Venice, still theoretically neutral, was driven to 
 collect such poor forces as she had by land and sea, 
 in order to defend herself against the depredations of 
 the combatants. She had not a single general to direct 
 her men, or to plan a defence. Three nobles were in 
 charge of her boundaries on the mainland; another 
 was made responsible for the capital, and two were 
 placed in charge of the lagoons. A war-tax was 
 levied, too, and it is due to the citizens of the dying 
 State to say that they were generous to their country 
 to the last. Many citizens of all classes gave large 
 sums of their own free will to help the defence, and 
 not in Venice only; the cities of Friuli and Dalmatia, 
 and even small communities at a great distance, made 
 heavy sacrifices spontaneously for the public safety. 
 
 The historian Romanin was of opinion that even at 
 
 that moment, if the government had found resolution 
 
 enough to sacrifice all her possessions on 
 
 Rom. ix.321. 1 • 1 1 1 r 1 t 
 
 the mainland, as at the time or the League 
 of Cambrai, a clever diplomacy might yet have saved 
 the State. But he was a Venetian and a most patriotic 
 one, and he could not understand that it needed some- 
 thing more than skill to keep Venice alive, that it 
 needed life itself, the life that was all spent, at last, 
 after more than a thousand years. 
 
 The Provveditor for the lagoons, Giacomo Nani, 
 wrote to the Doge the courageous words: 'A State 
 has not the right to possess provinces which it cannot 
 defend.' He, too, remembered the League of Cambrai. 
 But the Doge was not to be roused ; it was no longer
 
 xvii THE LAST HOUR 387 
 
 vacillation, it was paralysis of the will that made him 
 follow the Senate. Yet Nani's letters determined the 
 Savi to look about for some general into whose hands 
 the whole defence might be given. It was the old 
 tradition of employing the condottiero; but there was 
 only one man alive just then who had the genius and 
 the conviction that save a cause all but lost; he was 
 a man who could have stopped a host with FalstafF's 
 ragged company, and he was at the gates of Venice. 
 The Savi hit upon the Prince of Nassau as a possible 
 captain, but Austria stepped in and forbade that he 
 should be called. 
 
 The King of Naples now signed an armistice with 
 the French, and Bonaparte made himself at home 
 on the Venetian mainland, quartering his troops at 
 Bergamo, Brescia, and Crema without ceremony, and 
 merely notifying the Venetian Senate that he did so, 
 as if no excuse were needed. He took the Venetian 
 guns he found at Legnago and used them at the siege 
 of Mantua as if they were his own. Bonaparte was 
 well aware of the truth of what Nani had written to 
 the Doge, and he took full advantage of the axiom. 
 If the governors of the cities in which he chose to stop 
 did not please him, he wrote them notes like the 
 following : — 
 
 ... I beg you, Sir, to let me know what game we are 
 
 playing, for I do not believe you will allow vour brothers in 
 
 arms [the French soldiers!] to die without help 
 
 .... 11/-T-. • 1 1 • R0m.ix.341. 
 
 within the walls or Brescia, or to be murdered on 
 
 the highroad. If you are not able to keep order in your country,
 
 388 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 and to make the city of Brescia furnish what is needed for 
 establishing hospitals and for the wants of the troops, I shall 
 have to take more efficient measures. — Believe me, with 
 feelings of esteem and consideration, Bonaparte. 
 
 Bonnal says of him that he avenged legitimate com- 
 plaints with a host of accusations and denials, and with 
 unmistakable threats; and the Venetians 
 
 Bomial,2 75 . 
 
 made excuses. Whereupon Bonaparte an- 
 swered that he would 'beat the Austrians and make 
 the Venetians pay for the war.' Which he did. 
 At the same time he was writing to the Directory : — 
 
 ... I am obliged to be indignant with the Provvcditor, to 
 
 exaggerate the number of assassinations, etc., in order that he, 
 
 to calm my fury, may furnish me everything I 
 Rom.ix. 35 i. j u -li ■ • u 
 
 need; they will continue to give us what we 
 
 want, willingly or by force, until Mantua is taken, after which 
 
 I shall demand of them such contribution as you may order 
 
 me, which will not be in the least difficult. 
 
 If Bonaparte could find pretexts for accusing the 
 Venetians of helping the Austrians, the latter had 
 excellent reasons for complaining that Venice helped 
 the French. Austria and France were the two stools 
 between which half measures had led the Republic, and 
 between which she fell. 
 
 The position of the French army was not enviable 
 at that time and the alliance of Venice would really 
 have been worth having, which was the reason why her 
 obstinate efforts at neutrality exasperated Bonaparte 
 to such a degree. At last his patience gave out and he
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 389 
 
 ordered General Baraguay d'Hilliers, the father of the 
 marshal of that name who died in 1878, Twenty-fifth 0/ 
 to occupy Bergamo, not as a guest but December 1706.. 
 as master. The Austrians at once replied by seizing 
 Palma and Osopo. 
 
 The peasants and the small communities were now 
 driven to extremities; for the government had left 
 them to their fate, and they were plundered alike by 
 the French and the Austrians. Discontent spread 
 rapidly, and the rural population may be supposed 
 . to have been in the best possible disposition to 
 receive the revolutionary doctrines by which Bona- 
 parte had already called into existence the Cispadane 
 Republic. That short-lived affair was made up of the 
 cities and territories of Ferrara, Bologna, Modena, 
 and Reggio d'Emilia, and was momentarily the head- 
 quarters of republicanism. In spite of all that the 
 remnant of government in Venice could do against it, 
 its influence was felt on Venetian territory. Behind 
 all, the propaganda of Milan worked 
 
 ., , Romr3H-r2. 
 
 steadily to carry out nonaparte s plan 
 
 under General Landrieux, whom he had deputed to 
 
 take charge of that end of it. 
 
 Bergamo* was the first city to rise and drive out the 
 Venetian governor, in order to join the Cispadane 
 Republic; the citv of Brescia followed, Moimenti, Nuovi 
 naturally enough. But the country people Sfudt,js6. 
 of the two provinces still remained faithful to the 
 Republic, and the peasants about Brescia were so 
 indignant with the city for its defection that they
 
 390 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 would have marched upon it to burn it down if they 
 had not been hindered by their Bishop, Dolfin. At 
 Vallesabbia, certain emissaries of the republicans from 
 the city were so ill received that they fled precipitately 
 in fear of their lives. 
 
 Two days after the latter incident, the inhabitants 
 of the villages of the valley met in a Held 
 nearNozze, and drew up the following dec- 
 laration, which was approved with absolute unanimity. 
 
 Vallesabbia, 
 
 March 2.7th, 1797. 
 
 In order to record its own fidelity and obedience to its 
 beloved Prince of Venice, and taking oath of perpetual loyalty 
 and adherence to the said Prince, this body votes that if 
 persons of any class or condition are found in this Valley 
 having the cockade of rebels against the Prince of Venice, and 
 actually having that cockade on their hats, any one shall be 
 free to arrest them, and let him have a prize of three hundred 
 lire piccole for each one, of [the funds of] the Valley. 
 
 And let this present vote be made known in every commune 
 and put up in the usual and habitual places for public notices; 
 and it is not to go into effect for three days, within which the 
 parish priests in their parishes shall publicly give notice of it 
 to the people. And if gangs of rebels against the Prince of 
 Venice, or troops of theirs, enter the Valley, the communities 
 comprising the Valley shall ring the bells with a hammer 
 [meaning to ring them out, and not to 'chime' them only] , 
 and whosoever is between sixteen and sixty years old, and 
 whosoever else will volunteer, is to take arms in the name of 
 the Valley to arrest them [rebels or troops], and may also kill 
 them; and whoever refuses shall be punished by confiscation 
 of all his goods.
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 391 
 
 The government might have done something to 
 encourage people capable of such devotion; it might 
 at least have ordered them to send deputations to the 
 capital to give information of the state of the country. 
 This the province of Verona asked to be allowed to do, 
 through the Marchese Scipione Maffei, in a petition 
 which the Savi suppressed, without even 
 presenting it to the Great Council, because 
 they considered that it might lead to dangerous dis- 
 cussion. They confined themselves to recommending 
 every subject of the most Serene Republic to act with 
 the greatest circumspection towards all the French, as 
 the Venetians had no means of defending themselves 
 against the latter's pretensions. 
 
 In spite of the bad impression made by such 
 weakness, more than thirty thousand men from 
 the provinces volunteered to put down the republican 
 rising, but they had to be sent home for lack of 
 funds and weapons. One hundred young men of the 
 burgher class offered to arm and support themselves 
 at their own expense. From all this it is clear enough 
 that, at the very last, the descendants of the nobles 
 who had made Venice were responsible ,.. 
 
 r Ntevo, Memorte 
 
 for her fall. Ippolito Nievo said pithily, aunoUuagena- 
 
 1 i t 7 • • rio, 262. 
 
 that the Venetian aristocracy was a corpse 
 
 that could not revive, w T hile the Venetian people were a 
 
 living race shut up with it in the tomb. 
 
 The republican revolution thus progressed almost 
 without finding any resistance and practically aided and 
 abetted by the French troops. Bonaparte was so sure
 
 392 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 of his plan that he did not even make a mystery of it 
 to the envoys of the Venetian Republic who met him 
 at Goritz. He actually offered to pacify the Venetian 
 provinces for the modest sum of a million of francs 
 monthly for six months, which was generous, con- 
 sidering that he alone had caused all the disturbance. 
 A Venetian noble of the fifteenth century would 
 certainly have got the better of him in such a matter 
 of business, but he was too much for the two nobles 
 with whom he had to deal. The monthly million was 
 granted, but on condition that he was not to interfere 
 in the civil discord that distracted the Republic, and not 
 to hinder the government in its efforts to reduce the 
 rebellious cities to subordination. 
 
 Such an attempt was made, and the insurgents were 
 beaten more than once, and some of the ringleaders 
 were brought to Venice. In other times 
 they would have been tried by the Council 
 of Ten and hanged within twenty-four hours; now 
 they were merely confined in the fort on the Lido, in 
 charge of two nobles, Tommaso Soranzo and Domenico 
 Tiepolo, who were recommended 'to treat them 
 charitably.' 
 
 But these successes so greatly encouraged the re- 
 action against the insurrection that Bonaparte feared 
 Moimen/i, Numn l est ne should lose some of the fruits of 
 st. 356,357. n j s industrious propaganda. Accordingly, 
 by his instructions, General Landrieux accused the 
 Venetian troops of threatening the French army in the 
 valleys of Bergamo, and ordered the Venetian Governor,
 
 xvii THE LAST HOUR 393 
 
 Battaglia, to be put in irons, and his 'accomplices' to 
 be hanged. These were mere threats, of course, but 
 after that the rebels were openly supported by the 
 French. On the other hand, the communities that 
 meant to remain faithful to the Republic invoked its 
 help a last time before returning the weapons they 
 had taken from the insurgents, and swore that if they 
 were only given a leader they would die to a man in 
 defence of Venice. Even after the French had occupied 
 the whole Venetian territory the Senate still received 
 loyal letters from Vallesabbia; one of these ended with 
 these words : 'Our hearts will always be for Saint Mark, 
 and we therefore swear to break any promise that may 
 be before long got from us by force, at the first sight 
 of the Venetian standard we love.' 
 
 The truce of Judenburg between France and Austria 
 was destined in Bonaparte's opinion to decide the 
 destinies of the Republic. Junot appeared suddenly 
 in Venice on Good Friday, bringing a despatch from 
 Bonaparte dated the ninth of April. A more violent 
 and theatrical document can hardly be imagined. The 
 general accuses the Venetians of rousing the countrv 
 people to murder the French and ordering a perfect 
 Massacre of the Innocents. His magnificent generositv 
 has met with 'impious perfidy' on the part of the 
 Senate. His adjutant offers peace or war, and war is 
 declared if the authors of the massacres are not delivered. 
 Observe, that as there had been no massacres, no authors 
 of them could be given up, and therefore the declara- 
 tion of war was made; Bonaparte was always logical.
 
 394 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 He was 'not a Turk,' he adds; he was not even an 
 enemy. These were 'not the days of Charles VIII.,' 
 and he gave the Venetians twenty-four hours to realise 
 the fact or perish. But he would not come like their 
 'assassins,' to 'lay waste the lands of an innocent and 
 unhappy people.' He came to protect. The people 
 would 'one day bless even the crimes which had 
 obliged the French army to free them from the tyranny 
 of Venice.' 
 
 Bonaparte's name is still execrated throughout Italy, 
 and in a large part of the south 'French' means 
 'abominable.' Even the southern sailors call a dan- 
 gerous storm 'French weather.' 
 
 Junot had been informed that the government 
 could transact no business till after Holy Week, but 
 he insisted on being received, and read the despatch 
 before the Doge and the Signory in an imperious tone. 
 Bonaparte possessed a marvellous dramatic sense, and 
 he trained his men to act his comedies to perfection. 
 In the part of the Avenging Angel, Junot was terribly 
 impressive. 
 
 It may be supposed that even then Venice had a 
 choice: she might submit, or perish bravely in self- 
 defence. But such men as Ludovico Manin and the 
 Savi were not free to choose. No weak man is when 
 the strong man has him by the collar. The Signory 
 was used to humiliation, and was past shame, and it 
 followed to the end the path it had chosen. 
 
 The truce between France and Austria continued, 
 but only the possession of Venice could be the basis of
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 395 
 
 a durable peace. Bonaparte's plan was to exasperate 
 the Venetians till they really violated their neutrality, 
 and then to seize the city. No one ever comments on the 
 morality of conquerors nowadays. Virtue has nothing 
 to do with the greatness of princes. Bonaparte's 
 scheme was odious, of course, but it succeeded. 
 
 It had been part of the comedy to christen a ship of 
 the French fleet 'the Liberator of Italy.' With this 
 vessel a certain commander, Laugier, 
 
 , „ ' Rom.x.U2sqq. 
 
 was despatched to carry out nonaparte s 
 stratagem. The ship sailed up towards the Lido, 
 stopped a fishing-boat, and took an old April twentieth, 
 fisherman for a pilot. The man protested I797 - 
 that foreign war vessels were not allowed to enter the 
 harbour. Laugier threatened to hang him, and set him 
 to con the wheel, after asking him many questions as 
 to the vessels of which Venice disposed. 
 
 When the ship was opposite the Lido she saluted, 
 and the guns of the San Nicola Fort answered; as 
 Laugier did not bring to, the commander of the fort, 
 Domenico Pizzamano, sent two boats alongside him 
 to warn him not to enter, yet the French captain 
 took no notice. Other French vessels were following 
 at a distance; Pizzamano fired two shots to warn them 
 off, and they bore away. Laugier now said he was 
 going to anchor, though he did not clew up his top- 
 gallant sails nor otherwise shorten sail; it is clear that 
 there was only a very light breeze on that day. 
 
 A Venetian galley lay at her moorings in the Lido 
 harbour, and Laugier proceeded to foul her, inten-
 
 396 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 tionally without doubt, for he evidently knew his 
 business. This was enough. The two vessels were 
 close alongside, and their crews were righting one 
 another in an instant. At the same time the cannon 
 from Fort Sant' Andrea chimed in, and an indescribable 
 confusion followed. Laugier was killed by a ball; the 
 old fisherman who had steered him in was wounded, 
 and died soon afterwards. The Venetians got the 
 better of the fight, and plundered the French war 
 vessel in spite of Pizzamano's desperate efforts to 
 prevent it. The French officers and crew were handed 
 over to the 'benevolent custody' of Tommaso Soranzo 
 and Domenico Tiepolo. 
 
 The account of the affair sent by the Minister, 
 Lallement, to the Directory was wholly untrue, of 
 course; but Bonaparte had what he wanted. 
 
 He was so sure of it that by the preliminary treaty 
 of Leoben, preceding the treaty of Campo-Formio, he 
 April eighteenth, had already ceded to Austria all the 
 ^dDo'cument Venetian provinces that lay between the 
 at 377- Po, the Oglio, and the Adriatic; it was 
 
 pretended that in compensation for these she was to 
 receive the three legations of Romagna, Ferrara, and 
 Bologna. 
 
 Much of this preliminary agreement had been kept 
 secret; but the Venetian Ambassador in Vienna, 
 Grimani, knew of the general tenor of the document, 
 and warned the Senate that it was intended to dis- 
 member the Venetian territory. 
 
 The Senate was roused from its apathy when it was
 
 397
 
 398 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 too late, and now sat permanently. Orders were given 
 that no stranger was to be allowed to enter the city 
 unless bearing official letters, and no ship was to pass 
 into the lagoons that did not fly the Venetian flag. 
 Some attempt was made to get more vessels ready for 
 sea. 
 
 The French had not wasted time, and a general 
 insurrection had broken out under their management 
 in all the cities of the mainland. Within twenty-four 
 hours the governors of Padua, Verona, and other 
 important places came in for refuge, as also the Prov- 
 veditors of the army, whose occupation was gone. 
 
 Meanwhile two nobles, Francesco Dona and Leon- 
 ardo Giustiniani, had been sent in haste to Gratz, after 
 Junot's appearance, and they were received by Bona- 
 parte on the twenty-fifth of April. The interview that 
 followed is highly characteristic of the man when it 
 suited his ends to work himself into a fury. The 
 political prisoners were to be liberated, or he would 
 'come and break down the Piombi; he would have no 
 Inquisition, no antique barbarities.' He spoke of the 
 imaginary massacre of his innocent troops. 'His army 
 cried vengeance, and he could not refuse it.' 'If all 
 the culprits were not punished, if the English Minister 
 were not driven away, if the people were not disarmed, 
 if all the prisoners were not set free, if Venice would 
 not choose between France and England, he declared 
 war.' 'He would have no Inquisition, no Senate, he 
 would be an Attila to the Venetian State.' And much 
 more to the same effect, all of which is on record.
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 399 
 
 The two Venetians answered sensibly, when they could 
 get in a word, but Bonaparte meant war, and when he 
 meant that he would listen to no one. 
 
 Having acted his scene, he asked the two to dinner 
 and proceeded to extract information from them, after 
 his manner. His inquiries chiefly concerned the 
 horrors attributed to the aristocratic government by 
 the very imaginative French democratic mind; for the 
 lower classes, being nearer to nature, have always had 
 much more imagination than their social betters, which 
 explains their belief in ghost stories, hidden treasures, 
 and the rights of man. 
 
 After dinner Bonaparte condescended to state his 
 demands. He wanted twenty-two millions from the 
 Venetian mint and all English drafts deposited in 
 Venice. That was all. There was no mention of the 
 Duke of Mantua's treasure, from which the envoys 
 suspected that it was included in the secret treaty of 
 Leoben, but I find no mention of it in that curious 
 document, though it may have been tacitly included in 
 Article VI. which provided for the restitution of 
 Mantua and other places to Austria. 
 
 Having thus expressed himself, Bonaparte left the 
 envoys to their reflections and went off to Bruck. 
 Almost at the same time they received news of the 
 fighting at the Lido, with instructions to inform Bona- 
 parte of the death of Laugier, with all the caution 
 possible; they did so by letter, and probably congratu- 
 lated themselves on not being materially able to convey 
 the news by word of mouth; but they nevertheless
 
 4 oo GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 really asked another audience. He answered in a 
 fury, called Laugier's death an assassination, and 
 spoke of them and the Venetian Senate as 'dripping 
 with French blood.' If they had anything new to tell 
 him, he would receive them, he said, after writing on 
 the same page that he would not. 
 
 They w 7 ent before him again, poor men, and listened 
 once more to his furious language. 'Not a hundred 
 millions of money, not all the gold of Peru, would now 
 prevent him from avenging the blood of his men,' and 
 so forth, and so on. This was the truth, as he had 
 purposely risked shedding it for the very purpose of 
 being revenged. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth of April, French troops occu- 
 pied the Venetian frontiers, and General Baraguay 
 d'Hilliers entered the capital with perfect assurance — 
 and, it must be added, with perfect fearlessness — and 
 installed himself in the best hotel. The Senate tried 
 in vain to ascertain from him Bonaparte's intentions; 
 the soldier answered that he was accustomed to obey 
 his chiefs without question and that he knew nothing of 
 their plans. He had been told to come to Venice and 
 he had come. 
 
 On learning that Bonaparte so very particularly 
 detested them, the Savi agreed that it was no longer 
 safe to meet publicly, and they held their sittings in the 
 Doge's private apartments in the presence of the 
 Counsellors, and the 'Savi of the Mainland,' 'Savi of 
 Orders,' 'Savi of Writings,' — Savi of every species. 
 To all these were added the three Heads of the Ten.
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 401 
 
 This last assembly was a sort of amplification of the 
 Black Cabinet already explained. 
 
 They have been described as the sextons of the 
 Republic, met together to arrange the details of the 
 funeral. Their acts and resolutions can only excite 
 pity. The first question discussed on the night of 
 April thirtieth was whether a supposed intimate friend 
 of Bonaparte's (Haller, at one time French Minister of 
 Finance) should be treated with in order to calm his 
 master's anger. The next question was, whether this 
 proposition might be discussed at once, or whether 
 eight davs must be allowed to pass before beginning 
 the debate, according to the law. A third question 
 asked what measures should be taken to inform the 
 Great Council of w T hat was happening. 
 
 Several hours had been consumed in these miserable 
 quibbles, during which no attention was paid to the 
 
 distant booming; of guns from the direc- 
 
 r -c ■ , , , Ro >»- *• *38. 
 
 tion of r'usina, when a messenger brought 
 
 a letter for the 'Savio on Writings.' He passed it on 
 
 anxiously to the Savio of the week, who opened it with 
 
 evident emotion. It was a message from Condulmer, 
 
 in command of the flotilla of the lagoons, to sav that 
 
 the French had begun operations for improving the 
 
 approaches to Venice, and that he was going to attempt 
 
 to destroy what they did as fast as they worked. It 
 
 was at this moment that the Assembly first noticed the 
 
 sound of artillery. In the frightened silence the Doge 
 
 walked up and down the room. 'To-night we are not 
 
 safe even in our beds,' he said. 
 
 VOL. II. — 2D
 
 4 02 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 The Procurator, Pesaro, turned to the Secretary: 'I 
 see that it is all over with my country,' he said, in 
 broad Venetian dialect. ' I can certainly be of no 
 assistance. To an honest man, every place is his 
 countrv; one may easily occupy oneself in Switzer- 
 land.' 
 
 He rose as he finished this remarkable speech, 
 apparently with the intention of proceeding to Switzer- 
 land at once, but his colleagues 'comforted' him, he 
 took snuff, and sat down again to help Valeressi in 
 framing a measure for calling the Great Council 
 together on the morrow. These curious details can be 
 trusted. Pesaro was afterwards, in fact, the first to 
 make his escape to Istria and Vienna. 
 
 During the remainder of the meeting it was debated 
 whether it might not be possible and advisable to give 
 Venice a democratic form of government likely to please 
 Bonaparte, and the majority adopted the idea of intro- 
 ducing any modifications which he might suggest. 
 
 It was hoped by this means that he would be moved 
 to forgive the Inquisitors and the captain of the Lido, 
 whose punishment he had demanded, and to excuse the 
 Venetian banks from handing over the English drafts. 
 
 The next day was the first of May, the anniversary 
 on which the Doge had always paid his annual visit 
 to the Convent of the Vergini, since the days of Pier 
 Candiano, a ceremony which was always the occasion of 
 great festivities in the city. But to-day, instead, the 
 bell of the Grand Council was ringing, and the nobles 
 assembled anxiously. The Doge explained in broad
 
 XVII 
 
 THE LAST HOUR 
 
 403 
 
 dialect the situation of the Republic with regard to 
 France. Peace, he said, must be made with Bonaparte 
 
 at any price, and the best thing the members of the 
 Council could do was to say their prayers and ask the 
 help of Heaven in their supreme danger.
 
 4 o 4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 Heaven, as usual in such circumstances, did not 
 help those who would not help themselves. The 
 Council thought it had done wonders when it voted by 
 598 to 21 that two deputies should be sent to Bonaparte 
 with power to discuss radical changes in the Venetian 
 constitution. The envoys chosen were Angelo Giacomo 
 Giustiniani, who had been Provveditor extraordinary in 
 Treviso since the second of April, Alvise Mocenigo, 
 the Governor of Udine, and Francesco Dona. They 
 were given regular credentials, and were, as usual, 
 exhorted to use the utmost caution in all they said. 
 
 On the same day Bonaparte declared war against 
 Venice in his most furiously bombastic style. The 
 document must be read, not to be believed, as most of 
 the statements it contains were totally untrue, but to 
 appreciate the marvellous gifts of the man of genius 
 who composed it. It is long, and I have not space for 
 it; I can only say that it altogether outdid the former 
 letters and speeches I have referred to. 
 
 The deputation found Bonaparte in Treviso. To 
 the eternal glory of the family that had lost an hundred 
 of its name in one campaign, Giustiniani quietly faced 
 Bonaparte on every point, reproached him with the 
 shallowness of the pretexts under which he justified his 
 acts of violence, swore to the sincerity of the Venetian 
 government when it had protested that it had no 
 intention of doing any injury to the French, and 
 concluded by saying that if Bonaparte required a 
 hostage or a victim he, Giustiniani, was there to give 
 his life.
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 40; 
 
 Bonaparte was everything except a coward. He was 
 
 a conqueror and a comedian, a brutal dictator and a 
 subtle diplomatist; he was a great commander and he 
 was the Little Corporal. He was also as brave as the 
 bravest man in any of his armies. Giustiniani's speech 
 affected him strangely, for he well knew what terror he 
 inspired in most people. His sudden admiration for 
 the Venetian patriot was as boundless as everything 
 else in his nature, and broke out in words of praise. 
 He concluded by promising that even if he confiscated 
 the property of every noble in Venice, whatsoever 
 belonged to Giustiniani should be respected. There 
 spoke the man of the middle class that Bonaparte 
 always was. The gentleman answered proudly that he 
 had not come to promote his own interests when those 
 of his countrv were so desperately at stake. 
 
 A truce of four days was signed, within which time 
 the three Inquisitors of State and the commander of 
 the Lido fort were to be arrested and punished, and all 
 political prisoners were to be set at liberty. 
 
 On the fourth of May the Doge had the courage, or 
 the cowardice, to propose to the Great Council the 
 arrest of the Inquisitors and their impeach- 
 
 • j 1 r» tl Rom - *• rsg - 
 
 merit as required by Bonaparte, 1 here 
 was no hope for Venice in any other course, he said. 
 This dastardly measure was voted by 704 votes to 27. 
 The Inquisitors and the commander of the Lido were 
 arrested and taken to San Giorgio Maggiore, and all 
 
 o DO 
 
 the political prisoners were released from the Piombi, 
 the Pozzi, and the other prisons of the city. On the
 
 4 o6 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 following day, two hundred and eighty-eight Frenchmen 
 who had been taken with weapons in their hands during 
 the insurrections in the provinces were handed over to 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers in Venice. 
 
 Bonaparte was now sure that he had only to show 
 himself in order to be master of the city. The 
 Venetians also made haste to present Bonaparte's 
 'friend,' Haller, with a little present of six thousand 
 sequins in bullion, in the hope that he would use his 
 kind offices with the great man. 
 
 'I beg you/ Bonaparte wrote about that time to the 
 
 Directory, 'to order the citizen Haller, a scoundrel who 
 
 Bmnai, nas come here to steal, to present his 
 
 Chute, 287. accounts to the head manager' ('ordonna- 
 teur en chef). 
 
 So much for Bonaparte's 'friend.' The Republic 
 also offered the most profuse hospitality to Madame 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers, in the hope that she would soften 
 her husband's harsh temper. 
 
 By this time Bonaparte knew as well as Condulmer 
 himself that the Venetian fleet was miserably manned, 
 and that the city must yield at once if besieged, and he 
 thought it quite useless to receive any more envoys. 
 Besides, he knew that his propaganda had succeeded in 
 the capital itself; his paid agents had done their work 
 well, and it had been bravely seconded by the manifest 
 incompetence of the government which had exasperated 
 all classes. It is said that there were fifteen thousand 
 republicans ready to answer the first signal as soon as 
 it should be given by Villetard, the Secretary of the
 
 XVII 
 
 Jill-. LAST H()l R 
 
 407 
 
 French Legation. These were not by any means all 
 of the people, for many ladies of the nobility had been 
 
 SO-CALLED HOUSE OF DESDE.MONA 
 
 spending their time in making tricolour cockades, and 
 the government knew it.
 
 4 o8 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 The French no longer took the trouble to conceal 
 the preparations they were making for a revolution. 
 A wholesale grocer who played a very suspicious part 
 in the whole affair, Tommaso Zorzi, was dining with 
 Villetard, and heard several Frenchmen speaking of the 
 revolution that was arranged for the next day; it was 
 intended to set up a tree of liberty in the Square of 
 Saint Mark's and to declare the fall of the aristocratic 
 government. When every one else was gone, Zorzi 
 implored Villetard to put off firing the train, and 
 explained that a large part of the populace would side 
 with their old masters. The French Secretary would 
 promise nothing, and on leaving him Zorzi hastened to 
 the ducal palace and was received by the Doge in spite 
 of the late hour. 
 
 He told what he had heard. The Doge sent at 
 once for Pietro Dona, and the two bade Zorzi obtain 
 from Villetard a written declaration of the conditions 
 on which he would consent to give up the revolution. 
 On the following day Zorzi and his friend Spada 
 appeared before the Savi with a paper which they said 
 they had drawn up in the presence of Villetard, who had 
 refused to write anything himself. 
 
 The impression one gets in reading this document 
 is that Zorzi and his shadow were in the trick with 
 
 Rom.x.386 Villetard. The paper calls them 'media- 
 
 for the text, torS5 ' talks of ' pacifically changing the aris- 
 tocratic forms of government,' 'leaving open to the sight 
 of the public the prisons called the Piombi and Pozzi,' 
 abolishing capital punishment, setting up a tree of
 
 xvn THE LAST HOUR 409 
 
 liberty in the Square of Saint Mark's, publicly burning 
 the insignia of the old government, a universal amnesty, 
 and a Te Deum in Saint Mark's, where the image of 
 the Virgin Mary was to be exhibited. 
 
 The paper also named the provisional government, 
 in which the grocer and his shadow were to occupy "high 
 positions. 
 
 This stuff was not read by Zorzi before the assembly. 
 The Doge deputed Pietro Dona and Francesco Battagia 
 to hear him in a neighbouring; room. Dona dismissed 
 him with the remark that the government would wait 
 to discuss such propositions until they were officially 
 laid before the Venetian envoys by Bonaparte himself. 
 
 Then Dona returned to the hall and communicated 
 the contents of Zorzi's paper to the government. The 
 effect was terrific. A few voices protested that no 
 attention should be paid to such an informal proposi- 
 tion, but terror prevailed, and Dona and Battagia were 
 charged to go at once to Villetard to ask him to put 
 off his revolution till the envoys should return from 
 their interview with Bonaparte. Villetard, for reasons 
 known to himself, granted the government a respite of 
 four days. 
 
 Meanwhile it was thought wise to dismiss the 
 Slavonic troops, yielding in this to one of the demands 
 expressed in Zorzi's paper. Their presence 'irritated' 
 Villetard. They were accordinglv ordered home un- 
 der the command of Niccolo Morosini, but they did 
 not leave at once. 
 
 On the twelfth of May the Great Council met.
 
 4 io GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvn 
 
 Early in the morning Villetard had informed Battagia 
 that the Venetian envoys sent to Bonaparte had refused 
 to accept a democratic and representative government, 
 but that the French meant to obtain it by force unless 
 the aristocracy would resign its powers. It was Haller 
 who had brought the news to Villetard after accepting 
 a bribe of six thousand sequins a few days earlier. An 
 American politician once defined a scoundrel as 'a man 
 who will not stay bought.' 
 
 Dona came back with an official letter from Villetard 
 to the Doge, which contained Bonaparte's ultimatum. 
 The city was in a state of nervous excitement that must 
 break into action before long; the members of the 
 Council were already in terror of their lives while they 
 stood waiting for the hour of meeting. Even then, 
 everything had to be done according to tradition. The 
 patricians were, no doubt, devising more concessions 
 to be made to Bonaparte, as they moved towards the 
 ducal palace, and most of them were ready to sacrifice 
 everything, including their honour, in exchange for 
 personal safety. The last of the Slavonic soldiers were 
 embarking under the direction of the Arsenal men; 
 there were republican conspirators everywhere, and 
 they found their way even to the Doge's private 
 apartments. 
 
 The Council met at the usual hour, and the roll 
 was called. Only 537 members were present, whereas 
 600 constituted a quorum. It is possible that the 
 many absent members had hoped to obstruct all pro- 
 ceedings by keeping away, for to the last the minutest
 
 xvii THE LAST HOUR 411 
 
 rules had been observed. But the members who had 
 assembled decided that they had a right to act. 
 
 The Doge opened the sitting, pale and overcome. 
 Painfully, and in his Venetian dialect, he recapitulated 
 the acts of the Consulta of Savi and others, who had 
 taken charge of affairs on the thirtieth of April. His 
 miserable speech was followed by the reading of the 
 report of Dona and Battagia, Haller's letter, and other 
 documents. 
 
 The Secretary, Valentin Marin, then read the measure 
 which was brought before the Council. 
 
 The Bill had the old sanctimonious tone. 'The 
 principal purpose of preserving religion,' etc., were the 
 first words; the measure was, that the Great Council 
 should accept 'the proposed provisional representative 
 government.' 
 
 The Secretary had finished reading the Bill, and was 
 just beginning his comments on it, when the sound of 
 a discharge of musketry rang sharply through the 
 ancient hall. The patricians rushed to the doors. One 
 voice called them back. 
 
 'Divide! Divide!' it cried, above the din. 
 
 To the last gasp formality bound them. Hastilv, 
 but not informally, they went through the form of 
 voting. The Bill to accept the democratic government 
 was passed by 512 yeas to 30 nays and 5 blanks. 
 
 Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the n97% 
 hall was silent and empty. May twelfth.
 
 XVIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The discharge of musketry which had frightened the 
 Great Council out of its senses had been only the part- 
 TasHni, under i n g salute of the Slavonic soldiers as they 
 ■ sanBartoiomeo: sa jl e( ] out G f the harbour. It was the last 
 mark of respect the Venetians of Venice received, and it 
 was by a dramatic coincidence that it was offered at the 
 very instant when the Republic ended. Every one has 
 read how the Doge went back to his own room and 
 
 412
 
 • *? i' T> 
 
 § 
 
 IS* • 
 
 A GATEWAY 
 
 413
 
 4 i4 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY win 
 
 handed his ducal bonnet to his servant, saying that he 
 should not need it again. 
 
 What has been less noticed by historians is that 
 General Salimbeni, who knew that the crowd was 
 waiting to know what had taken place, put his head out 
 of a window and shouted 'Viva la Liberta'; and that 
 when no one broke the silence that followed, he took 
 breath again and shouted 'Viva San Marco,' where- 
 upon the multitude took up the cry and cheered till 
 they were hoarse, and the old flag of Saint Mark 
 was hoisted everywhere, and the populace took it 
 into its head to burn down the houses of Dona and 
 Battagia and the grocer Zorzi, and though they were 
 hindered, they did plunder and burn the dwellings 
 of a number of burgher families that had played a 
 double game and had helped to bring on the final 
 catastrophe. 
 
 In the midst of this confusion well-armed republican 
 gangs appeared in all directions, and during the night 
 between the twelfth and the thirteenth of May there 
 was a hideous tumult. The last time that Venetian 
 cannon was fired by Venetian orders, it was pointed 
 at Venetians. 
 
 On the fifteenth, the French occupied the city as 
 conquerors. On the sixteenth, two notices were put 
 
 Moimenti, up in the Square of Saint Mark's. The 
 
 Nuovistudi. £ rst s i m ply announced that the aristocratic 
 government yielded up its powers to a provisional 
 Municipality which would sit in the hall of the Great 
 Council; and this was the last public document which
 
 xvm CONCLUSION 415 
 
 began with the words, 'The Most Serene Prince 
 
 announces,' etc. 
 The other informed the public that the provisional 
 
 Municipality of Venice declared the (ireat Council 
 to have 'deserved well of the nation' because it had 
 abdicated; it thanked particularly the members of the 
 late government which had put down the riot on the 
 night of the twelfth; and it went on to declare a 
 'solemn amnesty' for all political misdeeds, and so 
 forth, and so on. 
 
 Then came the usual French nonsense about liberty, 
 equality, brotherhood, peace, the rights of man, and 
 the like; all of which might, perhaps, be excused 
 on the ground of mistaken and foolish sentiment, if we 
 did not know that Bonaparte was even then almost 
 in the act of selling his newly found, free, and e(|ii;il 
 brothers into slavery to Austria, then the most really 
 absolute despotism in Europe. 
 
 The whole affair was a horrible farce. The new 
 Municipality decided to preserve the Lion of Saint 
 Mark as the national symbol, but for the words ' Pax 
 tibi Marce' inscribed on the book under the Lion's 
 paw were substituted the words 'Rights and Duties of 
 Man and Citizen.' The gondoliers observed that Saint 
 Mark had at last turned over a new leaf. 
 
 The Lion, however, was soon thrown down from 
 his column, and was broken into more than eighty 
 pieces on the pavement. On the fourth 
 
 r t u r ri • j ■ Rom. x. 219. 
 
 or June the tree of liberty was raised in 
 
 the middle of the Square. Around it were grouped
 
 416 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xvm 
 
 emblems of the sciences and arts. Fagots were heaped 
 
 up near by, to make. a fire in which the Golden Book 
 
 and the ducal insignia were solemnly burned between 
 
 two statues representing Freedom and Equality. Inane 
 
 Moimenti, verses were inscribed on the pedestals of 
 
 Nuovi studi. t | lese images. Lest I should be thought 
 
 to exaggerate their atrociously bad literary quality I 
 
 give the original Italian. 
 
 One ran: — 
 
 Depono la tirannide, 
 Sollevo l'innocente, 
 Ognor lieto e ridente 
 II popol mio sara. 
 
 The other said : — 
 
 II libro d' oro abbruciasi 
 L'accende il rco delitto, 
 All' uom resta il suo dritto 
 La dolce liberta. 
 
 The Procuratie, both the old and the new, were 
 
 renamed, according to the revolutionary dictionary, 
 
 Mutineiu, uit. ' Gallel 7 of Liberty,' 'Gallery of Equality.' 
 
 2/8; also In the course of the month of June began 
 
 the trial of the three Inquisitors, Agostino 
 
 Barbarigo, Angelo Maria Gabrieli, and Catterino 
 
 Corner, and of Pizzamano, the commander of the 
 
 Lido fort. Even Bonaparte was obliged to admit 
 
 that there was nothing against them, but he would not 
 
 allow them to be acquitted; he thought it better policy 
 
 to pardon them 'in consideration of their advanced 
 
 age.' His letter on the subject is dated the fourth of
 
 xviii CONCLUSION 417 
 
 October. But Pizzamano, though declared free, was 
 still kept in prison at Bonaparte's pleasure, and on the 
 twenty-sixth of October sent a petition directly to the 
 latter. Bonaparte sent it on to General Serrurier, in 
 Venice, with an order for the man's liberation written 
 in the margin. 
 
 Bonaparte had kept up his comedy to the very last. 
 On the eighth of October, General Balland had given the 
 Venetians, in his chief's name, the most ample assur- 
 ances of attachment and devotion. 
 
 On the seventeenth, nine davs later, by the treaty 
 of Campo-Formio, Bonaparte sold Venice and the 
 whole Venetian territory to the Emperor of Austria, 
 including Dalmatia and Istria, in exchange for the 
 Ionian Islands, the Cisalpine Republic, the Duchy of 
 Modena, and the provinces of Lombardy as far as the 
 Adige and Mantua. 
 
 Having got his price for the dead body, Bonaparte 
 proceeded to strip it of everything valuable, so far as 
 he could, before handing it over. The horses of Saint 
 Mark's were taken down from the facade of the basilica, 
 the most valuable pictures, parchments, and books were 
 packed, and all was sent to Paris. 
 
 The farce of freedom was over, and the bitterness 
 of reality came back, harder to bear, perhaps, but as 
 much more honourable, as suffering is more dignified 
 than drunken rioting. On the eighteenth of January 
 1798 the Austrian garrison took possession of Venice. 
 
 Before closing these pages, I shall go back a few 
 months and shall translate Giustina Renier Michiel's
 
 418 CiLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xviij 
 
 touching account of the scene which took place in 
 Dalmatia, in the preceding month of August, when the 
 Austrians came by sea to take possession of the 
 country. 
 
 On the twenty-second of August, Rukavina [the Austrian 
 
 general] arrived with a fleet and a thousand soldiers and landed 
 
 at Pettana, a mile and a half from Perasto. The 
 <;. A'. Michiel, > V . . 
 
 Origini. Com- Ualmatians, taken by surprise, and seeing that 
 pare also tncv na( ] nothing more to hope, resolved to 
 
 b!om.x.2 49 . , , , , L , , r 
 
 render the last honours to the great standard or 
 Saint Mark. To this end the people of Perasto, and of the 
 neighbouring country, and others, assembled before the palace 
 of the Captain in command ; and he, with twelve soldiers 
 armed with sabres, and two colour-sergeants, went to the hall 
 where the standard was, and the colours carried in the field, 
 which Venice had entrusted many centuries ago to the valour 
 and loyalty of the brave Dalmatians. They were now to take 
 away those dearly loved flags; but in the very moment of do- 
 ing what it broke their hearts to do, their strength failed them, 
 and they could only shed a flood of tears. 
 
 The throng of people who waited in the Square, not seeing 
 any one come out again, knew not what to think. So one of 
 the judges of the town was sent up to ascertain the cause ; but 
 he, too, was so much moved that his presence [in the hall] 
 only increased the grief of the others. At last the Captain, 
 controlling himself of sheer necessity, made the painful effort ; 
 he took down the flags from the place where they were hung 
 and attached them to two pikes ; and he handed them to the 
 two colour-sergeants, and they and the soldiers, led by the 
 lieutenant, marched out of the hall; and after them the Cap- 
 tain, the Judge, and all the rest. As soon as the well-beloved 
 standard was seen, the grief and tears of the multitude were 
 universal. Men, women, and children all sobbed and their
 
 xviii CONCLUSION 419 
 
 tears rolled down ; and nothing was heard hut the complaint 
 of mourning, no douhtful proof of the hereditary devotion of 
 that generous nation to its Republic. 
 
 When the sad procession reached the Square, the Captain 
 unfastened the flags from the pikes and at the same time the 
 ensign of Saint Mark on the fort was hauled down, and a salute 
 of twenty guns was fired. Two armed vessels that guarded 
 the port answered with eleven guns, and all the merchant 
 vessels saluted also ; this was the last good-bve of sorrowing 
 glory to the valour of a nation. The sacred colours were 
 placed upon a metal salver and the lieutenant received them in 
 the presence of the Judge, of the Captain, and of the people. 
 Then all marched with slow and melancholy steps to the 
 cathedral. There they were received by the clergy and its 
 chief, to whom the sacred trust was delivered, and he placed 
 it on the high altar. Then the Captain commanding spoke 
 the following words, which were again and again interrupted 
 by quick sobbing, and streaming tears that came from men's 
 hearts more truly than from their eyes : — 
 
 ' In this cruel moment,' he said, ' that rends our hearts for 
 the fatal destruction of the Most Serene Venetian Government, 
 in this last expression of our love and faith, with which we do 
 honour to the colours of the Republic, let us at least rind 
 some consolation, dear fellow-citizens, in the thought that 
 neither our past deeds, nor those we have done in these recent 
 times, have led to this sad office, which, for us, is now become 
 a good deed. Our sons will know from us, and history will 
 teach all Europe, that Perasto upheld to the last breath the 
 glory of the Venetian flag, honouring it and bathing it in 
 universal and most bitter tears. Fellow-citizens, let us freely 
 pour out our grief; but amidst the last solemn thoughts with 
 which we seal the glorious career that has been ours under 
 the Most Serene Government of Venice, let us turn to these 
 well-loved colours and cry out to them, in our sorrow, " Dear
 
 4 2o GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY xviii 
 
 Hag that has been ours three hundred and seventy-seven years 
 without a break, our faith and courage have ever kept vou 
 unstained both on the sea and wheresoever you were called to 
 face your enemies, which were the enemies of the Church 
 also, p'or three hundred and seventy-seven years our goods, 
 our blood, and our lives have always been devoted to you, and 
 since you have been with us, and we with you, we have ever 
 been happv, and famous on the sea, and victorious on land. No 
 man ever saw us put to flight with vou ; with you none were 
 ever found to overcome us. If these most wretched times of 
 rash action, of corrupt manners, of dissensions and of lawless 
 opinions that offend nature and the law of nations had not 
 ruined you in Italv, our goods, our blood, our lives should still 
 be yours ; and rather than have seen you overcome and dis- 
 honoured, our courage and our faith would have chosen to 
 be buried with you. But since we can do nothing more for 
 you than this, let your honoured grave be in our hearts, let our 
 desolation be your highest praise." ' 
 
 Then the Captain went up and took a corner of the flag 
 and put it to his lips as if he could not let it leave them ; and 
 all thronged to kiss it most tenderly, washing it with their hot 
 tears. But as the sad ceremony had to come to an end at 
 last, these dear colours were laid in a chest, which the Rector 
 placed in a reliquary beneath the high altar.
 
 THE DOGES OF VENICE 
 
 (according to romanin) 
 
 Note. — The Venetian year began on March first, whence the frequent discrepancies 
 betiveen the dates given />v different writers. In this ivork every effort has been 
 made to bring all dates under the usual reckoning. 
 
 I. 
 
 Paolo Lucio Anafesto . . 
 
 elected 
 
 1 697 d. 
 
 717 Seat in Heraclea. 
 
 II. 
 
 Marcello Tegaliano . . 
 
 " 
 
 717 " 
 
 726 
 
 III. 
 
 
 c< 
 
 726 " 
 
 737 (murdered). Seat in 
 Malamocco. 
 
 
 (From 737 to 742, military 
 
 governors called ' Magistri Militum.') 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tebdato Orso .... 
 
 elected 742 — 
 
 "755 (blinded and deposed). 
 
 V. 
 
 
 ft 
 
 755 — 
 
 - 756 (blinded and exiled 1. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Domenico Monegario . 
 
 " 
 
 75 6 ~ 
 
 - 764 (blinded and deposed). 
 
 VII. 
 
 Maurizio Galbaio . 
 
 ft 
 
 764 d, 
 
 ,787 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Giovanni Galbaio and his 
 
 
 
 
 
 son Maurizio . . . 
 
 <c 
 
 7S7- 
 
 - 804 (both deposed). 
 
 IX. 
 
 Obelerio with his sons 
 
 
 
 
 
 Beato and Costantino 
 
 " 
 
 804 d 
 
 , 811 (the father put to 
 death as a traitor . 
 
 X. 
 
 Agnello Partecipazio . . 
 
 " 
 
 811 " 
 
 827 Seat henceforth in 
 Rialto. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Giustiniano Partecipazio . 
 
 " 
 
 827 " 
 
 829 
 
 XII. 
 
 Giovanni Partecipazio I. . 
 
 " 
 
 829- 
 
 -836 (deposed). 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Pietro Tradonico 
 
 (« 
 
 836 d. 
 
 864 (murdered). 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Orso Partecipazio I. . . 
 
 " 
 
 864 " 
 
 881 
 
 XV. 
 
 Giovanni Partecipazio II. 
 
 " 
 
 881 - 
 
 ■888 (abdicated). 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Pietro Candiano I. . . . 
 
 " 
 
 888 d. 
 
 888 (killed in battle with 
 piral 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Pietro Tribuno .... 
 
 " 
 
 888 " 
 
 912 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Orso Partecipazio II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 912 — 
 
 932 (abdicated and died a 
 monk). 
 
 421
 
 4 22 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 XIX. Pietro Candiano II. . . elected 932 d. 
 
 XX. Pietro Partecipaziol Badoer) " 939 " 
 
 XXI. Pietro Candiano III. . " 942 " 
 
 XXII. Pietro Candiano IV. . " 959 " 
 
 XXIII. Pietro Orseolo I. . . . " 976 — 
 
 XXIV. Vital Candiano 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 XXX. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 XL, 
 
 Tribuno Memmo . 
 Pietro Orseolo 1 1. 
 Ottone Orseolo 
 
 Pietro Centrani^o 
 Domenico Flabianici 
 Domenico Contarini 
 Domenico Selvo . 
 Vital Falier . . . 
 Vital Michiel I. . 
 Ordelafo Falier . 
 
 Domenico Michiel 
 Pietro Polani . . 
 Domenico Morosini 
 Vital Michiel II. . 
 Sebastian Ziani 
 Orio Mastropiero . 
 
 XLI. Enrico Dandolo . 
 
 XLII. Pietro Ziani . . 
 
 XI, III. Jacopo Tiepolo 
 
 XLIV. Marin Morosini . 
 
 XL\ r . Renier Zeno . . 
 
 XLVI. Lorenzo Tiepolo . 
 
 XI.VII. Jacopo Contarini . 
 
 XLVI 1 1. Giovanni Dandolo 
 
 XLIX. Pietro < iradenigo . 
 
 L. Marin Zorzi . . 
 
 LI. Giovanni Soranzo 
 
 LI I. Francesco Dandolo 
 
 LIU. P.artolommeo ( Iradenigo 
 
 LIV. Andrea Dandolo . . . 
 
 939 
 942 
 
 959 
 
 976 (murdered ). 
 
 97S (abdicated and died 
 a monk, with the 
 reputation of a 
 
 saint). 
 
 978 — 979 (abdicated and be- 
 
 came a monk). 
 
 979 <!• 991 
 991 " 1008 
 
 1008 — 1026 (exiled to Constan- 
 tinople). 
 
 1026 — 1032 (driven out). 
 
 1032 d. 1043 
 
 1043 " 1071 
 
 1071 " 1085 
 
 1085 " 1096 
 
 1096 " 1 102 
 
 1 102 " 1 1 18 (died in the Hun- 
 garian war). 
 
 1 1 18 " 1 1 30 
 
 1 130 " 1 148 
 
 1 148 " 1 1 56 
 
 1 156 " 1 1 72 (killed). 
 
 1172 " 1178 
 
 1 1 78 — 1 192 (abdicated and be- 
 came a monk). 
 
 1 192 d. 1205 (died in Constanti- 
 nople). 
 
 1205 — 1229 (abdicated). 
 
 1229 — 1249 (abdicated). 
 
 1249 d. 1253 
 
 1253 " 1268 
 
 1268 " 1275 
 
 1275 — 1280 (abdicated). 
 
 1280 d. 1289 
 
 1289 " 131 1 
 
 1311 " 1312 
 
 1312 " 1329 
 L3 2 9 " 1339 
 L339 " L343 
 L343 " L354
 
 THE DOGES OF VENICE 
 
 4*3 
 
 LV. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 LX. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 LX1I. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 I. XXVIII. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 1. XXXII. 
 
 I. XXXIII. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 I.XXXVI. 
 
 I. XXXVII. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 I, XXXIX. 
 
 xc. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 X< \'. 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 Marin Falier . . . 
 
 elected 
 
 1354 <!• 
 
 1355 (beheaded April 17). 
 
 Giovanni Gradenigo . 
 
 " 
 
 »355 " 
 
 135° 
 
 Giovanni Doltin . . 
 
 " 
 
 1356 « 
 
 1361 
 
 Lorenzo Celsi . . . 
 
 " 
 
 1361 " 
 
 1365 
 
 Marco Coiner . . . 
 
 " 
 
 1365 " 
 
 1368 
 
 Andrea Contarini . . 
 
 " 
 
 1368 " 
 
 1383 
 
 Michel Morosini „ . 
 
 " 
 
 1383 " 
 
 1384 
 
 Antonio Venier . . 
 
 u 
 
 1384 " 
 
 1400 
 
 Michel Steno . . 
 
 u 
 
 1400 " 
 
 1413 
 
 Tommaso Mocenigo 
 
 " 
 
 I4L3 " 
 
 1423 
 
 Francesco Foscari 
 
 
 1423- 
 
 • 1457 (deposed, and died a 
 few days later). 
 
 Pasquale Malipiero 
 
 ft 
 
 1457 d 
 
 1462 
 
 Cristoforo Moro , . 
 
 " 
 
 1462 " 
 
 1471 
 
 Niccolo Tron . . 
 
 ft 
 
 1471 " 
 
 1474 
 
 Niccolo Marcello . 
 
 " 
 
 M74 " 
 
 1474 
 
 Pietro Mocenigo . . 
 
 " 
 
 1474 " 
 
 1476 
 
 Andrea Vendramin 
 
 " 
 
 1476 " 
 
 1478 
 
 Giovanni Mocenigo . 
 
 " 
 
 1478 " 
 
 1485 
 
 Marco Barbarigo . 
 
 " 
 
 1485 " 
 
 i486 
 
 Agostino Barbarigo 
 
 " 
 
 i486 " 
 
 1501 
 
 Leonardo Loredan 
 
 " 
 
 1501 - 
 
 1521 
 
 Antonio Grimani . 
 
 " 
 
 1521 " 
 
 1523 
 
 Andrea Gritti . . 
 
 " 
 
 1523 " 
 
 1538 
 
 Pietro Lando . , 
 
 " 
 
 1538 " 
 
 1545 
 
 Francesco Donato 
 
 ft 
 
 1545 " 
 
 !553 
 
 Marcantonio Trevisa 
 
 1 " 
 
 1553 " 
 
 1554 
 
 Francesco Venier . 
 
 " 
 
 1554 " 
 
 '556 
 
 Lorenzo Priuli . 
 
 " 
 
 ,556 « 
 
 1559 
 
 Girolamo Priuli 
 
 " 
 
 1559 " 
 
 1567 
 
 Pietro Loredan 
 
 ft 
 
 1567 " 
 
 I 57° 
 
 Aloise (Luigi ) Mocen 
 
 igo " 
 
 1570 " 
 
 1577 
 
 Sebastian Venier . 
 
 " 
 
 1577 " 
 
 1578 
 
 Niccolo Da Ponte 
 
 " 
 
 1578 » 
 
 1585 
 
 Pasquale Cicogna . 
 
 " 
 
 1585 « 
 
 1595 
 
 Marin Grimani 
 
 " 
 
 1595 " 
 
 1606 
 
 Leonardo Dona. . 
 
 " 
 
 1606 " 
 
 161 2 
 
 Marcantonio Menun 
 
 ) " 
 
 1612 " 
 
 1615 
 
 Giovanni Bembo . 
 
 ft 
 
 1615 » 
 
 1618 
 
 Niccolo Dona . 
 
 " 
 
 1618 " 
 
 1618 
 
 Antonio Priuli . . 
 
 " 
 
 1618 " 
 
 1623 
 
 Francesco Contarini 
 
 a 
 
 1623 " 
 
 1624 
 
 Giovanni Corner . 
 
 " 
 
 1624 ' 
 
 1630 
 
 Niccolo Contarini 
 
 a 
 
 1630 « 
 
 1631
 
 424 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Francesco Erizzo . • . 
 
 elected 1631 d 
 
 1646 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 Krancesco Molin . 
 
 " 1646 " 
 
 1655 
 
 c. 
 
 Carlo Contarini . . 
 
 " i655 " 
 
 1656 
 
 CI. 
 
 Francesco Corner . . 
 
 " 1656 " 
 
 1656 
 
 CII. 
 
 Bertuccio Valier . 
 
 « 1656 " 
 
 1658 
 
 cm. 
 
 Giovanni Pesaro . 
 
 " 1658 " 
 
 1659 
 
 CIV. 
 
 1 >omenico Contarini . 
 
 " 1659 " 
 
 1674 
 
 cv. 
 
 Niccold Sagredo . . 
 
 " 1674 " 
 
 1676 
 
 CVI. 
 
 Aloise Contarini . 
 
 " 1676 " 
 
 1683 
 
 CVII. 
 
 Marcantonio ( iiustinian 
 
 " 1683 " 
 
 1688 
 
 (VIII. 
 
 Francesco Morosini . 
 
 1 688 " 
 
 1694 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Silvestro Valier . . 
 
 1694 " 
 
 1700 
 
 ex. 
 
 Aloise Mocenigo . 
 
 " 1700 " 
 
 1709 
 
 CXI. 
 
 Giovanni Corner . 
 
 1709 " 
 
 1722 
 
 CXII. 
 
 Aloise Sebastian Mocen 
 
 go " 1722 " 
 
 1732 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 Carlo Ruzzini . 
 
 " 1732 " 
 
 '735 
 
 CX IV. 
 
 Luigi Pisani 
 
 " 1735 " 
 
 1 741 
 
 cxv. 
 
 Pietro Crimani 
 
 1741 " 
 
 I75 2 
 
 CXVI. 
 
 Francesco Loredan . 
 
 " 1752 " 
 
 1762 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 Marco Foscarini . . 
 
 " 1762 " 
 
 1763 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 Aloise Mocenigo . 
 
 " 1763 " 
 
 1779 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 Paolo Renier . 
 
 " 1779 " 
 
 1788 
 
 CXX. 
 
 Ludovico Manin . , 
 
 " I7S8- 
 
 1797 (abdicated with the 
 aristocratic govern- 
 ment).
 
 TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL DATES IN 
 VENETIAN HISTORY 
 
 A.D. 
 
 421 (about) Venice founded by fugitives from Aquileia, Altinum, and 
 
 Padua. (According to tradition on March 25, 421, at noon.) 
 697 . . Paulus Lucas Anafestus of Heraclea chosen as first Doge. 
 809 . . Pepin, son of Charlemagne, attempts to take Venice and is 
 
 defeated. 
 828 (about) The body of Saint Mark is brought to Venice, and he is 
 proclaimed protector of the Republic in place of Saint 
 Theodore. 
 959 (about) The brides of Venice and their dowries are carried off by Istrian 
 
 pirates. 
 975 . . The first basilica of Saint Mark is destroyed by fire. 
 99S . . Pietro Orseolo is acclaimed as Doge of Venice and Dalmatia. 
 998 . . The Emperor Otho III. visits Venice secretly. 
 1009 . . Venice is ravaged by the plague. 
 1099 • • Venetians defeat the Pisans off Rhodes. 
 1 1 23 . . Defeat of the Turks at Jaffa. 
 1 123 , . The Doge Domenico Michiel takes Tyre. 
 1 167 . . Venice joins the Lombard League, with Verona, Padua, Milan, 
 
 Bologna, and other cities. 
 1 1 72 , . Institution of the Great Council, in which membership is 
 
 open and elective. 
 1 1 77 . . The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa makes submission to 
 
 Pope Alexander III. at Venice. 
 1 1 77 . The ceremony of the Espousal of the Sea by the Doge 
 
 instituted. 
 1202 (Oct. 8) The Venetian fleet sets out for the Fourth Crusade under the 
 
 Doge Enrico Dandolo. 
 1204 (April 12) Constantinople taken by the Venetian and French forces. 
 
 425
 
 426 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1277 . . Membership in the Crcat Council limited to those of legitimate 
 birth. 
 
 1297 . . Closure of the Great Council, in which membership becomes 
 a privilege of the nobles. 
 
 1300 . . Conspiracy of Marino Bocconio. 
 
 1310 . . Conspiracy of Marco Quirini and Bajamonte Tiepolo. 
 
 1335 . . Permanent institution of the Council of Ten. 
 
 1348 . . Venice loses half her population by the plague. 
 
 1354 . . Conspiracy of Marino Faliero. 
 
 1379-80 . War of Chioggia. 
 
 1404-54 . During this time Venice possesses herself, on the mainland, 
 of Padua, Ravenna, Verona, Treviso, Vicenza, Brescia, Ber- 
 gamo, Feltre, Belluno, Crema, and I'riuli. 
 
 1405 . . Carlo Xeno takes Padua from Carrara. 
 
 1426 . . League with Florence concluded. Brescia surrenders to the 
 allied forces, the Venetian troops being commanded by 
 Carmagnola. 
 
 1428 . . Bergamo surrenders to Carmagnola. 
 
 1432 (May 5) Carmagnola executed as a traitor to the Republic. 
 
 1437 • • Erasmo da Narni, nicknamed Gattamelata, is made commander 
 of the Venetian army. 
 
 1449 . . Bartolommeo Colleoni is commander of the Venetian forces. 
 
 1453 (May 29) Constantinople taken by the Turks. Many Venetians are 
 massacred and much Venetian property destroyed. 
 
 1477 . . Scutari, besieged by the Turks, is successfully defended by 
 Antonio da Lezze. 
 
 1489 . . Venice annexes Cyprus, leaving Catharine Cornaro the empty 
 title of its Queen. 
 
 1508 . . League of Cambrai, between the Emperor Maximilian, Pope 
 Julius II., Louis XII. of France, and Ferdinand of Aragnn. 
 
 157 1 (Oct. 7) Battle of Lepanto won by the allied fleets of Venice, Genoa, 
 the Holy See, and Spain, commanded respectively by Sebas- 
 tiano Venier, Andrea Doria, and Marcantonio Colonna, under 
 I 'on John of Austria as commander-in-chief. 
 
 1574 . . Visit of Henry III. of France. 
 
 1 575 — 7 • Venice, swept by the plague, loses one-fourth of her population, 
 Titian among them. Church of the Redentore built to com- 
 memorate its cessation. 
 
 1577 (Dec. 20) Fire destroys the Hall of the Great Council, with many 
 magnificent works of art. 
 
 1630 . . Another visitation of the plague, commemorated by the Church 
 of the Salute.
 
 TABLE OF PRINCIPAL DATES 427 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1 71 5-18 . The Turks wrest from Venice Crete and the Peloponnesus. 
 
 1784 . . Angelo Emo, the last Venetian leader, humbles the Bey of Tunis. 
 
 1788 . . Klecti m of the 120th and last Doge, Ludovico Manin. 
 
 1796 . . The ceremony of the Espousal of the Sea by the Doge takes 
 
 place for the last time. 
 
 1797 (April 18) General Bonaparte, by the treaty of Campo-Formio, cedes 
 
 to Austria the Venetian provinces between the Po, the Oglio, 
 and the Adriatic, in exchange for Romagna, with Ferrara and 
 Bologna. 
 
 1 797 (May i2)The Doge Ludovico Manin abdicates, and the Great Council 
 
 accepts the Provisional Government required by General 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 1798 (Jan. 18) The Austrian garrison takes possession of Venice. 
 
 1866 (Oct. 19) Austria cedes Venice to Napoleon III., who transfers it to 
 Victor Emanuel II., King of Italy.
 
 SOME EMINENT MEN AND WOMEN 
 CONNECTED WITH VENICE 
 
 The places where some of the principal works of Painters and Architects may 
 be seen are given in this list, which, however, is by no means exhaustive. 
 
 ARCHITECTS 
 
 (Many of these were also Sculptors.') 
 
 1618-1684. Giuseppe Benoni. 
 The Dogana. 
 
 (Not kno\vn)-i529. Bartolommeo Bon. 
 
 Ducal Palace, S. Maria clell' OrLo, Scuola di San Rocco, 
 Palazzo Foscari. 
 
 (Not known)-about 1680. BALDASSARE LoNGHENA. 
 
 S. Maria degli Scalzi, S. Maria della Salute, Palazzo Giustini- 
 ani Lolin, Palazzo Rezzonico, Palazzo Pesaro. 
 
 1 5 18-1580. Andrea Palladio. 
 
 Ducal Palace, San Giorgio Maggiore, II Redentore. 
 
 1512-1597. Giovanni Antonio da Ponte. 
 The Rialto. 
 
 1484-1549. MlCHELE SAMMICHELE. 
 
 Palazzo Grimani, Palazzo Corner Mocenigo, Castello di 
 
 S. Andrea. 
 
 1479-1570. Jacopo Sansovino. 
 
 Ducal Palace, Lihreria Vecchia, Loggietta, Procuratie Nuove, 
 Zecca, S. Giuliano, S. Salvatore, S. M. Mater Domini, 
 Palazzo Corner, Palazzo Manin. 
 
 1552-1616. VlNCENZO SCAMOZZI. 
 
 Ducal Palace, Lihreria Vecchia, Procuratie Nuove, I Tolen- 
 tini, Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni. 
 
 429
 
 430 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 CONDOTTIERI 
 
 1390-1432. Carmagnola (Francesco Bussone). 
 
 1400-1475.,, Bartolommeo Colleone. 
 
 ( Not kiu>\vu)-i443. Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni). 
 His statue by Donatello is at Padua. 
 
 1401-1466. Francesco Sforza. 
 
 MEN AND WOMEN OF FETTERS 
 
 1492-1566. ARETINO (Pietro Bacci), Essayist and Playwright. 
 (About) 1510-1571. Andrea Calmo, Essayist and Poet. 
 1310-1354. Andrea DANDOLO, Historian. 
 i554-(after 1591). Veronica Franco, Poetess. 
 1 707-1 793. Carlo Goldoni, Playwright. 
 1 720-1806. Carlo Gozzi, Playwright and Satirist. 
 1449-15 15. Aldus Manutius, Printer. 
 1512-1574. Paulus Manutius (son of Aldus), Printer. 
 1547-1597. Aldus Manutius (son of Paulus, and grandson of Aldus I.), 
 Printer. 
 
 1755-1832. Giustina Renier MlCHIEL, Historian. 
 1523-1554. Gaspara Stampa, Poetess. 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 1556-1629. Aliense (Antonio Vasillacciii). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia delle Belle Arti. 
 
 1 5 10-1592. Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, Museo (Civico). 
 
 1548-1591. Bassano (Francesco da Ponte, eldest son of Jacopo). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, San Giacomo dell' Orio. 
 
 1558-1623. Bassano (Leandro da Ponte, third son of Jacopo). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia. 
 1400-1470. Jacopo Bellini (father of Gentile and Giovanni). 
 
 Accademia, Museo Civico. 
 1421-1501. Gentile Bellini (eldest son of Jacopo). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, Museo Civico, S. Giobbe.
 
 EMINENT MEN AND WOMEN 431 
 
 J426-1516. Giovanni Bellini (second son of J.\a>r<>). 
 
 Accademia, San Francesco della Vigna, Frari, SS. Giovanni 
 e Paolo, S. Pietro Martire at Murano, MuseoCorrer. 
 I49I-I553. BONIFAZIO (II. VENEZIANO). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, S. Salvatore, S. Leo, S. Angelo 
 Raffaele. 
 
 1513-1588. Paris Bordone. 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, S. Giovanni in Bragora, S. Giobbe, 
 S. Maria dell' ( >rtO. 
 
 1697-1768. Canaletto (Antonio Canal). 
 
 Accademia, Museo Civico. 
 (About) 1450-1522. Vim >re Carpaccio. 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, S. 
 Yitale, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Museo Correr. 
 1675-I757. ROSALBA CARRIERA. 
 
 Accademia, Museo Correr. 
 1549-1605. Giovanni Contarini. 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 1477-1511. Giorgione (Giorgio Bakbarelli). 
 
 Accademia, Palazzo Giovanelli. 
 1 712-1793. Francesco Guardi. 
 
 Accademia, Museo Civico. 
 (Unkno\vn)-i5i5 or 1529. Pietro Lombardo. 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 1 702-1 762. Pietro Longhi. 
 
 Museo Civico, Palazzo Grassi. 
 1480-1548. Jacopo Palma (Palma Vecchio). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, S. Maria dell' Orto, S. Maria 
 Formosa, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, S. 
 Cassiano. 
 
 1544-1628. Jacopo Palma (Palma Giovane, great-nephew of Palma 
 Vecchio). 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, Frari. 
 
 1566-163S. Same Peranda. 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 I °93- I 7°9- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. 
 
 La Fava, (ili Scalzi, I Gesuati, S. Martino, Palazzo Labia. 
 
 1512-1594. Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Scuola di San Rocco, Accademia, S. Maria 
 dell' Orto, S. Maria della Salute,' Hospital of S. Marco, 
 S. Cassiano.
 
 432 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 1 5 19-1594, Domenico Tintoretto (son of Jacopo). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia. 
 
 1477-1576. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio). 
 
 1 >ucal Palai e, Accademia, tfcuola di San Rocco, SS. Giovanni 
 
 e Paolo, Frari, S. Maria della Salute. 
 
 1545—161 1. Marco Vecellio (nephew of Titian). 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 1528-1588. Paul Veronese (Paolo Caliari). 
 
 Ducal Palace, Accademia, S. Pantaleone, S. Catarina, S.Fran- 
 cesco della Vigna. 
 
 1568-1637. Gabriele Caliari (eldest son of Paolo). 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 1539-1614. Andrea Vicentino (of.i Michieli). 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 1525-1608. Alessandro Vittoria. 
 
 Palazzo Balbi, Decorations of the Scala d' Oro in the Ducal 
 Palace. 
 
 1543-1616. Federigo Zuccaro. 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 SCULPTORS 
 
 1757-1822. Antonio Canova. 
 
 Accademia, Frari, Arsenal, Museo Civico, Palazzo Treves. 
 
 1435-1488. Verrocchio (Andrea Cioni di Michele). 
 
 Square of SS. Giovanni e Paolo.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Academies, 147-149 
 Academy of ' La Kama,' 160 
 Accoramboni, Vittoria, 58 
 Adams, Brooks, 164 
 
 John, 362 
 Adige, the, 178, 385, 417 
 Adriatic, 134, 169, 356, 396 
 Agrippa, Marcus, statue of, 319 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 362 
 Albanians, 350 
 
 Albrizzi, Isabella Teodochi, 264 
 Aldine Academy, 147, 154 
 Aldine press, 154 
 Algerian pirates, 358 
 Alviano, Bartolomeo d", 67 
 Ambassadors, 77-94 
 American War of Independence, 362 
 'Angel Gabriel,' war-galley, 171 
 Architects, 429 
 Archives of — 
 
 Council of Ten, 153, 164, 212, 333 
 
 Inquisitors of State, 284, 321 
 
 Senate, 363 
 Aretino, Pietro, 136-144, 147, 196 
 Aristocracy, Venetian — 
 
 laws relating to baptism, 6 
 
 marriage laws, 6-8 
 
 registration of births and marriages, 7 
 Aristotle's works, first Greek edition, 
 
 150-151, 152 
 Armenians, 114 
 
 Arsenal, the, 95-98, 172, 194, 228, 270, 
 272, 274, 275, 276, 312, 349, 351- 
 354 
 Arsenalotti, 97, 98, 184 
 Art, dramatic, 278-280 
 Arundel, Countess of, 216-218 
 
 Sir John, 164 
 
 Athens, 227 
 
 Augsburg, 68, 182 
 
 Austria, 223, 224, 226, 362, 367, 371, 372, 
 
 377. 378, 379. 387. 3 8 8. 389. 393. 
 
 394. 396, 399. 4i5 
 Emperor of, 417 
 Avogadori, the, 6, 296 
 
 Badoer, Federigo, 159-161 
 
 Bailo of Constantinople, 81, 341 
 
 Balland, General, 417 
 
 Ballarin, Zorzi, 103 
 
 Ballot-boxes, office of carrying, 8 
 
 Balsamo, Giuseppe, 316-317 
 
 Bandits, 52-53, 55 
 
 Banquets, ducal, 337-340 
 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers, General, 389, 400, 
 
 406 
 Barbaro, Marcantonio, 8, 78, 79 
 Barbarigo, Agostino, 416 
 Barchi, Giacomo, 331, 332 
 Baschet, M. Armand, 37, 94, 219 
 
 Souvenirs of, 85, 183 
 Basilica of Saint Mark, 66, 172, 267, 
 
 342 
 Bastionero, 112 
 
 Battagia, Francesco, 409, 410, 411 
 Beaufort, Due de, 226 
 Beaulieu, General, 379 
 Bellini, the, 98, 133 
 
 Gentile, 107 
 Bembo, Cardinal, 150, 156 
 Beneto, Domenico, 22 
 Benzon, Marina, 257 
 Bergamo, 84, 332, 387, 389, 392 
 I lei nil. L >, Pietro, 148-149 
 Beroviero, Angelo, 103-105 
 
 Marietta, 103, 104 
 
 V< 'I.. 11 — 2 F 
 
 433
 
 4.H 
 
 CI.KAXINCS FROM HISTORY 
 
 Berthier, Marshal, 383 
 
 Bey of'I'unis, 358-359 
 
 Bin < irande, 134 
 
 Risaccia, Bishop of, 84 
 
 ' Black Cabinet,' 371, 372 
 
 ' Black Inquisitors,' 14 
 
 Boleyn, Anne, 91 
 
 Bollani, Bishop Pietro, 60 
 
 Bologna, 389, 396 
 
 Bonaventuri, Pietro, 121-127 
 
 Bonnal, 381, 388 
 
 Bragadin, Marcantonio, 170-171 
 
 Braschi, Cardinal, 256 
 
 Bravi, 52-53, 55, 56, 60, 64, 320-332 
 
 Brenta, the, 178, 251 
 
 Brescia, 322, 328, 329, 330, 332, 383, 387, 
 
 388, 389 
 Bridge. See Ponte 
 
 of San Lio, 205 
 
 of Sighs, 46 
 British Constitution, 88 
 Brown, Horatio, 131, 347 
 
 k aw don, 65, 86 
 Bruno, Giordano, 26-29, 196 
 Bucentaur, 178, 184, 229, 270-276 
 Burano lace, 109 
 Businallo, 240 
 Byron, Lord, 217 
 Byzantine Empire, 119 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 346 
 Caesars, the Roman, 175 
 Cafe Ancilotto, 317 
 
 Cagliostro, Count. See Balsamo, Giu- 
 seppe 
 Calmo, Andrea, 139-140 
 Calvisano, 326 
 Cambrai, League of, 66, 67, 198, 386 
 
 treaty of, 86 
 Cambridge University, 88 
 Campanile, 141 
 
 Campo-Formio, treaty of, 396, 417 
 Canova, Antonio, 269 
 Cappelletti, the, of Verona, 68 
 Cappello, the, 63, 64 
 
 Bartolommeo, 121, 123 
 
 Bianca, 121-128, 129 
 
 Yittor, 46 
 Carbonare, Marchesa, 329-330 
 Carlowitz, treaty of, 230 
 
 Carpaccio, 106, 116, 120, 132, 133 
 Casali, Man hese, 329 
 iva, |acopo, 281 
 Castaldi, 149 
 
 Catharine oi Aragon, 87, 91 
 Catherine the Great, 341 
 Cattaro, fortress of, 221 
 Cesaresco, Count Martinengo, 322 
 Charles V., Emperor, 137, 182 
 Charles VIII. of France, 168, 394 
 Charles IX. of France, 176 
 Chateaubiiand, 260-261 
 
 Mniioires d' Outre Tombe by, 262 
 Cherasco, treaty of, 225 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 320 
 Chioggia, 5,45, 118 
 Chioggia, Zarlino da, 180 
 Chiribini, Andrea, 275-277 
 Churches of — 
 
 the Frari, 149 
 
 the Madonna della Salute, 225 
 
 the Redentore, 225 
 
 the Serviti, 360 
 
 the Tolentini, 343 
 
 Saint Pantales, 131 
 
 Saint Patrinian, 154 
 
 San Basso, 143, 343 
 
 San Giacomo, 181 
 
 San Giovanni e Paolo, 171 
 
 Sant' Eustachio, 219 
 
 Santa Maria Formosa, 210 
 
 Santo Stefano, 230 
 Cicero's Rhetoric, 151 
 ' Cicisbei,' 240-241 
 Cicogna, Emanuele, 312-315 
 Cisalpine Republic, 332, 417 
 Cispadane Republic, 389 
 Clogs, 128-129 
 Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 108 
 Collalto, Collaltino di, 162 
 College of Nobles, 292 
 
 of Painters, 146 
 Colonna, Marcantonio .73 
 Commines, Philippe de, 168 
 Condottieri, 430 
 Constantinople, 40, 45, 78, 81, 169, 171, 
 
 175 
 Contarini, Andrea. See under Doges 
 Convent of Santo Stefano, 196 
 Convents, 234-239
 
 INDEX 
 
 435 
 
 Corinth, 227 
 
 Gulf of, 171, 230 
 
 Corner, Catterino, 416 
 
 Council of Ten, 2, 11-19, 22, 36, 50, 
 55, 60, 62, 64, 66, 71, 73, 75, 86, 
 100, 102, 114, 121, 123, 126, 150, 
 160, 162, 176, 195, 212, 214, 219- 
 222, 227, 248, 281, 282, 296-302, 
 304, 310, 320, 323, 326-328, 392 
 
 Couriers, State, 84-86 
 
 Courtesans, 130-131 
 
 Crema, 382, 383, 387 
 
 Crete, 225-227, 349 
 
 Criminal history, Venetian, 51-66 
 
 Cristofoli, Cristofolo de', 311-321, 331 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 175 
 
 Crusades, the, 4 
 
 Cyprus, 170, 175 
 
 Dalmatia, 230, 386, 417, 418 
 Dandolo, Andrea, 312 
 
 Vincenzo, 60 
 
 See also under Doges 
 Dante, 36, 95, 205 
 Danube, the, 349 
 Daru, 11, 12, 105 
 Deserto, island of, 134 
 Didot, M., 151, 152, 153 
 Diplomacy, Venetian, 77-94 
 Directory, French, 377, 378, 381, 383, 
 
 388, 396, 406 
 Doge, the, palace of, 22, 97 
 
 restrictions on freedom of, 43-50 
 Doges — 
 
 Contarini, Andrea, 45, 226 
 
 Dandolo, Enrico, 45, 174, 226 
 Leonardo, 209 
 
 Dona, Leonardo, 12, 166 
 
 Erizzo, Francesco, 49, 226 
 
 Foscari, Francesco, 44 
 
 Foscarini, Marco, 254, 256, 334-335 
 
 Giustiniani, Marcantonio, 49 
 
 Gradenigo, Bartolommeo, 84 
 
 Grimarii, Antonio, 49 
 
 Gritti, Andrea, 38, 49, 116 
 
 Manin, Ludovico, 347, 359, 394 
 
 Mastropiero, Ono, 268 
 
 Mocenigo, Aloise (Luigi),49, 172, 186 
 Aloise IV., 335-340 
 Giovanni, 45 
 
 Doges — 
 
 Moro, Cristoforo, 46 
 
 Morosini, Francesco, 49, 107, 227- 
 230 
 
 Renier, Paolo, 340-343 
 
 Steno, Michel, 46, 190 
 
 Valier, Silvestro, 230 
 Dogess, the, in fourteenth and fifteenth 
 
 centuries, 47 
 Dolfin, Daniele, 372, 363 
 Don John of Austria, 171 
 Dona, Francesco, 398, 404 
 
 Leonardo. See under Doges 
 
 Niccolo, 12 
 
 Pietro, 408, 409, 410, 411 
 Dress and fashion, 34-38, 128, 242-245, 
 
 249 
 Drownings, official, 18-19 
 ' Ducal promise,' 220 
 Ducat, gold, 92 
 Ducks, tribute of, 48-50 
 
 Edward III. of England, 84 
 Egina, 230 
 
 Elections of Doge, cost of, 345-346 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 86 
 Emo, Alvise, 295 
 
 Angelo, 356-360 
 England. 19, 27, 83, 84, 86, 91, 93, 165, 
 175, 214, 215, 219, 263, 356, 374, 
 377. 398 
 
 Venetian ambassadors to, 83-93 
 Erasmus, 152 
 
 Erizzo, Francesco. See under Doges 
 ' Espousal of the Sea,' ceremony of the, 
 
 270-275 
 Euganean Hills, 134 
 Executives against Blasphemy, 24 
 
 of the Ten, 14 
 Exhibition, first Universal Industrial, 268 
 
 Fair of the Ascension, 266-277 
 Falier, Ludovico, 86-93 
 Fata Morgana, 134 
 Father Inquisitor, 24, 28 
 Faust, Johann, 149 
 Feasts of — 
 
 Ascension, 267, 337 
 
 Candlemas, 210 
 
 Saint Jerome, 337
 
 43 6 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 Feasts of — 
 
 Saint Justina, 172 
 
 Saint Mark, 337 
 
 Saint Stephen, 337 
 
 Saint Vitus, 337 
 Feliciani, Lorenza, 316 
 Feltre, 149 
 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, 198 
 Ferrara, 221, 389, 396 
 Filiasi, 262 
 Florence, no, 116 
 Florentines, 4 
 
 Fornarelto, legend of, 65-66 
 Forts of — 
 
 San Nicola, 395 
 
 Sant' Andrea, 396 
 Foscari, Francesco. See under- Doges 
 Foscarini, Antonio, 19, 214-220 
 
 Marco. See under Doges 
 Foscolo, Ugo, 261 
 Foundling Asylum, 8 
 France, 42, 74, 79, 100, 106, 108, 116, 
 165, 175, 199, 224, 242, 250, 
 288; 311, 352, 356, 359, 362-379, 
 360-417 
 Francis I. of France, 74, 75, 137 
 Franco, Veronica, 131, 182-183 
 Frangipane, Cristoforo, 66-76 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 362 
 Frederick III., Emperor, 105-106 
 Frederick IV. of Denmark, 245 
 Freemasonry, 311-316 
 French Revolution, 234, 340, 347, 363- 
 
 379. 381 
 Friuli, 67, 386 
 
 Fugger family of Augsburg, 181-182 
 Fulin, Signor, 14, 17, 19 
 Fusina, 401 
 
 Gabrieli, Angelo Maria, 416 
 Galilei, Galileo, 164-167 
 
 letter of, quoted, 166-167 
 Gambara, the, 321-322 
 
 Count Alemanno, 321-333 
 
 Countess Giulia, 324 
 
 Francesco, 331, 332 
 Gambling establishments, 194, 201, 245- 
 
 246 
 Garda, Lake of, 36 
 Genoa, 4, 98, 379 
 
 Germany, 74, 165 
 
 Geronimo, Count, 57-59 
 
 Gibraltar, Straits ot, 358 
 
 Gincvra, Countess, 57-60 
 
 Giovanna of Austria, Archduchess, 126 
 
 Giraldi, 65 
 
 Giudecca, the, 202, 277 
 
 Giustiniani, Angelo Giacomo, 404 
 
 Leonardo, 398 
 
 Marcantonio. See under Doges 
 
 Onofrio, 172 
 Glass-works, 98-106 
 Gloucester, Duke of, 263 
 Godi, Paolo, 103 
 ' Golden Book,' the, 5, 7, 100, 144, 294, 
 
 378,416 
 Goldoni, 232, 236-238, 241, 247, 270, 
 
 277-280, 302, 304, 305-309, 355 
 Gondolas, 38-42, 201 
 Gonzaga, Carlo, 224, 225 
 Ferrante, 224 
 Princess, 252-254 
 Goritz, 70, 392 
 Goro, 368 
 
 Government of Venice — 
 aristocratic, 2 
 provisional, 411 
 Gradenigo, Bartolommeo. See under 
 Doges 
 Giuseppe, 295 
 Grand Canal, 336 
 Gratarol, 341 
 Gratz, 398 
 
 Great Council, the, 5, 7, 8-10, 44, 45, 
 47, 48, 78, 120, 141, 191, 222, 
 230, 231, 243, 288-296, 341, 
 371, 384, 401, 405, 410, 411, 
 
 415 
 Greek archipelago, 169 
 Greeks, 114, 119 
 Grimani, Antonio. See under Doges 
 
 Cardinal Domenico, 319 
 Gritti, Andrea. See under F>oges 
 
 Luca, 195 
 Guttenberg, Johannes, 149 
 
 Halimedia Opuntia, 108 
 
 Hall of the Great Council, 179, 195 
 
 burning of, 98, 155 
 Hapsburg family, 169
 
 INDEX 
 
 437 
 
 In-nin, M., 368-373 
 
 1 lenry III. of France, 42, 98, 175-186, 251 
 
 Henry IV. of France, 208, 210, 214, 378 
 
 Henry VIII. of England, 86-92 
 
 Heretics, 25, 28 
 
 High Chancellor, 82 
 
 Hoffmann, 267 
 
 Holy Inquisition, 11, 23 
 
 Holy Office, 23-34, I 46 
 
 diagram of Court of, 25 
 Holy Roman Empire, 12, 199 
 Homer, 341 
 
 ' Hose Club,' the, 42, 189-201, 278 
 Hospice of Saint Ursula, 277 
 Hfitel Danieli, 72 
 Hungary, 199, 349 
 
 Illasi, 57 
 
 Castle of, 60 
 Inquisition, the, 11, 23 
 Inquisitors — 
 
 of Council of Ten, 13, 14 
 
 of Holy Office, n, 23-34, 281 
 
 of State, 1 1-22 
 Ionian Islands, 417 
 Istria, 67, 417 
 
 Ivan Strashny, the Terrible, 175 
 Ivry, battle of, 378 
 
 James I. of England, 215 
 
 Japanese envoys in Venice, 186-187 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 362 
 
 Jews, in, 114 
 
 Joseph II., Emperor, 107 
 
 Joyeuse, Cardinal de, 210 
 
 Judenburg, 393 
 
 Juliet, 68 
 
 Junot, Marshal, 393, 394, 398 
 
 Jupiter's moons, 167 
 
 Knights of the Golden Stole, 82-83, I2 7. 
 
 163 
 Knights of Malta, 225 
 Kugler, Franz, 118 
 
 La Foret, 215 
 Lace-making, 105-110 
 Ladies, Venetian, of eighteenth century, 
 234-246 
 of sixteenth century, 117-131 
 
 Landrieux, General, 389, 392 
 Langc, Apollonia von, 68-76 
 1 .augier, 105 
 Laws, sumptuary, 34-43, 201 
 
 Venetian Code, 160, 222, 223 
 Legends, Venetian, 201-206 
 Legnago, fort of, 385, 387 
 Leoben, treaty of, 396, 399 
 Lepanto, battle of, 49, 171-175 
 Lezze, Antonio da, 3 
 Lido, the, 176, 178, 180, 229, 275, 392, 
 
 395. 399, 405 
 Lion of Saint Mark, 415 
 Lions of marble from Pentelicus, 228 
 ' Lions' Mouths ' (boxes), 222 
 Liptay, General, 383 
 Lizzafusina, 76 
 Lodron, Count of, 68 
 Lombards, 119 
 Lombardy, 320, 382, 417 
 Longhi, 232, 233 
 Louis XII., 162, 198 
 Louis XIV., 106, 107, 108, 226, 291 
 Louis XVI., 359, 364, 366, 372 
 Louis XVI I., 375, 376 
 Louis XVIII., 375, 376, 378 
 Luca, chief of the Niccolotti, 179 
 Luther, Martin, 132 
 
 Maffei, Andrea, 265 
 
 Marchese Scipione, 391 
 Magistracies of Venice — 
 
 aristocratic, 1-11 
 
 in eighteenth century, 299 
 Malamani, V., 316 
 Malta, 349, 359, 367 
 Manin, Ludovico. See under Doges 
 Mantua, 224-225, 384, 387, 388, 399, 
 
 417 
 
 Duke of, 176, 399 
 Manutius, Aldus, 146, 149-154 
 
 Paulus, 154, 160 
 Marcello, Benedetto, 280 
 
 Lorenzo, 226 
 Maria Teresa, Empress, 343 
 Marin, Valentin, 411 
 Mattel, Charles, 175 
 Martini, Signor, 117 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 93 
 Massena, Marshal, 384
 
 43* 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 Mastropiero, Orio. See under Doges 
 
 Maurice of Nassau, 165 
 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 66, 67, 68, 71, 
 
 198 
 Mayne, Christopher, 164 
 Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando dei, 124, 
 127, 165 
 
 Cosmo dei, 124, 126 
 
 Francesco dei, 124-127 
 
 Isabella dei, 58, 124 
 
 Maria de', 214 
 Mediterranean, the, 169, 175, 357 
 Men and women of letters, 430 
 M' 1 ceria, the, 242 
 Messina, 170 
 Mesne, ill 
 Michelangelo, 116 
 
 Michiel, Giustina Renier, 234, 242, 254- 
 265, 272, 337, 338, 342, 417-420 
 
 Marcantonio, 256 
 Milan, 75, 76, 208, 381, 382, 389 
 
 I Hike of, 194 
 Ministry of Public Worship, European, 23 
 Mocenigo, Alvise, 404 
 
 Giovanni, 27, 28 
 
 Sebastiano, 343 
 
 See also under Doges 
 Modena, 379, 389, 417 
 Moliere, 255 
 
 Molinari, Carlo, 327, 328, 331 
 Molmenti, 26, 35, 48, 57-65, 132, 283 
 Monasteries of — 
 
 the Carita, 197 
 
 Saint George, 22 
 
 San Geremia, 368 
 Money-lenders, 111-115 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 217 
 Montecchi, Romeo, 68 
 Montesquieu, 175, 319-320 
 Monti Vincenzo, 256 
 Moorish conquest, 175 
 Morelli, 262 
 Moro, Cristoforo. See under Doges 
 
 Zuan, 195, 196 
 Morosini, Alvise, 200 
 
 Angelo, 195 
 
 Francesco. See under Doges 
 
 Niccolo, 409 
 
 Tommaso, 226 
 Mummeries, 198-200, 278 
 
 Murano — 
 
 Councils, 102 
 
 glass-makers, 100-106, 177-178 
 
 I iolden Hook, 102 
 
 heraldic arms, 102 
 
 podesta, 102 
 Muratori, 196 
 Musaeus, 152 
 Museo Civico, 106 
 
 Correr, 311 
 Mustapha, 170, 171 
 Mutinelli, 345, 346, 352 
 Muzina (prison), 19 
 
 Nani, Giacomo, 386, 387 
 Naples, 379 
 
 King of, 350, 387 
 Napoleon, 175, 256, 257, 258-260, 262, 
 
 33 2 . 35 2 . 373. 377. 379, 3 8 °-4 I 7 
 Narenta, pirates of, 169 
 Nassau, Prince of, 387 
 National Assembly of France, 363, 364 
 Navagero, Andrea, 150, 151, 162 
 Nevers, Duke of, 176, 224 
 Niccolini, tragedian, 262, 263 
 Niccolotti and Castellani, 179 
 Nicolosi, Angelo, 12 
 Nicosia, 170 
 Nievo, Ippolito, 391 
 Noailles, Due de, 226 
 Nobles, College of, 292 
 
 Oglio, the, 396 
 
 Opera, first, in Italy, 180 
 
 Orford, Lord, 131 
 
 Orsini, Paolo Giordano, 58, 124 
 
 Virginio, 58-59 
 Osella, coining of the, 49-50, 342, 347 
 ' Oselle,' gift of the, 48, 337 
 Osopo, 67, 71, 389 
 Othello, 64, 65 
 Oxford University, 88 
 
 Pace, island of, 134 
 Padua, 152, 172, 349, 398 
 
 Bishop of, 162, 163 
 
 University of, 162-167, 349 
 Painters, 132-146, 430-431 
 
 College of, 146 
 Paisiello, 287
 
 INDEX 
 
 439 
 
 Palace (Palazzo) — 
 
 Mocenigo, 217 
 
 Renier, 298 
 
 Zen, 298 
 Palazzo (Palace) — 
 
 Cappello, 176 
 
 Foscari, 180, 18 1, 183 
 
 Michiel, 257 
 
 Morosini, 201 
 Palladio, 143, 178, 197 
 ' Pallone,' game of, 198 
 Palma, fortress of, 323, 389 
 Papal Court, 10 
 Parenzo, 49 
 Paris, 242 
 Parma, 362, 379, 382 
 
 Duke of, 329 
 Parthenon, the, 227 
 Pasqualigo, Cosimo, 22 
 Passarowitz, treaty of, 349 
 Passionei, Cardinal, 335 
 Patras, 227 
 
 Pawnbrokers, 111-115 
 Peloponnesus, the, 227-230, 348, 349 
 Pepoli, Alessandro, 287 
 Pesaro, Niccolo da, 22 
 Peschiera, fort of, 351, 383 
 Peter the Great, Czar, 230 
 Petrarch, 146, 155 
 Philip II. of Spain, 170, 175, 208 
 Philippe de Valois, 84 
 Piave, the, 178 
 Piazza of Saint Mark, 119 
 Piazzetta, the, 270, 283, 324, 336 
 
 columns of, 55 
 Piedmont, 367, 375 
 Pigeons of Saint Mark's, 188 
 Pio, Prince, 149, 154 
 Piombi, the, 333, 398, 405, 408 
 Pirates, 169, 358 
 Pisa, 165 
 Pisani, Alvise, 366, 372, 375, 376 
 
 Vittor, 3, 174, 356 
 Pizzamano, Domenico, 395, 396, 416, 
 
 Plague, 144, 152, 225 
 Plato's Dialogues, 341 
 Plautus, 196 
 Plays, 196-197, 283 
 Po, the, 178, 380, 396 
 
 Poe, Edgar, 267 
 
 Poitiers, 175 
 
 Poland, 362 
 
 Political prisoners, 66-76 
 
 Ponte, Antonio da, 116 
 
 Ponte. See also Bridge 
 
 dell' Angelo, 202, 317, 331 
 
 del Carmine, 179 
 
 di Donna Onesta, 131 
 
 della Paglia, 70 
 
 Storto, 121 
 Popes — 
 
 Alexander III., 267, 270 
 
 Alexander VI., 153 
 
 Alexander VIII., 228 
 
 Clement VII., 91 
 
 Clement VIII., 208 
 
 Gregory XIII., 238 
 
 Innocent VIII., 209 
 
 Julius II., 198 
 
 Paul III., 209 
 
 Paul V., 208, 209 
 
 Pius II., 46 
 
 Pius VII., 379 
 
 Sixtus V., 78, 81, 186 
 Pordenone, 67, 68. 98 
 Portugal, 356, 358 
 Pozzi, the, 21, 333, 405, 408 
 Prata, Count, 278, 279 
 Printing, invention of, 149 
 Prisons and prisoners — 
 
 in eighteenth century, 333 
 
 in sixteenth century, 19-22 
 Priuli, Zacaria, 195 
 Procession of Corpus Domini, 73 
 Provisional Government of Venio\ 411 
 Provveditori, 34-43, 129, 186, 201, 235, 
 
 282, 296, 354 
 Psalms of David, 148 
 Ptolemy, 167 
 
 Quirini, the, 53 
 Aloise, 376 
 Angelo, 296, 297, 372 
 
 Rabelais, 132 
 
 Raphael, 132 
 
 Record Office, English, 19 
 
 ' Red Inquisitor,' 14 
 
 Reggio d'Emilia, 389
 
 440 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM HISTORY 
 
 Renascence, the, 119 
 Renier, Bernardino, 257, 258 
 
 Paolo. Sec- under 1 )oges 
 Revolutionaries, 316-317 
 Rialto, the, 5.1, 172, 283 
 
 bridge of, 1 15-116, 180 
 
 column of, 54 
 Richard III. of England, 109, 175 
 Riviera, the, 377 
 Robert, King, 84 
 Robespierre, 375 
 Romagna, 396 
 Romanin, 11-12, 18, 299, 346, 358, 362, 
 
 363. 3 8 6 
 Rome, 10, 28, 78, 81, 106, in, 141, 
 J 73- x 74i I 86, 208, 209, 212, 213, 
 256 
 
 Barberini Gallery in, 118 
 ' Royal Macedonian ' regiment, 350 
 Rubini, the actor, 270 
 Russia, 175, 341, 377 *■ 
 
 Sabellico, 150, 155, 158 
 Saint Catharine, 84 
 Saint Helen's Island, 274 
 Saint Justina, 172 
 Saint Mark — 
 
 procurators of, 231, 305, 336, 359 
 
 standard of, 418-420 
 Saint Mark's Church, 18, 54, 143, 228, 
 360 
 
 horses of, 417 
 
 Sacristy, 25 
 Saint Mark's Square, 35, 140, 195, 199, 
 212, 258, 260, 268, 269, 298, 408, 
 409, 414, 415 
 Salimbeni, General, 414 
 Salo, 332 
 
 Salo, Pietro di, 54 
 Salviati, banking house of, 121 
 San Cassian, 134, 138, 140, 156 
 San Cristoforo, island of, 134 
 San Giacomo in Orio, 157 
 San Giorgio Maggiore, island of, 275, 
 
 405 
 
 San Sisto, Cardinal, 176 
 
 Sanmichele, 142 
 
 Sansovino, Jacopo, 136, 140-144, 162 
 
 Sant' Omobono, 64 
 
 Santa Maura, islands of, 227, 230 
 
 Sanudo, Marin, 21-22, 35, 36, 65, 68, 70, 
 
 73. 15". 155-158, 195. 'y'->. *99i 
 
 200 
 Sardinia, 379 
 
 Sarpi, Fra l'aolo, 211-213, 218 
 Saturn's rings, 167 
 Savoy, 367 
 
 Duke of, 184 
 Sbirri, 56, 57, 102, 310-333 
 Scholars, 149-167 
 
 Schulenburg, Marshal Count von, 349 
 Sculptors, 432 
 
 See, Holy, 10, 23, 163, 208, 209, 210 
 Senate, sittings of, n 
 Serruricr, General, 417 
 Shakespeare, 64, 65, 139, 257 
 Sign of the Old Woman, 180 
 Signorotti, 56-57, 320 
 Signors of the Night, 10, 24, 195, 302 
 Signory, the, 64, 71, 74, 77, 82, 84, 166, 
 
 188, 194, 198, 211, 213, 218, 234, 
 
 266, 268, 269, 275, 373 
 ' Silver Book,' the, 144 
 Slaves, 169 
 
 Smedley, E. W., 11, 105, 378 
 Sobieski, 226 
 Societies, secret, 311 
 Soranzo, Jacopo, 93 
 
 Tommaso, 392, 396 
 Spain, 19, 42, 175, 199, 208, 209, 210, 
 
 223 
 Stampa, Gaspara, 146, 162 
 Stanislaus Leczinski, King, 320 
 'Statutes of the Inquisitors of State, 
 
 n-12 
 Steno, Michel. See under Doges 
 Superstitions, 205-206 
 
 'Talanta,' Pietro Aretino's, 196 
 Tassini, 131, 143, 148 
 Temesvar, 349 
 Terremoto, 143 
 Thames, the, 27 
 Theatre — 
 
 Fenice, 285, 287 
 
 of San Benedetto, 281, 282, 285 
 
 of San Cassian, 246, 304 
 
 of San Moise, 245-246 
 Theatres, 194, 197, 278-287 
 Theatrical performances, 194, 278
 
 INDEX 
 
 441 
 
 Thieves, flogging of, 54 
 Thode, Dr. Heinrich, 67, 74 
 Tiepolo, Domenico, 392, 396 
 
 Giovanni Batiista, 251 
 Tintoretto, 98, 120, 133, 138, 139, 144, 178 
 Titian, 98, 118, 120, 133, 135-136, 138, 
 
 140, 141-145, 162, 261 
 Tomassetti, Professor, 190 
 Torcello, 134 
 
 Torre, Count Francesco della, 12 
 Torture, use of, 16-18, 25 
 Tower of London, 21 
 Trade, protection of, 108, no 
 Treviso, 251, 254, 404 
 Trieste, 368 
 Tron, Andrea, 340 
 Tuileries, 364 
 Turin, 367 
 Turkey, 40, 199, 341 
 Turks, 169-175, 225-230, 348-349, 351, 
 
 361 
 Turner, 116 
 Tuscan language, n 
 Tuscany, 362, 379 
 
 Grand Duke of, 126, 136 
 
 Usmago, podesta of, 305 
 Utrecht, treaty of, 362 
 
 Valaresso, 278 
 
 Valier, Silvestro. See under Doges 
 
 Vallesabbia, 390, 393 
 
 Valtellina, 210 
 
 Vano, Girolamo, 216, 218 
 
 Vatican, 23, 77, 164, 212 
 
 Vendramin, Andrea, 195 
 
 Venice — 
 
 ceded to Austria, 417 
 English ambassadors to, 84 
 Henry III. of France visits, 175-186 
 period of decadence, 207-254 
 
 Venice — 
 
 period of greatest prosperity, 5 
 
 plague visitations, 152, 225 
 Venier, Girolamo, 340 
 
 Sebastian, 173-175, 356 
 Verona, 57, 323, 375, 376, 377, 383, 384, 
 
 39i. 398 
 Veronese, Paolo, 26, 120, 146, 178, 261 
 
 trial of, 29-34 
 Versailles, 364 
 
 Congress of, 362 
 Vervins, 208 
 Vienna, 68, 226 
 
 treaty of, 362 
 Villetard, 406-410 
 Vinciolo, Francesco, 107 
 Visconti, the, 4 
 
 Vital i, Doctor Buonafede, 269 
 Viviani, 164, 165, 167 
 
 War of the Spanish Succession, 349,362, 
 382 
 
 ' Wehmgericht,' the, 12 
 
 Williams, Henry, 164 
 
 Wine-sellers, 111-114 
 
 ' Wise Men on Blasphemy,' 196 
 
 ' Wise Men on Heresy,' 23, 24 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 87, 92 
 
 Women of Venice — 
 
 in eighteenth century, 234-246 
 in sixteenth century, 117-131 
 
 Worsley, Sir Richard, 84, 375 
 
 Wotton, Sir Henry, 216, 218 
 
 Wyalt, Sir Thomas, 164 
 
 Yriarte, M., 8, 29, 44-45, 78, 79, 119, 128, 
 146 
 
 Zeno, Carlo, 3, 174, 356 
 
 Renier, 220, 221 
 Zulian, Girolamo, 311 
 
 THE END
 
 SOUTHERN ITALY AND SICILY 
 
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 THE RULERS OF THE SOUTH 
 
 By F. MARION CRAWFORD 
 
 WITH A HUNDRED ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY HENRY BROKMAN 
 
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 make it meat: that ol telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a giaphic 
 picture o( Roman society. . . . The story is exquisitely told, and is the author's 
 highest achievement, as yet, in the realm of fiction. — The Boston Traveler. 
 
 SANT ILARIO (A Sequel to Saracinesca). —, " A singularly powerful and beautiful 
 st ry. ... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is 
 most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensa- 
 tionalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience 
 graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest." 
 
 — The New York Tribune. 
 
 DON ORSINO (A Sequel to Saracinesca and Sant" Ilario). — " Offers exceptional 
 enjoyment in many ways, in the fascinating absorption of good fiction, in the interest 
 of faithful historic accuracy, and in charm of style. The 'New Italy' is strikingly 
 revealed in ' lion Orsino.' " — Boston Budget. 
 
 WITH THE IMMORTALS. — *' The strange central idea of the story could have 
 occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modem 
 thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary < loth- 
 ing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should 
 be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge, both literary and scientific, 
 and no less by his courage, and so have a fascination entirely new for the habitual 
 reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite 
 above the ordinary plane of novel interest." — The Boston Advertiser. 
 
 GREIFENSTEIN " . . . Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. 
 Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be 
 read with a great deal of interest." — New York Evening Telegram. 
 
 A CIGARETTE MAKER'S ROMANCE and KHALED. — " It is a touching romance, 
 filled with scenes of great dramatic power " Boston Commercial Bulletin. 
 
 "It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the love 
 struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble in its ending." 
 
 — The Mail and Express. 
 
 THE WITCH OF PRAGUE . — " The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story 
 is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful. . . . Mr. Crawford has 
 scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout. . . . 
 A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story." — New York Tribune. 
 
 VIA CRUCIS (A Romance of the Second Crusade). — "Throughout 'Via Cruris' 
 the author shows not only the artist's selective power and a sense of proportion and 
 comparative values, but the Christian's instinct for those things that it is well to 
 think upon. . . . Blessed is the book that exalts, and 'Via Crucis' merits that 
 beatitude." — New York Times. 
 
 IN THE PALACE OF THE KING (A Love Story of Old Madrid). — " Marion 
 
 Crawford's latest story, ' In the Palace of the King,' is quite up to the level of his 
 best works for cleverness, grace of style, and sustained interest. It is, besides, to 
 some extent, a historical story, the scene being the royal palace at Madrid, the author 
 drawing the characters of Philip II. and Don John of Austria, with an attempt, in a 
 broad impressionist way, at historic faithfulness. His reproduction of the life at the 
 Spanish court is as brilliant and picturesque as any of his Italian scenes, and in 
 minute study of detail is, in a real and valuable sense, true history." — The Advance. 
 
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