UC-NRLF ||I|I|IIIPI|II| MftfHMHMniWHfHmtfffmtl mfNtiHimimmmHii fititlttllltftdi LEONARDO LOREDANO. -Makers of Venice. THE MAKERS OF VENICE DOGES, CONQUEROES, PAINTEES AND MEN OF LETTERS. By MRS. OLIPHANT, Author of "The Makers of Florence." WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. R. HOLMES, F.S.A. Sia benedeta sta Venezia mia E sto popolo quieto, alegro e san. Me sento un vodo in cuor se stago via, Sento el solito mal de risolan Benedeto Samarco e le putele Che zira in piazza a ingelosir le stele, Benedeto el sirocco che ne afana, E la nostra fiacona veneziana. Bime Veneziane, Sabfattl NEW YORK: A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER. k ^ l^'^ GIFT \ C| 00 TO ELIZABETH LADY CLONCURRY, AND EMMA FITZMAURICE, KIND AND DEAR COMPANIONS OF MANY A VENETIAN RAMBLE, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED. M633346 INTRODUCTION. Venice has long borne in the imagination of the world a distinctive position, sometliing of tlie character of a great enchantress, a magician of the seas. Her growth between the water and the sky ; her great palaces, solid and splendid, built, so to speak, on nothing ; the wonderful glory of light and reflection about her ; the glimmer of in- cessant brightness and movement ; the absence of all those harsh, artificial sounds wliich vex the air in other towns, but which in her are replaced by harmonies of human voices, and by the liquid tinkle of the waves — all these un- usual characteristics combine to make her a wonder and a prodigy. While there are scarcely any who are unmoved by her special charm, there are some who are entirely sub- dued by it, to whom the sight of her is a continual en- chantment, and who never get beyond the sense of some- thing miraculous, the rapture of the first vision. Not only does she *^ shine where she stands,^' which even the poorest cluster of human habitations will do in the light of love : but all those walls, with the mist of ages like a bloom of eternal youth upon them — all those delicate pin- nacles and carven-stones, the arches and the pillars and the balconies, the fretted outlines that strike against the sky — shine too as with a light within that radiates into the clear sea-air ; and every ripple on the great water-way, and every wave on the lagoon, and each little rivulet of a canal, like a line of light between the piles of masonry, which are themselves built of pearl and tints of ocean shells, shines too with an ever-varied, fantastic, enchanting glimmer of responsive brightness. In the light of summer mornings in the glow of winter sunsets, Venice stands out upon the blue background, the sea that brims upward to her very doors, the sky that sweeps in widening circles all around. vi INTRODTICTION. radiant with an answering tone of light. She is all wonder, enchantment, the brightness and the glor}^ of a dream. Her own children cannot enough paint her, praise her, celebrate her splendors : and to outdo if possible that patriotic enthusiasm has been the effort of many a stranger from afar. When the present writer ventured to put upon record some of the impressions which medi8eval Florence has left upon history, in the lives and deeds of great men^ the work was comparatively an easy one — for Florence is a city full of shadows of the great figures of the past. The trav- eler cannot pass along her streets without treading in the very traces of Dante, without stepping upon soil made memorable by footprints never to be effaced. We meet them in the crowded ways — the cheerful painters singing at their work, the prophet-monk going to torture and exe- cution, the wild gallants with their carnival ditties, the crafty and splendid statesman who subjugated the fierce republic. Faces start out from the crowd wherever we turn our eyes. The greatness of the surroundings, the palaces, churches, frowning mediaeval castles in the midst of the city, are all thrown into the background by the greatness, the individuality, the living power and vigor of the men who are their originators, and, at the same time, their in- spiring soul. But when we turn to Venice the effect is very different. After the bewitchment of the first vision, a chill falls upon the inquirer. Where is the poet, where the prophet, the princes, the scholars, the men whom, could we see, we should recognize wherever we met them, with wliom the whole world is acquainted? They are not here. In the sunshine of the Piazza, in the glorious gloom of San Marco, in the great council-chambers and offices of state, once so full of busy statesmen, and great interests, there is scarcely a figure recognizable of all, to be met with in the spirit — no one whom we look for as we walk, whose individual footsteps are traceable wherever we turn. Instead of the men who made her what she is, who ruled her with so high a hand, who filled her archives with the most detailed nar- INTRODUCTION. vii ratives, and gleaned throughout the world every particular of universal history which could enlighten and guide her, we find everywhere the great image — an idealization more wonderful than any in poetry — of Venice herself, the crowned and reigning city, the center of all their aspirations the mistress of their affections, for whom those haughty patricians of an older day, with a proud self-abnegation which has no humility or sacrifice in it, effaced themselves, thinking of nothing but her glory. It is a singular tribute to pay to any race, especially to a race so strong, so full of life and energy, loving power, luxury, and pleasantness as few other races have done; yet it is true. When Byron swept with superficial, yet brilliant eyes, the roll of Venetian history, what did he find for the uses of his verse? Noth- ing but two old men, one condemned for his own fault, the other for his son's, remarkable chiefly for their misfortunes — symbols of the wrath and the feebleness of age, and of ingratitude and bitter fate. This was all which the rapid observer could find in the story of a power which was once supreme in the seas, the arbiter of peace and war through all the difficult and dangerous East, the first defender of Christendom against the Turk, the first merchant, banker, carrier, whose emissaries were busy in all the councils and all the markets of the world. In her records the city is everything — the republic, the worshiped ideal of a com- munity in which every man for the common glory seems to have been willing to sink his own. Her sons toiled for her each in his vocation, not without personal glory, far from indifferent to personal gain, yet determined above all that Venice should be great, that she should be beautiful above all the thoughts of other races, that her power and her splendor should outdo every rival. The impression grows upon the student, whether he penetrates no further than the door-ways of those endless collections of historic docu- ments which make the archives of Venice important to all the world, and in which lie the records of immeasurable toil, the investigations of a succession of the keenest observers, the most subtle politicians and statesmen ; or whether he endeavors to trace more closely the growth viii INTRODUCTION. and development of the republic, the extension of her rule, the perfection of her economy. In all of these, men of the noblest talents, the most intense vigor and energy, have labored. The records give forth the very hum of a crowd; they glow with life, with ambition, with strength, with every virile and potent quality : but all directed to one aim. Venice is the outcome — not great names of in- dividual men. The Tuscans also loved their great and beautiful city, but they loved her after a different sort. Perhaps the absence of all those outlets to the seas and traffic with the wider world which molded Venetian character, gave the strain of a more violent personality and fiercer passions to their blood. They loved their Florence for themselves, desiring an absolute sway over her, and to make her their own — unable to tolerate any rivalry in respect to her, turning out upon the world every competitor, fighting to be first in the city, whatever might happen. The Vene- tians, with what seems a finer purpose in a race less grave, put Venice first in everything. Few were the fuori-usciti, the political exiles, sent out from the city of the sea. Now and then a general wlio had lost a battle — in order that all generals might be thus sharply reminded that the republic tolerated no failures — would be thrust forth into the wilderness of that dark world which was not Venice; but no feud so great as that which banished Dante ever tore the city asunder, no such vicissitudes of sway ever tormented her peace. A grand and steady aim, never abandoned, never even lost sight of, rnns through every page of her story as long as it remains the story of a living and independent power. Perhaps the comparative equality of the great houses which figure on the pages of the golden book of Venice may have had something to do with this result. Their continual poise and balance of power, and all the wonder- ful system of checks and restraints so skillfully combined to prevent all possibility of the predominance of one family over the other, would thus have attained a success which suspicion and jealously have seldom secured, and INTRODUGTIOK. ix which, perhaps, may be allowed to obliterate the memory of such sentiments, and make us think of them as wisdom and honorable care. As in most human affairs, no doubt both the greater and the lesser motives were present, acd the determination of each man that his neighbor shoula have no chance of stepping on to a higher level than hiri- self, combined with, and gave a keen edge of persoiial feeling to his conviction of the advantages of the oligarch- ical-democratic government which suited the genius of the people, and made the republic so great. Among the Contarinis, Morosinis, Tiepolos, Dandolos, the Corners and Loredans, and a host of others whose names recur with endless persistency from first to last through all the vicissitudes of the national career, alternating in all the highest offices of state, there was none which was ever permitted to elevate itself permanently, or come within sight of a supreme position. They kept each other down even while raising each other to the fullness of an aristo- cratic sway which has never been equaled in Christendom. And the ambition which could never hope for such pre- dominance as the Medici, the Visconti, the Scaligeri attained in their respective cities, was thus entirely de- voted to the advancement of the community, the greater power and glory of the state. What no man could secure for himself or his own house, all men could do, securing their share in the benefit, for Venice. And in generous minds this ambition, taking a finer flight than is possible when personal aggrandizement lies at the heart of the effort, became a passion — the inspiring principle of the race. For this they coursed the seas, quenching the pirate tribes that threatened their trade, less laudably seizing the towns of the coast, the islands of the sea which interfered with their access to their markets in the East. For this they carried fire and flame to the mainland, and snatched from amid the fertile fields the supremacy of Padua and Treviso, and many a landward city, making their seaborn nest into the governing head of a great province; an object which was impersonal, giving license as well as force to their purpose, and relieving their con- X INTRODUCTION. sciences from the guilt of turning Crusades and missionary enterprises alike into wars of conquest. Whatever their tyrannies, as whatever their hard-won glories might be, they were all for Venice, and only in a secondary and sub- sidiary sense for themselves. The same principle has checked in other ways that flow of individual story with which Florence has enriched the records of the world. Nature at first, no doubt, must bear the blame, who gave no Dante to the state which perhaps might have prized him more highly than his own; but the same paramount attraction of the idealized and sovereign city, in which lay all their pride, turned the early writers of Venice into chroniclers, historians, diarists, occupied in collecting and recording everything that concerned their city, and indifferent to individuals, devoted only to the glory and the story of the state. In later days this peculiarity indeed gave way, and a hundred piping voices rise to celebrate the decadence of the great republic; but by tliat time she has ceased to be a noble spectacle, and luxury and vice have come in to degrade the tale into one of endless pageantry deprived of all meaning — no longer the proud occasional triumphs of a conquer- ing race, but the perpetual occupation of a debased and corrupted people. To the everlasting loss of the city and mankind there was no Vasari in Venice. Messer Giorgio, with his kindly humorous eyes, peered across the peninsula, through clouds of battle and conflict always going on, and perhaps not without a mist of neighborly depreciation in themselves, perceived far off the Venetian men and their works who were thought great painters — a rival school in competition with his own. He was not near enough to discover what manner of men the two long- lived brothers Bellini, or the silent Carpaccio, with his beautiful thoughts, or the rest of the busy citizens who filled churches and chambers with a splendor as of their own resplendent air and glowing suns, might be. An in- finite loss to us and to the state, yet completing the senti- ment of the consistent story, which demands all forVenice: but for the individual whose works are left behind him to INTRODUCTION. li her glory, his name inscribed upon her records as a faith- ful servant, and no more. Yet when we enter more closely into the often-repeated narrative, transmitted from one hand to another till each chronicler, with sharp, incisive touches, or rambling in garrulous details, has brought it down to his own time and personal knowledge, this severity relaxes somewhat. The actors in the drama break into groups, and with more or less difficuly it becomes possible to discover here and there how a change came about, how a great conquest was made, how the people gathered to listen, and how a doge, an orator, a suppliant stood up and spoke. We begin to discern, after long gazing, how a popular tumult would spring up, and all Venice dart into fire and flame ; and how the laws and institutions grew which controlled that possibility, and gradually, with the enforced assent of the populace, bound them more securely than ever democracy was bound before, in the name of freedom. And among the fire and smoke, and through the mists, we come to perceive here and there a noble figure — a blind old doge, with white locks streaming, with sightless eyes aflame, running his galley ashore, a mark for all the arrows ; or another standing, a gentler, less prominent image between the pope and the emperor; or with deep eyes, all hallowed with age and thought, and close-shut mouth, as in that portrait Bellini had made for us, facing a league of monarchs undaunted, for Venice against the world. And though there is no record of that time when Dante stood within the red walls of the arsenal, and saw the galleys making and mending, and the pitch fuming up to heaven — as all the world may still see them through his eyes — yet a milder scholarly image, a round smooth face, with cowl and garland looks down upon us from the gallery, all blazing with crimson and gold, between the horses of San Marco, a friendly visitor, the best we could have, since Dante left no sign behind him, and probably was never heard of by the magnificent Signoria. Petrarch stands there, to be seen by the side of the historian-doge, as long as Venice lasts : but not much of him, only a glimpse, as is the Venetian xii INTRODUCTION. way, lest in contemplation of the poet we should for a moment forget the Republic, his hostess and protector — Venice, the all-glorious mistress of the seas, the first object, the unrivalled sovereign of her children^'s thoughts and hearts. CONTENTS. PART I.— THE DOGES. CHAPTER I. Paqb. TheOrseoli 1 CHAPTER II. TheMichieU 30 CHAPTER III. Enrico Dandolo .. 54 CHAPTER IV. Pietro Gradenigo^Change of the Constitution , 79 CHAPTER V. The Doges Disgraced 105 PART 1I.~BY SEA AND BY LAND. CHAPTER I. The Travelers; Niccolo, Matteo and Marco Polo 125 CHAPTER IL A Popular Hero 149 CHAPTER III. Soldiers of Fortune — Carmagnola 187 CHAPTER IV. Bartolommeo CoUeoni 228 xiv CONTENTS. PART III.— THE PAINTEKS. CHAPTER I. The Three Early Masters = 240 CHAPTER II. The Second Generation 267 CHAPTER III. Tintoretto. , 299 PAET IV.— MEN OE LETTERS. CHAPTER I. The Guest of Venice 316 CHAPTER II. The Historians 337 CHAPTER III. Aldus and the Aldines 366 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. Leonardo Loredano Front. S Peter's Cliair: San Pietro in Castello To face 5 Interior of the CatLedral of Torcello " 20 Bishop's Throne, Torcello 21 Stone Shutters, Cathedral, Torcello 26 Shrine of Orseoli " II Santo." 29 Bronze Horses on the Facade of S. Marco To face 34 The Cemetery Island ^ ** 52 Arms of the Michieli 52 High Altar of S. Marco To face 63 Doorway, San Marco '* 73 Arms of Dandolo 78 Arms of Gradenigo , 84 Ponte Del Paradiso To face 94 Near the Santi Apostoli ** 110 Arms of Faliero , 113 Arms of Foscari 124 Departure of Marco Polo: From an Hluminated Manuscript in the Bodleian 125 Doorway, Marco Polo's House 133 Inscription on Pillar in Arsenal, the First Erected 148 Fondamenta Zen To face 172 Doorway of Ruined Chapel of the Servi ** 207 Sword Hilt. 210 Coffin in the Church of the Frari 227 Colleoni To face 230 Pozzo 239 Gateway of the Abrazia Delia Misericordia To face 244 Cloisters of the Abrazia " 251 Portrait of Sultan: Gentile Bellin\ " 257 Angel from Carpaccio 259 Ursula Receiving Her Bridegroom; From Carpaccio To face 260 X vi LIST OF ILL U8TRA TI0N8. PAGE Head of St. George 261 Out of the Grand Canal To face 272 Group of Heads: Gentile Bellini 280 Murano and San Micliele , To face 289 Group of Heads: Gentile Bellini 290 Head from Titian's Tomb. Believed to be F. Paolo Sarpi 295 Knocker 297 Palazzo Camello: House of Tintoretto To face 300 Palazzo Camello: House of Tintoretto ** 305 The Courtyard of Palazzo Camello " 311 Knocker: Palazzo Da Ponte 314 Courtyard. Side Canal Toface 322 CampoDiS.Vio " 327 Canareggio ** 338 Cloisters of S. Gregorio ** 350 Gateway of S. Gregorio " 864 Near San Biagio " 376 THE MAKERS OE VENICE. PART I. THE DOGES. CHAPTER I. THE OKSEOLI. The names of the doges, though so important in the old chronicles of the republic, which are in many cases little more than a succession of Vifm Dticicm, possess individually few associations and little significance to the minds of the strangers who gaze upon the long line of portraits under the cornice of the hall of the great council, without pausing with special interest on any of them, save perhaps on that cor- ner where, conspicuous by its absence, the head of Marino Faliero ought to be. The easy adoption of one figure, by no means particularly striking or characteristic, but which served the occasion of the poet without giving him too much trouble, has helped to throw the genuine historical importance of a very remarkable succession of rulers into obscurity. But this long line of sovereigns, sometimes the guides, often the victims, of the popular will, stretching back with a clearer title and more comprehensible history than that of most dynasties, into the vague distances of old time, is full of interest ; and contaijis many a tragic episode as striking and more significant than that of the aged prince whose picturesque story is the one most generally known. There are, indeed, few among them who have been pub- 2 THE MAKKRS OF VENICE. licly branded with the name of traitor ; but, at least in the earlier chapters of the great civic history, there are many examples of a popular struggle and a violent death as there are of the quiet ending and serene magnificence which seem fitted to the age and services of most of those who have risen to that dignity. They have been in many cases old men, already worn in the service of their country, most of them tried by land and sea — mariners, generals, legislators, fully equipped for all the vaiious needs of a sovereignty whose dominion was the sea, yet which was at the same time weighted with all the vexations and dangers of a con- tinental rule. Their elevation was, in later times, a crown- ing honor,a sort of dignified retirement from the ruder labors of civic use ; but, in the earlier ages of the republic this was not so, and at all times it was a most dangerous post, and one whose occupant was most likely to pay for popular disappointments, to run the lisk of all the conspiracies, and to be hampered and hindered by jealous counselors, and the continual inspection of suspicious spectators. To change the doge was always an expedient by which Venice could propitiate fate and turn tlie course of fortune ; and the greatest misfortunes recorded in her chronicles are those of her princes, whose names were to-day acclaimed to all the echoes, their paths strewed with flowers and carpeted with cloth of gold, but to-morrow insulted and reviled, and. themselves exiled or murdered, all services to tiie state not- withstanding. Sometimes, no doubt, the overthrow was well deserved, but in other instances it can be set down to nothing but popular caprice. To the latter category be- longs the story of the family of the Orseoli, which, at the very outset of authentic history, sets before us at a touch the early economy of Venice, the relations of the princes and the people, the enthusiasms, the tumults, the gusts of popular caprice, as well as the already evident predominance of a vigorous aristocracy, natural leaders of the people. The history of this noble family has the advantage of being set before us by the first distinct contemporary narrative, that of Giovanni Sagornino — John the Deacon, John of Venice, as he is fondly termed by a recent historian. The THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 3 incidents of this period of power, or at least of that of the two first princes of the name, incidents full of importance in the history of the rising repnblic, are the first that stand forth, out of the mist of nameless chronicles, as facts which were seen and recorded by a trustworthy witness. The first Orseolo came into power after a popular tumult of the most violent description, which took the throne and his life from the previous doge, Pietro Candiano. This event occurred in the year 976, when such scenes were not unusual even in regions less excitable. Candiano was the fourth doge of his name, and had been in his youth associated with his father in the supreme authority — but in consequence of his rebellion and evil behavior had been displaced and exiled, his life saved only at the prayer of the old doge. On the death of his father, however, the young prodigal had been acclaimed dog by the rabble. In this capacity he had done much to disgust and alarm the sensitive and proud republic. Chief among his offenses was the fact that he had acquired, through his wife, continental domains which required to be kept in sub- jection by means of a body of armed retainers, dangerous for Venice : and he was superbissimo from his youth up, and had given frequent offense by his arrogance and ex- actions. Upon what occasion it was that the popular pa- tience failed at last we are not told, but only that a sudden tumult arose against him, a rush of general fury. When the enraged mob hurried to the ducal palace they found that the doge had fortified himself there, upon which they adopted the primitive method of setting fire to the sur- rounding buildings. Tradition asserts that it was from the house of Pietro Orseolo that the fire was kindled, and some say by his suggestion. It would seem that the crowd intended only to burn some of the surrounding houses to frighten or smoke out the doge : but the wind was high, and the ducal palace, with the greater part of San Marco, which was then merely the ducal chapel, was consumed, along with all the houses stretching upward along the course of the Grand Canal as far as Santa Maria Zobenigo. This sudden conflagration lights up, in the daikness of 4 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. that distant age, a savage scene. The doge seized in his arms his young child, whether with the hope of saving it or of saving himself by means of that shield of innocence, and made his way out of his burning liouse, through the church which was also burning though better able, prob- ably, to resist the flames. But when he emerged from the secret passages of San Marco he found that the crowd had anticipated him, and that his way was barred on every side by armed men. The desperate fugitive confronted the multitude, and resorted to that method so often and some- times so unexpectedly successful with the masses. In the midst of the fire and smoke, surrounded by those threat- ening fierce countenances, with red reflections glittering in every sword and lance-point, reflected over again in the sullen water, he made a last appeal. They had banished him in his youth, yet had relented and recalled him and made him doge. Would they burn him out now, drive him into a corner, kill him like a wild beast. And sup- posing even that he was worthy of death, what had the child done, an infant who had never sinned against them ? This scene, so full of fierce and terrible elements, the angry roar of the multitude, the blazing of the fire behind that circle of tumult and agitation, the wild glare in the sky, and amid all, the one soft infantine figure held up in the father's despairing arms — might afford a subject for a powerful picture in the long succession of Venetian records made by art. When this tragedy had ended, by the murder of both^ father and child, the choice of the city fell upon Pietro Orseolo as the new doge. An ecclesiastical historian of the time speaks of his ^' wicked ambition '" as instrumental in the downfall of his predecessor and of his future works of charity as dictated by remorse ; but we are disposed to hope that this is merely said, as is not uncommon in religious story, to enhance the merits of his conversion. The secular chroniclers are unanimous in respect to his excellence. He was a man in everything the contrary of the late doge — a man laudato di tutti^ approved of all men — and of whom nothing but good was known. Perhaps 8. PBTKR'S chair: SAN PIETRO in CASTBU/0. TH1£ MAKERS OF VENTGV!. 5 if he had any share in the tumult which ended in the murder of Candiano, his conscience may liave made a crime of it when the hour of conversion came ; but certainly in Venice there would seem to have been no accuser to say a word against him. In the confusion of the great fire and the disorganization of the city, *^ contaminated " by the murder of the prince, and all the disorders involved, Orseolo was forced into the uneasy seat whose occupant was sure to be the first victim if the affairs of Venice went wrong. His first act was to remove the insignia of his office out of the ruins of the doge's palace to his own house, wliich was situated upon the Riva beyond and adjacent to the home of the doges. It is difficult to form to ourselves an idea of the aspect of the city at this early period. Venice, though already great, was in comparison with its after appearance a mere village, or rather a cluster of villages, straggling along the sides of each muddy, marshy island, keeping the line of the broad and navigable water- way, in dots of building and groups of houses and churches, from the olive-covered isle where San Pietro, the first great church of the city, shone white among its trees, along the curve of the Canaluccio to the Rialto-^Rive-AIto, what Mr. Ruskin calls the deep stream, where the church of San Giacomo, another central spot, stood, with its group of dwellings round — no bridge then dreamed of, but a ferry connecting the two sides of the Grand Canal. Already the stir of commerce was in the air, and the big sea-going galleys, with their high bulwarks, lay at the rude wharfs, to take in outward-bound cargoes of salt, salt-fish, wooden furniture, bowls, and boxes of home manufacture, as well as the goods brought from northern nations, of which they were the merchants and carriers — and come back laden with the riches of the East — with wonderful tissues and carpets, and marbles and relics of the saints. The palace and its chapel, the shrine of San Marco, stood where they still stand, but there were no columns on the Piazzetta, and the Great Piazza was a piece of waste land belonging to the nuns at San Zaccaiia, which was, as one might say, the parish church. Most probably this vacant 6 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. space in the days of the first Orseolo, was little more than a waste of salt-water grasses, and sharp and acrid plants like those that now flourish in such rough luxuriance on the Lido — or perhaps boasted a tree or two, a patch of cultivated ground. Such was the scene — very different from the Venice of the earliest pictures, still more different from that we know. But already the lagoon was full of boats, and the streets of commotion, and Venice grew like a young plant, like the quick-spreading vegetation of her own warm, wet marshes, day by day. The new doge proceeded at once to rebuild both the palace and the shrine. The energy and vigor of the man who, with that desolate and smoking mass of ruin around him — three hundred houses burned to the ground and all their forlorn inhabitants to house and care for — could yet address himself without a pause to the reconstruction on the noblest scale of the great twin edifices, the glorious dwelling of the saint, the scarcely less cared-for palace of the governor, the representative of law and order in Venice, has something wonderful in it. He was not rich, and neither was the city, which had in the midst of this dis- aster to pay the dower of the Princess Valdrada, the widow of Candiano, whose claims were backed by the Emperor Otto, and would if refused have brought upon the repub- lic all the horrors of war. Orseolo gave up a great part of his own patrimony, however, to the rebuilding of the church and palace ; eight thousand ducats a year for eighty yearH (the time which elapsed before its completion), says the old records, he devoted to this noble and pious purpose, and sought far and near for the best workmen, some of whom came as far as from Constantinople, the metropolis of all the arts. How far the walls had risen in his day, or how much he saw accomplished, or heard of before the end of his life, it is impossible to tell. But one may fancy how, amid all the toils of the troubled state, while he labored and pondered how to get that money together for Valdrada, and pacify the emperor and herother powerful friends, and how to reconcile all factions, and heal all wounds, and house wore humbly his poor burned-out giti^ens^ the sight THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 7 from his windows of those fair solid walls, rising out of the ruins, must have comforted his soul. Let us hope he saw the round of some lower arch, the rearing of some pillar, a pearly marble slab laid on, or at least the carved work on the basement of a column before he went away. The historian tells us that it was Orseolo also who or- dered from Constantinople the famous Pala d'oro, the wonderful gold and silver work which still on high days and festas is disclosed to the eyes of the faithful on the great altar, one of the most magnificent ornaments of San Marco. It is a pity that inquisitive artist and antiquaries with their investigations have determined this work to be at least two centuries later, but Sagornino, who was the doge's contemporary, could not have foreseen the work of a later age, so that he must certainly refer to some former tabulam miro opere ex argento et auro, which Orseolo in his magnificence added to his other gifts. Nor did the doge confine his bounty to these great and beautiful works. If the beauty of Venice was dear to him, divine charity was still more dear. Opposite the rising palace, where now stands the Libreria Vecchia, Orseolo, taking advantage of a site cleared by the fire, built a hospital, still standing in the time of Sabellico, who speaks of it as the *^ 8pedale, il quale e sopra la Piazza dii'impetto al Palazzo," and where, according -to the tale, he constantly visited and cared for the sick poor. It must have been while still in the beginning of all these great works, but already full of many cares, the Candiano faction working against him, and perhaps but little re- sponse coming from the people to whom he was sacrificing his comfort and his life, that Orseolo received a visit which changed the course of his existence. Among the pilgrims who came from all quarters to the shrine of the evangelist, a certain French abbot, Carinus or Guarino, of the monas- tery of St. Michael de Cusano, in Aquitaine, arrived in Venice. It was Orseolo's custom to have all such pious visi- tors brought to his house and entertained there during their stay, and he found in Abbot Guarino a congenial soul. They talked together of all things in heaven and earth. 8 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. and of this wonderful new Venice rising from the sea, with all her half-built churches and palaces ; and of the holy relics brought from every coast for her enrichment and sanctification, the bodies of the saints which made almost every church a sacred shrine. And no doubt the cares of the doge's troubled life, the burdens laid on him daily, the threats of murder and assassination with which, instead of gratitude, his self-devotion was received, were poured into the sympathetic (^ar of the priest, who on his side drew such pictures of the holy peace of monastic life, the tranquillity and blessed privations of the cloister, as made the heart of the doge to burn within him. '^If thou wouldst be per- fect" — said the abbot, as on another occasion a greater voice had said. '^ Oh, benefactor of my soul!" cried the doge, beholding a vista of wq'n hope opening before him, a halcyon world of quiet, a life of sacrifice and prayer. He had already for years lived like a monk, putting all the in- dulgences of wealth and even affection aside. For the moment, however, he had too many occupations on his hands to make retirement possible. He asked for a year in which to arrange his affairs ; to put order in the republic and liberate himself. With this agreement the abbot left him, but true to his engagement, when the heats of Sep- tember were once more blazing on the lagoon, came back to his penitent. The doge in the meantime had made all his arrangements. No doubt it was in this solemn year, which no one knew was to be the end of his life in the world, that he set aside so large a part of his possessions for the prosecution of the buildings which now he could no longer hope to see completed. When all these prelimi- naries were settled, and everything done, Orseolo, witha chosen friend or two, one of them his son-in-law, the sharer of his thoughts and his prayers, took boat silently one night across the still lagoon to Fusina, where horses awaited them, and so flying in the darkness over the main- land abandoned the cares of the princedom and the world. Of the chaos that was left behind, the consternation of the family, the confusion of the state, the record says noth- ing. This was not the view of the matter which occurred TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. 9 to the primitive mind. We are apt to think with repro- bation, perhaps too strongly expressed, of the cowardice of duties abandoned, and the cruelty of ties broken. But in the early ages no one seems to have taken this view. The sacrifice made by a prince, who gave up power and freedom and all the advantages of an exalted position, in order to accept privation and poverty for the love of God, was more perceptible then to the general intelligence than the higher self-denial of supporting, for the love of God, the labors and miseries of his exalted but dangerous oflice. The tu- mult and commotion which followed the flight of Orseolo were not mingled with blame or reproach. The doge, in the eyes of his generation, chose the better part, and offered a sacrifice with which God Himself could not but be well pleased. He was but fifty when he left Venice, having reigned a little over two years. Guarino placed his friend under the spiritual rule of a certain stern and holy man, the saintly Romoaldo, in whose life and legend we find the only record of Pietro Orseolo's latter days. St. Romoaldo was the founder of the order of the Camaldolites, practicing in his own person the greatest austerity of life, and imposing it upon his monks, to whom he refused even the usual relaxa- tion of better fare on Sunday, which had beeti their privilege. The noble Venetians, taken from the midst of their liberal and splendid life, were set to work at the humble labors of husbandmen upon tliis impoverished diet. He who had been the Doge Pietro presently found that he was incapable of supporting so austere a rule. ^MVherefore he humbly laid himself at the feet of the blessed Romoaldo, and being bidden to rise with shame confessed his weakness. ** Father " he said, ** as I have a great body, I cannot for my sins sus- tain my strength with this morsel of hard bread.'' Romo- aldo, having compassion on the frailty of his body, added another portion of biscuit to the usual measure, and thus held out the hand of pity to the sinking brother. The comic pathos of the complaint of the big Venetian, bred amid the freedom of the seas, and expected to live and work upon half a biscuit, is beyond comment. 10 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. He lived many years in the humility of conventual sub- jection, and died, apparently without any advancement in religious life, in the far distance of France, never seeing his Venice again. In after years, his son, who was only fifteen at the period of the doge's flight, and who was des- tined in his turn to do so much for Venice, visited his father in his obscure retirement. The meeting between tlie almost too generous father, who had given so much to Venice, and had completed the offering by giving up him- self at last to the hard labors and humility of monastic life — and the ambitious youth full of the highest projects of patriotism and courage, must have been a remarkable scene. The elder Pietro in his cloister had no doubt pondered much on Venice and on the career of the boy whom he had left behind him there, and whose character and qual- ities must have already shown themselves; and much was said between them on this engrossing subject. Orseolo, '^ whether by the spirit of prophecy or by special revelation predicted to him all that was to happen. ^ I know,' he said, ' my son, that they will make you doge, and that you will prosper. Take care to preserve the rights of the church, and those of your subjects. Be not drawn aside from doing justice, either by love or by hate.''' Better counsel could no fallen monarch give — and Orseolo was happier than many fathers in a son worthy of him. The city deprived of such a prince was very sad, but still more full of longing : " Molto trista ma pin desiderosa,^' says Sabellico ; and his family remained dear to Venice — for as long as popular favor usually lasts. Pietro died nineteen years after 'a\ the odor of sanctity, and was canonized, to the glory of his city. His hreve, the in- scription under his portrait in the great hall attributes to him the building of San Marco, as well as many miracles and wonderful works. The miracles, however, were per- formed far from Venice, and have no place in her records, except those deeds of charity and tenderness which he accomplished among his people before he left them. These the existing corporation of Venice, never unwilling to chronicle either a new or antique glory, have lately THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 11 celebrated by an inscription, which the traveler will see from the little bay in which the canal terminates, just be- hind the upper end of the Piazza. This little triangular opening among the tall houses is called theBacino Orseolo, and bears a marble tablet to the honor of the first Pietro of this name, '^ il santo" high up upon the wall. In the agitation and trouble caused by Orseolo's unex- pected disappearance, a period of discord and disaster began. A member of the Candiano party was placed in the doge^s seat for a short and agitated reign, and he was succeeded by a rich but feeble prince in whose time occurred almost the worst disorders that have ever been known in Venice — a bloody struggle between two families, one of which had the unexampled baseness of seeking the aid against their native city of foreign arms. The only in- cident which we need mention of this disturbed period is that the Doge Mem mo bestowed upon Giovanni Morosini, Orseolo's companion and son-in-law, who had returned a monk to his native city — perhaps called back by the mis- fortunes of his family — a certain '^beautiful little ishmd covered with olives and cypresses," which lay opposite the doge's palace, and is known now to every visitor of Venice as St. Georgio Maggiore. There was already a chapel dedicated to St. George among the trees. Better things, however, were now in store for the re- public. After the incapable Memmo, young Pietro was called, according to his father's prophecy, to the ducal throne. ** When the future historian of Venice comes to the deeds of this great doge he will feel his soul enlarged,'' says Sagredo. the author of a valuable study of Italian law and economics ; '' it is no more a new-born people of whom he will have to speak, but an adult nation, rich con- quering, full of traffic and wealth." The new prince had all the qualities which were wanted for the consolidation and development of the republic. He had known some- thing of that bitter but effectual training of necessity which works so nobly in generous natures. His father's brief career in Venice, and his counsels from his cell, were before him, both as example and encouragement. He had 12 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. been in France ; he had seen tlie world. He had an eye to mark that the moment had come for largei action and bolder self-assertion, and he had strength of mind to carry his conceptions out. And he had that touching advantage — the stepping-stone of a previous life sacrificed and un- fulfilled — upon which to raise the completeness of his own. In short, he was the man of the time, prepared to carry out the wishes and realize the hopes of his age ; and when he became, at the age of thirty, in the fullness of youth- ful strength, the first magistrate of A^enice, a new chapter of her history began. It was in the year 991, on the eve of a new century, sixteen years after his father's abdication, that the second Pietro Orseolo began to reign. The brawls of civil conten- tion disappeared on his accession, and the presence of a prince who was at the same time a strong man and fully determined to defend and extend his dominion, became instantly apparent to the world. His first acts were directed to secure the privileges of Venice by treaty with the emperors of the East and West, establishing her position by written charater under the golden seal of Constantinople, and with not less efficacy from the im- perial chancellorship of the German Otto. On both sides an extension of privilege and the remission of certain tributes were secured. Having settled this, Pietro turned his attention to the great necessity of the moment, upon which the very existence of the republic depended. Up to this time Venice, to free herself from the necessity of holding the rudder in one hand and the sword in the other, had paid a certain blackmail, such as was exacted till recent time by the corsairs of Africa, to the pirate tribes, who were the scourge of the seas, sometimes called Narentani, sometimes Schiavoni and Croats, by the chroniclers, allied bands of sea-robbers who infested the Adriatic. The time had come, however, when it was no longer seemly that the proud city, growing daily in power and wealth, should stoop to secure her safety by such means The payment was accordingly stopped, and an encounter followed, in which the pirates were defeated. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 13 Enraged but impotent, not daring to attack Venice, or risk their galleys in the intricate channels of the lagoons, they set upon the unoffending towns of Dalmatia, and made a raid along the coast, robbing and ravaging. The result was that from all the neighboring seaboard ambas- sadors arrived in haste, asking the help of the Venetians. The cruelties of the corsairs had already, more than once, reduced the seaports and prosperous cities of this coast to the point of desperation, and they caught at the only practicable help with, the precipitancy of suffering. The doge thus found the opportunity he sought, and took advantage of it without a moment's delay. At once the arsenal was set to work, and a great armata decided upon. The appeal thus made by the old to the new, the ancient cities wliich had been in existence while she was but a collection of swamp and salt-water marshes seeking deliver- ance from the new-born miraculous city of the sea, is the most striking testimony to the growing importance of Venice. It was at tlie same time her opportunity and the beginning of her conquests and victories. When the great expedition was ready to set out, the doge went in solemn state to the cathedral church of San Pietro in Castello, and received from the hands of the bishop the standard of San Marco, with which he went on board. It was spring when the galleys sailed, and Dandolo tells us that they were blown by contrary winds to Grado, where Vitale Candiano was now peacefully occupying his see as patriarch. Perhaps something of the old feud still sub- sisting made Orseolo unwilling to enter the port in which the son of the murdered doge, whom his own father had succeeded, was supreme. But if this had been the case, his doubts must have soon been set at rest by the patriarch's welcome. He came out to meet the storm-driven fleet with his clergy and his people, and added to the armament not only his blessing, but the standard of S. Ilermagora to bring them victory. Thus endowed, with the two blessed banners blowing over them, the expedition set sail once more. The account of the voyage that follows is for some time that of a kind of royal progress bv sea, thp 14 THE MAKEnS OF VENICE. galleys passing in trinmph from one port to another, anticipated by processions coming out to meet them, bishops with their clergy streaming forth, and all the citizens, pri- vate and public, hurrying to offer their allegiance to tlieir defenders. Wherever holy relics were enshrined, the doge landed to visit them and pay his devotions : and every- where he was met by ambassadors tendering the submis- sion of another and another town or village, declaring themselves ^' willingly '^ subjects of the republic, and en- rolling their young men among its soldiers. That this submission was not so real as it appeared is proved by the subsequent course of events and the perpetual rebellions of those cities ; but in their moment of need nothing but enthusiasm and delight were apparent to the deliverers. At Trau a brother of the Sclavonian king fell into the hands of the doge and sought his protection, giving up his son Stefano as a hostage into the hands of the conquer- ing prince. At last, having cleared the seas, the expedition came to the nest of robbers itself, the impregnable city of Lagosta. ^' It is said," Sabellico reports with a certain awe, ^' that its position was pointed out by the precipices on each side rising up in the midst of the sea. The Narenti trusted in its strength, and here all the corsairs took refuge, when need was, as in a secure fortress." The doge summoned the garrison to surrender, which they would gladly have done, the same historian informs us, had they not feared the destruction of their city ; but on that account, ''for love of their country, than which there is nothing more dear to men," they made a stubborn defense. Dandolo adds that the doge required the destruction of this place as a condition of peace. After a desperate struggle the for- tress was taken, notwithstanding the natural strength of the rocky heights — the asprezza de^ luoghi nelV ascendere difficile — and of the Rocca or great tower that crowned the whole. The object of the expedition was fully accomplished when the pirates' nest and stronghold was destroyed ''For nearly a hundred and sixty years the possession of the sea had been contested with varying fortune," novr TEE MAKERS OF VENICE, 15 once for all the matter was settled. '^ The army returned victorious to the ships. The prince had purged tlie sea of robbers, and all the maritime parts of Istria, of Liburnia and of Dalmatia, were brought under the power of Venice.'' With what swelling sails, con vento prosper o, the fleet must have swept back to the anxious city which, with no post nor despatch boat to carry her tidings, gazed silent, wait- ing in that inconceivable patience of old times, with anxious eyes watching the horizon! How the crowds must have gathered on the old primitive quays when the first faint rumor flew from Malamocco and the other sentinel isles of sails at hand! How many boats must have darted forth, their rowers half distracted with haste and suspense, to meet the returning armata and know the worst! Who can doubt that then, as always, there were some to whom the good news brought anguish and sorrow ; but of that the chroniclers tell us nothing. And among all our supposed quickening of life in modern times, can we imagine a moment of living more intense, or sensations more acute, than those with which the whole city must have watclied, one by one, the galleys bearing along with their tokens of victory, threading their way, slow even with the most pros- perous wind, through the windings of the narrow channels, until the first man could leap on shore and the wonderful news be told? '* There was then no custom of triumphs," says the rec- ord, "but the doge entered the city triumphant, sur- rounded by the grateful people ; and there made public declaration of all the things he had done — how all Istria and the seacoast to the furthest confines of Dalmatia with all the neighboring islands by the clemency of God and the success of the expedition, were made subject to the Venetian dominion. With magnificent words he was applauded by the great council, which ordained that not only of Venice but of Dalmatia he and his successors should be proclaimed doge/' Thus the first great conquest of the Venetians was ac- complished, and the infant city made mistress of the seas. It was on the return of Pietro Orseolo from this trium- 16 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. phant expedition, and in celebration of his conquests, that the great national festivity, called in after days the espousal of the sea, the Feast of La Sensa, Ascension Day, was first instituted. The original ceremony was simpler but little less imposing than its later development. The clergy in a barge all covered with cloth of gold, and in all possible glory of vestments and sacred ornaments, set out from among the olive woods of San Pietro in Castello, and met the doge in his still more splendid barge at the Lido : where, after litanies and psalms, the bishop rose and. prayed aloud in the hearing of all the people, gathered in boat and barge and every skiff that would hold water, in a far- extending crowd along the sandy line of the flat shore. '^ Grant, Lord; that this sea may be to us and to all who sail npon it tranquil and quiet. To this end we pray. Hear us, good Lord." Then the boat of the ecclesiastics approached closely the boat of the doge, and while the singers intoned '' Aspergi me, Signor,'^ the bishop sprinkled the doge and his court with holy water, pouring what remained into the sea. A very touching ceremonial, more primitive and simple, perhaps more real and likely to go to the hearts of the seafaring population all gathered round, than the more elaborate and triumphant histrionic spectacle of the Sposalizio. It had been on Ascension Day that Orseolo's expedition had set forth, and no day could be more suitable than this victorious day of early summer, when nature is at her sweetest, for the great festival of the lagoons. These victories and successes must have spread the name of the Venetians and their doge far and wide ; and it is evident that they had moved the imagination of the young Emperor Otto IL; between whom and Orseolo a link of union had already been formed through the doge's third son, who had been sent to the court at Verona to receive there the sacramento della cJirisma, the rite of confirma- tion, under the auspices of the emperor, who changed the boy's name from Pietro to Otto, in sign of high favor and affection. When the news of the conquest of Dalmatia, the extinctioa of the pirates, aud all the doge's great THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 17 achievements reached the emperor's ears, his desire to know so remarkable a man grew so strong that an anonymous visit was phmned between them. Under the pretext of taking sea-baths at an obscure ishmd. Otto made a sudden and secret dash across the sea and readied tlie convent of San Servolo, on the ishmd which still bears that name, and which is now one of the two melancholy asylums for the insane which stand on either side of the water-way oppo- site Venice. The doge hurried across the water as soon as night had come, to see his imperial visitor^ and brought him back topay his devotions, *' according to Otto's habit," at the shrine of San Marco. Let us hope the moon was resplendent, as she knows how to be over these waters, when the doge brought the emperor over the shining lagoon in what primitive form of gondola was then in fashion, with the dark forms of the rowers standing out against the silvery background of sea and sky, and the little waves in a thousand ripples of light reflecting the glory of the heavens. One can imagine the nocturnal visit, the hasty preparations ; and the great darkness of San Marco, half built, with all its scaffoldings ghostly in the silence of the night, and one bright illuminated spot, the hasty blaze of the candles flaring about the shrine. When the emperor had said his prayers before the sacred spot which contained the body of the evangelist, the pa- tron of Venice, he was taken into the palace, which filled him with wonder and admiration, so beautiful was the house which out of the burning ruins of twenty years be- fore had now apparently been completed. It is said by Sagornino (the best authority) that Otto was secretly lodged in the eastern tower, and from thence made private expeditions into the city, and saw everything ; but later chroniclers, probably deriving these details from traditional sources, increase the romance of the visit by describing him as recrossing to San Servolo, whither the doge would steal off privately every night to sup domesticainente with his guest. In one of the night visits to San Marco tlie doge's little daughter, newly born, was christened, the emperor himself holding her at the font, Perhaps thig 18 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. little domestic circumstance which disabled her serenity the dogaressa, had something to do with the secrec}' of the visit, which does not seem sufficiently accounted for, un- less, as some opine, the emperor wanted secretly to consult Orseolo on great plans which he did not live to carry out: Three days after Otto's departure the doge called the peo- ple together, and informed them of the visit he had re- ceived, and further concessions and privileges which he had secured for Venice. ^' Which things," says the record, ^' were pleasant to them, and they applauded the industry of Orseolo in concealing the presence of so great ajord/' Here it is a little difficult to follow the narrator. It would be more natural to suppose that the Venetians, always fond of a show, might have shown a little disappointment at being deprived of tiie sight of such a fine visitor. It is said by some, however, that to celebrate the great event, and perhaps make up to the people for not having seen the emperor, a tournament of several days' duration was held by Orseolo in the waste ground which is now the Piazza. At all events the incident only increased his popularity. Nor was this the only honor which came to his house. Some time after the city of Bari was saved by Orseolo's arms and valor from an invasion of the Saracens ; and the grate- ful emperors of the East, Basil and Constantine, by way of testifying their thanks, invited the doge's eldest son Giovanni to Constantinople, where he was received with a princely welcome, and shortly after married to a princess of the imperial house. When the young couple returned to Venice they were received with extroardinary honors, festivities, and delight, the doge going to meet them with a splendid train of vessels, and such rejoicing as had never before been beheld in Venice. And permission was given to Orseolo to associate his son with him in his authority — a favor only granted to those whom Venice most delighted to honor, and which was the highest expression of popular confidence and trust. ^* But since there is no human happiness which is not disturbed by someadversity,"says the sympathetic clironicle, trouble and sorrow now burst upon this happy and pros- THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 19 peroiis reign. First came a great pestilence, by which the young Giovanni, the hope of the liouse, the newly-appointed coadjutor, was carried off along with his wife and infant child, and which carried dismay and loss throughout the city. Famine followed naturally upon the epidemic and the accompanying panic, which paralyzed all exertion — and mourning and misery prevailed. His domestic grief and the public misfortune would seem to have broken the heart of the great doge. After Giovanni's death he was per- mitted to take his younger son Otto as his coadjutor, but even this did not avail to comfort him. He made a re- markable will, dividing his goods into two parts, one for his children, another for the poor, "for the use and solace of all in our republic" — a curious phrase, by some supposed to mean entertainments and public pleasures, by others re- lief from taxes and public burdens. When he died his body was carried to San Zaccaria, per. la trista citta e lachrimosa, with all kinds of magnificence and honor. And Otto his son reigned in his stead. Otto, it is evident, must have appeared up to this time the favorite of fortune, the flower of the Orseoli. He had been half adopted by the emperor : he had made a mag- nificent marriage with a princess of Hungary; he had been sent on embassies and foreign missions; and finally, when his elder brother died, he had been associated with his father as his coadjutor and successor. He was still young when Pietro's death gave him the full authority (though his age can scarcely have been, as Sabellico says, nineteen). His character is said to have been as perfect as his position. ** He was Catholic in faith, calm in virtue, strong injustice, eminent in religion, decorous in his way of living, great in riches, and so full of all kinds of goodness that by his merits he was judged of all to be the most fit successor of his ex- cellent father and blessed grandfather," says Doge Dandolo. But perhaps these abstract virtues were not of the kind to fit a man for the difficult position of doge, in the midst of a jealous multitude of his equals, all as eligible for that throne as he, and keenly on the watch to stop any suc- cession which looked like the beginning of a dynasty. 20 TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. Otto bad been much about courts; be bad learned bow emperors were served; and bis babits, perbaps, bad been formed at tbat ductile time of life wben be was caressed as tbe godson of tlie imperial Otto, and as a near connection of tbe still more splendid emperors of tbe East. And it was not only be, wbose preferment was a direct proof of national gratitude to bis noble fatber, against wbom a jealous rival, a (perbaps) anxious nationalist, bad to guard. His brotber Orso, who during bis father's life- time bad been made bishop of Torcello, was elevated to the bigberotficeof patriarcb and transferred toGrado some years after his brotlier's accession, so tbat tbe bigbest power and place, both secular and sacred, were in the bands of one family — a fact which would give occasion for many an insinuation, and leaven tbe popular mind with suspicion and alarm. It was through the priestly brotber Orso tbat the first attack upon tbe family of tbe Orseoli came. Otto had reigned for some fifteen or sixteen years witb advantage and bonor to the republic, sbowing himself a wortby son of his father, and keeping tbe autbority of Venice paramount along tbe unruly Dalmatian coast, where rebellions were tilings of yearly occurrence, wben trouble first appeared. Of Orso, the patriarch, up to this time, little has been heard, save that it was he who rebuilt, or restored, out of tbe remains of the earlier church, the catbedral of Torcello, still the admiration of all beholders. His grandfather bad begun, bis fatber had carried on, tbe great buildings of Venice, tbe church and the palace, which tbe Emperor Otto bad come secretly to see, and which be bad found beautiful beyond all imagination. It would be difficult now to determine what corner of antique work may still remain in that glorious group wbich is tbeirs. But Orso's cathedral still stands distinct, lifting its lofty walls over the low edge of green, which is all that separates it from tbe sea. His foot has trod tbe broken mosaics of tbe floor; bis voice has intoned canticle and litany under tbat lofty roof. Tbe knowledge tbat framed tbe present edifice, tbe rever- ence wbich preserved for its decoration all those lovely To face page 20. IKTKBIOR OF THE CATHBDBAL OF TOBCBUX). THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 21 relics of earlier times, the delicate Greek columns, the en- richments of eastern art — were, if not his, fostered and protected by him. Behind the high altar, on the bishop's high cold marble throne overlooking the great temple, he must have sat among his presbyters, and controlled the counsels and lod the decisions of a community then active bishop's throne, torcello. and ■wealt'hv, which has now disappeared as completely as the hierarchy of priests which once filled those rows of stony benches. The ruins of the old Torcello are now but mounds under the damp grass; but Bishop Orso's work stands fast, as his name, in faithful brotlierly allegiance and magnanimous truth to his trust, ought to stand. The attack came from a certain Poppo, patriarch of Aquileia, an ecclesiastic of the most warlike mediaeval 22 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. type, of German extraction or race, who, perhaps with the desire of reasserting the old supremacy of his See over tliat of Grado, perhaps stirred up by the factions in Venice, which were beginning to conspire against the Orseoli, be- gan to threaten the seat of Bishop Orso. The records are very vague as to the means employed by this episcopal war- I'ior. He accused Orso before the pope as an intruder not properly elected ; but without waiting for any decision on tliat point, assailed him in his See. Possibly Poppo's attack on Grado coincided with tumults in the city — '^ great discord between the people of Venice and the doge" — so that both the brothers were threatened at once. How- ever that may be, the next event in the history is the flight of both doge and patriarch to Istria — an extraordinary event of which no explanation is given by any of the authorities. They were both in the prime of life, and had still a great party in their favor, so tliat it seems impossi- ble not to conjecture some weakness, most likely on the part of the Doge Otto, to account for this abandonment of tlie position to their enemies. That there was great an- archy and misery in Venice during tlie interval of the princess absence is evident, but how long it lasted, or how it came about, we are not informed. All that the chroni- clers say (for by this time the guidance of Sagornino has failed us, and there is no contemporary chronicle to refer to) concerns Grado, which, \\\ the absence of its bishop, was taken by the lawless Poppo. He swore ** by his eiglit oaths," says Sanudo, that he meant nothing but good to that hapless city ; but as soon as he got within the gates gave it up to the horrors of a sack, outraging its popula- tion and removing the treasure from its churclies. Venice, alarmed by this unmasking of the designs of the clerical invader, repented her own hasty folly, and recalled her doge, who recovered Grado for-her with a promplitude and courage which make his flight, without apparently striking a blow for himself, more remarkable still. But this re- newed prosperity was of short duration. The factions that had arisen against him were but temporarily quieted, and as soon as Grado and peace were restored, broke out again. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 23 The second time Otto would not seem to have had time to fly. He was seized by his enemies, his beard shaven off, whether as a sign of contempt, or by way of consigning him to the cloister — that asylum for dethroned princes — we are not told : and his reign thus ignominiously and sud- denly brought to an end. The last chapter in the history of the Orseoli is, however, the most touching of all. Whatever faults Otto may have had (and the clironiclers will allow none), he at least pos- sessed the tender love of his family. The patriarch, Orso, once more followed him into exile; but coming back as soon as safety permitted, would seem to have addressed himself to the task of righting his brother. Venice had not thriven upon her ingratitude and disorder. A certain Domenico Centranico, the enemy of the Orseoli, had been hastily raised to the doge's seat, but could not restore har- mony. Things went badly on all sidesforthe agitated and insubordinate city. The new emperor, Conrad, refused to ratify the usual grant of privileges, perhaps because he had no faith in the revolutionary government. Poppo renewed his attacks, the Dalmatian cities seized, as they invariably did, the occasion to rebel. And the new doge was evidently, like so many other revolutionists, stronger in rebellion than in defense of his country. What with these griefs and agitations, which contrasted strongly with the benefits of }ieace at home, and an assured government, what with the pleadings of the patriarch, the Venetians once more recognized their mistake. The changing of the popular mind in those days always required a victim, and Doge Centranico was in his turn seized, shaven, and ban- ished. The ciisis recalls the primitive chapters of Vene- tian history, when almost every reign ended in tumult and murder. But Venice had learned the advantages of law and order, and the party of the Orseoli recovered power in the revulsion of popular feeling. The dishonored but rightful doge was in Constantinople, hiding his misfor- tunes in some cloister or other resort of the exile. The provisional rulers of the republic whoever they might be — probably the chief supporters of the Orseoli — found noth- 24 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. ing so advantageous to still the tempest as to implore the Patriarch Orso to fill his brother's place, while they sent a commission to Constantinople to find Otto and bring him home. The faithful priest who had worked so loyally for the exile accepted the charge, and leaving his bishopric and its administration to his deputies, established himself in the palace where he had been born, and took the gov- ernment of Venice into his hands. It was work to the routine of which he had been used all his life, and proba- bly no man living was so well able to perform it ; and it might be supposed that the natural ambition of a Vene- tian and a member of a family which bad reigned over Venice for three generations would stir even in a church- man's veins, when he found the government of his native state in his hands ; for the consecration of the priesthood, however it may extinguish all other passions, has never been known altogether to quench that last infirmity of no- ble minds. Peace and order followed the advent of the bishop- prince to power. And meanwhile the embassy set out, with a third brother, Vitale, the bishop of Torcello at its head, to prove to the banished Otto that Venice meant well by him, and that the ambassadors intended no treach- ery. Whetlier they were detained by the hazards of the sea, or whether their time was employed in searching out the retirement where the deposed doge had withdrawn to die, the voyage of the embassy occupied more than a year, coming and going. During these long months Orso reigned in peace. Though he was only vice-doge, says Sanudo, for the justice of his government he was placed by the Venetians in the catalogue of the doges. Not a word of censure is recorded of his peaceful sway. The storm seems changed to a calm under the rule of this faithful priest. In the splendor of those halls which his fathers had built he watched — over Venice on one hand, and on the other for the ships sailing back across the lagoons, bringing the banished Otto home. How many a morning must he have looked out, before he said his mass, upon the rising dawn, and watched the blueness of the skies and seas grow clear THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 25 in tlie east, where lay his bishopric, his flock, his cathe- dml, and all the duties that were his ; and with anxious eyes swept the winding of the level waters still and gray, the metallic glimmer of the acqua morta, the navigable channels that gleamed between. When a sail came in sight between those lines, stealing up from Malamocco, what expectations must have moved his heart I He was, it would appear, a little older than Otto, his next brother, perhaps his early childish caretaker, before thrones episco- pal or secular were dreamed of for the boys : and a priest, who has neither wife nor children of his own, has double room in his heart for the passion of fraternity. It would not seem that Orso took more power upon him than was needful for the interests of the people ; there is no record of war in his brief sway. He struck a small coin, una moneta piccola cVargento, called ursiolo, but did nothing else save keep peace, and preserve his brother's place for him. But when the ships came back, their drooping ban- ners and mourning array must have told the news long be- fore they cast anchor in the lagoon. Otto was dead in exile. There is nothing said to intimate that they had brought back even his body to lay it with his fathers in San Zacca- ria. The banished prince had found an exile's grave. After this sad end to his hopes the noble Orso showed how magnanimous aud disinterested had been his inspira- tion. Not for himself, but for Otto he had held that trust. He laid down at once those honors which were not his, and returned to his own charge and duties. His withdrawal closes the story of the family with a dig- nity and decorum worthy of a great race. His disappoint- ment, the failure of all the hopes of the family, all the anticipations of brotherly affection, have no record, but who can doubt that they were bitter ? Misfortune more undeserved never fell upon an honorable house, and it is hard to tell which is most sad — the death of the deposed prince in the solitude of that eastern world where all was alien to him, or, after a brief resurrection of hope, tho withdrawal of the faithful brother, his heart sick with all the wistful vicissitudes of a baffled expectation, to resume 26 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. his bishopric and his life as best he could. It is a pathetic ending to a noble and glorious day. Many years after this Orso still held his patriarchate in peace and honor, and the name of the younger brother, Vitale, his successor at Torcello, appears as a member 1?^^ STONE SHUTTERS, CATHEDRAL, TORCELLO. along with him of an ecclesiastical council for the reform of discipline and doctrine in the church ; while their sister Felicia is mentioned as abbess of one of the convents at Torcello. But the day of the Orseoli was over. A mem- ber of the family, Domenico, '*a near relation," made an audacious attempt in the agitation that followed the with- THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 27 drawal of Orso to seize the supreme power, and was favored by many, the chroniclers say. But his attempt was un- successful, and his unsurpation lasted only a day. The leader of the opposing party, Flabenico, was elected doge in the reaction, which doubtless tliis foolish effort of ambition stimulated greatly. And perhaps it was tliis reason also which moved the people, startled into a new scare by th«ir favorite bugbear of dynastic succession, to consent to the cruel and most ungrateful condemnation of the Orseoli family which followed ; and by which the race was sen- tenced to be denuded of all rights, and pronounced in- cabable henceforward of holding any office under the re- public. The prohibition would seem to have been of little practical importance, since of the children of Pietro Or- seolo the Great there remained none except priests and nuns, whose indignation when the news reached them must have been as great as it was impotent. We may imagine with what swelling hearts they must have met, in tlie shadow of that great sanctuary which they had built, the two bishops, one of whom had been doge in Venice, and the abbess in her convent, with perhaps a humbler nun or two of the same blood behind, separated only by the still levels of the lagoon, from where the tow- ers and spires of Venice rose from the bosom of the waters — Venice, their birth-place, the home of their glory, from which their race was now shut out. If any curse of Rome trembled from their lips, if any appeal for anathem and excommunication, who could have wondered ? But, like other wrongs, that great popular ingratitude faded away, and the burning of the hearts of the injured found no ex- pression. The three consecrated members of the doomed family, perhaps sad enough once at the failure of the suc- cession, must have found a certain bitter satisfaction then, in the thought that their Otto, deposed and dead, had left no child behind him. But the voice of history has taken up the cause of this ill-rewarded race. The chroniclers with one voice pro- claim the honor of the Orseoli, with a visionary partisanship iu which the present writer canuot but share, though ei^ht 28 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. centuries have come and gone since Venice abjured the family which had served her so well. Sabellico tells with indignant satisfaction, that he can find nothing to record that is worth the trouble, of Flabenico, their enemy, ex- cept that he grew old and died. Non ragiofiam di lor. The insignificant and lenvious rival, who brings ruin to the last survivors of a great race, is unworthy further com- ment. Such proscriptions, however, are rarely so successful. The Orseoli disappear altogether from history, and their name during all the historic ages scarcely once is heard again in Venice. Domenico, the audacious usurper of a day, died at Kavenna very shortly after. Even their great buildings, with the exception of Torcello, have disappeared under the splendor of later ornament, or more recent construction. Their story has the completeness of an epic — they lived, and ruled, and conquered, and made Venice great. Under their sway she became the mistress of the sea. and then it was evident that they had completed their mission, and the race came to an end, receiving its dismissal in the course of nature from those whom it had best served. Few families thus recognize the logic of circumstances; they linger out in paltry efforts — in attempts to reverse the sentence pronounced by the ingratitude of the fickle mob, or any other tyrant with whom they may have to do. But whether with their own will or against it, the Orseoli made no struggle. They allowed their story to be com- pleted in one chapter, and to come to a picturesque and effective end. It will be recognized, however, that Torcello is a power- exception to the extinction of all relics of the race. The traveler as he stands with something of a sad respect of pity mingling in his admiration of that great and noble cathedral, built for the use of a populous and powerful community, but now left to a few rough fishermen and pallid women, amid the low and marshy fields, a poor standing-ground among the floods — takes little thought of him who reared its lofty walls, and combined new and old together in so marvelous a conjunction. Even the great- THE MAKKRS OF VENICE. 29 est of all the modern adorers who have idealized old Ven- ice, and sung litanies to some chosen figures among her sons, has not a word for Orso, or his race. And no tradi- tion remains to celebrate his name. But the story of this tender brother, the banished doge's defender, champion, substitute, and mourner — how he reigned for Otto, and for himself neither sought nor accepted anything — is worthy of the scene. Greatness has faded from the ancient commune as it faded from the family of their bishop, and Torcello, like the Orseoli, may seem to a fantastic eye to look, through all the round of endless days, wistfully yet with no grudge, across the level waste of the salt sea water to that great line of Venice against the western sky which has carried her life away. The church, with its marbles and forgotten inscriptions, its mournful great Madonna holding out her arms to all her children, its profound lone- liness and sentinelship through all the ages, acquires yet another not uncongenial association when we think of the noble and unfortunate race which here died out in the silence of the cloister, amid murmurs of solemn psalms and whispering amens from the winds and from the sea. SHRINS or OaSEOU " IL SANTO.^* 3D THE MAKERS OF VENICE. CHAPTER 11. THE MICHIELI. It is of course impossible to give here a continuonshistory of the doges. To trace the first appearance of one after an- other of the historic names so familiar to our ears would be a task full of interest, but far too extensive for the present undertaking. All tiiat we can attempt to do is to take up a prominent figure here and there, to mark the successive crises and developments of history and the growth of the Venetian constitution, involved as it is in the action and influence of successive princes, or to follow the fortunes of one or other of the family groups which add an individual interest to the general story. Among these, less for the im- portance of the house than for greatness of one of its members, the Micliieli, find a prominent place. The first doge of the name was the grandfather, the third the son of the great Domenico Michieli who made the name illustri- ous. Vitale Michiel the first (the concluding vowel is cut off according to familiar use in many Venetian names — Cornaro being pronounced Oornar ; Loredano, Loredan; and so forth) came to the dignity of doge in 1096, more than a century later than the accession of the Oi'seoli to power. In the meantime there had been much progress in Venice. We reach the limits within which general history begins to become clear. Every day the great republic, though still in infancy, emerges more and more distinct from the morn- ing mists. And the accession of Vitale Michieli brings us abreast of information from otlier sources. He came to the chief magistracy at the time when all Europe was thrilling with the excitement of the first crusade, and the THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 31 great maritime towns of Italy began to vie with each other in offering tlie means of transit to the pilgrims. How it happens that the Venetian chroniclers have left this part of their history in darkness, and gathered so few details of a period so important, is the standing wonder of historical students. But so it is. A wave of new life must have swept through the city, with all its wealth of galleys, which lay so directly in the way between the east and west, and trade must have quickened and prosperity increased. All that we hear, however, from Venetian sources is vague and general; and it was not until after the taking of Jerusalem that the doge felt himself impelled to join *Hhat holy and praise- worthy undertaking:" and assembling the people pro- posed to them the formation of an armada, not only for the primary object of the crusade, but, in order that Ven- ice might not show herself backward where the Pisans and Genoese had both acquired reputation and wealth. The expedition thus fitted out was commanded by his son Giovanni, with the aid of a spiritual coadjutor in the person of Enrico Contarini, Bishop of Castello: but does not seem to have accomplished much except in the search for relics, whicii were then the great object of Venetian ambition. A curious story is told of this expedition and of the bishop commodore, who, performing his devotions before his departure at the church on the Lido, dedicated to San Niccolo, made it the special object of his prayers that he miglit find, when on his travels, the body of the saint. Whether the determination to have this prayer granted operated in other methods more pi'actical cannot be told: but certain it is that Bishop Contarina one fine morning suddenly called upon the fleet to stop in front of a little town which was visible on the top of the cliffs near the city of Mira. The squadron paused in full career, no doubt with many an inquiry from the gazing crowds in the other vessels not near enough to see what the admiral would be at, or what was the meaning of the sudden land- ing of a little band of explorers on the peaceful coast. The little town, unacitia, a {)lace without a name, was found almost abandoned of its inhabitants, having been ravaged 32 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. by some recent corsair, Turk or Croat. The explorers, joined by many a boat's crew as soon as the other vessels saw that some adventure was on hand, found a church dedicated also to San Niccolo, which they immediately be- gan to examine, not too gently, pulling down walls and altars to find the sacred booty of which they were in search, and even putting to torture the guardians of the church who would not betray its secrets. Finding notliing better to be done, they took at last two bodies of saints of lesser importance, St. Theodore to wit and a second San Niccolo, uncle of the greater saint — and prepared, though with little satisfaction, to regain their ships. The bishop, however, lingered, praying and weeping behind, with no com- punction apparently as to the tortured guardians of St. Nicholas, but much dislike to be balked in his own ardent desire: when lo! all at once there arose a fragrance as of all the flowers of June, and the pilgrims, hastily crowding back to see what wonderful thing was about to take place, found themselves drawn toward a certain altar, apparently overlooked before, where St. Nicholas really lay. One wonders whether the saint was flattered by the violence of his abductors, as women are said to be — yet cannot but feel that it was hard upon the poor tortured custodians, the old and faithful servants who would not betray their trust, to see the object of tlieir devotion thus favor the invaders. This story Romanin assures us is told by a contemporary. Dandolo gives another very similar, adding tliat his own ancestor, a Dandolo, was captain of the ship which carried back the prize. This would seem to have been the chief glory, though but at second hand, of Vitale Michieli's reign. The due corpi di San Niccolo, the great and small, were placed with great joy in San Niccolo del Lido, and that of St. Theodore deposited in the church of San Salvatore. The brief ac- count of the Crusade given by Sanudo reveals to us a hungry search for relics on the part of the Venetian contin- gent, varied by quarrels, which speedily came to blows, with the Pisans and Genoese, their rivals at sea, but little more. Nor is it apparent that the life of the Doge Vitale was THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 33 more distinguished at home. He died, after a reign of about five years, in the end of the first year of the twelfth century, and for a generation we hear of the family no more. His successor, Ordelafo, first of the Falieri, was a man of great energy and character. He was the founder of the great arsenal, which has always been of so much impor- tance to Venice, not less now with its great miraculous scientific prodigies of ironclads, and its hosts of workmen, than when the pitch boiled and the hammers rang for smaller craft on more primitive designs. Ordelafo, how- ever, came to a violent end fighting for the possession of the continually rebellious city of Zara, which from genera- tion to generation gave untold trouble to its conquerors. His fall carried dismay and defeat to the very hearts of his followers. The Venetians were not accustomed to disas- ter, and they were completely cowed and broken down by the loss at once of their leader and of the battle. For a time it seems to have been felt that the republic had lost her hold upon Dalmatia, and that the empire of the seas was in danger : and the dismayed leaders came home, bringing grief and despondency with them. The city was so cast down that ambassadors were sent off to the king of Hungary to sue for a truce of five years, and mourning and alarm filled all hearts. It was at this time of discom- fiture and humiliation in the year 1118, that Donienico Michieli, the second of his name to bear that honor, was elected doge. In these dismal circumstances there seems little augury of the splendor and success he was to bring to Venice. His first authentic appearance shows him to us in the act of preparing another expedition for the East, for the succor of Baldwin, the second king of Jerusalem, who, the first flush of success being by this time over, had in his straits appealed to the pope and to the republic. The pope sent on Baldwin's letters to Venice, and with them a standard bearing the image of St. Peter, to be car- ried by the doge to battle. Michieli immediately prepared 2k possente armata — a strong expedition. ** Then the peo- ple were called to counsel,'' the narrative goes on, without U THE MAKERS OF VENICE. any ironical meaning : and, after solemn service in St. Mark^ the prince addressed the assembly. The primitive constitution of the republic, in which every man felt him- self the arbiter of his country^s fate, could not be better exemplified. The matter was already decided, and all that was needful to carry out the undertaking was that popular movement of sympathy which a skilled orator has so little difficulty in calling forth. The people pressed in to the church, where, with all the solemnity of ritual against which no heretical voice had ever been raised, the patri- arch and his clergy, in pomp and splendor, celebrated, at the great altar blazing with light, the sacred ceremonies. San Marco, in its dark splendor, with that subtle charm of color which makes it unique among churches, was proba- bly then more like what it is now than was any other part of Venice — especially when filled with that surging sea of eager faces all turned towai'd the brilliant glow of the altar. And those who have seen the great Venetian tem- ple of to-day, full of the swaying movement and breath of a crowd, may be permitted to form for themselves an image, probably very like the original, of that assembly, where patricians, townsmen, artisans — the mariners who would be the first to bear their part, and those sons of the people who are the natural recruits of every army, all met together eager for news, ready to be moved by the elo- quence, and wrought to enthusiasm by the sentiment of their doge. It is not to be supposed that the speech of Michieli, given by Sabellico in detail, is the actual oration of the doge, verbally reported in the first half of the twelfth century : but it has no doubt some actual truth of language, handed down by fragments of tradition an i anonymous chronicle, and it is very characteristic, and worthy of the occasion. ^'From you, noble V^enetians, these things are not hid," he says, " which were done partly by yourselves, and partly by the other peoples of Europe, to recover the Holy Land." Then, after a brief review of the circumstances, of the great necessity and the appeal made to Rome, he addresses himself thus to the popular ear: To face page 34. BRONZE HORSES ON THE FACADE OF S. MARCO. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 35 *' Moved by so great a peril, the Roman pontiff has judged the Venetians alone worthy of such an undertaking, and that he might securely confide it to them. Wherefore he has sent commissions to your prince, and to you, Venetian citizens, praying and supplicating you that in such a time of need you should not desert the Christian cause. Which demand your prince has determined to refer to you. Make up your minds then, and command that a strong force should be prepared. Which thing not only religion and our care for the church and all Christians enjoins, but also the inheritance of our fathers, from whom we have received it as a charge: which fulfilling we can also enlarge our own dominion. It is very worthy of the religion of which we make profession, to defend with our arms from the injuries of cruel men that country in which Christ our King chose to be born, to traverse weeping, in which to be betrayed, taken, put upon the Cross, and that his most holy body should have sepulture therein : in which place, as testifies Holy Writ, as the great Judge yet once more He must come to judge the human race. What sacred place dedicated to His service, what monastery, what altar, can we imagine will be so grateful to Him as this holy undertaking ? by which He will see the home of His childhood, His grave, and, finally, all the surround- ings of His humanity, made free from unworthy bondage. But since human nature is so constituted that there is scarcely any public piety without a mixture of ambition, you, perhaps, while I speak, begin to ask yourselves silently, what honor, what glory, what reward may follow such an enterprise ? Great and notable will be the glory to the Venetian name, since our forces will appear to all Europe alone sufficient to be opposed to the strength of Asia. The furthermost parts of the West will hear of the valor of the Venetians, Africa will talk of it, Europe will wonder at it, and our name will be great and honored in everybody's mouth. Yours will be the victory in such a war, and yours will be the glory. . . . " Besides, I doubt not that you are all of one will in the desire that our domain should grow and increase. In what way, and by what method, think you, is this to be done? Perhaps here seated, or in our boats upon the lagoons? Those who think so deceive themselves. The old Romans, of whom it is your glory to bethought the descend- ants, and whom you desire to emulate, did not gain the empire of the world by cowardice or illness; but adding one undertaking to another, and war to war, put their yoke upon all people, and with incredible fighting increased their strength. . . And yet again, if neither the glory, nor the rewards, nor the ancient and general devotion of our city for the Christian name should move you, this certainly will move you, that we are bound to deliver from the oppression of the unbeliever that land in which we shall stand at last before the tribunal of the great Judge, and where what we have done shall not be hidden, but made manifest and clear. Go, then, and prepare the 36 THK MAKERS OF VENICE. armaments, and may it be well with you and witli the Venetian name." The skillful mingling of motives, sacred and secular; the melting touch with which that land which was the place of his childhood " — il hiogo della sua fanciuUezza — is pre- sented to their sight; the desire for glory, which is so sweet to all; the great civic ambition to make Venice great and hear her praise ; the keen sting of the taunt to those who suppose that fame is to be got by sitting still or by idle exercises upon the surrounding waters — returning again with the force of a final argument to ** that land" where the final judgment is to be held, and where those who have fought for the cross will not be hidden, great or small — forms an admirable example of the kind of oration which an eloquent doge might deliver to the impetuous and easily- moved populace, who had, after all, a terrible dominant power of veto if they chanced to take another turn from that which was desired. The speaker, however, who had this theme and knew so well how to set it forth, must have felt that he had the heart of the people in his hand and could play upon that great instrument as upon a lute. When he had ended, the church resounded with shouts, mingled with weeping, and there was not one in the city, we are told, who would not rather have been written down in the lists of that army than left to stay in peace and idleness at home. Dandolo, the most authentic and trustworthy authority, describes this expedition as one of two hundred ships, large and small, but other authorities reckon them as less numer- ous. They shone with pictures and various colors, the French historian of the Crusades informs us, and were a delightful sight as they made their way across the brilliant eastern sea. Whether the painted sails that still linger about the lagoons and give so much brilliancy and character to the scene were already adopted by these glorious galleys seems unknown ; their high prows, however, were richly decorated with gilding and color, and it is apparently this ornamentation to which the historian alludes. But though THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 37 they were beautiful to behold, their progress was not rapid. Tliu doge stopped on his way to besiege and take Corfu, wliere the squadron passed the winter, as was the custom of tlie time. Even when they set sail again they lingered among the islands, carrying fire and sword for no particular leason, so far as appears, into Rhodes and other places; until at last evil news from Palestine, and the information that the enemy's fleet lay in front of Joppa, blockading that port, quickened their steps. Michieli divided his squadron,, and beguiled the hostile ships out to sea with tlie hopes of an easy triumph ; then falling upon tliem with the stronger portion of his force won so terrible and complete a victory that the water and the air were tainted with blood, and many of the Venetians, according to Sanudo, fell sick in consquence, It is difficult to decide whether it was after this first in- cident of the war, or jit a later period, that the doge found himself, like so many generals before and after him, in want of money for the payment of his men. The idea of bank-notes had not then occurred to the merchant princes. But Michieli did what our own valiant Gordon had to do, aTid with as great a strain no doubt on the faith of the me- diaeval mariners to whom the device was entirely new. He caused a coinage to be struck in leather, stamped with his own family arms, and had it published throughout the fleet, upon his personal warrant, that these should be considered as lawful money, and should he exchanged for gold zee- chins on the return of the ships to Venice. *^And so it was done, and the promise was kept. " In memory of this first assignat the Ca' Michieli, still happily existing in Venice, bears till this day, and has borne through all the intervening centuries, the symbol of these leathern coins upon the cheerful blue and white of their ancestral coat. On the arrival of the Venetians at Acre they found the assembled Christians full of uncertain counsels, as was un- fortunately too common, doubtful even with which city. Tyre or Ascalon, they should begin their operations. The doge proposed an appeal to God under the shape of drawing lots, always a favorite idea with the Venetians, 38 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. and the two names were written on pieces of paper, and placed in the pyx on the altar, from which one was drawn by a child, after mass had been said. On tliis appeared the name of Tyre, and the question was decided. Be- fore, however, the expedition set out again, the prudent Venetian well aware that gratitude is less to be calculated upon after than before the benefit is received, made his conditions with *^the barons ''who represented the im- prisoned King Baldwin. These conditions were, that in every city of the Christian kingdom the Venetians should have secured to them a church, a street, an open square, a bath and a bakehouse, to be held free from taxes as if they were the property of the king : that they should be free from all tolls on entering or leaving these cities, as free as in their own dominion, unless when conveying freight, in which case they were to pay the ordinary dues. Further, the authorities of Baldwin's kingdom pledged themselves to pay to the doge in every recurring year, on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 300 bezants ; and consented that all legal differences between Venetians, residents or visitors should be settled by their own courts, and that in cases of ship- wreck or death at sea the property of dead Venetians, should be carefully preserved and conveyed to Venice for distribution to the lawful heirs. Finally, the third part of the cities of Tyre and Ascalon, if conquered by the help of the Venetians — in so far at least as these conquered places belonged to the Saracens and not to the Franks — were to be given to the Venetians, to be held by them as freely as the king held the rest. These conditions are taken from the confirmatory charter afterward granted by Baldwin. The reader will perceive that the doge drove an excellent bargain, and did not, though so great and good a man, disdain to exact the best terms possible from his friend's necessities. These important preliminaries settled, the expedition set out for Tyre, which, being very strong, was assailed at once by land and by sea. The siege had continued for some time without any important result, and the Crusaders were greatly discouraged by rumors of an attack that was TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. 39 being planned against Jerusalem, when it began to be whispered in the host that the Venetians, who were so handy with their galleys, would, in case of the arrival of the army of the king of Damascus, who was known to be on his way to the relief of the city, think only of their own safety, and getting up all sail abandon their allies and make off to sea. This suggestion made a great commotion in the camp, where the knowledge that a portion of the force had escape within their power, made danger doubly bitter to the otliers who had no such possibility. The doge heard the rumor, which filled him with trouble and indignation. Dandolo says that he took a plank from each of the galleys to make them unseaworthy. ** Others write," says Sabellico, '* that the sails, oars and other things needed for navigation were what Michieli removed from his ships." These articles were carried into the pres- ence of Varimondo or Guarimondo, the patriarch, and all the assembly of the leaders. The astonishment of the council of war, half composed of priests, when these cum- brous articles, smelling of pitch and salt water, were thrown down before them, may be imagined. The doge made them an indignant speech, asking how they could have supposed the Venetians to be so light of faith ; and, with a touch of ironical contempt, informed them that he took this means to set them at their ease, and show that the men of Venice meant to take Tyre, and not to run away. Another picturesque incident recorded is one which Sabellico allows may be fabulous, but which Sanudo re- peats from two different sources — the story of a carrier pigeon sent by the relieving army to encourage the people of Tyre in their manful resistance, which the Christian army caught, and to which they attached a message of quite opposite purport, upon the receipt of which the much tried and famished garrison lost heart, and at length, though with all the honors of war, capitulated, and threw open their gates ; upon which the besiegers took posses- sion, not without much grumbling on the part of the dis- appointed soldiers who looked for nothing less than the 40 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. sacking of the wealthy city. The royal standard of Jeru- salem was immediately erected on the highest tower, those of St. Mark and of the Count of Tripoli waving beside it. The siege lasted, according to Dandolo, nearly four months. The doge had spent Christmas solemnly at Jeru- salem, and. it was in July that the city was entered by the allies : but all the authorities are chary of dates, and even Eomanin is not too clear on this point. It was, however, in July, 1123, that the victory was gained. In the portion of the city which fell to the share of the Venetians, true to their instincts, a scheme of government was at once set up. The doge put in a halio chi facesse ragio7ie — a deputy who should do right — seek good and en- sue it. Mr. Euskin, in his eloquent account of this great enterprise (which it would be great temerity on our part to attempt to repeat, were it not necessary to the story of the doges) quotes the oath taken by inferior magistrates under the ialio, which is a stringent promise to act justly by all men and *^ according to the ancient use and law of the city.^^ The Venetians took possession at once of their third of the newly acquired town, with all the privileges accorded to them, and set up their bakeries, their exclusive weights and measures, their laws, their churches, of which three were built without delay, and along with all these, secured an extension of trade, which was the highest bene- fit of all. It is asserted by an anonymous commentator upon the manuscript of candolo; that it was proposed by the cru- saders, after this great success of their arms, to elect the doge king of Jerusalem in place of the imprisoned Baldwin but of this there seems no confirmation. Michieli was called from the scene of his victories by information of renewed troubles on the Dalmatian coast, and departed, carrying along with him many of the fine things for which Tyre was famous — the purple and the goldsmith's work, and many treasures. But among others, one on which Dandolo and Sanudo both agree, a certain great stone which had stood near one of the gates of Tyre since the time when our Lord, weary after a journey, sat down to rest upon it. Such a treas- THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 41 ure was not likely to escape the keeu scent of the Venetians, socager for relics. The doge carried it away, a somewhat cumbrous addition to his plunder, and when he reached home placed it in San Marco, where it is still to be seen in the baptistery, a chapel, not built in Michieli's day, where forms the altar, im enorme mossetto de granito — as says the last guide book. The guide-book, however (the excellent one published by Signori Falin and Molmenti, from the notes of Lazari, and worth a dozen Murrays), says that it was Vitale Michieli, and not Domenico who brought over this stone from Tyre; just as Mr. Ruskin assures us that it was Domenico who brought home tlie two famous columns on the Piazzetta, of wiiich the chronicles do not say a word. Who is to decide when doctors disagree? The homeward journey of the Venetians was full of ad- venture and conflict. Their first pause was made at Rliodes, where the inhabitants, possibly encouraged by the G-reek emperor in their insolence to the Venetians, refused to furnish them with provisions: whereupon the doge disem- barked his army, and took, and sacked the city. After this swift and summary vengeance the fleet went on to Chios, which not only was treated as Rhodes had been, but was robbed of a valuable piece of saintly plunder, the body of St. Isidore. The other isles of the Archipelago fell in succession before the victorious fleet, which passed with a swelling sail and all the exhilaration of success from one to another. At Cephalonia the body of San Donate was discovered and carried away. Nearer home the expedition executed those continually required re-adjustments of the Dalmatian towns which almost every doge in succession, since they were first annexed, had been compelled to take in hand. Trau, Spalatro, and Zara were re-taken from the Hungarians, and the latter city, called by Sanudo Belgrade {Belgrado cioe Zara vecchia), from which the Venetian governor had been banished, and which had cost much blood and trouble to the republic, the doge is said to have caused it to be destroyed, " that its ruin might be an example to the others," a fact which, however, docs not pre- Yent it from reappearing a source of trouble and conflict to 42 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. many a subsequent doge. Here, too, Michieli paused and distributed the spoil, setting apart a portion for God, and dividing the rest among the army. Then, with great triumph and victory, after an absence of nearly three years, the conquerors made their way home. A more triumphant voyage had never been made. The Venetians had, as the doge predicted, covered their name with glory, and at the same time extended and increased their realm. They had acquired the third part of Tyre and settled a strong colony there, to push their trade and afford an outlet for the superfluous energies of the race. They had impressed the terror of their name and arms upon the Grecian isles. The doge himself had performed some of those magnanimous deeds which take hold upon the imagination of a people, and outlive for centuries all vio- lent victories and acquisitions. The story of the leather coinage and of the disabled galleys are such as make those traditions which are the very life of a people. And Michieli had served his country by seizing upon the imagi- nation and sympathies of other lands. He had almost been made king in Jerusalem. Wlien he passed by Sicily he had again been offered a kingdom. There was nothing wanting to the perfection of his glory. And when he came home triumphant, and told his story of danger and suc- cesses in the same glowing area of St. Mark's, to the same fervent multitude whose sanction he had asked to the undertaking, it is easy to imagine what his welcome must have been. He had brought with him treasures of cun- ning workmanship, the jewels of gold and silver, the wonderful embroideries and carpets of the East; perhaps also the secret of the glass-workers creating a new trade among the existing guilds, things to make all Venice beside itself with delight and admiration. And when the two saintly corpses were carried reverentially on shore — one for Murano, to consecrate the newly-erected church, one to re- main in Venice — and the shapeless mass of the great stone upon which our Lord had sat in His weariness, or which, as another story says, had served Him as a platform from which to address the wondering crowd — with what looks THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 43 of awe and reverential ecstasy must these sacred relics have been regarded, the crown of all the victor's spoil! The enlightened or even partially enlightened spectator in Venice as well in other places has ceased to feel any strong veneration for dead men's bones except under the decent coverings of the tomb; but we confess, for our own part, that the stone which stood at the gate of Tyre all those ages, and which the val- orous doge haled over the seas to make an altar of — the stone on which, tradition says, our Lord rested when He passed by those coasts of Tyre and Sidon, where perhaps that anxious woman who would not take an answer first saw Him seated and conceived the hope that so great a prophet might give liealing to her child — has an interest for us as strong as if we had lived in the twelfth century, and seen the doge come home. The Baptistery of St. Mark's is well worthy examination. There is a beautiful description of it in the second volume of Mr. Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," to read which is the next best thing to visiting the solemn quiet of the place; but there is no illusion there to this one veracious relic. Doge Domenico's trophy — the mighty bit of Syrian stone. The doge lived but a few years after his return. Mr. Ruskin, following the chroniclers, says that he was the first who lighted the streets of Venice by the uncertain and not very effectual method, though so much better than nothing, of lamps before the shrines which abounded at every corner ; so that the traveler, if he pleases, may find a token of our doge at every Traghetto where a faint little light twinkles before the shrine enclosing the dim print or lithograph which represents the Madonna. Mr. Ruskin would have us believe that he for one would like Venice better if this were the only illumination of the city ; but we may be allowed to imagine that this is only a fond exaggeration on the part of that master. The Venetians were at the same time prohibited from wearing beards according to the fashion of the Greeks — a rule which must surely apply to some particular form of beard, and not to t!iat manly ornament itself, on which it is evident the men of Venice had set great store. 44 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. In the year 1129^ having reigned only eleven years, though he had accomplished so much, and achieved so great a reputation, the doge, being old and weary, resigned his crown, and retired to San Giorgio Maggiore, though whether with the intention of joining the brotherhood there, or only for repose, we are not told. It would have been a touching and grand retirement for an old prince who had spent his strength for Venice, to pass his latter days in the island convent, where all day long, and by the lovely moonlight nights that glorify the lagoons, he could have watched across the gleaming waters his old home and all the busy scenes in which he had so lately taken the chief part, and might have received in many an anxious moment the visit of the reigning doge, and given his coun- sel, and become the best adviser of the city which in active service he could aid no more. But this ideal position was not realized for Doge Domenico. ■ He had been but a few months in San Giorgio when he died, full of years and honors, and was buried in the refuge he had chosen. '' The place of his grave," says Mr. Euskin, ''you find by going down the steps on your right hand behind the altar, leading into what was yet a monastery before the last Ital- ian revolution, but is now a finally deserted loneliness. On his grave there is a heap of frightful modern upholsterer's work (Longhena's), his first tomb being removed as too modest and time-worn for the vulgar Venetian of the sev- enteenth century. The old inscription was copied on the rotten black slate which is breaking away in thin flakes dimmed by destroying salt." It is scarcely decipherable, but it is given at length by Sanudo : *' Here lies the terror of the Greeks, and the glory of the Venetians," says the epitaph ; ''the man whom Emmanuel feared, and all the world still honors. The capture of Tyre, the destruction of Syria, the desolation of Hungary, proclaim his strength. He made the Venetians to dwell in peace and quiet, for while he flourished the country was safe." We add the concluding lines in the translation given by Mr. Ruskin : " Whosoever thou art who comest to behold this tomb of Jiis, bow thyself down before God because of him." THE MAKEJih OF VENICE. 45 It was probably from au idea of humility that the great doge had himself buried, not in the high places of the church, but in the humble corridor which led to the mon- astery. All that Mr. Raskin says with his accustomed force about the hideousness of the tomb is sufficiently just ; yet though nothing may excuse the vulgar Venetian of the seventeenth century for his bad taste in architecture, it is still morally in his favor that he desired in his offensive way to do honor to the great dead — a good intention which perhaps our great autocrat in art does not sufficiently appreciate. After Domenico Michieli there intervened two doges, one his son-in-law Polani, another a Morosini, before it came to the turn of his son Vitale II. to ascend the throne. What may be called the ordinary of Venetian history, the continual conflict on the Dalmatian coasts, went on during both these reigns with unfailing pertinacity : and there had arisen a new enemy, the Norman, who had got posses- sion of Naples, and whose hand was by turns against every man. These fightings came to little, and probably did less harm than appears ; otherwise, if war meant all that it means now, life on the Dalmatian coast, and among the Greek Isles, must have been little worth the living. In the time of Vitale Michieli's predecessor, Sabellico says, the Campanile of San Marco was built, ^^a work truly beautiful and admirable. The summit of this is of pure and resplendent gold, and rises to such a height that not only can you see all the city, but toward the west and the south can behold great stretches of the sea, in such a man- ner that those who sail from hence to Istria and Dalmatia, two hundred stadii away and more, are guided by this splendor as by a faithful star.^' This was the first of the several erections which have ended in the grand and simple lines of the Campanile we know so well, rising straight out of the earth with a self-reliant force which makes its very bareness impressive. Rising out of the earth, however, is the last phrase to use in speaking of this wonderful tower, which, as Sabellico reports, wondering, is so deeply founded iu mysterious intricacies of piles and 46 TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. props below, that almost as much is hidden as that which is visible. Vitale Michieli II. has this distinction, that he was the last of the doges elected by that curious version of univer- sal suffrage which is to be found in this primitive age in most republics — that is to say the system by which the few apparent to the masses that the potent suggestion whis- pered in their ear is their own inspiration. Such had been, up to this period, the manner of electing the doge. The few wlio were instinctively and by nature at the head of affairs — men themselves elected by nobody, the first by natural right, or because their fathers had been so, or be- cause they were richer, bolder, more enterprising, more audacious, than the rest — settled among themselves which of them was to be the ruler ; then calling together the peo- ple in San Marco, gave them, but with more skill and less frankness than the thing is done in ecclesiastical matters among ourselves, their conge d'elire. The doge elected by this method reigned, with the help of these uuofticial counselors — of whom two only seem to have borne that name — and he was as easily ruined when reverses came as he had been promoted. But the time of more formal in- stitutions was near, and the primitive order had ceased to be enough for the rising intelligence, or at least demands, of the people. The third Michieli had, however, the enormous advantage of being the son of the most distin- guished of recent doges, and no doubt was received with those shouts of ^' Provato ! Provato !" (that is, a'pprovaio) which was the form of the popular fiat. One of the first incidents of his reign was a brief but sharp struggle for the independence of the metropolitan church of Grado, once more attacked by the Patriarch of Aquileia. The Venetians overcame the assailants, and brought the bellig- erent prelate and twelve of his canons as prisoners to Ven- ice, whence after a while they were sent home, having promised to meddle with Grado no more, and to pay a somewhat humiliating tribute yearly — in the exaction of which there is a grim humor. Every year before Lent, in the heat of what we should call the Carnival, a great bull TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. 47 and twelve pigs were to be sent to Venice, representing the patriarch and his twelve canons. On the Thursday, when the mirth was at its height, the bull was hunted in the Piazza, and the pigs decapitated in memory of the priestly captives. This curious ironical celebration lasted till the days of Sabellico and Sanudo, the latter of whom entitles it the giohha di Car7ievale. It shows, notwith- standing all the reverential sentiments of these ages of faith, how a certain contempt for the priest as an adver- sary tempered the respect of the most pious for all the aids and appurtenances of religion.* This, however, was the only victory in the life of a doge 80 much less fortunate than his father. Italy was in great commotion throughout his reign, all the great northern cities, with Venice at their head, being bound in what was called the Lombard League against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. But the Venetians were more exposed to attacks from the other side, from the smoldering enmity of the Greeks than from anything Barbarossa could do : and it was from this direction that ruin came upon the third Michieli. Not only were conspiracies continually fostered in the cities of the Adriatic ; but the Greek Em- peror Emanuel seized the opportunity while Venice seemed otherwise occupied to issue a sudden edict by which all the Venetian traders in his realm were seized upon a certain day, their goods confiscated, tliemselves thrown into prison. His reckoning, however, was premature ; for the excite- ment in Venice when tliis news reached the astonished and enraged republic was furious : and with cries of *' War ! war !" the indignant populace rushed together, offering themselves and everything they could contribute, to the avenging of this injury. The great preparations which were at once set on foot de- manded, however, a larger outlay than could be provided for by voluntary offerings, and the necessity of the moment originated a new movement of the greatest importance to * Roraanin considers the bull to have bad notbing to do witb tbis commemoration, tbe twelve pigs accompanied by twelve cakes being, he says, tbe tribute exacted. 48 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the world. The best expedient which occurred to the Venetian statesman was to raise a national loan, bearing interest, to collect which officers were appointed in every district of Venice with all the machinery of an income tax, assessing every family according to its means. These con- tributions, the first, or almost the first, directly levied in Venice, and all the inquisitorial demands necessary to regu- late them, passed without offense in the excitement of the great national indignation, but told afterward upon the fate of the doge. Vitale Michieli set out in September, 1171, six months after the outrage, at the head of a great fleet, to avenge it; but misfortune pursued this unlucky prince. He was beguiled by his wily adversary into wait- ing for explanations and receiving embassies, only intended to gain time, or worse, to expose to the dangers of inaction and the chances of pestilence the great and powerful ex- pedition which the Greeks were not able to encounter in a more legitimate way. These miserable tactics suc- ceeded fully; lingering about the islands, at Chios, or else- where, disease completed what discontent and idleness had begun. The Greek emperor, all the chroniclers unite in saying, poisoned the wells so that everybody who drank of them fell ill. The idea that poison is the cause of every such outbreak of pestilence is still, as the reader knows, a rooted belief of the primitive mind — one of those original intuitions gone astray, and confused by want of under- standing, which perhaps the progress of knowledge may set right: for it is very likely the waters were poisoned, though not by the emperor. The great epidemic which followed was of the most disastrous and fatal character: not only decimating the fleet, but when it returned to Venice broken and discouraged, spreading throughout the city. This great national misfortune gave rise to a curious and romantic incident. The family Giustinian, one of the greatest in Venice, was, according to the story, so strongly represented in the armada that the race became virtually extinct by the deaths, one after another, of its members, in the disastrous voyage homeward. The only man left was a young monk, or rather novice not yet professed, in THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 49 the convent of San Niccolo, on the Lido. When the phagiie- stricken crews got home, and this misfortune among: so many others was made apparent, tlie doge sent messengers to the pope, asking that young Niccolo might be liberated from his vows The old Giustiniani fathers, in the noble houses which were not as yet tlie palaces we know, must have waited among their weeping women — with an anxiety no doubt tempered by the determination, if thepopesiiould refuse, to take the matter into their own hands — for the decision of Rome. And it is wonderful that no dramatist or modern Italian romancer, touched by the prevalent passion for moral dissection, should have thought of taking for his hero this young monk upon the silent shores of the Lido, amid all the wonderful dramas of light and shade that go on upon the low liorizon sweeping round on every side, a true globe of level long reflections, of breadth and space and solitude, so apt for thought. Had he known, perhaps, before he thought of dedication to the church, young Anna Michieli, between whose eyes and his, from her windows in the doge's palace to the green line of the Lido, there was nothing but the dazzle of the sunshine and the ripple of the sea? Was there a simple romance of this natural kind, waiting to be turned into joyful fulfillment by the pope's favorable answer? Or had the novice to gi^re up his dreams of holy seclusion, or those highest, all- engrossing visions of ambition, which were to no man more open than to a bold and able priest? These are questions which might well furnish forth pages of delicate description and discussion. Naturally the old chronicler has no thought of any such refinement. The pope con- sented, and the doge gave his daughter to young Niccolo, ** whicli thing procured the continuance in the city of the CasaGiustini m, in which afterward flourished men of the highest intellect and great orators," is all the record says. The resuscitated race gave many notable servants to the state, although no doge until well on in the seventeenth century. When the pair thus united had done their duty to the state, Niccolo Giustinian re-dedicated himself in his old couvent and resumed his religious profession; while 50 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. Anna, his wife, proceeded to her chosen nunnery, and there lived a life so holy as to add to the fame of her family by attaining that partial canonization which is represented by tlie title of Beata. This, one cannot but feel, was an ad- mirable way of making the best of both worlds. ^' In this year," says Sanudo, ** there were brought to Venice from Constantinople, in three great ships, three mighty columns ;" one of which in the course of disem- barkation fell into the sea, and remains there, it is to be supposed, till this day ; the others are the two well-known pillars of the Piazzetta. We need not repeat the story, so often told, of how it was that, no one being able to raise them to their place, a certain Lombard, Niccolo of the Barterers, succeeded in doing so with wetted ropes, and asked in return for permission to establish a gambling- table in the space between them. Sabellico says that the privilege granted went so far ^^that every kind of decep- tion" was permitted to be practiced there: but it can scarcely be supposed that even a sharp Lombard money- changer would ask so much. This permission, given be- cause they could not help it, having foolishly pledged their word, like Herod, was, by the doge and his counsel- ors, made as odious as possible by the further law that all public executions should take place between the columns. It was a fatal place to land at, and brought disaster, as was afterward seen ; but its evil augury seems to have dis- appeared along with the gaming-tables, as half the gon- dolas in Venice lie at its margin now. The columns would seem to have been erected in the year 1172, but whether by Doge Vitale or his successor is uncertain. Other improvements were done under this doge besides the elevation of the columns in the Piazzetta. He filled up the canal which crossed the broad space of the Piazza, still a green and open ground, partly orchards, and enliv- ened by this line of water — and thus prepared the way for the work of his successor, who first began to pave it, and surrounded it with buildings and lines of porticoes, sug- gesting, no doubt, its present form. There must, how- ever, have been a charm in the greenness and trees and THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 51 sparkling waters — grass growing and foliage waving at tlie feet of the great golden-crowned Campanile, and adding a brightness of nature to the Byzantine splendor of the church and palace. The Camera degli Imprestidi, or great Public Loan Office, however — the first National Bank of Europe — is more important to history than even the cease- less improvements of the city. The first loan is said to have carried interest at the rate of four per cent — a high rate for a public debt — and the organization necessary to arrange and regulate it seems to have come into being with wonderful speed and completeness. The time was begin- ning when the constitution, or rather want of constitution, of the ancient republic, full of the accidents and hasty ex- pedients of an infant state, would no longer suffice for the gradually rising and developing city. None of these things, however, stood the doge in stead when he came back beaten and humiliated, with the plague in his ships, to face his judges in solemn conclave in San Marco — a tumultuous assembly of alarmed and half-maddened men, trembling for their lives and for the lives of those dear to them, and stung by that sense of failure which was intolerable to the haughty republic. This was in the month of May, 1172. From the first the meeting must have bore an air dangerous to the doge, against whom there began to rise a cry that he was the occasion of all their evils — of the war, of enforced military service and compulsory contributions, and, last and great- est, of the pestilence which he had brought back with him. The men who had virtually elected him, who were his friends, and had shared tlie councils of his reign, would no doubt stand by him so far as their fears permitted: but the harmless assembly called together to give its sanction to the election of a new and popular doge is very different from the same crowd in the traditionary power of its general parliament, assembling angry and alarmed, its pride wounded and its fears excited, to pronounce whose fault these misfortunes were, and what should be done to the offender. The loud outcry of traditore, so ready to the lips of the populace in such circumstances, resounded 52 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. through San Marco, and there were ominous murmurs that the doge's head was in danger. He tried to clear himself by a touching oration, con piangente parole , says one : then hastily going out of the church and from the presence of the excited assembly took his way toward San Zaccaria, along the Riva, by what would seem to be a little-fre- quented way. As he passed through one of the little calli, or lanes, called now, tradition says, Calle delle Rasse, some one who had, or thought he had, a special grievance, sprang out upon him and stabbed him. He was able to ARMS OF THE MICHIELI. drag himself to San Zaccaria and make his confession, but no more : and there died and was buried. The people, horror-stricken perhaps by the sudden execution of a doom which had only been threatened, gave him a great funeral, and his sudden end so emphasized the necessity of a rela- tion more guarded and less personal between the chief ruler and the city, that the leading minds in Venice pro- ceeded at once to take order for elections more formal and a constitution more exact. There had been, according to primitive rule, two counselors of permanent character, and an indefinite number of pregadi, or men " prayed " to help the doge — a sort of informal council ; but these were called together at the doge's pleasure, and were re- sponsible only to him. The steps which are now taken introduced the principle of elective assemblies, and added many new precautions for the choice and for the safety of the doge. The fact which we have already remarked, that THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 53 all the names * given belong to families already conspicu- ous in Venice, continued with equal force under the new rule. No doubt the elections would be made on the primi- tive principle, one man suggesting another, all of the same class as those who, without the forms of election, had hith- erto suggested the successive princes, for the sanction of the people. But the mass of the Venetians probably thought with enthusiasm that they had taken a great step toward the consolidation of their liberties when they elected these Dandolos, Faliers, Morosinis, and the rest, to be their representatives, and do authoritatively what they had done all along in more subtle ways. Thus ended the Doges Michieli: but not the family, which is one of the few which has outlived all vicissitudes, and still has a habitation and a name in Venice. And the new regime of elective government began. * Romanin informs us that a few names of the people appear in early documents as Stefano Tinctor (dyer), Vitale Staniario (tin- worker), etc. , but these are so few as to prove rather than confute the almost invariable aristocratic rule. 54 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. CHAPTER III. EKRICO DAKDOLO. The first beginnings of a more formal mode of govern- ment thus followed close upon the murder of Vitale Michieli. The troubles of the state under his rule, as well as the prompt vengeance taken upon him by the infuriated multi- tude, combined to make it apparent that it was not for the safety or dignity of Venice either to remain so entirely in the hands of her chief magistrate, or to bring the whole business of the state to a standstill, and impair her repu- tation among foreign countries by his murder. The re- public had thus arrived at a comprehension of the idea which governments of much later date have also had im- pressed upon them painfully, that the person of the head of the state ought to be sacrosafito, sacred from violence. And no doubt the rising complications of public life, the growth of the rich and powerful community in which per- sonal character was so strong, and so many interests existed, now demanded established institutions, and a rule less primitive than that of a prince with both the legislative and executive power in his hands, even when kept in check by a counselor or two, and the vague mass of the people, by whom his proceedings had to be approved or non-approved after an oration skillfully prepared to move the popular mind. The Consiglio Maggiore, the great Venetian parlia- ment, afterward so curiously limited, came into being at this crisis in the national history. The mode of its first selection reads like the description of a Chinese puzzle; and perhaps the subtle, yet artless complication of elections ending at last in the doge, may be taken as a sort of appeal to the fates, by a community not very confident in their THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 55 own powers, and bent upon outwitting destiny itself. Two men were first chosen by each sestiere or district (a division which had been made only a short time before for the con- venience of raising funds for Doge Vitale's fatal ex- pedition), each of whom nominated forty of the best citi- zens thus forming the Great Council, who in their turn, elected eleven representatives who elected tlie doge. The latter arrangement was changed on several occasions before that which commended itself as the best, and which was more artificial and childishly elaborate still, was chosen at last. The people were little satisfied at first with this con- stitutional change, and there were tumults and threatened insurrections in anticipation of the new body of electors, and of the choice of a prince otherwise than by acclamation of the whole community assembled in San Marco. *^ It was in consequence ordained," says Romanin, ** that the new doge should be presented to the multitude with these words: 'This is your doge, if it pleases you,' and by this means the tumult was stilled.'' So easy is it to deceive the multitude! What difference the new rules made in reality it would be difficult to say. The council was made up of the same men who had always ruled Venice. A larger number no doubt had actual power, but there was no change of hands. The same fact we have already noted, as evident through all the history of the republic. New names rarely rise out of the crowd. The families from among whom all functionaries were chosen at the beginning of all things still held power at the end. The power of the doge was greatly limited by these new laws but at least his person was safe. He might be relieved from his office, as happened sometimes, but save in one memorable instance he was no longer liable to violence. And he was surrounded by greater state and received all the semi-oriental honors which could adorn a pageant. Sebas- tiano Ziani, the first doge chosen under the new order, was carried in triumph round the Piazza, throwing money to the crowd from his unsteady seat. Whether this was his own idea (for he was very rich and liberal), or whether it 56 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. was suggested to him as a way of increasing his popularity, we are not told; but the jealous artistocrats about him, who had just got hold of the power of law-making, and evi- dently thought there could not be too detailed a code, seized upon the idea, perceiving at once its picturesque and attractive possibilities and its dangers, and decided that this largesse should always be given by a new doge, but settled the sum, not less than a hundred, nor more than a hundred and fifty ducats, with jealous determination that no wealthy potenate should steal the hearts of the populace with gifts. There came to be in later times a special coin- age for the purpose, called Oselle, of which specimens are still to be found, and which antiquarians, or rather those lovers of the curious who have swamped the true anti- quarian, '^pick up" wherever they appear. Sebastiano Ziani, according to some of our chroniclers, was not the man upon whom the eleven electors first fixed their choice, who was, it is said, Aurio, or Orio Mas- tropiero, the companion of Ziani in a recent ambassage and his friend — who pointed out that Ziana was much older and richer than himself, and that it would be to the greater advantage of Venice that he should be chosen, a magnanimous piece of advice. This story, unfortunately, is not authenticated; neither is the much more important one of the romantic circumstances touching the encounter of Pope Alexander III. and the Emperor Barbarossa at Venice, which the too conscientious historian, Romanin (not to speak of his authorities), will not hear of, notwithstanding the assertions of Sanudo, Sabellico and the rest, and the popular faith and the pictures in the ducal palace, all of which maintain it strongly. The popular tale is as follows. It is painted in the hall of the Maggiore Consiglio, where all the world may see. The pope, driven from Rome by the enmity of the em- peror, after many wanderings about the world, took refuge in Venice, where he concealed himself in the humble habit of a friar, acting, as some say, as cook to the breth- ren in the convent of La Carita. The doge, hearing how great a personage was in the city, hurried to visit him, and THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 67 to give him a lodging worthy of his dignity; then sent ambassadors to intercede with Barbarossa on his behalf. He of the red beard received benignly the orators of the great republic ; but when he heard tl)eir errand, changed countenance, and bade them tell the doge that unless he delivered up the fugitive pope it would be the worse for him — that the eagle should fly into the church of San Marco, and that its foundation should be made as a plowed field. Such words as these were not apt to Vene- tian ears. The whole city rose as one man, and an armata was immediately prepared to resist any that might be sent against Venice. The doge himself, though an old man over seventy, led the fleet. Mass was said solemnly in San Marco by the pontiff himself, who girded his loyal defender with a golden sword, and blessed him as he went forth to battle. There were seventy-five galleys on the opposite side, commanded by young Prince Otto, the son of Bar- barossa, and but thirty on that of Venice. It was once more the Day of the Ascension — that fortunate day for the republic — when the two fleets met in the Adriatic. The encounter ended in complete defeat to the imperial ships, of which forty were taken, along with the commander. Otto, and many of his most distinguished followers. The Venetians went home with natural exultation, sending be- fore them the glorious news, which was so unexpected, and so speedy, that the whole city rushed to the Riva with half-incredulous wonder and joy to see the victors disem- bark with their prisoners, among them the son of the great German prince who had set out with the intention of planting his eagles in San Marco. The pope himself came down to the Riva to meet the victorious doge, and draw- ing a ring from his finger gave it to his deliverer, hailing him as the lord and master of the sea. It was on Ascension Day that Pietro Orseolo had set out from Venice on the triumphant expedition which ended in the extermination of the pirates, and the extension of the Venetian sway over all the coast of the Adriatic — and then it was, according to our chroniclers, that the feast of the Spomlizio, the wed- ding of the sea, had been first established. But by this 58 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. time they have forgotten that early hint, and here we have once more, and with more detailed authorities, the insti- tution of this great and picturesque ceremony. Prince Otto was nobly treated by his captors, and after awhile undertook to be their ambassador to his father, and was sent on parole to Rome to the emperor. The result was that Frederick yielded to his son^s representations and the Venetian prowess, and consented to go to Venice, and there be reconciled to the pope. The meeting took place before the gates of San Marco, where his holiness, in all his splendor, seated in a great chair {grande e lionoratis- sima sedia), awaited the coming of his rival. Popular tra- dition never imagined a more striking scene : the Piazza outside thronged, every window, balcony and housetop, with eager spectators, used to form part of every public event and spectacle, and knowing exactly every coign of vantage, and how to see a pageant best. The great Fred- erick, the story goes, approached the seat where the vicar of Christ awaited him, and subduing his pride to necessity, knelt and kissed the pope's foot. Alexander, on his part, as proud and elated with his victory, raised his foot and planted it on Barbarossa^'s neck, intoning as he did so, as Sabellico says, that Psalm of David, '^ Super aspidem et hasilicum mnhulabis.'^ The emperor, with a suppressed roar of defiance in his red beard, exclaimed, *'Not thee, but Peter!" To which the pope, like one enraged, plant- ing his foot more firmly, replied, " Both I and Peter.'' One can imagine this brief colloquy carried on, under their breath, fierce and terse, when the two enemies, greatest in all the western hemisphere, met in forced amity ; and how the good doge, amiable peacemaker and master of the ceremonies, and all the alarmed nobles, and the crowds of spectators, ripe for any wonder, must have looked on, marveling what words of blessing they were saying to each other, while all the lesser greatnesses had to wait. But the later historians refuse their affirmation to this exceedingly circumstantial, most picturesque, and it must be added, most natural story. Romanin assures us, on the faith of all the documents, that the meeting was a stately THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 5ft ceremonial, arranged by pope and emperor, without either passion or humiliation in it ; that the pope was not a fugitive in Venice, and that the emperor never threatened to fly his eagles into San Marco ; that Prince Otto never was made prisoner, and that the pontiff received with nothing less satisfactory than a kiss of peace the formal homage of the emperor. The facts are hard to deny, and no doubt Romanin is right. But there is a depth of human nature in the fable, which the facts do not reveal. It is impos- sible to imagine anything more likely to be true than that brief interchange of words, the churchman's triumph, and the statesman's unwilling submission. The story goes on to tell how Doge Ziani escorted his two splendid guests to Ancona, where the pope and the em- peror were presented with umbrellas — a tribute apparently made to their exalted rank : whereupon the pope requested that a third might be brought : '^ Manca la terza pel Doge de Venezia clii hen lo merita," from which incident arose the use of this royal, if unimposing article by the doges ever after. The pope had proviously granted the privilege of sealing with lead instead of wax — another imperial attri- bute. To all this picturesque narrative Romanin again pre- sents an array of chilling facts, proving that the pope and emperor left Venice singly on different dates, and that the doges of Venice had carried the umbrella and used the leaden bollo long before Ziani — all which is very discon- certing. It seems to be true, however, that during the stay of the pope in Venice the feast of the Sensa — Ascen- sion Day — was held with special solemnity, and its pageant fully recorded for the first time. The doge went forth in the Bucintoro, which here suddenly springs into knowl- edge, all decorated and glorious, with his umbrella over his head, a white flag which the pope had given him flying beside the standard of St. Mark, the silver trumpets sounding, the clergy with him and all the great potentates of the city, and Venice following, small and great, in every kind of barge or skiff which could venture on the lagoon. It is said to have been with a ring which the pope had given him that old Ziani wedded the sea. Whether the cer- 60 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. emony had fallen into disuse, or if our chroniclers merely forgot that they had assigned it to an earlier date, or if this was the moment when the simpler primitive rite was clianged into its later form it is difficult to say. It must be added that the strange travesty of history thus put to- gether is regarded with a certain doubt by the chroniclers themselves. Sabellico for one falter over it. He would not have ventured to record, it, he says if he had not found the account confirmed by every writer, both Venetian and foreign. ^^And, " says Sanudo, 'Ms it not depicted in the hall of the great council ? Se non fosse stata vera i nostri buoni Venetiani noil avrehhero mai fatta depingere : \f it had not been true our good Venetians never would have had it painted. " It was during the stormy reign of Vitale Michieli, in the midst of the bitter and violent quarrel between the Greek Emperor Emmanuel and the Venetians, when ambassadors were continually coming and going, that an outrage, which cannot be called other than historical, and yet can be sup- ported by no valid proof, is said to have been inflicted upon one of the messengers of Venice. This was the noble Arrigo or Enrico Dandolo, afterward one of the most dis- tinguished of the doges, and the avenger of all Venetian wrongs upon tlie Greeks. The story is that in the course of some supposed diplomatic consultation he was seized and had his eyes })ut out by red liot irons— according to a pleasant custom which the Greeks of that day indulged in largely. It is unlikely that this could be true, since it is impossible to believe that the Venetians would have re- sumed peaceable negotiations after such an outrage; but it is a fact that Dandolo has always been called the blind doge, and even the scrupulous Eomanin finds reason to suppose that some injury had been inflicted upon the ambassadors. Dandolo's blindness, however, must have been only comparative. The French chronicler, Ville- hardouin, describes him as having fine eyes which scarcely saw anything, and attributes this to the fact that he had lost his sight from a wound in the head. Dandolo's de- scendant^ successor, and historian, however, says only that THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 61 he war of v;-aV vision, and as he was at the time eighty- ,Lr\ tliere '.^' ■ '^ be notliing remarkable in that. Enrico Dandolo was eU '' "• <^^ after the death of Orio Mastrop ietro, wno succbeuc^ ^. \, and whose reign was not marked by any special incident. Dandolo was the first doge, if not to sign i\\Q 2^romissione or solemn ducal oath of fidelity to all the laws and customs of the republic, at least to reach the period of history when such documents began to be preserved. His oath is full of details, which show the jealousy of the new regime in de- fining and limiting the doge's powers. He vows not only to rule justly, to accept no bribes, to show no favoritism, to subordinate his own affairs and all others to the interests of the city, but also not to write letters on his own account to the pope or any other prince; to submit his own affairs to the arbitrament of the common tribunals, and to main- tain two ships of war at his own expense — stipulations which must have required no small amount of self-control on the part of men scarcely as yet educated to the duties of con- stitutional princes. The beginning of Dandolo's reign was distinguished by the usual expeditions to clear the Adriatic and re-confirm Venetian supremacy on the Dalmatian coast; also, by what was beginning to be equally common, certain conflicts with the Pisans, who began to rival Venice in the empire of the seas. These smaller commotions, however, were dwarfed and thrown into the shade by the great ex- pedition, known in history as the fourth crusade, which ended in the destruction of Constantinople and great ag- grandisement of the republic, but, so far as the objects of the crusade were concerned, in nothing. The setting out of this expedition affords one of the most picturesque and striking scenes in Venetian history, though its details come to us rather from the chronicles of the crusade than from the ancient historians of Venice, who record them briefly with a certain indifference and at the same time with a frankness which sounds cynical. Perhaps the conviction of a later age that the part played by Venice was not a very noble one, may have here restrained the record. ** In those days a great occasion pre- 6^ THE MAKERS OF VENtGB, sented itself to the Venetians to increase their dominions/^ Sabellico says, calmly putting aside all pretense at more generous motives. Villehardouin, however, has left a suc- cession of pictures which could not be surpassed in graphic force, and which place all the preliminaries before us in the most brilliant daylight. He describes how the French princes who had taken the cross sent an embassy to Venice in order to arrange if possible for means of transport to the Holy Land — six noble Frenchmen, in all their bravery and fine manners, and fortunately with that one among them who carried a pen as well as a sword. It is evident that this proposal was considered on either side as highly im- portant, and was far from being made or received as merely a matter of business. The French messengers threw them- selves at once upon the generosity, the Christian feeling, of the masters of the sea. Money and men they had in plenty; but only Venice, so powerful on the seas, so rich, and at peace with all her neighbors, could give them ships. From the beginning their application is an entreaty, and their prayers supported by every argument that earnestness could suggest. The doge received them in the same solemn man- ner, submitting their petition to the council, and requiring again and again certain days of delay in order that the mat- ter should be fully debated. It was at last settled with royal magnificence not only that the ships should be granted, but that the republic should fit out fifty galleys of her own to increase the force of the expedition; after which everything being settled (which again throws a curious side- light upon popular government), the doge called the Vene- tians together in San Marco — ten thousand of them in the most beautiful church that ever was, says the Frenchman — and bade the strangers ple^d their own cause before the people. When we consider that everything was arranged beforehand, it takes something from the effect of the scene, and suggests uncomfortable ideas of solemn deceits practiced upon the populace in all such circumstances — but in itself the picture is magnificent. Mass being celebrated, the doge called the ambassadors, and told them to ask humbly of the people whether the HIGH ALTAR OF S. MARCO. THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 63 proposed arrangement should be carried into effect. God- frey de Villehardouin then stood forth to speak in the name of all, with the following result: " Messieurs, the noblest and most powerful barons of France have sent us to you to pray you to have pity upon Jerusalem in bondage to the Turk, and for the love of God to accompany us to avenge tbe shame of Christ; and knowing that no nation is so powerful on the seas as you, they have charged us to implore your aid and not to rise from our knees till you have consented to have pity upon the Holy Land." "With this the six ambassadors knelt down weeping. The doge and all the people then cried out with one voice, raising their hands lo heaven, ' We grant it, we grant it!' And so great was the sound that nothing ever equaled it. The good doge of Venice, who was most wise and brave, then ascended the pulpit and spoke to the people. 'Signori,' he said, 'you see the honor which God has done you that the greatest nation on earth has left all other peoples in order to ask your company, that you should share with them this great undertaking which is the re-conquest of Jerusalem.' Many other fine and wise things were said by the doge which I cannot here recount. And thus the matter was concluded." It must have been a strange and imposing sight for tliese feudal lords to see the crowd that filled San Marco, and overflowed in the Piazza, the vast trading, seafaring multi- tude tanned with the sunshine and the sea, full of their own importance; listening like men who had to do it, no submissive crowd of vassals, but each conscious (though, as we have seen, with but little reason) that he individually was appealed to, while those splendid petitioners knelt and wept — moved no doubt on their side by that wonderful sea of faces, by the strange circumstances, and the rising wave of enthusiasm which began to move tlie crowd. 'J'he old doge, rising up in the pulpit, looking with dim eyes across the heads of the multitude, with the great clamor of the ** Co7icediamo " still echoing under the dome, the shout of an enthusiastic nation, gives the last touch of pictorial effect. His eyes still glowed, though there was so little vision in them; pride and policy and religious enthusiasm all mingled in his words and looks. Tlie greatest nation of the world had corneas a suppliant — who could refuse her 64 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. petition? This was in the winter, early in the year 1201. It is not difficult to imagine the wintry afternoon, the dim glories of the choir going off into a golden gloom behind, the lights glimmering upon the altars, the confused move- ment and emotion of the countless crowd, indistinct under the great arches, extending into every corner — while all the light there was concentrated in the white hair and cloth of gold of the venerable figure to which every eye was turned, standing up against the screen at the foot of the great cross. The republic by this bargain was pledged to provide transport for four thousand five hundred cavaliers, and nearly thirty thousand men on foot: along with provisions for a year for this multitude; for which the Frenchmen pledged themselves to pay eighty-five thousand silver marks *^ ac- cording to the weight of Boulogne, "" in four different instal- ments. The contingent of Venice, apart from this, was to consist of fifty galleys. The ships were to be ready at the feast of SS. Peter and Paul in the same year, when the first instalment of the money was to be paid. In the meantime, however, while the workmen in the arsenal were busily at work, and trade must have quickened thi'oughout Venice, various misfortunes happened to the other parties to the engagement. Young Thibaut of Champagne died in the flower of his youth, and many small parties of Crusaders went off from other quarters in other vessels than those of Venice: so that when at last the ex- pedition arrived it was considerably diminished in numbers and, what was still more disastrous, the leaders found themselves unable to pay the first instalment of the ap- pointed price. The knights denuded themselves of all their valuables, but this was still insufficient. In these circumstances an arrangement was resorted to which pro- duced many and great complications, and changed alto- gether the character of the expedition. Venice has been in consequence reproached with the worldlinessand selfish- ness of her intentions. It has been made to appear that her religious fervor was altogether false, and her desire to push her own interests her sole motive. No one will at- THE MAKERS OF VSmCE, 65 tempt to deny iliat this kind of selfishness, which in other words is often culled patriotism, was very strong in her. But on the other side it would be hard to say that it was with any far-seeing plan of self-aggrandizement that the republic began this great campaign, or that Dandolo and his counselors perceived how far they should go before their enterprise was biouglit to an end. Tliey were led on from point to point like those wliom they influenced, and were themselves betrayed by circumstances and a crowd of secondary motives, as well as the allies whom they are be- lieved to have betrayed. The arrangement proposed was, since the Crusaders could not pay the price agreed for their ships, that they should delay their voyage to the Holy Land long enough to help the Venetians in subduing Zara, which turbulent city had again, as on every possible occasion, rebelled. The greater part of the P'renchmen accepted the proposal with alacrity; though some objected that to turn their arms against Ciiristians, however rebellious, was not the object of the soldiers of the cross. In the long run, however, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Pope Innocent, of which the inde})endent Venetians made light, the bargain was accepted on all hands, and all the preliminaries con- cluded at last. Another of the wonderful scenic displays with which almost every important step was accompanied in V^enice took place before the final start. "One day, upon a Sunday, all the people of the city, and the greater part of the barons and pilgrims, met in San Marco. Before mass began, the doge rose in the pulpit and spoke to the people in this manner: — ' Signori, you are associated with the greatest nation in the world in the most important matter which can be undertaken by men. 1 am old and weak and need rest, having many troubles in the body, but I perceive that none can so well guide and govern you as I who am your lord. If you will consent that I should take the sign of the cross to care for you and direct you, and that my son should in my stead, regulate the affairs of the city, I will go to live and die with you and the pilgrims.' " When they heard this, they cried with one voice, * Yes! we pray you, in the name of God, take it and come with us.' " Then the people of the country and the pilgrims were greatly 66 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. moved and slied many tears, because tliis heroic man bad so many reasons lor remaining at bome, being old. But be was strong and of a great beart. Hetben descended from tbe pulpit and knelt before tbe altar weeping, and tbe cross was sewn upon tbe front of bis great cap, so tbat all migbt see it. And tbe Venetians tbat day in great numbers took tbe cross." It was in October, 1202, tbat tbe expedition finally sailed, a great fleet of nearly tbree hundred sliips : tbe Freneli- men in tbeir sbining mail witb their great war-borses fur- nisbing a wonderful spectacle for tbe Venetians, to whom tbese noble creatures, led unwillingly on board tbe galleys, were so little familiar. Tbe wbole city watched the em- barkation with excitement and high commotion, no doubt witb many a woman's tears and wistful looks, anguish of tbe old, and more impassioned grief of tbe young, as the fifty galleys which contained tbe Venetian contingent slowly filled with all tbe best in tbe republic, tbe old doge at tbeir head. Bound for tbe Holy Land, to deliver it from tbe infidel ! — tbat no doubt was what tbe people be- lieved who bad granted with acclamation tbeir aid to tbe barons in San Marco. And to watch tbe great fleet which streamed along with all its sails against the sunshine through tbe tortuous narrow channels tbat thread the lagoon, line after line of high-beaked painted galleys, with their endless oars, and all their bravery, it must have seemed as if tbe very sea bad become populous, and such a host must carry all before them. Days must have passed in bustle and commotion ere, witb the rude appliances of tbeir time, tbree hundred vessels could have been got un- der way. Tbey streamed down the Adriatic, a maritime army rather than a fleet, imposing to heboid, frigbtening tbe turbulent towns along tbe coast which were so ready wben tbe Venetian galleys were out of sight to rebel — and arrived before Zara in crushing strength. The citizens closed tbe harbor with a chain, and with a garrison of Hungarians to help them, made a brave attempt to defend themselves. But against such an overwhelming force tbeir efforts were in vain, and after a resistance of five days, the city surrendered. It was by this time the middle of No- THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 67 vember, and to tempt the wintry sea at that season was con- trary to the habits of the time. The expedition accord- ingly remained at Zara, wliere many things took place which decided the course of its after movements. It was not a peaceful pause. The French and the Venetians quarreled in the first place over their booty or their privi- leges in the sacked and miserable city. When that up- roar was calmed, which took the leaders some time, another trouble arrived in the shape of letters from Pope Innocent, which disturbed the French cliiefs greatly, though the old doge and his counselors paid but little attention. Innocent called the Crusaders to account for shedding Christian blood when they ought to have been shedding pagan, and for sacking a city which belonged to their brethren in the faith, to whom he commanded them to make restitution and reparation. Whether the penitent barons gave up their share of the booty is not told us, but they wrote hum- ble letters asking pardon, and declaring that to take Zara was a necessity which they had no power to resist. The pope was moved by their submission, but commanded them to proceed to Syria with all possible speed, ** neither turning to the right hand nor to the left/' and as soon as they had disembarked on the Syrian shores to separate themselves from the Venetians, who seem to have been excommunicated (which did not greatly disturb them) for their indifference to the papal commands. This correspondence with Rome must have given a cer- tain amount of variety, if not of a very agreeable kind, to the winter sojourn on the Adriatic, confused with tumults of the soldiery and incessant alarms lest their quarrels should break out afresh, quarrels which — carried on in the midst of a hostile people bitterly rejoicing to see their con- querors at enmity among themselves, and encouraged by the knowledge that the pope had interfered on their behalf — must have made the invaders doubly uncomfortable. From the Venetian side there is not a word of the excom- munication leveled against themselves, and generally so ter- rible a weapon. Such punishments perhaps were more easily borne abroad than at home, and the republic already 68 THBJ MAKERS OF VENICE. stoutly held its indepenclence from all external interfer- ence. While Pope Innocent's letters were thus occupying all minds, and the French Crusaders chafing at the delay, and perhaps also at the absence of all excitement and occu- pation in the Dalmatian town, another incident occurred of the most picturesque character, as well as of the pro- foundest importance. This was — first, the arrival of am- bassadors from the Emperor Philip of Swabia, with letters recommending the youug Alexius, the son of Isaac, de- throned emperor of the Greeks, to the Crusaders : and secondly that young prince himself, an exile and wanderer, with all the recommendations of injured helplessness and youth in his favor. The ambassadors brought letters tell- ing such a story as was most fit to move the chivalrous leaders of the Christian host. The youth for whom theii appeal was made was the true heir of the great house of Comnenus, born in the purple, a young Hamlet whose father had been, not killed, but overthrown, blinded, and imprisoned by his own brother, and now lay miserable in a dungeon at Constantinople while the usurper reigned in his stead. What tale so likely to move the pity of the knights and barons of France ? And, the suppliants added, what enterprise so fit to promote and facilitate the object of the Crusaders ? For Constantinople had always been a difficulty in the way of the conquest of Syria, and now more than ever, when a false and cruel usurper was on the throne ; whereas if old Isaac and his young son were restored, the crusaders would secure a firm foot- ing, a stronghold of moral as well as physical support in the East, which would make their work easy. One can imagine the high excitement, the keen discussions, the eagerness of some, the reluctance of others, the heat of debate and diverse opinion which arose in the camp. There were some among the pilgrims upon whom the pope's dis- approval lay heavy, and who longed for nothing so much as to get away, to have the wearisome preliminaries of the voyage over, and to find themselves upon the holy soil which they had set out to deliver ; while there were some. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 69 perhaps more generous than devout, to wliom the story of the poor young prince, errant through the workl in search of succor, and the blind inii)erial prisoner in the dungeon, was touching beyond description, calling forth every senti- ment of knighthood. The Venetians iiad still another most moving motive ; it seems scarcely possible to believe that they did not at once perceive the immense and incal- culable interests involved. They were men of strictly practical vision, and Constantinople was their market-place at once and their harvest ground. To establish a perma- nent footing there by all the laws of honor and gratitude, what a thing for Venice ! It is not necessary to conclude that they were untouched by other inducements. They, better than any, knew how many hindrances Constanti- nople could throw in the way, how treacherous her support was, how cunning her enmity, and what an advantage it would be to all future enterprises if a power bound to the west by solid obligations could be established on the Bos- phorous. Nor is it to be supposed that as men they were inaccessible to the pleas of humanity and justice urged by Philip. But at the same time the dazzle of the extraor- dinary advantages thus set before themselves must have been as a glamor in their eyes. It was while the whole immense tumultuous band, the Frenchmen and the knights of Flanders, the barons of the Low Country, the sailor princes of the republic, were in full agitation over this momentous question, and all was uncertainty and confusion, that the young Alexius arrived at Zara. There was a momentary lull in the agitation to receive as was his due, this imperial wanderer, so young, so high-born, so unfortunate. The Marquis of Montserrato was his near kinsman, his rank was undoubted, and his misfortunes, the highest claim of all, were known to every one. The troops were turned out to receive him with all the pomp of military display, the doge's silver trumpets sounding, and all that the Crusaders could boast of in mu- sic and magnificence. The monks who had been pressing hotly from band to band urging Pope Innocent's com- mands and the woes of Jerusalem ; the warlike leaders 70 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. who had been anxiously attempting to reconcile their de- clared purpose with the strong temptations of such a chival- rous undertaking — all for tlie moment arrested their argu- ments, their self-reasonings, tlieir mutual upbraidings to hear what their young guest had to say. And Alexius had everything to say that extreme necessity could suggest. He would give subsidies unlimited — two hundred thousand marks of silver, all the costs of the expedition, as much as it pleased them to require. He would himself accompany the expedition, he would furnish two thousand men at once, and for all his life maintain five hundred knights for the defense of Jerusalem. Last of all, and greatest, he vowed — a bait for Innocent himself, an inducement which must have stopped the words of remonstrance on the lips of the priests and made their eyes glow — to renounce for- ever the Greek heresy and bring the Eastern Church to the supremacy of Kome ! Whether it was this last motive or simply a rush of sud- den enthusiasm, such as was, and still is, apt to seize upon a multitude, the scruples and the doubts of the Crusaders melted like wax before the arguments of the young prince, and his cause seems to have been taken up by general con- sent. A few pilgrims of note indeed left the expedition and attempted to find another way to the Holy Land, but it was with very slightly diminished numbers that the ex- pedition set sail in April, 1203, for Constantinople. Zara celebrated their departure by an immediate rising, once more asserting its independence, and necessitating a new expedition sent by Eenier Dandolo, the doge's son and deputy, to do all the work of subjugation over again. But that was an occurrence of every day. The Crusaders went to Corfu first, where they were re- ceived with acclamation, the islanders offering at once their homage to Alexius: and lingered thereabouts until the eve of Pentecost, when they set sail directly for Con- stantinople. Over these summer seas the crowd of ships made their way with ensigns waving and lances glittering in the sun, like an army afloat, as indeed they were, making the air resound with their trumpets and warlike THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 71 songs. The lovely islands, tlie tranquil waters, the golden sliores, filled these northmen with enthusiasm — nothing so beautiful, so luxuriant, so wealtliy and fair, had ever been seen. Where was the coward who would not dare to strike a blow for such a land? The islands, as they passed, received Alexius with joy, all was festal and splendid in the advance. It was the 24th of June, the full glory of midsummer, when the fleet passed close under the walls of Constantinople. We need not enter into a detailed de- scription of the siege. The Venetians would seem to have carried off the honors of the day. The French soldiers having failed in their first assault by land, the Venetians, linking a number of galleys together by ropes, ran them ashore, and seem to have gained possession, almost without pausing to draw breath, of a portion of the city. We will quote from Gibbon, whose classical splendor of style is so different from the graphic simplicity of our chroniclers, a description of this extraordinary attack. He is not a his- torian generally favorable to the Venetians, so that his testimony may be taken as an impartial one. " On the side of the harbor tlie attack was more successfully con- ducted by the Venetians ; and that industrious people employed every resource that was known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A double line, three bowshots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships ; and the swift motion of the former was sup- ported by the weight and loftiness of the latter, whose decks and poops and turrets were the platforms of military engines that dis- charged their shot over the heads of the first line. The soldiers who leaped from the galleys on shore immediately planted and ascended their scaling ladders, while the large ships, advancing more slowly into the intervals and lowering a drawbridge, opened a way through the air from their masts to the rampart. In the midst of the conflict the doge's venerable and conspicuous form stood aloft in complete armor on the prow of his galley. The great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him ; his threats, promises, and exhortations urged tlie diligence of the rowers ; his vessel was the first that struck ; and Dandolo was the first warrior on shore. The nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life and enhanced the value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand (for the standard-bearer was probably slain), the banner of the republic was fixed on the rampart, twentv-five towers were rapidly occupied. 72 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. and, by the cruel expedient of fire, tlie Greeks were driven from tlie adjacent quarter." A finer battle-picture than this — of the galleys fiercely driven in shore, the aged prince high on the prow, tlie Venetians rushing on the dizzy bridge from the rigging to the ramparts, and suddenly, miraculously, the lion of St. Mark unfolding in the darkened air full of smoke and fire, and bristling showers of ai-rows — could scarcely be. The chroniclers of Venice say nothing of it at all. For once they fail to see the pictorial effect, the force of the dramatic situation. Andrea Dandolo's moderate description of his ancestor's great deed is all we have to replace the glowing narrative in which the Venetians have recorded other facts in their history. 'MVhile they (the French) were/Mie says, '' pressed hard on account of their small numbers, the doge with the Venetians burst into the city, and he, though old and infirm of vision, yet being brave and eager of spirit, joined himself to the French warriors, and all of them together, fighting with great bravery, their strength reviving and their courage rising, forced the enemy to retire and at last the Greeks yielding on every side, the city was taken. ^' The results of the victory were decisive, if not lasting. The old blind emperor, Isaac, was taken from his dungeon — his usurping brother having fled — and replaced upon his throne; and the young wanderer, Alexius, the favorite and plaything of the crusading nobles, the fanciullo, as the Venetians persist in calling him, was crowned in St. Sophia as his father's coadjutor with great pomp and rejoicing. But this moment of glory was shortlived. As soon as the work was done, when there began to he talk of the payment, and of all the wonderful things which had been promised, these brilliant skies were clouded over. It appeared that Alexius had neither authority to make such promises, nor any power of fulfilling them. Not even the money could be paid without provoking new rebellions ; and as for plac- ing the Greek Church under the power of Rome, that was more than any emperor could do. Nor was this all ; for it DOORWAY, SAN MARCO. THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 73 very soon appeared that the throne set up by foreign arms was anything but secure. The Crusaders, who had in- tended to push on at once to their destination, the Holy Land, were again arrested, partly by a desire to secure the recompense promised for their exertions, partly because the young prince, whom his own countrymen disliked for his close alliance with the strangers, implored them to re- main till his throne should be more firmly established. But that throne was not worth a year's purchase to its young and unfortunate tenant. Notwithstanding the great camp of the invaders at Galata, and the Venetian galleys in the Bosphorous, another sudden revolution undid everything that had been done. The first assault had been made in June, 1203. So early as March of the next year, the barons and the doge were taking grim counsel together as to what was to be done with the spoil — such spoil as was not to be found in any town in Europe — when they should have seized the city, in which young Alexius lay murdered, and his old father dead of misery and grief. The second siege was longer and more difficult than the first, for the new emperor, Marzoufle, he of the shaggy eye- brows, was bolder and more determined than the former usurper. But at last the unhappy city was taken, and sacked with every circumstance of horror that belongs to suchan event. The chivalrous Crusadai*s, the brave Vene tians, the best men of their age, either did not think it necessary, or were unable to restrain tlie lowest instincts of an excited army. And what was terrible everywhere was worse in Constantinople, the richest of all existing cities, full of everything that was most exquisite in art and able in invention. *'The Venetians only, who were of gentler soul," says Komanin, '' took thought for the preser- vation of those marvelous works of human genius, trajisporting them afterward to Venice, as they did the four famous horses which now stand on the fa9ade of the great Basilica, along with many columns, jewels and pre- cious stones, with which they decorated the Pala d'oro and the treasury of San Marco." This proof of gentler soul was equa^^y demonstrated by Napoleon when he carried off 74 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. those same bronze horses to Paris in the beginning of the century, but it was not appreciated either by Italy or the world. Altogetlier this chapter in the history of the Vene- tian armaments, as in that of the Crusaders and western Christendom in general, is a terrible and painful one. The pilgrims had got into a false and miserable vortex, from which they could not clear their feet. All that followed is like some feverish and horrible dream, through which the wild attempts to bring some kind of order, and to establish a new rule, and to convince themselves that they were doing right and not wrong, make the ruinous complications only more apparent. During the whole period of their lingering, of their besieging, of their elections of Latin emperors and archbishops— futile and shortlived attempts to make some- thing of their conquest — letters from Pope Innocent were raining upon them, full of indignant remonstrances, ap- peals, and reproaches; and little groups of knights were wandering off toward their proper destination sick at heart, while the rest appointed themselves lords and suzer- ains, marshals and constables of a country which they neither understood nor could rule. In less than a year there followed the disastrous de- feat of Adrianople, in which the ranks of the Crusaders were broken, and the unfortunate newly-elected emperor, Baldwin, disappeared, and was heard of no more. The old doge, Erlrico Dandolo, died shortly after, having both in success and defeat performed prodigies of valor, which his great age (ninety-seven, according to the chroniclers) makes almost incredible, and keeping to the last a keen eye upon the interests of Venice, which alone were forwarded by all that had happened. But he never saw Venice again. He died in June, 1205 — two years after the first attack upon Constantinople, three years after his departure from Ven- ice — and was buried in St. KSophia. Notwithstanding the royal honors that we are told attended his funeral, one cannot but feel that the dim eyes of the old warrior must have turned with longing to the rest that ought to have been his in his own San Marco, and that there must have echoed in his aged heart semething of a pang that went THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 75 through that of a later pilgrim whose last fear it was that he should lay his bones far from the Tweed. We read with a keen perception of the rapidity with which comedy dogs the steps of tragedy everywhere, that one Marino Zeno, hastily appointed after Dandolo as the head of the Venetians, assumed at once as marks of his dignity **a rose-colored silk stocking on his right foot and a white silk stocking on his left, along with the im- perial boots and purse." This was one outcome of all the blood and misery, the dethronements, the sack, the gen- eral ruin. The doges of Venice added another to their long list of titles — they were now lords of Croatia, Dal- matia, and of the fourth part and the half of the Roman (or Romanian) empire. Domimia quartm partis cum di- midio tolius Iniperi Romaniw. And all the isles, those dangerous, and vexatious little communities that had been wont to harbor pirates and interrupt traders, fell really or nominally into the hands of Venice. They were a troublesome possession, constantly in rebellion, difficult to secure, still more difficult to keep, as the Venetian con- quests in Dalmatia had already proved : but they were no less splendid possessions. Candia alone was a jewel for any emperor. The republic could not hold these islands, putting garrisons into them at her own expense and risk. She took the wiser way of granting them to colonists on a feudal tenure, so that any noble Venetian who had the courage and the means might set himself up with a little sea-borne principality in due subjection to his native state, but with tlie privilege of hunting out its pirates and sub- duing its rebellions for himself. '^To divide, " says Sabel- lico, "the public forces of Venice into so many parts would have been very unsafe. The best thing, therefore, seemed that those who were rich should fit out, according to their capabilities, one or more galleys, and other ships of the kind required. And there being no doubt that many would find it to their private advantage to do this, it followed that the republic in time of need would secure the aid of these armed vessels, and that each place acquired could be defended by them with the aid of the state — a thing % THE MAKERS OF VENICE. wliich by itself the republic could not have accomplished except with much expense and trouble. It was therefore ordained that they (who undertook this), with their wives and children and all they possessed, might settle in these islands, and that as colonists sent by the city their safety would be under the care and guarantee of tlie republic. " Many private persons, he adds, armed for this under- taking. The rambling chronicle of Sanudo gives us here a roman- tic story of the conquest of Candia by his own ancestor, Marco Sanudo, who, according to this narrative, having swept from the seas a certain corsair called Arrigo or En- rico of Malta, became master of the island. The inhabi- tants, as a matter of course, resisted and rebelled, but not in the usual way. '' Accept the kingdom as our sovereign,^^ their envoys said, '^or in three hours you must leave Can- dia." This flattering but embarrassing alternative con- founded the Venetian leader. But he accepted the honor thrust upon him, writing at once, however, to the doge, tell- ing the choice that had been given him and how he had accepted it from necessity and devotion to the republic, in whose name he meant to hold the island. The Venetians at once sent twelve ships of war, on pretense of congratu- lating him, whom he received with a royal welcome; then handing over his government to the commander of the squadron, took to his ships and left the dangerous glory of the insecure throne behind him. It is a pity that the docu- ments do not bear out this pleasant story. But if a man's own descendant does not know the rights of his ancestor's actions, who should? Sanudo goes onto relate how, as a reward for this magnanimous renunciation, his forefather was allowed the command of the fleet for a year, and with this scoured the sea and secured island after island, placing his own kinsmen in possession; but at last, being outnum- bered, was taken prisoner in a naval engagement by the admirals of the emperor of Constantinople (which emperor is not specified). ^'But,'^ says his descendant, *' when the said emperor saw his valorosity and beauty, he set him free, and gave him one of his sisters in marriage, from which THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 77 lady are descended almost all the members of the Ca' Sanudo/' The historian allows with dignified candor that this story is not mentioned by Marc Antonio Sabellico, but it is to be found, he says, in the other chroniclei's. AVe regret to add that the austere Romanin gives a quite dif- ferent account of the exploits of Marco Saiiudo, the lord of Naxos. It would have been pleasant to have associated so magnanimous a seaman with the name of the chronicler of the crusades, and the indefatigable diarist to whom later Venetian history is so deeply indebted. These splendid conquests brought enormous increase of wealth, of trade, of care, and endless occupation to the republic. Gained and lost, and regained and lost again, fairly fought for, strenuously held, a source perhaps at all times of more weakness than strength, they had all faded out of the tiara of the republic long before she was herself discrowned. But there still remains in Venice one striking evidence of the splendid, disastrous expedition, the unex- ampled conquests and victories, yet dismal end, of what is called the Fourth Crusade. And that is the four great bronze horses, curious, inappropriate, bizarre ornaments that stand above the doorways of San Marco. This was the blind doge's lasting piece of spoil. The four doges of the Dandolo family who appear at in- tervals in the list of princes of the republic are too far apart to be followed here. Francesco Dandolo, 1328-1339, the third of the name, was called Ca7ie, according to tradi- tion, because when ambassador to Pope Clement V., this noble Venetian, for the love of Venice, humbled himself, and with a chain round his neck and on his knees, ap- proached the pontiff, imploring that the interdict might be raised, and Venice delivered from the pains of excommuni- cation. If this had been to show that men of his race thought nothing too much for the service of their city, whether it were pride or humility, defiance or submission, the circle which included blind Enrico and Francesco the 78 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. doge, could scarcely be more complete. The last of the Dandolo doge, was Andrea, 1342-1354, a man of letters as well as of practical genius, and the historian of his prede- cessors and of the city; whom at a later period aud.in gen- tler company we shall find again. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 79 CHAPTER IV. PIETRO GRADENIGO : CHANGE OF THE CONSTITUTIOlfl". We HAVE endeavored up to this time to trace the develop- ment of the Venetian government and territory, not con- tinuously, but from point to point according to the great conquests which increased the latter, and the growth of system and political order in the former, which became necessary as the community increased and the primitive rule was outgrown. But at the end of the thirteenth cen- tury a great revolution took place in the republic wliich had risen to such prosperity, and had extended its enterprises to every quarter of the known world. It was under the Doge Gradenigo, a new type among the rulers of the state, neither a soldier nor a conqueror, but a politician, that this change took place — a change antagonistic to the entire sentiment of the early Venetian institutions, but embody- ing all with which the world is familiar in the later forms of that great oligarchy, the proudest type of republic known to history. The election of Pietro Gradenigo was not a popular one. It is evident that a new feeling of class antagonism had been gathering during the last reign, that of Giovanni Dandolo; and that both sides were on the alert to seize an advantage. Whether the proposals for the limitation of the Consiglio Maggiore which were already in the air, and the sensation of an approaching attack upon their rights, were sufficiently clear to the populace to stimu- late them to an attempt to repair the ancient privilege of electing the doge by acclamation: or whether it was this at- tempt which drove the other party to more determined action, it is Impossible to judge. But at the death of Gradenigo's predecessor there was a rush of the people to 80 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the Piazza with '^ Vocie parole pungentissime'' in a wild and sudden endeavor to push off the yoke of the regular (and most elaborate) laws which had now been in operation for many generations and to reclaim their ancient custom. The crowd coming together from all quarters of the city proclaimed the name of Jacopo Tiopolo, the son or nephew of a former doge and a man of great popularity, while still the solemn officers of state were bucy in arranging the obse- quies of the dead doge and preparing the multitudinous ballot-boxes for the election of his successor. Had Tiepolo been a less excellent citizen, Komanin says, civil war would almost certainly have been the issue, but he was '' a man of prudence and singular goodness," a liuomo da bene, who ** despising the madness of the crowd" and to avoid the discord which must have followed, left the town secretly, in the midst of the tumult, and took refuge in his villa on the Brenta, the favorite retreat of Venetian nobles. The people were apparently not ripe for anything greater than this sudden and easily baffled effort, and when their favor- ite stole away, permitted the usual wire-pullers, the class which had so long originated and regulated everything, to proceed to the new electior in the usual way. No more elaborate machinery than that employed in this solemn transaction could be imagined. The almost ludi- crous multiplicity of its appeals to Providence or fate, de- veloped and increasing from age to age, the continually repeated drawing of lots, and double and triple elections, seem to evidence the most jealous determination to secure impartiality and unbiased judgment. The order of the proceedings is recorded at length by Martin da Canale in his chronicle, which is of undoubted authority, and re- peated by later writers. The six counselors (augmented from the two of the early reigns) of the doge, according to this historian, called a meeting of the Consiglio Maggiore, hav- ing first provided a number of balls of wax, the same num- ber as the members of the council, in thirty of which was inclosed a little label of parchment inscribed with the word Lector. The thirty who drew these balls were separated from the assembly in another chamber of the palace, first THE MAKERS OS VENICE. 81 being made to swear to perform their office justly and im- partially. There were then produced thirty more waxen balls, in nine of which was the same inscription. The chosen, who were thus reduced to nine, the number of completeness, varied the process by electing forty citizens, whether members or not of the Consiglio Maggiore being left to their discretion. Each of these, however, required to secure the suffrages of seven electors. The reader will hope that by this time at last he has come to the electors of the doge ; but not so. The forty thus chosen were sent for from their houses by the six original counselors who had the management of the election ; and forty waxen pel- lets with the mystic word Lector, this time inclosed in twelve of them, were again provided. These were put into a hat, and, apparently for the first time, a child of eleven was called in to act as the instrument of fate. An- other writer describes how one of the permanent counsel- ors going out at this point, probably in the interval while the forty new electors were being sent for from their houses, lieard mass in San Marco, and taking hold of the first boy he met on coming out, led him into the palace to draw the balls. The twelve thus drawn were once more sworn, and elected twenty-five, each of whom required eight votes to make his election valid. Tiie twenty-five were reduced once more by the operation of the ballot, to nine, who were taken into another room and again sworn, after which they elected forty-five, reduced by ballot to eleven, who finally elected forty-one, who at the end of all things elected the doge. The childish elaboration of this mode of procedure is scarcely more strange than the absolute absence of nov- elty in the result produced. No plebeian tribune ever stole into power by these means, no new man mounted on the shoulders of the people, or of some theorist or partisan, ever surprised the reigning families with a new name. The elections ran in the established lines without a break or misadventure. If any popular interference disturbed the serenity and self-importance of the endless series of elec- tors it was only to turn the current in the direction of one powerful race instead of another. Even the populace in 82 THE MAKimS OF VENICE. the Piazza proclaimed no Lanifizio or Tintorio, wool- worker or dyer, but a Tiepolo, when they attempted to take the elections into their own hands. Neither from without nor within was there a suggestion of any new name. The doge elected on this occasion was Pietro, called Per- azzo (a corruption of the name not given in a compli- mentary sense) Gradenigo, who was at the time governor of^Oapo d^Istria, an ambitious man of strongly aristocratic views and no favorite with the people. It can scarcely be supposed that he was individually responsible for the change worked by his agency in the constitution of the Consiglio Maggiore. It was a period of constitutional development when new officers, new agencies, an entire civil service was coming into being, and the great council had not only all the affairs of the state passing through its hands, but a large amount of patronage increasing every day. Although, as has been pointed out repeatedly, the sovereignty of Venice, under whatever system carried on, had always been in the hands of a certain number of fami- lies, who kept their place with almost dynastic regularity, undisturbed by any intruders from below — the system of the Consiglio Maggiore was still professedly a representative system of the widest kind ; and it would seem at the first glance as if every honest man, all who were da bene and re- spected by their fellows, must one time or other have been secure of gaining admission to that popular parliament. Ro- manin, strongly partisan, like all Venetians, of the institu- tion under which Venice flourished, takes pains to point out here and there one or two exceptional names which show that at long intervals such elections did happen : but they were very rare, and the exceptional persons thus elevated never seem to have made themselves notable. However, as the city grew and developed, it is evident that the families who had always ruled over her began to feel that the danger of having her courts invaded by the democracy was becoming a real one. The mode of electing the great council was very informal and variable, and it had recently fallen more and more into the hands of the intriguers of the Broglio, TUE MAKERS OF VENICE, 83 the lobbyists as tlie Amerieaus would say : which doubtles gave a pretext for tlie radical change which was to alter its character altogetlier. Sometimes its members were cliosen by delegates from each sestiereovdhivxai of the city, some- times, which was the original idea, by four individuals, *' two from this side of the canal, two from that '," some- times they were elected for six months, sometimes for a year. The whole system was uncertain and wanted regu- lation. But this curious combination of chances which was something like putting into a lottery for their rulers, pleased the imagination of the people in their primitive state, and perhaps flattered the minds of the masses with a continual possibility that upon some of their own order the happy lot might fall. It had been proposed in the previous reign not only that these irregularities should be remedied, which was highly expedient, but also that a cer- tain hereditary principle should be adopted, which was, in theory, a new thing and strange to the constitution of Venice : the suggestion being that those whose fathers had sat in the council should have a right to election, though without altogether excluding others whom the doge or his counselors should consider worthy of being added to it. When Gradenigo came to power ho was probably, like a new prime minister, pledged to carry out this policy : and within a few years of his accession tiu; experiment was tried, but very cautiously, in a tentative way. Venice wasv profoundly occupied at the time with one of her great wars with her rival Genoa, a war in which she had much the worst, though certain victories from time to time in east- ern waters encouraged her to pursue the struggle ; and it was under cover of this conflict which engaged men's thoughts that the new experiment was made. Instead of the ordinary periodical election of the council, nominally open to all, the four chosen electors to whom this duty ordinarily fell, nominated only — in the first place — such members of the existing Consiglio Maggiore as had in their own persons or in those of their fathers sat in the council during the last four years, who were then re-elected by ballot, taken for each man individually by the Forty, ^ 84 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. recently constituted body; to whom a further number of names from outside were then proposed, and voted for in the same way. Thus the majority of members elected was not only confined to those possessing a hereditary claim, but the election was taken out of the hands of the tradi- tional electors, and transferred to those of the existing rulers of the city. The new method was first tried for a year, and then established as the fundamental law of the republic, with the further exclusion of the one popular and traditional element, the nominal four electors, whose work was now transferred to the officials of the state. The ARMS OP GRADENIGO. change thus carried out was great in principle, though per- haps not much different in practice from that which had become the use and wont of the city. *^ The citizens," says Romanin, ^Mvere thus divided into three classes — 1st, Those who neither in their own persons nor through their ancestors had ever formed part of the great council ; 2nd, Those whose progenitors had been members of it ; 3rd, Those who were themselves members of the council, both they and their fathers. The first were called New men, and were never admitted save by special grace; the second class were included from time to time ; finally, the third were elected by full right." THE MAKERS OF VENICE. - 85 This was the law which under the name of the Serrata del Consiglio Maggiore caused two rebellions in Venice and confirmed forever beyond dispute her oligarchical govern- ment. Her parliament, so fondly supposed to be that of tiie people, was no more closed to the New men than is our House of Lords. Now and then an exceptional indi- vidual might be nominated, and by means of great services, wealth, or other superior qualities, obtain admission. It wjis indeed the privilege and reward henceforward zealously striven for by the plebeian class, and unfortunately more often bestowed in recompense for the betrayal of political secrets, and especially of popular conspiracies, than for better reasons. But tlie right was with those whose fathers had held the position before them, whose rank was already secure and ascertained, the nobles and patrician classes. The hereditary legislator thus arose in the bosom of the state which considered itself the most free in Christendom, in his most marked and distinct form. Komanin tells us that the famous Libro d'Oro, the book of nobility, was formed in order to keep clear the descent and legitimacy of all claimants, bastards, and even the sons of a wife not noble, being rigorously excluded. The law itself was strengthened by successive additions so as to confine the electors exclusively to the patrician class. The war with Genoa was still filling all minds when this silent revolution was accomplished. How could Venice give her attention to what was going on in the gilded chambers of the Palazzo, when day by day the city was convulsed by bad news or deluded by faint gleams of better hope ? Once and again the Venetian fleets were defeated, and mournful galleys came drifting up, six or seven out of a hundred, to tell the tale of destruction and humiliation : and ever with renewed efforts, in a rage of despairing energy, the workmen toiling in the arsenal, the boatmen giving up their tranquil traffic upon the lagoons to man the new-appointed ships, and every family great and small, offering its dearest to sustain the honor of the republic, the energies of the city were strained to the utmost. In the autumn of 1298, just when the Serrata had been con- 86 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. firmed in the statute-book, the great fleet, commanded by Admiral Andrea Dandolo, sailed from the port, with all the aspect of a squadron invincible, to punish the Genoese and end the war. In one of the ships was a certain Marco Polo, from his home near San Giovanni Chrisostomo, Marco of the millions, a great traveling merchant, whose stories had been as fables in his countrymen's ears. This great expedition did indeed for the time and the war ; but not by victory. It was cruelly defeated on the Dalmatian coasts after a stubborn and bloody struggle. The admiral Andrea dashed his head against his mast and died rather than be taken to Genoa in chains ; while the humbler sailor Marco Polo with crowds of his countrymen was carried off to prison there, to his advantage and ours, as it turned out. But Venice was plunged into mourning and woe, her re- sources exhausted, her captains lost. Genoa, who had bought the victory dear, was in little less unhappy con- dition ; and in the following year the rival republics were glad to make peace under every pledge of mutual forbear- ance and friendship for as long as it could last. It was only after this conclusion of the more exciting interests abroad that the Venetians at home, recovering tranquillity, began to look within and see in the meantime what the unpopu- lar doge and his myrmidons, while nobody had been look- ing, had been engaged about. It is difficult to tell what the mass of the people thought of the new position of affairs : for all the chroniclers are on the winning side, and even the careful Romanin has little sympathy with the revolutionaries. The Venetian populace had long been pleasantly deceived as to their own power. They had been asked to approve what their mas- ters had decided upon and made to believe it was their own doing. They had given a picturesque and impressive back- ground as of a unanimous people to the decisions of the doge and his counselors, the sight of their immense as- sembly making the noble French envoys weep like women. But whether they had begun to see through those fine pretenses of consulting them, and to perceive how little they had really to do with it all, no one tells us. Their THE MAKEllS OF VENICE. 87 attempt to elect their own doge witlioiit waiting for the authorities, looks as if they had become suspicious of their masters. And at the same time the arbitrary closing of the avenues of power, to all men whose fortune was not made or their position secure, and the establishment in the council of that hereditary principle so strenuously opposed in the election of the doges, were sufficiently distinct changes to catch the popular eye and disturb the imagina- tion. Accordingly when the smoke of war cleared olf and the people came to consider internal politics, discontent and excitement aiose. This found vent in a sudden and evi- dently natural outburst of popular feeling. The leader of the malcontents was *'a certain Marino whose surname was Bocconio, '^ says Sabellico, "a man who was not noble, nor of the baser sort, but of moderate fortune, bold and ready for any evil," precisely of that class of new men to whom political privileges are most dear, one on the verge of a higher position, and doubtless hoping to push his way into parliament and secure for his sons an entry into the class of patricians. **He was much followed for his wealth," says another writer. Sanudo gives an account of Bocconio's (or Bocco's) rebellion, which the too well informed Ro- manin summarily dismisses as a fable, but which as an expression of popular feeling, and the aspect which the new state of affairs bore to the masses, has a certain value. The matter-of-fact legend of shutting out and casting forth embodies in the most forcible way the sense of an exclu- sion which was more complete than could be effected by the closing of any palace doors. Bocconio and his friends, according to Sanudo, indignant and enraged to be shut out from the council, crowded into the Piazza with many fol- lowers, at the time when they supposed the elections to be going on, and found the gates closed and the Gentilhuomiui assembled within. " Then beating at the door tbey called out that they desired to form part of the Council, and would not be excluded : upon which the doge sent messengers to tell them that the Council was not engaged upon the election, but was discussing other business. As they continued, however, to insist upon coming in, ihe doge seeing that he made no 88 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. advance, but that the tumult kept increasing in the piazza, deliber- ated with the council how to entrap these seditions persons? to call forth against them ultimum de potentia, the severest penalty of the law. Accordingly he sent to tell them that they should be called in separately in parties of five, and that those who succeeded in the bal- lot should remain as members of the Council, on condition that those who failed should disperse and go away. The first called were Mari- no Bocco, Jacopo Boldo, and three others. The doors were then closed and a good guard set, after which the five were stripped and thrown into a pit, the Trabucco della Torsella, and so killed; and the others being called in, in succession, and treated in the same way, the chief men and ringleaders were thus disposed of to the number of a hun- dred and fifty or sixty men. The crowd remaining in the piazza per- suaded themselves that all those who were called in, of whom none came back, had been made nobles of the Great Council. And when it was late in the evening the members of the Council came down armed into the piazza, and a proclamation was made by order of the doge that all should return to their homes on pain of punishment; hearing which the crowd, struck with terror, had the grace to disperse in silence. Then the corpses of those who were dead were brought out and laid in the piazza, with tbe command that if any one touched them it should be at the risk of his head. And when it was seen that no one was bold enough to approach, the rulers perceived that the people were obedient. And some days after, as they could not toler- ate the stench, the bodies were buried. And in this manner ended that sedition, so that no one afterward ventured to open his mouth on such matters." This legend Saniido takes^ as he tells us, from the chroni- cles of a certain Zaccariada Pozzo; and it does not interfere with his faith in the narrative that he himself has recorded on a previous page, the execution of Bocco and his fellow conspirators '^between the columns'' in the usual way. Perhaps he too felt that this wild yet matter-of-fact ver- sion of the incident, the closed doors, and the mysterious slaughter of the intruders in the hidden courts within, was an effective and natural way of representing the action of a constitutional change so important. The names of the conspirators who died with Bocconio are almost all un- known and obscure names, yet there was a sprinkling of patricians, upholders of the popular party, such as are al- ways to be found on similar occasions, and which reappear in the more formidable insurrection that followed. For the moment, however, the summary extinction of Boc THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 89 conio's ill-planned rebellion intimidated and silenced the people, while, on the other side, it was made an occasion of tightening the bonds of the /Serrrt/rt, and making the ad- mission of tiie homo novns more difficult than ever. This little rebellion, so soon brought to a conclusion, took place in the spring of the year 1300, the year of the jubilee, when all the world was crowding to Rome, and Dante, standing on the bridge of St. Angelo, watching the streams of the pilgrims coming and going, bethought him- self, like a true penitent, of his own moral condition, and in the musings of his supreme imagination found himself astray in evil paths, and began to seek through hell and heaven the verace via, the right way which he had lost. This great scene of religious fervor, in which so many peni- tents from all quarters of the world renewed the vows of their youth and pledged over again their devotion to the Church and the Faith, comes strangely into the midst of the fierce strife between Guelf and Grhibelline, which then rent asunder the troubled Continent, and especially Italy, where every city took part in the struggle. Venice, in the earlier ages as well as in later times when she maintained her independence against papal interference, has usually shown much indifference to the authority of the pope. But in the beginning of the fourteenth century this was im- possible, especially when the great republic of the sea med- dled, as she had no right to do, with the internal policy of that Terra Firma, the fat land of corn and vine, after which she had always a longing. And there now fell up- on her in the midst of all other contentions the most ter- rible of all the catastrophes to which mediaeval states were subject, the curse of Rome. It was, no doubt, rather with that keen eye to her own advantage which never failed her, than from any distinct bias toward the side of the Ghibelline, that Venice had interposed in the question of succession which agitated the city of Ferrara, and finally made an attempt to establish her own authority in that dis- tracted place. Indeed it seems little more than an acci- dental appeal on the part of the other faction to the pro- tection of the pope which brought upon her the terrible % THE MAKERS OF VENICE. punishment of the excommunication which Pope Clement launched from Avignon, and which mined her trade, re- duced her wealth, put all her wandering merchants and sailors in danger of their lives, and almost threatened with complete destruction the proud city which had held her head so high. It would have been entirely contrary to the habits of Venice, as of every other republican community, not to have visited this great calamity more or less upon the head of the state. And it gave occasion to the hostile families who from the time of Gradenigo's accession had been seeking an opportunity against him, the house of Tiepolo and its allies, tlie Qnii-ini who had opposed the war of Ferrara all through and had suffered severely in it, and others, in one way or another adverse to the existing government. The Tiepolo do not seem to have been gener- ally of the mild and noble character of him who had re- fused to be elected doge by the clamor of the Piazza. They had formed all through a bitter opposition party to the doge, who had displaced their kinsman. Perhaps even Jacopo Tiepolo himself, wliile retiring from the strife to save the peace of the republic, had a natural expectation that the acclamation of the populace would be confirmed by the votes of the electors. At all events his family had throughout maintained a constitutional feud, keeping a keen eye upon all proceedings of the government, and eager to find a sufficient cause for interfei'ence more practical. It would seem a proof that the popular mind had not fully awakened to the consequences of the change of laws at the moment of Bocconio's insurrection that the patri- cian opposition did not seize tluit opportunity. The occa- sion they sought came later, when the disastrous war and the horrors of the Interdict, events more immediately per- ceptible than any change of constitution, had excited all minds and opened the eyes of the people to their internal wrongs by the light of those tremendous misfortunes which the ambition or the unskillfulness of their doge and his advisers had brought upon them. The rebellious faction took advantage of all possible means to fan the flame of discontent, stimulating the stormy debates of the Consiglio THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 91 Maggiore, which was not more but less easy to manage since it had been restricted to the gentry, while at the earne time stirring up the people to a sense of the profound injury of exchisioii from its ranks. The Quirini, the Badoeri, and various otliers, connected by blood and friend- ship with the Tiepoli, among whom were hosts of young gallants always ready for a brawl, and ready to follow any warlike lead, to quicken the action of their seniors, in- creased the tension on all sides. How the excitement grew in force and passion day by day — how one incident after another raised the growing wrath, how scuffles arose in the city and troubles multiplied, it is not difficult to imagine. On one occasion a Dandolo took the wall of a Tiepolo and a fight ensued ; on another, " the devil, who desires the destruction of all governnjent," put it into the head of Marco Morosini, one of the Signori di Notte (or night magistrates), to inquire whether Pietro Quirini of the elder branch (della Ca' Grande) was armed, and to order him to be searched : on which Quirini, enraged, tripped up the said Morosini with his foot, and all Rialto was forthwith in an uproar. The houses of the chiefs of the party, both Tiepoli and Quirini, were in the quarter of the Rialto, and close to the bridge. At length the gathering fire burst into flame. No doubt driven beyond patience by some incident, trifling in itself, Marco Quirini, one of the heads of his house, a man who had siifTered much in the war with Ferrara, called his friends and neighbors round him in his palace, and ad- dressed tiie assembled party, attacking the doge as the cause of all the troubles of the country, the chief instru- ment in changing the constitution, in closing the Great Council to the people, in carrying on the fatal war with Ferrara, and bringing down upon the city the horrors of the excommunication. To raise a party against the doge for private reasons, however valid, would not be, he said, the part of a good citizen. But how could they stand cold spectators of the ruin of their beloved and injured country, or shut their eyes to the fact that the evil passions of one man were the chief cause of their misery, and that it was 92 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. he who had not only brought disaster from without, but by the closing of the council, shut out from public affairs so many of the worthiest citizens ? He was followed by a younger and still more ardent speaker in the person of Bajamonte Tiepolo, the son of Jacopo, with whose name henceforward this historical incident is chiefly connected, at that time one of the most prominent figures in Venice, the Gra7i Cavaliero of the people, who loved him, and among whom he had inherited his father's popularity. '^ Let us leave words and take to action,'' he said, ''nor pause till we have placed on the throne a good prince, who will restore the ancient laws, and preserve and in- crease the public freedom." The struggle was probaby in its essence much more a family feud than a popular out- break, but it is a sign of the excitement of the time that the wrongs of the people were at every turn appealed to as the one unquestionable argument. Never had there been a more apt moment for a popular rising. ''In the first place," says Caroldo, "the city was very ill content with the illustrious Pietro Gradenigo, who in the beginning of his reign had the boldness to reform the Cousiglio Maggiore, admitting a larger numbsr of families who were noble, and few of those who ought to have been the principal and most respected of the city, taking from the citizens and populace the ancient mode of admission into the council : the root of this change being the hatred he bore to the people, who, before his election, had proclaimed Jacopo Tiepolo doge, and afterward had shown little satis- faction with tlie choice made of himself. And not only did he bear rancor against Jacopo Tiepolo, but against the whole of his family." Notwithstanding this rancor Jacopo Tiepolo himself, the good citizen, was the only one who now raised his voice for peace and endeavored to calm the excitement of his family and their adherents. But the voice of reason was not lis- tened to. On the night of tlie 14th of June, 1310, ten years after Bocconio's brief and ill-fated struggle, the fires of insurrection were again lighted up in Venice. The con- spirators gathered during the night in the Quirini Palace, THE MAKERS OP VENICE. 93 meeting under cover of the darkness in order to burst forth with the early dawn, and with an impeto, a sudden rush from the Rialto to the Piazza, to gain possession of the center of the city and seize and kill the doge. The night, however, was not one of those lovely nights of June which make Venice a paradise. It was a fit night for such a bloody and fatal undertaking as that on which these muf- fled conspirators were bound. A great storm of thunder and lightning, such as has nowhere more magnificent force than on the lagoons, burst forth while their bands were assembling, and torrents of rain poured from the gloomy skies. It was in the midst of this tempest, which favored while it cowed them, the peals of the thunder making their cries of " Death to the doge " and *' Freedom to the peo- ple " inaudible, and muffling the tramp of their feet, that the insurrectionists set forth. One half of the little army, under Marco Quirini, kept the nearer way along the canal by bridge and fondamenta ; the other, led by Bajamonte himself, threaded their course by the narrow streets of the Merceria to the same central point. The sounds of the march were lost in the commotion of nature, and the dawn for which they waited was blurred in the stormy tumult of the elements. The dark line of the rebels pushed on, how- ever, spite of storm and rain, secure, it would seem, that their secret had been kept and that their way was clear be- fore them. But in the meantime the doge^ who, whatever were his faults, seems to have been a man of energy and spirit, had heard, as the authorities always heard, of the intended rising; and taking his measures as swiftly and silently as if he had been the conspirator, called together all the officers of state, with their retainers and servants, and sending off messengers to Chioggia, Torcello, and Murano for succor, ranged his little forces in the piazza under the flashing of the lightning and the pouring of the rain, and silently awaited the arrival of the rebels. A more dramatic scene could not be conceived. The two lines of armed men stumbling on in darkness, waiting for a flash to show them the steps of a bridge or the sharp corner of a 94 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. narrow calle, pressed on in mntiial emulatioji, their hearts hot for the attack, and all the points of the assault decided upon. When lo! as the first detachment, that led by Quirini, debauched into the great square, a sudden wild flash, lighting up earth and heaven, showed them the gleaming swords and dark files of the defenders of San Marco awaiting their arrival. The surprise would seem to have been complete: but it was not the doge who was sur- prised. This unexpected revelation precipitated the fight which very shortly, the leaders being killed in the first rush, turned into a rout. Bajamonte appearing with his men by the side of the Merceria made a better stand, but the advantage remai' ed with the doge's party, who knew what they had to expect, and had the superior confidence of law and authority on their side. By this time the noise of the human tumult surmounted that of the skies, and the peaceful citizens who had slept through the storm woke to the sound of the cries and curses, the clash of swords and armor, and rushed to their windows to see what the disturbance was. One woman, looking out, in the mad passion of terror seized the first thing that came to hand, a stone vase or mortar on her window-sill, and flung it down at hazard into the midst of the tumult. The trifling incident would seem to have been the turning-point of the struggle. The heavy flower-pot or mortar descended upon the head of the standard-bearer who carried Bajamonte's flag with its inscription of Liberta and struck him to the ground. When the rebels, in the gray of the stormy dawn, saw their banner waver and fall a panic seized them. They thought it was taken by the enemy, and even the leader himself, the Grand Cavaliero, turned with the panic stricken crowd and fled. Pursued and flying, fighting, making here and there a stand, they hurried through the tortuous ways to the Rialto, which, being then no more than a bridge of wood, they cut down behind them, taking refuge on the other side, where their headquarters were, in the palace of the Quirini, the remains of which, turned to ignoble use as a poulterer's shop, still exist in the Beccaria. The other half of the insurrectionists, POMTE DEL PARADISO. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 95 that which had been thrown into confusion and flight by the death of its leader, Marco Quirini, met on its disastrous backward course a band hastily collected by the head of the Scuola della Crita, and increased by a number of painters living about the center of their art — in the Campo San Luca, where the rebels were cut to pieces. Bajamonte and his men, however, arrived safely at their stronghold, having on their way sacked and burned the office of the customs on that side of the river, thus covering their retreat with smoke and flame. Once there they closed their gates, entrenching their broken strength in the great medieval house which was of itself a fortress and defensible place. And after all that had happened the fate of Venice still hung in the bahmce, and such was the gravity of the revolt that it still seemed possible for the knot of desperate men entrenched on the other side of the Rive Alto, the deep stream which sweeps profound and strong round that curve of the bank, to gain, did Baaoer come back in time with the aid he had been sent to seek in Padua, the upper hand. Even when Badoer was cut off by Giustinian and his men from Chioggia, the doge and his party, though strong and confident, do not seem to have ventured to attack the headquarters of the rebels. On the contrary, envoys were sent to offer an amnesty, and even pardon, should they submit. Three times these en- voys were rowed across the canal, the ruined bridge lying black before their eyes, fretting the glittering waves, which no doubt by this time, leaped and dashed against the unac- customed obstacle in all the brightness of June, the thun- der-storm over, though not the greater tempest of human passion. From the other bank, over the charred ruins of the houses they had destroyed, the rebel Venetians, looking out in their rage, disappointment and despair, to see em- bassy after embassy conducted to the edge of the ferry, must have felt still a certain fierce satisfaction in their im- portance, and in the alarm to which these successive mes- sengers testified. At last, however, there came alone a venerable counselor, Filippo Belegno, "moved by love of his country " to attempt once more the impossible task of 96 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. moving these obstinate and desperate men. No doubt he put before them the agitated state of the city, the strange sight it was with the ruins still smoking, the streets still full of the wounded and dying ; torn in two, the peaceful bridge ly- ing a great wreck in mid-stream. ''And such was his venerable aspect and the force of his eloquence " that he won the rebels at last to submission. Bajamonte and his immediate followers were banished for life from Venice and its vicinity to the distant lands of Slavonia beyond Zara ; others less prominent were allowed to hope that in a few years they might be recalled ; and the least guilty, on making compensation for what they had helped to de- stroy, were pardoned. Thus ended the most serious revolt that had ever happened in Venice. One cannot help feel- ing that it was hard upon Badoer and several others who were taken fighting to be beheaded, while Bajamonte was thus able to make terms for himself and escape, with his head at least. The lives thus spared, however, were but little to be en- vied. The banishment to the East was a penalty which the republic could not enforce. She could put the rebels forth from her territory, but even her power was unable in those wild days to secure a certain place of banishment for the exiles. Those who are familiar with the life of Dante will remember what was the existence of ?^ fuor-uscito banished from the beloved walls of Florence. Bajamonte Tiepolo was a personage of greater social importance than Dante, with friends and allies no doubt in all the neighbor- ing cities, as it was natural a man should have who be- longed to one of the greatest Venetian families. The records of the state are full of signs and tokens of his passage through the Italian mainland, and his long wan- derings afterward on the Dalmatian coasts. He was scarcely well got rid of out of Venice before the doge is visible in the records making a great speech in the council, in which he gives a lively picture of the state of affairs and of the contumacy of Bajamonte and his companions, their visits to Padua and Rovigo, their pai'leys with the turbu- lent spirits of the Marshes, and even of Lombardy — their THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 97 perpetual attempts to raise again tlie standard of revolt in Venice. It may be supposed even that the doge died of this revolt and its consequences, in the passion and endless harassment consequent upon the constant macliinations of his opponent, wlioni indeed he had got the better of, but who wouki not yield. Romance has scarcely taken hold, except in obscure at- tempts, upon the juxtaposition of these two men: but nothing seems more likely than that some profounder per- sonal tragedy lay at the bottom of this historical episode. At all events the characters of the two opponents, the doge and the rebel, are strongly contrasted, and fit for all the uses of tragedy. Had Venice possessed a Dante, or had Bajamonte been gifted with a poet's utterance, who can tell in what dark cave of the Inferno the reader of those distant ages might not have found the dark unfriendly doge, sternly determined to carry through his plans, to shut out con- temptuously from his patrician circle every low-born as- pirant, and to betray the beloved city, whose boast had always been of freedom, into the tremendous fetters of a system more terrible than any despotism ? Gradenigo, so far as he can be identified personally, would seem to have been an excellent type of the haughty aristocrat, scornful of the new men who formed the rising tide of Venetian life, and determined to keep in the place in which they were born the inferior populace. He had been employed in distant dependencies of the republic where a state of re- volt was chronic, and where the most heroic measures were necessary: and it was clear to him that there must be no hesitation, no trifling with the forces below. When he be- came doge, Venice was still to some extent governed by her old traditions, and it was yet possible that the democracy might have largely invaded her sacred ranks of patrician power. She was ruled by an intricate and shifting magis- tracy of councils, sages, pregadi (the simplest primitive title, men ** prayed" to come and help the doge with their advice), among whom it is difficult to tell which was which or how many there were, or how long any one man held his share of power. But when Perazzo, proud Peter, the man 98 TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. whom the commons did not love, of whom no doubt they had many a story to tell, ended his reign in Venice, the Great Council had become hereditary, the old possibilities were all ended, and the Council of Ten sat supreme — an institution altogether new, and as terrible as unknown — a sort of shifting but permanent Council of Public Safety en- dowed with supreme and irresponsible power. A greater political revolution could not be. The armed revolution- aries who carried sword and flame throughout the city could not, had they been successful in their conjectured purpose of making Bajamonte lord of Venice, have ac- complished a greater change in the state than was done silently by this determined man. That he was determined and prompt and bold is evident from all his acts. The rapidity and silence of his prep- arations to rout the insurgents; the trap in which he caught them when, marching under cover of the thunder to surprise him in his palace, they were themselves surprised in the Piazza by a little army more strong because fore- warned than their own; the brave face he showed at another period, even in front of the pope's excommunication, pro- claiming loudly to his distant envoys, ^'We are determined to do all that is in us, manfully and promptly, to preserve our rights and our honor;" the boldness of his tremendous innovations upon the very fabric of the state; and that final test of success which forcible character and determi- nation are more apt than justice or mercy to win — leave no doubt as to his intrinsic qualities. He was successful, and his rival was unfortunate: he was hated, and the other was beloved. Neither of these two figures stand prominent in picturesque personal detail out of the pages of history. We see them only by their acts, and only in so far as those acts affected the great all-absorbing story of their city. But the influence of Perazzo upon that history is perhaps more remarkable than that of any other individual so far as law and sovei^ignty is concerned. The rebel leader was a very different man. The noble youth whom Venice called the Gran Cavaliero — the young cavalier, as one might say, like our own Prince Charlie — THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 9& fiery and swift, bidding his kinsman not talk but act — the hope of the elder men, put forth by Marco Quirini as most worthy of all to be heard when the malcontents first gath- ered in the palace near the Rialto, and ventured to tell each other what was in their hearts — could have been no common gallant, and yet would seem to have had the faults and weaknesses as well as the noble qualities of the careless, foolhardy cavalier. No doubt he held his life as lightly as any knight-errant of the time : yet when his kinsman fell in the narrow entrance of the Merceria in the wild dawn- ing when foes and friends were scarcely to be distinguished, Bajamonte, too, was carried away by the quick imaginary panic and retreated, dragged along in the flight of his dis- couraged followers. He had not that proof of earnestness which success gives, and he had the ill-fortune to escape when other men perished. The narrative which Romanin has collected out of the unpublished records of his after- life, presents a picture of restless exile, never satisfied, full of conspiracies, hopeless plots, everlasting spyings and treacheries which make the heart sick. We can only remember that Bajamonte was no worse in this respect than his great contemporary, Dante. And perhaps the two exiles may have met, if not on those stairs which the poet found so hard to climb, yet somewhere in the wild roaming which occupied both their lives, full of a hundred fruitless schemes to get back, this to Florence, that to Venice. Romanin, ever severe to the rebel, argues that all circumstances and all documents prove the hero of the Venetian tragedy to have been *'a man of excessive ambi- tion, a subverter of law and order; in fact, a traitor'' — most terrible of all reproaches. But as a matter of fact it was not he but his adversary who subverted the civil order of tlie republic, and whether the young Tiepolo had a true sense of patriotism at his heart, and of patriotic indigna- tion against these innovations, or was merely one of the many ambitious adventurers of the day struck with the idea of making himself lord of Venice as the Scaligeri were lords in Padua on no better title — there seems no evidence, and probaby never will be any evidence, to show. 100 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. When Bajamonte left Venice he proceeded anywhere but to the distant countries to which he was nominally ban- ished. Evidently all that was done in the way of carrying out such a sentence was to drive the banished men out of the confines of the republic, leaving them free to obey the further orders of the authorities if they chose. In this case the exiles lingered about secretly for some time in neighboring cities, watched by spies who reported all their actions, and especially those of Bajamonte, to the doge. When at last he did proceed to Dalmatia, he became, ac- cording to Eomanin, a center of conspiracy and treason, and at the bottom of the endless rebellions of Zara, which, however, had rebelled on every possible occasion long be- fore Bajamonte was born. It is curious to find that all the chroniclers, and even a writer so recent and so enlightened as Romanin, should remain pitiless toward all rebels against the authority of the republic. The picture this historian gives of Bujamonte's obscure and troubled career, pursued from one city to another by the spies and letters of the signoria warning all and sundry to have nothing to do with the rebel, and making his attempts to re-enter life impossible, is a very sad one ; but no pity for the exile ever moves the mind of the narrator. For with the Venetian historian, as with all other members of this wonderful com- monwealth, Venice is everything, and the individual noth- ing : nor are any man's wrongs or suffering of any impor- tance in comparison with the peace and prosperity of the adored city. The traces of this insurrection, have in the long progress of years almost entirely disappeared, though at the time many commemorative monuments bore witness to the greatest popular convulsion which ever moved Venice. The Tiepolo palace, inhabited by Bajamonte, was razed to the ground, and a pillar, una colonna d'infamia, was placea on the spot with the following inscription. ; THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 101 •* Di Baiainonte fo questo terreno, E mo* per lo so Iniquo tradimento S'e posto in Chomun per I'altrui spavento E per inostrar a tutti seinpre seno." "This was the dwelling of Bajamonte: for his wicked treason this stone is set up, tiiat others may fear and that it may be a sign to all." The column was broken, Tassini tells us in his curious and valuable work upon the Streets of Venice, soon after it was set up, by one of the followers of Tiepolo who had shared in the amuesty, but whose fidelity to his ancient chief was still too warm to endure this public mark of infamy. It was then removed to the close neighborhood of the parish church of S. Agostino, probably for greater safety; afterward it was transferred, no longer as a mark of shame but as a mere anti- quity, from one patrician's garden to another, till it was finally lost. In later times, when the question was se- riously discussed whether Bajamonte was not a patriot leader rather than a tiaitor, proposals were made to raise again the column of shame as a testimony of glory mis- understood. But the convictions of the rehabilitators of the Gran Cavaliero have not been strong enough to come to any practical issue, all that remains of him is (or was) a white stone let into the pavement behind the now sup- pressed church of S. Agostino with the inscription — *'Col: Bai: The: MCCCX.," marking the site of his house: but whether a relic of his own age or the work of some more recent sympathizer we are not told. On the other side of the canal in the campoof San Luca stood till very recent times a flagstatf ornamented on gala days with the standard of the Scuola of the Carita in remembrance of their victory over one party af the insurrectionists; and in the Merceria not far from the piazza, there still exists, or lately existed a shop witli the sign ''Delia grazia del morter" being the same out of which Giustina Rossi threw forth the flower- pot, to the destruction of the failing cause. " <^uel MO del secondo verso,'' says Tassini, "«pt>5rrt«i per OR A, le quel Sbno deW ultimo per Sieno, sotC iatendenovi, queste parole." 102 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. Another singular sign of disgrace and punishment was the condemnation of the families of Quirini and Tiepolo to a change of amorial bearings. Had they been compelled, to wear their arms reversed or to bear any other under- stood lieraldic symbol of shame this would have been comprehensible: but all that seems to have been demanded of them was a change of their bearings, not any igno- minious sign. The authorities went so far as to change the arms upon the shields of the two defunct Tiepoli doges, a most senseless piece of vengeance, since it obliterated the shame which it was intended to enhance. The palaces still standing along the course of the Grand Canal which carry rising from their roofs the two obelisks, erected upon all the houses of the Tiepoli for some reason unknown to us, prove that in latter days the race was little injured or diminished by its disgrace and punishment. A much greater memorial of this foiled rebellion however still remains to be noticed. This was the institution of the far-famed Council of Ten, the great tribunal which hence- forward reigned over the republic with a sway which was in sober reality tremendous and appalling, but which is still further enhanced by the mystery in which all its proceed- ings were wrapped, and the impression made upon an im- aginative people by the shadow of this great secret, voice- less tribunal, every man of which was sworn to silence, and before which any Venetian at any moment might find himself arraigned. It was professedly to guard against such a danger as that which the republic had just escaped that this new tribunal was instituted, *' Because of the new thing which had happened, and to guard against any repe- tition of it." Among the many magistratures of the city this was the greatest, most fatal, and. important : it held the keys of life and death : it was responsible to no supe- rior authority, permitted no appeal, and was beyond the reach of public opinion or criticism, its decisions as unquestionable as they were secret. The system of de- nunciation, the secret documents dropped into the Bocca di Leone, the mysterious processes by which a man might be condemned before he knew that he had been accused. TBE MAKERS OF VKNtCJi!, lOS have perhaps been exaggerated, and Romanin does his utmost to prove that the dreaded council was neither so formidable nor so mysterious as romance has made it out to be. But his arguments are but poor in comparison with the evident dangers of an institution, whose proceedings were wrapped in secrecy and which was accountable neither to public opinion nor to any higher tribunal. Political offenses in our own day are judged more leniently than crime : in those times they were of deeper dye than any- thing that originated in private rage or covetousness. And amid the family jealousies of that limited society the op- portunity thus given of cutting off an enemy, undermining the reputation of any offender, or spoiling the career of a too prosperous rival, was too tremendous a temptation for human nature to resist. This formidable court was, in conformity with the usual Venetian custom, appointed first for a year only, as an experiment, and with the special purpose of forestalling further rebellion by the most sus- picious and inquisitive vigilance : but once established it was too mighty a power to be abandoned and soon became an established institution. Thus the two rebellions did nothing but rivet the chains which had been woven about the limbs of the republic. And though there still remained the boast of freedom, and the City of the Sea always continued to vaunt her repub- lican severity and strength, Venice now settled into the tre- mendous framework of a system which had no room for the plebeian or the poor, more rigid than any individual despotism, in which there are always chances for the new man, more autocratic and irresponsible than the govern- ment of any absolute monarch. The Council of Ten com- pleted the bonds which the serrata of the council had made. The greatest splendors, if not the greatest triumphs of the state were yet to come, but all the possibilities of political freedom and expansion were finally destroyed. The circumstances which surrounded this new institu- tion were skillfully, almost theatrically disposed to in- crease the terror with which it was soon regarded. The vow of secrecy exacted from each member and from all who 104 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. appeared before tliem, the lion's mouth ever open for de- nunciations — which however well-founded may be Roma- nin's assertion that those which were anonymous were rarely acted upon, yet bore an impression of the possibility of a dastardly and secret blow, which nothing can wipe out — the mysterious manner in which a man accused was brought before that tribunal in the dark, to answer to judges only partially seen, with the consciousness of the torture- room and all its horrors near, if his startled wits should fail him — all were calculated to make the name of the Ten a name of fear. Notliing could be more grim tlian the smile of that doge who leaving the council chamber in the early sunshine after a prolonged meeting answered the un- suspicious good-morrow of the great soldier whom he had been condemning, with the words, ** There has been much talk of you in the council." Horrible greeting, which meant so much more than met the ear ! The Doge Gradenigo died little more than a year after the confusion and discomfiture of his adversaries. He was conveyed, without funeral honors or any of the respect usually shown to the dead, to S. Ciprianoin Murano, where he was buried. '^ The usual funeral of princes was not given to him," says Caroldo, '^ perhaps because he was still under the papal excommunication, perhaps because, hated as he was by the people in his lifetime, it was feared that some riot would rise around him in his death." He who had carried out the serrata, and established the Council of Ten, and triumphed over all his personal opponents, had to skulk over the lagoon, privately, against all precedent to his grave, leaving the state iji unparalleled trouble and dismay. But he had crushed the rebel, whether patriot or conspirator, and revolutionized Venice, which was work enough and success enough for one man. He died in August, 1311, a year and some months after the banish- ment of Bajamonteand the end of his rebellion. THE MAKERh OF VENICE. 105 CHAPTER V. THE DOGES DISGRACED. The history of the two princes to whom Venice has given a histing place in the annals of the unfortunate, those records wliich hold a surer spell over the heart than any of the more triumphant chronicles of fame, are of less material import to her own great story tlian those chapters of self developement and self-construction which we have surveyed. But picturesque in all things and with a dra- matic instinct winch rarely fails to her race, the republic even in the height of her vengeance, and by means of the deprivation which has banished his image from among those of her rulers, has made the name of the be- headed doge, Marino Faliero, one of the best known in all her records. We pass the row of pictured faces, many of them representing her greatest sons, till we come to the place where this old man is not, his absence being doubly suggestive and carrying a human interest beyond tliat of all fulfilled and perfect records. Nor is it without signifi- cance in the history of the state, that after having finally suppressed and excluded the popular element from all voice in its councils, the great oligarchy which had achieved its proud position by means of doge and people, should have applied itself to the less dangerous task of making a puppet of its nominal prince, converting him into a mere functionary and ornamental head of the state. Such words have been applied often enough to the constitutional monarch of our own highly refined and balanced system, and it is usual to applaud the strict and honorable self-restraint of our Eng- lish sovereign as the brightest of royal qualities: but these were strange to the mediaeval imagination, which had little 106 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. understanding of a prince who was no ruler. Whether it was in accordance with some tremendous principle of action secretly conceived in the minds of the men who had by a series of skillful and cautious movements made the parlia- ment of Venice into an assembly of patricians, and then neutralize that assembly by the still more startling power of the Council of Ten — that this work was accomplished, it is impossible to tell. It is difficult indeed to imagine that such a plan could be carried from generation to gener- ation though it might well be conceived, like Stafford's '^Thorough," in the subtle intellect of some one far-seeing legislator. Probably the Venetian statesmen were but fol- lowing the current of a tendency such as serves all the pur- pose of a foregone determination in many conjunctures of human affairs — a tendency which one after another leader caught or was caught by, and which swept toward its log- ical conclusion innumerable kindred minds with something of the tragic cumulative force of those agencies of nature against which man can do so little. It was however a nat- ural balance to the defeat of the people that the doge also should be defeated and bound. And from the earliest days of recognized statesmanship this had been the subject of continual effort, taking first the form of a jealous terror of dynastic succession, and gradually growing, through oaths more binding and promissioyii more detailed and stringent until at length the doge found himself less than the master, a little more than the slave, of those fluctuating yet con- sistent possessors of the actual power of the state, who had by degrees gathered the entire government into their hands. Marino Faliero had been an active servant of Venice through a long life. He had filled almost all the great offices which were entrusted to her nobles. He had gov- erned her distant colonies, accompanied her armies in that position of proveditore, omnipotent civilian critic of all the movements of war, which so much disgusted the generals of the republic. He had been ambassador at the courts of both emperor and pope, and was serving his country in that capacity at Avignon when the news of his election THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 10? reached him. It is thus evident that Faliero was not a man used to the position of a lay figure, although at seventy- six the dignified retirement of a throne, even when so en- circled with restrictions, would seem not inappropriate. That he was of a haughty and hasty temper seems apparent. It is told of him that after waiting long for a bisliop to head a procession at Treviso where he was podesta, he as- tonished the tardy prelate by a box on the ear when he finally appeared, a punishment for keeping the authorities waiting which the churchman would little expect. Old age to a statesman however is in many cases an advantage rather than a defect, and Faliero was young in vigor and character, and still full of life and strength. He was married a second time to presumably a beautiful wife much younger than himself, though the chroniclers are not agreed even on the subject of her name, whether she was a Gradenigo or a Contarini. Tlie well-known story of young Steno's insult to this lady and to her old husband has found a place in all subsequent histories — but there is no trace of it in the unpublished documents of the state. The story goes, that Michel Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior wrote upon the chair of the doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man on being brought before the Forty, confessed that lie had thus avenged himself in a fit of passion; and regard having been had to his age and the *'heat of love" which had been the cause of his original misdemeanor (a reason seldom taken into account by the tribunals of the state) he was condemmed to prison for two months, and afterward to be banished for a year from Venice. The doge took this light punishment greatly amiss, considering it indeed asa further insult. Sabellico says not a word of Michel Steno, or of this definite cause of offense, and Romanin quotes the con- temporary records to show that though ^'Alcunizovannelli, fioli de gentiluomini di Venetia" are supposed to have af- 108 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. fronted the doge, no such story finds a place in any of them. Bat the old man thus translated from active life and power, soon became bitterly sensible in his new position that he was senza parentado, with few relations, and flouted by the giovitiastri, the dissolute young gentlemen who swaggered about the Broglio in their finery, strong in their support of fathers and uncles among the Forty or the Ten. That he found himself at the same time shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior — mastered in every action by the Secret Tribunal, and presiding nomi- nally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence — is evident. And a man so well acquainted and so long, with all the proceedings of the state who had been entering middle age in the days of Bajamonte, who had seen con- summated the shutting out of the people, and since had watched through election after election a gradual tighten- ing of the bonds round the feet of the doge, would natur- ally have many thoughts when he found himself the wearer of that restricted and diminished crown. He could not be unconscious of how the stream was going, nor unaware of that gradual sapping of privilege and decreasing of power which even in his own case had gone further than with his predecessor. Perhaps he had noted with an indignant mind the new limits of the promissione, a narrower charter than ever, when he was called upon to sign it. He had no mind, we may well believe, to retire thus from the ad- ministration of afl'airs. And when these giovinastri, other people's boys, the scum of the gay world, flung theii un- savory jests in the face of the old man, who had no son to come after him, the silly insults so lightly uttered, so little thought of, the natural scoff of youth at old age, stung him to the quick. And it so happened that various complaints were at this moment presented to the doge in which his own cause of of- fense was repeated. A certain Barbaro, one of the reign- ing class, asking something at the arsenal of an old sailor, an admiral higli in rank and in the love of the people, but not a patrician, who was not of his opinion, struck the THE MAKERS OP VENICE. 109 officer on the cheek, and wounded him with a great ring he wore. A siiiiihir incident occurred between a Dandolo and another sea captain, Bertuccio Isarello; and in both cases the injured men, old comrades very probably of Faliero, men whom he had seen representing the republic on stormy seas or boarding the Genoese galleys, carried their com- plaints to the doge. **Such evil beasts should be bound, and when they cannot be bound they are killed!" cried one of the irritated seamen. Such words were not un- known to the Venetian echoes. Not long before, a wealthy citizen, who in his youth had been of Bajamonte's insur- rection, had breathed a similar sentiment in the ears of another rich plebeian, after both had expressed theirindig- nation that the consiglio was shut against them. The second man in this case betrayed the first; and got the much coveted admission in consequence: he and his, while his friend made that fatal journey to the Piazzetta between the columns, from which no man ever came back. Old Faliero s heart burned within himat his own injuries and those of his old comrades. How he was induced to head the conspiracy, and put his crown, his life, and honor on the cast, there is no further information. His fierce temper, and the fact that he had no powerful house behind him to help to support his case, probably made him reck- less. It was in the April of 1355, only six months, after his arrival in Venice as doge, that the smoldering fire broke out. As happened always, two of the conspirators were seized witli a compunction on the eve of the catas- trophe and betrayed the plot — one with a merciful motive to serve a patrician beloved, the other with perhaps less noble intentions; and without a blow struck the conspiracy col- lapsed. There was no real heart in it, nothing to give it consistence: the hot passion of a few men insulted, the variable gaseous excitement of those wronged commoners who were not strong enough or strenuous enough to make the cause triumph under Bajamonte; and the ambition, if it wasambitiom, of one enraged and affronted old man, without an heir to follow him or anything that could make it worth his while to conquer. 110 THE MAKEIIS OF VENICE. Did Faliero ever expect to conquc^r, one wonders, when he embarked at seventy-seven on such an enterprise ? And if he had, what good could it have done him save vengeance upon his enemies ? An enterprise more wild was never undertaken. It was the passionate stand of despair against a force so overwhelming as to make mad the helpless yet not submissive victims. The doge, who no doubt in former days had felt it to be a mere affair of the populace, a thing with which a noble ambassador and proveditore had nothing to do, a struggle beneath his notice, found himself at last, with fury and amazement, to be a fellow-sufferer caught in the same toils. There seems no rejison to believe that Faliero consciously staked the remnant of his life on the forlorn hope of overcoming that awful and pitiless power, with any real hope of establishing his own supremacy. His aspect is rather that of a man betrayed by passion, and wildly forgetful of all possibility in his fierce attempt to free himself and get the upper hand. One cannot but feel, in that passion of helpless age and unfriendedness, some- tliing of the terrible disappointment of one to whom the real situation of affairs had never been revealed before; who had come home triumphant to reign like the doges of old, and only after the ducal cap w'as on his head and the palace of the state had become his home, found out that the doge, like the unconsidered plebeian, had been reduced to bondage, his judgements and experience put aside in favor of the deliberations of a secret tribunal, and the very boys, when they were nobles, at liberty to jeer at his declining years. The lesser conspirators, all men of the humbler sort— Calendario, the architect, who was then at work upon the palace, a number of seamen, and other little-known persons — were hung, not like greater*criminals, beheaded between the columns but strung up, a horrible fringe along the side of the palazzo, beginning at the two red pillars now forming part of the loggia, then apparently surporting the arches over a window from which the doge was accustomed to be- hold the performances in the Piazza. The fate of Faliero himself is too generally known to demand description. NK4R THE SAJITI APOBTOU. To f (tee page no. THE MAKEllS OF VKNIGK. Ul Calmed by the tragic touch of fate, the doge bore all the humilations of his doom with dignity, and was beheaded at the head of tlie stairs where he had sworn i\\Q promissione on first assuming tlie office of doge. (Not however, it need hardly be said, at the head of the Giants' Staircase, wliich was not then in being.) What a contrast from that trium- phant day wlien probably be felt that his reward liad come to him after the long and faithful service of years ! Death stills disappointment as well as rage : and Faliero is said to have acknowledged the justice of his sentence. He had never made any attempt to justifiy or defend himself, but frankly and at once avowed his guilt, and made no attempt to escape from its penalties. His body was conveyed privately to the church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, tlie great *'Zanipolo" with which all visitors to Venice are so familar, and was buried in secrecy and silence in the atrio of a little chapel behind the great church ; where no doubt for centuries the pavement was worn by many feet with little thought of who lay below. Even frorn that refuge in the course of these centuries his bones have been driven forth ; but his name remains in that corner of the hall of the Great Council which every body has seen or heard of, and where, with a certain dramatic affectation, the painter-historians have painted a black veil across the vacant place. "This is the place of Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes/' is all the record left of the doge disgraced. Was it a crime ? The question is one which it is diffi- cult to discuss with any certainty. That Faliero desired to establish, as so many had done in other cities, an inde- pendent despotism in Venice, seems entirely unproved. It was the prevailing fear, the one suggestion which alarmed everybody, and made sentiment unanimous. But one of the special points which are recorded by the chroniclers as working in him to madness, was that he was senzaparentado, without any backing of relationship or allies — sonless, with no one to come after him. How little likely, then, was an old man to embark on such a desperate venture for self- aggrandizement merely ! He had, indeed, a nephew who 1 12 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. was involved in his fate, but apparently not so deeply as to expose him to the last penalty of the law. The inci- dent altogether points more to a sudden outbreak of the rage and disappointment of an old public servant coming back from his weary labors for the state, in triumph and satisfaction to what seemed the supreme reward : and find- ing himself no more than a puppet in the hands of remorse- less masters, subject to the scoffs of the younger generation — supreme in no sense of the word, and with his eyes opened by his own suffering, perceiving for the first time what justice there was in the oft-repeated protest of the people, and how they and he alike were crushed under the iron heel of that oligarchy to which tlie power of the people and that of the prince was equally obnoxious. Tiie chroniclers of his time were so much at a loss to find any reason for such an attempt on the part of a man non abbirando alcum propinquo tliat they agree in attributing it to diabolical in- spiration. It was more probably that fury which springs from a sense of wrong, which the sight of the wrongs of others raised to frenzy, and that intolerable impatience of the impotent which is more rash in its hopelessness than the greatest hardihood. He could not but die for it ; but there seems no more reason to characterize this impossible attempt as deliberate treason than to give the same name to many an alliance formed between prince and people in other regions — the king and commons of our early Stuarts for one — against the intolerable exactions and cruelty of an aristocracy, too powerful to be faced by either alone. Francesco Foscari was a more innocent sufferer, and his story is a most pathetic and moving tale. Seventy years had elapsed since the dethronement and execution of Faliero, the fifteenth century was in its first quarter, and all the complications and crimes of that wonderful period were in full operation when the old Doge To*nmaso Mo- cenigo on his death -bed reviewed the probable competitors for his office, and warned the republic specially against Foscari. The others were all men da bene, but Foscari was proud and deceitful, grasping and prodigal, and if they elected him they would have nothing but wars. He was at THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 113 the same time, gravely adds one of the electors in the severe contest for his election, a man with a large family, and a young wife who added another to the number once a year; and therefore was likely to be grasping and covetous so far as money was concerned. Notwithstanding these evil prognostications the reign of Foscari was a great one and full of important events. He ful- filled the prophecy of his predecessor in so far that war was ARMS OF FAUERO. perpetual in his time, and the republic under him involved itself in all the contentions which tore Italy asunder, and, joining with the Florentines against the victorious Lord of Milan, Fillipo Maria Visconti, and having the good for- tune to secure Carmagnola for its general, became in its turn aggressive, and conquered town after town, losing, retaking, and in one or two instances securing permanently the sovereignty of great historic cities. Tlie story of the great soldiers of fortune, which is to a large extent the 114 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. story of the time, will be told in another chapter, and we need not attempt to discover wliat was the part of the doge in the tragedy of Oarmagnola. From the limitations of the prince's power which we have indicated it will however be evident enough that neither in making war nor in the remorseless punishment of treachery, whether real or supposed, could the responsi- bility rest with the doge, who could scarcely be called even the most important member of the courts over which he presided. It is not until the end of his brilliant career that Francesco Foscari separates himself from the roll of his peers in that tragic distinction of great suffering which impresses an image upon the popular memory more deeply than the greatest deeds can do. Notwithstanding the ref- erence quoted above to the alarming increase of his family, there was left within a few years, of his five sons, but one, Jacopo, who was no soldier nor statesman, but an elegant young man of his time, full of all the finery, both external and internal, of the Eenaissance, a Greek scholar and col- lector of manuscripts, a dilettante and leader of the golden youth of Venice, who were no longer as in the stout days of the republic trained to encounter the clang of arms and the uncertainties of the sea. The battles of Terra Firma were conducted by mercenaries, under generals who made of war a costly and long-drawn-out game ; and the young nobles of the day haunted the Broglio under the arches of the palazzo, or schemed and chattered in the ante-cham- bers, or spread their gay plumes to the sun in festas and endless parties of pleasure. When Jacopo Foscari was married the splendor of his marriage feast was such that even the gravest of historians, amid all the crowding inci- dents of the time, pauses to describe the wedding proces- sion. A bridge was thrown across the canal opposite the Foscari Palace, over which passed a hundred splendid young cavaliers on horseback, making such a show as must have held all Venice breathless, caracoling cautiously over the temporary pathway not adapted for such passengers, and making their way, one does not quite understand how, clanging and sliding along the stony ways, up and down TEE MAKERS OF VENICE, 115 the steps of the bridges to the Piazza, where a tournament was held in honor of the occasion. They were all in the finest of clothes, velvets and satins and cloth of gold, with wonderful calzey one leg white and the other red, and vari- ous braveries more fine than had ever been seen before. The bride went in all her splendor, silver brocade and jew- els sparkling in the sun, in a beautiful and graceful pro- cession of boats to San Marco. She was a Contarini, a neighbor from one of the great palaces on the same side. The palace of tiie Foscari as it now stands in the turn of the canal ascending toward the Rialto, had just been re- built by Doge Francesco in its present form, and was the center of all these festivities, the house of the bride being near, in the neighborhood of San Barnaba. No doubt the hearts of the Foscari and all their retainers must have been uplifted by the glories of a festa more splendid than had ever been given in Venice on such an occasion. But this brilliant sky soon clouded over. Only three years after Jacopo fell under suspicion of having taken bribes to promote the interests of various suitors, and to have obtained offices and pensions for them per hroglio : that is to say in the endless schemes, consultations, ex- changes, and social conspiracies of the general meeting- place, the Broglio, a name which stood for all the jobbing and backstairs influences which flourish not less in repub- lics than in despotisms. Against this offense when found out the laws were very severe, and Jacopo was sentenced to banishment to Naples where he was to present himself daily to the representative of the republic there — a curious kind of penalty according to our present ideas. Jacopo however fled to Trieste, where, happily for himself, he fell ill, and after some months was allowed to change his place of exile to Treviso, and finally on a pathetic appeal from the doge was pardoned and allowed to return to Venice. Three years afterward however a fatal event occurred, the assassination of one of the Council of Ten who had con- demned Jacopo, Ermolao Donato, who was stabbed as he left the palace after one of its meetings. The evidence which connected Jacopo with this murder seems of the 116 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. slightest. One of his servants, a certain Olivieri, met on the road to Mestre almost immediately after one of the house of Gritti, and being asked *•' what news" replied by an account of this assassination, a fact which was barely possible he could have heard of by common report before he left Venice. This was considered sufficient to justify the man^s arrest and examination by torture, which made him confess everything, Sanudo tells us. Jacopo, too, was exposed to this method of extorting the truth, but *' because of his bodily weakness, and of some words of i?i- cantation employed by him, the truth could not be obtained from his mouth, as he only murmured between his teeth certain unintelligible words when undergoing the torture of the rack." In these circumstances he had a mild sen- tence and was banished to the island of Candia. Here the exile, separated from all he loved and from all the refine- ments of the life he loved, was not long at rest. He took, according to one account, a singular and complicated method of further incriminating himself and thus procur- ing his return to Venice, if even to fresh examination and torture — by writing a letter to the Duke of Milan, against whom the republic had fought so long, asking his interces- sion with the signoria, a letter which he never intended to reach the person to whom it was addressed, but only to in- duce the jealous council to whom it was artfully betrayed, to recall him for further question : which at least in the middle of whatever sufferings would give his impatient heart a sigiit of those from whom he had been separated. That it should have been possible even to invent such a story of him conveys a kind of revelation of the foolish, hot-headed yet tender-hearted being, vainly struggling among natures so much too strong for him — which sheds the light of many another domestic tragedy upon this. The matter would seem however to have been more seri- ous, though Romanin's best investigations bring but very scanty proof of the graver accusation brought against the banished man : which was that of an attempt on Jacopo's part to gain his freedom by means of the sultan and the Genoese, the enemies of the republic. The sole document TEW MAKERS OF VENICE. 117 given in proof of this is a letter written by the council to tiie governor of Candia, in which the account of the attempt, given in his own communication to them, is re- peated in detail, of itself a somewhat doubtful proceeding. To say " You told us so and so,'' is seldom received as in- dependent proof of alleged facts. There are, however^ letters in cipher referred to, which may have given authen- tication to these accusations. Komanin, however, is so manifestly anxious to justify the authorities of Venice and to sweep away the romance which he declares to liave gath- ered about these terrible incidents, that the reader can scarcely avoid a certain reaction of suspicion against the too great warmth of the defense. Some personal touches may no doubt have been added by adverse historians to heighten the picture. But it would be wiser for even the patriotic Venetian to admit that, at least three times in that cruel century — in the case of the Carrari murdered in their prison, in that of Carmagnola beguiled into the cell from which he came out only to die, and in that of the unfortunate Foscari — that remorseless and all-powerful Council of Ten, responsible to no man, without any safe- guard even of publicity, who ^vere too much feared to be resisted and all whose proceedings were wrapped in seem- ing impenetrability, stands beyond the possibility of de- fense. There are few historians who do not find it neces- sary to acknowledge at some points that the most perfect of human governments has failed : but this the Vene- tian enthusiast — and all Venetians are enthusiasts — is ex- tremely reluctant to do. Poor Jacopo, with his weak mind and his weak body, and the lightness of nature which both friends and foes admitted, perhaps rejoicing in the success of his stratagem, perhaps troubled in the consciousness of guilt, but yet with a sort of foolish happiness anyhow in coming home, and hoping, as Buch sanguine people do, in some happy chance, that might make all right, was brought back in custody of one of the Ten, a Loredano, tlie enemy of his house, who had been sent to fetch him. It would seem that when the unfortune prisoner was brought before this awful tribunal, he con- 118 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. fessed everything, de piano ^ says Sanndo, spontmieamente, adds Romanin, probably forgetting the horrible torture- chamber next door, which Jacopo had too good reason to remember, and to avoid which, this easy-going and light- minded sinner, intent only upon seeing once again those whom he loved, would be ready enough to say whatever their illustrious worships pleased. The stern Loredano would have had him beheaded between the columns ; but even the Ten and their coadjutors were not severe enough for that ; and his sentence was only after all to be re-trans- ported to Candia and to spend a year in prison there — a sentence which makes any real and dangerous conspiracy on his part very unlikely. When the sentence was given, his prayer — to make which he had, as some say, thus risked his head — that he might see his family was laid before the court. The doge and all other relations had been during the proceedings against him excluded, according to the law, from the sittings of the Council ; so that the statement that he was sentenced by his father is pure romance. His petition was granted, and father and mother, wife, and children were permitted to visit the unfortunate. When the moment of farewell came, it was not in his prison, but in the apartments of the doge, that the last meeting took place. Poor Jacopo, always light-minded, never able ap- parently to persuade himself that all this miser}^ was in earnest, and could not be put aside by the exertions of somebody, made yet one more appeal to his father in the midst of the sobs and kisses of the unhappy family. '•'Father, I beseech you make them let me go home,'' he said, to the poor old doge, who knew too well how little he could do to help or succor. ^^ Padre, vi prego procure per mi die ritorni a casa mia ; " as if he had been a schoolboy caught in some trifling offense, with that invincible igno- rance of the true meaning of things which the Catholic Church with fine human instinct acknowledges as a ground of salvation. But it is not an argument which tells with men. ''Jacopo, go, obey the will of the country, and try no more," said the doge, with the simplicity of despair. No romance is needed to enchance the pathos of this scene. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 119 When the exile had departed pity would seem to have touched tlie heiirts of various spectators, and by tlieir ex- ertions, six months later his pardon was obtained. But too late. Before the news could reach him the unhappy Jacopo had gone beyond the reach of all human recall. The aged doge, the father of this unfortunate young man, liad been the head of the Venetian state through one of the most brilliant and splendid periods of its history. He had been always at war, as his predecessor had prophesied ; but his wars had been often victorious for the republic, and had added greatly, for the time at least, to her territories and dominion. Whether these acquisitions were of any real advantage to Venice is another question. They involved a constant expenditure of money such as is ruinous to most states, but the glory and the triumph were always delight- ful to her. Foscari had held the place of a great prince in the estimation of the world, and his life had been princely at home in every way that can affect the imagination and stimulate the pride of a nation ; he had received the greatest personages in Christendom, the emperors of the east and of the west, and entertained them royally to the gratification and pride of all Venice; he had beautified the city with new buildings and more commodious streets, he had made feasts and pageants more magnificent than ever had been seen before. But for the last dozen years of this large, princely, and splendid life a cloud had come over all its glory and prosperity. There are no lack of parallels to give the interested spectator an understanding of what a son such as Jacopo, so reckless, so light-minded, so incapable of any serious conception of the meaning of life and its risks and responsibilities, yet with so many claims in his facile, affectionate nature upon those who loved him — must have been to the father, proud of his many gifts, bowed down by his follies, watching his erratic course with sicken- ing terrors, angry, tender, indignant, pitiful, concealing his own disappointment and misery in order to protect and excuse and defend the son who was breaking his heart. The spectacle is always a sad one, but never rare : and the anguish of the father's silent watch, never knowing 120 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. what folly might come next, acutely feeling the fault and every reproof of the fault, his pride humbled, his name dis- graced, his every hope failing, but never the love that underlies all — is one of the deepest which can affect humanity. Foscari was over seventy when tliis ordeal began. Perhaps he had foreseen it even earlier : but when he made that most splendid of feasts at his son^s bridal, and saw him established with his young wife in the magnificent new palace, with his books and his manuscripts, his chival- rous and courtly companions, his Greek, the crown of ac- complishment and culture in his time, who could suppose that Jacopo would so soon be a fugitive and an exile ? The years between seventy and eighty are not those m which a a man is most apt to brave the effects of prolonged anxiety and sorrow, and Foscari was eighty-four when, after the many vicissitudes of this melancholy story, he bade Jacopo go and bear his sentence and try no more to elude it. When the news came six months after that his only son was dead — dead far away and alone, among strangers, just when a troubled hope had arisen that he might come back, and be wiser another time — the courage of the old doge broke down. He could no longer give his mind to the affairs of the state, or sit, a venerable image of sorrow, pa- tience, and self-control, at the head of the court which had persecuted and hunted to the death his foolish, be- loved boy. One can imagine how the very touch of the red robe of Loredano brushing by would burn to the heart of the old man who could not avenge himself, but in whom even the stillness of his age and the habit of self-command could not take away the recollection that there stood the man who had voted death between the columns for poor Jacopo's follies ! Who could wonder that he forbore to attend their meetings, and that in the bitterness of his heart it seemed not worth while to go on appearing to ful- fill an office, all the real power of which had been taken from his hands ? Thereupon there got up a low fierce murmur among the Ten; not too rapidly developed. They waited a month or two, marking all his absences and slackness before gathering THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 121 together to talk of matters secretissime concerning Messer lo Doge: they said to each other that it was a great incon- venience to the state to have a doge incapable of attending the councils and looking after the affairs of the repnblic; and that it was full time they should have a zonta or junta of nobles to help them to discuss the question. The law had been tliat in case of the absence (which often happened on state affairs) or illness of the doge, a vice-doge should be elected in his place; but of this regulation no heed was taken, and the issue of their deliberations was that a deputa- tion should be sent to the doge to desire him ^^spontan- eamente e libramente'^ to resign his office. Foscari had more than once in his long tenure of office proposed to re- tire, but his attempt at resignation had never been received by the Council. It is one thing to make such an offer, and quite another to have it proposed from outside; and when the deputation suddenly appeared in the sorrowful chamber where the old man sat retired, he refused to give them any immediate answer. For one thing it was not their busi- ness to make such a demand, the law requiring that the Consiglio Maggiore sliould be consulted, and should at least agree in, if not originate, so important an act. But the Ten had perhaps gone too far to draw back, and when the deputation returned without a definite reply, the cere- monial of waiting for the spontaneous and free dimissiou of the disgraced prince was thrown aside, and an intimation was made to him tliat his resignation was a matter of ne- cessity, and that if within eight days he had not left the palace his property would be confiscated. When this arbi- trary message was conveyed to him the old man attempted no further resistance. His ducal ring was drawn from his finger and broken to pieces in the presence of the depu- tation who had brought him these final orders, headed by his enemy Loredano — not, says the apologetic historian, because he was Foscari's enemy, which was a cruelty the noble Ten were incapable of, but because he was, after Fos- cari himself, the finest orator of the republic and most likely to put tilings in a good light! The ducal cap with its circlet of gold, the historical Corno, was taken from his 122 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. tremulous old liead, and a promise extracted that lie would at once leave the palace. The following incident is too touching not to be given in the words quoted by Romanin from the unpublished chronicles of Delfino. As the pro- cession of deputies filed away, the discrowned doge saw one of tliem, Jacopo Memmo, one of the heads of the Forty, look at him with sympathetic and compassionate eyes. The old man's lieart, no doubt, was full, and a longing for human fellowship must have been in him still. He called the man who gave him that friendly look and took him by the hand. * ** Whose son art thou?" (It is the Venetian vernacu- lar that is used, not ceremonious Italian, '* Di chi es tu fio?") I answered, '^I am the son of Marin Memmo.'' To which the doge — **He is my dear friend; tell him from me that it would be sweet to me if he would come and pay me a visit, and go with me in my bark for a little pleasure. We might go and visit the monasteries." It is difficult to read this simple narrative without a sym- pathetic tear. Despoiled of the vestments of his office which he had worn for thirty-four years, amid all the mag- nificence of one of the richest and most splendid states in the world, the old man pauses with a tremulous smile more sad than weeping, to make his last gracious invitation, the habit of his past sovereignty exercised once more, at once with sorrowful humor and that wistful turning to old friends which so often comes with trouble. If it had ever been accomplished, what a touching party of pleasure! the two old men in their iarco going forth a solazzo, mak- ing their way across the shining waters to San Giorgio, perhaps as far as San Servolo| if the weather were fine: for it was October, and no time to be lost before the win- ter set in for two old companions, eighty and more. But that voyage of pleasure never was made. The same day the doge left the palace where he had * *' Di chi es tu fio ? Rispose, lo son figlio di Messere Marin Mem- mo. Al chi il doxe, L'e mio caro compagno; dilli da mia parte che avero caro ch'el mi vegna a visitar, accio el vegna con mi in barca a solazzo ; andaremo a visitare i monastieri." TEE MAKERS OF VENICE, 123 spent so many years of glory and so many of sorrow, accom- panied by his old brother Marco, and followed sadly by his household and relations. '' Serenissimo/' said Marco Foscari, *'it is better to go to the boat by the other stair, which is covered." But the old doge held on in the direc- tion he had first taken. '' I will go down by the same stair which I came up when I was made doge," he said, much as Faliero had done. And then the mournful pro- cession rode away along tiie front of the palace, past all the boats that lay round the dogana, between the lines of great houses on either side of the canal, to the new shining palace scarcely faded from its first splendor where Jacopo sixteen years before had taken his bride. The house that has seen so many genenitions since and vicissitudes of life still stands there at its corner, tlie water sweeping round two sides of it, and tlie old gateway, merlato, in its ancient bravery, on the smaller canal beliind. This was on the 24th October, 1357. The new doge was elected on tlie 31st, and on the 1st November Francesco Foscari died. Tlie common story goes that the sound of the bell which announced the entry of his successor was the old man's final death blow, but it is unnecessary to add this somewhat coarse touch of popular effect to the pathetic story. The few days which elapsed between the two events were not too much for the operation of dying, which is sel- dom accomplislied in a moment. When the new prince and his court assembled in San Marco on All Saints' Day to mass, Andrea Donato, the old doge's son-in-law, came in and announced, no doubt with a certain solemn satisfaction and consciousness of putting tliese conspii-ators forever in the wrong, the death of Foscari. The councilors who had pursued him to his end looked at each other mute, with eyes, let us hope, full of remorse and shame. And he had a magnificent funeral, which is always so easy to bestow. T.'ie Corno was taken again from the head of the new doge to be put on the dead brows of the old, and he lay in state in the hall from which he had been expelled a week before, and was carried, with every magnificence the republic could give, to the noble church of the Frari, 124 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. witli tapers burning all the way, and every particular of solemn pomp that custom authorized. There belies under a weight of sculptured marble, bis sufferings all over for five hundred years and more; but never the story of his greatness, his wrongs, and sorrows, which last gave him such claims upoa the recollection of mankind as no mag- nificence nor triumph can bestow. ARMS OF FOSCARI. IHE MAKERh OF VENICE. 125 DEPARTURE OF MARCO POLO: FROM AN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT IN THE BODLEL^. PART II. BY SEA AND BY LAND. CHAPTER I. THE TRAVELERS : NICCOLO, MATTEO, AND MARCO POLO. In THE middle of the thirteenth century, two brothers of the Venetian family of Polo, established for a long time in the parish of San Giovanni Grisostomo, carrying on their business in the midst of all the tumults of the times as if there had been nothing but steady and peaceful commerce in the world, were at the head of a mercantile house at 126 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. Constantinople, probably the branch establishment of some great counting-house at Venice. These seem prosiac terms to use in a story so full of adventure and romance; yet no doubt they represent., as adequately as the changed aspect of mercantile life allows, the condition of affairs under which Niccolo and MatteoPolo exercised their vocation in the great Eastern capital of the world. Many Venetian merchants had established their warehouses and pursued the operations of trade in Constantinople in the security which the repeated treaties and covenants frequently referred to in previous chapters had gained for them, and which, under whatsoever risks of convulsion and rebellion, they had held since the days when first a Venetian Bailo — an officer more powerful than a consul, with something like the rights and privileges of a governor — was settled in Con- stantinople. But the ordinary risks were much increased at the time when the Latin dynasty was drawing near its last moments, and Paleologus was thundering at the gates. The Venetians were on the side of the falling race: their constant rivals the Genoese had taken that of the rising; and no doubt the position was irksome as well as dangerous to those who had been the favored nation, and once the conquerors and all potent-rulers of the great capital of the East. Many of the bolder spirits would no doubt be urged to take an active part in the struggle which was going on; but its effect upon Niccolo and Matteo Polo was different. The unsatisfactory state of affairs prompted them to carry their merchandise further East, where they had, it is sup- posed, already the standing-ground of a small establish- ment at Soldachia, on the Crimean peninsula. Perhaps, however, it is going too far to suppose that the commotions in Constantinople, and not some previously arranged ex- pedition with milder motives, determined the period of their departure. At all events the dates coincide. The two brothers set out in l$i60, when the conflict was at its height, and all the horrors of siege and sack were near at hand. They left behind them, it would appear, an elder brother still at the head of the family counting-house at Constantinople — and taking with them an easily carried THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 1^7 stock of jewels, went forth upon the unknown but hugely inhabited world of Central Asia, full, as they were aware, of wonders of primitive manufacture, carpets and rich stuffs, ivory and spices, furs and leather. The vast dim empires of the East, where struggles and conquests had been going on, more tremendous than all the wars of Europe, though under the veil of distance and barbarism uncomprehended by the civilized world, had been vaguely revealed by the messengers of Pope Innocent IV., and had helped the Crusaders at various points against their enemies the Sa racens. But neither they nor their countries were otherwise known when these two merchants set out. They plunged into the unknown from Soldachia, crossing the Sea of Azof, or traveling along its -eastern shores, and working their way slowly onward, sometimes lingering in the tents of a great chief, sometimes arrested by a bloody war which closed all passage, made their way at last to Bokhara, where all further progress seemed at an end, and where they remained three years, unable either to advance or to go back. ' Here, however, they had the good fortune to be picked up by certain envoys on their way to the court of ''the Great Khan, the lord of all the Tartars in the world" — sent by the victorious prince who had become master of the Levant, to tint distant and mysterious poten- tate. These ambassadors, astonished to see the Frankish travelers so far out of the usual track, invited the brothers to join them, assuring them that the Great Khan had never seen any Latins, and would give them an eager welcome. With this escort the two Venetians traveled far into the depths of the unknown land until they reached the city of Kublai Khan, that great prince shrouded in distance and mystery, whose name has been appropriated by poets and dreamers; but who takes immediate form and shape in the brief and abrupt narrative of his visitors, as a most courteous and gentle human being, full of endlesss curiosity and interest in all the wonders which these sons or Western civilization could tell him. The Great Khan received them with the most royal courtesy, and questioned them closely about their laws and rulers, and still more 128 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. about their religion, which seems to have excited the imagi- nation and pleased the judgment of this calmly impartial inquirer. No doubt the manners and demeanor of the Venetians, devout Catholics in all the fervor habitual to their age and city, recommended their faith. So much in- terested indeed was the Tartar prince that he determined to seek for himself and his people more authoritative teaching and to send his merchant visitors back with a petition to this purpose addressed to the pope. No more important mission was ever entrusted to any ambassadors. They were commissioned to ask from the head of the Church a hundred missionaries to convert the Tartar multitudes to Christianity. These were to be wise persons acquainted with the ** Seven Arts," well qualified to discuss and con- vince all men by force of reason that the idols whom they worshiped in their houses were things of the devil, and that the Christian law was better than those, all evil and false, which they followed. And above all, adds the simple narrative, '*he charged them to bring back with them some of the oil from the lamp which burns before the sepulcher of Christ at Jerusalem." The letters which were to be the credentials of this em- bassy were drawn out *Mn tlie Turkish language," in all likelihood by the Venetians themselres : and a Tartar chief, " one of his barons," was commissioned by the Great Khan to accompany them : he, however, soon shrank from the fatigues and perils of the journey. The Poll set out carry- ing with them a royal warrant, inscribed on a tablet of gold, commanding all men wherever they passed to serve and help them on their way. Notwithstanding this, it took them three years of travel, painful and complicated, before they reached Acre on their homeward — or rather Eomeward — journey. There they heard, to their consterna- rion, that the pope was dead. This was terrible news for the ambassadors, who doubtless felt the full importance of their mission. In their trouble they appealed to the high- est ecclesiastic near, the pontifical legate in Egypt, who heard their story with great interest, but pointed out to them that the only thing they could do was to wait till a THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 129 new pope was elected. This suggestion seems to have sat- istied tlieir judgment, although the conflict over that elec- tion must have tried any but a very robust faith. The Poll then concluded — an idea wliich does not seem to have struck them before — that having thus certain time vacant on their hands, they might as well employ it by going to see tlieir family in Venice. They had quitted their home apparently some fifteen years before, Niccolo having left his wife there, who gave birth to a son after his departure and subsequently died ; Colonel Yule suggests that the wife was dead before Niccolo left Venice, which would have given a certain explanation of the slight interest he showed in revisiting his native city. But at all events the brothers went home : and Niccolo found his child, whether born in his absence or left behind an infant, grown into a sprightly and interesting boy, no doubt a delightful dis- covery. They had abuudant time to renew their acquaint- ance with all their ancient friends and associations, for months went by and still no pope was elected, nor does there seem to have been any ecclesiastical authority to whom they could deliver their letters. Probably, in that time, any enthusiasm the two traders may have had for the great work of converting those wild and wonderful regions of the East had died away. Indeed, the project does not seem to have moved any one save to a passing wonder ; and all ecclesiastical enterprises were apparently suspended while conclave after conclave assembled and no result was attained. At length the brothers began to tire of inaction, and to remember that through all those years of silence Kublai Khan was looking for them, wondering perhaps what de- layed their coming, perhaps believing that their return home had driven all their promises from their memory, and that they had forgotten him and his evangelical de- sires. Stirred by this thought, they determined at last to return to their prince, and setting out, accompanied by young Marco, Niccolo's son, they went to Acre, where they betook themselves once more to the pious legate, Te- baldo di Piacenza, whom they had consulted on their 130 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. arrival. They first asked his leave to go to Jerusalem to fetch the oil from the holy lamp, the only one of the Great Khan^s commissions which it seemed possible to carry out; and then, with some fear apparently that their word miglit not be believed, asked him to give them letters, certifying that they had done their best to fulfill their errand, and had failed only in consequence of the strange fact there was no pope to whom their letters could be delivered. Provided with these testimonials they started on their long journey, but had only got as far as Lagos, on the coast of the then kingdom of Armenia, which was their point of entrance upon the wild and immense plains which they had to trav- erse, when the news followed them that the pope was a tlast elected, and was no other than their friend, the legate Te- baldo. A messenger, requesting their return to Acre, soon followed, and the brothers and young Marco returned with new hopes of a successful issue to their mission. But the new pope, Gregory X., though he received them with honor and great friendship, had not apparently a hundred wise men to give them, nor the means of sending out a lit- tle Christian army to the conquest of heathenism. All that he could do for them was to send with them two broth- ers of the order of S. J) omuuc f rati prediaotori to do what they could toward that vast work. But when the Domini- cans heard that war had broken out in Armenia, and that they had to ewcounter not only a fatiguing journey but all the perils of perpetual fighting along their route, they went no further than that port of Lagos beyond w^hich lay the unknown. The letters of privilege, indulgences, no doubt, and grants of papal favor to be distributed among the Tartar multitude, they transferred hastily to the sturdy merchants — who were used to fighting as to most other dan- gerous things, and had no fear — and ignominiously took their flight back to the accustomed and known. It is extraordinary, looking back upon it, to think of the easy relinquishment of such a wonderful chance as this would seem to have been. Pope and priests were all oc- cupied with their own affairs. It was of more importance in their eyes to quell the Ghibeliines than to convert and THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 131 civilize the Tartars. And perhaps, considering that even an infallible pope is but a man, this was less wonderful than it appears : for Kublai Khan was a long way off, and very dim and undiscernible in his unknown steppes and strange primeval cities — whereas tlie emperor and his supporters were close at hand, and very sensible thorns in consecrated flesh. It seems somewhat extraordinary how- ever that no young monk or eager preacher caught fire at the suggestion of such an undertaking. Some fifty years before Fra Francisco from Assisi, leaving his new order and all its cares, insisted upon being sent to the Soldamto see whetlier he could not forestall the Crusaders and make all the world one, by converting that noble infidel — which seemed to him the straightfoward and simple thing to do. If Francis had but been there with his poor brothers, vowed to every humiliation, the lovers of poverty what a mission for them! — a crusade of the finest kind, with every augury of success, though all the horrors of the steppes, wild winters and blazing summers, and swollen streams, and fighting tribes lay in their way. And had the hundred wise men ever been gathered together, what a pilgrinijige for minstrel to celebrate and story-teller to write, a new expedition of the saints, a holier Israel in the desert ! But nothing of the kind came about. The two papal envoys, who had been the first to throw light upon those kingdoms beyond the desert, had no successors in tiie later half of the century. And with only young Marco added to their band, the merchant brothers returned, per- haps a little ashamed of their Christian rulers, perhaps chiefly interested about the reception they would meet with, and whether the great Kublai would still remember his luckless ambassadors. The journey back occupied once more three years and a half. It gives us a strange glimpse into the long intervals of silence habitual to primitive life to find that these mes- sengers, without means of communicating any information of their movements to their royal patron, were more than eight years altogether absent on the mission, from which they returned with so little success. In our own days 152 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. their very existence would probably have been forgotten in such a long lapse of interest. Let us hope that the holy oil from the sepulcher, the only thing Christianity could send to the inquiring heathen, was safely kept, in some precious bottle of earliest glass from Murano, or polished stone less brittle than glass, through all the dangers of the journey. Thus the Poli disappeared again into the unknown for many additional years. Letters were not rife anywhere in those days, and for them, lost out of the range of civiliza- tion, though in the midst of another full and busy world, with another civilization, art, and philosophy of its own, there was no possibility of any communication with Venice or distant friends. It is evident that they sat very loose to Venice, having perhaps less personal acquaintance with the city than most of her merchant adventurers. Niccolo and Matteo must have gone to Constantinople while still young — and Marco was but fifteen when he left the lagoons. They had apparently no ties of family tenderness to call them back, and custom and familiarity had made the strange world around, and the half savage tribes, and the primitive court with its barbaric magnificence, pleasant and interesting to them. It was nearly a quarter of a century before they appeared out of the unknown again. By that time the Casa Polo in San Grisostomo had ceased to think of its absent members. In all likelihood they had no very near relations left. Father and mother would be dead long ago : the elder brother lived and died in Con- stantinople : and there was no one who looked with any warm expectation for the arrival of the strangers. When there suddenly appeared at the gate of the great family house full of cousins and kinsmen one evening in the year 1295, about twenty-four years after their departure, three wild and travel -worn figures, in coats of coarse homespun like those worn by the Tartars, the sheep-skin collars mingling with the long looks and beards of the wearers, their com- plexions dark with exposure, their half -forgotten mother tongue a little uncertain on their lips — who could believe that these were Venetian gentlemen, members of an im- THE MAKERS OF VENICE 133 portant family in the city which liad forgotten them ? The three unknown personages arrived suddenly, without any warning, at their ancestral home. One can imagine the commotion in the courtyard, the curious gazers who would come out to the door, the heads that would gather DOORWAY, MARCO POLO'S HOUSE. at every window, when, it became known through the house that these wild strangers claimed to belong to it, to be in some degree its masters, the long disappeared kinsmen whose portion perhaps by this time had fallen into hands very unwilling to let it go. The doorway which still exists in the Corte della Sabbionera, in the 134 THE MAKERS OF VEmCE. depths of the cool quadrangle, with its arch of Byzantine work, and the cross above, which every visitor in Venice may still see when he will, behind San Grisostoino, is as tradition declares, the very door at which the travelers knocked and parleyed. The house was then — according to the most authentic account we have, that of Ramusio — U7i hellissimo e molto alto palazzo. Absolute authenticity it is perhaps impossible to claim for the story. But it was told to Ramusio, who flourished in the fifteenth century, by an old man, a distinguished citizen who, and whose race, had been established for generations in the same parish in the immediate vicinity of the Casa Polo, and who had heard it from his predecessors there, a very- trustworthy source of information. The family was evidently well off and important, and, in all probability, noble. •' In those days," says Colonel Yule, making with all his learning a mistake for once, *^ the demarcation between patrician and non-patrician at Venice, where all classes snared in commerce, all were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither castles, domains, nor trains of horsemen, formed no very wide gulf." This is an astounding statement to make in the age of Bajamonte's great conspiracy : but as Marco Polo is always spoken of as noble, no doubt his family belonged to the privileged class. The heads of the house gathered to the door to question the strange applicants, **for, seeing them so transfigured in countenance and disordered in dress, they could not believe that tliese were those of the Ca' Polo who had been believed dead for so many and so many years." The strangers had great trouble even to make it understood who they claimed to be. '^ But at last these three gentlemen conceived the plan of making a bargain that in a certain time they should so act as to recover their identity and the recognition of their relatives, and honor from all the city." The expedient they adopted again reads like a scene out of the " Arabian Nights." They invited all their relatives to a great ban- quet which was prepared with much magnificence ^' in the same house," says the story-teller : so that it is evident THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 135 tliey must already have gained a certain credence from their own nearest relations. When tlie hour fixed for tlie banquet came, the following extraordinary scene oc- curred : " The three came out of their chamber dressed in long robes of crimson satin, according to the fashion of the time, which touched the ground. And when water had been offered for their hands, they placed their guests at table, and then taking off their satin robes put on rich damask of the same color, ordering in the meanwhile that the first should be divided among the servants. Then after eating some- thing (no doubt a first course), they rose from table and again changed their dress, putting on crimson velvet, and giving as before the dam- ask robes to the servants, and at the end of the repast they did the same with the velvet, putting on garments of ordinary cloth such as their guests wore. The persons invited were struck dumb with astonishment at these proceedings. And when the servants had left the hall, Messer Marco, the youngest, rising from the table, went into his chamber and brought out the three coarse cloth surcoats in which they had come home. And immediately the three began with sharp knives to cut open the seams, and tear off the lining, upon which there poured forth a great quantity of precious stones, rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, which had been sewed into each coat with great care, so that nobody could have sus- pected that anything was there. For on parting with the Great Khan they had changed all the wealth he bestowed upon them into precious stones, knowing certainly if they had done otherwise they never could by so long and difficult a road have brought their property home in safety. The exhibition of such an extraordinary and infinite treas- ure of jewels and precious stones which covered the table, once more filled all present with such astonishment that they were dumb and almost beside themselves with surprise : and they at once recognized these honored and venerated gentlemen of the Ca' Polo, whom at first they had doubted, and received them with the greatest honor and reverence. And when the story was spread abroad in Venice, the entire city, both nobles and people rushed to the house to embrace them, and to make every demonstration of loving kindness and re- spect that could be imagined. And Messer Matteo, who was the eldest, was created one of the most honored magistrates of the city, and all the youth of Venice resorted to the house to visit Messer Marco, who was most humane and gracious, and to put questions to him about Cathay and the Great Khan, to which he made answer with so much benignity and courtesy that they all remained hisdebtors. And because in the continued repetition of his story of the grandeur of the Great Khan he stated the revenues of that prince to be from ten to fifteen 136 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. millions in gold, and counted all the other wealth of the country always in millions, the surname was given him of Marco Millione. which may be seen noted in the public books of the republic. And the courtyard of his house from that time to this has been vulgarly called the Corte Millione." It is scarcely possible to imagine that the narrator of the above .wonderful story was not inspired by the keenest humorous view of human nature and perception of the character of liis countrymen, when he so gravely describes the effectual arguments which lay in the gioie preciosissime, the diamonds and sapphires which his travelers had sewed up in their old clothes, and which according to all the laws of logic were exactly fitted to procure their recognition " as honored and venerated gentlemen of the Ca' Polo." The scene is of a kind which has always found great ac-j ceptance in primitive romance : the cutting asunder of the laden garments, the ripping up of their seams, the drawing forth of one precious little parcel after another amid the wonder and exclamations of the gazing spectators, are all familiar incidents in traditionary story. But in the pres- ent case this was quite a reasonable and natural manner of conveying the accumuhitions of a long period through all tlie perils of a three years' journey from far Cathay ; and there is nothing at all unlikely in the miraculous story, which no doubt would make a great impression upon the crowded surrounding population, and linger, an oft- repeated tale, in the alleys about San Giovanni Grisostomo and along the Eio, where everybody knew the discreet and sensible family which had the wit to recognize and fall upon the necks of their kinsmen, as soon as they knew how rich they were. The other results that ensued — the rush of golden youth to see and visit Marco, who, though no longer young, was the young man of the party, and their questions, and the jeer of the new mocking title Marco Millione — follow the romance with natural human incredulity and satire and laughter. It is true, and proved by at least one public document, that the gibe grew into serious use, and that even the gravest citizens forgot after THE MAKERS OP VENICE. 137 a time that Marco of the Millions was not the traveler's natural and sober name. Tliere was at least one otiier house of the Poli in Venice, and pernaps there were other Marcos from whom it was well to distinguish him of San Grisostomo. It would seem clear enough, however, from this, that these travelers' tales met with the fate that so often attends the marvelous narratives of an explorer. Marco's Great Khan, far away in the distance as of another world, the harbarian purple and gold of Kublai's court, the great cities out of all mortal ken, as the young men in their mirth supposed, the incredible wonders that peopled that remote and teeming darkness, which the primitive imagination could not believe in asforming part of its own narrow little universe — must have kept one generation at least in amuse- ment. No doubt the sunbrowned traveler had all that desire to instruct and surprise his hearers which came natural to one who knew so much more tlian they, and was capable of being endlessly drawn out by any group of young idlers who might seek his company. They would thread their way through the labyrinth of narrow passages with all their mediaeval bravery, flashing along in parti- colored hose and gold-embroidered doublets on their way from the Broglio to get a laugh out of Messer Marco — who was always so ready to commit himself to some new prodigy. But after awhile the laugh died out in the grave troubles that assailed the republic. The most dreadful war that had ever arisen between Venice and Genoa had raged for some time, through various vicissitudes, when the city at last determined to send out such an expedition as should at once overwhelm all rivalry. This undertaking stirred every energy among the population, and both men and money poured in for the service of the commonwealth. There may not be any authentic proof of Colonel Yule's suggestion, that Marco Polo fitted out, or partially fitted out, one of the boats, and mounted his own flag at the mastliead, when it went into action. But the family were assessed at the value of one or more galleys, and he was certainly a 138 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. volunteer in the fleet, a defender of his country in the terrible warfare which was draining all her resources. The battle of Curzola took place in September, 1298, and it ended in a complete and disastrous defeat for the Venetians. Of the ninety-seven galleys which sailed so bravely out of Venice, only seventeen miserable wrecks found refuge in the shelter of the lagoons, and the admiral and the greater part of the survivors, men shamed and miserable, were carried prisoners to Genoa with every demonstration of joy and triumph. The admiral, as has already been said, was chained to his own mast in barbarous exultation, but managed to escape from the triumph of iiis enemies by dashing his head against the timber, and dying thus before they reached port. Marco Polo was among the rank and file who do not permit themselves such luxuries. Among all the wonder- ful things he had seen, he could never have seen a sight at once so beautiful and so terrible as the great semicircle of the Bay of Genoa, crowded with the exultant people, gay with every kind of decoration, and resounding with applause and excitement when the victorious galleys with their wretched freight sailed in. No doubt in the Tartar wastes he had longed many a time for intercourse with his fellows, or even to see the face of some compatriot or Christian amid all the dusky faces and barbaric customs of the countries he had described. But now what a revelation to him must have been the wild passion and savage delight of those near neighbors with but the width of a European peninsula between them, and so much hatred, rancor, and fierce antagonism! Probably, however, Marco, having been born to hate the Genoese, was occupied by none of these sentimental reflections; and knowing how he himself and all his countrymen would have cheered and shouted had Doria been the victim instead of Dandolo, took his dun- geon and chains, and the intoxication of triumph with which he and his fellow prisoners were received, as matters of course. He lay for about a year, as would appear, in this Genoese prison; and here, probably for the first time, his endless THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 139 tales of the wonders he had seen and known first fulfilled the blessed office of story-telling, and became to the crowded prison a fountain of refreshment and new life. To all these unfortunate groups, wounded, sick, especially sick for home, humiliated and forlorn, with scarcely anything wanting to complete the round of misery, what a solace in the tedium of the dreary days, what a help to get through the lingering time, and forget their troubles for a moment, must have been this companion, burned to a deeper brown than even Venetian suns and seas could give, whose memory was inexhaustible, who day by day had another tale to tell, who set before them iiew scenes, new people, a great, noble open-hearted monarch, and all the quaint habits and modes of living, not of one, but of a hundred tribes and nations, all different, endless, original! All the poor expedients to make the time pass, such games as they might have, such exercises as were possible, even the quarrels which must have risen to diversify the flat and tedious hours, could bear no comparison with this fresh source of entertainment, the continued story carried on from day to day, to which tlie cramped and weary prisoner might look forward as he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes to a new unwelcome morning. If any one among these prisoners remembered then the satire of the golden youth, the laughing nickname of the Millione, he had learned by that time what a public benefactor a man is who has something to tell: and the traveler who perhaps had never found out how he had been laughed at had thus the noblest revenge. Among all these wounded, miserable Venetians, however, there was one whose presence there was of more immediate importance to the world — a certain Pisan, an older inhabi- tant than they of these prisons, a penniless derelict, for- gotten perhaps of his own city, with nobody to buy him out — Rusticiano a poor poetaster, a rusty brother of the pen, who had written romances in his day, and learned a little of the cnift of authorship. What a wonderful treasure was this fountain of strange story for a poor mediaeval literary man to find in his dungeon! The scribbler seems to have seiaed at once by instinct upon the man who for once 140 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. in his life could furnish him with something worth telling, Rusticiano saw his opportunity in a moment, with an exultation which he could not keep to himself. It was not in his professional nature to refrain from a great fan- fare and flourish, calling upon heaven and earth to listen. ^' Signoriimperatori e re, duchi, emarchesi, conti, cavalieri, principi, baroni/' he cries out, as he did in his romances. *^ Oh, emperors and kings! oh, dukes, princes, marquises, barons and cavaliers, and all who delight in knowing the different races of the world, and the variety of countries, take this book and read it!" Tliis was the proper way, according to all his rules, to present himself to the public. He makes his bow to them like a showman in front of his menagerie. He knows, too, tlie language in which to catch the ear of all these fine people, so that every noble may desire to have a copy of this manuscript to cheer his house- hold in the lingering winter, or amuse the poor women at their embroidery while the men are at the wars. For, according to all evidence, wiiat the prisoner of Pisa took down from the lips of the Venetian in the dungeons of Genoa was written by him in curious antique French, corrupted a little by Italian idioms, the most universal of all the languages of the western world. Nothing can be more unlike than those flourishes of Rusticiano by way of preface, and the simple strain of the unvarnished tale when Messer Marco himself begins to speak. And the circum- stance of these two Italians employing another living language in which to tell their wonderful story is so curious that many other theories have been set forth on the subject, though none which are accepted by the best critics as worthy of belief. One of the earliest of these, Ramusio, pronounces strongly in favor of a Latin version. Marco had told his stories over and over again, this historian says, with such effect that '^seeing the great desire that everybody had to hear about Cathay and the Gi'eat Khan, and being compelled to begin again every day, he was advised that it would be well to commit it to writing" — which was done by the dignified medium of a Genoese gentleman, who took the trouble to procure from Venice all THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 141 the notes which the three travelers had made of their journeys: and tlien compiled in Latin, according to the custom of the learned, a continuous narrative. But the narrative itself and everything that can be discovered about it are wholly opposed to this theory. There is not the slightest appearance of notes worked into a permanent record. The story has evidently been taken down from the lips of a somewhat discursive speaker, with all the breath and air in it of oral discourse. *' This is enough upon that matter; now I will tell you of something else." ** Now let us leave the nation of Mosul and I will tell you about the great city of Baldoc." So the tale goes on, with interrup- tions, with natural goings back — *' But first I must tell you " "Now we will go on with the other." While we read we seem to sit, one of the eager circle, listening to the story of these wonderful unknown places, our interest quickened here and there by a legend — some illustration of the prolonged conflict between heathen and Christian, or the story of some prodigy accomplished: now that of a grain of mustard seed which the Christians were defied to make into a tree, now a curious eastern version of the story of the Three Magi. These episodes have all the characteristics of the ordinary legend; but the plain and simple story of what Messer Marco saw and heard, and the ways of the unknown populations among whom he spent his youth, are like nothing but what they are — a narrative of facts, with no attempt to throw any fictitious interest or charm about them. No doubt the prisoners liked the legends best, and the circle would draw closer, and the looks become more eager, when the story ran of Prester John and Genghis Khan, of the Old Man of the Mountain, or of how the Calif tested the faith of the Christians. When all this began to be committed to writ- ing, when Rusticiano drew his inkhorn, and pondered his French, with a splendor of learning and wisdom which no doubt appeared miraculous to the spectators, and the easy narrative flowed on a sentence a time, with a half-a-dozen eager critics ready no doubt to remind the raconteur if he varied a word of the often told tale, what an interest for 142 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. that melancholy crowd! How they must have peered over each other's shoulders to see the miraculous manuscript, with a feeling of pleased complacency as of a wonderful thing in which they themselves had a hand! No doubt it was cold in Genoa in those sunless dungeons the weary winter through; but so long as Messer Marco went on with his stories and he of Pisa wrote, with his professional arti- fices, and his sheet of vellum on his knee, what endless en- tertainment to beguile dull care away! The captivity lasted not more than a year, and our traveler returned home, to where the jest still lingered about the man with the millions, and no one mentioned him without a smile. He would not seem to have disturbed himself about this — indeed, after that one appearance as a fighting man, with its painful consequences, he would seem to have retired to his home as a peaceful citizen, and awoke no echoes any more. He might perhaps be dis- couraged by the reception his tale had met with, even though there is no evidence of it ; or perhaps that tacit assent to a foolish and wrong popular verdict, which the instructers of mankind so often drop into with a certain indulgent contempt as of a thing not worth their while to contend against, was in his mind, who knew so much better than his critics. At all events it is evident that he did nothing more to bring himself to the notice of the world. It was in 1299 that he returned to Venice — on the eve of all those great disturbances concerning the serrata of the Council, and of the insurrections which shook the republic to its foundation. But in all this, Marco of the Millions makes no appearance. He who had seen so much, and to whom the great Kublai was the finest of imperial images, most likely looked on with an impartiality beyond the reach of most Venetians at the internal strife, knowing that revo- lutions come and go, while the course of human life runs on much the same. And besides, Marco was noble, and lost no privilege, probably indeed sympathized with the effort to keep the canaille down. He married in these peaceful years, in the obscurity of a quiet life, and had three daughters only, Faustina, Bellela, THE MAKElliS OF VENICE. 143 and Moretta : no son to keep up tlie tradition of the adventurous race, a thing which happens so often when a family has come to its climax and can do no more. He seems to have kept up in some degree his commercial character, since there is a record of a hiw-suit for the re- covery of some money of which he had heen defrauded by an agent. But only once does he appear in the character of an author responsible for his own story. Attached to two of the earliest manuscript copies of his great book, ono preserved in Paris and the other in Berne, are MS. notes, apparently quite authentic, recording the circumstances under which he presented a copy of the work'to a noble French cavalier who passed through Venice while in the service of Charles of Valois in the year 1307. The note is as follows : "This is the book of which my Lord Thiebault, Knight and Lord of Cepoy (whom may God assoil !), requested a copy from Sire Marco Polo, citizen and resident in the city of Venice. And the said Sire Marco Polo, being a very honorable person of high character and report in many countries, because of his desire that what he had seen should be heard throughout the world, and also for the honor and reverence he bore to the most excellent and puissant Prince, my Lord Charles, son of the King of France, and Count of Valois, gave and presented to the aforesaid Lord of Cepoy the first copy of his said book that was made after he had written it. And very pleasing it was to him that his book should be carried to the noble country of France by so worthy a gentle- man. And from the copy which the said Messire Thiebault, Sire de Cepoy above-named, carried into France, Messire John, who was his eldest son and is the present Sire de Cepoy, had a copy made after his father's death, and the first copy of the book that was made after it was brought to France he presented to his very dear and dread Lord, Monseigneur de Valois ; and afterward to his friends who wished to have it This happened in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and seven, and in the month of August. " This gives a pleasant opening through the mist of ob- scurity which had fallen over the Ca' Polo. Tf Messer Marco was illustrious enough to be sought out by a young stranger of Thiebault's rank and pretensions, then his labors had not been without their reward. It is possible, however. 144 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. that the noble visitor might have been taken to see one of the amusing personages of the city, and with the keenness of an unaccustomed eye might liave found out for himself that Messer Marco of the Millions was no braggard, but a remarkable man with a unique history. In any case, the note is full of interest. One can imagine how the great traveler's eye and his heart would brighten when he saw that the noble Frenchman understood and believed, and how he would turn from the meaning smile and mock re- spect of his own countrymen to the intelligent interest of the newcomer who could discriminate between truth and falsehood." '^Et moiiU lui estoit agreaUe quant par si preudomme estoit avanciez et portez es nobles parties de France J' The final record of his will and dying wishes is the only- other document that belongs to the history of Marco Polo. He made this will in January, 1323, ''finding myself to grow daily weaker through bodily ailment, but being by the grace of God of sound mind, and senses and judgment unimpaired,^' and distributing his money among his wife and daughters whom he constitutes his executors, and various uses of piety and charity. He was at this time about sixty-nine, and it is to be supposed that his death took place shortly after — at least that is the last we know of him. His father, who had died many years before, had been buried in the atrio of San Lorenzo, where it is to be supposed Messer Marco also was laid: but there is no cer- tainty in this respect. He disappears altogether from the time his will is signed, and all his earthly duties done. It is needless here to enter into any description of his travels. Their extent and the detailed descriptions he gives at once of the natural features of the countries, and of their manners and customs, give them, even to us, for whose instruction so many generations of travelers have labored since, a remarkable interest; how much more to those to whom that wonderful new world was as a dream! The reason why he observed so closely and took so much pains to remember everything he saw is very characteristically told in the book itself. The THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 145 young Venciian to whom the Great Khan had no doubt been held np during the three years' long journey as an object of boundless veneration, whose favor was the sum of existence to his fatiier and uncle, observed that potentate and his ways when they reached their desti- nation with the usual keen inspection of youth, lie per- ceived the secret of the charm which had made these Latin merchants so dear to Prince Kublai, in the warm and eager interest which he took in all the stories that could be told him of other countries and their government, and the habits of their people. The young man remarked that when ambassadors to the neighboring powers came back after discharging their misiion, the prince listened with impatience to the reports which contained a mere account of their several errands and nothing else, saying that it would have pleased him more to have heard news of all they had seen, and a description of unknown or strange customs which had come under their observation. Young Marco laid the lesson to heart, and when he was sent upon an em- bassy, as soon happened, kept his eyes about him, and told the monarch on his return all the strange things he had seen, and whatever he heard that was marvelous or remark- able; so that all who heard him wondered, and said, '*If this youth lives he will be a man of great sense and worth." It is evident throughout the book that the Venetians were no mere mercenaries, but had a profound regard and admir- ation for the great, liberal, friendly monarch, who had received them so kindly, and lent so ready an ear to all they could tell, and that young Marco had grown np in real affection and sympathy for his new master. Indeed, as we read, we recognize, through all the strangeness and distance, a countenance and person entirely human in this half savage Tartar, and find him no mysterious voluptuary like the Kublai Khan of the poet, but a cordial, genial, friendly human being, glad to know about all his fellow creatures, whoever they might be, taking the most whole- some friendly interest in everything, ready to learn and eager to know. One wonders what he thought of the slack- ness of the Christian powers who would send no men tc 146 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. teach him the way of salvation: of the shrinking of the teachers themselves who were afraid to dare the dangers of the way: and what of that talisman they had brought him, the oil from the holy lamp, which he had received with joy. It was to please him that Marco made -his observations, noting everything — or at least, no doubt the young am- bassador believed that his sole object was to please his mas- ter when he followed the characteristic impulses of his own inquisitive and observant intelligence. Since his day, the world then unknown has opened up its secrets to many travelers, the geographer, the explorer, and those whose study lies among the differences of race and the varieties of humanity. The curious, the wise, the missionary and the merchant, every kind of visitor has essayed in his turn to lift the veil from those vast spaces and populations and to show us the boundless multitudes and endless deserts, which lay, so to speak, outside the world for centuries, unknown to this active atom of a Europe, which has monopolized civilization for itself ; but none of them, with all the light of centuries of accumu- lated knowledge, have been able to give Marco Polo the lie. Colonel Yule, his last exponent in England, is no enthusiast for Marco. He speaks, we think without reason, of his "hammering reiteration," his lack of humor, and many other characteristic nineteenth century objections. But when all is done, here is the estimate which this im- partial critic makes of him and his work: " Surely Marco's real, indisputable, and in fheir kind unique, claims to glory may suffice. He was tlie first traveler to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes, the deserts of Persia, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of Beloochistan, the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the Mongolian steppes, cradle of the power which had so lately threatened to swallow up Christendon, the new and brilliant court that had been established at Cambaluc : the first traveler to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty ruins, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population ; the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters ; to tell us of the nations on its borders, with all THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 147 their eccentricities of manners and worship : of Thibet with its sordid devotees, of Burniah with its golden pagodas and their tink- ling crowns, of Caos, of Siani, of Cochin-China, of Japan, the East- ern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces : the first to speak of that museum of beauty and wonder, the Indian Archipelago, source of the aromatics then so prized and whose origin was so dark ; of Java, the pearl of islands : of Sumatra, with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races ; of the naked savage of Nicobar and Andaman ; of Ceylon, the isle of gems, with its sacred mountain and its tomb of Adam ; of India the great, not as a dreamland of Alexandrian fables, but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmins, its obscure ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquistion, its seabeds of pearls, and its powerful sun ; the first in mediaeval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, and the semi-Christian isle of Socotra ; to speak, though indeed dimly, of Zanzibar with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant Madagascar bordering on that dark ocean of the South, and in a remotely opposite region, of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, of dog sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses." We get to tlie end of this sentence with a gasp of ex- hausted breath. But though it may not be an example of style (in a writer who has no patience with our Marco^s plainer diction) it is a wonderful resume of one man's work, and that a Venetian trader of the thirteenth cen- tury. His talk of the wonders he had seen, which amused and pleased the lord of all the Tartars in the world, and charmed the dreary hours of the prisoners in the dungeons of Genoa, an audience so different, is here for us as it came from his lips in what we may well believe to be the self-same words, with the same breaks and interruptions, the pauses and digressions which are all so natural. The story is so wonderful in its simplicity of spoken discourse that it is scarcely surprising to know that the Venetian gallants jeered at the Man of the Millions ; but it is still full of interest, a book not to be despised should it ever be the reader's fate to be shut up in any dungeon, or in a desolate island, or other enforced seculsion. And not all the flood of light that has been poured since upon these unknown lands, not the progress of science or evolu- tion, or any great development of the last six hundred 148 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. years, lias proved Messer Marco to have been less than trustworthy and true. Meanwhile the archway in the Corte della Sabbionera, in its crowded corner behind San Grisostomo, is all that remains in Venice of Marco Polo. He has his (imaginary) bust in the loggia of the ducal palace, along with many another man who has less right to such a distinction : but even his grave is unknown. He lies probably at San Lorenzo among the nameless bones of his fathers, but even the monument his son erected to Niccolo has long ago dis- appeared. The Casa Polo is no more: the name extinct, the house burned down except that corner of it. It would be pleasant to see restored to the locality at least the name of the Corte Millione, in remembrance of all the wonders he told, and of the gibe of the laughing youths to whom his marvelous tales were first unfolded : and thus to have Kublai Khan's millions once more associated with his faithful ambassador's name. INSCRIPTION ON PILLAR IN ARSENAL, THE FIRST ERECTED. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 149 CHAPTER II. A POPULAR HERO. About seventy years after the events above recorded, in the later half of the fourteenth century, there occurred a crisis in the life of tlie Venetian republic of a more alarming and terrible character tlian had ever been caused before by misfortunes external or internal. Since those early times when the fugitive fathers of the state took refuge in the marshes and began to raise their miraculous city out of the salt pools and mud-banks, that corner of the Adriatic hnd been safe from all external attacks. A raid from Aquileia, half ecclesiastical, half warlike, had occurred by times in early days, threatening Gradooreven Torcello, but nothing which it gave the city any trouble to overcome. The Greek with all his wiles had much ado to keep her conquering galleys from his coasts, and lost island after island without a possibility of reprisals. The Dalmatian tribes kept her in constant irritation and disturbance, yet were constrained over again to own her mistress of the sea, and never affected her home sovereignty. The Turk himself, the most ap- palling of invaders, though his thunders were heard near enough to arouse alarm and rage, never got within sight of the wonderful city. It was reserved for her sister re- public, born of the same mother, speaking the same language, moved by the same instincts, Genoa, from the other side of the peninsula, the rival from her cradle of the other sea-born state, to make it possible, if but for one moment, that Venice might cease to be. This was during the course of the struggle called by some of the chroniclers the fourth, by others the seventh, Genoese J 50 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. war — a struggle us causeless and as profitless as all the wars between the rivals were, resulting in endless misery and loss to both, but nothing more. The war in question arose nominally, as they all did, from one of the convul- sions which periodically tore the empire of the East asunder, and in which the two trading states, the rival merchants, seeking every pretense to push their traffic, instinctively took different sides. On the present occasion it was an Andronicus who had dethroned and imprisoned his father, as on a former occasion it had been an Alexius. Venice was on the side of the injured father, Genoa upon that of the usurping son — an excellent reason for flying at each other^'s throats wherever that was practi- cable, and seizing each other's stray galleys on the high seas, when there was no bigger fighting on hand. It is curious to remark that the balance of success was with Genoa in the majority of these struggles, although that state was neither so great nor so consistently independent as that of Venice. Our last chapter recorded the complete and ignominious rout of the great Venetian squadron in which Marco Polo was a volunteer, in the beginning of the century ; and seventy years later (1379) the fortune of war was still the same. In distant seas the piracies and lesser triumphs of both powers maintained a sort of waver- ing equality : but when it came to a great engagement Genoa had generally the upper hand. The rival republic was also at this period reinforced by many allies. The Carrarese, masters of Padua and all the rich surrounding plains, the nearest neighbors of Venice, afterward her victims, had joined the league against her. So had the king of Hungary, a liCreditary foe, ever on the watch to snatch a Dalmatian city out of the grip of Venice: and the patriarch of Aquileia, a great ecclesiastical prince who from generation to generation never seems to have forgiven the withdrawal of Venice from his sway and the erection of Grado into a rival primacy. This strong league against her did not at first daunt the proud republic, who, collecting all her forces, sent out a powerful expedition, and so long as the war went on at a distance regarded it, if THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 151 not without anxiety, yet with more wrath than fear. But when Vittoie Pisani, the beloved admiral in whose prowess all Venice believed, was defeated at Pola, a thrill of alarm ran through the city, shortly to be raised into the utmost passion of fear. Pisani himself and a few of his captains escaped from the rout, which was so complete that the historian I'ecords *' almost all the Venetian sea-forces'' to have been destroyed. Two thousand prisoners, Sabellico tells, were taken by the Genoese, and the entire fleet cut to pieces. When the beaten admiral arrived in Venice he met what was in those days the usual fate of a defeated leader, and was thrown into prison; but not on this occasion with the consent of the populace, who loved him, and believed that envy on the part of certain powerful persons, and not any fault of his, was the occasion of his condemnation. After this a continued succession of misfortunes befell the republic. What other ships she had were away in eastern seas, and the authorities seem to have been for the moment paralyzed. Town after town was taken. Grado once more fell into the power of that pitiless patriarch: and the Genoese held the mastery of the Adriatic. The Venetians, looking on from the Lido, saw with eyes that almost refused to believe such a possibility, with tears of rage and shame, one of their own merchantmen pursued and taken by the Genoese and plundered and burned wliile they looked on, within a mile of the shore. Tlie enemy took Pelestrina; they took part of Chioggia, burning and sackingeverywhere; then sailed off triumphant to the turb- ulent Zara, which they had made their own, dragging the Venetian banners which they had taken at Pola through the water as they sailed triumphantly away. The Venetian senate, stung to the quick, attempted, it would seem, to raise another fleet; but in vain, the sailors refusing to inscribe themselves under any leader but Pisani. A few vessels were with difficulty armed to defend the port and Lido, upon which hasty fortifications, great towers of wood, were raised, with chains drawn across the navigable channels and barges sunk to make the watery ways im- passable. When however, the enejny, returning and find- 152 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. ing the coast without defense, recaptured one after another the Venetian strongholds on the west side of the Adriatic, and finally took possession in force of Chioggia, the popu- lace took up the panic of their rulers. *' When the fall of Chioggia was known, which was toward mid- night, the city being taken in the morning, there arose such a terror in the palace that as soon as day dawned there was a general sum- mons to arms, and from all quarters the people rushed toward the piazza. The court and square were crowded with the multitude of citizens. The news of the taking of Chioggia was then published by order of the senate, upon which there arose such a cry and such lamentations as could not have been greater had Venice itself been lost. The women throughout the city went about weeping, now raising their arms to heaven, now beating upon their breasts : the men stood talking together of the public misfortune, and that these was now no hope of saving the republic, but that the entire dominion would be lost. They mourned each his private loss, but still more the danger of losing their freedom. All believed that the Genoese would press on at once, overrun all the territory, and destroy the Venetian name : and they held consultations how to save their pos- sessions, money, and jewels, whether they should send them to dis- tant places, or hide them underground in the monasteries. All joined in this lamentation and panic, and many believed that if in this mo- ment of terror the enemy's fleet had pressed on to the city, either it would have fallen at once, or would have been in the greatest dan- ger." *'But/' adds Sabellico piously, "God does not show everything to one man. Many know how to win a battle but not how to follow up the victory." This fact, which has stood the human race in stead at many moments of alarm, saved Venice. The Genoese did not venture to push their victory : but their presence at Chioggia, espe- cially in view of their alliance with Carrara at Padua, was almost as alarming. The Venetian ships were shut out from the port, the supplies by land equally interrupted ; only from Treviso could any provisions reach the city, and the scarcity began at once to be felt. Worse, however, than any of the practical miseries which surrounded Venice was the want of a leader or any one in whom the people could trust. The doge was Andrea Contarini, a name to which much of the fame of the eventual success has been THE MAKERS OB VENICE, 153 attributed, but it does not seem in this terrible crisis to have inspired tlie public mind with any confidence. After the pause of panic, and the troubled consultations of this moment of despair, one thought suddenly seized the mind of Venice. ** Finally all concluded that in the whole city there was but one Pisani, and that he, who was dear to all, might still secure the public safety in this terrible and dan- gerous crisis." That he should lie in prison and in dark- ness, this man whose appearance alone would give new heart to the city ! There was a general rush toward the palazzo when this thought first burst into words and flew from one to another. The senate, unable to resist, not- withstanding *^the envy of certain nobles," conceded the prayer of the people. And here for a moment the tumultu- ous and complicated story pauses to give us a glimpse of the man che ad cgnuno era moUo carOy as the historian, im- pressed by the universal sentiment, assures us again and again. The whole population had assembled in the piazza to receive him : " But so great was bis modesty that be preferred to remain for tbis nigbt in tbe prison, wbere be begged tbat a priest migbt be sent to bini, and confessed, and as soon as it was day went out into tbe court, and to tbe cburcb of San Niccolo, wbere be received tbe precious sac- rament of tbe Host, in order to sbow tbat be bad pardoned every in- jury botb public and private : and baving done tbis be made bis ap- pearance before tbe prince and tbe signorii. Having made bis rev- erence to tbe senate not witb angry or even troubled looks, but witb a countenance glad and joyful, be placed bim&elf at tbe feet of tbe doge, wbo tbus addressed bim. ' On a former occasion, Vittore, it was our business to execute justice ; it is now tbe time to grant grace. It was commanded tbat you sbould be imprisoned for tbe defeat of Pola, now we will tbat you sbould be set free. We will not inquire if tbis is a just tbing or not, but leaving tbe past, desire you to con- sider tbe present state of tbe republic, and tbe necessity for preserv- ing and defending it, and so to act tbat your fellow-citizens, wbo honor you for your great bearing, may owe to you tbeir safety, botb public and private.' Pisani made answer in tbis wise : ' Tbere is no punisbment, most serene prince, wbicb can come to me from you or from tbe otbers wLo govern tbe republic wbicb I sbould not bear witb a good beart, as a good citizen ougbt. I know, most serene prince, tbat all tbings are done for tbe good of tbe republic, for wbicb I do not doubt all your counsels and regulations are framed. 154 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. As for private grievances, I am so far from thinking that they should work harm to any one that I have this day received the blessed sacrament, and been present at the holy sacrifice, that noth- ing may be more evident than that I have forever forgotten to hate any man. ... As for what you say inviting me to save the republic, I desire nothing more than to obey it, and will gladly en- deavor to defend her, and God grant that I may be he who may deliver her from peril, by whatsoever way, with my best thought and care, for I know that the will shall not be wanting.' With these words he embraced and kissed the prince with many tears, and so went to his house, passing through the joyful multitude, and accom- panied by the entire people." It may afford some explanation of the low ebb to which Venice had come at this crisis, that not even now was Pisani appointed to the first command, and it was only after another popular rising that the invidia cValcuni no- hili was finally defeated, and he was put in his proper place as commander of the fleet. Wlien this was ac3om- plished the sailors enlisted in such numbers that in three days six galleys were fully equipped to sail under the be- loved commander, along with a great number of smaller vessels, such as were needful for the narrow channels about Chioggia, only navigable by light flat-bottomed boats and barges. A few successes fell to Pisani^'s share at first, which raised the spirits of the Venetians : and another fleet of forty galleys was equipped, commanded by the doge himself, in the hope of complete victory. But it was with the greatest difficulty that the city, once so rich, could get together money enough to prepare these arma- ments ; and poverty and famine were in her streets, de- serted by all the able-bodied and left to the fear and melan- choly anticipations of the weaker part of the population. To meet this emergency the senate published a proclama- tion holding out to all who would furnish money or ships or men, the prize of admission into the Great Council, offering that much-coveted promotion to thirty new fami- lies from among the most liberal citizens, and promising to the less wealthy or less willing interest for their money, fine thousand ducats to be distributed among them yearly. "Many moved by the hope of such a dignity, some also for THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 155 love of their country," says Sabellico, came forward with their offerings, no less than sixty families thus distinguish- ing themselves : and many fine deeds were done. Among others tliere is mention made of a once rich Chioggiote, Matteo Fasnolo by name, who having lost everything pre- sented himself and his two sons, all that was left to him, to give their lives for the republic. The rout of Pola took place in March, 1379 : in August the Genoese took possession of Chioggia and sat down at the gates of Venice. It was as if the mouth of the Thames had been in possession of an assailant of London, with this additional misfortune, that the country behind, the store- house and supply on ordinary occasions of the city, was also in the possession of her enemies. How it came about that Pisani with his galleys and innumerable barks, and the doge with his great fleet, did next to nothing against these bold invaders, it seems impossible to tell. The show- ers of arrows with which they harassed each other, the great wooden towers erected on both sides, for attack and defense, weie no doubt very different from anything that armies and fleets have trusted in since the days of artillery. But with all these disadvantages it seems wonderful that this state of affairs should languish on through the winter months — then universally considered a time for rest in port and not for action on the seas — without any result. A continual succession of little encounters, sallies of the Genoese, assaults of the besiegers, sometimes ending in a trifling victory, sometimes only adding to the number of the nameless sufferers — the sailors sweating at the oars, the bowmen on the deck — went on for month after month. The doge's fleet, according to one account, went back every night to Venice, the men sleeping at home and re- turning to their hopeless work every day, with it may be supposed but little heart for it. And not only their ene- mies but all the evils of the season, cold and snow and storm, fought against the Venetians. Sometimes they would be driven apart by the tempestuous weather, losing sight of each other, occasionally even coming to disastrous shipwreck ; and lovely as are the lagoons under most as- 156 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. pects, it is impossible to imagine anything more dreary and miserable than the network of slimy passages among the marshes, and the 'gray wastes of sea around, in the mists and chill of December, and amid the perpetual fail- ures and defeats of an ever unsuccessful conflict. Want grew to famine in Venice, her supplies being stopped and her trade destroyed : and even the rich plebeians who had strained their utmost to benefit their country and gain the promised nobility, began to show signs of exhaustion, and *^the one Pisani,'' in whom the city had placed such en- tire confidence — though, wonderfully enough, he does not seem to have lost his hold upon the popular affections — had not been able to deliver his country. In these circum- stances the eyes of all began to turn with feverish impa- tience to another captain, distant upon the high seas, after whom the senate had dispatched message after message to call him back with his galleys to the help of the republic. He was the only hope that remained in the dark mid- winter : when all their expedients failed them, and all their efforts proved unsuccessful, there remained still a glimmer of possibility that all might go well if Carlo were but there. Carlo Zeno, the object of this last hope, at the moment careering over the seas at the head of an active and dar- ing little fleet which had been engaged in making re- prisals upon the Genoese coasts, carrying fire and flame along the eastern Riviera — and which was now fighting the battles of Venice against everything that bore the flag of Genoa, great or small — was a man formed on all the ancient traditions of the republic, a soldier, a sailor, a mer- chant, adventurer, and orator, a born leader of men. Of the house of Zeno, his mother a Dandolo, no better blood is in the golden book (not then however in existence) than that which ran in his veins, and his adventurous life and career were most apt to fire the imagination and delight the popular fancy. His father had died a kind of martyr for the faith in an expedition for the relief of Symrna, when Carlo was but seven years old. He was then sent to the pope at Avignon, who endowed the orphan with a TBE MAKERS OF VENICE, 157 canonicate at Partas, apparently a rich benefice. But the boy was not destined to live the peaceful life of an ecclesi- astical dignitary, lie passed through the stormy youth which in those days was so often the beginning of a heroic career — ran wild at Padua, where he was sent to study, lost all that he had at play, and having sold even his books, en- listed as would appear in some troop of free lances, in which for five years he was lost to his friends, but learned the art of war, to his great after profit and the good of his country. When, after having roamed all Italy through, he reappeared in Venice, his family, it is probable, made little effort to pre- vent the young troper from proceeding to Greece to take up his canon's stall, for which no doubt these wander- ings had curiously prepared him. His biography, written by his grandson, Jacopo, Bishop of Padua, narrates all the incidents of his early life in full detail. At Patras, the adventurous youth, then only twenty-two, was very soon placed in the front during the incessant wars with the Turks, which kept that remote community in perpetual turmoil — and managed botli the strategy of war and the arts of statesmanship with such ability, that he obtained an honorable peace and the withdrawal of the enemy on the payment of a certain indemnity. However great may be the danger which is escaped in this way, there are always objectors who consider that better terms might have been made. ''Human nature," says Bishop Jacopo, ''is a miser- able thing, and virtue always finds enemies, nor was any- thing ever so well done but envy found means of spoiling and misrepresenting it." Carlo did not escape this com- mon fate, and the Greek governor, taking part with his adversaries, deprived him of his canonicate. Highly indig- nant at tliis affront, the angry youth threw up "various other ecclesiastical dignities" which we are told he pos- sessed in various parts of Greece; whereupon his life took an aspect much more harmonious with his character and pursuits. " Fortune," says our bishop, "never forsakes him who has a great soul. There was in Chiarenza a noble lady of great wealth, who having heard of Carlo's achieve- ments, and marveling at the greatness of his spirit, con- 158 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. ceived a desire to have liim for her husband. And Carlo, being now free from the ecclesiastical yoke, was at liberty to take a wife, and willingly contracted matrimony with her/' This marriage liowever was not apparently of very long duration, for scarcely had he cleared himself of all the intrigues against him, when his wife died, leaving him as poor as before: *'Her death, which as was befitting he lamented duly, did him a double injury, for he lost his wife and her wealth together, her property consisting entirely of feoifs, which fell at her death to the prince of Achaia." This misfortune changed the current of his life. He re- turned to Venice, and after a proper interval married again a lady of the house of Giustiniani. ^'Soon after, reflecting that in a maritime country trade is of the highest utility, and that it was indeed the chief sustenance of his city, he made up his mind to adopt the life of a merchant: and leaving Venice with this intention, remained seven years absent, living partly in a castle called Tanai on the banks of the river Tanai and partly in Constantinople." Such had been the life, full of variety and experience, of the man to whom the eyes of Venice turned in her humilia- tion. He had been all over Italy in his youth, during that wild career which carried him out of the view of his family and friends. He had been even further a-field in France, Germany, and England, in a short episode of service under the Emperor Charles IV. between two visits alia sua chiesa di Patrasso. He had fought the Turks and led the arma- ments of Achaia during his residence at his canonicate ; and now, all these tumults over, re-settled into the natural position of a Venetian, with a Venetian wife and all the traditions of his race to shape his career, had taken to commerce, peacefully, so far as the time permitted, in tliose golden lands of the east where it was the wont of his countrymen to make their fortunes. And success it would appear had not forsaken c/^i ha Vanima grande, the man of great mind — for when he reappeared in Venice it was with a magnificence of help to the republic which only a man of wealth could give. He was still engaged in peaceful occupa- tions when war broke out between Genoa and Venice. THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 159 Carlo had already compromised himself by an attempt to free the dethroned emperor, and had been in great danger in Constantinople, accused before the Venetian governor of treasonable practices, and only saved by the arrival of the great convoy from Venice 'Svhich reached Constanti- nople every year, " and in which he had friends. Even at this time he is said to have had soldiers in his service, probably for the protection of his trade in the midst of the continual tumults ; and his historian declares that no sooner had he escaped from Constantinople than he began to act energetically for the republic, securing to Venice the waver- ing allegiance of the island of Tenedos, from which the Venetian galleys under his (part) command chased off the emissaries of the emperor, and where a Venetian garrison w^as installed. His first direct action in the service of the state however would seem to have been that sudden raid upon the Genoese coast at the very beginning of the war, to which we have referred, with the purpose of making a diversion and if possible calling back to the defense of their own city the triumphant armies of Genoa. This intention however was not carried out by the result, though otherwise the expedition was so successful that ''the name of Carlo Zeno, " says his historian writing more than a hundred years after, **is terrible to that cit^ even to the present day. " After this exploit he seems to have returned to the east, per nettare la mare, sweeping the sea clear of every Genoese vessel tliat came in his way, and calling at every rebellious port with much effect. In the midst of these engagements the news of the defeat at Pola did not reach him till long after the event, and even the messengers despatched by the senate, one boat after another, failed to find the active and unwearied sea- man as he swept the seas. Such a ubiquitous career, now here, now there, darting from one point to another with a celerity which was a marvel in these days of slow sailing and long pauses, and the almost invariable success which seemed to attend him, gave Carlo a singular charm to the popular imagination. No one was more successful at sea, no one half so successful on land as this leader, suddenly 160 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. improvised by his own great deeds in the very moment of need, whose adventures had given him experience of every- thing that the mediaeval world knew, and who had the special gift of his race in addition to everything else — the power of the orator over a people specially open to that influence. Sanudo says that Carlo at first refused to obey the commands of the senate, preferring to nettar la mare to that more dangerous work of dislodging the Genoese from Ohioggia. But there would seem to be no real war- rant for this assertion. The messengers were slow to reach him. They arrived when his hands were still full and when it was difficult to give immediate obedience ; and when he did set out to obey, a strong temptation fell in his way and for a time delayed his progress. This was a great ship from Genoa, the description of which is like that of the galleons which tempted Drake and his brother mariners. It was gra7ide oltre mdsura, a bigger ship than had ever been seen, quite beyond the habits and dimensions of the time, laden with wealth of every kind, and an enormous crew, *^for besides the sailors and the bowmen it carried two hundred Genoese, each of whom was a senator or the son of a senator. '' It was winter, and the great vessel was more at home on the high seas than the navigli leggieri with which our hero had been flying from island to island. The sight of that nimble fleet filled the Genoese com- mander with alarm ; and he set all sail to get out of their way. It was evidently considered a mighty piece of daring to attack such a ship at all, or even to be out at all at such a season instead of in port, as sensible galleys always were in winter. When however the wind dropped and the course of the big vessel was arrested. Carlo's opportunity came. He called his crews together and made them a speech, which seems to have been his habit. The vessels collected in a cluster round the high prow on which he stood, reaching with his great voice in the hush of the calm all the listening crews, must have been such a sight as none of our modern wonders could parallel ; and he was as emphatic as Nelson if much longer winded. The great Bichignona, with her huge sails drooping and no wind to THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 161 help her from her pursuers, was no doubt lying \\\ sight, giving tremendous meaning to his oration. *^ Men," he cried, ''valenti uomini, if you were ever prompt and ardent in battle, now is the time to prove yourselves so. You have to do with the Genoese, your bitter and cruel enemies whose whole endeavor is to extinguishthe Venetian name. Tiiey have beaten our fleet at Pola, with great bloodshed; they have occupied Chioggia : and our city itself will soon be assailed by them to reduce her to nothing, killing your wives and cliildren, and destroying your property and everything there by fire and sword. Up then, my brothers, compagni miei! despise not the occasion here offered to you to strike a telling blow; which, if you do, the enemy shall pay dearly for their madness, as they well deserve, and you, joyful and full of honor, will deliver Venice and your wives and children from ruin and calamity." When he had ended this speech he caused the trumpets to sound the signal of attack. The oars swept forth, the galleys rushed witli tlieir high-beaked prows like so many strange birds of prey round the big helpless over-crowded ship. *'They fought with partisans, darts, arrows, and every kind of arm; but the lances from the ship were more vehement as reaching from a higher elevation, tlie form of the ship {nave) being higher than the galleys, which were long and low: nevertheless the courage of the Venetians and their science in warfare were so great that they over- came every diflflculty. Thus," goes on the iiistorian, *'this ship was taken, which in size exceeded everything known in that age." Carlo dragged his prey to Rhodes, ''not without difficulty," and there burned her, giving up the im- mense booty to his sailors and soldiers: then ''recalling to his mind his country," with great trouble got his men to- gether laden with their spoils, and, toiling day and night without thought of clanger or fatigue, at length reached the Adriatic. Calling at an Italian port on his way to victual his ships, he found other letters from the senate still more imperative, and on the 1st day of January, 1380, he arrived before Chioggia, where lay all the force that re- mained to Venice, and where his appearance had been anx- iously looked for, for many a weary day. 16S THE MAKERS OF VENICE. The state of the republic would appear to have been all but desperate at this miserable ruoment. After endless comings and goings, partial victories now and then which raised their spirits for the moment, but a ceaseless course of harassing and fatiguing conflict in narrow waters where scarcely two galleys could keep abreast, and where the Venetians were subject to constant showers of arrows from the Genoese fortifications, the two fleets, one of them under the doge, the other under Pisani, seem to have lost heart simultaneously. In the galleys under the command of Contarini were many if not all the members of the senate, who had from the beginning shown the feeblest heart, and meetings were held, and timorous and terrified consultations unworthy tlieir name and race, as to the possibility of throwing up the struggle altogether, leaving Venice to her fate, and taking refuge in Candia or even Constantinople, where these terrified statesmen, unused to the miseries of a winter campaign on board ship, and the incessant watch ings and fightings in which they had to take their part, thought it might be possible to begin again as their fathers had done. While these cowardly counsels were being whispered in each other's ears, on one hand, on the other, the crews with greater reason were on the verge of mutiny. " The galleys were so riddled with the arrows of the enemy that the sailors in desperation cried with one voice that the siege must be relinquished, that otherwise all that were in the galleys round Chiog- gia were dead men. Those also who held the banks, fearing that the squadrons of Carrara would fall upon them from behind, demanded anxiously to be liberated, and that the defense of the coast should be abandoned. Pisani besought them to endure a little longer, since in a few days Carlo Zeno must arrive, adding both men and ships to the armata, so that the Genoese in their turn would lose heart. Equal desperation of mind was in the other division of the fleet, where cold, hunger, and the deadly showers of arrows which were continually directed against the galleys, had so broken and worn out all spirit that soldiers and all who were on board thought rather of flight than combat. The presence of the doge somewhat sustained the multi- tude, and the exhortation he made showing them what shame and danger would arise to their country if they raised the seige, since the Genoese, seeing them depart, would immediately follow them to Ven- ice . But neither by prayers nor by promises could the spirits of the THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 163 men be emboldened to continue the siege. And things had come to such a pitch that, for two days one after the other on either side had determined to raise the siege, when Carlo Zeno, just in time, with fourteen galleys fully equipped with provisions and men, about noon, as if sent by God, entered the port of Chioggia." Carlo turned the balance, and supplied at once the stimulus needed to encourage these despairing squadrons, unmanned by co!itinual failure and all by the miseries of sea and war — troubles to which the greater part were unaccustomed, since in tlie failure of figliting men this armada of despair had been filled up by unaccustomed hands; mostly artisans, says Sabellico — whose discouragement is more pardonable. Great was the joy of the Venetians, continues the same authority, '^when they heard what Carlo had done; how he had sunk in the high seas seventy ships of divers kinds be- longing to the enemy, and the great bark Bichignona, and taken three hundred Genoese merchants, and three hundred thousand ducats of booty, besides seamen and other prisoners." The newcomer passed on to Pisani after he had cheered the doge's squadron, and spread joy around, even the contingent upon the coast taking heart; and another arrival from Candia taking place almostatthe same moment, the Venetians found themselves in possession of fifty-two galleys, many of them now manned with vet- erans, and feared the enemy no more. It is impossible to follow in detail the after incidents of this famous siege. Carlo in concert with, and partial sub- ordination to, Pisani, succeeded in blockading Chioggia so completely that the enemy began to feel the same stress of famine which they had inflicted upon the Venetians. But the various attacks and assaults, the varying fortunes of the besieged and besiegers, are too many to be recorded, as the painstaking and leisurely chronicler does, event by event. According to the biographer of Carlo, that hero was never at a loss, but encountered every movementof the Genoese, as they too began to get uneasy, and to perceive that the circle round them was being drawn closer, and closer with a more able movement on his side, and met the casu- 164 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. alties of storm and accident with the same never-failing wit and wealth of resource. According to Bishop Jacopo, the entire work was accomplished by his ancestor, though other \^riters give a certain credit to the other commanders. But as soon as operations of a really important and prac- tical character had begun, a new danger, specially char- acteristic of the age, arose on the Venetian side. Bishop Jacopo Zeno would have us believe that up to this time the Venetians had hired no mercenaries, which is an evi- dent mistake, since we have already heard, even in this very conflict, of forces on shore, a small and apparently faitliful contingent, led by a certain Giacomo Cavallo, of Verona. But perhaps it was the first time that a great armament had been collected under the banner of San Marco. With that daring of despair which is above all calculation as to means of payment or support, the senate had got together a force of six thousand men — a little army, which was to be conducted by the famous English Oondottiere, Sir John Hawkwood, Giovanni Aguto ac- cording to the Italian version of his name. These soldiers assembled at Pelestrina, an island in the mouth of the lagoons not far from Ohioggia. But when the band was collected and ready for action, the senate, dismayed, found tke leader wanting. Whether the Genoese had any hand in this defalcation, or whether the great Oondottiere was kept back by other engagements, it is certain that at the last moment he failed them ; and the new levies, all unknown and strange to each other, fierce fighting men from every nationality, stranded on this island without a captain, became an additional care instead of an aid to the anxious masters of Venice. Fierce discussions arose among them, wia pericolosa contesa, the Italians against the French and Germans. In this emergency the senate turned to Carlo Zeno as their only hope. His youthful experiences had made him familiar with the ways of these fierce and dangerous auxiliaries, and he was considered a better leader, Sabellico tells us, by land than by sea. To him accordingly the charge of pacifying the merce- naries was given. '' Carlo, receiving this commission to THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 165 pass from the fleet to the camp, and from war at sea to war on land," put on his armor, and quickly, witli a few com- panions, transferred himself to Pelestrina, where he found everything in a deplorable condition : "It would be bard to tell the tumult whicb existed in the army, in which there was nothing but attack and defense, with cries of blood and vengeance, so that the uproar of men and weapons made both shore and sky resound. Carlo announced his arrival by the sound of trumpets, calling upon the soldiers to pause and listen to what their captain had to say. His voice as soon as it was heard so stilled that commotion that the storm seemed in a moment to turn into a calm; and every one, of whatever grade, rushed to him exposing his griev- ances, and demanding, one justice, the other revenge. There were many among thera who had served under him in other wars, and were familiar with him." To these excited and threatening men he made a judicious speech appealing at once to their generosity and their pru- dence, pointing out the embarrassed circumstances of the senate, and the ingratitude of those who received its pay, yet added to its troubles; and finally succeeded in making a truce until there was time to inquire in all their grievances. When he had soothed them for the moment into calm, he turned to the senate for the one sole means which his ex- perience taught him could keep these unruly bands in order. He had been told when his commission was given to him that ** it appeared to these fathers (the senate) that it was his duty to serve the republic without pay," which was scarcely an encouraging preliminary for a demand on their finances. Carlo, however, did not hesitate; He wrote to the senate informing them of his temporary success with the soldiery, and suggesting that like medicine in the hands of a doctor, money should be used to heal this wound. To nuike the proposal less disagreeable to the poverty- striken state, he offered himself to undertake the half of the burden, and to give five hundred ducats to be divided among the soldiers, if the senate would do the same; to which the rulers of Venice — partly moved by the neces- sities of the case and partly by his arguments, and that the republic might not seem less liberal than a simple citizen 166 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. — consented, and peace was accordingly established among the always exacting mercenaries. Peace, however, lasted only for a time; and it gives us a lively impression of the troubles of mediaeval powers with these artificial armies, to trace the violent scenes which were periodically going on behind all other difficulties, from this cause. When Carlo finally got his army in motion, and landed them on the edge of the shore at Ohioggia, he found oc- casion almost immediately to strike a telling blow. Under- standing by the signals made that the enemy intended to make a sally from two points at once — from Brondolo on one side, and from the city of Chioggia on the other — he at once arranged his order of battle; placing the English, French, and Germans on the side toward Chioggia, while the Italians faced the party coming from Brondolo. It would seem from this that Carlo's confidence in his own countrymen was greater than in the strangers; for the sally- ing band from Chioggia had to cross a bridge over a canal, and therefore lay under a disadvantage of which he was prompt to avail himself. The following scene has an interest, independent of the quaint story, to the English reader: "When Carlo saw tliis" (the necessity of crossing the bridge) "he was filled with great hope of a victory, and adding a number of the middle division to the Italians, he himself joined the foreign band, and having had experience of the courage and truth of the English captain whose name was William, called by his countrymen il Coquo" (Cook ? or Cock ?), "he called him and consulted with him as to the tac- tics of the enemy, and how they were to be met, and finding that he was of the same opinion, Carlo called the soldiers together" (aparla- mento) " and addressed them thus." Carlo's speeches, it must be allowed, are a little long- winded. Probably the bishop, his grandson, with plenty of leisure on his hands, did not reflect that it must have been a dangerous and useless expedient to keep soldiers a parlamentOf however energetic the words were, when the enemy was visibly beginning to get over the bridge in face of them. We feel when these orations occur something as spectators occasionally do at an opera, when in defiance of THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 16? common sense tlie conspirators pause to roar forth a martial ditty at the moment when any whisper might betray them, or the lovers perform an elaborate duo when they ought to be running away with all speed from the villain who is at their heels. Probably the hero's speech was very much shorter than his descendant makes it — just long enough, let us suppose, with William the Cock at his elbow, who would naturally have no faith in speechifying at such a moment, to let the Genoese get completely started upon that bridge which, though assai largo, allowed the passage of but a small number abreast. The enemy themselves came on gayly, with the conviction that, taken thus between assailants on two sides. Carlo would lose heart and fly — and had passed a number of their men over the bridge before the Venetian army moved. Then suddenly Carlo flung his forces upon them with a great shouting and sound of trum- pets. ** The English were the first who with a rush and with loud cries assailed the adversaries, followed by the others with much readiness and noise (romore.y The Genoese, taken by surprise, resisted but faintly from the first, and driven back upon the advancing files already on the bridge, were disastrously and tragically defeated — the crowd, surging up in a mass, those who were coming con- fused and arrested, those who were flying pushed on by the pursuers behind, until with the unwonted weight the bridge broke, and the whole fighting, flying mass was plunged into the canal. The division which approached from Brondolo was not more fortunate. On seeing the rout of their companions they too broke and fled con velocissimi corsi, as it seems to have been the universal habit to do in the face of any great danger — the fact that discretion was the better part of \alor being apparently recognized by all without any shame inputting the maxim into practice. This victory would seem to have been de- cisive. The tables were turned with a rapidity which is strongly in contrast with the lingering character of all mili- tary operations in this age. / Veneziaiii di vinti diventa- ro/io I'tViaYo?'?*, the vanquished becoming victors: and the Genoese lost courage and hope all at once. The greater 168 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. part of tliem turned tlieir eyes toward Padua as the nearest place of salvation, and many fled by the marshes and difficult tortuous water passages, in which they were caught by the pursuing barks of the Venetians and those Chioggiotes whom the invaders had driven from their dwelliugs. Of thirteen thousand combatants who were engaged in the ziiffa here described, six thousand only, we are told, found safety within the walls of Chioggia. Bishop Jacopo improves the occasion with professional gravity, yet national pride. *'And certainly," he says, ^^there could not have been a greater example of the changeableness of human affairs tlian that those who a little time before had conquered the fleets, overcome with much slaughter all who opposed them taken and occupied the city, despised the conditions of peace offered to them, and made all their arrangements for putting Venice to sack, in full confidence of issuing forth in their galleys and leading back their armies by the shore, proud of the hosts which they possessed both by land and sea — now broken and spent, having lost all power and every help, fled miserably, wandering by dead waters and muddy marshes to seek out ferries and hiding places, nor even in flight finding salvation. Such are the inconsistancy and changeableness of human things." AVe cannot but sympathize with the profound satisfaction of the bishop in thus pointing his not very original moral by an event so entirely gratifying to his national feelings. This sudden victor}^, however, as it proved, was, if decisive, by no means complete, the Genoese who remained still obstinately holding their own within the shelter of their fortifications. It was in February that the above- recorded events occurred, and it was not till June that Chioggia, was finally taken: a delay to be attributed, in great part at least, to the behavior of the mercenaries. No sooner was the first flush of delight in the unaccustomed triumph over, than the troops who had done their duty so well again turned upon their masters. On being ordered by sound of trumpet to put themselves in motion and establish their camp under the walls of Chioggia, these soldiers of fortune bluntly refused. 'J'he captains of the THK MAKERS OF VENICE. 169 (lifFerent bands sought Carlo in his tent, where two prov- veditori, sent by the senate to congratulate him, and to urge him to follow up his victory, were still with him. Their message was a very practical one. They rejoiced that their victory had been so helpful to the republic, which they regarded with great reverence and affection, ready at all times to fight her battles: but they thought that in the general joy the senate might very becomingly cheer the soldiers by a present qualche donativo — something like double pay, for example, for the month in which the vic- tory had been won. This would be very grateful and agreeable to all ranks, the captains intimated, and whatever dangerous work there might be to do afterward the authorities should find them always ready to obey orders and bear themselves valorously: but if not granted, not a step would they make from the spot where they now stood. To this claim there was nothing to be said but consent. Once more Carlo had to use all his powers, con huone parole di addolcire glianimi loro, for he was aware *' by long trial and practice of war that soldiers have hard heads and obstinate spirits." He therefore addressed himself once more to the republic, urging the prudence of yielding this donativo lest worse should come of it, adding '^ that he, according to his custom, would contribute something from his own means to lighten the burden to the republic." Such scenes, ever recurring, show how precarious was the hold of any authority over these lawless bands, and what power to exact and to harass was in their merciless hands. Some time later, when the Genoese shut up in Chioggia had been well nigh driven to desperation, a rescuing fleet of thirty galleys laden with provisions and men having been driven off and every issue closed either by sea or land, the mutinous free lances appear on the scene again — this time in the still more dangerous guise of traitors. *' The merce- naries were not at all desirous that the Genoese should gfve themselves up, being aware that tlieir occupation and pay would be stopped by the conclusion of the war." This fear led them to open negotiations with the besieged, and to 170 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. keep up their courage with false hopes, the leaders of the conspirators promising so to act as that they might have at least better conditions of surrender. A certain Robert of Recanati was at tlie head of these unfaithful soldiers. Carlo, who seems to have kept up a secret intelligence department such as was highly necessary with such dubious servants, discovered the conspiracy, and that there was an intention among them of taking advantage of a parade of the troops for certain mutinous manifestations. The wisdom and patience of the leader, anxious in all things for the success of his enterprise and the safety of the republic, and dealing with the utmost caution with the treacherous and unreasoning men over whom he held uneasy sway, comes out conspicuously in these encounters. Carlo forbade the parade, but finding that the mutineers pretended to be unaware of its postponement, took advantage of their appearance armed and in full battle array to remonstrate and reason with them. While the men in general, over- awed by their general's discovery of their conspiracy and abashed by his dignified reproof, kept silence, Robert, ferocious in his madness and hot blood, sprang to the front, and facing Carlo, adroitly pressed once more the ever- repeated exactions. " We come to you armed and in order of battle," he said, '^ as you see, to demand double pay till the end of the war. We are determined to have it, and have sworn, by whatsoever means, to obtain it; and if it is denied to us we warn you that with banners flying, and armed as you see us, we will go over to Chioggia to the enemy." The much-tried general was greatly disturbed by this defiance, but had no resource save to yield. " Believing it to be better to moderate with prudence the impetu- osity of this hot blood, without showing any alarm, with cheerful countenance and soft words Carlo replied that nothing would induce him to believe that these words were spoken in earnest, knowing the go»)d faith and generosity of the speaker's mind, and believing that they were said only to try him ; that he had good reason for believing this, since otherwise Robert would have committed a great villainy and introduced the worst example, such as it was impossible a man of his high reputation could intend to do. Nor could the senate ever believe THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 171 it of liim, having always expected and thought most highly of him and rewarded him largely according to the faith they had in his trustworthiness and experience in the art of war ; for nothing ren- dered soldiers more dear to the republic than that good faith which procured them from the said republic and other princes great gifts and donations. If soldiers were indifferent to the failure and viola- tion of this faith, who could confide to their care the safety of the state, of the women and children? Therefore he adjured them to lay down their arms, and he would watch over their interests and inter- cede for them with the senate. While Carlo thus mildly addressed them the multitude renewed their uproar, opposing him furiously and repeating the cry of double pay, which they demanded at the top of their voices, and certain stnndard-bearers posted among them raised their banners, crying out that those who were of that opinion should follow them ; to whom Carlo turned smiling, and declared ' That he also was on that side, and promised if they were not con- tented to fight under their ensigns.'" While this struggle was still going on, the general, with a smile on his lips but speechless anxiety in his heart, facing the excited crowd which any touch miglit precipi- tate into open mutiny beyond his control, a sudden diver- sion occurred which gave an unhoped for termination to the scene. The manner in which Carlo seized the occa- sion, his boldness, promptitude, and rapid comprehension of an occurrence which might under less skillful guidance have turned the balance in the opposite direction, show how well he deserved his reputation. The Genoese, who had been warned by secret emissaries that on this day the mercenaries intended some effort in their favor, and prob- ably perceiving from their battlements that something un- usual was going on in the camp, seized the moment to make a desperate attempt at escape. They had prepared about eighty small vessels, such as were used to navigate the passages among the marshes, and filled them with every- thing of value they possessed in preparation for such an occasion. The propitious moment seeming now to pre- sent itself, they embarked hastily and pushing out into the surrounding waters, seeking the narrowest and least- known passages, stole forth from the beleaguered city. *' But vain," cries the pious bishop, '* are the designs of miserable man T' 172 TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. " The boatmen, whose attention was fixed upon every movement within the walls, had already divined what was going on, and with delight perceiving them issue forth, immediately gave chase in their light barks, giving warning of the escape of the enemy with shout- ing and a great uproar. And already the cry rose all around, and the struggle between the fugitives and their pursuers had begun, when Carlo, fired by the noise and clash of arms, suddenly turned upon the soldiers, and with stern face and terrible eyes addressed them in another tone. * What madness is this,' he cried, ' cowards, that keeps you standing still while the enemy pushes forth before your eyes laden with gold and silver and precious things, while you stand and look on chattering like children !' Upon which he ordered the banners to move on, and with a great voice, so that the whole army could hear him, commanding all who kept faith with the re- public to follow him against the enemy. Without loss of time, with his flag carried before him, he among the first rushed to the marshes, plunging breast high in the water and mud, and his voice and the impetuosity with which he called them to their senses and rushed forth in their front had so great a power that the whole army, for- getting their complaint, followed their captain, flinging themselves upon the enemy, and thus, with little trouble, almost all fell into Carlo's hands. The booty thus obtained was so great that never had there been greater, nor was anything left that could increase the vic- tory and the fury until night fell upon the work. In this way and by this means was an end made of the controversy of that day." This accidental settlement however was only for the moment. Robert of Recanati was not to be so easily driven from his purpose. The remnant of the imprisoned and discouraged Genoese, greatly diminislied by these succes- sive defeats and now at the last point of starvation, were about to send messengers to the doge with their submis- sion, when he and the other conspirators, seducing tlie soldiers in increasing numbers to their side, by prophecies of the immediate disbandment which was to be anticipated if the war were thus brought to an end, and promises of continued service in the other case — again hurried their movements to the brink of an outbreak. Carlo, who w^as advised of all that happened by his spies, at last in alarm informed the senate of his fears, who sent a deputation of two of their number to address the captains and mitigare gli animi dei soldati C07i qualche donativo the one motive which had weight with them. This process seemed again so FOMDAMENTA ZEK. To face page 172. THE MAKERS OB VENICE. 173 far successful that the captains in general accepted the mol- lifying gift and undertook to secure the fidelity of their men — all but Robert, who, starting to his feet in the midst of the assembly, protested tliat nothing would make him con- sent to the arrangement, and rushed forth into the camp to rouse to open rebellion the men who were disposed to follow him. Carlo, perceiving the imminent danger, rushed forth after him and had him seized, and was about to apply the rapid remedy of a military execution, when the deputation from Venice — popular orators perhaps, trembling for their reputation as peacemakers and friends of the soldiers — threw themselves before the angry general and implored mercy for the rebel. Against his better judgment Carlo yielded to their prayers. But it was very soon proved how foolish this clemency was, since the same afternoon, the orators being still in the tents, the sound of cx\Q%,Arme! Arme! 'd\\(\ Sacco! resounded through the camp, and it soon became apparent that a rush was about to be made upon Chioggia without discipline or pre- arrangement, a number of tlie troops following Robert and his fellow conspirators in hope of a sack and plunder, and in spite of all the general could say. When Carlo found it impossible to stop this wild assault, he sent a trusted retainer of his own to mix in the crowd and bring a report of all that went on. This trusty emissary, keeping close to Robert, was a witness of the meeting held by the con- spirators with the Genoese leaders under cover of this raid, and heard it planned between them how on that very night, after the Venetian mercenaries had been driven back, a sudden attack should be made by the Genoese on the camp with the assistance of the traitors within it, so that the rout and desti notion of the besiegers should be cer- tain and the way of exit from Chioggia be thrown open. The soldiers streamed back defeated into the camp when the object of the raid had been thus accomplished, the poor dupes of common men, spoiled of their arms and even clothes by the desperate garrison, while Robert aiid his friends returned ''almost naked " to carry out the decep- tion. Carlo met them as they came back in broken par- 174 THE MAKFJIS OF VENICE. ties with every appearance of rout, and in a few strong words upbraided them witli their folly and rashness ; but when he heard the story of his spy, the gravity of the position became fully apparent. Night was already fall- ing, and the moment approaching when the camp unpre- pared might have to sustain the hist despairing assault of the besieged, for whom life and freedom hung upon the possibility of success, combined with the still more alarm- ing danger of treachery within. The soldiers were at supper and occupied, those who had come back from Chioggia probably lamenting their losses, and consoling themselves with hopes of the sack of the town, which Robert had used as one of his lures — when the captains of the mounted troops (which is what we imagine to be the meaning of the expression ^' i capi degli uomini d'arme — de fante no, perclie sapeva die tutti erano nella congiura"), leaving their own meal, stole toward the generaFs tent in the quiet of the brief twilight. Carlo made them a vigorous speech, more brief than his ordinary addresses, first thankiug and cougratulating them on their former exploits and their fidelity to the republic ; then layiug before them the dis- covery he had made, the risk that all they had done might be lost through the treachery of one among them, and the desperate necessity of the case. The captains, startled by the sudden summons, and by the incidents of the day, sat round him, with tlieir eyes fixed upon their leader, hear- ing with consternation his extraordinary statement, and for the moment bewildered by the revelation of treachery and by the suddenness of the peril. This moment, upon which hung the safety of the Venetian name and the de- cisive issue of the long struggle, must have been one of overwhelming anxiety for the sole Venetian among them, the only man to whom it was a question of life or death, the patriot commander unassured of what reply these dan- gerous subordinates might make. But he was not kept long in suspense. *' There was a certain captain among the others called William, of Britannic origin. He, who was a man of great valor and the greatest TUE MAKERS OF VENICE. 175 fidelity, rose to his feet , and looking round upon them all, spoke thus : 'Your words, oh general {imperatore), have first rejoiced and then grieved us. It rejoiced us to hear that you have so much faith in us, and in our love and devotion to your republic, than which we could desire no better — and for this wo thank you with all our hearts. We have known you always not only as our general and leader {im- peratore e duce), but as our father, and it grieves us that there should be among us men so villainous as those of whom you tell us. It appals my soul to hear what you say ; and for my own part there is nothing I am not ready to do in view of the hardihood of the offender, of our peril, and the discipline of our army, matters which cannot be treated without shame of the military art. But you are he who have always overcome by your care and vigilance, and, with that genius which almost passes mortal, have always secured the common safety, de- fended us from ill fortune and from our enemies, and trusted in our good faith. We can never cease to thank you for these things, and God grant that the time may come when we shall do more than thank you. In the meantime we are yours, we are in your power; we were always yours, and now more than ever ; make of us what pleases you. And now tell us the names of those who have offended you, let us know who are these scoundrels and villains, and you shall see that the faith you have had in us is well-founded.' " It is satisfactory to find our unknown countryman taking this manly part. Robert was sent for, the entire assembly echoing the Englishman's words; and when the traitor's explanations had been summarily stopped by a gag, Carlo and his faithful captains came out of the general's quarters with a shout for the republic, calling their faithful followers round them, and a short but sharp encounter followed, in which the conspirators were entirely subdued. The Genoese meanwhile, watching from their walls for the concerted signal, and perplexed by the sounds of battle, soon learned by flying messengers that the plot was discovered and their allies destroyed. An unconditional surrender followed, and the invaders, who had for ten months been masters of Chioggia, and for half that time at least had held Venice in terror and had her in their power, driving the mistress of the seas to the most abject despair, were now hurried off ignominiously in every available barge and fisherman's coble, rude precursors of the gondola, to prison in Venice — five thousand of them. Bishop Jacopo says. He adds, that after their long starvation they ate ravenously, and that 176 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the greater part of them died in consequence, a statement to be received with much reserve. Sabellico tells us that four thousand men altogether fell into the hands of the republic, three thousand of whom were Genoese. The soldiers among them, mercenaries no doubt and chiefly foreigners, had their arms taken from them and were al- lowed to go free. The plunder was taken to the church of S. Maria, and there sold by auction, the Venetians fixing the price, which was handed over to the soldiers, the chroniclers say. One wonders if the bargains to be had under these circumstances satisfied the citizens to whom this siege had cost so much. It would be interesting, though sad, to follow the fate of these prisoners, shut up in dungeons which it is not at all likely were much better than the pozzi at present exhibited to shrinking visitors, though these prisons did not then exist. They had no Marco Polo, no chosen scribe among them to make their misery memorable. The war lasted another year, during which there were moments in which their lives were in extreme peril. At one time a rumor ros3 of cruelties practiced by the Genoese upon the Vene- tian prisoners, many of whom were reported to have died of hunger and their bodies to have been thrown into the sea — news which raised a great uproar in Venice, the people breaking into the prisons and being with difficulty prevented from a general massacre of the prisoners, who were punished for the supposed sin of their compatriots by losing all comforts and conveniences and being reduced to bread and water, the women who had cooked their food ** for pity ^' being ordered away. Afterward however the city, according to ancient custom, had compassion, and restored to them everything of which they had been de- prived. On the conclusion of the war, when peace was made and the prisoners exchanged, there is a little record which shows, however far behind us were these mediaeval ages, that charity to our enemies is not, as some people think, an invention of the nineteenth century. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 17? " The Venetian ladies (matrone) collected among themselves money enough to supply the Genoese, who were almost naked, with coats, shirts, shoes, and stockings, and other things, necessary for their personal use before their departue, that they might not have any need to beg by the way, and also furnished them with provisions for their journey. And those who were thus seui back to their home were of the number of fifteen hundred." Half of the prisoners, it would thus appear, perished within the year. The war with Genoa did not end with the restoration of Chioggia, but it was carried on henceforward in distant waters and among the Dalmatian towns and islands. Carlo Zeno himself was sent to take at all hazards a certain castle of Marano, against his own will and judgment aud failed, as he had previously assured his masters he must fail : and there were many troubles on the side of Treviso, which Veuice presented to Duke Leopold of Austria, in order to preserve it from the Carrarese, now tlie obstinate enemies of the republic. Here the difiiculties with the Condottieri reappeared again, but in a less serious way. The soldiers whose pay was in arrears, and who, hearing of the proposed transfer, felt themselves in danger of falling between two stools, and getting pay from neither side, confided their cause to a certain Borate Malaspina, who presented himself before the Venetian magistrates of Treviso, and set his conditions before them. ** We have decided," he said, 'Mn consideration of the dignity of the Venetian name and the good faith of the soldiers, to take our own affairs in hand, and in all love and friendship to ask for our pay. We have decided to remain each man at his post until one of you goes to Venice for the money. During this interval everything shall be faithfully de- fended and guarded by us. But we will no longer delay, nor can we permit our business with the senate to be con- ducted by letter. Your presence is necessary in order that everything may go well. And we will await the re- turn of him who shall be sent to Venice, with a proper regard to the time necessary for his coming and going. There is no need for further consultation in the case, for 178 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. \yhat we ask is quite reasonable." The astounded magis- trates stared at this bold demand, but found nothing better for it tlian to obey. And at last the war was over, and peace, in which to heal her wounds, and restore her half-ruined trade, and put order in her personal affairs came to Venice. Accord- ing to the promise made in her darkest hour, thirty families from among those who had served the republic best were added to the number of the nobles. " Before they went to the palazzo they heard the divine mass, then, presenting themselves before the prince and senate, swore to the republic their faith mid silence." The last is a remarkable addition to the oath of allegiance, and curi- ously characteristic of Venice. ^' Giacomo Cavallo, Veronese," adds Sabellico, ** for his strenuous and faith- ful service done during this war, obtained the same dig- nity." It was the highest which the republic could bestow. The subsequent history of Carlo Zeno we have entirely upon the word of his descendant and biographer, who, like most biographers of that age, is chieflyintent upon putting every remarkable act accomplished in his time to the credit of his hero. At the same time, we have every reason to trust Bishop Jacopo, whose work is described by Foscarini as the most faithful record, existing of the war of Chioggia : the author, as that careful critic adds, ** being a person of judgment and enlightenment, and living at a period not far removed from these acts." He was indeed born before the death of his grandfather, and must have had full command of all family memorials, as well as the evidence of many living persons for the facts he records. We may accord- ingly take his book, with perhaps a little allowance for natural partiality, as a trustworthy record of the many wonderful vicissitudes of Carlo's life. And whether the bold pirate-like countenance which serves as frontispiece to Quirini's translation of the bishop's book be taken from any authentic portrait (which is little likely), there can be at least no doubt of the family tradition, which de- scribes the great soldier-seaman thus: THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 179 ** He was square-shouldered, broad-chested, solidly and strongly made, with large and speaking eyes, and a manly, great, and full countenance; his stature neither tall nor short, but of a middle size. Nothing was wanting in his appearance which strength, health, decorum, and gravity demanded." With the exception, perhaps of the gravity and decorum, which are qualities naturally attributed by a clergyman to his grandfather, the description is true to all our ideas of a naval hero. At the time of the struggle before Cliioggia, which he conducted at once so gallantly and so warily, he was forty-five, in the prime of his strength: and that solid and steadfast form which nothing could shake, those eyes which met undaunted the glare of so many mutinous troopers, always full of the keenest observation, letting nothing escape them, stand out as clearly among the crowd as if, forestalling a century, Gentile Bellini had painted him, strongly planted upon those sturdy limbs to which the rock of the high seas had given a sailor's double security of balance, confronting the heavy, furious Ger- mans, the excited Frenchmen, the revengeful Italians of other states, scarcely less alien to his own than i\\Q foresti- eri with their strange tongues — whose sole bond of allegi- ance to their momentary masters was the double pay, or occasional donafiuo, which they exacted as the price of their wavering faith. A truer type of the ideal Venetian, strong, subtle, ready-witted, prompt inaction and prepared for everything, the patriot, pirate, admiral, merchant, general, whichever character was most needed at the moment, could not be. Carlo did not return to his merchandise after this absorb- ing struggle. He was made captain-general of the forces on the death, not long after, of Vittor Pisani: and when the old Doge Contarini died he was for a time the favorite candidate for that honor. The electors indeed had all but decided in his favor, the bishop tells us, when a certain Zaccaria Contarini, '* a man of great authority and full of eloquence and the art of speech," addressed an oration to them on the subject. His argument was a curious one. Against Carlo Zeno^ he allowed, not a word could be said: 180 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. there was no better man, none more worthy, nor of higher virtue in all Venice, none who had served the republic better, or to whom her citizens were more deeply indebted; but these were the very reasons why he sliould not be made doge, for should another war arise with Genoa, who could lead tlie soldiers of Venice against her rival but he who was the scourge of the Genoese, a man with whom no other could compare for knowledge of things naval and military: for prudence, judgment fidelity to the country, greatness and good fortune? ^' If you should bind such a man to the prince's office, most noble fathers, to stay at home, to live in quiet, to be immersed in the affairs of the city, tell me what other have you?^' Thus Carlo's fame was used against him, '' whether with a good intention for the benefit of the republic, or from envy of Carlo," Bishop Jacopo does not undertake to say. Neither does he tell us whether his illustrious ancestor was disappointed by the issue. But when peace was proclaimed, and there was no more work for him nor further promotion possible. Carlo left Venice and went forth upon the world '^ to see and salute various princes throughout Italy with whom he was united by no common friendship/' A man so celebrated was received with open arms everywhere, especially where fighting was going on, and made himself useful to his princely friends in various emergencies. He served Galeazzo Visconti of Milan in this way, and was governor of that city for several years and also of the province of Piedmont, which was under Visconti's sway: and absorbed in such occupations was absent from Venice for ten years, always with increas- ing honor and reputation. While thus occupied, what seemed a very trifling incident occurred in his career. At Asti he encountered Francesco da Carrara, the son of the lord of Padua, sometime the enemy but at that moment at peace with Venice, an exile and in great straits and trouble; and finding him sad, anxious and unhappy, and in want of every comfort, per non mancare aW ufficio di gentiluomo, not to fail in the duty of a gentleman, did his best to encourage and cheer the exile, and lent him four hundred ducats for his immediate wants. Some years after. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 181 when Francesco had been restored to Padua, and regained his place, Carlo passed through that city on his way to Venice, and was repaid the money he had lent. The inci- dent was a very simple one, but not without disastrous consequences. On his return to Venice Carlo was again employed suc- cessfully against the Genoese under a French general, that proud city having fallen under the sway of France — and covered the Venetian name once more with glory. This to all appearance was his last independent action as the commander of the forces of Venice. He was growing old, and civil dignities, though never the highest, began to be awarded to him. When the war with the house of Carrara broke out. Carlo Malatesta of Rimini, one of the great Condottieri of the time, held the chief command, and Carlo Zeno accompanied the army only in the capacity of provveditore. A strong military force was by this time in the pay of the republic; but again as ever it was as hard a task to keep them from fighting among themselves as to overcome the enemy. Malatesta threw up his commission in the midst of the campaign, and Paolo Savello was appointed in his stead; but either this did not please the mercenaries, or personal feuds among them breaking out suddenly on the occasion of the change, the camp was immediately in an uproar, and the different factions began to cut each other in pieces. Carlo forced his way into the middle of the fight, and when he had succeeded in calming it for the moment, called before him the chiefs of the factions, and after his usual custom addressed them. His speech is no longer that of a general at the head of an army, but of an old man much experienced and full of serious dignity, before the restless and ferocious soldiers. "I thought," he said, *' that the uses and customs of war would have moderated your minds and delivered you from passion; for there is true nobleness where prudence is con- joined with courage, and nothing so becomes a generous man as a tranquil modesty and gravity in military opera- tions. The shedding of blood becomes a sordid business if not conducted and accompanied by a decorous dignity." 182 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. He then points out to them that their work is nearly ac- complished: all the difficulties have been overcome: Padua is closely besieged and famishing, the end is at hand: " We Lave come, oh captains, to the conclusion of the war, a fortu- nate end is near to your toils and watches, and nothing remains but the prize and the victory. What then would you have, oh signori ? What do you desire? What fury moves you ? Why are these arms, which should subdue the enemy, turned against each other? Will you make your own labors, your vigils, your great efforts, and all the difficulties you have overcome but useless pains, and the hope of success in so hard a fight as vain as they ? And can you endure, oh strong men, to see the work of so many months destroyed in one hour? I pray you then, generous captains, if any sense of lofty mind, of valor, and of fidelity is in you, come, lay down your arms, calm your rage, conciliate and pacify the offended, make an end of these feuds and conflicts, return to your former brotherliness, and let us condone those injuries done to the republic and to me." The old warrior was seventy when he made this speech. Yet it was he, if his biographer reports truly, who had ex- plored in his own person the marshes about Padua, some- times wading, sometimes swimming, pushing his way through bog and mud, to discover a way by which the troops could pass. He had a right to plead that all the labors thus gone tlirough should not be in vain. When Padua was taken Carlo was made governor of the city. The unfortunate Carrarese were taken to Veniceand imprisoned in San Giorgio, where was enacted one of the darkest scenes in Venetian history. But with this Zeno liad nothing to do. He left his post soon after, a colleague having been appointed, in the belief that nothing called for his presence, and returned to Venice. The colleague, to whom Bishop Jacopo gives no name, among his other labors, took upon him to examine the expenditure of the city for many years back, and there found a certain strange entry: To Carlo Zeno, paid four hundred ducats. No doubt it was one of the highest exercises of Christian charity on the part of the bishop to keep back this busybody's name. With all haste the register was sent to Venice to be placed before the terrible Ten. " The Ten,'' says Jacopo, " held THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 183 in the city of Venice the supreme magistracy, with power to punish whomsoever they pleased; and from their sen- tence there is never any appeal permitted for any reason whatever, and all that they determine is final, nor can it be known of any one whether what they do is according to reason or not." Called before this tribunal Carlo gave the simple explanation with whicli the reader has been already furnished. But before that secret tribunal, his honor, liis stainless word, his labors for his country, availed him nothing. Perhaps the men whose hands had strangled Francesco da Carrara and his son in their prison, still thrilling with the horror of that deed, felt a secret pleasure in branding the hero of Chioggia, the deliverer of Venice, her constant defender and guard, as a traitor and miserable stipendiary in foreign pay. The penalty for this crime was the loss of all public place and rank as senator or mag- istrate, and two years of prison. And to this Carlo Zeno was sentenced as a fitting end to his long and splendid career. It is unnecessary to tell, though our bishop does it with fine suppressed indignation, how the people, thunder- struck by such an outrage, both in Venice itself and in the other surrounding cities, would have risen against it: " But Carlo," he adds, " with marvelous moderation of mind and with a strong and constant soul, supported the stroke of envious fortune without uttering a complaint or showing a sign of anxiety, say- ing solely that he knew the course of human things to be unstable, and that this which had happened to him was nothing new or unknown, since he had long been acquainted with the common fate of men, and how vain was their wisdom, of how little value their honors and dignities, of which he now gave to all a powerful example." But Venice is not alone in thus rewarding her greatest men. Bishop Jacopo does not say in so many words that Carlo fulfilled his sentence and passed two years in prison; so we may hope tliat even the Ten, with all their daring, did not venture to execute the sentence they had pronounced. All 184 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. we are told is that ^^as soon as he was free to go where he pleased " he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, turning his soul to religion and sacred things. Here a curious incident is recorded, to which it is difficult to say what faith should be given. In the Holy City Carlo, according to his biographer, met and formed a warm friendship with a Scotch prince, " Pietro, son of the king of Scotland, ^^ who insisted, out of the love and honor he bore him, on knight- ing the aged Venetian. We know of no Prince Peter in Scottish history, but he might have been one of the many sons of Robert 11. , the first Stewart king. The rank of knight, so prized among the northern races, seems to have been, like other grades, little known among the Venetians, the great distinction between the noble and the plebeian be- ing the only one existing. To be made a knight in peaceful old age, after a warlike career, is a whimsical incident in Carlo's life. But though he was old, and a peaceful pilgrim on a religious journey, his hand had not forgotten its cunning in affairs of war; and on his way home he lent his powerful aid to the king of Cyprus, and once more, no doubt with much satisfaction to himself, beat the Genoese and saved the island. Returning home the old man, somewhere between seventy and eighty, married for the third time, but very reasonably, a lady of a noble Istrian family, of an age not unsuitable to his own, *^ for no other reason than to secure good domestic government, and a consort and companion who would take upon herself all internal cares, and leave him free to study philosophy and the sacred writings." Let us hope that the old couple were happy, and that the lady was satisfied with the position assigned her. Having thus provided for the due regulation of all his affairs, the old warrior gave himself up to the enjoyment of his evening of leisure. He made friends with all the doctors, and learned men of his day, a list of names eruditissimi in their time, but, alas, altogether passed from human recollection : and his house became a second court, a center of intellectual life in Venice as well as the constant haunt of honest statesmen and good citizens THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 185 seeking his advice on public questions and material dif- ficulties as they arose. As for Carlo, he loved nothing so much as to spend his time in reading and writing, and every day when he was able heard mass in Sun Stefano, " nor ever went out," adds the bishop with satisfaction, *' that he did not go to church or some otlier religions place." " In the cold winter (?ieir orrida egelida invernata) he had his bed filled with books, so that when he had slept sufficiently he could sit up in bed, and pass the rest of the night in reading, nor would he put down his book save for some great necessity." One wonders what books the noble old seaman had to read. Scholastic treatises on dry points of mediaeval philosophy, hair-splitting theological argu- ments most probably. Let us hope that there blossomed between some saintly legends, some chronicle newly writ- ten of the great story of Venice, perhaps some sonnet of Petrarch's, whom Carlo in his early manhood must have met on the Piazza, or seen looking out from the windows on the Riva — or perhaps even some portion of the great work of Dante the Florentine. He forgot himself and the troubles of his old age among his books; but before he had reached the profounder quiet of the grave Carlo had still great sorrows to bear. The worthy wife who took the cares of his household from him grew ill and died, to his great grief: and — a pang still greater — Jacopo, his young- est son, the father of the bishop, died too in the flower of his manhood, at thirty, leaving the old father desolate. Another son, Pietro, survived, and was a good seaman and commander; but it was upon Jacopo that the father's heart was set. At last, in 1418, at the age of eighty-four — in this point too following the best traditions of Venice — Carlo Zeno died, full of honors and of sorrows. He was buried with all imaginable pomp, the entire city joining the funeral procession. One last affecting incident is re- corded in proof of the honor in which his countrymen and his profession held the aged hero. The religious orders claimed, as was usual, the right of carrying him to his grave: but against this the seafaring population, quasi tutti i Veneziani allevati sul mare, arose as one man, and 186 THE MAKERS OF VENICE, hastening to the doge claimed the right of bearing to his last rest the commander who had loved them so well. Their prayer was granted: and with all the ecclesiastical splendors in front of tliem, and all the pomp of the state behind, the seamen of Venice, i Veneziani sperimentati nelle cose maritime, carried h\m to his grave; each relay watching jealously that every man might have his turn. This band of seamen great and small, forming the center of the celebration, makes a fitting conclusion to the career of the great captain, who had so often swept the seas, the alto mare, of every flag hostile to his city. But in modern Venice the tomb of Carlo Zeno is known no more. He was buried *^inthe celebrated church called La Celestia/' attached to a convent of Cistercians, but long ago destroyed. Its site and what unknown fragments may remain of its original fabric now form part of the Arsenal and there perhaps under some forgotten stone lie the bones of the great admiral, the scourge of Genoa — not, after all, an inappropriate spot. THE MAKEU8 OF VKNICB. 187 CHAPTER III. BY SEA AND BY LAND — SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE — CAR- MAGNOLA. The history of Venice opens into a totally new chapter when the great republic, somewhat humbled and driven back by the victorious Turk from her possessions beyond sea, and maintaining with difficulty her broken supremacy as a maritime power, begins to turn her eyes toward the green and fat terra firma — those low-lying plains that supplied her with bread and beeves, which it was so natural to wish for, but so uneasy to hold. Tlie suggestion that her enemies, if united, could cut her off at any time from her supplies, so nearly accomplished in the struggle for Chioggia, was a most plausible and indeed reasonable ground for acquiring, if possible, the command in her own hands of the rich Lombardy pastures and fields of grain. And when the inhabitants of certain threatened cities hastily threw themselves on her protection in order to escape their assailants, her acceptance was instantaneous and it would seem to have been with an impulse of delight that she felt her foot upon the mainland, and saw the pos- sibility within her power of establishing a firm standing, perhaps acquiring a permanent empire there. It would bo hopeless to enter into the confused and endless politics of Guelph and Ghibelline, which threw a sort of veil over the fact that every man was in reality for his own hand, and that to establish himself or his leader in tlie sovereignty of a wealthy city, by help of either one faction or the other, or in the name of a faction, or on any other pretext that might be handy, was the real purpose of the captains who cut and carved Lombardy, and of the reigning families who had already established themselves upon the ashes of 188 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. defunct republics or subdued municipalities. But of this there was no possibility in Venice. No whites and blacks ever struggled in the canals. The only rebellions that touched her were those made by men or parties endeavor- ing to get a share of the power which by this time had been gathered tightly beyond all possibility of moving in patrician hands. Neither the pope nor the emperor was ever the watchword of a party in the supreme and independent city which dealt on equal terms with both. There was no reason, however why Venice should not take advantage of these endless contentions : and there was one existing in full force which helped to make the wars of the mainland more easy to the rich Venetians than war had ever been before. All their previous expeditions of conquest, which had been neither few nor small, were at the cost of the blood as well as the wealth of Venice, had carried off the best and bravest, and even, as in the roman- tic story of the Giustiniani, swept whole families away. But this was no longer the case when she strode upon terra firma with an alien general at her elbow, and mer- cenary soldiers at her back. Though they might not turn out very satisfactory in the long run, no doubt there must have been a certain gratification in hiring, so to speak, a ready-made army, and punishing one's enemy and doub- ling one'ri possessions without so much as a scratch on one's own person or the loss even of a retainer. The Condottieri, conductors, leaders, captains^ of the wild spirits that were to be found all over the world in that age of strife and warfare, were, if not the special creation of, at least most specially adapted for the necessities of those rich towns, always tempting to the ambitious, always by their very nature exposed to assault, and at once too busy and too luxurious at this advanced stage of their history to do their fighting themselves — which divided Italy among then, and which were each other's rivals, competitors, and enemies, to the sad hindrance of all national life, but to the growth, by every stimulus of competition, of arts and industries and ways of getting rich — in which methods each en- THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 189 deavored with the zeal of personal conflict to outdo the rest. The rights, the liberties and independence of those cities were always more or less at the mercy of any adven- turous neighboring prince who had collected forces enough to assail them, or of the stronger among their own fellows. We must here add that between the horrors of the first mercenaries, the Grande Compagniay which carried fire and sword tlirough Italy, and made Petrarch's blood run cold, and even the endless turbulence and treachery of tlie men whom Carlo Zeno had so much ado to master, and the now fully organized and reorganized armies, under their own often famous and sometimes honorable leaders, there was a great difference. The Free Lances had be- come a sort of lawful institution, appropriate and adapted to the necessities of the time. The profession of soldier of fortune is not one which commends itself to us nowadays ; and yet there was noth- ing necessarily in it dishonorable to the generals who carried on their game of warfare at the expense of the quarrelsome races which employed them, but at wonder- fully little cost of human life. No great principle lay in the question whether Duke Philip of Milan or the republic of Venice sliould be master of Cremona. One of them, if they wished it, was bound to have the lesser city; and what did it matter to a general who was a Savoyard, coming down to those rich plains to make his fortune, which of these wealthy paymasters he should take service under ? His trade was perhaps as honest as that of the trader wlio buys in the cheapest market and sells in the dearest all the world over. He obeyed the same law of supply and demand. He acted on the same lively sense of his own interests. If he transferred himself in the midst of the war from one side to the other there was nothing very re- markable in it, since neither of the sides was his side ; and it was a flourishing trade. One of its chief dangers was the unlucky accident that occurred now and then when a general who failed of being successful, had his head taken off by the signoria or seigneur in whose employment he was, probably on pretense of treason. But fighting of itself 190 '^iiJ^ MAKERS OF VENICE. was not dangerous, at least to the troops engaged, and spoils were plentiful and the life a merry one. Italy, always so rich in the bounties of nature, had never been so rich as in these days, and the troops had a succession of villages always at their command, with the larger morsel of a rich town to sack now and then, prisoners to ransom, and all the other chances of war. Their battles were rather exercises of skill than encounters of personal opponents, and it was not unusal to achieve a great feat of arms with- out shedding a drop of blood. The bloodshed was among the non-combatants — the villagers, the harmless townsfolk who were mad enough to resist them and not among the fighting men. Such was the profession, when a wandering Savoyard trooper — perhaps come home with his spoils in filial piety, or to make glad the heart of a rustic love with trinkets dragged from the ears or pulled bloody from the throat of some Lombard maiden — took note among the fields of a keen-eyed boy, who carried his shaggy locks with such an ariafiera, so proud an air, that the soldier saw something beyond the common recruit in this young shepherd lad. Komance, like nature, is pretty much the same in all regions; and young Francesco, the peasant's son, under the big frontier tower of Carmagnola, makes us think with a smile of young Norval ^'on the Grampian Hills" — that noble young hero whose history has unfortunately fallen into derision. But in those distant days, when the fifteenth century had just begun, and through all the Continent there was nothing heard but the clatter of mail and the tread of the war-horse, there was nothing ridiculous in the idea that the boy, hearing of battles, should long ^*to fol- low to the field some warlike lord," or should leave the sheep to shift for themselves, and go off with the bold com- panion who had such stories of siege and fight to tell. He appears to have entered at once the service of Facino Cane, one of the greatest generals of the time, under whom he rose, while still quite young, to some distinction. Such, at least, would seem to have been the case, since one of the first notices in the history of the young Piedmontese is the THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 191 record in one of the old chronicles of a question put to Facino — Why did he not promote him? To which the great Condottiere replied that he could not do so — the rustic arrogance of Fiancesco being such that if he got one step he would never be satisfied till he was chief of all. For this reason, though his military genius was allowed full scope, he was kept in as much subjection as possible, and had but ten lances under him, and small honor as far as could be seen: yet was noted of the captains as a man born to be something beyond the ordinary level when his day sliould come. The Italian world was as usual in a state of great dis- turbance in these days. Giovanni or Gian Galeazzo, the Duke of Milan, in iiis time as masterful an invader as any, had died, leaving two sons — the one who succeeded him, Gian Maria, being a feeble and vicious youth, of whose folly and weakness the usual advantages were soon taken. When the young duke was found to unable to restrain them, the cities of Lombardy sprang with wonderful unanimity each into a revolution of its own. The generals who on occasion had served the house of Visconti faithfully enough, found now the opportunity to which these freelances were always looking forward, and established themselves, each with hopes of founding a new dukedom, and little independent dominion of his own, in the revolted cities. Piaoenza, Parma, Cremona, Lodi, all found thus a new sovereign, with an army to back him. The duke's younger brother, Filippo Maria, had been left by his father in possession of the town of Pavia, a younger son's inheritance; but Facino Cane made light of this previous settlement, and in the new position of affairs with the house of Visconti visibly going downhill, took possession of the city, retaining young Philip as half guest, half prisoner. When matters were in this woeful state, the duke was assassinated in Milan, and by his death the young captive in Pavia became the head of the house — to little purpose, however, had things remained as they were. But on the very same day Facino died in Pavia, and immediately all the prospects of Pliilip were altered. There was evidently no one to take the place of 192 TEE MAKERS OF VENICE. the dead soldier. The troops who had bronglit him to that eminence, and the wealth he had acquired, and the wife who probably mourned but little for the scarred and deaf old trooper who had won her by his bow and spear, were all left to be seized by the first adventurer who was strong enough to take advantage of the position. Whether by his own wit or the advice of wise counselors, the young disinherited prince sprang into the vacant place, and at once a counter revolution began. It would seem that the death of his leader raised Fran- cesco, the Savoyard, by an equally sudden leap, into-, the front of the captains of that army. He had taken the name of his village, a well-sounding one and destined to fatal celebrity," perhaps by reason of the want of a surname which was common to Italian peasants, and which probably told more among the Condottieri, whose ranks included many of the best names in Italy, than it did in art. He was still very young, not more than twenty-two. But he would seem to have had sufficient sense and insight to per- ceive the greatness of the opportunity that lay before him, and to have at once thrown the weight of his sword and following upon Philip's side. Probably the two young men had known each other, perhaps been comrades more or less, when Carmagnola was a young captain under Facino's orders and Philip an uneasy loiterer about his noisy court. At all events Carmagnola at once embraced the prince's cause. He took Milan for him, killing an illegitimate rival, and overcoming all rival factions there; and afterward, as commander-in-chief of the duke of Milan's forces, reconquered one by one the revolted cities. This was a slow process extending over several seasons — for those were the days when everything was done by rule, when the troops retired into winter quarters, and a cam- paign was a leisurely performance executed at a time of year favorable for such operations, and attended by little danger except to the unfortunate inhabitants of the district in which it was carried on. The services thus rendered were largely and liberally rewarded. A kinswoman of Philip's, a lady of the Visconti THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 193 family, whose first husband had been higli in the duke's confidence, became Carmagnola's wife, and the privilege of bearing the name of Visconti and the arms .of the reigning liouse was conferred upon him. He was not only the commander-in-cliief of the troops, but held a high place at court, and was one of tlie chief and most trusted of Pliilip's counselors. Tlie Piedmontese soldier was still a young man wlien all tliese glories came upon him, with accompanying wealth, due also to Philip's favor, as well as to the booty won in Philip's cause. He seems to have lived in Milan in a state comformable to these high preten- sions and to the position of his wife, and was in the act of building himself a great palace, now known as theBroletto, and appropriated to public use, when the usual fate of a favorite began to shadow over him. This was in the year 1424, twelve years after he had thrown in his fate with the prince in Pavia. The difference in Philip's position by this time was wonderful. He had then possessed nothing save a doubtful cluini on the city where he was an exile the prisoner. He was now one of the greatest powers in Italy, respected and feared by his neighbors, the master of twenty rich cities, and of all the wealthy Lombard plains. To these Carmagnola had lately added the richest prize of all, in the humiliation and overthrow of Genoa, superbest of northern towns, with her seaboard and trade, and all her proud traditions of independence, the equal and rival of the great republic of Venice. Perhaps this last feat had unduly exalted the soldier, and made him feel himself as a conqueror, something more than the duke's humble kins- man and counselor: at all events, the eve of the change had come. The tenure of a favorite's favor is always uncertain and precarious. In those days there were many who rose to the heights of fame only to be tumbled headlong in a mo- ment from that dazzling eminence. Carmagnola was at the very height of fortune when clouds began to gather over his career. Though no idea of treachery was then imputed to him, he had been if anything too zealous for his duke, to whose service in the meantime, as to that of a 194 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. great and conquering prince, full of schemes for enlarging his own territory and affording much occupation for a brave spldiery, many other commanders had flocked. The enemies of Carmagnola were many. Generals whom he liad beaten felt tlieir downfall all the greater tliat it had been accomplished by a fellow without any blood worth speaking of in his veins ; and others whom it would have pleased Philip to secure in his service were too proud to serve under a man who had thus risen from the ranks. The first sign which the doomed general received of his failing favor was a demand from Philip for the squadron of liorsemen, three hundred in number, who seem to have been Carmagnola's special troop, and for whom the dulie declared that he had a particular use. The reply of t,he general is at once picturesque and pathetic. He implored Philip not to take the weapons out of the hands of a man born and bred in the midst of arms, and to whom life would be bare indeed without his soldiers. As a matter of fact, it is to be presumed that this was but the thin end of the wedge, and that other indignities were prepared to follow. The clique at Milan which was furthering his downfall was led by two courtiers, Riccio and Lampugnano. '^ Much better, '^ says Bigli, the historian of Milan, who narrates diffusely the whole course of the quarrel, ^' would it have been for our state had such men as these never been born. They kept everything from the duke except what it pleased him to learn. And it was easy for them to fill the mind of Philip with suspicions, for he himself began to wish that Fran- cesco Carmagnola should not appear so great a man." Car- magnola received no answer to his remonstrance, and by and by discovered, what is galling in all circumstances, and in his especially so, that the matter had been decided by the gossips of the court, and that it was a conspiracy of his enemies which was settling his fate. Fierce and full of irritation, a man who could never at any time restrain his masterful temper, and still, no doubt, with much in him of the arrogant rustic whom Facino could not make a cap- tain of, lest he should at once clutch at the baton, Carmag- nola determined to face his enemies and plead his own THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 195 cause before his prince. The duke was at Abbiate-grasso, on the borders of Piedmont, a frontier fortress, within easy reach of Genoa, where Carinagnola was governor : and thither he rode with few attendants, no doubt breathing fire and flame, and, in his consciousness of all he had done for Philip, very confident of turning the tables upon his miserable assailants, and making an end of them and their wiles. His letters had not been answered — no notice what- ever had been taken of his appeal ; but still it seemed im- possible to doubt that Philip, with liis trusty champion before him, would remember all that had passed between them, and all that Francesco had done, and do him justice. His swift setting out to put all right, with an angry con- tempt of his assailants, but absolute confidence in the renewal of his old influence as soon as Philip should see him, might be paralleled in many a quarrel. For nothing is so difficult as to teach a generous and impulsive man that the friend for whom he has done too much may sud- denly become incapable of bearing the burden of obliga- tion and gratitude. Arrived at Abbiate, he was about to ride over the bridge into the castle, when he was stopped by the guards, whose orders were to hinder his entrance. This to the com- mander-in-chief was an extraordinary insult; but at first astonishment was the only feeling Carmagnola evidenced. He sent word to Philip that he was there desiring an audi- ence, and waited with liis handful of men, the horses paw- ing the ground, their riders chafing at the compulsory pause, which no one understood. But instead of being then admitted with apologies and excuses, as perhaps Carmagnola still hoped, the answer sent him was that Philip was busy, but that he might communicate what he had to say to Riccio. Curbing his rage, the proud soldier sent another message to the effect that he had certain private matters for the duke's ear alone. To this no reply was given. The situation is wondei fully striking, and full of dramatic force. Carmagnola and his handful of men on one side of the bridge, the castle rising on the other with all its towers and bastions dark against the sky ; 196 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the half-frightened yet half-insolent guards tremhling at their own temerity, yet glad enough to have a hand in the discomfiture of the rustic commander, the arrogant and high-handed captain, who of his origin was no better than they. The parley seems to have gone on for some time, during whicli Carmagnola was held at bay by the attend- ants, who would make him no answer other than a con- tinual reference to Kiccio, his well-known enemy. Then as he scanned the dark, unresponsive towers with angry eyes, he saw, or thought he saw, the face of Philip himself at a loophole. This lit the smoldering fire of passon. He raised his voice — no small voice it may well be believed — and shouted forth his message to his ungrateful master. '^ Since I cannot speak before my lord the duke," he cried, *'I call God to witness my innocence and faithful- ness to him. I have not been guilty even of imagining evil against him. I have never taken thought for myself, for my blood or my life, in comparison with the name and power of Philip." Then, " carried on in the inso- lence of his words," says the chronicle, *'he accused the perfidious traitors, and called God to witness that in a short time he would make them feel the want of one whom the duke refused to hear." So speaking Carmagnola turned his horse, and took his way toward the river. When the conspirators in the castle saw the direction he was taking, a thrill of alarm seems to have moved them, and one of them, Oldrado, dashed forth from the gate with a band of followers to prevent Carmagnola from crossing the Ticino, which was then the boundary of Savoy. But when he saw the great captain '^ riding furiously across the fields " toward Ticino, the heart of the pursuer failed him. Carmagnola would seem never to have paused to think — which was not the fashion of his time — but, carried along in headlong im- pulse, wild with the thought of his dozen years of service, all forgotten in a moment, did not draw bridle till he reached the castle of the duke of Savoy, his native prince, to whom he immediately offered himself and his services, telling the story of his wrong. Noth withstanding his THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 197 fury, he seems to have exonerated Philip — a doubtful com- pliment, since he held him up to the contempt of his brother potentate as influenced by the rabble of his court, '* the singers, actors, and inventors of all crimes, who make use of the labors of others in order to live in sloth/' Mere vituperation of Piiilip's advisers however was not to the purpose, and Carmagnola artfully suggested to Duke Aniadeo certain towns more justly his than Philip's : Asti, Alessandria, and others, which it would be easy to with- draw from the yoke of Milan. It must have been difficult for a fifteenth century prince to resist such an argument, but Amadeo, though strongly tempted, was not powerful enough to declare war by himself against the great duke of Milan ; and the fiery visitor, leaving excitement and commotion behind him, continued his journey, making his way across a spur of the Pennine Alps, by Trient and Treviso (but as secretly as possible, lest the Swiss, whom he had beaten, should hear of his passage and rise against him), till he reached Venice, to stir up a still more effectual ferment there. We are now brought back to our city, where for some time past the proceedings of Philip, and the progress he was making, especially the downfall of Genoa, had filled the signoria with alarm. The Venetians must have looked on with very mingled feelings at the overthrow of the other republic, their own great and unfailing enemy, with whom over and over again they had struggled almost to the death, yet who could not be seen to fall under the power of a con- queror with any kind of satisfaction. The Florentines, too had begun to stir in consternation and amaze, and com- munications had passed between the two great cities even in the time of the Doge Mocenigo, tlie predecessor of Fos- cari, who was the occupant of the ducal throne at the time of Carmagnola's sudden appearances on the scene. Old Mocenigo had not favored the alliance with the Florentines. There is a long speech of his recorded by Sanudo which reminds us of the pleadings in Racine's comedy, where the sham advocates go back to the foundation of the world for their arguments — and which affords us a singular glimpse of 198 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the garrulous and vehement old man, who hated his probable successor, and the half of whose rambling discourse is ad- dressed, it would seem, personally to Foscari, then junior procurator, who, had evidently taken up the cause of the neighboring republics. " Our junior procurator {procurators giovane), Ser Francesco Foscari, Savio del Consiglio, has declared to the \>uhY\c {sopra Varringo) all that the Florentines have said to the Council and all that we have said to your excellencies in reply. He says that it is well to succor the Florentines, because their good is our good, and, in consequence, their evil is our evil. In due time and place we reply to this. Procuratore giovane: God created and made the angelical nature, which is the most noble of all created things, and gave it certain limits by which it should follow the way of good and not of evil, The angels chose the bad way which leads to evil. God punished them and banished them from Paradise to the Inferno, and from being good they became bad. This same thing we say to the Florentines who come here seek- ing the evil way. Thus will it happen to us if we consent to that which our junior procurator has said. But take comfort to yourselves that you live in peace. If ever the [duke of Milan] makes unjust war against you, God is with you, Who sees all. He will so arrange it that you shall have the victory. Let us live in peace, for God is peace; and he who desires war, let him go to perdition. Procuratore giovane- God created Adam wise, good and perfect, and gave him the earthly Paradise, where was peace, with two commandments saying; 'Enjoy peace with all that is in Paradise, but eat not the fruit of a certain tree!' And he was disobedient and sinned in pride, not being willing to acknowledge that he was merely a creature. And God de- prived him of Paradise, where peace dwells, and drove him out and put him in war, which is this world, and cursed him and all human generations. And one brother killed the other, going from bad to to worse. Thus will it happen to the Florentines for their fighting which they have among themselves. And if we follow the counsel of our junior procurator thus will it happen also to us. Procuratore giovane: After the sin of Cain, who knew not his Creator nor did his will, God punished the world by the flood, excepting Noah, whom He preserved. Thus will it happen to the Florentines in their deter- mination to have their own way, that God will destroy their country and their possessions, and they will come to dwell here, in the same way as families with their women and children came to dwell in the city of Noah who obeyed God and trusted in Him. Otherwise, if we follow the counsel of our junior procurator, our people will have to go away and dwell in strange lands. Procuratore giovane- Noah was a holy man elect of God, and Cain departed from God; the which slew Japhet (Abel?) and God punished him; of whom were born the giants THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 199 wlio were tyrants and did whatever seemed good in their own eyes, not fearing Ood. God made of one language sixty-six, and at the end tbey destroyed each other, so that there remained no one of the seed of the giants. Thus will it happen to the Florentines for seeking their own will and not fearing God. Of their language sixty-six languages will be made. For they go out day by day into France Germany, Languedoc, Catalonia, Hungary, and throughout Italy; and they will thus be dispersed, so that no man will be able to say that he is of Florence. Thus will it be if we follow the advice of our junior procurator. Therefore, fear God and hope in Him." We can almost see the old man, with fiery eyes and moist mouth, stammering forth these angry maunderings, lean- ing across the council-table, with his fierce personal desig- nation of the pi'ocurator giovaue, the proud young man in hisstrength, whom not all the vituperations of old Mocenigo, or his warnings to the council, could keep out of the ducal chair so soon as death made it vacant. And there is some- thing very curious in this confused jumble of arguments 80 inconsequent, so earnest — the old man's love of peace and a quiet life mingled with the cunning of the aged mediaeval statesman who could not disabuse his mind of the idea that the destruction of Florence would swell the wealth of Venice. In the latter part of the long, rambling discourse, mixed up with all manner of Scripture parallels not much more to the purpose than tliose above quoted, the speaker returns to and insists upon the ad- vantage to be gained by Venice from the influx of refugees from all the neighboring cities. ^' If the duke takes Florence " cries the old man, 'Hhe Florentines who are ac- customed to live in equality, will leave Florence and come to Venice, and bring with them the silk trade, and the manufacture of wool so that their country will be without trade, and Venice will grow rich, as happened in the case of Lucca when it fell into the hands of a tyrant. The trade of Lucca and its wealth came to Venice, and Lucca became poor. Wherefore, remain in peace." Romanin, always watchful for the credit of Venice, at- tempts to throw some doubt upon this wonderful speech, which, however, is given on the same authority as that which gives us old Mocenigo's report of the accounts of the 200 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. republic and his words of warning against Foscari, which are admitted to be authentic. It gives us a remarkable view of the mixture of wisdom and folly, astute calculation of the most fiercely selfish kind, and irrelevant argument, which is characteristic of the age. It was in the year 14S1 that Mocenigo thus discoursed. He died two years later at the age of eighty, and the pro- curator giovane, whom he had addressed so fiercely, suc- ceeded as the old man foresaw. He was that Francesco Foscari whose cruel end we have already seen, but at this time in all the force and magnificence of his manhood, and with a great career before him — or at least with a great episode of Venetian history, a period full of agitation, victory, and splendor before the city under his rule. When Carmagnola, in hot revolt, and breathing nothing but pro- jects of vengeance, arrived within the precincts of the republic, a great change had taken place in the views of the Venetians. The Florentine envoys had been received with sympathy and interest, and as Philip's troops approached nearer and nearer, threatening their very city, the Venetian government, though not yet moved to active interference, had felt it necessary to make a protest and appeal to Philip, to whom they were still bound by old alliances, made in Mocenigo's time, in favor of the sister republic. Rivalships there might be in time of peace ; but the rulers of Venice could not but regard '^ witli much gravity and lament deeply the adversity of a free people, determining that whosoever would retain the friendsliip of Venice should be at peace with Florence.'' The envoy or orator, Paolo Cornaro, who was sent with this protest, presented it in a speech reported by the chronicler Sabellico, in which, with much dignity, he enjoins and urges upon Philip the determina- tion of the republic. Venetians and Florentines both make short work with the independence of others; but yet there is something noble in the air with which they vindi- cate their own. " Nothing (says Cornaro) is more dear to the Venetians than free- dom: to the preservation of which thev are called by justice, mercy, religion, and every other law, both public and private, counting THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 201 nothing more praiseworthy than what is done to this end. And neither treaties nor laws, nor any other reason, divine or human, can make them depart from this, that before everything freedom must be secured. And in so far as regards the present case, the Venetians hold themselves as much bound to bestir themselves when Florence is in danger as if the army of Philip was on the frontier of their own dominion; for it becomes those who have freedom themselves to be careful of that of others: and as the republican forms of government possessed by Florence resemble greatly their own. their case is like tbat of those who suffer no less in the sufferings of their brethren and relations than if the misfortune was theirs. Nor is there any doubt that he who in Tuscany contends against freedom in every other place will do the same, as is the custom of tyrants— who have ever the name of freedom in abhorrence." The speaker ends by declaring tbat if Philip carries on his assaults against the P'lorentines, Venice, for her own safety, as well as for that of her sister city, will declare war against him as a tyrant and an enemy. '^This oration much disturbed the soul of Philip." But he was full of the intoxication of success, and surrounded by a light- hearted court, to whom victory had become a common- place. The giovanotti dishonestissimi, foolish young courtiers who, from the time of King Rehoboam, have led young princes astray, whose jeers and wiles had driven Carmagnola to despair, were not to be daunted by the grave looks of the noble Venetian, whom, no doubt, they felt themselves capable of laughing and flattering out of his seriousness. The next scene of the drama takes place in Venice to which Philip sent an embassy to answer the mission of Cornaro, led by the same Oldrado who had made that in- effectual rush after Carmagnola from the castle gates, and who was one of his chief enemies. An embassy from Flor- ence arrived at the same time, and the presence of these two opposing bands filled with interest and excitement the city of the sea, where a new thing was received with as much delight as in Athens of old, and where the warlike spirit was always so ready to light up. Tlie keen eyes of the townsfolk seized at once upon the difference so visible in the two parties. The Milanese, ruffling in their fine clothes, went about the city gayly, as if they had come for 202 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. no other purpose than to see tlie sights, which, says, Bigli who was himself of Milan, and probably thought a great deal too much fuss was made about this wonderful sea-city seemed ridiculous to the Venetians, so that they almost believed the duke was making a jest of them. The Florentines, on the contrary, grave as was their fashion, and doubly serious in the dangerous position of their affairs, went about the streets '' as if in mourning,^' eagerly addressing everybody who might be of service to them. Sabellico gives a similar account of the two parties. " There miglit then be seen in the city divers ambassadors of divers demeanor," he says. "Lorenzo (the Florentine), as was befitting showed the sadness and humble condition of his country, seeking to speak with the senators even in the streets, following them to their houses and neglecting nothing which might be to the profit of the embassy. On the other hand, those of Philip, not to speak of their pomp, and decorations of many kinds, full of hope and confidence went gazing about the city so marvelously built, such as they had never seen before, full of wonder how all these things of the earth could be placed upon the sea. And they replied cheerfully to all who saluted them, showing in their faces, in their eyes, by all they said and, in short, by every outward sign of satisfaction, the prosperity of their duke and country." The dark figure of theFlorentine, awaiting anxiously the red-robed senator as he made his way across the Piazza, or hurrying after him through the narrow thoroughfares, while this gay band, in all their finery, swept by, must have made an impressive comment upon the crisis in which so much was involved. While the Milanese swam in a gondola, or gazed at the marbles on the walls, or here and there an early mosaic, all blazing, like themselves, in crimson and gold, the ambassador, upon whose pleading hung the dear life of Florence, haunted the bridges and the street-corners, letting nobody pass that could help him. ^'How goes the cause to- day, illustrious signor? '^ one can hear him saying. **What hope for my country, la patria 7nia9 Will the noble signori hear me speak? Will it be given me to plead my cause before their magnificences? " Or in a bolder tone. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 203 **Onr cause is yours, most noble sir, though it may not seem so now. If Pliilip sets his foot on the neck of Florence, which never shall be while I live, how long will it be, tliink you, before his trumpets sound at Mestre over the marslies, before he has stirred your Istrians to revolt?" Tlie senators passing to and fro, perhaps in the early morn- ing after a long night in the council-chamber, as happened sometimes, had tlieir steps wayhiidby this earnest advocate. The Venetians were more given to gayety than their brothers from the Arno, but they were men who before everything else cared for their constitution, so artfully and skillfully formed — for their freedom, such as it was, and the proud independence which no alien force had ever touched; and the stranger with his rugged Tuscan features and dark dress, and keen inharmonious accent, among all their soft Venetian talk, no doubt impressed the imagination of a susceptible race. Whereas the Milanese gallants, in their gayety affecting to see no serious object in their mission, commended themselves only to the light-minded, not to the fathers of the city. And when Carmagnola, the great soldier, known of all men — he who had set Philip back npon his throne as everybody knew, and won so many bat- tles and cities — with all the romantic interest of a hero and an injured man, came across the lagoon and landed at the Piazzetta between the fated pillars, how he and his scarred and bearded men-at-arms must have looked at the gay courtiers with their jests and laughter, who on their side could scarcely fail to shrink a little when the man whose ruin they had plotted went past them to say his say before the signoria, in a sense fatally different from theirs, as they must have known. The speeches of these contending advocates are all given at lengtn in the minute and graphic chronicle. The first to appear before the doge and senate was Lorenzo Ridolfi, the Florentine, who conjoins his earnest pleading for aid to his own state with passionate admonitions and warn- ings, that if Venice gives no help to avert the conse- quences, her fate will soon be the same. " Serene prince and illustrious senators," he cries, *'even if I were silent vou would understand what T came here to seek. 204 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. " And those also would understand who have seen us leave Tus- cany and come here in haste, ambassadors from a free city, to ask your favor, and help for the protection of our liberties, from a free people like yourselves. The object of all my speaking is this, to in- duce you to grant safety to my country, which has brought forth and bred me, and given me honor and credit — which if I can attain, and that you should join the confederation and friendship of the Floren- tines, and join your army with our Tuscans against the cruelest tyrant, enemy of our liberties, and hating yours, happy shall be my errand, and my country will embrace me with joy on my return. And our citizens, who live in this sole hope, will hold themselves and their city by your bounty alone to be saved from every peril. ... I tremble, noble prince, in this place to say that which I feel in my soul : but because it is necessary I will say it. If you will not make this alliance with us, Philip will find himself able without help, hav- ing overthrown Florence, to secure also the dominion of Venice. If it should be answered me that the Venetians always keep their prom- ises and engagements, I pray and implore the most high God that, having given you goodness and faith to keep your promises, He would give you to know the arts and motives of this tyrant, and after discovering them, with mature prudence to restrain and overrule them. . . . That tyrant himself, who has so often broken all laws, both divine and human, will himself teach you not to keep that which he, in his perfidy, has not kept. But already your tacit con- sent gives me to understand that I have succeeded in convincing you that in this oration I seek not so much the salvation of my republic as the happiness, dignity, and increase of your own." This speech moved the senators greatly, but did not set- tle the question, their minds being divided between alarm, sympathy, and prudence — fear of Philip on the one hand and of expense on the other — so that they resolved to hear Philip's ambassadors first before coming to any decision. Time was given to the orator of the Milan party to prepare reply to his Ridolfi, which he made in a speech full of bra- vado, declaring that he and his fellows were sent, not to make any league or peace with Venice, since their former treaties were still in full force, and any renewal was un- necessary between such faithful allies — but simply to salute the illustrious signoria in Philip's name. " But since these people, who have by nature the gift of speech, delicate and false, have not only to the senate, but in the Piazza and by the streets, with pitiful lamentations, wept their fate, declaring THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 205 that tlie war which they have carried on so badly was begun by Philip ; he desires to leave it to your judgment, not refusing any con- ditions which you may prescribe. What they say is false and vain, unheard of things, such as they are accustomed to study in order to abuse your gravity, your constancy, the ancient laws of friendship, and all the treaties made with Philip. They bid you fear him and the increase of his power. But you know they are our enemies who speak. They tell you that kings hate the name of republics. . . . It is true that King Louis was a cruel enemy of the Venetian name, and all the house of Carrara were your enemies. But the Visconti, who for a hundred years have flourished in the noble duchy of Milan, were always friends of the Venetian republic. . . . Philip has had good reasons to war against the Florentines, and so have all the Vis- conti. They ought to accuse themselves, their pride and avarice, not Philip who is the friend of peace and repose, the very model of liberality and courtesy. Let them therefore cease to abuse and in- jure our noble duke in your presence. Being provoked we have an- swered in these few words, though we might have said many more ; which are so true that they themselves (although they are liars) do not venture to contradict them." This address (lid not throw much light upon the subject, and left the senate in as much difficulty as if it had been an English cabinet council at certain recent periods of our own history. ** Diverse opinions and various decisions were agitated among the senators. Some declared that it was best to oppose in open war the forces of Philip, who would otherwise deceive them with fair words until he had overcome the Florentines. Others said that to leap into such an undertaking would be mere temerity, adding that it was an easy thing to begin a war, but difficult to end it.'' The senate of Venice had, however, another pleader at liand, whose eloquence was more convincing. When they had confused themselves with arguments for and against, the doge, whose views were warlike, called for Carmagnola, who had been waiting in unaccustomed inaction to know what was to happen to him. All his wrongs had been revived by an attempt made to poison him in his retreat at Treviso by a Milanese exile who was sheltered there, and who hoped by this good deed to conciliate Philip and pur- chase his recall — a man who, like Carmagnola, had married a Visconti, and perhaps had some private family hatred to 206 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. quicken his patriotic zeal. The attempt had been unsuc- cessful, and the woiild-be assassin had paid for it by his life. But the result had been to liglit into wilder flame than ever the fire of wrong in the fierce heart of the great captain, whose love had been turned into hatred by the ingratitude of his former masters and friends. He ap- peared before the wavering statesmen, who, between their ducats and their danger, could not come to any decision, flaming with wrath and energy. " Being of a haughty nature, ^lna natura sdegnosa, lie spoke bitterly against Philip and his ingratitude and perfidy," describing in hot words his own struggles and combats, the cities he had brought under Philip's sway, and the fame he had pro- cured him, so that his name was known not only through- out all Italy, but even through Europe, as the master of Genoa. The rewards which Carmagnola had received, he declared proudly, were not rewards, but his just hire and no more. And now quelV ingrato, whom he had served so well, had not only wounded his heart and his good name, for the sake of a set of lying youths — giovanotti dislioiies- tissimi — and forced him into exile, but finally had at- tempted to kill him. But yet he had not been without good fortune, in that he was preserved from this peril ; and though he had lost the country in which he had left wife and children and much wealth, yet had he found an- other country where was justice, bounty, and every virtue — where every man got his due, and place and dignity were not given to villains ! After this outburst of personal feeling, Carmagnola entered fully into the weightier parts of the matter, giving the eager senators to understand that Philip was not so strong as he seemed ; that his money was exhausted, his citizens impoverished, his soldiers in arrears ; that he himself, Carmagnola, had been the real cause of most of his triumphs ; and that with his guidance and knowledge the Florentines themselves were stronger than Philip, the Venetians much stronger. He ended by declaring himself and all his powers at their service, promis- ing not only to conquer Philip, but to increase the territory of the Venetians. Greater ^omni^nders they might have. ^-^^VJ.C^'If^^-f- ■■-■-'T> DOOBWAT OF KUIKKD CHAPEL OF THE SERYl. THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 207 and names more lionored, but none of better faith toward Venice, or of greater hatred toward the enemy. Carmagnola's speech is not given in the first person like the otliers. By the time the narrative was written his tragic history was over, and the enthusiasm with which he was first received had become a tiling to be lightly dwelt upon, where it could not be ignored altogether; but it is easy to see the furious and strong personal feeling of the man, injured and longing for revenge, his heart torn with the serpent's tooth of ingratitude, the bitterness of love turned into hate. So strong was the impression made by these hoarse and thrilling accents of reality that the doubters were moved to certainty, and almost all pronounced for war. At the risk of over-prolonging this report of the Venetian cabinet council and its proceedings, we are tempted to quote a portion of the speech of the doge, in wliich the reader will scarcely fail to see on the contrary side some reflection or recollection of old Mocenigo's argu- ment which had been lanched at his successor's head only a few years before. " There are two things in a republic, noble fathers, which by name and effect are sweet and gentle, but wliich are often the occasion of much trouble to the great and noble city — tbese are peace and economy. For there are dangers both distant and under our eyes, which either we do not see, or seeing them, being too much devoted to saving money, or to peace, esteem them little, so that almost always we are drawn into very evident peril before we will consider the appalling name of war. or come to manifest harm to avoid the odious name of expense. This fact, by which much harm and ruin has been done in our times, and which has also been recorded for us by our prede- cessors, is now set before us in an example not less useful than clear in the misfortunes of the Florentines, who, when they saw the power of Philip increasing, might jnany times have restrained it, and had many occasions of so doing, but would not. in order to avoid the great expense. But now it has come to pass that the money which they acquired in peace and repose must be spent uselessly; and what is more to be lamented, they can neither attain peace, save at the cost of their freedom, nor put an end to their expenditure. I say, then, that such dangers ought to be considered, and being considered, ought to be provided for by courage and counsel. To guide a republic is like guiding a ship at sea. I ask if any captain, the sea being quiet 208 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. and the wind favorable, ceases to steer the sLip, or gives himself up to sleep and repose without thinking of the dangers that may arise, without keeping in order the sails, the masts, the cordage, or taking into consideration the sudden changes to which the sea is subject, the season of the year, by what wind and in what part of the sea lies his course, what depth of water and what rocks his vessel may encounter? If these precautions are neglected, and he is assailed by sudden mis- fortune, does he not deserve to lose his ship, and with it everything ? A similar misfortune has happened to the Florentines, as it must happen to others who do not take precautions against future dangers to the republic. The Florentines (not to have recourse to another ex- ample) might have repressed and overcome the power of Philip when it was growing, if they had taken the trouble to use their opportu- nities. But by negligence, or rather by avarice, they refrained from doing so. And now it has come about that, beaten in war, with the loss of their forces, they are in danger of losing their liberty. And to make it worse, they are condemned everywhere, and instead of being called industrious are called vile, and held in good repute by none; instead of prudent are called fools; and instead of getting credit for their wariness are esteemed to be without intelligence. These evils, therefore, ought to be provided against when far off, which when near can cause such serious evil." AVords so plain and honest, and which are so germane to the matter, come to us strangely from under the gilded roofs of the ducal palace, and from the midst of the romance and glory of mediaeval Venice. But Venice was the nation of shopkeepers in those days which Enghmd is said to be now, and was subject to many of the same dangers which menace ourselves — though wrath was more prompt, and the baUmce of well-being swayed more swiftly, both toward downfall and recovery, than is possible in our larger con- cerns. ** The energetic speech and great influence of the doge, which was greater than that of any prince before him," says the chronicler (alas! though this was that same Francesco Foscari who died in downfall and misery, deposed from his high place), settled the matter. The league was made with the Florentines, war declared against the duke of Milan, and Carmagnola appointed general of the forces. The senate sent messengers, we are told, through all Italy to seek recruits, but in the meantime set in movement those who were ready; while Carmagnola, like a valorous captain. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 209 began to contrive how he could begin the war with some great deed. It does not quite accord with our ideas that the first great deed which he planned was to secure the assassination of the governor of Brescia and betrayal of that city, which is the account given by Sabellico. Bigli, however, puts the matter in a better light, explaining tluit many in the city were inclined to follow Carmagnola, who had once already conquered the town for Philip, who had always maintained their cause in Milan, and whose wrongs had thus doubly attracted their sympathy. The city was asleep, and all was still, when, with the aid from within of two brothers, Imoinini di anima grande, the wall was breached, and Carmagnola got possession of Brescia. ** It was about midnight, in the month of March, on the last day of Lent, which is sacred to St. Benedict," when the Venetian troops marched into the apparently unsuspecting town. The scene is picturesque in the highest degree. They marched into the piazza, the center of all city life, in the chill and darkness of the spring night, and there, with sudden blare of trumpets and illumination of torches, pro- claimed the sovereignty of Venice. It is easy to imagine the sudden panic, the frightened faces at the windows, the glare of the wild light that lit up the palace fronts, and showed the dark mass of the great cathedral rising black and silent behind, while the horses pawed the ringing stones of the pavement and the armor shone. The histo- rian goes on to say: ** Though at first dismayed by tlie clang of the trumpets and arms," the inhabitants, •' as soon as they perceived that it was Carmagnola, remained quiet in their houses, except those who rushed forth to welcome the besiegers, or who had private relations with the gen- eral. No movement was made from the many fortified places in the city." The transfer from one suzerain to another was a matter of common occurrence, which perhaps accounts for the ease and composure with which it was accomplished. The first victory, however, was but a part of what had to be done. The citadel, high above on the crown of the hill which overlooks the city, remained for some time unconscious of what had taken place below. 210 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. Perhaps the Venetian trumpets and clang of the soldiery scarcely reached the airy ramparts above, or passed for some sudden broil, some encounter of enemies in the streets, such as were of nightly occurrence. The town was large, and rich, and populous upon the slopes underneath, surrounded with great walls descending to the plains — walls ^Uhicker than they were high,^^ with fortifications at every gate; and SWORD HILT. was divided into the old and new city, the first of these only being in Carmagnola^s hands. It seems a doubtful advantage to have thus penetrated into the streets of a town while a great portion of its surrounding fortifications and the citadel above were still in other hands; but the warfare of those times had other laws than those with which we are acquainted. The fact that these famous for- tifications were of little use in checking the attack is de- voutly explained by Bigli as a proof that God was against them — ^' because they were erected with almost unbearable expense and toil," ^* the very blood of the Brescians con- strained by their former conqueror to accomplish this work, which was marvelous, no man at that time having seen the THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 211 like." The Brescians themselves, he tells us, were always eager for change, and on the outlook for every kind of novelty, so that there was nothing remarkable in their quiet acceptance of, and even satisfaction in, the new sway. The reduction of the citadel was, however, a long and des- perate task. The means employed by Carmagnola for this end are a little difficult to follow, at least foi a lay reader. He seems to have surrounded the castle with an elaborate double work of trenches and palisades, with wooden towers at inteAals; and wearing out the defenders by continued assault, as well as shutting out all chance of supplies, at last, after long vigilance and patience, attained his end. Brescia fell finally with all its wealth into the hands of the Venetians, a great prize worthy the trouble and time which had been spent upon it — a siege of seven months after the first night attack, which had seemed so easy. This grave achievement accomplished Carmagnola secured with little trouble the Brescian territory ; most of the villages and castles in the neigh borliood, as far as the Lago di Garda, giving themselves up to tlie conqueror without waiting for any assault of arms. The tide of ill-fortune seems to have been too much for Philip ; and by the good offices of the pope's legate, a temporary peace was made — at the cost, to the duke, of Brescia, with all its territory, and various smaller towns and villages, together with a portion of the district of Cremona on the other bank of the Ogiio, altogether nearly forty miles in extent. Philip, as may be supposed, was furious at his losses — now accusing the bad faith of the Florentines, who had begun the war; now the avarice of the Venetians, who were not content with having taken Brescia, but would iiave Cremona too. The well-meant exertions of the legate, however, were of so little effect that before his own departure he saw the magistrates sent by the Venetians to take possession of their new property on the Cremona side driven out with insults, and Philip ready to take arms again. The cause of this new courage was to be found in the action of the people of Milan, who, stung in their pride by the national down- fall, drew their purse-strings and came to their prince's aid. 212 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. offering both men and money on condition that Philip would give up to them the dues of the city so that they might reimburse themselves. Thus the wary and subtle Italian burghers combined daring with prudence, and secured a great municipal advantage, while undertaking a patriotic duty. It would be hopeless to follow the course of this long- continued, often-interrupted war. On either side there was a crowd of captains — many Italians, men of high birth and great possessions, others sprung from the people like Carmagnola: a certain John the Englishman, with a hundred followers, figured in the special following of the commander, like William the Cock in the train of Zeno. The great battles which bulk so largely in writing, the names and numbers of which confuse the reader who attempts to follow the entanglements of alliances and treacheries which fill the chronicle, were in most cases almost bloodless, and the prisoners who were taken by the victors were released immediately, *^ according to the usage of war," in order that they might live to fight another day, and so prolong and extend the profitable and not too laborious occupation of soldiering. Such seems to have been the rule of these endless combats. The men-at-arms in their complete mail were very nearly invulnerable. They might roll off their horses and be stifled in their own helmets, or at close quarters an indiscreet axe might hew through the steel, or an arrow find a crevice in the armor; but such accidents were quite unusual, and the bloodless battle was a sort of game which one general played against another, in ever renewed and changing combinations. The danger that the difi'erent bands might quarrel among themselves, and divided counsels prevail, was perhaps greater than any other in the com- position of these armies. In Philip^s host, when the second campaign began, this evil was apparent. Half-a-dozen captains of more or less equal pretensions claimed the command, and the wranglings of the council of war were not less than those of a village municipality. On the other hand, Carmagnola, in his rustic haughtiness, conscious of being the better yet the inferior of all round him, his THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 213 flwmasc?e^?iOsa stoutly contemptuous of all lesser claims, kept perfect harmony in his camp, though the names of Gonzaga and Sforza are to found among his officers. Even the Venetian comtnissioners yielded to his influence, Bigli says, with awe — though he hid his iron hand in no glove, but ruled his army with the arrogaiice which had been his characteristic f lom his youth up. Already, how- ever, there were suspicions and doubts of the great general rising in the minds of those who were his masters. He had asked permission more than once, even during the siege of Brescia, to retire to certain baths, pleading ill- health, a plea which it is evident the signoria found it difficult to believe, and which raised much scornful com- ment and criticism in Venice. These Carmagnola heard of and in great indignation complained of to the signoria: which, however, so far from supporting the vulgar plaints, sent a special commisioner to assure him of their complete trust and admiration. The great battle of Maclodio or Macalo was the chief feature in Carmagnola's second campaign. This place was surrounded by marshes, the paths across which were tor- tuous and difficult to find, covered with treacherous herbage and tufts of wood. Carmagnola's purpose was to draw the Milanese army after him, and bring on a battle if possible on this impracticable ground, which his own army had thoroughly explored and understood. Almost against hope his opponents fell into the snare, notwithstanding the opposition of the older and more experienced captains, who divined their old comrade's strategy. Unfortunately, how- ever, for the Milanese, Philip had put a young Malatesta, incompetent and headstrong, whose chief recommendation was his noble blood, at the head of old officers, by way of putting a stop to their rivalries. When the new general decided upon attacking the Venetians, his better instructed subordinates protested earnestly. "We overthrow Philip to-day," cried Torelli, one of the chiefs; "for either I know nothing of war, or this road leads us headlong to destruc- tion; but that no one may say I shrink from danger, I put my foot first into the snare." So saying, he led the way 214 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. into tlie marsh, but with every precaution, pointing out to his men the traps laid for them, and, having the good fortune to hit upoji one of the solid lines of path, escaped with his son and a few of his immediate followers. Pic- cinino, another of the leaders, directed his men to turn their pikes against either fricind or foe who stopped the way, and managed to cut his way out with a few of his men; but the bulk of the army fell headlong into the snare; the general, Malatesta, was taken almost imme- diately, and the floundering troops surrounded and taken prisoners in battalions. Sabellico talks of much bloodshed, but it would seem to have been the innocent blood of horses that alone was shed in this great battle. "Nearly five thousand horsemen, and a similar number of foot- soldiers, were taken — there was no slaughter" says Bigli: "the troops thus hemmed in, rather than be slain, yielded themselves prisoners. Those who were there affirm that they heard of no one being killed, extraordinary to relate, though it was a great battle. Philip's army was so completely equipped in armor that no small blow was needed to injure them: nor is there any man w^ho can record what could be called a slaughter of armed men in Italy, though the slaughter of horses was incredible. This disaster was great and memorable," he adds, "for Philip — so much so that even the conquerors regretted it, having compassion on the perilous position of so great a duke; so that you could hear murmurings throughout the camp of the Venetians against their own victory." Were it not that the bloodless character of the combat involves a certain ridicule, what a good thing it would be could we in our advanced civilization carry on our warfare in this innocent way, and take each other prisoners with polite regret, only to let each other go to-morrow ! Such a process would rob a battle of all its terrors ; and if in certain eventualities it were understood that one party must accept defeat, how delightful to secure all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war at so easy a cost I There is indeed a great deal to be said in favor of this way of fighting. This great success was, however, the beginning of Car- magnola'3 evil fortune. It is said that he might, had he THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 215 followed up his victory, have pushed on to the walls of Milan and driven Philip from his duchy. But no doubt this would have been against the thrifty practices of the Condottieri, and the usages of war. He returned to bis headquarters after the fight without any pursuit, and all the prisoners were set free. This curious custom would seem to have been unknown to the Venetian commis- sioners, and struck them with astonishment. In the morn- ing, after the din and commotion of the battle were over, they came open-mouthed to tlie generaFs tent with their complaint. Tiie prisoners had in great part been dis- charged. Was Oarmagnola aware of it r ** What then," cried those lay critics witli much reason, ** was the use of war ? when all that was done was to prolong it endlessly — the fighting men escaping without a wound, the prisoners going back to tlieir old quarters in peace ?" Oarmagnola, ever proud, would seem to have made them no reply ; but when they had done he sent to inquire what had been done with the prisoners, as if this uniniportant detail was un- known to him. He was answeied that almostall had been set free on the spot, but that about four hundred still remained in the catnp — their captors probably hoping for ransom. ** Since their comrades have had so much good fortune," said Oarmagnola, *' by the kindness of my men, I desire that the others should be released by mine, according to the custom of war." Thus the haughty general proved how much regard he pnid to the remonstrances of his civilian masters. ''From this," says Sabellico, ** there arose great suspicion in the minds of the Venetians. And there are many who believe that it was the chief occasion of his death." But no hint was given of these suspicions at the time ; and as Oarmagnohi's bloodless victory deeply impressed the surrounding countries, brought all the smaller fortresses and castles to submission, and, working with other misfortunes, led back Philip again with the ever- convenient legate to ask for peace, the general returned with glory to Venice, and was received apparently with honor and delight. But the little rift within the lute was never slow of appearing, and the jealous signoria feasted 216 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. many a man whom they suspected, and for whom, under their smiles and plaudits, they were already concocting trouble. The curious *' usage of war," thus discovered by the Venetian envoys, is frankly accounted for by a historian, who had himself been in his day a Condottiere, as arising from the fear the soldiers had, if the war finished quickly, that the people might cry, '' Soldiers, to the spade ! " A curious evidence of how human expedients are lost and come round into use again by means of that whirli- gig of time which makes so many revolutions, is to be found in Carmagnola's invention for tiie defense of his camp, of a double line of the country carts which carried his provisions, standing closely together — with three archers, one authority says, to each. Nothwithstanding what seems the very easy nature of his victories and the large use of treachery, it is evident that his military genius impressed the imagination of his time above that of any of his competitors. He alone, harsh and haughty as he was, kept his forces in unity. His greatness silenced the feudal lords, who could not venture to combat it, and he had the art of command, which is a special gift. The peace lasted for the long period of three years, dur- ing which time Carm.agnola lived in great state and honor in Venice, in a palace near San Eustachio which had been bestowed upon him by the state. His wife and children, had in the former interval of peace been restored to him, and all seemed to go at his will. A modern biographer (Lomonaco), who does not cite any authorities, informs us that Carmagnola was never at home in his adopted city — that he felt suspicions and unfriendliness in the air — and that the keen consciousness of his low origin, which seems to have set a sharp note in his character, was more than ever present with him here. ^' He specially abhorred the literary coteries," says this doubtful authority, '^calling them vain as women, punctilious as boys, lying and feign- ing like slaves " — which things have been heard before, and are scarcely worth putting into the fierce lips of the Pied- montese soldier, whose rough accent of the north was THE MAKKRS Ot VENICE. 217 probably laughed at by the elegant Venetians, and to vvlioni their constant pursuit of novelty, their mental activity, politics, and commotions of town life, were very likely nauseous and unprofitable. He who was conversant with more primitive means of action than speeches in the senate, or even the discussions of the Oousiglio Maggiore, might well chafe at so much loss of time ; and it was the fate of a general of mercenaries, who had little personal motive beyond his pay, and what he could gain by his services, to be distrusted by his masters. The occasion of the third war is sufficiently difficult to discover. A Venetian cardinal — Gabriele Oondulmero — had been made pope, and had publislied a bull, admonish- ing both lords and people to keep the peace, as he intended himself to inquire into every rising, and regulate the affairs of Italy. This declaration alarmed Philip of Milan, to whom it seemed inevitable that a Venetian pope should be his enemy ; and thus, with no doubt a thousand secondary considerations on all hands, the peninsula was once more set on fire. When it became apparent that the current of events was setting toward war, Carmagnola, for no given reason, but perhaps because his old comrades and associates had begun to exercise a renewed attraction, notwithstand- ing all the griefs that had separated him from Philip, wrote to the senate of Venice, asking to resign his appointments in their service. This, however, the alarmed signoria would b} no means listen to. They forced upon him instead the command in general of all their forces, with one thousand ducats a month of pay, to be paid both in war and peace, and many extraordinary privileges. It seems even to have been contemplated as a possible thing that Milan itself, if Philip's powers were entirely crushed, as the Venetians hoped, might be bestowed upon Carmagnola as a reward for the destruction of the Visconti. Nevertheless, it is evi- dent that Carmagiiola had by this time begun a correspond- ence with his former master, and received both letters and messengers from Philip while conducting the campaign against him. And that campaign was certainly not so suc- cessful, nor was it carried on with the energy which had 218 THE MAKEnS OF VENICE. marked his previous enterprises. He was defeated before Soncino, by devices of a similar character to those which he had himself employed, and here is said to have lost a tliousand horses. But that shedding of innocent blood was soon forgotten in the real and terrible disaster which followed. The Venetians had fitted out not only a land army, but what ought to have been more in consonance with their liabits and character, an expedition by sea under the Ad- miral Trevisano, whose sliips, besides their crews, are said to liave carried ten thousand fighting men, for tlie capture of Cremona. The fleet went up the Po to act in concert with Oarmagnola in his operations against that city. But Philip on his side had also a fleet in the Po, though inferior to the Venetian, under the command of a Genoese, Grimaldi, and manned in great part by Genoese, the hereditary opponents and rivals of Venice. The two generais on land, Sforza nnd Piccinino, then both in the service of Philip — men wliose ingenuity and resource had been whetted by previous defeats, and who had thus learned CarmagnoUi's tactics — amused and occupied him by threatening his camp, wliich was as yet imperfectly defended, phitosto alleggiamento die ripari: but in the night stole away, and under the walls of Cremona were received in darkness and silence into Grimaldi's ships, and flung themselves upon the Venetian fleet. These vessels being sea-going ships, were heavy and difficult to manage in the river — those of their adversaries being apparently of lighter build ; and Grimaldi^s boats seem to have had the advantage of the current, which carried them '' very swiftly " against the Venetians, who, in the doubtful dawn, were astonished by the sight of the glittering armor and banners bearing down upon them with all the impetus of the great stream. The Venetian admiral sent ojff a message to warn Carmagnola ; but before he could reach the river-bank, the two fleets, in a disastrous jumble, had drifted out of reach. Carmagnola, roused at last, arrived too late, and, standing on the shore, hot with ineff'ectual haste, spent his wrath in shouts of encourage- ment to his comrades, and in cries of rage and dismay as he THE MAKERS OF VENICE, 219 saw the tide of fortune drifting on, carrying the ships of Philip in wild concussion against the hapless Venetians. When things became desperate, Trevisano, the admiral, got to shore in a little boat, and fled, carrying with him the treasure of sixty thousand gold pieces, which was one of the great objects of the attack. But this was almost all that was saved from the rout. Bigli says that seventy ships were taken, of which twenty-eight were ships of war; but in this he is probably mistaken, as he had himself described the fleet as one of thirty ships. "The slaughter," he adds, *' was greater than any that was ever known in Italy, more than twenty-five hundred men being said to have perished, in witness of which the Po ran red, a great stream of blood, for many miles." A few ships escaped by flight, and many fugitives, no doubt, in boats and by the banks, where they were assailed by the peasants, wiio taking advantage of their opportunity, and with many a wrong to revenge, killed a large number. Such a disastrous defeat had not happened to Venice for many a day. The Venetian historian relates that Carmagnola received the warning and appeal of the admiral with contempt — '*as he was of a wrathful nature, di naturn iraconda, and with a loud voice reproved the error of the Venetians, who, despising his counsel, refused the support to the army on land which they had given to their naval expedition ; nor did he believe what the messengers told him, but said scornfully that the admiral, fearing the form of an aimed man, had dreamed that all the enemies in their boats were born giants." This angry speech, no doubt, added to the keen dissatisfaction of the Venetians in knowing that their general remained inactive on the bank while their ships were thus cut to pieces. The truth probably lies between the two narratives, as so often happens ; for Carmagnola might easily express his hot impatience with the autliorities who had refused to be guided by his experience, and with the admiral who took the first unexpected man in armor for a giant, when the messengers roused him with their note of alarm in the middle of the night, and yet have had no traitorous purpose in liis delay. He himself took the 220 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. defeat profoundly to heart, and wrote letters of such dis- tress excusing himself, that the senators were compelled in the midst of their own trouble to send ambassadors to soothe him — ^'to mitigate liis frenzy, that they might not fall into greater evil, and to keep him at his post" — with assurances that they held him free of blame. It is evident, we think, that the whole affair had been in direct opposition to his advice, and that, instead of being in the wrong, he felt himself able to take a very high position with the ill-advised signoria, and to resent the catastrophe which, with greater energy on his part, might perhaps have been prevented altogether. The Venetians avenged the disaster by sending a fleet at once to Genoa, where, coursing along the lovely line of the eastern Eiviera, they caught in a somewhat similar way the Genoese fleet, and annihilated it. But this is by the way. Carmagnola, meanwhile, lay like Achilles sullen in his tent. Philip himself came in his joy and triumph to the neighborhood, but could not tempt the disgusted general to more than a languid passage of arms. An attempt to take Cremona by surprise, made by one of his officers, a certain Cavalcabo, or as some say by Colleoni, seemed as if it might have been crowned with success had the general bestirred himself with sufficient energy — *'if Car- magnola had sent more troops in aid." As it was, the ex- pedition, being unsupported, had to retire. If he were indeed contemplating treachery it is evident that he had a great struggle with himself, and was incapable of changing his allegiance with the light-hearted ease of many of his contemporaries. He lay thus sullen and disheartened in liis leaguer even when spring restored the means of war- fare, and though his old enemy Picinnino was up and stir- ring, picking up here and there a castle in the disturbed precincts of the Cremonese. "The marvel grew," cries Sabellico, "that Carmagnola let these people approach him, and never moved." The signoria in the meantime, had been separately and silently turning over many thouglits in their mind on the subject of this general who was not as the others, who THE MAKEHh OF VENICE. 221 would not be commanded nor yet dismissed, too great to be dispensed with, too troublesome to manage. Ever since the memorable incidents of the battle of Maclodio, doubts of his good faith had been in their minds. Why did he liberate Philip's soldiers if he really wished to overthrow Philip ? It was Philip himself — so the commissioners had said in their indignation whom he had set free; and who could tell that the treachery at Soncino was not of his con- triving, or that he had not stood aloof of set purpose while the ships were cut in pieces ? Besides, was it not certain that many a Venetian had been made to stand aside while this nortnern mountaineer, this rude Piedmontese, went swaggering through the streets, holding the noblest at arm's length ? A hundred hidden vexations came up when some one at last introduced his name, and suddenly the senators with one consent burst into the long-deferred dis- cussion for which every one was ready. " There were not a few," says Sabellico, "who, from tbe beginning, had suspected Carmagnola. These now openly in the senate declared that this suspicion not only had not ceased but increased, and was increasing every day; and that, except his title of commander, they knew nothing in him that was not hostile to the Venetian name. The others would not believe this, nor consent to hold him in such sus- picion until some manifest signs of his treachery were placed before them. Tbe senate again and again referred to the Avogadori the question whether such a man ought to be retained in the public serv- ice, or whether, if convicted of treachery, he ought to be put to capital punishment. This deliberation, which lasted a very long time, ought to demonstrate how secret were the proceedings of the senate when the affairs of the country were in question, and how profound the g(K)d faith of the public counselors. For when the senate was called together for this object, entering into counsel at the first lighting of torches, the consultation lasted till it was full day. Carmagnola himself was in Venice for some time while it was pro- ceeding; and going one morning to pay his respects to the doge, he met him coming out of the council-chambv^r to the palace, and with mucn cheerfulness asked whether he ought to bid him good morning or good evening seeing he had not slept since supper. To whom that prince replied, smiling, that among the many serious matters which had been talked of in that long discussion, nothing had been oftener mentioned than his (Caruiagnola's) name. But in order that no suspicion might be awakened by these words, he immediately 222 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. turned the conversation to otber subjects. This was nearly eight months before there was any question of death: and so secret was this council, holding everything in firm and perpetual silence, that no suggestion of their suspicions reached Carmagnola. And though many of the order of the senators were by long intimacy his friends, and many of them poor, who might have obtained great rewards from Carmagnola had they betrayed this secret, nevertheless all kept it faithfully." There is something grim and terrible in the smiling reply of the doge to the man whose life was being played for between tliese secret judges, that his name had been one of those which came oftenest uppermost in their discussions. With what eyes must the splendid Venetian in his robes of state, pale with the night's watching have looked at the soldier, erect and cheerful, con fronts molto allegra, who came across the great court to meet him iu tiie first light of the morning, which after the dimness of the council- chamber and its dying torches, would dazzle the watcher's eyes? The other red-robed figures, dispersing like so many ghosts, pale-eyed before the day, did they glance at each other with looks of baleful meaning as the unsuspicious general passed with many salutations and friendly words and greeting — * 'Shall it be good-even or good-morrow, illustrious gentlemen, who watch for Venice while the rest of the world sleep?" Would there be grace enough among the secret councilors to hurry their steps as they passed him, or was there a secret enjoyment in Foscari's double entendre — in that fatal smile with which he met the victim? The great court which has witnessed so much has rarely seen a stranger scene. At what time this curious encounter can have happened it is difficult to tell — perhaps on the occasion of some flying visit to his family, which Carmagnola may have paid after laying up his army in winter quarters after the fashion of the time. The signoria had sent messengers to remonstrate with him upon his inaction to no avail ; and that he still lingered in camp doing little or nothing added a sort of exasperation to the impatience of the city, and gave their rulers a justification for what they were about to do. The Yeuetiaa seuators had no thought of leaving their general THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 223 free to carry over to Philip the help of his great name in case of another war. Carmagnola's sword thrown suddenly into the balance of power, which was so critical in Italy, might have swayed it in almost any conceivable direction — and this was a risk not to be lightly encountered. Had he shaken the dust from his feet at Mestre, and, instead of embarking upon the lagoon, turned his horse round upon the beacii and galloped off, as he had done from Philip's castle, to some other camp — the Florentines', perhaps, or his own native Duke Amadeo of Savoy — wliat revolutions might happen ? He had done it once, but the magnificent signoria were determined that he should not do it again. Therefore the blow, when finally resolved upon, had to be sharp and sudden, allowing no time for thought. Thanks to that force of secrecy of which the historian brags, Carmagnola had no thought of any harm intended to him. He thought himself the master of the situation — he to whom only a year before the rulers of Venice had sent a deputation to soothe and caress their general, lest he should throw up his post. Accordingly, when he received the fatal message to return to Venice in order to give his good masters advice as to the state of affairs, he seems to have been without suspicion as to what was intended. He set out at once, accompanied by one of his lieutenants, Gonzaga, the lord of Mantua, who had also been summoned to advise the signoria, and rode along the green Lombard plains in all the brilliancy of their spring verdure, received wherever he halted with honor and welcome. When he reached the Brenta he took boat; and his voyage down the slow-flowing stream, which has been always so dear to the Venetians, was like a royal progress. The banks of the Brenta bore then, as now, long lines of villas, inhabited by all that was finest in Venice ; and such of the noble inhabitants as were already in villeggiatura, '' according to their habit," Sabellico says, received him, as he passed, con molta festa. And so he went to his fate. At Mestre he was met by an escort of eight gentleman from Venice — those no doubt, to whom the historian refers as bound to him by long intimacy, whg 224 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. yet never breathed to him a word of warning. With this escort he crossed the lagoon, the towers and lofty roofs of Venice rising from out the rounded line of sea, his second home, the country of which he had boasted, where every man received his due. How did they talk with him, those silken citizens who knew but would not by a look betray whither they were leading tlieir noble friend ? Would they tell him the news of the city, what was thought of the coming peace, what intrigues were afloat, where Trevisano, the unlucky admiral, had gone to hide his head in his banishment ? or would the conversation flow on tlie last great public show, or some rare conceit in verse, or the fine fleet that followed the Bucentoro when last the serenest prince took the air upon the lagoon ? But Carmagnola was not lettered, nor a courtier, so that such subjects would have little charm for him. When the boats swept past San Stai, would not a waving scarf from some balcony show that his wife and young daughter had come out to see him pass, though well aware that the business of the signoria went before any indulgence at home ? Or perhaps he came not by Cane- reggio but up the Giudecca, with the wind and spray from the sea blowing in his face as he approached the center of Venetian life. He was led by his courtier- attendants to the palace direct — the senators having as would seem, urgent need of his counsel. As he entered the fatal doors, those complacent friends, to save him any trouble, turned back and dismissed the retainers, without whom a gentleman never stirred abroad, informing them that their master had much to say to the doge, and might be long detained. Here romance comes in with unnecessary aggravations of the tragic tale, relating how, not finding the doge, as he had expected, awaiting him, Carmagnola turned to go to his own house, but was stopped by his false friends, and led, on pretense of being shown the nearest exit, another gloomy way — a way that led through bewildering pas- sages into the prisons. No sentimental Bridge of Sighs existed in these days. But when the door of the strong- room which was to be his home for the rest of his mortal THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 225 life was opened, and the lively voices of bis conductors sank in the shock of surprise and liorror, and all that was about to be rushed on Carmagnola's mind, the situation is one which requires no aid of dramatic art. Here, in a moment, betrayed out of the air and light, and the freedom which he had used so proudly, this man who had never feared the face of men, must have realized his fate. At the head of a great army one day, a friendless prisoner the next, well aware that the light of day would never clear up the proceedings against him, or common justice, such as awaits a poor picker and stealer, stand between him and the judges whose sentence was a foregone conclusion. Let us hope that those intimates who had accompanied him thus far slunk away in confusion and shame from the look of the captive. So much evil as Carmagnola had done in his life — and there is no reason to suppose, and not a word to make us believe, that he was a sanguinary conqueror, or abused the position he held — must have been well atoned by that first moment of enlightenment and despair. During the thirty days that followed, little light is thrown upon CarmagnolaV dungeon. He is swallowed up in the darkness, ** examined by torture before the secret council, '' a phrase that chills one's blood — until they have the evidence they want, and full confirmation in the groans of the half-conscious sufferer of all imagined or concocted accusations. Sabellico asserts that the proof against him was *'in letters which he could not deny were in his own hand, and by domestic testimony," whatever that may mean ; and does not mention the torture. It is remarka- ble that Romanin, while believing all this, is unable to prove it by any document, and can only repeat what the older and vaguer chronicler says. ^* The points of the accusation were these," Sabellico add: ^'succor refused to Trevisano, and Cremona saved to Philip by his treacher- ous abstinence." The fact, however, is more simply stated by Navagero before the trial, that '' the signoria were bent on freeing themselves" from a general who had apparently ceased to be always victorious — after the excellent habit of republics, which was to cut off the head of every unsuccess- 226 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. fill leader — thus eiffectually preventing further faihire, on liis part at least. Oarmagnola was not a man of words. Yet he might have lanched with his dying breath some ringing defiance to catch the echoes, and leave in Venetian ears a recollection, a watchword of rebellion to come. The remorseless council thought of this, with the vigihmce and subtle genius which inspired all the preceedings of their secret conclave; and when the May morning dawned which was to be his last, a crowning indignity was added to his doom. He was led out con uno shadocchio iii hocca, gagged, ''^in order that he might not speak '' to the Piazzetta, now so cheerful and so gay, which then had the most dreadful associations of any in Venice. '^ Between the columns," the blue lagoon, with all its wavelets flinging upward their countless gleams of reflection in the early sun; the rich hued sails standing out against the blue; the great barges coming serenely in, as now, with all their many-colored stores from the Lido farms and fields — the gondolas crowding to the edge of the fatal pavement, the populace rushing from behind. No doubt the windows of the ducal palace, or so much of the galleries as was then in existence, were crowded with spectators too. Silent, carrying his head high, like him of whom Dante writes who held great hell itself in despite — sdegnoso even of that gag between his lips — the great soldier, the general whose praises had rung through Venice, and whose haughty looks had been so familiar in the streets, was led forth to his death. By that strong argument of the ax, unanswer- able, incontestable, the signoria managed to liberarsi of many an inconvenient servant and officer, either unsuccess- ful or too fortunate. Carmagnola had both of these faults, he was too great, and for once he had failed. The people called ^' Sventura! Sventura! " ^^ Misfortune! Misfor- tune ! " in their dark masses, as they struggled to see the wonderful sight. Their sympathies could scarcely be against the victim on that day of retribution; and perhaps, had his voice been free to speak to them, they might have thought of other things to shout, which the signoria had been less content to hear. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. ^27 Thus ended the great Carmagnola, the most famous of all Italian soldiers of fortune. Over one of the doors of the noble church of the Frari there has hung for generations a coffin covered with a pall, in which it was long supposed that his bones had been placed, suspended between heaven and earth jyer infamia, as a romantic Custode says. This, however, is one of the fables of tradition. He was buried in San Francesco delle Vigne (not the present church), whence at a later period his remains were transferred to Milan. His wife and daughter, or daughters, were banished to Treviso with a modest pension, yet a penalty of death registered against them should they break bounds — so determined, it is evident, were the signoria to leave no means by which the general could be avenged. And what became of these poor women is unknown. Such uncon- sidered trifles drop through the loopholes of history, which has nothing to do with hearts that are broken or hopes that cannot be renewed. OOFVIN IM THK CHUBCH OF TBE FBABL JiSS THE MAKERS OF VENICE. CHAPTER IV. BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI. The lives of the other Condottieri who tore Lombardy in pieces among them and were to-day for Venice and to-morrow for Milan, or for any other master who might turn up with a reasonable chance of fighting, have less of human interest, as they have less of the tragic element in their lives, and less of what we may call modern characteristics in their minds than the unfortunate general who ended his days "between the columns," the victim of suspicion only, leaving no proof against him that can satisfy posterity. If Carmagnola was a traitor at all, he was such a one as might be the hero of an analytical drama of our own day, wavering between truth and falsehood, worked upon by old associations and the spells of relenting affec- tion, but never able to bring himself to the point of re- nouncing his engagements or openly breaking his word. Such a traitor might be in reality more dangerous than the light-hearted deserter who went over with his lances at a rousing gallop to the enemy. But modern art loves to dwell upon the conflicts of the troubled mind, driven about from one motive or object to another, now seized upon by the tender recollections of the past, and a longing for the sympathy and society of the friends of his youth, now sternly called back by the present duty which requires him to act in the service of their enemy. It is difficult to realize this nineteenth century struggle as going on under the corslet of a mediaeval soldier, a fierce illiterate general, risen from the ranks, ferocious in war and arrogant in peace, according to all the descriptions of him. But there is nothing vulgar in the image that rises 7 HE MAKERS OF VENICE. 229 before us as we watch Carmagnola lying inactive on those devastated plains, letting his fame go to tlie winds, paralyzed between the subtle wooings of old associations, the horror of Philip's approaching ruin wrought by his hands — of Philip who had been his playfellow when they were both youths at Pavia, the cousin, perhaps the brother, of his wife — and the demands of the alien masters who paid him so well, and praised him so loudly, but scorned with fine ridicule his rough military ways. Philip had wronged him bitterly, but had suffered for it : and how was it possible to keep the rude heart from melting when the rage of love offended had passed away, and the sinner pleaded for forgiveness ? Or, who could believe that the woman by his side, who was a Visconti, would be silent, or that she could see unmoved her own paternal blazon sink- ing to the earth before the victorious Lion of the Venetians ? The wonder is that Carmagnola did not do as at one time or another every one of his compeers did — go over cheerfully to Philip, and thus turn the tables at once. Some innate nobility in the man, who was not as the others were, could alone have prevented this very usual catastrophe. Even if we take the view of the Venetian siguoria, that he was in his heart a traitor, we must still allow the fact, quite wonderful in the circumstances, that he was not so by any overt act — and that his treachery amounted to nothing more than the struggle in liis mind of two influences which paralyzed and rendered him wretched. The ease with which he fell into the snare laid for his feet, and obeyed the signoria's call, which in reality was his death-warrent, does not look like a guilty man. The other were all of very different mettle. Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, who with a few generations of fore- fathers behind him, might have been supposed to have learned the laws of honor better than a mere Savoyard trooper, went over without a word, at a most critical moment of the continued war, yet died in his bed com- fortably, no one thinking of branding him with the name of traitor. Sforza acted in the same manner repeatedly, without any apparent criticism from his contemporaries. 230 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. and in the end displaced and succeeded Philip, and estab- lished his family as one of the historical families of Italy. None of tliese men seem to have had any hesitation in the matter. And neither had the lesser captain who has so identified himself with Venice that when /we touch upon the mainland and its wars, and the conquests and losses of the republic, it is not possible to pass by the name of CoUeoni. This is not so much for the memory of anything he lias done, or from any characteristics of an impressive nature which he possessed, as from the wonderful image of him which rides and reigns in Venice, the embodiment of martial strength and force unhesitating, the mailed captain of the middle ages^ ideal in a tremendous reality which the least observant cannot but feel. There he stands as in iron — nay, stands not, but rides upon us, unscrupulous, unswerving, though his next step should be on the hearts of the multitude, crushing them to pulp with remorseless hoofs. Man and horse together, there is scarcely any such warlike figure left among us to tell in expressive silence the tale of those days when might was right, and the sword, indifferent to all reason, turned every scale. Colleoni played no such empathic part in the history of Venice as his great leader and predecessor. But he was mixed up in all those wonderful wars of Lombardy, in the confusion of sieges, skirmishes, surprises ever repeated, never decisive, a pliantasmagoria of moving crowds, a din and tumult that shakes the earth, thundering of horses, cries and shouts of men, and the glancing of armor, and the blaze of swords, reflecting the sudden blaze of burning towns, echoing the more terrible cries of sacked cities. From the miserable little castello, taken again and again, and yet again, its surrounding fields trampled down, its poor inhabitants drained of their utmost farthing, to such rich centers as Brescia and Verona, which lived for half their time shut up within their walls, besieged by one army or the other, and spent the other half in settling their respective ransoms, changing their insignia, setting up the Lion and Serpent alternately upon their flags, what endless misery and con- fusion, and waste of human happiness ! But the captains ^mM^ili(*y{fir- w- To face pa(je '^iQ. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 231 who changed sides half-a-dozen times in their career, and were any man's men who would give them high pay and something to tight about, pursued their trade with mnch impartiality, troubling themselves little about the justice or injustice of tlieir cause, and still less, it would appear, about any bond of honor between themselves and their masters. Colleoni alone seems to have had some scrupu- lousness about breaking his bond before his legal time was up. The others do not seem to have had conscience even in this respect, but deserted when it pleased them, as often as not in the middle of a campaign. Bartolommeo Colleoni, or Coglioui, as his biographer calls him, was born in the year 1400, of a family of small rustic nobility near Bergamo, but was driven from his home by a family feud, in the course of which his father was dis- placed from the fortress which he seems to have won in the good old way by his spear and his bow — by a conspiracy headed by his own brothers. This catastrophe scattered the children of Paolo Colleoni, and threw into the ranks of the free lances (which probably, however, would have been their destination in any case) his young sons as soon as they were old enough to carry a spear. The first serv- ice of Bartolommeo was under the Condottiere Braccio, in the service of the queen of Naples, where he is said by his biographer, Spino, to have acquired, from his earliest beginnings in the field, singular fame and reputation. It is unfortunate that this biographer, throughout the course of his narrative, adopts the easy method of attributing to Colleoni all the fine things done in tlie war, appropriating without scruple acts whicli are historically put to the credit of his commanders. It is possible, no doubt, that he is right, and that the young officer suggested to Gattamelata his famous retreat over the mountains, and to the engineer who'carried it out the equally famous transport overland to the Lago di Garda of certain galleys to which we shall afterward refer. Colleoni entered tlie service of Venice at tlie beginning of Carmagnola's first campaign, with a force of forty horsemen, and liis biographer at once credits him on the authority of an obscure historian with one of 232 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. the most remarkable exploits of that war, the dariag seizure of a portion of the fortifications of Cremona, before which Carmagnola's army was lying. He was at least one of the little party which executed this feat of arms. "Bartolommeo, accompanied by Mocimo da Lugo, and by Cavalca- bue, the son of Ugolino, once lord of Cremona, both captains in the army, the latter having friends in the city, approached the walls by night, with great precaution, and on that side where they had been informed the defenses were weakest, placed their ladders. Bartol- ommeo was the first, con intrepidissimo animo, to ascend the wall and to occupy the tower of San Luca, having killed the commander and guards. News was sent at once to Carmagnola of this success, upon which, had he, according to their advice, hastened to attack, Cremona without doubt would have fallen into the hands of the Venetians." The young adventurers held this tower for three days, as Quentin Durward, or the three Mousquetaires of Dumas might have done — but finally were obliged to descend as they had come up, and return to the army under cover of night, with nothing but the name of a daring feat to reward them — though that, no doubt, had its sweetness, and also a certain value in their profession. The curious complication of affairs in that strange distracted country, may be all the more clearly realized, if we note that one of the three and most probably the leader of the band was a Cremonese, familiar with all the points of vantage in the city, and the son of its former lord, with no doubt parti- sans, and a party of his own, had he been able to push his way out of the Rocca to the interior of the city. Thus there was always some one, who even in the subjection of his native place to the republic, may have hoped for a return of his own family, or at least for vengeance upon the neighboring despot which had cast it out. We hear of Colleoni next in a rapid night march to Bergamo, which was the original home of his own race, and which was threatened by the Milanese forces under Picci- nino. Knowing the city to be without means of defense, though apparently still in a state of temporary independence, Colleoni proposed to his commanders to hurry thither and occupy and prepare it for the approaching attack, with the THE MAKERS OP VENICE. 233 condition, however, that the affairs of the city le cose de Bergamaschiy at least within the walls, should receive no damage — another consolatory gleam of patriotism in the midst of all the fierce selfishness of the time. With his usual promptitude, and what his biographer cd\hanimositaf impetuosity, he rushed across the country while Piccinino was amusing himself with the little independent castles about, '* robbing and destroying the country, having given orders that whatever could not be carried away should be burned, so that in a very short time the villages and castles of the valleys Callepia and Trescoria were reduced to the semblance and aspect of a vast and frightful solitude." CoUeoni had only his own little force of horsemen and three hundred infantry, and had he come across the route of the Milanese would have been but a mouthful to that big enemy. But he carried his little band along with such energy and inspiration of impetuous genius, that they reached Bergamo while still the foe was busy with the blazing villages : and had time to strengthen the fortifica- tions and increase both ammunition and men before the approach of Piccinino, who, finally repulsed from the walls of the city in which he had expected to find an easy prey and harbor for the stormy season — and exposed to that other enemy, which nobody in those days attempted to make head against, the winter, while its chilling forces of rain and snow — streamed back disconsolate to Milan al suo Duca, who probably was not at all glad to see him, and expected with reason that so great a captain as Piccinino would have kept his troops at the expense of Bergamo, or some other conquered city, until he could take the field again, instead of bringing such a costly and troublesome following home. AVe cannot, however, follow at length the feats which his biographer ascribes to Colleoni's animosita and impet- uous spirit, which was combined, according to the same authority, with a prudence and foresight '' above the captains of his time.'* One of these was the extraordinary piece of- engineering by which a small fleet, including cue or two galleys, wa§ 234 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. transported from the Adige to the Lago di Garda over the mountain pass, apparently that between Mori and Riva. Near the top of the pass is a small lake called now the Lago di Loppio, a little mountain tarn, which afforded a momentary breathing space to the workmen and engineers of this wonderful piece of work. The galleys *^ two of great size and three smaller," along with a number of little boats which were put upon carts, were dragged over the pass, with infinite labor and pains, and it was only in the third month that the armata, the little squadron pain- fully drawn down hill by means of the channel of a moun- tain stream, found its way to the lake at last. This wonderful feat was the work, according to Sabellico, of a certain Sorbolo of Candia. But the biographer of Colleoni boldly claims the idea for his hero, asserting with some appearance of justice that the fathers of Venice would not have consented to such a scheme upon the word of an altogether unknown man, who was simply the engineer who carried it out. It was for the purpose of supplying provisions to Brescia, then closely besieged, that this great work was done. Sabellico gives a less satis- factory but still more imposing reason. *'It was supposed," he says, *^that the intention of the Venetian senators was rather to. encourage the Brescians, than for any other motive, as they were aware that these ships were of no use, the district being so full of the enemy^s forces that no one could approach Brescia, and great doubts being entertained whether it would be possible to retain Verona and Vicenza." On the other hand, Spino declares that the armata fulfilled its purpose and secured the passage of provisions to Brescia. It was, at any rate, a magnificent way of keeping the beleaguered city, and all the other alarmed dependencies of Venice, in good heart and hope. None of our historians have, however, a happy hand in their narratives of these wars. They are given in endless repetitions, and indeed were without any human interest, even that of bloodshed, an eternal see-saw of cities, taken and retaken, of meaningless movemeutg of troops, and THE MAKERS OF VKNIC/S. 235 chess-board battles gained and lost. One of the greatest of tliese, in wliich Colleoni was one of the leaders against Sforza, who led the troops of Milan, bore a strong resem- blance to that battle of Maclodio, in which Carmagnola won so great but so unfortunate a victory. Sforza had established himself, as his predecessor had done, among the marshes ; and altlioughat tlie first onset the Venetians had the best of it, their success was but momentary, and the troops were soon wildly flying and floundering over the treacherous ground. Colleoni, wlio led the reserve and who made a stand as long as he could, escaped at last on foot, Sanudo says, who writes the woeful news as it arrives at the fifteenth hour of the 15th of September, 1448. "The Proveditori Almoro Donate and Guado Dandolo were made prisoners,*' he says, ^' wliich proveditori were advised by many that they ought to fly and save them- selves, but answered that they would rather die beside the ensigns than save themselves by a shameful flight. And note," adds the faithful chronicler, *' that in this rout 07ily one of our troops was killed, the rest being taken prisoners and many of them caught in the marshes. '* The flight of the mercenaries on every side, while the two proud Venetians stood by their flag, perhaps the only men of all that host who cared in their heart what became of St. Mark's often triumphant lion, affords another curious picture in illustration of surely the strangest warfare ever practiced among men. " But not for this," Sanudo goes on, " was the doge discouraged but came to the council with more vigor than ever, and tbe question was bow to reconstruct tbe army, so i\i2it hading plenty of money tbey should establish tbe camp again as it was at first." Thus Venetian pride and gold triumphed over misfortune. The most energetic measures were taken at once with large offers of pay and remittances of money, and tlie broken bands were gradually re-gathered together. Sforza, after his victory, pushed on, taking and ravaging everything till he came once more to the gates of Brescia, where again the sturdy citizens prepared themselves for a siege. In the 236 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. meantime pairs of anxious proved i tori with sacks of money went off at once to every point of danger ; tliirty thousand ducats fell to the share of Brescia alone. At Verona, these grave officials '^ day and night were in waiting to enrol men and very shortly had collected a great army by means of the large payments they made/' While these tremendous efforts were in the course of making, once more the whole tide of affairs was changed as by a magician's wand. The people of Milan had called Sforza back on their duke's death, but had held his power inconstant suspicion, and were now seized with alarm lest, flushed with victory as he was, he should take that duke's place — which was indeed his determination. They seized the occasion accordingly, and now rose against his growing power, '^desiring to maintain themselves in freedom." Sforza no sooner heard of this than he stopped fighting, and by the handy help of one of the proved! tori who had been taken in the battle of the marshes, and who turned out to be a friend of his secretary Simonetta made over- tures of peace to Venice, which were as readily accepted. So that on the 18th of October of the same year, little more than a month after the disastrous rout above recorded, articles of peace were signed, by which the aid of four thousand horsemen and two thousand foot were granted to Sforza, along with a subsidy of thirteen thousand ducats a month, according to Sanudo, though one cannot help feeling that an extra cipher must have crept into the statement. Venice regained all she had lost ; and the transformation scene having thus once more taken place, our Colleoni among others, so lately a fugitive before the victorious Milanese, settled calmly down in his saddle once more as a lieutenant of Sforza's army, as if no battle nor hostility had ever been. A curious domestic incident appears in the midst of the continued phantasmagoria of this endless fighting. The Florentines, more indifferent to consistency than the Venetians, and always pleased to humiliate a sister state, not only supported Sforza against the Milanese, but pre- sumed to remonstrate with the signoria when after a time THK MAKERS OF VENICE. 237 getting alarmed by his growing power, tl^ey withdrew from their alliance witli iiim. This was promptly answered by a decree expelling all Florentine inhabitants from Venice and forbidding them the exercise of any commercial trans- actions witliin the town. Shortly before. King Alfonzo of Naples had made tiie same order in respect to the Venetians in his kingdom. These arbitrary acts probably did more real damage than the bloodless battles which with constant change of combinations were going on on every side. The remaining facts of Colleoni's career were few. Not- withstanding a trifling backsliding in the matter of aiding Sforza, he was engaged as captain general of the Venetian forces in 1455, and remained in this office till the term of liis engagement was completed, which seems to have been ten years. He then, Sanudo tells us, ^^ treated with Madonna Bianca, Duchess of Milan " (Sforza being just dead) *Ho procure the hand of one of her daughters for his son. But the marriage did not take place, and he resumed his engagements with our signoria." It is difficult to understand how this proposal could have been made, as to all appearance Colleoni left no son behind him, a fact which is also stated in respect to most of the generals of the time — a benevolent interposition of nature one cannot but think, for cutting off that seed of dragons. The only other mention of him in the Venetian records is the announce- ment of his death, which took place in October, 1475, in his castle of Malpaga, surrounded by all the luxury and wealth of the time. He was of the same age as the century, and a completely prosperous and successful man, except in that matter of male children with which, his biographer naively tells us, he never ceased to attempt to provide himself, but always in vain. He left a splendid legacy to the republic which he had served so long— with aberrations, which no doubt were by that time forgotten — no less than two hun- dred and sixteen thousand ducats, Sanudo says, besides arms, horses, and other articles of value. The grateful eignoria, overwhelmed by such liberality, resolved to make him a statue with a portion of the money. And accord- 238 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. ingly, there be stands to this day, by the peaceful portals of San Zanipolo ready at any moment to ride down any insolent stranger who lifts a finger against Venice. Ap- propriately enoiigb to sucb a magnificent piece of work it is not quite clear wbo made it, and it is impossible to open a guide-book without ligbting upon a discussion as to how far it is Verocchio's and how far Leopard i's. He of the true eye at all events had a large hand in it, tmd never proved his gift more completely than in the splendid force of this wonderful horseman. The power and thorough-going strength in him has impressed the popular imagination, as it was very natural they should, and given him a false importance to the imaginative spectator. It is a great thing for a man when he has some slave of genius either with pen or brush or plastic clay to make his portrait. Sforza was a much greater general than Colleoni, but had no Verrocchio to model him. Indeed our Bartolommeo has no pretensions to stand in the first rank of the mediae- val Condottieri. He is but a vulger swordsman beside Carmagnola, or Sforza or Piccinino. But perhaps from this fact he is a better example than either of them of the hired captains of his time. The possessions of Venice were but little increased by the seventy years of fighting which ensued after Carmagnola had won Brescia and Bergamo for her, and involved her in all the troubles and agitations of a continental principality. Slie gained Cremona in the end of the century, and she lost nothing of any importance which had beeen once ac- quired. But her province of terra firma cost her probably more than it was worth to her to be the possessor even of such fertile fields and famous cities. The unfailing energy, the wealth, the determined purpose of the great republic were, however, nevermore conspicuous than in the struggle which she maintained for the preservation of the province. She had the worst of it in a great number of cases, but the loss was chiefly to her purse and her vanity. The pawns with which she played that exciting game were not of her own flesh and blood. The largo pagamento with which she was prepared was always enough to secure a new army THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 239 when the other was sped, and notwithstanding all her losses at sea and in the East, and the idleness which began to steal into tlie being of the new generation, she was yet BO rich and overflowing with wealth that her expenditure abroad took nothing from the lavish magnificence of all her festivals and liolidays at home. Her ruler during all the period at which we have here hurriedly glanced was Frances- co Foscari, he against whom his predecessor had warned the signoria as a man full of restlessness and ambition, whose life would be a constant series of wars. Never did predic- tion come more true ; and though it seems difficult to see how, amid all the stern limits of the doge's privileges, it could matter very much what his character was, yet this man, in tlie time of his manhood and strength must have been able, above others, to influence his government and his race. The reader has already seen amid what reverses this splendid and powerful ruler, after all the conflicts and successes in which he was the leading spirit, ended his career. POZZO. 340 THE MAKEUS OF VENICE. PART III. THE PAINTERS. CHAPTER I. THE THREE EARLY MASTERS. It is one of the favorite occupations of this age to trace every new manifestation of human genius or force through a course of development, an(] to prove that in reality no special genius or distinct and individual impulse is wanted at all, but only a gradual quickening, as might be in the development of a grain of corn or an acorn from the tree. I am not myself capable of looking at the great sudden advances which, in every department of thought and in- vention, are made from time to time; in this way. Why it should be that in a moment by the means of two youths in a Venetian house, not distinguishable in any way from other boys, nor especially from the sons of other poor painters, members of the scuola of S. Luca, which had long existed in Venice, and produced dim pictures not witliout merit — the art of painting should have sprung at once into the noblest place, and that nothing which all the genera- ations have done since with all their inventions and appli- ances, should ever have bettered the Bellini, seems to me one of those miraculous circumstances with which the world abounds, and which illustrate this wayward, splendid and futile humanity better than any history of development could do. The art of painting had flourished dimly in Venice for THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 241 long. The love of decorative art seems indeed to have been from its very beginning characteristic of the city. Among the very earliest products of her voyages, as soon as the infant state was strong enougii to have any thought beyond mere subsistence, where the beautiful tilings from the East with which, first the churches, and then the houses were adorned. But the art of painting, though its earliest productions seem to have been received with eager- ness and honor, lingered and made little progress. In Mnrano — where glass-making had been long established, and where fancy must have been roused by tke fantastic art, so curious, so seemingly impossible of blowing liquid metal into forms of visionary light, lii^e bubbles, yet hard, tenacious, and clear — the first impulse of delineation arose, but came to no remarkable success. There is much indeed that is beautiful in the pictures of some of these dim and early masters amid the mists of the lagoons. But with the Bellini the pictorial art came like Athene, full arrayed in maturity of celestial godhood, a sight for all men. It is a doubtful explanation of this strange difference to say that their father had foregathered in the far distance, in his little workshop, with Donatello from Florence, or studied his art under the instructions of Gentile da Fabriano. Tiie last priviiege at least was not special to him, but must have been shared with many others of the devout and simple worlvmen who had each his little manu- factory of Madonnas for the constant consumption of the church. But when Jacopo Bellini with his two sons came from Padua and settled near the Rial to, the day of Venice, so fjir as the pictorial art is concerned, had begun. They sprang at once to a different standing-ground altogether, as far beyond the work of their contemporaries as Dante was above his. No theory has ever explained to the human intelligence how such a thing can be. It is ; and in the sudden bound which Genius takes out of all the trammels of the ordinary — an unaccountable, unreasonable, inimi- table initiative of its own — arise the epochs and is summed up the history of art. It must have been nearly the middle of the fifteenth 242 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. century when the Bellini began to make themselves known in Venice. Mediaeval history does not concern itself with dates in respect to such humble members of tlie common- wealth, and about the father Jacopo, it is impossible to tell how long he lived or when he died. He was a pupil, as has been said, of Gentile da Fabriano, and went with him to Florence in his youth, and thus came in contact with the great Tuscan school and its usages; and it is known that he settled for some time at Padua, where his sons had at least a part of their education, and where he married his daughter to Andrea Mantegna ; therefore the school of Padua had also something to do with the training of these two young men : but whether they first saw the light in Venice, or when the family returned there, it is not known. Jacopo, the father, exercised his art in a mild, mediocre way, no better or worse than the ordinary mem- bers of the scuola. Probably his sons were still young when he returned to the Rialto, where the family house was : for there is no indication that Gentile or Giovanni were known in Padua, nor can we trace at what period it began to be apparent in Venice that Jacopo Bellini's modest workshop was sending forth altar-pieces and little sacred pictures such as had never before been known to come from his hand. That this fact would soon appear in such an abundant and ever-circulating society of artists, more than usually brought together by the rules of the scuola and the freemasonry common to artists everywhere, can scarcely be doubted : but dates there are few. It is diflScult even to come to any clear understanding as to the first great public undertaking in the way of art — the decoration of tiie hall of the Consiglio Maggiore. It was begun, we are told, in the reign of Marco Cornaro, in the middle of the previous century : but both the brothers Bellini were engaged upon it when they first come into sight, and it seems to have given occupation to all the painters of their age. Kugler mentions 1456 as tlie probable date of a picture of Giovanni Bellini : but though this is conjectural, Bellini (he signs himself Jucm in the receipt preserved in the Sala Mar- gherita at the Archivio, which is occasionally altered into THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 243 Ziian in the documents of the time) would at that date be about thirty, and no doubt both he and his brother were deep in work and more or less known to fame before that age. It was not till a much later period however that an event occurred of the greatest importance in the history of art — the arrival in Venice of Antonello of Messina, a painter chiefly, it would seem, of portraits, who brought with him the great discovery of the use of oil in painting which had been made by Jan van Eyck in Bruges some time before. Antonello had got it, Vasari says, from the inventor him- self; but a difficulty of dates makes it more probable that Hans Memling was the Giovanni di Bruggia whose con- fidence the gay young Sicilian gained, perhaps by his lute and his music and all his pleasant ways. Antonello came to Venice in 1473, and was received as a stranger, especially a stranger with some new thing to show, seems to have always been in the sensation-loving city. But when they first saw his work, the painter brotherhoods, the busy and rising sctiole, received a sensation of another kind. Up to this time the only known medium of painting had been distemper, and in this they were all at work, getting what softness and richness they could, and that morbidezza, the melting roundness which the Italians loved, as much as they could, by every possible contrivance and exertion out of their difficult material. But the first canvas which the Sicilian set up to show his new patrons and professional emulators, was at once a revolution and a wonder. Those dark and glowing faces which still look at us with such a force of life, must have shown with a serene superiority upon the astonished gazers who knew indeed how to draw from nature and find the secret of her sentiment and ex- pression as well as Antonello, but not how to attain that luster and solidity of texture, that bloom of the cheek and light in the eye which were so extraordinarily superior to anything that could be obtained from the comparatively dry and thin colors of the ancient method. This novelty created such a flutter in the workshops as no wars or com- motions could call forth. How could that warmth and 244 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. glow of life be got upon a piece of canvas? One can imagine the painters gathering, discussing in storms of soft Venetian talk and boundless argument, the Vivarini hurry- ing over in their boats from Murano and every lively ce7ia and moonlight promenade upon the lagoons apt in a moment to burst into tempests of debate as to what was this new thing. And on their scaffoldings in the great hall of the palazzo, where they were dashing in their great frescoes, what a hum of commotion would run round. How did he get it, that light and luster, and how could they discover what it was, and share the benefit? The story which is told by Ridolfi, but which the his- torians of a more critical school reject as fabulous, is at all events in no way unlikely or untrue to nature, or the eager curiosity of the artists, or Venetian ways. These were the days, it must be recollected, when craftsmen kept the secret of their inventions and discoveries jealously to tliem- selves, and it was a legitimate as well as a natural effort, if one could, to find them out. The story goes that Giovanni Bellini, by this time at the head of the painters in Venice, the natural and proper person to take action in any such matter, being unable to discover Antonello^s secret by fair means, got it by what we can scarcely call foul, though it was a trick. But the trick was not a very bad one, and doubtless among men of their condition might be laughed over as a good joke when it was over. What Bellini did, ^' feigning to be a gentleman/' was to commission Antonello to paint his portrait — an expedient which gave him the best opportunity possible for studying the stranger's method. If it were necessary here to examine this taie rigorously, we should say that it was highly unlikely so distinguished a painter as Bellini could be unknown to the newcomer, who must, one would think, have been eager to make acquaintance on his first arrival with the greatest of Venetian artists. But at all events it is a picturesque incident. One can imagine the great painter ^' feigning to be a gentleman," seating himself with a solemnity in which there must have been a great deal of grim humor, in the sitter's chair — he had put on '' the Venetian toga" for the To face page 244. OATEWAT OP THE ABBAZIA DELLA HISERICOROIA. THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 245 occasion, Ridolfi says, evidently sometliing different from the usual garb of the artist, and no doubt felt a little em- barrassment mingling with his professional sense of what was most graceful in the arrangement of the unaccustomed robe. But this would not prevent him from noting all the time, under his eyelids, witli true professional vision, the colors on the palette, the vials on the table, the sheaf of brushes — losing no movement of the painter, and quick to note what compound it was into which he dipped his pencil — " ossei'vando Giovanni die di quando in quando inten- geva il pennello nelV oglio di lin, venne in cognizione del modo" '' seeing him dip his brnsh from time to time in oil," which perhaps was the primitive way of using the new method. One wonders if Antonello ever finished the por- trait, if it was he who set forth the well-known image of the burly master with his outspreading mop of russet hair; or if the Venetian after awhile threw off his toga, and with a big laugh and roar of good-humored triumph an- nounced that his purpose was served and all that he wanted gained. There is another version of the manner in which Anto- nello's secret was discovered in Venice. Of this later story it is Vasari who is the author. He, on his side, develops out of the dim crowd of lesser artists a certain Domenico Veniziano who was the first to make friends with the Sicilian. Antonello, for the love he bore him, com- municated his secret, Visari says, to this young man, who for a time triumphed over all competitors; but afterward coming to Florence was in his turn cajoled out of the much- prized information by a Florentine painter, Andrea del Castegna, who, envious of Domenico's success, afterward waylaid him, and killed him as he was returning from their usual evening diversions. This anecdote has been taken to pieces as usual by later historians jealous for exactness, who have discovered that Domenico of Venice outlived his supposed murderer by several years. Vasari is so very certain on the point, however, that we cannot help feeling that something of the kind he describes, some assault must have been made, a quarrel perhaps sharper than usual, an 246 THE MAKERS OF VENICE. attempt at vengeance for some affront, though it did not have the fatal termination which he supposes. Vasari, however, in telling this story affords us an inter- esting glimpse of the condition of Venice at the period. Politically, it was not a happy moment. While the republic exhausted her resources in the wars described in our last chapters, her dominion in the East, as well as her trade, had been greatly impaired. The Turk, that terror of Christendom, had cruelly besieged and finally taken several towns and strong places along the Dalmatian coast: he had been in Friuli murdering and ravaging. The interrupted and uncertain triumphs of the terra-firma wars, were but little compensation for these disasters, and the time was approaching when Venice should be compelled to withdraw from many more of her eastern possessions, leaving a town here, an island there, to the Prophet and his hordes. Bat within the city it is evident nothing of the kind affected the general life of pleasure and display and enjoyment that was going on. The doges were less powerful, but more splendid than ever; the canals echoed with song and shone with gay processions: the great patrician houses grew more imposing and their decorations more beautiful every day. The ducal palace had at last settled, after many changes, into the form we now know: the great public undertaking which was a national tribute to the growing importance of art, was being pushed forward to completion : and though the great Venetian painters, like other painters in other ages, seem to have found the state a shabby paymaster, and to have sometimes shirked and always dallied in the execu- tion of its commissions, yet no doubt public patronage was at once a sign of the quickened interest in art, and a means of increasing that interest. The frescoes in the hall of the Great Council were in full course of execution when the Sicilian Antonello with his great secret came to seek his fortune in the magnificent and delightful city of the seas — a place where every rich man was the artist's patron, and every gentleman a dilet- tante, and a new triumphant day of art was dawning, and the streets were full of songs and pleasure, and the studios THE MAKERS OF VENICE. 2-47 of enthusiasm, and beauty and delight were supreme every- where : notwitlistandiiig that, in tlie silence, to any one who listened, the wikl and jangled bells might almost be heard from besieged cities that were soon no longer to be Venetian, calling every man to arms within their walls, and appealing for help to heaven and earth. Such vulgar external matters do not move the historian of the painters, and are invisible in his record. The account of Antonello is full of cheerfulness and light. "Being a person much given to pleasure he resolved to dwell there forever, and finish his life where he had found a mode of existence so much according to his mind. And when it was under- stood that he had brought that great discovery from Flan- ders, he was loved and caresse