THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE TEMPLE PRIMERS 
 
 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 By 
 HORATIO BROWN
 
 VENICE ENTHRONED (Paul Veronese)
 
 ^-^: 
 
 VEnETlAK 
 REPUBLIC 
 
 
 1902D iQG-SOBEDFOKDSTKEET'ljONDQN
 
 67 
 
 All rights reser-ued
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A.D. 452 To A.D. 810 
 
 THE RISE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Geography : 
 
 a. The Plain ........ 5 
 
 6. The Lagoon ........ 7 
 
 II. Ethnography: 
 
 a. The Heneti 8 
 
 6. The Romans ........ 9 
 
 in. Early Lagoon Life : 
 
 a. The Settlement ....... 10 
 
 6. External Independence ... ... 14 
 
 e. Internal Constitution ...... 16 
 
 IV. East and West : 
 
 a. Byzantium . . .... , . 18 
 
 6, The Franks and the Church ..... 20 
 
 c. Internal Development ...... 23 
 
 V. Rialto . ........ 2j 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 A.D. 810 TO A.D. 1400 
 THE EXPANSION 
 
 I. Constitutional : 
 
 a. The Dukedom ........ 28 
 
 b. The Aristocracy ....... 33 
 
 e. The Oligarchy . . . . , , #38
 
 » CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 u. Maritime: ......... 44 
 
 (/. Spreading Eastward ....... 45 
 
 b. The Struggle with Genoa ..... 54 
 
 111. Territorial : 
 
 a. Touching the Mainland ..... 65 
 
 b. Scala of Verona ...... 67 
 
 e. Carrara of Padua ....... 69 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A.D. 1400 TO A.D. 1600 
 THE SPLENDOUR 
 
 I. Commerce: 
 
 a. Origin and Growth ..•.,. 75 
 
 ^.^b. The Fleet 76 
 
 .^;-^. The Trade-Routes ....... 79 
 
 d. Industries . . . . , .81 
 
 e. The Counting-house ...... 82 
 
 /. Banking ...,.,.., 83 
 
 u. Arms, Military and Naval : 
 Military : 
 
 a. The Emperor and Friuli ..... 85 
 
 b. Visconti and Brescia ....... 86 
 
 c. The Advent of the Foreigner ..... 89 
 d The Pope and Ferrara ...... 90 
 
 Naval : 
 
 ,.«. The Advent of the Turk , . , . . 91 
 
 -^b. The Fall of Constantinople ..... 94 
 
 . c. The First Turkish War 94 
 
 _(/. The Acquisition of Cyprus . . . . -97 
 
 ui. Government : 
 
 a. The Constitution ....... 98 
 
 .^. Maritime and Territorial Possessions. . . . loi 
 
 c. Finance and Trade. ...... 104 
 
 d. Religion ......... 107 
 
 e. Justice ......... 109 
 
 f. Diplomacy . . . . . . .112 
 
 g. A Doge's Day . ... ... 114
 
 CONTENTS iii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Science, Letters, and Arts : . . . . , .118 
 
 a. Science . . . . , . . 119 
 
 6. Letters . . . . . .120 
 
 c. The Printing Press ... 122 
 
 a". The Libraries . . . . . . .123 
 
 e. Sculpture and Arciiitecture . . 124 
 
 /. Painting . . . . . .127 
 
 V. Private Life 
 
 131 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A.D. 1500 TO A.D. 1700 
 THE DECLINE 
 
 I. The Causes; . . . , . . -iS? 
 
 a. The Fall of Constantinople ..... 138 
 
 6. The Discovery of the Cape-route . . . .138 
 
 c. The Advent of Foreign Powers .... 139 
 
 n. The Events of the Decline : 
 
 a. The Second Turkish War and the League of Cambray 140 
 
 6. Later Turkish Wars and Loss of Cyprus . . 150 
 
 c. Fra Paolo Sarpi and the Church . 156 
 
 d. The Spanish Conspiracy, Antonio Foscanni, and the 
 
 Council of Ten ....... 166 
 
 e. The Loss of Crete ; Morosini and the Morea 172 
 in. In the City ..... ... '177 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A.D. 1700 TO A.D. 1796 
 THE END 
 
 The War of the Spanisli Succession . . . i8i 
 
 Angelo Emo .....,,., 182 
 
 Life in the City 182 
 
 Napoleon . . , . .184 
 
 Bibliography ....... 185 
 
 Chronological Tables ....... 191 
 
 Index 207
 
 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RISE 
 
 I. Geography. 
 
 (a) The Plain. At the head of the Adriatic, between 
 the mountains and the sea, lies that part of the Cisalpine 
 plain which is linown as " the Veneto." Its boundaries are 
 the Mincio, the Po to its mouth, the Adriatic to the mouth 
 of the Isonzo, the Isonzo up to the Alps, and then back 
 again to Verona by the line of the Julian, Carnic, Dolomitic 
 and Rhastian ranges. The plain thus enclosed is subdivided 
 into districts, the Veronese, the Padovano, the Polesine, the 
 Marches of Treviso, Friuli (or la Patria), and Venezia proper. 
 Along the curving coast-line (roughly speaking, from the Reno 
 to the Isonzo, or from the AJps at Monfalcone to the Apen- 
 nines near Cesena) lie three great systems of lagoons, or salt- 
 water estuaries — the lagoon of Grado, to the north-east, the 
 lagoon of Venice, in the middle, and the lagoon of Comacchio, 
 to the south-west. The main features of the whole district 
 are the plain and the lagoons ; the chief factors are the 
 mountains, the rivers and the sea. As the rivers and moun- 
 tains made the plain, so the rivers and the sea made the 
 lagoons. 
 
 The most important fact about the mountains which bound 
 this plain to the north and east is their steepness. The south 
 side of the Alps is the escarped side. The mountains roll up
 
 6 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 from the great central plain of Europe and break, as it were 
 like a crested wave, upon Italy. The consequence is that the 
 rivers on the south side are very rapid — of the nature of 
 torrents, in fact — until they reach the plain, where their course 
 soon becomes sluggish, and they tend to spread out into large 
 swamps, such as the marshes round Mantua or the marish 
 lands of the Polesine. Only the incessant industry of man 
 prevents the whole country from being reduced to an in- 
 terminable morass ; and the dwellers in this plain have 
 always been, and still are, exposed to the danger that one 
 or other of these rivers may some day "rise from its bed" 
 and drown them. This diurnal struggle with nature has left 
 a deep impression on the character of the inhabitants and bred 
 them in the ways of industry and sobriety. 
 
 But if the steepness of the southern Alpine slope is a con- 
 stant menace to the plain, the torrential nature of its rivers 
 has not only made the plain, but endowed it with its wealth of 
 soil. The rivers themselves afford a curious proof of the way 
 in which they have created the rich pianura. All of them, 
 the Po, Ticino, Adda, Oglio, Mincio, Adige, Brenta, up to 
 the Piave, when they impinge upon the level lands after leav- 
 ing the mountains, assume an eastward trend. The reason is 
 that the gravel and boulders which they bring down from the 
 mountains have gradually raised a mound at the point where 
 they debouch upon the plain, and this mound compels the 
 rivers to turn eastward in their effort to reach the sea. Thus 
 the plain itself, too, has been forced eastward by the deposit 
 brought down by the rivers ; the sea has slowly receded, and 
 towns like Ravenna and Adria, that once were on the Adriatic, 
 are now many miles from its shore. 
 
 It is probable that in pre-historic times these rivers were 
 much larger and more impetuous than they are at present, 
 for the whole of the Veneto really consists of a vast stratum 
 of gravel deposited by the rivers and then covered, in the 
 lapse of ages, by a layer of rich alluvial soil. One of the 
 most striking features about these rivers are the gorges, or 
 chiuse, which they have worn out for themselves through
 
 THE RISE 7 
 
 the mountain barriers just before they reach the plain — the 
 Adige at RivoH, the Brenta at Primolano, the Piave at Vas- 
 Quero, and so on — which suggest a vaster power than any 
 they could now exert. 
 
 The fertility of the land thus formed by the mountains and 
 the rivers has always been proverbial. The Jlos Italia, 
 well watered, with a rich alluvial deposit lying on a gravelly 
 bed, was famous for its crops and its horses. It must, how- 
 ever, at some time in its history have been profoundly modified 
 by another element than water — by fire. The strange, isolated 
 group of the Euganean hills, the hot springs of Abano, the 
 bellowings of Monte Baldo, all bear witness to volcanic 
 activity ; and the tradition of some mighty cataclysm lives 
 on in the legend of Phaeton's fall into the Eridanus and 
 the myth of the Heliades, his sisters, turned into poplars on 
 the banks of the Po. 
 
 Besides its fertility the plain possesses two features im- 
 portant in its history. Its numerous rivers make water com- 
 munication easy, and while it is closed to the north and 
 north-east by the Alpine ranges, it is open to the west, that 
 is to say, inland to Italy, and to the south and south-east, that 
 is seaward to the Adriatic and the Levant : protected against 
 barbarian invasion and adapted for trade and the distribution 
 of wealth from the Orient. 
 
 (^) The Lagoon. As the mountains and the rivers 
 formed the plain, so the rivers and the sea formed the lagoons 
 — large sheets of tidal water, separated from the Adriatic 
 by a thin line of sandy dunes, known as lid't. As the rivers 
 swept down from the mountains into the plain and made 
 for the sea, their course became sluggish, and the alluvial 
 matter they carried with them gradually formed deltas at 
 their mouths. At the same time the permanent current in 
 the gulf, which sets from east to west, gradually built a bar 
 across the outlets of the rivers, the deltas were flooded with 
 water that was partly fresh (brought down by the rivers), 
 partly salt (fed by the tide which found admission through 
 breaks in the Hdi, where the river waters insisted on getting
 
 8 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 out to sea). The lagoons are neither a lake, nor a stagnant 
 marsli ; they are sheets of water, partly salt and partly fresh, 
 dotted here and there with islands, where submergence has been 
 incomplete. One of their shores is the real mainland, the other 
 is the inner side of the lidi, the barrier that shuts out the sea. 
 The lagoon of Venice covers a surface of about one 
 hundred and sixty square miles ; it is thirty-five miles long, 
 and at the most, seven miles wide. Originally it was the 
 estuary of three larger rivers (tlie Brenta, the Sile, and the 
 Piave), and of some smaller ones, whose waters mingled with 
 the sea ; but in course of time its inhabitants, to prevent silting 
 up and malaria, as they thought, undertook to expel the rivers 
 from the lagoon by the rectification and canalization of their 
 channels, and the chief aliment of the lagoon is now the 
 tidal salt-water of the Adriatic, which twice a day flows in 
 and out through the breaks in the lidi. The important point, 
 however, about the estuary in early days was that this large 
 surface of water, studded with little groups of islands, oflTered, 
 what it really eventually became — an asylum equally safe from 
 attack by sea or by land. 
 
 II. Ethnography. 
 
 {a) The Heneti. The whole of the plain just de- 
 scribed, with the exception of the district of Mantua, came 
 at one time or another under the influence of the Venetian 
 Republic ; but who were its earliest inhabitants and whence 
 they came is far from clear. We find the district occupied by 
 a people called the Heneti. That the Heneti themselves were 
 immigrants is generally agreed ; but there are three conflicting 
 theories as to the country of their origin. Strabo talks of the 
 Armoric Heneti, and brings them from the neighbourhood of 
 Brest in Brittany ; another theory gives us Sarmatian Heneti, 
 wanderers from the shores of the Baltic. The theory of
 
 THE RISE 9 
 
 most weight makes the Heneti Paphlagonian immigrants from 
 Asia Minor. Certain traditions of dress and speech, the 
 Phrygian cap, the cloak, the short-cut hair, of the early 
 Venetians favour this view. But about all three theories 
 Strabo's cautious attitude is to be adopted, Neque ego pro certo 
 tamen adfirmo. 
 
 [h) The Romans. The Heneti, perhaps after long 
 struggles with earlier inhabitants, Etruscans or Euganeans, 
 occupied and gave their name to the country. They eventu- 
 ally found themselves in touch with and threatened by a 
 formidable neighbour, the Gauls, in the upper valley of the 
 Po. For safety they joined the Romans, provided a con- 
 tingent to the victorious army of the Republic, were eventually 
 absorbed by the dominant race, and, together with Gallia 
 proper, were erected into the province of Gallia Cisalpina ; 
 but, in accordance with Roman usage, they retained their laws, 
 customs, form of municipal government. And then began a 
 period of great prosperity. The agricultural wealth of the 
 country was developed, and opulent cities like Patavinum, 
 Tarvisium, Opitergium, Aquileia rose upon the plain ; ports 
 of importance, Ravenna, Adria, Altinum, were developed 
 along the shore. Great roads traversed the district ; the 
 Emilia Altinate, a continuation of the Emilia Parmensis, ran 
 north-east, crossing the Po at Sermino, passing through Este, 
 Padua, Altino, and Julia Concordia to Aquileia ; the Via 
 Postumia, a continuation of the Via Gallica, ran nearly due 
 west and east, starting from Verona and passing through 
 Vicetia (Vicenza), Opitergium, Utina, to Forum Julii ; and 
 ti:'"se main arteries were connected by a number of local 
 roads. This prosperity continued under the earlier emperors 
 down to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, when the incursions of 
 the Marcomanni devastated the plain as far as the Piave, and 
 gave a foretaste of those misfortunes, which two hundred years 
 of barbarian invasions were to inllict upon the unhappy 
 country. Finally came Attila and his Huns to complete the 
 ruin of the mainland cities, and thereby to give birth to 
 Venice of the lagoons.
 
 ID THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Aquileia fell, and was followed by Altino, Concordia, 
 Opitergium, Padua. Their inhabitants took refuge on the 
 little islands of the lagoons, and though they returned to 
 their mainland homes again and again, yet successive bar- 
 barian invasions sent them Hying to the estuary once more, 
 and finally induced them to abandon the mainland cities 
 and to settle down in that curious and impregnable region 
 of water and mud-banks that had first afforded them asylum. 
 
 The year 452, the year of the fall of Aquileia, is usually 
 given as the birth-year of Venice, though such precision is 
 misleading ; for doubtless the earliest mainland refugees found 
 a fisher-population dwelling on the lagoon-islands; and on the 
 other hand it was not till some years later, in 466, that the 
 lagoon-dwellers took the first steps to establish and demon- 
 strate their corporate and independent existence as the people 
 we call Venetians ; nor was it till the Lombard invasion and 
 the building of Torcello in 568 that all thought of return to 
 the mainland was abandoned, and the history of the lagoon 
 communities which were eventually concentrated at Rialto, 
 the modern Venice, really begins. But the point of ethno- 
 graphical importance is that the people who made modern 
 Venice were probably Romanized Paphlagonians, and that 
 just as Venice geographically looks eastward, so its popula- 
 tion, very likely, retained some tincture of the Orient in its 
 blood. 
 
 III. Early Lagoon Life. 
 
 (a) The Settlement. Cassiodorus, secretary to Theo- 
 doric the Great, has left us the earliest description of life 
 on the lagoons. He was appealing to the Venetian people 
 for assistance in transport, and may very likely have desired 
 to flatter them ; but even with that reservation it is a remark-
 
 THE RISE n 
 
 able picture he has drawn. The population, as was natural, 
 were chiefly employed in fishery, winning their sustenance 
 from the waters whereon they lived. But they were also 
 engaged in transport through those intricate channels in the 
 lagoon to which they alone had the key, and further they 
 extracted a revenue from their salt-pans. In their precarious 
 dwelling-place they had to contend with nature — to solidify 
 the mud-banks on which they raised their houses, and to 
 prevent corrosion by the sea ; this they did by driving 
 piles into the mud and binding them together by reed- 
 wattling round the borders of each little lagoon-island, 
 precisely as parts of the lagoon are reclaimed and built on 
 to this day. They had also to find a supply of drinking 
 water, and to do so they invented the famous Venetian po%zo, 
 or well for the storage of the rainfall. Their dwellings were 
 wattled huts, like the fishermen's shanties that one may still 
 meet with in the desolate lagoon of Comacchio. Their 
 boats were tied to a post before the door " like horses on the 
 mainland." " There lie your houses," said Cassiodorus, 
 " built like sea-birds' nests, half on sea and half on land ; 
 spread, as the Cyclades, over the surface of the waters." 
 
 With the influx of the mainland refugees came improvements. 
 Brick took the place of wattle, and houses such as may still 
 be seen at Burano, and other small lagoon-islands, sprang up 
 along the sides of the deeper channels, following their curves, 
 and eventually producing that labyrinth of canals and calks 
 which is so characteristic of Venice and the lagoons. These 
 houses were built round a courtyard, were one storey high, 
 and on the top they had an open loggia for drying clothes, 
 called a liago (from the Greek heliacon). In front, between 
 the door and the water, ran a narrow strip of pathway, called 
 then as now a fondamenta. The earliest refugees (who, as 
 Cassiodorus says, had " settled like sea-birds " on the mud- 
 banks of the lagoon) peopled twelve townships, whose names 
 it is of importance to remember ; for, before they were all 
 concentrated at Rialto, what is now the city of Venice was 
 only one of these, and not the largest. These twelve com-
 
 12 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 munities were Grado, Bibiones, Caprulae (Carole), Jesolo 
 (Cavallino), Heraclea, Torcello, Murano (Moriana), Rialto 
 (Venice), Metamaucus (Malamocco), Pupillia (Poveglia), 
 Clugies Minor (Sotto Marina) and Clugies Major (Chioggia). 
 As each fresh barbarian invasion drove the mainlanders for 
 refuge to the lagoons, the lagoon- population steadily increased 
 in numbers, and also developed a higher standard of comfort. 
 Though many returned again and again to their mainland 
 homes, some remained behind each time, and that made it 
 easier for the next batch of refugees to do the same. And 
 this process went on until the Lombard invasion of the year 
 568 finally persuaded them to abandon the mainland, and 
 to settle permanently in the safe asylum of the lagoons. The 
 legend of this final settlement is picturesquely told by the 
 chroniclers, and especially how the people of Altino came 
 to settle at Torcello. Many of them had fled to Istria, 
 Ravenna and elsewhere ; but those who remained behind 
 were in sore doubt whither they should turn for a home. 
 They fasted and prayed for three days, and at length came 
 a voice like thunder saying, " Climb ye up to the tower and 
 look at the stars." Then Bishop Paul climbed the tower, 
 and looking up to the heavens he saw the stars lying, as it 
 were, like islands in the lagoon. With this omen for guide 
 the people moved to the little group of mud-banks nigh to 
 Altino. They called the place Torcello, in memory of 
 many-towered Altino that Alboin burned. Their first care 
 was to build a church to Mary, the Mother of God. It 
 was beautiful in form and very fair, and the pavement was 
 wrought in circles of precious marbles. Then to Mauro the 
 priest were revealed the places where other churches should 
 be raised. " As I was walking along a I'tdoy^ he says in 
 relating his vision, " I saw a wonderful sight : a large white 
 cloud, and out of it issued two rays of the sun of a glorious 
 clarity, which fell upon me, and a liquid voice said to me, 
 * I am the Saviour and Lord of all the earth ; the ground 
 whereon thou standest I give thee, thereon to build a church 
 in My name.' Then came another delicious voice, which
 
 THE RISE 13 
 
 said, * I am Mary, the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
 bid you build another church to me.' Then I came to 
 another //V/<?, and I saw the whole place filled with a multi- 
 tude of people, and many bulls and cows with calves ; and 
 when I drew near, lo ! an old man sitting on the ground, 
 and he spoke to me, while nigh unto him stood a younger 
 man. The old man said to me, ' I am Peter, Prince and 
 Apostle, the pastor of the flock. ; I charge you honour me 
 and build me a church, that there on my natal-day all the 
 people may gather together.' Then the younger said unto 
 me, * I am the servant of God, Antolinus. I suffered for 
 the name of Christ. I bid you build a little church for me, 
 hard by my Master's fane.' Then I came to a fourth little 
 Mo, and I saw it was all full of heavy-clustered vineyards, 
 and the vines bore the whitest of grapes. There came upon 
 me the desire to eat, but I did not; and as I walked by the 
 sea a white cloud appeared unto me ; in the middle thereof 
 was seated a little maid, fair to see, who spoke to me thus : 
 ' I am Giustina, who suffered in Padua city for Christ's 
 sake ; I beg of you, priest of God, build me a little church 
 in my honour,' In the next place I came to, I met a girl of 
 tender years : a great and splendid cloud, as though it were 
 the sun, illumined her, and it drew nigh unto me. Then I 
 looked within, and saw a glorious man of noble mien standing 
 above the sphere of the sun, and he said unto me, ' I am 
 John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord ; I pray thee 
 in this place build me the church I now show thee.' Then 
 he showed me all the outside of the church, and gave me the 
 blessing of God on my bishopric of Torcello, and he placed 
 a ring on my finger. Then I woke from the great sleep. 
 The writing was in my hand and the ring upon my finger." 
 
 Under the quaint apocalyptic imagery of priest Mauro's 
 vision we discern the double result of the Lombard invasion 
 upon the lagoon ; first, the resolve to make it a permanent 
 home, and, as a consequence, a great development in building ; 
 and secondly, the transference of the ecclesiastical bodies 
 from the mainland to the new asylum. The people leave the
 
 Z4 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 mainland forever and take their priests with them. They 
 settle finally in the lagoon-townships. These are the people 
 who made the Venetian Republic, and it is with them and 
 their history that we have now to deal. 
 
 The problem presented to the primitive settlers in the la- 
 goons was twofold ; first, how to preserve their independence ; 
 second, how to develop internally. The early history of the 
 Republic is chiefly concerned with the solution of these two 
 questions, and that solution profoundly influenced the entire 
 course of Venetian development. The way in which the 
 lagoon-population worked out both problems can best be 
 studied by observing first the course of external events in 
 their relation to the Venetians, and then the course of internal 
 events as bearing on the growth of the constitution. 
 
 {i) External Independence. There is little doubt 
 but that the original fisher-population of the lagoons was 
 dependent for its administration upon the larger communities 
 of the mainland. Tradition always represented Venice as 
 being founded by "consuls from Padua," and we shall 
 presently see that Padua put in a claim to complete con- 
 trol of the waterway on the Brenta down to its mouth at 
 Malamocco. But the destruction of the mainland cities by 
 barbarian invasion, the migration of the most prominent 
 citizens and their settlement in the lagoons, encouraged the 
 lagoon-dwellers to assert their independence more and more 
 aggressively, as the mainland cities became gradually weaker, 
 and led them to adopt the doctrine of their original independ- 
 ence. Their importance as a maritime people grew steadily, 
 and when Belisarius undertook his operations against Ravenna 
 he requested the assistance of the Venetians. Ravenna fell 
 and the Gothic kingdom in Italy came to an end. The 
 Eastern Emperors became masters of the peninsula, and 
 doubtless considered that the lagoons formed part of their 
 dominions. But the Empire was vast and weak ; its capital 
 was far away, and the question of dependence or independ- 
 ence was not likely to be put to the Venetians by the rulers 
 of Constantinople. Nevertheless, by the fall of Ravenna one
 
 THE RISE IS 
 
 of the claimants to supremacy over the lagoons appeared upon 
 the scene ; the other claimant did not emerge till Alboin and 
 his Lombards established themselves upon the mainland of 
 Italy. Then it was that Venice found herself confronted 
 with the vital problem of her independent existence. 
 
 The growing importance of the Venetians was attested by 
 the fact that Narses called upon the lagoon-dwellers to 
 transport his army from Grade to the extreme southern corner 
 of their own lagoon, and that they did so. Narses himself 
 expressed to his successor, Longinus, his amazement at the 
 vigour of the lagoon-townships, and when the Paduans 
 appealed to Narses to restore to them their rights over the 
 courses of the Bacchiglione and the Brenta, whose lower 
 reaches and mouths the Venetians had seized, the lagoon- 
 population replied by asserting that the lagoons, the islands 
 and the river mouths were the property of those who had 
 made them habitable ; that the creature belonged to the 
 creator. Narses declined to decide the question, and the 
 Paduans were powerless to enforce their claim. The 
 Venetians established a virtual independence. 
 
 But with the appearance of Alboin in 568, this question 
 of independence began to assume a more threatening aspect. 
 The presence of the Lombards on the mainland of Italy, 
 and the growing strength and importance of the lagoons, 
 inevitably raised the question as to whose subjects the 
 Venetians were, and on which side they meant to stand. 
 Longinus, who had been endeavouring to treat with Alboin, 
 desired, before leaving Italy, to secure the support of Venice 
 for the Empire. He invited the Venetians to escort him to 
 Constantinople, which they agreed to do, and he asked them 
 to declare themselves subjects of the Emperor, but to this 
 they demurred. Once again they affirmed that the lagoons 
 were theirs, because they had created them : " God who is 
 our help and protector has saved us, that we might dwell 
 upon these waters. This second Venice which we have 
 raised in the lagoon is a mighty habitation for us. No power 
 of Emperor or Prince can reach us, and of them we have
 
 z6 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 no fear." That is the clear statement of Venetian aims 
 and contentions. The place and the people have made each 
 other and now belong exclusively to each other. The rival 
 claims to suzerainty advanced by East and West brought the 
 Venetians to a consciousness of their own individual existence, 
 and of their determination to be independent. How they 
 achieved their object forms the main thread of Venetian 
 political history for the next two centuries. 
 
 But though Venice had very clearly indicated her aspir- 
 ations, she was neither strong enough, as yet, nor very anxious 
 to press them too far. Longinus on this occasion acknow- 
 ledged that the Venetians were indeed " a great people with a 
 mighty habitation," but still if they would make a formal act 
 of submission to the Emperor, he would not exact an oath 
 for it, and would grant large concessions from the Empire. 
 To this the Venetians agreed. An embassy accompanied 
 Longinus to the Imperial court, and returned with the first 
 diploma conferred upon the Venetian people as a separate 
 body (584). 
 
 (f) Internal Constitution. As Attila's invasion of 
 Italy and the destruction of the mainland towns laid the 
 foundations of the lagoon-population, so it brought about 
 the first independent constitutional act of the newly-formed 
 community. In 466, fourteen years after the fall of Aquileia, 
 the lagoon-dwellers met at Grado, not to receive officers 
 from the mainland cities, which had almost ceased to exist, 
 but to elect officers of their own from among themselves. 
 They gave them the name of " Tribunes," whose duties 
 were to govern each of the twelve townships of the lagoons, 
 and above all to put an end to the rivalries which, with 
 the increase of population, began to play a disintegrating 
 part inside the lagoon-conmiunities. It was to these Tribuni 
 Maritimi that Cassiodorus, Belisarius, Narses and Longinus 
 appealed when the assistance of the growing Venetian com- 
 munity was required. In internal as in external affairs, what 
 Attila's invasion began the Lombard invasion completed. 
 The great increase it caused to the lagoon-population, and
 
 THE RISE 17 
 
 the resolve it induced in thcni to abandon tlie mainland, led 
 to the expansion of the Tribunal body. Each island (51^4) 
 now elected an additional Tribune. These were called 'inhun'i 
 Miijores, and formed a sort of central committee for the 
 management of affairs which concerned the lagoon-townships 
 generally ; the original Tribunes remained at the head of the 
 administration in each individual lagoon-island. The I'ribuni 
 Ma'jores styled themselves " We, the Tribunes of the 
 Maritime Islands, elected by the whole body of them." 
 
 It seems, however, that the institution of Tribunes did not 
 succeed in appeasing the quarrels of the various townships. 
 As to the actual cause of these mutual jealousies, we have no 
 positive information, but it is possible that when the inhabit- 
 ants of the mainland cities became confined at close quarters 
 in the lagoons, the ancient rivalries between their original 
 communes were intensified and exasperated. Whatever the 
 cause the fact remains, and the crisis was reached when 
 Christopher, Patriarch of Grado, found it necessary to 
 summon a general meeting of the lagoon-people at Heraclea, 
 then the leading township, and pointed out to them that the 
 way of safety lay in the suppression of the twelve Tribunes, 
 who represented too individually the interests of their respective 
 islands, and the election of a single man as head of the State. 
 The Venetians saw the wisdom of the advice, and in 697 
 Paulo Lucio Anafesto was chosen the first Doge of Venice. 
 
 The Doge was elected for two distinct reasons ; first, for 
 the defence of the lagoon-community against external attack, 
 to safeguard its independence, in fact ; second, to control 
 and suppress internal discord, to develop the constitution of 
 the growing State. But at the moment when they elected 
 their first Doge, it did not occur to the Venetians to define 
 accurately his position and powers, and the evolution of these 
 occupy a large part in later Venetian history. In its origin, 
 however, the Dogeship was democratic. The Doge was 
 elected by the people from the body of the people ; the 
 Tribunes continued to administer the affairs of their respective 
 islands, but they were now subject to the Doge and could be 
 
 c
 
 I8 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 dismissed by him. The Doge had the right to summon the 
 Conc'to or general assembly, and foreign affairs were in his 
 hands. 
 
 Here then, in the year 697, we find Venice a constituted 
 State. It had received external recognition in the Imperial 
 diploma of 584, and it had taken the first steps towards the 
 development of a constitution by the creation of Tribunes 
 and the election of a Doge. The chief problems before the 
 youthful State were still the question of independence between 
 East and West, between the Empire and the Lombards, and 
 the question of internal constitutional growth, the evolution 
 of the Dogeship. 
 
 IV. East and West. 
 
 {a) Byzantium. The new State had laid the founda- 
 tions of its external independence and internal fusion, but 
 much remained to be done before both were fully accom- 
 plished by the concentration of the government at Rialto, 
 and the emergence of the modern city of Venice, the 
 *' Citta dominante" the sole representative and embodiment 
 of all the lagoon-communities. The factors which con- 
 tributed to the decisive result were, externally, the Byzantine 
 Empire, the Lombard, and then the Prankish kingdom in 
 Italy and the Church ; between these powers Venice had 
 to steer a course towards undisputed independence. In- 
 ternally we find rival factions, which under the pressure from 
 without, now from East and now from West, concentrated 
 themselves into two wcll-dellned parties — the party which we 
 may call aristocratic, because it leaned towards Imperial 
 Constantinople and also displayed a tendency to make the 
 Dogeship hereditary, and the party which we may call 
 democratic, as it more or less represented the general aspira-
 
 THE RISE 19 
 
 tion of the lagoon-conimunitics towards absolute independ- 
 ence and free institutions, and consequently leaned more to 
 the Church and the Western kingdoms in opposition to the 
 Byzantizing tendencies of its rival. The aristocratic party 
 was represented by the township of Heraclca, the native 
 town of Anafesto, the iirst Doge ; the democratic party was 
 championed first by Jesolo, and then by Malamocco. The 
 history of the lagoons down to the concentration and com- 
 promise at Rialto, and the emergence of modern Venice, is 
 the history of the alternating success or failure of these two 
 parties. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that though the lagoon-town- 
 ships considered themselves independent of right, and meant 
 to be so in fact, they were by no means strong enough to 
 make that intention good. They had admitted a kind of 
 dependence on Byzantium, and now, soon after the election 
 of the first Doge, they were forced to enter into treaty with 
 the Lombard King, Luitprand (709). Commercial con- 
 siderations dictated both agreements. It was impossible for 
 the young and growing community to develop its trade, 
 except under some definite understanding with its neighbours. 
 By the treaty with Luitprand, the earliest Venetian treaty, 
 the boundaries of Heraclea, the leading lagoon-township, 
 were defined, and rights to cut wood in mainland forests as 
 well as trading privileges were acquired in return for a tribute. 
 The lagoon-communities were thus at the very outset brought 
 into relations with both East and West, relations which must 
 inevitably clash when the lagoons became so important that 
 their services were required by either party ; nor was it long 
 before the question was put to them in definite form. 
 
 The Emperor Leo, the Iconoclast, was in open rupture 
 with Pope Gregory II. over the question of images. The 
 Pope invited Luitprand to attack the Imperial city of 
 Ravenna. The Lombard King, nothing loath to expand, 
 assented. He besieged and took Ravenna, and the Exarcli 
 Paul, the Imperial governor, fled for safety to the lagoons as 
 a part, and a locally powerful part, of his master's dominions.
 
 20 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 He called on the Venetians to restore him to his government, 
 and, persuaded by the Doge Orso, a Heraclean of the Byzan- 
 tine faction, they consented. They recovered Ravenna for 
 the Exarch Paul, and in return acquired rights in the city, 
 while the Doge received the Imperial title of Hypatos for 
 his services. But this swing tow-ards Byzantium was 
 instantly resented in the lagoons. Jesolo and the democratic 
 party affirmed that they would not be swept towards the 
 Empire nor allow the Doge to become supreme. They 
 attacked Heraclea and the Doge was murdered. 
 
 {h) The Franks and the Church. A new and highly 
 important factor in the history of Venice was now about to 
 appear on the scene. The alliance between Gregory and 
 Luitprand against the Emperor Leo had not lasted long. 
 The Pope was soon alarmed by the steady advance of the 
 Lombard power, which was pressing southward, and had 
 already occupied territory in the Ducato Romano. Casting 
 about for some one to support him, his eye fell on the Franks. 
 Charles Martel's victory at Tours had attracted to them 
 universal attention. Pope Stephen crowned Pepin, Charles' 
 son, King of Italy. Pepin came to make good his title. 
 He defeated the Lombards, took Ravenna and the Penta- 
 polis, and made a gift of those acquisitions to his ally the 
 Pope, while retaining a feudal superiority over them. Thus 
 the chief rival of Venice in the Adriatic trade passed from 
 the Greek Empire nominally to the Franks, really to the 
 Popes. It was with the Franks and the Popes, and no 
 longer with the Lombards, that Venice had now to reckon 
 in the West. 
 
 To the Venetians this cliange was not at first displeasing. 
 They had not grasped its significance. They dreaded the 
 presence of the Lombards at Ravenna, but they had no 
 objection to the presence of a weak Pope with no fleet and 
 no commercial aspirations, and as yet they had not realized 
 the ]K)wer of the Franks. Moreover, as the result of the 
 anti-Byzantine reaction, which had ended in the murder of 
 Doge Orso, the democratic party was in power in the
 
 THE RISE ax 
 
 lagoons. Accordingly the Pope received every support in 
 his tenure of Ravenna. The intentions of the Kniperor, 
 learned by the Venetian merchants in the Levant, were 
 instantly communicated to the Archbislio]) in the Pentapolis. 
 But when Charlemagne, on the invitation of the Pope, 
 descended upon Italy to protect Ravenna Irom a threatened 
 attack, by the last Lombard king, the situation assumed a 
 different aspect. Charlemagne destroyed the Lombard 
 kingdom (774), confirmed his father's donation to the 
 Pope, and knowing the Eastern leanings of a large part of 
 the lagoon-population, he ordered the Pope to expel all 
 the Venetian traders from Ravenna and the Pentapolis. 
 Venice did not miss the significance of this step. It was a 
 new threat to its independence, the most serious threat it had 
 as yet been called on to face. The result was inevitable — a 
 reaction towards Byzantium, in favour of the weak and 
 distant Emperor and against the near and powerful King. 
 This reaction towards Byzantium accentuated the diver- 
 gencies between the two parties in the lagoons. The 
 democratic party coalesced with those who dreaded the 
 loss of commerce in the Pentapolis which would be en- 
 tailed by a rupture with the Franks, and both parties 
 centred round the Patriarch of Grado, who, as a Church- 
 man, favoured the cause of the Pope's ally, Charlemagne. 
 A crisis was rapidly approaching. A pretext for the ex- 
 plosion was offered by the new See of Olivolo (the modern 
 Castello). This See had recently (774) been created to 
 meet the needs of the growing lagoon-population. The 
 Doge, Giovanni Galbaio, named a Greek, Christopher, to 
 the vacant chair, but the F'rancophil Patriarch of Grado 
 refused consecration. The Doge manned a fleet and sent 
 his son, Maurizio, to exact compliance. Maurizio attacked 
 Grado with violence. The Patriarch was captured, hurled 
 from the highest tower of his palace, and killed. But 
 the murder of the Patriarch Giovanni did nothing to alter 
 the Prankish policy of the Patriarchal See. His nephew 
 and successor, Eortunatus, proved just as strong a partisan
 
 22 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 and a far abler, more restless and indomitable man. He 
 and his followers plotted to murder the Doge. Their scheme 
 was discovered and Fortunatus was forced to fly. He sought 
 refuge at the court of Charlemagne and used all his powers 
 to induce him to act against the Venetians. He urged that 
 the lagoons were really a part of the kingdom of Italy, and 
 yet were, obviously, wholly devoted to the Eastern Empire ; 
 the King could not afford to overlook this rebellious atti- 
 tude. These arguments bore fruit in Pepin's attack on the 
 lagoons. 
 
 Meantime the other conspirators, chiefly the family of the 
 Obelerii, who had fled with Fortunatus and taken refuge in 
 Treviso, a city of the Frankish kingdom, had succeeded in 
 unseating the Byzantine Doges, the Galbaii, and had elected 
 Obelerio as Chief of the State. But at this moment, when 
 Venice was in the throes of the struggle for her independence, 
 she was threatened by a danger of the very gravest. Charle- 
 magne proposed to marry the Empress Irene, and to unite the 
 two Empires. Had the marriage taken place Venetian inde- 
 pendence must have disappeared ; the Byzantine title and the 
 Frankish arm must have proved irresistible. But the ])roposal 
 raised such a storm in Constantinople that the Empress, who 
 had entertained it, lost her throne and was succeeded by 
 Nicephorus. The two Emperors subscribed a treaty, by 
 which their respective Empires were defined, where contermin- 
 ous. It is not absolutely clear what position was assigned to 
 Venice. Eginhard, a contemporary and biographer of 
 Charlemagne, says that the Frankish Emperor took Istria, 
 Liburnia and Dalmatia, except the maritime cities. Dandolo, 
 a Venetian chronicler of much later date, affirms that it was 
 distinctly stipulated that the Venetian cities and the maritime 
 cities of Dalmatia, which had remained faithful to the Empire, 
 should in no way be molested, invaded or diminished, and 
 that the Venetians should enjoy in peace the possessions, 
 liberties and immunities which they had been accustomed to 
 enjoy in the kingdom of Italy. We may take it that by this 
 treaty the lagoons were really declared to form part of the
 
 THE RISE 23 
 
 Eastern Empire, with certain trading rights in the Western 
 kingdom. To Venice the decision was of the highest im- 
 portance, for it left her nominal vassal of a weak and distant 
 Emperor, and she could and did plead that vassalage when 
 the Franks tried to enforce their claim to the lagoons as an 
 integral part of the Italian kingdom ; while on the other 
 iiand, the recognition of their trading rights on the mainland 
 gave them all the connection they desired with such powerful 
 neighbours as the Prankish sovereigns. 
 
 (c) Internal Development. We must turn now to 
 note the effect of this outward pressure from East and West 
 u])on the internal history of the lagoons, and the way in which 
 it helped to build up the constitution of Venice. The period 
 may be described as a period of experiments in state-building. 
 The first Doge, Anafesto, was, as we have seen, a member of 
 the aristocratic party, a native of Heraclea, and this fact 
 alone, this apparent supremacy of Heraclea, was sufficient to 
 band against the leading city the other townships of the 
 lagoons, who had determined that no one of them should be- 
 come supreme. We have records of a combination of .lesolo 
 and Malamocco against Heraclea ; of a bloody battle in the 
 pine woods (^Pineto) that then covered the /rV//; of a victory 
 won by Heraclea, but so reprobated by all the other lagoon- 
 townships that they refused to bury the dead and left them to 
 be devoured by beasts and birds. The P'meto became an 
 accursed spot, and the inhabitants removed to a new site, 
 where they founded a township which they endeavoured to 
 make independent of the Doge. The whole community was 
 threatened with disruption. The distinctly Byzantine policy 
 of the third Doge, Orso (who, as we have already seen, was 
 murdered by the democratic faction), accentuated this danger ; 
 and the lagoon-population, tired of these internecine brawls, 
 and resenting Orso's attempt to draw them towards Byzantium 
 and to enhance the power of the dukedom, resolved to abolish 
 that office, and to entrust the chief authority to an official who 
 should combine both civil and military functions in his own 
 person, but who should hold office for one year only. The
 
 24 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 title of this new head of the State was Mastro Miles, the 
 Master Soldier. 
 
 But the new constitution did not last for more than six 
 years. The Master Soldier was as powerless as the Doge to 
 repress internal jealousies. The last Master Soldier, a Hera- 
 clean, was captured by the people of Jesolo and barbarously 
 blinded by having his eyes exposed over a brazier of live coal. 
 A general assembly was convened, not at Heraclea nor at 
 Jesolo, but at Malaniocco, and Deodato, son of the last Doge, 
 was elected fourth Doge of Venice. 
 
 By the election of Deodato, a step was taken in the direc- 
 tion of consolidating and fusing the discordant elements in 
 the lagoon-population. The new Doge was a Heraclean, 
 it is true, but he was elected not at Heraclea but at Mala- 
 niocco, and he reigned there Heraclea and Jesolo, as in- 
 compatibles, were superseded by Malamocco, and an advance 
 was made towards the final concentration at Rialto. But 
 though the seat of the dukedom had been removed from 
 Heraclea and Jesolo alike, those implacable rivals still con- 
 tinued the struggle as to which of them should furnish the 
 Doge. Matters were brought to a crisis by Galla Gaulo of 
 Jesolo seizing and blinding the Doge Deodato, and arbitrarily 
 j)roclaiming himself Doge in Malamocco. This high-handed 
 act was resented by the population, who saw in it a violation 
 of one of their fundamental tenets — that the Doge must be 
 elected by the people, and must never be allowed to become 
 supreme. Galla was deposed, and the preponderance of the 
 democratic party and of Malamocco was proclaimed by the 
 election of a Malomoccan, Monegario (756). The advent 
 of the Franks and the creation of a strong Francophil party 
 inside the lagoons brought, as we have seen, the policy of 
 Venice to a critical point. The whole lagoon-population 
 was evidently burning up to the decisive crisis which ended 
 in the emergence of Rialto and the creation of modern 
 Venice.
 
 THE RISE 25 
 
 V Rialto. 
 
 It will be remembered that aftcM' the failure of tlie con- 
 spiracy in which Fortunatus and Obelerio were the chief 
 actors, Fortunatus fled to the court of Charlemagne, while 
 Obelerio remained in Frankish Trcviso, plotting against the 
 Doge. He was successful. Maurizio CJalbaio was deposed 
 and in his stead Obelerio was elected. This event marked 
 the complete triumph of the Francophil party in the lagoons, 
 and Fortunatus, its chief, was invited to return. But the 
 triumph of one faction exasperated the other. Heraclea 
 attacked and destroyed Jesolo, whose inhabitants appealed to 
 the Doge of Malamocco for redress. The last step in the 
 long process of internal fusion had now been reached. The 
 Doge marched on Heraclea and subdued it, and by common 
 consent, at a plenary meeting of the lagoon-population, it was 
 resolved to end for ever these internecine feuds by removing 
 both populations from Heraclea and Jesolo to Malamocco. 
 This was an important advance towards that unification at 
 Rialto which was to follow shortly. But in the meantime it 
 meant the supremacy of Malamocco and the Frankish party in 
 the lagoon. And the seal was set to the F"rancophil tendency 
 by the visit which the Doge paid to the court of Charle- 
 magne, where he is represented as receiving orders as to the 
 management of the lagoon-communities. It looked as though 
 the lagoons must inevitably be merged in the neighbouring 
 kingdom of Italy. This strong tendency towards the Franks 
 produced, however, its inevitable reaction among the lagoon- 
 dwellers, as soon as they fully grasped the situation. The 
 Byzantine faction revived again and found support among the 
 people. They appealed to the Emperor Nicephorus, and 
 Nicetas appeared in Venetian waters with the Imperial fleet. 
 Fortunatus fled. The Doge and the Francophils dissembled 
 and temporized. Nicetas was able to report the Venetians as 
 loyal subjects of the Eastern Empire, and when the com-
 
 26 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 mander of the Imperial Heet, a few years later (809), asked 
 for Venetian aid in an attack on Comacchio and a futile 
 attempt to recover the Pentapolis for the Eastern crown, it 
 was not refused. 
 
 But to the west, on the mainland of Italy, there was one 
 who watched the conduct of the lagoon-communities with no 
 kindly eye. Pepin, son of Charlemagne, had been crowned 
 King of Italy. He was resolved to make his title more than 
 an empty formula; he desired to be King of Italy in fact, and 
 his attention was called to that corner of Italy, the lagoon of 
 Venice, that was growing so important, had proved itself so 
 independent, and, but recently, by assisting the Imperial fleet 
 in the attack on Comacchio, had shown that its sympathies lay 
 East and not West. Pepin determined to subdue the lagoons. 
 He gathered a fleet at Ravenna and pushed up the coast. 
 He captured Brondolo, Chioggia, Pelestrina, and worked 
 along the line of the //V// towards the capital of the lagoons, 
 Malamocco. He was almost within striking distance when 
 the Doge and the Venetian people took the bold resolve of 
 transferring the capital from Malamocco, which lay exposed 
 to attack by sea and by the Hdi, to that little group of islands 
 called Rialto, lying at the very heart of the lagoon, midway 
 between the mainland and the sea. This step was fatal to 
 Pepin's enterprise. He captured Malamocco, but it was 
 deserted, and between him and Rialto, where the Venetians 
 were now concentrated, stretched six miles of intricate channels 
 and mud-banks. He attempted to force a passage, but his 
 vessels ran on the shoals, and fell a prey to the light Venetian 
 skiffs, manned by the people, who alone had intimate know- 
 ledge of the water-ways. The summer heats came on, the 
 Hilo shore was unhealthy, his troops began to dwindle away. 
 In vain he appealed to the Venetians on the ground of his 
 right : " Own yourselves my subjects, for ye come from the 
 kingdom that is mine." The sole answer was, " We will be 
 the Roman Emperor's men, not yours." The son of the 
 mighty Charlemagne had to confess himself defeated by the 
 sturily owners of the lagoon. He abandoned the attack and
 
 THE RISE 27 
 
 died soon after. A treaty (^10) between Charlemagne and 
 Nicephorus recognized the position of the Venetians as 
 subjects of the Eastern Empire, enjoying trading rights and 
 immunities in Italy in virtue of the treaty with Luitprand. 
 
 This concentration at Rialto marks the beginning of the 
 history of Venice as a full-grown State. Hitherto the 
 Republic had been in the process of formation ; a double 
 fusion was slowly taking place. The people and their dwelling 
 had been welded together under the pressure of external menace 
 to their independence, and, further, under the same menace, 
 the conflicting parties inside the lagoon communities had been 
 fused into one homogeneous whole. Rialto, the modern city 
 of Venice, emerges as the result and as the symbol of both 
 operations. The site chosen, the midmost islands of the 
 lagoon, was a compromise between the danger from the main- 
 land and the danger from the sea. Attila and Alboin had 
 proved the former, Pepin's attack demonstrated the latter. 
 Rialto, moreover, represented a further compromise between 
 East and West. The position of the Venetians was now 
 assured. They were vassals of a weak and distant Empire that 
 could never compel recognition ; they were independent tribu- 
 taries of a near and powerful kingdom with which they could 
 trade. The place and the people had made one another. 
 With the emergence of Rialto, we have to speak no longer of 
 Heraclea, Jesolo, Malamocco, as separate lagoon-communities ; 
 we are face to face with the united Venice of modern history.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EXPANSION 
 
 The lagoon-communities being now concentrated at Rialto, 
 the young Republic proceeded to expand, to develop, to 
 grow until she reached the zenith of her splendour in the 
 fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This development 
 may be most conveniently traced, if we observe her progress 
 along the lines of constitution, maritime expansion and 
 territorial aggrandizement. 
 
 I. Constitutional. 
 
 (a) The Dukedom. Though Venice may be said to 
 have been fully formed by the concentration at Rialto, she 
 was by no means fully grown. Many problems still conh'onted 
 her, many struggles had to be faced before she assumed the 
 unique position which is hers in the history of Europe. The 
 development of her constitution, which was to lead her to 
 that rigid oligarchy, the admiration and the despair of 
 European statesmen, depends upon the evolution of three 
 ideas — ( i ) the curtailment of the ducal prestige and powers, 
 (2) the growth of the aristocracy and its absorption of all 
 the great functions of government, (3) the extrusion of the 
 people from any share in the management of the State. The 
 central idea, the evolution of the aristocracy, is the governing
 
 THE EXPANSION 29 
 
 idea, for it was the aristocracy in process of growth that 
 curtailed the ducal prestige and gradually disfranchised the 
 people. 
 
 But in the early days of the settlement at Rialto an 
 aristocracy can hardly be said to have existed ; that only 
 came later with the growth of Venetian commerce and 
 wealth. At first on the constitutional side we have to deal 
 chieriy with the ducal office and the people. During these 
 early years of Venetian history we note a striking character- 
 istic about the dukedom ; that is the constant attempts to 
 render it hereditary in some one powerful family, attempts 
 which were always frustrated by the instinct of the people, 
 who, to use their own words, had not come to the lagoons 
 to " live under a lord." This tendency and the opposition 
 it aroused landed the Republic in constant explosions of 
 violence, riot, arson, murder of the Doge, but during it 
 all the dukedom received that imprint which it retained 
 throughout Venetian history. The dynastic tendency is 
 chiefly illustrated by the Doges of the Particiachi, Candiani 
 and Orseolo families. With the fall of the last the tendency 
 came to an end, just when the new aristocracy was on the 
 point of emerging, and found itself prepared not merely to 
 prevent the Dogeship from becoming hereditary, but, in the 
 interests of its own self-development, to rob the office of 
 almost all weight in the conduct of affairs. 
 
 The concentration at Rialto was the result of an anti- 
 Frankish reaction in face of Pepin's threatened attack, and 
 the Francophil party, with the Doge Obelerio and the Patri- 
 arch Fortunatus at their head, were driven from power. The 
 Venetians, assembled in their new capital, elected as first 
 Doge in Rialto Angcio Particiaco, a Heraclean noble, bred 
 in the pro-Byzantine sentiments of his party. Early in his 
 reign he renewed a custom which had already been introduced 
 by previous Doges, that of electing a Doge-Consort in the 
 person of his son, Giustiniano. I'his was a device which 
 lent itself to the dynastic tendency displayed by certain 
 families, and eventually came to be regarded with the greatest
 
 30 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 suspicion by the people and, therefore, abolished. As in 
 the carHcr case of the Galbaio family, so in the case of the 
 Particiachi, the son elected Doge-Consort succeeded to the 
 sole authority on his father's death. 
 
 The chief event of Giustiniano's reign was the translation 
 of the body of St. Mark from Alexandria to Venice. 
 Round this episode numberless picturesque details have been 
 accumulated, but the point of chief moment is that, coming 
 so soon after the concentration at Rialto, it implied the 
 re-dedication of the State to a new patron Saint ; the earlier 
 Venice of the lagoon-communities, dedicated to St. Theodore, 
 disappears, together with its saint, and its place is taken by 
 the new Venice under the protection of St. Mark (828). 
 
 Yet a third Particiaco succeeded to Giustiniano — Giovanni, 
 his brother. The people became alarmed at this evident 
 attempt to make the dukedom hereditary. They seized tlie 
 Doge, shaved his beard, and compelled him to retire to a 
 monastery at Grado. The successor of Giovanni, Pietro 
 Tradonico, was a nominee of the people, elected in order to 
 break the dynastic tendency of the Particiachi, a man whose 
 ancestors came from democratic Jesolo, the enemy of Hera- 
 clea. But during a long reign of twenty-eight years the 
 spirit of reaction against the Particiachi wore itself out. The 
 faction that supported that family never ceased to plot against 
 the democratic Doge. In 864 he was murdered as he was 
 leaving the church of San Zaccaria, and a member of the 
 Particiachi returned to the throne. He was followed, not 
 quite consecutively, by four more members of his house, mak- 
 ing seven Particiachi in all who reigned in Venice. But the 
 family appear to have dwindled before the prestige of a more 
 powerful race, the Candiani, in whom the dynastic tendency 
 was no less strongly developed. Five Candiani alternated 
 with the Particiachi as Doges of Venice, until they in turn 
 gave way to the Orseolo f:iniily, in whom the dynastic 
 tentiency was crushed for ever. 
 
 In the Candiani the tendency is more ))ronounced than in 
 the Particiachi, and the hostility roused among the populace
 
 THE EXPANSION 31 
 
 more violent. Tlic fourth of the name, Pictro, succeeded 
 in convincing the Venetians that he was aiming at nothing 
 short of sovereignty in the State. He repudiated his wife 
 in order to marry a sister of the Marquis of Tuscany, who 
 brought him a large dower of lands in the Marches of 
 Treviso and Friuli ; he employed the forces of the State to 
 protect these private possessions ; most unpardonable of all, 
 he filled the ducal palace with armed foreigners as a body- 
 guard. The people were at last thoroughly roused and 
 alarmed. The mob surrounded the palace, but failed to 
 force an entrance. The adjoining houses were set on fire, 
 and the flames soon spread to the palace itself. The Doge 
 attempted to escape by a door that led into St. Mark's, but 
 was struck down and despatched by some of his own 
 relations ; his child, too, was slain in its nurse's arms, and 
 the two corpses were taken to the common slaughter-house 
 to be given to the dogs. The fire that burned out the Doge 
 reduced St. Mark's and all the houses between the Piazza 
 and Sta. Maria Zobenigo to ashes. Thus in blood and flame 
 and smoke the people of Venice affirmed once more that 
 they would never permit the dukedom to become the 
 appanage of one family, that they had not come to Venice 
 to "live under a lord." 
 
 Pietro Candiani was succeeded by Pietro Orseolo, the first 
 member of the family that made a final attempt to establish a 
 dynastic dukedom. The Orseoli were the most distinguished 
 of the three houses that endeavoured to seat themselves in 
 permanence on the ducal throne. When we come to consider 
 the development of Venice in commerce, in arms and in 
 art, we shall see how deeply she was indebted to the two 
 Pietro of that name. But in tracing the history of the 
 dynastic principle, what is important throughout the reigns of 
 the Orseoli is this, that thanks to the development of Venice, 
 we begin to perceive the germs of an aristocracy being formed 
 among the leading families whose names emerge more and 
 more frequently ; and the struggle for the throne between the 
 Orseoli and Candiani, who had not been completely crushed
 
 32 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 at the downfall of Pictro IV., is carried on by the help of 
 j)rominent partisans. The family of Caloprini supported the 
 Candiani, the Morosini espoused the cauvse of the Orseoli, 
 and the rivalry struck deeper and deeper and deeper into the 
 State, and threatened to tear the community in two, until, 
 "tired with all these," both the people and the nobles 
 took the fmal steps which rendered a dynastic dukedom 
 impossible. 
 
 The glory of the Orseoli and their chief services to the 
 State are summed up in the reign of Pietro II., the greatest 
 Doge Venice had hitherto produced. He was elected in 
 983, one hundred and seventy years after the concentration 
 at Rialto. When he died in 1008, he left the Republic in a 
 very different position from that in which he found her on his 
 accession. Inuring his reign the Venetians took their first 
 steps down the Dalmatian coast and towards their supremacy 
 in the Adriatic,' that natural water-avenue to Venice. Pietro 
 left the throne to his son Otho, godson of the Emperor Otho, 
 married to a daughter of the King of Hungary, brother of the 
 Patriarch of Grado, related to the Bishop of Torcello. Such 
 an accumulation of honours, while it proved the high position 
 held by Venice among European sovereigns, also demon- 
 strated the preponderating influence of the Orseoli in the 
 State. The anti-dynastic party gathered force and became 
 menacing. The Doge fled to Istria, but was brought back by 
 his own party. Nothing, however, could check the feeling in 
 Venice which was running stronger and stronger against any 
 attempt to create an hereditary throne. The attitude of the 
 Republic was as it had always been. It would not brook 
 foreign interference, nor would it endure domestic sovereignty. 
 A pretext was soon found. The Doge was seized, his beard 
 shaved, and himself banished to Constantinople, where he 
 died. His successor, Flabianico, came to the throne (1032) 
 under conditions which profoundly modified the Venetian 
 constitution, gave a permanent imprint to the character of the 
 Dogeship, and rendered a dynastic tendency impossible for 
 the future. The entire family of the Orseoli was ostracized,
 
 THE EXPANSION 33 
 
 debarred in perpetuity from holding any office in the State. 
 A law was passed rendering the election of a Doge-Consort 
 illegal, and two ducal councillors were appointed to assist 
 the Doge in the discharge of his functions ; the Doge was, 
 in future, obliged, not merely advised, to invite the more 
 prominent citizens to lend him their counsel in affairs of 
 moment, and here we iind the germs of two great members 
 of the later Venetian constitution — the Consig/ieri Dticali or 
 Ducal Privy Council, and the Senate, the Pregadt or " in- 
 vited." From this moment onwards the Doge ceases to be 
 the sole authority in the State, the aristocracy begins to make 
 its appearance, and thenceforth down to the stereotyping of 
 the constitution by the "closing of the great council" in 
 1296, Venetian constitutional history turns upon the action 
 of the aristocracy in reference to both Doge and people. 
 
 (^) The Aristocracy. The earliest occasion on which 
 we come across prominent families taking a leading part in 
 the movement of events was during the struggle between the 
 Candiani and Orseoli for the ducal throne. The Caloprini, 
 as we have seen, stood for the Candiani, the Morosini for 
 the Orseoli, and their feuds all but proved the ruin of Venice. 
 The Caloprini plotted the murder of every Morosini, but 
 succeeded in despatching only one, Donienico. That, how- 
 ever, was enough. The Morosinis were sworn to vendetta, 
 and Venice was no safe home for Caloprini. They betook 
 themselves to the Emperor Otho IT., and their leader, 
 Stefano, offered, if the Emperor would restore him and his 
 clan and make him Doge, to hold Venice as the vassal of 
 the Western Empire. The Emperor agreed, and a concerted 
 plan of action was arranged. The Caloprini partisans inside 
 Venice threatened revolution. Stefano and the exiles under- 
 took to blockade Venice from the mainland, while the 
 Emperor himself prepared to deliver an attack by sea. The 
 danger was extreme. Venice had never been so seriously 
 menaced. But the death of Otho came to relieve the strain. 
 The Caloprini, robbed of their chief support, offered submis- 
 sion as the price of their recall. The mere sight of them 
 
 D
 
 34 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 drove the Morosinis mad. Fresh bloodshed followed, and had 
 not the strong hand of Pietro Orseolo II. come to suppress 
 them, a war of extermination must have ruined both families. 
 
 Apart from the fact that it marks the emergence of leading 
 families, the Caloprini-Morosini episode is of interest as illus- 
 trating one great danger to the growing State and incidentally 
 explaining why she never succumbed to it. Why, it may be 
 asked, did not an ambitious Doge or a turbulent faction secure 
 their own supremacy by calling in foreign aid, as so frequently 
 happened in other Italian cities ? The answer is, that Venice 
 was virtually impregnable. Before a foreign army could 
 have entered the city — if ever they could have done so — in 
 support of a faction, the traitors would have been slain, and 
 there would have been no faction left to support. The 
 lagoons, in fact, while securing Venice from foreign attack, 
 also ensured internal quiet, allowed her to develop into one 
 solid, homogeneous State, unrent by rival parties, feared and 
 admired by the less fortunate mainland towns of Italy. 
 
 While the strong hand of Pietro Orseolo curbed the turbu- 
 lent nobility, the results of his brilliant reign, which we shall 
 consider presently, added to their wealth and importance ; and 
 so when his family was ostracized and the dynastic tendency 
 crushed for ever, we find an aristocracy ready to emerge, and 
 take its place in the administration of affairs by means of the 
 two new offices of ducal counsellor (^consig/iere ducale^ and 
 of senator [pregado'). 
 
 The growing aristocracy, if it were to assume the leading 
 role in the constitution and management of the State, found a 
 double task before it. It must curtail the ducal authority 
 and absorb the Doge's powers, and it must deprive the 
 people of all voice in the government of the State. 
 
 The aristocracy had, however, much to do before either of 
 its objects was attained. A contemporary account of the elec- 
 tion of Domenico Selvo as Doge in 1071, proves that the 
 ceremony was still democratic in character, that the choice of 
 the chief magistrate still lay with the entire Venetian com- 
 munity, the commun'itas Veneciarum. The population ot the city
 
 THE EXPANSION 35 
 
 assembled at the cathedral church of S. Pietro di Castello. 
 The Bishop of Olivolo, surrounded by the clergy, offered up 
 j)rayers for the welfare of the State and for guidance in the 
 choice of a ruler. Then cries were raised for Domenico 
 Selvo, the people's favourite, *' Dom'micum Silv'tum volumtts ct 
 laii(Jamus," " Volemo" the same formula with which the Vene- 
 tian parishioners cover the walls of their parish to this day 
 when a cure is vacant, in protestation of their ancient right to a 
 voice in the nomination of their ^aro^rco, or parish priest. On 
 this occasion there was no opposition. Selvo was seized and 
 carried shoulder-high to a boat, and all set out for S. Marco. 
 During the passage the Te Deum was intoned, while Selvo 
 took off his stockings, that he might enter the church with 
 due liumility ; bells rang from all the towers ; the lagoon 
 was churned to foam by a thousand oars ; at St. Mark's he 
 prostrated himself and gave thanks to God and the patron 
 Saint; then taking the staff of office from the altar and fol- 
 lowed by the crowd, he passed into the ducal palace, where 
 he received the oath of allegiance, and immediately gave the 
 necessary orders for refurnishing the palace, which, in accord- 
 ance with the custom of the time, had been gutted by the mob. 
 
 Such, on the testimony of an eye-witness, was the simple 
 ceremony of a ducal election in the eleventh century. It 
 was not to remain so much longer. 
 
 About a hundred years later, that is to say in 1172, the 
 aristocracy definitely emerges with a policy declared, and the 
 power to carry it through. During those hundred years, as 
 we shall see when we come to the commercial expansion of 
 Venice, the State made great strides forward in wealth and 
 prosperity. It turned the Crusades to account and developed 
 its trade in the Levant and in Syria. Acre and Tyre fell, 
 and the foundations of Venetian maritime power were securely 
 laid. The result of this expansion was the growth of a 
 wealthy class in Venice, men who had helped in the 
 achievement, and who knew how to secure the reward. 
 They had created for themselves the largest stake in the 
 country, and were resolved to have the chief voice in the
 
 36 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 management of its destinies. Their opportunity arrived when 
 the Em])eror Manuel's treachery, in seizing all Venetians 
 in Constantinople and confiscating their goods, swept the 
 government of Venice off its feet on a wave of popular indig- 
 nation and precipitated the disastrous campaign of Vitale 
 Michiel II. (1171). On the return of the shattered squad- 
 rons and the murder of the Doge a radical change in the 
 constitution seemed imperative. 
 
 To the Venetians considering the situation, it appeared that 
 the Doge was too independent— for three reasons ; he alone 
 had the power of summoning the general assembly of the 
 people, the condone ; he liad the power to name those whose 
 advice he desired to take, and so could tune it to his own 
 pitch ; the ducal councillors were too weak to act as an 
 adequate check on the Doge. On the other hand the people 
 were too powerful — their numbers made them dominant at a 
 crisis ; the city, moreover, was not secure from tumult, and 
 they and the Doge between them had swept the State into 
 the late disastrous campaign. 
 
 The result of the modifications proposed and carried was a 
 great advance towards the form of constitution eventually 
 adopted by the Republic. ( i ) With a view to creating an 
 efficient deliberative assembly, in a state whose population was 
 rapidly cx|. niding, each of the six divisions of the city was 
 required to elect two representatives. Each member of these 
 six groups of deputies proceeded to appoint forty of the more 
 prominent citizens in each of their respective quarters, to 
 serve on the council. A body of four hundred and eighty 
 members was thus created and served for a year ; on retiring 
 they themselves, and not the people, appointed the two deputies 
 to nominate the council for the succeeding year. But neither 
 the form of election nor the number elected was as yet rigidly 
 fixed. The duties of the council were the election of all officers 
 of State by vote, and the ])reparation of all matters to be sub- 
 mitted to the general assembly or condone. Here we have the 
 germ of the Mn^gior Consig/io, the basis of the Venetian con- 
 stitution, which became strictly oligarchical in 1296. More-
 
 THE EXPANSION 37 
 
 over, by this reform the people were deprived of their voice 
 in the election of the Doge, which was now committed to the 
 newly-createil council. 
 
 (2) With a view to restraining the Doge's independence 
 the number of ducal councillors was raised from two to six, 
 of course appointed by the new council. 
 
 (3) At the same time, while curtailing the ducal authority, 
 they increased the pomp. For the future the Doge was to be 
 carried round the Piazza in a kind of pulpit [po-zzetto) im- 
 mediately after his election, to be acclaimed by the people and 
 to scatter largess. 
 
 When proceeding to elect a successor to the murdered 
 Doge, Michiel, the council nominated eleven electors, who 
 chose Sebastian Ziani, and presented him to the people not 
 for election but for confirmation. They were met by angry 
 cries, and were in some danger of their lives. But an empty 
 formula of deference, " This is your Doge, an it please 
 you," hoodwinked and appeased the mob, while it left the 
 aristocracy the real masters of the situation. 
 
 A little later the fourth crusade, in 1 204, and the partition 
 of the Archipelago among Venetian citizens, brought a great 
 access of wealth and strength to the aristocracy, and during 
 this period they forged the most powerful weapon they ever 
 invented for the curtailment of the ducal authority. When 
 Enrico Dandolo was elected (1193), he was called upon to 
 swear to what was known as a prom'issione ducale, a kind of 
 coronation oath by which the Doge bound himself and his 
 family. This promissione could be, and was, altered at each 
 new election, special officers being appointed to scrutinize the 
 actions of the deceased Doge, and to add to the new oath 
 whatever clauses they thought necessary to check any symp- 
 toms of an independent or aggrandizing action. The weapon 
 was a perfect instrument in the hands of the aristocracy, and 
 was freely employed. The restrictions imposed by the 
 promissione became steadily severer, until hardly anything 
 was left to the Doge of the ancient power and independence 
 of his office. The promissione once invented, no Doge
 
 38 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 could or did escape from it, and the growing restrictions 
 accepted by Jacopo Tiepolo (1229) — the Doge shall inter- 
 fere in no ecclesiastical elections, shall pay taxes, shall not 
 communicate with foreign princes ; by Marino Morosini 
 (1249) — theDoge shall solicit ofHce for no one; by Jacopo 
 Contarini (1275) — the Doge shall not accept fiefs for him- 
 self, or his sons, nor raise loans, nor allow any of his family 
 to marry a foreigner without leave, nor buy lands outside 
 the Ducato Veneto, nor allow his sons to hold any office 
 but that of ambassador or captain of a ship, nor allow his 
 wife to make presents — all prove that the ducal authority and 
 independence were dead, and that the aristocracy had achieved 
 its object of reducing the Doge to the position of a mere figure- 
 head in the State, the official mouthpiece of the ruling caste. 
 (c) The Oligarchy. We are now approaching the 
 most important moment in the Venetian constitutional history, 
 the period in which the aristocracy stereotyped itself as a 
 close oligarchy, supreme for ever after in the Republic. So 
 far as we have seen, the aristocracy had achieved its double 
 object of crushing the ducal authority and of disfranchising 
 the people. But the aristocracy had not yet succeeded in 
 making itself into a close caste, an oligarchy. The council 
 created in 1 1 7 1 was chosen freely from among the leading 
 members of each quarter of the city, and the two nominators 
 for each quarter were not necessarily members of the dominant 
 party. No doubt there had been a tendency to confine the 
 membership to leading families, and in 1286 motion had 
 been made that only those whose paternal ancestors had sat 
 in the council should be eligible for nomination to it. Had 
 that measure been passed, it would at once have created a 
 close caste, for election to all offices of State lay with the 
 council alone ; it was rejected, however, by 82 against 58. 
 A similar measure was again proposed in 1296 and thrown 
 out. But the aristocracy had on tlieir side a Doge of strong 
 character, Pietro Gradenigo, and in the following year the 
 great measure, known as the "closing of the Great Council," 
 [Her rata del Magg'wr Coruiglto), was put and carried.
 
 THE EXPANSION 39 
 
 ft provided that the hij^hest legal authority in the State, 
 the Council ot Forty, " shall ballot, one by one, the names of 
 those who for the last four years have had a seat in the 
 council. Those vt'ho receive twelve favourable votes, or 
 upwards, shall be members of the Great Council. Three 
 electors siiall be appointed to submit further names for ballot, 
 these electors to hold office for one year. These provisions 
 cannot be repealed, except with the consent of five out of six 
 ducal councillors, twenty-five of the Council of Forty, and 
 two-thirds of the Great Council itself." 
 
 The first clause created a special caste in the community — 
 those who had during the last four years enjoyed a seat in the 
 council. The third clause still provided an opening through 
 which a Venetian citizen who did not belong to the favoured 
 class might be saved from disfranchisement, might still pass 
 within the charmed circle of the governing caste. But the 
 three electors almost immediately laid down for their own 
 guidance a rule which contained the very essence of the 
 Serrata, and constituted the true closing of the caste. They 
 resolved that only those who could prove that a paternal 
 ancestor had sat in the council between the years 1172 and 
 1297 should be eligible as members of the present Great 
 Council. 
 
 By these provisions the community was divided into three 
 great classes: — (i) Those who had never sat in the council 
 themselves and whose parents had never sat. These were, of 
 course, the vast majority in the State ; and by this act they 
 were disfranchised, rendered ineligible for office and voiceless, 
 forever, in the government of their country. (2) Those 
 whose ancestors had sat in the council. These were eligible, 
 and, as a matter of fact, were gradually admitted members of 
 the Great Council ; their sons, in like manner, becoming 
 eligible on attaining their majority. (3) Those who were 
 already of the council at the time this act was carried or had 
 sat in the council during the four preceding years ; their 
 sons likewise becoming eligible on attaining majority. 
 
 We must note that the period within which it was necessary
 
 40 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 to prove that an ancestor had sat in council covered the years 
 between 1172 and 1297 — a long period. It is probable, 
 therefore, that t'cw prominent famiHes were disfranchised by 
 the Serrata, and as a matter of fact the numbers of the 
 council increased rapidly at first, as the new members proved 
 their right and were admitted. In 1296 the numbers were 
 210; in 1311 they had risen to 1017, and by 134O they 
 were 12 12, but that represented the whole of the electorate 
 in the Venetian constitution. In 13 19 the heraldic officers 
 of the State, the Avvogadori, were ordered to make a visita- 
 tion to establish the purity of blood, and this led to the open- 
 ing of the famous Libro d'Oro, which was nothing but a 
 register of patrician births, marriages and deaths. 
 
 The importance of the Serrata depended entirely on the 
 nature of the Great Council. The functions of that council 
 were, at first : the election of all officers of State ; legislation ; 
 the management of foreign aifairs and finances — almost the 
 whole field of political activity. Exclusion from the Great 
 Council, therefore, meant political death. But the growth 
 of its numbers soon rendered the Great Council unsuitable 
 for the discharge of some of these duties. The smaller 
 body, the Senate or Pregadl, was better adapted for the 
 direction of finance, the supervision of commerce, of customs, 
 of the arsenal, the management of foreign affairs, corre- 
 spondence with ambassadors, and the decision of peace and 
 war ; and these duties were gradually transferred to the 
 Senate from the Great Council, which retained as its chief 
 function the election to all State offices. 
 
 The Senate or Pregadl numbered originally sixty members, 
 elected in the Great Council, to whom were added, eventually, 
 other sixty, known as the "Addition," or Zonta. The full 
 Senate numbered one hundred and twenty members, besides 
 those who sat in it ex officio, which brought a plenary sitting 
 up to about one hundred and eighty voices. 
 
 The six ducal councillors, or the ConsigJio Mitiore, were 
 elected from the six quarters of the city. They held the 
 ducal powers, as it were, in commission. The Doge could
 
 THE EXPANSION 41 
 
 not act without them, but they could act in absence of the 
 Doge. They opened despatches, addressed nominally to the 
 Doge ; they received petitions presented to him ; in his 
 name they prepared the motions to be submitted to the Great 
 Council or the Senate. 
 
 Finally, there was the supreme judicial authority in the 
 State, the Council of Forty (Quanintia), which, in addition 
 to its judicial functions, superintended the Mint and the 
 Treasury. In all these assemblies, the Great Council, the 
 Senate, the Lesser Council, and the Council of Forty, the 
 Doge sat and presided ; he embodied and represented the 
 spirit of the Republic ; present at all deliberations, dominant 
 in none. 
 
 Such was the constitution of the Republic at tlie close of 
 the thirteenth century. It was not yet complete, as it was to 
 stand throui^hout the rest of the Venetian history. It still 
 lacked two important branches — the Collegia, or Cabinet, and 
 the Council of Ten. But the first thirty-five years of the 
 next century saw the completion of the structure. Both 
 Collegio and Council of Ten were called into existence to 
 supply defects which made themselves felt, as the State grew 
 in size and importance and embarked on a career of territorial 
 expansion. 
 
 The war of Ferrara, with which we shall have to deal 
 when we come to the expansion of Venice on the mainland, 
 had brought the Republic into collision with the Pope, and 
 called down upon her the penalties of excommunication and 
 interdict, with the result that Venetian goods were confiscated 
 in England, France and Italy. Venice was in great danger, 
 for the new government, as constructed by the Serrata, 
 was not popular at home — thanks to the discontent bred 
 by the closing of the Great Council. The crisis proved 
 that neither the Maggior Consiglio nor the Senate was ade- 
 quate to deal with sudden emergencies. The one was too 
 large, the other had not yet received its full commission 
 to handle foreign affairs. The Doge's position and powers 
 had been virtually destroyed. The Great Council accord-
 
 42 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 ingly elected a small commission, or Collegio, of seven ex- 
 perienced statesmen to deal with the movement of the war 
 (1308). They were called Snvii, or Sages. This special 
 commission was found to work so well and to be of sucii 
 eminent service that it was continued in office, was eventually 
 enlarged, and took its place permanently in the Venetian 
 constitution as the Collegia, or Cabinet. When fully de- 
 veloped the Cabinet consisted of six Savi't Gramii, the Savii 
 da terra ferma and the Sami agl'i ordin'i, or da Mar, the 
 Secretaries of State, as we should call them, for war, marine 
 and finance. It was the duty of the Sav't'i Grandi to prepare 
 all public business and to present it in the Great Council or 
 the Senate and, wlien the Council of Ten was established, it 
 lay with them to send the business either to the Senate or to 
 the Ten. All the affairs of the Republic passed through 
 their hands. The Doge presided, and the place in the con- 
 stitution occupied by the Collegio was immediately below the 
 ducal council, and above both Senate and Council of Ten. 
 
 Like the Collegio, the Council of Ten was called into 
 existence to meet a defect in the constitution — the want of a 
 swift and secret department to meet a crisis in the State. The 
 closing of the Great Council had stirred up bitter discontent 
 among the disfranchised, and this led to the only serious 
 revolution that shook the internal quiet of the Republic. 
 A premonition was given by the conspiracy of Marin Boc- 
 conio in 1300. He and his followers knocked at the door 
 of the Council Hall and demanded their right to vote. The 
 Doge caused the door to be opened and invited them to enter 
 one by one to receive their dues. Their due, as the new 
 oligarchy conceived it, was that each of them should be 
 hung ^^ turpissime,^' that is head downwards, between the 
 columns near the Porto Delia Carta, and that was done. 
 But ten years later (13 10) the discontent took a more 
 serious aspect. This time it was headed by a number of 
 nobles of the more conspicuous families — Tiepolos, Querinis, 
 Badoers — powerful houses. The conspiracy was a complete 
 failure. Tiepolo and his followers were defeated in the
 
 THE EXPANSION 43 
 
 Piazza. Quirini was killed, Badoer executed, and Tiepolo 
 fled. 
 
 Tlie crisis was the most serious that had occurred in the 
 internal life of the State, for a part, and that an influential 
 part, of the nobility was concerned in the revolution. 
 Neither the Great Council nor the Senate was adequate to 
 deal with a situation that demanded secrecy and rapidity, for 
 the enemies of the State were inside her own borders. A 
 proposal to delegate the observation, pursuit, capture and 
 punishment of the conspirators to the commission which had 
 been appointed to conduct the war of Ferrara, was rejected 
 on the ground that it had enough on its hands already. 
 Accordingly a special commission of Public Safety — to 
 borrow a phrase from the French Revolution — was created 
 to carry out the intention of the oligarchy to establish itself 
 as supreme in the State. Here we have the origin of the 
 Council of Ten. It was a temporary committee of Public 
 Safety in its beginning ; but it supplied a want in the con- 
 stitution as created by the oligarchy — the need, that is, of a 
 sure and rapid executive arm. Its tenure of existence was 
 extended first on the plea that Tiepolo was still at large, and 
 that his followers still menaced the State. Its value, its 
 efliciency, became more and more obvious the longer it lived. 
 Its lease of life was continually renewed, and finally it was 
 made permanent in 1335. 
 
 With the creation of the Council of Ten the Venetian 
 constitution was completed. The few changes that came 
 afterwards were merely delegations of power, as in the case 
 of the Inquisitor't di Stato, or the Executor! contro la Bestemmia^ 
 or else the creation of special departments to meet the growing 
 needs of the growing State, such as the Cinque Sav't't alia Mer- 
 can%ia, and the subdivision of the Supreme Court [Quarantia) 
 into a criminal and a civil side. 
 
 This constitution which Venice evolved for herself re- 
 sembled nothing else in Italy, and filled Italian statesmen 
 with admiration and despair. Where other States had 
 evolved a personal despot and a reigning family — a despot
 
 44 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 to be assassinated, and a family to be expelled — with all the 
 instability that both implied, Venice had developed a strong, 
 impersonal constitution, impervious to the dagger and, after 
 the final establishment of the oligarchy by the suppression 
 of Tiepolo and the creation of the Ten, free from party 
 feuds. And the reason for this exemption from the civil 
 strife which wrought such havoc in other Italian states is that 
 Venice had, thanks to her unique geographical position, 
 escaped the imprint of Lombard, Prankish, Swabian rule — 
 had never been subject to the feudal system. This is, per- 
 haps, the key to, or at least the most important factor in, the 
 development of the Venetian commonwealth. The Republic 
 was never torn in two by the conflict between a territorial 
 nobility with fortified houses in the city and a wealthy 
 mercantile class, also in the city, struggling for the reins of 
 government. She never found her very existence seriously 
 threatened by a large part of her citizens in exile, plotting 
 round the borders of the State how they might return by the 
 help of some powerful foreigner. She never had the mis- 
 fortune to see her own citizens more bitterly divided among 
 themselves than united against an external foe. Patriotism 
 was possible in Venice, whatever internal struggles she might 
 pass through. The Venetian community made for itself a 
 unique dwelling-place among the lagoons, and evolved for 
 itself a unique constitution, which, after the ferment of the 
 Tiepoline conspiracy had died away, left it a united and 
 homogeneous State, worthy of its own proud title, Vene-z'ta, 
 Citta nohdiss'ima e shi'^olare. 
 
 II. Maritime. 
 
 The Venetian oligarchy grew, and the Venetian constitution 
 was developed by it, thanks to the expanding commercial
 
 THE EXPANSION 45 
 
 importance of the State. Its commerce was created by, 
 and also in turn demanded, expansion in two directions — 
 by sea and by Innd. Both require our attention before we 
 come to the consideration of Venetian commerce itself — 
 the source of Venetian wealth and splendour. The maritime 
 expansion of Venice falls into two broad divisions: first, the 
 expansion eastward down the Adriatic and into the Levant ; 
 second, the clash with Genoa. 
 
 (a) Spreading Eastward. We have seen that by 
 geographical position and ethnographic composition, no less 
 than by her political relations, as a part of the Byzantine 
 Empire, Venice looked eastward. She was founded on the 
 waters — as far into the sea as she could get ; her population 
 were sailors, her element the sea. Her natural avenue of 
 approach and departure was the Adriatic. vShe did not 
 spontaneously turn landward. How her territorial expansion 
 came to be forced upon her will be made apparent during the 
 recital of her maritime career. 
 
 The struggle to extend seawards and eastwards was, of 
 course, a continual one. It never ceased for a moment until 
 the Republic had reached the culminating point. But during 
 the conflict we may note three well-defined epochs which 
 sum u]) all that had gone before them and mark decisive steps 
 towards the goal. These epochs are associated with the 
 names of Pietro Orseolo II., Vitale Michiel, and Enrico 
 Dandolo, with the Adriatic, Syria and the Levant. 
 
 We have seen how thj early fisher-folk of the lagoons 
 acquired a reputation for skill in the navigation of their 
 home-waters ; how they were called upon to transport the 
 Imperial armies of Belisarius, Narses, and Longinus ; and, 
 growing stronger yet, were even instrumental in restoring an 
 Imperial Exarch, Paul, to his government in Ravenna. The 
 pressure of Pepin', attack developed s'.ill further their naval 
 resources, and almost immediately after the concentration at 
 Rialto, we find them in possession of a war-fleet of sixty 
 ships, with which they endeavoured to help the Eastern 
 Emperor in his campaign against the Saracens, disastrous
 
 46 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 alike for him and them. For the failure of the expedition to 
 Taranto (B36) brought the Sclav pirates of the Dalmatian 
 coast swooping down upon the lagoons, which they hoped to 
 find an easy prey. This was the first brush with these free- 
 booters, whose nest along the broken coast-line of Dalmatia, 
 with its numerous islands, sunken reefs, and swirling currents, 
 was all but impregnable. And from this first encounter with 
 Dalmatian pirates, Venice learned that she could never be 
 safe, never hope to expand, until the robber hordes were 
 subdued, and she alone remained mistress of her natural 
 waterway, the Adriatic. The immediate result of this 
 Dalmatian attack was the fortification of the lagoons, the 
 building of two guard-ships to protect the Udo entrance into 
 the lagoon, and the formation of a fleet able to cope with the 
 swift Liburnian barks. 
 
 Thus Venice acquired a war-fleet and learned the use of it. 
 It was inevitable that she should begin to employ it for 
 purposes of commercial expansion and the suppression of 
 rivals. A preliminary essay was made upon an excuse of no 
 validity against Comacchio, a port in the lagoon near 
 Ravenna. Ravenna itself had already fallen into decay, to 
 the great advantage of Venice, who was determined to see no 
 ether competitor established so far up the Adriatic. The 
 expedition against Comacchio proved successful, and as far 
 as the west side was concerned Venice had no rival now 
 nearer than Ancona. 
 
 But on the eastern shore there still remained the Dalmatian 
 ])irates, an enemy of a far tougher fibre. More than one 
 Doge attempted the task of subduing them. But at length, 
 in 983, a great Doge, Pietro Orseolo II., appeared upon the 
 scene. He began by obtaining a Golden Bull from the 
 Emperor Basil. The terms of this document conferred on 
 Venetian merchants in the East privileges far in excess of any- 
 thing they had hitherto enjoyed. They were permitted to 
 trade under a specially favourable customs tariff, but were 
 bound to carry nothing but bona Jide Venetian cargoes. 
 Lombards, Amalfitani, and Jews were not to smuggle their
 
 THE EXPANSION 47 
 
 goods on Venetian bottoms. Subjects of the Doge were 
 placed directly under the jurisdiction of the Logothetes, or 
 Financial Secretary, and thus were spared an infinity of delay. 
 In return for these concessions the Venetian fleet was to hold 
 itself at the disposal of the Emperor for transport of his troops. 
 
 All this clearly points to the importance Venice had 
 already acquired, tlianks to the excellence of her fleet. The 
 commerce of Venice was expanding rapidly, and we under- 
 stand how it came about that Venetian merchants could bring 
 to the markets of the mainland, at Pavia and elsewhere, the 
 de transmar'tnis part'tbus onentaltum divitlas, the opulence of 
 the East from over-seas. But still there lurked the 
 Dalmatian pirates, unsubdued and enjoying the plunder of this 
 wealth, as Venetian ships beat up the Adriatic, making for 
 Venice. The Republic had attempted at first to buy them off 
 by paying blackmail. The Doge, Orseolo, resolved to stop that. 
 The pirates in revenge vented their fury on the defenceless 
 population of the coast, who appealed to Venice for protection. 
 The prosperity of the Dalmatian cities, as a source of food 
 supply, as a store of wood, as a mart for merchandise, was no 
 less necessary to Venice than the suppression of the pirates. 
 At a general assembly of the people the despatch of a punitive 
 force was approved, and Venice embarked on the first great war 
 she had undertaken as an independent State on her own account. 
 
 On Ascension Day, May 6, looo, the Doge set sail. 
 The expedition was entirely successful. After capturing 
 Curzola he struck at the central stronghold of the pirates' 
 power, Lagosta, a rocky citadel thought to be impregnable, 
 and after a brilliant assault it fell. In gratitude the Dalmatian 
 towns recognized Orseolo as " Duke of Dalmatia," and that 
 became one of the permanent titles of the Doge of Venice. 
 Later on the Republic lost Dalmatia more than once before 
 her hold was made absolute, but she never renounced the title 
 she had thus acquired. Whether it was the Dalmatians them- 
 selves who threw off Venetian rule, or the kings of Hungary 
 who temporarily occupied Zara, Venice always returned to 
 make good the claim she now created.
 
 48 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 In the history of the Republic Orscolo's Dalmatian 
 expedition is of prime importance, not merely for the blow it 
 dealt at piracy, but because it is the first great step taken 
 towards Venetian supremacy in the Adriatic. Venetian 
 merchants opened factories and warehouses in the Dalmatian 
 towns ; the seaboard of Dalmatia, provided the communica- 
 tions were kept open, could supply the capital with food, and, 
 what was almost as important, wood for ship- building. The 
 State marked its appreciation of this progress by establishing 
 the ceremony of Ascension Day, the famous SposaUxo del 
 Mar, when the Doge passed out by the lido port to wed the 
 sea with a ring. 
 
 The Dalmatian expedition and the increase of wealth 
 implied thereby made the Republic so powerful in the 
 Adriatic that the Eastern Emperors turned more and more 
 constantly to her for help against their enemies, the Normans. 
 This Venice was always ready to grant, but usually for a 
 consideration. For example, in 1085 they engaged King 
 Robert, but the terms obtained from the Emperor Alexius 
 were that Venetians should enjoy free access to all harbours 
 of the Empire, should be exempt from customs and should 
 acquire certain lands, factories and warehouses in Constanti- 
 nople itself. And here we find the beginnings of that famous 
 Venetian quarter in the Imperial city and the germs of 
 the great Venetian colony, the development of which eventu- 
 ally wakened the suspicion of the Emperors and the jealousy 
 of Genoa. 
 
 This steady expansion of the Republic gradually fitted 
 her to take her place in, and to reap advantage from 
 the Crusades. When the Crusading movement began, the 
 claims of Venice as the port of departure and as the purveyor 
 of transport were paramount. She was not only more power- 
 ful than Genoa or Pisa — she also lay more to the east ; she 
 was mistress of the avenue that led south-east ; and her sailors 
 had a wider experience of the waters they were about to 
 navigate. From the very first Venice frankly acknowledged 
 the commercial side of the interest she took in the Crusades.
 
 THE EXPANSION 49 
 
 Wlicn recommending the State to undertake the Crusade, the 
 Doge insisted that Venice could not afford to allow her rivals, 
 Genoa and Pisa, to increase their importance in the Levant. 
 But the Emperors in Constantinople never viewed with favour 
 :his invasion of their dominions, and the creation of a 
 (Kingdom at Jerusalem was an offence to them. Accord- 
 ingly when Venice joined the Crusade she incurred Im- 
 perial displeasure, and was soon made to feel it. The 
 Pisans of Constantinople were incited to attack them, but 
 they did so unsuccessfully. The Imperial vengeance was 
 delayed. 
 
 The history of the Crusades, as far as Venice is concerned, 
 is the history of a steady expansion in Syria and the Levant. 
 A. few years after Baldwin's establishment as King of 
 Jerusalem, he invited the Venetians to help him in the 
 conquest of the coast-towns of Syria. The Republic 
 complied. She sent a fleet of a hundred ships and Sidon 
 fell (1102). Venice received as her recompense a quarter 
 in the conquered town, a church, a street, a market-place, 
 bakery, etc., the right to use her own weights and measures. 
 
 The terms she asked for, and got, in Sidon, she asked for 
 and got as the other Syrian towns fell one by one. And the 
 fall of Sidon marks a further step forward in Venetian 
 maritime expansion. She now passed out of the Adriatic, 
 and began to build an empire in Syria. 
 
 But the expansion implied a strain on the State. Posses- 
 sions, factories, warehouses in the far east of the Mediterranean 
 were of little use to Venice, unless the line of communication 
 between the metropolis and the colonies were secure. To 
 protect that line implied a considerable development of the 
 fleet. Between 1096 and 1105 Venice had placed upon the 
 sea three hundred ships fit to fight. Her gain had been 
 great, but her expenditure greater. And now, when she 
 required a breathing-space, the weak point in her position, 
 her line of communication, was exposed to attack. The 
 Hungarians invaded and captured the coast of Dalmatia. 
 The Doge, Ordelafo Falier, was defeated at Zara, and the 
 
 E
 
 so THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Republic lost, for a while, her supremacy in the Adriatic. 
 Nor had she lime to devote her energies to recovering it. 
 For Baldwin was in straits, and the Pope was imploring 
 Venice to hasten to his help. Once again under colour of 
 religious enthusiasm, but really with an eye to further 
 possessions in Syria, the Doge, Domenico Michiel, urged, 
 and the people consented to, another expedition, not without 
 protest, and not without warning from a party opposed to and 
 alarmed at this policy of hurried inflation, and apprehensive 
 lest the pronounced hostility of the Imperial court, coupled 
 with the loss of Dalmatia, might land the Republic in disaster. 
 In spite of opposition, however, a splendid fleet of seventy- 
 two sail was manned and despatched down the Adriatic. 
 The Doge himself was in command. He met the Saracen 
 fleet off the Syrian coast, and by a ruse he won a brilliant 
 victory. The Saracens were nearly annihilated, and laden 
 with booty the Doge sailed into Acre. There he encountered 
 divided opinions. The Christians of Jerusalem desired to 
 attack Ascalon, those of the seaboard wished to reduce Tyre. 
 The question was decided by lot. Tyre was chosen. But 
 before beginning the attack the Venetians made their bargain. 
 They were to receive in Tyre, as in Sidon, a quarter which 
 should be extra-territorial ; they were to be exempt from 
 taxation, to use their own weights and measures and to be 
 subject to the jurisdiction of their own magistrates. 
 
 Tyre fell (i i 23), and the Venetians immediately organized 
 their own quarter in the city. They built three churches to 
 emphasize their piety ; they committed the safety of the quarter 
 to a Vicecomes and justice in the quarter to a haiUe. The king- 
 dom of Jerusalem undertook to support these Venetian otiicials, 
 and the inhabitants of the Venetian quarter took an oath of 
 allegiance to the Doge. What was begun at Sidon was com- 
 pleted at Tyre. The Republic had now established along 
 the Syrian coast a line of factories, with extra-territorial 
 rights. She could draw the merchandise that came in cara- 
 vans from the interior, ship the goods on her own vessels, 
 and send them up to Venice for distribution throughout
 
 THE EXPANSION Si 
 
 Europe. The tall of Tyre marks llie bccond great step 
 forward in Venetian maritime ex])ansion. 
 
 The third anci linal step in the eastward movement was 
 taken durinj; the Fourth Crusade, when the Venetians sacked 
 Constantinople and overthrew the Greek Empire of the 
 l-last. 
 
 The Byzantine court viewed with hostility the establish- 
 ment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and resented the 
 ])art that Venice had taken therein. The Republic soon 
 gave further cause for dissatisfaction. The Emperor Manuel 
 called on the Venetians to assist him against the Normans, 
 who, under Roger II., were growing powerful about the 
 Ionian Islands. They complied and defeated Roger ; but 
 almost immediately afterwards (1148) they saw their way to 
 a favourable treaty with the Normans, by which they secured 
 immunity from attack for all their possessions north of 
 Ragusa and concluded it, thereby securing still further their 
 supremacy in the Adriatic. 
 
 This open disregard of obligations towards the Empire 
 fostered the growing hostility towards the Republic. The 
 Venetian quarter in Constantinople had become very populous ; 
 as many as two hundred thousand inhabitants are recorded. 
 The Venetians were unpopular. The jealousy of the Genoese 
 and other rivals constantly called attention to their insolence, 
 which led to brawls. The Emperor Manuel seized on this 
 as a pretext for striking a blow. In 1 1 7 1 all the Venetians 
 were arrested at a single coup and their goods confiscated. 
 Venice flew to arms and the tide of popular indignation swept 
 the Republic into that war with the Eastern Empire which, 
 as we have already seen, led up to important modifications of 
 the constitution (p. 36). To raise the money needed by so 
 vast an undertaking as an attack on the Empire, the population 
 was subjected to a forced loan of one per cent, on net incomes. 
 The money so raised bore interest at the rate of four per cent. 
 The bonds issued could be bequeathed, mortgaged or sold. 
 And here we have the earliest instance in Venetian, or 
 perhaps in any history, of the issue of government stock.
 
 52 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 This expedition againbt ihc Empire proved the most disas- 
 trous f'ailiuc that had ever befallen the Republic. Manuel 
 temporized and invited discussion ; the lieet went into winter 
 quarters at Schio. Discipline broke down ; the plague made 
 its appearance ; there was a suspicion of poisoned wells ; the 
 crews mutinied, and the shattered remnants of the magnificent 
 armament reached Venice in disorder and disgrace in the 
 spring of 1 1 72. 
 
 With this disaster rankling in the mind of Venice, proposals 
 for the transport of the Fourth Crusade reached the Govern- 
 ment from the assembly at Soissons. Though the Pope 
 expressed doubt as to the good faith of the Venetians and 
 recommended Genoa instead, Venice was so incomparably 
 the more powerful State that there was virtually no choice. 
 Villehardouin, the Ambassador, summed up the situation 
 when he declared, " nessuna gente ha possanza come iwi," " no 
 people possess such might as yours." A bargain was struck. 
 
 (i) Venice was to furnish transport for 4500 horses, 
 9000 esquires, 20,000 foot, and provisions for one year. 
 
 (2) She was to receive 85,000 marks of silver ot Cologne. 
 
 ( 3 ) She was to furnish fifty galleys on her own account. 
 
 (4) She was to have a half of all conquests. 
 
 A great meeting in St. Mark's confirmed the contract. 
 Venice fulfilled her share of the bargain punctually and fully, 
 but the Crusaders were not equally ready to fulfil theirs. 
 The money was not forthcoming. Then it occurred to the 
 Doge, Enrico Dandolo, that Venice might reap an advantage. 
 Zara and Dalmatia were still unsubdued. The Venetian 
 avenue, the Adriatic, was not yet secured. He offered to 
 postpone the receipt of the money due and to sail at once, if 
 the Crusaders would undertake to attack and reduce Zara for 
 the Republic, otherwise not a man of them should leave 
 the //V/o where they had been interned. These terms were 
 accepted. By October they were ready to sail. The 
 departure was a magnificent spectacle. The three great 
 galleys, the Eagle, the Pilgrim and the Paradise, towered 
 above the rest. Each ship was pavoned with the armorial
 
 THE EXPANSION 53 
 
 bearings of the great l'"rench barons. The Venetian galleys 
 flew the ensign ot St. Mark, a golden lion on a crimson iield. 
 The Doge's own galley was j)ainted vermilion. To the blare 
 of trumpets and the chaunt of the J'^en't Creator, the Fourth 
 Crusade set sail to do the behest of Venice. 
 
 Zara was captured in spite of an indignant protest from the 
 Pope, and winter being now upon them, the fleet was forced 
 to stay there. 
 
 At Zara the leaders of the Crusade came to a serious 
 decision as to its destination. Boniface, Marquis of Mont- 
 ferrat, wished to go to Constantinople instead of to the Holy 
 Land. He laid claim to the kingdom of Salonica, and 
 hoped to make it good with the help of the Crusaders. He 
 found Dandolo quite willing to second his schemes on the 
 basis of a new contract, that the Venetian fleet was to be 
 hired for another year and that the Republic should receive 
 one hundred thousand marks. When the bargain was struck 
 the whole Crusade set out for the capital of the Eastern 
 Empire. Under the guidance of Dandolo and inspired 
 by him, the Crusaders forced a passage into the Golden 
 Horn, and after desperate fighting the Imperial city fell 
 (1204). 
 
 On the capture of Constantinople, the Crusaders proceeded 
 to the establishment of the Latin Empire and the election 
 of an Emperor. There were three candidates — Boniface, 
 Baldwin, and Dandolo. Dandolo, however, announced that 
 he could not accept the Imperial crown if the choice should 
 fall on him. By this refusal the Doge became the real 
 arbiter in the election, and his influence carried Baldwin to 
 the throne. 
 
 Throughout the Fourth Crusade it was the Venetians who 
 played the most prominent part ; theirs was the fleet that 
 carried the Crusaders, and Dandolo was the ruling spirit. 
 The partition of the Empire brought to the Republic a vast 
 increase in territorial possessions and established her dominion 
 in the Levant. To her fell the Cyclades and Sporades, and 
 elie bought Crete from the Marquis of Montferrat. Slie had
 
 54 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 recovered Zara and the command of the Dalmatian coast ; a 
 continuous line of Venetian possessions extended now from 
 Venice down the Adriatic, round tlie Morca to Constantinople 
 on the one hand, to Syria on the other. But the task of 
 making this possession actual was far from light. The 
 Republic hit upon the device of granting the islands of the 
 Archipelago as fiefs to her more important noble families, who 
 would undertake to make the possession good and to hold the 
 islands for the Republic. Thus Andros went to Dandolo ; 
 Querini took Lampsacus ; Barozzi, Santorin. The Sanudo 
 family became Dukes of the Archipelago. The material 
 gain to Venice was very great, by far the greatest that she 
 had as yet secured. Her possessions in the Levant raised 
 her to the position of a European Power. But the sack of 
 Constantinople, and the ruin of the Eastern Empire, entailed 
 dangerous consequences of the highest moment for the 
 Republic. The substitution of the weak Latin Empire for 
 the Greek Empire, with all the prestige of the Roman name 
 at its back, upset the equilibrium of the East and eventually 
 made it easier for the Turk to plant himself in Europe. 
 Venice had acquired the largest estate in the Eastern Medi- 
 terranean, and she was therefore left almost single-handed to 
 defend her interests. Moreover the sudden expansion of 
 Venice, as the result of the Fourth Crusade, roused the 
 jealousy of the rival Italian maritime States, especially of 
 Genoa, and entailed on the Republic a series of desperate 
 campaigns which only closed with the war of Chioggia and 
 the destruction of the Genoese fleet in 1380. 
 
 (i) The Struggle with Genoa. The fall of Con- 
 stantinople, the destruction of the Greek Empire, and the 
 weakness of its Latin successor, left the Levant, and supremacy 
 in it, open to the two rival maritime powers of Italy — Genoa 
 and Venice. The preponderance which Venice had acquired, 
 thanks to the Crusades and to the Fourth especially, stirred 
 the jealousy of her western rival. The history of the struggle 
 between the two Republics for the mastery falls into three 
 main periods, which centre round Acre, CoDstaDtinople and
 
 THE EXPANSION 55 
 
 the Black Sea. It was inevitable that the rivals, dwelling 
 close to one another in the Levant cities, both of them with 
 factories and treaty-rights acquired in return for services 
 rendered to Christendom, and both there to secure a monopoly 
 ot" trade, if possible, should come to blows. The immediate 
 pretext was the question of proprietorship in the church and 
 quarter of St. Sabbas in the town of Acre. A quarrel and a 
 blow led to the sacking of the Venetian factory by the 
 Genoese. Venice demanded reparation. It was refused, 
 and slie prepared for war. The Genoese in their turn were 
 driven out of their factory in Acre. A brief truce followed, 
 but in August 1258 an engagement, decisive for this campaign, 
 was fought in Syrian waters. The Genoese were utterly 
 crushed and their factory in Acre destroyed. Pope Alexander 
 IV. intervened and a hollow truce was concluded. 
 
 At Constantinople the Venetians were endeavouring to 
 maintain upon the throne the feeble Emperor they had been 
 chiefly instrumental in placing there. They furnished money 
 and a squadron for his protection, and were, in fact, the real 
 masters in the Imperial city. But the Greeks had not 
 abandoned all hope of regaining Constantinople, and their 
 aspirations were personified in Michel Paleologus, the guardian 
 of the Greek Emperor. The fact that Venice was supporting 
 Baldwin was sufficient to make the Genoese in Constantinople 
 favour Paleologus. In 1261, when the Venetian fleet was 
 absent on a punitive expedition, Constantinople was surprised 
 by the Greeks, and the Venetian Ba'tlo and the Patriarch driven 
 out. The Greek Empire of the East was restored. The 
 effect of the fall of the Latin Empire was disastrous for the 
 Venetians. The new master of Constantinople favoured 
 their rivals, the Genoese, who had assisted him to the throne. 
 Though Venetians were not actually harassed in the capital, 
 they were no longer the dominant power. The Genoese 
 were established in the spacious quarter of Galata and 
 threatened to absorb the commerce of the Levant. 
 
 In the face of these altered circumstances Venice appealed 
 to Europe to join her in restoring the Latin Empire. But
 
 56 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 she was met by a situation which she was destined to encounter 
 again and again in the Eastern question that she had created 
 by her action during the Fourth Crusade, Venice could not be 
 indifferent as to who might be master in Constantinople ; her 
 trade in the Levant, the Black Sea, and Asia Minor was 
 intimately bound up with her relations towards the city on 
 the Bosphorus. But Europe generally had little interest in 
 that point, nothing at least to compare with Venetian 
 interests. And so at each appeal for help, whether to support 
 Baldwin or to resist the Turk, Europe replied that the affair 
 concerned Venice chiefly, and left her alone to deal with it. 
 So it was now. Venice failed to secure any assistance for 
 the restoration of Baldwin, and was left to continue single- 
 handed her struggle with Genoa for supremacy in the Levant. 
 
 A series of naval engagements, chiefly in the waters of the 
 Morea, led up to a fmal battle. In 1264, Giacomo Dandolo 
 completely destroyed the Genoese fleet under LanfVanco 
 Borborino, off the Sicilian coast between Mazara and Trapani. 
 
 The result of this great victory at Trapani was at once 
 apparent at Constantinople, where the Emperor Paleologus had 
 been waiting to see which way events would turn, while 
 secretly delighted that the two great Latin naval powers 
 should wear one another out. But this crushing blow to 
 Genoa made the Emperor abandon his Genoese allies and 
 endeavour to reconcile himself with Venice. Overtures, 
 after some debate, were accepted and ended in the conclusion 
 of a treaty, by the terms of which Venice re-acquired her 
 position in Constantinople. But though Venice had regained 
 much by the battle of Trapani she was by no means supreme. 
 Genoa was far from being crushed. The weakness of the 
 l^atin cause, to which Venice was bound by her action in the 
 Fourth Crusade, the long constitutional struggle at home, 
 which ended in the "Closing of the Great Council," and the 
 burden of the Ferrarese war with the Excommunication 
 and Interdict (p. 91) it entailed — all left the Republic 
 comparatively weak as against her rival. 
 
 The next great campaign between the two Republics was
 
 THE EXPANSION 57 
 
 determined to a large extent by the final collapse of the Latin 
 Empire and the appearance of a new and formidable power, 
 the Ottoman Turks, upon the scene. The decrepitude of 
 the Greek and Latin empires left the trade of the Levant 
 and the Black Sea an open prey to the nation with the 
 strongest fleet. Both Genoa and Venice were competing 
 for it when, in 1289, the famous city of Tripoli fell to the 
 Paynim host. Two years later the Mussulmans attacked 
 and captured the still richer city of Acre, and the last 
 remnants of the Latin dominion in Palestine, upon which 
 the Venetian tenure of trading rights in the Syrian ports 
 depended, were swept away. Venice knew by experience 
 that Europe would not or could not do anything to support 
 her in the defence of the Latin kingdom. Her whole l.evant 
 trade was threatened by the Turk. She took a course 
 dictated by her commercial interest, and instead of fighting 
 the Mussulman she began to treat with him. She obtained 
 confirmation of her ancient rights from the new rulers of the 
 Levant cities. To the scandal of Christendom, a Mussulman 
 sultan declared it to be " his firm resolve that the Venetians 
 shall be protected, sheltered, honoured above all other peoples 
 in the world." The Venetians re-opened their factories in 
 the Levant, and obtained the right to an escort, if they wished 
 to visit the Holy Sepulchre. We find them trading in 
 "goods forbidden to Christians," that is in slaves, ship- 
 building timber, weapons — the sale of which to the infidel 
 was expressly prohibited by papal bulls. Venetian policy 
 was practical and commercial, and she soon reaped the 
 advantage by finding herself again taking the lead in the 
 Levant. But her rivals, the Genoese, could not look on at 
 this progress unconcerned. They were strong in Constanti- 
 nople, and they countered to the Venetian treaties with the 
 infidel by resolving to close the Dardanelles, and to exclude 
 Venice from trade in Constantinople and the Black Sea. 
 This step was regarded by Venice as a casus belli, and the 
 second great war began. Apart from the fleet raised by the 
 State, the private families of Venice, who had grown rich
 
 S8 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 through Levantine trade and Levantine possessions, in a 
 burst of patriotism contributed as many as seventy-three 
 galleys to the Venetian Armada. They were probably 
 aware that the struggle upon which they were about to 
 embark was a struggle for commercial supremacy, that is to 
 say, for their very life. 
 
 The rivals met at Aias in the Gulf of Alexandretta. The 
 Genoese, commanded by Nicolo Spinola, won an important 
 victory by superior tactics. But the disaster only stirred the 
 Venetians to fresh efforts. In the city the enthusiasm was 
 infectious. A reinforcing fleet was quickly fitted out and 
 placed under the command of Ruggiero Morosini. Meantime 
 the results of the defeat at Aias had made themselves felt as 
 usual at Constantinople, where, encouraged by the Emperor 
 Andronicus, the Genoese had attacked and sacked the Vene- 
 tian factory. Morosini sailed for the capital, forced the 
 Dardanelles, burned the Genoese quarter of Galata, and 
 threatened the Imperial palace of Blachernx. The Emperor 
 was compelled to buy him off and, with a large sum of 
 money and rich booty, Morosini returned to Venice. But 
 the crowning engagement of this campaign took place in the 
 Adriatic, off the island of Curzola, where Andrea Dandolo, 
 with ninety-five sail, met Lamba Doria, who commanded 
 eighty-five Genoese vessels. Dandolo was out-manceuvred. 
 Doria got the weather-gauge, and, moreover, the sun at his 
 back and right in the eyes of the Venetians ; he had also 
 detached a squadron of fifteen ships to cruise out of sight and 
 to intervene at the decisive moment. The Genoese victory 
 was complete. Among many prisoners captured was Marco 
 Polo, the famous traveller. The Venetian leader, Dandolo, 
 refused to survive the disaster, and in the night he dashed his 
 brains out against the beams of his galley. 
 
 Venice prepared to fit out yet another fleet, but both parties 
 were exhausted, and in May 1299, Matteo Visconti, Imperial 
 Vicar in Milan, was able to effect a peace between the Republics 
 upon terms that were honourable to both. There was nothing 
 in it to indicate that Venice had just suffered a severe blow.
 
 THE EXPANSION 59 
 
 The campaign which closed in i 299 had not been favour- 
 able to Venice, but it had served to sliow how strong she was, 
 how, in spite of defeats, she was able to put squadron after 
 squadron on the sea. It was this remarkable recuperative 
 power that eventually secured for her the victory over Genoa. 
 
 The Venetian system of recruiting for the navy was an 
 outcome of this struggle with Genoa. The crews were 
 raised in the following manner. All the males between 
 twenty and sixty in each of the six quarters of the city were 
 enrolled, and then divided into groups of twelve. One man 
 was chosen by lot out of each group and served in the first 
 draft. If more men were required, lots were cast again. 
 Each man received from the State five lire a month, and one 
 lira a month from each of the men of his group who were 
 not on service. This amounted to about one shilling and 
 eightpence a day of our money, besides food. 
 
 The peace with Genoa left Venice free to develop her 
 trade. During the first half of the fourteenth century her 
 commerce expanded. In order to secure markets for her 
 goods she concluded treaties with the mainland communes, 
 Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Como. She began to trade with 
 England and Flanders. The population of the city is said 
 to have reached two hundred thousand. Above all, as we 
 shall see presently, Venice laid the foundation of a territorial 
 dominion in Italy. 
 
 But Genoa was not crushed yet, and the Turk was just 
 beginning to make himself felt. The struggle for the lead 
 in the trade of the Black Sea and the Crimea brought about 
 the next rupture between the rival maritime Republics. 
 Jealousy about the traffic in furs brought by the Tartars to 
 the factories at CafFa was the immediate cause. The cam- 
 paign centred round two names illustrious in naval history, 
 Nicolo Pisani and Paganino Doria. It opened with several 
 unimportant engagements. At last the commanders met in 
 the Bosphorus, under the walls of Pera, the Genoese quarter 
 in Constantinople. The fight was long and bloody, and 
 carried on far into the night by the light of burning ships.
 
 6o THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 The Venetians were defeated, though the losses on either 
 side seem to have been about equal. Pisani begged that 
 reinforcements might be sent to meet him in Sardinian 
 waters, and proposed an attack on that island, a menace to 
 Genoa herself. The Government consented, and Pisani 
 effected a junction in spite of the Genoese admiral Antonio 
 Grimaldi, who was sent out on purpose to prevent this. 
 Seven months after the battle of the Bosphorus, in August 
 1353, Pisani again met the Genoese in the waters of Cagliari, 
 and destroyed their fleet. Genoa lay at the mercy of Venice, 
 and the people expected to see Pisani's galleys off the harbour. 
 In these straits the Genoese Government took a step of great 
 ultimate importance to Venice in her territorial expansion, and 
 made a voluntary surrender of herself to Giovanni Visconti, 
 Lord and Bishop of Milan. She thus obtained the protection 
 of the powerful master of Milan, and prevented Venice from 
 reaping the full fruits of the victory at Cagliari. Visconti 
 endeavoured to effect a solid peace between the two maritime 
 States, and he employed as his ambassador the poet Petrarch. 
 But it was certain that, beautifully as the laureate might 
 speak the praises of peace, his own prophecy concerning the 
 Venetian-Genoese war would be fulfilled — " Necesse est ut 
 alterum e duobus Italiae luminibus extinguetur, obscuretur 
 alterum ; " "that one of Italy's eyes would be put out, the 
 other dimmed." Venice refused all terms to Genoa. She 
 believed that Visconti would not really support the Republic, 
 and that she might yet crush her rival. But she presumed 
 too far upon the supposed weakness of Genoa. Her rival 
 was still capable of dealing a blow, was still served by great 
 naval commanders. 
 
 Both cities armed, but Genoa was the quicker. The 
 Genoese ffeet, under Paganino Doria, made a dash for the 
 Adriatic, slipped by Nicolo Pisani, who was guarding its 
 mouth, and before Venice could realize her danger, he had 
 burned l^esina and Curzola and established his head-quarters 
 at Parenzo, in Istria, only about sixty miles from the lagoons. 
 The city was in great alarm. A war-tax was imposed, a
 
 THE EXPANSION 6l 
 
 new squadron raised, the I'ulo niouth fortilu-d. But home 
 politics at Genoa prevented Doria from pushing his advantage. 
 A truce was signed, but did not lead to a peace, and no sooner 
 did the truce expire than the two Pisani, Nicolo and Vettor, 
 set sail in search of Doria in the waters of the Arciiipelago. 
 They did not succeed in forcing him to fight, and presently 
 the Venetian fleet went into winter quarters behind the island 
 of Sapienza, at the south-western corner of the Morea. The 
 entrance to the straits in which the Venetians lay was either 
 carelessly or treacherously guarded. It was suggested to 
 Doria that he might catch the Venetian fleet in a trap. On 
 November 4, 1354, the passage was forced. The Venetians, 
 panic-stricken, fled to land. The whole armament was 
 captured. Nicolo Pisani, the commander, who escaped with 
 the standard, and Nicolo Quirini, who were responsible for 
 the disaster, were tried and condemned. 
 
 This defeat at Sapienza was the most crushing blow that 
 Venice had ever received, and the State was at this moment 
 exposed to still further danger by the conspiracy of the Doge 
 Marino Falier. The causes and the object of that conspiracy 
 are alike obscure. Contemporaries such as Petrarch, and 
 chroniclers like Caroldo, both agree that no explanation was 
 ever given. The Doge is represented as taking offence at 
 an insult offered him by a young nobleman who escaped due 
 punishment by his brother patricians. Relying upon support 
 from the people, who also hated the aristocracy, the Doge 
 is said to have plotted to change the constitution from an 
 oligarchy into a despotism of the type common on the main- 
 land. The minutes of the trial do not exist, and any explana- 
 tion must be conjectural. The plot at all events failed ; it 
 was discovered, and the Doge was tried by the Council of 
 Ten, condemned and executed 1355. 
 
 It is not easy to explain why Genoa did not press her 
 rival closer after the battle of Sapienza and the conspiracy 
 of Falier. Probably the war was as exhausting to the victor 
 as to the vanquished. The Duke of Milan, at all events, 
 seems to have found no difficulty in arranging a peace in 1355.
 
 62 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 But as after tlie defeat at Curzola, so after the defeat at Sapi- 
 enza, Venice set herself to recover her position. The moment 
 she was free of war she turned to commerce, and entered into 
 trading conventions with Egypt, Barbary, the Flemings, the 
 Khan of Tartary. Nothing is more striking in her history 
 than the recuperative power she continually displayed. 
 
 Genoa watched with jealous eye the rapid recovery of 
 her rival. Occurrences, trifling in themselves, seemed to 
 show that war must soon break out again. At the corona- 
 tion of Lusignan, King of Cyprus, the Genoese and Venetian 
 admirals quarrelled for precedence and blood was shed. It 
 was the possession of the island of Tencdos, however, that 
 precipitated the final struggle. Its position so near the mouth 
 of the Dardanelles made it an object of desire to both Republics. 
 The Emperor Paleologus, in his straits for money wherewith 
 to fight the Turk, had applied to Venice, and had left a 
 number of jewels as security for the sum raised. On his 
 return to Constantinople the Venetians asked him to grant them 
 the island of Tenedos in return for the jewels and the extinction 
 of the debt. At first Paleologus refused, but he was told that 
 if he did not comply Venice would come to terms with Sultan 
 Murad, and deprive him from his throne. The Emperor was 
 forced to yield, and thus the island became nominally Vene- 
 tian. But the Genoese in Constantinople proposed to 
 Andronicus, the son of the Emperor, to place him on the 
 throne, if he would guarantee them the possession of Tenedos. 
 Andronicus agreed. Paleologus was seized and imprisoned, 
 and his son proclaimed Emperor. But when the Genoese 
 presented Andronicus' order for the cession of Tenedos, the 
 governor refused to recognize it and declared that Paleologus' 
 cession to Venice alone was valid. He offered to place the 
 island in the hands of Marco Giustinian, the Venetian 
 commander, who accepted the cession and ran up the Golden 
 Lion on the crimson field. 
 
 War was inevitable. Genoa prepared at once by forming 
 a coalition of Hungary and the Carrara family. Lords of 
 Padua, against Venice. Hungary still aspired to Dalmatia,
 
 THE EXPANSION 63 
 
 and Carrara feared that the extcnbion of Venice on the main- 
 land must soon absorb his dominions. At Venice too, the 
 preparations showed that the Republic appreciated the 
 importance of this last phase of the struggle for maritime 
 supremacy in the Levant. Tiie Standard of St. Mark was 
 consigned with all solemnity to the great admiral, Vcttor Pisani. 
 He sailed for Genoese waters, met and defeated the Genoese 
 off Cape Antium and came back to clear the Adriatic of 
 Genoese ships, which were infesting the gulf from the shelter 
 of the lower Dalmatian coast. After successful operations at 
 Cattaro and Zebenico, he desired to return to Venice to relit, 
 but the Senate insisted that he should winter at Pola, in Istria. 
 Lying there, with his crews worn out and his ships in dis- 
 repair, he was surprised by the appearance of a powerful 
 Genoese fleet under Luciano Doria. Pisani did not wish to 
 give battle, but was forced to by the Venetian officials who 
 had been sent by the home government to advise him. He 
 behaved as bravely as a man could, but the Venetian fleet was 
 destroyed. Only six galleys escaped to Parenzo. On his 
 return Pisani was tried and imprisoned. 
 
 The situation looked extremely grave. A crisis in the 
 struggle was clearly imminent. The lagoons, and with them 
 Venice, lay open to attack or blockade. Pietro Doria had 
 arrived from Genoa and had taken over the supreme com- 
 mand. Carrara, Genoa's ally, was master of the mainland 
 down to the shore of the lagoon ; Doria was master at sea and 
 could close the lido ports. Venice might be taken by assault 
 or starved into surrender. But the spirit of the Republic 
 rose to the occasion. The lido was fortified, chains run 
 across the entrance, troops landed to repel an assault. Doria, 
 however, leaned to a blockade and resolved to make Chioggia 
 his base. He proceeded to assault that lagoon-township. 
 It fell on August 16, 1379. Carrara urged Doria to follow 
 up his advantage and to strike at Venice itself. But the 
 lagoon-channels were as intricate then as in the days of 
 Pepin. Doria declined the risk and persisted in his plan 
 of starving Venice to surrender. This proved her salvation.
 
 64 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 With the enemy now in the lagoon, with the mainland 
 in their hands, the situation seemed desperate. But the 
 people combined as one man. The Doge organized the 
 resistance. A flotilla of light boats was mustered and 
 manned. The great leader Vettor Pisani was called from 
 his prison to assume the command. The fleet, upon which 
 depended the very existence of Venice, sailed away to 
 Chioggia to engage in the last conflict with the rival State. 
 
 Doria meanwhile had made up his mind, in pursuit of his 
 plan of blockade, to winter in Chioggia. He drew the whole 
 of his fleet inside the lagoon and disposed them round the 
 town. Pisani grasped the situation at once and resolved to 
 blockade the blockaders. To do this he closed the channel 
 inside the lagoon that led to Venice, by sinking two ships 
 filled with stones. In the same way he prevented exit to sea 
 by blocking the opening in the lido at Chioggia itself and at 
 Brondolo, and he drew up the whole Venetian fleet opposite 
 the town but beyond the //V/o, out in the open Adriatic. 
 The Genoese were thus caught in a trap. Carrara, their 
 ally, could not reach nor victual them from the mainland, for 
 he had no boats. No food nor assistance could reach them 
 from the sea, for the ports were closed, and Pisani was out in 
 the open, ready to engage any succours sent from Genoa. 
 But Pisani did not propose merely to blockade. He pre- 
 pared for an assault. With this in view he occupied points upon 
 the lido. The Genoese, fully alive to their danger, continually 
 endeavoured to break out ; they even attemjited to cut a 
 channel through the narrow strip of sand-bank that pre- 
 vented their ships from reaching the sea. Pisani's vigilance, 
 however, and the untiring energy of the Venetians thwarted 
 every effort. Gradually the spirits and the provisions of 
 the Genoese ran low ; though the strain was hardly less 
 severe on the Venetians. It required all the indomitable 
 resolution of Pisani, nobly supported by the Doge, to keep 
 the overtaxed crews to their duty. The leaders even 
 promised that if the auxiliary squadron under Carlo Zeno 
 had not arrived by January i, 1380, they would raise
 
 THE EXPANSION 65 
 
 the siege. But on the very day named Carlo Zcno was in 
 sight and the Genoese were doomed. With Zeno's help, 
 Pisani now assumed the offensive. The enemy was gradually 
 driven off the I'ulo and forced into Chioggia. All chance of 
 help from Carrara disappeared. They held out bravely for 
 six months more, but in June 1380 the flower of the Genoese 
 fleet surrendered at discretion to Venice. 
 
 Thus closed the famous war of Chioggia, the final phase 
 in the long struggle for maritime supremacy. Genoa never 
 recovered from the blow, and Venice remained the undis- 
 puted mistress of the Mediterranean and in full enjoyment of 
 its commerce. 
 
 III. Territorial. 
 
 (a) Touching the Mainland. The effect of her mari- 
 time expansion upon the trade of Venice will be considered 
 when we come to discuss her commerce. We have now to 
 deal with her territorial expansion which follows, and to a 
 certain extent is the result of, her maritime expansion. Venice 
 did not take willingly to the mainland ; she was, in a manner, 
 forced to it. Various considerations led her first to take an 
 interest in, and then to acquire, possessions on terra-J'trma. 
 
 For the distribution of the goods which flowed into Venice 
 from the Levant and the East, it was necessary that she should 
 have command both of the rivers and of the land at least up 
 to the Alps; otherwise with the rivers and the roads in the 
 hands of an enemy she might find, as indeed she did on more 
 than one occasion, a cordon of tariffs drawn round the lagoons 
 and her commerce stifled. I'urther, the lagoons themselves 
 offered no corn- and meat-raising grounds. The necess'itas 
 hlad't was always a menace to the safety of the Republic, and 
 after a crushing defeat at sea, after Curzola, Sapienza, Pola, 
 above all during the war of Chioggia, a victorious fleet in the
 
 66 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Adriatic, combined with an enemy on the mainland, might 
 starve the city to surrender. With such causes silently but 
 continually at work, it was inevitable that Venice should be 
 forced into the creation of a land dominion. 
 
 The need for a market and the convenience of river- 
 carriage originally tempted the Venetians on to the mainland ; 
 commercial considerations were the causes of their early wars. 
 Even in the year 996 we find them securing a port and a 
 market-place on the river Sile, and their first war on terra- 
 ferma was undertaken, in 11 42, in order to keep the river 
 Brenta open. The first war of Ferrara, in 1240, was brought 
 about by the dread of losing commercial rights in that city. 
 The second war of Ferrara, in 1 308, gives us the earliest 
 indications of a distinctly aggressive land policy. The Dogt 
 Gradenigo formulated it in a speech urging the war. It was, 
 he said, the duty of every good ruler and of every worthy 
 citizen to do all that in him lay to enlarge the State. With 
 that end in view favourable opportunities must be grasped ; but 
 these arc rare. Only the fool, however, will fail to perceive 
 them, only the madman will shrink from seizing them. The 
 policy thus enunciated marks an epoch in Venetian history. 
 It was the policy not of the whole State, but of a party in 
 the State, the party which had grown rich by Levantine 
 commerce, and had secured its supremacy in the State by 
 the "Closing of the Great Council." The Doge who thus 
 advocated a policy of territorial expansion was the Doge 
 who carried the Serrata del Mag^ior Cons'tglio ; the opposi- 
 tion was led by the Tiepolo, a family that took a prominent 
 part in the revolution induced by the Serrata. On this question 
 of war with the Pope over Ferrara the opposition was 
 defeated. War was declared. The Pope placed the Re- 
 public under an Interdict with results that ruined her trade 
 for a time. The Venetian garrison of the Castle in Ferrara 
 was besieged, forced to surrender and put to the sword. 
 Venice found herself com|)elled to sue for peace, and only 
 on payment of an indemnity did she recover her trading rights 
 in the Ferrarese.
 
 THE EXPANSION 67 
 
 {l>) Scala of Verona. But the war of Fcnara was a 
 war for the preservation of trading rights, not for territorial 
 expansion, although it had called forth an expression of that 
 aggressive policy. It is not till 1 3 1 7 that we find Venice 
 beginning to look seriously westward, and then only along the 
 peaceable lines of commerce. She concluded treaties with 
 Milan, Brescia, Bologna, Como, and pushed her goods as far 
 as Flanders and England. This commercial expansion on the 
 mainland was destined, however, to bring the Republic into 
 contact with the various rulers of the North Italian plain, first 
 with the Scalas of Verona, then with the Carraras of Padua, 
 finally with the Visconti of Milan, and to compel her to 
 embark, on the creation of a land empire. 
 
 This was the epoch of the despots, the Signori, who, in their 
 struggles for supremacy in North Italy, clashed and destroyed 
 one another. The first of these great houses to emerge and 
 begin to expand was the family of the Scalas, Lords of Verona. 
 Under their greatest chief. Can Grande, they had made 
 themselves masters of Vicenza and Padua, and in 1328 they 
 took a further step towards the lagoons by besieging Treviso. 
 Can Grande died, but Treviso fell to Mastino della Scala 
 (1329). The Scalas were now lords of Padua, Vicenza, 
 Feltre, Belluno, Treviso. Their possessions hemmed in the 
 lagoons. Venice was rich, but rich only because she was 
 able to send the merchandise of the East over Europe north 
 and west. That merchandise had to pass through Scala 
 territory. Mastino saw how he too might share the wealth. 
 He began by imposing duties on the transport of Venetian 
 goods through the districts of Padua and Treviso, and he 
 built a fort and toll-house on the Po. Venice retaliated by 
 cutting off the salt supply. But the tariff-war was not an 
 equal one ; Venetian commerce began to sufl^er severely and, 
 more important still, the food supply from the mainland was 
 at the mercy of Scala. Tliere was imminent danger of 
 Venice being starved into accepting Scala's terms. Recourse 
 to arms became inevitable. 
 
 A party in Venice strongly opposed the war. The Doge
 
 68 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 urged that the Republic had no army and would be obliged 
 to employ mercenaries ; that the true policy of the State 
 lay in avoiding the complications of the mainland, the faction 
 fights and continual revolutions which tore the cities on 
 terra-ferma. But all such adverse considerations were of 
 no avail face to face with the fact that Venetian commerce 
 was likely to be ruined, and Venice herself in danger of 
 starvation. War could not have been avoided, though the 
 resolution to go to war marks a turning-point in Venetian 
 history. Venice embarked on her first serious mainland 
 campaign, and was drawn into the circle of North Italian 
 politics. Acquisition now became imperative and acquisition 
 roused envy ; at the same time it furnished an object for 
 envy to attack. Hitherto the geographical isolation of Venice 
 had been one of her greatest safeguards ; now she was about 
 to acquire a land frontier, a frontier that could be assailed, 
 defended, or enlarged. 
 
 The growing power of the Scala family had already 
 wakened the jealousy and alarm of other Italian States, and 
 when Venice declared war on Verona, she found Florence, 
 the Rossi of Parma, Visconti of Milan, and Gonzaga of 
 Mantua ready to support her. She raised a native army 
 from her male population between the ages of twenty and 
 sixty years. Rossi was so powerful that Mastino della Scala 
 endeavoured to come to terms with Venice. He chose as his 
 agent Marsilio di Carrara, one of the family that had lately 
 ruled in Padua and had been displaced by the Scalas. When 
 Carrara reached Venice, instead of acting in Scala's interests, 
 he came to secret terms v/ith the Doge. He undertook to 
 place Venice in possession of Padua — where he was governor 
 for Scala — on condition that the Republic established him 
 once again in his native city as its lord, but under obligation 
 to levy no new taxes on Venetian merchandise, and to 
 leave Venetians in enjoyment of their property in the 
 Padovano. 
 
 The treachery of Marsilio and the strength of the league 
 proved too powerful a combination for Scala to withstand. On
 
 THE EXPANSION 69 
 
 his western borders Visconti was attacking Brescia, and Scala 
 hurried to its aid. In his absence Padua fell to Pietro Rossi. 
 Venice immediately took formal possession of it, and, in the 
 terms of her agreement with Marsilio, conferred the lordship 
 on the Carraresi once more. The loss of Padua and the 
 fall of Brescia forced Mastino della Scala to a peace. By 
 the terms of this instrument (1339) Venice secured her first 
 territorial possessions on the mainland, Treviso and Bassano, 
 that is to say, a large corn-growing district on the ])lain, and 
 the command of one of the passes that led north into 
 Germany; furthermore she recovered her original trading 
 rights in Vicenza and Verona. 
 
 (c) Carrara of Padua. The Scalas ceased to be a threat 
 to Venice ; she was now conterminous with the Carraresi, who 
 held Padua on a quasi-tributary tenure. The Republic had 
 invested them with the lordship of Padua, and they really 
 depended on the protection of Venice for their existence. 
 For, beyond the borders of Paduan territory was the growing 
 power of the Visconti, certain to expand, and, in its expansion, 
 doomed to come into collision with Venice. The Republic 
 was forced to support Padua at the risk of finding herself 
 conterminous with, and threatened by, a greater power than 
 the Scalas, and virtually every attack by Visconti on the 
 Carraresi was a menace to Venice. 
 
 But although this was the real position of affairs, the 
 Carraresi could not escape the prevailing ambition ; they, no 
 less than the Scalas, the Visconti, Rossi, Polentas, were bent 
 on creating a dynasty and a state. To the Lords of Padua 
 Venice was a formidable and aggressive rival, much nearer 
 and more dangerous than Visconti. Wherever it was possible 
 they sided against the Republic. It was the conduct of the 
 Carraresi that determined the next step in Venetian territorial 
 expansion. 
 
 The disasters of the Genoese campaign which ended in the 
 crushing defeat at Sapienza, and the internal confusion and 
 consequent weakness produced by the conspiracy of Marino 
 Falier (p. 61), led King Lewis of Hungary to revive the
 
 70 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 ancient pretensions to Dalmatia. On the appearance of an 
 Hungarian army, the Counts of Gorizia and the Patriarch of 
 Aquileia, neighbours of Venice to the east of the Trevisan 
 Marches, joined the invader. Carrara declined to ally himself 
 with Venice. He professed to remain neutral, but in fact he 
 lent secret aid to the Hungarians, who had marched through 
 Friuli and were besieging Treviso. By this conduct he sowed 
 the first seeds of suspicion in the mind of his powerful neigh- 
 bour and suzerain in the lagoons. 
 
 The war was concluded by the peace of Zara. A special 
 clause in the treaty protected Carrara from molestation ; but 
 the animosity of the Republic still smouldered. Carrara's 
 conduct showed her that she could never be safe as long as 
 Padua was in the hands of a family that was always secretly, 
 and sometimes openly hostile. The relations between the two 
 became more and more strained. Carrara menaced the freedom 
 of the Brenta by building forts along it even as far as Oriago. 
 His intention evidently was to establish himself on the lagoon 
 if he were able, and to work his own salt-pans, which would 
 help to render him still more independent of Venice. Venice 
 could not submit to this ; Carrara must retire or war would 
 be the consequence. War broke out. Carrara was at once 
 supported by his ally the King of Hungary. But the King's 
 nephew, the Vaivode of Transylvania, fell into Venetian hands, 
 and as the price of his freedom the Hungarians were withdrawn, 
 and Francesco Carrara, left to himself, was forced to sign a 
 treaty of peace (1373) entirely favourable to Venice. By its 
 terms Carrara agreed to pay a large indemnity, to pull down all 
 the forts on the Brenta, to draw salt from Chioggia only, to 
 hand over Feltre as security for the observance of the terms. 
 
 The policy of both parties was by this time too sharply 
 defined to allow any peace to be lasting or solid. It was now 
 certain that Carrara intended to establish himself as an inde- 
 pendent ruler in the territory round the lagoons ; it was 
 equally certain that the Republic, under the pressure of such 
 a threat, would be forced to absorb Padua or to perish. 
 
 When the final struggle with Genoa came on in the War
 
 THE EXPANSION 71 
 
 of Chioggia, Francesco Carrara took active aides with the 
 Genoese. It was he who blockaded the lagoons on the 
 mainland side ; it was he who urged Pietro Doria to strike 
 at the city of Venice ; it was he who fed the Genoese troops 
 in Chioggia until the arrival of Carlo Zeno's men put a stop 
 to him ; it was, moreover, he who during the whole struggle 
 at Chioggia was besieging Treviso : it was to save Treviso 
 from him that Venice gave it to the Duke of Austria. 
 
 The War of Chioggia, while it crushed Genoa and left 
 Venice without a rival at sea, merely proved how powerful 
 Carrara was on land. The necessity of crushing his family 
 and the problem of how to do so were both apparent to the 
 Republic. Carrara was not slow in proving that what the 
 Scalas had attempted to do he intended to accomplish ; that 
 was to establish himself on the mainland, in command of the 
 passes, and to draw a tariff-cordon round the lagoons, thereby 
 securing for himself a share in the immense wealth which was 
 flowing into Venice from the East, now that her rival Genoa no 
 longer disputed her monopoly. He bought from the Duke of 
 Austria Treviso in the plain, Ceneda and Feltre, commanding 
 the Ampezzo route into Germany, and, in addition, he held 
 Bassano, commanding the Val Sugana route into Tyrol. 
 
 But there was yet another claimant for the lordship of the 
 North Italian plain. Beyond the district of Verona, still 
 feebly held by the last of the Scalas, lay the growing power 
 of the Visconti, the B'tscione, the great snake, of Milan waiting 
 the moment to absorb the Veronese territory and to spread 
 further eastward still. It was inevitable that Carrara and 
 Visconti, both in the ascendant, should clash and quarrel 
 over the prey that lay between them. They began in agree- 
 ment, however — in a treaty to partition the Scala dominions. 
 Visconti was to take Verona, Carrara was to have Vicenza. 
 But the execution of their scheme revealed Visconti's true 
 intention. His general captured Verona, but instead of 
 waiting there he pushed on and seized Vicenza as well, before 
 Carrara realized what was happening. Then both the rivals 
 turned for aid to Venice. Carrara urged that it would be
 
 72 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 highly dangerous for the Republic to have Visconti as an 
 immediate neighbour. He appealed for help on the ground 
 that his existence was essential as a buffer between Venice 
 and Milan. But too late he recognized the truth of the 
 situation, that his very life depended on loyalty to Venice. 
 The Republic had neither forgotten nor forgiven the assistance 
 to Lewis of Hungary, the War of Chioggia, the purchase of 
 Treviso, the conspiracy in the very city itself. Visconti 
 on the other hand was ready to surrender Treviso, Ceneda 
 and Feltre to the Republic if she would assist him in crushing 
 and despoiling Carrara. She accepted his offer. Treviso 
 and its district passed once more under the Lion of St. Mark, 
 while Gian Galeazzo Visconti acquired Verona, Vicenza and 
 Padua, and a landed territory from Milan to the lagoons. 
 
 Carrara was right when he warned Venice that Visconti 
 would prove a dangerous neighbour. The Lord of Milan 
 was clearly aiming at a kingdom of North Italy. After 
 absorbing Verona, Vicenza and Padua, he attacked Florence 
 and Bologna. Venice, invited to join a league against him, 
 complied and performed her part of the contract by restoring 
 Carrara to his lordship in Padua. She hoped that the lesson 
 of his expulsion by Visconti would teach him to be submissive 
 and loyal to herself. The peace of Genoa (1392) embodied 
 this arrangement. But Visconti had no intention of renounc- 
 ing his dream of a North- Italian crown. Slowly and carefully 
 he restored his treasury and matured his plans. He was very 
 rich. All the great commanders of the day were in his service. 
 It was doubtful whether there was any power, or com- 
 bination of powers, strong enough to withstand him. But 
 just when his schemes were ripe, in the very height of his 
 career, death cut him short (1492). His vast possessions 
 (which his widow was too weak, and his children too young, 
 to hold together) began to fall to pieces. His generals helped 
 themselves. There was a scramble for the Viscontean 
 succession. 
 
 The death of Gian Galeazzo produced a decided effect on 
 the relations between Venice and Carrara. The Republic had
 
 THE EXPANSION 73 
 
 no longer a pressing need for Carrara to stand between her and 
 Milan, and both she and Carrara were determined to secure a 
 share of the spoil, and the shares they coveted were identical. 
 Carrara put forward his claim to Vicenza, out of which he 
 had been choused by Visconti, when they were both busy 
 despoiling Scala. He proceeded to attack Vicenza, and the 
 widowed Visconti Duchess appealed to Venice for aid. The 
 Republic demanded Bassano, Vicenza and Verona as the 
 price of its help. The Duchess's ambassador had no choice 
 but to consent. 
 
 Venice called on Carrara to abandon the siege of Vicenza, 
 and, on his refusal, declared war. The younger Carrara, 
 Jacopo, was shut up in Verona, and Francesco, the elder, in 
 Padua. The Carraresi were made desperate by the knowledge 
 that this, at last, was a life-and-death struggle. After an 
 heroic resistance both cities fell. The two Carraresi were 
 brought to Venice, where the mob clamoured for their blood, 
 though the Government inclined to leniency. But the dis- 
 covery of a vast plot, reaching to some of the highest officials 
 in the State, produced a change of sentiment towards the 
 prisoners and entailed harsher treatment. The Council of 
 Ten, after a close enquiry, declared that the plot could be 
 traced to the Carraresi. Both were strangled in prison in 
 January 1405. 
 
 By the fall of the Carraresi Venice came into possession of 
 a large land territory. The frontiers of the Republic were 
 now the Adige, the sea, the Tagliamento and the Alps. 
 And this territory she held in almost unbroken tenure down 
 to the fall of the Republic. But this territorial expansion 
 profoundly modified the nature of the Republic. We can no 
 longer consider her as a maritime commercial state, with 
 interests chiefly eastward, aloof from and exempt from the 
 politics and the complications of the Italian mainland. She is 
 now an Italian State with a land frontier to be attacked and to 
 be defended. She takes her place in the comity of Italian 
 principalities, and becomes involved in the complications of 
 Italian politics. On the other hand the acquisition of a land
 
 74 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 territory virtually closes the period of Venetian growth, of 
 Venetian expansion. After the Tiepoline conspiracy her 
 constitution is fully developed ; after the War of Chioggia iier 
 maritime supremacy is achieved ; after the fall of the Carraresi 
 her territorial position is established and defined. In each 
 direction during her period of splendour, she underwent, as we 
 shall presently see, certain modifications, and expanded to a 
 certain extent. But to all intents and purposes, as Venice 
 found herself at the opening of the fifteenth century, so she 
 remained till the fall of the Republic at the close of the 
 eighteenth.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 
 
 I. Commerce. 
 
 (a) Origin and Growth. At the basis of this 
 constitutional, maritime and territorial expansion which we 
 have just traced, lay the cause and, in a reflex manner, the 
 effect of it all, the commercial development of Venice. It 
 was commerce that made her aristocracy ; it was commerce 
 that led her down the Adriatic ; it was commerce that 
 induced her to push inland up the rivers of the Lombard 
 plain, and eventually compelled her to challenge, engage, and 
 defeat her immediate territorial neighbours. 
 
 Her geographical position destined Venice to a commercial 
 career. The city lay at the head of a great sea-avenue 
 leading south-east to the Orient, the land of fabulous 
 wealth ; she was the sea-port furthest into the heart of the 
 European continent, nearest to the Lake of Constance, the 
 centre whence France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia 
 might most easily be served. 
 
 As capita! to start her on her career she possessed first, 
 a sea-born, sea-faring population, by whose energy she 
 developed a carrying trade ; secondly, she enjoyed an almost 
 exclusive monopoly of salt. The sca-farers filled the city 
 with merchandise ; the dwellers on the mainland were 
 compelled to come into Venice for their salt, and there saw 
 the comforts and luxuries of the East exposed for sale, to be 
 bought either for use or for barter further west and north. 
 Gradually Venice became the recognized mart for one 
 
 75
 
 76 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 necessity and for many commodities. The mainland came 
 to depend upon the sea-port, and the sea-port found that out. 
 She used her power to extract large concessions from her 
 mainland neighbours, and gradually established her own 
 markets, free of customs, upon the river banks and along the 
 great high-roads. Venetians became not only importers of 
 Oriental produce, but exporters as well. As Venice grew in 
 importance the few other ports on the Adriatic dwindled. 
 Ravenna was silted up and fell out of competition ; Ancona 
 and Fano were crushed ; Ragusa remained for some time as 
 a considerable rival. But, on the whole, Venice established a 
 supremacy in the Adriatic and grew steadily richer, and as 
 the city grew in commercial riches the Government assumed 
 a more and more dominant attitude in all that related to 
 commerce, till we shall eventually find that, though the 
 trade of Venice is carried on by individual Venetians, the 
 direction is entirely in the hands of the State, and strictly 
 protectionist in the interests not of the dependencies, but of 
 the capital, of the Citta dominante and of the State revenue. 
 
 (^) The Fleet. In the preceding chapter we traced the 
 maritime and territorial expansion of Venice, and indicated 
 the wide sweep of commercial activity implied thereby. To 
 serve this commerce a fleet was gradually called into 
 existence. The chief feature about it is that it was a State 
 fleet. Private individuals might and did build ships of their 
 own and navigate them, but for safety, if not on compulsion, 
 these private vessels sailed with the State fleets, were under 
 the orders of the commander appointed by the Government, and 
 subject to all the regulations which governed the State fleets. 
 Moreover their owners were strictly forbidden to sell their 
 vessels to any but a Venetian. Both State and private ships, 
 though of various build and rig, were by law constructed to a 
 fixed size and pattern ; that is to say, each galley would resemble 
 exactly all the other galleys, each galleass all the other galleasses, 
 each galleon all the other galleons. The reason was two-fold; 
 shi])s of the same capacity and similar build and rig would 
 behave in a similar way under stress of weather, and there
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 77 
 
 would be less likelihood of their parting company ; and 
 secondly, the consuls and agents at various ports could be 
 sure of serving an outfit when the vessels calling at those ports 
 were of uniform builds. The size of the shipping devel- 
 oped gradually till, in i486, we find a record of a full-rigged 
 ship (una nave) of four thousand tons, which was floated out 
 of Chioggia by the help of two galleys, which served as a 
 kind of floating dock. 
 
 At first these ships were convertible — traders or fighters, 
 as the case required. Fully-armed they were men-of-war, 
 half-armed they were merchantmen able to give a good 
 account of a buccaneer ; and this convertibility explains how 
 it was that Venice, after such severe defeats as Curzola or 
 Sapienza, could, in so brief a period, replace her shattered 
 navy. But as time went on the State found it necessary 
 to build ships for naval purposes only, to act as convoy to her 
 merchant fleet in Turkish waters, and probably, to leave 
 more room for cargo in her strictly trading vessels, and the 
 distinction grew up between ships that were " armade " and 
 ships that were " dal trafFegho," and we find the State with 
 a navy of galleys, galleasses and great galleons. 
 
 The crews were originally free Venetian citizens, but 
 galley-slaves for service at the oar were gradually introduced 
 as the build of ships and tactics changed. As long as 
 boarding formed the climax of sea-engagements, it was highly 
 dangerous to arm a crew composed ot condemned criminals 
 or prisoners of war, Turks, Barbary pirates, and so forth ; 
 but when ramming took the place of boarding it was possible 
 to chain the slave to his bench and employ him merely as a 
 piece of machinery. 
 
 The build, outfit, equipment of each ship, and the duties 
 of the crew were strictly prescribed by law. The number of 
 the crew was in proportion to the burthen, one man for 
 every ten thousand pounds of capacity. The number of 
 anchors, cables, etc. were defined. Each ship was bound to 
 carry its own band of music. The crew were assigned so 
 much space for their mattress and sea-chest, their keg of
 
 78 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 wine, their barrel of water. Passengers paid for the space 
 they occupied. In case of shipwreck the crew were bound 
 to stay by her during fifteen days for salvage operations. The 
 capacity of each ship was carefully measured, and officers 
 appointed to see that no ship left port with sunken load-line. 
 
 It is difficult to arrive at the number of ships, in dock or 
 afloat, which formed the naval resources of Venice, but at the 
 height of her glory, it is said that she could dispose of 3300 
 ships, 36,000 mariners and 16,000 dock hands. Certain is 
 it, however, that from the days of Dante onwards the 
 arsenal of Venice impressed foreigners by its size and 
 activity. Pietro Casola, Fra Felix Faber, de Comines, all 
 agree in extolling the arsenal as they saw it during the 
 fifteenth century. " Mirum est videre," says the Frate, 
 " multitudinem navium onerarium continue intrantium et 
 exeuntium." 
 
 As to the speed of these ships wc have little trustworthy 
 information, but in 1408 we hear of a vessel, filled with 
 pilgrims for the Holy Land, that made the journey of one 
 thousand six hundred miles from Venice to Jaffa in thirty- 
 three days. 
 
 The chronicler Malipiero has left us a brief description of 
 a ship (a man-of-war, it is true) of 1498, from which we may 
 gather what a Venetian considered a well-appointed vessel. 
 " Andrea Loredan," he says, " commander of two armed 
 ships, kept them both, especially his own, in excellent order. 
 Not a man gambled or swore without being punished. The 
 four nobles (officers) in the ship were never left alone together 
 with closed doors, but always open, so that every one could 
 see what they were about. They had separate berths. The 
 captain kept his own cabin most beautifully. It was all in 
 carved wood with a gilded ceiling. It had cupboards for 
 his own things, and for those of his suite; the bed was covered 
 and hung with silk. He always slept on the poop. He 
 entertained all the masters and merchants owners of galleys 
 at Beyruth and has an excellent name." 
 
 But, as we have already noted, the trading fleet was a State
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 79 
 
 fleet. The Government built most of the ships and let them 
 out to Venetian merchants, who manned and loaded them and 
 were bound to return them intact at the close of the voyage. 
 The route to be taken, the number of ships, the commander- 
 in-chief, and the captains were^ all selected in the Senate. 
 (c) The Trade- Routes, dr^^ "lain trade-routes of the 
 Republic were, roughly speaking, two by sea, to east and to 
 west, and one, to the north, by land. They were marked out 
 by the Government in their general outlines, and the Senate 
 determined the details of each voyage^ These great trade 
 routes were represented on a large planisphere or mappamondo 
 painted on the walls of the colonnade at the Rialto where 
 thgjTier chants congregated. 
 
 ^^he route to the East led down the Adriatic by the 
 Ionian Islands, round Cape Matapan to Crete, where it 
 branched. One line made north for the Dardanelles, Con- 
 stantinople, the Black Sea and the Sea of Az^^ The ships 
 by this line took out chiefly cloth-of-gold, damask, silks 
 and furniture for sale at Constantinople, and returned with furs, 
 mj^h and hemp for cordage, from Tana on the Sea of Azof, 
 ^^second line traded with the shores of the Morea and the 
 Greek islands, as far as the Dardanelles. A third touched 
 at the ports of Asia Minor, Smyrna and Aleppo, and Syria, 
 passing Cyprus, and reaching Alexandretta, Tripoli in Syria, 
 and Beirut. A fourth traded with Alexandria and Egypt. The 
 last two were the richest of the Oriental lines, for they tapped 
 the great caravan routes that led either from Suez to Alexan- 
 dria, or from Ormuz, on the Persian Gulf, to Aleppo or to 
 Beirut^ By these lines were poured into Venice the carpets, 
 damasKs, jewels, amber, gold and silver work, that made the 
 shops at the Rialto one blaze of gorgeous colour ; the spices, 
 drugs, coffee, sugar that were to be distributed over Europe 
 from the great mart at the head of the Adriatic. Along 
 these lines, too, travelled with their bales of western cloth, 
 of Venetian beads and crystal, merchant-venturers like Marco 
 Polo, merchant-diplomats like Giosafatte Barbaro, who 
 pushed into the heart of Asia Minor, Persia, India and
 
 8o THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Cathay. So long as Venice was supreme in the Mediterra- 
 nean, so long as this was the sole known route between East 
 and West, the Republic held the monopoly of the traffic, 
 and levied her toll for the transport of Eastern products to 
 \^^tern markets. 
 
 rThe western trade route passed down the Adriatic and 
 reached Sicily. There one line branched off to trade with 
 Tunis, Tripoli in Barbary, and the ports of Spain. Another, 
 and that the main western line, pushed on beyond the Straits 
 of Gibraltar and, touching England, reached the ports of 
 Flanders. This line was served by the famous Flanders 
 galleys. Southampton was their principal port of call on 
 both journeys, and graves of Venetian seamen are said to 
 have been seen in the church of North Stoneham, but the 
 Venetians also made Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, and 
 Rye^ They brought with them alum, glass, sugar, silk, 
 sweet wine from Crete, currants and spices, and took away 
 tin, wool, hides and broadcloth for eventual barter in the 
 East. By 1412 a Venetian factory was established in 
 London in addition to the factory already opened in Bruges. 
 Thus a great trade-route was established from north-west to 
 south-east, from Bruges and London to Syria, Persia and 
 Ind^a, and Venice was mistress of that route. 
 
 O^he northern route, which served for traffic with Germany 
 and Central Europe, led either by the Ampezzo valley due 
 north to the Pusterthal, and thence to Innsbruck and Munich, 
 or by the Po to Brescia, Bergamo, the Lake of Como, the 
 Splugen Pass to Constances Only a small portion of these 
 lines were in Venetian territory, but by them Venetian goods 
 were forwarded to the great fairs, such as Cologne and Frank- 
 fort, chiefly by German agents residing in Venice, who con- 
 signed to their principals in the great towns of Germany. 
 The German merchants in Venice centred round the Ger- 
 man Change-house, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a great 
 palace on the Grand Canal immediately above the Rialto, 
 whose fa9ade still bears some traces of its sumptuous decoration 
 by Giorgione. In the Fondaco, merchant-princes, like the
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 8i 
 
 Fuggers, had tlicir counting-houses and their private chambers, 
 and bargained for the produce of the East and the issues of 
 the famous Venetian printing-press. 
 
 It is not easy to realize what Venice must have looked 
 like with this teeming life along her quays and streets, when 
 the pulse of the commercial world beat fullest at Rialto ; but 
 there stand forth, to assure us of its splendour, the enthusiastic 
 descriptions of Frate Faber, Pietro Casola, above all of Fran- 
 cesco Petrarch, who bursts into panegyric. " From my windows 
 on the Riva degli Schiavoni," he says, " I see vessels as large 
 as my house with masts taller than its towers. They sail to 
 all parts of the world, and brave a thousand dangers. They 
 carry wine to England ; honey to the Scythians ; saffron, oil, 
 linen to Assyria, Armenia, Persia and Arabia ; wood to 
 Egypt and Greece ; they return laden with merchandise to 
 be distributed all over Europe. Where the sea ends, their 
 sailors quit the ships and travel on to trade with India and 
 China ; they cross the Caucasus and the Ganges, and reach 
 the Eastern Ocean." And the enthusiasm of the poet is 
 endorsed by the painters. The vivid tones, the sumptuous 
 accessories, the decorative splendour of canvases by Vivarini, 
 Crivelli, Bellini, above all by Carpaccio and Mansueti, prove 
 to us the carnival of colour that must have spread in glowing 
 procession from the Riva, by S. Marco, up the Merceria, to 
 Rialto, when Venice was the commercial capital of the world. 
 
 (^) Industries. Venice was a great trading city, a 
 central mart for exchange, but a great manufacturing city she 
 is not, nor ever has been. Of the cargoes in vessels outward 
 bound, noted in the passage just quoted from Petrarch, not 
 one, with the exception perhaps of wood, was a home pro- 
 duct. They are all the produce of other lands in process of 
 distribution— English woollens for the east, or Eastern 
 damasks for Flanders. But it would be a mistake to sup- 
 pose that industries did not exist. The local industries for 
 the supply of the city's needs were numerous, and the majority 
 were very early erected into guilds, whose bye-laws are now 
 in course of publication. 
 
 G
 
 82 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 The greater industries, whose products to some extent 
 furnished cargoes for outward-bound vessels or caravans, were 
 first and foremost the glass manufactory. This industry 
 covered various kinds of products, beads, goblets, window- 
 glass, looking-glasses — much of this for export. Work was 
 carried on day and night at the furnaces of Murano, to 
 which island the industry had been removed for fear of fire. 
 The shifts for the workmen were six hours' work and six 
 hours' rest. Saturday was a whole holiday and so, of course, 
 were the numerous feast-days. The Government carefully 
 fostered the industry, forbidding the export of sand and 
 alkali, and guarding trade secrets by the penalty of death for 
 revealing them. 
 
 The manufacture of silk was introduced into Venice by 
 refugees from Lucca flying before the tyranny of Castruccio 
 Castracane. The industry was carried on round the church 
 of the Volto Santo, near the monastery of the Servi. The 
 kindred manufactures of cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver 
 were encouraged by the Government, and the Venetian am- 
 bassadors at Constantinople frequently called for webs of these 
 materials as presents to the Sultan and his pashas. Metal- 
 work, including bell-founding, formed another staple industry. 
 Thestamped-leather-workers counted fifty shops in the city, and 
 sent much of their produce to Spain. Lace was made in 
 private families, but for exportation. Venetian lace figures 
 at the coronation of Richard the Third of England. Finally 
 Venetian printers and booksellers did a thriving business with 
 Germany, sending large bales yearly to the fair at Frankfort- 
 on-Maine. 
 
 (<?) The Counting-house. The movement of all 
 this extended trade and active industry, with the dis- 
 posal of the wealth derived therefrom, was governed from 
 the counting-houses of those merchant-princes, all of whom 
 sat in the Great Council and many in the Senate. The count- 
 ing-house was on the entresol (^mezzanino) of the private palace. 
 There the merchant went in the morning to deal with the 
 day's affairs, to apportion their work to his clerks. Thence he
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 83 
 
 set out for the Rialto — the exchange of Venice— to gather 
 the news. His clerks and dependents were frequently joint- 
 sharers in his ventures. The great bell of St. Mark an- 
 nounced that a galley was in sight of port, and was a sound 
 of joy, not to the patrician merchant only, but to his clerks, 
 his dependents, the smaller tradesmen down to the guild of 
 dock-labourers [bastazi') waiting to unload. In fact the 
 whole city was solid in its interests in commercial enterprise. 
 Venice at the period of its highest commercial prosperity may 
 be considered as one vast joint-stock company for the 
 exploitation of the East, and justified the remark of a later 
 observer, Ce peuple est une famille. 
 
 {/) Banking. The State itself was the first banker in 
 Venice. The earliest bank was known as the Monte (the 
 Fund), expanded into the Monte Nuovo and Nuovissimo. 
 Its capital was the funds raised by loans, compulsory or 
 voluntary; the security it offered was the State revenues. 
 It paid 4 and 5 per cent. The Monti were the usual invest- 
 ment for charity funds, and crowned heads and distinguished 
 foreigners frequently sought leave to bank with it, but the 
 privilege was granted only as an act of grace and on the 
 passing of a special motion in the Senate. 
 
 Private banking was widely diffused during the period of 
 greatest commercial prosperity, but with little success. In 
 1 498 bank failures followed one another with alarming 
 rapidity. The Garzoni bank broke, and was followed by 
 the Lippomano and another, in spite of assistance from the 
 Government to the extent of ten thousand ducats. Other 
 two banks were in danger. The Lippomani fled before the 
 storm ; but the Government gave them protection. The 
 chronicler observes : " The failure of these two banks is 
 worse news than the capture of Brescia," and adds in 
 puzzled wonderment : " For all the throes through which 
 Florence has passed its ten banks are still solvent." Some 
 days later the Pisani and Augustini banks suffered a sharp 
 run on them. The creditors broke into the bank-parlour 
 and took the pen from Messer Aloise Pisani's hand ;
 
 84 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 but the tumult was quieted by the prompt action of the 
 Government, who published the names of sixty guarantors for 
 payment of credits in full to the amount of three hundred and 
 twenty-four thousand ducats. Pisani seemed to think this 
 proceeding merely prudent, for he remarked that " if those 
 rascals of Lippomani had only stuck to their bank, they 
 would have weathered the storm in the same way that we 
 have, for when confidence in its banks is gone the country 
 has lost its credit." The Pope, in Consiatory, read these 
 private bank failures in the same light, and declared that " it 
 must be all over with the Venetian Government." But upon 
 this point he was put right by Cardinal Ascanio, who observed 
 that the failure of private banks was due to the carelessness of 
 the bankers, and did not imply impoverishment of the State 
 coffers. He was correct in his view of the case, but the 
 Venetian Government did not intend to expose itself to such 
 calls for the future, and in i 502 it appointed a magistracy, 
 the Proved'ttor't sopra Banchi, to supervise private-banking 
 business. 
 
 The whole question was discussed in the Senate towards 
 the close of the sixteenth century, when it was resolved to 
 close the old State Banks and found a new one, which was 
 eventually known as the Banco-Giro, and continued down 
 to the end of the Republic. During the debate and speaking 
 against private banks, the Senator Morosini reviewed the 
 history of Venetian private banking and indicated the causes 
 of failure. Of one hundred and three private banks, he said, 
 whose history is known, ninety-six had failed. The chief 
 cause was the vast extent and consequent fluctuation in the 
 business of the Venetian market. Rumour of a loss in 
 the far East ; a breath of suspicion at Rialto ; the cashing of 
 a large draft by a Venetian house, and immediately came a 
 run on the bank. " Money is not received by the bankers to 
 lie idle in their safes. It is invested at a profit in the Levant, 
 and so on. But it is easier to invest than to realize, and 
 failure in one speculation may precipitate disaster. Banking 
 is a harmony of too many subtle chords ; a false note pro-
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 85 
 
 duces an universal discord. Further, most men cannot resist 
 the temptations which assail the banker to indulge his taste in 
 splendid houses, furniture, jewels, dress, when they can be 
 had by a stroke of the pen ; nor will he refrain from seeking 
 brilliant matches for his daughters at the expense of his 
 capital. Finally, there is the temptation to keep his old 
 friends and gain new ones by granting them accommodation 
 on insufficient security." So far Morosini on private banking 
 in a speech of admirable lucidity, as is usual with Venetian 
 statesmen of the Splendid Age. 
 
 The chief point, however, to be observed is that while the 
 State Bank of Venice was admirably managed and enjoyed 
 the highest reputation for security, private banks were most 
 insecure owing to a double cause — the extent, vivacity and 
 fluctuation of Venetian commerce; and the beginnings of that 
 luxury which even as early as the fifteenth century is 
 symptomatic of the decline. 
 
 II. Arms, Military and Naval. 
 
 Military. 
 
 (a) Extension on the Mainland. The Emperor 
 and Frill li. At the opening of the fifteenth century 
 Venetian territorial possessions in Italy embraced Verona, 
 Vicenza, Padua, and the Marches of Treviso. Between 
 Treviso and the mountains to the east lay the district of 
 Friuli, ruled immediately by the Counts of Gorizia and the 
 Patriarchs of Aquileia under the Emperor. The powers, 
 therefore, with which Venice was now conterminous were the 
 Empire to the east and the Duchy of Milan to the west. 
 On the death of that powerful Prince, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, 
 in 1402, his mercenary generals had seized and partitioned 
 his Duchy. His Duchess, left in charge of three young 
 boys, was too weak to be a menace to the Republic, which
 
 86 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 was thus enabled to absorb and consolidate its possessions undis- 
 turbed by her western neighbour. But to the east the situation 
 was not so fortunate. The Emperor Sigismund was far from 
 content to see the Republic established in Dalmatia, and the 
 last survivors of the Scala and Carrara families were at his 
 elbow suggesting how he might harass Venice by restoring 
 them to Verona and to Padua. The Hungarians under their 
 brilliant leader, Filippo Scolari, entered Friuli and pressed on 
 till they were within sight of Venice itself. But they were 
 defeated on the Livenza and a truce patched up. When, how- 
 ever, an attempt was made to convert the truce into a peace, 
 the possession of Dalmatia proved an insuperable obstacle. 
 War broke out again in Friuli. The Patriarch of Aquileia 
 captained the Imperial cause, the Republic was supported by 
 the Savorgnan, the leading family in the country. Her arms 
 were entirely successful, for the Emperor was unable to render 
 any assistance to his own party owing to the fury of the 
 Hussite war then raging in Bohemia. Sacile fell, followed by 
 Cividale, Prata, Portogruaro, Feltre, Belluno. Finally Udine, 
 the capital of Friuli, surrendered. The Republic because 
 mistress of the whole province, and completed her eastern land 
 possessions up to the Carnic Alps (1420). It was an acquisition 
 of the highest importance, for it gave her an extensive corn- 
 growing, horse-breeding territory, and it rendered her eastern 
 frontier far more secure than it had hitherto been. 
 
 (^) Visconti and Brescia. But to the west Filippo 
 Maria Visconti, the second of Gian Galeazzo's sons, had 
 been slowly but surely recovering his dukedom from the hands 
 of his father's usurping generals. The distinguished soldier, 
 Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, was his able instrument. 
 Visconti had inherited the ambitions of his father. The 
 dream of a North-Italian Kingdom was in his brain. He 
 determined not only to recover the whole of his Duchy, but 
 to extend its borders. That being so, it was inevitable that 
 he should eventually clash with the Venetian Republic, the 
 other growing power in Northern Italy. Visconti's schemes 
 were well laid. While Venice was occupied with Friuli and
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 87 
 
 Dalmatla, the Duke recovered Brescia and Genoa, and 
 Venice deemed it prudent to enter into an alliance with 
 him (1422) for fear of being caught between the Emperor 
 and the Lord of Milan. This suited Visconti's schemes, for 
 he intended to press southward and challenge Florence, and 
 the Florentines saw proof of his immeasurable ambition and 
 of the danger they were in when Visconti occupied Forli 
 that same year (1422). 
 
 The political situation was now declared. Venice was the 
 centre of it. She could not escape the consequences of having 
 embarked upon a land empire. Visconti threatened Florence, 
 and to secure a free hand he desired an alliance with the 
 Venetians. Florence was aware of the threat, and as a pro- 
 tection she also sought an alliance with Venice. The crucial 
 question was now put to the Republic, which proposal should 
 she accept ? If she allied herself with Florence she ran the 
 risk of seeing Visconti ally himself with the Emperor. If 
 she held by her treaty with Visconti she ran the risk that 
 Florence, in order to divert the Visconti attack, would grant 
 whatever he asked and assist him in despoiling Venice. In 
 fact an embassy from the Florentine Republic threatened as 
 much when they declared that " Just as the Genoese, unsup- 
 ported by us, made Visconti their Lord, so we, if unsupported 
 by Venice, will make him King." 
 
 The dilemma revealed two parties and two policies in the 
 Republic. One, the party of the old Doge, Tomaso 
 Mocenigo, was for a policy of peace, trade and retrench- 
 ment; advocating a defence of present frontiers, but no 
 extension of them, and the development of traffic with Milan. 
 The basis of their theory was that in the material sphere 
 wealth constituted the real power of the nation, that trade 
 meant wealth and war meant ruin ; in the moral sphere unjust 
 wars would bring down the vengeance of heaven. The other 
 party, led by Francesco Foscari, and flushed with the recent 
 acquisition of Friuli, was all for territorial expansion. To them 
 Visconti was a dangerous and aggressive despot who would 
 turn to rend Venice when he had swallowed Florence.
 
 88 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Mocenigo died in 1423, and was succeeded by Francesco 
 Foscari before any final decision was taken by the Republic. 
 Foscari continued to urge his policy of attacking Visconti. 
 The serious reverse to Florentine arms at Zagonara (1424) 
 strengthened his argument, and an accident did much to 
 determine the wavering Senate. Carmagnola, Visconti's 
 successful general, had become too successful, too popular 
 with his troops, too rich. His master grew jealous of him. 
 Carmagnola suspected treachery and fled eventually to Venice. 
 Foscari was able to introduce him to the Senate in order 
 to clinch the passionate appeals of the Florentine envoys. 
 Carmagnola's reputation stood higher than that of any other 
 mercenary in Italy. In his address he minimized the strength 
 of Filippo's forces, and held out prospects of a large extension 
 of their frontiers, if the Republic would vigorously attack the 
 Duke of Milan. Foscari carried his point, and in 1425 Venice 
 entered on an alliance with Florence against Visconti, and 
 gave the command of her troops to Carmagnola. 
 
 The formation of a land empire inevitably led Venice into 
 land wars, and, as inevitably, to the employment of mercenary 
 generals. The career of Carmagnola in her service taught 
 her the dangers of that system. In three campaigns against 
 his old master, Carmagnola was invariably successful, yet on 
 each occasion he seemed to let the full fruits of his victories 
 slip through his fingers. Was he deliberately treacherous to 
 Venice ; was he in the pay of the Duke ; was he merely 
 behaving as other mercenaries behaved, whose business was 
 war, and who had no desire to see it finished, who had 
 no interest in annihilating a foe who, on the cessation of 
 hostilities, might become a paying employer ; or was he 
 unwilling to drive the Duke of Milan to extreme reprisals 
 against his wife, his child and his property, all of which were 
 in the Duke's hands ? Whatever be the truth about his 
 conduct, Venice first conceived not unnatural suspicions and 
 then asserted that she had actual proof of his treason. She 
 summoned him to Venice, tried and executed him between 
 the columns of the Piazzetta (1432).
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 89 
 
 But though Venice had been defrauded of her fullest 
 hopes, though she never saw her arms in Milan, and Visconti 
 in Hight from his capital, the campaigns of 1426-27 and -29 
 were successful, and secured to her a large increase of territory 
 towards the west. Brescia and Bergamo were now included 
 in the dominions of the Republic, and her frontier \Mas shifted 
 from the Mincio to the Adda. She never lost permanent 
 hold on that position, though Visconti relaxed no whit of his 
 endeavours to obtain the mastery in Northern Italy. Venice 
 was compelled to undertake a long and exhausting series of 
 campaigns under mercenary generals, Gattamelata, Gonzaga, 
 Sforza and CoUeoni, for the maintenance of her territory. 
 These drained her purse, weakened her claim to independ- 
 ence, and forced her to seek a precarious title by suing 
 for investiture from the Emperor. The empty ceremony took 
 place at Prague in 1437, and the dominions of the Republic 
 were defined as all lands "lying east of the Adda." The 
 war with Milan continued, however, and was marked by such 
 brilliant feats as Gattamelata's march from Brescia to Verona 
 by the mountains, and by such achievements of engineering as 
 the transport of a Hotilla from Venice to the Lake of Garda. 
 But in 1447 Visconti died, and after two stormy years 
 Sforza became Duke of Milan in 1450. Four years later an 
 accommodation between Sforza and Venice brought the long 
 series of Lombard campaigns to a close, leaving Venice 
 mistress of North Italy from the Julian Alps to Brescia, 
 Bergamo and Crema, and back again along the line of the Po 
 nearly to its mouth. 
 
 (c) The Advent of the Foreigner. Had the 
 external relations of Northern Italy remained unchanged after 
 the death of Visconti, the Lombard campaigns, which are so 
 intimately connected with the policy and the reign of Francesco 
 Foscari, would undoubtedly have brought a large access of 
 power to Venice, and left her the preponderating factor north of 
 the Apennines. She possessed one signal advantage over her 
 rivals of Milan, be they Visconti or Sforza — she was a 
 Republic, a corporation with a continuous lite ; they were a
 
 90 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 dynasty liable to extinction by revolution, by the assassin's 
 dagger, by infecundity. The death of a Doge left the 
 Signory of Venice untouched. The death of Visconti shook 
 the Duchy of Milan to its foundations. 
 
 But, more than this, by it the French claim on the Duchy 
 of Milan through Lewis, Duke of Orleans, who married 
 Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, became 
 vital, and a momentous change came over the whole aspect 
 of Italian politics. The effect was not made obvious at once, 
 but nevertheless the centre of political gravity was shifted from 
 Italy to the ultramontane powers. The solution of the 
 political problem was confined no longer to the Italian States ; 
 the sovereigns of Europe intervened as factors, and as far as 
 Venice is concerned, the gate was opened for the hostile 
 combination of the League of Cambray. 
 
 {d) The Pope and Ferrara. As we shall presently 
 see, Venice herself was among the first to adopt that pernicious 
 policy of appealing to the foreigner in order to thwart a rival or 
 to avert an attack. But in the meantime from the peace of Lodi 
 ( 1454), throughout the remainder of Foscari's splendid but un- 
 happy reign, and down to 1 479, the Republic was fully occupied 
 in the East, where the fall of Constantinople and the apparition 
 of the Turks compelled her to embark upon a war the fortunes 
 of which will require our attention in the following section. 
 
 On the Italian mainland matters were comparatively quiet. 
 Venice absorbed and consolidated her new dominions, while 
 the Sforza family was engaged in establishing itself in the 
 Duchy of Milan. But presently a storm sprang up to the 
 south. Venice had embarked on a land empire and could not 
 escape the dangers implied by aggressive neighbours, doubtful 
 frontiers, vexatious customs dues. All these points brought 
 her into conflict with Ercole d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara. 
 The enemies of the Republic accused her of wilfully forcing 
 on a war in order to absorb the duchy of Ferrara, and pointed 
 to her action as a proof of her " insatiable greed " for land 
 dominion, the formula under which the League of Cambray 
 subsequently justified its proposals for the dismemberment of
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 91 
 
 the Republic. It is certain that the outcome of Foscari's 
 reign and the Venetian expansion in Lombardy led to the 
 conviction that the Republic was a grasping and aggressive 
 power. By the year 1480 disputes about the salt-pans at the 
 mouth of the Po, about dues on that river, about the true course 
 of the river itself, had produced such heat between Venice and 
 Ferrara that a spark was sufficient to set both in a blaze. 
 
 The Venetians, from very early times, had enjoyed special 
 privileges in Ferrara. They were represented by a Visdomino 
 or Consul-General who exercised independent jurisdiction. 
 The Visdomino arrested a priest for debt. But Ferrara was 
 a fief of the Holy See, and the Papal Vicar excommunicated 
 the consul, who withdrew to Venice. The excommunication 
 was cancelled and an apology offered to the Republic. But 
 the Marquis refused to reinstate the Venetian official, and war 
 was declared. The Pope, as over-lord of Ferrara, ordered 
 Venice to desist, and on refusal the Republic was placed under 
 an Interdict. The Venetian ambassador in Rome declined 
 to forward the Bull. The Patriarch in Venice, when 
 ordered to present it, feigned illness and secretly warned the 
 Government. The Council of Ten issued a proclamation that, 
 Interdict or no Interdict, the Sacred Offices of the Church 
 must be performed on penalty of death, and at the same time 
 they made formal appeal to " a future Council." The 
 upshot of the whole matter was that the Pope, Ferrara, the 
 King of Naples and the Duke of Milan entered into a com- 
 bination to thwart the designs of Venice, which were supposed 
 to be aimed at the absorption of Ferrara. This alliance proved 
 too powerful for the Republic ; moreover the long campaigns 
 in Lombardy and, as we shall presently see, the recent strain 
 of the Turkish War, had well-nigh exhausted her treasury ; 
 private resources were all but wrung dry ; taxes had been 
 raised one-third ; all gold and silver plate had been called 
 into the Mint ; the revenue from the mainland was falling ; 
 the arsenal was all but empty ; plague was decimating the 
 city. In these straits Venice, holding Sforza and the King 
 of Naples to be her most pressing foes, adopted the fatal
 
 92 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 policy of appealing to France to make good her claim on 
 Naples and her claim on Milan. The threat of a possible 
 French invasion alarmed Lodovico Sforza (il Moro). He 
 charged his general, Gianjacopo Trivulzio, to open negotia- 
 tions with the Venetian commander Sanseverino. The 
 Republic was ready for peace, and the result was the Treaty 
 of Bagnolo (1484), reconfirming the peace of Lodi, but 
 adding to the dominions of the Republic Rovigo on the 
 Adige and the district of the Polesine, and bringing her 
 southern frontier down to the Po. 
 
 This marks the utmost limit of Venetian expansion on the 
 mainland. The fifteenth century had seen her acquire 
 Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Feltre, Belluno, Friuli, Brescia, 
 Bergamo, Rovigo and the Polesine. A notable dominion 
 in Northern Italy ; likely to impress Europe by its extent 
 and the rapidity of its construction. But all the same the War 
 of Ferrara was distinctly disastrous. It convinced Italian states- 
 men and Europe, that Venice intended to absorb Northern 
 Italy, and by the close of the fifteenth century all the actors, 
 the Emperor, the French, the Pope, Naples and Milan, who 
 were to take part in the combined attack on the Republic 
 which ushered in the sixteenth, were already on the scene. 
 
 Naval. 
 
 (a) In the Levant. The Advent of the Turk. 
 
 To turn now to the naval side of Venetian arms during the 
 period of her greatest splendour. At the close of the last 
 ciiapter the Republic had all but reached the point of her 
 widest maritime expansion, Cyprus alone remaining to be 
 added to her empire in the Levant, for her temporary occupa- 
 tion of the Morea in the seventeenth century can hardly count. 
 During the fifteenth century her naval history is entirely 
 absorbed by her struggle with the Turk. It is this that 
 attracted the attention of Europe, and procured for her the title 
 of "bulwark of the West." To the outer world this single- 
 handed conflict with the Ottoman Power made Venice famous,
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 93 
 
 and Christendom professed to be grateful. But Europe left 
 the Republic to carry out the task alone and it killed her ; 
 nor did the other Powers hesitate to charge her with selfish- 
 ness and infidelity when, at the end of her resources, and to 
 save her maritime possessions and her commercial position, she 
 came to terms with her powerful foe. The truth is that the 
 Republic never liked the task. She would rather have traded 
 with than fought the Turk. Though her campaigns were 
 made illustrious by frequent victories, and by many deeds of 
 personal prowess, not one of them, with perhaps the exception 
 of the campaign that ended at Lepanto, was really successful. 
 
 Venice came first into definite relations with the Ottoman 
 Turk when Mahommed I., after defeating his brother Musa, 
 concentrated the Ottoman Power in his own hands. With 
 him the Republic signed a treaty (141 3) by which her 
 colonies were secured from Turkish aggression. But it was 
 one thing to promise, another to fulfil. In spite of the treaty, 
 Turkish ships continued to harry Venetian merchantmen, and 
 the Venetian commander, Pictro Loredan, was forced to 
 engage the enemy at Gallipoli in 141 6. His own report on 
 the engagement gives a glowing account of Venetian prowess. 
 The upshot was a complete victory for Loredan. He killed 
 all the renegade Christians he found in the Turkish fleet, and 
 closes his despatch with the following singularly fallacious 
 forecast of the future for the Turk ; " From this day 
 forward we may say that the power of the Turk by sea is, 
 for a long time to come, completely destroyed, and it is 
 hardly possible that it should ever rise again." 
 
 The battle of Gallipoli procured for Venice a fresh treaty 
 with Mahommed, and the despatch of a Turkish ambassador 
 to Venice. But standing as it does by itself, and brought 
 about as it was by accident, the battle can hardly be con- 
 sidered as more than a first brush with the enemy, not as a 
 regular campaign. As a matter of fact the Turks were not 
 yet in Constantinople, and no one dreamed that they would 
 ever be able to force the Imperial City. That they would 
 soon be a European Power, and, for Venice, the most im-
 
 94 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 portant European Power, probably never entered the head of 
 a Venetian statesman at the opening of the fifteenth century. 
 
 {l>) The Fall of Constantinople. Venice was just on 
 the point of concluding her land campaigns in Lombardy, and 
 acquiring Brescia and Bergamo thereby, when news came 
 that Constantinople had fallen (1453), and Europe found 
 itself face to face with the Ottoman Turk seated in the 
 capital of the Empire. A year earlier the Emperor Con- 
 stantine had sent to implore help from the Western Powers, 
 and more especially from Venice. The Republic pleaded 
 that her Lombard campaigns incapacitated her for any effectual 
 assistance. The rest of Europe was too much occupied with 
 its own wars to heed what was taking place in the East. 
 Constantine was left to his fate. The Venetians in Con- 
 stantinople, along with the Genoese and other foreigners, 
 made a brave defence, but the city fell. 
 
 Venice intended to preserve the peace with Mahommed if 
 possible. Bartolomeo Marcello was sent as ambassador to 
 the new lord of Constantinople. But orders were also given 
 to the commander-in-chief in those waters to fortify Negro- 
 pont. The Republic clearly felt doubts as to the turn affairs 
 might take. The conqueror professed willingness to treat 
 with Venice. None of the European Powers showed any 
 disposition to make common cause with her against the Turk. 
 An accord was reached whereby previous treaties were con- 
 firmed, and full trading rights were granted to the Republic. 
 All Venetian feudatories in the islands of the Archipelago 
 were included in the treaty. Venice was immediately called 
 upon to justify her conduct before the Pope and Christendom, 
 and she pleaded necessity. With many of her nobles and 
 citizens prisoners in the hands of the Turk, with her com- 
 merce and possessions exposed to immediate attack, she was 
 compelled to come to terms with the conqueror, if only to 
 maintain iierself as a bulwark between Italy, Europe and the 
 advancing Ottoman Power. 
 
 (f) The First Turkish War. But it was not possible 
 to check the rising ilood of Islam. The Turks soon
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 95 
 
 made themselves masters of the Peloponnese. In spite of the 
 bravery of Scandcrbeg, Epirus fell before their arms, and the 
 Ottoman ensigns were on the Adriatic. In these circum- 
 stances it is obvious that Venice could not long avoid a 
 collision with the Turk. Though very much afraid of 
 rousing the suspicion of the foe, and thereby exposing her 
 Levantine possessions to attack, the Republic did not cease 
 to urge the Pope and the other sovereigns of Europe to con- 
 certed action against the advancing infidel. The Pope, 
 Pius II., preached a crusade and threw himself with ardour 
 into the enterprise. He failed to rouse the other Powers to 
 an active enthusiasm, but Venice, under the Doge, Cristoforo 
 Moro, committed herself heartily to the undertaking, all the 
 more readily that, by this time (1463), the fall of the castle 
 of Argos had already involved her in a rupture with the 
 Turk. The Pope, though infirm, had moved with the 
 Sacred College to Ancona, where he proposed to concentrate 
 his projected crusade. In obedience to the Papal invitation, 
 the Doge sailed in person for Ancona, in command of twenty- 
 four galleys. Moro reached Ancona on August 12, 1464, 
 only to find the Pope at death's door, and the following day 
 he died. All hope of combined European action against the 
 Turk disappeared, and Venice was left alone to conduct the 
 war single-handed with a powerful foe now thoroughly 
 convinced of her hostility. 
 
 The position of the Republic was anything but reassuring. 
 She had only just concluded a long and costly series of 
 campaigns in Lombardy, and now she found herself called 
 upon to fight for her very existence in the Levant without 
 the remotest hope of assistance from Europe. She did what 
 she could to encourage and support Usunhasan, the Persian 
 sovereign, in his war upon the Turk, even after the defeat 
 of Terdschen, but with little profit to her own cause. By 
 1 470 the Venetians liad lost Negropont, and by October 9, 
 1 47 1, twenty thousand Turks were in Istria and Friuli, 
 burning and plundering. The inhabitants took refuge in 
 Venice, and slept under the arcades of the ducal palace till
 
 96 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 a lodging could be provided for thcni at Sant' Antonio, and 
 they were fed at the charge of the State. 
 
 The loss of Negropont, the sight of the refugees from 
 Friuli, the failure of every effort to induce the King of Cyprus 
 or the Grand Master of Rhodes to declare war on the Turk, 
 the defeat of their ally Usunhasan at Terdschen, all com- 
 bined to incline the Republic to peace, if possible. But the 
 demands of the Sultan were excessive, including the surrender 
 of more islands in the Levant, and the payment of an annual 
 tribute. They were rejected. The war dragged on. Scutari 
 was besieged by the Turks, and defended with the utmost 
 bravery. The Republic implored aid from the Pope, but was 
 told that he had no money. She strained her own resources 
 to the breaking-point, and in 1474 she raised 51,600 ducats 
 from her subject cities of the mainland, and applied 100,000 
 ducats out of the Colleoni bequest to the purposes of the war. 
 But all in vain. Scutari was besieged afresh. Croya fell, so 
 did Drivasto. Scutari, thanks to the bravery of Antonio da 
 Lezze, still held out. But the Republic was now in extremis, 
 and in 1479 Venice determined to sue for peace. This was 
 accorded upon the following terms, which are of great im- 
 portance, as the future position of Venice at Constantinople 
 was governed by them. The Republic was to maintain an 
 ambassador {^bu'ilo) at Constantinople, with )urisdiction over 
 Venetians. The Republic would pay 10,000 ducats a year 
 for trading rights; and further, would pay 100,000 ducats 
 in two years in quittance of all outstanding claims. Scutari, 
 Stalimeni, and places in the Morea captured by the Turk 
 were ceded to him, while the Republic recovered all that had 
 been captured from her up to her old frontier in the Morca, 
 for the exact delineation of which a Commissioner would be 
 sent from Venice. 
 
 A disastrous conclusion to a ruinous war bravely carried 
 on single-handed against the Turk. The sovereigns of 
 Italy attacked Venice for her action and suspected her motive 
 for yielding. But any other course was impossible, and she 
 cannot be blamed if, after being left alone to bear the weight
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 97 
 
 of the war for sixteen years, she declined to enter a league 
 against the Turk proposed to her the very year after she had 
 been forced into so humiliating a peace. 
 
 {d) The Acquisition of Cyprus. No sooner had 
 Venice concluded a peace with the Turk than, as we have 
 seen (p. 90), she found herself involved in a war with Ferrara, 
 which lent some colour to the accusation that she had made 
 peace with the infidel in order to attack the Christian. We 
 have dwelt on the calamitous nature of the Ferrarese War, 
 which, coming on the top of the ruinous Turkish War, did 
 much to cripple the resources of the Republic. But before 
 the final storm of the League of Cambray broke over her, 
 Venice was to achieve one further success in the Levant, the 
 acquisition of Cyprus. 
 
 The story is somewhat complicated. The validity or other- 
 wise of the Venetian pretensions turns upon the genealogy 
 of the family of Lusignan, Kings of Cyprus, Jerusalem and 
 Armenia. In 1381, James L Lusignan was acclaimed by the 
 Cypriotes as their sovereign. His son John succeeded him, 
 but was taken prisoner by the Soldan of Egypt, and was 
 succeeded by his son John IL John died in 1460, and left 
 one legitimate daughter, Charlotte, his true heir, married to 
 Luigi of Savoy, and a bastard son called James. James, 
 with the help of the Soldan of Egypt, seized the kingdom 
 and expelled his sister and her husband. Relying on Vene- 
 tian help, the bastard James drove out the Genoese and 
 established himself securely on the throne. He proposed for, 
 and married, Caterina Cornaro, daughter of Marco Cornaro, 
 a Venetian nobleman, and the Republic of Venice adopted 
 the lady as its own child. 
 
 Caterina was sent to Cyprus with all the pomp and honours 
 due to sovereignty, but her brief life in the island was 
 one continuous tragedy. Her husband James, the bastard, 
 died almost immediately, and the young queen was sur- 
 rounded by intrigue of every kind. Her husband had left a 
 bastard daughter, and the Archbishop of Nicosia endeavoured 
 to bring about a match between this child and a bastard son of 
 
 H
 
 98 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Naples, witli a view to eventually depos- 
 ing the reigning queen. Venice undertook the protection of her 
 adopted daughter, and sent a fleet to Cyprus for the defence of 
 the queen and her ministers. Meantime Caterina gave birth 
 to a posthumous son by her husband. But the infant died at 
 once. It was now clear that on the queen's death the island 
 would pass out of the sphere of Venetian influence, and the 
 Republic had no intention of allowing that to take place. 
 On the plea of safeguarding the young queen, Marco Cornaro 
 was sent to Cyprus in 1474. The dangers which menaced 
 the throne were many. The King of Naples, the Soldan of 
 Egypt, the House of Savoy, and perhaps the Turk, were all 
 supposed to have designs upon the island. Plot followed plot. 
 The queen's life was in constant danger. Finally, in 1488, 
 Venetian suggestions succeeded, and Queen Caterina made a 
 formal renunciation of Cyprus in favour of her native city, 
 receiving in exchange the little township of Asolo. There 
 she lived in semi-royal state till her death in 1510. 
 
 The acquisition of Cyprus was a source of satisfaction to 
 Venice after the disasters of the Turkish War, and the 
 humiliating peace of 1479. But it was her last effort of 
 expansion as a maritime power. As in the sphere of com- 
 merce, so in the sphere of arms, military and naval, the 
 fifteenth century, the century of greatest splendour for the 
 Venetian Republic, closed with obvious indications that the 
 beginning of the decline had already set in. 
 
 III. Qovernmetit. 
 
 (a) The Constitution. About the constitution of the 
 Republic not much remains to be said. It was to all intents 
 and purposes completed by the closing of the Great Council, 
 and the creation of the Council of Ten. Its chief character-
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 99 
 
 istics were its conservative rigidity, which left little scope for 
 change or movement. As far as any development can be 
 discerned, it lay along the lines already marked out. The 
 oligarchy persevered in its two-fold task of crushing the Doge 
 and extruding the people. The coronation oath of the Doge, 
 Tomaso Mocenigo (141 3), established the right of the law- 
 officers to impeach the Doge, denied him the ancient right 
 to summon a General Assembly of all the population without 
 the consent of a majority of the Great Council, forbade him 
 to display his family arms, and as a matter of fact the elec- 
 tion of Mocenigo was the last to be formally approved of 
 by the General Assembly of the whole community. The 
 election of his successor, Foscari, took place without con- 
 sulting the people or receiving their approval, even pro forma. 
 With the election of Foscari (1423) the last shred of popu- 
 lar government disappeared from the Venetian Constitution. 
 The fact of the election was simply announced, and the 
 formula " Communitas Venetiarum " was changed into the 
 word " Signoria." 
 
 Contemporaneously with this change in formula an ominous 
 symptom began to manifest itself in the electoral body. There 
 is a suspicion of corruption about Foscari's election. When 
 Procurator of St. Mark's he had divided what were said to be 
 unclaimed funds among " the poor nobles." The existence 
 of these " poor nobles," who were known as Barnabotti, 
 eventually proved a serious danger to the State. In virtue of 
 their birth they were entitled to a vote in the Great Council ; 
 a combination of their votes might have a decisive effect upon 
 an election, and their poverty made them fit subjects for 
 bribery by a foreigner or by an ambitious patrician of 
 Venice. 
 
 With the growth of Venetian commerce and the frequency 
 of war on the mainland or in the Levant, the machinery of 
 government naturally became more complex. The Senate 
 gradually delegated its powers, and established new magis- 
 trates to relieve the pressure on the Executive ; its legislative 
 powers it retained intact, but in the spheres of police,
 
 100 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 finance and coniiiK-rce the littccnth and sixteenth centuries 
 saw a hirge development of governmental machinery. 
 
 The most notable feature in the Constitution of Venice 
 during this period is the increasing power of the Council of 
 Ten, pushed to the length of illegality in the famous invita- 
 tion to the Doge Foscari to abdicate. When the invitation 
 failed, the Ten went a step further and ordered him to abdi- 
 cate. This was an infringement of the Constitution of 
 1382, which forbade the Doge to resign his office, except on 
 a vote of the majority of the Great Council. The Ten, 
 however, carried their point, and the whole episode of the 
 Foscari family misfortunes is a testimony to the preponderat- 
 ing power of that body in the State. 
 
 Whether in consequence of this unconstitutional action of 
 the Ten or not, a reform was carried in the Great Council, 
 in 1468, by which the competence of the Ten was defined 
 as applying to certain cases then specified, but the words 
 " and such like " were introduced into the bill. Under cover 
 of this vague phraseology the Ten continued to avocate to 
 itself most matters of importance. In 1529 the Council 
 added to its numbers and authority by decreeing that the 
 "Addition," or " Zonta," of fifteen principal magistrates, 
 which it was the custom to appoint for the hearing of special 
 cases, should be made permanent. As the " Zonta " carried 
 with it spending powers independent of the Senate, the change 
 was of radical importance. The friction between the Ten and 
 the larger body of the nobility continued to increase till 1582, 
 when matters were brought to a crisis by three cases which 
 were held to prove the overweening influence which the Ten 
 had arrogated to itself. In two of these the Ten sought to 
 impose a nominee of their own upon the Great Council ; in 
 the third it displayed a contempt for the body of the nobility 
 by supporting the claims of a riotous band of bravi against a 
 riotous band of young patricians. 
 
 It says much for the inherent stability of the Venetian 
 Constitution that such a question, deeply affecting the influ- 
 ence of the most powerful body in the State, could be freely
 
 THE SPLENDOUR lOl 
 
 and fearlessly discussed in the largest assembly known to the 
 Republic, the Great Council, the assembly of the whole 
 electorate. No definite measure was passed, but the "Zonta" 
 was virtually abolished by non-election, and in consequence 
 all the spending power of the Ten, which was bound up with 
 the " Zonta," and was not inherent in the Ten itself, fell to 
 the ground. The Senate resumed its normal function of vot- 
 ing supplies and the Ten, reduced to its original proportions, 
 ceased to threaten the stability of the Constitution. 
 
 (i) Maritime and Territorial Possessions. It 
 must be borne in mind that Venice always regarded herself as 
 a City-state. She probably never conceived, and certainly 
 never embraced, the idea of the Republic as a territorial 
 State. The city of Venice was not merely the capital of a 
 number of co-ordinated cities and districts ; she was herself 
 the whole State, the Ciita dom'inante ; all else were dependents. 
 And just as inside Venice there was, for the vast majority of 
 her citizens, no admission within the pale of the governing 
 caste, so Padua, Verona, Brescia or Corfu, Crete and Cyprus 
 had no voice in the direction of the policy adopted by the 
 Republic. They were not colonies with independent legis- 
 latures, merely tied to the mother-country by some nominal 
 bond ; they were dependencies, possessions of Venice called 
 upon to recognize her undoubted supremacy. So far was 
 this principle of no admission for dependencies carried, that 
 the very patricians who, on the invitation of the Government, 
 took up their residence in Crete in order to colonize the 
 island, were subsequently told that they had forfeited 
 their place in the governing caste. Crete revolted (1364), 
 and it cost the Government a series of campaigns before the 
 island was subdued. But Venice insisted on her position as 
 the Ciita dominante, and a great opportunity for welding her 
 maritime possessions into one solid body with herself was lost. 
 The result was that those possessions, debarred from active 
 participation in the destinies of Venice, expected the Repub- 
 lic to provide for their defence, and thus became a source of 
 weakness, not of strength, in the struggle «|itk, ^Ji^Turk. On 
 
 umiver:.:?.^ o.- California
 
 102 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 the other hand, provided her title to undisputed supremacy 
 were recognized, Venice, in the case of her Italian mainland 
 possessions, showed remarkable tenderness for local laws, 
 customs, predilections. She avowed her intention to bind 
 lier subjects to her in bonds of affection, " ut haheamus cor et 
 nmorem subditorum nostrorum,^^ as she phrased it. And she 
 succeeded. Her Italian dependencies returned to her of 
 their own accord after the wars of the League of Cambray, 
 and it was entirely due to the wisdom of her policy in this 
 respect that she was enabled to survive that disastrous com- 
 bination against her. 
 
 To come now more closely to her methods. Her 
 maritime possessions were of two kinds. First there were 
 ^he Levant Islands, except Crete, which came into her 
 possession after the Fourth Crusade. These were held by 
 Venetians upon a very loose feudal tenure, which implied 
 tribute to Venice and assistance to Venetian traders, and in 
 return protection by the Republic as far as possible^ It is 
 very doubtful whether the tribute ever reached the Treasury ; 
 but Venice did her best to fulfil her side of the bargain, as, 
 for example, when she insisted that the Duke of Naxos, and 
 other Venetian nobles, lords of islands in the Archipelago, 
 should be included in her treaty with Mahommed the 
 Congueror in 1454- 
 
 ^nother kind of maritime possession was the islands such 
 as Corfu, Zante, Crete and Cyprus, which the Republic kept 
 in her own hands and governed directl]^* Crete, the earliest 
 of her Levantine acquisitions, received a constitution slightly 
 different from the other islands. At the head of the 
 government was the so-called " Duke of Candia," a Venetian 
 nobleman elected in the Great Council at Venice. His 
 functions were military, and he was assisted by two council- 
 lors. Under the duke came the Civil Governor, or Proved't- 
 tore, the Captain- General, and the Civil Rectors of the 
 various cities. There was a Great Council to manage the 
 local aff^airs of the whole island, and in it sat both Cretan 
 nobles and those Venetian patricians who had accepted the
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 103 
 
 proposals for the plantation of the island. The duke and the 
 Proved'itore reported straight to Venice, the other officials to 
 them. 
 
 In like manner the other islands were governed by a 
 Proved'itore, elected at Venice and reporting continually to 
 the Senate, from whom he received instructions. The 
 Proved'itore was assisted in all matters relating to commerce, 
 shipping, customs dues by a Council of Twelve, chosen from 
 among the leading merchants of the islands. The Provedi- 
 tore disposed of the local police and the local militia. It was 
 his duty to collect and remit to Venice customs dues, to see that 
 the island was properly victualled and in an efficient state of 
 defence. He and his Council of Twelve tried and sometimes 
 hanged pirates who infested those waters. 
 
 In the government of her Italian possessions, Venice, as 
 we have already remarked, showed great tenderness for local 
 laws and customs, provided that her position as the Citta 
 dormnante were fully recognized. She preserved, as far as 
 possible, the ancient statutes or constitutions of each city. 
 Her system was as follows : — Each district or province was 
 governed by captains, or military governors, and podestas, 
 or civil governors. Both were elected in Venice, and both 
 reported to the Senate, and when acting or reporting together 
 were styled the Rectors. Half their salary was paid by 
 Venice, half by the district they governed. The local 
 authorities, the councils, varied slightly in size and con- 
 struction according to original constitutions of the various 
 communes. If we take Vicenza, for example, we find that 
 the podesta had three assessors, a vicar, who performed his 
 functions when he was absent, the Civil Court judge and 
 the Criminal Court judge. The local councils for the 
 management of local affairs were the Council of Five 
 Hundred, elected from the whole body of the citizens, and 
 the Council of One Hundred composed of the officers of 
 the trade guilds. There was a local government board 
 for the management of roads, water, bridges, agriculture. 
 A court of eight judges, called the Consolato, for the
 
 104 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 administration of local law, and a poor law board, y^wocato 
 e Sindaco dei Poveri. The fiscal chamber in the case of 
 Treviso, at all events, and probably elsewhere, reported every 
 two months to Venice and presented accounts. In the case 
 of atrocious crimes, or such felonies as coining, which affected 
 the Republic as a whole, the Rectors reported to Venice, and 
 the Council of Ten either avocated the cause to itself, or 
 delegated its powers to the Rectors. 
 
 Protests against the captain or the podesta, or against 
 legislation passed by the Government of the Republic, 
 likewise appeals from the findings of the local courts, could 
 all be heard in Venice itself. The aggrieved province chose 
 ambassadors ("orators" they were called) and sent them to 
 the capital. There they sought the protection, or advocacy, 
 of some Venetian noble, were admitted to the Cabinet, laid 
 their petition before it, and received an answer either that the 
 case would be sent before the proper Government department, 
 or that it was rejected. 
 
 From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that while 
 Venice kept a firm hold on the financial and military govern- 
 ment of her Italian dependencies, she left them comparatively 
 free in the management of their own affairs. Citizens of 
 subject towns had abundant scope for activity in their local 
 governments, while the younger Venetian nobility were trained 
 in the methods of administration as captain or podesta in 
 the mainland cities. 
 
 {c) Finance and Trade. Considering the immense 
 private wealth of Venice, the long wars she waged, and 
 the splendid figure she presented to the world, the public 
 resources were never large, nor were the finances of the 
 Republic ever flourishing. The Government was always 
 unwilling to impose taxation, and resorted to it only in 
 extremity. It preferred to rely on the generosity of its 
 citizens, and it did so successfully till the Lombard campaigns 
 and Turkish wars wore out private as well as public purses. 
 In 1423 the Doge Mocenigo calculated that trade with 
 I.ombardy alone was bringing in to private purses a net
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 105 
 
 profit of two millions of ducats per annum, while calculations 
 made at the end of the fifteenth century give the total 
 revenue of the State as one million one-hundred-and-forty- 
 five-thousand five-hundred-and-eighty ducats. 
 
 The main sources of revenue were customs dues, salt 
 monopoly, the so-called tithe tax on property, tribute from the 
 mainland possessions, and tribute from the maritime possessions. 
 
 Tithes, customs and salt brought in 615,750 ducats 
 The mainland yielded ... ... 329,830 ,, 
 
 The islands yielded ... ... 200,000 „ 
 
 All this latter item was absorbed by the Government, for 
 the victualling and defence of the islands themselves. The 
 expenditure is calculated at 545,580 ducats, and was appro- 
 priated to the payment of interest on debt, payment of 
 salaries, which, from the Doge downwards, were very 
 moderate, the payment of the army, and above all the up-keep 
 of the arsenal. Though it is difficult to arrive at the proximate 
 value of money, we may perhaps take the ducat as worth five 
 shillings, and multiply it by ten to give us its modern equivalent. 
 
 The administration of finance lay with the Senate. The 
 system was extremely complicated, consisting of many magis- 
 tracies, invested with administrative as well as financial powers, 
 whose functions frequently seem to overlap. The Senate 
 commanded the purse of the Republic, and voted payments 
 to be made upon one or other of the boards of receipt, the 
 Rason, which drew the revenues of the mainland, the Prove" 
 ditori al Sal, which managed the salt monopoly, the Savii 
 sopra le dec'ime, which assessed and drew the property tax. 
 I cannot find that any general budget was prepared and 
 presented to the Senate, though the state of account at 
 each board of receipt was no doubt fully known to that 
 body, which drew upon them, and it became the habit to 
 charge certain expenses upon certain boards. 
 
 The commercial policy of the Republic, as well as its 
 finance, was in the hands of the Senate, though here again 
 the process of delegation to special offices took place as the
 
 106 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 business of the Senate increased. The chief of these delegations 
 was the office of the Cinque Savii a!la Mercanzia, or Board 
 of Trade, ot which more presently. The original tendency of 
 Venetian commercial policy was distinctly protectionist — pro- 
 tectionist that is in favour of Venice, of the Ciita dominante, not 
 only as against foreigners, but against its own subjects of the 
 islands. Everything was done to foster the carrying trade of 
 the Venetians, and the character of Venice herself as a universal 
 mart. With this object in view measures were taken to prevent 
 the natives of the subject islands from selling their produce 
 direct to foreigners. Crete was compelled to send her wine 
 and oil, Zante her currants, to Venice first, thence to be dis- 
 tributed over the markets of Europe. Malipiero records the 
 imposition of a special tax upon foreign ships loading wine 
 in Candia, "to encourage our ships," he says. By "our ships" 
 he meant Venetian, not Candiot vessels. So, again, Venetian 
 subjects were forbidden to load in foreign bottoms, nor were 
 Venetians permitted to insure goods loaded in other than 
 Venetian bottoms. Going a step further it was enacted that no 
 ships, foreign or otherwise, might reload at Venice if they had 
 discharged cargo at any port inside the Adriatic, and if they did 
 not bring at least two-thirds of their cargo into Venice itself. 
 In I 5 16 the great office of the Cinque Savii alia Mercanxia 
 was established, and took over the general supervision of 
 Venetian commerce, but always subject to the approval of 
 the Senate. Quite early in its existence the Board of Trade, 
 as we may call it, began to discover tendencies opposed to 
 the rigid protectionist ideas of the Senate. The Savii argued 
 in favour of freedom of traffic between the islanders and 
 foreigners, coupled with a strict scrutiny of the Customs 
 House. This, they urged, would certainly increase the 
 revenues of the State, and any one who has studied the 
 relations of the English Levant Company with Zante and 
 Venice over the question of currants, will admit that they 
 were right. But the invincible conservatism of the Venetian 
 temperament, and the rigidity of her practice, both of them 
 potent factors in the decline of the Republic, were too strong
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 107 
 
 for the more enlightened department, and Venice remained 
 ruinously protectionist to the last. 
 
 (d) Religion. The ecclesiastical policy and attitude of 
 the Venetian Republic was always marked by a certain 
 independence of Rome. The State, while providing for the 
 external ceremonies and functions of the Church with lavish 
 splendour, was determined that the clergy should not exceed 
 the limits of their ministerial vocation, should take no leading 
 part in the direction of affairs. No relative of the Doge 
 was allowed to accept preferment from Rome. When 
 ecclesiastical matters were under discussion in the Senate, 
 every senator in any way connected with the Curia Romana 
 was bound to retire under the formula expulsis papalistis. No 
 one but a Venetian subject could hold a Venetian bishopric. 
 The Government claimed, though it hardly made good, the 
 exemption of the Patriarch from examination at Rome before 
 receiving the pallium. The Inquisition was admitted with 
 reluctance. Its sittings and its sentences were invalid with- 
 out the presence and the assent of three lay assessors appointed 
 by the Government. The stake was never erected in 
 Venice, and the whole proceedings of the Holy Office are 
 marked by a leniency to be found in no other Catholic State 
 in Europe. In spite of protests from Rome, the reformed 
 religion was tolerated by the Government on condition that 
 no scandal ensued, and no propaganda was attempted. The 
 Germans held their services unmolested in the Fondaco de' 
 Tedeschi, the English ambassador in his own house ; the 
 heretic Swiss from the Grisons were invited to come freely 
 to Venice. Commercial or political reasons were at the 
 root of this tolerance. The Republic desired to avoid a 
 quarrel with Rome, but not at the expense of her trade or 
 her political alliances. She was not, in consequence, a 
 persona grata at the Vatican, and in Rome they said, " These 
 gentlemen of Venice govern by rules of State, not by the 
 law of the Inquisition." 
 
 The machinery of the Church in Venice presented some 
 features peculiar to herself. The parish priests were origin-
 
 I08 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 ally chosen by the people, confirmed by the Senate, and in- 
 ducted by their Ordinary. The bishops were chosen in the 
 Senate and confirmed by Rome after examination. At the 
 head of the Venetian hierarchy came the Patriarch appointed 
 by the Senate, and confirmed by the Pope without examination, 
 as Venice claimed. The patriarchate of Venice was really 
 the same as the patriarchate of Grado, patriarchate of Istria 
 and the Lagoons, which was suppressed by Pope Nicholas V. 
 and transferred to the Ciita domlnatite in 145 1, soon after 
 Venice acquired the province of Friuli. The cathedral 
 church of Venice, and seat of the Patriarch, was not the basilica 
 of St. Mark, but the church of S. Pietro in Castello, the See 
 of the early Bishops of Olivolo, who were absorbed in the 
 patriarchate when Lorenzo Guistinian assumed that dignity. 
 The clergy of the Republic were subject to taxation, though 
 the Curia Romana declared that its assent was necessary. 
 The Republic passed various measures against the excessive 
 building of churches and to prevent the accumulation of real 
 estate in ecclesiastical hands, but always under protest and 
 opposition from Rome. These points of divergence, coupled 
 with a standing dispute as to ecclesiastical versus secular juris- 
 diction over criminous clerks, led up to the famous quarrel 
 between the Republic and the Roman Curia in 1605, when, as 
 we shall presently see, the rights of secular princes in general 
 and the position of Venice in particular were championed by 
 tiie Republic under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi. 
 
 Outside the ordinary hierarchy, something quite peculiar 
 and apart stood the basilica of St. Mark, the private chapel 
 of the Doge, and therefore of the Republic, with its Dean 
 (the Primiciero, as he was called) and Chapter, with its 
 Capella of musicians, the centre of all the gorgeous national 
 ceremonies which focussed the religious sentiment of the 
 people, the coronations of the Doges, the Sposalizio del 
 Mar, the " Te Deums " for victory. While, to mark still 
 further its independence in matters ecclesiastical, the State 
 retained experts in canon law, Coiisultori in Jure, to advise 
 her in her frequent clashes with Rome.
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 109 
 
 Three times in her early history the Republic came into 
 serious collision with the Pope, thrice she was excommuni- 
 cated, and twice placed under Interdict. On all three occa- 
 sions the cause was political rather than ecclesiastical, connected 
 with the aggressive and expansive tendency of the State, 
 rather than with any infringement of ecclesiastical claims. In 
 1202 the Pope, in the interests of the Fourth Crusade, for- 
 bade the attack on Zara. The Republic ignored the veto, 
 and was excommunicated. In 1308 the Republic endeav- 
 oured to establish herself in Ferrara. The Pope claimed 
 Ferrara as a papal fief and ordered the Venetians to withdraw. 
 The Doge in the Great Council struck the key-note of the 
 Venetian position when he declared that the Pope has no 
 concern with matters temporal. The Republic resolved to 
 retain Ferrara. The Pope launched his excommunication 
 and Interdict with results disastrous to Venetian commerce all 
 over the world, and Venice was virtually forced to yield. At 
 the Council of Constance the Republic declared that it would 
 abide by the finding of the Council, thereby affirming its 
 adherence to the Conciliar principle and the superiority of 
 General Councils. It availed itself of this weapon when it 
 found itself once more under Interdict for its aggressive action 
 in the second war of Ferrara, and the appeal to a future Council 
 was affixed to the doors of S. Celso in Rome, while in Venice 
 the clergy were compelled to continue their sacred functions. 
 
 In all three cases the independent attitude of the Republic 
 and her conception of the relations of Church and State were 
 sufficiently defined. But the final struggle belongs to a later 
 period of her history, the fatal period of the League of Cam- 
 bray, which produced surrender all along the line, and to the 
 last bold stand under Fra Paolo Sarpi against Pope Paul V. 
 
 (e) Justice. It is probable that in the early days of the 
 Republic the judicial authority resided in the Doge. With 
 the growth of the State, the expansion of its commerce, the 
 influx of foreigners, the ducal attributes were gradually dele- 
 gated to various courts of first instance. Their names to 
 some extent indicate their nature. The earliest Venetian
 
 110 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 tribunal, the Proptio, was a court originally of both civil and 
 criminal jurisdiction, but it was eventually restricted to ques- 
 tions of dower, intestate estates, division of property, damage 
 to property. The court oi Forest'ter dealt with causes between 
 foreigners and Venetians. The court of Esam'inador was a 
 court for the registration of contracts. The Piovego heard 
 cases of disputed contracts, usury, bills of exchange, commer- 
 cial suits, leases, annuities. On the criminal side there were 
 the police magistrates, with the picturesque title of Sigtiori di 
 Notte, or Lords of the Night, and the Execiitorl contro alia Bes- 
 temmia, who were the guardians of public decency and morals. 
 
 The appeal from these courts, civil as well as criminal, lay 
 originally to the so-called Quaratitia, or Court of Forty 
 This was subsequently divided into the Criminal Forty, the 
 Civil Forty, to hear appeals in civil suits in Venice and the 
 New Civil Forty, to hear civil appeals from the provinces. 
 Cases of moment, whether civil or criminal, were taken at once 
 before the Forty. The procedure was as follows in criminal 
 cases. The case was prepared by one of the Avogadori del 
 Comune^oi: as one would say, in Scots, by the Procurator Fiscal. 
 It was then submitted to the court, which decided either that 
 there was "no ground for proceeding" or "to proceed." In 
 the latter case the accused was called upon by proclamation to 
 make surrender within so many days. If he did not he was 
 outlawed and a price put on his person or his life. If he 
 surrendered he was told to name his advocate, or if he was 
 unable to afford counsel, one of the avvocati del pr'igioni, or 
 " prison counsel," was assigned to him, and a day named for 
 the trial. At the trial the report of the Procurator was read, 
 and, acting as counsel for the Crown, he supported his 
 case and demanded sentence. The counsel for the defence 
 replied. The court withdrew and voted its sentence, which 
 was communicated to the prisoner privately. The presump- 
 tion was against the prisoner, not in his favour, but Venetian 
 procedure was enlightened and lenient in that it required the 
 prisoner to be defended by counsel. 
 
 The Council of Ten (though, as a political body, extrane-
 
 THE SPLENDOUR xil 
 
 ous to the regular outline of the Venetian Constitution) soon 
 established for itself a regular place in the Venetian Judicature. 
 Taking cognizance, as it did, of all matters relating to public 
 safety, life and property of citizens, and public and private 
 morals, it rapidly became the highest criminal tribunal in the 
 State. The terrors of the Ten have been greatly exaggerated — 
 partly owing to the secrecy of its proceedings ; partly because, in 
 its capacity as guardian of public safety, the most striking cases 
 in Venetian history came under its cognizance ; partly because 
 the tribunal itself desired to foster this feeling of dread which 
 increased its prestige while facilitating its action. The mere 
 appearance of its chief officer, the Capitan Grande, was suffi- 
 cient to secure obedience and allay a tumult among the 
 populace, who remembered that he represented a court which 
 had tried and beheaded a Doge, and tried and beheaded a 
 Commander-in-chief, though the greatest soldier of his day 
 in Italy. But as a matter of fact the Council of Ten was 
 governed by a code of procedure eminently just and strictly 
 enforced. The famous secret denunciations of the lion's 
 mouth — so fertile a subject of romance — could not even be 
 submitted to the Ten until the Doge, his six councillors, and 
 three chiefs of the Ten, had unanimously affirmed that the 
 accusation was matter of public importance; nor could it be 
 taken into consideration by the Ten except on a vote of four- 
 fifths of the whole body. But trial by the Ten, unlike trial 
 by the Forty, was a secret trial. The prisoner was not con- 
 fronted with witnesses nor accusers, nor was he defended by 
 an advocate. Torture might be applied only on a permissive 
 vote of the Council. An examination of the archives of the 
 Ten will not lead to the conclusion that it was either cruel or 
 sanguinary. 
 
 Yet another secret tribunal, the Inquhitori di Stato, or 
 Council of Three, acquired for itself an ominous reputation in 
 Venetian history. Yet "the Three" was merely a sub- 
 committee of the Ten appointed in 1539, chiefly for the 
 supervision of the foreign afl^airs of the Republic, and above 
 all, to guard against the insidious encroachments of Spain and
 
 112 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 ihe corrupting power of Spanish gold. During the long 
 decline of Venice, when the Republic was endeavouring to 
 hold its own by di])lomacy rather than by arms, suspicion of 
 its own ambassadors became one of its haunting terrors, and it 
 was before the Council of Three that such cases as those of 
 Hieronimo Lipjiomano, of the unfortunate Foscarini, and of 
 Lady Arundel were brought. 
 
 [fj Diplomacy. There is one department of adminis- 
 tration in which Venice enjoyed undisputed supremacy during 
 the period of her splendour, the Diplomatic Service. The 
 State archives at the Frari bear abundant testimony to the 
 diligence and ability of the Venetian diplomatic agents in that 
 striking series of despatches from all parts of Europe, from 
 England, Holland, France, Denmark, Germany, Russia, 
 Poland, Constantinople, Rome, Madrid, which made Venice 
 herself the centre of the world's news. The Venetian ambas- 
 sador at foreign courts was the best informed ot all his colleagues; 
 at Rome, at Madrid and elsewhere, the Government applied 
 to him for information which he gave or withheld on instruc- 
 tions from Venice, nor will it be forgotten that Lord Chester- 
 field advises his son, when abroad, to frequent the company of 
 the Venetian ambassador, while modern diplomats have been 
 known to express a desire that knowledge of Venetian de- 
 spatches should be required from those about to enter the 
 service. 
 
 The heyday of Venetian diplomacy may be taken, roughly 
 speaking, as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when, 
 after the disastrous League of Cambray, Venice ceased to be 
 a first-class power and, abandoning the attempt to preserve her- 
 self by arms, had recourse to the subtler methods of diplomacy. 
 To enable her to attain her object she required and obtained from 
 her agents the minutest details from all the courts of Europe. 
 But even earlier, the despatches of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries, more especially the great series from Constantinople 
 and the East, are of the highest interest and importance. 
 
 Venetian diplomacy was served by two classes of agents. 
 Residents, or as we might say ministers, and ambas-
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 113 
 
 sadors. The Residents were not patricians ; they were 
 burgher citizens, c'tttad'tn't ortglnarii, of whom we shall have 
 something to say presently, and were chosen from among the 
 secretaries in the Ducal Chancery. They received their 
 diplomatic training as secretaries to the Senate or the Ten, 
 where they were employed to decipher and to read the de- 
 spatches addressed to those bodies. They were accredited to 
 the smaller Courts of Italy, Turin, Milan, Florence, Naples, 
 and occasionally to European Courts on special missions, or 
 when diplomatic relations were not in full working order. 
 They reported to the Senate, and their despatches are to be 
 found among the papers of that Assembly. There is nothing 
 to distinguish them either in fulness, ability, or cipher from the 
 despatches of ambassadors. They received their instructions 
 from the Senate, but whereas ambassadors were addressed by 
 the "you" (^voi) of an equal, Residents were treated to the 
 "thou" (/«) of an inferior. 
 
 Ambassadors were elected by the Senate from among the 
 Venetian nobility. They were usually men of advanced age 
 who had served their country in various magistracies and had 
 learned the art of reporting as podesta or captain in some 
 Venetian dependency. Ambassadors were either Ordinary, 
 that is Ambassadors- Resident, Liegers, or else Ambassadors- 
 Extraordinary. Ambassadors-Ordinary were appointed for 
 two years. If not members of the Senate at the date of 
 appointment, they were frequently permitted to sit in the 
 Senate without a vote, in order that, by hearing the despatches 
 read, they might acquire a knowledge of the political con- 
 dition of Europe. Their pay was two hundred ducats of gold 
 a month, of which four months was anticipated to assist them 
 to their outfit, and for the same purpose they received one 
 thousand ducats for which they were bound to present 
 accounts at the close of their mission, and forty ducats a 
 month for small charges which they might spend as they 
 chose. They were obliged to take four carriages, two 
 coachmen, eleven horses, — to buy which they received three 
 hundred ducats, — and two couriers besides their body servants. 
 
 I
 
 114 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 A certain amount of plate also was supplied them by the 
 Treasury. This they were bound to restore to the Mint on 
 their return. In the case of Ambassadors-Extraordinary the 
 above figures were about doubled, and they were required to 
 take with them a band of musicians as well. The staff of an 
 ambassador comprised a chancellor, secretaries, physician and 
 chaplain, and, in the case of Constantinople, a large body of 
 interpreter-dragomans, giovani del/a lingua, as they were 
 called. 
 
 The journeys were long, fatiguing, dangerous ; baggage 
 was frequently lost. Ambassadors often delayed their de- 
 parture with the result that pathetic or indignant despatches 
 began to arrive from the retiring ambassador, whose services 
 were thus involuntarily extended sometimes to three instead 
 of two years. Arrived at his destination, the ambassador went 
 through the usual formalities ; presentation of credentials in 
 company with his predecessor, visits to the officers of state 
 and return visits to his colleagues. Except at Rome, and 
 Madrid, where the Pope and the King had each presented 
 the Republic with a palace, ruinously expensive to keep up, 
 the ambassador was expected to find a suitable house and to 
 entertain in a manner worthy of the Republic he represented. 
 He reported regularly and fully to his Government, and was 
 allowed to draw money for special purposes, such as secret 
 service. An ambassador used this with great effect on one 
 occasion at the time of the Armada when Philip II.'s plans 
 for giving battle to the English fleet were taken from his 
 study desk, after he had retired for the night, copied and 
 restored before daybreak. 
 
 At the close of his mission the ambassador returned home 
 as fast as possible, reported himself in the Senate and made 
 surrender of all presents he had received. These he was 
 usually allowed to keep. Within a month or two of his 
 return he was expected to present and read to the Senate a 
 full report (^Re/azione) on the history and actual condition of 
 the country to which he had just been accredited. 
 
 (g) A Doge's day. It may be as well, after setting
 
 THE SPLENDOUR iiS 
 
 forth the foregoing details, to resume, as far as possible, the 
 aspect of the Venetian Government when the Republic was 
 at her zenith. That can best be done by observing the 
 ordinary routine of a Doge's life ; for the Doge was, in 
 theory, universally present at every operation of the State, at 
 every movement of the governmental machinery ; he was the 
 official representative of the Republic as a whole and incor- 
 porated the majesty of Venice. 
 
 The Doge's private apartments in the Ducal Palace were 
 at the extreme end of the wing which runs along the small 
 canal under the Bridge of Sighs. His rooms were not 
 numerous nor very large, most of them looked upon the 
 inner court-yard of the palace, and one of them opened on to 
 a small terrace-garden which commanded the Giant's Stair- 
 case. His Serenity began the day by receiving, in his 
 private rooms, his six Privy Councillors, without whose 
 presence no official act of his was valid, no despatches could 
 be opened, no replies given to correspondence. 
 
 When the ducal correspondence had been opened and dis- 
 cussed, the Doge and his Privy Council passed to the Cabinet- 
 meeting, held in the beautiful chamber of the Collegia, next 
 door to the Senate Hail. Here the Doge presided over 
 the deliberations of the Cabinet Ministers. The despatches 
 which he had opened were read and considered. The agenda 
 sheet was discussed. It contained the entire business of the 
 Republic for that day, financial, commercial, diplomatic, 
 colonial, judicial. The Savii, or Cabinet Ministers, intro- 
 duced the various subjects affecting their departments, each 
 of which was destined for treatment either in the Senate or 
 in the Council of Ten. Next came the executive side of 
 the Cabinet's functions. Letters to foreign Powers were 
 drawn up, and orders were issued to governors or other 
 officials in accordance with resolutions already passed in the 
 Senate. Throughout all these proceedings the initiative lay 
 with the Doge ; he moved the first resolution, introduced 
 the first draft ; amendments and counter resolutions might be 
 brought forward by the members of the Cabinet. Then,
 
 ii6 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 when the day's work had been considered, came the audience 
 of ambassadors, ministers, nuncios of foreign Powers, and of 
 orators from the mainland or maritime dependencies, and the 
 reception of distinguished foreigners introduced by their 
 ambassadors, of all in short who desired to approach the 
 Serene Republic by way of business or of compliment. 
 These Envoys of foreign Powers had either sought audience 
 or had been invited to attend. In the one case they had 
 something to say, in the other something to hear. The 
 ambassador was introduced, either alone or accompanied 
 by a secretary, made reverence to the Doge, advanced to 
 the dais and was invited to be seated on the Doge's right. 
 If he had sought audience he began to unfold his subject. 
 At each mention of his master's name he raised his hat. 
 His business covered the usual field of diplomacy, compli- 
 ments, treaties, alliances, commercial relations, tentative 
 soundings as to attitude on foreign affairs, grievances, com- 
 plaints, imparting or requesting information, petitions for 
 favours on behalf of proteges. On all these multifarious 
 topics it was the Doge who replied, and sometimes to three 
 or four ambassadors in one day. He was the mouth-piece 
 of the Republic, and was expected to answer in language 
 whose dignity and gravity should adequately represent the 
 majesty of the State, and yet should in no way commit the 
 Government to any line of action. The formula usually ran, 
 "This I can say to you, but if these gentlemen have anything 
 further to add, they will do so if they see fit." Or "This I can 
 say of myself, but the matter will be brought before the 
 Council of Ten or before the Senate, whose decision will be 
 communicated to you." If on the other hand the ambassador 
 had been invited to attend, the Doge again was the spokes- 
 man, and was expected to inform the ambassador in ap- 
 propriate tones of suavity, severity or indignation, that in 
 reply to earlier communications his petition had been granted 
 or rejected, that the Senate had arrived at such and such a reso- 
 lution, which was then read to him by a secretary. At the 
 close of the audience, if the ambassador desired to present a
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 117 
 
 distinguished compatriot, the Doge again was expected to find 
 comphments suited to the occasion. The full proceedings of 
 the Collegio are preserved in minutes and registers, and we 
 know exactly what the ambassador said, what the Doge 
 replied, what the ministers added if they thought fit. 
 
 Cabinet Council over, the Doge would proceed to the 
 Council of Ten, if it were sitting. Here, too, he presided 
 and had the initiative. Neither the debates nor the minutes 
 of trials in the Ten have been preserved. We only possess the 
 sentences proposed and occasionally a rehearsal of the crime. 
 But while sitting with the Ten the Doge would be called upon 
 to discuss questions of " high police" ; treason, disaffected or 
 riotous nobility, atrocious crimes in Venice or its dependencies, 
 reports on the movements of suspected foreigners. 
 
 After dinner, if it were a Thursday or a Saturday, the 
 Doge presided in the Senate, the range of whose functions 
 would usually be sufficient to occupy the whole of the after- 
 noon. The debates in the Senate have not been officially 
 preserved, but some of the more important are recorded by 
 senatorial diarists such as Malipiero, Priuli and Sanudo ; we 
 have, however, the resolutions and amendments with their 
 preambles and the voting thereon. The ordinary business in 
 the Senate would cover all local government, such as the 
 granting of petitions, of patents, of copyright ; the appoint- 
 ment of professors in the University of Padua ; the voting 
 of public money ; the election of ambassadors, and of many 
 important Government officials, chiefly in connection with the 
 Mint and Finance departments and with the University. The 
 Senate next proceeded to foreign affairs and heard de- 
 spatches from all the Courts of Europe, from the governors of 
 mainland and maritime dependencies ; it debated and resolved 
 on instructions to Venetian representatives abroad and replies 
 to foreign representatives in Venice. Finally, if it were the 
 proper season, the Senate would establish the trade-route, 
 determine the cargo, and appoint the officers of the State 
 fleet. And throughout this mass of business the Doge 
 presided, and moved resolutions.
 
 ii8 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 If it were Sunday, the Doge's presence was imperatively 
 required in the Great Council. Here, unless some govern- 
 mental crisis, some conflict between the various branches of the 
 administration, were disturbing the normal movement of the 
 State machine, the business would be chiefly elective, in which 
 his Serenity would not be called upon to take any active part. 
 
 If we add to all this the numerous State and Ecclesiastical 
 functions where the Doge's presence was obligatory, we see 
 how full the day's work was for an old man representing, as 
 he did, the vast and overflowing life of a great State at its 
 prime — in proof of which hear Dudley Carleton, British 
 ambassador to Venice in 1 6 1 2 : "I am sure you will lament 
 with me this good old Duke Leonardo Donato, who died on 
 Monday last seven night. . . . There was hope he would 
 have lasted longer, and towards his end he assisted daily in 
 their councils, and even the day he died he spent the whole 
 morning in the College, from whence retiring at the accustomed 
 hour, and having withdrawn himself into his guarda-roba, 
 where he was alone, he was heard to cry out suddenly, and 
 one of his servants running in, he fell into his arms, and never 
 spoke more, but breathed an hour after. I had audience of 
 him the Thursday before, which was the last he gave to any 
 ambassador ; and though he complained long of weakness, 
 and indeed was much broken in looks, yet he retained his 
 wonted vigour of spirit and readiness of speech. The day he 
 died, as if he had some sense of his departure, he entertained 
 the College with a whole hour's speech, testifying so much 
 goodwill to the State . . . that he left them all weeping." 
 
 IV. Science, Letters, and Arts. 
 
 If in the region of Commerce and of Arms the first 
 symptoms of decline are already perceptible by the opening
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 119 
 
 of the sixteenth century, in the region of the Arts and of 
 private life the splendour of Venice was prolonged for another 
 century and a half. The decay in Commerce and in Arms 
 was a slow process, and the Arts and private luxury coming 
 later, and in a large measure as an outcome of success in 
 Commerce and in Arms, survived longer, and so to Europe 
 and the outside world Venice never looked more brilliant 
 than she did during the sixteenth century. 
 
 (a) Science. As was to be expected from an eminently 
 practical people engaged in drawing their wealth from the sea, 
 the Venetians were among the earliest of European nations 
 to make serious contributions to geography. It is probable 
 that Marco Polo brought back with him rough sketches of 
 the places he had seen, and dictated descriptions which other 
 hands endeavoured to represent in the form of maps. We 
 know that Marin Sanudo, the elder, presented to the Pope 
 (1321) maps of the Mediterranean, the Holy Land, and 
 Egypt, now lost. In 1436, Andrea Bianco produced the 
 most perfect map that had appeared so far. It is preserved 
 in the Marcian Library at Venice, and has been frequently 
 reproduced. Andrea Bianco's map is a sailing chart with 
 winds and courses marked. The Bay of Biscay, the English 
 Channel, and the coast of Holland are given with remarkable 
 fulness; we find Alixart (Lizard), Falamua (Falmouth), 
 Godiman (Dodman), Fabie (Fowey),Cao de Rame (Rame 
 Head), Premua (Plymouth), and so on. No doubt the 
 chart was studied by the sailing-masters of the Flanders 
 galleys. Andrea Bianco was followed in 1459 by Fra 
 Mauro, who made his famous planisphere for Alphonso IV. 
 of Portugal. From that time onwards the mass of Venetian 
 maps, portolani, isolarii, and other geographical matter, in- 
 creases steadily, and is multiplied by the printing press. Both 
 the Marciana and the Museo Civico possess rich collections. 
 
 The Government had always shown a special solicitude for 
 the University of Padua, which was placed under the care of 
 a State department, the R'lformatori dello Studio di Padova. 
 Everything was done to attract distinguished teachers. In the
 
 120 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 region of physics, Padua was rendered famous by the presence 
 of the most illustrious man of science that the Renaissance 
 produced. Galileo Galilei lectured there in i 592, developing 
 his studies in the telescope and the thermometer, and corre- 
 sponding with Fra Paolo Sarpi, a name less known, but hardly 
 less distinguished, in the world of science, the precursor of 
 Gilbert White and of Harvey. 
 
 The European renown of Padua rested chiefly, however, on 
 her schools of anatomy and medicine. During the sixteenth 
 century, Vessalius, Colombo, Falloppius and Fabricius were 
 exploring the human frame in their little oval dissecting- 
 theatre, still extant in the University, while Savonarola, 
 Mercurialis, and Sanctorio tentatively felt their way about 
 the properties of drugs, and the methods for coping with the 
 plague. The beautiful botanical garden at Padua, the most 
 perfect scientific garden of its day, was opened for the use 
 of scholars. A leader of modern science. Sir Michael 
 Foster, testifies to the debt Europe owes to the "freedom" 
 enjoyed in " the Venetian Republic and the bright academic 
 circles of Padua," where, "under the protection of the 
 Senate," Vessalius and his followers " had opportunities for 
 the advance of knowledge which" they "could not have 
 enjoyed elsewhere." 
 
 The fame of such masters, the fascination of Italy, the 
 attraction of Venice, filled the University with students from 
 all parts of Europe, and the coats-of-arms in the Aula Magna 
 and along the corridors of the University bear witness to the 
 variety of nations and the nobility of the families who sent 
 their sons to take their "degree" in Padua. 
 
 (b) Letters. Beautiful as Venice undoubtedly was, 
 stirring as her history had been, and passionately attached 
 though the Venetians were to their city in the sea, yet this 
 combination produced no literature of imagination. Broadly 
 speaking, Venice of the Splendour has no poetry, no drama. 
 No Venetian ever rose to sing the triumphs of the Fourtli 
 Crusade, the exultation at the fall of Genoa, the pious glow 
 that shed an halo round the legend of St. Mark ; no Venetian
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 121 
 
 was stirred to dramatic creation by the tragedies of Carmagnola, 
 Foscari, or Falier. They were a practical people, too busy in 
 the making and enjoying of life to turn aside and reflect on it. 
 They lived their poems and therefore did not write them ; 
 and as for dramatizing their national episodes, the Council of 
 Ten would never have permitted it. A national literature with 
 the nation's life-blood for its theme was not for Venice. 
 
 A literature of culture, such as the Renaissance had pro- 
 duced in Florence, is equally wanting. But we must bear in 
 mind that the learning of the Renaissance came late to 
 Venice and found no congenial soil in the temper of the 
 Venetians themselves. For the renown of their city and 
 decor of their homes the great Venetians would play the 
 Maecenas, but the really learned men, Aldus, Musurus, 
 Gregoropoulos, Chalcondylas, were foreigners. Moreover, 
 when the Renaissance did reach Venice, its whole force was 
 poured into other channels than literature, into architecture 
 and painting — devoted, that is, to the sensible and sensuous 
 glorification of the city as a whole. 
 
 In one department of literature only has Venice, at its 
 zenith, anything essentially Venetian to show. The official 
 historians are frigid and compassed ; their style a heavy 
 imitation of classical models badly digested, their matter 
 measured to meet the suspicious eye of the Ten. Of 
 chroniclers in the free, romantic manner of the Gattari, 
 Cortusii, Corio, Matarazzo, and the hundred others that fill 
 the volumes of Muratori, there are none. But when we 
 come to the Diarists of the Golden Age we touch a spring that 
 is pure, genuine, original. Of no Italian city have we so 
 vivid, Hvely, all-embracing a portrait as that which Mali- 
 piero, Priuli and Sanudo have left us. Covering the years 
 1457 to 1535, they embrace the very apex of Venetian 
 splendour. Written by men versed in affairs and prominent 
 actors in the events they relate ; penned not for the public 
 eye, but for the honour of Venice and the love of truth, 
 these Diaries are racy, veracious, outspoken records of all 
 that took place in the Senate Chamber and Counting-house,
 
 122 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 on board the fleet or with the army, of what was said at 
 Rialto or what was written from Rome, of the doings and 
 ceremony and splendour of the city, but also of the misfortunes, 
 disasters and fears that haunted the minds of those who wrote 
 them. The very spirit of Venice breathes through these 
 pages, shrewd, humorous, trenchant, practical, but inspired by 
 a passionate devotion to the City and the State. There is no 
 juggle of belles-lettres, no mantle of rhetoric is cast about the 
 naked truth, but the unmistakable note of the lover is there, 
 and we surmise what the inspiration of the City must have 
 been for men who could write so passionately about her. 
 
 In fact the literature of Venice was at its best when it was 
 not striving to be literary. This same strong note of simplicity 
 and directness is audible in the despatches of Giustinian and 
 of Paruta. Stronger, more poignant still, nuder, more 
 athletic, is the style of Fra Paolo Sarpi. Relying upon no 
 rhetoric but the rhetoric of logical sequence, it produces its 
 effect by antithetical juxtapositions. In the hands of the 
 master it was forged into a weapon of the finest damask 
 steel. In short, while the architecture and painting of the 
 Golden Age at Venice were rich, redundant, ornate, the 
 literature, as far as she had any of her own, was simple, 
 spare and severe. 
 
 {c) The Printing Press. In close connection with 
 letters the Republic possessed one special claim to recognition 
 as the leading State in Europe. The Venetian Printing 
 Press, though only the third Italian press in chronological 
 order, being preceded by Rome and Milan, was undoubtedly 
 the richest in production, the most sumptuous in workmanship, 
 the widest in diffusion. The art of printing was brought to 
 Venice by foreigners, by John of Speyer and Windelin his 
 brother, by Nicolas Jenson from France, by Waldarfer and 
 Erhardt Radolt, and many others attracted to the city of the 
 lagoons first by the richness of Bessarion's library, which offered 
 them food for their presses, then by the security of the city 
 itself, and lastly by its commanding wealth and importance 
 as a commercial centre.
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 123 
 
 There are two striking features of the Venetian Press con- 
 sidered as a whole ; one is the aristocratic sumptuousness of 
 its earliest productions, from John of Speyer to Aldus; the 
 other is the democratic abundance, cheapness, serviceability 
 of the output from the days of Aldus onwards. The Press 
 opens with a series of monuments, the Ep'istolte Familiaries of 
 Speyer, the Ep'istol/e ad Att'icum of Jenson, the De Civitate 
 Dei by the same printer, which are unsurpassed, probably 
 unrivalled, by the press of any other city. Frequently 
 printed on vellum, with elaborately illuminated initials and 
 rubricated colophons, they equal in beauty, and may possibly 
 have been intended to imitate the manuscript. 
 
 But when we come to the Aldine Press there is a marked 
 change. Though Aldus did not abandon the production of 
 sumptuous books, his chief care, and perhaps his chief claim 
 upon the gratitude of posterity, lay in the publication of 
 accurate texts of the classics at a reasonable price and in con- 
 venient form. While Jenson and his fellows looked upon the 
 Press largely as a means for putting out a handsome book, a 
 beautiful work of art, Aldus regarded it quite as much as an 
 instrument for the diffusion of scholarship. To that end he 
 founded his famous academy of scholars like Musurus and 
 Gregoropoulos, whose major preoccupation was the establish- 
 ment of sound readings. 
 
 Once created, the Press of Venice far exceeded the Press 
 of any other European State, in range of subject and in 
 activity. The Government was not slow first to protect and 
 encourage and then to organize the craft. The manufacture 
 of paper was fostered, the exportation of rags forbidden. 
 Printers and booksellers were incorporated as a guild in 
 1548-49. 
 
 {d) The Libraries. We have seen that one of the 
 chief reasons which brought foreign printers to Venice was 
 the richness of the Library of St. Mark. The quiet and 
 security of Venice, untorn by rival factions inside the city, as 
 were most other Italian towns, and protected against assault by 
 the guardian lagoon, offered a sure asylum to men of letters,
 
 124 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 like Boccaccio and Petrarch. To the Republic Petrarch 
 bequeathed his much-loved books, and by the gift is said to 
 have laid the foundation-stone of that famous Library, the 
 Biblioteca di S. Marco. Of Petrarch's gift no traces now 
 remain, and the real founder of the actual library is Cardinal 
 Bessarion, who, as Malipiero records, left nine hundred 
 volumes of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic, 
 which ordered the construction of a library in the palace. 
 He adds, with a soldier-like disregard for letters, " these 
 manuscripts were soon of little value, as you could get the 
 books in print." 
 
 When printing became general and lucrative, printer- 
 publishers applied for copyright to the Government. In 
 return for this privilege, the Senate, in order to feed the 
 State Libraries, required that a copy of each issue from the 
 presses of Venice should be supplied to the Library of St. 
 Mark and the Library of the University of Padua. 
 
 [e) The Arts : Sculpture and Architecture. On 
 the whole it may be said that the great art of Venice is public 
 art. Connoisseurship and private patronage do not play so large 
 a part in the Republic as they did at Rome or Florence, for 
 example. As Venice grew in wealth the city took to adorn- 
 ing itself first with architecture and sculpture, then by painting. 
 In Venice, however, sculpture was, for the most part, an 
 accessory subservient to architecture. The sculptures on St. 
 Mark's (in as far as they form part of the design and are not 
 applied later), the angles of the Ducal Palace, the figures 
 of Venice on the palace facades, the exquisite doorway 
 decoration, the balconies, borne on lions with undulating 
 wave-like manes and little lions, accroup'ts on the corners, 
 even Rizzo's Adam and Eve that face the Giant Stair- 
 case — one and all are part of the architect's design, rather 
 than monuments of the sculptor's art. 
 
 The architecture itself, till we come to the period of the 
 Renaissance, is a capricious mingling of styles, Byzantine, 
 Gothic, Lombard, a tour de force of bizarre invention that 
 achieves its justification /)^'r^/»^ D'lo lo vuole, St. Mark's is a
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 125 
 
 marvellous accident — never to be repeated. Strip it of its 
 marbles, columns, incrustations, and you find the brickwork 
 of a church like St. Mary's-in-the- Fields at Constantinople ; 
 the same arrangements of narthex in front of a five-bayed 
 facade, the samegreat central stable-window, a somewhat similar 
 setting of cupolas. St. Mark's has the casquet-like quality of 
 so many Oriental churches ; the cupolas might be lids of a 
 jewel-case. But with its incrustations what a casquet it 
 becomes, what a shrine for the " aureus Lucifer " as one old 
 chronicler will style the Evangelist! Marbles from Constanti- 
 nople and the coast of Syria, column after column, with strange 
 Arabic^r^£^///,from Alexandria and Kgypt — while St. Mark's 
 was in the building each merchant was bound to bring back from 
 his eastern voyages some vestures for the shrine that Venice 
 was raising to her Saint and to herself — bronze horses from 
 Byzantium for the outer gallery, porphyry knights from Acre 
 for the angle of the Treasury, all applied just as they came 
 to hand, regardless of structural meaning or purpose. And 
 the Treasury itself was a storehouse of cups and goblets and 
 curious jewels in agate, onyx, jasper, chalcedony, with quaint 
 chasing in the precious metals and bossing in heavy, deep- 
 toned, uncut gems. The altar frontal in gold and exquisite 
 enamels, with figures of Emperor and Empress and Doge, the 
 work of skilled Byzantine artificers, the golden mosaics of the 
 interior vaults and the rich sobriety of the opus alexandrinum 
 on the pavement were added, and there was St. Mark's, a 
 marvellous mingling of East and West, the monument and 
 symbol of the people that created it. 
 
 And the Ducal Palace, again. No other building in the 
 world is like it. It had no archetype that we can trace. 
 A massive, square, box-like structure, faced with white and 
 red Verona marble, cut to look like bricks, and arranged in 
 a lozenge-shaped diaper pattern, is carried on a two-storied 
 arcade, the upper of light, and seemingly fragile tracery, the 
 lower of solid, but still wide-spanned arches, when one con- 
 siders the superincumbent mass. It is a tour de force oihUzurtQ 
 construction which nothing but itself could justify.
 
 126 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 The same riot of fancy is discernible in the earlier private 
 palaces, along the Grand and side canals. The " braided " 
 string courses, the twisted rope pattern running up the angles 
 from water-floor to coping, the angle-windows where the 
 mullion carries the whole weight of the upper stories and roof, 
 the quaint chimney-pots, so curiously fashioned in cluster- 
 columns of rounded brick and spreading outward like the 
 calyx of some flower, all denote a wealth of invention and 
 a joy in creation that demonstrate the luxuriant life out of 
 which they sprang, a life that was individual, untouched 
 as yet by the mainland of Italy, peculiar to Venice of the 
 Venetians. 
 
 But presently, as her relations with the mainland grew 
 wider, comes a scdater, cooler note in Venetian architecture. 
 The School of the Lombardi, touched by the finger of the 
 Renaissance, chastened by a knowledge of classical models, 
 gives to Venice such exquisite monuments as the Scuola di 
 San Marco, the facade of San Zaccharia, the Guild-hall of 
 St. John the Evangelist, and such private houses as the 
 Palazzo Trevisan, the Ca'Dario, the Vendramini-Calergi ; 
 the marble incrustation is still employed, richness of colouring 
 is still sought for, but the riot of fancy is pruned ; the har- 
 mony of proportion is evolved from the din of an a tutt't. 
 The art becomes learned, and the pleasures of connoisseurship 
 replace a debauch of the senses. 
 
 Later still the full-blown Renaissance blossoms for Venice 
 in Sansovino's learned, measured yet luxuriantly ornate 
 Libreria, in Palladio's chastened facade of S. Giorgio and 
 his acknowledged chef d^ cewvre, the Redentore. The graceful 
 campaniles of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Francesco 
 sprang up beside their more massive brothers of San Marco, 
 San Stefano and the Frari. To this period, also, belong the 
 bridges of Istrian stone (the first was built in 1478), with 
 their graceful balustrades and coats-of-arms, recording the 
 Government officials in whose day they were built ; — an 
 architecture in short denoting a period of sober enjoy- 
 ment after the riot of youth. Finally the art settled down
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 127 
 
 to the correct, though frigid, creations of Sanimicheli, and 
 the sumptuous, if rather lifeless, masterpieces of Longhena. 
 
 (/) Painting. It may have struck the reader that so 
 far in the history of Venice, however magnificent the Republic 
 may have been, however prominent in arms or in commerce, 
 that magnificence, that prominence centres round the State 
 itself, round the name of Venice, not round the name of any 
 individual Venetian. In the history of no other State can 
 one find so much achievement combined with so little indi- 
 vidual renown. This is eminently characteristic of the 
 Republic where the idea of the State was everything, the 
 individual member nothing. We hardly know the names of 
 the men who made Venice famous by sea and by land, who 
 carried the Lion of St. Mark from Holland to Cathay. 
 But when we come to the arts, and more especially to the 
 supreme art of Venice, painting, then the case is different. 
 We find ourselves confronted by a galaxy of brilliant names 
 of men who were known throughout the cultured world, and 
 who seem to bestow, not to receive, the glory with which 
 they are for ever associated. 
 
 One or two considerations suggest themselves in partial 
 explanation of the fact. The arts were the only region of 
 activity where the State was not jealous, where a man might 
 freely be all that he could achieve for and by himself. Great 
 wealth accumulated in commerce, great fame and popularity 
 achieved by arms, were dangers to the State, called for 
 suppression and restriction, lest the level equilibrium of the 
 oligarchy be upset. But that Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, 
 should cover the walls of Venice with masterpieces that spread 
 their names all over Europe, roused no suspicion, called forth 
 no alarm. In the State there was no room for individual 
 prominence, in Art there was. Moreover the State knew how 
 to make the achievements of its individual artists redound to 
 its own glory. Untorn by faction, secure against the violent 
 changes which wrecked the other cities of Italy, the Republic, 
 in its corporate capacity, could and did act as a great Maecenas. 
 It is the earliest and the richest patron of the Arts. The
 
 128 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 State commissioned the Bellini, the Vivarini and Carpaccio 
 to paint its history on the walls of the Great Council 
 Chamber. It is the State that charged Titian, Tintoret and 
 Veronese to adorn the ceilings of the Ducal Palace with those 
 sumptuous presentments of Venice in apotheosis. The glory 
 of the artist is the glory of the State. It was impossible for 
 him to be too brilliant or too famous when all his fame and 
 all his brilliancy were dedicated to the service of the Republic. 
 And this public patronage of the arts spread from the 
 great State-patron downwards. As the Government caused 
 Venice to be portrayed on the walls and roofs of the Public 
 Palace, so the members of the various guilds and confrater- 
 nities caused the histories of their patron saints, or some subject 
 connected with the guild, to be displayed on the walls and 
 roofs of their meeting-place. As in the Ducal Palace it is 
 the mundane, magnificent, sensuous Venice that is the theme, 
 so in the Guild-hall, under the thin veil of a religious motif, 
 it is the full, vivid, sensuous life of the City that is portrayed. 
 The St. Ursula series are portraits of Venetian everyday life 
 glorified as every Venetian would have wished them to be. 
 In the Miracle of the Cross you have the boats, the canals, 
 the gondoliers, the maid, the roofs, the chimneys of Venice 
 as she was. In St. Jerome you have a Venetian dog of the 
 very breed, build and character that may be found to this day 
 in Venice. Again, as in the guild, so in the family, the 
 Venetians desired to represent themselves. But in the private 
 house the space is confined and the theme restricted, yet the 
 central point, the head of the family, is seized and presented. 
 And here we get that other great branch of Venetian painting, 
 the portraits, the speaking likenesses of those the strong, 
 vigorous, hale, shrewd, often sensuous old men who made and 
 ruled the State. What Venice aimed at throughout, desired 
 and insisted on getting, was portrayal of herself. No detail 
 was too trivial, no minutia seemed otiose, no pains exaggerated 
 in the effort to fix the likeness. There was a passion, almost 
 of religion, about the workmanship. What the truths of 
 Christianity were to a man like Fra Angelico and the really
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 129 
 
 religious painters of Tuscany, the truths of Venice were to 
 Bellini, Carpaccio, and the supreme Venetian decorators. 
 
 The striking achievements of the Venetian School lay in 
 the regions of aerial perspective and of colour. The great 
 Venetian Masters were, perhaps, the first to place their figures 
 and their subjects in a landscape that looked like a landscape 
 and not like a painting on a wall immediately behind the subject. 
 The Venetians aimed at and obtained the effect of distance. 
 In Flemish and early Tuscan painters the landscape back- 
 ground is often of high importance and has received great 
 care ; but, while the subject of the picture is in the focus of 
 the naked eye, the landscape background is seen as through a 
 telescope ; for you can note quite well what the little man is 
 doing in the fields some miles away, what the swans are about 
 in the reaches of the river, how the hunt fares up the hill-side. 
 But in Titian's or Tintoret's backgrounds it is real landscape, 
 seen as the eye would see it. That craggy mountain is really 
 Marmarole and it is really in Cadore, not at the end of the 
 studio ; that river is really the Piave, and it is coming down 
 from its mountain cradle in Visdende and sweeping through the 
 veritable gorge at the Ponte degli Alpi. 
 
 Not impossibly the Venetian Masters were helped to this 
 mastery over distance, to their just appreciation of aerial 
 perspective, by the accident of their dwelling-place. They 
 had ever before them the long levels of the lagoon, the distant 
 yet dominating line of the Alps, the vast, vaulted sky over it 
 all. The problem was ever before them demanding solution 
 and finally received it. So too, in the region of colour, for 
 the first time in the history of painting we come to what may, 
 perhaps, be called a fluid use of colour. Colour is no longer 
 considered as something extraneous to be put on a picture, it is 
 the very essence of the picture itself. No other masters knew 
 the subtleties, the intricacies of colour as did the Venetians ; 
 no other school handles colour with the same freedom and 
 certainty ; as though to the manner born they bathe in colour ; 
 their "delighted spirit" moves in that medium and is native 
 to it, till the gamut is mastered and we can pass from the 
 
 K
 
 130 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 cool and limpid morning-light of the Castelfranco Giorgione, 
 through the golden, meridian glow of Bordone's Ring, to the 
 hot and sultry sunset of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne ; from 
 the gem-like impasto of Tintoret's Miracle of St. Mark, or 
 the lovely St. Ursula of Mendicanti, to the smooth, rich brush 
 stroke of the Catena in the National Gallery ; from that 
 delicious combination of green and rose-pink — that almost 
 appeals to the palate — in Veronese's Donor of the Feast, back 
 again to the delicate mastery over white in Catena's Santa 
 Christina at the Mater Domini. 
 
 And here once more, Venice, the place, helped her 
 painters to their victory. For eyes to see and hearts to 
 understand, the mystery and problems of colour were for ever 
 being displayed and resolved in the heavens above and on the 
 waters beneath. There, for the artist to mark and master 
 were the pearly whites of a Venetian morning — Catena's 
 whites ; the meridian glow on the Palace, the Piazzetta, the 
 Molo; the shimmer of shot-colour on the waters at sunset; the 
 fiery splendour of the afterglow in autumn, burning down to 
 sullen crimson on the lagoon ; — all these appear again on the 
 canvases of Titian and Tintoret, while the delicate tinting of 
 a scirocco day, its pearly greys and evanescent pinks and 
 greens and mauves, give the key to the frescoes in the Palazzo 
 Labia, the work of Tiepolo, last of the great Venetians, first 
 of the modern plein-airists. It was Venice itself that be- 
 stowed upon her painters their two commanding qualities, 
 aerial perspective and mastery over colour. 
 
 Finally, as to the emotional quality of the Venetian 
 painters. Suavity is the note of Giovanni Bellini ; his 
 Madonnas are gentle, his old men gracious, his young saints, 
 like St. Christopher in S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, are sweet 
 with the sweetness of the sea-breeze in their blood. Gentile 
 Bellini and Carpaccio are sumptuous and naive ; sumptuous in 
 detail the procession of the Corpus Domini and the furnish- 
 ings in the St. Ursula series ; na'i've in observation and record 
 of human touches, the secretary writing, the queen in argu- 
 ment with the king ; quaint and humorous in St. Jerome's
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 131 
 
 dog, fond of his master yet bored with the Vulgate, not 
 looking at the spectator yet clearly appealing for sympathy. 
 Splendour is the note of Titian, splendid in vitality the 
 Madonna of the Assumption^ splendid in bacchantic mania 
 the rout that is after Ariadne, splendid in quality of 
 lordly manhood the Toung Man of the Pitti. Pomp of 
 pageantry is Veronese's sphere — The Feast in the House of 
 Levi, the suppliant family of Darius, the decoration of the 
 Ducal Palace, and that noble monument to himself, the 
 Church of S. Sebastiano. In Tintoret we find a note not 
 audible elsewhere among the Masters of the Venetian School. 
 He paints the splendours of Venice in a spirit very slightly 
 less mundane than Veronese, but again and again we are 
 startled by a touch of tragic pathos, that, like "the rumble of 
 a distant drum," breaks through the joyous, pleasure-loving 
 philosophy of his companions, and threatens to lay bare the 
 deeper problems of life and of humanity. Dramatically tragic 
 is the forest of spears against the evening sky in the Cruci- 
 fixion at S. Cassiano ; passionately tragic the beautiful devil 
 — starving in the desert — crying " make these stones bread " 
 to a compassionate Christ who cannot ; tenderly tragic the 
 stricken Madonna at the foot of the Cross, and the head of the 
 beloved St. John, thrown back in a storm of grief, to gaze at 
 his crucified Master ; solemnly tragic the ghostly, lonely, 
 white figure of Christ before the judgment-seat of Pilate. 
 Tintoret is a poet as well as a painter. When he lifts the 
 veil in these moments of tragic pathos, he has left the Renais- 
 sance behind, and is holding out hands to the modern world. 
 
 V. Private Life. 
 
 Ce peuple est une fnmille was the remark of an acute observer 
 upon the general aspect of life in Venice ; and he was right.
 
 132 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 The feudal system had never touched the Republic, and abso- 
 lute as the rule of the oligarchy was, no sharp distinctions of 
 caste divided the State. The aristocracy and the people, the 
 rulers and the ruled, did not face each other from two hostile 
 camps, ready to fly at each other's throats and to tear the 
 community to pieces in the struggle for mastery. Patrician, 
 citizen and artisan felt themselves at one in the possession of 
 Venice ; the great civic functions brought them all out 
 together for a common enjoyment of the show. The 
 patrician, it is true, monopolized, on the whole, the provinces 
 of commerce, arms, politics, but life was not confined or 
 stinted for either citizens or people. Below the patriciate 
 came a kind of aristocracy for the people, the Venetian 
 ♦'citizenship." Admission to it was granted by the Government, 
 and conveyed the right to enter the Ducal Chancery, whence 
 a man might rise to be Secretary to the Ten, diplomatic 
 agent at some minor court, or even Grand Chancellor of the 
 Republic, an office of great dignity, entrusted with all secre- 
 tarial arrangements and custodian of the State archives. 
 Apart from this career in the Chancery, most Venetians were 
 enrolled as members of some religious confraternity or of some 
 trade guild. The guild life oifered a large field for activity, 
 and prevented the citizen from feeling that he was absolutely 
 excluded from all share in the vitality of the State. The 
 people again were employed in arts and crafts and small trad- 
 ing, also enrolled in guilds down to the very sausage-makers 
 and dock-labourers. There was little patent poverty, for 
 public, and more especially private, charity was abundant. 
 The census of 1582 gave only one hundred and eighty-six 
 professional beggars in the whole city. 
 
 The population from top to bottom was pleasure-loving 
 and luxurious. The Government, made public efforts to regu- 
 late private luxury, and sumptuary laws dealing with food, 
 dress, jewellery, adornment of gondolas, follow one another in 
 a rapid succession that proves their inefficiency. Married 
 women were forbidden to wear pearls after ten years of 
 married life. The number and value of pearls that might
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 133 
 
 be worn on the person were prescribed. But the Venetian 
 proverb, '* /egge Venez'tana dura 'na sett'tmatia," records the 
 impossibility of regulating a taste that was shared by the 
 whole population. 
 
 The luxury of Venetian houses impressed all strangers. 
 The Frate Felix Faber, travelling in 1480, declares that the 
 splendours of Venetian houses " shock the Turks and other 
 infidels, who argue from this that Christians care nothing 
 about and hope less from the future life." Casola, who saw 
 Venice a little earlier, describes the bedroom of a lady of the 
 Dolfin family. The room was small, but he thinks it must 
 have taken upwards of two thousand ducats to furnish it. 
 The fire-place was of polished Carrara marble, delicately 
 carved in figures and flowers. The ceiling was wrought in 
 gold and ultramarine. He will not describe the bedside 
 hangings, for he fears his readers would not believe him. 
 
 For sport the nobles had their duck-shooting in the 
 lagoons. The Doge, in particular, owned large preserves in 
 the eastern waters, and it was the custom to invite ambassa- 
 dors and other distinguished personages for a few days' sport ; 
 there was bull and bear-baiting in the Piazza ; regattas for 
 the people, and those curious human pyramids, called xheforze 
 d' Ercole, to the building of which one quarter of the town 
 would challenge another ; sham fights on one or other of the 
 bridges over the small canals ended sometimes in a serious 
 brawl between the popular factions of the Nicolottl and Castel- 
 lan't. But the great delight of noble and of commoner alike 
 was the public spectacles, the great State ceremonies, whether 
 annual like the festival of Ascension Day and the procession 
 of the Corpus Domini, or occasional as upon the reception of 
 some distinguished visitors. Foreign testimony to the splen- 
 dour of Venice is abundant. Petrarch has left us a descrip- 
 tion of a tourney in the Piazza about the middle of the 
 fourteenth century. " The crowd," he says, " was immense. 
 Not an inch unoccupied, and yet no confusion, no tumult, no 
 ill-humour. The sports were held in that Square to which 
 the world cannot show a match. The Doge and his suite
 
 134 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 viewed the spectacle from the platform in front of the church, 
 where stand the four bronze horses, and to shield him from 
 the sun, a rich and many-coloured awning was spread above 
 us. I was there myself upon the Doge's right. The Piazza, 
 the church front, the tower, the roofs, the porticoes and 
 windows presented a living wall of people. At one side of 
 the basilica was a magnificent pavilion for the Venetian 
 ladies who, to the number of four hundred, lent splendour to 
 the scene. Some cousins to the King of England were pre- 
 sent, and the strangers were amazed at the sight of so much 
 magnificence." The note of admiration for her splendour is 
 expressed by all who visited Venice during the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries. She laid herself out to attract and to 
 dazzle. The aristocratic club of the " Calza " or " Hose " 
 was formed expressly for this purpose. It was composed of 
 the younger nobility, and took a leading part in every kind of 
 function public or private. The costume was becoming ; 
 tight, parti-coloured hose, embroidered with devices of bird or 
 beast, a doublet of velvet with slashed sleeves, a shirt of finest 
 embroidered linen, a cloak of silk with the emblem of the 
 club embroidered on its lining, a black or red velvet cap with 
 2 jewel or medallion brooch and jewelled shoes, made up the 
 bright attire of these young bloods, whose portraits are faith- 
 fully produced in Gentile Bellini's Corpus Domini. 
 
 Most splendid perhaps of all the splendid spectacles of 
 Venice was the reception of Henry III. of France in 1574. 
 That he might make his entry by the main water-door of 
 Venice, the Piazzetta, he was lodged at Murano on the night 
 of July 17th. A guard of honour, sixty halberdiers in 
 azure and or, the colours of France, did duty outside. 
 Inside forty young nobles of the Calza waited upon the 
 King. Next morning, which was Sunday, after Mass, Henry 
 and his suite embarked on a galley manned by four hundred 
 rowers in azure and or. Fourteen galleys and an endless 
 train of smaller boats adorned with oriental carpets, tapestry 
 and silks, and above all the barges of the various guilds, with 
 tropliies of their several arts and crafts, formed an escort.
 
 THE SPLENDOUR 135 
 
 In splendid procession, a blaze of colour on the lagoon, they 
 swept from Murano to the Lido where Palladio had raised a 
 triumphal arch and Veronese and Tintoretto had painted it. 
 The cortege then moved from the Lido to the Molo, and 
 thence up the Grand Canal to the Palazzo Foscari, where 
 his Majesty was lodged. Serenades, regattas, banquets, 
 comedies, allegorical processions, sham fights, followed one 
 another in profusion during the royal visit, and Henry was 
 sped on his way to Padua by the Brenta with a memory of 
 Venice he was unable to forget. 
 
 But while the city in the lagoon justified her claim to be 
 the "revel of the earth, the masque of Italy," she was also 
 earning that more sinister title " Gehenna of the Waters." 
 Corruption was rife. The Council of Ten were called 
 upon again and again to punish the licence of the young 
 nobles to whom not even the nunneries were sacred. Bands 
 of brav'i, in the pay of the greater nobles, were a terror to 
 the people, whose persons, homes, and families were con- 
 stantly exposed to acts of rapine and of violence. The 
 police were impotent to cope with the mischief in a city 
 of such complicated alleys as Venice. The culprit often 
 escaped and went to swell that array of banditti who haunted 
 the borders of the Venetian territory, waiting till some service 
 as a spy or an assassin would give a comrade the opportunity 
 to purchase their return as his reward. The dark side of 
 the picture is revealed by the archives of the Ten, and the 
 criminal courts. But to Europe, to the outside world, the 
 splendour of Venice was summed up in the enthusiastic 
 eulogy of Philippe de Comines (1494): "The Grand 
 Canal is the most beautiful street in the world, and lined by 
 the finest houses. They are large and tall and made of 
 solid stone. The older ones are all painted, and those built 
 in the last hundred years are faced in white marble that they 
 bring from Istria, a hundred miles away, and have large slabs 
 of porphyry and serpentine upon their fronts. It is the most 
 triumphant city I have ever seen. Here the highest honours 
 are paid to ambassadors and strangers ; here is the best of
 
 136 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 governments, here the service of God is most solemnly 
 celebrated." To all of which Frate Faber had already 
 borne confirming testimony in 1459. " Never was city more 
 beautiful," he says, " or more precious among all the cities 
 in Christendom or out of it, than this city of Venice. Never 
 have I seen anything more strange or marvellous, and never 
 in any place have I sojourned so long a time." 
 
 The splendour of the Republic has long passed away. 
 We read of her achievements as in a dream, and strain the 
 imaginative vision to reconstruct her public and her private 
 life ; but her art still lives both in architecture and painting, 
 and through it she is still a vital factor in the history of the 
 world.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DECLINE 
 
 I. The Causes. 
 
 Rome was not built in a day, nor did Venice succumb in a 
 century. The process of construction had been slow, the 
 process of decline was gradual. Moreover, if in the regions 
 of commerce and arms the first symptoms of retrogression 
 are already discernible at the opening of the sixteenth 
 century, the outward pomp and splendour of the Republic 
 combined to dazzle Europe and deceive its own citizens 
 for many a year to come. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the causes of the decline may be con- 
 sidered under two aspects, internal and external, which were 
 interdependent to a large degree. A certain rigidity or con- 
 servatism characterized the Venetian Government, and was 
 either caused by or caused a corresponding lack of elasticity 
 in the Venetian temperament which prevented the State and 
 the people from adapting themselves to altered circumstances. 
 When commerce began to decline the Government could hit 
 upon no device for restoring it save to insist upon existing 
 methods, aims and regulations. When the great trade-route 
 was thrown from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic by the 
 discovery of the passage round the Cape, Venice made no 
 serious effort to meet the new conditions. The decline in 
 her trade led her nobles to abandon commerce, and in 1535 
 a Venetian observer remarks: " Non si da p'tu a negot'tar in la 
 cilta, ne alia navigation, ne ad altra laudtvole industria." The 
 accumulation of wealth gradually fell off, the spending of 
 wealth began. Banking, as we have already seen, proved 
 
 137
 
 138 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 disastrous; a change came over the temper of the aristocracy ; 
 splendour and pleasure became absorbing pursuits ; great 
 landed estates on terra-ferma and sumptuous houses in Venice 
 occupied the leisure and exhausted the purses of the Venetian 
 nobility. The expansion of commerce made the State ; the 
 decline of commerce proved fatal to it. And that decline 
 was intimately connected with three dominating external 
 events, the fall of Constantinople in 1453, ^^ discovery of 
 the Cape-route in i486, and the advent of the European 
 Powers in 1495. 
 
 {a) The Fall of Constantinople. With a feeble 
 Christian Power in Constantinople, Venice, after crushing 
 Genoa, had no rival in the Levant trade. But with an 
 aggressive and expanding infidel seated on the Bosphorus 
 her position entirely changed. She owned possessions, islands 
 in the Levant, and factories in Asia Minor, that the Turk 
 coveted. If she made terms with the Mussulmans and traded 
 with them, Europe accused her of treachery to Christendom ; 
 it she fought them she was left alone to exhaust her treasury 
 in the struggle. She was exposed to a suspicion chronic in 
 Christian and Mussulman alike. 
 
 {b) The Discovery of the Cape=route. But a 
 still more fatal blow was dealt at the very source of 
 Venetian vitality by the discovery of the passage round the 
 Cape of Good Hope. The shrewder heads in Venice 
 recognized the danger at once, and Priuli notes in his Diary: 
 "On receipt of the news (of Diaz's voyage) the whole city 
 was distressed and astounded, and the wisest take it to be 
 the worst tidings we have ever had ; for it is well known 
 that Venice reached the height of her glory and riches 
 through commerce alone, and now by this new route the 
 spice cargoes will be taken straight to Lisbon, whither 
 Germans, Flemish, French will flock to buy them. They 
 will find the goods cheaper in Lisbon than they can be in 
 Venice ; for before the freights reach Venice by the old 
 route, they have to pay exorbitant dues for transit through 
 Syria and the lands of the Soldan of Egypt." That puts
 
 THE DECLINE i39 
 
 the fact in a nutshell. The discovery of the Cape-route 
 saved the breaking of bulk between India and Euro])e, ami 
 saved the dues exacted by the Moslem masters of Syria and 
 Egypt. The world's trade-route was shifted from the 
 Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and passed into the hands 
 of the Portuguese, Dutch and English. Venice lost her 
 monopoly of the Oriental traffic. 
 
 The Republic never made a serious effort to remedy the 
 mischief to which she was fully alive. Probably she could 
 not have helped herself. Had she attempted to share in the 
 Atlantic trade she would have found herself taxed by Spain 
 at Gibraltar, she would have offended the Soldan of Egypt 
 by a brusque abandonment of the overland Syrian route, and 
 she would have been obliged to change the traditions of her 
 shipbuilding, for Mediterranean galleys were quite unsuited 
 to Atlantic waves. Moreover, even had she succeeded in 
 tapping the Atlantic trade and bringing it once more inside 
 the Mediterranean to Venice, she would have found that the 
 Dutch, Flemish and German merchants preferred to buy in 
 Portugal, and so to avoid the dangers of the Alpine passes 
 and the blackmail of Rhenish barons. In fact the dis- 
 covery of the Cape-route destroyed for Venice the value of 
 her geographical position upon which, in the long run, her 
 whole career was built. The opening of the Suez Canal 
 has already done much to restore to her that advantage. The 
 Republic itself was alive to this point, for we find her 
 instructing her Ambassador at Constantinople to urge upon 
 the Sultan the opening of a canal from the Nile to the 
 Red Sea, but in vain. Venice lost her Eastern trade, her 
 commerce declined, and with it went her life. 
 
 (c) The Advent of Foreign Powers. The advent 
 of the great European Powers, France, Spain, the Empire, 
 equally contributed to the decline of the Republic. There 
 were French and Spanish claims on Naples ; Orleans claims 
 on the Duchy of Milan ; shadowy Imperial claims to grant 
 investiture to Italian Princes. We have seen that the 
 Orleans claim on Milan became active by the death of the
 
 140 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 last Visconti. The claim of the French Crown on Naples 
 and the Orleans claim on Milan were united in the person 
 of Louis XII. Jean Lascaris, Louis' Ambassador at Venice 
 in 1 507, warned the Republic of its danger from Imperial 
 claims, sachans quel droyt ledit rot des Roma'tns se dit avoir sur 
 touties ■vous (i;oj) 'villes de la Lombardle." Italian Princes, in 
 their rivalry, thought to use these various claims to further 
 their own ends, and invited the foreigner to intervene. He 
 did, with the result that the whole balance of Italian politics 
 was upset. Neither Florence, Milan nor Venice, divided as 
 they were, could cope with France or Spain in the field, nor 
 guide, in the Cabinet, their policies which were governed by 
 European not by Italian considerations. The result was fatal 
 to Milan, and all but fatal to Venice. She retained her 
 independence, it is true, but she was crippled. 
 
 Broadly speaking the decline of Venice may be traced to 
 the shifting of two great centres of gravity, the commercial 
 centre by the discovery of the Cape-route, the political centre 
 by the advent of the foreigner. 
 
 II. The Events of the Decline. 
 
 {a) The Second Turkish War and the League 
 of Cambray. In the preceding chapter we have seen that 
 Venice had reached her fullest mainland expansion by the 
 close of the fifteenth century. In the war of Ferrara she had 
 come into collision with the Pope, had been really worsted, 
 though she retained Rovigo and the Polesine by the peace of 
 Bagnolo (1484), and above all she had adopted the fatal 
 policy of appealing to the ultramontane Powers when she 
 invited the French to make good their claims on Milan and 
 on Naples in order to divert the attention of her two enemies 
 Sforza and the King of Naples. It was a fatal policy which 
 other Italian Princes had adopted before, however, and it 
 eventually led up to the League of Cambray by which Venice 
 was irretrievably crippled as a land Power.
 
 THE DECLINE 141 
 
 Italian politics at this period present a bewildering morass 
 of league and counter-league. The imminent descent of the 
 foreign Powers led each Italian State to attempt, by diplo- 
 macy, some extension for itself or to prevent the expansion 
 of a neighbour. The idea of a descent on Italy, proposed 
 by an Italian, took root and ripened at the French Court 
 until Charles VIII. finally made up his mind to conquer 
 Naples. He found a warm supporter in Lodovico Sforza. 
 Sforza had usurped the Duchy of Milan from his nephew, 
 Gian Galeazzo, who was married to a daughter of Alfonzo 
 of Naples, and feared that Alfonzo would attack him in 
 order to restore his daughter and her husband. Charles 
 came ; met no opposition to speak of, marched through 
 Italy, and conquered Naples. But this unexpected success 
 alarmed all Italian Princes, and roused the jealousy of Spain 
 and the Emperor. Milan and Venice entered an alliance 
 with Spain and the Emperor to crush Charles. The actual 
 work fell to the two Italian States. They attacked Charles 
 at Fornovo (1495) on his way back to France, and though 
 they won a victory the King himself escaped. 
 
 But the main result of the French descent was this. It 
 brought a foreign Sovereign actively into the sphere of Italian 
 politics, it roused the jealousy and cupidity of other foreign 
 Sovereigns, the King of Spain and the Emperor. Italy 
 now became the field for their rivalries. Statesmen who had 
 thought to use the foreigner now found themselves pawns in 
 the hands of more powerful ultramontane Monarchs ; Italian 
 States were absorbed in the clash of the larger European 
 nationalities. Italian Princes found themselves reduced to 
 the construction of feeble alliances liable to be destroyed by 
 mutual jealousy the moment external pressure was removed. 
 
 Venice, by the creation of her land empire, was caught in 
 the turmoil of Italian politics, which were governed now by 
 events extraneous to Italy itself. In 1498, Charles VIII. 
 died, and the accession of Louis XII. altered the whole 
 aspect of affairs. Louis combined in his own person the 
 claim of the French Crown to Naples and Genoa, and the
 
 142 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Orleans claim to the Duchy of Milan. Both Sforza and 
 Venice appreciated the new situation. Sforza surmised an 
 attack on his duchy, and Venice thought she saw an oppor- 
 tunity of extending her Lombard dominions at the expense 
 of that duchy. Sforza proposed a defensive alliance, but 
 he found that the Republic had already taken her line. She 
 was still ambitious ; still anxious to expand. She promised 
 to assist Louis in his attack on Milan in return for Cremona 
 and its district. That was a policy treacherous to Italy and 
 fatal to herself, for it convinced every Italian Prince that the 
 Republic was animated by that very "insatiable greed" 
 which was pleaded in justification of the League of Cambray. 
 Treacherously deserted as he considered himself to be, 
 Sforza replied with similar weapons. He urged the Turk 
 to attack Venice. 
 
 But the incentives of Sforza were not necessary. The 
 Sultan Bajazet IL had already assumed an aggressive attitude. 
 The Venetian Envoy, sent on a special mission to Constanti- 
 nople, judged war to be inevitable. Antonio Grimani was 
 appointed to the command of the fleet, but, on asking for 
 precise instructions as to whether he should give battle or 
 not if he fell in with the Turk, the Senate returned no 
 decisive answer. The Republic dreaded the encounter. Its 
 treasury was exhausted, and it had recourse to special tax- 
 ation of the mainland, a step it was always loath to take, and 
 raised about 54,000 ducats ; moreover the political situation 
 in Italy and Europe was so complicated that a war with the 
 Turk seemed more perilous than ever. 
 
 The hostile fleets met in the waters of Sapienza at the 
 south-west point of the Morea, a place already ominous in 
 Venetian history as the scene of the great Genoese victory. 
 Several days were spent in manoeuvres and engagements. 
 The final encounter took place on August 25, I499. The 
 result was a crushing defeat for Venice. Malipiero, who 
 was present, blames the dispositions of the commander, and 
 the disobedience of some of the crews ; " had the others 
 remained," he writes, "we should have had the Turkish
 
 THE DECLINE I43 
 
 fleet in our power, as sure as God is God. Our French 
 allies seeing this want of discipline, refused on their side to 
 attack. They say our fleet is all very well to look at, but 
 had not a chance of doing good service. All brave men in 
 the fleet, and they are many, are weeping and calling the 
 commander a traitor, because he had not the pluck to do his 
 duty." On receipt of the news at Venice, Grimani was 
 superseded and recalled in irons. He was tried, condemned 
 and banished, but lived to be elected Doge in 1521. 
 
 To crown the misfortunes of the Republic came the tidings 
 that the Turks were in Friuli. The local militia refused to 
 take the field against them, nor did the mercenary troops 
 show greater courage. Venice was forced to sue for peace in 
 humiliating terms. For answer she received the brutal truth 
 flung at her Envoy by the Grand Vizier. " You can tell the 
 Doge," said the Turk, "that he has done wedding the sea. 
 It is our turn now." The Venetian Envoy, returned to 
 Venice, re infectd, and the straits in which the Republic 
 then found itself and the terrors that loomed ahead are 
 recorded sadly but justly by the diarist Priuli. " The City 
 is in dire calamity for fear of losing her maritime possessions, 
 the source of Venetian honour and wealth. Her fame and 
 her glory are bound up with the sea, nor is there any doubt 
 that if trade and maritime possession fail the Venetians their 
 reputation and their glory will dwindle away in a very few 
 years." That was the truth of the situation. The better 
 heads in Venice cherished no illusions. Europe would give 
 the Republic no help, nay, some European Powers were 
 secretly urging the Turk to further hostility ; clouds were 
 gathering on the mainland of Italy, and in 1 503 she made 
 peace with the Sultan. 
 
 After each brush with the Turk, the Republic, unsup- 
 ported by Europe, suffered in loss of prastige. By the treaty 
 of I 503, her position in the Morea was greatly weakened. 
 Modon and Coron were lost, and Venice was warned to 
 prepare for an attack on Cyprus or on Corfu. Yet never had 
 the Republic been in greater need of peace at sea, a full
 
 144 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 treasury and concentration of her resources to meet the storm 
 that was brewing on the mainland. But her action throughout 
 this difficult period was calculated to confirm the impression 
 of her " insatiable greed," and to mass against her all the 
 Italian Powers who were jealous of her grandeur, and the 
 European Powers who coveted her possessions. By the help 
 of the French and by an act of treachery to Italy she had come 
 into possession of Cremona, and now she had no sooner signed 
 a peace with the Turk than she took a step which confirmed 
 the worst suspicions against her and precipitated the crisis. 
 
 Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI., was endeav- 
 ouring to build up a strong central Italian State. He called 
 it recovering the States of the Church. The corner-stone of 
 his edifice were the life of his father, the Pope, and the 
 support of d'Amboise, the Minister of Louis of France, for 
 whom he was to secure the Tiara when vacant. Cesare's 
 success was remarkable. He held Urbino, Rimini, Forli, 
 Imola, Faenza, Cesena, the whole Romagna in fact, and 
 Venice watched his progress with suspicion. But suddenly 
 the Pope died. Cesare was unable to control the conclave. 
 D'Amboise was not elected Pope, The Borgia visions 
 vanished into air. After the brief reign of Pius III., a 
 masterful Pope, Julius II., ascended the throne and declared 
 that, cost what it might, he would take and hold all that to 
 the Church belonged, including of course what Cesare had 
 professed to win back for the Church. 
 
 But the collapse of the Borgia designs, the dismemberment 
 of his territory, and the insignificant reign of Pius III., had 
 stirred the cupidity of Venice. By a rapid stroke she induced 
 the leading cities of the Romagna to place themselves under 
 her protection. The Duke of Urbino followed suit. Pope 
 Pius protested, but feebly, and before negotiations could go 
 far he died. In the interval between his death and the 
 election of a new Pope, Venice pressed forward with feverish 
 haste to secure Rimini and Imola. To the cooler heads her 
 action seemed dangerous. " It would have been better," 
 notes Priuli, " had they not snatched at every fly in the air
 
 THE DECLINE 145 
 
 Ambition and cupidity blinded thcni. On the death of the 
 Pope the Republic desired to make itself Lord of all the 
 Romagna without considering what might happen." 
 
 Once again Priuli showed his statesmanlike quality ; for 
 the new Pope was the fighting Julius, pledged to recover for 
 the Church what to the Church belonged — including 
 Romagna — and therefore to make the Republic "consider," 
 when too late, "what might happen." Venice endeavoured to 
 persuade the Pope that she had no other desire in occupying 
 the Romagna than to crush a cruel tyrant, Cesare Borgia, and 
 declared that she herself would be a quieter and better-paying 
 vassal. The Pope replied to the Venetian Envoy : " My 
 Lord Ambassador, you give us good words and your 
 Government evil deeds." This was followed by a Bull 
 (1504) demanding restitution, to which the Republic replied 
 by an emphatic refusal, and a rupture became inevitable. 
 The Pope himself had declared to the Venetian Ambassador 
 that he had neither money nor men wherewith to fight the 
 Republic, but he threatened to appeal to the Sovereigns of 
 Europe. Events were preparing allies for his Holiness. 
 
 By the secret treaty of BJois (September 22, 1504) 
 Maximilian and Louis had come to an understanding. Louis 
 was invested in the Duchy of Milan, and agreed to join 
 Maximilian in an attack on Venice. Among the adherents 
 named by the King of France was not his ally Venice but 
 the Pope. It was impossible, however, that the rivalry of 
 the Emperor and the King should not lead to a collision. 
 Maximilian was really desirous of expelling the French 
 from the Duchy of Milan. With that object in view he 
 endeavoured (1507) to win the Republic to his side. He 
 wanted command of the passes. Venice replied that she 
 could do nothing hostile to her ally France, but promised 
 neutrality, and declared that a neutral policy would prevent 
 her from opening the passes to Maximilian if he came armed. 
 The Emperor gave the Republic a month to reconsider its 
 answer, and threatened, if it persisted in refusal, to join with 
 France in partitioning its dominions. The Pope had already 
 
 L
 
 146 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 made overtures to the Emperor, promising assistance on 
 condition that Faenza and Rimini were restored to him. 
 
 On March i, i 508, the Doge finally informed the Imperial 
 Ambassador that the Republic, in virtue of her treaties, could 
 not grant passage to the Imperial forces. Maximilian 
 attacked the Republic in Friuli, Cadore and the Trentino, 
 without success, and in June i 508 a truce was patched up. 
 But the Pope was still outside Faenza and Rimini ; and this 
 cessation of hostilities did not suit his purpose. By the close 
 of the year the Cardinal d'Amboise for the King of France, 
 and Margaret of Austria for the Emperor, met at Cambray. 
 They were armed with full powers and resolved to meet 
 alone without the presence of either the Spanish Ambassador 
 or the Papal Nuncio — whose views and wishes were, however, 
 well known. After many stormy interviews during which the 
 Cardinal and the Princess, as she herself reports, all but tore 
 each other's hair, on December 10 they came to an agree- 
 ment. A European league was formed for the purpose of 
 " putting a stop to losses, injuries, rapine and damage which 
 Venice had inflicted not merely on the Holy See but also on 
 the holy Roman Empire, the House of Austria, the Duchy of 
 Milan, the King of Naples and other Princes, seizing and 
 'tyrannically occupying their territories, cities and castles as 
 though she was conspiring to the common ill ; therefore we 
 find that it is not merely useful and honourable but even 
 necessary to summon all to a joint revenge in order to 
 extinguish the universal conflagration caused by the insatiable 
 cupidity of the Venetians and their thirst for dominion." So 
 ran the preamble of the League of Cambray. Venice had 
 sown the wind by her reckless extension on the mainland, by 
 *' snatching at every fly in the air " ; the whirlwind was now 
 upon her. 
 
 The preliminaries agreed upon, it remained for the 
 contracting parties to divide the spoil. The Pope was to 
 receive Ravenna, Faenza, Rimini, and the rest of the 
 Romagna ; the Emperor, Istria, Friuli, Treviso, Padua, 
 Vicenza, Verona ; the French, Brescia, Bergamo, Crema
 
 THE DECLINE 147 
 
 and Cremona ; the King of Spain, the sea-coast towns in 
 Apulia ; the King of Hungary, Dalmatia ; the Duke of 
 Savoy, Cyprus. Venice in short was to be reduced once 
 more to the circumference of the lagoons. The Pope 
 pledged himself to employ the spiritual armoury, and each 
 member of the League undertook to secure for himself 
 the share assigned him ; and herein lay the salvation of 
 Venice. 
 
 The Republic was not unprepared for the combination 
 against her. From time to time her ambassadors had 
 warned her that something of this nature was in preparation. 
 The situation, however, was of extreme gravity. Without a 
 single ally, her treasury exhausted by the Turkish War, she 
 did not, therefore, lose heart. By February of 1 509 she 
 placed a considerable army in the field, while still endeav- 
 ouring to conciliate the Pope and to seduce the Emperor by 
 pointing to French ambition and offering assistance against it. 
 But in vain. The Doge, Leonardo Loredan, summoned 
 the Great Council and laid the situation before it. The 
 cause of the attack, he said, was jealousy and nothing more. 
 Every one was against them, they had only themselves to 
 look to. He would himself set the example by sending all 
 his plate to the Mint ; and he did. 
 
 The attack began. On April 27, 1509, the Bull of 
 Excommunication was launched. The Republic forbade its 
 publication. No one was permitted to receive it ; the police 
 were ordered to pull it down wherever affixed ; Doctors in 
 Canon Law were appointed to advise the Government, which 
 appealed to " a future Council," and succeeded in fixing its 
 appeal to the doors of St. Peter's in Rome. The French 
 also played their part. By May 14 the Venetian troops 
 under Pitigliano and d'Alviano met the French forces in the 
 Milanese at Agnadello on the Adda, and were utterly 
 defeated. The results of the battle were disastrous. 
 Bergamo and Brescia capitulated to the enemy. No one 
 knew how long Verona, Vicenza, Padua would remain 
 faithful. It was deemed necessary to prepare for the siege of
 
 148 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Venice itself; great supplies of corn were bought and water- 
 mills set up. 
 
 Meantime the Imperial troops descended on Italy by the 
 valley of the Adige to secure their share of the spoil assigned 
 to the Emperor by the treaty of Cambray. Verona and 
 Vicenza passed into their hands ; so too Padua. Treviso still 
 held for the Republic. But the Emperor himself delayed his 
 arrival. The Imperial troops committed atrocities in the 
 capitulated cities. A reaction set in. Padua returned to her 
 allegiance. Maximilian arrived and was twice repulsed in 
 attempts on the city, and finally in October he was compelled 
 to abandon the effort to make good his claim on Padua. 
 
 The tide turned once more in favour of Venice. The 
 Pope, having recovered Rimini, Faenza and the Romagna, 
 had secured the objects for which he joined the League of 
 Cambray. Moreover, as an Italian Prince, he desired neither 
 the presence of the foreigner, nor the annihilation of Venice, 
 which would upset the whole balance of Italian politics. 
 Venice had still something to offer him, the settlement of all 
 the outstanding questions as to the relations of Church and 
 State, the nomination of bishops, taxation of clergy, mortmain, 
 the trial of criminous clerks, the appeal to a future Council. 
 By a surrender all along the line the Republic detached 
 the Pope from the League and made formal submission in 
 Rome on February 24, 15 10. But the Council of Ten in 
 dealing with ecclesiastics employed an ecclesiastical weapon ; 
 they entered a secret protest declaring these concessions null 
 and void as being extorted under necessity, and to this protest 
 they appealed later on in their famous controversy with Pope 
 Paul V. 
 
 The imminent danger was past, but the recovery was slow 
 and never complete. Gradually, captured cities, Vicenza, 
 Verona, Bergamo, Brescia, weary of their foreign masters, 
 returned to the Ensign of St. Mark, but not till they had 
 suffered atrocities such as the smoke-caves of Vicenza in 
 1510, or the sack of Brescia in 15 12. This return of the 
 mainland cities, all of which were claimed either by the
 
 THE DECLINE 149 
 
 French or by the Emperor in virtue of the treaty of Cambray, 
 exposed the RepubHc to constant attacks from one party or the 
 other. The weakness of the RepubHc is shown by the 
 manner in which she was forced to side first with one and 
 then with the other of the rival Sovereigns struggling for the 
 supremacy in North Italy. The Republic believed that she 
 had less to fear from France than from Spain and Austria, and 
 her tendency was to alliance with the French. The death of 
 Gaston de Foix in 1512, and the battle of Novara in 15x3, 
 induced the French to leave Italy, and the Spanish troops 
 under Cardona menaced the Republic as the ally of France 
 and pushed down to the very verge of the lagoon, but found 
 the city of Venice impregnable. 
 
 The Republic was no more fortunate in the long struggles 
 between Francis I. and Charles V., and by 1523, seeing that 
 French arms were not prosperous and that Francis delayed to 
 appear in person, Venice came to terms with Charles, who 
 was the real arbiter of Italy. By these terms she was to hold 
 her mainland possessions up to the Adda, on payment of a 
 fine, and the Pope and the King of England were to be 
 sureties for the observation of the treaty. 
 
 The settlement of the peninsula in 1529 by the peace 
 of Cambray and Charles' coronation at Bologna in 1530 
 mark the opening of a new era in the history of Italy and of 
 Venice. For the future the centre of political gravity lies 
 outside Italy. The foreign names of the treaties and conven- 
 tions — Blois, Cambray, Noyon, Brussels, Cognac, Madrid — 
 which governed the opening years of the sixteenth century, 
 prove how complete the change had been. For the future the 
 Pope and Spain were the dominant powers in Italy, with 
 France waiting to take an advantage. In face of the combina- 
 tion of Spain and Rome the whole aspect of Venetian history 
 was altered. The Republic henceforth lived in a perpetual 
 dread of losing her independence. She suspected everywhere, 
 in the City no less than on her frontiers, Spanish gold and 
 Spanish conspiracies. She retained her independence it is 
 true, thanks to a double accident, the impregnability of the
 
 ISO THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 lagoons and the mutual jealousy of conflicting powers, but she 
 had come so near losing it that she trembled for it ever after. 
 We are in the presence of a new Venice. A dwindling 
 treasury and shrinking commerce left her too weak to face 
 either France or Spain in arms. Her whole efforts were now 
 directed to the preservation of her freedom by diplomacy, by 
 the subtle balancing of rival Sovereigns. It is the epoch of 
 the ambassadors, of the growing power of the Ten and its 
 political sub-committee, the Council of Three. 
 
 Venice was under no delusion as to the true result of the 
 League of Cambray. She had preserved her independence, 
 but her own orators in the Senate told her frankly that 
 she was helpless between the anvil and the hammer ; that 
 she had no money ; that the war had cost her, between troops 
 and subsidies to shifting allies, upwards of three million two 
 hundred thousand ducats. The Doge himself had declared 
 that the public treasury could not support the burden ; that 
 Spain made no more of the patriciate than of " two thousand 
 five hundred flies." He appealed to private generosity and 
 cited patriotic examples in the past. But he made no offer 
 himself, and the appeal remained unanswered. Sanudo, the 
 diarist, bursts out, " and I must add what pains me to record, 
 when the Grand-Chancellor called for volunteers or sub- 
 scriptions for Padua and Treviso not a man moved ; a fact of 
 great moment and of evil omen for our State." Everything 
 points to the conclusion that during the crisis of the League 
 of Cambray Venice ceased to be a first-class Power in 
 Europe. 
 
 {l>) Later Turkish Wars and the Loss of Cyprus. 
 Although after the League of Cambray Venice ceased to be a 
 first-rate Power, her possessions in the Levant still brought her 
 into continual collision with the Turk. Europe, while lauding 
 the Republic as the " bulwark of Christendom," left her alone, 
 as usual, to carry on the struggle single-handed, and never at 
 any time in her career are the annals of the Republic adorned 
 with more illustrious names, Bragadin, Venier, Lazzaro 
 Mocenigo, Francesco Morosini. As the prestige of Venice
 
 THE DECLINE ISI 
 
 declines, the prowess of individual Venetians becomes more 
 conspicuous. 
 
 The second Turkish War closed, as we have seen, in 
 a treaty which deprived Venice of Coron and Modon in 
 the Morea and left her sensibly weaker. Throughout her 
 relations with the Turk it was impossible for Venice to avoid 
 a war if the Sultan desired it. Venetian possessions scattered 
 about the Levant were always open to attack, Venetian 
 shipping was exposed to Turkish piracy, measures of defence 
 could always be declared a casus belli. Petrarch's description 
 of the relations between Venice and Genoa very fitly portrays 
 the situation between Venice and the Turk — " latens bellum 
 defuisse nunquam puto." Her political position too was 
 extremely difficult. If she preserved peace with the Turk, 
 Europe, in alarm at Turkish progress, proposed alliances in 
 which the Republic was invited to join ; these mere invita- 
 tions were sufficient to rouse the suspicion of the Sultans ; if 
 she refused them Europe accused her of treachery to 
 Christendom. 
 
 In November 1533 an event took place which went far to 
 precipitate the next Turkish War. The Venetian Admiral 
 Canal was in the waters of Crete when, one evening, a fleet 
 of twelve sail was reported making for Candia. Canal 
 professed to take them for pirates and rowed out to meet 
 them. It was a fine moonlight night. The Venetians — 
 mostly Dalmatian seamen — attacked with elan. Greek fire 
 caught the shrouds and sails of the Turkish squadron. Their 
 commander threw himself into the sea but was captured ; his 
 galley and four others were taken, and the crews put to 
 the sword. Venice, though vaunting her victory, sent most 
 humble excuses to the Sultan Suleiman, while the death of 
 Canal pacified the Caliph for a time and relieved the 
 Republic of a grave dilemma. 
 
 In I 535, Charles V. made his famous expedition to Tunis 
 and defeated the Turkish commander, Chaireddin Barbarossa. 
 Suleiman recognized that he had now to deal with a great 
 power, and when Francis I. urged him to attack the Empire
 
 IS2 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 in Hungary, he lent a ready ear, and in 1536 he sent an 
 envoy to invite Venice to join the enterprise. Venice refused. 
 The Sultan imposed a tax on Venetian merchandise in Syria, 
 put a large fleet on the sea and threatened Corfu. 
 
 Thus the third Turkish War began, and as usual Venice 
 was left alone. The Turks besieged Corfu, but were forced 
 to raise the siege, though Venice lost Scyros, Patmos, -^gina 
 and Paros. The Republic made every effort to bring about a 
 European combination against the Turk, and in the hope of 
 success, she rejected overtures of peace. In 1538 an 
 alliance between the Emperor, the Pope, and Venice was 
 signed in Rome. The allies designed an army, on paper, and 
 partitioned the Turkish dominions ; the Emperor was to 
 receive Constantinople, Venice, all that she had ever held in 
 the Levant. But though Venice undertook serious prepara- 
 tions for war, her allies were of no assistance to her, and the 
 French Ambassador suggested that the Emperor was merely 
 pushing Venice into a ruinous struggle with the Turk in order 
 to weaken and then absorb her, and he went so far as 
 to recommend the Republic to come to terms with Suleiman. 
 
 Meantime the Turkish fleet was out and threatening Crete. 
 When the Venetians were at last joined by a certain number 
 of their allies, Doria, with counsel of prudence, merely 
 hampered the Venetian commander, Capello, and the 
 campaign closed abortively. 
 
 It was impossible for the Republic to support the con- 
 tinual drain on her finance. A campaign without results was 
 almost equivalent to the dead loss of the fleet; the long inaction 
 in winter quarters and the revictualling and refitting of the 
 fleet for the next campaign came near to doubling the initial 
 expense. A consideration of the state of their finances and 
 the conviction that little trust could be placed in their allies 
 forced Venice to open negotiations for peace. The Turks 
 were known to be favourably inclined, and the French 
 Ambassador offered his services in pursuit of the French 
 policy to detach Venice from the Emperor. The Senate 
 instructed their Ambassador at Constantinople to come to
 
 THE DECLINE 153 
 
 terms, but to hold out on the question of NaupHa and 
 Malvasia, which were to be ransomed, but on no account 
 surrendered. The Ten, however, sent secret orders that if 
 peace could be secured on no other terms Nauplia and 
 Malvasia must go. A secretary of the Ten betrayed these 
 instructions to the French Ambassador, who informed the 
 Porte. When the Venetian Envoy came to treat he found 
 the Pashas resolute. In l 540 peace was concluded on the 
 terms demanded by the Turk. Nauplia and Malvasia were 
 surrendered and Venetian prestige was still further crippled in 
 the Levant. 
 
 It was certain, however, that Turkish arms would not 
 stop short of complete supremacy in the eastern Mediter- 
 ranean. Sultan Suleiman died in 1 566 and was succeeded 
 by Selim, surnamed the Drunkard. The new monarch was 
 flattered into schemes of aggrandizement. Cyprus was 
 suggested as a field for conquest and its famous vintages were 
 extolled. In 1570 the Sultan sent an Envoy to Venice to 
 demand the cession of the island. The Republic prepared 
 for war and made the usual appeal to the Sovereigns of Europe. 
 Philip of Spain promised fifty galleys, and for these the 
 Venetian commander, Zane, determined to wait at Zara. A 
 fatal step ; for discipline was relaxed and the first flush of 
 enthusiasm lost in the idleness of the Dalmatian port ; while 
 the Turk efl^ected a landing and established a footing in the 
 threatened island. Zane moved on to Corfu and there 
 found the Papal forces commanded by Marc' Antonio 
 Colonna and the Spanish under Doria who, however, 
 declared that he had no orders to co-operate with the 
 Venetians. By the ist of September forty-nine Spanish and 
 twelve Papal galleys had reached Corfu. But the season 
 was held to be too far advanced for further operations. By 
 this time, however, the Turks were masters of Cyprus, and 
 the Venetian garrisons were shut up in Nicosia and Fama- 
 gosta. Both towns offered an heroic resistance. But Nicosia 
 fell. Most of its inhabitants were slain. Two thousand 
 slaves and the richest of the plunder were put on board ship
 
 XS4 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 to be sent to Constantinople ; but one of the women-slaves, 
 seizing a torch, fired the powder-magazine and blew her own 
 and two other ships into the air. The head of the governor, 
 Dandolo, was sent to Famagosta as a warning to Marc' 
 Antonio Bragadin, who still held out in that city. Bragadin 
 was buoyed up by hope that the allied fleet might still arrive 
 in time to save him and his gallant garrison. But the fleet 
 lay useless at Crete. Its commanders — no one opinion was 
 supreme — discussed and disputed over plans of campaign. 
 Doria urged caution, Palavicino wished to leave Cyprus and 
 create a diversion by attacking the Dardanelles, Zane in- 
 sisted on advancing to Cyprus and was supported by Colonna. 
 News came that Nicosia had fallen. Zane redoubled his 
 prayers. Doria refused to move. Violent words ensued 
 and Doria sailed away westward. Zane was recalled to 
 Venice to defend his conduct and Sebastian Veneir took the 
 Venetian command. Meantime the Republic had succeeded 
 in creating a new league between the Pope, Spain and Venice. 
 The outline of a large force was sketched on paper, and 
 the chief command was designed for Don John of Austria 
 (1571). But whatever might have been its value, and the 
 events that follow the battle of Lepanto prove how slight 
 that really was, the League came too late to save Cyprus. 
 Famagosta held out with admirable courage ; men, women, 
 children, priests, the Bishop of Limasol, all contributed to 
 the defence. The breaches made by the Turkish cannon were 
 stopped by sacks and gabions filled with earth, loop-holed 
 for musketry. The Turkish commander himself reported 
 that the town seemed defended not by men but by giants. 
 Assault after assault was repulsed, and finally the Turks 
 offered honourable terms which were accepted on August 
 2, I 57 1. The citizens were to embark on vessels supplied 
 by the Turk, and the operation began, but suddenly Mustapha, 
 the Turkish general, asked for security for the ships; Bragadin 
 replied that he had none to give but the public honour. The 
 answer threw Mustapha into a violent passion feigned or real ; 
 a 8ceDe of slaughter followed ; only the heroic Bragadin wai
 
 THE DECLINE 155 
 
 spared for a yet crueller death. Eleven days later he was 
 flayed alive in the Square of Famagosta. Cyprus was lost to 
 Venice after a possession of ninety years. The Republic, 
 too weak in herself to undertake its defence alone, was hope- 
 lessly hampered by allies who considered their own interests 
 only and were less than half-hearted in hers. 
 
 Famagosta fell on August 2, and yet by the end of that 
 month a very powerful fleet of upwards of two hundred and 
 thirty sail was lying at Messina under the command of Don 
 John, Sebastian Venier, and Marc' Antonio Colonna. The 
 Venetians— incapable of acting alone — had been drawn away 
 from the seat of war by their Imperial and Papal allies. The 
 allies sailed to Corfu and there, after long debate, resolved to 
 seek and engage the Turk. The Ottoman fleet was known to 
 be lying oflF Lepanto. On a fine October morning they met. 
 The Turkish admiral miscalculated the numbers and mis- 
 understood the tactics of the Christian fleet. He engaged 
 rashly, and his galley was captured and himself slain. The 
 Turkish fleet was thrown into confusion, and after five 
 hours' fighting the victory was complete in the centre and on 
 both wings. Turkish losses have been variously reckoned, 
 and have been put at 30,000 men, including many of the 
 captains. One hundred and seventeen galleys fell into the 
 hands of the allies along with 5000 prisoners. It was the 
 greatest blow the Ottomans had ever received ; the flower 
 of their fleet was destroyed. 
 
 The news reached Venice in ten days' time, and coming on 
 the top of the dolorous tidings of the loss of Cyprus caused 
 boundless rejoicings. The ship that brought the despatch 
 sailed in by the Lido with Turkish banners trailing at the 
 stern, and on her decks a pile of Turkish turbans. All 
 work was abandoned. The people shut their shops and 
 wrote up " mourning for the death of the Turk." The 
 Doge descended to St. Mark's to celebrate a Te Deum. 
 The diplomat, scholar and historian Paruta pronounced a 
 funeral oration on the fallen. Visions of the Venetian fleet 
 in the Bosphorus and Cyprus regained, blinded the rulers
 
 IS6 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 and the people to the true condition of affairs. But away 
 south, with the fleet, the matter wore another aspect. The 
 Senate might urge Venier to follow up the victory, might 
 point out to Philip that now was the time to press home 
 upon the Turk ; all in vain. Don John took his fleet into 
 winter quarters, and by the next year the Turk, with marvel- 
 lous rapidity, had restored his shattered forces, and the fruits 
 of Lepanto were lost. The Republic was forced to conclude 
 a peace with the Sultan, and another of her maritime 
 possessions was shorn away. 
 
 (c) Fra Paolo SarpI and the Church. It is 
 clear from the preceding sections that the Republic, though 
 keeping a brave front to her enemies, was surely dying. On 
 one point, however, the relations of Church and State, she 
 was destined by the genius of one man to leave a lasting 
 impress upon the history of Europe. 
 
 Owing no doubt to her early connection with the East and 
 the slight bonds which bound her, originally, to the Italian 
 mainland, the Republic had, in matters ecclesiastical, main- 
 tained an attitude of independence towards Rome. For good 
 Venetians St. Mark was at least the equal of St. Peter. The 
 great church of Venice, the centre of her religious life, was 
 St. Mark's, the Doge's private chapel, not San Pietro, the 
 cathedral of the bishop. The Patriarch of Venice and the 
 bishops of Venetian dioceses must, by law, be Venetians. The 
 actions of the Holy Office were invalid without the presence 
 and the consent of lay Assessors appointed by the Government. 
 The Republic embraced the Conciliar principle as enunciated 
 by the Councils of Constance and Basel, and secured for 
 herself, in spite of " Execrabilis," the right to that useful 
 weapon in ecclesiastical warfare, an " Appeal to a future 
 Council." In the war of Ferrara (1310) the Doge had 
 gone so far as to declare that the Pope had nothing to do 
 with " things temporal." But the fulmination of Excom- 
 munication and Interdict, with their disastrous consequences 
 for jjroperty, for trade, for domestic life, brought the 
 Republic to its bearings for a time. In the eyes of the
 
 THE DECLINE 157 
 
 Curia Romana, the ecclesiastical policy of the Venetian 
 State was tainted throughout with Erastianism. But indi- 
 vidual Venetians, her Doges, her Senators, her nobility and 
 people, were never on the whole other than good Catholics. 
 The policy of the State was governed by considerations of 
 aggrandizement, of commerce, of diplomacy, and might, on 
 occasion, fmd itself in collision with Rome, but the Venetian, 
 in his private life, was always an obedient son of the 
 Church. 
 
 That was her general attitude, and in defence of her 
 position as a sovereign State, there were various points upon 
 which Venice, in common with France and Spain, and other 
 Catholic Powers, inevitably came into collision with Rome 
 and the claims of the Curia ; the trial of criminous clerics 
 in secular courts ; the taxation of clergy ; mortmain ; the 
 examination of bishops previous to confirmation by Rome ; the 
 visitation of religious houses ; the erection of new churches 
 and monasteries ; the accumulation of real estate for pious 
 purposes ; the Index of Prohibited Books ; the right to 
 appeal either to a future Council or from a Pope misinformed 
 to a Pope better informed. In addition to these points of 
 possible friction, Venice, as a growing State, was in contact 
 at certain points with territories where the Church was 
 temporal Overlord ; for example, along the Po and the 
 borders of the Duchy of Ferrara. 
 
 As long as relations between Rome and Venice were 
 friendly most of these questions could remain in abeyance, 
 each side tacitly interpreting the position in its own way. 
 But when a fighting Pontiff like Julius II. came to the 
 throne and found that Venice had just laid hands on the 
 Romagna the case was altered. The League of Cambray 
 was formed, as we have seen, and the Pope fired the first 
 shot by fulminating the Interdict. The grounds alleged 
 covered many of the disputed points, nomination to Venetian 
 Sees, taxation of ecclesiastical property, trial of criminous 
 clerks. Venice replied by Appeal to a future Council. But 
 the disastrous course of the war, the defeat of Agnadello and
 
 IS8 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 the loss of her mainland dependencies, made it impossible for 
 the Republic to hold out. She bought the Pope out of the 
 league against her by a general surrender along the whole 
 line of her ecclesiastical policy. By the terms of the agree- 
 ment of February 15, 15 10, she withdrew her Appeal to 
 a Council ; acknowledged the justice of the Interdict ; abolished 
 taxation of clergy without consent from Rome ; renounced 
 her claim to nominate to Venetian Sees, and agreed to 
 surrender criminous clerks to the ecclesiastical courts. In 
 the field of ecclesiastical as in the field of international 
 politics, the League of Cambray proved ruinous to Venice, 
 But, though worsted by the Church, Venice bethought her of 
 a remedy sometimes adopted by the Church. On the day of 
 her surrender she made a " secret protest," declaring the 
 surrender invalid as being extracted under compulsion, and 
 did not hesitate to plead this protest as a demurrer to any 
 claims based on her surrender to Julius. That surrender, 
 however, was outwardly complete. The Venetian Envoys 
 made public submission in the atrium of St. Peter's, and 
 though the actual scourging by the Penitentiary was omitted, 
 the ambassadors were compelled to receive twelve white 
 scourging-rods from twelve members of the Sacred College. 
 Of course the Republic never intended to leave matters thus 
 if an opportunity for recovery presented itself. And it did 
 very soon afterwards in 1527, when Rome was sacked by 
 the Constable de Bourbon and Pope Clement VII. was a 
 trembling prisoner in the Castle of S. Angelo. Then on 
 the pretext of saving them for the Holy See against Imperial 
 plunderers she occupied and fortified the Papal possessions of 
 Ravenna and Cervia, and the Senate passed the following 
 resolution (August 17, 1527): "Forasmuch as our most 
 prudent ancestors were wont to nominate the Bishops of 
 all Sees in our dominions, and then to seek confirmation from 
 the Supreme Pontiff, and whereas this laudable practice was 
 maintained until the Pontificate of Pope Julius in 15 10, at 
 which date the untoward aspect of our affairs comjjclled us to 
 give way, and whereas from thet time onward so excellent
 
 THE DECLINE IS9 
 
 has been, and still is, our conduct towards the Pontiffs, more 
 especially just now when we have spent and are about to 
 spend such untold gold for the rescue of the Holy See, — we 
 may be sure that were his Holiness free to act he would 
 gladly return to the ancient mode of nomination to the 
 prelacy, and seeing that such a fitting opportunity, given 
 us by God Himself, should not be thrown away — the Bishopric 
 of Treviso being now vacant by the death of Don Bernardo 
 de Rossi, — we do proceed to nominate as heretofore ; " and 
 they did. But the Pope never acknowledged the recovery of 
 right, though, in his desire to stand well with Venice, he 
 reluctantly consented in 1533 to allow the taxation of clergy, 
 and held out hopes that he might yield on the nomination of 
 Bishops. In I 564 the Republic accepted and published the 
 decrees of the Council of Trent, though it had entered 
 a special protest against Chapter 35 affecting the trial of 
 criminous clerks, and declared that it accepted the decrees on 
 the understanding that they were modified in accordance 
 with its wishes. But it is doubtful whether Rome shared 
 this understanding. However that may be, the Pope, Pius IV., 
 Gian-Angelo de' Medici, wrote to Venice thanking her for 
 accepting the decrees, and presented the Republic with the 
 Palazzo di San Marco at Rome as a residence for her 
 ambassadors. 
 
 Nor was it long before another Pope, Gregory XII., 
 began (1581) to press his rights under the decrees of Trent. 
 He sent Monsignor Bolognetti to visit the religious houses in 
 the lagoons, a right in secular dispute, and declared that he 
 " declined to be Pope everywhere except in Venice." The 
 Government protested that the Patriarch alone was entitled to 
 perform this office. Bolognetti was recalled and Campeggio 
 sent in his place. The Republic virtually yielded, while 
 preserving the semblance of the rights it claimed. Campeggio 
 associated with himself, as Visitor, the Bishop of Verona, 
 and the Government announced their assent and satisfaction, 
 declaring that the Nuncio visited with the Bishop, not the 
 Bishop with the Nuncio.
 
 l6o THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 In fact the Republic most heartily desired to avoid 
 a serious quarrel with Rome. Her people were genuinely 
 Catholic ; there was no thought of their joining the Pro- 
 testant schism. But there was a great danger lest the 
 charge of heresy, of Protestant leanings, should be launched 
 against the Republic, for that might have let loose the 
 powerful combination of Rome and Spain, the D'lacatholicon, 
 as Sarpi called it, with the result that Venice would have 
 been crushed and absorbed in the Italian dominions of the 
 Spanish Crown. That was the dread ever before the eyes of 
 Venetian statesmen after the League of Cambray had broken 
 the power of the Republic. And this explains the yielding 
 attitude of Venice towards Rome. It is only the imperative 
 necessities of her commerce that induce her to resist as when 
 she persisted in sheltering the Graubiinden merchants, or 
 insisted that Lutheran service should be tolerated at the 
 German Exchange, and Anglican at the British Embassy, 
 or when she wrung from an unwilling Pontiff the Concordat 
 that limited the repressive operation of the Index on the book 
 trade. 
 
 That concession was obtained in 1 596. Matters were 
 then working up to a crisis between the Republic and the 
 Curia. Difficulties had arisen as to confines and water- 
 rights on the Po ; the Pope also claimed that the temporal as 
 well as the spiritual jurisdiction in the See of Ceneda lay 
 with Rome, not with Venice. During the next few years 
 the bill of grievances on one side and the other mounted 
 higher and higher. The presence of the English Ambassador, 
 Sir Henry Wotton, and his private chapel, for instance, 
 offended the Pope ; he protested that heresy would get loose 
 in Venice. Venice again complained of a Bull prohibiting 
 the alienation, by gift or sale, of any ecclesiastical property. 
 She declared that all real estate was being concentrated in 
 the hands of the Church, and renewed the laws which for- 
 bade the foundation of churches, monasteries, hospitals with- 
 out licence. The Nuncio protested against the taxation of 
 the clergy of Brescia, and the Doge replied, *' If the
 
 THE DECLINE i6i 
 
 clergy is protected it must pay its share of the cost ; " an 
 answer which breathes the very spirit of the attitude the 
 RepubHc was now about to assume in defence of the temporal 
 right of Princes against the excessive claims of the Curia 
 Roniana. 
 
 While matters were in this strained position, Pope Clement 
 died in March 1605. After a very brief Pontificate, Leo 
 XI. was succeeded by Camillo Borghese under the title of 
 Paul V. Borghese was a convinced defender of the extreme 
 claims advanced by the Curia. He was hardly warm in his chair 
 before he insisted that France should accept the decrees of 
 Trent ; that Spain should exempt the Jesuits from tithe ; that 
 Genoa should quash an order dissolving a Jesuit congress. 
 When his eye fell upon Venice where so many points of 
 divergence existed it was not likely that he would prove 
 yielding. 
 
 As we have seen, the questions pending were numerous 
 and thorny, and as though they were not enough in themselves, 
 other cases arose to precipitate the rupture. The Patriarch, 
 Matteo Zane, died, and the Senate nominated Vendramin as 
 his successor, asking confirmation from his Holiness. The 
 Pope declared that the nominee of the Republic must present 
 himself for examination at Rome. While this question was 
 pending, the Government had occasion to arrest and try two 
 clerics upon charges of a highly scandalous nature. At first 
 Pope Paul made no representations on the subject, and even 
 addressed a Brief to the Republic thanking it for having enrolled 
 the family of Borghese among the Venetian nobility. But the 
 whole Spanish party was at work in Rome to poison the 
 mind of the Pope against the Republic. Fuentes, the Spanish 
 governor in Milan, was annoyed that Venice should have 
 thwarted his designs on the Valteline by supporting the Grisons, 
 and the massing of troops on the Milanese frontier of Venice 
 warned the Republic to be prepared for attack in that quarter. 
 Presently the Pope began to complain to the Venetian 
 Ambassador in Rome, and instructed the Nuncio to make 
 similar complaints in Venice. The Nuncio obeyed his 
 
 M
 
 i62 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 instructions, and the questions of bequests to ecclesiastical 
 bodies and secular jurisdiction over clerics were argued without 
 heat in the Cabinet. In the first case tlie Government urged 
 that lay property had passed into ecclesiastical hands to such 
 an extent that the revenues were seriously affected. In tlie 
 second the Government recited its ancient privileges to try such 
 cases as those under discussion. The Nuncio replied that the 
 Government ought not to imperil souls by forbidding pious be- 
 quests. But at Rome the Pope was, probably under pressure 
 from the Spanish party, growing vehement, and the Senate 
 was forced into a grave and weighty reply which embodied the 
 Venetian attitude on the subject. " We cannot," they said, 
 " conceive how any one can pretend to prevent a Sovereign, 
 born independent and preserved independent by the grace of 
 God, from taking such steps as may be necessary for the pre- 
 servation of his State when he has no intention to injure 
 tlie Government of neighbouring Sovereigns." The whole 
 difficulty, however, lay just there. If the Church and State 
 could have agreed on a definition of their borders, no quarrel 
 would have arisen. As it was, the Pope claimed sovereignty 
 in all matters spiritual and ecclesiastical. The Republic never 
 disputed his sole competence in the spiritual region, but seeing 
 that ecclesiastics are both men and subjects, the State was not 
 prepared to abandon all jurisdiction over them and admit an 
 . imperium in imperio. The definition of the spheres of 
 I Church and State in the region of matters and persons eccle- 
 Isiastical was the core of the contention. 
 
 On December lO, 1605, the Pope addressed two Briefs 
 to the Republic, one on the subject of ecclesiastical estates, 
 the other referring to the criminal clerics. They were 
 posted to the Nuncio at Venice with orders to present them. 
 Pie hesitated, foreseeing a storm. But on more pcrcm])tory 
 orders he handed them in on Christmas Day. The death of 
 the Doge that same evening prevented the Briefs from being 
 opened. But within a few days the new Doge, Leonardo 
 Donato, was elected. When the Briefs were opened they 
 were found to be duplicates of one Brief. By an error in
 
 THE DECLINE 163 
 
 Rome or in Venice one Brief only and a copy of it had been 
 handed in. The Brief threatened excommunication if the 
 Republic did not withdraw her orders and annul her acts 
 on the subject of ecclesiastical estates. In face of this 
 threat Venice prepared for resistance. Fra Paolo Sarpi 
 and other theologians were appointed as advisers, and under 
 their guidance a reply was drafted. The tone was moderate. 
 The Government pleaded undisputed usure and reciprocity, 
 the Pope had forbidden alienation of ecclesiastical property 
 to laymen, the State was within its rights in taking an 
 analogous step, especially as she was spending such large 
 sums in defence of Christendom. These are temporal ques- 
 tions, and " secular Princes by divine law, which no human 
 power can abrogate, have the right to legislate in matters 
 temporal." Her conscience before God was at peace, and 
 she was sure that his Holiness, "better informed," would not 
 persist in his threats. 
 
 The Pope did seem inclined to milder counsels, but behind 
 him was the Spanish party anxious to embarrass the Republic 
 because of her support to the Grisons in holding the Valteline, 
 Venice was encouraged in this policy by the French. Neither 
 the Republic nor France could afford to see the Spanish 
 dominions in Italy join hands with the Austrian dominions in 
 Tyrol by way of the Valteline and Stelvio. Embarrassments 
 for the Republic were therefore embarrassment for France, 
 and in this way the eyes of Europe were suddenly directed to 
 the struggle which was now being waged between Venice 
 and the Pope. 
 
 By February 25, the second Brief, the missing Brief, on 
 the subject of the criminous clerks, was presented. Again the 
 answer was moderate in tone. The Republic could not aban- 
 don immemorial rights and privileges conceded by preceding 
 Pontiffs. By the time this answer reached Rome, Cardinal 
 Zapata and the Spanish party had so wrought on the Pope 
 that he was resolved to crush the Republic. In a Consist- 
 ory held on April 16, 1606, his Holiness rehearsed the 
 decrees about Church property to which he objected, and
 
 164 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 "following the precedent of Innocent III. and the Kmpcror 
 Constantinc," he declared them null and void. As to the 
 trial of clerks, the privileges on which Venice relied, those 
 granted by Innocent VIII. and Paul III. referred to three 
 specific crimes alone, and were confined in operation to the 
 diocese of Venice. The Pope announced that he gave the 
 Republic twenty-four days to repent, and failing to do so, he 
 would launch an Interdict. The Cardinals agreed, and 
 Baronius remarked that Peter had two functions, one to feed, 
 the other to kill, his sheep ; " duplex est mints terium Petri 
 pascere et occidere." 
 
 Venice never had any intention of yielding. Though well 
 aware of her danger, and highly apprehensive of a Spanish 
 attack from Milan, she thought her cause good enough to 
 secure for her support from foreign Sovereigns whose secular 
 rights were menaced by the Papal action in annulling laws 
 passed by a free and sovereign State in matters temporal and 
 criminal. That action savoured too much of the deposing 
 powers to which post-Tridentine Pontiffs had laid claim ; 
 powers that were a standing danger to all Sovereigns, Catholic 
 and Protestant alike. Her action was resolute and vigorous, 
 her controversial attitude calm and dignified ; the inspiration 
 for both was drawn from the brain and the pen of the Servite 
 monk, Fra Paolo Sarpi. 
 
 The Bull of Excommunication and Interdict was launched. 
 The Republic forbade any of the Venetian clergy to receive 
 it or any other publications from Rome. A local militia was 
 raised to keep order in the city. The Nuncio was dismissed 
 in the following terms : " Monsignor, you must know that we 
 all, every one of us. Government, nobles, people are resolute to 
 the highest degree. Your excommunication we count as 
 nothing. Just consider what would be left you if others were 
 to follow our example." An order was addressed to the 
 clergy of the dominion declaring the Interdict null and void, 
 and recommending each and all to continue their sacred 
 functions, " it being our firm resolve to abide in the holy 
 Catholic faith and in obedience to the Holy Roman Church."
 
 THE DECLINE l6s 
 
 The Capucliins, Theatines and Jesuits, who refused to obey, 
 were expelled. 
 
 By this time all Europe was interested in the struggle. 
 A war of pamphlets began. Diplomacy busied itself. France 
 through her ambassadors urged the Republic to yield on the 
 point of the prisoners. James loudly extolled the courage 
 of the Republic, and through Sir Henry Wotton tentatively 
 put forward the scheme for a league of England, Venice, the 
 Grisons, Holland, and the Protestant Princes of Germany ; 
 but Venice declined to commit herself to such a Calvinistic 
 conciliabulum. "What is this about Calvinists ?" said the Doge, 
 "we are as good Catholics as the Pope, and mean to die so." 
 English and German soldiers of adventure, scenting battle 
 from afar, flocked to Venice, and through their ambassadors 
 put their services at the disposal of the State, while across 
 the Milanese frontier Fuentes was massing troops, and 
 rumours of machinations in Crema reached Venice. But 
 Spain was neither ready nor able to set Italy in a blaze by 
 attacking Venice. The defeat of the Armada had broken 
 her prestige, and the revolt of the Netherlands was still 
 raging. The Pope, too, was in a more conciliatory mood. 
 Finding to his astonishment that the Republic resisted, and 
 that the Interdict failed to act, he was anxious to terminate 
 a situation which was far from conducive to the dignity of 
 the Holy See. With this temper in the atmosphere, France 
 was able to suggest and carry through a compromise. The 
 Republic consented, out of personal regard for Henri IV. 
 and without prejudice to her rights, to hand over the two 
 prisoners to the French Ambassador, the Cardinal de Joyeuse. 
 By the Pope's authority, but without any formal act, the 
 Cardinal announced to the Cabinet that the Papal censures, 
 the Excommunication and Interdict were withdrawn, and 
 thereupon the Republic recalled its Edict and Protest. A 
 Venetian Ambassador went to Rome. Diplomatic relations 
 were reopened and the incident closed. 
 
 For a brief ])eriod Venice had once more held the attention 
 of Europe. Her action in defending the rights of secular
 
 i66 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Princes and formulating the respective positions of Church and 
 State revealed to Europe one incidental result of the Reform- 
 ation ; the Interdict had lost its power, the Papal armoury was 
 obsolete, it was never requisitioned again in defence of the 
 Church. Protestant Europe was grateful to the Republic, but 
 her action evoked the bitter hatred of the Catholic party. 
 Every effort was made to crush the Theologians and Canonists 
 who had written in her favour. Some were tempted to Rome, 
 where one of them, Fra Fulgenzio Manfredi, was burned 
 after a useless recantation. Fra Paolo, the moving spirit of 
 the whole episode, was too cautious to be caught ; comment- 
 ing on Fra Fulgenzio's fate he remarked, " Of the details 
 I know nothing ; all I see is the beginning and the end, a 
 safe-conduct and a pyre." The Venetian Government re- 
 warded him handsomely, and offered him protection for his 
 person. But he was stabbed, nearly to death, one October 
 evening, when returning to his monastery, and the assassins 
 found asylum and rewards in Roman territory. Sarpi himself 
 had no doubt whence the blow came. He asked to see the 
 dagger and remarked, '■^ Agnosco styliim Curia Romana." His 
 life was threatened more than once ; even the inmates of 
 his own monastery could not be trusted ; but he survived 
 in honoured seclusion till 1623, devoting his life to study 
 and to science. He died with a prayer for the Republic on 
 his lips, " Esto perpetuci" "may she endure for ever." 
 But she herself was already all but dead. 
 
 {d) The Spanish Conspiracy, Antonio Foscarini, 
 and the Council of Ten. The permanent dread which 
 haunted the minds of Venetian statesmen during the decline, 
 was the possibility of absorption by Spain. Spain held 
 Milan on Venetian borders, was powerful with Tuscany and 
 the Church, paramount in Naples. Spain and the Church 
 working together, the DuicathoUcon seemed a standing 
 menace to the Republic, whose independence thwarted 
 Spanish ambitions in Italy, whose alliance with France 
 prevented Spain from obtaining undisputed supremacy in the 
 Peninsula. This dread of Spanish plots, of Spanish gold
 
 THE DECLINE 167 
 
 and Spanish treachery was far from groundless. To Venice 
 it seemed that her only safety lay in abundant secret informa- 
 tion, and a skilful diplomatic use of it, and hence grew the 
 power of the Ten and of its sub-committee of Three. It 
 was to these that the State looked for safety in a period of 
 bribery, plot and counterplot. Though to the outward world 
 the Republic appeared peaceful, secure, splendidly selt-in- 
 dulgent, the Government was in a state of tremulous alarm, 
 faithfully reflected in the following private memorandum by 
 an Inquisitor of State: " 161 2. Right piteous is our con- 
 dition. Alone we cannot exist. Allies we have none. 
 Treaties we cannot make except on ruinous terms." Then 
 follow jottings of sentences for suspicious relations with 
 foreign ambassadors. Aloise Battagia, ten years prison for 
 frequenting the Spanish Embassy and betting on elections. 
 Aloise Gabriele, three years for betting at the Embassy. 
 The Bishop of Lacossia banished, and so on. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century events happened which 
 illustrate this dread of Spain, and throw light on the dark 
 places of the Republic and the operations of the Council of Ten. 
 
 In the spring of 161 8 the city was surprised by the sight 
 of three corpses hanging, each by one leg, from a gibbet 
 in the Piazza, and soon after came news that three other 
 executions had been carried out on board the Fleet. The 
 Council of Ten, warned by the Ambassador in Rome and 
 the Resident in Naples, had for a long time had their eye on 
 a group of Frenchmen who had offered their services and 
 been admitted to the pay of the Republic. It was said that 
 these men were agents of Ossuna, Spanish Viceroy of Naples, 
 who in conjunction with Bedmar, the Spanish Ambassador 
 in Venice, was hatching a plot to seize the city. Two of 
 the conspirators revealed the design, and supplied the proofs 
 and the means of identifying the conspirators, with the result 
 that they were arrested and executed. When the news 
 became public the emotion was intense. The house and 
 the person of the Spanish Ambassador were in serious danger, 
 and the impression produced throughout Europe was equal
 
 .168 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 to that created by the Gunpowder Plot in England. Every 
 one was convinced of the imminent danger from Spain. 
 This impression was deepened when two years later (1620) 
 a member of the Senate, Gian-Battista Bragadin, was 
 executed for selling State secrets to Bedmar's successor, 
 and this case was followed in 1622 by the case of Antonio 
 Foscarini, which dealt a serious blow to the prestige of the 
 Ten, in spite of the conviction that it alone was capable of 
 dealing with Spanish intrigue. 
 
 Antonio Foscarini, of noble family, a senator and diplomat, 
 had served his country as Ambassador to France, and in 
 1609 was transferred to the Court of St. James. There 
 it was found that his despatches were tampered with and 
 their contents sold. Foscarini had offended one of his staff, 
 Muscorno by name, and this man, in revenge, published a 
 libel on the Ambassador, accusing him of loose living and 
 irreligion, adding that Foscarini himself had sold copies of 
 his own despatches. Foscarini was recalled, tried and ac- 
 quitted in 161 8. But suspicion hung about him, and his 
 actions were watched. In England he had been acquainted 
 with Lady Arundel, and when that lady came to Venice 
 for the education of her boys, Foscarini frequented her 
 house and there he met other diplomats. That was enough. 
 He was arrested, tried again, and condemned in 1622. He 
 was strangled in prison and his body hung by one leg in the 
 Piazzetta. Yet four months had barely passed when it was 
 discovered that Foscarini had been condemned unjustly, on 
 the evidence of an infamous informer. The Ten did all 
 that lay in their power to make amends for their error. 
 They published a statement of Foscarini's innocence, and 
 exhumed and buried his body with pomp. But their action 
 brought to a crisis and lent a handle to the resentment which 
 had been slowly accumulating against their overweening in- 
 fluence in the State. 
 
 As a censor of morals the Council of Ten was frequently 
 called upon to punish the lower members of the aristocracy, 
 who occasionally treated the peojjle as fair prey for their
 
 THE DECLINE 169 
 
 appetite. The people came to regard the Ten as their 
 champion against the insolence of the patriciate, while the 
 severity of the Ten in repressing such crimes inspired dislike 
 and dread of the tribunal in those families that had fallen 
 under its cognizance. As guardian of public morals and as 
 a commitee of public safety there was no department of life 
 into which it might not inquire. But more than this, it had 
 gradually usurped a position in the Constitution which did not 
 originally belong to it. The Ten had gradually come to be 
 the sole power in the machinery of government. It neglected 
 the Great Council, could override the Senate in the manage- 
 ment of foreign affairs, would even censure the Doge, thereby 
 encroaching on the province of the Avvogadori or Procurators 
 of State. 
 
 Growing dislike of the Ten, coupled with its grave judicial 
 error in the case of Foscarini, came to a crisis in 162 5, when 
 a champion of the fundamental rights of the Great Council — 
 the whole body of the patriciate — arose in the person of 
 Renier Zeno. The reformers determined to challenge the 
 position of the Ten in the Great Council. They relied for 
 support upon the large body of nobles, who through decline 
 in commerce and from other causes had become too poor to 
 aspire to the great offices of State, but still retained their 
 franchise as patricians of Venice. The Ten relied for support 
 upon the solidarity of those wealthy families in whose hands 
 the machinery of government had gradually been concen- 
 trated. Renier began by running a tilt against the Cabinet, 
 composed no doubt of that inner circle of the governing 
 clique against which the reform was intended. He had been 
 elected a member of the Ducal Privy Council, and on a 
 sharp word from one of the Cabinet he retorted that as Ducal 
 Councillor he represented the Republic itself, whose servants 
 the Cabinet Ministers must remember that they were. At a 
 later meeting he used violent abuse about those who had 
 attacked him. For this the Council banished him for a 
 year. 
 
 The position was now clear. Zeno, either genuinely c
 
 170 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 in appearance, was championing the rights of the whole patri- 
 ciate as represented by the Great Council, to which he owed 
 his election, as against the clique of officials represented by 
 the Cabinet. Zeno went into banishment. In the meantime 
 one of the Doge's sons, Federico Corner, was made a 
 cardinal, and two of his sons were appointed senators. This 
 was a breach of the Constitution. At the expiry of his term 
 Zeno returned, was elected a member of the Ten, and in due 
 course became one of the three Chiefs. He immediately 
 protested against the triple violation of the law. The Doge 
 cancelled the appointments, but complained bitterly of this 
 treatment. Zeno insisted on reading an admonition to the 
 Doge, basing his claim on his duty to the Great Council, to 
 whom he, as a member of the Ten, had sworn that he would 
 insist on the strict observance of the Coronation Oath. The 
 Doge listened and submitted. Zeno pressed still further, and 
 demanded that the admonition should be registered in the 
 Chancery. This was violently opposed. Zeno rose to 
 defend his motion, when a brother Chief of the Ten ordered 
 him out of the tribune. Zeno refused to obey, declaring 
 that his brother Chiefs of the Ten had not the authority. 
 Thereupon the Council of Ten was summoned and immedi- 
 ately quashed Zeno's admonition. Zeno appealed to the 
 Great Council ; he declared that his colleagues had acted 
 illegally, and threw himself on the Council, the only com- 
 petent authority. His colleagues replied, but the Great 
 Council supported Zeno, and he was hailed in the city as 
 the reformer of abuses. Very soon after this triumph, how- 
 ever, Zeno was stabbed near the Porta della Carta. The 
 flight of Giorgio Corner, the Doge's son, left little doubt 
 whence the attack had come. The Ten took some steps to 
 punish the guilty, but so slowly that the accused had time 
 to save their persons from arrest and their property from 
 confiscation. Zeno found support in the Great Council, who 
 again elected him a member of the Ten. The Ten con- 
 demned his comluct, and imposed restrictions on his actions. 
 He appealed to the Great Council, declaring that liberty was
 
 THE DECLINE 171 
 
 being slaughtered. The Doge spoke. Zeno tried to inter- 
 rupt him. A scene of confusion followed, and the sitting 
 was suspended. The Ten met and ordered the arrest of 
 Zeno, but instructed the police not to fmd liim. He was 
 condemned to banishment. The popular indignation burst 
 out and the Great Council was divided into the Zenites, who 
 boldly proposed a complete reform of the Ten, and the Corner- 
 ites, who supported that body. The upshot was the appoint- 
 ment of a committee of five to examine the constitution and 
 regulations of the Council of Ten and to report within twelve 
 days. Meanwhile the Great Council, by 848 votes to 298, 
 ordered that the sentence pronounced against Zeno be cancelled 
 and expunged from the minutes of the Council of Ten. When 
 the committee presented its report on reforms a fierce discus- 
 sion took place over the essential point, the criminal jurisdic- 
 tion of the Ten in the case of nobles. That jurisdiction was 
 fully reconfirmed to the Ten on the ground that such a 
 tribunal alone could protect the citizens of the Republic from 
 the oppression of the great and powerful, but it was solemnly 
 affirmed that the Ten had no right to exceed the limits of 
 their purview " without the express sanction of the Great 
 Council, which alone is able to regulate the various magistracies 
 of the Republic." 
 
 T'he final result of so much heat was the virtual re-establish- 
 ment of the Ten ; an inevitable conclusion. No other power 
 in the State was adequate to the task of preserving public order 
 and guarding public safety. 
 
 A century later, in 1761, an attack upon the Ten through 
 its sub-committee, the Council of Three, followed the same 
 lines, — save that the arguments were tinged with the philo- 
 sophical, revolutionary ideas of France, — and ended in the 
 same way. The Three were defended by Foscarini in calm 
 and weighty words which sum up the truth about the Venetian 
 Constitution. " This tribunal," he said, " has frequently saved 
 the State from dangerous conspiracies. Its impartiality is above 
 suspicion if we remember that office lasts for one year only, and 
 that its members can easily be removed by a decree of the
 
 172 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 Great Council. It is certain from the universal testimony of 
 all statesmen that no Oligarchy can last for long unless it 
 provide some corrective for its defects. Those defects are 
 want of secrecy and rapidity. In some corner of the State 
 we must place a rapid and secret authority. Thanks to the 
 Great Council the State has been able to preserve in efficiency 
 such a tribunal, while preventing it from affecting in the 
 smallest degree the fundamental constitution of the Republic." 
 
 The whole course of Venetian history, the conspiracies of 
 Tiepolo and Falier, the struggle with Rome, the dread of 
 Spain, had all proved the necessity for the Ten and the 
 Three. It was beyond the power of discontented nobles or 
 theoretical reformers to sweep them away. 
 
 (e) The loss of Candia ; Morosini and the Pele- 
 ponnese. We have now reached the last notable actions of 
 the Venetian Republic. With such a state of suspicion and 
 weakness at the capital as was revealed by the Spanish con- 
 spiracy and the cases of Bragadin and Foscarini, it was not 
 possible for the home Government to assume a vigorous attitude 
 in support of its commanders in the field. The long siege 
 of Candia proved that there was no lack of courage or ability 
 on the part of the Venetian generals, the essential weakness 
 lay at home. 
 
 We have already seen that owing to piracy in the Levant 
 peace between Venice and the Turk was always precarious 
 and dependent upon the will of the Sultan to maintain it. 
 In 1638 the first symptoms of a rupture became visible. The 
 Algerine pirates had pushed into the Adriatic, and threatened 
 to sack the treasure-house of Loretto. The Venetian com- 
 mander, Marin Capello, came up with them and pursued 
 them so closely that they took refuge under the guns of the 
 Turkish forts at Valona, which opened fire on the Venetians. 
 Capello, however, attacked the pirates, in spite of the forts, 
 and sank most of them. Sultan Murad, on receipt of the 
 news, ordered the immediate slaughter of all Venetians in 
 Constantinople, but contented himself with imprisoning the 
 Venetian Ambassador. Finally he came to terms, recognizing
 
 THE DECLINE 173 
 
 the right of the Republic to attack pirates on the high sea, 
 but demanding and receiving two hundred and fifty thousand 
 ducats for damages at Valona. 
 
 Murad's successor, Ibrahim, reached an open rupture with 
 the Republic. The immediate cause was the fact that some 
 ships belonging to the Knights of Malta had captured a 
 Turkish prize and run her into port in Crete. The Sultan 
 resolved to conquer the island. He began extensive prepara- 
 tions in the arsenal at Constantinople, but gave out that he 
 was about to take vengeance on the Maltese. The Republic, 
 however, was warned on all hands that Crete was his real 
 object. Venice took some steps for the defence of her pos- 
 sessions. She sent men and money, though in insufficient 
 quantities, and her Governor-General, Andrea Corner, be- 
 haved with great vigour and ability, arming the local militia 
 and repairing the forts. The Republic appealed to Europe 
 for help, and ordered its Commander-in-chief, Girolamo 
 Morosini, to await the allies — Naples, Malta, Tuscany and 
 the Pope — at Zante. The Turkish fleet put out in April 
 1645 and sailed straight for Canea. The Castle of S. 
 Teordoro was besieged, and so closely that to save it the 
 governor blew it up, and Canea fell into the hands of the 
 Turks in August of the same year. Morosini and the allies 
 arrived off Crete only in November. But the weather, the 
 advanced season and the usual division of opinion among the 
 allied commanders made his succour inoperative. Both parties 
 went into winter quarters. 
 
 The fall of Canea and the probable loss of Crete alarmed 
 not only Venice but all Europe. Both in France and in 
 Flanders volunteers were raised, and preparations made to 
 send them to Crete in the spring. At Venice the question of 
 money stared the Government in the face. The Treasury 
 was unequal to the strain, augmented taxation unpopular. 
 Recourse was had, most reluctantly, to an expedient that 
 revealed the straits to which the Republic was reduced. 
 A resolution was passed in the Senate that five Venetian 
 families — not noble — upon guaranteeing the upkeep of one
 
 174 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC * 
 
 thousand infantry for one year or on payment of the equiva- 
 lent, sixty thousand ducats in cash, should be admitted to 
 the patriciate ; non-Venetian subjects were eligible to one or 
 the other of these five nominations on guaranteeing one 
 thousand two hundred foot for a year or the equivalent, 
 seventy thousand ducats in cash. The measure was thrown 
 out by the Great Council, possibly because of the restriction 
 to five creations only ; for we find immediately after that the 
 Great Council entertained individual petitions for admission 
 to the patriciate and conceded them to the number of sixty ; 
 some of the applicants paying as much as one hundred ducats 
 for the privilege. 
 
 The funds thus raised considerably strengthened the 
 Treasury and the campaign of 1646. The Flemish and 
 French volunteers arrived and, under the command of Dus- 
 menil, were employed in the defence of Rethymo. But 
 they proved more harmful than useful. During a sortie they 
 fell into a panic which communicated itself to the rest of the 
 garrison. The Turks captured the city, and the brave 
 Andrea Corner was killed. 
 
 The results of the fall of Rethymo were that the Turks 
 embarked on the siege of the city of Candia, one of the most 
 memorable sieges in history, destined to last twenty-two years, 
 and to cover the decline of the Republic with a halo of 
 heroism. But at sea the tactics of the Venetians underwent 
 a complete change. Crete itself ceased to be the scene of 
 operations which were now directed to blocking the Darda- 
 nelles, and to creating diversions by threats in the north- 
 eastern archipelago. It was these new tactics which enabled 
 Candia to hold out so long ; and the operations were marked 
 by a series of brilliant victories off the Dardanelles. The 
 last was fought under the command of Lazzaro Mocenigo in 
 1657. Mocenigo had conceived the bold design of forcing 
 the Dardanelles and threatening Constantinople itself. The 
 Turkish fleet under Topal, the Capudan Pasha, defended 
 the Straits. Mocenigo had detached a part of his fleet to 
 water at Imbros and, during their absence, it came on to
 
 THE DECLINE 175 
 
 blow. The Venetians were gradually driven toward the 
 Asiatic coast and the Turks came out to attack. The 
 Venetians beat them off and pursued them until the gale rose 
 to a hurricane. Night fell, and the next day was stormy ; 
 but the following evening Mocenigo resolved to force the 
 passage. The feat was all but accomplished when his 
 powder magazine blew up. The yards came crashing down 
 and killed the commander. His death arrested the for- 
 ward movement of the Venetians, and the battle of the 
 Dardanelles was fatal to Venice. These operations closed 
 the second phase of the war of Candia. The centre of 
 activity was transferred once more to Candia itself. 
 
 The war lasted eleven years longer, and Venetian heroism 
 and resistance amazed Europe and fired the chivalrous 
 imagination of the French, who recalled the prowess of the 
 early Crusaders and dreamed of renewing the struggle between 
 the Crescent and the Cross. In 1666, four thousand French 
 volunteers, under Almerigo d'Este, in their impetuosity 
 attacked the Turkish camp outside Candia, without reconnoit- 
 ring the ground, and were caught in a trap of hidden ravines 
 and defeated. But Candia was now defended by a great 
 Venetian General, Francesco Morosini, and attacked by a 
 great Turkish leader, Achmed Kuprili. By 1666 Achmed 
 had three hundred cannon trained upon the town ; assault and 
 sortie, mine and countermine, were attempted with varying 
 fortune but with no decisive result. The fame of the siege 
 roused the utmost enthusiasm in Europe. Volunteers from 
 Sweden and volunteers from France arrived, though not in 
 compact and business-like bodies, but each intent to display 
 his personal prowess. The young Seigneur d'Arcourt fought 
 till wounded and then retired. He was followed by the 
 Due de la Feuillade leading such names as Castel-Thiery, 
 Caderousse, Villemor, San Pol, d'Aubusson and Crequi, 
 the very flower ot French nobility. They, dreaming of 
 deeds that made their forebears famous, clamoured for hand- 
 to-hand encounters with the Paynim chiefs, they chafed under 
 the caution of Morosini, who knew full well what sorties
 
 176 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 really meant ; but they forced his hand. On Decem- 
 ber 1 8, 1668, he let them go. They fought their fill and 
 covered themselves with glory, but did not break the Turkish 
 lines, and presently they sailed away. Later came Francois 
 de Vendome, Due de Beaufort, and the Due de Noailles at 
 the head of twelve regiments, and no sooner landed than they 
 too clamoured for a sortie. Morosini objected and then 
 gave way, probably it was the sole condition upon which he 
 could retain his fiery allies. The French pushed out under 
 cover of night with orders to lie close till a signal that all 
 was ready for the attack. The signal was given too soon. 
 Dawn had not come. They fell into confusion and took 
 friend for foe. Order was restored and they carried the 
 first, second, and third lines of trenches, driving the Turks 
 before them into a fortress on a hill. Bnt suddenly two 
 barrels of powder exploded. The cry went up that the 
 ground was mined. The assault was checked, wavered, 
 recoiled, and the day was lost. Once more the French sailed 
 away and the Venetians were left alone to face the Turk. 
 
 Abortive negotiations for peace had been afoot between 
 Venice and Constantinople since 1666. But now Morosini, 
 in view of the desperate condition of Candia, entered into a 
 treaty directly with his besieger, not for a capitulation, but 
 for a peace. This was concluded on September 6, 1668. 
 The garrison of the fortress marched out. The Turks took 
 possession of the town, and so ended the war of Candia. 
 
 It was almost the last and certainly the most memorable 
 exploit of Venetian arms during the decline of the Republic. 
 Individual Venetians had covered themselves with glory, but 
 the siege had demonstrated the inherent weakness of the State, 
 the exhaustion of the Treasury, and the inability to maintain 
 a constant succession of reinforcements. 
 
 The hero of the later portion of the siege, Francesco 
 Morosini, lived to win some further renown for himself and 
 for Venice. When war broke out between the Emperor 
 Leopold and the Turk, and the Grand Vizir Mustafa 
 appeared under the walls of Vienna, Venice at firet declined
 
 THE DECLINE 1^7 
 
 to join the Christian League. But a more favourable turn 
 of events induced the Republic to adhere. She declared war 
 on the Turk, and Francesco Morosini found little difficulty 
 in conquering the Morea in the absence of the Turkish 
 forces in Hungary. While bombarding Athens, a Venetian 
 shell fired the powder stored in the Parthenon and blew that 
 monument into ruins. The Morea was conquered in 1688, 
 and the same year Morosini was elected Doge. But Vene- 
 tian hold on the country was far from secure. The 
 expulsion of the Turk led the Greeks to dream of inde- 
 pendence, not of submission to Venice. The spirit of Greek 
 nationality revived, and was fostered in each city, and 
 eventually spread to the country. To Morosini's conquest 
 the modern Hellenic movement may with probability be 
 ascribed. But for the Republic of Venice the possession of 
 the Morea was of little profit. She was too feeble to rule it 
 vigorously, and she lost it again as lightly as she had won 
 it. The peace of Passarovitz (1718) deprived her of the 
 peninsula, and closed for ever the chapter of her conquests. 
 
 in. In the City. 
 
 Inside the city of Venice during the period of decline, 
 the characteristic note was the public splendour, the private 
 pleasure-chase, overlying and partially hiding State impoverish- 
 ment and secret fear. 
 
 •' Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, 
 And was the bulwark of the West ; " 
 
 but now ** the worth of Venice " had fallen. The State and 
 the great nobles still braved it in the eyes of Europe, but the 
 bulk of her population was growing hourly poorer, her streets 
 and squares were becoming the accustomed haunt of dissolute, 
 pleasure-seeking Europe. The healthy, vitalizing energies 
 of commerce, of trade and industries, were sapped. The 
 reiterated wail of her own magistrates leaves no room for
 
 178 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 doubt. In 1610 the Board of Trade report that "the 
 important trade of this once famous mart is all but anni- 
 hilated." In the same year the Senate was assured that 
 "foreign merchants who used to buy in Venice come no more, 
 and industries decline ; as industries decline, the population 
 dwindles ; as the population dwindles, consumption of food- 
 stuffs falls off, the customs dry up, the revenue shrinks, and can- 
 not meet the necessary expenditure, while private individuals 
 also suffer, for house-rent is lowered if not altogether lost." 
 
 And the main causes of this decline in commerce are no 
 less clearly indicated. The fleet is no longer able either to 
 suppress entirely or to sweep away the terrible pirates of the 
 Quarnero and the Dalmatian islands, the Uscocchi, a lawless 
 crew of freebooters, who when pursued took shelter in Turkish 
 or Austrian harbours and appealed for protection, causing 
 thereby endless diplomatic embroglios for the waning 
 Republic ; and not only Uscocchi from the coast of Dalmatia 
 but English buccaneers infested the waters of Crete, Matapan, 
 Zante and Corfu, and levied a ruinous toll on shipping making 
 up or down the Adriatic. Merchants would not trust their 
 capital at sea in bottoms so liable to pillage, nor would 
 Insurance Companies guarantee against so probable a loss. 
 The strictly protectionist tariffs which were designed to 
 secure the profits of trade with Venice for Venetian subjects, 
 lost their meaning when Venetian subjects no longer traded, 
 while they effectually prevented any one else from doing so. 
 
 And from these causes came the inevitable results ; whatever 
 wealth there was, and it was not small, — for we have seen 
 how seventy private families paid about seven million ducats for 
 admission to the oligarchy, — became gradually locked up in 
 landed estates, while the mass of the population, which had been 
 born and bred in commerce, sank deeper and deeper into the 
 morass of poverty. Government was alive to the mischief, and 
 attempted remedies which only served to emphasize the ill. 
 The port of Venice was thrown open to foreign merchants, 
 and when that produced no adequate result the Government 
 resolved to lighten taxation ; but of the two great customs
 
 THE DECLINE 179 
 
 dues they abolished the wrong one. They took off the duty 
 on imports and they left the duty on exports. They en- 
 deavoured to compel all shipping to come to Venice by 
 maintaining the law which forbade a ship to go out in cargo 
 unless she had discharged two-thirds of her incoming cargo 
 in Venice. The only result was to encourage smuggling 
 from the subject islands of Crete and Zante, where the 
 English touched for wine, oil and currants, and refused to be 
 haled as far as Venice to get them. The whole experiment, 
 which had lasted from 16 10 to 1684, proved a failure, and 
 Venice returned to her protection policy. 
 
 The experiment was based upon a fallacy, the fallacy that 
 the value of the geographical position of Venice had under- 
 gone no change. "The position of our city," said one of 
 her ablest ministers, " is such that she serves as a mart for all 
 parts of the world as she has done heretofore." But he 
 forgot, or ignored, the fact of the Cape-route by which the 
 geographical advantage of Venice had been destroyed. 
 
 But as a curiosity and as a pleasure-house Venice still 
 remained unrivalled in Europe. Gorgeous ceremonies for the 
 reception of distinguished visitors ; the theatre at San Cassiano, 
 where the Opera and Ballo oi Andromeda was given in 1637, 
 serenades, banquets, faction fights among the people, delighted 
 the populace and attracted the foreigner. Young Englishmen 
 of birth, on the Grand-tour, would not miss Venice, where 
 they were presented to the Doge and taken over the armoury 
 and the treasury of St. Mark. Plagues like those of 1577 
 and 1630 might sweep off fifty or eighty thousand inhabitants, 
 but the scourge passed by, the Masques and Balls began 
 again, and all that remained of the memory were splendid 
 churches like the Redentore or Santa Maria della Salute. 
 Bravi, gamblers, broken men, — the instrumenta for all sorts of 
 wickedness, — quacks — with their vapour baths and decoctions, 
 their salivations of mercury and fumigations — that the Govern- 
 ment endeavoured to suppress, witches who sold philtres so 
 strong " that in place of expelling the fiend they expelled the 
 life," flourished and fattened on a cosmopolitan population; but
 
 x80 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 the chorus of foreigners is unanimous in applause. " Renowned 
 Venice," so runs the tenor of their laudation, "the admiredest 
 citie in the world, a citie that all Europe is hound unto. Did 
 you know the rare beauty of the Virgin-Citie you would 
 quickly make love to her." " La plus triomphante citie que 
 j'aye iamais veue." " This most noble city, as well for the 
 situation and for the freedom which citizens and very strangers 
 have, and for manifold other causes, is worthily called in 
 Latine ' Venetia,' as it were Vent etiam, that is ' Come 
 again.' "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE END 
 
 (a) The War of the Spanish Succession. The 
 
 essential weakness of the RepubHc was revealed by the 
 attitude she found herself obliged to adopt in the war of 
 the Spanish succession. She desired to be neutral, but could 
 not defend her neutrality. Venice was invited to join 
 France and to block the passes against the Imperial troops. 
 The Republic found herself in a serious dilemma. He? 
 poverty offered an argument both to those who advocated an 
 alliance with France and to those who leaned to neutrality. 
 Neutrality, said the one, is all very well if you can enforce it ; 
 alliance, said the other, is only desirable when you can afford 
 it. Venice elected to remain neutral, to protect her towns if 
 possible, and to protest against violation of her territory. But 
 while she was discussing the question the belligerents had 
 already descended on Venetian soil. Catinat and Eugene 
 had opened their campaigns in the Veronese, were feeding 
 themselves at the expense of the neutral territory, and occupy- 
 ing such quarters as they could lay their hands on ; and all 
 the time each party accused the Venetians of helping the 
 other. The position was humiliating, and might at any 
 moment become dangerous. Yet Venice was outwardly a 
 city of splendour. She astonished the King of Denmark by 
 the magnificence of the entertainment she offered him ( 1709). 
 The winter was unusually severe. People could walk from 
 Venice to the mainland upon the ice. The opportunity was 
 seized to enhance the strangeness of the spectacle. 
 
 The peace of Utrecht in 1 7 1 3 put an end to the war. It 
 did not affect Venice as a neutral State except that it
 
 182 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 relieved her from the presence of unwelcome friends. Both 
 France and Austria had learned, however, that the Republic 
 was incapable of resistance, and the knowledge was not for- 
 gotten when Napoleon appeared on the scene. 
 
 Five years later, in 1718, Venice, as we have already noted, 
 lost the Morea by the peace of Passarovitz. 
 
 (l>) Angela Btno. But the Republic was not to die 
 without once more displaying her energy at sea. The sea had 
 been the field of her earliest achievements, it was to witness her 
 last memorable act. The Barbary pirates, in spite of treaties 
 and in spite of tribute, continued to infest the Mediterranean. 
 The task of reducing them was entrusted to Angelo Emo, the 
 last of the great Venetians. Emo sailed in 1784 on board his 
 ship the Fama in command of twenty-four vessels, all told. In 
 1785 came the siege and bombarding of Tunis, rendered famous 
 by the invention of floating batteries designed by Emo. The 
 effect was good but not decisive. Next year, however, Sfax 
 yielded to the floating batteries, and though the admiral did 
 not succeed in capturing Tunis, he reduced the Bey to terms, 
 and received the thanks of France from Louis the Fourteenth. 
 But Emo died in 1792. The death of her admiral was a 
 severe blow to Venice. He alone was capable of restoring 
 her navy to something like efficiency, and he was prepared to 
 do so. Had he lived and succeeded it is possible that the 
 French would not have found Venice so easy a prey nor so 
 submissive to Napoleon's imperative demands. 
 
 {c) In the City. It is doubtful, however, whether Emo 
 would have met with sufficient support. We find a member of 
 the Government expressing his views, the tone is one of despair. 
 "If there be a State," said the Doge Renier, in 1779, "which 
 needs unity at home, it is ours. Forces, military or naval, 
 we have none ; no, nor alliances either. We live by luck, by 
 accident, upon the mere reputation for prudence which our 
 Government enjoys." "All is disorder," says another. "The 
 people are without employment. What once sufficed our 
 ancestors to live on and left a margin to assist the State, now, 
 even with the strictest economy, will not support existence."
 
 THE END 183 
 
 " The populace that used to earn a certain if laborious liveli- 
 hood, now turns to begging and supports itself on the doubtful 
 chance of alms. Its bed at night is tlie hard stone of some 
 bridge, and one asks oneself whether they are really citizens 
 of this sovereign State or wandering animals." 
 
 This was a field in which the revolutionary ideas that were 
 filtering through from France were not slow to take root. 
 In 1785 the Government was alarmed at the discovery of 
 secret lodges of " Free Masons," frequented by some members 
 of the aristocracy. Every indication pointed towards 
 collapse. 
 
 But these were alarms and preoccupations known only to 
 the Government, carefully hidden from the eyes of citizens 
 and strangers. In the social life of Venice there was an air 
 of refinement and of delicacy that verged upon the effeminate. 
 The visiting-card of Lodovico Manin, the last Doge, bore 
 the design of a languorous, nude Adonis, asleep beneath an 
 oak. The town was ready to divide itself over the fashion 
 of a toupee. The supreme magistrates were called upon to 
 settle disputes between an actor, a playwright and a ballarina, 
 whose quarrels engaged the entire attention of the city and 
 threatened a breach of the peace. Longhi, Guardi, Canal- 
 etto painted for them, and produced an aftermath of the great 
 Venetian masters. Gozzi and Goldoni created the stage ; 
 Calmo, Buratti, and BafFo supplied them with satire and 
 fiicetia. Above all, the Venetians delighted in music, and 
 the four great Conservatories, the Pieta, Mendicanti, Incurabili, 
 and Vergini disputed the honour of rendering the works of 
 Galuppi, Jomelli, Hasse, Porpora, Lotti, Cimarosa. Goethe 
 in 17H4 reports " a soprano took the part of King Saul, the 
 protagonist of the piece. Never have I heard such a voice ; " 
 and Rousseau says, "./^ na't ndee de run d'auss'i louchant 
 que cette musique." At the opera the public would go into 
 ecstasy over a favourite singer. " Oh, bless you ! bless you ! 
 bless the father that begot you." "Ah, darling! I must 
 fling me at your feet," and so on. The actors strutted, ogled 
 the boxes, chatted with the jirompter, took snuff. The
 
 l84 THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 
 young bloods from their palch't made shots with candle-ends, 
 or spat on the heads of the people in the pit, nor took offence 
 at fescennine replies. It was a great family party at the play. 
 
 But beyond the Alps a storm was brewing destined to 
 sweep away the Republic and its easy, graceful existence on a 
 whirlwind of revolution. 
 
 {d) Napoleon. Napoleon was in Italy by 1796. He 
 engaged Austria, and once again Venetian territory became 
 the battle-field of France and the Empire. The Republic could 
 do nothing but idly protest. Napoleon drove the Austrians 
 before him, and eventually came to terms with them at Leoben. 
 He was anxious to return to France, and was not at all sure 
 that his retreat through Italy might not be cut off; at least he 
 professed to suspect the Venetians of that intention, and accused 
 them of murdering French troops. He sent Junot to com- 
 plain and to demand satisfaction, and no sooner was he settled 
 with Austria than he turned his attention to the Republic. 
 A deputation of Venetians found him at Gratz, and they 
 were left in little doubt as to Buonaparte's projects. The 
 State was doomed, for it had neither spirit, ships, nor men 
 to withstand the Corsican. Napoleon was bent on the 
 annihilation of the Republic, and an accident afforded him a 
 pretext. The French commandant, Laugier, was cruising in 
 the Adriatic in the Liberatore (f Italia. He approached the 
 Lido, and the governor, thinking that he meant to sail into 
 the lagoon, opened fire. Laugier was killed. A Franco- 
 revolutionary faction inside the city kept the authorities in 
 alarm, and the Government was panic-stricken. "We are 
 not safe in our beds," said the Doge. On May 12, 
 1796, the Great Council agreed to accept a form of govern- 
 ment to be submitted by General Buonaparte. On the i6th 
 the French took possession of the town The Republic of 
 Venice, after an existence of upwards of one thousand years, 
 disappeared for ever from the history of the world.
 
 A BRIEF 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A. General Histories. 
 
 RoMANiN. Storia Documentata d't Venezia. Venezia, 1853. 
 
 10 vols. 
 Daru- Storia della Republtca di Venezia. Tr. from the 
 
 French. Capolago, 1837. 11 vols. I recommend 
 
 this edition, because of the notes, and Ranke's Essay 
 
 on the Spanish Conspiracy. 
 DiEDO. Storia della Republic a di Venezia. Venezia, 1792. 
 
 I 5 vols. 
 Laugier. Histoire de la Republique de Venise. Paris, 1759. 
 
 12 vols. 
 Capelletti. Storia della Republica di Venezia. Venezia, 
 
 1850. 13 vols. 
 MuSATTi. Storia d'un Lembo di Terra. Padova, 1886. 
 
 I vol. 
 Sandi. Storia Civile della Republica di Venezia. Venezia, 
 
 1755. 8 vols. 
 FiLiASi. Memorie Storiche de' Venetiprimi e secondi. Venezia, 
 
 1796. 9 vols. 
 Galliccioli, Memorie Venete, Venezia, 1795. 8 vols. 
 MuTiNELLi. Annali Urbani. Venezia, 184I. 1 vol. 
 Venezia e k sue Lagune. Venezia, 1847. ^ yo\&.
 
 i86 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 CicoGNA. Iscrixioni Veneziane. Venezia, 1824. 6 vols. 
 
 MiCHiEL. Origine delle Feste Venexiane. Rovigno, 1859. 
 I vol. 
 
 Hazlitt. The Venetian Republic. London, 1900. 2 vols. 
 
 WiEL. Venice. [" Story of the Nations " series.] Lon- 
 don, 1894. I vol. 
 
 O LIP HAN T. The Makers of Venice. London, 1893. 
 
 I vol. 
 
 B, Bibliographies. 
 
 CicoGNA. Bibliograjia Veneziana. Venezia, 1847. l vol. 
 SoRANZO. Bibliograjia Veneziana. Venezia, 1885. I vol. 
 
 C. Dictionaries. 
 
 BoERio. Dizionario Veneziano. Venezia, 1867. I vol. 
 MuTiNELLi. Lessico Veneto. Venezia, 1851. i vol. 
 
 D. Chronicles. 
 
 Cronache Veneziane Antichissime Edit. Monticolo. Roma, 
 
 1890. I vol. 
 Chronicon Venetum quod Altinate nuncupatur. Ap. Mon. 
 
 Germ. Hist. Scrip., tom. xiv. i vol. 
 Canale. La Cronaca dei Veneziani. Ap. Archivio Storico 
 
 Italiano, tom. viii. Firenze, 1845. i vol. 
 Lorenzo de Monacis. Chronicon. Venetiis, 1758. i vol. 
 ANDREiE Danduli. Chronicon Venetum. Ap. Muratori. 
 
 Rer. Ital. Scrip., tom. xii. 
 Sanudo. Le Vite dei Dogi. Fasi. 3, 4, 5, in Carducci's 
 
 new edition of Muratori. Citta di Castello, 1900. 
 Sanudo. Diarii. In course of publication. 
 Malipiero. Annali Veneti. Ap. Archivio Storico Italiano, 
 
 tom. vii. 2 vols. 
 V^iLLEHARDoiuN. La Conquete de Constantinople. Paris, 1872 
 
 I vol.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY x87 
 
 SPECIAL HISTORIES. 
 E. Political. 
 
 Gfrorer. Geschichte V^enedigs bis %um Jahre, TO48. Graz, 
 
 1S72. I vol. 
 Pears. The Fall of Constantinople. London, 1885. i vol. 
 Baer. Die Beziehungen P'^enedigs xum Kaiserreiche in der 
 
 Staufischen Zeit. Innsbruck, 1888. I vol. 
 Squitinio delta liber t a Veneta. Mirandola, 161 2. i vol. 
 Spangenberg. Can Grande I della Scala. Berlin, 1892. 
 
 I vol, 
 Tentori. // vera Carattere Politico di Ra]amonte Tiepolo. 
 
 Venezia, 1 798. i vol. 
 CiTTADELLA. Storta della domina%ione Carrarese. Padova, 
 
 1842. 2 vols. 
 Battistella. // Conte Car/nagnola. Genova, 1889. 
 
 1 vol. 
 
 Macchi. Storia del Consiglio dei Died. Torino, 1848. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 Lamanskey. Secrets d'Etat de Venese. Petersburg, 1884. 
 
 I vol. 
 HopF. Chroniques Greco- Romanes, Berlin, 1873. i vol. 
 
 F. Constitutional. 
 
 Giannotti. Libra della Republica de* Vene-z-iani. Firenze, 
 
 1850. I vol. 
 CoNTARiNi. Delia Republica et Magistrati de Venetia. 
 
 Venetia, 1591. i vol. 
 Crasso. De Forma Republica Veneta. Lugduni, 1722. I vol. 
 De la Houssaye. Histoire du Gouvernement de J^enise. 
 
 Paris, 1677. 2 vols. 
 San Didier. La Ville et la Republique de /''eriise. Paris, 
 
 1680. I vol. 
 Stella. // Servizio di Cassa neir Antica Republica Veneta, 
 
 Venezia, i8yo. i vol.
 
 188 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Baschet. Histoire de la ChanceUerie Secrete. Paris, 1 870. 
 
 1 vol. 
 
 G. Commercial. 
 
 Marin. Storla Civile e Politica del Commerrio de* Vene%iaru. 
 Vinegia, 1798. 8 vols. 
 
 Heyd. Le Colonnie Commerciali degli Italiani in Oriente. Tr. 
 Venezia, 1866. 2 vols. 
 
 Heyd. Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter. Stutt- 
 gart, 1879. 2 vols. 
 
 SiMONSFELD. Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Stuttgart, 1887. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 FoRMALEONi. Storta deJla Navigazione nel Mar Nero. 
 
 Venezia, 1788. 2 vols. 
 Tafel and Thomas. Urhunden ■z.iir dlteren Handds- und 
 
 Staatsgeschichte der Repuhlik Venedig. Wien, 1856. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 H. Artistic and Literary. 
 
 FoscARiNi. Delia Letteratura Vene%iann. Padua, 1752. 
 
 1 vol. 
 
 DiDOT. j4lde Mamice. Paris, 1875. I vol. 
 
 Castellani. La Slampa in Vene-zia alia Morte di Aldo 
 
 Manuzio. Venezia, 1899. i vol. 
 Yriarte. Venise. Paris, 1878. i vol. 
 RusKiN. Stones of Venice. London, 1873. 3 ^'o^s. 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Tiziano. Firenze, 1872. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 Berenson. Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. London, 
 
 1894. I vol. 
 Berenson. Lorenzo Lotto. London, 1895. i vol. 
 Lafenestre. La Peinture en Europe — Venise. Paris, s. d. 
 
 I vol. 
 Symonus. Renaissance in Italy. London, 1877. 7 vols.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 189 
 
 Paui.ktti. U Arch'tteltiira e la Scultura del Rinascimenle in 
 
 F'eiifziii. Vcnezia, 1893. 2 vols. 
 Cattanko. L'jlrchiteltura in Italia. Venezia, 1889. 1 vol. 
 
 I. Social. 
 
 Yriartf. La Vie iPun Patricien de Venise. Paris, s. d. 
 
 I vol. 
 MuLMKNTi. La Storia de' Venexia nella Vita privata. 
 
 Torino, 1880. 1 vol. 
 Cecchftti. La Vita de' Veneziani nel Zoo. Vcnezia, 1886. 
 
 I vol. 
 Bernoni. Canti, Fiabe, Legende^ Creden%e popolari, Venezia, 
 
 1872-74. 
 
 K. Ecclesiastical. 
 
 CeccheTTI. La Republica di Venezia e la Corte di Roma. 
 
 Venezia, 1874. 2 vols. 
 Curnaro. EcclesitB Veneta. Venetiis, 1749. 18 vols. 
 Sarpi. Opere. Helmstadt, 1761. 8 vols. 
 RoBKRTSON. Fra Paolo Sarpi. London, 1894. i vol. 
 Campbell. La Vita di Fra Paolo Sarpi. Torino, 1875. 
 
 I vol. 
 BiANCHi GioviNi. Biografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi. Zurigo, 
 
 1836. 2 vols. 
 
 L. Topographical. 
 
 Tassini. Curiosita Veneziane. Venezia, 1863. i vol. 
 Tassini. jilcuni Palazzi. Venezia, 1879. 1 vol.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Doge. 
 
 452- 
 466. 
 
 56S. 
 
 5S4. 
 
 690. 
 
 697. 
 709. 
 
 Anafesto. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Peopling of the lagoon. 
 
 Tribunes elected a 
 Grado. 
 
 Torcello built. 
 
 Longinus at Venice. 
 
 Earliest Imperial privi- 
 lege. 
 
 Lagoons threatened by 
 (i) .Slav Pirates ; (2) 
 Lombard Dukes of 
 Friuli. 
 
 Period of concentration 
 and internal rivalry. 
 
 Election of First Doge. 
 
 Treaties with Lombards. 
 
 Battle of the Pineto ; 
 founding of Jesolo. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 Attila destroys 
 Aquileia(452). 
 
 Theodoric at 
 Ravenna (493) 
 
 S. Vitale begun 
 (534)-. 
 
 Belisarius and 
 the Gothic 
 Wars (535). 
 
 Alboinand Loni 
 bards (570). 
 
 Commercial 
 treaty be- 
 tween Venice 
 and Luit- 
 prand,Kingof 
 the Lombards 
 (709)- 
 
 General History. 
 
 The Kahriyeh 
 Jam! at Con- 
 stantinople, 
 (before 413). 
 
 End of Western 
 Empire (476). 
 
 Justinian (530- 
 
 564). 
 Sta. Sofia begun 
 
 (532)- 
 
 Mahomet (570- 
 632). 
 
 Churches at 
 Wearmouth 
 and Jarrow 
 (cir. 680). 
 
 IjCO the Isaur 
 ian (680-741).
 
 192 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 717. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 Tegaliano. 
 
 Quarrels between the 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sees of Aqiiileia and 
 (jr.ido. 
 Exarch Paul takes refuge 
 
 
 
 726. 
 
 Orso. 
 
 
 
 
 
 in lagoons. 
 
 
 
 728. 
 
 
 Capture of Ravenna. 
 
 Commercial rights ac- 
 quired. 
 
 Heraclea and Jesolo 
 quarrel. 
 
 Lateran Coun- 
 cil (732) sepa- 
 rates Patri- 
 archates of 
 Aquileia and 
 Grado. 
 
 Victory of 
 Charles Mar- 
 tel at Tours 
 (73»). 
 
 Til 
 
 Six 
 
 Dogeship abolished. 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 Mastro 
 
 Master soldiers elected 
 
 
 
 742. 
 
 MiUs. 
 
 yearly down to 742. 
 
 
 
 742. 
 
 Deodato 
 
 The Doge in Malamocco, 
 
 Pepin in Italy. 
 
 Charlemagne 
 
 
 Doge. 
 
 not in Heraclea. 
 
 Donation to Pa- 
 
 (742-814). 
 
 755- 
 
 Gaulo. 
 
 
 pacy of Ra- 
 
 
 756. 
 
 Mone- 
 gario. 
 
 Family feuds. 
 
 venna and 
 Exarchate 
 
 
 764. 
 
 Galbaio I. 
 
 
 (742). 
 Fall of Lombard 
 Kingdom. 
 
 
 774- 
 
 
 Growth of population. 
 See of Olivolo created. 
 
 Franks estab- 
 lished (774). 
 
 
 784. 
 
 
 Expulsion of Venetians 
 from the Pentapolis. 
 
 
 
 787. 
 
 Galbaio 
 II. 
 
 Quarrels of Prankish and 
 Byzantine factions. 
 
 
 
 797- 
 
 
 Fortunatus, Patriarch of 
 Grado, Francophil 
 leader. 
 
 Charlemagne 
 crowned (799V 
 
 
 803. 
 
 
 Venice declared to be- 
 long to Empire of the 
 East, with trading 
 rights in Italy. 
 
 
 I'reaty between 
 Charlemagne 
 and the Em- 
 peror Nice- 
 
 804. 
 
 Obelerio. 
 
 Heraclea destroys Je- 
 solo. 
 
 Doge destroys Heraclea. 
 
 Concentration at Mala- 
 mocco. 
 
 
 phorus (803). 
 
 805. 
 
 
 Doge visits Charlemagne. 
 Byzantine party appeal 
 to Nicephorus. 
 
 
 
 809. 
 
 
 Pepiii attacks lagoons. 
 
 
 
 810. 
 
 
 Repulse of Pepin. 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 193 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Rialto (Venice) chosen 
 
 
 
 
 
 as capital. 
 
 
 
 Sii. 
 
 P.irticiaco 
 I. 
 
 Embellishment of city. 
 First Ducal Palace. 
 S. Pietro di Castello, 
 S. Zaccaria (811-830). 
 
 
 
 827. 
 
 I'articiaco 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 829. 
 
 
 Translation of St. Mark 
 
 and beginning of the 
 
 Church. 
 St. Mark patron of 
 
 Venice instead of St. 
 
 Theodore. 
 
 
 
 829. 
 
 Particiaco 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 836. 
 
 Tradonico. 
 
 Dalmatian pirates. 
 Saracenic war. 
 
 
 
 840. 
 
 
 Diploma of Lothair, 
 oldest document of 
 Venetian diplomacy, 
 defines relations with 
 mainland. 
 
 
 Normans (860). 
 
 864. 
 
 Particiaco 
 IV. 
 
 Revolution ; murder of 
 Doge. 
 
 
 Alfred (871-900). 
 
 881. 
 
 Particiaco 
 V. 
 
 Destruction of Comac- 
 
 chio. 
 First commercial war. 
 
 
 
 887. 
 
 Candiano 
 
 I. 
 Tribuno. 
 
 Defeated by pirates. 
 
 
 
 888. 
 
 Campanile begun. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Magyars (889). 
 
 900. 
 
 
 Lagoons fortified. 
 
 Hungarian in- 
 vasion of 
 
 
 912. 
 
 Particiaco 
 VI. 
 
 
 Italy (900). 
 
 
 927. 
 
 
 Diploma of Rudolph con- 
 firms Venetian right to 
 coin money. 
 
 
 
 93'-i- 
 
 Candiano 
 II. 
 
 Venetian ascendency in 
 Istria. 
 
 
 
 939- 
 
 Particiaco 
 VII. 
 
 
 
 
 942. 
 
 Candiano 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 944. 
 
 War with Narentine 
 
 
 
 
 
 pirates ; victory. 
 
 
 
 959- 
 
 Candiano 
 IV. 
 
 
 
 
 971. 
 
 
 Venice trading with in- 
 fidels is threatened by 
 Emperor of East. 
 

 
 194 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Ambition of Doge. 
 
 
 
 976. 
 
 
 P.ilace and church 
 burned. 
 
 
 
 976. 
 
 Orseolo I. 
 
 Early taxation. 
 Present palace and 
 second churcli began. 
 
 
 
 978. 
 
 Candiano 
 V. 
 
 
 
 
 979- 
 
 Memnio I. 
 
 The faction feuds of 
 Morosini and Calo- 
 prini. 
 
 
 
 982. 
 
 
 Donation of S. Giorgio 
 Maggiore. 
 
 
 Danes in Eng- 
 land {988). 
 
 991. 
 
 Orseolo 
 II. 
 
 Confirmation of treaties 
 with East and West. 
 
 
 
 996. 
 
 
 Market on the Sile. 
 
 
 
 998. 
 
 
 Dalmatian expedition. 
 Defeat of the pirates. 
 Capture of Lagosta. 
 Doge, Duke of Dalinatia. 
 Sposalizio del Mar. 
 
 
 
 999- 
 
 
 Emperor Otho visits 
 Venice. 
 
 
 
 1002. 
 
 
 Saracens defeated at 
 
 Bari. 
 Plague. 
 
 
 
 1008. 
 
 Orseolo 
 III. 
 
 
 Rise of Pisa 
 and Genoa. 
 
 Normans in 
 Apulia (101 7). 
 
 
 1026. 
 
 Centra- 
 iiico. 
 
 
 
 
 1032. 
 
 Flabia- 
 iiico. 
 
 Orseolo ostracized. 
 Curtailment of Doge's 
 
 powers. 
 Two Ducal Councillors 
 appointed. 
 
 
 
 1042. 
 
 Contarini 
 I. 
 
 
 
 Westminster 
 Abbey (cir. 
 1042). 
 
 Battle of Hast- 
 ings (1066). 
 
 1071. 
 
 Selvo. 
 
 
 HiUlebrand, 
 Gregory VII. 
 
 (1073-1085). 
 
 Growth of Nor- 
 man power 
 (1060- 1093). 
 
 IIC7S- 
 
 
 Normans attack Dal- 
 matia. 
 
 Canossa (1076). 
 
 
 1082. 
 
 
 Defeat of Venetians by 
 Normans at Casopo. 
 
 
 
 1085. 
 
 Falier I. 
 
 Venetian victory over 
 
 
 
 
 Normans at Corfu. 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 195 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Chrysobol of Emperor 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alexis, confers rights 
 
 
 
 
 
 in Const.intinople. 
 
 
 Crusades (1095- 
 1270). 
 
 1096. 
 
 Michicl I. 
 
 E.xpedition to Levant. 
 
 Origin of Papal 
 claim to p"er- 
 rara through 
 Countess Ma- 
 tilda (iioo). 
 
 Capture of Jeru- 
 salem (1099). 
 
 Westminster 
 Hall and Lon- 
 don Bridge 
 {fir. 1099). 
 
 1 102. 
 
 Falierll. 
 
 
 
 
 1114. 
 
 
 War with Hungarians in 
 
 D.ilmatia. 
 The Pala d'Oro. 
 
 
 
 1118. 
 
 Rlichiel 
 11. 
 
 Expedition to Levant. 
 
 
 Lincoln Cathed- 
 
 1128. 
 
 
 Fall of Tyre. 
 
 City lighted at night. 
 
 
 ral(ii23-ii47). 
 
 1 1 30. 
 
 Polani. 
 
 
 
 
 1 142. 
 
 
 War with Padua about 
 the Brenta. 
 
 
 
 1148. 
 
 Morosini 
 I. 
 
 War with pirates. 
 Campanile of St. Mark's. 
 
 Roncaglia(ii54). 
 
 Frederick Bar- 
 barossa (1152- 
 
 1 1 56. 
 
 Michiel 
 III. 
 
 
 
 1190). 
 
 1166. 
 
 
 Revolt of Zara. 
 
 Lombard 
 
 
 H71. 
 
 
 Emperor Manuel attacks 
 Venetians in Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 Money raised by crea- 
 tion of funds. 
 
 Venice attacks the East- 
 ern Empire ; failure. 
 
 Constitutional reforms. 
 
 Origin of the Great 
 Council. 
 
 League. 
 
 
 1172. 
 
 Ziani I. 
 
 
 Battle of Leg- 
 nano (1176). 
 
 
 1177. 
 
 
 Pope Alexander IH. and 
 
 Barbarossa in Venice. 
 Truce of Venice. 
 
 
 
 1178. 
 
 Mastro- 
 piero I. 
 
 
 
 
 1 1 89. 
 
 
 Creation of the Qnarantia. 
 
 
 
 "93- 
 
 Dandolo 
 I. 
 
 The earliest Promissione 
 Ducale. 
 

 
 196 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oxford (1200). 
 
 1201. 
 
 
 Contract for the Fourth 
 Crusade. 
 
 
 Fourth Crusade 
 (1200-1204). 
 
 I202. 
 
 
 Fleet sails. 
 Siege of Zara. 
 
 
 
 1204. 
 
 
 Capture and sack of 
 
 Constantinople. 
 \enetians acquire the 
 
 islands of the Levant 
 
 and Crete. 
 
 
 
 1205. 
 
 Ziani II. 
 
 
 
 
 I2II. 
 
 
 Crete colonized. 
 
 St. Francis of 
 Assisi d.(i226). 
 Thomas Aquinas 
 b. (1227). 
 
 Magna Charta 
 (1215). 
 
 1229. 
 
 Tiepolo I. 
 
 The rise of a new aris- 
 tocracy of wealth. 
 Curtailing of Ducal 
 authority by the Pro- 
 missione. 
 Doge's income settled. 
 
 
 
 1230. 
 
 
 Revolt of Crete. 
 
 
 Cambridge 
 (.231). 
 
 Inquisition 
 (1233). 
 
 1234. 
 
 
 SS. Giovanni e Paolo. 
 
 
 
 1237- 
 
 
 Venice joins Lombard 
 League. 
 
 Kzzelino da 
 Romano, 2nd 
 Lombard 
 League (1237). 
 
 
 1240. 
 
 
 Siege of Ferrara. 
 
 Cimabue (1240- 
 1320). 
 
 Hanseatic 
 League (1241- 
 .669). 
 
 
 
 
 
 1249 
 
 
 Codification of Venetian 
 
 
 Cologne 
 
 cir. 
 
 
 law. 
 
 Creation of new Magis- 
 tracies. 
 
 Magistrate del Petizion. 
 
 Cinque alia Pace. 
 
 Iiiquisitorisopra il Doge 
 defiiiito. 
 
 
 Cathedral 
 (1249). 
 
 1249. 
 
 Morosini 
 
 A modified form of In- 
 
 Patarini and 
 
 
 
 11. 
 
 quisition ill Venice. 
 
 Albigenses. 
 
 
 1253- 
 
 
 Sit:)iori di Notte estab- 
 lished. 
 
 
 
 1253- 
 
 Zeno. 
 
 Genoa and Venice quar- 
 rel ill Acre. 
 
 
 
 1258. 
 
 
 Venetian victory. 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 197 
 
 Date 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 1264. 
 
 1284. 
 1285. 
 
 1289. 
 1294. 
 1296. 
 
 Tiepolii 
 II. 
 
 Contariiii 
 II. 
 
 Dandolo 
 
 Gradenigi 
 
 1309. 
 1310. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 Genoese in treaty with 
 Greeks as against 
 Latins, supported by 
 Venice. 
 
 Treaty with Paleologus. 
 The method of election 
 to Dogeship estab- 
 lished. 
 
 Extension of the Pro- 
 iiiissioiie. War with 
 Ancona for dominion 
 in Adriatic indeci'^ive. 
 
 First golden ducat. 
 Venice under Interdict 
 
 for making terms with 
 
 Andronicus Paleolo- 
 
 gus. 
 The Mint organized. 
 Magistracy of Cataver 
 
 to assess incomes. 
 War with Genoa over the 
 
 trade in Black Sea. 
 Defeat of Venice at 
 
 Laizzo (Scanderun). 
 Serraiii del Maggior 
 
 Consiglio. 
 Establishment of the 
 
 Oligarchy. 
 Defeat of Venice at Cur- 
 
 zola. 
 Peace with Genoa. 
 Development of the 
 
 Venetian Constitution. 
 
 Conspiracy of Bocconio. 
 War with Ferrara. In- 
 terdict. 
 
 Venetians retreat. 
 
 Conspiracy of Tiepolo. 
 
 Marco Polo 
 (.1256-1323). 
 
 Duomo at Flor- 
 ence (1298). 
 
 Dante (1265- 
 1321). 
 
 Giutto (1276- 
 1337)- 
 
 Constantinople 
 recovered by 
 the Greeks 
 (1261). 
 
 Paleologus Em- 
 peror. 
 
 Rudolf of Haps 
 hurg (1272- 
 1291). 
 
 Edward 1.(1272- 
 1307)- 
 
 Sicilian Vespers 
 (1282). 
 
 William Wal- 
 lace (1296).
 
 198 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Establishment of Council 
 
 
 
 
 
 of Ten. 
 
 
 
 1311. 
 
 Zorzi. 
 
 Revolt of Zara. 
 
 Henry VII. dies 
 at Buoncon- 
 vento (1311). 
 
 
 1312. 
 
 Somnzo. 
 
 War with Zara. 
 
 First mercenary troops. 
 
 
 Bannockburn 
 J'3'4)- 
 Morgarten 
 (1315). 
 
 1317- 
 
 
 Trade with Italy, Eng- 
 land and Flanders. 
 
 Rise of the 
 Houses of 
 Este, Carrara 
 and Scala. 
 
 
 1329. 
 
 Dandolo 
 
 
 Scala takes Tre- 
 
 Ottoman Turks 
 
 
 III. 
 
 
 viso (1329). 
 
 in Europe. 
 
 1332. 
 
 
 First war with Turks. 
 
 Petrarch (1304- 
 
 1374)-. ^ 
 
 Boccaccio (I3I3- 
 ^37S)• 
 
 Brescia and Ber- 
 
 Wycliffe (1324- 
 1.84). 
 
 1336. 
 
 
 War with Scala. 
 
 1337- 
 
 
 League against .Scala. 
 
 
 
 
 
 gamo seized 
 
 
 
 
 
 by Visconti 
 
 
 1339- 
 
 
 Peace by which Venice 
 acquires Treviso and 
 Bassano. 
 
 Constitution granted. 
 
 (1337)- 
 
 
 1339- 
 
 Gradenigo 
 11. 
 
 
 
 
 1340. 
 
 
 Inundation. 
 
 Miracle of St. Mark's 
 ring. 
 
 
 
 1343- 
 
 Dandolo 
 IV. 
 
 League against Turks 
 soon dissolved. 
 
 
 
 1346. 
 
 
 Quarrel with Genoa over 
 Crimean fur trade. 
 
 
 Crecy (1346). 
 
 1348. 
 
 
 Plague. 
 
 Black death. 
 
 Black death. 
 
 1 350. 
 
 
 War with Genoa. 
 
 Rienzi (1343- 
 
 
 1351- 
 
 
 Ecclesiastic dispute as 
 to succession dues and 
 pious bequests. 
 
 1354)- 
 
 
 1353- 
 
 
 Battle of the Bosphorus. 
 Battle of Lojera ; Vene- 
 tian victory. 
 
 
 
 1354- 
 
 
 Petrarch in Venice to 
 advocate peace ; re- 
 fused. 
 
 Genoese fleet threatens 
 lagoons. 
 
 Genoa places 
 herself under 
 
 Visconti. 
 
 
 "354- 
 
 Falierll. 
 
 
 
 
 1355- 
 
 
 Battle of Sapienza ; Ve- 
 netian fleet destroyed. 
 Conspiracy of Falier, 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 199 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Doge beheaded. 
 
 
 
 1355- 
 
 Gradenigo 
 
 Pe.ice with Genoa. 
 
 
 Chaucer (1328- 
 
 
 III. 
 
 Hung.irian War. 
 
 
 1400). 
 Froissart (1337- 
 14 10). 
 
 1356. 
 
 Dolfin. 
 
 Loss of Dalmatia. 
 
 
 Golden UuU, 
 establishing 
 Imperial Elec- 
 torate (1356). 
 
 1 361. 
 
 Celsi. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Revolt of Candia finally 
 
 
 
 1363 
 
 
 crushed. 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 
 Petrarch leaves his books 
 
 
 
 1363- 
 
 
 to the Republic. 
 
 
 
 1365. 
 
 Corner I. 
 
 Ducal Palace. 
 
 
 
 
 Canal facade built. 
 
 
 
 1368. 
 
 Contarini 
 III. 
 
 Revolt and submission of 
 Trieste. 
 
 
 
 1369. 
 
 
 War with Carraresi. 
 
 
 
 1373- 
 
 
 Peace, favourable to 
 
 Venice. 
 
 
 
 •377- 
 
 
 Quarrel with Genoa at 
 
 Cyprus. 
 Tenedos given to Venice. 
 
 War with Genoa. 
 
 Early use of 
 cannon at 
 Vas-Quero. 
 
 Rise of the Me- 
 dici. 
 
 
 1379- 
 
 
 Venetian defeat at Pola. 
 
 
 
 
 Venice threatened. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Genoese blockaded 
 
 
 
 
 
 at Chioggia. 
 
 
 
 1380. 
 
 
 Surrender of the Genoese 
 fleet. 
 
 
 
 1381. 
 
 
 Peace of Turin. 
 
 
 
 1382. 
 
 Morosini 
 III. 
 
 Genoese rivalry ends. 
 
 
 
 1382. 
 
 Venier I. 
 
 
 Fall of the 
 Scalas. 
 
 Milan Cathe- 
 dral begun 
 ^(1387)- 
 
 Sempach(i386). 
 
 138B. 
 
 
 Argos and Nauplia ac- 
 
 Carrara on the 
 
 Bajazet (1389- 
 
 
 
 quired. 
 
 ascendant. 
 
 1404). 
 
 
 
 Venice joins wiih Vis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 conti against Carrara. 
 
 
 
 1400. 
 
 Steno. 
 
 Compagnia della Calza. 
 
 Death of Gian 
 Galeazzo Vis- 
 conti (1402). 
 
 
 1404. 
 
 
 Venice against Carrara. 
 
 
 
 1405. 
 
 
 Padua falls. 
 
 End of the Car- 
 raresi (1405). 

 
 200 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 1406. 
 
 
 Venice in possession of 
 Treviso, Padua, Vi- 
 cenza, and Verona. 
 
 
 
 1411. 
 
 
 War with Sigisinund. 
 
 
 
 1412. 
 
 
 Venetian victory at 
 Motta. 
 
 
 
 '413- 
 
 
 Peace. 
 
 
 
 1414. 
 
 Mocenlsii 
 
 Venice declares for the 
 
 Filippo Maria 
 
 Council of Con- 
 
 
 I. 
 
 superiority of General 
 
 Visconti(i3gr- 
 
 stance (14 1 4- 
 
 
 
 Councils. 
 
 '447)- 
 
 ■ 4.8). 
 
 1416. 
 
 
 IJattle of Gallipoli and 
 treaty with Sultan. 
 
 
 Huss(i4i5). 
 Agincourt(i4i5). 
 
 1418. 
 
 
 War with Sigisinund. 
 
 
 
 1420. 
 
 
 Acquisition of Friuli. 
 
 
 
 1423- 
 
 Foiicari. 
 
 The people lose all voice 
 
 in election of Doge. 
 " CniiiDiiiniias I'ene- 
 
 tiaruin" changed to 
 
 ' ' Signoria. " 
 Hall of the " Maggior 
 
 Consiglio " opened. 
 
 
 
 1424. 
 
 
 Venice in alliance with 
 Florence against Vis- 
 conti. 
 
 
 
 1425- 
 
 
 Carmagnola General. 
 War. 
 
 
 
 1426. 
 
 
 Peace of San Giorgio. 
 Venice acquires P>rescia. 
 
 
 
 1427. 
 
 
 War. 
 
 Battle of Maclodio. 
 
 
 
 1428. 
 
 
 Peace of Ferrara. 
 Venice acquires Bergamo. 
 
 
 
 1429. 
 
 
 War. 
 
 
 Villon (1431). 
 Joan of Arc 
 
 (1431). 
 Council of Basel 
 
 1432- 
 
 
 Trial and execution of 
 Carmagnola. 
 
 
 (1431-1449). 
 
 I433- 
 
 
 Peace with Visconti. 
 
 
 
 1434- 
 
 
 War with Visconti. 
 
 
 
 1437- 
 
 
 Venice sues for invest- 
 iture by Emperor. 
 
 Bessarion (1395- 
 1472). 
 
 
 1438. 
 
 
 Gattamelata's campaign. 
 Venetian Fleet on Garda. 
 
 
 Printing (1438). 
 
 T441. 
 
 
 Peace with Visconti. 
 
 Visconti dies 
 (1447)- 
 
 
 1448. 
 
 
 Bartolomeo CoUeoni. 
 
 Sforza, Duke of 
 Milan (1450). 
 
 
 '453- 
 
 
 Fall of Constantinople. 
 
 
 Fall of Con- 
 stantino- 
 ple (1453)- 
 
 1454- 
 
 
 Peace of Lodi. 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 201 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 1457- 
 
 
 Doge deposed. 
 
 
 
 1457- 
 
 Malipiero 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 1462. 
 
 Moro. 
 
 Propo^^ed crn'%ade against 
 Turks ; accepted. 
 
 Pius II. (r458- 
 1464). 
 
 
 1464- 
 
 
 Doije at Ancona. 
 
 Death of Pope. 
 
 Venice alone at war with 
 
 Turks. 
 Malipiero's Annali (1457- 
 
 1500). 
 
 
 
 1470. 
 
 
 Negropont lost. 
 
 
 
 1471. 
 
 Tron. 
 
 
 
 
 1472. 
 
 
 Caterina Cornaro m. 
 James King of Cyprus. 
 Turks in FriuH. 
 
 
 
 1473- 
 
 Marcello. 
 
 
 
 
 1474- 
 
 
 Siege of Scutari. 
 
 
 
 1474. 
 
 Mocenigo 
 II. 
 
 Great loan from subject 
 cities. 
 
 
 
 1475- 
 
 
 Collconi's will. 
 Turks propose peace ; re- 
 jected. 
 
 
 
 '47<J- 
 
 Vendra- 
 min. 
 
 Turks in Friuli. 
 
 
 
 1478. 
 
 Mcceniijo 
 III. 
 
 First stone bridge. 
 
 
 
 1479. 
 
 
 Pe.ice with Turks. 
 
 Ludovico Sforza 
 
 seizes Milan. 
 Turks at Otranto 
 
 
 1481. 
 
 
 S. M. dei Miracoli. 
 Fire at Ducal Palace. 
 War with Ferrara 
 Pope intervenes. 
 
 (1480). 
 
 
 1483. 
 
 
 Interdict. 
 
 Venice appeals to a 
 Council. 
 
 
 
 1484. 
 
 
 Venice invites France to 
 
 claim Milan. 
 Peace of Bagnolo. 
 Venice acquires Rovigo 
 
 and the Polesine. 
 
 
 
 1485. 
 
 Barbarigo 
 I. 
 
 Giovanni Bellini (1427- 
 1 516). 
 
 
 
 i486. 
 
 Barbarigo 
 
 Mantegna (1431-1506). 
 
 
 Diaz rounds 
 
 
 II. 
 
 Crivelli (1468- 1493). 
 Carpaccio (1478-1522). 
 
 
 Cape of Good 
 Hope (i486). 
 
 1488- 
 
 
 Annexation of Cyprus. 
 
 Savonarola 
 
 Columbus(i492). 
 
 1494. 
 
 
 CharlesVIII.asks Venice 
 
 to assist him in Italy. 
 Comines at Venice. 
 
 (1452-1498). 
 
 
 1495. 
 
 
 Venice in league against 
 
 French. 
 Battle of Fornovo. 
 

 
 202 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Vasco di Gama 
 (M97)- 
 
 1498. 
 
 
 Venice in league with 
 
 Rise of Cesare 
 
 
 
 Louis XI L ; price Cre- 
 
 Borgia. 
 
 
 
 
 mona. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Second Turkish War. 
 
 
 
 1499. 
 
 
 Battle of Sapienza. 
 Venice acquires Cremona. 
 
 
 
 1501. 
 
 I.oredan I. 
 
 Giorgione (1477-1511). 
 Procuratie Vecckiei^mgd- 
 1520). 
 
 
 
 1503. 
 
 
 Peace with Turks. 
 Venice occupies Ro- 
 magna. 
 
 Death of Alex- 
 ander VI. 
 
 (1503)- 
 
 
 1504. 
 
 
 The Pope prepares a 
 
 Julius II. (1441- 
 
 Treaty of Blois 
 
 
 
 league against Venice. 
 
 1513)- 
 
 (1504). 
 
 Venice omitted 
 as ally of 
 France. 
 
 Pope sub- 
 stituted. 
 
 1507. 
 
 
 Maximilian demands the 
 passes. 
 
 War ; Alviano in com- 
 mand. 
 
 Michael Angelo 
 (1475-1564). 
 
 Rapliael (1483- 
 1520). 
 
 
 1508. 
 
 
 League of Cambray. 
 Partition of Venice 
 decreed. 
 
 
 
 1509. 
 
 
 Interdict. 
 Agnadello. 
 
 Venetian mainland pos- 
 sessions lost. 
 
 
 
 1510. 
 
 
 Venice submits to Julius' 
 demands, and he with- 
 draws from league. 
 
 
 
 1512. 
 
 
 Mainland possessions re- 
 turn to Venice of own 
 accord. 
 
 Sanudo's Diaries (1496- 
 
 1535)- . . 
 Pnuh s Diaries. 
 Titian (1477-1576). 
 
 Battle of Ra- 
 venna. Death 
 of Gaston de 
 Foix (1512). 
 
 
 1513- 
 
 
 Cardona on the borders 
 of the lagoon. 
 
 Leo X. (1513- 
 1521). 
 
 
 1518. 
 
 
 Truce with the Emperor. 
 
 
 Luther (1483- 
 
 1520. 
 
 
 Truce renewed. 
 
 
 1S46). 
 
 1521. 
 
 Grimani 
 I. 
 
 
 
 
 1523- 
 
 Treaty with Charles V. 
 
 
 
 1523. 
 
 Gritti. 
 
 
 Battle of Pavia 
 
 (1525). 
 The Holv 
 
 League (1526). 
 
 
 
 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 203 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 1527. 
 
 
 Venice reclaims Ecclesi- 
 astical rights which she 
 surrendered to Julius 
 II. 
 
 Sack of Rome 
 (1527)- 
 
 
 1529. 
 
 
 
 Peace of Bo- 
 logna (1529)- 
 
 Peace of Cam- 
 bray (1529). 
 
 1536- 
 
 
 Libreria begun. 
 
 Sansovino (1479-1570). 
 Third Turkish War. 
 
 Settlement of 
 Italy. 
 
 
 1537- 
 
 
 Loss of Scyros, Patmos, 
 yEgina, Paros. 
 
 
 
 1538. 
 
 
 Alliance of Venice, 
 Pope and Emperor 
 against Turk. 
 
 Turks attack Crete. 
 
 Inaction of Allies. 
 
 
 
 1539- 
 
 Lando. 
 
 Treason of Cavazza, 
 Secretary to the Ten. 
 
 The Council of Three 
 created. 
 
 
 
 1540. 
 
 
 Peace with Turk. 
 Loss of Nauplia. 
 University of Padua 
 
 flourishing. 
 Vesalius (1314-1564). 
 Colombo (1516-1559). 
 Faloppius (1523-1563). 
 Fabricius (1537-1619). 
 
 
 
 I54S- 
 
 Donato I. 
 
 Diflferences with Rome 
 over the See of Ceneda. 
 
 
 Council of Trent 
 (1545-1563), 
 
 I5S3- 
 
 Trevisan. 
 
 Tintoret (1512-1594). 
 Palladio (1518-1580). 
 
 
 
 1554- 
 
 Venier 
 
 ir. 
 
 Paolo Veronese (1528- 
 1588). 
 
 
 Abdication of 
 Charles V. 
 
 1556. 
 
 Priuli I. 
 
 Appearance of the Us- 
 cocchi in Dalmatia. 
 
 Bad effect on Venetian 
 commerce. 
 
 
 (1555)- 
 
 Elizabeth (1558- 
 1603). 
 
 IS59- 
 
 Priuli II. 
 
 
 
 Peace of Cateau 
 Canibresis 
 (1559)- 
 
 1560. 
 
 
 Venice accepts decrees 
 of Council of Trent. 
 
 Pope gives Venice the 
 Palazzo di San Marco 
 in Rome. 
 
 
 
 1567. 
 
 Loredan 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 1570. 
 
 Mocenigo 
 IV. 
 
 Fourth Turkish War. 
 Turks attack Cyprus. 
 

 
 204 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 1571- 
 
 
 Siege and fall of Fama- 
 
 gosta. 
 Battle of Lepanto. 
 
 
 
 1572. 
 
 
 Venice deserted by her 
 
 Allies. 
 Peace with Turk. 
 
 
 
 '573- 
 
 
 Loss of Cyprus. 
 
 
 
 1574- 
 
 
 Reception of Henry III. 
 of France. 
 
 
 
 1575- 
 
 
 Plague. 
 
 Church of the Redentore 
 vowed. 
 
 
 
 1577- 
 
 Venier 
 III. 
 
 Fire at the Ducal Palace. 
 Palace rebuilt. 
 
 
 
 1578. 
 
 Da Ponte. 
 
 Uscocchi. 
 
 Troubles with the Em- 
 peror. 
 
 Pope claims right to visit 
 religious houses. 
 
 Venice opposes. 
 
 
 
 15R2, 
 
 
 Reform of the Ten. 
 
 
 
 1584. 
 
 
 Prociiratie Nuove begun. 
 
 
 
 ■585- 
 
 
 Reception of Japanese 
 Embassy. 
 
 " 
 
 
 1585. 
 1588. 
 
 Cicngna. 
 
 Rialto bridge built. 
 Pope objects to presence 
 
 of Henry's Ambassador 
 
 in Venice. 
 
 
 Armada (1588). 
 Henry IV. (1589- 
 
 1590. 
 
 
 Venetian alliance with 
 the Orisons. 
 
 
 16 10). 
 
 1592. 
 
 
 Galileo at Padua. 
 
 
 
 1595- 
 
 Griniani 
 11. 
 
 
 
 
 1596. 
 
 Concordat on the Index. 
 
 
 
 1598. 
 
 
 Venice imposes high tariff 
 on trade with England. 
 
 Uscocchi. 
 
 Disagreement with Rome 
 over secular jurisdiction, 
 Ceneda and the Po. 
 
 
 
 1601. 
 
 
 Fuentes in Milan. 
 
 Spain dominant 
 in Italy (1601). 
 
 Treaty of Lyons 
 (1601). 
 
 1602. 
 
 
 Fuentes clo.ses the Valte- 
 line. 
 
 
 
 1603. 
 
 
 Further quarrel with 
 Rome. 
 
 
 
 1605. 
 
 
 Questions of mortmain. 
 Ecclesiastic property. 
 Taxation of Clergy. 
 Examination of Bishops. 
 Secular jurisdiction over 
 criminous clerics. 
 
 Paul V. (1605). 

 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 205 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 1 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 Borghese enrolled in 
 
 
 
 
 
 Patriciate. 
 
 
 
 1606. 
 
 DoikUo 
 II. 
 
 Receipt of Papal Breves. 
 
 Interdict. 
 
 Appointment of Fra 
 
 P.iolo Sarpi as Counsel 
 for the Republic. 
 
 Jesuits, Iheatines and 
 Capuchins expelled. 
 
 Sir Henry Wotton pro- 
 poses a league with 
 England and the Pro- 
 testant Powers. 
 
 
 Inigo Jones 
 (1572-1652). 
 
 Rubens (1577- 
 1640). 
 
 1607. 
 
 
 Du Fresne, Joyeuse and 
 de Castro arrange 
 terms of an agreement. 
 
 Accepted. 
 
 Attempted assassination 
 of Sarpi. 
 
 
 
 1612. 
 
 Memiiio 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 1615. 
 
 Bembo. 
 
 
 
 
 .6.7. 
 
 
 Spanish Conspiracy. 
 
 
 
 1618. 
 
 Dona to 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 1618. 
 
 Priuli 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 1620. 
 
 
 Bragadin sells senatorial 
 secrets to Spanish Am- 
 bassador. 
 
 
 
 1622. 
 
 
 Case of Foscarini. 
 
 
 
 1623. 
 
 Contarini 
 
 IV. 
 
 Cornaro 
 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 1624. 
 
 
 
 
 1625. 
 
 Attack on the Council 
 
 
 Velasquez (1599- 
 
 
 
 of Ten, led by Zeno. 
 
 
 1660). 
 
 1630. 
 
 Contarini 
 V. 
 
 Great Plague. 
 S. Maria della Salute 
 vowed. 
 
 
 
 1631. 
 
 Erizzo. 
 
 
 
 
 1638. 
 
 
 Rupture with Turks. 
 Theatre at S. Cassian, 
 
 Androiii da. 
 
 
 
 1645. 
 
 
 Fifth Turkish War. 
 
 
 
 1646. 
 
 Molin. 
 
 
 
 
 1655- 
 
 Contarini 
 VI. 
 
 Attack on Crete. 
 
 
 
 1656. 
 
 Cornaro 
 III. 
 
 Siege of Candia. 
 Heroism of Morosini 
 
 
 
 1656. 
 
 Valier I. 
 
 (1646-1668). 
 
 
 
 1658. 
 
 Pesaro. 
 
 
 
 
 1659. 
 
 Contarini 
 VII. 
 
 

 
 206 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Date. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Venetian History. 
 
 Italian History. 
 
 General History. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ver^aille-. built 
 (1661). 
 
 1668. 
 
 
 Peace ; loss of Crete. 
 
 
 
 1674. 
 
 Sagredo. 
 
 
 
 
 1676. 
 
 Contarini 
 VIII. 
 
 Attempts at Free Trade 
 abandoned (1610-1684). 
 
 
 
 1685. 
 
 Guisti- 
 nian. 
 
 Morosini conquers the 
 Morea. 
 
 
 
 j688. 
 
 
 Bombardment of Athens. 
 
 
 
 1688. 
 
 Morosini 
 IV. 
 
 
 
 
 1694. 
 
 Valierll. 
 
 
 
 
 1700. 
 
 Mocenigo 
 V. 
 
 
 
 
 1 701. 
 
 
 Eugene and Catinat in 
 the Veronese. 
 
 
 War of the 
 Spanish Suc- 
 
 1709. 
 
 Corner 
 
 Reception of the King 
 
 
 cession (1701- 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 of Denmark. 
 
 
 1713)- 
 
 1716. 
 
 
 Loss of the Morea. 
 
 
 Blenheim(i704) 
 Passarovitz 
 (1718). 
 
 1722. 
 
 Mocenigo 
 VI. 
 
 Tiepolo (1696-1770). 
 Pietro Longhi (1702- 
 1762). 
 
 
 
 1732- 
 
 Riizzini. 
 
 
 
 
 1735- 
 
 Pisani. 
 
 
 
 
 1741. 
 
 Griiiiani 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 1752- 
 
 Loredan 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 1761. 
 
 
 Attack on the Council of 
 Three ; fails. 
 
 
 
 1762. 
 
 Foscarini. 
 
 
 
 
 1763- 
 
 Mocenigo 
 VII. 
 
 
 
 
 1779- 
 
 Renier. 
 
 Attempted reforms by 
 Pisani. 
 
 
 
 1784. 
 
 
 Bombardment of Tunis 
 by Emo. 
 
 Goethe in Italy 
 (1784). 
 
 
 1735- 
 
 
 Freemasons in Venice. ! 
 
 
 1789. 
 
 Manin. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1792. 
 
 
 Death of Emo. 
 
 
 1796. 
 
 
 Fall of the Republic. Napoleon in 
 Italy. 

 
 INDEX 
 
 Agnadello, battle at, and results 
 
 of, 147 
 Agricultural wealth developed, 9 
 Aias, defeat of Venetians at, 58 
 Aldine Printing Press, the, 123 
 Alliance between the Pope, Spain, 
 
 and Venice, 154 
 Alps, the, 5 
 
 Altino, flight of people of, 12 
 Ambassadors, 113 
 Anatesto, 17, 23 
 Appanage of one family, Venetian 
 
 dislike to, 31 
 Architecture, 124 
 Aristocracy, struggles between 
 
 noble families, 33 
 Aristocratic party, the, 18, 35 
 
 policy of, 35 
 
 Art, 124 
 
 Attila, his ruin of mainland 
 
 cities, 9 
 
 Bagnolo, peace of, 92 
 Banking, state and private, 83 
 Barbary pirates, Emo and the, 
 
 182 
 Bellini, Gentile, 130, 134 
 
 Giovanni, 130 
 
 Bibiones, 12 
 
 Birth year of Venice, 10 
 Borgia, Cesare, his designs, 144 
 Bragadin, Marc' Antonio, 154 
 Byzantine faction in lagoons, 25 
 Byzantium, 18 
 
 lagoon settlements, depend- 
 ence on, 19 
 reaction towards, 21 
 
 Caloprini family, their vendetta, 
 
 33 
 <' Calza," club of the, 134 
 Cambray, league of, 146 
 Canal, Admiral, 149 
 Candia, siege and loss of, 174, 
 
 176 
 Candiani family, the, 30 
 
 Pietro, 31 
 
 Cape-route, effect on Venice. 138, 
 
 179 
 CaprulsB, the community of, 12 
 Carleton, Dudley, quoted, n8 
 Carmagnola, 83 
 Carpaccio, 30 
 C;irraresi, the, 69 
 Casola, quoted, 133 
 Cassiodorus, description of la- 
 goon life, 10 
 Caterina, Queen of Cyprus, 97 
 Charlemagne, destruction of Lom- 
 bard Kingdom by, 21, 22 
 
 refuge of Fortunatus, 22 
 
 — — proposal to marry Empress 
 
 Irene, 22 
 Charles V. , 149, 151 
 Cliioggia, the war of, 62-65 
 Cinque Savii alia Mc-rcarizia and 
 
 Venetian commerce, 106 
 Clergy, and the Church, 107, 156 
 Clugies Major, the community 
 of, 12 
 
 Minor, the community of, 1 2 
 
 Collegia, 41, 42, 115, 116 
 Colonna, Marc' Antonio, 153 
 Comines, Philippe de, quoted, 
 135
 
 208 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Commerce, 44, 62, 75, 105, 138, 
 
 Commercial effect of final defeat 
 
 of Genoa, 65 
 Constantinople, 53, 55, 94, 138 
 Constitution, internal, 16, 98 
 
 oligarchical reforms, 36 
 
 Copyright, 124 
 Corruption, 135 
 Council of Ten, 43, 100, no, 135, 
 
 167 
 Counting-houses, 82 
 Cretan constitution, 102 
 Crusade, the fourth, its effects, 37 
 events preceding and 
 
 following, 51 
 Crusades, the Venetian share in, 
 
 48 
 Curzola, defeat ot Venetians off, 
 
 Cyprus acquired, 97 
 -^lost, 155 
 
 Dalmatia, 47 
 
 Dandolo, Venetian chronicler, 22 
 
 Enrico, his share in the 
 
 fourth Crusade, 52, 53 
 Decline, causes of the, 137 
 Democratic party, the, 18 
 
 ■ • attack on Heraclea, 20 
 
 Deodato elected fourth Doge, 24 
 Development of Venice, 23 
 Diarists, their place in Venetian 
 
 letters, 121 
 Diplomacy, Venetian, 112, 149 
 Doge, election of tlie first, 17 
 
 routine of his life, 115 
 
 Doria, Paganino, 59, 60 
 
 Luciano, 63 
 
 Pietro, 63, 153 
 
 Ducal Privy Council, germ of, 33 
 Duck-shooting, 133 
 Dukedom, the, 28-33 
 
 Eginhard, biographer of Charle- 
 magne, 22 
 
 Election of tribune, 17 
 
 — — Domenico Selvo as Doge, 34 
 
 Emo Angelo, and the Barbary 
 
 pirates, 182 
 Emotional quality of Venetian 
 
 painters, 130 
 Etruscans, the, 9 
 Excommunication of Venice, 108 
 Expansion, maritime, 45 
 inland, 65, 85, 92 
 
 Faber, Frate Felix, quoted, j 
 136 
 
 Factories abroad, 80 
 
 Falier, Conspiracy of Doge Ma- 
 rino, 61 
 
 Famagosta, siege of, 154 
 
 Ferrara, w^ars of, 66, 90 
 
 Finance, 104 
 
 Fire at St. Mark's, 31 
 
 Flight of Veneti before Attila, 10 
 
 Florence, Visconti's designs on, 87 
 
 Foreign claims in Italy, 139 
 
 Fortunatus, nephew of Patriarch 
 Giovanni, 21 
 
 refuge at Court of Charle- 
 magne, 22 
 
 Foscari, Francesco, policy of, 87 
 
 Foscarini, Antonio, 168 
 
 Franks, defeat of Lombards by, 
 20 
 
 Freemasonry, 113 
 
 Frencli alliance, Venetian wish 
 for a, 149 
 
 French descent on Italian States, 
 141 
 
 Friuli, war in, 86 
 
 Fuentes, 161 
 
 (iall)aio, Giovanni, action regard- 
 ing See of Olivolo, 21 
 (Jallipoli, battle of, 93 
 Gaulo, Galla, 24 
 Gauls, the, 9 
 
 Genoa, the struggle with, 54 
 second war with, 57
 
 INDEX 
 
 209 
 
 Genoa, third war with, 59 
 
 • fourth \var witli, 62 
 
 Geographical knowk'tlge, 119 
 Goethe, quoted, 183 
 Gorges worn by rivers, 6 
 Government of possessions and 
 
 dependencies, 102 
 Gradenigo, Doge, his policy, 66 
 Grado, community of, iz 
 Patriarch of, and the See of 
 
 Olivolo, 21 
 gory. Pope, rupture with Leo 
 
 the Iconoclast, 19 
 
 alarm at Lombard power, 20 
 
 Gregory XII., Pope, claims of, 
 
 159 
 Grimani, Antonio, 143 
 Growth of Venice, 46 
 
 Heneti, the, 8 
 
 Henry III. of France, reception, 
 
 134 
 Heraclea, city of, 19, 23, 25 
 Hereditary throne, Venetian dis- 
 like, 32 
 Houses in Lagoon Settlement, 11 
 Hungarian pretensions to Dal- 
 matia, 62, 69, 86 
 
 support of Carrara, 70 
 
 Huns, their ruin of mainland 
 cities, 9 
 
 Impregnability of Venice, 34 
 Improvements in lagoon life, 1 1 
 Independence, the Venetian, 14, 
 
 19, 21, 149 
 Industries, 81 
 Inhabitants, earliest, 8 
 Inguisitori di Stato, III 
 Interdict, 41, 66, 91, 147, 164 
 Invasion, barbarian, 9 
 by Lombards, 12 
 
 Jesolo, of the democratic party, 20 
 
 appeal to Doge of Mala- 
 
 mocco, 25 
 
 John, Don, of Austria, 154 
 Julius II., 145, 156 
 Justice, 109 
 
 Lagoon of Venice, the, 7 
 
 communities, 10 
 
 treaty with Luitprand. 
 
 19 
 Land, fertility of, 7 
 Latin Empire in the East, the, 53 
 
 fall of, 55 
 
 Leo, Emperor, the Iconoclast, 19 
 
 Lepanto, battle of, 155 
 
 Libraries, 123 
 
 Life of Venice, the, 131, 179, 183 
 
 Literature, the Diarists, 120, 121 
 
 Lodi, Peace of, 90 
 
 Lombard invasion, 12 
 
 advance of power, 20 
 
 defeat by Pepin, 20 
 
 Luitprand, treaty with Venice, 
 
 19 
 
 siege of Ravenna, 19 
 
 Luxury of the Venetians. 132, 
 
 179, 183 
 
 Mdggior Consiglio, 36, 38, 39, 40, 99 
 Mainland, expansion on the, 66 
 
 flight of people, 10, 12 
 
 cities, ruin of, 9 
 
 abandoned, 12 
 
 Malamocco, the city of, 24 
 Malipiero, the chronicler, 78, 
 
 124, 142 
 Marcomanni, incursions of the, g 
 Maritime expansion, 45, 76, 92 
 
 possessions, loi 
 
 Marshes, 6 
 
 Maurizio, attack on Grado, 21 
 Mauro, the vision of Priest, 12 
 Maximilian, treaty with Louis, 
 
 145 
 
 attack and truce, 146 
 
 Metamaucus, the community of, 
 
 12 
 Milan, the Duke of, 71
 
 210 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Miles, Mastro, the Master Soldier, 
 
 24 
 Monegario, election of, 24 
 Morea, the conquest and loss of, 
 
 177 
 Morosini, Senator, on Private 
 
 Banking, 84 
 Francesco, defender of 
 
 Candia, 175 
 Mountains, 5 
 
 Muiano, tlie community of, 12 
 Music, Venetian, 183 
 Mustapha, Turkish General, 154 
 
 Napoleon, and the fall of Venice, 
 184 
 
 Nicephorus, treaty with Charle- 
 magne, 22 
 
 Nicosia, siege and fall of, 153 
 
 Normans, Venetian treaty with, 
 SI 
 
 Obelerii, the family of, 22, 25, 29 
 Olivolo, See of, 21 
 Orso, Doge, 20, 23 
 Orsoelo family, the, 31 
 Pietro II., 32, 46 
 
 Padua University, 119 
 Painting, 127 
 
 Paphlagonians, Venetians pro- 
 bably Romanized, 10 
 Particiaco, the family of, 29 
 Paul, Exarch, flight to lagoons, 
 
 >9 
 
 v.. Pope, struggle with, 161 
 
 Pepin, crowned King of Italy, 20 
 
 defeat of Lombards, 20 
 
 attention drawn to Venice, 
 
 and defeat, 26 
 Perspective, Venetian appreci- 
 ation of, 129 
 Petrarch, Francesco, 81, 124, 133, 
 
 Pianura, 6 
 
 Pineto, thu, 23 
 
 Pisani, Nicole, 59, 60 
 
 Vettor, 63 
 
 defeat of Genoese, 64 
 
 Plain, the, 5 
 
 Police of early Doges, 23 
 
 Politics, foreign, effects on Venice 
 
 90 
 Possessions, maritime, 102 
 Pregadi, germ of, 33 
 Printing, 122 
 
 Priuli quoted, 138, 143, 144 
 Promissione ducala, 37 
 Prosperity ol Venice, 9 
 Pupillia, the community of, 12 
 
 Ravenna, fall of, 19 
 
 recovery and second fall of, 
 
 20 
 
 Religion, 106, 156 
 
 Renier, Doge, quoted, 182 
 
 Rethymo, fall of, 174 
 
 Rialto, the community of, 12, 25 
 
 Rivers, 6 
 
 Romans, the, 9 
 
 Sanudo, quoted, 150 
 
 Sapienza, Venetian defeats at, 61, 
 
 142 
 Sarpi, Era Paolo, 120, 122, 164, 
 
 166 
 Scala family, the, 67 
 
 Venetian war against, 68 
 
 Sclav pirates, 46 
 Sculpture, Venetian, 124 
 Selim, the drunkard, 153 
 Selvo, Domenico, election as 
 
 Doge, 34 
 
 Senate, 33, 40 
 
 Settlement, the Lagoon, lo 
 
 Sforza, Venetian action regard- 
 ing, 142 
 
 Spain, the dread of, 160, 166 
 
 Spanish Succession, War of the, 
 181 
 
 Sport, 133 
 
 Stephen, Pope, crowns Pei)in, 20
 
 INDEX 
 
 211 
 
 Stock, first issue of Government, 
 Suleiman, Sultan, 151 
 
 Taxation lightened to rally trade 
 
 decline, 178 
 Teachers, distinguished, at Padua 
 
 University, 120 
 Ten, Council of, 43, 100, no, 167 
 Tenedos, the island of, 63 
 Three, Sub-Council of, in, 171 
 Tintoret, 131 
 Titian, 131 
 
 Torcello, the community of, 12 
 the vision of Bishop Paul, 
 
 12 
 Townships, foundation of, n 
 Trade, decline of, 137, 178 
 Trade-routes, the, 79 
 Tradonico, Pietro, 30 
 Trapani, defeat of Genoese at, 56 
 Treachery, Spanish, 167 
 Treaties with Luitprand, 19 
 Treaty of Blois, 145 
 Tribune, election of additional, 17 
 Turks, relations w^ith the, 92, 94, 
 
 96, 140, 150, 172 
 
 Tyre, effect of its fall on Venetian 
 expansion, 50 
 
 University at Padua, 119 
 Utrecht, Peace of, 181 
 
 Venetian printing press, the, 122 
 
 vassalage, 23 
 
 Veneto, the, and its surroundings, 5 
 Venice, events leading to creation 
 
 of modern, 24 
 Venier, Sebastian, 154 
 Visconti, Filippo Maria, schemes 
 
 for powder, 86 
 
 death, 89 
 
 Gian Galeazzo, alliance with 
 
 Carrara, 71 
 
 death of, 72 
 
 Volunteers against Turkey, 175 
 
 Zane, Matteo, 161 
 
 — — Venetian commander, 153 
 
 Zara, Peace of, 70 
 
 Zeno, Carlo, 65 
 
 Renier, attack on Council 
 
 of Ten, 169 
 death, 1 70 
 
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