SHORT HISTORY VENICE W-R-THAYER OESB LIBRARY LIBRARY -^ THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY . MRS. THEO KLOSKI DAY SCHOOL Date Due LIB8SB1 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE BY WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER AUTHOR OF "THE DAWN OF ITALIAN INDEPENDENCE," " THRONE-MAKERS," ETC. MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CAVALIERE DELL* ORDINE DELLA CORONA D'ITALIA, ETC. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY itoeitfiDe $#, Cambri&0e 1908 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY THE MACMILLA'N COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1905. PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA En fHnnorg of MY MOTHER PREFACE No other people has been the victim of more misconceptions than the Venetians. They have been praised for qualities they did not possess and blamed for crimes they did not commit. Roman- cers and poets have unwittingly belied them ; enemies have traduced; historians have turned partisans for or against them. It seems as if posterity were in league never to understand them. There are several reasons why the history of Venice has suffered in this way. First of all, its duration renders it difficult to make plain its con- tinuity amid the transformations of a thousand years. The life of Venice begins with the inva- sion of Attila; it was just ending when George Washington retired from the presidency of the United States. Next, the noble part which the Venetians played in the world, as intermediaries between Western Christendom and the Orient and as merchants during the era when the trade of sol- dier was deemed the most respectable, has rarely been sufficiently magnified. Historians usually concentrate their attention on the breaking up of the Eoman civilization, or on the medieval insti- tutions which replaced it, the Church and the viii PREFACE Empire, with the Papacy and the Monastic System, and with Feudalism or on the origin of those nations which, like the German, the French, and the English, have dominated the modern epoch. Venice pursued her own way independent of all these, and although she was in a large sense the product of the Middle Age, she was the least medieval of her contemporaries. To them she seemed abnormally progressive because she was stable ; while moderns, mistaking her stability for stagnation, have hastily concluded that she was incapable of progress. The trend of political evo- lution sets toward popular government ; the Vene- tians formed a powerful state after a different plan. They developed a national organism per- fectly adapted to their unique conditions, but so opposed to modern political ideals that few stu- dents have investigated it and fewer still have treated it sympathetically. Moreover, the d^ea- dence of Venice, being the most recent part of her career, is the best known; the last two centuries of excessive luxury and exhaustion have caused the five centuries of hardy growth and the five cen- turies of vigorous prime to be forgotten. But her decadence offers nothing peculiar to her; whereas her growth and prime were truly characteristic. By these she should be judged; just as the greatness of Imperial Kome should be judged by the achieve- ments of Julius and Augustus and the Antonines, and not by the failures of the Valeutinians. Assuming that for the most part decay explains PREFACE ix itself, my purpose in this little book is to set forth the greatness of the Venetians. By epitomizing long stretches of comparatively regular develop- ment, I have secured space for describing in detail those episodes through which the national spirit best reveals itself and those crises which mark structural changes in the political life. And since the complaint is often heard that Venice stifled individuality, I have taken care to outline the por- traits of many of the great men who wrought out her destiny. Whoever will compare her remark- able doges Orseolo the State-Builder, Domenico Michiel, Enrico and Andrea Dandolo, Pietro Gra- denigo, Tommaso Mocenigo, Francesco Foscari, Se- bastiano Venier, and Morosini the Peloponnesian with the kings of France and of England, will recognize that Venice did not crush out individu- ality. In Vettor Pisani and Fra Paolo Sarpi she produced a patriot and a statesman of the highest order, world-heroes, if ever there were such. To the student of government, the history of Venice affords an unparalleled opportunity, since it records the rise, uniform growth, uninterrupted functioning, and gradual decline of an important political system. We have no similar specimen of republic or of monarchy, because nowhere else has a republic or a monarchy been able to put into practice its principles undisturbed, during even a brief period. Foreign invasion, internal rebellion, dynastic or class rivalry, military ambition, these are the dislocating influences which arrest or mod- X PREFACE ify or cripple the orderly development of nations ; from these Venice was singularly free. But the very word " oligarchy " sounds so hateful to some ears that more than one writer has imputed to the Venetian oligarchy all the evils which over- took the Republic, including its decline and fall. The true historian, however, will not allow himself to be fooled by names; he will search for facts, and though he be a stanch democrat, he will do full justice to the Venetian oligarchy, even to the point of regretting that no democracy has thus far come as near perfection as the political system of Venice came. On whichever side we examine her institutions, we find order, intelligence, foresight, and harmony. The political worked in unison with the commer- cial ; but it worked equally, at least in intent, with the social. Venice employed experts to apply the best knowledge of her age to government, law, commerce, business, and public health; of what state to-day can we affirm as much ? She rose to that attainment of balance and solidarity which stamps a high civilization. Every one, noble or plebeian, lived for VEXEZIA, and in return .she shed her benefits on every one. If we assume that an oligarchy is necessarily bad, we shall never understand her history, nor the devotion which all of her children felt for her. The example of the unremitted application of intelligence to government which she set may well be pondered by nations groping after a political PREFACE xi and social reorganization which shall prove stable. Veiiice learned to adjust herself to her extraordi- nary geographical conditions and to her complex political environment. She solved, satisfactorily to herself, her social, industrial, and commercial problems. In a word, she found herself, lived her own life, grew to full stature, and then slowly passed away, not. because she was oligarchic, but because she was mortal. Her career has this further lesson for us to-day : it shows that not numbers but wisdom and charac- ter make a people great. Venice was a city-state. In her prime the capital never had a population of more than two hundred thousand inhabitants ; the rest of the Dogado, before the annexation of the mainland provinces, probably did not number one hundred thousand more. Yet this little state established a colonial empire relatively larger than the British Empire, and it carried on a commerce relatively more extensive than the British has ever been. There are, indeed, so many parallels between Venice and England that I have not hesitated, in the following pages, to call attention to them, or to cite other modern instances which may help to interpret the Venetian story. I have also tried to mark at each period the position of Venice in respect to the general development of her neigh- bors, and to the great currents which bore Europe on from the invasion of the barbarians, through Feudalism and Roman Theocracy, to the Reforma- tion and modern times. xii PREFACE For most persons the final reason and the strong- est for interest in Venice springs from her Beauty. The incomparable city captivates all her visitors ; her spell of romance charms even the dullest. "What poets dreamed these marvels? what ro-, mancers dwelt in these enchanted halls ? " they ask as they glide through the canals or float on the opaline Lagoon. To answer these questions is one of the objects of this sketch, which will show that the Venetians were a practical, earnest, far- seeing, sagacious people, no day dreamers, but men who looked facts squarely in the face, mastered them, and perpetually delighted in Beauty. The proof they gave that a genius for the Practical need not exclude a genius for the Beautiful is, next to their Art itself, the most precious of their legacies. In scope and method, not less than in point of view, therefore, this short history differs from other works in this field. Like every modern who has dealt with the Venetians, I have found the ten volumes of Eomanin's Storia Documentata di Venezia an invaluable quarry. While Venice was still under Austrian domination the modest Ro- manin produced his life work, which stands a mon- ument to his patriotism and scholarship. One cannot use his volumes constantly during several years without recognizing his fairness. He frankly defends Venice, just as Daru frankly assails her, and in so far he is partisan ; but the investigations of recent historical students have almost always PREFACE Xlii confirmed his judgments. I have refrained from overloading my text with footnotes and from citing authorities, but for the sake of readers who wish to go deeper into the subject, I have added a short list of the more important books. In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude for various assistance during the preparation of this little book, to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, for much friendly criticism ; to Professor Albert Bush- nell Hart, for reading a part of the manuscript; to Captain A. T. Mahan and to Professor Pompeo Molmenti, who is easily first among those now living who know Venice in all her aspects, for replies to special questions ; and to the Harvard College Library, which sets the world an example in laying open its treasures to scholars. W. R. T. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, January 21, 1905. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii LIST OF MAPS xvii CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 .... 1 II. BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 ... 25 III. VENICE AND THE CRUSADES, 1096-1205 . . 45 IV. IMPERIAL GROWTH THE GREAT RIVAL, 1205-64 71 V. FIXING THE CONSTITUTION, 1264-1310 . . 96 VI. PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME, 1310-60 . . 117 VII. THK DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA, 1360-80. 135 VIII. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, 1380-1453 . 159 IX. THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI, 1453-1525 . . 189 X. VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : INSTITUTIONS . . 212 XL VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : LIFE AND ART . 228 XII. THE Loss OF CYPRUS, 1525-90 . . .250 XIII. SARPI, 1590-1623 264 XIV. DECLINE AND FALL, 1623-1797 . . .293 XV. EPILOGUE 318 CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES .... 331 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 INDEX 345 xv LIST OF MAPS VKXICE Frontispiece PAGE VENICE AND THE LAGOONS ...... 25 IMPERIAL VEXICE 75 POSSESSIONS ox TERRA FIRMA ... . 160 THE HEART OF VENICE 233 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 AT the beginning of the Christian Era, the north- western shore of the Adriatic, from the mouth of the Piave on the north, to the mouth of the Bac- chiglione in the south, some fifty miles' distance, was formed by long, narrow strips of sand. They enclosed a lagoon, twelve miles across in its broad- est part, dotted with innumerable islets, and threaded by channels, sinuous and variable, through which the silt-burdened streams of the mainland wound slowly to the sea. At low tide, the shallows of the Lagoon lay bare. Sometimes, after the great rains, the rivers rose and flooded all but the highest of the islands ; or the southwest gale, blowing long and furiously up the Adriatic, drove the heaped water through the four openings of the sandy coast-rim, to startle the marsh fowl in their reedy haunts. But ordinarily, so placid was the bosom of the Lagoon, that the incessant making and unmaking of soil be- low the surface would not have been suspected. The land-locked islands, covered with verdure, had 2 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. then 110 habitations, unless perhaps here and there a flimsy hut offered precarious shelter to some fisher- man more venturesome than his fellows. On the outer islands, or lidi, there may have been, even then, small settlements ; especially on the southernmost, which commanded the waterway to Padua. But the first impression produced on a visitor to the Lagoon, and the last, must have been of solitude, of sluggish waters and shifting lands, waters through which the boats of men could with difficulty find a passage, lands on which men themselves could hardly hope to build firmly or to get a meagre subsistence. Passing to the continent, however, one entered the luxuriant plain watered by the Po and fifty smaller rivers. Then, as now, that plain was one of the garden-spots of the world. Populous cities, thriving towns, busy villages, lived on its exhaust- less harvests. For hundreds of years its people, the Veneti, shared the culture of Koine, and they gave to Roman literature three of its masters. Livy was born near Padua, Virgil at Mantua, and Catul- lus made the shores of Lake Garda forever lovelier for his presence. Where the Veneti came from,, or when they first established themselves in the Delta of the Po, seems now past finding out. Some con- scientious historians remind us that before the Trojan War a tribe of Eneti dwelt in Paphlagonia; others report that much later there were Veneti in Brittany ; still others would ally them with the Slavic Wends ; but such gossip helps no more than silence. i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 3 Possibly they were kinsmen of the Etruscans. All that we know certainly is that they had been pros- pering for centuries in their rich plain, when Julius Caesar admitted them to Roman citizenship. Then they saw emperor after emperor lead his armies across their plain and disappear northward into the vast wilderness beyond the Alps where the barbari- ans swarmed. Gradually, the vigor of Imperial Rome grew slack, and the barbarians, no longer withheld by the Koman legions, poured through the passes into Italy. In the land of the Veneti they found booty and ease hitherto undreamt of by them. At their coming, the most fearful of the citizens fled to the islands of the Lagoon, and remained there until the enemy, glutted with spoils, marched on. The refugees crept back to their dismantled homes, leav- ing behind them, after each flight, some of their companions, who preferred privation with safety to civilized comforts with danger. But at the begin- ning of the fifth century, the incursions from the North became more frequent and more terrible. In 401, Alaric led his Visigoths through Venetia ; in 405, Rhadagasius headed a host of Ostrogoths, Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and other barbarians ; thenceforward, the people of Venetia lived in con- sternation until the coming of Attila and his Huns in 452. Atrocious though he was, rumor born of panic made him more atrocious still. He devastated Illyria; he put to the sword the inhabitants of Aquileia, the most important city beyond Padua j 4 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and as he moved southward, whoever could, rushed to cover. This time the fugitives resorted in larger numbers than ever to the islands of the Lagoon, and most of them never went back to their old homes. So the year 452 stands as the date of the origin of Venice, although the old chroniclers, with the suspicious precision of ignorance, set March 25, 421, as the very day when, " about noon," the foundation stone of the city was laid. Their earlier date doubt- less refers to an actual event the sending from Padua of maritime tribunes to govern the settlers on the islands of Rivoalto, or Eialto ; but to Attila's scourge we trace the decisive emigration from the mainland to the Lagoon out of which the Venetian Republic sprang. As these emigrants, like the English Puritans who colonized Massachusetts, were civilized folk suddenly transplanted to a wilderness, the mean conditions into which they were forced did not fairly represent their culture. Moreover, as every class joined in the exodus, social distinctions were brought ready-made into the new communities. Above all, the Veneti had from of old the love and practice of liberty : their offspring, the Venetians, as we shall henceforth call the island settlers, were to preserve their freedom longer than any other nation. During more than thirteen hundred years from the time when they fled from Attila, they never .submitted to domination from abroad, nor suffered a tyrant at home. Through count- less vicissitudes of hardship, of glory, of dis- i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 5 aster, they maintained inviolate the supremacy of the Venetian state ; guarding it jealously ; sacrific- ing everything else, personal and family ambition, and class interests, to keep it free and paramount. No other government has exacted more from, its citizens ; no other citizens have obeyed their state more willingly or loved it with a nobler passion. This is the more wonderful because Venice was in truth not a popular government in the modern sense, but the most highly organized oligarchy. Other oligarchies have flourished for a while, but the Venetian oligarchy alone knew how to identify its own interests with those of the entire population, so as to command, during a thousand years, not only the respect and obedience but the devotion of every child of Venice. And thus the history of the Vene- tian Republic unfolds the gradual identification of the dominant class with the inner life of the state, not less than the dealings of the state with the out- side world. But the fugitives from Attila's wrath had no vision of empire, or even of statehood ; happy they, if in their watery refuge they might merely exist. They set themselves to build, not a political fabric, but such dwellings as they could, out of mud and clay and rough-hewn logs. They learned where fish, their chief food, abounded, and where to plant their few vegetables. From landsmen they became seamen, but we have absolutely no details of the transformation. How did the upper classes, accus- tomed to luxurious idleness, now fare ? How close 6 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAI-. were the relations with the old homes ? How much was saved from the wreck and transferred to the infant colonies, after the devastating Huns swept by ? This and much more must be left to conjec- ture : records are not written down during an earth- quake. We do know, however, that the new settlements differed one from another, just as the cities from which they had sprung differed, Malamocco, for instance, was reputed democratic, while Heraclea was aristocratic, and that the differences led in time to discord. But the need of harmony was most urgent, and in 466 representatives of the various townships met at Grade and chose officers to govern each community. The election of these tribunes, or gastalcli, marks the first step in the po- litical evolution of the Republic. Hitherto, the parent cities had exercised a real, and then a nomi- nal, suzerainty over the islands; now the islands proclaimed that they would have no more consuls from Padua, but local rulers of their own choosing ; no more tutelage, but independence ; and the cities of the mainland were too feeble to recover control. A large word is independence to apply to these island townships, whose population could have numbered even then only a few thousand souls, widely scattered in precarious homes. They had elected independence could they maintain it ? The Ostrogoth should come, the Lombard, the Greek, the Frank, and each should strive, by force or flattery or guile, to put asunder Venice and her i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 7 independence : how could she, apparently so weak, baffle them all ? No matter how often we may have read the story, which of us can realize, even faintly, what the dis- solution of the Roman Empire meant to those who witnessed it in Italy ? We can, indeed, taking a philosophical view, "explain it" according to our present lights. We see that politically it involved the breaking up and passing away of an empire which had impressed its administration on the entire an- cient world ; we see also that ethnically it worked in Europe for the replenishing of the exhausted Latin and Latinized stocks by the Teutons and the Slavs, with their barbaric virility. Knowing the sequel, th'e tedious forming of new nations, having other institutions, laws, and religions, and culminating at last in a civilization higher than the Roman, we declare the rotting of Rome a necessary stage in human progress. But contemporaries could not peer into the fu- ture ; they saw only the catastrophe. If any prophet could have revealed to them that the horrors they were suffering would in a thousand years lead to a better condition, little would it have consoled them. To the victims on the rack, the present was all in all. Carried down in the crash of a system which they had believed to be indestructible, they could hardly have been more appalled if the laws of na- ture had come to a standstill. From the past they could get neither encouragement nor instruction ; for the past had witnessed no similar calamity. 8 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Among the higher classes of Italy there were the alternating languor and frenzy that punish long dis- sipation. Laws ceased to guide or to restrain. The multitudes were resolved into their primary brutish instincts, lust, robbery, murder. And everywhere, beside the Fury lurked the Fear. Possession was uncertain and brief. Death alone was sure. For, ever and anon, the hordes of the barbarians, Teuton or Hun, came like ravening wolves, whom no civil- ized pleasures had enervated, to devour and destroy ; until they learned at last that by settling in the land, and sparing the inhabitants to do their bid- ding, they might enjoy its fatness continuously. Rome was dying, and the awfulness of her death- throes was proportioned to her former grandeur and pride and strength. That spectacle has so as- tonished the world that only lately have historians sought to trace amid the chaos of those forces of death the forces which were at work to create society anew. On the edge of such ruin, like a young cedar on the brink of a whirlpool, the Venetian state took root. Not to be engulfed in the vortex of the sinking Empire, nor to be swept away by the wild, new freshets those the perils which had to be faced. The remoteness of the island settlements, not less than their poverty, proved their salvation. In 476, Romulus Augustulus, the last feeble Roman Emperor of the West, was deposed. Fourteen years later Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, invaded Italy, conquered much of it, set up his capital at Ravenna, THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 9 and maintained until 526 a better government than had been seen since Constantine. The Venetian towns grew, but not so visibly rich as to excite the cove- tousness of their Ostrogothic neighbors. Compara- tive tranquillity enabled them to extend their carry- ing trade up the rivers of the Po Delta and among the ports at the head of the Adriatic. From this era dates the first description we have by an eye-witness of the Venetian state in its in- fancy. Cassiodorus, Theodoric's pretorian prefect, addressed in 523 a letter to the Maritime Tribunes, exhorting them to convey promptly to Eavenna the customary tributes of .wine and oil from Istria. He praises their seamanship, which carried them over " infinite distances." " To your other advan- tages," he says, " it is added that you can always travel a safe and tranquil course ; for when through the angriness of the winds the sea is closed to you, there opens another way through the pleasantest rivers. Your ships fear not the harsh gusts. . . . With pleasure I recall how I have seen your habi- tations situated. The famous Venetian towns, already filled with nobles, border on the south Eavenna and the Po ; toward the east they enjoy the smiling Ionian shore, where the alternating tide now covers and now bares the surface of the fields. There are your houses like aquatic birds, now on sea and now on shore ; and when the aspect changes suddenly, these dwellings scattered far and wide, not produced by nature but founded by the industry of men, are like the Cyclades. The solid 10 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. earth is there held together by woven willow boughs, and you have no doubts in opposing so frail a barrier to the waves, when the shore does not suffice, on account of its lowness, to hold back the mass of waters. Your inhabitants have abun- dance only of fish ; rich and poor live together in equality. The same food and similar houses are shared by all ; wherefore they cannot envy each other's hearths, and so they are free from the vice that rules the world. All your emulation centres on the salt-works ; instead of ploughs and scythes you turn cylinders, whence conies all your gain. Upon your industry all other products de- pend ; for though there may be somebody who does not seek gold, there never yet lived the man who desires not salt, which makes every food more savory. Therefore, repair your ships, which you keep hitched like animals to your walls." From the tone of Cassiodorus's letter, it is evident that the Venetians had contrived to stay on friendly terms with Theodoric, and at the same time to preserve their virtual independence. But the great Ostrogoth had scarcely died, in 526, before a graver peril confronted them. Justinian, .the Eastern Emperor, determined to bring Italy under the sway of Byzantium. With this in view, he despatched to the Penin- sula his general, Belisarius, who captured Ravenna in 540. Thenceforth the Exarchate, which touched the Lagoon on the north and east and represented a power at Constantinople whose strength had not i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 11 yet been tested, might well be regarded by the Venetians as a menace ; but with characteristic adroitness they took care not to force a test. Whether from policy or from friendship, they lent their ships to transport the troops of Narses, who had succeeded Belisarius, and when Longinus, the next exarch, paid a friendly visit to the islanders, they welcomed him without reserve. He wished to make sure of their assistance against the Lombards, and he urged them to acknowledge the Eastern Em- peror as their suzerain. The Venetians granted his first request readily enough. Their answer to his second showed that they already understood the ad- vantage which their unique position gave them. " God, who is our help and protection, has saved us in order that we may dwell upon these watery marshes. This second Venice which we have raised in the Lagoons is a mighty habitation for us. No power of emperor or prince can reach us save by the sea alone, and of them we have no fear." Longinus freely acknowledged that their habitation was indeed mighty, and that they need fear neither prince nor emperor, but he coaxed them so pleas- antly to send an embassy to Constantinople, prom- ising that no formal oath should be exacted of them, that they complied. In due season their en- voys returned, bringing the first treaty which the Venetians, as a separate state, negotiated with a foreign power (568). And here we come to the question of the exact relation between Venice and the Eastern Empire. 12 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Whatever may have been the wording of this docu- ment or of others, Venice never was in fact de- pendent on Constantinople. From policy she might claim the Emperor as her suzerain, and she certainly at times sent a nominal tribute to him ; but no Byzantine ever crossed her threshold to govern her. If an Imperial messenger brought a request, she would listen, but she brooked no command. From the beginning she shrewdly avoided entangling alliances with her neighbors, whose friendship might prove as dangerous as their enmity, and she professed for those whom distance rendered harm- less a deference not to be construed too literally. In the long run she got much more than she gave by her titular dependence on the Eastern Empire. Politically she gained much; commercially she gained more. The day never came when the pro- tection she bought so cheap threatened her liberty. At the first sign of such a danger she would have averted it by seeking other allies. From the end of the sixth century, therefore, we must think of her as politely acknowledging the supremacy of the Emperor at Constantinople, without allowing this to interfere in the least with her national ambition. But while the Venetians so early agreed on a policy to be held in their dealings with the outside world, they suffered from long discords at home. Among the twelve communities 1 which comprised 1 These twelve were Grado, Bibiones, Caprulue (Caorle), Heraclea, Jesolo (Cavallino), Torcello, Murano, Rialto, Meta- I THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 13 the little Republic, there were inevitable rivalries, due to the feuds which they had inherited from their parent cities, or to commercial competition, or to different ideals in government, or to the clashing of family ambitions. The tribune had only a local authority ; too often he lacked even that. In 584, in each township a second tribune was " elected by all the people," and these twelve new officers seem to have been the forerunners of a central gov- ernment. From the earliest times, however, the people kept the final control in their own hands. Their arrengo, or popular assembly, in which every citizen might speak and vote, resembled in its de- mocracy the New England town meeting. That the magistrates thus chosen came to have much greater power than the New England selectmen was due to the violence of the age and to the Roman tradition. In every land where that tradition has penetrated there has been an invariable tendency, no matter what the system of government, to mag- nify the person in office at the expense of the cit- izens who created him. Nevertheless, in Venice, even after the election of the greater tribunes, the need of a centralized government was still strongly felt ; for though the tribunes were often powerful enough to tyrannize over their fellow-townsmen, they were still too weak either to compel harmony or to set up a despotism throughout the Lagoons. From the outside, as usual, came the wholesome, maucus (Malamocco), Pupillia (Poveglia), Clugies Minor, Clugies Major (Chioggia). Brown, p. 2. 14 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. welding strokes. In 568 the Lombards, the last of the Teutonic barbarians, conquered Northern Italy and set up a vigorous rule down to the shore of the Lagoons. Then for the last time Venetians of the mainland fled for safety to the islands, and Tor- cello remains to this day as a memorial of that final settlement, which added several thousand inhabitants to the population, and, more important still, put an end to all thought of going back. Thus " what Attila began, Alboin, the king of the Lombards, completed." The Venetians had now to learn to live beside an imperious neighbor. They agreed to pay certain dues, in return for which they were allowed to pursue their commerce along the rivers. They kept their friendship with the Eastern Emperor, who still held Ravenna. To make the port against both wind and tide is the seaman's art ; the Venetians were seamen in their statecraft too. But they still owed most to their comparative insignificance and to their fairy god- mother, Poverty. Throughout the seventh century, while their foreign relations stood thus at seesaw between Lombards and Byzantines, the Venetians quarreled incessantly among themselves. Rival families, ri- val towns, rival forms of government, were striv- ing for mastery; and there was also the love of fighting for fighting's sake which belongs to the half civilized. At length the soberer citizens realized that in bloodshed the young state would exhaust itself. Christopher, Patriarch of Grado, i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-S10 15 the spiritual head of the Venetians, called an assembly at Heraclea in 697, and proposed that instead of the twelve tribunes there should be a single ruler. Thereupon they elected Paoluccio Anaf esto their Doge the Venetian form of dux or duke and gave him almost absolute authority over the administration and the army, and also over ecclesiastical appointments. The tribunes were retained, but merely as local officers. The arrengo alone stood as a check on the Doge's autoc- racy. We must not suppose, however, that these distinctions were observed all at once. Unlike modern states, which spring, with a ready-made constitution, into being, the Venetian Republic grew. The election of Doge Anaf esto marks the unifi- cation of the cluster of small towns which had hitherto been loosely held together in a confeder- acy ; the federal units might still clash among themselves, but the fact of their unity was the great fact. Anafesto, being a Heraclean, presum- ably represented the aristocratic ideas which pre- vailed at Heraclea. He had fierce struggles with the democrats, headed by the men of Jesolo and Malamocco, and overcame them only after much slaughter. Abroad, however, by negotiating a com- mercial treaty with Liutpraiid, the Lombard king, he won a diplomatic victory which all his subjects could enjoy. When Anafesto died, after reigning twenty years, he left the state stronger in spite of its dissensions, but the permanence of the dogeship 16 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. was not yet assured. His successor, Marcello Te- galliano, another Heraclean, had an ecclesiastical quarrel to adjust. Aquileia had been the patriar- chate of the Upper Adriatic until Attila's invasion, when the Patriarch fled to Grado and there estab- lished a new see. After the Patriarch's return to Aquileia, the Bishop of Grado became the most important ecclesiastic in the Lagoons, so important, indeed, that Pope Pelagius II created him a patri- arch, and made his bishopric the metropolitan see for Maritime Venice and Istria (579). This inten- sified the archiepiscopal hatred of the Aquileian patriarchs for their brothers of Grado, and they did not stick at inducing the Lombards, who were willing enough, to attack and capture Grado. Donato, the Patriarch of Grado, escaped to Venice and implored Tegalliano to reinstate him ; but the Doge discreetly referred the quarrel to the Pope, with recommendations in favor of Donato. The Pope could do no less than comply, if only be- cause Donato had remained firmly orthodox, where- as his Aquileian rival had joined the Arian schism ; but as the Pope had no physical means of com- pelling submission, it was not until the Lateran Council (732) confirmed his decision that the older patriarch ceased to harass the younger. This outcome of what seemed a mere churchman's wrangle proved of immense importance to Venice. The Eoman Church was the first institution des- tined to long life that rose after the collapse of the ancient world. By the eighth century this Church i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 17 Avas already reaching out for political power and territorial possessions for those temporalities which eventually transformed the religious institu- tion into the Papacy, the worldliest of medieval ' states and the most irreligious. Venice alone \ escaped the tyranny of this subtle power. The Patriarch of Grado was her Patriarch, Venetian before he was Roman, bound by personal interests and by civic loyalty to uphold Venice against even the Roman Pontiff. In later days, when the new states of Western Christendom learned one by one that in fostering the Roman Church they had harbored a body of foreign political intriguers, Venice knew that from her priests and prelates she had little to fear. She watched the long struggles of France, of Moravia, of Hungary, to establish each a national church ; she witnessed the mighty contest between Popes and Holy Roman Emperors, and their mutual destruction ; she saw England cringing in the thirteenth century before the Roman legate, and shaking off the Roman shackles in the sixteenth century, only to substitute for them an emasculate and disingenuous form of Ro- manism ; she saw Spain at the height of empire surrender herself, body and soul, to Rome, and thereafter rot, body and soul, past all remedy: Venice was a spectator of all these tragedies, but they gave her no personal concern. She never had an ecclesiastical problem ; and never, until her decadence, did she suffer a Roman ecclesiastic to speak officially as a Roman within her borders. 18 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, Assured of independence from clerical control, she remained devout when other nations warred openly with the Church whose tenets they professed. And as she was spared the horrors of a religious war, so she was never poisoned by the remembrance of them. For many ages her soil was the abode of religious toleration. The Patriarch of Grado (whose see was not transferred to Venice itself until 1445) was her pope ; and if the Roman Curia insisted too haughtily on " St. Peter," Venice re- plied with equal haughtiness and greater affec- tion, " St. Mark." " Venetians first, Christians afterward," was the immemorial maxim of her people. Under the third Doge, Orso, surnamed Ipato (726-37), the Venetians won their first military success. The Lombards had conquered the Exar- chate and occupied Ravenna. The Venetians, dreading further encroachments in that direction, sent a fleet to Ravenna, and after a long siege captured it arid slew the Lombard commander. This episode, besides giving the Venetians military prestige, showed that they would grant or withhold their alliance according to what they deemed their own interests. The Greek Emperor expressed his gratitude by bestowing upon Doge Orso the title of Hypatos or Imperial Consul, and friendly rela- tions with the Lombards were restored. 1 1 Some historians base their assertion that Venice was literally a dependency of the Greek Empire on the fact that Orso and several of his successors accepted the title Hypatos. The evi- i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 19 But at home the old feuds flared up afresh. Orso was accused of plotting to surrender the Re- public to the Greek Emperor, who would create him its autocratic governor, and in an insurrection he was killed. The assembly refused to elect another doge. " We desire not," they said, " to choose a lord, as the doges have shown they wish to be. Why did our ancestors seek these islands except to live in freedom ? Had they wished to be slaves, there were many better dwelling places where they might have settled." Instead of a doge, therefore, they chose the master of the soldiers mastro miUtum to hold office for a year; but at the end of six years they returned to their ducal govern- ment and never afterward abandoned it. Deodato, the fourth Doge (742-55), had a stormy reign, in which the enemies of Heraclea rose against him ; he was deposed and barbarously blinded, and within a year his rival, Galla Gaulo, met the same fate. Then at last Malarnocco, the little city on the outer island rim, elected her candidate, Domenico Mone- garo (756-64), and became the capital of the Vene- tians. So intent were the democrats on preventing a lapse into one-man power that they set two trib- unes to be a check on him an arrangement which speedily led to quarrels, in which " his eyes were outed of his head, and his person of his office." During more than a generation the struggle for dence seems to me not to warrant this conclusion, even after \ve make what allowance we choose for the fact that our information comes from Venetian sources. 20 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. supremacy between Heraclea and Malamocco did not abate ; but in the end, Malamocco triumphed and her rival was destroyed. The Heracleans and their enemies of Jesolo were transported to Malamocco, in the hope that thereby the various elements of discord might be fused into one harmonious people. Meanwhile there appeared a new conqueror the mightiest since Csesar. To stop the encroach- ments of the Lombards, the Pope implored the assistance of the Franks. Over the Alps, down the valley of the Po, across the marches, to the shores of the Adriatic, came Charles the Great and subdued the Lombards. He seems to have been satisfied at first with imposing restrictions upon Venetian com- merce ; but by and by, when he had grown to be the virtual sovereign of Western Christendom, he could hardly allow the small commonwealth in the Lagoons to exist independent of his control. Nevertheless, in the compact which he made in 803 with the Greek Emperor, he agreed that the Venetians should enjoy undisturbed the position and liberties they had been accustomed to in the Kingdom of Italy. But there had sprung up in Venice itself a party which held that their only salvation lay in submitting to Charlemagne as suzerain. Personal ambitions, family feuds, local jealousies, and the projects of the Patriarch com- bined to make this Frankish party formidable. Its adherents, forgetting the traditional policy of Ven- ice, nearly wrecked their state by urging that unless they voluntarily took Charlemagne for their lord, i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 21 the Greek Emperor would forcibly take them for his vassals a specious plea, since the Frankish conquest put an end to the waning Byzantine influ- ence in Northern Italy. Some of these partisans, driven into exile, sought refuge in the Prankish cities of the mainland ; others fled to Charles at Aix and implored him to aid them ; the greatest number stayed at home and carried on their intrigues as openly as they dared. Evidently, only the com- parative insignificance of the Maritime Republic caused Charlemagne to refrain from attacking it. Just Avhat pretext his son Pepin had for organiz- ing an expedition against Venice, we do not know ; there are certain situations which are themselves a sufficient reason for any act, good or bad, which may arise out of them (810). Pepin, having gathered a large flotilla at Ravenna, aimed his assault from the ea. The Venetians, who had always deemed themselves impregnable on that side, were astonished, if not dismayed, as they lost one port after another. Pepin took Bron- dolo ; he took Chioggia ; he stormed Pelestrina ; only Albiola and a narrow channel lay between him and Malamocco, the capital. But at Albiola the Venetians at last made an effectual stand. Then the Frankish invasion became a siege, which dragged on for half a year, until the heats wasted Pepin's army. Possibly, too, rumors that a Byzantine fleet was on its way to relieve the Venetians may have warned him to withdraw. At any rate, by mid- summer, he raised the siege, and Venice was saved. 22 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Charlemagne bore no malice against the Venetians, for he gave back the territory Pepin had captured, and he consented that they should pay no more tribute in future than they had paid to the Lom- bards in the past. That tribute, " thirty-six pounds of pure silver," was rather a trader's license fee than a vassal's offering. By the treaty of Aix, con- cluded with the Eastern Emperor, he acknowledged that the Venetians belonged to the Eastern Empire. Pepin's invasion, revealing the insecurity of Malamocco, marked another turning-point in the development of Venice. During the siege, the women and children and old men were removed from the lidi to the islands of Rialto, situated about midway in the Lagoon, beyond reach of an enemy ; and when the danger had passed, the Venetians voted to transfer the capital to Rialto. Next, the common peril united the feud-sundered factions. We hear little more of Frankish or Greek partisans, and never again did any powerful party shamelessly propose to surrender the independence of the Re- public. With the growth of the new capital, the old municipal jealousies naturally died out. Mala- mocco sank into tranquillity, as Heraclea had sunk before her; for now the greater life throbbed at Venice, the city which, being founded by men of all parties, belonged to all and not to any one. Finally and chiefly, Venice had met victoriously the new power which Charlemagne had consolidated. The Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy were the two institutions which, either jointly or separately, I THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 23 lorded it over mere kings and local rulers through- out the Middle Age. As Venice had already avoided falling into the grasp of the Papacy, so she now eluded the clutches of the Empire. By preserving her independence during Charlemagne's lifetime she established it in perpetuity ; because when he died the military force he had wielded was shat- tered, his Empire was divided and broken up, and by the time another strong Emperor came into Italy, Venice herself was too strong to fear sub- jugation. The Papacy, the Empire, and the Venetian Re- public were three independent institutions which rose out of the chaos into which the ruin of Eome plunged the ancient world. Church and Empire claimed to be universal ; Venice was perforce local. Lacking the incalculable advantage which its reli- gious pretensions gave the Church, or the advantage which the Empire drew from its attempt to revive magnificent traditions, Venice served civilization not less truly than they. Her vitality was as dur- able as theirs ; her achievements not less splendid. Empire and Church helped, however imperfectly, to unify Western Christendom ; at least, they kept alive the ideal of unity. It was the mission of Venice to bind Western Christendom to the rest of the world, to the Greek Christians of the ^Egean and the Bosphorus, and to the great non-Christian races of the Orient, to the Arab, the Persian, and the Hindu. Her relations were primarily not political, not religious, but commercial : she taught 24 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, i how commerce may be a humanizing agency in epochs when religion fosters wars, and governments treat every foreigner as a foe. Had Charlemagne succeeded in crushing her nascent power, her story would have been as insignificant as that of Zara or Trieste. " Be thou unique ! " is the command Fate issued to Venice alone among the nations. " In the isola- tion of thy site, none shall resemble thee. In thy freedom from Pope and Emperor, none shall rival thee. The city thou buildest on the ooze of the Lagoon shall outlast the rock-built cities of the crag and the broad-laid cities of the plain. Out of thine incessant combat with the sea shall come thy strength. Thy soul shall delight in beauty, and beautiful shall be thy handiwork." As the flower lies in the seed, so all these pos- sibilities lay in the tiny Venetian Commonwealth after the repulse of Pepin. fj s~v- f 7.2 P , B. CHAPTER II BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 AXGELO PARTECIPAZO, or Badoer (811-27), the first Doge of the new era, set about converting the islands of Kialto into a worthy capital. He built the first Ducal Palace, doubtless a rugged structure, on the site where the present one stands. He appointed Pietro Tradonico to be chief architect for the whole city, Lorenzo Alimpato to direct the digging of canals and the raising of embankments, and Xicolo Ardisonio to devise means for protect- ing the lidi from being washed away. Angelo has justly been called the founder of Venice, for by him and by these three assistants were traced the out- lines of the magic city which we know. Most of the little islands forming the Kialtine group were already inhabited ; but he joined them by bridges and united them under a single administration. Angelo had been dead only a few months when the body of St. Mark was brought to Venice (January 31, 828) by two merchants, Rustico of Torcello and Buono of Malamocco, who had escaped with it, in marvelous fashion, from Alexandria. AVe can hardly realize what it meant in that age for a city to have a patron saint. He served it not 25 26 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. only as a constant protector in its daily affairs, but also as an intercessor before the Almighty. By its thinly disguised polytheistic system of saints, angels and archangels, the Roman Church perpetuated the ancient pagan worship of minor gods and local deities of beings sufficiently near the human to be within the reach of the average understanding. Between the worshiper and God, the Church has always interposed either some celestial intercessor or a living priest, and has dedicated its houses of worship not to God but to his saints. The patron of a city or a state was, therefore, of the highest religious importance. In St. Mark the Venetians secured a patron of the first order. The legend that Mark when alive had landed on an island of Rialto and been met by Christ with the words, " Peace to thee, Mark, my Evangelist," easily gained credence, as indicating that he was predestined to be the protector of the future city. In prestige, Mark shone not less brightly than Peter or Paul, and the Venetians by accepting him deposed to a secondary position St. Theodore, who had till then been their guardian ; even among the saints, it seems, there are social distinctions. Alongside of the Ducal Palace they began the basilica in which they worshiped St. Mark and preserved his body. In that worship there was nothing perfunctory. No other patron of medieval times not St. James in Spain, nor St. George in England, nor St. Denis in France grew so intimately into the hearts of his people as did St. Mark. The Venetians ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 27 revered him and they loved him, and out of their great love and reverence they made his sanctuary the most beautiful in Christendom. The bringing of St. Mark's body from Alexandria shows that at the beginning of the ninth century Venice had already extensive commercial relations. The earliest islanders supported themselves by fishing. Then salt became a staple, and the salt- erns of the little Republic supplied all the neighbor- ing Italians. Soon a carrying trade was organized, and the Venetian vessels plied up and down the rivers or along the coast. As more seaworthy ships w r ere built, longer voyages were undertaken. Before 750 regular mercantile intercourse was es- tablished with France, Constantinople, and Egypt. Istria and the eastern shore of the Adriatic had of course been exploited before this. When a great fair was opened at Pavia, about 770, the Venetian traders mounted the Po and displayed for sale silk and cloth of gold and other oriental wares. In 977 they had a colony at Limoges, and in the following century they invaded Marseilles, Aiguemortes, Tou- louse, and other cities of Southern France. They opened a regular postal service between Venice and Constantinople, which required fifty days for the round trip. Their own isolation sent them to the mainland for building material, for vegetables and meat, for metals and for all luxuries. Everything conspired to breed in them enterprise, thrift, foresight, and to make them by Charlemagne's time important out 28 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. of proportion to their numbers. They had dis- covered their mission, commerce, and were far advanced on the road to civilization before Pepin thundered at their outposts. To get a true view of the Venetians we must remember that, amid wars and political upheavals about which history has most to tell, commerce, seldom chronicled, was the real business of their lives. Year in, year out, their ships went shuttling across the Adriatic or the Mediterranean, and up the Italian rivers; their merchants were trading with Greek and Arab, with Frank and Saxon and Slav ; and the best thought of their rulers was spent in devising ways for safeguarding and extending their trade. Thus the Venetian state put forth the attributes of permanence, which implies, not the changeless- ness of stagnation, but adaptability. It took root in the new conditions which were slowly transform- ing Western Europe into a collection of states more or less plastic to feudalism. In Venice herself, however, feudalism never prevailed. Her deep-set love of liberty, combined with her fortunate isola- tion, saved her from it. But the development of her peculiar system of government went on. Dur- ing the ninth and tenth centuries the problem was whether the Doge should become an hereditary sov- ereign ; for other nations, on emerging from bar- barism, invariably adopted the dynastic principle. The Holy Roman Empire seemed at first an excep- tion, but it too became, in spite of its more than national scope, the appanage of a single German n BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 29 house. Even the Church, through the ambition of her political counterpart, the Papacy, narrowly escaped from the rule of hereditary popes. The de- fects in an elective monarchy are as easy to point out as are the reasons why elective monarchs should strive to hand on their crown to their descendants. In Venice, between 811 and 979, out of sixteen doges nine belonged to the Badoer family and five to the Candiano. The Doge usually associated his son with him in the government, so that when the father died the election of the son was assured. The rivalry of those two families prevented the succession in either from being continuous. The unpopularity of some of the doges and the incom- petence of others rendered the dynastic principle unattractive, and the people clung to the system of election, thanks to which, although they might choose one bad doge, they could hope to choose a better one next time. Nevertheless, the Badoeri and Candiani, though they failed in making their dynasties hereditary, held in turn immense power : as when the Doge, the Patriarch of Grado, the Bishop of Olivolo (then the chief prelate in Eialto), and other high dignitaries in Church and State, were all kinsmen. That the democratic principle overcame against such odds, proves how fundamental it was in the Venetians' character. We must guard against assigning a modern meaning to such a political term as " demo- cratic " when we apply it to the Venetians. They gloried in their democracy to the end, even when 30 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. their government was a rigid oligarchy, and little survived of democracy save its name. But during these formative centuries they insisted on making and deposing their supreme ruler, as their one right not to be relinquished. Compared with her Christian neighbors at this period, Venice led a not unduly stormy life. Two doges were assassinated ; several abdicated and en- tered a monastery; there were violent clashes be- tween the ducal power and the Patriarch, and the rise of a few great families, mutually hostile, caused more than one bloody brawl. But there was, nevertheless, a measurable growth in respect for legality, in the ability of the government to maintain order, and in the desire of the people to enjoy it. Venice in the ninth century was politi- cally more stable than France in the nineteenth, and we should probably have to seek beyond Christian lands, at Cordova, under the Ommiyades, to find a higher contemporary civilization. But whether there were peace or discord at home, Venice had seldom a long respite from foes abroad. The eastern coast of the Adriatic, with its narrow, intricate inlets and its wild mountains, formed a perfect resort for pirates ; and there Slavic pirates throve by preying on Venetian traders and by ter- rorizing the people of Istria and Croatia. To keep them in check was a never-finished task. The pirates could not be bound by pledges. When captured, they were taken to Venice and sold into slavery. The name of the chief quay, Kiva degli n BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 31 Schiavoui (" the Slavonians' Quay "), is a reminder, like the word " slave " itself, of that practice. Yet it was the increased armament required for dealing with these outlaws which made possible both the great naval power of Venice and her empire on the Adriatic and in the East. Geography deter- mined that the object of Venice should be com- merce, not conquest. In buying and selling she regarded no man as an enemy. But she discovered that, first her own merchants and next those with whom they traded, must be protected ; and protec- tion took many forms, now a galley sent to con- voy the fleets of rich-freighted merchantmen ; now a garrison to guard the Venetian factory in some foreign city; now a protectorate or colony main- tained from purely business motives. Much time was to pass before Imperial Venice came into being ; but we shall do well to remember from the start the principle which governed her expansion. All her various methods of protection were but policing. Her first important naval expedition ended dis- astrously. In the ninth century the Saracens scoured the Mediterranean. As eager as the Slavs for plunder, unlike the Slavs they seized laud and colonized wherever they could. They were already conquering Sicily and menacing Southern Italy, when the Greek Emperor, Theodosius, besought Ven- ice to aid him against them. She quickly fitted out a fleet of sixty dromoni, heavy galleys, each with two hundred men (making an enormous force, if the figures be correct), and joined the Greek navy at 32 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Crotona, on the Gulf of Tarentum, where they gave battle to the Saraceus. At the first onset the Greek commander slunk away with his fleet ; the Venetians, overmatched, were compelled to with- draw ; and the Saracens chased them up the Adri- atic with such energy that only a few of the galleys escaped capture or destruction. Venice herself seemed in danger of an attack ; but after a taunting reconnaissance, the victors steered south- ward (840). Once more, and for the last time within the cen- tury, Venice beheld a formidable enemy at her gates. In 900 the Magyars, under their great chief, Arpad, descended through Friuli, " the most harmful door, left open by nature to chas- tise the faults of Italy," and having ravaged as far west as Pavia, they heard of the rich spoils they might seize in Venice. Retracing their steps and following the route Pepin had taken, they at- tacked the Republic at its southwestern corner. Again did Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina suc- cumb ; again did the Venetians mass their strength at Albiola ; and again was Venice saved. ' The Magyars, so terrible on land, could not cope with the sea-bred Venetians on the water (June 29, 900). To this day the name S. Pietro in Volta St. Peter of the Turn commemorates the turning in flight of Arpad's host. One other military event needs to be recorded : an expedition against the neigh- boring town of Comacchio, which the Venetians razed to a state of insignificance from which it never II BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 33 emerged. If jealousy of a possible rival was the motive of this severity, as has been asserted, it shows the unlovely side of this nation of merchants. They could not be tempted into war by lust of empire, but without remorse they would cut down a competitor. Through all these vicissitudes the Republic steadily waxed strong. The depredations of the pirates caused it to organize a navy ; invaders by land caused it to fortify its landward approaches, and even the islands. At the time of the Magyar peril a strong castle was built at Olivolo, near the site of the present Arsenal, and a battlernented wall, then or a little later, shut in the grassy fields and orchards which we know as the Place of St. Mark. Another high wall skirting the Riva degli Schiavoni connected the Castle with the Ducal Palace. By adroitly pursuing her traditional policy, Ven- ice steered a safe course between the East and the West. Luckily Charlemagne left no heir capable of holding together his ill-joined realm. In 842 the Venetians negotiated with Lothair, titular King of Italy, a treaty which gave them large privileges, subsequently confirmed or extended during many generations. Even when a rejected aspirant to the dogeship fled to the German sovereign as hap- pened in the tenth century and besought him to make war on the Republic, friendly relations were not long interrupted. A sudden illness took off Otto II, who had espoused the cause of the unpa- 34 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. triotic Caloprini, and removed the peril. Already Venice had discovered that a foreign policy, founded on reason and carried out consistently, enables a comparatively weak nation to win against the brag- gart or veering policy of stronger rivals. With the Eastern Emperors she had a similar experience. If one were harsh, his successors might be friendly. The Venetians made no effort to rid themselves of a merely nominal suzerainty, nor did the Byzantine suzerain strive to convert his nomi- nal lordship into an actual mastery. In the earlier days it had hardly been worth while for the Eastern Empire to conquer the remote and inconspicuous commonwealth on the Lagoons; now Venice had grown too strong to fear any fleet that could be equipped at Constantinople; what served to keep the two at peace was the fact, acknowledged by each, that they were mutually helpful. As the commerce of Venice expanded, it drew the bulk of its supplies from the East. The Adriatic was but a broad avenue leading down to the Ionian and ^Egean seas, whose shores were dotted with prosperous cities, thronging with merchants as eager to sell as the Venetians to buy. And now, when the Saracens had become a redoubtable marine power, the Greeks saw that their interest lay in keeping the growing navy of the Lagoons on their side. The maritime supremacy of Venice over the Adri- atic began through the need of the Istrians for pro- tection from the Slavic pirates ; this she promised in return for one hundred jars of wine every year. ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 35 There was at first no question of suzerainty; to have raised it, would have precipitated a conflict with the Greek Emperor. In her territorial expan- sion she left much to time, never dropping the substance to snap at the shadow. The Imperial authority inevitably lapsed, and then she was at hand to supplant it. Of very few of the Venetians of this epoch can we recover the personal features. Most of those who have survived even by name were either doges or patriarchs, who stand out as types rather than as individuals. Nor is this surprising; for as the earliest chronicle extant dates from the end of the tenth century, its writer had to depend on tradition or hearsay for his account of what happened before he was born; hence Anafesto was as far behind Sagorninus as Marlborough is behind us. And yet several modern historians amplify details about each personage, assigning motives which nobody can ver- ify, and specifying personal traits which may or may not be lifelike, with a confidence that must astonish those who distinguish between fact and conjecture. The general trend of development we do know, and we have considerable testimony con- cerning several of the most important events ; but this does not warrant us in drawing imaginary por- traits of the men themselves. And yet some of the names and the deeds asso- ciated with them are memorable. We should recall how Pietro Tradonico (836-64) was the first doge who strove to rid the Adriatic of the Dalmatian pirates ; 36 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. how he saw the great armament he had equipped against the Saracens routed at Crotona, and how he negotiated the crucial treaty with Lothair. After him Orso Badoer I (864-81), in a long quarrel over investiture, maintained the religious independence of Venice against the Pope. Pietro Tribune (888- 912), who was the next remarkable doge, repelled the Hungarians. At last, with Pietro Candiano IV (959-76), we come to a personage whose career an eye-witness has described. His reign marks another crisis in our story. He brought down on the Republic the displeasure of Otto II the Emperor who forbade intercourse be- tween his subjects and the Venetians, and who had planned an invasion when death overtook him. Nor was this Doge more happy in the East, where the Emperor, John Zimiskes, who happened to be a soldier, threatened to destroy the Venetian mer- chant marine unless the practice of supplying arms and ships to the infidels were stopped. At odds with both East and West, Candiano drove his own subjects to desperation. He put away his wife and married, for the sake of her dower, Hwalderada, sister of the Marquis of Tuscany. He kept a large guard of foreign mercenaries in his palace. The people, suspecting that he intended to establish a tyranny, rose in fury, set fire to the palace, and de- stroyed it and its occupants, together with St. Mark's Church and over three hundred other buildings. When the doge, in a frantic effort to escape, rushed out through the flames, with his infant son in his ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 37 arms, the pitiless avengers slew both (976). With that as a warning, no subsequent doge played so openly for the great stakes of absolutism. Fifteen years later, Pietro Orseolo II (991-1008), an imposing medieval figure, came to the ducal throne. He was one of those statesmen who so magnify everything they touch that, as we look back, it seems as if they had not merely directed, but created issues. Where there is genius, the miracle of Moses's rod and the water gushing from the rock in Horeb is always repeated. Orseolo knew the temper and capacity of his countrymen and the actual political condition of Christendom through and through : accordingly, he knew how far he could safely aggress. The Holy Koman Empire being weak, he negotiated with its great feudatories in Northern Italy commercial treaties, which the Emperor himself confirmed. Venice thereby secured trading privileges and set up new factories as far as the Alps. Orseolo clashed with the Bishops of Belluno and Treviso, and compelled them to restore lands belonging to Venice which they had seized, and to permit freedom of trade along the Sile and the Piave. From the Greek Emperor he secured the most advantageous terms, some new, others revived. A special tariff for the Venetians, a special quarter devoted to them in Constantinople, and special laws in their favor, such the concessions which Emperor Basil granted in his chrysobol in return for the promise of the aid of the Venetian fleet whenever he needed it. 38 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. The Doge went farther and drew up a commercial treaty with the Saracens. They might harass the Greek Emperor but what of that? The treaty assured the continuation of traffic, already lucrative, with Sicily, Egypt, and Syria. The interests of Venice were not identical with those of the Eastern Empire ; why, then, should she quarrel rather than trade with her neighbor's enemies ? These achievements give the measure of Orseolo's extraordinary power as a statesman. His conquest of the Dalmatian pirates brought him glory which was commemorated yearly until the end of the Re- public by one of the most gorgeous pageants ever devised. On Ascension Day, in the year 1000, the Doge and his captains, after hearing mass, set sail with a great fleet. They skirted Istria, whose people welcomed them as deliverers ; they made festival at Zara and Spalatro, and then they pushed on to their real business, the extermination of the pirates. Having taken Curzola, they stormed La- gosta, the corsairs' capital, and put its inhabitants to the sword. Thereafter there was security. Orseolo sailed back, victorious and stately, along the coast, now untroubled from Ragusa to Istria ; and so home, where he was received with great rejoicing. To have strengthened Venetian trade on the neigh- boring mainland, to have cemented friendship with both Emperors, who were mutually antagonistic, and with the Saracens, whom both hated and the Eastern Emperor feared ; and to have bridled the ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 39 corsairs such the titles to fame of Pietro Orseolo the Second, the State-Builder. As a preliminary to these conquests abroad, he had secured harmony at home. His countrymen loved him and regarded the honors that were heaped upon him as paid to the Commonwealth. Emperor Otto III not only served as godfather to his eldest son, but visited Venice incognito, in order to see the great man. One son married the sister of King Stephen of Hungary, another the niece of the Greek Emperor, and his daughter became the wife of the King of Croatia. No other contemporary sovereign had prouder dynastic connections. But Fate did not spare him. He died in his forty-eighth year, worn out by his exertions in peace and war, and bereaved at the loss by pestilence of large numbers of his people and of a son. Another son, Otto, succeeded him ; a public-spir- ited man, who lacked, however, his father's genius. There came reverses not wholly chargeable to him. For a brief space the Patriarchate of Grado was wrested from Venice a loss not to be borne. But the real objection to Otto Orseolo lay in the grow- ing suspicion, which envious tongues fostered, that he was perpetuating a dynasty. Had the Vene- tians in the early days of the doges traversed the ambitions of the Galbaii, and later broken loose from the dynastic bonds of the Badoeri and Can- diani, only to surrender their liberty to the House of Orseolo ? They left no doubt as to their temper when they seized Doge Otto, shaved his 40 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. head, and sent him forth an exile to Constanti- nople (1026). Six years later, under Domenico Flabianico, who had been a strenuous opponent of the Orseoli, the arrengo decreed that no member of that family should thereafter be eligible to hold office; that, as a precaution against an hereditary dukedom, no doge should be permitted to associate any one with him in the dogeship; that two ducal councilors should assist the doge in the ordinary despatch of business ; and, finally, that in emer- gencies or matters of great moment, he should request the advice of the chief citizens of the Republic. These laws, adopted in 1032, fixed immutably the place of the doge in the Venetian system. They exorcised the dynastic spectre, but they also fore- shadowed the coming ascendency of an oligarchy. The eight or ten great families or clans, which had been striving among themselves for mastery, could not suffer that one of their number, through having a doge in office, should be lifted above the others ; much less that by establishing a dynasty he should exclude them from the chance of taking their turn on the throne. How these great families originated is as uncertain as how they grew ; but that is true everywhere. Several of the names most famous in the golden age of the Republic appear among its earliest records. By the eleventh century the ruling families had reached the solution of their long contest. Elsewhere in Europe, wherever the ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 41 monarchical principle prevailed and the crown was hereditary, the struggle lay uniformly between the crown and the great feudatories; the crown bent on restricting, the feudatories bent on maintaining, their virtual independence. In the non-monarchical Italian cities the contest usually narrowed down to two families, of which the victorious set up an hereditary despotism. The oligarchy of Venice seems to be due to the combination of her elective monarchy, her freedom from feudal shackles, and her great clans, numerous and strong enough to prevent any one of them from permanently overtop- ping the rest. The proved impregnability of the Eepublic also contributed to this result, by render- ing ineffectual every attempt of pretenders to be enthroned by foreign aid. The tendency toward oligarchy did not, however, lessen the popular love of liberty, or the belief of the people that they were their own masters. Hil- debrand said that the spirit and love of liberty of the ancient Romans survived in them. Just what part they had in the actual government after the eighth century can hardly be determined, but they seem to have had a vital part. The arrengo, or assembly of all the citizens, was summoned on im- portant occasions, and its vote was decisive. Classes there were, maggiori, mediocri, and minori, " up- per, middle, and lower," but we have no proof that they had not equal rights in the assembly. It may be suspected that a small body really gov- erned the state and elected the doges, and merely 42 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. announced its plans or candidates for popular con- currence. This method would give the people the power of veto, which it undoubtedly exercised, but that any deception could have been kept up so art- fully, generation after generation, that the people could not penetrate it, seems unlikely. In study- ing the operation of every form of government, we must distinguish between theory and practice. In theory, for instance, the citizens of more than one American city are self-governing ; they go through all the forms of a popular election ; they even talk vehemently about principles ; but in fact their city may be administered by a narrow ring of legal and moral criminals, who have never dared to appear openly as candidates for office. So the French Empire under Napoleon III, or the Prussian King- dom under William I, although styled constitu- tional, were genuine despotisms. If we are puzzled by the paradox that the Vene- tians still believed they had a popular government, when they really had an oligarchy, we must seek for the things behind the names. We must dismiss at once the assumption that any nation, least of all so high-spirited a nation, could have been politically enslaved for centuries without knowing it. The oligarchy developed so naturally that all classes looked upon it as the best safeguard of the state. Popular indignation, fear, or whim exploded against many a doge, but no popular revolution ever put the oligarchic system in jeopardy. The Venetians found it compatible with freedom as they conceived ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 43 it; and they were satisfied with the thing, whatever its name. Toward the end of the eleventh century, Venice had to cope with a new rival the Normans. Those wonderful buccaneers, unscrupulous, greedy, and brave, set up their kingdom in Sicily (1072), only six years after their kinsmen had conquered Saxon England. Their leader, Robert Guiscard, passed from Sicily to Southern Italy, and thence to Greece, dazzled by a vision of empire which em- braced the conquest of both Rome and Constanti- nople. The Greek Emperor in alarm asked aid of Venice, and Doge Selvo hurried to the rescue with a fleet of sixty-three ships. He fell in with the Normans at Durazzo, defeated them, and sailed home in triumph (1081). Guiscard, however, was soon ready for another campaign ; and before the Doge could intervene, he routed an army com- manded by the Greek Emperor, retook Durazzo, and confidently awaited the return of the Venetians. Selvo met him near Cephalonia, won two naval fights in three days, and imagining that he had dis- posed of the Normans, he remained in those waters with only a part of his fleet. Handicapped by this imprudence, he was utterly routed in a fourth en- counter with Guiscard (November, 1084), barely escaped to Venice with a remnant of his fleet, and quickly abdicated in order to appease the wrath of his countrymen. They took it for granted that their generals must come back victorious, or not at all a stern rule, which makes no allowance for 44 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, n extenuating circumstances, but which conduces to victory. No nation, which has held the doctrine that war is an affair in which defeat can be extenuated, has ever prospered in war. Fate was kind to Venice, for death overtook Robert Guiscard (1085) before he could profit by his victory. When the Normans and Venetians next met, it was as allies in the First Crusade. CHAPTER III VENICE AND THE CRUSADES HISTORY furnishes no parallel to those vast ex- peditions against the Moslem on which during the next two centuries the Western Christians em- barked. Their original object, the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre, seems trivial, unless we realize how bizarre a medley the religion of the medieval man had become. It contained a little ethical teaching, a great deal of dogma, and a much larger share of magic ; and it was by the magic in the form of miracles, portents, holy relics, amulets, charms, incantations that it touched multitudes of the semicivilized, and consequently superstitious, who were too dull to be moved by moral precepts and too ignorant to understand dogma. Magic for magic, what else in the whole world could compare with the very tomb in which the Saviour had lain ? Given the credulity, what more logical than to strive to recover that spell-working marvel ? If medieval sages spent their lives in search of the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Youth, should not kings and lords do as much to win something infinitely more potent than any elixir ? Some historians regard the Crusades as an episode 45 46 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. in that greatest of world-dramas the ancient conflict between Asia and Europe; the unending struggle, in which the wars between Greece and Persia, and between Rome and Carthage ; the Saracenic conquest of Spain and Sicily; the Cru- sades ; the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and the planting of the Turks in Europe, marked each a crisis, but brought no conclusion. The Crusaders themselves, we may be sure, were not conscious of playing in such a drama. Even the religious motive was not so simple to them as it seems to us. With their zeal to redeem the Holy Sepulchre were bound up grievances, political ambitions, commercial hopes, desire of vengeance and of destroying the Mahometan power which had for four hundred years harassed Christendom or kept it in constant alarm, the power which pro- faned the holy places by possessing them, the power whose frontier checked the Christians when- ever they wished to advance east or south. These causes, and others more obscure, prepared the emotions of Christians to leap into action at Peter the Hermit's call. The quick response from every part of Western Europe showed an emotional solidarity which has had no equal, either in depth or extent, in the record of religious revivals, pious manias, and popular zealotries. Venice alone, of the states best able to respond, held back, not because she was less religious than her neighbors, but be- cause she had traded with the Saracens too long to regard them as necessary enemies, and her career in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 47 as a commercial nation had taught her to count the cost before plunging into any enterprise. So the Venetian government waited until the news came that the Christians had taken Jerusa- lem (1099). Then they fitted out a fleet, and Doge Yitale Michiel I embarked with an enthusiastic army for the Holy Land. More than religious zeal now urged them on, for they foresaw that Chris- tian conquests in the Orient would open a great field for commerce. They resolved that this field should be theirs, and they had the satisfaction of believing that in serving God they were enriching their Kepublic. Before ever they caught sight of a hostile turban, however, they were tangled in a snarl of political complications. The Greek Emperor, nominal suze- rain of Palestine, frowned on the expedition of the Latin Christians, which bade fair to deprive him of even this empty title. He endeavored to dissuade the Venetians from joining the Crusaders; failing in that, he hired a fleet of Pisan galle}^ to fall on the Venetians unawares. Doge Michiel suspected treachery, surprised the Pisans at Rhodes, destroyed their armament, and then proceeded to Jaffa. At his coming the Crusaders rejoiced, and with his help set about reducing the port of Haifa. During more than twenty years following, there was seldom a season when ships flying the banner of St. Mark did not actively aid the Christians iu Syria. Among their many exploits, none exceeded in picturesqueness the capture of Tyre, by Doge 48 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Domenico Michiel (1124). The Crusaders being in doubt whether to lay siege to Tyre or to Ascalon, let fortune decide it, and an " innocent orphan boy " drew out of an urn the lot marked " Tyre." Before the siege began the Barons of the kingdom of Jeru- salem promised that the Venetians should thence- forth have in every city of the kingdom a bakery, a bath, a market, and a free quarter; that wherever the Venetians went, their own law should follow them, and their own weights and measures be used ; that they should be exempt from taxation; that when Tyre and Ascalon, or either, were conquered, a third of each city should belong to the Venetians ; and that the King of Jerusalem should pay to Venice an annual tribute of three hundred bezants. Thrifty, indeed, were the honest sons of Venice in serving their Lord ! But we must remark that neither the standard of the age nor their own con- sciences saw anything inconsistent in this com- bination of Crusading and business. The modern land-grabber shocks our moral sense by his hypoc- risy; being wholly bent on worshiping Mammon, he tries to hoodwink us with his pious blarney about devotion to God's work. The moral sense of the Crusaders, on the other hand, had not been quick- ened beyond the point where for a Christian to kill or to enslave an infidel, and to seize his property, was adjudged a most worthy Christian act. The day -was still far off when Christians should an- nounce that they slew and looted for the good of their victims. in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 49 The Venetians may not have been more scrupu- lous than their allies, yet they certainly allowed none to excel them in practicing honor as they conceived it. Listen to a story of their conduct at this very siege of Tyre : " One day it happened," says Martino da Canale, "that the Barons heard the report that the pagans were corning to succor those of Tyre. They told the Doge of it, and he said to them, ' Never fear, the city cannot defend itself so that we shall not take it.' ' In God's name, Sir Doge,' said one of the Barons, ' you have your fleet ready, and so you are not afraid to be here ; for if the pagans come, you will quickly em- bark and sail away.' When the Doge heard that, he at once commanded the Venetians that the whole fleet should be drawn ashore; and the Venetians obeyed the command of the Doge. And when the Doge saw the fleet on shore, he ordered that a plank should at once be knocked out of the bottom of each vessel. And when the Barons of France saw the fleet of the Venetians scuttled, they felt sure that the Doge and the Venetians would have no wish to depart thence without them." Tyre, after a brave resistance, had to surrender, " only five measures of wheat left in all the city," and thereupon the Venetians set up their rule in the stipulated third. In other cities of the Cru- saders' kingdom they settled on equally sovereign terms, and appropriated now one island in the ^Egean and now another, the beginnings of a colonial empire which, if we measure it by the E 50 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. industrial and mechanical resources of the age in which it flourished, surpassed even the modern British. The First Crusade, which they were the tardiest to join, left on their destiny the deepest mark. From traders in the Levant they became political owners, with the responsibility of governing and defending their new possessions, and with the cer- tainty that to keep what they had got would involve conquering more. They had desired com- merce only, but commerce led them to empire, which they assumed reluctantly; protesting that, in order to hold their own against their great rivals, the Pisans and the Genoese, they must secure the richest concessions in the Orient. Were the men of Venice really more unselfish than the greedy, enterprising men of Genoa and Pisa ? The First Crusade seemed to portend the break- ing up of the Saracenic power in the Levant, and the three maritime cities of Italy, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, Amalfi being already past meridian, were vigorous rivals for its wealth. Centuries later, Spain, France, Portugal, and England competed for mastery of the New World and of India; and just as England, after a long and varying struggle, van- quished her competitors, so in the end did Venice. This competition is another element in her politi- cal life, which was constantly operative from 1100 to about 1400. Sometimes the rivalry intensified into war ; at almost all times it was an irritation ; and often any one of the rivals plundered without in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 51 scruple the argosies of another, if he caught them unprotected. Her prowess at the siege of Tyre gave Venice great prestige, and she could say without boasting, a quarter of a century after the First Crusade, that she had reaped a richer harvest than all her com- panions in that strange enterprise, and had taken steps to assure increasing prosperity from her Oriental colonies. But nearer home she had suf- fered grave reverses. King Stephen of Hungary, seeking an outlet to the Adriatic, swept down the Dalmatian coast and seized many of the ports which had by this time become vassals of the Republic. Doge Ordelaffo Falier set out to recover them, but was killed in battle at Zara (1118), and his suc- cessor, Domenico Michiel, deemed it necessary to accept a five years' truce from the Hungarians. Venice soon perceived, however, that unless she con- trolled the eastern shore of the Adriatic, she could not hold her distant Oriental possessions, and that her very existence would be precarious. Always keen to see her dominant interest, she knew the folly of pursuing far-off glories at such a cost. Doge Michiel delayed hardly a week after the sur- render of Tyre before leading his fleet on a new campaign. He first devastated Greece and the Archipelago as a punishment for the Greek Emperor, who had abetted the Hungarians, and then he sailed up the Adriatic, recovered the Dalmatian fiefs, and returned home to enjoy such a triumph as had not been seen at St. Mark's since the days of Orseolo 52 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the Great. When he died, his countrymen carved his epitaph, " Terror Grcecorum jacet hie," and his- tory has justly ranked him among the foremost of the doges. His reign confirmed to Venice the mas- tery of the Adriatic ; it loosed almost to the point of emancipation her traditional allegiance to the Eastern Empire ; it won for her merchants in the Orient conditions so advantageous that soon her chief interests lay there. Looking back over the career of any nation we find continuity, inevitableness, the rack-and-pinion sequence of cause and effect, which may have been only dimly suspected, or not perceived at all, by contemporaries while the history was making ; that is the illusion the logical instinct, from which we can no more escape than from our temperament, weaves for us. So a passion for logical com- pleteness often leads us to attribute a fixity of purpose which historic personages themselves never wittingly obeyed. Oftener still, we profess a knowledge of motives which lie quite beyond veri- fication. After all, if this is a rational world, where shall we seek for proof of its rationality save in human history? And if there be gaps in the evidence, as frequently there are, shall we not bridge them by reasonable conjectures ? Crude fact or shrewd presumption will alike avail little, unless we learn to think of past times and past men as present and alive; as plastic, too, swayed by passion and whim as well as by conscious re- solve ; with to-niorrow still before them, to-morrow in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 53 big with possibilities, as free as air for any will to fly in, not adamantine, unchangeable, fatal, as is time past. Domenico Michiel's achievements really marked a stage in the expansion of Venice, but the issues which seein to us to have been predetermined dur- ing his reign were living issues for two generations after him. The breach with Constantinople wid- ened. An emergency the efforts of Koger II of Sicily to conquer the Ionian Islands and Greece brought the Doge and Emperor Manuel together for a while, and a Venetian fleet worsted the Nor- mans and helped to relieve Corfu; but the Vene- tians did not disguise their contempt for the Emperor, even though he was their ally, nor did they hesitate to make a profitable peace with Koger, even though he had been recently their foe (1148). At odds with the Eastern Empire, Venice became embroiled with the Western, whose sovereign, Frederick Barbarossa, dreamed of realizing the old dream of Imperial supremacy throughout Italy. Under his inefficient predecessors the popes had pushed forward their temporal power, and the cities, especially in the north, had almost broken away from the sense of feudal "obligations, at the expense of the Emperor's prestige. The cities withstood bravely Frederick's first acts of coercion, and they supported the claims of Pope Alexander III against the antipopes whom Frederick's faction elected to the Holy See (1159). The statesmen of Venice, with traditional tact, understood that Fred- 54 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. erick was much more to be feared than their neigh- bors on the mainland, and so they sided with the cities and the Pope. Frederick set Padua, Verona, and Ferrara against the Republic, and they re- sponded willingly, because for them Venetian ambi- tion was a constant menace. He also found a ready coadjutor in the Patriarch of Aquileia, who attacked and expelled the Patriarch of Grado. That insult exasperated the Venetians. They easily overcame the Patriarch and the lords of Friuli behind him, and thenceforth every year Venice received from Aquileia a tribute of twelve hogs and eleven loaves, the hogs to commemorate the Patriarch and his bishops, the loaves to symbolize the barons. In their sarcasm, the children of the Lagoon were vigorous, but coarse. Whilst Frederick Barbarossa was tarrying beyond the Alps till he could collect a sufficient army and find a favorable moment for descending on the Lom- bard League of cities, Manuel, the Eastern Emperor, struck an unexpected blow at Venice (March 7, 1171). He ordered that all Venetians within his Empire should be arrested and imprisoned and their property confiscated. If the statistics we have can be at all relied on, Constantinople alone being credited with two hundred thousand Venetian in- habitants, this edict affected more persons than the entire home population of the Republic then numbered. When the news of the affront reached Venice, there was a furious demand for vengeance, which the government proceeded to satisfy by equip- in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 55 ping post-haste a great armament. To provide means, they taxed the population one per cent, of their net income, issued bonds bearing four per cent, interest, and created the first funded debt in Europe. In a hundred days they had ready a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships and thirty trans- ports, which sailed down the Adriatic manned by crews full of hope and rage. Their admiral, Doge Vitale Michiel, instead of making straight for the Golden Horn, ill-advisedly waited in Negropont, whilst an embassy bore his ultimatum to the Em- peror. Manuel simply seized the ambassadors and threw them into prison, gaining so much time by the delay that Michiel concluded to winter at Schio, so as to be sure of a better season before attacking Manuel in his capital. Spring had not come, how- ever, before the plague infected his forces. They died by thousands, and the remnant, barely a tenth of those who had set out, returned to Venice in the early spring, bringing with them the plague instead of victory. The Venetians, maddened by this scourge and by the military disaster, for both of which they held the Doge accountable, killed him. Their commanders must win, or die. This popular outburst marked another change in the constitution of the Republic. Hitherto, the doge had been elected in a general assembly of all the citizens, or at least the appearance of an open election was kept up. But beginning with Sebas- tian Ziani, in 1172, the choosing of the doge became the perquisite of the aristocracy. Each of the six 56 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE < HAP. quarters or sestieri of the city named t\vo repre- sentatives; each, of these pairs named forty of the notables of their sestiere, and the four hundred and eighty persons, or Great Council, thus selected chose the doge. Every year at Michaelmas the Great Council renewed itself through a nominat- ing committee composed of its own members. The people were practically disfranchised, being allowed to vote for only the original two representatives from each sestiere. They rebelled against this usurpation of -their rights, and forced the aristocracy to concede that the populace should assemble, after the Grand Council had voted, and that the new doge should be presented to them with the words, "This is your doge, if it please you." Their assent came to be taken for granted until the custom of asking it died out. As usual, the tactful statesmen of Venice knew how to keep the substance and let the shadow go. In their remodeling, they intended not only to steady the government by putting it out of the reach of popular gusts, but also to curtail the powers of the doge ; which they did by depriving him of many of his prerogatives, and by increasing to six the number of ducal councilors, whose business it was to keep him within the strict limits of the law. This was the third and final stage in the development of the dogeship. The Venetians had formerly taken care that their ruler should be neither despotic nor dynastic; now they set their wills against his being an autocrat. As they deprived him of power, they in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 57 added pomp. The merchant aristocracy began openly to govern the state. On Ziani, the first doge of the new order, fell the burden of ransoming his imprisoned countrymen by paying the Eastern Emperor a million and a half sequins. He avoided open hostilities with Freder- ick Barbarossa, and withdrew from the Lombard League. The battle of Legnano (1176), in which Barbarossa was overwhelmed by the League, left Venice in the happy position of a neutral ; and the following year, when the Pope and the Emperor agreed to meet and discuss a peace, they chose Venice for their rendezvous. It was fitting that the Republic, which had preserved its independ- ence of Church and State alike, should now act as their host and mediator. The magnificence of the hospitality which Venice gave them dazzled the imagination of their contemporaries, and many legends grew out of the story of that summer. But the facts of the meeting, in which the forces of the medieval world seemed for a moment to be at con- cord, transcend the embellishments of fiction. The truce between Empire and Church could not be permanent; the turn of fortune's wheel would inevitably bring Venice into conflict now with the Pope and now with the Emperor : but the Doge had been host and arbiter for both, without ac- knowledging himself the man of either. Very soon after this the last thread which bound Venice to the Eastern Empire was cut. Friendship had long given way to hatred, and the early alle- 58 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. glance, never more than formal, was disavowed. The Venetians resented the indignities which Emperor Manuel heaped on their countrymen in 1171 ; the disaster which overwhelmed Doge Michiel, and the ransom which Doge Ziaui paid perforce, rankled: but as they were a people who could long nurse a grievance in silence, they resumed their commercial relations with .Constantinople and said nothing, biding their time. The Byzantines, on their side, construing the victory which chance gave them as proof of their military superiority, indulged their propensity for superciliousness. For generations they had looked upon the sturdy, rough-shod Vene- tian merchants much as other races in the nineteenth century looked upon the Britisher, whose trade could not be stopped, although his ill-mannered master- fulness made him personally insufferable. The occasion which brought the final rupture was a new Crusade. The Saracens under Saladin having reduced the Christians in Syria to desperate straits, Fulk of Neuilly-sur-Marne went through France ex- horting the faithful to hasten to their rescue, and a new pope, Innocent III, offered indulgences and his blessing to all who should listen to Fulk's appeal. The Barons of France and Flanders were stirred to take the Cross, under the leadership of Thibaut, Count of Champagne, and of Louis, Count of Blois, two nephews of the king. In the company were Simon de Montfort and Renaud de Montmirail, Godfrey de Joinville, Walter de Brienne, Macaire de Sainte-Menehould, Renaud de Dampierre, Mat- in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 59 thieu de Montmorency, Conon de Bethune, and Godfrey de Ville-Hardouin, Marshal of Champagne, the flower of medieval French nobility, whose names, like old damask, gorgeous though faded, call up associations of valor and romance. They de- spatched six messengers to Venice to bargain for transportation to the Land-beyond-the-Sea. The doge at that time was Enrico Daudolo, in all re- spects one of the greatest of medieval figures, and physically one of the most remarkable men of whom there is any record. A typical Venetian, he had had the widest experience of affairs as merchant, as ambassador, as soldier, as councilor, and now as doge ; prudent, shrewd, resourceful, and, despite his eighty-nine years, indomitable and energetic ; dim- eyed almost to blindness, but erect, handsome, vigor- ous, and hardy. Dandolo was the twelfth-century version of the Homeric Odysseus. He received the embassy cordially, and after eight days' deliberation replied that Venice would furnish transports for 4500 horses and 9000 squires, and ships for 4500 knights and 20,000 foot soldiers, with nine months' provisions, at the rate of four marks per horse and two marks per man, or 85,000 marks in all. The envoys accepted the terms, which Dandolo summoned the citizens to ratify. A vast concourse gathered in St. Mark's Church, where, after mass had been celebrated, Godfrey of Ville-Hardouin addressed them. "'Sirs,' he said, ' the most exalted and puissant of the Barons of France have sent us to you, and they beg your favor, 60 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. that you may be seized with pity for Jerusalem, which is in bondage to the unbelievers, and that for God's sake you will consent to aid them to avenge the shame of Jesus Christ. And they have chosen you because they know that no people on the sea has so great power as you. And they bade us to fall at your feet, and not to rise until you grant that you will have pity on the Holy Land beyond the sea.' Then the six messengers knelt at their feet, weeping much ; and the Doge and all the others began to weep for the pity which they had, and they cried out all in one voice, and lifted their hands and said, ' We grant it ! we grant it ! ' Then there was so great a noise and so great an uproar that it seemed indeed as if the earth quaked." l This dramatic scene, typical of the Crusading epoch, with its mingling of piety and hard-headed business, took place in March, 1201. Yille-Hardouin and his companions sped back to France to report that by St. John's Day, 1202, Venice would be ready. At the appointed time, however, only a part of the Crusaders had come to Venice; the rest, dis- regarding the contract which the envoys had accepted in their name, either chose other routes to the East or renounced the Crusade altogether. The prospective leader, Thibaut of Champagne, was dead; Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, succeeded him, and he and the Barons who kept their tryst 1 Ville-Hardouin : De la Conqueste de Constantinoble (Paris, 1838), pp. 8-9. m VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 61 paid to the Doge their share of the stipulated sum and blushed at their comrades' faithlessness. The Venetians were reluctant to claim their bond with- out a fair delay, and so spring grew into summer, while all waited in the hope that the requisite men and money would turn up. The Crusaders' camp on the Lido became a den of gamesters, harlots, and mountebanks, where the soldiery squandered their health and morals; disease took off many, and many deserted. Yet thirty-four thousand of the eighty-five thousand marks still remained unpaid. The collapse of the expedition seemed imminent. The Venetians were beginning to lose patience, when Doge Dandolo bethought him of an arrange- ment by which they might recover what they had spent without forcing the Barons to forfeit, as the letter of the contract permitted, the fifty-one thou- sand marks already paid. For along while past the kings of Hungary had coveted Dalmatia, and since 1173 they had held Zara. Dandolo now said to his countrymen that, while they might legally confiscate the Crusaders' instalments, such sharpness would be generally blamed ; he proposed, instead, to offer to remit the remainder on condition that the Crusaders should agree to aid the Venetians in reconquering Zara, on their way to Palestine. The Barons of France, after much controversy among themselves, accepted the terms, and again St. Mark's Church witnessed a great ceremony, in which the climax was reached when Dandolo mounted the pulpit and declared, in tones which smote the multitude to 62 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tears : " I am an aged man and a feeble, and I need repose, and my body is infirm ; but I see none in our people who, better than I, could lead you and fight. If you permit my son to stay at home in my place, to guard and govern the country, I will now take the Cross and will go with you to live or die, whichever God shall have ordained for me." " We agree ! " shouted the multitude, " and in God's name we pray you, dear Sire, to take the Cross and come with us." 1 In this wise the Venetians themselves became Crusaders and embarked with the Barons of France and Flanders on the Fourth Crusade. They planned first to reduce Zara, and then to push on to the Land-bey ond-the-Sea, where the Venetians and their allies should divide all conquests, share and share alike. On October 8, 1202, more than three months later than the date first set, the great fleet weighed anchor. It consisted of fifty galleys, equipped by the Republic, sixty transports, sixty long ships, and one hundred and ten transports for horses. True it was that no other maritime power could have fitted out such an armament. That an expedition of Christians, organized to war on Saracens, should make the subjugation of other Christians its first object, was too anomalous to escape criticism, even in that time of uncertain morals. Early in the summer, Cardinal Peter of Capua had inveighed against the project, threaten- ing that if the Crusaders persisted, they would incur the highest Papal censure. Some of the French con- i Ville-Hardouiu, p. 21. in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 63 tingent wished to heed the Cardinal, but whether because they felt religious compunction or welcomed any excuse for withdrawing from an enterprise they had tired of, who can say ? Most of them, however, readily accepted Dandolo's argument when he told them that it would be most rash to leave behind them in the Adriatic an enemy who could cut off their communications. The plea of " military exi- gency " sufficed then, as it always does ; and, more- over, war being their trade, the Crusaders were not too particular as to whom they fought with, so long as the sport were brisk and their hope of victory and spoils were large. The Venetians further showed their independence of the Pope by inform- ing Cardinal Peter that he might accompany the expedition as a private Crusader, but not as a Papal legate. We need waste little time in condemning the per- version of this Crusade from its original holy pur- pose of killing Saracens and confiscating their land. The best of the Crusades, judged by rudimentary morals, was iniquity ill-disguised. But on the other hand, it does not appear that the Venetians acted disingenuously, nor fell a hair's breadth below the highest mark of honor as then conceived. The Papal protest might indicate a higher code did we not re- member that then as now Popes launched their so- called spiritual thunderbolts for political rather than moral ends. To the Venetians, especially, the Pope was not a religious head so much as a wily political adversary. And, after all, for Crusader to prey on 64 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Crusader did not necessarily rouse medieval Popes to wrath; witness the recent quarrel of Philip Augustus, Richard I, and their associates in the Third Crusade. At the outset, when the Barons of France requested transportation, Venice stood in the same relation that a modern steamship company stands toward a missionary board wishing to secure passage for a cargo of missionaries. She fulfilled her part of the contract by having ships and provi- sions ready at the appointed time; and when the Barons failed in theirs, she obligingly allowed them to save the money which she might have claimed as forfeit, on condition that they should serve her. Dandolo and his countrymen did not come within the jurisdiction of the Holy See until they them- selves took the Cross ; but even then, true Vene- tians that they were, they paid slight reverence to Papal commands. The expedition which embarked under such am- biguous circumstances came in due time to Zara, which, although reputed one of the strongest cities in Christendom, quickly fell before the superior en- gines and forces of the Crusaders. "\Vinter being now at hand, the Venetians proposed to stay there, where their ships had a safe haven; the Franks unwillingly complied. A new temptation soon arose to turn the Crusaders a second fame away from their original plan. Alexis, the son of Isaac Comnenos, the deposed Greek Emperor, appeared at Zara and besought the allies to restore his father to his throne. This had plainly nothing to do with in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 65 punishing wicked Saracens ; but the unfortunate youth inspired pity, and as he promised, in his father's name, that he would not only heal the schism between the Latin and Greek Churches, but also pay the cost of the fleet and army for a year, give a sub- sidy of two hundred thousand marks for the war against the Soldan, and himself lead an army of ten thousand men to that war and maintain perpetually a guard of five hundred knights in the Holy Land against all these inducements the Signors of Venice and the Barons of France could not hold out. Might they not in honesty declare that, by se- curing a zealous coadjutor at Constantinople, they were taking the very best means to strengthen the Christians in Syria ? Yet the decision caused dis- cord. The White Friars, through their spokes- man, the Abbot of Vaux, denounced the scheme as wicked. Pope Innocent, who had so vehemently condemned the assault on Zara before it happened, pardoned the Franks for that iniquity, but bade them beware of committing another. Some of the pil- grims abandoned the expedition ; but the main body of the allies held together, and in the spring pro- ceeded to Constantinople. We are not concerned here to follow the military operations, nor the snarled skein of political in- trigues, during the Latin conquest of the Eastern Empire. That story, checkered with heroic ex- ploits, with cowardice, with chicane, with cruelty, can still be best read in the quaint" pages of Yille- Hardouin. The expedition differed in no respect 66 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. except its larger scale from Norman William's con- quest of Saxon England, or a foray on the Scottish border, or any other act of banditry. The Crusaders salved their consciences, as Norman William had salved his, by insisting that they were engaged on the pious mission of ousting a usurper ; but when they had deposed the usurper, the legitimate ruler whom they restored would not or could not pay the price agreed on. After waiting until their patience gave out, they flung down an ultimatum which he could not satisfy. A revolution broke out in the palace ; there was a frantic attempt, by the upstart Murzuphle, to overwhelm the Latins, quickly fol- lowed by their rally and complete victory, which left them masters of Constantinople and of the Eastern Empire (April 12, 1204). A triumph so dazzling has rarely been chroni- cled. The Crusaders numbered at the most forty thousand men, while Constantinople, a city which had never surrendered to an enemy, had, according to a plausible estimate, four hundred thousand in- habitants capable of bearing arms. Before the final capture, for twenty-one months, during which defeat meant annihilation, the Latins maintained them- selves against such odds. Grant that the Greek Emperors proved incompetent and cowardly, and that their miscellaneous troops there were Eng- lish and even Danes among them ran away at the critical moment, nevertheless the valor of the Crusaders was as conspicuous as their audacity and their fortitude. Well might Ville-Hardouin believe in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 67 that never since the world was created had so great an affair been undertaken by any people. One epi- sode out of a myriad shines after seven centuries. At the first attack from the harbor, Doge Dandolo stood on the prow of his galley, armed cap-a-pie, the gonfalon of St. Mark before him, the garrison showering arrows and stones from the city walls ; and the Doge cried out to his men that if they did not quickly put him ashore he would chastise them. They obeyed, and after a little while the gonfalon of St. Mark flew from one of the city towers. In the destruction of the Greek Empire, Venice had her retribution for the humiliation which she and her merchants had suffered, and Dandolo him- self had a personal revenge, if it be true that when he once went on a mission to Stamboul, the Emperor, to show his contempt for Venice, threw him into prison. To justify this final perversion of the Cru- sade might worry even a Jesuit master of casuistry ; and yet Innocent III, who of all the popes most deserved to be called Leo, Innocent, who had disapproved, chidden, and excommunicated, in vain, discovered that it would be politic to accept the results of an expedition which he had step by step condemned. " The designs of Providence are im- penetrable," he wrote the conquerors. " You acted unjustly ; but the Greeks had sinned and, to punish them, God made use of you. Since this land has thus fallen to you as a judgment, we believe that we may authorize you to keep it. If you govern justly, if you bring the peoples into our holy com- 68 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. munion, if you restore the goods of the Church, if you are penitent, and, above all else, if you persist in the fulfilling of your vow, we hope God will pardon you." 1 Thus could the mightiest of the popes condone a great public crime by construing it as an act of divine justice. The formula is still popular and fits every case. The Venetians were unquestionably the backbone of the expedition. While their allies lacked leader- ship and quarreled among themselves, or floundered irresolute between two policies, they were united under their redoubtable Doge, and never feared to do the thing they resolved on. There is no evidence that the campaign against the Eastern Emperor was in their original intention. They meant merely to recover Zara; beyond that, they trusted to chance to repay them for equipping their fifty galleys. Their interest demanded that they should make a great show of power in the Orient, where their fame had lately been somewhat dimmed. Chance, in which they confided, rewarded them beyond all expectations, almost crushing them by her excessive bounty, as the Sabines crushed Tarpeia. The sack of Constantinople alone amounted in portable loot to eighty million francs, of which the Venetians had their moiety. After gorging their lusts and their greed, the Crusaders had to establish a government to replace 1 Quoted by Daru, Storia di Venezia (Capolago, 1837), I, 280. The vow was, of course, to drive the Saracens out of Palestine. nr VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 69 that which they had swept away. Dandolo having declined to be a candidate for Emperor, the choice lay between Baldwin of Flanders and Boniface of Montferrat. The former was elected, to the satis- faction, perhaps Avith the connivance, of the Vene- tians. According to agreement, Tommaso Morosini was elected patriarch; but the previous consent of the Pope had not been obtained, and Innocent sternly denounced this infringement on his apos- tolic jurisdiction ; then he deemed it prudent to con- firm an election which he could not annul. In the partition of the Empire, the Emperor re- ceived a fourth part, the Venetians and the other Crusaders sharing equally the other three parts. The Venetians saw to it that their allotment should include the islands and coasts most accessible to their commerce. The Cyclades and the Sporades, the Ionian archipelago, Negropont, Crete, the east- ern shores of the Adriatic, the coasts of Thessaly, of the Sea of Marmora, and of the Black Sea, with ports in the Morea, made an uninterrupted chain from Venice to Trebizond. The destiny of the Kepublic seemed assured. But the new Emperor had scarcely been enthroned before he and his allies were called out to block the advance of Bulgarians and Comans, a portent of a struggle in which the Christians were at last to succumb. Amid these first ominous troubles Dandolo, fresh from battle, died at the age of ninety- four (June 14, 1205). They buried him with great pomp in the Church of St. Sophia, and many years later, when the Empire which he had wrested from 70 A SHORT' HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, m the Greeks had fallen a spoil to the Turk, Sultan Mohammed II allowed the casque and cuirass and sword of the warrior Doge to be returned to his de- scendants in Venice. There could be no fitter relics of indomitable Enrico Dandolo. CHAPTER IV IMPERIAL GROWTH THE GREAT RIVAL, 1205-64 THE Latin conquest of Constantinople was as unexpected as that of India by the British, as un- premeditated as the discovery and acquisition of the Xew World by Spain. When such immense re- sults are brought about so casually, shall we argue that not law, but caprice determines our human lot ? The event assuredly lies beyond man's foresight ; but what he makes of it depends upon himself. The Venetians had gone out in quest of commerce : when they suddenly found themselves partners in an empire, instead of being bewildered, they pro- ceeded with their characteristic shrewdness to re- adjust their system to the new demands. Never were conquerors more keen to discern their real interests and to let the rest go. Their Doge might have been Emperor, but they could not be allured by an empty title which carried with it the most arduous respon- sibilities. While Baldwin and his successors were wearing themselves out in quelling revolts at home and in resisting foreign invaders, the Venetians would pursue their vast commercial enterprises unin- terruptedly. They virtually made the Eastern Em- peror bear the burden of government, while they 71 72 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. reaped the profits. The enormous special privileges which they enjoyed in the great cities; the marts, factories, and trading posts which they controlled throughout the Levant ; and the lands and islands which they took as their share in the partition, con- stituted an empire based not on military power but on commerce an empire to which Great Britain alone in later times has had the counterpart. To reduce her responsibilities still further, Venice, that had never submitted to the feudal system herself, created fiefs of her larger possessions and assigned them to her grandees, who had to pay tribute besides defraying the cost of administration. The Dandolo held Andros in fee; Marco Sanudo was lord of the Cyclades with the title of Duke of the Archipelago ; the Querini ruled over Stampa- lia; Marco Venier was Marquis of Cerigo ; Jacopo Barozzi had Santorino. For a thousand gold marks the Republic bought Candia, one of the most im- portant of her territories, from the Marquis of Montferrat. She was mistress of Corfu also, until 1221, when it passed into the hands of the Epirots. All that enlightened selfishness or call it po- litical foresight could suggest, the Venetians did. It is well to remember this in estimating their statecraft, because some historians, made wise by the sequel, have written as if every one but a fool ought to have recognized in 1204 that their con- quest of Constantinople would eventually lead, by a roundabout road, to the ruin of the Republic. The Venetians' perversion of the Fourth Crusade into iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 73 a plundering expedition has absolutely no excuse before the bar of justice ; morally it is as detestable as the infamous restorations of the Holy Alliance, or as any of the British conquests in India, or the partition of Poland, or the American invasion of Mexico in 1847, or the Prussian thugging of Saxony in 1866, or Louis Napoleon's military occupation of the States of the Church, or as any other of the abominations of which history is full. Judged from the standpoint of Venetian self- interest in 1204, however, the conquest itself, with the new policy which it called for, was fully justi- fied. It removed from Constantinople a dynasty with which the Venetians had long nursed a sullen quarrel. It not only gave them a great advantage over their old rivals, the Genoese and the Pisans, in ports where they traded in common, but also made them masters of a maritime empire which promised under their wiser rule to increase rapidly in wealth. It exalted their prestige as a nation, not merely of merchants and traders, but of war- riors and rulers, in an epoch when success in war was the general criterion of worth. Moreover, there seemed to be no reason why all these immense bene- fits, which were self-evident to Dandolo and his advisers, might not endure as far in the future as any one could look. Until mortals shall be endowed with the gift of prophecy, it is unlikely that any conquerors will act with more sagacity than the Venetians displayed in dealing with the problems which confronted them during and immediately 74 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. after the Fourth Crusade. Only a person afflicted with the old Greek dread of a prosperity too con- spicuous could have augured ill to the Republic at her sudden transformation into an empire. If material and political prosperity may be inter- preted as a sign of Divine approval, the Venetians had every reason to assume throughout the thir- teenth century that God was on their side. They had wars to wage, of course, for war was almost chronic then ; but they ran no serious risk, and their victories added to their renown. The new problems which the Empire thrust upon them, though often intricate, were still evidences of abounding vigor tasks well within the reach of a rising nation. It took several years to establish the Imperial system. Every distant town in the Levant must have its bailo or local governor, who represented the authority and guarded the interests of the mother city. There were collectors, inspectors, judges, to be appointed, feudatories to be created and overseen, and methods to be devised for handling the in- creased volume of commerce. When Candia, after several years' trial, persisted in rebelling, Venice set up a colony there (1211) under the command of a duke, confirmed annually, assisted by six cap- tains. The colonists, among whom were many members of the great families as well as sturdy Venetian burghers, received their fiefs on condition that they should defend them, and should furnish in time of need their quota to the national forces. iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 75 The native Candiots did not quickly outgrow their love of independence, but under the Venetian rule they prospered as never before, and at last they ac- cepted Venice as their country as honestly as Wales accepted England. The serious rebellions which broke out later in the island were Venetian rather than Candiot in intent. The shifting to the Orient of the commercial centre of gravity produced a danger which Dandolo had probably not foreseen. Within less than twenty years after the conquest of Constantinople, a party arose at Venice to favor the transfer of the capital from the Lagoons to the Bosphorus. The proposal was urged with such persuasiveness, and its sup- porters were so influential and numerous that, when put to the test in the Great Council, it was de- feated by but a single vote. The facts concerning this startling transaction may never be verified ; some historians doubt, others deny them ; and yet the legend, which is as well authenticated as much that passes for history, must have had some real foundation, and is therefore worth repeating. The Doge, Pietro Ziani, laid before the Great Council the reasons for removal. He described the magnificent Empire of which Venice had lately be- come mistress, Corfu, Canclia, the teeming archi- pelagoes of the Ionian and ^Egean seas, the opulent sea-coast cities, each a link in the great chain of commerce that reached to Constantinople. He painted in seductive colors the capital of the East, its vastness and wealth, its advantageous position 76 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. at the meeting of two continents, its unrivaled harbor, out of which ships might sail eastward to Trebizond and the Crimea, or westward through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Farthest Thule. He contrasted the ease of life there with the diffi- culties at Venice, where so much energy had to be spent merely in preserving the scanty soil on. which their homes were built, or in keeping open the shifting channels, the arteries of their city's exist- ence; where the canals exhaled a fetid air, and earthquake or flood might at any moment over- whelm the city. Venice depended for her daily food on the people of the mainland, who were not her people, and who, if they became her enemies, might cause her to starve. At Constantinople food abounded. But above all, since every one recog- nized that the Levant held the sources of Venetian wealth, common prudence warned them to settle where they could oversee and enjoy, and, if need were, defend their possessions. The Adriatic meant three hundred leagues of unnecessary carriage for their cargoes a voyage which storms or pirates might interrupt, and which, if prosperous,' con- sumed time and food. It took no longer to sail from Constantinople to Candia than from Venice to Corfu. The Latin Empire was so weak that it might at any time fall a prey to a conqueror hostile to Venice, or the great population of Venetians at Constantinople might seize the city and break off their allegiance to their mother country. Every consideration commercial, military, civic, social, iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 77 political urged them to go. The moment was opportune ; once missed, it might never come back. To this plea of Mammon, uttered by the lips of the Doge, Angelo Falier replied. As to risk from natural calamity, he said, Rome had often suf- fered from floods, but not on that account had the Romans ignobly proposed to abandon their city. Constantinople was not free from earthquakes. The difficulties which the Doge complained of had been blessings to the Venetians ; the Lagoons, which created hardships, gave protection in return ; for eight hundred years no foe had entered their city. Constantinople, even though they might occupy it without resistance, could be held only with a large garrison ; the country round it must be conquered aud defended ; and it would be con- tinually beset by barbaric enemies compared with whom their own rivals in Italy were but petty annoyers. One defeat at Constantinople would mean the extinction of their nation ; for they would have no ally to call upon, no refuge to flee to. Their new. Empire in the Levant was undeniably rich ; but so were Dalmatia and Istria, and so was the commerce which they owed to their position at the head of the Adriatic. Should they give up the old, with its certain benefits, for the sake of the new, with its hazards, its untried difficulties, its possible ruin ? Although they might lose their possessions in the Ionian and in the JEgean, and lose even Dalmatia, so long as they held Venice they would be impregnable, their nation would be safe. If the 78 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. commercial advantages to be gained were tenfold greater, would any Venetian allow them to out- weigh his devotion to Venice, his mother, the home of his race for eight centuries, the bestower of his blessings, the source of his glory ? Falier concluded his appeal on his knees, with tears streaming down his cheeks. A hush fell over the assembly, and for a while, until the tellers had taken the vote, the suspense could scarcely be en- dured. At last they announced the result of the ballot, three hundred and twenty for removing to Constantinople, three hundred and twenty-one against. That single vote, which determined who can say how widely? the subsequent history not only of Venice, but of Italy and the East, was known ever afterward as the " Vote of Providence." Whether our report be true or not in its details, the crisis itself came about the year 1222, when the Venetians had had sufficient proof of the utter in- competence of the Latin Emperors, and had suffered much from the depredations of Genoese corsairs, who lay in wait for the Venetian merchantmen in the lower Adriatic. A vigilant patrol, and the swift punishment of the corsairs as fast as they were captured, soon restored safety to commerce. At Constantinople the Venetians strengthened themselves in their special quarter, and organized their trade so as to be as independent as possible of the vicissitudes of the Imperial government. Ven- ice held the allegiance of her emigrants in spite of their restlessness, and succeeded even better than iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 79 England has done in making her children in far countries feel that their very existence was bound up in hers. Throughout the thirteenth century the Republic had little cause to regret her Imperial expansion. Wealth poured in, but did not yet weaken the robust, native character. Power grew apace; in- deed, Venice in 1250 was the most powerful state in Europe. Only in Italy did she encounter serious rivals. Now that Pisa had declined, Genoa stood out as her chief competitor for maritime supremacy ; and in Sicily there had arisen a great king who dreamed of conquering Italy, of which he was the titular sovereign. This king, Barbarossa's grand- son, Frederick II, " the wonder of the world," waged for thirty years a conflict, intermittent but fierce, against his enemies in the Peninsula, and died in disappointment and defeat. He had against him for chief adversary the Papacy, which hap- pened in those years to be guided by some of the most memorable of all the popes. The little Italian states and cities took sides, this Guelf, that Ghibelline, from varying motives. Venice, unable to hold aloof, joined the new Lombard League in behalf of the Pope ; for, as usual, she chose to sup- port the party which, if successful, would in the long run do her least harm. Her statesmen knew that a Guelf confederation of all Italy could not possibly last; but that, if a masterful sovereign like Frederick should conquer the Peninsula and establish a united kingdom, Venetian independence 80 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. would be imperiled. They did not wish to see even in Sicily a strong state; for Sicily, besides being very fertile, might easily from her position become the commercial centre of the age. In the weary struggle that ensued, a struggle not of continuous campaigning but of alternate outrages and retaliation, Frederick's lieutenant was Ezzelino da Romano, tyrant of Padua, whose atrocities sur- pass belief. Had a man of equal generalship but of humane temper been in his place, the victories which the Ghibellines won might have led to per- manent dominion ; but at last Northern Italy rose in desperation against Ezzelino : he lost a battle, was wounded and captured, and in rage tore the bandages from his wounds and bled to death (Sep- tember 27, 1259). Frederick had already been dead nine years, taking into the grave with him a capacity for governing such as not half a dozen monarchs since his time equaled ; yet he bequeathed only failure and discord to his heirs. That a man of his immense endowments should have been thrown upon an epoch when he could not properly exercise them, is one of the most startling exaniples of the sardonic wastefulness of fate. With Frederick's death vanished the possibility of uniting Italy, which was henceforth to be over- run by foreign conquerors or throttled by native despots, who seldom reigned through two generations and never brought more than a small section of the country under a single sceptre. Venice had in- creased her military prestige in her wars against iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 81 Frederick and Ezzelino ; she had also kindled a craving for actual lordship on the mainland, and had become accustomed during more than twenty years to the thought that, if there were trouble in Padua or Ferrara, in Treviso or Verona, Venetian troops should be despatched to interfere. For the present, however, she made no attempt to conquer or hold the neighboring territory. Other business engrossed her. The Latin Empire was crumbling ; rivalry with Genoa had reached a warlike stage. For two hundred years, conditions had been pre- paring a life-and-death struggle between Genoa and Venice. During these years Genoa slowly overtook and passed her nearest rivals, the Pisans; while Venice, having worsted pirates, Normans and Sara- cens, in the Adriatic, had risen to the first place in the Levant. Still, the Genoese carried on a large trade ; they maintained a powerful navy, and in their roughness and pugnacity they showed a Spartan strain. The Venetians were unquestionably far ahead in civilization, but not the less were they too fighters. Not since Rome and Carthage con- tested for the supremacy of the Mediterranean had there been so fierce and long and varying a mari- time competition. The quarrel broke out over the ownership of the church and quarter of St. Saba at Acre, where both the Venetians and Genoese had long held commer- cial settlements. A row between their sailors led to bloodshed, whereupon Luca Grimaldi, the newly arrived Genoese Consul, ordered his two large gal- 82 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. leys to destroy the Venetian shipping. The Venetian quarter was sacked and partly burned, and its in- habitants lived in daily fear of being exterminated (1256). As soon as the Doge heard the news, he sent an embassy to Genoa to demand redress. The Genoese curtly refused. Then the Venetians fitted out fourteen galleys in all haste, set Lorenzo Tie- polo over them as admiral, and bade him punish without delay. In due season he appeared before Acre, broke the great chain by which the Genoese hoped to bar his entrance, set fire to the ships in the harbor, and, landing his men, quickly captured the town. The Genoese then had their taste of sack and pillage, and soon sued for a truce, which Tie- polo granted. The truce proved to be brief, but while it lasted the Genoese government hurried reinforcements to Tyre; and when their admiral, Pietro Mallono, thought he was strong enough, he sailed up and down before Acre, daring the Venetians to attack him. Tiepolo could not be teased into a premature sortie. Having made ready, he accepted the chal- lenge, and with seventeen galleys defeated Mallono's twenty-seven near Tyre. That disaster crippled^ Genoa's sea power in the East. The Genoese at home heard the evil tidings with rage. " Now let such vengeance be taken," they all cried, " that it shall never be forgotten." The women said to their husbands : " We do not want any more of our dowries, either for life or for death. Spend them on vengeance." And the iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 83 maidens said to their fathers and brothers and other kinsmen : " We do not desire husbands. All that you ought to give us for them spend in taking vengeance on the Venetians, and you will pay this debt to us by bringing us their heads." The Genoese set to work and equipped four great ships and forty gaileys. One of the galleys was equipped by the women and another by the maid- ens with their dowers. Such was the magnificent mettle of the Genoese. 1 Under Kosso della Turca, their new armament sailed for Syria where, on August 24, 1258, it en- countered the Venetian fleet commanded by Tiepolo. The Genoese had the advantage in the number and size of their ships. They were certainly not less valorous than the Venetians; but Tiepolo proved the superior tactician, and after a desperately bloody battle he gained a complete victory. He took twenty-five Genoese galleys as prizes into the port of Acre, razed the Genoese quarter there, and re- turned in triumph to Venice. Among his trophies were the two quaint columns still standing near the Porta della Carta, and the Pietra del Bando, or block of porphyry at the southwest corner of St. Mark's. The quarrel between the republics not only threatened to exhaust them, but it weakened the position, already much impaired, of the Christians in the Holy Land. Pope Alexander IV accordingly acted as mediator, and by combining exhortation i Da Canale, p. 463. 84 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. \fith ecclesiastical menaces, he persuaded them to agree to a truce, which they observed for a time, not deceiving themselves with the delusion that the real cause of hatred had been removed. Two years later, Michael Paleologus, an ambi- tious Greek, determined to recover Constantinople and restore the Greek Empire. The plan seemed easy, for, under Baldwin II, the Latin government had reached the point where it would collapse at the least pressure, and Western Europe, except Venice, had no interest in upholding it. But knowing that much of their commercial prosperity depended on having at Constantinople a ruler friendly to them, and that if Michael the Greek succeeded, he would naturally be resentful, the Venetians furnished a subsidy to hire troops, and sent some of their own galleys into the Black Sea to attack the Greek city of Daphnusia. Nothing could save Baldwin. A small force of Greeks under Michael's general, Strategopoulos, entered Constantinople without re- sistance, and was busy putting the hostile quarter to fire and sword when the Venetian squadron sailed back through the Bosphorus, in time only to rescue those of their fugitive fellow-countrymen who thronged the shore (1261). Michael made himself emperor, and as the Genoese had abetted his schemes, he granted them special commercial privi- leges, and assigned to them the palace which had been the residence of the Venetian bailo. For the moment, it looked as if Venice had lost her primacy in the Levant. iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 85 Michael soon found his Genoese allies inconven- ient neighbors, or possibly he saw that it would be politic not to break utterly with the Venetian and Pisan colonists, for he removed the Genoese from Starnboul to Galata, on the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, where there was less danger of their coming to blows with the other Italians. Still, the Venetians knew that their position was at best insecure. They smarted at the loss of prestige, and resolved to crush Genoa. They sent embassies to the Pope, to France, and Spain, to urge a general campaign for the recovery of Constantinople from the Greeks. But the pleasant words they received brought neither ship nor troop, and then they real- ized that Western Europe had decided to let them fight unaided their battles in the East. They had destroyed the old Empire for their selfish ends, and they must take the consequences. This most sen- sible decision showed that the Crusading spirit was waning, and that the Western nations were begin- ning to understand that their real concerns lay in their .own growth, and in establishing relations with their neighbors, instead of in pursuing will-o'-the- wisps in lands five hundred leagues away. Thrown on their own resources, the Venetians lost no time in fitting out another fleet, and during the next two years (1262^4) they frequently en- countered the Genoese. More than one Venetian convoy was captured by the enemy, who in turn lost several small engagements. At length a great battle was fought off the coast of Sicily, near 86 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Trapani, by twenty-eight Genoese galleys com- manded by Lanfranco Borborino, and by twenty- six Venetian ships under Marco Gradenigo and Giacomo Dandolo. The Genoese were hopelessly routed, whether because their admiral was "a chicken-hearted fellow," as a disgusted contempo- rary dubbed him, or because the Venetians displayed their usual superiority in handling a large fleet in action. The superstitious did not forget that just fifty years before the Venetian Trevisano destroyed an earlier Genoese fleet in these very waters. The present victory reestablished the supremacy of Venice on the sea. Genoa, the untamable, was stunned, exhausted. Her immense efforts during the space of eight years have never been sufficiently admired, although they rank among the prodigies of naval warfare ; for she fought four pitched bat- tles at Tyre, off Acre, at Sette Pozzi, and at Trapani in which she sent one hundred and four ships into action ; and though defeated, she quickly equipped a fresh fleet after each battle save the last. In comparison with this, our modern naval armaments look small. And Genoa, it must be remembered, was inferior in population and in wealth to Venice, and was passing through a period of internal discord from which her rival was free. In spite of these disadvantages, she maintained a wonderful contest. The Venetian triumph brought Emperor Michael to terms. The sly Greek would naturally have preferred that the Italian powers from which he iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 87 had most to fear should fight until both were ruined; but since Venice had conquered, he was ready to fawn on her and to snub Genoa. The overtures he offered were construed as so plain an indication of his weakness that they revived among a party in the Venetian Senate the old scheme of seizing Constantinople, in order to make it surely Venetian, if not the capital of the Republic. A stronger and wiser party urged in opposition that as they could expect no further support from Latin Europe, the enterprise had increased in risk ; that the burden of maintaining their government at Con- stantinople would be heavy ; and that a single check or defeat would bring the Genoese upon them with reueAved vigor. These prudent counselors pre- vailed, and after haggling over the details of the treaty, a five years' truce was concluded, in Avhich Michael conceded to the Venetians special rights in commerce, law courts, and residence, in return for which they promised not to molest him (1268). Venice had now every reason to exult over her position. She had met and apparently overcome all the difficulties which the thirteenth century had marshaled against her. On the mainland she had withstood Frederick and Ezzelino; they perished, she survived, her political reputation greatly aug- mented, her commercial system widely extended. She had seen the Latin Empire collapse, her vast Oriental trade put in jeopardy, a hostile Greek Emperor conspiring with her deadly rivals, the Genoese ; yet within three years that Emperor was 88 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. suing for her friendship, and the Genoese, after their fourth terrific defeat, seemed stricken beyond hope of recovery for at least a generation. In Dalmatia, Venice again was mistress, having sup- pressed the rebellion instigated by the King of Hungary, and forced him by treaty to renounce further hostility. In Candia, although turbulence recurred from decade to decade, her rule was too strong to be shaken off by any revolt. We have only to compare the condition of the Western nations at this time to perceive how far Venice surpassed any of them in wealth, in compact power, and in civilization. In England, the greatest of the Plantagenets did not mount the throne till 1272; he conquered Wales, and temporarily subdued the Scotch ; but half of his kingdom and interests still lay across the English Channel an evident cause of weakness ; and neither his English nor his Norman realm had the compactness which gives strength. In France, where the long reign of Louis IX was closing, the interminable struggle between the crown and the great feudatories had begun ; but no one could yet predict whether the crown would eventually win, or, as happened in Germany, the too powerful vassals, resisting consolidation, would split up into many particularist small states. The House of Hapsburg had secured control of the Holy Roman Empire, and was destined to hold it with occasional interruption until 1806; but the Hapsburgs' real empire was to be over Austria and the countries iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 89 south and east, and not over Germany. In Spain, the grasp of the Moors was weakening ; but along- side of the two leading Christian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile there were several smaller independent states, all mutually jealous, and united only in their hatred of the Moors. Italy itself had no unifying influence ; the day of the tyrants had come ; of life too intensely individualized ; of the sudden expansion of one state after another, as some vigorous personality compelled it, with the inevitable collapse when this personality was with- drawn. The Papacy and Venice were the only Italian organisms through which a consecutive pur- pose ran from age to age. We cannot too often repeat that commerce, next to self-preservation, was the chief concern of Venice. " Merchandize flows through this noble city," says Da Canale in 1272, "like the water of the foun- tains." Everything that enterprise, invention, or foresight could supply went to build up the world- wide traffic of the Republic. From the earliest days she made commercial treaties and secured concessions. Little by little she extended her trade from the Upper Adriatic and its tributary rivers to all parts of the Mediterranean. Orseolo the Great propitiated the Arab princes of Aleppo and Damascus, of Cairo, Palermo, and Kairwan ; and he secured from the Greek Emperor special rates for Venetian ships passing the Dardanelles. A century later, Emperor Alexis decreed that Venetian mer- chants should buy and sell untaxed throughout his C^ X ^ A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Thus before the Crusades, Venice enjoyed unique privileges in the Levant, and her operations were eagerly watched by Western Christendom. We read that in 1017, when four of her ships laden with spice were shipwrecked, the news as of a calamity spread throughout Germany. Her mer- chants took out woolen cloths, lumber, grain, arms, salt meats, and slaves; they brought back the varied products of Muscovy, Asia, and Africa. At Tana, on the Sea of Azov, they bought pitch and hemp ; at Alexandria, Beyrout, and Aleppo, pepper, spices, drugs, rich fabrics, ivory, and precious stones. The common route between India and the West- ern world was by water from Calicut to Aden, where Egyptian merchants bought the Asian car- goes which they shipped up the Red Sea to Kosseir or Aidab. There they were unloaded and carried on camels to the Nile ; then down the Nile to Cairo and Alexandria. Later, Jeddah superseded Aden, and the water carriage was prolonged to Suez, at the head of the Red Sea, which a short portage con- nected with the capital. The Venetian merchant might buy in the spring at Cairo goods which had been packed at Canton or Pekin the previous autumn, and had come by sea to Malacca, where the Indian traders took them and passed them on to Cambaye, Malabar, and Calicut. In the fifteenth century another route was opened from Calicut to Ormuz, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf ; thence through the Gulf and up the Tigris to Bagdad; iv . IMPERIAL GROWTH 91 thence by caravan to Damascus. There were also overland routes connecting Central Asia with the Syrian marts. Having loaded his wares, the Venetian merchant sailed home to Venice, which consumed a part of them ; the rest went across the Alps into Germany and Austria, or they were transshipped into other galleys which distributed them along the western Mediterranean or took them to England and Flan- ders. So an apothecary at Bruges might receive a package of rhubarb put up by a Chinaman in the Far East, and complete the great circuit of trade. The state did not limit private enterprise, but the conditions were such that it had to take care that nothing should interrupt the circulation of traf- fic, which was its life-blood. It sent convoys to protect the merchantmen from pirates. It built all the ships at its Arsenal, and prescribed strict dimensions for each sort. By thus standardizing the measurements it secured a useful uniformity. Merchant galleys could be quickly converted into war galleys ; a merchant fleet and its convoys sailed at the same speed ; their officers and crews could be interchanged; and in case of damage, broken rigging or equipment could be replaced at the nearest port where there was a Venetian depot ; for these depots kept in stock sections and parts of ships of each model. No other nation has devised so perfect a combination of its mercantile marine and its navy. The Venetian government auctioned the galleys, fully equipped and provisioned, to the 92 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. highest bidder, who pledged himself to return them in good condition, not to engage in any unlawful business, or to sell them to a foreigner. By this arrangement the government promoted commerce without running the risk of losing by an unprof- itable venture. It further fostered its merchants by maintaining consuls in the Levant, and these commercial agents guarded jealously their country- men's interests and reported every new opening for trade. By the middle of the fifteenth century, when Venetian commerce reached its prime, there were afloat thirty-three hundred ships, large and small, with thirty thousand men employed upon them, and sixteen thousand men at work in the Arsenal. Individual vessels came and went all the time ; but gradually the great merchant fleets followed a regular schedule, and had each its special season. There were six of these fleets, numbering from three to six galleys each. One went to Romania ; another to the Crimea ; a third to Armenia ; a fourth to Cyprus and Egypt; a fifth to the Bar- bary States; and the last to Spain, Portugal, France, England, and Flanders. The Flanders galleys, after unloading at Bruges, stopped at one of the English ports, London, Plymouth, South- ampton, Dartmouth, Rye, or Lynn, where they sold alum, glass, silk, drapery, sugar, wines, con- fectionery, spices, and wood, and bought wool, iron, hides, and broadcloth. With Egypt there was a lively trade requiring from eight to twelve galleys iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 93 a year. A cargo of spice was valued at 35,000 ducats, and we hear of a monster galleass which brought 200,000 ducats' worth on a single voyage. The pepper trade of Alexandria equaled in rela- tive importance that of England in tea and cotton to-day. Reckoning at about $2.25, or nine shillings and four pence, the bullion value of the gold ducat, and its purchasing power at from twelve to fifteen times the same amount now, we get a hint of the wealth which Venice owed to her foreign trade. Commerce by land supplemented commerce by water; and from the earliest days the energetic Venetians took care to secure a free passage for distributing their goods throughout Northern Italy and across the Alps. And native industries, pushed with characteristic vigor, made of Venice a centre of production. To salt and salt fish, her first staples, she added bell casting, glass-working, silk- weaving, the manufacture of iron and of porcelain, a woolen trade which at its height is said to have employed thirty thousand hands, fine leather work, lace, jewelry, and shipbuilding. Forty thousand packhorses came down from the north to Istria every year, to take back Venetian salt to the Austrian Empire. Her industries were as perfectly organized as her commerce. The guild system, adopted as early as the eleventh century, flourished for five hundred years. Each guild, in imitation of the Republic, had its doge and great council ; it watched over the training of apprentices ; it insisted on first-rate 94 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. work ; it took care of the sick and aged, and pro- tected widows and orphans. The Venetian guilds, unlike those of Florence and of the other Italian cities, never became political hotbeds. Since they grew up side by side, on friendly terms with the oligarchy, we may infer that they felt no class grievance against the patricians, but recognized, rather, how much the oligarchic form of govern- ment benefited their business. For they enjoyed stability, and light, even taxation ; they feared no foreign invader; they suffered from no home extortion. Their fellows elsewhere, on the con- trary, groaned either from political convulsions or from the whims and rapacity of insatiate despots. And, indeed, the oligarchy proved itself in this, as in other respects, the most discreet of privileged classes. It might shut out the guilds from politi- cal activity, but it never for a moment disguised the fact that its own vital interests and those of the guildsmen, the small merchants, and the sea- men were solidaire. The state granted monopolies, passed laws to promote the prosperity of the guilds, and punished the disclosure of the secret methods of manufacture. Moreover, the patricians them- selves were merchants, proud to acknowledge the source of their wealth and power, and bound by the ties of business to the middle and lower classes. Thus did her commerce, her colonies, and her home industries contribute to the upbuilding of the Venetian state. She left nothing to chance. She planned carefully and carried out stanchly. There iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 95 was perfect coordination among all parts of her system. She encouraged individual enterprise, but in concerns too great for a private citizen to grap- ple with, she lent her guiding hand. As she grew opulent herself, she extended civilization through- out the West. In an epoch when religious, dynas- tic, and racial antipathies separated town from town and people from people, and made murder the chief occupation in life, she showed how commerce could promote international friendship and welfare, and plant the seeds of toleration. CHAPTER V FIXING THE CONSTITUTION, 1264-1310 THE political constitution of a state is determined not only by the ideals its people hold of justice and civic administration, but also by conflict with for- eign rivals. The unique position of Venice made her, from the beginning, as we have seen, an excep- tion to the general rule by which the races of Western Europe slowly organized after the fall of Rome. The Teutonic invasion brought feudalism ; Venice persisted in being unfeudal. The new states became monarchical ; Venice suffered no monarch. Latin Christendom acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff; Venice, while Roman Catholic in religion, remained ecclesiasti- cally independent. Western Christendom accepted the Holy Roman Emperor as its overlord; Venice adroitly avoided actual vassalage either to him or to the Eastern Emperor. The rest of the world was chiefly engaged in war on land ; Venice devoted her energy to commerce by sea. And so we might go on multiplying contrasts, all of which show that Venice, thanks to her isolation, succeeded in going her own way during an entire epoch, while her 96 CHAP, v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 97 neighbors either did not wish or had not the power to thwart her. The political organism which she had fashioned was admirably adapted to her needs in such an epoch. Amid a world of flux, it had the primal virtue of stability; the rock stands after a thou- sand angry tides have foamed round it and ebbed away. But there is also the stability of elasticity, which bends without breaking and adjusts itself to new conditions without surrendering its essential nature. With the thirteenth century a change was spreading over European civilization ; it might be that the elastic and not the rigid political organism would be master now. Just at the dawn of this new era, Venice adopted the political system which, as it proved, she was to keep almost unaltered dur- ing the last five centuries of her existence. It will be remembered that in the early days she resisted the tendency toward an hereditary mon- archy. Having succeeded in making her doges elective, she took steps to prevent them from be- ing despotic. In 1032 two ducal councilors were appointed to guard against every attempt of a doge to exercise undue power. The fiction of popu- lar government was still assumed; the doge was supposed to owe his authority, if not actually his election, to popular approval, and vital public ques- tions were always submitted to the arrengo. But the members of the great families really controlled the government long before they openly showed their power. As late as 1071 the people unques- 98 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tionably elected their doge, Domenico Selvo, and he, in sign of humility, took off his stockings and went barefoot from Olivolo to St. Mark's. During the next century the political situation became clearly defined. The aristocracy evidently tightened its grip; the people lacked a channel through which they could continuously influence the government; the doge, himself an aristocrat, was more jealously watched by his own class than by the people, yet he did not, like many kings in other states, form with the people a coalition to break the power of the aristocracy. In 1171, after the disas- trous expedition of Vitale Michiel, the ducal pre- rogatives were further curtailed, and a permanent assembly, the forerunner of the Great Council, was created. The doge's councilors were now six instead of two, with strict charge to prevent him from carry- ing on private negotiations with foreign states, or to strengthen his family at home. The number of the pregadi, or eminent citizens invited by the doge to advise him, was likewise increased. Above all, the organization of the Great Council, with four hun- dred and eighty members, gave the Republic a broad- based organ of legislation, and guarded it alike from ducal ambition and popular hysterics. The electors of the first council were themselves chosen by popu- lar vote to represent each section of the city, but as they chose their own successors, this assembly became the stronghold of the aristocracy. The year 1171, therefore, marks the definite emer- gence of the oligarchy as the governing class. That V FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 99 such a revolution could come about without serious tumult shows that the oligarchs possessed the pe- culiar Venetian virtue of patience, which kept them from clutching prematurely at the prize which was sure to fall into their grasp, if they would but wait. The wise among them foresaw the danger of ex- clusiveness. "Leave open a career of honor and office to the more powerful citizens," said Sebastian Ziani, the sagacious doge who entertained Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa as the guests of Venice. " Avoid war, and take care that the people never suffer famine," was another of his maxims. A career for the upper classes, comfort and peace for the lower, were the surest guarantees of a lasting government. Ziani had been chosen by eleven electors, des- ignated by the Great Council. The number was raised to forty, and this again in 1249 to forty-one, after there had been a tie vote in 1229. The oli- garchy now plainly controlled the electoral machine, although the custom of announcing the name of the newly elected doge to the populace with the addi- tional " An it please you " was not yet abandoned. In spite of so many safeguards, the Great Council still feared lest some prepotent duke might break through them all. Genius and ambition laugh at precedents. Did not Enrico Dandolo so move the Venetians in that famous meeting in St. Mark's that they bade him take the Cross himself, and consented, contrary to the law, that during his ab- sence his son Renier should serve as vice-doge ? 100 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. If such an exception occurred once, it might occur again, when not a great patriot but a self-seeker were in office. At Dandolo's election (1192) the Great Council exacted the signing of a ducal pro- mission (promissione ducale) or coronation oath, set- ting forth a multitude of stipulations which the Doge agreed to observe. These pledges were from time to time loaded with fresh prescriptions, until they reached the point where every possible con- tingency seemed to be provided for, and the luck- less Doge might dread impeachment if he failed to sneeze according to rule. To print the promission of Jacopo Tiepolo (1229) requires nine octavo pages, and the list lengthened as experience sug- gested new items. A special committee of five "Correctors" was appointed to draw up this in- strument, and, as a final precaution, when a doge died another committee of three " Inquisitors on the Defunct Doge " investigated his official conduct and his estate, with powers, in case they discovered illegal acts or improper gains, to attaint his heirs. Neither in life nor in death would the Great Council relax their vigilance over their chief servant. This extraordinary system really worked; and although, if minutely carried out, it would have reduced the Doge to a puppet, in practice it left him, within certain limits, considerable freedom. For we must always distinguish between the ab- stract ruler, as defined by a constitution, and the actual ruler, whose influence depends largely on his social position or his personality. The Presi- v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 101 dent of the United States has by law certain pre- rogatives, hedged round by many checks ; the personality of the President determines whether he rank as a passive machine or as an active direct- ing force; under legal forms he may, in an emer- gency, wield power as absolute as the Czar's. And so, while it is true that the doges were theoretically mere figureheads adorned with matchless pomp, there was, in fact, still scope for the vigorous among them to stamp their individuality on public affairs. At the election of Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1268 was employed for the first time the intricate system by which the patricians hoped to winnow out their desired candidate. The Great Council chose by lot thirty members, who chose nine ; these nine chose forty, who chose twelve ; these twelve chose twenty- five, who chose nine; these nine chose forty -five, who chose eleven ; these eleven chose forty -one, who finally elected the Doge, who must have at least a minimum of twenty-five votes. The original intention may have been to throw the election, by a succession of large and small groups, into the hands of large numbers of the Great Councilors; but in fact, it will be observed, all the various groups may have been drawn from forty-five, and the same person may have voted with each group. Here again a seemingly rigid mechanism allowed some play to human plasticity. But the adoption of this method deprived the people of the last shred of in- fluence in choosing the Doge. Having attained their object of controlling the 102 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. election and the conduct of the head of the state, the patricians went on to complete their oligarchy by reforming the Great Council, which was at once the source of political authority and of practical ad- ministration. After its creation in 1171, the Great Council had elected its own members, and while all classes of citizens were equally eligible to it, the patricians, predominant from the first, naturally tended to exclude representatives of the other classes. In this they succeeded, for in 1293 the Contarini family had eighteen, the Morosini eleven, and the Foscari ten members in the council. 1 The total membership, originally four hundred and eighty, had dropped to two hundred and ten in 1296, and the provision that it should be replen- ished every year by an election at Michaelmas had been so far disregarded that partial elections were held at irregular dates. Whether these lapses came about unintentionally, or were moves 1 To illustrate the persistence of the old families, we find that in 1486 there were twenty-four of them that dated from early times, some indeed from the preducal days. Romanin (IV, 420) gives the list as follows : Badoer, Basegio, Barozzo, Bragadin, Bembo, Contariui, Corner, Dandolo, Dolfiu, Falier, Gradenigo, Memmo, Michiel, Morosini, Polani, Queriui, Salomon, Sanudo, Soranzo, Tiepolo, Zane, Zen, Zorzi, and Zustinian. Of these all but five (Barozzi, Basegio, Querini, Salomon, and Zane) had had at least one doge. In 1450 sixteen new houses conspired to keep any of the old houses from being doge : Barbarigo, Dona, Foscari, Grimani, Gritti, Lando, Loredan, Malipiero, Marcello, Mocenigo, Moro, Priuli, Trevisan, Tron, Vendramin, and Venier. This combina- tion worked successfully till 1620, when Marcantonio Memmo was unexpectedly elected. v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 103 in the deep-planned but unavowed game of the pa- tricians, can hardly be decided now. No one can doubt that Venice, since about the year 1000, had been tending toward a strong oligarchy. The great families themselves knew whither the cur- rent was running; so, presumably, did all the citizens ; but the former seemed not to coerce, and the latter seemed scarcely to resist ; so that, as in the case of reducing the Doge's power, the final public recognition of the oligarchy caused little trouble. In 1286 the patrician party brought forward a resolution that thenceforward no one should be eligible to the Great Council whose father or pa- ternal ancestor had not sat in that body. The mo- tion was lost by a majority of thirty-four out of only one hundred and thirty votes, the Doge him- self, Giovanni Dandolo, having thrown his influence against it. Ten years later, however, the measure was pushed anew. In the interval Pietro Grade- nigo, an aggressive aristocrat, had succeeded Dan- dolo. The democrats lacked forcible leaders, and the distractions of a naval war with Genoa produced a most unfavorable condition for the calm discus- sion of internal policy. The Great Council had only two hundred and ten members, and appar- ently there was intentional delay in making up the regular number. Gradenigo's enemies naturally suspected that he chose this moment and this par- ticular session to carry through his project. In any case, on February 28, 1297, a law was passed defin- 104 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP ing the qualifications for membership in the Great Council. The reform provided that 1. The Council of Forty should immediately vote on the names of all persons who had been members of the Great Council during the past four years, and such candidates as received not less than twelve votes should be members of the new council. 2. On return from absence abroad a member must be voted on afresh. 3. Three electors should be appointed to nomi- nate, with the approval of the Doge and his privy councilors, persons who had not been members of the Great Council. These electors should hold office a year, and their successors should be chosen annually by ballot. 4. This system could be revoked only by a vote of five out of six ducal councilors, of twenty-five out of the Council of Forty, and of two thirds of the Great Council. Such, in substance, was the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, the " Closing of the Great Council," which fixed irrevocably, as the future proved, the government of Venice. Through it the oligarchy became the acknowledged master of the Republic. The hereditary principle, so stubbornly contested by the doges, henceforth determined membership in the Great Council, and as the members of the smaller executive and judicial councils were almost invariably chosen from the larger body, the entire power of the Venetian state lay in the hands of a small privileged class. Yet small though this class v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 105 was in number, it was relatively larger, in propor- tion to the whole population, than the nobility which ruled France under the Old Regime, or even than the aristocracy which dominated England down to 1832. And although the main entrance to the patriciate was locked forever, a side door was left open through which a man of exceptional ability, otherwise ineligible, might be let in. This seldom occurred, but the fact that extraordinary merit might lift its possessor into the charmed circle, provided a safety valve against rankling injustice. We should note also the peculiarly Venetian quality of the provision which required that even those whose descent entitled them to stand as candidates must be elected : in other words, to be a patrician did not suffice, for the Great Council undertook to choose in each genera- tion the most desirable of the patrician class. In this way it hoped to escape the evil, which has at- tended every other hereditary assembly of nobles, of seeing its benches crowded with degenerate sons of old houses, who have no training, and often not enoiigh intelligence to be trained, in public affairs. Here again the Venetians, after making a rigid law, wisely allowed, as was their wont, for healthy variation. Nevertheless, the Closing of the Great Council swept away the pretense that Venice was a de- mocracy. It divided the citizens into three classes : those who had never been, and whose ancestors had never been, in the Great Council in numbers by 106 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. far the largest class, commonly called the "new men " ; those who were now members ; and lastly, those who could point to either a father or an ancestor in the Great Council. The immediate effect of the reform was to swell the number of members, because everybody entitled to nomination asked to be balloted on. In 1297 only 210 mem- bers had passed the new law ; in 1311 the roll rose to 1017; in 1340 to 1212; in 1437 to 1300; in 1490 to 1570 ; and in 1510 to 1671. To keep membership pure, the Golden Book was established in 1315 to record the marriages of all patricians eligible to the Great Council, and the births of their children. Bastards and sons born out of wedlock, but subsequently legitimized, were excluded from the succession. But on the other hand, the lists of the eligible comprised the names of all who could trace their descent to a Grand Councilor at any time since 1172, and of the Pre- gadi, the Forty, the baili, counts, castellans, pretors, councilors, rectors, consuls, visdomini, and many other officials who had served the Republic at home or in the colonies. While it has been customary to denounce the Serrata as a sudden and ruthless suppression of popular government, the facts hardly warrant such denunciation. The movement which culminated in 1297 had been in. progress for two centuries; the supremacy of the upper class had long existed as a fact, and ten years had elapsed since the reform was previously debated in the Great Council before it v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 107 received this constitutional sanction. The rights from which the people were now definitely shut out, they had not enjoyed in practice for many gener- ations. In forty years you may never have wished to go to Guinea ; but let fate paralyze you so that you can never afterward go there if you would, and you will feel that you have been deprived of a life- long right. Had the Venetian people attempted at any time in the thirteenth century to ride the Re- public, they would have found the aristocracy already in the saddle. The imperial expansion of Venice after the Fourth Crusade confirmed the ascendency of the great families. The wider commerce enor- mously enriched them. The many new offices required for governing the colonies gave an oppor- tunity to hundreds of ambitious nobles, and, indeed, to any enterprising citizen, who might hope to win a higher position at home through great achieve- ments abroad. In any state, the government in- evitably comes into the hands of the dominant class; and this is true whatever the government may be called: there are to-day several thriving despotisms, which wear the thinnest democratic disguise. Why did the political life of Venice grow natu- rally into an oligarchy ? The question is one of the most interesting in constitutional history, and so far as I know nobody has fully answered it. Mr. Hazlitt's answer is worth pondering : " In a state like Venice," he says, " where navigation sup- plied, in a large measure, the place of agriculture, 108 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and where the attention of the multitude was regularly directed by their callings as pilots, mari- ners, and fishermen, from the management and progress of public affairs, it was not difficult for an oligarchy, so long as it was true to itself, to retain the governing prerogative and the succession to the ducal office in its own hands ; and it is accordingly found that the very tribunitial families which ruled the Republic in the sixth and seventh centuries still preserved in the eleventh their political ascen- dency." This sounds reasonable, until we reflect that neither at Pisa nor at Genoa, where navigation formed, as at Venice, the chief business, did an oli- garchy establish itself. Genoa especially, which came nearest to Venice in maritime power and com- mercial interests, was notoriously the most revolu- tionary state in Europe, and the revolutions which tormented her resulted more than once in a victory for the very plebeians. Nor, if we examine the political evolution of the northern commercial cities of Antwerp, Bruges, and the Hanse towns, shall we discover any general drift toward oligarchy. Evidently, Mr. Hazlitt has not found the key. The cause which really determined the politics of Venice was not navigation instead of agriculture, but geographical isolation. As we have so often remarked, the Republic of the Lagoons grew up in almost complete independence of the influences which conditioned the growth of every other Eu- ropean state. The Venetians had known neither v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 109 Imperial count nor Papal vicar. The great tide of world politics had never ebbed and flowed in their streets. Truculent territorial lords had never con- tested with the populace for mastery. There had been great captains, but no military dictators. The bourgeoisie, that middle class out of which in other countries representative government was to spring, exerted less influence at Venice than elsewhere, be- cause up to the Closing of the Great Council, and long afterward, the patricians were themselves the merchants. Foreign invasion, which elsewhere de- stroyed small states, was only a remote danger at Venice a danger remote but wholesome, because it invariably put an end to internal feuds. Isolation, not navigation, was, therefore, the cru- cial fact, thanks to which the Venetian constitution shaped itself with almost unexampled deliberate- ness, and expressed the inmost character of the people. The aristocracy could never have got con- trol and kept it, unless the other classes had come through long experience to regard this as on the whole fitting. They had learned that government by mass meeting, which is always uncertain, becomes impossible when population grows. Never having practiced representative government, in the modern sense of electing a small body of deputies to legis- late for all, the rise of the oligarchy did not,"as the laments of some historians might suggest, deprive the masses of political functions which they were in the habit of exercising. No flourishing democracy was destroyed. The class which had, as everybody 110 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. knew, really mastered the Eepublic now simply took the name of master. The comparatively slight opposition which the rise of the oligarchy met with proves that democratic ideals, as we understand them, did not penetrate the masses. We infer also that, in spite of class distinctions and the barriers everywhere set up be- tween the rich and the poor, the Venetians were one people to a degree which has rarely been matched. In the earliest days they realized, like a ship- wrecked crew on a life-raft, that they must sink or swim together ; and now, in the thirteenth century, although the aristocracy was visibly set apart from the rest of the people, high and low recognized that, as they had the same interests, union was vital to all. The great majority who were never to be en- rolled in the Golden Book could go on claiming liberty as their birthright ; just as the English yeo- man, who had until recently no voice in Parliament or even in the local affairs of his village, regarded himself as the inheritor of the ancient English liber- ties. In one case and in the other the assumption was well founded ; for the Venetian like the Eng- lishman did actually enjoy the essentials of free- dom, which are not always linked with political rights. The surest proof of the fundamental harmony of classes in Venice lies in the equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law. A century before the S errata, Doge Enrico Dandolo began to codify the laws (1195). Under Jacopo Tiepolo, about 1232, com- v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 111 plete civil, criminal, and nautical statutes were drawn up, which bear witness to the advanced civili- zation of the community whose morals they reflect. There was, indeed, no trial by jury ; but a defend- ant had every means accorded him to prove his innocence in the court which had jurisdiction over his case ; the state provided counsel for him if he were poor ; if he were declared guilty, the sentence imposed must be concurred in by independent mag- istrates before it could be carried out ; and even after a criminal was imprisoned, two councilors visited his cell once a month to hear his grievances and re- port on them to the Doge. That justice was done without respect to persons seems to be beyond contradiction, no matter how much deduction we make for the usual discrepancy between the written law and its actual application ; and it was this bond of equality, more durable than any political com- pact, which, with her geographical isolation, made Venice the most stable of all governments. Nevertheless, the Closing of the Great Council was not accomplished without some protest. The story goes that in 1300 Marin Bocconio, a rich citi- zen not entitled to nomination to the Council, gath- ered a few score sympathizers and marched to the Palace, where they knocked boldly on the door and demanded to be admitted to take part in their country's affairs. They were admitted one by one, according to an old tale, and immediately executed, the dwindling remnant of waiters outside not sus- pecting what had befallen their companions. A 112 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. more likely account states that the Doge got wind of the plot and had the troop of protestants arrested and tried before they came to violence ; their ring- leaders were hanged, head downwards, between the columns in the Piazzetta. What are we to surmise from such swift and terrible punishment? Had Bocconio behind him a vast number of persons, eager to rebel at the first suspicious signal ? AYas the oligarchy so nervous that even his small follow- ing frightened it into unnecessary slaughter ? Did it choose this way of announcing once for all that it would tolerate no political discussion ? Or was it merely that the Doge, Pietro Gradenigo, had a habit of treating his enemies with merciless vigor ? Gradenigo lived to weather a more formidable tempest, which burst upon Venice in 1310. The chief conspirator was Bajamonte Tiepolo, grandson of the Doge, Lorenzo, who had among his accom- plices members of the Querini and Badoeri families, patricians like himself of ancient lineage, together with their adherents and a considerable following of the common people. The movement was clearly aristocratic, and in spite of the pretense that it aimed at restoring the ancient popular government, its real motives seem to be due to private griev- ances of the Querini and Badoeri, and to the per- sonal ambition of Tiepolo. Gradenigo's harshness had exasperated all these men, and his quarrel with the Pope and with Ferrara, resulting in commercial disaster and hard times, had aroused general dis- content. How much an intelligent opposition to v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 113 the Great Council helped to add strength to the cause can only be conjectured. The Tiepolo family had long been popular, and Bajamoute might count not only on this inherited good will, but on the enthusiasm which he himself kindled. The people called him " the Great Knight " ; his friends looked to him for decisive counsel and valiant deeds. During many months the conspiracy grew in secret. Then, the time being ripe, it was planned that very early in the morning of June 15, 1310, Tiepolo should lead a band of armed men into the Piazza of St. Mark through the narrow Merceria lane, and that simultaneously Marco Querini should appear with another band by the Ponte de' Dai. Badoer, who hurried to the mainland to collect a third body of allies, was to bring his force by water, seize the Grand Canal, and join his friends in the Piazza. When dawn came, a terrific storm, with thunder and lightning, broke over the city ; but the conspirators, who had been hiding in the Querini Palace beyond the Rialto, resolved to start. Querini's men, either because they had a shorter route or a swifter gait, reached the Piazza first. There, to their surprise, they found a large force of the Doge's followers drawn up, a traitor, Marco Donati, having revealed the plot to Gradenigo. Querini dashed bravely at the enemy, but his troop was quickly cut to pieces, and he and his son were slain. A few moments later, when Tiepolo's men issued in two divisions on the Pi- i 114 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. azza, one by the way of the present Clock Tower and the other by S. Basso, they saw a heap of dead and dying comrades, and the ducal forces flushed with one victory and eager for another. Nothing daunted, Tiepolo led a charge; there was furious hand-to-hand fighting, and then, after a brief space, the conspirators gave way and rushed by whatever outlet they could from the Square. The tumult had by this time awakened the citizens, who ran to the windows and pelted or jeered the fugitives. One woman, whether acci- dentally or not, brushed from her window-sill a flowerpot which struck and killed Tiepolo's stand- ard bearer. Into the mud dropped the banner, with its motto " Liberty," and no one rescued it. The day was lost. Tiepolo and the remnant of his force did not, however, despair. They reached their quarter beyond the Kialto, having hewn down the Kialto bridge, then of wood, and fortified themselves in their houses, which were solid enough to stand a siege. Badoer was intercepted on the Lagoon, but Tiepolo held out so successfully that the Doge, fearful lest a long struggle might lead to a general rising, offered amnesty for the underlings and mere banishment for the heads of the conspiracy. The mild terms were accepted, and we hear of no more disorder. From a distance, Tiepolo continued to plot and to hope, and he doubtless had friends in the city who kept his cause alive; but nothing came of it, and nearly twenty years later he van- v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 115 ished from the scene. Historians and romancers have made the most of this episode ; yet when we measure it calmly, it seems not more important than Jack Cade's rebellion in England, nor more formidable than Aaron Burr's treason in the United States. We would fain see in it a high, patriotic motive, and yet what strikes us throughout is the working of personal resentment and of ambition. Bajamonte Tiepolo's fleeting conspiracy had one lasting result, it called into existence the Coun- cil of Ten as the supreme executive branch of the state. Since the Closing of the Great Council, experience showed that the Venetian constitution provided for everything except this. The Doge, theoretically the chief executive, was too much restricted to act quickly. The Great Council was too unwieldy ; no assembly, numbering many hun- dred members, has ever succeeded in both execu- tive and legislative work. Even the Senate, the real core of the Great Council, and the masters of the Republic, were too large a body for carrying out promptly the details of government, and for assur- ing a compact, vigorous, and uninterrupted policy. Tiepolo's outbreak revealed this grave defect, and on July 10, 1310, less than a month after the affair collapsed, the Great Council voted that ten persons should be nominated by itself and ten by the Doge and his advisers, and that from these twenty a com- mittee of ten should be chosen by the Great Council to take steps for the safety of the Republic. This committee, temporary in its origin, was continued 116 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, v from term to terra, until on July 20, 1335, it was declared permanent. * Few legislative bodies have been so generally misunderstood as this Council of Ten. It has been painted as a group of fiends, pitiless, self-seeking, delighting in torture ; in reality, the Ten were the Venetian cabinet, probably the most hard-working body, generation after generation, in the world. They deliberated in secret, as cabinets do to-day, but their procedure was governed by strict rules, and their public acts, which often seemed summary, were the result of careful discussion. Every device was adopted to withdraw the Ten from the least cor- rupting influence. Personal aggrandizement was cut off, for the Ten held office for only a year, and each new council was quick to scrutinize the acts of its predecessor. The Ten punished severely but not inhumanly, according to the standard of the time ; their secrecy was their most questionable weapon, but they were numerous enough with the Doge and his six councilors, seventeen persons sat at its sessions to render real secrecy impos- sible and long-continued collective inhumanity im- probable. Without rest they worked for Venice; and if we judge by their results, running through four centuries, we shall conclude that they have been surpassed by no other similar body in sagacity, in ability, and in single-minded devotion to state interests. With the creation of the Council of Ten, Venice completed her political organism. CHAPTER VI PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME THE reign of Pietro Gradenigo (1289-1311), like that of Enrico Dandolo a century earlier, marks a crisis in Venetian history. The Closing of the Great Council, the creation of the Ten, the reorgan- ization of executive and administrative powers to conform to the remodeled constitution, are signs that the Republic had reached maturity. Through Dandolo, Venice converted her commercial interests into imperial responsibilities in the Orient; through Gradenigo, she adopted what proved to be her final political machinery. All her future achievements were to be made with the tools now forged. The oligarchy could never have established itself so quickly, and on the whole so quietly, unless the Venetians had come through the intuition which springs from social experience to perceive that that was the natural form for their government to take. Bocconio's brief flurry, Bajamonte Tiepolo's meteoric conspiracy, simply serve to gauge the overwhelming strength of the current which engulfed them. That this change was effected without serious internal upheavals is all the more noteworthy, be- cause Gradenigo's reign was beset by foreign diffi- 117 118 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. culties and disasters. The Genoese annihilated the Venetian fleet at Curzola (1298) and threatened to take the lead again in the Levant. Zara, abetted by the King of Hungary, rebelled. Relations with Padua became unsettled a bad omen, because Venice depended chiefly on the Paduan and Tre- visan markets for her food. Worst of all, by inter- fering in a local quarrel at Ferrara, she brought on herself the Interdict of the Pope, who claimed suzerainty in that city. The Interdict proved to be a very terrible curse ; not so much because it inter- rupted the church ceremonies, which were a part of the daily life of the time, as because it absolved every one from keeping with the Venetians the laws of com- mon humanity. To give a Venetian food or lodging was declared a mortal sin ; but to refuse to pay a debt justly owed him, or to seize his goods, or to rob his stores, or to kill him even these were meritorious acts. Such the monstrous perversion of morals which the Roman hierarchs connived at in the name of Jesus Christ. The Venetians soon found their trade paralyzed and their food supply imperiled; for their rivals grasped eagerly this chance, offered by the Church, of injuring them without danger of reprisal. When the masses felt the pinch of privation, they clamored against the war, which had never been popular ; but Gradenigo stood firm, and at his death (1311) he left the Interdict among his legacies to his successor. Although we cannot tell in detail how far the fateful changes of his reign were due to him, Pietro vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 119 Gradenigo was, without question, one of the most imperious of the doges. A steadfast friend and an unrelenting enemy, he had the art of so weaving his passions into his country's policy that they look to us identical with it. More than that, he made the cause of a caste the cause of the state. He pre- ferred craft to force, but he had no scruples against using any weapon which the occasion called for. In his tenacity, which some called stubbornness and others prejudice, he resembled the Younger Pitt; and he had, despite his class partisanship, Pitt's way, the statesman's way, of taking large views of international issues. Like Pitt, too, he was indifferent to popular odium and unshaken by disasters abroad. Like Pitt, he died at a moment when his twenty years' rule had plunged his coun- try into calamities. To succeed him, the electors chose Marino Zorzi, an octogenarian, whom they happened to see cross- ing the Square on one of the errands of mercy which earned him the reputation of saint. They hoped that his piety might persuade Clement V to rescind the Interdict; but the good man died in a few months, and his successor, Giovanni Soranzo, found the payment of one hundred thousand ducats much more efficacious in placating the Pope. Clement V, true to the immemorial practice of the Holy See, granted Divine favor for gold. The Papacy had apparently been successful in its blackmail for that is what the Interdict amounted to ; but it was such actions as this which were slowly arousing 120 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the conscience of Christendom against the most corrupt of human institutions. The Papal juggling of the things of God with the things of Mammon had already led to the exile at Avignon ; in the next century the Papacy was to be punished by the Great Schism, and then to be disrupted by the Reformation. Doge Soranzo did the state more than one shin- ing service. He put down the rebellion at Zara; he strengthened the navy so that, while there was no open war, it checked Genoese depredations ; and, above all, he extended, by commercial treaties, the trade of Venice. The real strength of the Repub- lic appeared in its rapid recovery from the disasters of Gradenigo's reign. The ensign of St. Mark's was soon seen again in every port, and about this time the introduction of the manufacture of mirrors and an improved method of silk weaving opened new sources of wealth. The general acceptance of the oligarchic regime produced an internal calm in which all classes prospered. The gradual trans- forming of the Council of Ten into a permanent institution completed the structure of the state, giving it an organ by which it could both act promptly and hand on a continuous policy. In compactness, in average wealth, in ability to focus her power quickly at a given point, and to maintain it unimpaired for a long time, not less than in gen- eral civilization, Venice surpassed all her neighbors. In 1325 she seemed impregnable. By this date, Europe was entering a new epoch. vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 121 The Church and the Empire, which during four centuries had struggled for mastery in the West, had worn each other out. In every country, politi- cal states were forming, usually on dynastic princi- ples, and even the nominal suzerainty of the Empire had ceased to be respected. In Italy, the little medieval republics had nearly run their course; the single despot, or a family of tyrants, was stran- gling the free municipalities. The Church also, although it still had large capacity for doing harm, as when it proclaimed an interdict, was no longer held in awe. Innocent III smote terror into the hearts of kings ; Boniface VIII used the same words, but terrified nobody. These changes called for a readjusting of Vene- tian policy. The Republic could no longer lean now toward the Pope and now toward the Em- peror, according as one or the other seemed less likely to injure her. She had to deal with her im- mediate neighbors, the despots of the mainland, whose mutual quarrels caused the situation to dis- solve and reform as swiftly as the delirium of a fever patient. Amid the whirligig of change there was no principle, save change, on which to base her calculations. A compact made with the lord of Padua in the spring might be worthless by autumn, for then a new lord might rule in Padua. After long navigating by trade winds, she had come to a region of squall and hurricane. Only in the Orient did her traditional rivalry with the Genoese con- tinue unabated. 122 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. That Venice should reach the fourteenth century without gaining a foothold on the mainland, from which only a narrow stretch of Lagoon separated her, is indeed remarkable. Chance, or a sudden caprice for conquest, or the settlement of some war claim, might have thrust territory upon her; but in nothing did the Venetians show their political sagacity so plainly as in their refusal to be lured shoreward. They were a sea people, who knew that their safety lay on the sea. Their narrow stretch of Lagoon was a frontier more difficult than the Alps for an enemy to cross. They had always taken care that the masters of the mainland should not trouble Venetian trade. They often interfered to punish trespassers on their rights, or to secure larger concessions, or to support a friendly ruler at war with one of their enemies ; but, having gained their end, they resisted the temptation to owner- ship. In Gradenigo's reign, however, Venice aban- doned her historical policy and accepted Ferrara, where she had many commercial interests, from one of the claimants to the lordship of that city. The Pope, as we just now saw, happened to be another claimant, and by resorting to the Interdict he succeeded in upholding his suzerainty over the Ferrarese. Although balked in their first move, the Vene- tians began to regard expansion westward as more aud more natural, and events soon combined to convince them that it would be beneficial if not indispensable. Padua, their nearest neighbor, was vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIilE 123 dominated by the Carrara family, Verona by the Scaligers, Milan by the Visconti. Of these, the Scaligers were by so far the most powerful that they threatened to subjugate all their rivals and set up a kingdom in Northern Italy. By 1329 they controlled not only Verona, Brescia, and Vicenza, but Feltre and Belluno, which com- manded the passes to the north, besides Treviso, mistress of the plain from which Venice drew her provisions, and Padua, where the Carrara were reduced to vassalage. The Scaligers had evidently no intention of stopping there. They broke up long-standing commercial agreements and refused to negotiate new ones. In Venice the war party prevailed. The new Doge, Francesco Dandolo, urged a further delay, and set forth with due emphasis the peril of giving up the policy which had been their safeguard for nine hundred years ; but present needs outweighed every appeal to tradition. There was no arguing away the fact that if Delia Scala owned the prov- ince on which Venice relied for food, he held her at his mercy. So the Republic resolved to crush him, or at least to wrest from him so much of the main- land as she needed for her food ; 1329, the year of this decision, marks another turning-point in the career of Venice. She did not embark on the war recklessly, but formed a coalition with Florence, from which Lucca had lately been seized by the Scaligers, and with Visconti, who knew that his rival would attack 124 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Milan at the first opportunity. Alberto de' Rossi, lord of Parma, joined the league; and so did the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Carinthia, whose frontiers had been encroached upon. As soon as fortune began to favor the allies, other Lombard princes Obizzo d' Este and Gonzaga of Mantua came over to them, and, finally, Massilio Carrara, who held Padua for Delia Scala, agreed to betray the city into their hands. As a reward for his treachery he was continued in his lordship there. After nearly ten years of fighting, Delia Scala sued for a peace (January, 1337-8), by the terms of which Venice profited most. She acquired the Trevisan, besides Bassano and Castelbaldo, and she exercised a virtual protectorate over Padua; the passage of the Po was made free, the old commer- cial treaties were renewed. But Delia Scala refused to surrender Lucca to the Florentines, or Padua to De' Rossi. The other allies fared better ; for even when they received no direct increase of territory, they suffered no loss, and they had the satisfaction of knowing that the supremacy of the Scaligers was crippled. Henceforth, the possession of that small province on the mainland is a large factor in the destiny of Venice. It makes her a party to the incessant struggles of the North Italian despots. It gives them the chance to assail her, which they never had before; because till now the Lagoon was her un- failing bulwark. Now she has no strategic fron- tier; nor shall she find one, though she expand vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 125 westward over all Lombardy. There are only rivers which serve to mark boundaries, but not to hinder a determined foe. Manifestly, the Trevisan is no finality ; it gives her the indispensable meat and corn, but it lays on her the burden of further conquest. For the present, the Venetians saw only the benefits which they had won, their defeat of a neighbor more malignant than Ezzelino, and their relief from the danger of being cut off from food. They at once devised a liberal government for Treviso, their purpose being to leave undisturbed as much of the old order as was compatible, instead of forcing on an unwilling people a system which they would hate because it was foreign. Most of the officials, except the highest, were natives ; the 2)odesta, or governor, was usually an outsider, chosen by the local council. This harmonized with the common practice of the Italian cities during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when, to pre- vent party or family feuds, a stranger, who could be neutral, was called in as municipal head. No other state furnished so many poclest&s as Venice, a fact which bears witness to the inbred statesman- like quality of her sons. Her care to respect local rights and to provide that the advantages of the new connection between herself and Treviso should be really reciprocal, made her rule so popular that many a tyrant-tormented city hankered after it. To convince her dependants that they were all members of one family, in whose common pros- 126 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. perity each could share, became the policy which she consistently followed on the mainland. En- lightened self-interest, if not generosity and love of fair play, warned her against turning over the offices wholesale to her own office seekers, and from levying exorbitant customs for the sake of enrich- ing a few monopolists at home. She knew that the cost of an army maintained to suppress a people irritated by tariff injustice, or perhaps driven to desperation by famine, must far exceed any profit which such a measure might bring. We must not, however, exaggerate her virtue by implying that she always lived up to her ideal. Complete politi- cal disinterestedness was an anachronism in 1340, just as it is in 1905 ; and the minute precautions which the Signory took to prevent peculation and injustice on the part of its officials abroad show that transgressions must have been frequent ; they show also that the Signory's intentions were fair. The shortness of the term for which those officials were appointed, usually only a year or sixteen months, proved a strong incentive to the very evils it was intended to avert. On the whole, however, Venice was centuries ahead of other nations in this matter, as any one can see who compares her general treatment of her mainland provinces with England's treatment of Ireland down through the nineteenth century. But in encouraging the prosperity of all her possessions, and even in allowing them to retain a large part of their independence in local affairs, vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 127 Venice did not think of admitting them to equality with herself. She might enroll Trevisan magnates among her patricians, but she gave Treviso no voice in her Great Council. Candia revolted in the hope of securing representation in the central govern- ment ; Venice crushed the revolt and its motive. She would never listen to any scheme of federa- tion. The representative system had never been her system, why, then, should she adopt it for the sake of her tributaries ? The ancient Roman Republic wrought through one political organism ; medieval Venice through another; the modern constitutional state works through yet another: it is by no means certain that any of them would have been improved by borrowing the strong points peculiar to the others, but it is certain that such combinations no more occur in history than a cross between an elephant and a tiger occurs in nature. When we would follow the growth of representa- tive government, we look to the Anglo-Saxon race ; and yet the English Parliament, which originated and grew by virtue of this principle, would not after its colonists had been one hundred and fifty years in America extend it to them, who were not conquered peoples, but England's own children. Our business, therefore, is not to declare that Venice made a mistake in rejecting what we should now call imperial federation, but to observe what her system actually was, how far it supplied her own needs and those of her dependants, and how it compares with the systems of other nations. 128 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. On the whole, after making due allowance for the different standards of well-being, we can affirm that the dependants of Venice enjoyed as large a share of their products, and were as contented and as little tormented and despoiled, as any other subject peoples in the world. By the peace of 1339 the Republic seemed about to enter on a long era of prosperity. She had ably conducted a campaign on land and won coveted territory a success in which only the immediate benefit was as yet apparent. She had placed an ally over Padua, which served as a buffer between her and the discomfited Scaligers. Above all, she had proved herself not less adroit in dealing with the new epoch than she had been in the old days of the Empire and the Church. In her social con- ditions her progress, during the past half-century, had been very rapid. Her churches, her palaces, her Arsenal, were become famous ; her commoners lived in greater comfort and refinement than nobles elsewhere, while her nobles displayed a princely luxury which the government strove to check by sumptuary laws. And as if fate had planned that rare combination of high conditions and a great man, Andrea Dan- dolo was at this juncture elected Doge (1343-54). Prom childhood he was fortune's darling. Dis- tinguishing himself as a youth at the University of Padua, he served as professor of law there, until his services were called for by the state. At the age of twenty-three he was a Procurator of St. Mark's, at vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 129 twenty -five a Decemvir, then podestd, of Trieste, then a commissioner in the field during the last part of the war with Scaliger, and finally Doge at thirty- six. In addition to his extraordinary gifts in scholarship and administration, his character was so noble and his manners so winning that the Venetians nicknamed him " Count of Virtue " and "Courtesy." He is one of the few men of the Renaissance who would find himself least a stranger were he to come to life now. Under happier con- ditions he might have enjoyed the renown of a Lorenzo de' Medici. But he had hardly put on the corno before fortune turned against him. In response to the Pope's appeal, Venice joined a coalition against the Turks who were beginning to harass the Christians in the Levant. The allies destroyed the Turkish flotilla and then disbanded, too easily satisfied with a superficial success. Soon after, the Venetian fleet \vas involved in another quarrel with the Genoese. Zara rebelled and had to be reconquered, a task which involved a conflict with the Hungarian king. In 1348 Venice, in common with "Western Europe, was stricken by the Great Plague, which smote her just after an earthquake had wrought havoc. The pestilence lasted nearly six months and swept away more than half the entire population of the Dogado. Fifty patrician families were utterly wiped out. Even before the plague had spent its force, a revolt at Capo d' Istria must be put down ; and then war with the Genoese came in earnest. When the 130 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Venetians defeated them, the state of Genoa vol- untarily sought protection of Giovanni Visconti, Lord of Milan, thus making that despot by far too formidable. Venice resolved to pursue her advan- tage at sea, but in the battle of Sapienza (Novem- ber 4, 1354) her ships were overwhelmed. Andrea Dandolo did not live to bear that humiliation ; hav- ing died a few weeks before (September 7, 1354) during the gloom of three earlier reverses. He knew that ruin, through no blame of his, hung over his country. Yet such was the nobility of his per- sonality that, despite the failures, his countrymen ever revered him as one of the greatest of their doges. The statutes of Venice, which he caused to be codified, and the history which he wrote are monuments which time cannot wear away. To the ordeal of calamity was added the ordeal of treason. The electors chose as Doge Marino Faliero, a striking example of the type of expert public servant that the Kepublic knew how to breed and use. Faliero had held many important offices at home and many embassies abroad ; he had been podestti of Treviso, and in 1346 he commanded the army which worsted the King of Hungary at Luca. Although seventy-six years old, he enjoyed that mature vigor which was not uncommon among Venetian statesmen. But he suffered from an un- governable temper, which wrecked him and threatened to overwhelm the state. The story of his conspiracy does not seem to account for so grave an affair. vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 131 At one of the Doge's receptions a young noble, Michele Steno, talks unbecomingly to one of the Dogaressa's ladies. The Doge flies into a passion and orders him to be forcibly put out. Steno in revenge scribbles over the ducal throne a ribald rhyme, scandalizing the Dogaressa. The Council try him, and in view of his youth and of the hilarity of the occasion, they let him off with a light sentence. Faliero feels doubly insulted, and secretly vows vengeance on the patriciate. Some time later there comes to him to demand justice Gisello, Admiral of the Arsenal, who has been beaten by a truculent noble. The Doge listens eagerly, but shakes his head, and asks with a bitter voice, what hope there can be of wringing justice from these overweening nobles. " But we bind wild beasts," says Gisello; "and when we cannot bind, we kill them ! " A look as of a sudden inspiration spreads over the Doge's face. He and Gisello understand each other and outline a plot. This meeting of Doge and Gisello takes place early in April. In the course of the next week perhaps a score of leading conspirators, nearly all commoners or plebeians, have been enrolled. The plan is simple : very early in the morning of the 15th, bands of men are to alarm the city by sounding the tocsin and by shouting, " The Genoese are upon us ! " As the nobles rush into St. Mark's Piazza, they are to be slain in detail by squads of conspirators stationed at each entrance. Then 132 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Faliero will be acclaimed sovereign of the state, purged of its oligarchy. Up to April 14 all fares well. But on that day Beltrame, a furrier, seized with compunction, goes to his patron, Lion, who is not in the plot, and begs him to stay indoors on the morrow. Lion asks why, and little by little worms the secret from his friend. An hour or two later he brings the news to the Ten and the Forty ; they summon police, soldiers, and volunteers, and lay the matter before the Doge, who is not yet suspected. He ' feigns incredulity. But in a few hours the truth leaks out. On April 15, Faliero, instead of triumph- ing, is under arrest. On 'the 16th he is tried by a special tribunal, and, in the face of damning testi- mony, he acknowledges his guilt acknowledges it bravely, moreover, and declares that it deserves the highest penalty. The tribunal sentences him to death. On the morning of the 17th, Faliero is led to the steps outside the Great Council Hall and stripped of his ducal corno and other insignia. They put a bla'ck skullcap on his head, a black gown on his shoulders, and escort him to the landing of the Great Stair- case. Neither old age nor fear makes his voice quaver as he asks pardon for his great crime. He lays his head on the block without flinching, and the headsman severs it at one blow. Such the gist of the famous conspiracy, so far as we are ever likely to know it. But unless we assume that wrath is a reason for any strange deed, vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 133 there is evidently much to be explained. A veteran statesman of seventy-seven does not make an ac- complice of the first chance stranger, to upset the government over which he reigns. I suspect that the oligarchy doctored the record, just as it took care, by the severest penalties against conspirators and by generous rewards to informers, to prevent further treason. Faliero's penitence on his way to execution sounds less natural than the curses which Byron makes him utter. And yet the love of Venice was so mighty in the hearts of the Venetians, that it may have moved even Faliero to bless her before she punished him. On the panel in the Ducal Palace where his portrait should come in the series of the Doges, they painted a blank curtain with the motto, Hie est locus Marini Faletro decapitati pro cri minibus. It has been shrewdly said of him that he first lost his temper and then lost his head. The superstitious remembered after his death that on his entry to the city as Doge, a heavy fog misled his boatmen, so that they landed him alongside of the two columns where malefactors were executed, and he walked between the columns on his way to the Palace. Faliero's conspiracy put the Republic to the final test, but she did not collapse. During the stormy decades which followed she had to cope with Car- rara at Padua and the King of Hungary, and with a serious rebellion in Candia. She patched up a temporary peace with Genoa; she scourged the Candiots into submission ; and although she suffered 134 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vi in her conflict with her other enemies, yet in the end she brought them to terms. The Paduan despot (1373) restored her ancient commercial privileges, destroyed the forts which he had built along the Brenta to injure her, and promised to draw his salt supplies from Chioggia. The King of Hungary, whose troops had been worsted in the battle of Fossa Nuova, had already made peace. A new foe, the Duke of Austria, who plunged into a quarrel over Trieste, was glad, after a reverse in the field, to sell out his Triestine claims. These various suc- cesses measured the tenacity of the Republic not less than its reserve power and its stability. But they indicated also that no permanent peace could be hoped for on the mainland, where each of her neighbors might become without warning an active enemy. In the Levant her position was growing worse, and now troubles with her ancient and fiercest rival broke out afresh, and hurried her into a death grapple with Genoa. THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA THE antagonism between Venice and Genoa, which old historians likened to the long struggle between Rome and Carthage, lasted ten generations. Petrarch, who went to Venice in 1354 to negotiate a peace on behalf of Visconti, prophesied that " in- evitably, of Italy's two Eyes, one will be put out, the other dimmed." To avert that catastrophe, the wisest statesmen labored ; but the mutual hatred of the republics had become hereditary, and the inter- vals of truce between them served only to prepare for a new encounter. Rivalry over the trade of the Orient, with which was bound up control of the Mediterranean, was the incurable cause of their enmity. Maritime nations have nearly always tended to destroy their competitors. On laud, while rivals may fight long and often, they usually consent to be kept apart by a frontier; but for power which goes in ships, there can be no frontier ; the same sea flows into all ports, and wherever the sea flows, the hostile ships may sail and meet and clash. In the economic life of Venice and Genoa the merchandise of the Levant was as integral a factor as is the wine product of the Bordelais to 135 136 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. France ; but neither republic could incorporate the Levant and make it geographically an integral part of herself, as the Bordelais is embedded in France or Lancashire in England. Hence the precarious voyages, the rapidly shifting relations with the Oriental marts, the many chances left open for un- fair dealing. And when there was not actual war, there might be almost equal damage from corsairs, who flourished till recent times. Justice has never been a sea goddess. No one with adequate dramatic sense has written the history of the wars between Venice and Genoa. To do so properly would require a setting forth of the constant interplay between the internal condi- tions of each republic and their mutual strife, and besides this, the reaction of the Eastern Empire on its two chief plunderers would need to be analyzed. Our purpose here is merely to outline the course of this history during its later stages. At Trapani, in 1264, the Venetian fleet annihi- lated the Genoese; in consequence, the Eastern Emperor restored the Venetians to equal trading privileges in his empire, and for twenty years the rivals got on without open quarrel. Meantime, the Mussulmans were spreading through Asia Minor, a menace to Greek and Latin Christians alike ; but no effective crusade could be organized against them. In 1289 they took Jerusalem and Tripoli, and snuffed out the flickering Latin kingdom ; in 1291 they captured Ptolemais, the last Latin stronghold in Syria. Thenceforth, the Venetians vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 137 arranged commercial treaties with the Turkish conquerors as usual, they did not mix business and religion and soon their trade revived. But the Genoese, who dominated the Bosphorus and Black Sea and Avere again the Eastern Emperor's favorites, attempted to exclude the Venetians from the Dardanelles. Venice was furious. Kich and poor joined in fitting out a fleet which under the command of Marco Baseio set sail in the spring of 1294. Near Ayas, the northeastern bight of the Gulf of Alexandretta, Baseio fell in with the Gen- oese under Spinola, who, by superior tactics, won the battle (May 22, 1294). Exultant over this vic- tory, the Genoese equipped an immense armament, said to number one hundred and ninety-five sail and forty -five thousand men, with which its admiral, Uberto Doria, expected to sweep the Venetians from the sea. He made a descent on Candia, and his countrymen rose and massacred the Venetians at Constantinople (1295). This brought retaliation, for Ruggiero Morosiui laid waste Pera and the Bos- phorus (1296). His colleague, Schiavo, operated with less success in the Black Sea. At last the two enemies fought a decisive battle on the Dalmatian coast. Lambo Doria, commanding seventy-eight ships, was discovered in the harbor of Curzola (Sep- tember 8, 1296) by Andrea Dandolo commanding ninety-five Venetian sail. Doria, although outnum- bered, had the heavier craft and the superior posi- tion, but at the first onset his line was broken through. Soon, however, the Venetians realized 138 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the disadvantage of fighting with the sun in their eyes and the wind against them. Some of their galleys were blown ashore ; the captains of others, panic-stricken, began to retreat, leaving a fatal gap in the centre, through which Doria drove his ships. Nothing now could save the day for the Venetians, of whom five thousand were taken prisoners; many more were slain, and only the crews of the twelve fugitive galleys escaped. Among the prisoners were Admiral Dandolo, who dashed out his brains rather than rot in a Genoese dungeon, and Marco Polo, who spent his captivity writing his travels. Doria's victory was complete, but so great were his own losses that he could not follow it up. The contrast between the two republics was never more evident. Although Venice was distracted by the constitutional crisis which resulted in the Clos- ing of the Great Council, she hardly vibrated at one of the worst defeats in her history, and within a few weeks she was preparing a new armament. Genoa, on the other hand, though victorious in battle, was convulsed by a political upheaval which made 'her ready to accept Visconti's offer to arbitrate. Before peace came, Schiavo, a daring Venetian privateer, sailed into the harbor of Genoa, planted the banner of St. Mark on one of the quays, struck a coin there to commemorate his sauciness, and sailed out again unimpeded. The peace, signed on May 25, 1299, was to be perpetual, and both parties to it acted in apparent sincerity. Within a few years, however, bickerings in the vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 139 East began anew. Genoese pirates waylaid Vene- tian merchantmen ; reprisals followed, Galata was destroyed, and Genoa was forced to pay an indem- nity (1313). Thirty years later jealousy over the trade of the Crimea and Black Sea, which the two powers had agreed to share, grew acute, and war was declared as soon as they had a little recovered from the ravages of the Great Plague (1348). The first campaign resulted in a fierce encounter at Xegropont between Ruzzini and the Genoese admi- ral, in which the latter escaped with part of his fleet, only to return with reinforcements and capture Negropont, after Ruzzini had taken his prizes home (1350). Venice now formed with the King of Ara- gon and John Cantacuzenos, the Greek Emperor, a league by which they agreed to equip squadrons for which Venice should pay in part. The obvious strategy was for the Aragonese to attack Genoa; but instead of this they joined Niccolo Pisani, the Venetian commander, and went in search of the Genoese under Paganino Doria, who awaited them on the Asiatic shore opposite Constantinople. When the allies entered the Golden Horn, where the Greek contingent joined them, Pisani advised postponing their attack till the next morning ; for it was already the late afternoon of a February day, the weather was bad, and the current swept with unusual vio- lence through the straits. But the Aragonese ad- miral, Santa Paola, would not listen to a delay. The allies delivered their attack at a disadvantage ; the Greek contingent absconded as soon as they 140 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. got within striking distance ; the Catalans held on longer, but they proved inferior, and the Venetians had to bear the brunt of the battle. Night had fallen, and in the dark it was impossible to dis- tinguish friend from foe. At last the Venetians withdrew, worsted but not routed, for Doria had suffered too much to dare to pursue them (February 13, 1352-3). This battle of the Bosphorus merely stimulated both republics to fiercer efforts. Venice continued her subsidy to the Catalans, who cooperated with Pisani on the coast of Sardinia. On August 29, 1353, the Genoese, under Griinaldi, unmasked the Catalan contingent off Lojera, and was astonished to find the entire Venetian fleet accompanying it. Pisani made for the open sea, then turned and bore down on the enemy. The Genoese fought desper- ately ; but when Grimaldi saw that he was losing, he had his galley towed out of the battle, and fled to Genoa. Only eighteen of his fifty-one galleys escaped destruction or capture. The news of the disaster at Lojera threw 'the Genoese into consternation. That mercurial people, which had risen so often after previous calamities, fell into a panic in which it imagined that nothing could save it from being conquered by the Vene- tians, except the protection of Giovanni Visconti, the most powerful of the northern despots. Un- nerved by terror, the free Republic of Genoa offered its independence to the Lord of Milan, who eagerly accepted it (October, 1353). vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 141 The Genoese were too intent on vengeance to feel ashamed of their national cowardice. But Visconti had not their ancestral hatred to goad him blindly against Venice, and before making war he sent Petrarch thither on a peaceful mission. Venice declined the overtures. A new Genoese fleet was already in the Adriatic, and for six or seven months it was hide-and-seek, with occasional skirmishes, between the old antagonists, Paganino Doria and Niccolo Pisaui. Once Doria sacked the town of Parenzo within half a day's sail of Venice, and once he prudently declined battle. Late in the season, Pisani went into winter quarters at Portolungo, opposite the island of Sapienza, not far from Nava- rino. Having stationed Querini with twenty gal- leys to guard the entrance of the harbor, he docked or dismantled the rest of his ships. Doria, hearing that the guard was slack, came upon Querini un- awares, broke into the harbor, and utterly routed the Venetians (November 4, 1354). Pisani and a remnant of his force escaped overland to Modon and thence home, where he and Queriui were im- peached as a sop to popular fury. Of all her naval defeats that of Sapienza (or Porto- lungo) stung Venice most bitterly. At the time, it seemed the harbinger of a complete overthrow ; but far from losing heart, she set about hiring merce- naries and creating another navy. Fortunately, Doria had to lie by for the winter, and before war was resumed in the spring a peace was declared, the terms of which were so favorable to Venice 142 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. that we surmise that Genoa, in spite of her great victory, did not feel secure (June 1, 1355). In comparison with modern naval campaigns these which we have so rapidly surveyed are re- markable for their duration and their intensity, and for their gigantic scale. England has never ha'd any naval equipment proportionate to the 45,000 men and 195 ships which sailed under Uberto Doria in 1295; at that time the total population of the Genoese Republic probably did not exceed a third of a million. In 1329 the conscription at Venice for the war against Delia Scala showed 40,000 men between the ages of twenty and sixty, which would imply about 200,000 inhabitants in the whole city, and perhaps half as many more in the Dogado. If each republic lost from a third to a half of its people in the Great Plague of 1348, some authori- ties reckon as high as two thirds, the fleet which each sent into action in 1350 represents prodigious energy. At Lojera, the Genoese lost 33 of their 51 galleys, and their loss in men exceeded that in any modern sea fight. At the battle of the Nile, Nelson had 10 ships and the French had 13 ; Nelson lost about 1500 in killed and wounded ; the French lost probably 7000 men, and 11 of their ships were either destroyed or captured. One of Pisani's galleys represented relatively as much fighting power as one of Nelson's three-deckers ; for Pisani had of course no cannon, and he had to depend chiefly on rowing instead of sailing. Consequently, where the modern man-of-war or battle-ship carries vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 143 a comparatively small crew and only a small force of gunners and navigators, the galley required a large number of oarsmen (usually convicts or cap- tives) and a troop of soldiers archers, swordsmen, halbardiers to fight at close quarters, as if on land. The average complement of a war galley was 180 rowers and 120 officers, soldiers, marines, and servants. When we consider the means at their command, the immense distances covered by the Italian fleets are even more remarkable than Nelson's famous pursuit of the French from Corsica to the West Indies and back to Aboukir Bay. More than one Venetian cruise reached from Venice to the Genoese Riviera, thence to Candia, Negro- pont, Constantinople, and Syria, and homeward by way of Modon and the Dalmatian ports, a distance of 4000 or 5000 miles. Think what it meant to be a galley slave ! The peace between Venice and Genoa lasted nearly twenty-five years. It ended in the culmi- nation of several antagonisms. In the first place, the presence of the Venetians on Terra Firma had. become rasping to her neighbors. The Carraresi, at Padua, w r ho were to serve as a screen between her and the Scaligers, had now grown to be great des- pots themselves, eager to extend their Paduan state at the expense of the Republic. The Duke of Aus- tria coveted the rich plains to the south of the Alpine passes which he controlled. The Patriarch of Aquileia nursed an immemorial grievance against the Republic, which had shorn him of his ecclesi- 144 A SHORT HISTORY OP VENICE CHAP. astical primacy and was reaping most of his com- merce. The King of Hungary, a competitor for the Venetian possessions on the eastern Adriatic, had designs on the Marches of Ancona, and saw his profit in aiding any attempt that might weaken Venice. In the Orient there were the old motives for a quarrel with Genoa, and there was recent irritation. The Venetians had coerced the Greek Emperor into ceding the island of Tenedos to them. The Genoese, having vainly protested, deposed the Emperor and enthroned his son ; but the Venetians would not give up the island, which commands the western entrance to the Dardanelles. So Genoa declared war, and easily persuaded the Lord of Padua, the King of Hungary, the Duke of Austria, and the Patriarch of Aquileia to join a coalition for crushing Venice. Never before, since she rose to greatness, had the Eepublic been so imperiled. Although her only ally was Beruabo Visconti, who proved less helpful than she expected, she took up the challenge proudly. At this crisis she had as Doge Andrea Contarini, a wise, resolute, and popular old man, ripe in experience, and so modest that he thrice refused the ducal crown, until the Senate threatened to banish him unless he accepted it. For commander of the fleet, Vettor Pisani was chosen, the most illustrious of all the great sea fighters to whom the gonfalon of St. Mark was intrusted. He was the son of Niccolo Pisani, under whom he had served at Portolungo, and he had been Captain of the Gulf, that officer whose vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 145 duty it was to patrol the northern Adriatic. He was now fifty-five years old, hot-tempered, noble- hearted, master of the art of naval warfare, a pas- sionately devoted son of Mother Venice. Scarcely less remarkable than these was Carlo Zeno, whose life had been a series of romantic exploits, who loved danger as the Swiss loves mountain air, and who nevertheless had in him, like his Elizabethan aftercomers, Raleigh, Hawkins, Drake, the stuff which differentiates great captains from mere dare- devil adventurers. In April, 1378, Pisani, having received the ban- ner from the Doge, and a blessing from the Arch- bishop, set sail with a vanguard of fourteen galleys, and on May 30 he encountered the Genoese admiral, Luigi de' Fieschi, at Capo d' Anzio, near the mouth of the Tiber. After a sharp battle he captured Fieschi and five galleys ; but as his squadron was too weak to warrant a descent on Genoa, he re- turned to the Adriatic and chastised several rebel- lious cities along the eastern coast. The Genoese populace, enraged by their first defeat, rushed to the Ducal Palace, deposed Doge Campofregoso, and set up Doge Guarco in his stead. Yet the local turbulence did not long interrupt the Genoese cam- paign ; so that before winter they had a formidable fleet in commission. Pisani, by order of the Senate, which overruled his advice, spent the winter at Pola. When spring came, the Senate persisted in for- bidding him to return, although his crews were 146 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. much reduced by disease and his ships required overhauling. On May 7, 1379, the Genoese fleet of twenty -three galleys and two galleons, commanded by Luciano Doria, appeared off Pola. Pisani held a council of war, at which he urged that in their condition they should avoid a battle ; but the pro- ved itors, whom the Senate sent to oversee the naval operations, construed prudence as. cowardice, un- worthy and un- Venetian, and he yielded to their clamor. "Very well," he said; "let whoever loves St. Mark follow me ! " and he led them straight at the foe. But neither his courage nor a momentary success availed. The Genoese feigned a retreat: the Venetians pursued pell-mell ; and then the Genoese wheeled round and routed them. Pisani himself barely escaped with six galleys to Parenzo. A month later he was taken manacled to Venice and condemned to six months' imprisonment, and was deprived of the power of holding office for five years, to punish him "for not taking due precau- tions at Pola." Such dismay as shook Venice that summer sur- passed the days of the Great Plague or of Sapienza. But the venerable Contarini did not lose heart, and the government prepared to defend the capital. Fortifications were thrown up on the Udi ; ships laden with stones were sunk at the mouth of the Lido port; every citizen capable of bearing arms was mustered into a volunteer corps ; a committee of public safety sat permanently in the Ducal Palace ; lookouts watched in the campanili to give vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GESOA 147 notice of the first strange sails along the southern horizon. Another Doria, Pietro, had entered the Adriatic with reinforcements, and having joined the fleet victorious at Pola, he was reconquering the Dalmatian and Istrian cities taken by Pisani the previous year. He came up the coast deliber- ately, and although only meagre news, or none, of his progress reached the Venetians, they knew every night that he was a stage nearer than in the morning. The suspense became fearful. At what point would he strike? And all the while the Venetian campaign on the mainland grew worse and worse. The allies took the unfortified towns, ravaged the country, and besieged the cities. When the Venetians sent an embassy to the Hungarian king, he proposed terms so dishonorable that Venice, although driven to bay, rejected them. At last, Doria, with forty-seven Genoese ships, appeared off the coast. On August 6 he attempted to capture Malamocco, but being repulsed he burned Pelestrina, seized Little Chioggia, and pro- ceded to attack Chioggia itself. Pietro Enio, the podestcl, held out bravely with three thousand men, but on August 16 the Genoese, having gained the bridge which led into the town, pursued the Vene- tian garrison into their quarters and compelled them to surrender. Venice was now hemmed in, for Doria's galleys could at will sail out and guard the coast, while the allies on land drew their cordon to the edge of the Lagoon. That evening the news reached Venice, and the 148 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tolling of the great bell of St. Mark's warned the people of the capital and the neighboring islands of the disaster. The next day the Signory chose Taddeo Giustiniani as captain-general ; but the populace refused to serve under him, and clamored for Pisani. The Signory reluctantly gave in, and on the evening of the 18th a delegation of senators went to his prison to release him. He asked to be allowed to spend that night in prayer and contemplation. At daybreak on the morrow the senators and a large crowd of the people re- turned to his dungeon. As soon as the door was unlocked, the people lifted him to their shoulders and carried him triumphantly to the Palace. When they shouted, "Long live our Vettor Pisani!" he bade them shout instead, " Long live St. Mark ! " The Doge and senators received him graciously, acknowledging by their manner, if not by words, that they had made a mistake which their love for Venice did not let them persist in, and Pisani showed neither resentment nor arrogance. Venice must be saved, and all her sons must unite to save her. The annals of patriotism record nothing nobler than his magnanimity. Patriots always have been willing to die for their country ; Vettor Pisani consented to live and work for Venice under a government which had forced him to act against his judgment, and had then punished him for the ensuing failure. His generosity was without reserve. He silenced the populace which began to suggest that he should vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE AVITH GENOA 149 become dictator. Under his electric guidance all went swiftly. To Taddeo Giustiniani, his jealous rival, he assigned the command of three galleys. He substituted stone for wooden forts at the Lido, organized the volunteers, built stone walls from the Lido to Santo Spirito, created a large mosquito fleet of flat-bottomed boats, and set a host to equip the half-finished ships at the Arsenal. In three days the galleys were seaworthy ; within a week the preparations to defend the city were complete. Passionate resolve supplanted consternation. Such speed was indispensable, for Doria, having let slip the chance to move on Venice immediately after taking Chioggia on August 16, threw a large force on the island of Malamocco, and on August 24, in concert with Carrara's troops, he attacked the Venetian outposts near S. Kiccolo and on the islets of Santo Spirito and Santa Maria. But he failed to dislodge Pisani's troops, and having convinced himself that the city could not be stormed, he with- drew in October to Chioggia to establish a blockade. The Venetians quickly measured the ordeal before them, the sternest ordeal by which a community can be tried, and they met it with the collective courage which does not flinch at the slow, unremitting tor- ments of starvation. In the early weeks their shal- low boats surprised three of the Genoese ships, but this exploit, though cheering at the moment, had no significance. Week by week the blockade tight- ened. Provisions grew scarce, and no replenishing from the outside was to be hoped for. Distress 150 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. made all classes kin. " If you have no food," said Pietro Mocenigo, in the Doge's behalf to the multi- tude, " go to the houses of the patricians, who will share their last crust with you." All business was suspended, because the only business possible was to keep alive, and to repel the Genoese. Eich and poor gave out of their means to the public purse. A forced loan at five per cent, produced 6,294,040 lire. Women offered their silver, their jewelry, their precious stones, even the clasps of their belts. And as a further incentive, the Signory decreed that when the war was finished, the thirty families which contributed most should be admitted to the Great Council ; that five thousand ducats a year should be divided among the most patriotic of the poor; and that foreigners who gave the greatest aid should be eligible to citizenship. Still, day by day, and week by week, the horrors of the blockade increased. Doria down at Chioggia and Carrara on the mainland, simply by sitting motionless, were wearing out their prey. Visconti, the Kepublic's sole ally, created no diversion. The whole world through, the famishing Venetians had but one hope, fast slipping away, that Carlo Zeno, who had gone on a roving commission more than a year ago, would return and break the block- ade. But where was Zeno ? For many months they had heard nothing from him. The messages they sent could never have reached him ; and either he did not know of their desperate situation, or he and his fleet had been captured. vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 151 Chioggia had fallen in August ; December was now well advanced, and with December, keener distress. Yet through all these fearful months we are conscious that one presence, like Washington's at Valley Forge, has diffused its courage among high and low, rousing the half-hearted, maintaining discipline, shaming the selfish, silencing the least whisper of surrender. Vettor Pisani tolerated no cowardice, but he knew as well as the most craven that the city was doomed, unless it could help itself, or Zeno's fleet should come. Zeno might be too late; Pisani therefore planned for Venice to save herself by blockading the Genoese blockaders. Since the Spartans turned the tables on the Athe- nians at Syracuse, no similar stroke of military genius had been recorded. The Venetian Lagoon, it will be remembered, is hemmed in on the south by several long sand isl- ands, or lidi. On Sottomarina, the southwestern- most of these, separated from the low mainland by only a narrow channel, is the town of Brondolo ; between Sottomariua and the lido of Pelestrina, the next to the east, the port of Chioggia opens to the sea. Chioggia itself and Little Chioggia lie on tiny islands only a few furlongs to the north of Sottomarina. From Chioggia to Venice, a distance of fifteen miles, the Lombard Canal, skirting the inner margin of the lidi, alone offers passage to ships of any draught. From their post at Chioggia, therefore, the Gen- oese stopped all access to Venice through the 152 SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. canal, and as their ships also patrolled the coast, they prevented passage through the Malamocco and the Lido ports. Pisani's masterly plan was, by closing the Lombard Canal and the ports of Bron- dolo and Chioggia, to lock up the Genoese fleet in the Chioggian waters. He laid his plan before the Signory, which approved it. Thirty-four galleys were equipped, and at eight in the evening of December 22 they left the capital. Before mid- night they reached without resistance the Chioggia port. As soon as it was light, December 23, Pisani landed forty-eight hundred men on the eastern end of Sotto- marina in the hope of fortifying them there ; but a large force of Genoese drove them back with loss to their ships. Pisani achieved his purpose, however, for whilst these troops were battling on shore, he was sinking two great barges in the port of Chioggia, and heaping stones upon them ; so that within a few hours he had effectually sealed that exit. The following day, he sank more barges in the Brondolo channel and closed that; and on Christmas he barred the Lombard Canal. These operations, though executed swiftly, cost heavily. The crews worked waist-high in the water for many hours in the win- try weather, and all the while the Genoese by land and water kept up a terrific fight. The weather was cold, supplies were scanty. After a week of these hardships and dangers, Pisani's men, of whom not a few were mercenaries, unused to a war to the death, began to clamor for a respite. Pisaui ex- vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 153 horted, commanded, threatened ; but human nature was visibly giving out. Venerable Doge Contarini, who had accompanied the expedition, declared that he would never return to Venice until Chioggia was recaptured. Still, his example failed to revive the exhausted crews, and at length Pisani promised that, if Carlo Zeno's long-expected fleet did not appear by nightfall on January 1, he would aban- don the blockade. It was the hero's last resort : like Columbus, he staked all on the frailest hope. December 30 passed amid suspense, which grew more fearful on December 31, as hour dragged on after hour without bringing any sign. On New Year's Day, the lookouts were as usual at the mast- heads, but the forenoon wore away, and they reported nothing. Suddenly, one, sharper-eyed than his fel- lows, shouted, " A sail to eastward ! " and very soon, " More sails ! " and next the crews and officers from the decks could descry a fleet pricking above the horizon. There were wild shouts, " Zeno ! Vic- tory ! " And then, renewed suspense and silence, as they remembered that a Genoese fleet was on its way to reinforce Doria : what if this were it ? This doubt agonized them until the ship that led the van had come near enough for them to see its banner the Lion of St. Mark, not the standard of St. George ! The great cheers broke out afresh ; Venice was saved. Saved for the moment, at least ; for even with Zeno's cooperation the task to be accomplished was stupendous. During his year's cruise Zeno had 154 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. destroyed some seventy Genoese ships, and damaged much Genoese seaboard ; but he had not met the new fleet with reinforcements. As he insisted on filling the place of greatest danger, he was stationed at Bron- dolo. Pisani's galleys anchored offshore to inter- cept blockade-runners an uncertain berth, at the mercy of the wintry gales. In one tempest Zeno's cables parted, and he recovered his position only with great difficulty. The mercenaries, habitually grumbling, at last mutinied, and could be appeased only with the promise of plundering Chioggia when it fell. But in spite of such hindrances, the Vene- tian blockade began to tell on the Genoese; and when, on February 13, Zeuo stormed and took Bron- dolo, using two huge wooden mortars, which threw stone balls weighing one hundred and forty-five and one hundred and ninety -five pounds, the army belea- guered in Chioggia saw its doom approaching. For it had depended on receiving supplies from the Pad- uans by way of Brondolo, and henceforth whatever came must be smuggled through in small boats. The vigilance of the blockaders soon cut off this resource, and while they themselves and Venice were once more properly fed, the Genoese took their turn at famine, bearing it with equal fortitude, and longing with equal suspense for their fleet of rescuers. Grimaldi, who now commanded there, Pietro Doria having been killed, dug a canal across a nar- row part of Sottomarina, to try if perchance he might break through ; but Pisani thwarted him. Then he tore down wooden houses and made flat- vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 155 boats on which his troops might escape across the Lagoon ; but Zeno headed him off and dashed that hope. Pisani could not be induced to order a gen- eral assault on Chioggia, although his men and offi- cers chafed at the tedious delays ; he knew that with patience victory was sure, and he would take no risk. At last the dreaded Genoese fleet, under Maruffo, appeared off Venice on May 14, but again Pisani preferred prudence to the uncertainty of a battle, and Maruffo, unable to entice him into the open, did not dare to go in and attack him. Almost simultaneously another Genoese commander, Spi- nola, who had hurried overland to throw a relief party into Chioggia, was frustrated. Hot weather had set in, and the besieged Genoese died in great numbers. Grimaldi was unsuccessful in arranging a joint movement with Carrara. Equally vain proved his attempt to bribe Pisani's mercenaries to desert. He had tried every expedient that cour- age or craft or desperation could suggest. And now there was no more food; the drinking water had been drunk up to the dregs. Brave Grimaldi at last surrendered, having endured a twenty-five weeks' siege (June 24). Of the great armament which a year before embodied the pride and power of Genoa, and threatened the very life of Venice, only 4170 Genoese troops, with 200 of Carrara's auxiliaries and 17 galleys, remained. So famished were the prisoners that many of them died after de- vouring their first meal ; those who survived were humanely cared for at Venice. 156 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Before pressing on to complete their task, the Venetians gave themselves up to a festival of re- joicing. Doge Contarini returned in the Bucentaur to the city which owed so much to his fortitude. St. Mark's witnessed a solemn thanksgiving for the national salvation. In July, Pisani set out to sink the Genoese fleet under Maruffo, who had been abetting a revolt in Istria. Maruffo seems to have had warning of his approach, for he divided his force and adopted Parthian tactics. At Zara, Pisani learned that twelve Genoese galleys were loading with corn at Manfredonia. He hurried across the Adriatic with part of his ships, and overtaking the foe toward evening on August 12 he attacked vehemently ; but the Genoese held out till dark, and then escaped. Pisani himself died the next day (August 13, 1380) at Manfredonia from an acute fever, which had stricken him before he left Zara. Ten days later all Venice followed his bier to the Church of St. Anthony, where he was buried. Universal grief, such as a nation seldom experiences more than once or twice in its history, was poured out for Pisani, and with reason ; for his patriotism shone from first to last without a stain, and his genius rescued his country from extinction in the most terrible crisis she ever knew. Had Genoa conquered, there would never have been the Venice which we love. Of all the splendid buildings the churches, the palaces, the schools, the bell towers, the domes and quays, the bridges and magazines which we see to-day, viz THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 157 only St. Mark's Basilica and a few palaces date practically unchanged from before the Chioggian War. If Genoa had won, the City of the Lagoons, reduced to insignificance by her remorseless rival, would have moldered like Adria or Aquileia, be- yond the world's concern. Never forget, you who look on the magic architecture and the matchless paintings, that but for Vettor Pisani the nation which was to create them might have been destroyed. Carlo Zeno succeeded Pisani as captain-general, but the Genoese persisted in avoiding a set battle and gave little further trouble by sea. On land, however, the war continued so unfavorably to Ven- ice that, rather than have Treviso wrested from her by Carrara, she ceded it to the Duke of Austria, and so detached him from, the coalition (May 2, 1381). Deprived of this spoil, Carrara was ready to make peace, which was arbitrated by Amadeus VI, the Green Count of Savoy, and signed at Turin August 8, 1381. Venice had to sacrifice Trieste and Tenedos, which she transferred to the Dukes of Austria and Savoy respectively ; she renounced her claim to Dalmatia; she paid the King of Hun- gary an annual sum for consenting to stop manu- facturing salt and countenancing privateers ; but she recovered her commercial privileges on Terra Firma and at Constantinople. If these terms did not give her the lion's share, they gave at least as much as a state which had so recently been on the verge of annihilation could expect. They left her what was 158 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vn indispensable to her existence; having that, she needed not repine. This was the last great war waged between Venice and Genoa. They continued to be competi- tors in Oriental commerce ; but time soon showed that the Chioggian expedition had exhausted Genoa. Her internal feuds raged afresh, and after making and unmaking ten doges in four years, she threw herself upon France and sacrificed her independ- ence. She was the medieval prototype of revo- lutionary Paris, stormy, unsteady, capable of amazing efforts, passionate to the verge of frenzy, and yet never so truly content as when tyrannized over by a despot. Venice, with her self-control, her slowly matured government, her habit of tak- ing long views, her solidarity of aims and interests, was the opposite of all this. And Venice won; but at what a sacrifice ! While the two Italian republics wore themselves out in mutual combat, the Turk was encroaching on Christendom, Italy was being hopelessly torn by factions, new powers beyond the Alps were slowly growing up to rule the next epoch, in which the great tides of human progress should sweep over the Atlantic Ocean instead of through the Mediterranean Sea. CHAPTER VIII THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, 1423 THE crippling of Genoa assured to Venice the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean ; but it did not free her from an Eastern Question, for she had henceforth to reckon with the Turks. Her immediate concern, however, was with her neigh- bors on the mainland. The motive which, years before, urged her westward, had lost none of its validity : unless she could control the territory which produced her food, she must always run the risk of having the supplies cut off. No sooner did she begin to recover from the strain of the recent war the quickness of her recuperation proving how much of her reserve power had not been drawn upon than she longed to regain her foothold on Terra Firma. Two difficulties confronted her : one was physi- cal and permanent, the great plain of Northern Italy offered no strategic frontier which she could fortify ; the other was political and shifting, the little despotisms changed masters so often that she could establish no fixed relations with any one of them. Northern Italy was then torn by the efforts of successful tyrants to perpetuate their dynasties. 159 160 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. A dynasty, once established, has an immense hold on the loyalty of its subjects: the Stuarts, for in- stance, were as despicable as any house that has ruled in England, and yet, thanks to the devotion which a dynasty inspires, they had a strong body of adherents for nearly a century after James II was dethroned. But these Italian despots inspired little personal devotion ; they held their supporters by terror or money or office. There was no patri- otism, no clanship. The day of the mercenary had come, when the ownership of cities and states de- pended on the greed rather than the valor of paid soldiers of fortune. Amid these conditions, dynas- ties could not strike deep roots. All depended on the personality of the tyrant ; when he died, a new combination arose. At the end of the fourteenth century, Gian Gale- azzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, on whom, in 1395, the Emperor Wenceslas conferred the title of Duke, was by far the most powerful ruler in Italy. A new Scaliger, his nearest neighbor on the east, had somewhat revived the fortunes of his house at Verona. Between him and Venice lay the dominion of Francesco Carrara, the Lord of Padua. Among these rivals, which should Venice support? She prudently held back for a while, and watched Visconti and Carrara overwhelm Delia Scala and divide his lands (1387). Then she had to choose her side, for Visconti was now bent on crushing his late ally, Carrara. Visconti was much the stronger, but Carrara was the nearer to Tin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 161 Venice. If Visconti won, he would indeed be just as near ; but as he offered to restore Feltre, Belluno, and Treviso, the food-bearing plain and the access to the northern passes, she decided to favor him. Francesco Carrara, seeing his overtures swept aside, and despairing of being a match for both Viscouti and Venice, abdicated in favor of his son, Francesco Novello. But this did not help. Visconti's troops, subsidized in part by Venetian ducats, besieged and captured Padua, and gave back to Venice the towns agreed upon (1388). Within eighteen months, how- ever, Francesco Novello, with only forty intrepid followers, came by stealth on Padua, surprised the garrison, threw open the gates to a large force, and remained master of the city, June 19, 1390. Venice was not sorry to see Visconti worsted, for he had been an insolent neighbor. She made friends with Francesco Novello, granted him money for troops, and for ten years let slip no opportunity for harass- ing Visconti. In spite of the loss of Padua, Gian Galeazzo pushed forward his conquests so steadily that in 1402 he was lord of a greater territory than any previous Italian tyrant had ruled. The Viper standard floated over all Lombardy, and as far east as Vicenza, Feltre, Trent, and Belluno ; over what is now Piedmont, as far west as Vercelli, with Novara, Tortona, and Alessandria ; and beyond the Apennines, it waved over Siena in the heart of Tus- cany, and over Perugia in the heart of Umbria; it was saluted at Bologna, at the entrance to the 162 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Marches, and at Pisa near the Tuscan Sea. If the plague had not carried Gian Galeazzo off in his prime, might he not have welded these widely scattered possessions into a kingdom, and so have achieved what Dante and Petrarch had prophesied for Italy ? Possibly ; and yet the elements of a durable kingdom were lacking. When he died, dis- integration set in, as it did a century later when Csesar Borgia, who had all but created another kingdom, was killed. The death of Visconti (September 3, 1402) gave a sudden impetus to Venetian policy on the main- land. He divided his dominion among his three sons, the oldest of whom was only fourteen years old, under the regency of his widow. This was the signal for covetous enemies to rise and for down-trodden cities to rebel. Francesco Xovello supposed that it would be easy for him to reach westward to Verona ; but when his troops appeared outside of Viceuza, the Vicentines shut the gates on them and voted to seek the protection of Venice. The Duchess Regent also appealed to the Republic to save her from Francesco, and the Republic con- sented on condition that Bassano, Vicenza, and Verona should become Venetian. This hostile league only whetted Francesco's angry confidence. " Let us make a Lion of St. Mark of this herald," he said, when a messenger came from Venice, and having slit his nose and cropped his ears, the tyrant sent him home without a hearing. In the war which followed, Francesco Avas finally viii THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 1G3 driven to bay at Padua, where during many months he sustained, in spite of plague and famine, a stubborn siege. Venice repeatedly offered him fair terms of surrender, which he persistently refused. At last the Venetians took the city (November 17, 1404) and brought him and his two sons to Venice, providing honorable treatment until the government lighted by chance on the traces of a great conspiracy which the Carraresi had long been directing. They had kept a considerable num- ber of Venetians, among whom were not a few no- bles, in their pay, awaiting a propitious moment for overturning the Signory. The proof of their guilt, so far as now appears, was undeniable, and sentence of death was pronounced and carried out at once. The father, it is said, fought desperately with a wooden stool when the executioners came to strangle him ; the sons submitted quietly. At news of their death the populace shouted for joy, and their cry, "Homo morto, vera finia" ("Man dead, war ended"), passed into a proverb. Critics hostile to Venice cite the execution of the Carraresi as evidence of her cruelty. In truth, however, the Siguory acted without haste, observ- ing the usual judicial forms, and decreed the death penalty only after the testimony plainly convicted them. "At the court of the V^sconti," Mr. Hazlitt says truly, they " would have been poisoned. At the court of the Scaliger they would have been assassinated. At Venice they were tried." And this, although they were guilty of the worst of 164 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. political crimes a plot against the very existence of the state. To give sympathy to any of the Italian despots is to waste it. Not one of them ever suffered in retribution a thousandth part of the anguish he caused. From Ezzelino da Romano, through the Scaligers and the Visconti, the Carraresi and the Sforzas, down to the Borgias, the Medici, and the Farnesi, they were mostly monsters, without mercy and without honor. An insatiate egotism was the mainspring of their action. They spared neither Avomen in their lust nor children in their ferocity. They respected no oaths, they kept no compact, they shrank from no deceit. They regarded the highest positions in the Church as mere instruments, like poison and the dagger, to serve their ambition. And what makes their depravity most amazing, is that it was often accompanied by a mind keen enough to delight in highly intellectual pleasures, and by a taste which craved beauty, expressed through forms of art, whose mission it should be to purify and ennoble. The uprooting of the Carraresi left Venice mis- tress of their possessions, Belluno, Feltre, Bassano, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, and Verona; the fertile plains and the outlets to the north were at last hers. She need have no further anxiety about victuals. Partly by judicious subsidies, and partly by a successful war, she had secured the long- coveted position of a land power. The cost had been comparatively slight, some two million due- vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 165 ats, which the revenues of the provinces would soon make good. Better than conquest in battle was the knowledge that these cities would voluntarily have placed themselves under her rule : that promised sympathetic relations. The Veronese deputations did homage on July 12, 1406, in St. Mark's Square, where they were received with impressive solemnity. When they presented the Doge with the keys of their city, he addressed them in the words of Scripture, " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon them hath light sinned." In the following January, Padua swore fealty at a similar ceremony. The Signory, in framing a government for the new possessions, adhered to its custom of permit- ting as much home rule as was compatible with the supremacy of the Republic. The rector, the head of the civil administration, and the captain, who commanded the garrison, had their appointment from Venice, and naturally they brought their personal retinue or staff with them ; but for local affairs each city chose its council of notables. The judiciary system was made to conform as nearly as might be with that of Venice itself, then the best in Europe, at least in the important respect that it required ecclesiastics to be tried in civil courts, except when purely Church matters were involved. A great impetus was given to the University of Padua by the appropriation of 4000 ducats a year for the salaries of its professors. In Verona, also, education was promoted. "We wish to have the 166 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. heart and love of our citizens and subjects," the Signory declared, and constantly acted with this end in view. Thus in the year 1405 Venice reached another turn in her history. Just two centuries after she took on herself the burden of empire in the Levant she became permanently a land power in Italy. The immediate gain was incontestable, but every rood of her new territory carried long-standing obligations, chief among which was the need of defense. Visconti's heirs were still too young to make trouble, but Emperor-elect Sigismund, who was also King of Bohemia and of Hungary, declared war in the hope of wresting Friuli and the Trevi- san from the Republic, and of recovering Dalmatia, the claims to which his rival, Ladislas, had sold to Venice. The war dragged on for nearly four years, costing much and settling nothing, until in 1413 Sigismund consented to a truce, which lasted five years. When war was resumed, the Emperor's forces could make no stand against the Venetians, who both tightened their hold on Friuli, and estab- lished their lordship over Gorizia and confirmed their authority in Dalmatia. History teaches iis to look afar for causes. To the burning of John Huss, which plunged Sigismund into a religious Avar at home and weakened his army in Italy, we must attribute the Venetian success. Victory flushed the ambitions of a war party which had been coming to the front. To fight from a thirst for glory, to conquer for sheer love vm THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 1G7 of conquest, had never been characteristic of the Venetians. They fought either to win a definite commercial or political advantage, or to repel an assailant. But with their rapid advance on the mainland there arose a party who insisted that the Republic should not stop at the Adige, but should go on and subdue Lombardy, and seize the oppor- tunity which destiny clearly offered her of becom- ing the chief power in Northern Italy. To be great, they urged, a state must be martial; and if it en- joyed a better government than its neighbors, was it not its duty to force its benefits on them ? Was there not wealth to be got, not less than glory, an outlet for the superfluous energy and a market for the teeming products of the Venetians ? Since Alcibiadcs most seductive of Jingoes lured the Athenians to their ruin in Sicily, down to the promoters of yesterday's war, the siren song of the Jingoes has been sung to the same tune. And of course at Venice there were peculiar conditions, as there always are, to make the Jingo plea seem plausible. To keep the provinces already won they must win more, until an impregnable frontier could be secured; and now Filippo Maria Visconti was waxing so strong that unless they forestalled him he would soon be a menace. The Viscontean peril quickly loomed up; for Filippo Maria planned to conquer Tuscany, and the Florentines sent an embassy to implore Venice to join in a league against him. The discussion of this project set the War Party and the Peace Party 168 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. face to face ; but so long as Doge Tommaso Moce- nigo lived, the advocates of peace prevailed. Among the famous records of Venice are the ora- tion which he delivered in the Great Council and his deathbed exhortation shortly after. The for- mer is probably unauthentic, representing views which he was known to hold, but which were com- piled without his supervision ; the latter has strong marks of genuineness, and even though it was not actually written by him, it gives a striking picture of Venice in 1423. In the debate in the Great Council, the octogena- rian Doge argued for peace on grounds which ought to have convinced an assembly of merchants. He stated the revenues which Venice drew every week from the chief cities of the Duke of Milan. He likened the Duke's possessions to a rich garden, the fruits of which the Republic enjoyed without the cost of maintenance. The yearly receipts from goods sold to Milan alone amounted to 900,000 ducats, and from the other Lombard cities came 750,000 ducats more. " Do you not think this a fine and noble garden, which costs Venice nothing? " he asked. That same Lombardy buys further 900,000 ducats' worth of Venetian cloth. " If you preserve peace, you will amass so much money that all the world will hold you in awe. ... If the Florentines give themselves to the Duke, so much the worse for those who interfere. Justice is with us. . . . Live in peace, fear nothing, and trust not the Florentines ! . . . Round you is naught vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS * 169 but war, fire, tribulation. Italy, France, Spain, Catalonia, England, Burgundy, Persia, Russia, Hungary, all are at war. We wage war against the Infidels only ; and great are the praise and glory Ave reap." The Doge singled out Francesco Foscari, leader of the War Party, for special rebuke. "Young Procurator," he said, " what happened to Troy, will happen to Florence, and will happen to you. By wars the Trojans were weakened and enslaved; by wars Florence is destroying herself, and we shall do the like if we take counsel of our young Proc- urator. It is to the arts of peace that our city owes all her prosperity ; to them is she indebted for her riches, the increase in her population and her houses. Pisa grew great by similar means and by good government. She plunged into war, impover- ished herself, and was lost. So will it be with us, if we listen to our young Procurator." And the Doge went on to assure them that, even though Visconti should conquer Florence, Venice would still be the gainer, for the renowned artisans of Florence would emigrate to Venice, as the silk weavers of Lucca had done. " Therefore, preserve peace ! " He con- cluded by the solemn declaration that, so long as he lived, he would not consent to a war with the Duke. Even more impressive is the advice which he gave on his deathbed to the heads of the state. In it he mingles political wisdom of universal applica- tion with counsel specially directed to the crisis 170 , A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. which Venice had then before her. It belongs in spirit with the last admonitions of Pericles and with Washington's Farewell Address. I quote much of it, because there is no better way by which the Venice of five centuries ago can be so quickly conjured up to our view. " I wish to assemble you all here," said the dying Doge, " to recommend to you this Christian city, and to persuade you to love your neighbors, to do justice, and to choose peace and to preserve peace as I have striven to do. In my time, the public debt has been reduced 4,000,000, and there remain 6,000,000. Our city at present sends out in com- merce, into sundry parts of the world, 10,000,000 ducats every year with ships and galleys, and the profit is not less than 2,000,000 ducats a year. In this city there are 3000 ships of from 100 to 200 anfore burthen, and it has 17,000 mariners, 3000 ship carpenters, and 3000 calkers. There are 3000 silk weavers, 16,000 cloth weavers ; the dwellings are reckoned at 7,000,500 ducats. The rents are 500,000 ducats. If you continue in this way, you will multiply from good to better, and you will be masters of all the gold in Christendom ; every one will fear you. But as if from fire keep yourselves from taking what belongs to others, and from wag- ing unjust war, for God cannot endure these errors in princes. Every one knows that the war with the Turk has made you valorous and skillful by sea; you have six captains competent to command any great fleet; for each of them you have masters, vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 171 crossbowmen, boatswains, crews, and oarsmen suffi- cient to equip a hundred galleys ; and this year you have so proved yourself that the world holds you foremost in Christendom. You have many men experienced in embassies and in governing cities, who are perfect orators. You have many doctors in divers sciences, and especially many legists, wherefore many foreigners come for judgment in their suits and trust themselves to your decisions. Your mint coins every year 1,000,000 gold ducats and 200,000 silver ducats, and it coins 800,000 soldoni. Into Syria there go every year 50,000 duc- ats and to Terra Firnia 100,000 ; the rest remains at home. " You know that the Florentines give every year 16,000 pieces of cloth, which we dispose of in Bar- bary, in Egypt, in Syria, in Cyprus, in Rhodes, in Romania, in. Candia, in the Morea, and in Istria; and every month the Florentines bring 70,000 ducats' worth of all kinds of merchandise into this city, which make 840,000 ducats and more a year, and they purchase French and Catalan wools, crimson dye, worsted, silks, gold tissues, silver thread and jewels, to the great benefit of this city. " Therefore, learn to govern such a state, and take care to counsel it aright, and to prevent its ever dwindling through negligence. Very carefully must you observe him who shall fill my place, because through him the Republic may receive much good and much harm. Many of you are inclined to Messer Marino Caravello, who is a worthy man 172 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and merits that distinction by his worthy qualities. M. Francesco Bembo is a fit man, and so is M. Gia- como Trevisani ; M. Antonio Contarini, M. Faustin Michiel, M. Alban Badoer all these are wise and merit it. Many incline toward M. Francesco Fos- cari, and they do not recognize him for the proud and lying man he is ; there is no foundation to his affairs ; he is hot-headed ; he reaches out after much and retains little. If he be your doge, you will live always at war ; he who owns 10,000 ducats will not have a thousand; he who has two houses will not have one ; you will spend gold and silver, reputa- tion and honor ; where you are now the heads, you will become the vassals of the soldiery, of the men- at-arms and captains. I cannot refrain from letting you know my advice. May God allow you to choose the best, and may He rule and keep you in peace." Toinmaso Mocenigo, with whose death medieval Venice is commonly said to have passed away, died on April 4, 1423. He was the last of a series of doges who represented the high type of statesman- ship that the Eepublic had trained, men who were employed from youth up in all departments of the state, who embodied the national traditions and knew the character and methods of the foreign rulers with whom they had to deal, and who brought to the ducal throne the maturity and wis- dom of a patriarch with the force and alertness of full-blooded prime. Andrea Contarini (1368-82) piloted his country through the crucial war with Genoa. His successor, Michele Morosini, lived Vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 173 only a few months, but was made of the stuff which only a great race breeds. During the Chioggian War he poured his wealth into the empty treasury, and, what had a more important moral effect, he bought houses and land in the beleaguered capital. When some one told him that it was madness to risk his money in an investment which would be wiped out if the Genoese conquered, he replied, " If Genoa conquers, I shall not care what becomes of my investments." Antonio Venier (1382-1400), who reigned next, steadied the Kepublic through her tempestuous contest with Gian Galeazzo Visconti and with the Carrara. After him followed Michele Steno (1400-14), who in his wild youth had affronted Marino Faliero, and who at near four- score kept a leonine temper. In a heated council meeting he spoke against a motion of the Avogadors. They interrupted, and claimed that the Doge had no jurisdiction in that matter. Still he spoke on. Then one of them boldly said, " May it please your Serenity to sit down arid hold your tongue," but the Doge would not be silenced. The Avogadors next threatened to fine him one thousand lire and to sum- mon him before the Ten. He finished his protest, and then, to force the issue, he demanded that they should impeach him. But they found it prudent to admit that he had not overstepped his rights. Before they elected his successor, however, they amended the ducal promission so as to make it lawful for two Avogadors to impeach the Doge for whatever they deemed an infringement of the con.- 174 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. stitution. That successor, Tonimaso Mocenigo, whose final counsel to his countrymen we have just listened to, was in many respects the wisest statesman of the five. In him, too, devotion to Venezia wells up. The year before his death the Ducal Palace was burnt, and the Senate decreed that no one, under a penalty of one thousand ducats, should propose to have it rebuilt. Mocenigo paid the fine, made the motion to rebuild, and began the restoration of the Palace which stands to-day. Such was the fibre of the last of the medieval doges. On April 15, 1423, in spite of Mocenigo's warn- ing, Francesco Foscari was chosen to succeed him. It is ominous to hear for the first time that at his election bribery was practiced. The oligarchy had perfected the most elaborate system of balloting, but the wiles of ambitious politicians evaded it. The Doge was, in theory, reduced to a figurehead, and yet one doge after another continued to stamp his individuality on Venetian policy. Foscari's election marked the abolition of the last remnant of popular government ; in his promission he pledged himself never to summon the arrengo, and the tradi- tional form of announcing the election of the new ruler " This is your doge, an it please you " was changed to " This is your doge." The arrengo had never rejected the ruler chosen by the electors ; but so long as the phrase "an it please you" remained, they might be tempted to see how much their pleas- ure could accomplish. This final record of exclu- sion was accepted so quietly that the fact must vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 175 have been acquiesced in long before. The Ten, the vital executive force of the oligarchy, had taken a century to shut out the people and to bind the Doge. Foscari, the " young Procurator," was fifty years old, seasoned after the Venetian fashion by service in many offices ; he had been Chief of the Forty and then Chief of the Ten ; he had gone on various embassies, was four times an Avogador, and twice Inquisitor of the Ten. He stood for the policy of aggrandizement, but he did not lack the true Venetian deliberateness, so that a year and a half elapsed after his election be- fore he consented to a league with Florence against Visconti. The Florentines, beaten at Zagonara (July 27, 1424), sent new envoys to persuade the Venetians to declare war, even threatening in case of refusal to face about and make Visconti king. The Senate agreed to the league, not so much because they feared the threat, as because they believed that they could now strike with great odds of vic- tory in their favor. They had won over to their side Cannagnola, the foremost condottiere of the age, through whose military genius in the previous years Visconti had regained his power, and to Cannagnola they intrusted the command of their army. They had as allies besides Florence the Dukes of Mantua and of Savoy. By the terms of the league, Venice and Florence were each to pro- vide eight thousand horse, and three thousand foot, and a flotilla to navigate the Po. Hostilities began in February, 1426, with the 176 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. siege of Brescia. Carmagnola made his arrange- ments with skill, and then wrote to the Signory for permission to take the cure at the Baths of Abano. The special Junta of One Hundred, created to con- duct the war, was surprised at his unmartial request, but granted it. During Carmagnola's absence the Duke of Mantua had command. The summer wore away, and still the Viscontean garrison held out at Brescia. In October, Carmagnola discovered that he needed to try a second cure at the Baths, and he had not returned to camp when the city surrendered (November 10, 1426). Venice was so well satisfied with the outcome of the campaign that she concluded peace with Visconti, who was forced to consent to the cession of Brescia. Within a few weeks, however, Visconti having failed to keep faith, fighting broke out afresh. Car- magnola was amply provided with troops, but he would not budge from his headquarters. When the Hundred urged him to activity, he complained that he lacked forage or money for his men, or that- he had not a sufficient force and this, although his army numbered about forty thousand men. He was caught in ambush by Piccinino, the Duke's generalissimo, and when at last he gained a victory at Casalmaggiore, he at once released his prisoners, so that the enemy could put them in the field again without delay. He held constant communication with the Duke, on the plea that the latter wished to negotiate a durable peace, and he paid no heed when the Signory courteously intimated that it vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 177 would be better for Carmagnola to do the fighting and to leave negotiating to them. The Venetian populace began openly to charge him with treachery ; but the long-suffering Signory tried to imagine ex- cuses for him, and they continued to treat him with the utmost deference. Perhaps piqued by the sus- picions which he heard, or fearful that his employers would themselves grow weary, he won a brilliant battle at Maclodio (or Macalo), near the river Oglio (October 11, 1427), crushing in turn Piccinino, Sforza, and Carlo Malatesta. This success tempo- rarily restored him to popularity ; but after a little the Venetians began to grumble because he set free Malatesta and eight thousand prisoners, that was the absurd rule of mercenary warfare, and he failed to make a dash on Milan, which, it appeared, he might have captured. So another spring came round, and there was not yet peace. Just as the campaign of 1428 opened, Carmagnola felt the need of more baths ; but the Senate required him. to stay in the field, and before long, through the interces- sion of the Pope, Visconti made peace, on condition of surrendering Bergamo. With Visconti, however, peace was only a ruse for gaining the time needed to prepare for another struggle ; within six months he was ready to fight again. Carmagnola now asked to be allowed to resign his command. The Venetian Senate, which had cause enough to be dissatisfied with him, never- theless thought it more prudent to keep him where they could watch and circumvent his intrigues than 178 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. to let him pass into Visconti's service and turn his genius against the captains whom they must rely on in his stead. They gave him immense largesse, paid him personally one thousand ducats a month, and did not allow it to appear officially that they were not well contented with "his Magnificence." As Visconti postponed the war until 1431, Carmagnola enjoyed his fortune in splendid idleness. On being forced to take the field, he either dawdled inactive or let slip, by criminal negligence, the chances which promised success. Another campaign was wasted ; the cost of the war began to outrun the revenues allotted to it; doubts, questions, murmurs, were heard in the Great Council. But still the govern- ment thought the time to act not ripe. Finally, in March, 1432, the Council of Ten de- cided to strike. They sent a messenger to sum- mon Carmagnola to Venice, on the pretext that they wished to confer with him and the Duke of Mantua about the next campaign. Not a hint of their real purpose leaked out. Carmagnola, apparently sus- pecting nothing, accompanied the messenger with- out demur. The people along his route feted him, and with due honors he entered the capital. Reach- ing the Ducal Palace, he proceeded at once to salute the Doge, but in the Sala delle Quattro Porte, Leo- nardo Mocenigo informed him that his Serenity had met with a slight accident which, to his regret, would prevent him from receiving the Captain-General un- til the morrow. Carmagnola replied that, as it was late, he would go to his own house for the night. vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 179 When he turned to descend the staircase, one of the ducal attendants said, " This way, iny lord," point- ing to the corridor which led to the " Orba " prison. " But that is not the way ! " exclaimed Carmagnola. " Excuse me, it is ! " replied the attendant, who, with some of his fellows, hustled the victim toward the prison. In an instant the truth flashed on him. " I am lost," he cried out, as they locked him into his cell (April 17, 1533). For two days he refused food. On the third day he was brought before the special Junta which con- ducted his trial. As he persisted in denying the charges of treachery with which they accused him, he was put to the brazier and confessed. During Holy Week and the Easter festivities the trial was adjourned ; then it was resumed, and for a fortnight much evidence and many witnesses were examined. No doubt of his guilt remained. On May 5, 1432, clad gayly in scarlet, he was led out to the Piazzetta and beheaded. The Republic's severity has been often criti- cised, and Carmagnola's death alleged as an in- dication of the mercilessness of the Ten. But where shall we turn for a better example of long- suffering ? President Lincoln was patient with McClellan's procrastination in the American Civil War ; but after a j r ear, even Lincoln lost patience. The Signory bore with Carmagnola eight years. Not having had previous experience with hired condottieri, they were unprepared for his lack of zeal, his releasing of prisoners, his intercourse with 180 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the enemy, his costly and disastrous inactivity, his abortive victories. For him and his followers, the game of war was a lifelong pursuit, in which a battle could occur only by accident ; and the captains, like modern counsel for litigants to a rich man's estate, desired nothing so little as a settlement. Battle it- self was almost as harmless as a French duel ; at Ma- clodio, for instance, where thirty thousand or more men were engaged, few soldiers were killed, although many horses perished. Venice had always fought in dead earnest ; and when she employed the chief general of his age to conduct her wars, she expected prompt service and an adequate result. That she dissimulated, is plain. "Whoever holds a tiger by the ears cannot let go," says the Eastern proverb. She could neither dismiss Carmagnola with the certainty that he would enter Visconti's service, nor tell him that when she had sufficient proof of his duplicity she would destroy him. She trapped him, as our police to-day feel justified in trapping a great criminal who is about to escape ; and then -she tried him by the fairest procedure she knew. After his guilt was proved, condemnation followed as a matter of course ; from time immemorial she used to punish her native commanders for mere defeat; she could do no less by an alien guilty of criminal negligence and of treachery. Grant that the treachery was presumptive, there is no dispute as to negligence and disregard of orders, crimes which have been awarded the severest penalty in every civilized military code. Had the Signory not vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 181 wished todeal judicially with Carmagnola, they could have killed him privately they had no scruples against hiring a poisoner to rid them of Visconti; that they insisted on trying him, implies a respect for legality. Sentimentalists point to the fact that he was gagged on the way to the block as proof of the Signory's inhumanity ; but surely they must know that gagging was the common practice, and was not adopted for his special torment. Judged by the best standard of the fifteenth century, or even of recent times, it does not appear that the Republic fell short in her treatment of Carmagnola. He, on the other hand, behaved with more than the usual arrogance of condottieri toward their em- ployers ; for he arranged to receive enormous emol- uments, and to give little or nothing in return. To play this game with a commercial nation, which knew the value of a ducat, was indiscreet. How to deal with a condottiere was a new problem for Venice ; she solved it with such thoroughness that, although she employed many soldiers of fortune after Carmagnola, Gonzaga, Gattemelata, Colle- oni, Sforza, none dared to betray her. The war with Visconti dragged on without decisive results until 1441, when the Duke, having failed to recover Brescia, which held out with magnificent pluck through a three years' siege, made peace. One operation deserves to be recorded. Visconti's troops so completely hemmed in Brescia that the only way to relieve it was by Lake Garda. Two engi- neers, Blasio de Arboribus and Xiccolo Sorbolo, pro- 182 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. posed to take a flotilla up the Adige to Roveredo, and thence to haul it overland across a spur of the Alps to the lake. The project seemed herculean, but the Signory voted to try it ; and as soon as possible six galleys and twenty-five barks were prepared. Two thousand oxen were hitched to them, and so tugged them over snow or greased stones and cor- duroy ways to the top of the Monte Baldo pass. The descent from there to the lake, a distance of nearly fifteen miles, was most perilous, requiring all the skill of the engineers to keep the ships from getting too much headway and plunging over precipices. They reached Torbole, on the lake, in seaworthy condition ; and although they had less influeiijce than had been hoped in relieving Brescia, the feat of transporting them remains unparalleled. The peace of Cavriana, which Yisconti made in 1441, left Venice mistress of the territory she had conquered as far west as the Adda. It left her also with many burdens. Under Mocenigo she re- duced her debt by four million ducats ; in the first ten years of Foscari's reign she increased it by seven million ducats ; and in 1441 the total must have been sixteen or seventeen millions. In com- pensation she owned Bergamo and Brescia, two perpetual causes of quarrel with whoever ruled Milan. She had become accustomed to the idea that she must maintain a high position as a land power, Avith the inevitable political and military dangers which that implied. On August 13, 1447, Filippo Maria Yisconti's vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 183 sudden death started up several claimants to his dukedom. Frederick III claimed Milan as a fief of the Empire; Charles of Orleans declared him- self the rightful heir through his mother, Valentina Visconti ; Alfonso of Naples had been designated by Filippo to succeed him ; and Francesco Sforza, who married Filippo's daughter, Bianca, did not intend to give up his claims. The Milanese them- selves, tired of tyrants, established a republic. Some of their neighboring cities sought protection of Venice, who welcomed them and promised to sup- port the Milanese if they would consent to her hav- ing the cities. ISTot with them, but with Sforza, was the real war waged. Since Carmagnola's death, he had been the foremost soldier in Italy for deci- sion and skill, and as he now had troops, he won back one after another of his father-in-law's lands, and in March, 1450, he became Duke of Milan. Then he set about recovering Bergamo and Brescia. The contest was still unsettled when a catastrophe occurred in the East that alarmed Christendom and for a while caused minor quarrels to be adjourned. On May 29, 1453, the Turks, led by Mohammed II, took Constantinople by storm, Constantine Pale- ologos, the Eastern Emperor, dying sword in hand. The event was not unexpected. Ever since 1396, when Bajazet routed the Hungarians and French at Nicopolis, it was evident that only by a coalition of the Western and Eastern Christians could the terrible Turkish invasion be driven back ; but the Christians were too busy fighting one another to 184 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. combine in so noble a cause. After all, it was hard to rouse the imagination of the English, French, or Germans to the harm that would come to them if the master of the Bosphorus should be a Turk in- stead of a Greek. Religious sentiment, which had launched so many Crusades, had waned, and the Roman Church itself was rent with schism. The state which would suffer most was Venice : why should Western Europe sacrifice itself to protect the commerce of the Venetians ? Let them guard their own interests. For a while it seemed as if, single-handed, they could cope with the Turk. In 1416 their fleet crushed a Turkish fleet at Gallipoli ; but presently the Turks seized Salonica, which be- longed to Venice, and overran what is now Euro- pean Turkey. When Venice found that the support she counted on failed her, she made terms with the enemy. Her mission in the East was trade, not conquest, and to secure her trade she agreed to pay tribute (1430). As the end of the Eastern Empire drew near, she sent a few ships in response to the Emperor's agonized appeal; and Venetians did their part in defending the city on the fatal 29th of May. Their merchants in Constantinople suffered damages above the value of three hundred thousand ducats by the coming of the Turks. Traffic ceased for a time ; but in 1454 the Republic succeeded in negotiating with the Sultan a treaty by which, in return for more tribute, he permitted her to resume it. Although Western Europeans had cared little to viii THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 185 save the crumbling Greek dynasty, they shuddered to learn that a Turkish Sultan reigned at Constan- tinople, for the tigrine zeal of the Ottomans was dreaded by peoples who had never faced it. The Turks still kept the terrible vigor of the nomadic barbarian, but added thereto a capacity for borrow- ing from the civilization they assailed means to make their assault more effective. They were charged with religious fanaticism. They reveled in war for the intoxication which war kindles in the semi-savage. They knew enough of Byzantine luxury, without being softened by it, to desire to possess it. And, like all rugged races at this stage, the Turks were eager to press forward, to exercise their exuberant energy in smiting new enemies and conquering new kingdoms. They were impelled by such a terrific momentum as had whirled the Sara- cens in the eighth century from. Arabia to Spain, and in the eleventh century had driven the Mag- yars like a wedge into Central Europe. To-day they had Starnboul ; to-morrow they would overrun the Morea ; after that they would swoop down on Italy and Rome. The Western Christians were at last aroused, but before we follow their plans for confronting the turbaned hosts, we must review briefly the close of Foscari's reign. If ever an innovator was paid in his own coin, that man was Francesco Foscari. He had urged the expansion of Venice over Terra Firma, and had witnessed that policy bring thirty years of almost continuous warfare. It brought coveted provinces, 186 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. too, and financial stress. The funds dropped to eigh- teen and one half per cent. ; the treasury skipped payment of interest, or anticipated its taxes. But thirty years may see many vicissitudes. What state remembers its calamities more than ten years? And Foscari's reign saw pomps, an unquestioned augmenting of prestige, and the cropping out in the national temper of a tendency to parade its superi- ority. In 1437 the Kepublic asked and received from the Emperor the investiture of her mainland possessions, which he claimed as lord : a mere for- mality on her part, and yet it showed how far her entanglement in the politics of Northern Italy had influenced her to imitate her rivals. To secure her title to Kavenna, over which she had virtually ruled for forty years, she did homage to the Pope (1451). We feel that the old Venice is passing away. Instead of the sureness with which she had held aloof from foreign complications, there is now in- decision. The old-time statesman was a helmsman who knew every headland by day and the pilot stars by night. But the new statesmen were jug- glers, each trying to keep a dozen balls in the air so many were the interests and so swift the changes. The spirit of the Renaissance also, that solvent of medievalism, is working, and at Venice as elsewhere its first effect is to liberate the intellect without strengthening the morals. Political corruption, for which Foscari's election had set an ominous prec- edent, has grown common. In 1433 a ring, num- bering more than fifty patricians, bent on securing vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 187 offices for themselves and their friends, is discovered and smashed. Ten years later (1444), the Doge's own son, Jacopo, is convicted of taking bribes. The Council of Ten banishes him to Nauplia, but he has already fled to Trieste. In 1447 the Doge implores that his son may be permitted to return, and the Ten consent, adding that the old man can- not properly attend to public affairs so long as his mind is distracted by worry for his son. Jacopo re- turns, but he falls under suspicion of abetting the assassination of one of the Chiefs of the Ten, and although no direct evidence is recorded against him, he is banished to Candia. There he intrigues with the Sultan to free him, is found out, and brought back to Venice for trial. He offers no de- fense, and the Ten, unwilling to execute the sen- tence of death which some of the court suggest, condemn him to perpetual banishment. In bidding farewell to his son, the Doge breaks down in agony, and this separation, which proved to be final (Ja- copo died in 1457), leaves the aged Foscari a wreck. Enfeebled with years and stricken with grief, he neglects his ducal duties, and the Ten compel him, in spite of his protest, to abdicate. As he quits the Palace, they would screen him from the bitterness of facing the populace ; but with unabated pride he replies : " No, no ! I will go down by the stair by which I came up to my dogeship." Seven days later he died (November 1, 1457). Foscari's reign of thirty-four years was the long- est and one of the most fateful in Venetian history. 188 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vni The pathos of its close should not blind us to the unsoundness of its dominant qualities. Foscari himself worked vigorously for what he deemed the welfare of his country ; but while he belongs among the great doges for his ability, in his per- sonal character not less than in his opinions he was unsafe. Under him Venice learned to prefer pomp to virtue and brilliance to wisdom. CHAPTER IX THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI THE rulers of Milan on the west, the Turks in the Orient, are henceforth shapers of the Republic's destiny. The Turks she had half-heartedly tried to restrain, and had failed ; the lurch to landward she took voluntarily. The Turks were not content to stay in the East. Before ever capturing Constanti- nople, they had pushed north to the Danube and west to the Adriatic, and the exploits of neither John Hunyadi, the Magyar hero, nor of Scander- beg, the Albanian, had permanently arrested them. Their treaty with the Venetians did not prevent them from attempting the conquest of the Morea. Alvise Loredan, Captain-General of the Republic there, made a desperate effort to withstand them ; but although in a fortnight he threw across the Isthmus of Corinth a wall twelve feet high and six miles long, with double ditches and one hundred and thirty-six towers, he could not defend it (1464). Calls for a great Crusade resulted merely in dis- cussions, until Pope Pius II took up the project. The Venetians, warned by the fact that they might be left to fight single-handed, held off from joining the expedition until they were assured that the 189 190 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Duke of Burgundy and the King of Hungary would take part in it too. The rendezvous was Ancona. Thither went the Pope to await the gathering of the Crusaders. The Venetian contingent, under Doge Cristoforo Moro, arrived soon after ; but the next day Pius II died (1464), from grief, it was said, at the failure of his other allies to keep their word. The Venetians returned home, unwilling to plunge unsupported into a formal war. Actual fighting went on, however, almost unin- terruptedly, at various points in the East. The Turks were not only mighty in battle, but prudent in preparation. Their conquests had not puffed them up with overconfidence. They were not originally a maritime people ; but having in their conflict with the Christians found a navy indispen- sable, they learned, little by little, how to build and handle a fleet ; and now they were getting ready an immense armada to defeat the Venetians on their own element. " The Turks count on the Signory's not being able to arm more than forty galleys, and they believe that four or five of their ships are enough for one of ours. They have this temperament, and I know it by experience that they overestimate their enemy's strength, and provide without stint for what is needed. I wish our people would do likewise." So wrote, in 1464, Antonio Michiel, a Venetian mer- chant at Constantinople. But Venice, saddled with debt, and devoting more than half of her power to protect and increase her Italian dominion, could neither equip an adequate fleet nor concentrate her ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 191 whole energy to crush the Ottomans. At Negro- pont (1470) the Turkish navy showed what it could do. Xiccolo da Canale, the Venetian admiral, set out to disperse it and to relieve the city, which was being besieged by land and water; but when he saw the four hundred ships flying the crescent ensign, he hesitated to attack them without rein- forcements ; and so the Turks took Negropont, and Cauale bore the ignominy of being beaten in an unfought battle. Immense was the alarm at Venice over this loss and with reason. During the succeeding nine years there was little respite in the strife with the Turks. Venice had her successes, but in the main the tide turned against her. The outbreak of a war in Persia seemed to offer a chance to smite the Sultan front and rear ; but the Persians too quickly succumbed. Appeals to brother Christians met with the usual no ; the Venetian envoys found them " chilled, nay benumbed." ]\Iore than one peace overture the Turks rejected. Among many examples of gallantry that of Antonio Loredano, who commanded Scutari in a desperate siege, merits never to be forgotten. "If you are hungry," he said to the famished citizens, "feed on my flesh; if you are thirsty, drink my blood." Inspired by such heroism, they held out (1473). A few years later, however, in a second siege, the brave city had to surrender, and the Re- public, by ceding other places in Albania and the Morea, and by paying ten thousand ducats a year for permission to continue her trade in Constauti- 192 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. nople, secured a breathing spell from her disastrous war (1479). She squandered it in renewing her continental encroachments. She attacked the Marquis of Fer- rara, hoping that by annexing his land she might off- set her losses in the Levant. But the Pope, Sixtus IV, sided with the Marquis, and issued an interdict, which the Signory forbade to be published within its domains. The Pope and the Marquis then re- sorted to mundane means, which proved more effectual. Venice, unable to make front against the coalition which they formed with the King of Naples and with Milan, agreed to a peace in which Rovigo and the Polesine were her only compensation for a costly war (1484). Italy had reached, by this time, that state of hysteria which precedes utter collapse. We can no more discover a unifying political principle in the wild changes of the next quarter of a century than in the writhings of a jarful of leeches. Unrestrained selfishness impels each, and explains each momen- tary combination and frantic revulsion. Still, we can discern two elements which, contrasted with the general condition, appear constant. The first is the interference of foreign monarch s in the affairs of Italy ; the secondris the growing hatred of both foreigners and Italians for Venice. The endless feuds of city with city, the competi- tion of tyrant with tyrant, had reduced the Italians to the point where they called in the foreigner to help them against their rivals, to the certain jeop- ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 193 ardy of their own political existence. And the foreigners came, just as, a thousand years before, their Goth and Vandal and Hunnish ancestors came, to glut themselves on the land, which, despite the ravages of man, was still the richest and has ever been the fairest. The Holy Koman Empire which virtually means Austria had an immemorial excuse for interfering. The Spaniards had estab- lished an intermittent control over Sicily in 1282 and over Naples in 1442. The French held Genoa by a slippery tenure, and through the marriage of Valentina Visconti they laid claim to the Duchy of Milan. Italy was soon to become, therefore, not only the battlefield of her own warring states, but of France, Spain, and the Empire, the three great powers which were entering on their long struggle for the mastery of Western Europe. In Italy, except Venice, the Papacy was the only political organism of ancient date. Its double, the Koman Church, had gone bankrupt, through its fatal separa- tion of conduct from religion, making piety to con- sist in performing arbitrary clerical rules instead of in leading a good life. The elevation to the Papal throne of Rodriguez Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, who most nearly embodied absolute wickedness of any monster in the annals of human depravity, marked the moral failure of Koman Christianity ; and as the Church lost its hold on men's consciences, its temporal side, the Papacy, struggled to create for itself a worldly kingdom to vie with those of the godless rulers of Italy and the North. 194 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. The general hostility toward Venice sprang from many causes. Some hated her because of her long- lasting prosperity. The princelings who came and went like leaves swept by autumn gusts hated her because she stood unshaken through all political storms. Some feared that she would pursue her policy of aggrandizement to despoil them, and this fear turned to hate. Some were sore over past de- feats, or hoped to win back a lost province, or to pay off a rankling grievance, and so they hated. And Venice for her part did little to propitiate her ill wishers. She carried herself with haughtiness among them, making no more effort than the mod- ern Britisher to dissemble the belief in her own superiority. Like England, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, she had not a friend in the world, not a neighbor who would not have rejoiced secretly to see her humbled. In the case of Venice, at least, such hatred overlooked her great service to the common Christian welfare in attempting to hold back the Turk. She was selfish, but so was every state ; she indisputably gave her subjects the best government then in the world ; but this did not lessen her rivals' envy. As early as 1467 Duke Sforza, in an interview with the Venetian envoy, Gonella, warned him of the general malevolence toward the Venetians. " You are alone," he said, " and you have everybody against you, not only in Italy, but beyond the Alps. Be very sure that your enemies are not asleep." That a " nation of shopkeepers " should have risen so high, was an added insult to ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 195 aristocracies in other lands which assumed that a patriciate was inconsistent with trade. " The King of Hungary resents having his affairs settled by a parcel of merchants," said the Sultan to a Venetian instructed to negotiate a peace. This hatred was of course a tribute to the strength of Venice men do not hate a weakling. And not- withstanding her damaging conflict with the Turk and her costly enterprises on Terra Firma, she ap- peared at the end of the fifteenth century a first- rate power, of unlimited resources. Her public debt was large, but at that time the state of a nation's treasury was no sure measure of a nation's wealth. To -contemporaries much of her warring in the East must have seemed but the faint echo of far-off brawls, like the modern British wars in India, in which, nevertheless, an empire was being lost and won. Monarchs and politicians were amazed by the solidity of her government, which they sought to equal, only to find that the secret lay neither in the despotism, nor craft, nor hosts of hirelings, nor extensive dominions : these might bring ascendency for a season or a lifetime, but not that continuous transmission of vigor which made Venice unique. The acquisition of Cyprus in 1488 seemed more than to compensate for losses in the Levant. It came about through the businesslike foresight and sharp practice of the Signory, and if a beautiful woman had not been involved in it, the details of the transaction would hardly have appealed to 196 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. artists and romancers. Cyprus belonged to the Lusignan family, of whom the last king, Giacomo, married Caterina Cornaro, of old Venetian noble stock, who was officially adopted as "the daughter of the Republic" (1471). Within two years Gia- como died, poisoned, the hostile whispered, by the Signory's agents, and the son whom Caterina bore after his death lived only a short time. Again the hostile hinted of poison. Rebels invaded the palace and slew the Queen's doctor and lackey be- fore her eyes, and despatched her uncle and her cousin in their quarters near by. Venice interfered to preserve order, and to keep back other claimants to Cyprus. This tutelage lasted fifteen years ; but it became too precarious. There was the risk that Caterina, beautiful and still young, might marry. The Signory urged her to abdicate, but she resisted as long as she could. When she realized that they intended to remove her even without her consent, she yielded, and gave up to Venice her island king- dom. The Republic, having gained its end, treated her with the utmost honor, granting her a large annuity, a palace in Venice, and the town and sub- urbs of Asolo. Her coming was a pageant, and so was her departure. At her little court she wel- comed the best intellects of her time. She died in 1510, at the age of fifty-six, proudly signing herself to the last, " Queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Ar- menia, Lady of Asolo." The memory of her beauty and grace, touched but not impaired by misfortune, still glows after these many centuries. As a politi- ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 197 cal transaction, the winning of Cyprus by such means was far more profitable thaii conquest by war had been ; the immorality of it, if the Signory were guilty of the crimes imputed, needs no com- ment. The new possession made Venice opulent, and therefore more enviable, in the eyes of her rivals. Caterina Cornaro resigned her throne in 1488. The year before there occurred the first event in a fateful series which foreboded to Venice something of far deeper concern than the loss or gain of Cyprus. Bias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, and stimulated that passion for navigation which ten years later brought Vasco da Gama's caravel into the port of Calicut. Meanwhile, Columbus, Cabot, and Vespucci, seeking India, had found the New World by sailing westward. The meaning of these discoveries was soon understood by a few of the Venetians, although nobody could then foresee that it was the revelation of America, and not the easier access to India, which would revolutionize history. On Venice the passage round the Cape of Good Hope wrought irremediable injury. It created new channels for commerce, new political and social conditions, which the Venetians could not command. Speaking very broadly, her fate was like that of a great city which flourishes a thousand years on the banks of a mighty river, until an earthquake comes and shatters the country, turning the river into another valley, and leaving the city to perish very slowly. The discovery of the waterway to India 198 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. turned the stream of Oriental commerce irrevocably away from Venice. At first she felt the change chiefly as a menace. With astonishing enterprise, the Portuguese organ- ized their trading fleets, and made Lisbon the mart for the spices, the jeAvels, the rich cloths, and the cot- tons of India. In spite of the length and danger of the voyage, it cost far less to bring these prod- ucts by sea than to carry them overland to the sea- board of Egypt or Syria, and thence to ship them to Venice. Losses from robbers and toll-exacting rulers exceeded many times the losses by ship- wreck ; and Lisbon, as the distributing point for the trading ports of Western Europe, had a great advantage in distance over Venice. With safety, cheapness, and distance in their favor, the Portu- guese must inevitably outstrip the Venetians, who would not try the Cape route themselves, because they did not control the Strait of Gibraltar. For fear of irritating the Soldan of Egypt, with whom they had a treaty for the passage of their Oriental caravans through his country, they did not, like their rivals, establish a factory at Lisbon. Wisely managed, enough remained to them in the Levantine trade to assure prosperity : but the preeminence of Venice had departed; she might be henceforth the chief commercial nation of the Adriatic and the ^Egean, and of the neighboring lands, but she could never again be paramount in the commerce of the world. As her geographical isolation had deter- mined her rise to empire, so geographical considera- ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 199 tions foredoomed her to decay. The new conditions came through no fault of hers, and could no more be predicted than we can to-day predict the revolu- tions which would occur if man should succeed in opening commercial relations with the dwellers on Mars. For a long time, however, the ultimate bearing of the changed conditions lay in the background, while political quarrels of comparatively slight signifi- cance loomed very large in front. Wars, which al- ways distort the vision, came to confuse the main issue. In 1494 Lodovico Sforza invited Charles VIII of France to descend into Italy and secure to him the Duchy of Milan. Charles came, and marched to Naples, where he subdued King Alfonso, Sforza's chief foe. With greed whetted by this con- quest, Charles showed signs of intending to turn on his friend Sforza and of appropriating Milan. Sforza in desperation appealed to Emperor Maxi- milian, to Spain, and to Venice, to form a league against their common enemy. If Charles remained master of both Naples and Milan, he urged, who could prevent him from conquering the Peninsula ? The allies intercepted the French at Fornovo, on their way south, put to flight their army, and ought to have captured Charles himself, if they had not been too thirsty for booty (July 6, 1495). Rid of the French invader, the Italians looked suspiciously on the Emperor : but Maximilian was just then too poor to put a large army in the field. In 1498 Charles VIII died. His successor, Louis XII, 200 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. inherited claims to both Naples and Milan and prepared to oust Sforza from his duchy. This time Venice cast her lot with the French. Sforza craftily stirred up the Turks to assail the Venetians in the rear. At Sapienza, spot of ill omen, the Turkish fleet encountered the Venetians under Antonio Grimani, whose grip slackened at the critical mo- ment, and brought on a total defeat (August 25, 1502). Stripped of her navy, Venice was forced to sue for peace ; which was not granted before the Venetians had seen from their belfries the smoke of the towns which the Turkish ravagers were burning in Friuli. To her envoy, as he took his leave, the Grand Vizier said, with insolence which had to be swallowed, " Venice has wedded the sea up to the present ; in future, it will be our turn, for we have more at stake on the sea than you have." To call the Turk in to help Christian against Christian became the practice of Catholics and Protestants alike. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the English who, for equally selfish ends, kept imburied the carcass of the Turkish Empire to pollute the air of Southeastern Europe. Venice made terms with the Sultan not a moment too soon, since there was now weaving round her a danger more terrible than any she had known since the Chioggian War : her many haters and enviers were on the point of forming a coalition against her. Her safety had once lain in holding aloof, or in playing one of her rivals against another. She could do neither now ; and although she had minus- ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 201 takable warning that the world was indeed against her, she failed to act with even common discretion. Pope Alexander VI died August 8, 1503 ; within a month, the Republic had taken steps to annex some of the Papal cities of Romagna and the Marches. " Work with all celerity, circumspection, and secrecy," was her order to her agents ; and by November, when Julius II had succeeded to the Holy See, after the three weeks' pontificate of Pius III, the men of St. Mark were in control of Faenza, Cesena, Urbino (which Duke Guidobaldo himself placed under the protection of Venice), and other towns. Julius II, violent, able, and pugnacious, should have been monarch of one of the great kingdoms, and not the Vicar of Jesus Christ; the Roman princedom offered too narrow a field for his worldly ambition. He proposed to aggrandize the States of the Church and to drive the " barbarians " the French, the Spaniards, and the Germans out of Italy. These two aims might have been harmo- nized had not Julius been so eager to strengthen the Papacy first, that he lost his chance of ever ousting the barbarians. He set his heart on winning back the fiefs which had been lost under his predeces- sors, and with this in view he called on the Vene- tians to make restitution. The Signory protested that they had come by their new lands fairly, that they would willingly pay the Pope taxes on them, but that they would never give them up, " if they had to spend down to the very foundations of their 202 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. houses." Julius smothered his wrath, while he cast about for means to strike effectively. In the autumn of 1504 Louis XII of France and the Emperor Maximilian made a secret treaty at Blois, their principal object being to attack A T enice and divide between them her mainland provinces. Julius was a partner in this enterprise. Venice got wind of the plot and adopted a conciliatory policy. She even restored some of the Papal territory, so that Julius spoke of her people as " good and very dear children of the Apostolic See." The three years ensuing witnessed an uninterrupted cam- paign of craft. The conspirators, whose only com- mon bond was hatred of the Republic, came several times to the verge of a quarrel among themselves; whilst Venice endeavored to ingratiate herself with now one and now another. Such a struggle has probably never been seen since, because Europe has never had so many masters of craft pitted against each other at one time. Ferdinand of Spain, Louis XII of France, Maximilian of Germany, and Julius II were equals in cunning and in unscrupu- lousness ; and the Venetian Signory, certainly not a novice in guile, met in them more than a match. After the conspirators had exploited various schemes against each other, they fell back on their plot against Venice. At Cambrai their envoys met and formed that league Avhich stands as the crown of infamy in an age when political infamy was the common rule. The manifesto of Maximilian (January 6, 1509) an- ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 203 nounced that the allies would put an end to " the losses, the insults, the rapine, the injuries, of which Venice was guilty." " We have found it not only useful and honorable," the Emperor concluded, " but even necessary to summon all to a just ven- geance, to extinguish, as if it were a general con- flagration, the insatiable cupidity of the Venetians, and their thirst for dominion." And as proof of disinterestedness, each ally stipulated- what his share of the Venetian spoils should be : the Pope bespoke Rimini, Ravenna, Faenza; the Emperor, Istria, Friuli, the Trevisan, and all westward to Verona; Louis XII, Bergamo, Brescia, and the former dependencies of the Duchy of Milan ; the King of Spain, Otranto, Brindisi, and other towns in South Italy which he had pledged to Venice. They agreed that if they could persuade the King of Hungary to join, he should receive Dalmatia. They tempted the Duke of Savoy with the offer of Cyprus, and the Marquis of Ferrara and the Duke of Mantua with promises of independence. There was unlimited plunder, and everybody might share it by turning brigand, brigandage being a most respectable profession, practiced by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and by kings who called themselves " the .most Christian " and " the Catholic." Diplomacy having failed, Venice prepared reso- lutely for war. Whatever her sins might be, she was never a coward. Her rich and her poor rallied to her defense. Doge Leonardo Loredano, having given the customary ducal banquet on the feast of 204 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. St. Mark, sent his plate to the mint. Two generals, D'Alviano and Pitigliauo, were set in command of the army, which was quickly recruited to block the march of the French, but at Agnadello they were overwhelmed (May 14, 1509). The French pressed on, conquering town after town. From the north Maximilian's troops poured into Friuli. From the south came the Pope's levies. Julius II, weaker than his allies in temporal soldiers, resorted to ecclesiastical weapons, and launched an interdict which the Signory prevented from being published in Venice. To retaliate, the Signory issued an ap- peal to a Church council, and through the adroitness of their messengers their manifesto was actually posted on the doors of St. Peter's, at Rome. But this did not heal the wound which the Pope's thrust had made. By June, 1509, the Papal forces had re- covered most of the places which Julius coveted, and the French had advanced east of Brescia. The Republic being unable to defend her cities, there is a legend that she released them from their, alle- giance, many of them surrendered at discretion to the invaders. Treviso, however, held out, and Padua endured bravely a siege by Maximilian's army, which had to retire baffled and discredited. Never was a gallant nation nearer destruction than Venice in the summer and autumn of 1509. With the " whole world against her," her armies beaten, her provinces wrenched away, she seemed more than once about to founder in the great gulf. But she paused neither in her efforts to improvise ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 205 armies nor in her diplomatic endeavors. To fol- low in detail the intrigues which each party to the Avar carried on, is to sound the depths of political depravity and to gain a knowledge of the state- craft which Machiavelli teaches in TJie Prince. If Venice could have defended herself for only a few months, she might have counted on her enemies quarreling among themselves ; but her early military disaster left her too soon at their mercy. In her desperation, she did not scruple to implore the Turk to come to her rescue an appeal which bore no fruit, but which reveals the complete breakdown of international morals. That breakdown was the last stage in the decay of Koman Christianity. When a Pope, in order to regain worldly posses- sions, stooped to partnership with brigands, and did not blush to employ spiritual means to gain political ends, it was only natural that his victim, who pro- fessed reverence for him as head of her Church, should call in an Infidel, a Mohammedan, whose dearest wish was to annihilate all Christians. Con- tradictions so monstrous imply chaos, social, moral, religious chaos, the dissolution of the elementary ties which bind man to man and state to state. Although Julius had been the most violent of her assailants, he was the first to relent. In Febru- ary, 1510, having recovered his temporal possessions and forced Venice to renounce the ecclesiastical in- dependence which she had boasted for a thousand years, he made peace with her. The French, whom he had urged to cross the Alps the year before, he 206 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. now hoped to drive back again, by forming a new coalition, " The Holy League," which he per- suaded Spain and Venice to join. The brunt of the devastation fell 011 Venice. Vicenza had al- ready suffered from the atrocities of the French; six thousand fugitives, consisting chiefly of women and children, sought refuge in an old quarry, and the French started a fire at its mouth, suffocating them all. Brescia, taken after a gallant siege, was given over to indescribable horrors. But neither the Spanish general, Cardona, nor the Venetian captains could make head against the great talents of Gaston de Foix. Fortunately for the League, he was killed in the battle of Ravenna (April 11, 1512), and without his guidance, the French campaign collapsed. The logical moment for a general peace had come, but, in spite of the withdrawal of the French from the valley of the Po, there was no peace : the Emperor Maximilian, who had joined the Holy League, insisted on keeping the prisoners he had captured ; the Spaniards had had their am- bition fired to succeed the French in the Duchy of Milan ; the Pope, clutching his own conquests, was hardly the best arbiter to persuade his allies to re- linquish theirs. Julius II died February 21, 1513, and a month later Venice signed at Blois a treaty with France. Turning back to her old policy, the Republic allied herself with the power which she deemed the weakest, and so the least likely to harm her. She soon learned that neutrality would have been a ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 207 better choice : for the new army which Louis XII sent into Italy was beaten at Novara (June 6, 1513) ; and the Venetian mercenaries, overmatched and left without allies, were brushed aside by Cardona, who actually planted his cannon at Malghera and fired on Venice herself. The Lagoon proved so sure a defense, that she could watch without anxiety the taunting shots fall short ; but her pride was hum- bled at seeing the Spaniards ravage the mainland, which she had no means to protect. In 1515 Francis I, who had succeeded Louis XII as king of France, marched into Italy and, by the victory of Marignano (September 14, 1515), won back the Milanese. The next year peace was signed at Brussels between Francis and Charles, the new king of Spain; then the Venetians, by buying a five years' truce of Emperor Maximilian, who was ahvays more greedy of money than of military glory, at last could breathe. The Seven Years' War had all but ruined the Republic. It unmasked the fatal weakness of her position on Terra Firma. It taught her that a sea- faring nation, which aspired to rank as a land power also, and relied on mercenaries for its defense, was throwing away the secret of its strength. It was but a barren satisfaction to reflect that it required the mightiest coalition which Western Europe had seen since Charlemagne's time to drag her down from the zenith. The League of Cambrai revealed the absolute corruption of the Renaissance political methods and 208 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. ideals. The kings of the great powers, and the Eoraan Pontiff himself, had not risen above the level of the unspeakable petty despots of the pre- ceding century. They abased Venice, but when, as the result of his league against her, Italy was left permanently the prey of the Spaniards and the French, how hollow sounded Julius the Second's cry, " Out with the barbarians ! '' In first crippling Venice, Julius wasted the only Italian state strong enough to lead a coalition which might possibly have kept the barbarians from entering the Penin- sula. To let in a flood by deliberately breaking a dam, and then to seize a broom to try to sweep it out, describes the procedure, and measures the political sagacity, of Julius II. Amid the tangle of duplicity, cruelty, and greed, one noble thread appears : the cities and towns of the mainland resumed voluntarily their allegiance to Venice, as fast -as they were free to choose. That act is the highest praise of her government. The boundaries of the Eepublic reached, as of old, to the Adda on the west, but the sense of security had gone. Francis and Charles were contending for the mastery of the Continent, and as Italy was both the scene and the object of much of their fighting, Venice would not remain neutral. Al- though Francis lost at the battle of Pavia (1525), she joined him in the League of Cognac (1526), which brought her no equivalent for the million and a half ducats it cost her. An inscrutable Providence had cogged the dice 209 in favor of Spain. The year 1492 saw the Spanish conquest of the Moors, the discovery of the New "World by an expedition which planted there the banner of Spain, and the election of the Span- iard, Borgia, to the Papal throne. Within the next thirty years, Spain rose, by cunning, or chance, or war, to the primacy of Christendom, which she held until her Armada was shattered by the admirals of Elizabeth (1588). The primacy of Spain meant a century of blight : it meant the rank flowering of the Inquisition and the organizing of Jesuitry by Spaniards, the Spanish attempt to crush out forever the ideals of liberty, the perpetration by Spanish generals and rulers of uncounted atrocities in Europe and America, the establishment by Span- iards in America of the most corrupt and cruel of modern colonial systems, and the degradation of the Spaniards themselves into merciless fanatics, court puppets, and cloddish peasants. The fright- ful potency of immense wealth to brutalize was never shown more clearly than in the case of the Spanish grandees, on whom were showered the riches of Mexico and Peru, of the East Indies and the West. Can it be said of any other nation which has held the ascendant that it added nothing in science, in invention, in manners, in politics, in philosophy, or in religion, to human progress ? What the Turk was among Asiatics, such was the Spaniard among Europeans. Ferdinand, Charles, Philip, these are the monarchs of Imperial Spain ; Torque- mada, Loyola, Alba, these are the incarnation of 210 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the Spanish character at prime. In return for the check she dealt to human progress, and for the incomputable sum of injustice, ignorance, misery, and pain charged against her, Spain has given the world one humorist, one dramatist, and one painter the products of her decline. It was this power, Spain, which the long wars set in motion by the League of Cambrai made supreme in Italy. The Peace of Bologna, between Charles V and Francis I, restored a Sforza to the Duchy of Milan, under the pretense of maintaining a theoretical balance of power between the contend- ing interests. A line of bastard Medici was en- throned in Florence. The Spanish Kingdom of the Two Sicilies dominated the south. The family of Farnese were soon to control the Holy See Paul III was elected in 1534 and to plant duchies in Parma and Piacenza. Except at Venice, no inde- pendent Italian government was left standing in Italy. The barbarians possessed the Peninsula and reduced it to a condition of servitude from which it was not wholly redeemed until 1870. We often say of a man who survives a terrible ordeal, " He entered upon it young, and he came out of it old." So it was with Venice after the League of Cambrai. Externally, her territory was almost unchanged ; but potentially, she had sunk from first to second rank. Had this been due merely to an unsuccessful war, she might have re- covered her position, as France did ; but it was due to the fact that there had risen into being a new ix THE CRISIS OF CAMERA! 211 world-order in which no state, however prosperous, could rule Western Europe from the head of the Adriatic. The age of the great monarchies had come. The stream of commerce, which had been the lifeblood of Venice, flowed now through other seas. Her geographical position, which in the earlier world-order was the cause of her unique growth, doomed her to a leisurely decline. The dis- covery of America and of the Cape passage to India warned her that a new commercial era was dawn- ing over Western Europe. For a thousand years she had successfully steered clear of dangerous ri- vals on the mainland ; neither Pope nor Emperor nor ephemeral tyrant could do her permanent harm ; but henceforth she had as neighbors the satellites of Spain, a power that she could not dislodge. CHAPTER X VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : INSTITUTIONS THE prime of Venice runs from the fourteenth century through the sixteenth. By 1300 her gov- ernment had taken its characteristic form ; her imperial relations, her commercial and colonial methods, were established, her social habits well defined. Before 1600 her empire had waned, her commerce shrunk, and she was living on her past and on her capital. We may well pause to examine briefly, but summarily, into her civilization. The questions which we put at last to every nation are : What sort of existence did you offer to your chil- dren ? What was your contribution to human progress? Venice can give worthy replies to these questions ; for she attained to a high degree of civilization. By her enterprise and tolerance she helped the human race forward ; she bestowed on her children and her wards a larger measure of content than they could have enjoyed with any of her contemporaries ; and through her art she rose into the noble fellowship of Athens, Florence, and the masters of Gothic. Let us look first at her government, and gather into a single survey the facts which have come 212 CHAP, x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 213 piecemeal in our narration. Venice can best be compared to a great ship which requires the most skillful navigators. To exist at all, and secure that perfect adjustment to her physical conditions which her incredible location called for, she had to rely on expert direction ; so she never rested until she educated experts, and her history is their best eulogy. If we represent her government as a pyramid, the Great Council is the base and the Doge the apex. Directly or indirectly, every officer derived his authority from the Great Council, which, elected by popular vote in the first instance, became there- after self-perpetuating. In 1297 it limited its membership to the aristocracy, whose male adults numbered from one to two per cent, of the popula- tion. 1 The Council met every Sunday. Any noble was eligible to it who was over twenty-five years of age and had had his legitimacy certified. The chief business was appointing and electing, but in time of crisis its vote decided public policy. More ancient than the Great Council was the Senate, which grew out of the Doge's custom of in- viting prominent citizens to advise him in an emer- gency. These invited persons, or Pregadi, came to have a regular existence. They were elected by the Great Council (1229), and numbered originally iln 1368 the heads of the noble houses numbered two hundred and four ; but as no fewer than eighteen of the Contarini sat in the Great Council at one time, it is safe to reckon the male patricians at from three thousand to four thousand. 214 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. sixty; subsequently this number was doubled by the addition of a Junta, which the Senators them- selves chose. Senators held office for a year, and not more than three members of any family could serve simultaneously in the first sixty, or two in the Junta. There sat ordinarily with the Senate the Doge and his Councilors, the Ten, the Avogadors, and the Procurators of St. Mark about one hun- dred and sixty in all, but on various occasions the number rose to nearly three hundred, by the inclu- sion of special commissions. This body discussed the vital concerns of the state, and controlled particu- larly its foreign policy, navigation, and commerce. Above the Senate sat the College, which com- prised the sixteen Sages, and corresponded to a modern ministry. When it met with the Doge and his Council and the three Heads of the Forty, it was called the Full College and received communi- cations or envoys from foreign states, issued com- missions, and attended to the general business of the Eepublic. At the apex of the pyramid shone the Doge, who during the later centuries was almost a figurehead. In the days of the Candiani he had been a real executive, dispenser of justice, law-maker, and coni- mander-in-chief on sea and land. One by one these powers had been shorn from him. His countrymen, jealous of their liberty, hemmed him in with restrictions, and made him the symbol of the Kepublic. He presided over the Great Council, the Signory, the College, and the Ten, but his f uuc- x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 215 tion was that of a chairman or moderator rather than that of an executive. Six Ducal Councilors, who with him formed the Signory, attended him from his rising until he went to bed, and except in the presence of four of them, he could neither open nor despatch letters, grant audiences, or discharge public business. He was expected to live splen- didly, and to this end had a salary of fifteen thou- sand ducats, which usually fell far short of his private income. He was strictly forbidden to con- fer offices on members of his family, or to put them in the way of enriching themselves through govern- ment favors. As a final precaution, at his death a special commission investigated his public acts, with power to attaint his heirs, if it found any traces of irregularity. That it was not lenient, we infer from its condemning the heirs of Pietro Loredano, who died in 1567, to pay a fine of fifteen thousand ducats, because he had not lived "as magnificently as so high an office required." But although the Doge could neither initiate nor veto, nothing could deprive him of that personal influence which, be it mighty or ineaching, accompanies every human creature : and as the doges were for the most part men of the widest experience in public affairs, their opin- ion, even in the later period of gilded ceremonial, carried great weight ; we shall see how, before the compelling personality of Francesco Morosini, the rigid prescriptions became elastic. The Great Council, the Senate, and the Full Col- lege constituted in a large way the government, but 216 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the Sages and the Ten actually managed its busi- ness. The six Great Sages (Savii Grandi) looked after the general administration of the capital, the five Sages for Terra Firma (Savii di Terra Firma) attended to the affairs of the mainland, and the five Sages for the Sea (Savii da Mar, or degli ordiiii) nominally superintended naval and maritime affairs, but were really of little importance. Each of these committees prepared all business within its jurisdic- tion for the consideration of the Full College. The three groups of Sages really performed the functions of modern ministries of home affairs, colonies, and admiralty and commerce ; but instead of having a permanent secretary at the head of each depart- ment, the Sages held in rotation the headship for one day. At the heart of the government worked the Coun- cil of Ten. It came into existence after the conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo as a temporary Committee of Public Safety, and was declared per- manent in 1335. The Ten were the Ministry of Police of Venice. They guarded against rebels at home and enemies from abroad, they kept strict order, they watched over public decency and morals. Political activity being limited to the patricians, the Ten jealously suppressed it among the other classes. Treason and rebellion were so common in Italy, that the extreme precautions taken by the Decemvirs Avas certainly justified, and to them be- longs the credit of preserving Venice from any serious danger during nearly five hundred years. x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 217 Being elected for a year, they themselves chose three of their number as Heads (Capi) who served alternately one month each, and were forbidden to go into the city, or to hold intercourse with citizens during their term of office. The Ten, although a patrician body, stood so often between the common- ers and the patricians, that they were respected by the lower classes. But as they worked secretly, employed spies (detectives we should now call them), and punished swiftly, they had a terrible reputation, which it was their policy not to deny. They re- sorted to torture when they deemed it necessary, and they executed promptly after conviction. Like all rnedievals, they probably did not lean to the side of mercy ; but, as Mr. Horatio Brown remarks, an examination of their archives will not lead to the conclusion that they were " either cruel or sangui- nary." The common belief that the Ten blindly acted upon anonymous accusations, slipped into the Lion's Mouth, was unfounded, since they paid no attention to such a charge unless five sixths of the Council approved. It is to be remembered that the Doge and his six Councilors always had a place in the sessions of the Ten, which were usually at- tended also by an Avogador to uphold the law. That the Ten should encroach beyond the politi- cal field, and come to be looked upon as the real executive, was inevitable. All sorts of petitioners appealed to them. They took cognizance of judi- cial as well as of political business, and it was always easy to assume that any matter concerned 218 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. public safety enough to warrant their meddling with it. Early in their career they forced Foscari to abdicate ; and in the sixteenth century they waged a long contest for supremacy with the Great Council, which in the end declared their usurpation illegal (1582). Still, they did not let the practical control of affairs pass out of their hands. Perhaps because they found their body, with the Ducal Council added, too unwieldy for quick work, they formed the subcommittee of the Three Inquisitors of State, who could act on the instant. The Three also knew the value of inspiring terror, and did nothing to dispel the popular impression that to be summoned before them was equivalent to a conviction; al- though their activity, gauged by their prosecutions, was not excessive. 1 Whether the most intimate facts concerning the Ten will ever be known, may well be doubted. Much may be done by a committee which it neither records in the minutes of its proceedings nor stores away in its archives. Secrecy favors abuses ; es- pionage, suspicion, terror, raise a presumption against those who employ them. Nevertheless, two points must be given full weight in judging the Ten: first, it is incredible that a dominant class should choose such a body from its own members, and tolerate it for five hundred years, if they believed its rule to be unjust, cruel, and corrupt. Secondly, as the Decemvirs served only a year 1 From 1573 to 1775 they prosecuted 1273 suits, an average of about six a year. x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 219 and could not be immediately reflected, there were always two or three hundred patricians alive who had been members of the Ten, conversant with its secrets and responsible for its methods. Again it is incredible that so large a number of persons should habitually connive at a system which they knew to be unjust, cruel, and corrupt. "With no fewer than eleven different courts of the first instance, Venice had a highly specialized judi- ciary. The Criminal Forty and the Civil Forty, composed of patricians, acted as courts of appeal in criminal and civil cases ; and when the need arose, a third bench, the Kew Civil Forty, was created to hear appeals of litigants from Terra Firma. An Avo- yador del Commune, or Advocate of the Commune, an officer who resembled the Tribunes of Kepublican Rome, sat with the Forty to guard against infringe- ments of the common laws. Trial by jury did not exist, but the judge examined witnesses carefully, and the accused might engage counsel. Prosecu- tors were warned not to cross-question in a vexa- tious spirit. A stern procedure governed causes which went before the Council of Ten, which tried patricians and had jurisdiction over political and heinous crimes and bestial vices. Two Decem- virs, one Ducal Councilor, and an Avogador con- ducted the examination of the accused in a dark cell to hasten a confession. If he proved stubborn, he was put to the torture ; but the law grimly in- sisted that this must not be pushed "beyond the normal limit." Challenges, duels, wagers of battle, 220 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and similar feudal practices had no part in Venice ; but the assumption, common to the Latin peoples, prevailed, that the accused was guilty unless he could prove himself innocent. Punishment bore the medieval stamp, the death penalty being very common. Petty thieves were flogged ; those who stole forty lire or more might be put to death ; forgers and false coiners lost a hand ; violent burglars, ravishers, and adulterers lost both a hand and an eye. Capital punishment had de- grees of painf ulness and ignominy ; beheading or hanging was regarded as the quickest, strangling as the least ignominious, starving as the cruelest. Ordinary criminals were drowned, political offenders hanged. 1 The prisons, whether the Pozzi in the cellar of the Ducal Palace or the Piombi under the roof of the adjacent building, were bad enough, but no worse than those in every European city. Common criminals were confined in less noisome places, and as early as 1441 the sexes were sepa- rated in jails and prisons. The Doge was required 1 For the sake of comparison, I cite from Holinshed the pun- ishments which obtained in England about 1580, that is, near the middle of Elizabeth's reign. For high treason, the victim was hanged till he was half dead, then taken down and quar- tered alive; for murder, hanging in chains, the body being left till the bones consumed to nothing; burning alive for a woman who poisoned her husband ; boiling to death, in water or lead, for other poisoners; hanging or burning for witches; hanging or guillotining (at Halifax) for common thieves; pressing to death by great weights for felons "who stand mute at their arraignment"; branding, cutting off ears or hands, whipping, and similar milder methods for petty offenders. x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 221 to see that prisoners were brought to trial within a month. The expeditiousness of Venetian justice contrasts favorably with the law's delay in America, and Venetian judges would look with disgust on the modern practice of treating a felon like a pet or a hero. The law of Venice grew out of the old Roman roots. The peculiar nature of the Dogado and its occupations called for special legislation. Doge Malipiero (1178-92) attempted to reduce the vari- ous laws to uniformity, and from his time date the Statutes, in five books, including one on canon law. Immediately afterward, Enrico Dandolo pro- mulgated a new code of criminal law (Promissione del Maleficio, 1195). His successor, Pietro Ziani, drew up a nautical capitulary (1225) ; and then Jacopo Tiepolo ordered a complete code to be framed. True to her individuality, Venice had her laws and conducted her trials in the vernacular a practice which benefited the common people, al- though it may account for the lack of eminent legal writers among her jurisprudents. In the course of centuries laws were passed for every conceivable trifling affair, and, as always happens when law- making becomes a mania, they were mostly inopera- tive. But in the great branches of legislation in their marine law, in their commercial contracts, and in the penal code the Venetians were pioneers, and deserve the attention of some competent stu- dent of comparative legislation. Their courts held so high a reputation for fairness that many for- 222 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. eigners referred their suits to them, and the Law School at Padua became, under Venetian patronage, the first in Europe. In one most important matter Venice stood firm : she refused to allow civil or mixed causes to be tried in the ecclesiastical court. This was in accord- ance with her rigid separation of the State from the Church. Even in consenting to the introduction of the Inquisition (1289), she took care to protect herself and her citizens from its tyranny by insisting that the Papal Nuncio, the Patriarch, and the Father Inquisitor, who directed the Holy Office, must be approved by the Doge, and must report without reserve their proceedings to him and to the Senate. The Republic herself, as a further safeguard, ap- pointed a board of Three Sages for Heresy (Savii air Eresia). As a result, her annals show no Que- madero, no Smithfield, no Tyburn Hill. Here and there a heretic may have suffered, but there was no general persecution. For Venice permitted the In- quisition to deal only with Eoman Catholics, because they alone could rightly be held answerable to the discipline of their Church. She did not disturb adherents of other creeds. The Greek Church, to which many of her subjects belonged, enjoyed espe- cial favor; Armenians, Slavonians, and Albanians, and even German Protestants, had their places of worship in the capital itself. We need not examine in detail the minor officers of government, each of whom fitted exactly into the intricate mechanism. A highly organized police X VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 223 corresponded to the sleepless vigilance of the Ten and Three. There were inspectors of the Mint, of flour, salt, and grain ; censors who watched over pub- lic morals ; an active board of health ; commissioners to see that the canals were dredged, others who determined fair wages, arbitrated quarrels between merchants and employers, and condemned poor work; inspectors of meats, sealers of weights and measures, who also regulated shop signs and heard the grievances of apprentices and servants; in- spectors of inns and taphouses, who condemned sour or musty wines ; superconsuls, who looked after the interests of creditors ; and a host of no- taries, syndics, and petty placemen, besides the usual fiscal and marine officials of a great port. The Arsenal, the chief of the public works, on which the safety of the Kepublic depended in war and her commerce at all times, had an elaborate government of its own, which rigidly insisted on the highest skill in shipbuilding, economy, and a thorough audit. Stability and efficiency those were the ideals of Venice. To secure stability and prevent des- potism, she subdivided responsibility in the execu- tive branch, and centralized it in the administrative. Check and countercheck was everywhere her plan. For the sake of efficiency, she adopted an unpar- alleled system for training experts. When a patrician was twenty years old, if he showed prom- ise, she made him sit in the Great Council as an apprentice, so that, by the time he was of legal age, 224 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. he had learned the business of the Council and had known the heads of the state. Then he was tested iu one office after another, from lower to higher, until he had proved his eligibility to the Sages, the College, or the Ten itself. Short terms and rapid rotation in office prevented a dangerous or incapa- ble man from becoming a fixture in any part of the government, gave every able politician the chance of filling several different posts, and opened to many the hope of filling at least one post. Only the Doge, the Grand Chancellor, and the Procurators of St. Mark had a life tenure ; most officials held office for a year, and could not be at once reflected. The Ducal Councilors sat eight months with the Doge and four months with the Criminal Forty, thus combining in the course of a twelvemonth the duties of a privy councilor and of a judge of ap- peal. This interlocking of functions was a favor- ite practice. Two of the Three, for instance, were Decemvirs, and the third was a Ducal Councilor. Moreover, the custom of choosing a special commis- sion, or junta (zonta, in Venetian), to deal with an emergency a custom which in later days was freely abused served still further to bring together men from different departments. By this means, while the organic relation of one department with another was emphasized, the individual gained an all-round knowledge of various business; by this means also the worst evils of secrecy were mitigated ; for there were always many ex-members of the secret councils who could x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 225 judge from their own experience what either the Ten or the Three for the time being were about. The despotism of no autocrat has been more terrible than that of Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety : to guard against such a possibility the cautious Republic adopted the system of rota- tion, which freed her from the risk of the collec- tive tyranny of boards chosen for a long term or for life. And yet, by a paradox, she secured continuity of policy and efficiency of administration, through having always on hand a large number of men, trained in all branches of the public service, whom she could draw upon to fill any particular office. She suffered no shirking : a patrician might neither refuse nor resign the charge she laid upon him. A political system so elaborate and so efficient could spring from only a high civilization. No other government has trusted so loyally to special- ists ; no other ruling class has taken such endless pains to train experts. If the patricians swayed the state for their own interest, they gave it in return immense prosperity. Nowhere else were taxes so light, and we hear few complaints from either the boiirgeoisie or the common people of unequal burdens. We may say of the Venetian oligarchy that as a working system it came nearer to perfec- tion than any other form of government has come. We have already described how Venice regulated commerce and gave to the coming and going of her fleets the momentum of her collective wisdom and strength. She early developed a financial sys- Q 226 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tern suited to the demands of trade on an interna- tional scale. About 1160 the government made a loan, and a dozen years later organized a public debt on which it issued scrip and paid interest. Thence- forward, Venetian funds were so highly esteemed that foreign rulers,' not excepting certain popes, eagerly invested their money in them ; but the Sen- ate reserved the right to reject applicants whom it deemed undesirable. A sound currency being in- dispensable to sound business, Venice put forth a coinage which long served as the standard. Her first gold ducat, struck by Giovanni Dandolo, dating from 1284, passed current in all lands throughout the Middle Age as the English sovereign passes to-day. When inedievals referred to "the Mint," they meant the Mint of Venice, of which the word "sequin," the other name for ducat, was a reminder. 1 The conquest of Constantinople resulted in a rapid increase of the volume of trade throughout the thirteenth century, and before 1300 the money changers began to organize private banks, through which the great international transactions were car- ried on until 1537, when the government opened the first state bank. Many of the nobles, among whom we find the names of Soranzo, Priuli, Pisani, 1 Sequin is from the Italian zecchino, which in turn comes from Zccca, the mint. But Zecca itself, according to local ety- mologists, is the old Venetian for Zuecca, that is Giudecca, the Jewish quarter of the city, where the first mint was opened. Other etymologists trace Zecca to the Arabic Sikka, a stamp for coins. x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 227 Lippomano, Vendramin, Sanudo, and Tiepolo, en- gaged in banking, sometimes as an adjunct to their operations as merchants. But although Venice led the modern world in methods of commerce, she did not outgrow in her economic system the medieval ideals of a protective tariff, export duties, and government monopolies. The time came when protectionism brought its retribution. Medieval, also, was the slave trade, in which Ve- netians engaged down to the seventeenth century. They bought slaves, mostly Slavs, Georgians, and Circassians, at Tana and Kaffa in the Crimea, and sold the men in Egypt and the women to the Chris- tians of Western Europe. The government repeat- edly forbade the traffic, but its prohibitions had little effect, and as late as about 1580 there were three thousand slaves in the capital. Venice fol- lowed the common practice of enslaving prisoners captured in war, their usual doom, being to man the oars of the galleys. CHAPTER XI VENETIAN CIVILIZATION: LIFE AND ART IN manners and the arts of life, the Venetians naturally, from their wealth, their intercourse with the East, and their isolated position, which screened them from invasion, took the lead. Medicine flour- ished among them. They had hospitals, a quaran- tine system, a lazaretto, and municipal physicians long in advance of their neighbors. They were a philanthropic people, as their magdalens and or- phanages, their foundling asylums and convales- cent homes bore witness. They were fond of birds, music, and flowers, and they loved pets. Morosini the Peloponnesian carried his favorite cat on his campaigns. Their dolce maniera, their sweet manner, which their proverbial dignity did not overshadow, early distinguished them. 1 How many a race has grown rich without ever being able to acquire either dignity or charm ! " When a son is born to a Venetian," remarked a Milanese traveler, " a lord is born into the world ; " and indeed this was true, for to be a Venetian citizen was equivalent to a patent of nobility else- 1 A Lombard envoy about 940 remarked on the politeness of the Venetians. 228 CHAP, xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 229 where. Wealth brought ease and comfort, and poured into the capital city whatever luxuries the world could give. It is more difficult to appraise the Venetian standard of morals. Each generation has its par- ticular vices, which it judges tolerantly while it condemns those of other generations. So youth abhors the avarice and worldliness of age, and age censures the profligacy of youth. In Venice a high code of honor prevailed in business. Merchants were gentlemen. The world has never seen a similar merchant nobility ; for elsewhere, as soon as trade brought sufficient wealth to make a noble of its possessor, he abandoned trade. England, who owes her strength to trade and shopkeeping, has no terms so damning as " tradesman" and " shop- keeper." The Venetian, on the contrary, glorying in his occupation, knew the art of being both tradesman and patrician, and each of his roles helped the other; for the sense of honor which governed him as a patrician leavened his business transactions. One symptom of the decadence of the Eepublic was the withdrawal of the nobles from business. In sexual license, Venice early got an unenvi- able notoriety. Her people were by temperament voluptuous; they had wealth for gratifying their desires. Being the chief port in the world, Venice always harbored a large floating population of sailors and foreigners ; later, rich travelers and pleasure- seekers flocked to her. Intercourse with the East 230 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. exposed her to the contagion of Asiatic vice. Loose as her morals were, however, it may be doubted whether they were relatively worse down to the end of the sixteenth century than those of Naples or Rome, of Florence or Milan, of Paris or London. The difference seems to have been not so much in the extent as in the character of the dissipation, which at Venice was noted for its gay- ety. The government passed frequent laws to restrict and punish ; but, like the sumptuary laws with which the Venetian Statute Book is sown, they had little effect. The belief spread, indeed, that the Ten willingly saw voluptuousness sap energy which might otherwise seek an outlet in political affairs. So to amuse the lower classes there were unrivaled pageants and ceremonies in which every one took part. Coming to her intellectual and spiritual life, the charge is often brought that Venice produced no world poet, no great literature. Some critics at- tribute this to her oligarchic government, which tended to stifle individuality; others, to commer- cialism, the alleged sworn foe to ideals ; others, to luxury, amid which the soul languishes ; others, to her too constant happiness, which deprived her of those tragic experiences in which master poets are cradled. Each of these causes may have had its influence, but not all of them combined can fully explain. For we can no more explain than foresee a master poet. When he comes, we study his environment, and proudly declare that it accounts xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 231 for him whereas it merely furnishes him with his material. If comparative freedom be requisite, why did not the Flemish towns swarm with poetic genius ? If commercialism destroys idealists, why was there the glorious Victorian age in England ? If luxury be a bar, how could Virgil and Horace nourish under Augustus ? Who would pick out the somewhat dowdy, provincial little court of Weimar as a fit stage for Goethe and Schiller, or deem the general despotic conditions of eighteenth- century Germany most propitious for her master- pieces ? And happy though Venice was, extraordi- narily happy compared to her contemporaries, she too knew the tragic undercurrents of life. Yet no great singer immortalized either her glories or her defeats, while Ferrara, only a day's journey away, claimed Ariosto and Torquato Tasso. Venice bore many chroniclers, but none of high literary merit, and several invaluable diarists, whose records are open windows through which we look at a full-blooded people throbbing with life. Her am- bassadors excelled as writers of despatches. Only in the political polemics of Sarpi, however, have we work of the first rank, and only in his History of the Council of Trent an important historical nar- rative. Just at the end of the Republic's career, Goldoni and Gozzi created a genuine comic litera- ture which paints with obvious fidelity the follies of the dying social order. Goldoni wrote the best of his comedies in the Venetian dialect, the medium also for a great mass of popular poetry. The fact 232 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. that Venetian was a dialect, must have hindered the production of the noblest literary forms: its early adoption for public business shows the determina- tion of the Venetians to be sufficient unto them- selves in all things. Although Venice bred no school of literature, she welcomed scholars, and after the fall of Constan- tinople she gave refuge to many learned Greeks. Her upper classes were cultivated : they patronized great teachers liberally and collected books and manuscripts with the connoisseur's zeal. The col- lection which Petrarch left her became the nucleus of her magnificent Marcian Library, and many of her patricians had private libraries famous for their treasures. While printing was still in its infancy, the Venetian press sent out models of typography and bookmaking, and thanks to the taste and care of Jenson, Aldus, and her other master printers, the classics of Greece and Home were collected, edited, and published in a manner which long re- mained unapproached. Throughout the sixteenth century, indeed, Venice led the world in publishing, led it not only in technical excellence, but in range, her toleration being a godsend to authors of doubt- ful orthodoxy. Next to creating great literature come the love and reverence for it, and the skill to preserve it in forms at once practical and noble. Explain her dearth in literature as we will, Venice displayed in the Fine Arts gifts of the highest order, imagination, idealism, harmony, and a matchless sense of beauty. As Englishmen and xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 233 Americans draw four fifths of their culture from books, they are likely to underrate the culture which speaks through the plastic arts and painting. Yet St. Mark's Church may have had for the people who saw it daily the cultural equivalent of an Iliad or an Antigone. Architecture has nowhere else been so hampered by natural conditions, and nowhere else has it so victoriously surmounted them. With no solid bot- tom to found on, her builders had to guard against the constant erosion of the tides. The earliest Ve- netians put up wooden houses : then they brought stone from the mainland and set to work on their churches. Only after the removal of the capital to the Kialtine islets appeared architecture which was the forerunner of the Venetian style. The Byzan- tine work at Eavenna served as a model ; and inter- course with Constantinople made this the prevailing style until the end of the thirteenth century. But other streams of influence swept in to modify it the Saracenic from the time of the Crusades, and the Gothic from the middle of the thirteenth cen- tury. Out of the blending or combination of these elements arose the architectural marvels of Venice. St. Mark's Church, originally the private chapel of the Doge, was burnt in 970. Orseolo the Great at once began a large basilica to replace it. This was completed in 1071, and forms the inner walls of the church which we know to-day. Doge vied with Doge in beautifying it. Arcades, chapels, transepts, grew up round the parent structure. 234 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Domes and pinnacles rose above it. Marbles most precious and most beautiful, alabaster, porphyry, clothed the bare brick walls ; columns aud pilasters and capitals, spoils from Syria, Byzantium, and Greece, were fitted into the structure as if they had grown there. On the gold background of the inte- rior, scenes from the Bible were wrought in mosaic after designs by the great artists of each generation. Such splendor of color, such richness of material, such harmony of plan and adaptation of each part to its end, have never been united in one edi- fice before. Here the Venetians worshiped their God ; here they poured out their offerings to their patron and solemnized their historic festivals ; here they bowed themselves in supplication, con- firmed the election of their doges, chanted their Te Deu-ms of victory. St. Mark's was the symbol of the life and aspiration of the nation, and in its fusion of Byzantine and Saracenic and Gothic, as in its interweaving of the most precious materials of many lands, it typified the cosmopolitan spirit of the Venetians, and their sense of beauty which subdued all things to its own perfection. The Ducal Palace, in similar fashion the growth of centuries, was a building unique. In the days of the earlier doges a fortified stronghold, it took on, with the progress of civilization, the aspect of a palace. Fire destroyed it in 976 and in 1106 ; Sebastiano Ziani enlarged it; finally, Pietro Gra- denigo, soon after the Closing of the Great Council, began the faqade on the Lagoon, the design of which xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 235 was followed along the western front. In 1422, Tommaso Mocenigo urged the completion of this western faqade, which was done. In 1439-42, Bar- tolommeo Bon the first architect of whose name we can be sure as connected with a special work erected the Porta della Carta. In 1479 the interior of the Palace on the Lagoon was burnt, and its rebuilding dragged on for seventy years. Another fire in 1574 damaged the ducal apartments, the Hall of the Great Council and the neighboring quarters, which were quickly restored. The faqades on the courtyard and the Giants' Staircase date from the earlier Renaissance. Thus the Ducal Palace em- bodies the tastes of four centuries, and dovetails into a central harmony the divers plans of many builders. Throughout the city we find the same juxtaposi- tion of styles, although those of the Renaissance and its degenerate offshoots, being the most recent, outnumber the others. The Fondaco dei Turchi, too garish in its restoration, and the Loredan, Far- setti, and Da Mosto palaces represent the Byzantine. For the Gothic we turn to the churches of the Frari and Sts. John and Paul, and to such a group of palaces as have had no equals in the world. The Foscari, the Doria, the beautiful upper story of the Palazzo Ariani, the Pisani, the Bernardo, the Con- tarini-Fasan, the Ca d' Oro, sprang from her radiant prime. The Renaissance brought other ideals, al- though for a long time Venice stamped her own individuality upon it. The Lombard! family, of 236 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. whom the eldest began to work about 1450, had the art of producing beautiful effects through small areas, as in the Church of St. Mary of the Miracles, or of handling large masses, as in the facade of S. Zaccaria; while in the Dario and the Cornero- Spinelli palaces, especially in the former, they designed facades almost comparable to the Vene- tian Gothic. In the facade of the Vendramin- Calergi, massive in bulk and rigid in lines, they led the way to the architecture of the later Renais- sance, in which one seeks in vain for the typical Venetian beauty. The sixteenth-century architects Sammichele, who built the Grimaui and Cornero- Mocenigo palaces ; Sansovino, renowned for the Mint, Library of St. Mark, and the Loggetta ; Pal- ladio, who planned the S. Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore churches ; and Scamozzi, designer of the Procuratie Nuove filled Venice with their neo-classical structures, some of which were master- pieces, but suggestive of bigness rather than of grandeur, of purse pride and the gloom of a decay- ing patriciate. Were the Grand Canal lined with a succession of Grimani palaces, had Palladio built St. Mark's and Scamozzi the Ducal Palace, Venice, incomparable in beauty, would never have been. For it is not the Lagoon and the canals, not the turquoise sky or gorgeous sunsets, not even the strangeness of her site, that make Venice : it is the beautiful works of man. With Longhena the series of great builders ends. In the Pesaro and Rezzonico palaces he reached the limit of neo- xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 237 classic correctness, in the Church of Sta. Maria della Salute he foreshadowed the Baroque, which he elaborated in the Church of the Scalzi. The cycle of evolution had come round : after long trials, Beauty, then Correctness, then Rigidity, and at last, in the attempt to break loose from the strait-jacket, Contortion, Whim, Folly. Venice can boast of no preeminent sculptors, although her buildings are covered with beautiful carvings. Sculpture was subordinated to architec- ture, and not until the Renaissance does it stand out as a separate art. Byzantine workmen proba- bly chiseled the earliest remaining decorations, and Florentines cut many, if not all, of the capitals for the facades of the Ducal Palace. Who designed the groups at the angles of the Palace, or those tombs of the earlier doges, which breathe the spirit of piety and awe ? Their names are unknown or disputed. Not a Venetian, but a Florentine, Andrea Verrocchio, created the model of the equestrian statue of Colleoni, a masterpiece for which the succeeding four centuries have furnished no peer. The Renaissance sculptors Leopardo, Sansovino, Vittoria were prolific producers, but with few exceptions their works were primarily architectu- ral. It is from the ducal monuments in the churches of the Frari and of Sts. John and Paul that we can trace, as in an epitome, the course of sculpture at Venice: from the earnest piety ex- pressed in the tomb of Michele Morosini (died 1382), and the solemnity in that of Tommaso Mocenigo 238 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. (died 1423), to the vulgar display, extravagance, and ugliness in that of Giovanni Pesaro (died 1G58). Longhena designed the last, in which he appropri- ately made the figure of the Doge insignificant; one sees first and remembers longest the colossal negro slaves, through whose torn breeches the black mar- ble shows, and the absurd, underfed monsters, which are too big and clumsy for pets and too meek for dragons. Sculpture, like Architecture, had sunk into the Baroque. Painting was the youngest of the arts at Venice. Down to the fifteenth century the wooden Byzantine religious paintings, in truth mere icons, prevailed. From 1432 dates the Coronation of the Virgin, by Jacopo del Fiore, which, though stiff and archaic, is no longer Byzantine. Close on Jacopo follow Bartolommeo and Alvise Vivarini and Andrea da Murano, in whose works there is a less formal wor- ship and a further progress toward technical skill. Contemporary with them was Jacopo Bellini, the father of Gentile and Giovanni, who flourished during the last quarter of the century. Gentile Bel- lini (1421-1507) painted the pageants of his time, filling his canvases with splendidly clothed patri- cians and clerics, and taking care to be accurate, yet in no slavish, pettifogging way. With Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516) we come to a master of almost the first rank. He imagined Madonnas of a new type, human, innocent, dignified, without either the cloying simplesse of the Umbrian primitives, or the careworn soberness of Botticelli's Madonnas. xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 239 The faces of his holy men and women are stamped with character; his cherubs in the Frari triptych are the loveliest flesh-and-blood little boys ever put on canvas, and the best of his portraits that of Doge Loredauo falls little below the highest. He chose for the most part religious subjects, as did also Carlo Crivelli, Cima da Conegliano, Basaiti, Catena, and their fellows; but already the spirit of Venice penetrated their work, and religion as they portrayed it meant neither other-worlclliness nor as- ceticism. More poetic was Carpaccio (1470?-1519), a painter whose picturesque subjects appeal to every one, and Avhose spirit certain fortunate persons are born to delight in just as others feel the spell of Spenser among poets. In the Legend of St. Ursula he chronicled the splendid life of Venice, scenes in which handsome youths and lovely maidens, high- bred senators and stately matrons, are touched with indefinable grace ; or in St. Ursula's Dream, he painted virgin innocence; or, in the Presentation, he expressed deep religious sentiment. Happy those artists whose works are a perpetual Maytime, fresh, joyous, delightful, even a little incomplete, prophetic of a later fruitage and harvest : Carpaccio was one of these. All these men felt the influence of Giovanni Bel- lini, most of them being his pupils ; and from his studio, near the end of the century, issued two youths who soon lifted Venetian Painting to its zenith. One of these, Giorgione (1477-1511), Big George of Castelf ranco, embodied, to judge by his few remain- 240 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. ing works, the uncorrupted joy of living. Beings of exuberant health who throb with primal passions ; a landscape where trees grow luxuriantly and death- less flowers bloom ; all pervaded by a strange, strong beauty and glowing with such colors as no earlier painter imagined this is what Giorgione painted. To call it Pagan does not define it, for Pagaii sug- gests comparison, if not conflict, with Christian. Giorgione did not analyze, much less theologize. He drank life in great draughts like wine : and we look at his superb creations with no more concern for moral or immoral considerations than when we watch a leopard at play or a mountain stream flash- ing on its way to the valley. Yet before he died, his thirty-fourth year unfinished, he had fathomed character, as his portraits show. The man at the harpsichord (in The Concert) was no Pagan. Titian of Cadore (1477-1576), ripening in Gior- gione's companionship, and outliving him more than threescore years, 1 carried forward the splendor of color into every field. His range of theme was ency- clopedic, his mastery almost unfailing. You will search his hundreds of canvases in vain for eccen- tricities. He never tried to startle, never stooped to tricks, but painted straightforwardly. I doubt whether any other genius in any art has left so many works of such uniform excellence. Yet he has never the monotony of dead-level output. In his steadi- 1 1 accept 1477 as the year of Titian's birth ; recent sugges- tions that he was born later do not appear to be proved. Neither is the fantastic attribution to Titian of The Concert proved. xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 241 ness, his capacity for taking up each subject and con- quering it, and in his power of continuous labor, he best represents the spirit of the Venetian Republic. He had to perfection the culture of the Renaissance, welcoming with the same hospitality Christian story and classic myth, saints and satyrs, apostles and nymphs, the God of Christendom and the gods of Olympus, he turned from one to another with a noble impartiality. In his enlightened worldli- ness, he reminds us of Goethe, but Titian was pos- sessed by the spirit of beauty to a degree unknown in Germany. We sometimes miss in him the vernal charm of Giorgione and the imagination of Tintoret, but he never disappoints us by ill-wrought concep- tions. He attempts nothing which he cannot achieve without apparent effort. He disdains the ignoble. Could anything be more adequate than the mis- named Sacred and Profane Love, or the Three Ages of Man, or the Pesaro Madonna, or the Assumption, or the Danaes and the Venuses, or the small Holy Family at the Uffizi, or the Flora, or the John the Baptist ? Splendid as these are, yet we may almost affirm that Titian's genius culminated in portraiture. If his portraits could be hung on one wall of a gal- lery, opposite the masterpieces of all other portrait painters Titian against the world we could best understand his primacy; we should see his inde- fectible technique, his probing of character, his certainty of making a permanent likeness, qualities in which some of his rivals have equaled him : and then we should have to add in his favor his coloring 242 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and the impress of beauty, those inalienable gifts of his, which, whether in his portraits or in his ideal canvases, glorify and individualize all his work. If Titian is the supreme Venetian painter, Tinto- ret (1512-1594) is the supreme thinker : a man of inexhaustible fertility, who like Shakespeare took any theme, old or new, recast ir, transmuted its base metal into gold, and sent it forth imperishably origi- nal. With Tintoret, as with Shakespeare, the story to be told was of more consequence than its form ; and as his genius teemed with ideas, he sometimes tried to express those for which painting is not the best medium. He worked with such terrible swift- ness that his contemporaries nicknamed him " The Thunderbolt," and charged him with carelessness ; for to them he seemed bent on astonishing, where- as he was really striving to release the swarming creatures of his imagination. Coming in the after- noon of Italian painting, when the treatment of religious subjects had been reduced to formulas, he neither followed the conventional patterns nor copied himself. The theme that inspired him brought its own design. Having the true artist's insatiable desire to test his art in all its possibili- ties, he experimented in many styles: we find him making a daring study, now in perspective, now in shadows, now in reflected lights; or, as a sort of haughty rejoinder to his critics, he dashes off a picture which they mistake for Titian's or Paul's, with whose superiority they had taunted him. To xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 243 judge Tintoret fairly, we must often determine whether his ruling motive in a given work deals with the form or the substance. In his master- pieces, the two blend. He was a painter with a message, but like Shakespeare he leaves the be- holder to deduce the message for himself. He had swept up and down through all human experience, from despair to perfect joy. No other picture is so tragic as his Crucifixion, none more pathetic than his Christ before Pilate. In a different style, the Ariadne and Bacchus and the Mercury and the Graces have no rivals. There is no other genius whom Tintoret so closely resembles as Shake- speare; but Shakespeare lived in the formative stage of the English drama, when all was plastic, while Tintoret found painting already chilled and hampered by traditions, in spite of which he filled his canvases with conceptions utterly original. An unfailing imagination and a power to vitalize even the slightest of his creations set him in a class by himself among painters. Paul Veronese (1528-1588), his younger contem- porary, was the painter of pageants, not of mere display, but of pageants which were in themselves beautiful works of art and in scenes which shone with splendor and with health. Many of his people might be dwellers in the Elysian Fields, looking neither before nor after, but satisfied with the joyous magnificence of the present. He was a master decorator, competent alike to cover half the ceiling of the Great Council with Venice En- 244 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. throned, or to fill the small spaces of the Anti- Collegio Chamber with ravishing allegorical fig- ures. And yet he too knew the meaning of sorrow, witness the Crucifixion at S. Sebastiano, although he dedicated himself to the service of joy. Titian, Tintoret, and Paul made glorious the six- teenth century at Venice, and there worked with them, either as pupils, colleagues, or rivals, many men of great ability. Palma the Elder, Paris Bor- done, Sebastiano del Piombo, Bonifazio, Lorenzo Lotto each of these deserves a chapter in the his- tory of Italian painting ; but although each achieved his masterpiece, and some of them more than one, their combined talents would not place them on the heights which these three and Giorgione com- manded. With Tintoret's death, painting declined, but the great tradition lived on: and in the eigh- teenth century, just before the extinction of the Republic, there was a not unmemorable revival, when Tiepolo called to mind the energy of Tintoret and the decorative charm of Paul ; and Canaletto, Guardi, and Longhi painted with fidelity but not servilely the canals and buildings and scenes from the life of the nobles and the people. Venetian Painting has three glories Color, Real- ity, Beauty. Its masters played on the emotions through an intuitive sense of Color, as composers sway the heart by music. To pass from their pictures to those of other schools is like passing from the glow and luxuriance of June to Novem- ber, with its sepia bleakness. The Venetians used xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 245 Color with superb largesse, but never to excess: they never added it for effect like the pigments which the savage tattoos on his body; it flows as naturally from their pencils, as from Nature in a rose garden. It exalts and delights ; and proves to be an aesthetic medium as significant as form. The Venetian painters, from Gentile Bellini to Tintoret, glorified Reality. They were not realists of the modern sort, with a morbid appetite for the squalid, the vulgar, the hideous, the vile. They were men whom existence intoxicated. They might say, with Browning's Saul : " How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! " Their conditions were so pleasant, above all Venice was so incomparably dear and lovely, an earthly paradise, that they did not labor to conceive an imaginary heaven, but just took her for the scene of even their religious paintings. So they preferred subjects familiar to every Venetian, and they peopled their canvases with the men and women about them, a little idealized, perhaps, yet still es- sentially real. As they were healthy, they instinct- ively chose to portray health. Other painters, the pensive Umbrians or the introspective Florentines, sometimes followed too far the ascetic precepts of their Church and represented saints and angels as thin and haggard beings, too frail for this world, overladen with piety or harried by conscience. They sometimes subtracted all that they could from 246 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the human, without reducing it to a ghost, and be- lieved that the residue was spiritual. The Vene- tians, on the contrary, revered the human, and simply magnified it in order to attain the fittest incarnation of the heavenly. They shunned other- worldliness, for to them this world was the great reality. They worshiped life and not its nega- tion. Had there been no Tintoret, we might almost have assumed that the Venetians were a great people who had, strangely, never been awed by the eternal problems of man's origin and des- tiny. After making what deductions we will for the claims of pride and of glory, and for the entice- ments of luxury, we must realize that the Venetian painters glorified the human as the highest revela- tion of the divine. They accepted life with a large, joyous faith, and succeeded in portraying Keality in terms of Beauty. That gift of Beauty sets them apart from all other painters. It was an instinct which every- thing conspired to make their ruling passion. It should be, whatever confused prophets of ugliness may say, the final purpose of all art. Velasquez, the great Spaniard, Rembrandt, the great Dutch- man, may equal or surpass the master Venetians in technique; but they fall far behind them in their feeling for Beauty. Titian would have held, and with reason, that the Lesson in Anatomy was not a proper subject for painting. We must go back to the Greek sculptors of the age of Scopas and Praxiteles, to find a body of artists who, like xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 247 the Venetians, produced work radiant with Beauty and Health. By a happy coincidence, which has never been repeated, Venice was able to express through Paint- ing the whole range of human interests. Elsewhere this has been done by literature only, and only three or four times. The Venetian painter might draw his inspiration from either the Old Testament or the New, from the stories of Christian saints and martyrs, and from the teachings of the Catho- lic Church ; or he might seek his subject in classi- cal antiquity, in the mythologies of Greece and Koine, in the ideals of Paganism, seen through the iridescent atmosphere of Humanism ; or his im- agination might be kindled by Venezia herself, and embody on canvas episodes in her glorious history, views of her actual pageants, illustrations of her legends, allegories of her power and splendor and ideals ; or he might perpetuate the faces of her men and women ; or create the first great land- scapes. Thus the three streams of religious sub- jects Hebrew, Christian, and Catholic united at Venice with the streams of Classical Mythology, of national interests, of portraiture, and of landscape, as they have never done elsewhere. These various influences combined to provide an unrivaled wealth of material, and Destiny favored the Venetian masters yet further by letting them flourish after the drudgery of their art had been performed by others, and thus allowing them to rise swiftly to that perfection of skill by which 248 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. they achieved their work with apparent ease. They were fortunate in coming, not only at the culmina- tion of Painting, but at the moment when they could benefit to the full from the best spirit of the Renaissance. As the Renaissance penetrated to Venice later than to her Italian neighbors, it kindled in her a noble enthusiasm for culture a generation after it had led to decadence among them ; and, thanks to her more solid and conserva- tive character, she long resisted its demoralizing tendencies. As a final help to totality of expression, costume which counts for so much in Painting was beautiful both in cut and color at Venice in the sixteenth century. So it is that her masters address us from the height of a civilization which embraced all the then known world and all the past in its ken. Compared with Titian's breadth of culture and Tintoret's cosmic outlook, the range of subjects covered by Velasquez or by Rembrandt is narrow and their treatment provincial. Velasquez speaks to us out of the Spain of Philip IV, the Spain whose message was decay national, moral, and intellectual decay. Rembrandt did, indeed, tally with a period of national vigor in Holland, but the spirit of the Dutch has always been provincial, the counterpole of the Renaissance. To the Painting of Venice we must turn, there- fore, if we would see the truest expression of the genius of a race which had known how to overcome incredible physical difficulties, had conquered its xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 249 enemies, and had risen natiirally to a magnificent and balanced scale of life. That expression, in its Color, its Eeality, and its Beauty, remains one of the most precious revelations of Art, a legacy such as only Greece has bequeathed for the joy and ex- altation of mankind. CHAPTER XII THE LOSS OF CYPRUS WHAT is the real life of a man, the true history of a people ? How far shall the historian, looking backward over the centuries of a nation's decline, color his pages with the wisdom of retrospect? The Peace of Cambrai, in 1529, left Venice a medi- ocre power, the historian to-da} r sees that clearly ; but throughout the sixteenth century neither she nor her contemporaries saw it. They knew that her prestige had suffered, that the tide of sea com- merce had set away from her, that her hold on the Orient was slackening; but outwardly these dis- asters hardly appeared. Her magnificence dazzled more than ever before. Her wealth seemed in- exhaustible. Her vigor, judged by the well-being of all classes of her people, seemed unimpaired. Her patricians had the assured port of a race to whom conquest and prosperity had been hereditary for five hundred years. Above all, in the century between the coming of Charles VIII (1494) and the death of Tintoret (1594), Venice blazed in a glory of art, so beautiful, so strong, so healthy, that one is loath to believe, even now, that it signalized decay. Confronted by these contrasts, we ask, Which was 250 CHAP, xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 251 the real Venice ? How shall the historian make it evident that, while the political power was sinking into decrepitude, the social capital and home of art was gloriously alive ? At the very moment when the enemies of the Republic shatter her empire forever, the young Giorgione and the young Titian are conquering for her a new empire, which shall last as long as one of their canvases remains. Sixty years later, when the Turk wrests Cyprus from her, and with Cyprus goes the great witness of her dominion in the East, Tintoret and Paul Veronese are covering the walls of her Ducal Palace with records of her grandeur, which they thought imperishable. The relation be- tween a nation's political condition and a golden age in its art or letters is too intricate to be explained by a general rule. Genius still evades scientific scrutiny. We have fallen into the strange error of regarding the few masters who create the world's poems, pictures, statues, stories, as representative men : whereas they are of all men the most unrepresenta- tive men, being so highly individualized as to be the exceptions to all. Wealth and war also often give a false measure of a nation's real strength. Thus, during the blackest days of the Cambrai Coalition, when Venice had been driven from Terra Firma, she abated nothing in the gorgeousness of her pageants at home. The very grandees who would not respond to the Doge's call for contributions for defense, lavished their wealth on sumptuous enter- tainments, and the state itself, while it officially 252 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. strove to check private extravagance, connived at public display. Which of these is the vital symptom the battle lost or the poured-out wealth ? These questions rise continually as we survey Venice in the sixteenth century. Many observers have been led astray because they attached a wrong symptomatic value to politics, war, finance, or to the wonderful efflorescence of the fine arts at this period. Especially must we take care not to mix physical causes in considering the products of the imagination. Many a consumptive has begotten works glowing with health ; many an aged master has enriched the world with creations of fadeless youth. So, in the case of Venice, you must go behind the disease and the old age if you would discover the source of her glorious paintings. Deeper, ever deeper, must be the search for historic causes. He alone who knew all human history could explain any fact. Let us, therefore, be unready to accept hasty explanations. In the course of this sketch I have tried to show how the unique conditions under which Venice was born and grew up favored her early maturity. While the rest of Western Europe was engaged in almost unceasing warfare, she was busy in com- merce. Long before the states which were to spring out of the wreck of the Roman Empire and to form the modern world had taken shape, she had de- veloped an intricate political system, perfectly adapted to her needs. So she had wealth, civili- xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 253 zation, and a stable government far in advance of her neighbors. She had always been independent. Her polity, the perfectly natural outcome of her experience, was not, like the Holy Roman Empire, an echo, an imitation. For centuries she enjoyed the advantages which a middle-aged person has over a parcel of youths ; now, they had grown up, and she was old. And not age merely threatened her, but strange and thwarting conditions, under which, had they always existed, she could never have flourished. She had stored up so much strength, her constitution was so sound, her sa- gacity and knowledge of the arts of life were so seasoned, that she was able to resist for a long time the double evils of changed conditions and old age. It was as if a venerable sequoia should be trans- planted to an alien climate, in which it must slowly but inevitably decay. The interest in the last centuries of the existence of Venice lies chiefly in seeing how she faced the younger world, which she could not hope to master, so that she succeeded almost to the end in appear- ing, outwardly at least, every inch a queen. Let us examine, first, her imperial relations, which tested her physical vigor. The wars of Cambrai cut off her hope of expansion on Terra Firma. Her alliance against France when France was defeated, and her alliance against Spain when Spain was vic- torious, warned her to be neutral in the further contests of the powers. But in the East there lay waiting an adversary toward whom, when he chose 254 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. to spring, she could not remain impassive. Her great business henceforth was to resist the en- croachments of the Turk a stniggle which she kept up gallantly, though with evident loss from decade to decade, until she and her adversary had worn themselves out. From the beginning of the fifteenth century the Ottomans were ruled by a series of sultans of singu- lar ability, warriors fit to lead a host thirsting terribly for conquest, statesmen capable of organiz- ing and governing the empire which they so rapidly acquired. Only two Christian powers, Hungary and Venice, bordered on the Turkish dominions. It fell to Hungary to oppose the Turkish invaders who poured through the Balkan passes and swept up the valley of the Danube in their hope of pierc- ing to the heart of Europe. The heroic deeds of the Magyars in those wars make the brightest chapters in the history of Hungary. Time after time the Turk was driven back; but at last, in 1526, Solyman the Magnificent returned with an army of three hundred thousand men ; he took Bel- grade and Peterwardein ; at Mohacs (August 29, 1526) he utterly routed the Hungarian king, Louis II, who was killed ; and on September 10 he made his triumphant entry into Buda. This left Venice to cope unaided in the Levant and on the sea with Solyman. Ever since her earlier wars, which ended in the disaster at Sapienza (1499), she had studiously avoided a rupture. She winced at the loss of xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 255 prestige, she writhed at the loss of territory, but, commerce being more necessary to her than pride, she paid the Turk not a tribute, she would not call it that for permission to trade in his empire. Real peace did not exist. Turkish pirates the most famous of whom, Chaireddin Barbarossa, was in Solyman's service preyed on Venetian shipping. Between the vessels of the two coun- tries there were freqxient conflicts, any of which might have been an excuse for war. The Turks took one small island after another in the Archi- pelago, the Venetian owners being unable to defend themselves. In 1537, Barbarossa prepared to conquer Corfu. Driven from her inaction, Venice joined an alliance with the Emperor and the Pope to fight the Sul- tan, who was in league with the French king. Although her allies did not furnish the support they had promised, she succeeded at first in expel- ling Barbarossa from Corfu. He took his revenge, however, in seizing several smaller islands, and as he could move swiftly, he easily harassed the Vene- tian armament, hampered by the cross-purposes of its allies. By 1540, when she had spent much and lost much, and despaired of receiving from Charles V the large aid he had pledged, she sued for peace. She secretly authorized her ambassador to agree as a last resort to cede Nauplia and Malvasia ; through treachery her instructions were whispered to the French ambassador at Venice, who communicated them to the Sultan ; and before granting peace, 256 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Solyman naturally insisted on the cession of those two cities. During the next thirty years the Republic, by swallowing provocations and by scattering apolo- gies, avoided open warfare with the Turk. Time was when she would have accepted the first hint of a challenge; now she consulted her weakness and was polite. The Turk knew her weakness too, and after he had glutted himself in Hungary and else- where, he turned to Venice in search of spoils. Solyman the Magnificent died in 1566 ; his son and successor, Selim the Toper, was the puppet of a Portuguese Jew, Nassi, on whom he conferred the title of Duke of Naxos. Although they thrust one quarrel after another at Venice, she declined to stir. Nassi goaded Selim on to seize Cyprus by telling him of the rare wines the island produced ; and Selim promised to make Nassi king of Cyprus as soon as it was theirs. So runs the legend. At any rate, the Grand Vizier hinted to the Venetian bailo at Constantinople that, as Cyprus had belonged to the Soldan of Cairo, whose realm had been con- quered by the Turks, it was now by right theirs. Bailo Barbarigo denied this claim : but the Turk was not to be stopped by a little historical slip ; and when an envoy soon after demanded at Venice the cession of Cyprus, and was answered that the Signory would defend it to the last ditch, war was unavoidable. The Venetians may well have had misgivings, for the total population of the Republic, including xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 257 its dependencies, could not have exceeded two million souls. Cyprus itself was thought to num- ber only one hundred and seventy thousand. The Venetians had been great sailors, but never great soldiers, and their long employment of mercenaries tended, with their prosperity, to unfit them for war. Nevertheless, they prepared with old-time vigor for the encounter on which their own supremacy and the very existence of Christians throughout the Orient was believed to hang. They levied troops, equipped a fleet, and sent munitions to Cyprus. Some of their powerful nobles raised regiments at their own charge : Girolamo Martinengo mustered two thousand men in the Piazza of St. Mark. En- voys hurried westward to Portugal and eastward to Persia to seek allies. The King of Muscovy and the Sophy were besought to join Western Christen- dom in a supreme effort to crush the Moslem, whose further progress might mean the destruction of European civilization. These appeals bore little fruit. The world held its old opinion that, as Yen- ice chiefly was interested in Oriental commerce, she ought not to rely upon her neighbors to fight for her. And by this time the Keformation had so split up every Catholic country, that its first concern was to stamp out its religious enemies at home. The hatred of Papist for Protestant and of Protestant for Papist far exceeded the hatred of either for Mohammedans. Only Spain and the Pope promised aid. Cyprus itself, besides its small population, was 258 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. not properly organized to furnish an effective army of defense. The feudal government, based on the Crusaders' Assizes, had been retained after Venice took the island. There were a few hundred nobles, a few thousand urban folk ; the rest, part Cypriots, part Copts and Armenians, were ill-treated serfs, with cause enough for hating their masters. Although the islanders must necessarily look to Venice for help against invasion, they nevertheless pushed forward their preparations as ably as could be expected with such material. In the early summer of 1570 the Venetian arma- ment, commanded by Girolamo Zane, sailed down the Adriatic to Zara, where it wasted several weeks. Thence it proceeded to Corfu and was joined by forty-nine Spanish galleys under Gian Andrea Doria and by twelve Papal galleys under Marcanto- nio Colonna. Disputes followed as to plans and instructions; and September had come before the fleet reached Candia. Meanwhile the Turks had captured several of the Cyprus seaports, and were besieging Nicosia and Famagosta. From Nicosia, Niccolo Dandolo sent forth desperate summons for help ; Bragadino, who commanded at Famagosta, was completely shut in ; and the first news he had of the fall of Nicosia was when Dandolo's head was thrown inside his lines by the Turks, who now massed all their forces against Famagosta. Braga- dino fought as long as food and powder lasted; then, at the agonized entreaties of his people, he capitulated (August 18, 1571). Mustapha, the xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 259 Turkish general, offered what appeared to be reason- able terms, in allowing the citizens and the Italian troops to quit the island. But presently his mag- nanimous temper changed. He gave the town up to sack, and took a diabolical revenge on the Vene- tian commanders. He caused Lorenzo Tiepolo to be gibbeted, and Baglioni, Martinengo, and Querini to be hewn to pieces in his presence. Happy they, compared with the gallant Bragadino, who was first mutilated, then hoisted to the yardarm of the tallest galley, so that the Turks might deride him and the captive Venetians might be terrorized ; and after eleven days of unremitted tortures the brave Bragadino, whose courage never flinched, was flayed alive. He died clauntlessly, reciting the Miserere, and calling on Christ to support him. His skin was stuffed with straw, and after Mustapha's min- ions had heaped indignities on it to satiety, it was hung at the peak of a Turkish vessel, which carried it in triumph to Constantinople. The story of the noble defense of Famagosta, of its fall, of Mus- tapha's ferocity, and of the loss of Cyprus traveled slowly through Europe and stamped on the popular imagination a horror of the Turks which remains to this day. By a strange irony, these evil tidings went almost simultaneously with the news of the great Christian victory at Lepanto. In the autumn of 1570 the leaders of the allied fleet, which was to have relieved Cyprus, fell into a hopeless wrangle, and Doria, the Spanish admiral, withdrew. Not until the follow- 260 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. ing summer was another agreement reached, and a larger fleet of 250 ships sailed from Messina in quest of the Turk. On October 7 they discovered him off Lepanto, at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, and after a five hours' battle, during which the result often wavered, the Christians won a magnificent victory. They lost 8000 men ; but they killed 30,000 of the Turks, took '5000 prisoners, and captured 117 galleys. Ali Pasha, the Turkish admiral, was slain during the fight ; Michael Cer- vantes, a soldier on one of the Spanish ships, lost his left arm, but he lived to write a masterpiece which has outlasted all the glories of that day and the grandeur of his Spanish kings. The chief credit of the victory belongs to Sebastiano Venier, the Venetian admiral. Don John of Austria, the bastard half-brother of the King of Spain, who commanded the Spanish fleet, behaved bravely and won military renown which survived his short career. Colonna, the Papal admiral, had his share of the honors. Ten days later, Venice was thrown, into an ecstasy of exultation over the news, and throughout Europe Christians were soon congratu- lating themselves that the Turk had received his deathblow. The battle of Lepanto was the principal sea fight between Actium and Trafalgar ; never was an im- mense victory so squandered. Venier's appeals could not make his allies budge. They refused to hurry to Constantinople and attack the Sultan be- fore he had time to repair his losses. While they xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 261 were wintering inactive, Seliin was working night and day to create a new fleet ; so that by the fol- lowing summer (1572) he had 210 ships in commis- sion, and dared to meet his late victors on the sea. And even now they declined to give battle. Bit- terly did Giacorno Foscarini, Venier's successor as Venetian admiral, inveigh against an alliance which deprived him of his allies' aid and of his own ini- tiative. In the autumn the allied fleet disbanded. Knowing that she could not, single-handed, carry on the war, Venice signed a treaty with the Turks by which she agreed to pay 300,000 ducats' indemnity, besides a tribute of 1500 sequins a year for Zante. Seliin kept Cyprus (March 7, 1573). Little, indeed, had the battle of Lepanto crushed the Ottomite! In 1573 he, and not Venice, was the victor ; in 1683, he was still so powerful that his armies invested Vienna. The truth is that the task of withstand- ing the Turks was out of all proportion to the strength of Venice, and should have been shared by the entire Christian world. But the Crusading age was long past, and Europe was now convulsed by religious discords. The very year, 1572, when the allied fleet might have clinched the victory of Lepanto by one yet greater at Stamboul, saw the French Catholics mas- sacring the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day, and the Spanish Catholics at the point of exter- minating the Protestants in the Low Countries. Venice, surviving from the Medieval World, found the Younger World too strong for her; but she 262 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. met it with a courage worthy of her great tradi- tions. The heroism of Bragadino and his com- rades at Famagosta, the generalship and bravery of Venier at Lepaiito, showed that the race which had produced Dandolos and Pisani and Stenos still bred true; yet no miracle of heroism could avail now. The loss of Cyprus and of one island after another in the ^Egean and Ionian archipelagoes laid bare the weakness of her colonial system, by which she assigned her lands to her patricians and generals to hold by a sort of feudal tenure, throw- ing on them the duty of preserving order. They got what they could from their fiefs, and their sur- plus products swelled the commerce of Venice. No other colonial system has been developed with less cost to the home government. But when an aggressive power like the Turkish invaded the colonies one by one, they had no means of effec- tively warding it off. They had depended on Venice for troops to put down a local revolution; the wars with Solyinan and with Selim proved that she could not protect them against a powerful in- vader. The system at last broke down ; but it had worked successfully for a longer time nearly four hundred years and at less cost than the colonial system of Rome or of Spain or of England. Thus, on the physical side, old Venice found her- self overmatched by the strength of the Younger World. She could no more escape from the mili- tary superiority of the Turks than from the effects xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 263 of the discovery of America. Having made the trial and been worsted, she adjusted herself to the hateful conditions. She determined to keep peace with her enemy against all provocations, so that she might hold her remaining possessions, espe- cially Candia, as long as possible. Yet it was evident that, on the sea as on Terra Firma, she maintained her control by sufferance. CHAPTER XIII SARPI LESS dramatic, but hardly less vital, was the war which the venerable Republic waged with the Ro- man Church during the last half of the sixteenth century. The Roman Church, too, found herself strangely out of place in the Younger World. The religious revolution which swept over Europe at the Reformation completed a process which bears a striking analogy to the political reconstruction which had come about somewhat earlier. Through- out the Middle Age, Roman Catholicism was, in theory, at least, the common faith of Western Christendom; and the Holy Roman Empire was, not less strongly in theory but much more feebly in practice, the common political bond. But the constituents of the Empire began to break away from it and to assert their independence sooner than the constituents of the Roman Church broke away from Rome. Men are warriors and politicians before they are theologians. The concentration of many small states into a few strong nations, with the intensifying of political consciousness which that implied ; the substitution of international for interstate and intercity policies; the growth of 264 CHAP. XIII SARPI 265 national languages, arts, and literatures, banished forever the ideal of political unity as embodied in the Holy Roman Empire. Similarly, the cropping out of heresies, the Great Schism, and finally the Reformation, shattered the ideal of religious unity as embodied by Roman Ca- tholicism. The new units of combination were sects, some large, some small, holding all sorts of doctrines, but broadly classifiable as Romish or Protestant. These new religious combinations did not corre- spond to the new political states, although in the main the Germanic countries adopted Protestantism and the Latin countries held fast to Catholicism. If there had been no political interference spurred on by sectarian fanaticism, it is possible that there would have been a large minority of Protestants in Spain, of Huguenots in France, and of Roman Catholics in England and Holland. But political rulers used the fanaticism of their subjects as the most powerful weapon for strengthening their own dynasties. The more one studies the Reformation, \ the deeper becomes one's impression that political and not religious motives directed it. The Roman Curia, which scoffed at Luther's first attack on Tetzel, the indulgence peddler, as a " mere monkish quarrel," had come by the middle of the century to recognize the imminent peril which threatened its supremacy. The Reformation had spread everywhere north of the Alps ; several countries had seceded to it ; others were wavering ; and some of those which remained Catholic might 266 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. set up a national church and thereby cease to be Roman. Never was the sagacity which has char- acterized the politicians of the Curia so conspicu- ous as at that crisis. At the Council of Trent, far from allowing any whisper of compromise or conciliation, they reaffirmed their dogmas in their most relentless form. They knew well that those who believed at all would believe much as readily as little. Protestants deny the Romish claim of infallibility ; yet each Protestant sect virtually as- sumes that it is itself infallible. The position taken by the Council of Trent was logically invulnerable: the right of the individual soul to worship God without the interposition of ecclesiastical functions must forever be anathema to a church which holds that God has revealed and intrusted to it the only scheme of salvation. Persecution is the legitimate child of infallibility. The heretic must be perse- cuted out of his heresy, that his soul may be saved and that he may not, by his example, corrupt the faithful. By the reassertion of its dogmas and by persecu- tion, the Roman Church strove to check the ravages of the Reformation. The virus of Catholicism had been most copiously secreted in the Spaniards, and as they dominated European politics during most of the sixteenth century, it was inevitable that that virus, rendered still more potent by passing through the Spanish nature, should infect all Catholic ac- tion. Nor was it by chance that the founder of the Jesuits should be a Spaniard. The first move of xra SARPI 267 the politicians of the Curia was to recover, chiefly by the arms of Spain, the territory which had gone over to the Protestants. When they failed in the Low Countries and in England, and the line of de- marcation between Catholics and Protestants was clearly drawn, the Curia put into practice that H policy which it has not yet abandoned of subtly controlling the secular concerns of Catholic coun- tries. If the Reformation had deprived it of half of its religious subjects, it would recoup by dou- bling its hold on the half that remained faithful ; and the plea that in so usurping the Church was simply performing its duty had a logical justifica- tion. If the supreme business of man on earth is to fit himself for heaven, how could Mother Church neglect so to influence secular affairs as to make them also stepping-stones to heaven ? In this way did an institution, which, like the Venetian Repub- lic, had matured in the Middle Age, prepare to defend itself against the hostile conditions of the Modern World : resolutely branding as accursed every agent of human progress, striving to cramp the human race forever in the thirteenth-century mould. Venice, as we have seen, consistently maintained her independence from Rome, even in the days when Alexander III humbled Frederick Barbarossa, and Innocent III made vassals of the Catholic kings. In St. Mark, Venice had an apostle-patron of equal rank with St. Peter ; and in the Patriarch of Grado (who transferred his see to the capital in 268 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 1445) she had a little pope of her own. But while she held herself free ecclesiastically, she accepted without demur the Romish religion. Few people were more devout than hers ; few were less pietistic. She nurtured neither doubters nor fanatics. Im- memorial intercourse with Byzantines and Mo- hammedans had taught her tolerance. Prosperity made her cheerful in her worship. She never mixed spiritual and temporal business. In 1309 she underwent a Papal interdict because of Ferrara; and although she consented two years later to ask for pardon, this in no wise changed her general at- titude of ecclesiastical independence. She insisted that the Patriarch and bishops must be Venetian subjects, elected by the clergy and the Senate, and confirmed by the Pope. The lesser clergy were chosen by the clergy and the people an instance of congregational democracy. In judicial matters the Republic at first allowed the ecclesiastical courts to try criminal cases in which laymen were involved; then by the Concordat of 1344 it was agreed that if a cleric were the offender against a layman, he should be tried by the bishop ; if a cleric were the plaintiff against a layman, the case went to the civil court. Gradually, however, the state came more and more to exercise jurisdiction over all criminal and civil causes. Willingly or not, the Popes acquiesced, because they were too wary to risk, except for a great stake, a rupture with the haughty Republic, which, in any collision, threatened to appeal from the Pope to a council. xm SARPI 269 Many questions were regulated by custom and not by a definite agreement between the Curia and the Signory an uncertainty which left leeway for whichever of the two happened to be the more powerful to encroach. Not until the League of Cambrai did Venice sub- mit to the supremacy of Rome. When her armies had been routed, her provinces torn from her, and her very existence seemed to be in jeopardy, she bought peace from Julius II by accepting the fol- lowing grievous terms : she renounced her appeal to a future council and declared the Pope's excom- munication to be just ; she promised to levy no more tithes or other taxes from the clergy; to refrain from interfering in ecclesiastical nominations; to allow the freedom of the Gulf to Papal subjects ; to promote no undertaking against the Pope; not to give asylum to Papal rebels or refugees ; not to meddle in the affairs of Ferrara ; and to compen- sate monasteries and ecclesiastical foundations for their losses. The very day (February 15, 1509- 10) when the Venetian Signory submitted to these humiliating conditions, the Council of Ten recorded a protest that the compact, having been wrung from them by force, was null and void a stupendous example of the guile which was then everywhere practiced, and nowhere more shame- lessly than in the Papal Curia. The Reformation, by giving Rome new excuses for extending her influence, complicated the situa- tion. Under the pretext of guarding Catholics from 270 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. the contagion of heretics, Rome converted the In- quisition into an instrument for strengthening the Pope's hold ; and she let loose the Jesuits, to under- mine in more reptilian ways the patriotism of the regular clergy and the independence of the lay citi- zens. The Signory could not be fooled in matters purely political, but it could hardly deny that the Church was the proper judge of heresy, even though it suspected that, under cover of religion, the Curia was seeking its own political advantage. Venice resisted as best she could. To prevent "all the real property of this city from falling into the hands of the ecclesiastics," she decreed that nobody should bequeath to them the income of such property for more than two years (December 31, 1536). Later, she forbade the sale of lands and buildings to ecclesiastics without the Senate's permission. She taxed churchmen. She frowned on the erection of new churches. Hav- ing no immediate interest in the religious wars be- yond the Alps, and being by nature tolerant, she gave a lodging to persons whom the Curia did not always approve of. On the whole, however, her relations with Home continued friendly until after the battle of Lepanto. In 1577 Gregory XIII sent the Golden Rose, the special mark of pontifical favor, to Sebastiano Venier on his election as doge. With Gregory's successors there came coolness, recrimination, conflict. By 1600 the Catholic Re- action had shown its ability to check the spread of Protestantism. It no longer feared a surprise. xin SARPI 271 The Papal politicians had grown expert in using the weapons originally forged against Protestant heretics, to secure wealth and power for the Pope in Catholic countries. The baleful alliance between Spain and the Papacy was in full vigor. Out of Spain had come the Inquisition, the armies of Charles V and Philip II, Loyola and his Company of Jesus the stanchest supports of Rome in her struggle with Protestantism : no wonder that the Spanish virus poisoned her system. And although Spain, after the destruction of her Armada in 1588, was declining from leadership in Europe, she pre- ponderated in the Italian Peninsula, where she owned the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, and dictated the policy of the Holy See. By destroying the Venetian Republic, Spain would possess its provinces on Terra Firma ; by humbling it, the Roman Curia would at last gain the upper hand over a people who had haughtily resisted Papal intrusion and had been unseemiugly hospi- table to religious suspects. The Curia moved first by reviving an ancient quarrel over the claim of the bishops of Ceneda to exercise temporal power in that diocese without, or against, the Signory's sanction. The taxation of churchmen, the ordinance permitting the visitation of monasteries, the laws against mortmain, lenience toward heretics, the interference of the state in ecclesiastical appointments, the judicial system in which the secular courts had jurisdiction over clerics, supplied causes enough for fresh exaspera- 272 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tion to a Curia in search of a quarrel. The Repub- lic was inclined to be courteous, even compliant, where her temporal authority was not attacked. When Clement VIII complained against the taxing of the Brescian clergy for the fortifications, the Doge replied that it was reasonable that the clergy should contribute its share for the protection which it received. When, later, the Pope demanded that the English Ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, should be expelled as a heretic, the Doge firmly refused. The election of Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V, in 1605, hurried on a crisis. He had been elected by the consent, perhaps by the doubloons, of Spain, and he soon fell in heartily with the Spanish policy. His prejudice against Venice is illustrated by a conversation he had, as Cardinal, with Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy. "If I were Pope," said Borghese, " I would excommunicate the Si- gnory at the first opportunity." " And if I were Doge/' replied Douato, "I would laugh at your excommunication." Paul had not been Pope long before he carried out his threat. Two ecclesias- tics, Abbot Brandolin and Canon Saraceni, were arrested for abominable crimes, and being Venetian citizens they would naturally be tried and pun- ished by the secular courts. Their guilt was un- questioned, and the Signory contended that it had full jurisdiction. But Paul thought that he saw here his chance to win a final victory for the Church over the State. He sent two briefs to the Siguory, demanding in one the instant surrender of the ac- xm SARPI 273 cused to the ecclesiastical authorities, and in the other the rescinding of the laws against the erec- tion of new churches and against bequests to ecclesiastics. To Donato, who had just been elected Doge, the Papal Nuncio handed the latter brief ; several weeks afterward, he delivered the other. The Signory, understanding the gravity of the situation, appointed Fra Paolo Sarpi consulting theologian to the Repub- lic, at an annual salary of two hundred ducats. Three professors of civil and canon laws Graziani, Ottelio, and Pellegrini were summoned from the University of Padua to assist him. Sarpi is among the world's great men, and so long as mankind reveres its chief benefactors, those who widen its liberty and exalt its righteous- ness, he will have the gratitude of posterity. Born at Venice, on August 14, 1552, he was a deli- cate, study-loving boy. When only fourteen, he entered the Servite Order ; before he was of age, he was professor of theology and reader in canon law and casuistry at Mantua. In 1574 he went to Mi- lan and became a favorite with Cardinal Carlo Bor- romeo, in spite of whose patronage he was charged with heresy because he could not find the " complete Trinity" in the first verse of Genesis! He re- turned to Venice, to teach philosophy in the Ser- vite Monasteiy at St. Fosca ; rose to be Provincial of the Order, and made on its business several jour- neys to Rome. There his character was highly esteemed, even by his opponents ; so that, when a 274 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. slanderer printed a libelous biography of him, Car- dinal Bellarmine said to the Pope : " Holy Father, this book is a tissue of lies. I know Fra Paolo, and I know him as a man of blameless habits. If we were to allow such calumnies to be published, the dishonor would be wholly ours." Later, Bellar- mine warned Sarpi of plots against his life. In 1597 he settled in the Servite Monastery at Venice, and seldom thereafter quitted the city. If we except his younger contemporary, Francis Bacon, he was the most learned man of his time. He had mastered Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, mathe- matics, medicine, anatomy, and botany, besides philosophy and theology. He practiced, not less than Bacon, the inductive method. He had that passion for truth " to know things exactly as they happened " which is the soul of modern science. "Truth," he said, "makes the supersti- tious more obstinate." "I never dare to deny any- thing on the score of impossibility," he remarked, " knowing very well the infinite variety of the works of Nature and of God." He made many original suggestions and inventions, but was care- less of seeking credit for them. "Let us imitate God and Nature," he used to say ; " they give, they do not lend." Shut up in his convent, he might be remembered in our age by only a few as the histo- rian of the Council of Trent, had not the rupture between Venice and the Eoman Curia called him to fill the most conspicuous post in Europe. For the first time since the Reformation that xin SARPI 275 Curia, instigated doubtless by Spanish advisers, resolved to usurp temporal rights in a Catholic state. Sarpi did not underrate the peril nor the principles at stake. He belonged to that noble band of Catholics over whom Dante, like an eagle, soars, who have protested from generation to gen- eration against the worldly policy which perverted the Roman Church from a spiritual to a corrupt political institution. He saw in the Inquisition, in the Jesuits, in the Index, new organs put forth by the Papacy to extend its mundane ambitions. As a lover of virtue, he grieved at the injury this would work to the Church herself. He foresaw the depths of ignorance, superstition, intolerance, and cruelty into which the Catholic nations must sink if the Roman Curia prevailed. Resolutely he ac- cepted the summons of Venice to advise her in this crisis. For once, certainly, Fortune found the indis- pensable man to do a world-broad task. Sarpi's en- dowments were threefold. He surpassed all other Catholic theologians of his time even Bellarmine in knowledge of ecclesiastical law. He excelled in ability to state his points briefly, clearly, unan- swerably. He had a large, poised nature, cheerful, modest, courageous, invincible, which fitted him to support the long strain of such a conflict and to hearten his countrymen. By his advice the Signory replied to the Pope's brief concerning the accused clerics that Popes Gregory XII, Paul II, Innocent VIII, Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, Clement VII, and Paul III had by 276 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. special bulls confirmed the right of the state to try such causes. He urged that the state had likewise the right to make laws to restrict the holding of property by ecclesiastics a right derived not merely from custom but from divine decree ; for God intended the ruler or state to be as independent in temporal affairs as the pontiff was in spiritual affairs. Paul V was angry at this reply, and said to the Venetian cardinals who urged moderation on him, " Your speeches stink of heresy." But even so, he might not have taken the final leap if he had not been egged on by Spanish instigation and by the majority of the cardinals, who, in consistory, vied with one another in denouncing the Venetians. Cardinal Baronio outdid them all. The ministry of Peter, he said, has two parts, one is to feed the lambs, the other is to kill and eat them ; and their slaughter is not cruel, but an act of piety, because, while by it they lose their bodies, they save their souls. In justice to Paul V we must remember that this was the sort of counsel he received from the little ring which controlled the Papal policy. It was counsel which simply in- flamed the already megalomaniac ideas he held of pontifical powers. The triumphs of Hildebrand and of Innocent III would not let him sleep. He issued a monitory, warning Venice that unless she submitted within twenty -four days he would place her under the ban. Venice was not to be terrorized. Suspecting that the Spanish might seize this opportunity to attack xin SAKPI 277 her, she increased her forces on the west and south. To render ineffectual the Interdict, which was issued punctually, she forbade its publication in her do- minions, and threatened to punish any of the clergy who allowed it to interrupt the usual religious offices. One recalcitrant priest found a gibbet set up before his door, and took the hint. Another remarked that he should act according as the Holy Ghost inspired him; but when he was told that the Holy Ghost had already inspired the Ten to hang all who disobeyed, he, too, had a change of heart. The Jesuits, Theatines, Reformed Franciscans, and Capuchins prudently slipped away ; but even with- out the government's strict measures the great body of the Venetian clergy would have been sturdily patriotic, and, if there had been need, many other bodies would have imitated the monks of Chiaravalle, who offered the Senate one hundred thousand ducats toward the war which they thought must follow. The Interdict went into operation about May 10, 1606, but a stranger in the Venetian Republic would hardly have been aware of it. The churches were open as usual, and baptisms, marriages, and funerals were solemnized with the usual rites. The holy festivals were celebrated with increased pomp. Venice intended that her people and the world should see that she did not confound religious affairs with secular, and that in her worship she was loyally Catholic. Pope Paul was greatly per- turbed. His Xuucio brought back to him the remon- 278 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. strance of the Doge, who had said flatly : " We hold your excommunication as naught. See how- much your resolution amounts to, and how much would be left you if others were to follow our ex- ample." The Pope had lost much sleep over the quarrel. Despite his brave show of masterfulness, he listened for the advice of one cardinal and of an- other. The easy rejoinder that Venice was atheis- tical was, of course, made ; but it persuaded no one. The penmen of the Curia set about undermining the Venetian arguments. Sarpi and his colleagues met them point by point. Volunteer pamphleteers rushed into print on both sides. The Curialists, although they had Bellarmine for counsel, fell back on personal abuse, and as they recognized in Sarpi their chief antagonist, they tried to discredit both his morals and his orthodoxy. But Brother Paul cared nothing for the attacks on himself. He knew that he was fighting the world's cause, and he fought it dispassionately, but with immense vigor. He reprinted two forgotten treatises in which the famous doctor, Gerson, declared that the pretension that the Pope was a god, or had all power in heaven and earth, was absurd, and that resistance to Papal injustice was justified. There are occasions, said the magisterial Parisian, when to submit to Papal ex- communication " would be the patience of an ass and the timidity of a hare or a fool." He further trav- ersed the dictum of St. Gregory, that even an un- just sentence imposed by the Pope is to be dreaded. Gerson was a theologian whom the Curia could not xiii SARPI 279 conveniently dismiss as a heretic. Another pam- phlet, by Giovanni Marsilio, pointed out that since Jesus Christ never exercised temporal power on earth, he could never have transmitted it to Peter and his successors ; that the jurisdiction of the metaphorical " keys " is purely spiritual ; that the best authorities agree that ecclesiastics owe their secular privileges to the benevolence of rulers, and not to divine right; and that consequently the Interdict against Venice was illegal. Marsilio's pamphlet was condemned by the Holy Office which, not to waste time, added that all other works con- taining heretical, erroneous, and scandalous propo- sitions, though still unwritten or unpublished, were damned in advance. At this Fra Paolo, who had a keen sense of humor, laughed, saying, "Then if we had taken the thirteenth chapter of Romans, and given it the title Rights of the Venetian Re- public, by a bizarre decree of the Inquisition, St. Paul would become the author of heretical, errone- ous, and scandalous opinions." Fra Paolo gave the full measure of his powers in his Treatise on the Interdict, which circulated rapidly through Italy, and, crossing the Alps, was translated into French and German. The Inquisition at once condemned it and his other works to be burnt, and summoned him to Eome, under pain of excommunication, to stand trial for heresy. He did not go, and the Venetian Senate, to display its approval of him, publicly thanked him for his services, and, in spite of 280 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. his reluctance, increased his stipend to four hun- dred ducats. Meanwhile summer had passed and the autumn was far advanced without any sign of reconcilia- tion. Venice had convinced the world that a Catho- lic people could live for six months under a Papal interdict without suffering any interruption in wor- ship, in commerce, in business, in foreign relations (except with the Curia), or in domestic welfare. She had forever destroyed the prestige of the Kornish taboo which, stripped of its theological wraps, is in essence the same as the taboo the primitive South Sea cannibal draws round persons and places. She had proved the righteousness of her position by argument, by dignified conduct, and by religious decorum. Instead of vituperating, she gave reasons, and allowed the Koman pamphlets to be distributed freely in her empire, although her own pamphlets were burnt by the hangman, and their readers im- prisoned, in the Papal states. Venice had estab- lished once for all the divorce between Church and State, and, more important still, she had shown how, when the Church reached out after secular powers, she could be ignominiously beaten. At Rome, the failure of the Interdict, although unacknowledged, was bitterly felt. The Curia had tried every weapon in its armory threat, denun- ciation, abuse, calumny, curse in vain. It had presumed to wield God Almighty's terrors, but they did not materialize. It had called spirits from the vasty deep, but they would not come. If xin SARPI 281 a pontiff summons all the world to see him coax down thunderbolts out of a clear sky, and no thunderbolts fall, how does he differ from a dis- credited rainmaker, or from the trickster who pre- tends to cause a shower of meteors by whistling ? The only safe rule for theocrats who claim to be partners with the Supernal Powers is never to allow themselves to be put to the test of bring- ing those Powers into action. During the months of increasing mortification, this was dawning on Paul V, who had entered on the struggle with an exaggerated idea of Papal omnipotence and a natu- ral desire to extend the jurisdiction of the Curia. He had commanded the Venetians to call Wrong, Eight, and they had refused : he then pronounced a blight on them in this life and damnation in eternity ; but this had so little affected them here, that they might well assume that it would be equally impotent hereafter. If they could prosper thus without Rome for half a year, why might they not cut adrift from Rome forever ? The charge that they were heretics, Calvinists, Lutherans, de- ceived nobody. What if the other Catholic nations, taking example from Venice, should decide that they too would rid themselves of Papal domineering? The contest had been everywhere eagerly watched. Polemics in each country sprang up to engage in the controversy. But monarchs without exception hoped that Venice would win, because they recog- nized that she was fighting their cause against the Curia. Were she to lose, the insatiate Papal ambi- 282 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. tion would usurp secular authority in Spain, in France, in the Empire, in Hungary. Nevertheless, the Catholic powers did not wish to see the dead- lock prolonged, as out of it there might issue they knew not what political disaster. They instructed their ambassadors at Koine and Venice to urge a reconciliation. Henry IV, of France, who was most solicitous, perhaps because he had most to fear from a rekindling of religious discord among his subjects, undertook to negotiate. But the Republic declined to accept any terms which sug- gested that she had been wrong. The parleying dragged on from November to April, each party skirmishing to save its dignity. The Pope in- sisted that the Signory should withdraw its pro- test before he removed the ban ; but in the end he had to give in. The Republic consented to hand over the two prisoners, who had been the immedi- ate cause of the controversy, to the French am- bassador " as a mark of gratitude to Henry IV for his good offices," but it stated that by this transfer it intended in no wise to prejudice the authority which it claimed to try ecclesiastics. The envoy consigned the ruffians to the Pope's agents. In the matter of bequests and buildings, the Republic conceded nothing, but she consented to the return of the exiled religious orders except the Jesuits. June, 1607, had come round before the restoration of peace. Thus ended the Interdict of Paul V. The victory which Venice won surpassed in lasting effects most xin SARPI 283 of the victories which have been won for human progress on the battlefield. In some respects it was more significant than the Reformation ; for it was natural that when large bodies of Christians broke away from Roman Catholicism, they should keep out Papal interference from their temporal affairs. But Venice was the first to demonstrate that a Catholic state could maintain its indepen- dence in secular matters, in the face of the most awful terrors which the Church could conjure against it. The interdicts of 1309 and 1509 had brought the Republic to terms because they were backed up by superior physical force ; the interdict of 1606 failed because Paul V had no such backing. In other words, the interdict, which pretended to be a spiritual weapon, was proved worthless unless it were accompanied by the common material weapon, as ancient as Cain's brute force. More- over, by 1606 there had grown up a public opinion so far purged of superstition, that it demanded even from the Pope tangible proof of the justice of his claims. Venice had fought the battle against clerical en- croachment, a battle which Catholic monarchs have had to fight over and over again since 1607. The blight which overtook Spain, the frightful moral and political leprosy which infected Xaples under the Bourbons, the senile gangrene of which the Papal- states were slowly rotting down to 1870, show what happens to countries where Clericals insinuate their way into the schools, the law courts, 284 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. and the council chambers. Sarpi did his work so thoroughly that his arguments will always be the best weapons for any state whose rights are invaded by ecclesiastical usurpers of whatever creed. Beaten in the open, the Jesuits plotted secretly to be avenged on the Servite friar. No proof can be given, of course, that their conspiracy was re- vealed to the Pope, although if it had been, there is little reason to suppose that he would have frowned upon it. The massacre of St. Bartholomew and the murder of William of Orange were too frankly rejoiced over in the Vatican to permit the belief that the assassination of Sarpi would not have been winked at. As he was returning to his convent on October 25, 1607, three villains laid upon him and his attendants, left him for dead, and escaped. He was taken to his cell, apparently dying ; but his characteristic humor did not desert him. Asking to see the dagger with which he had been stabbed, he fingered its point and said, " I recognize the Eoman style" Thanks to his 'com- posure and to devoted nursing, he recovered. The Senate passed a law making any attempt on his person an act of treason, and for his safety it besought him to remove to a palace at St. Mark's, and to accept a bodyguard ; but he would not quit S. Fosca, and consented only to the protection of a covered way from the cloister to his gondola. His assassins took refuge in the Papal states, where they were welcomed with rewards. The Curia set subtler snares for him and for his associates in the xra SARPI 285 campaign of the Interdict, by holding out promises of forgiveness and promotion if they would go to Rome. Sarpi himself was too wary to be caught ; but a Franciscan, Manfredi, went with a safe- conduct. After he had been allowed to live in Rome undisturbed for nearly two years, he was suddenly seized by the Holy Office, condemned, hanged, and burnt. When Sarpi heard of it, he said laconically, "I know not what judgment to form : a safe-conduct and a pyre." All efforts to lure him out of Venice failed, as did other plots against his life. He lived cloistered but unceasingly busy ; in constant consultation on matters of state ; studious throughout the whole domain of learning; experimenting in science, writing his history, and fulfilling without repose his religious duties. Amid the veneration of all classes of his countrymen he grew old. Seldom has a world-hero enjoyed like him so unclouded a popularity. His deserts were great, but without his great nature, they might not have saved him from envy. In their appreciation of Sarpi, as in their devotion to Daniel Manin two centuries later, the Venetians revealed the inherent nobleness of their race. All through 1622 Sarpi's health broke visibly, and with the coming of winter, a mortal illness gained on him apace. He lost appetite, strength, sleep; and of his many intellectual interests, he held only to mathematics. Yet he would not rest from his official work. " My office is to serve and 286 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. not to live," he said ; " and every one dies at his work." " Popes die ; shall not I, a friar, die too ? " Often he would say to his assistants, " Let us make haste, for we are at the end of the day's stint." Nothing troubled his elemental serenity; for him time and eternity were one. On January 13, 1623, although he seemed to be dying, he persisted in rising and in dressing him- self. When the convent cook urged him to take a meat broth, in spite of its being a fast day, he said playfully, " Fra Cosimo, is this the way you treat your friends, causing them to spoil their Fridays ? " The next day he said to the brothers, who could not hold back their grief, " I have consoled you as much as I could ; now it is your turn to keep me cheerful." The Senate sent for Fra Fulgenzio, Sarpi's chosen disciple, and asked for news. " He is at the last gasp," replied Fra Fulgenzio. " And his mind ? " " As clear as if he were well." The Senate accordingly submitted in writing three im- portant questions, on which they wished to "have their dying adviser's opinions, and he dictated the replies. When the physician told him that the end was near, he smiled and said, "Blessed be God; what pleases Him pleases me : with His aid, we will perform well even this last act." From time to time he became unconscious. "Come let us go whither God calls us ; " he was heard murmuring amid his prayers. Or his thought would revert to his chief earthly concern : " Let us go to St. Mark's, for it is late. ... I have much to do ! " Hearing xm SAKPI 287 the bell strike eight, he called out, "It is eight o'clock. Hurry if you wish to give me what the doctor ordered." And when the muscatel was brought, he sipped it and put it away in disgust. A little later, he called for Fra Fulgenzio, em- braced and kissed him, and bade him go : " Away ! Stay here no longer to see me in this state it is not right ! Go you to sleep, and I will go to God from whom we are come." Fra Fulgenzio obeyed ; but in a little while he returned with the other friars, who knelt by the bedside and repeated the prayers for the dying. Fra Paolo whispered the words after them, strove to cross his hands over his breast, and fixed his eyes on a crucifix. Just at the end he exclaimed, " Esto perpetual May she endure for- ever ! " True Venetian that he was, his last thought was of Venice. (January 15, 1623.) His passing caused a national bereavement. The Senate ordered a state funeral in his honor, and bade their ambassadors abroad to report Sarpi's death to the monarchs of Europe. A memorial bust was decreed, but when the Papal Nuncio an- nounced that the Curia would regard this as an affront, the Senate, remembering that Urban VIII, who was now Pope, as Cardinal Barberini had de- clared that " whoever would assassinate Sarpi would deserve God's grace," timidly let the project drop. To stir up another feud with Rome over something unessential, seemed foolish. And after all, as Renier Zeno wisely reminded them, Sarpi's monument was imperishably written in the annals of Venice. 288 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. The enmity of Paul V and the Interdict have usually been regarded as episodes in the long at- tempt of Spain to destroy the Venetian Republic. But for Venice and the doughty Dukes of Savoy, the Spanish supremacy would have overlapped the Peninsula. Spanish influences controlled the Curia and drove it, under the plea of religion, into its conflict with Venice. Sarpi called the league of the Curia and the Spaniards Diacatholicon ; as if the wholesome and beautiful spirit of Catholicism had been distilled away, leaving only a venom, which manifested itself in Jesuitry, in the Inquisition, in mundane ambition, and in corrupt politics. Venice lived in dread of this secret league. When Spain attached Charles Emanuel she subsidized him ; and at every point she had spies on the alert to give warning of danger. She knew that the Duke of Ossuna, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, would miss no chance to injure her, and that Don Pedro de Toledo, the Spanish Governor at Milan, would march into her territory at the first signal. She did not at first suspect that the Spanish envoy in her own city, the Marquis of Bedinar, was the head of the conspiracy against her. Spies breed traitors, if they be not different aspects of the same base- ness. Jacques Pierre, a French corsair, who had been in Ossuna's pay, began to whisper to the Venetian ambassadors at Rome and at Naples hints of a great plot, and protestations of his own desire to serve the Republic. Cautious at first, the ambas- sadors finally concluded that, whether his story xra SARPI 289 were true or not, it would be well to employ Pierre, who forthwith went to Venice and quietly gathered round him a coterie of similar adventurers. They held the most secret communication with the Mar- quis of Bedmar, and with Ossuna and Toledo, who fell into the trap. They planned that on Ascen- sion Day, 1618, when the whole city had gone to witness the Marriage of the Adriatic, the conspira- tors should blow up the Arsenal, seize the Ducal Palace and other public buildings, plunder the Mint, start fires in all directions, and then slay the holiday-makers as they returned panic-stricken from the Lido. Some eighteen hundred soldiers were said to be enrolled; a fleet of Neapolitan ships, laden with Ossuna's troops, was to appear at the proper moment and deal the finishing stroke. Nothing seemed easier. But on April 9 the Ten received an anonymous telltale letter. Shortly afterward, an informer put them on the track of the ringleaders, and one morning in May, Venetians wondered who the three wretches were, dangling from the gibbet in the Piaz- zetta. The low inns were quickly emptied of their dregs, who knew at that first arrest that their game was up, and rushed landward or seaward to save themselves. When the great plot leaked out, Bedniar, the Spanish ambassador, fearing an out- burst of popular rage, although the Senate set a guard about his palace, withdrew to Milan. As the details came to be understood, Venice vibrated be- tween consternation and wrath. The government 290 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. would gladly have heeded the general demand for retribution, but it realized that proof of a con- spiracy to which a foreign ambassador was a party is hard to establish. Sarpi, when consulted, advised that " a prudent silence shall be maintained, for they can never publish to the world the particulars of a plot which exists only in the intention of its pro- moters, and has reached no overt act." Even so, Europe showed how it regarded the Spaniards by believing that the plot was a fact. The Gunpowder Plot in England was too recent for men to have forgotten the depths to which Romish and Spanish malevolence would burrow. The worst symptom of the Bedmar conspiracy was the unearthing of a small number of nobles willing to join foreigners in an attempt to destroy their country. Whether it were disaffection due to envy of the dominant party in the oligarchy, or poverty, which laid them open to Spanish gold, the existence of even a few score traitors indicated an ominous decay in patriotism. The ever vigilant Ten redoubled their watchfulness, and succeeded, by their network of spies, police, and bravi, in bring- ing all the traitorous purposes to naught. In 1620 they learned that Giambattista Bragadin, a penni- less patrician, was selling State secrets to the Spanish ambassador, and they speedily hanged him. Their precautions might often be unnecessary, but they never fell short. Once, indeed, their sus- picions led them to commit an act of irreparable injustice. xin SARPI 291 Antonio Foscarini, a patrician, went in 1609 as Venetian envoy to England. Discovering that the contents of his despatches were being revealed to other ambassadors, he discharged his secretary, Scarainelli, and engaged one Muscorno instead. Mus- corno was a charming, lively rogue, popular at the English court, a pet even of the English queen, his villainy not yet suspected. But he broke at last with his chief, who refused him some request. Muscorno vowed vengeance, and in due season he printed a book purporting to give the sayings and doings of Foscarini. The ambassador had been sufficiently unguarded in his speech and lavish in his style to lend color to some of the slanders. The Senate recalled him, but after a minute investigation, ac- quitted him. Muscorno paid for his calumnies with only two years in prison. Still the shadow of sus- picion hung over the luckless Foscarini. New in- formers whispered against him that he frequented the villa of the Countess of Arundel, whom he had known in England, and that there he connived with foreign diplomats. One evening he was seized, tried, condemned, and before the following daybreak he was strangled (April 20, 21, 1622). Lady Arundel, escorted by Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador, had an audience of the Signory, to whom she denounced as infamous the implication that her house was a meeting-place for conspirators, and declared that she had spoken with Foscarini only once in a year and a half. Less than four months after Foscarini's execution, a wretch 292 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, xm named Vano, who had been the principal witness against him, confessed that the accusation was a lie. The Ten, by a public statement of error, by an honor- able funeral and a monument, made what reparation they could to the memory of their victim. CHAPTER XIV DECLINE AND FALL IN resisting the Interdict, Venice served the cause of liberty through all future years ; in circumvent- ing the Spanish conspiracy, she proved that some of the vigor of her prime still remained to her. It was a brave thing to see a comparatively small state overcome the leagued malice of the Papacy and Spain; a rare thing to see a state in a life-or- death crisis turn for guidance to its wisest man ! Venice was saved, but nothing could hide the fact that she was become, through the fatal transforma- tion of Europe, a power of hardly second rank. The great stream of progress set henceforth north of the Alps, where the hopes of the race seemed to be bound up in the growth of the Teutonic nations, and of France, which alone counted among the Latin peoples. For two hundred and fifty years Italy, like an odalisk among contending Eastern sultans, was to be the spoil of one foreign con- queror after another. To escape this doom was the anxiety of Venice during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even before Sarpi died, Central Europe was torn by the Thirty Years' War, throughout which the 293 294 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. Eepublic steadfastly maintained her neutrality. Several times she offered to mediate, and the final negotiations for peace were partly brought about by her diplomats. To be the friend of everybody except Spain and the Turk was the role she strove to play. The Interdict had strengthened her relations with England ; a little later she drew near to Holland ; and when the genius of the House of Vasa raised Sweden to a commanding position, she counted Sweden among her wellwishers. But only indirectly could these distant states aid her. The real difficulty lay in keeping on good terms with powerful neighbors, who coveted her territory. She joined France and Savoy in the war against Spain over the Valtelline, but got nothing in return for her large outlay ; unless preventing the Spaniards from securing more than they had grasped at were a compensation. All the while the Eepublic knew that her chief peril lay with the Turk, and without waiving her dignity she took care not to provoke a conflict. The position was ticklish, for her traders fre- quented many parts of the Ottoman Empire and her colonies bounded those of the Turk, facts which gave endless occasions for petty disputes, any of which might flare up in a general quarrel. With the decline of Venetian commerce, piracy flourished in the Adriatic and through the Mediterranean. The Turks nominally discountenanced the pirates, but actually they often stood in with them. From Algiers and Tripoli, from Dalinatia and the eastern xiv DECLINE AND FALL 295 coast of Italy, the corsairs set out on their sea forays. The Knights of Malta, descended from zealous Crusaders, made a business of preying on Mussul- man vessels, and equaled their Barbary rivals in daring and crime. Through them it was that the long-dreaded catastrophe occurred. In 1644 a squadron of Maltese pirates overtook some Turkish ships carrying pilgrims to Mecca, captured them after a stout resistance, and sailed westward with their booty. It happened that among the passengers were thirty of the Sultan's harem, including his favorite wife. The Maltese on their voyage homeward touched for water and provisions at several of the smaller Candian ports, where they set free some Greeks whom they had found on the Turkish ships. When the news reached Constantinople, Sultan Ibrahim flew into a towering rage, and vowed the destruction of the Maltese; but his wrath soon turned against the Venetians, whom he accused of instigating the pi- rates. Soranzo, the bailo at Constantinople, denied the charge, declaring that the Maltese landed in Candia quite unexpectedly, and had been ordered away at once. The Sultan pretended to be appeased, but he pushed forward the equipment of a vast armament with which, it was announced, he meant to annihilate Malta. The Venetians, suspecting evil, made preparations to defend Candia. That great island, governed by vassals who ground down the people and caused many bitter rebellions, had been the most troublesome of all her 296 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. possessions. The natives could not be beaten out of their love of liberty ; and gradually the descend- ants of the Venetian colonists also clamored for in- dependence. Candia was to Venice what Ireland has been to England ; but, as pride had long for- bidden her to give it up, so now, when it was threatened by the Turk, and its inhabitants Avere on friendly terms with the mother country, honor not less than pride forbade her to abandon it. The island is two hundred and fifty miles long, and so narrow that in several places it is only fifteen miles across. Mountains cut it up into isolated districts. Its cities, Canea, Candia, Spinalonga, Suda, lie embayed along the northern coast. As it would have been impossible to protect the five hundred miles of seaboard, defensive measures were concen- trated on the cities, certain to be the enemy's ob- jective. Venice sent twenty-five hundred troops under Andrea Cornaro, the proveditor, equipped a fleet, gave the command of the land force to Gonzaga and Degenfeld, a northern soldier, and recruited mercenaries in the Archipelago. On April 30, 1645, the Turkish fleet of four hun- dred sail, with fifty thousand troops, left the Bos- phorus, ostensibly to conquer Malta. On June 23 it appeared off Canea. The Turks began without delay to besiege the city, which surrendered after a two months' defense (August 22). Italy had already taken alarm at the prospect of another Turkish invasion, and the Pope, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the King of Naples, and the Maltese xiv DECLINE AND FALL 297 furnished each a few galleys to act with the Vene- tians ; but these allies, as usual, worked at cross purposes and accomplished little. The Turks inferred from the ease with which they captured Canea, not less than from the apparent incompe- tence of the Venetian commanders, that they should find the whole island an easy prey. They were soon undeceived. 6iagio Zuliani blew up the fort of S. Teodoro, himself, garrison and all, rather than capitulate : and when the Turkish pasha called on Suda to surrender, Minotti and Malipiero, who commanded there, replied : " The fortress is not ours, nor can we dispose of it ; but the Doge is master, and he has intrusted to us its defense, which we shall maintain to the last breath ; so come on whenever you choose, for we are ready to welcome you." In their courage, these men truly represented Venice. When the winter season put a stop to active operations, the Turks sat down before Candia, the capital city, in the sullen deter- mination to starve it out. Venice had now to decide whether to prosecute the war or to buy peace by ceding the island. Few voices spoke for peace, although nobody was deceived as to the magnitude of the struggle ahead. The first year's demands had exhausted the treasury. Interest at seven per cent, showed how the public credit was shaken. To raise cash, the Signory adopted a desperate means : it sold offices to the highest bidder, and admitted to the ranks of the nobility any Venetian who maintained one thousand 298 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. soldiers for one year, or paid the equivalent, sixty thousand ducats. 1 Even provincials, by contribut- ing seventy thousand ducats, could see their names inscribed in the Golden Book. So largely Avas this honor coveted, that some seventy families opened their purses, and the treasury received seven mil- lion ducats. That this transaction jars upon us measures the high estimation we are bound to feel for the dignity of Venice; in other states, such traffic would have occasioned no shock. For cen- turies, the Papacy had been cankered with simony bishops' mitres, cardinals' hats, the pontiff's tiara itself, being freely bought and sold. Even to-day the British peerage is replenished by persons whose first qualification is wealth, and in America lavish subscribers to campaign funds are requited with cabinet offices and ambassadorships. The Prime Minister who creates batches of peers to carry a vote in the House of Lords, or the President who doles out honors for dollars, has certainly no such extenuation to offer as the Venetian Signory had in 1646 : yet one remembers that at another crisis, still more desperate, Venetian patriotism pre- vailed over private ambition, and all citizens, noble* or gentle, poured their wealth into the treasury ; but in 1646 the spirit of 1379 had passed away. We must not, however, be unjust. For Venice 1 " But this course is used with a reservation always," says Howell, writing contemporaneously, " that merit must concur with money, so that it is not the highest bidder that carries it " (p. 53). xiv DECLINE AND FALL 299 pushed on this great Candian War with mettle worthy of the days of her unabated glory. Before hostilities reopened in 1646, she had strengthened her forces in Candia, added new ships to her fleets, prepared to extend the war in Dalmatia, and forti- fied Malamocco and the Lido against a possible naval attack. She despatched her agents into every court in Europe, and even to Persia, in the hope of rousing a general crusade. Unfortunately for her, the European situation almost assured the Turk that he need fear no Christian alliance. England was torn by civil war, and France was involved in the interminable struggle which had convulsed Central Europe since 1618. Nothing daunted, Venice singly met the enemy when spring came. Little did either combatant foresee that it would take a quarter of a century to end the struggle. We cannot describe piecemeal twenty-five years of fighting ; such a chronicle would be sad to read, and tedious. The Turks proposed to reduce the city of Candia by blockade and siege. The Vene- tians strove to keep the city provisioned, and by blockading the Dardanelles to prevent stores or reinforcements for the Turkish army in Crete from passing through. As a further diversion, she carried on a guerrilla fight in Dalmatia. Year by year the contest fluctuated round these three objects. The Venetians won some splendid victo- ries, but they could not dislodge the Turks from Candia, and by a defeat, or failure to strike at the opportune moment, they more than once lost what 300 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. promised to be a telling advantage in the Levant. In 1648 the Kepublic sounded the Porte as to terms of peace, but when she learned that the cession of Candia was the first demand, she declined to ne- gotiate. Ten years later the Turks offered to end the war on the same terms, and were rejected. Venice sought everywhere for help. To placate the Pope, she consented to the return of the Jesuits (1657). She urged the Cossacks of the Don to in- vade Turkey. She cherished hopes that the Magyars might break through the Balkans and threaten Con- stantinople by land. The magnificent resistance of Candia did, in truth, stir the admiration of the Christian world, although it failed, through the per- versity of foreign politicians, to call the needed allies to the rescue. One imagines that the first question put to newsbringers in those days was, " Does Candia still hold out ? " Twice, indeed, large bodies of French volunteers landed on the island and expected by a single brilliant stroke to destroy the Turkish army and win eternal fame. But both times they were quickly worsted, and lacking perseverance they sailed away. Although heroism is the commonplace of war, yet we cannot pass over unmentioned some of the heroic deeds of the Venetians in this gigantic struggle. In 1647 a fierce wind blew Tommaso Morosini out of his course to Negropont, where the Turkish fleet lay. Morosini had only a single galley, the Turks had forty-five, yet he did not flinch. He cannonaded the enemy until they came xiv DECLINE AND FALL 301 to close quarters ; then he fought them with Greek fire. At last they boarded, and he was struck down; still his men would not yield, and before long the whole Venetian fleet, drawn to the scene by the firing, put the Turks to flight. Since Sir Richard Grenville in the Revenge dared the Span- ish galleons at Flores, such valor had had no par- allel. The same spirit upheld the Venetians on shore. When a Turkish mine exploded at Candia, and an officer rushed to Luigi Moceuigo, the Cap- tain-General, with the cry, " All is lost ! " Mocenigo said : " Well, then, we will die sword in hand. Let whoever is not a coward, follow me ! " He repulsed the onslaught of the enemy, and, in the words of Romanin, " cost the Turks twenty years of war." Another Mocenigo Lazzaro displayed similar resolution ; he was running the Turkish batteries in the Dardanelles on an expedition against Con- stantinople itself, when the magazine on his ship exploded and he was killed by a falling spar. His death checked an enterprise which might have turned the fortunes of the contest. Splendid, too, were the exploits of Francesco Morosini, the last of the Venetian commanders who combined genius for generalship with flawless personal bravery. But the Turks were equally brave. They had large reserves to draw fresh troops from, and being a nation whose first industry was war, they suffered less than the Venetians from the impoverishment of war. Above all, they could not be driven from their positions in Crete. In 1667 they drew their siege 302 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. lines still nearer to the city of Candia and carried on a vigorous bombardment. The earth was honey- combed with mines and countermines. In less than six months the Venetians made 17 sorties, repelled 32 assaults, sprang 618 mines, lost 3600 men, and killed (by their own estimate) 20,000 Turks. The next year twelve regiments of French under the Duke de La Feuillade and others came to the island. They would not listen to Morosini's advice, and having been routed in an ill-judged sally, they departed. The Venetians, despite their herculean efforts, were surely failing. In 1669, having sur- prised and destroyed a Turkish fleet, Morosini used his victory as a lever for moving the vizier to make peace. On September 6 they signed the treaty by which the Sultan received the city of Candia and the rest of the island, except the ports of Carabusa, Suda, and Spinalonga, and the Venetians were to withdraw with 328 cannon, their troops, munitions, and holy vessels. On September 26, 1669, they evacuated the capital, 4000 of whose inhabitants embarked with them for the mother country. Thus ended one of the most obstinate of wars one so prolonged that many of the soldiers who saw its close were not born when it began. It cost Venice 126,000,000 ducats, equivalent in purchasing power to a billion and half dollars to-day. Her loss in men was heavy, though far smaller than that of the Turks, 108,000 of whom perished in the siege of Candia alone. After dazzling the world by her magnificent defense, she came out of the ordeal a xiv DECLINE AND FALL 303 broken power. Negropont had been wrested from her in 1470, Cyprus in 1571, and now Candia in 1669 ; by these stages was her empire in the Orient shorn. Henceforth she must content herself with the Adriatic. In making peace without consulting the Sen- ate, Morosini disobeyed precedent, for which some sticklers would have impeached him; but the majority of the Great Council understood well enough that he had acted wisely, and they absolved him. The Republic set about recuperating her strength. But the loss of Candia rankled. The Turks having been driven back from Vienna (1683), the farthest point they were destined to reach in their westward invasion, the Venetians deemed it safe to join the league against them (1684). Moro- sini carried the war into Greece, and during the first summer (1685) he captured Coron and conquered the province of Maina; the next year his lieutenant, Konigsmark, took Modon and Nauplia ; in 1687 he added the rest of the Peloponnese, except the for- tress of Malvasia, to his conquests, and the Venetian Senate decreed that a bronze bust of him, bearing the inscription, "Francesco Maurosceno Peloponne- s?'orco," should be placed in the Sala dello Scrutinio. In his following campaign he conquered Athens. During the bombardment a Venetian shell burst in the Parthenon, where the Turks stored their powder, and caused an explosion which shattered the temple. It is one of the ironies of history, that the general of the most beautiful of modern cities 304 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. should have been the instrument to destroy the most beautiful building of antiquity ! " Alas, Athens ! " Morosini is said to have exclaimed, as he saw the havoc his guns had made, "cradle of the arts, how art thou now brought low ! " He was still prosecuting the war, when he received word that he had been elected doge. On going home to be crowned, his countrymen gave him an overwhelm- ing welcome ; for they felt that his victories more than compensated for the loss of Crete. With an access of their old-time energy they set about organizing a government, commerce, and edu- cation in the Morea ; and they worked so efficiently that the population doubled in the course of a few years. But the Turks would not stay quiet long, and when other Venetian commanders had failed in beating them, Morosini himself was chosen Captain- General and took the field a breach of precedent which the jealous Signory had not permitted for many hundred years. He reached the Morea in the summer, and after an unimportant campaign he went into winter quarters at Nauplia. There he died January 9, 1694. With Francesco Morosini expired the last of the great Venetians. By the Peace of Carlowitz, which Prince Eugene's victory at Zenta (September 11, 1697) forced the Sultan to accept, the Republic was formally recognized as mistress of the Morea (1698). She enjoyed only a brief tenure, however, for in 1716 the Turks won it back, with the Candian ports which she had clung to, and the Peace of Passarovitz (1718) confirmed xiv DECLINE AND FALL 305 the Turks in their conquest. Never again did the Republic take part in negotiations of European scope. The Candian War and the conquest of the Morea redeem the old age of Venice from insignificance. It was fitting that she who " once held the gorgeous East in fee" should defend the modern world, the world which had abandoned her, from the last dangerous onset of the Ottomans. That effort drained her lifeblood, but it also crippled the Turk beyond recovery. It let men see that neither lux- ury, nor the disillusions and timidity of old age, could wholly quench that "sense of honor which had been hers for a thousand years. And in the career of Morosini the Peloponnesian, patriot, hero, and doge, the latest Venetians seemed to be linked with the earlier, with the generations which had followed Orseolo the Great, and Michiel, and En- rico Dandolo, before the Ten and the Three had reduced the Doge to a figurehead. In that after- glow of heroism and that reversion to the practice of her glorious prime, she fulfilled her destiny. During the eighteenth century, after the Peace of Passarovitz, Venice had little external history. She was obliged to chastise the corsairs of Dulcigno who harassed her merchantmen in the Adriatic, and it was her admiral, Angelo Emo, who cleansed the seas of the Algerine pirates (1784-92). She dared to risk a rupture with Benedict XIV over his illegal granting of indulgences. She undertook the con- struction along the lidi of a sea wall which then 306 had hardly a rival in magnitude. By commercial treaties, and by economic experiments, she tried to revive her prosperity. As the century wore on, there was indeed a little stir of new life, when the ideas which begot the French Revolution dropped seedwise into receptive minds. But her power of initiative had vanished. Some historians discover in the internal affairs of the last two centimes a definite effort to modify the organic structure of the Republic. The Great Council and the Ten with their offshoot, the Three, were in constant antagonism, for the Ten and the Three held themselves above their nominal master, the Great Council. Having the police work of the state in their charge, they could not be popu- lar policemen never are. The system of espio- nage, by which they got information of the most trivial affairs, was not the less odious for being accepted as necessary. Above all, the Ten were held responsible for the division of the aristocracy into a higher and a lower class, wealth being the test. It became the practice, if it were not actually the law, to close the great offices to the poor nobles ; for only the rich could maintain the requisite pomp and escape the suspicion of taking bribes. After 1500, when Venetian commerce began to decline, the number of poor nobles multiplied. These Bar- nabotti, as they were called, still had their seats in the Great Council, but, as the power of the Ten increased, they exercised less and less influence on the government, until it came to pass that they xiv DECLINE AND FALL 307 could not prevent the enacting of laws against themselves. In insisting on wealth as the basis of the oligar- chy, the Ten followed the tradition of the Repub- lic. A state controlled by pauper patricians would be ridiculous. The problem in every country ruled by a privileged class has been how to guard against the deterioration of that class, how to slough off its incompetent or unlucky members, and it has never been successfully solved ; for by the very constitution of such countries, these undesirable members cannot be deprived of the position which they owe to the accident of birth. The Ten had to keep the patriciate from becoming through its poor relations despicable in the eyes of the common people ; it had also to secure the ablest public ser- vants ; but after the discrimination between the rich and the poor nobles was practiced, and a few great families constituted the state, much more after rich merchants could buy their way into the Golden Book, it was difficult to parry the charge of the malcontents that wealth and not patriotism was the cardinal qual- ification in a Venetian noble. The poor, as happens everywhere, bred freely, so that their contingent in the Great Council constantly increased, and their sense of wrongs was proportionately sharpened. The first clash between the Great Council and the Ten occurred in 1582, when the Council refused to confirm a candidate whom the Ten nominated to its Junta. Forty years later the execution of Antonio Foscarini, quickly followed by proofs of his inno- 308 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. cence, shocked and alarmed everybody. That the Ten should punish swiftly, was taken for granted ; that they should not punish 011 an uncertainty, was presupposed: if they blundered so terribly with Foscarini, who was safe? Minds were thus inflamed when Kenier Zeno re- turned from an embassy to Koine and was elected to the Ducal Council (1624). He belonged in the esti- mation of his enemies to that type of reformers who have a boundless capacity for irritating and little for persuading men who, were they gatekeepers of heaven, would see a stampede of aspirants to sainthood turn in the other direction. Yet, withal, Zeno had amazing courage, pertinacity, and a just cause. A difference of opinion quickly arose be- tween him and Doge Contarini; he was adjudged guilty of disrespect to his Serenity, and banished for a year. In a few months he came back, cov- ered with popularity, and was chosen one of the Ten. He at once opened fire on the Doge, of whose sons one had recently accepted a cardinal's hat, and two others had been made Senators. Zeno rightly de- clared that this was an infringement on the ducal promission ; and when his colleagues tried to sup- press him, the Great Council backed him up. The Doge protested that if he had transgressed the law, he had done so unintentionally. Assassins waylaid Zeno, and wounded him severely. On his recovery, he renewed his agitation. The Great Council again elected him to the Ten, who warned him that if he attempted to reopen the quarrel, he should suffer. xiv DECLINE AND FALL 309 Nothing daunted, he addressed the Great Council at its next meeting. One of his opponents told him, " This Republic is such that it will tolerate no Caesars " ; but the taunt failed, because Zeno made it clear that he, like Brutus, was fighting for old-time freedom, which despots had robbed Venice of. His allusions to the Doge brought a sharp rejoinder from that dignitary. The meeting closed in a hubbub. That same day the Ten deliberated as to arresting Zeno, but thinking that imprudent, they ordered him to keep in retreat ; a few days later, they de- creed his exile. Popular excitement now rose so high against them that they wavered, and the Great Council annulled the decrees by nearly three votes to one (out of 1146 voting). Zeno appeared at the next meeting of the Great Council and urged so vehemently the need of reform, that a commission of five " correctors " was pres- ently chosen to revise the capitularies of all the councils. The commissioners disagreed on several points, and the Great Council finally voted that it alone had authority over all branches of the govern- ment ; it conceded, nevertheless, to the Ten juris- diction over the patriciate, on the ground that the conduct of the nobles directly concerned the State. The efforts of Zeno, of whom after 1628 we hear no more, came to naught; but that one man should raise such a storm, shows that individual courage still counted in that rigid body. The truth is that any attempt to convert the Signory into a repre- sentative government after the English pattern 310 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. would have run counter to the genius of the Vene- tians, and to their practices for five hundred years. After Zeno had his quietus, the poor nobles kept on multiplying and grumbling, and the Ten continued in very nearly their old course. In 1761 a silly affair let loose the latent hatred of the Barnabotti. A lady of Brescia, whose mil- liner had not furnished coifs that suited her, per- suaded Angelo Querini, a Senator with whom she was intimate, to cause the milliner to be expelled from Venice. The victim of this tyranny appealed to the Inquisitors of State, who revoked the order. Querini burst into rage against their arbitrariness ; but when they resolved to arrest and deport him, the Great Council took his side. Indignation against the Three, and their superiors, the Ten, ran so strong that a new commission of correctors had to be appointed. Their report caused an outburst in the Great Council, but again the majority passed a vote of confidence in the Ten and the Three. The instinct of the nobility recognized that, in spite of their tyranny, they were indispensable ; and the common people rejoiced to see them upheld, as the only powers that dared to keep the insolent patricians in check. A little later, when Giorgio Pisani and Carlo Contarini, imbued with a sense of the decadence of the Eepublic, advocated reforms, the police escorted them out of the capital. The ancient organism could not readjust itself to new conditions, nor even tolerate the annoyance of having reforms suggested. Historians commonly xiv DECLINE AND FALL 311 linger over the last century of the life of Venice, as if for the satisfaction of pointing a moral. After the record of a thousand years of glory, the con- trast of decadence, of exhaustion from dissipation, of the sceptre dropping from the vice-enfeebled grasp, is too tempting for the moralist to pass by. Sudden extinction would have been far less tragic ; but Fate does not grant that to a whole people. The Queen of the Adriatic during those last dec- ades lured the pleasure seekers of the world to her. She had reduced voluptuousness to a fine art. The serenades, the balls, and masquerades at the casi- nos, the incessant gambling at the Kidotto, the luxu- rious country life in the villas along the Brenta, the sumptuous apparel and stately ceremonies, the conversazioni, the banquets, the mirth not wholly forced, go on from year to year. One gets the best of it in Goldoni's comedies. Life has become all comedy, too light to warrant serious comment. Morals have disappeared, and in their stead we have manners insincere, superficial, yet full of grace. Manners permit all sins, so long as the sin- ner does not shock good taste. The profession of courtesan, too long honored in Venice, and formerly restricted to a single class, was now practiced by all classes. Family ties among the patricians had grown so perilously slack that marriage did not become obsolete, only because it was necessary for propagating a legitimate heir ; that achieved, conjugal relations ceased by mutual consent. The patrician husband kept his mistresses, the wife 312 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. had her permanent dcisbeo and her casual lovers ; often, indeed, it was stipulated in the marriage con- tract who the dcisbeo should be. Poor nobles hun- gry, envious, proud were huddled in palace attics. The oligarchy had reached its last stage. The other classes do not seem to have been equally corrupt. The business men and the shopkeepers got a living, although the days of great commercial prosperity had passed; the lower classes, the conditions of whose existence rise or fall very slowly, were still probably as comfortable as any of their fellows in Europe. A twelfth of the people received alms. Only the Ten and the Three toiled on sleeplessly. Little by little they had excluded their partners in the government. " "We will work ; trust us : all leisure shall be yours," so they seemed to say to their brother patricians. Their zeal for the State never flagged, but it grew narrower ; and the idle- ness which it procured for others, sapped the last energy of the Venetian oligarchy, for it took away ambition. The Venetian nobles, whose ancestors had been merchants of great enterprise, and whose grandfathers had still been allowed to employ their faculties in administration, were reduced to a life without aim or incentive. To make the cut of a milliner's coif an affair of state, proclaims their inanity. The Ten and Three faithfully carried out their bargain. They kept the city quiet, no poli- tics, no open feuds, no noisy discontent, a perfect field for genteel dissipation. And yet according to their lights they tried to restrain those forms of dis- xiv DECLINE AND FALL 313 sipatioii gambling, for instance, and extravagant dress which they feared would injure the Repub- lic. The machine framed to govern an empire had now hardly more than the policing of a city for its object. The State was overgoverned ; bureaus and departments, with little further reason for existing, swarmed with poor relations pensioners who did the State no service. And all the while streams of visitors thronged into the beautiful city, which had become, more even than Paris, the centre of the world's revels. To the stranger, under the spell of the siren, the sight of the worn-out patriciate, of the shrunken commerce and the tottering State, brought no pang : the place was too poetic for realities as he knew them at home, andjae found that these spectral reminders of past greatness harmonized with his dream of Venice. If he sought voluptuous entertainment, he ha-.l it: what mattered it to him that the siren who beguiled him was dying, body and soul? Not least tragic was the consciousness of some of the Venetians themselves that these things led inevitably to de- struction, and that they must look on powerless to save. " This century will be terrible to our sons and grandsons," said Doge Foscarini, at about the same time that Louis XV uttered his cynicism, " After us, the deluge." The Venetians, some of them, at least, would have sacrificed their lives to avert the catastrophe ; but they did not know how, and they had the added distress of perceiving that their ignorance meant ruin. 314 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP The crash came at last when the French Ee volu- tion sounded the knell of the Old Regime. Through its alert diplomats the Signoiy could follow the wildfire progress in Paris toward anarchy; but, although startled, it hardly realized how the Revo- lution would affect Venice, until in 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte swept down into Italy with a French army, to drive out the Austrians and overthrow the old governments. The Republic declared her neutrality ; but this did not save her territory from being overrun by both contestants. Bonaparte crushed in turn Alvinzi, Beaulieu, AVurmser, the Austrian generals ; only Venice remained, and both he and the Directory at Paris had decided on put- ting an end to her existence. Any pretext would do. While his troops occupied several of the cities of the mainland, his emissaries conspired under the very shadow of the Ducal Pal- ace. He sowed accusations against the "gloomy despotism of the Lagoons," and appealed to the Venetians to welcome himself and the French as allies bringing liberty. He pretended that the Signory was covertly abetting Austria against him ; yet almost at the same moment he signed the secret preliminaries of peace at Leoben, in which he agreed to cede to Austria the Venetian Terra Firma, with Istria and Dalmatia (April 18, 1797). So two robbers divide the spoils before they have slain their victim. Bonaparte did not stick at circulating forged manifestoes, which purported to come from Venetian leaders and urged the people to rise and xiv DECLINE AND FALL 315 massacre the French. At Verona, the populace, exasperated by the truculence of the French soldiery, did rise and slay many score of their tormentors, making the " Veronese Easter " a grim reminder of the " Sicilian Vespers." To a deputation which the Signory sent to him at Graz, Bonaparte said, "I wish no more Inquisition, no more Senate ; I will be an Attila to the Venetian Senate " (April 25). And he kept his word. The French troops advanced to Malghera and Brondolo, ready to descend on the capital. A French cruiser tried to force its way into the har- bor, but was captured, and its commander killed. This rekindled Bonaparte's wrath. The Signory in bewilderment discussed measures of defense ; but what in its feebleness could it do? Already the boom of French cannon rolled over the Lagoons. " To-night we shall not be safe even in bed," said the bewildered Doge, Lodovico Manin. Resistance being despaired of, the Great Council on May 1 voted to despatch envoys to Bonaparte to negotiate a change in government. That same day he had declared war. He insisted on suicidal terms the abdication of the Signory, the extinction of the Senate, and the substitution therefor of a popular representative government. On May 12 the Great Council met to take action. Whilst Giovanni Minotti, the senior Ducal Councilor, was speaking, a sound of artillery was heard. The panic-stricken assemblage, believing that the French were at hand, shouted, " The question ! the question ! " and 316 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. without further debate, begau to ballot. There were 512 votes for accepting Bonaparte's terms, 20 for rejecting them, and 5 defective votes showing only 537 members present, less than half of the Great Council, which then numbered over 1200. Nevertheless, the vote stood, and the Venetian Re- public ceased to be. That night Manin, the last of the doges, took off his ducal bonnet and handed it to a servant, saying, " Put it away : we shall not use it again." It was just eleven hundred years since the election of Anafesto, the first Doge of Venice. Under French auspices a provisional democratic government was set up. Throughout the summer the French looted the city and Dogado, and shipped to Paris paintings, statues, manuscripts, jewels to adorn the Louvre that storehouse where the most rapacious of thieves deposited his stolen goods. In the autumn at Campo Formio, Bonaparte con- cluded with Austria a final treaty in which it was agreed that France should keep the Ionian Islands, and that Austria should annex Daluiatia, Istria, Venice, and the Venetian mainland as far west as Lake Garda and the Adige (October 17). Uncon- sulted and despised, the Venetians, still nominally free, were thus made subjects of the House of Hapsburg. On January 18, 1798, the last detach- ment of French despoilers having embarked, the first Austrian corps took possession of the capital. Death from old age requires no autopsy. The Venetian Republic had lived out its life. It had xiv DECLINE AND FALL 317 enjoyed longevity beyond all other states. Like a species born in one geologic age, it survived into another for which it was not adapted. The com- panions of its youth and maturity had all van- ished except the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire; Napoleon was soon to carry the Pope captive to Fontainebleau, and to snuff out the flickering Empire ; for he was a merciless Reality before whom ghosts and empty survivals shrank into nothingness. And yet our last word on Venice shall not be of failure, decrepitude, death. We will rejoice, rather, in her transcendent achievements : her forti- tude and skill in building her home where only sea birds had nested; her enterprise in commerce; her civilizing work in linking East and West; her tolerance and steadfastness ; her justice in advance of her epoch ; her solicitude for the well-being of all her children, repaid by a devotion which the sons of no other country have surpassed ; her long example of splendid dignity; her mighty strokes for human freedom ; her defense of Western Europe against the Turk ; her most modern separation of the Church from the State ; her joyousness ; her art ! And I cannot forget that though the Venetians of 1797 let themselves be passed like chattels from one foreigner to another, their descendants fifty years later redeemed the ancient fame of Venice for bravery, and added a page to the world's chroni- cles of heroism. CHAPTER XV EPILOGUE ALTHOUGH Venice was creation of one of the most practical race of men the world has seen, of men who as merchants and empire-builders rank with the English ; of men who for enterprise and for blending genuine piety with business shrewd- ness resemble the Yankees of earlier days ; of men who devised a masculine form of government in which reason controlled every joint, leaving no play to emotion, yet we think of her as femi- nine, and the fascination which she has exerted above all other cities is truly a woman's fasci- nation. At Venice, the dull become poetic, the commonplace kindle with romance. The genera- tions of grave, resolute, far-seeing men are forgotten; the splendor, the charm, the glory, the ineffable grace, remain. Strangers ask eagerly not about Dandolo and Pisani, or Sarpi and Morosini, but about the legends and the pageants; for it seems as improbable that the humdrum concerns of trade and administration, or even the weighty business of war and statecraft, could have been carried on in this magic city as in Fairyland itself. We have heard the history ; let us, before part- ing, look for a moment at the pageant. 318 CHAP, xv EPILOGUE 319 In 1268, when medieval Venice was in full flower, Lorenzo Tiepolo was elected doge, and it happens that a keen-eyed, color-loving spectator, Martin da Canale, saw and chronicled the spectacle which followed. When the forty-one electors had reached an agreement, the bells of St. Mark's were rung, and from all parts of the city the people of Venice flocked to the Piazza and the Church. The elec- tors mounted the balcony of the Church, and one of them addressed the multitude and announced the name of the new Doge. Thereupon they pressed round him and bore him to the altar of St. Mark, and having stripped his clothes from him and put on his ducal robes, at that altar he took the oath of office, and the gonfalon of St. Mark, all gold, was given to him and he received it. Amid great rejoicing he went out of the Church and ascended the staircase of the Ducal Palace. The chaplains stood on the steps and sang the ducal lauds in these words : " Christ conquers ! Christ reigns ! Christ commands ! To our lord, Lorenzo Tiepolo, by God's grace illustrious Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and Croatia, and ruler of a fourth part and a half of the whole empire of Romania, salva- tion, honor, long life, and victory ! St. Mark, help thou him ! " Then the Doge went into the Pal- ace and entered on his office, subscribing to a formal oath ; after which he appeared at a loggia and spoke very wisely to the people, and they praised him above all others. The chaplains then 320 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE < HAP. repaired to Sant' Agostino, where the Dogaressa dwelt, and sang before her also the ducal lauds. This informal celebration was ushered in by elaborate festivities, in which all classes engaged. On land there was a procession of the guilds, those groups of tradesmen, artisans, and apprentices that had existed in Venice from very early times, had grown rich and skillful, and had organized each its internal government. On this 24th of July, 1268, they put on their richest attire each guild hav- ing its distinctive livery and took their places in the great parade which wound through the narrow streets to the Piazza and the Palace. First come the master smiths and their appren- tices with a gonfalon and with their heads gar- landed, while trumpeters play before them ; next, the furriers, wearing rich mantles of ermine and vair and other rare furs. They are followed by the dressers of small skins, clothed in samite and taffeta and in scarlet; the dressers of lambskins march next, singing canzonets to the Doge; after them, the weavers, singing songs and snatches. And now, says Da Canale, " the joy and the festivity begin to increase," for the tailors appear, their ten masters dressed in white with vermilion stars, their coats and mantles lined with furs, and all merrily singing. The next, crowned with olive and bearing olive-branches, are the woolen manu- facturers, and after them the makers of cotton cloth, in fustian. The makers of quilts and jerkins have new suits, each Avith a white cloak worked xv EPILOGUE 321 with fleur-de-lis, and each cloak with a hood, and the men themselves wear garlands of pearls strung with gold. The pageant grows more splendid, for here are the cloth-of-gold workers, sumptuous in that fabric themselves, and their workmen in pur- ple, with hoods of gold, worked and decorated with pearls and gold, on their heads. The cordwainers who follow are equally resplendent, and so are the mercers. Nor will the cheesemongers be outshone, in their scarlet and purple costume, trimmed with fur, and their gold and pearl ornaments. The sellers of wild fowl and the fishmongers come in vair, bearing fine game and fish as an offering to the Doge. And after them we see the company of the barbers, two of whom, clad in armor and mounted on richly caparisoned horses, dub them- selves knights-errant and lead captive four damsels, strangely garbed. Accompanied by their guild, they ride up the Palace steps into the presence of the Doge, and after salutation they announce that if any of his court wish to do battle for the damsels, they are ready to defend them. But the Doge bids them welcome, assuring them that no one shall dispute their prize; and so their little comedy ends. They have scarcely passed on ere the glassworkers advance, bearing decanters and bottles and other rarest specimens of their skill. The comb makers, a merry crew, bring a great cage filled with divers birds, and when they open the door the birds fly out and away over the heads of the multitude, to the delight of the little children, who run after 322 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. them. Other guilds loom up in the distance; but our chronicler mentions only the goldsmiths, the most magnificent of all. The masters of this guild display very rich clothes, and gold and silver ornaments, and jewels of great price, "sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, jacinths, amethysts, rubies, jaspers, carbuncles." The wealth of Ormuz and of Ind sparkles as they file before us in the summer sun. Each company is preceded by trumpeters sound- ing on silver trumpets and by men playing cymbals ; servants carry large silver vials of wine and golden goblets; and there are captains who see that the lines form promptly and march in order, two by two. And after each guild has greeted the Doge, wishing him long life, victory, honor, and salvation, it descends the Ducal Staircase and goes to the palace in the Sant' Agostino quarter to salute the Dogaressa. But pageants address the eye and not the ear. Feeble are words to conjure up such a scene as this, so varied, so gorgeous, so jocund, yet so stately ! Descriptions cloy. Happily whoever has visited Venice has fed his eye on the paintings where these things still glow. And yet, although descriptions pale, we must take one glimpse of that Venetian festival which out- dazzled and outlasted all the rest the yearly wedding of the Republic and the Adriatic, which commemorated the victorious naval expedition when Orseolo the Great cleared the Dalmatian coast of pirates and established the supremacy of xv EPILOGUE 323 Venice on the sea. To mark that triumph, the Doge and his retinue went in procession through the Lido port to the open Adriatic, and offered this supplication, " Grant, Lord, that for us, and for all who sail thereon, the sea may be calm and quiet ; this is our prayer, Lord, hear us." After this the Doge and his suite were sprinkled, and the rest of the holy water was poured into the sea, while the priests chanted the words, " Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." This ceremony, impressive for its simplicity, grew to be impressive for its splendor. In 1177, when Pope Alexander III and the Emperor Barbarossa met at Venice to settle, as they hoped, the imme- morial quarrel of the Papacy and the Empire, they took part in this celebration; and then it was, apparently, that the service was converted into an espousal. The Pope gave Doge Ziani an anointed ring, which he dropped solemnly into the Adriatic \vith the words, " Desponsamus te, Mare" ("We wed thee, Sea, in sign of our true and perpetual dominion "). From that time on the celebration of " La Sensa," or the Marriage of the Adriatic on Ascension Day, increased in stateliness, and long after Venice had lost the sceptre of the sea crowds of visitors jour- neyed yearly from all parts of the world to wit- ness that rite, symbolic of her former supremacy. Travelers and authors have vied with each other in depicting that dazzling spectacle : The Bucen- taur, the ducal galley, all gilded, with its canopy of 324 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. crimson velvet ; the gold and crimson gonfalon of St. Mark ; the forty long oars, each manned by four rowers; the ducal throne fixed on a great golden shell ; the Doge himself, venerable and grave, clad in superb robes; the Councilors, the Procurators, the Senators, the Sages, the Avogadors, in crimson or black ; the Patriarch and his prelates wearing their richest vestments; the foreign ambassadors in their varied gala apparel; the multitudes of smaller galleys, barges, barks, and gondolas, follow- ing in the wake of the Bucentaur, each with its cargo of eager men and women; the unwonted stillness of the journey out; the solemnity of the marriage rite, when the Doge, unattended, from the stern of his barge drops the ring into the sea ; then the sudden taking up by ten thousand throats of his words, " Desponsamiis te, Mare "; the boundless vivacity, the acclamations, the triumphal energy, of the return to the city who has not in imagina- tion beheld all this, framed by the matchless Vene- tian architecture and the opaline waters of the Lagoon, and the sky of pale sapphire and sunbeams which arches above them ? Dead, long ago, the last Doge of Venice ; dead the gay throngs which last attended him ; the gol- den Bucentaur is dust ; the Ducal Palace, St. Mark's Church, nay, Venice herself, are become but a three days' wonder for modern tourists, who "nod, and peer, and hurry on," a gallery for the aesthetic, a musing-haunt for the thoughtful few. So fades away the glory of the world ! xv EPILOGUE 325 "And what," asks the muser, before whom the vision of this splendor has floated, " what does it signify ? Is it but the ponip, the unrivaled pomp, and the vanity of a wicked world ? The colors have fed the eye, the pageants have bewitched the imagi- nation is that all?" Ah, no! Through those fleeting shows Venice embodied qualities which no other state has had in like degree : she taught the world the meaning of magnificence ; she set it an example in dignity. We have heard much of the ceremonial of Spain, but ceremonial is not mag- nificence; the mere description of the gorgeous costumes of the Magyar nobles dazzles us, but costume is not magnificence. Ceremonial may be dull the Spanish punctilio was stiff beyond the verge of the ludicrous; that is not dignity. We cannot associate magnificence with either the Ger- man or the Englishman or the American. The Prussian, at the utmost, can organize an imposing military review. The English have never had the artistic sense, nor the taste, which underlies magnifi- cence ; they have ever taken their pleasures sadly ; and while Englishmen may possess a noble carriage and countenances of high-bred dignity, they do not group well, but remain rigidly isolated, too conscious of themselves to be willing to blend in masses, which are the elements of a great pageant. Americans have all the English defects, and too often they lack even the English dignity. The French, too, have had little conception of magnificence as- suredly they have manifested no genius for it. 326 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. They still point to the Grand Monarque that paltry manikin, with his full-bottomed wig, padded calves, and red-heeled pumps, and to his entourage of titled lackeys as their highest type of dignity and magnificence ; or they recall the display of the Third Napoleon, which was, after all, only tinsel and millinery, the stuff which theatrical pomps, performed mechanically after much drill, are made of. But the Venetians were magnificent by nature. This quality developed in them just as a genius for music develops in other races, and it expressed itself in pageants more and more splendid as their wealth increased. A dignity, likewise inborn, never forsook them. The spirit of Beauty, which was their peculiar dower, took great companies of men and women and composed them into moving pic- tures, as wonderful in their way as are the endur- ing masterpieces which that same spirit wrought on canvas, in mosaic, and in marble. Every class the noble, the religious, the commercial, the artisan, the plebeian had its place in the festivals, and at the head of them all, linked to all in this manifesta- tion of common interests, was the Doge. That Beauty may be not merely the ornament but the very body of Power, this surely is one thing Venice can teach us. We moderns command inexhaustible reservoirs of Power ; but of visible Beauty, how slight is our understanding, how beg- garly our product ! We look out, for the most part, on a sepia-tinted world; Venice bids us learn xv EPILOGUE 327 the delight, not merely physical, which color can bring. To be gorgeous, but not barbaric ; magnifi- cent, but not pompous; dignified, but not stiff these are gifts which presuppose character; nay, they demand character in some respects of rarer fibre than that in which reside many of the virtues which we magnify. Those gifts the Venetians had. Venice proclaimed the joy of life, the glow of health, the exhilaration of conquest, the sweetness of prosperity, the confidence which comes with mastery. Was it not well that once in recorded history one nation should dare to proclaim that life on earth is passing good ? There is no danger that races or men will be long allowed to forget the traiisitoriness of the human lot, or its horrors and failures and bereavements. Fate sees to it that each generation shall witness, for a warning and a sign, the collapse of empire. Time is busy " turn- ing old glories into dreams." " Restless is wealth, the nerves of power Sink like a lute's in rain, The gods lend only for an hour, And then take back again." But to transmute wealth and power into joy, to live grandly, as if the gods had not merely lent for an hour, but had given for eternity, bespeaks great character. Joy is so much rarer than virtue; so very rare among the powerful and the very rich ! Remember, too, that the Venetians earned their prosperity, earned it against unparalleled odds; 328 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. they were brave, industrious, enterprising, prudent ; when blessings flowed in upon them, they rejoiced with a -healthy exuberance. "There is nothing better for a man than . . . that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God." The Venetians realized that after a hard-won victory the triumph is legitimate ; that God can be worshiped as truly by accepting his gifts and delighting in them as by renouncing them. No doubt prosperity is the severest test of character, as Venice learned when after many centuries her magnificence had been softened into luxury and voluptuousness, and her pageants, though still superb, were shows to grat- ify her pride rather than ceremonies born of her strength and joy. Nevertheless, five hundred years elapsed between her rise to greatness and the beginning of her decline, and her waning was so gradual that for two centuries more she seemed in outward majesty almost undiminished. Throughout her career, she inspired in her sons such devotion as passes the patriotism of most peoples. They revered her as Queen, they loved her as Mother. Although an exclusive oligarchy ruled the state, yet every Venetian felt that Venice belonged to him. St. Mark was the patron equally of doge and dustman. The legend which all be- lieved, the pageants in which even the humblest had his place, sprang out of the heart of the whole people, and symbolized the unity which bound all together. And life in Venice, mere physical life, was pleasant xv EPILOGUE 329 to a larger proportion of the inhabitants and during more generations than it has been in any other city. No wonder, therefore, that when Tintoret, the greatest of her painters, in so many respects the greatest of all painters, was commissioned to deco- rate the vast wall of the Hall of the Great Council, wishing to express the feeling of every Venetian toward his incomparable city, he chose for his subject Paradise. CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES (The names of the Doges are printed in heavy type.) VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL 421 Legendary founding of Venice 452 Attila's invasion ; La- goon peopled 466 Tribunes elected at Grado 476. Fall of Western Empire. 522 Cassiodorus at Venice? Odoacer, King 568 Torcello founded of Italy 584 Longinus at Venice ; general tribunes 493. Theodoric. Ostrogothic elected Kingdom 697 Paoluccio Anafesto, first 530-64. Justinian, Eastern doge Emperor 709 Founding of Jesolo ; 568. Alboin. Lombard King- commercial treaty dom with Luitprand 622. Hegira of Mahomet 717 Marcello Tegalliano 726 Orso, " Hypatos " 732. Patriarchates of Grado 737-42 Mastri militum and Aquileia 74-.' Deodato, " Hypatos " ; separated Malamocco capital 755 Galla Gaulo 756 Domenico Monegario 772-814. Charlemagne 764 Maurizio Galbaio 787 Giovanni Galbaio. Frank- ish party 800. Charlemagne crowned 803 Venice declared part of Emperor at Eastern Empire by Rome treaty of Charlemagne and Nicephorus 331 332 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL 804 Obelerio Antenorio. Je- - solo destroyed by Heracleans. Obelerio 809 destroys Heraclea War of Pepin against Venice 810 Pepin driven back Rialto becomes the cap- ital 811 Agnello Partecipazio. First Ducal Palace 827 828 Giustiniano Partecipazio St. Mark's body brought to Venice ; Church be- 829 836 gun Giovanni Partecipazio I Pietro Tradonico. War with Saracens 840 8f>4 881 887 Diploma of Lothair Orso Partecipazio I Giovanni Partecipazio II Pietro Candiano I. De- 871-901. Alfred the Great 888 feat by pirates Pietro Tribuno 900 912 932 Lagoons fortified ; Mag- yar invasion Orso Partecipazio II Pietro Candiano II. Ven- 912-61. Abderrahman III, Caliph of Cordova ice invades Istria 939 942 Pietro Partecipazio Pietro Candiano III 944 Narentine pirates de- feated 959 Pietro Candiano IV 971 Eastern Emperor threat- ens 976 Doge killed ; Ducal Pal- ace burnt Pietro Orseolo I 978 Vitale Candiano 979 Tribuno Memmo CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 333 VENETIAN HISTORY GENERA F, Pietro Orseolo II, the Great. Treaties with East and West Pirates conquered. Doge Duke of Dalmatia First Sposalizio del Mar. Emperor Otto visits Venice Saracens beaten at Bari Otto Orseolo Pietro Centranico Domenico Flabianico Domenico Contarini Domenico Selvo Normans attack Dalma- tia Normans defeat Vene- tians at Casopo Vitale Falier. Normans - beaten at Corfu. Ve- netian rights at Con- stantinople confirmed by Golden Bull of Alexis Vitale Michiel I. Expe- dition to Levant Ordelaffo Falier Domenico Michiel. Leads expedition to the East Capture of Tyre Pietro Polani War with Padua Domenico Morosini. War with pirates Vitale Michiel H Zara rebels Emperor Manuel op- presses Venetians in Eastern Empire. First public loan. 1066. Battle of Hastings, Nor- man Conquest of England 1072. Normans conquer Sicily 1073-85. Gregory VII, Hilde- brand, pope 1095-99. First Crusade 1147. Second Crusade 334 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL Venice retaliates and 1176. Battle of Legnano; is beaten. Election Lombard League by sestieri. Origin of defeats Barba- Great Council rossa 1172 Sebastiano Ziani 1170-1221. St. Dominic, Span- 1177 Pope Alexander III and iard Barbarossa at Venice 1182-1226. St. Francis of As- 1178 Orio Malipiero sisi 1189 Forty created 1189. Third Crusade 1192 Enrico Dandolo. First 1194-1250. Frederick II of ducal promission Sicily 1201 Contract for Fourth 1198-1216. Innocent III, pope Crusade 1201-04. Fourth Crusade 1202 Expedition sails. Zara recaptured 1204 Constantinople taken. Venetian colonial Em- pire established 1205 Pietro Ziani 1211 Crete colonized 1215. King John signs Magna 1221 Proposed removal to Charta Constantinople 1229 Jacopo Tiepolo. Vene- 1225-74. Thomas Aquinas tian laws codified 1230 Crete revolts 1240 Siege of Ferrara 1249 Marino Morosini 1253 Raniero Zeno 1253 Quarrel with Genoa at Acre 1258 Venetians defeat Geno- ese near Acre li'.V.t. Ezzelino da Romano, 1264 Genoese beaten at Tra- lord of Padua, pani. Treaty with dies Emperor Paleologos 1261. Greeks recover Con- 1268 Lorenzo Tiepolo. Rules stantinople for ducal election 1 IT.* M.'?23. Marco Polo 1275 Jacopo Contarini. "War 12i>r>-i:'.21. Dante with Ancona 1276-1337. Giotto 1280 Giovanni Dandolo 1284 First gold ducat CHKONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 335 VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL Venice under interdict. Mint established Pietro Gradenigo. War with Genoa Venetians defeated by Genoese at Ayas Closing of Great Coun- cil. Oligarchy rules openly Venetians defeated by Genoese at Curzola Peace with Genoa Bocconio's conspiracy War over Ferrara ; sec- ond interdict Conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo. Council of Ten appointed Marin Zorzi. Zara re- volts Giovanni Soranzo. War with Zara Francesco Dandolo. First sumptuary laws First war with Turks Council of Ten declared permanent War with Delia Scala Bartolomeo Gradenigo. By peace, Venice gets Treviso and Bassano Andrea Dandolo Quarrel with Genoa over Crimean trade Black Death War with Genoa. Geno- ese victory at Negro- pout Battle of the Bosphorus. Venetian victory at Lojera 1304-74. Petrarch 1313-75. Boccaccio 1353. Genoa cedes herself to Viscoiiti 336 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE VKNKTIAN HISTORY GENERAL 1354 Marino Faliero. Vene- tians defeated at Sapienza 1355 Conspiracy and death of Faliero 1355 Giovanni Gradenigo. Peace with Genoa. ~\Var with Hungary 1356 Giovanni Dolfin. Loss of Dalmatia 1361 Lorenzo Celsi 1364 Cretan revolt crushed 1365 Marco Cornaro. Southern facade of Ducal Palace 1368 Andrea Contarini. Tries- tine revolt quelled 1369 War with the Carraresi 1373 Peace ; Venice gains Feltre 1377 Quarrel with Genoa over Cyprus. Venice gets Tenedos. War with Genoa 1379 Venetians defeated at Pola ; Venice block- aded. Vettor Pisani blockades Genoese at Chioggia 1380 Genoese surrender 1381 Peace of Turin 1382 Michele Morosini 1382 Antonio Venier 1888 Argos and Nauplia ac- quired. War against Carraresi 1400 Michele Steno 1404 War against Carraresi 1405 Venice wins 140fi Expansion on Terra 1402. Gian Galeazzo Visconti Firma dies 1411 War with Sigismund CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 337 VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL Tommaso Mocenigo Battle of Gallipoli ; treaty with Sultan War with Sigismund Friuli acquired Francesco Foscari. Peo- ple have no part in election of doge Hall of Great Council Venice joins Florence against Visconti Carmagnola appointed general Brescia acquired Battle of Maclodio Peace; Venice acquires Bergamo Carmagnola tried and executed Venice granted investi- ture by Emperor Gattamelata, general ; fleet on Lake Garda Peace with Visconti Colleoni Turks take Constanti- nople Peace of Lodi with Milan Foscari deposed Pasquale Malipiero Cristoforo Moro War with Turks Turks take Negropont Niccolo Tron NiccoloMarcello. Turks in Friuli Pietro Mocenigo Andrea Vendramin. Turks in Friuli Giovanni Mocenigo. First stone bridge 1447. Death of Filippo Maria Viscouti 144&-92. Lorenzo de' Medici 1450-66. Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan 338 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE VKXETIAX HISTORY 7. Turks defeated at Xciita 1688 Francesco Morosini. Kill!). Peace of Carlowit/ Athens bombarded 1701-13. War of Spanish Suc- 1694 Silvestro Valier cession 1700 Alvise Mocenigo II 1709 Giovanni Cornaro II CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 341 VENETIAN HISTORY GENERAL 171(5 1722 1732 1735 1741 1752 1762 1763 1770 1779 1784 178!) 1797 Loss of the Morea Alvise Mocenigo III Carlo Ruzzini Alvise Pisani Pietro Grimani Francesco Loredan Marco Foscarini Alvise Mocenigo IV Death of G. B. Tiepolo Paolo Renier. Reforms attempted Emo bombards Tunis Lodovico Manin May 12. Government votes to dissolve at Napoleon's command. By peace of Campo Formio (Oct. 17) France cedes Venice to Austria 1718. Peace of Passarovitz 1707-93. Carlo Goldoni 1775-82. American Revolu- tion 1789-95. French Revolution 1789-97. George Washington, first President of the United States BIBLIOGRAPHY **ROMAXIX. Storia Documentata di Venezia. Venice, 1853. 10 vols. Indispensable. ** MOLHEKTI. Storia di Venezia nella Vita Privata. First ed. Turin, 1880. ** H. F. BROWN. Venice : An Historical Sketch of the Republic. London, 1893. An excellent specimen of historical anatomy. DABU. Storia della Republica di Venezia. Capolago, 1837. 11 vols. Italian translation with Ranke's comment. D. is anti- Venetian. CHRONICLES. I. Cronache Veneziane Antichissime. Edited by Monticolo. Rome, 1890. II. Cronaca delta Altinate ; * Cronaca di M. da Ca- nale. Archivio Storico Italiano. Vol. VIII. Florence, 1845. III. * Chronicon of Andrea Dandolo. Muratori (Her urn Itnl. Scriptor.), Vol. XII. IV. Sanudo. Vitae Dttcum. Muratori. Vol. XXII. V. Ville-Hardouin. La Conquestede Constantinople. DIARIES. Sanudo, 58 vols. ; Malipiero ; Priuli. * GFRORER. Geschichte Venedigs bis zum Jahre 1048. Graz, 1872. MARIN-. Storia Civile e Politica del Commercio del Vene- ziani. 10 vols. Venice, 1798. * HETD. Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1885. * W. C. HAZLITT. The Venetian Republic. 2 vols. 1900. Contains many interesting essays on manners, customs, and institutions. 343 344 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE * MUSATTI. Venezia e le sue Conquiste nel Medio-Evo. Padua, 1881. * MUSATTI. La Storia Politico, di Venezia. Padua, 1897. Valuable for its references to rare works and original sources. WIEL. Venice ("Story of the Nations" series). London, 1894. MOLMENTI. La Dogaressa. Turin, 1884. MOLMENTI. Studi e Eicerchi. Turin, 1892. F. C. HODGSON. The Early History of Venice (to 1204). London, 1901. YKIARTE. Venise. Paris, 1878. YRIARTE. La Vie cTun Patricien de Venise. Paris. ** SARPI. Opere. *BIANCHI GIOVINI. Eiografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi. Zurich, 1836. FIXE ARTS. Vasari's Lives; Eidolfi's Meraviglie dell" 1 Arte, 1648 ; Ruskin's Stones of Venice ; C. E. Norton's Church Building in the Middle Ages ; the works of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, of Taine, Morelli, and of Symonds. Among the Renaissance historians of Venice were Paruta, Doglioni, Bembo, Contarini, and Gianotti. * Sansovino's works Del Governo de 1 Regni and Venezia, Citta Nobi- lissima are important for their description of the city and its institutions in the sixteenth century. James Howell's A Survay of the Signorie of Venice, 1651, gives a description at the middle of the seventeenth century and may be com- pared with De la Houssaye, who wrote about 1670. Trav- elers' accounts throw many sidelights on Venice ; but even a partial list, beginning with Petrarch and Montaigne, would run through many pages. In English, the best sketches by recent writers are W. D. Howells's Venetian Days and H. F. Brown's Life on the Lagoons. INDEX Acre, 81, 83. Actium, battle of, 2(50. Adriatic, marriage of, 322-324. Agnadello, battle of, 204. Aix, treaty of, 22. Alaric, 3. Albiola, 21, 32. Alboin, 14. Alcibiades, 167. Aldus, 232. Aleppo, 89. Alexander III, pope, 53, 57, 2i 17, 323. IV. 83. VI, 193, 201. Alexandria, 25, 27. Alexis (Coinnenos), 64. , emperor, 89. Alimpato, L., 25. Ali Pasha, 2tK). Amadeus VI, of Savoy, 157. Amalti, 50. America, 50, 197. Anafe.;',), first doge, 15, 23, 35. Ancoiia, 190. Andros, 72. Aquileia, 3, 16, 54, 143, 157. A ration, 89, 139. Architecture, 233-237. Ardisouio, N., 25. Ariosto, 231. Arpa'd, 32. Arrengo, 13, 40, 41, 97, 174. Arsenal, 33, 91, 222. Aruiidel, Lady, 291. Ascalon, 48. Ascension Day festival, 323- 324. Asolo, 196. Athens, siege of, 303. Attila, 3, 4^5. Austria, 91, 134, 143, 157, 314, 317. Avogadors, 173, 214, 217, 219. Ayas, battle of, 137. Bacon, Francis, 274. Badoer, ducal family, 25, 29, 39, 112. Bagdad, 90. Bailo, 74, 84, 256, 295. Bajazet, sultan, 183. Baldwin I, of Flanders, 69, 71. II, 84. Banking, 226-227. Barbarian invasion, 3. Barbarossa, Chaireddin, 255. Barbary States, 92. Barberini, cardinal, 287. Barnabotti, 306, 310. Baronio, cardinal, 276. Barozzi, J., 72. Baseio, M., admiral, 137. Basil, emperor, 37. Bassano, 124, 164. Beauty, spirit of, 246, 32(i. Bedmar, marquis of, 288, 289. Belisarius, 10. Bellarmine, cardinal, 274. Bell casting, 93. 345 346 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE Bellini, Gentile, 238, 245. , Giovanni, 238-239. , Jacopo, 238. Belluno, 37, 164. Benedict XIV, 305. Bergamo, 177, 182. Black Sea, 69. Blois, treaty of, 206. Bocconio conspiracy, 111-112. Bologna, peace of, 210. Bon, Bartolorameo, architect, 235. Borborino, L., 86. Borghese, Caraillo, see Paul V. Borromeo, Carlo, cardinal, 273. Bosphorus, battle of, 139-140. Bragadin, G., informer, 290. Bragadino, Marcantouio, 258- 259, 262. Brescia, 176, 182, 206. Brondolo, 21, 32, 152, 315. Browning, Robert, 243. Buda, 254. Buono of Malamocco, 25. Byron, 132. Byzantium, see Constantinople. Cabinet, 90. Cabot, 197. Caesar, Julius, 3, 20. Cairo, 89. Calderon, 210. Caloprini, traitor, 34. Cambrai, League of, 201, 269. Campo Formio, treaty of, 316. Campofregoso, doge, 145. Canale, M. da, chronicler, 49, 319-322. , N. da, admiral, 191. Canaletto, 244. Candia, city of, 297, 299, 300- 303. , island, 69, 74, 75, 88, 127, 137, 295, 304. Candiano, ducal family, 29, 36, 39. Canea, captured, 297. Cantacuzenos, John, 139. Cape of Good Hope rounded, 197. Capo, d'Anzio, battle of, 145. , d'Istria, 129. Capua, Peter of, 62, 63. Carlowitz, peace of, 304. Carmagnola, 175-182. Carpaccio, 239. Carrara, tyrants of Padua, 12.">, 134, 143, 155, 157, 160-164. Cartbage, 46. Cassiodorus, description of Ven- ice, 9, 10. Castelbaklo, 124. Cavriana, peace of, 182. Cephalonia, battle near, 43. Cerigo, 72. Cervantes, 210, 260. Champagne, Thibault of, 60. Charlemagne, 20, 22, 23, 24, 33. Charles V, emperor, 207, 208. 210. - VIII, of France, 199. China, 90. Chioggia, 21, 32, 147, 149, 151- 155. Chioggian war, 147-157. Christopher, patriarch of Grado, 14. Chronicles, early, 35. Chrysobol, 37. Cicisbeo, 312. Civilization, Venetian, 212. Clement V, pope, 119. - VIII, 272. Closing of Great Council, 102- 106. Cognac, League of, 208. Coinage, 171. College, 214. INDEX 347 Colleoni, condottiere, 181, 237. Colonies, Venetian, 69, 74, 125. 103, 21ti, 262, 295, 296. Colonua, Marcantonio, Papal admiral, 260. Color, Venetian painting, 244- 245. Columbus, 197. Comacchio, 32. Commerce, 23, 27, 30, 37, 38. 85, 86, 87, 89-92, 94, 96, 137, 168- 171, 1S4, 191, 198,216,255. Comnenos, Alexis, 64. , Isaac, 64. Concordat, 268. Conspiracies, Bocconio, 111; Tiepolo, 112 ; Faliero, 130. Constantine Paleologos, 184. Constantinople, 10, 27, 34, 35, 37, 40, 53, 54, 65, 66-68, 75-78 ; taken by Turks, 183-184. Consuls, 91. Contariui family, 102. , Andrea, doge, 144, 172. , Francesco, doge, 308, 309. , G., reformer, 310. Cordova, 30. Corfu, 53. 72, 255. Corinth, 189. Cornaro, Cateriua, 196-197. , Giacomo, 196. Correctors, 100, 215, 309. Corruption, 186. Council, Ducal, 97, 98, 214, 215, 217, 308. of Forty, 214. , Great, 56, 98, 99, 100, 101-107, 115, 213, 223, 297, 298, 306-310. of Ten, 115-116, 120, 187, L'14. iilC>. 'JIT. 218, 219, 2(59, 290, 2! H. 292. :>-310, 312. of Three, 218, 224, 306, 312. Crete, see Candia. Croatia, 30, 39. Crotona, battle of, 32. Crusades, 45, 58. Curzola, 38, 118, 137. Cyclades, 9, 69, 72. Cyprus, 195; taken by Turks, 257-259. Dalmatia, 35, 38, 61, 88, 299, 314. D'Alviano, general, 204. Damascus, 89, 91. Dandolo, Andrea, admiral, 137, 138. , Andrea, doge, 128. , Enrico, doge, 59, 61, 62, 67, 69, 70, 98, 110, 117, 221. , Francesco, doge, 123. , Giacomo, 86. , Giovanni, doge, 103. , Xiccolo, general, 258. Dante, 275. Daphnusia, 84. Debt, 55, 170, 182, 226, 302. Deodato, doge, 19. Dias, navigator, 197. Doge, election of, 99, 101, 174, 319-322. Donati, M., traitor, 113. Donate, patriarch of Grado, 16. , Leonardo, doge, 272. 273. Doria, Gian Andrea, 258. , Lambo, 137. , Luciano, 146. , Paganino, 139, 141. , Pietro, 147, 149, 154. , Uberto, admiral, 137. Ducal Palace, 25, 33, 36, 174, j:U-235. Ducats, 93, 226. Durazzo, 43. 348 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE Eastern Empire, 11, 18 n., 20, 22, 34, 35, 37, 43, 47, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66. Ecclesiastical courts, 122, 26S. Edward I, of England, 88. Egypt, 27, 38, 92, 198. Election of doge, 99, 101, 174, 319, 322. Elizabeth, queen of England, 209. Emo, Angelo, 305. , P , 147. Empire, Venetian, 69. Eneti, 2. England, 50, 88, 92, 126, 200. Este, O. d', 124. Etruscans, 2. Eugene, Prince, 304. Exarchate, 10. Ezzelino da Romano, 80, 87. Falier, A., 77. Faliero, M., doge, 130-133. , O., doge, 51. Famagosta, 258-259. Feltre, 1(54. Ferrara, 54, 118, 192, 231. Feudalism, 41. Fieschi, Genoese admiral, 145. Finances, 55, 226, 297, 302. Fine Arts, 233. Flabiauico, D., doge, 40. Flanders, trade with, 92. , Baldwin of, 69, 71. , barons of, 58. Florence, 124, 168, 169. Fornovo, battle of, 199. Forty, Civil, 219. , Criminal, 219. Foscari, F., doge, 169, 172, 186- 188, 218. , Jac-opo, 187. Foscarini, Antonio, 291, 307. Foscarini, G., admiral, 261. . M., doge, 313. Fossa Xuova, battle of, 134. France, 27, 30, 50, 88, 92, 253, 314-317. , barons of, 5-S, 61, 62. Francis I, of France, 207, 208, 210. Franks, 20. Frederick I, Barbarossa, empe- ror, 53, 54, 57, ">!.'."). II, of Sicily, 79-84, 87. Friuli, 32, 54, 166, 200. Fulgenzio, friar, 28(5, 287. Fulk preaches Fourth Crusade, 58. Galbaii, ducal family, 39. Galleys, equipment, 142-143. Gallipoli, 184. Gama, Vasco da, 197. Garda, Lake, 2, 181. Gastaldi elected, 6. Gaulo, Galla, doge, 19. Genoa, 50, 79, 81, 82, 84-87, 118, 129, 130, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 147-157, 193. Germany, 88, 90. Gerson, 278. Ghibellines, 80. (iior-ione, 239-240, 241. Gisello, conspirator, 131. Giustiniaui, T., 148, 149. Glass-working, 93. Goethe, 241. Golden Book, 106, 298. Golden Bull, 37. Goldoni, 231, 311. Gonzaga, 124. Gozzi.L'.".!. Gradenigo, Marco, 86. , P., doge, 103, 112, 117, 118, 119 1M4. Grade, 6, 14, 16, :',<>, :>i, 267. INDEX 349 Greece, 43. Greek Empire, or Emperor, see Eastern Empire. Gregory VII, pope, 41. Grimaldi, A., Genoese admiral, 140, 154. , Luca, Genoese admiral, 81. Grimaui, Antonio, admiral, 200. Guarco, Genoese doge, 145. Guardi, painter, 244. Guilds, 93, 320-322. Guiscard, Robert, 43, 44. , Roger, 53. Haifa, 47. Hapsburgs, 88, 134, 316. Henry IV, of France, 282. Heraclea, 6, 15, 19. Heresy, _'- > . Hildebrand, pope, 41. Holland, 247, 294. Holy League, 206. Holy Roman Empire, 22, 23, 28, 37, 88, 193. Houses, New and Old, 102 n. Hungary, 51, 88, 118, 130, 134, 144, 157, 254. Huns, 3. Hunyadi, John, 189. Huss, John, 166. Hwaklerada, dogaressa, 36. Illyria, 3. Index, 275. India, 50, 72, 197. Industries, Venetian, 93, 168, 170. Innocent III, 58, 65, 69. Inquisition, 222, L'T."). Inquisitors, on the Defunct Doge, 100. - of State, the "Three," 218, 224. Interdict, 118, 192, 204, 277-283. Investiture, 86. Ionian archipelago, 69. Ireland, 126. Iron industry, 93. Istria, 9, 30, 34, 315. Jenson,232. Jerusalem, 47, 136. Jesolo, 15, 20. Jesuits, 209, 265, 275, 277, 282, 284,300. Jingo party, 167. John, Don, of Austria, 260. Judiciary system, 111, 180-181, 219. Julius II, 201, 202, 203, 204, 208, 269. Junta, 214, 224. Justinian, 10. Kaffa, 227. Kairwan, 89. Konigsmark, general, 303. La Feuillade, duke of, 302. Latin conquest of Constanti- nople, 65-67. Empire, 81, 84, 87. Laws, 110, 221. Legnano, battle of, 57. Leoben, peace of, 314. Leopardo, sculptor, 237. Lepanto, battle of, 259-260. Libraries, 232. Licentiousness, 229. Lido, 61, 149, 299. Limoges, 27. Lisbon, 198. Literature, 230-231. Liutprand, 15. Lojera, battle of, 140. Lombard League, 53. Lombard!, architects, 235-236. 350 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE Lombards, 14, 18, 20. Lombardy, 168. Longhena, architect, 236, 238. Longhi, painter, 244. Longinus, 11. Loredan, Alvise, 189. Loredano, Antonio, 191. , Leonardo, doge, 203, 239. , Pietro, doge, 215. Lothair, 33, 36. Lonis IX, of France, 88. XII, of France, 199, 202, 207. XV, of France, 313. II, of Hungary, 254. Loyola, founder of Jesuits, 209, 265. Luca, battle of, 130. Lucca, 124, 169. Luther, 265. Machiavelli, 205. Maclodio, battle of, 177. Magnificence, Venetian, 325. Magyars, 32, 33, 185. Malamocco, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22, 147, 299. Malatesta, condottiere, 177. Malghera, 207, 315. Malipiero, heroism of, 297. Mallono, P., Genoese admiral, 82. Malta, Knights of, 295. Malvasia, 255. Manfredi, friar, 285. Manfredonia, 156. Manin, Lodovico, doge, 315, 316. Mantua, 2, 124, 175. Manuel, Eastern Emperor, 53, 54. Marignano, battle of, 207. Marine, mercantile, 91. Marlborough, 35. Marriage of Adriatic, 322-324. Marseilles, 27. Marsilio, 279. Martinengo, 257. Maruffo, Genoese admiral, 155, 156. ^fa.'