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 BythelateTHOMAsCROFTON CROKER, F.S.A. 
 Edited by BEATRICE HORNH. With nearly 200 
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 VENICE 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL PIDGEON 
 
 F.G.S., Assoc.lNST.C.E. 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ' AN ENGINEER'S HOLIDAY ; OR, NOTES OF A ROUND T 
 FROM LONG. O TO O," AND " OLD-WORLD QUESTIONS 
 AND NEW-WORLD ANSWERS" 
 
 " I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs 
 A palace and a prison on each hand : 
 I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
 As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : 
 A thousand years the r cloudy wings expand 
 Around me, and a dy ng glory smiles 
 O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
 Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pi!es, 
 Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles ! " 
 
 BYRON. Childe Harold. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & Co. 
 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
 I89S
 
 674 
 
 The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IMPRESSIONS of Venice may be com- 
 pared to a brilliant heap of her own 
 many-coloured beads, which a child may 
 play with, count, or string, according to 
 mood or temperament. 
 
 The first course bespeaks a traveller 
 wise enough to loaf contentedly, morn- 
 ing, noon, and night, on Lagoon or 
 Canal, simply absorbing and enjoying 
 Venice. 
 
 The second, one who, having posted all 
 the items of Baedeker's day-book into his 
 mental ledger, closes his account against 
 the " City in the Sea " with a big balance 
 of facts and figures on the profit side.
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 The third, him who, with the kindly 
 aid of Sismondi and Brown, Vasari and 
 Burckhardt, strings some of his brighter 
 beads of memory upon a few homespun 
 threads, to form reminders of unique 
 joys, tasted in " faery lands forlorn." 
 
 Such toys can please others only upon 
 condition that they do not burden the 
 loafer ; distract the precisian ; or try to 
 teach the unclassed tourist what he ought 
 to think and feel about Venice. 
 
 THE LONG HOUSE, 
 
 LBATHEEHEAD, SURBEY, 
 October 1895.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OHAP. PAOU 
 
 I. THE GRAND CANAL . . ' I 
 
 ii. ST. MARK'S CHURCH THE PIAZZA . 31 
 
 III. THE LAGOON, TORCELLO, BURANO . 47 
 
 IV. THE DUCAL PALACE ... 69 
 V. VENETIAN ART . . . .91 
 
 VI. THE CONDOTTIERl . . I 1 8 
 
 VII. VENETIAN COMMERCE . . .130
 
 VENICE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 
 
 ' ' So, o'er the lagune 
 We glided ; and from that funereal bark 
 I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark 
 How, from their many isles, in evening's gleam, 
 Its temples and its palaces did seem 
 Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven." 
 
 SHELLEY. 
 
 J-O step, on arriving at Venice, into a 
 gondola, instead of the omnibus which 
 usually conveys the tired traveller in 
 Italy over a mile or more of stony streets 
 to his hotel, is like falling asleep after 
 pain; and if the train arrives, as ours 
 did, late at night, so much the better.
 
 2 VENICE 
 
 Then, the shabbier details, the ruin and 
 decay of the place, the poor and inartistic 
 repairs of its grand old buildings, are ob- 
 scured by darkness, and one glides silently 
 forward towards one^s hotel, along wider 
 or narrower water-ways, whose tiny waves, 
 scarcely whispering against the boat's 
 side, reflect a thousand quivering lights 
 from lamps and stars, through a seem- 
 ingly enchanted city of palaces, churches, 
 towers, quays, and bridges. Nothing else 
 compares with the first impressions of 
 Venice, thus approached ; yet the strange- 
 ness of the scene is accepted without sur- 
 prise, like an agreeable, though impossible, 
 situation in a pleasant dream. 
 
 Our first day in Venice was given up 
 to making a general acquaintance with 
 the Grand Canal and the Lagoon the 
 latter a word whose meaning must be 
 well understood before it is possible to
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 3 
 
 comprehend the singular character of the 
 locality upon which the City in the Sea 
 is built. 
 
 Several great rivers, of which the Po, 
 the Adige, and the Piave are the chief, 
 fall into the Gulf of Venice, and form a 
 vast delta which extends along the whole 
 coast of Venetia. This is the seaward 
 termination of the great alluvial plains 
 characterising Lombardy and Venetia, 
 owing their origin to the rivers in ques- 
 tion, which, in the course of time, have 
 filled the great hollow between the Alpine 
 and Apennine ranges with deep and fer- 
 tile soils of silt and sand. 
 
 These deposits, in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of Venice, meet the Adriatic in 
 a curving line of long, low, and narrow 
 islands called Lidi, which (themselves a 
 breakwater, greatly strengthened by art, 
 against the waves) enclose a shallow lagoon
 
 4 VENICE 
 
 about twenty-five miles long and nine 
 miles wide, whose placid waters harbour 
 an archipelago of sandbanks and shoals, 
 of which the former scarcely lift their 
 surfaces above the level of high tide. 
 The breakwater in question is not con- 
 tinuous, and, through four principal gaps 
 in it, called respectively Tre Porti, Lido, 
 Malamocco, and Chioggia, such streams 
 as fall into the Lagoon itself find their 
 way to the sea, while through the same 
 channels the limited tide of the Mediter- 
 ranean rises and falls. The Lagoon is so 
 shallow that the greater part of it is laid 
 bare by the ebb, when its numerous islands 
 appear connected by devious channels, 
 whose courses are marked by piles, with- 
 out whose friendly guidance navigation 
 would be impossible, even at high- water. 
 The "City in the Sea" is built upon 
 a group of these Lagoon islands, situated
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 5 
 
 almost opposite the Lido mouth, 2| 
 miles from the mainland ; and 150 canals, 
 spanned by some 400 bridges, intersect 
 the town in all directions, constituting a 
 labyrinth of Rii, or water streets, which 
 no stranger could thread without guid- 
 ance. We shall presently consider how a 
 site, fitter for the nests of sea-birds than 
 the residence of man, first became peopled 
 by Roman fugitives from the sword of At- 
 tila, but our concern to-day is with the 
 aspect of the city which the descendants 
 of these refugees erected, now the wonder 
 and delight of the modern world. 
 
 Venice is divided into two nearly equal 
 parts by the S -shaped channel of the 
 Grand Canal, whose wide curving reaches 
 of sea-green water are lined on either 
 side with buildings that epitomise the 
 history of architecture from the twelfth 
 to the eighteenth century, illustrating
 
 6 VENICE 
 
 its beauties with a wealth of examples 
 such as exists nowhere else in the world. 
 Leaving the Grand Hotel, and confining 
 our attention, in the first place, to the 
 left of the Canal (for to observe both 
 banks simultaneously is distractingly im- 
 possible), we first noticed the Church of 
 Santa Maria della Salute, built in florid 
 classical style by Longhena, a pupil of 
 Palladio, in 163 1-82 ; commemorating, as 
 its name bespeaks, the cessation of the 
 plague in 1630. There followed the Dario 
 Palace, a gem in the best style of the 
 Lombardi, a gifted family of architects, 
 of whom more anon ; the Palazzo Con- 
 tarini degli Scrigni (of the money chests), 
 so called from the great wealth of its 
 owners ; and the Rezzonico Palace, begun 
 by Longhena in 1630, and completed by 
 Massari in 1/45, which we paused to 
 visit.
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 7 
 
 This magnificent Renaissance pile was 
 bought by Robert Browning for his son, 
 soon after the latter's marriage with an 
 American heiress; and here, where the 
 poet hoped to find " a corner for his old 
 age,"" he died in 1888. The great house, 
 empty since the separation of Mr. Brown- 
 ing from his wife, is shown to visitors, 
 and contains many interesting memorials 
 of his distinguished father and mother. 
 There are several portraits of Browning 
 himself, some of them by his son, and 
 a series of likenesses representing Mrs. 
 BaiTett Browning both in youth and 
 maturity. One case, containing a number 
 of the poet's books in old Italian bind- 
 ings, is suggestive of the classical volume 
 to which we owe "The Ring and the 
 Book ; " while the homely little leather 
 writing-desk on which Mrs. Barrett Brown- 
 ing wrote, by snatches, upon scraps of
 
 8 VENICE 
 
 paper, is not the least interesting object 
 in the only room, among the many great 
 saloons of the palace, which one might 
 imagine the congenial retreat of a poet. 
 In this chamber a recess has been devoted 
 to some memorials of Casa Guidi, and 
 further sanctified by a mural transcrip- 
 tion of the pathetic words wherewith 
 liberated Italy expressed her sorrow at 
 the death of one who loved the Italian 
 cause with the passion and constancy of 
 a woman and the strength of a man. 
 
 The work of the younger Browning, 
 both in painting and sculpture, is much 
 in evidence in several of the larger rooms. 
 Upon the former, the world has pro- 
 nounced an unfavourable verdict, which 
 the pictures in the Rezzonico Palace con- , 
 firm; but several fine works of plastic art 
 attest that Mr. Browning is a sculptor of 
 considerable merit, preferring voluptuous
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 9 
 
 conceptions indeed, but expressing these 
 with much force and technical skill. 
 
 We left this imposing building, with 
 its suites of great saloons designed for 
 the formal and pompous receptions of 
 an Italian noble, interested indeed, but 
 depressed by the feeling that here was 
 no place where a poet might wish either 
 to live or die. In life, Robert Browning 
 might well have left it with Byron to 
 lend a false lustre to the Mocenigo Palace 
 (almost opposite the Rezzonico pile), as 
 the place where " Don Juan " was written 
 and its author resided during his stay 
 in Venice ; while the man who was " ever 
 a fighter " might, with more dignity per- 
 haps, have met the "foe" in a modest 
 retreat, such as Casa Guidi, rather than a 
 " corner " of the great Rezzonico Palace. 
 
 The Palazzo Foscari, a Lombardic 
 structure of the fifteenth century, is situ-
 
 io VENICE 
 
 ated at the first bend of the S formed 
 by the Grand Canal, and must always re- 
 call the story of Doge Francesco Foscari, 
 in whose case, for almost the only time 
 in history, so completely was the State 
 everything, and even the most distin- 
 guished man nothing, in Venice, do the 
 family affairs of one of its rulers assume 
 any importance. 
 
 It was a State offence in the Venice of 
 the fifteenth century for the Doge, or any 
 member of his family, to receive gifts of 
 any kind from any one. The decree forbid- 
 ding this was renewed by each succeed- 
 ing Doge, and had been subscribed to 
 by Foscari in his turn. His son Jacopo, 
 who seems to have been ostentatious and 
 weak, was denounced to the Council of 
 Ten by a nobleman named Loredano, 
 his father's enemy, for having taken gifts 
 from the Duke of Milan, with whom
 
 THE GRAND CANAL n 
 
 Venice was then at war. Jacopo was 
 found guilty, and condemned to per- 
 petual exile ; but the sentence was not 
 carried out in all its severity, and, after 
 languishing for some months in Trieste, 
 the culprit was allowed, at the urgent 
 entreaty of his old father, to return to 
 Venice. 
 
 Five years afterwards, in November 
 1450, Donate, one of the Council of Ten 
 who had sentenced Jacopo Foscetri to 
 exile, was murdered, and, in the follow- 
 ing January, the Doge's son was de- 
 nounced as the instigator of the crime. 
 The reason which attached suspicion to 
 his name was of the slightest, and no 
 proof of his guilt was obtained, even 
 by the torture; but he was nevertheless 
 condemned, on presumptive evidence, to 
 perpetual exile, and the sentence was 
 this time carried out. Six years later,
 
 12 VENICE 
 
 he was brought back to Venice, charged 
 afresh with having written to Sforza, 
 Duke of Milan, begging for his inter- 
 cession on his behalf, and, under tor- 
 ture, confessed the act. Being asked 
 what had induced this appeal to a 
 foreign prince, he replied that he had 
 done it, knowing the risk, but feeling 
 it would be better even to undergo tor- 
 ture again than never more breathe the 
 same air with his parents, his wife, and 
 his children. Condemned, for a third 
 time, to banishment, with close imprison- 
 ment added, he was allowed a farewell 
 interview with the aged Doge, his mother, 
 his wife and children. " Ah ! my lord," 
 he is said to have cried, stretching out 
 his hands to his father, " plead for me ! 
 plead for me ! " To which the Doge re- 
 plied, " Obey what thy country com- 
 mands, O Jacopo, and seek nothing else."
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 13 
 
 He had not long entered his prison when 
 he died, and, almost immediately after- 
 wards, his innocence was established by 
 the confession of Erizzo, a Venetian noble, 
 that he was the murderer of Donate. 
 
 Doge Foscari was now eighty-four 
 years of age, and the sorrows of his 
 private life had doubtless much to do 
 with the growth upon him of a certain 
 apathy and indifference to public busi- 
 ness which highly displeased the Council 
 of Ten. The powerful family of Lore- 
 dano, his enemy, fostered this feeling, 
 and prompted the proceedings to which 
 it gave rise. The Ten, in secret session, 
 concluded that, since the Doge appeared 
 to be unable any longer to attend to 
 affairs of State, he should be released 
 from his vows and pensioned ; but upon 
 this decision being conveyed to Foscari, 
 he, with much spirit, declared it impos-
 
 14 VENICE 
 
 sible for him to violate his oaths, which 
 forbade him to resign his office. There- 
 upon the Ten insisted on his abdication 
 in so compulsory a manner that he had 
 no choice but to obey, and, on the 2yth 
 October 1457, he left the Ducal Palace, 
 exclaiming as he did so, "The malice of 
 others has driven me from that eminence 
 whereunto my merits had raised me." 
 Four days afterwards he died, and it is 
 recorded that, " on the same day, the new 
 Doge being in St. Mark's to hear Mass, 
 Messer Donate, son-in-law of the late 
 Doge, came to announce the fact of Fos- 
 cari's death. On hearing it, all looked 
 one at another, saying that they might 
 have delayed ten days ! " 
 
 Not far beyond the Foscari palace, the 
 bridge, so often called " The Rialto " by 
 the English, spans the Grand Canal. 
 Venetians speak of it as the "Ponte
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 15 
 
 di Rialto ; " for this part of the town 
 was originally called Rivo-Alto, being an 
 island of that name, where Participazio, 
 the first Doge of confederated Venice, 
 established his government in 811 A.D. ; 
 a spot which, like the City of London, 
 continued to be the centre of Venetian 
 commerce long after the early limits of 
 the town had been greatly extended. 
 To this quarter of Rivo-Alto, or Rialto, 
 and not to the bridge of that name, 
 Shylock refers in his speech to Antonio ; 
 but it was not connected with the oppo- 
 site side of the Grand Canal, except by 
 boats, until 350 years after Participazio^s 
 day, when a wooden bridge was built where 
 the Ponte di Rialto now stands. All 
 the great architects of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, including Giocondo, Sansovino, Pal- 
 ladio, and even Michael Angelo himself, 
 contended for the honour of building the
 
 1 6 VENICE 
 
 existing bridge, which was finally executed 
 by Antonio da Ponte in 1 588, and remains 
 one of the most familiar and admired 
 structures of the kind in Europe. 
 
 Close to the bridge is the Market-place, 
 full of movement and vivid colour, its 
 stalls heaped with great yellow pumpkins, 
 brilliant tomatoes, glowing oranges, and 
 piles of green vegetables artistically dis- 
 played, and, contrasting with these, the 
 white bulbs of great globe artichokes or 
 frilled posies of endive. The fish stalls 
 are prettier still ; but best of all is the 
 quay where the market boats unload, a 
 spot almost justifying the " purple patch " 
 which Ruskin devotes to it : " Could I 
 but place the reader, at early morning, 
 here, where the market boats, full laden, 
 float into groups of golden colour, and 
 let him watch the dashing of the water 
 against their glittering steely heads, and
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 17 
 
 show him the purple of the grapes and 
 figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, 
 earned away in long streams on the 
 waves, and, among them, the crimson 
 fish-baskets plashing and sparkling and 
 flaming as the morning sun falls on their 
 wet, tawny sides ; and, above, the painted 
 sails of the fishing - boats, orange and 
 white, scarlet and blue, and, better than 
 all such florid colours, the naked, bronzed 
 limbs of the seamen who still keep the 
 right Giorgione colour on their brows 
 and bosoms, in strange contrast with the 
 sallow sensual degradation of the crea- 
 tures that live in the cafes of the Piazza, 
 he would not be merciful to Canaletto 
 any more. 1 ' 1 
 
 Without discussing which doubtful dic- 
 tum, we proceeded very cordially to admire 
 the neighbouring Camerlenghi Palace, the 
 
 residence of the three Treasurers of State, 
 
 B
 
 1 8 VENICE 
 
 built by Bergamasco in 1525, and an ex- 
 quisite example of early Renaissance work, 
 wherein the newly revived classical spirit 
 makes modest essay of its powers; and 
 thence to the Palazzo Pesaro, built by 
 Longhena in 1679, where the same spirit, 
 wholly emancipated from mediaevalism, 
 and made, perhaps, over-bold by a hun- 
 dred and fifty years of freedom, informs a 
 varied, rich, and picturesque elevation that 
 justly proclaims itself the appropriate resi- 
 dence of a wealthy and luxurious noble. 
 
 Venice, from its earliest days, culti- 
 vated a close friendship with the Eastern 
 Empire, for whose rich wares it formed 
 an entrepot ; and Byzantium itself, as we 
 shall presently see, furnished an archi- 
 tect to the Church of St. Mark. Ruskin 
 enumerates eight Venetian palaces which, 
 in spite of restorations, still exhibit traces 
 of the Byzantine style ; and of these, the
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 19 
 
 oldest, dating from the ninth century, is 
 the Fondaco dei Turchi, a building set 
 aside in the sixteenth century as a resi- 
 dence and warehouse for the Turkish mer- 
 chants then frequenting Venice, who paid 
 the Republic 130 ducats, or ^40, a day for 
 its use. Only a few years ago this palace 
 was one of the most interesting structures 
 in Europe, but it was modernised in 1869, 
 when it became the municipal museum, 
 and onlv the horse-shoe arches of its 
 
 m 
 
 handsome colonnade remain to bespeak 
 its Byzantine origin. 
 
 Turning back at the railway station, 
 just above the Fondaco dei Turchi, and 
 following now the other bank of the 
 Canal, we passed the Vendramin Palace, 
 a magnificent example of restrained 
 Renaissance art, erected by Santi Lom- 
 bardo in 1 48 1 . This extraordinary family, 
 alluded to above, whose genius was trans-
 
 20 VENICE 
 
 mitted through several generations, num- 
 bered no less than six great builders of 
 the same name, and gave a special char- 
 acter to Venetian architecture, whose most 
 dignified example is perhaps found in the 
 Vendramin, and most graceful in the Casa 
 Doro, having reached which charming 
 and fairy-like palace, our gondola turned 
 homewards. 
 
 Gothic architecture, in the hands of 
 the Lombardi and their school, assumed 
 a form differing widely from that dis- 
 played in similar buildings, whether civil 
 or ecclesiastical, of Northern Europe. It 
 was employed only for the external de- 
 coration of palaces, themselves conform- 
 ing to a conventional residential standard, 
 characterised by suites of imposing saloons 
 quadrangularly disposed around a central 
 courtyard, decorated, as to walls and 
 ceilings, by silk, tapestry, or painting,
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 21 
 
 and specially designed for the purpose of 
 formal receptions. The Gothic construc- 
 tion whose intimate union with decoration 
 delights the eye whether, for example, in 
 the Church of Notre Dame de Paris, or the 
 Cluny Palace, could find no place in these 
 great cubicular buildings; and, hence, 
 the slender column, pointed arch, and 
 traceried spandril, deprived of all struc- 
 tural value, appear only as surface deco- 
 rations in Venetian palace architecture, 
 where indeed they escape seeming trivial 
 and unmeaning by reason of the skill and 
 taste with which they were employed by 
 the Lombardi and their followers. As 
 matters stand, however, these Gothic, or 
 Lombardic, palaces form one of the chief 
 charms of Venice; for the Renaissance 
 buildings are not, in themselves, more 
 beautiful than the club-houses of Picca- 
 dilly; they only become more delightful
 
 22 VENICE 
 
 by the contrast of their refinement with 
 the sea-life of the Canal below them as 
 the beauty of Somerset House is enhanced 
 by the river and of their marble masonry 
 with the green waves from which it rises. 
 But the Gothic palaces are picturesque 
 in themselves, and would attract even if 
 deprived of their unique accessories. 
 
 Since Venice, in the middle ages, was 
 the commercial centre where East and 
 West met, it is no surprise to find the 
 Turkish warehouse, already alluded to, 
 faced, on the Grand Canal, by the Fon- 
 daco dei Tedeschi, a depot set aside, since 
 the thirteenth century, for the accommo- 
 dation of German merchants desirous of 
 exchanging their cruder produce for those 
 treasures of the Levant which every 
 country of Western Europe coveted. In 
 this building, reconstructed for the pur- 
 pose in 1505 by the Signoria, who, in
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 23 
 
 view of its uses, forbade the employ- 
 ment of marble in its construction, the 
 Germans were permitted to sojourn with 
 their wares at stated times, and received 
 on their arrival the keys of fifty rooms, 
 which, on their departure, they re- delivered 
 to the Venetian authorities. Scarcely a 
 trace now remains of the frescoes with 
 which Titian and Giorgione covered, each, 
 a side of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi ; but 
 it is still remembered that they quarrelled 
 over the merits of their respective work, 
 and ceased to be friends thereafter. 
 
 Gliding again, on our way back, under 
 the Rialto Bridge, we were next con- 
 fronted by the Palazzo Loredan, a Byzan- 
 tine edifice of the twelfth century, one 
 of the most severe and beautiful palaces 
 in the whole extent of the Grand Canal. 
 The building has been restored, once in 
 Gothic and once in Renaissance times,
 
 24 VENICE 
 
 but has not suffered from the Gothic 
 additions (which harmonise well with the 
 Byzantine work) or been spoiled even by 
 the Renaissance architect. 
 
 There followed the Grimani Palace 
 (now the Court of Appeal), a magnificent 
 Renaissance work, by Sanmicheli, who 
 died in 1542, before it was quite finished ; 
 and, after this, the Palazzo Mocenigo, dis- 
 tinguished for no architectural beauties, 
 but famous as the residence of Byron 
 during his stay in Venice. A curious 
 story relates that the poet who, at one 
 time, returned almost nightly from the 
 receptions of the Contessa Benzon was 
 in the habit of giving his clothes to his 
 servant by the Canal side, and taking 
 from him a board, carrying a lantern, 
 which he pushed before him as a warning 
 to passing gondolas, swam back to the 
 Mocenigo Palace.
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 25 
 
 The Palazzo Grassi, built in the 
 eighteenth century, is one of the few 
 Venetian palaces kept in habitable re- 
 pair by its owner. But he is an Austrian 
 banker, and an absentee ; and one wanders 
 through its suites of great apartments 
 magnificently, though not very tastefully 
 furnished, their hangings of tapestry and 
 brocade swathed in brown holland, which 
 the janitor withdraws perfunctorily won- 
 dering when this great pile will also be- 
 come a hotel, a factory, or a warehouse, 
 as so many of its fellows have already 
 done. 
 
 And so we returned home, sated with the 
 faded splendours of these quondam homes 
 of Doges and nobles, but glancing as we 
 left our gondola at the pretty little four- 
 teenth century Palazzo Contarini-Fasan, 
 or " Desdemona's House, 1 ' as it is fancifully 
 called. This tiny gem, a next-door neigh-
 
 26 VENICE 
 
 hour of the Grand Hotel, itself a palace 
 of the fourteenth century, illustrates, 
 almost equally well with the Casa Doro, 
 how tastefully the Lombardic school could 
 use their charming Gothic traceries for 
 the superficial embellishment of even the 
 most modest building. These traceries, 
 in the present instance, have been care- 
 fully restored, for the house is still ten- 
 anted, and its balconies in particular are 
 an exquisite example of the Lombardic 
 style. 
 
 The "everlasting note of sadness 11 
 makes itself heard on the Grand Canal 
 to-day, as on the ^Cgean, when Sophocles 
 listened to its wailing lament for thoughts 
 and feelings that have passed away for 
 ever. Scarcely any of its palaces are 
 now occupied by Venetian families, and 
 only the shadow of former splendour 
 is reflected from its green waters by
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 27 
 
 the occasional passage of a gondola pro- 
 pelled by liveried servants, and exhi- 
 biting on its black "felse" the coronet 
 which bespeaks an occupant of rank. 
 Almost all these beautiful buildings 
 now serve as public institutions, hotels, 
 factories, warehouses, or shops. In one, 
 Salviati has established glass furnaces 
 and show-rooms ; in another, the Murano 
 Glass Company carry on a similar business; 
 a third is crowded with girls weaving 
 lace for the house of Jesurum ; a fourth 
 is occupied by Besarel, the wood-carver; 
 a fifth by Michieli, the bronze-maker ; a 
 sixth is crammed with " antiquities " and 
 " most original " old masters ; in a seventh, 
 Ziffer, the silk mercer, displays his 
 beautiful wares ; while wine or wood 
 merchants, lime dealers, and a hundred 
 other purveyors of still humbler com- 
 modities, are established upon ground-
 
 28 VENICE 
 
 floors, where the gloriously attired gon- 
 doliers of proud and noble family once 
 awaited their daily orders. Not a few of 
 the finest palaces are now hotels, from 
 one of which we watched an American 
 party of great apparent indistinction put 
 out, day after day, in a gondola ostenta- 
 tiously flying the star-spangled banner, 
 as if to advertise the scanty remnant of 
 Venetian nobility that a new Doge a 
 pig-packer, possibly, from the Middle 
 States is now "bossing the show" on 
 the Grand Canal. 
 
 The Venetian Traghetti, or ferry-boat 
 stations, whence the Canal is crossed at 
 intervals for a fee of a halfpenny, are 
 interesting institutions established several 
 centuries ago. Every gondolier, whether 
 a ferryman or no, belongs to a Traghetto, 
 usually named after some patron saint, 
 which stands to him in the combined
 
 THE GRAND CANAL 29 
 
 relation of a Trade Union, a Friendly 
 Society, and a Social Club. Each Tra- 
 ghetto occupies a small open space on the 
 Canal banks, where its members house 
 the gear of their gondolas, make needful 
 repairs, gossip, and, in more prosperous 
 days, were accustomed to sing in concert 
 on fine evenings, to the great pleasure 
 of passers-by. They still hang in pictur- 
 esque groups about the Traghetti, which 
 are always a sure find for bits of local 
 costume and colour, but their earnings are 
 now too small to foster much gaiety. 
 
 Each Traghetto is governed by a con- 
 stitution and written laws of its own, 
 dictated, for the most part, by the State 
 several hundred years ago, still religiously 
 preserved, and enforced, so far as changed 
 times permit, by the societies. The 
 hours of work, the fees to be exacted, 
 the number of apprentices, the limits of
 
 30 VENICE 
 
 their obedience and of their master's 
 authority, together with the festas and 
 holidays to be observed, are all minutely 
 defined ; while the guilds in question may 
 be considered as a survival, where scarcely 
 anything else has survived, of fifteenth- 
 century Venice. 
 
 The gondolier of to-day is universally 
 admitted to be a good waterman and 
 obliging servant, who makes the plea- 
 santest of all vehicles doubly agreeable 
 by his courteous manners. It is a pity 
 he seldom earns more than four or five 
 shillings a day for the hire of himself and 
 his boat, which costs him ^40, and, 
 being his own property, is always kept 
 clean and in excellent order.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH THE PIAZZA 
 
 .A. FEW strokes of the oars carried us 
 from our hotel door to the wide steps 
 of the Piazzetta, where a picturesque 
 group of gondoliers is always lounging 
 and awaiting customers. Here we landed, 
 under the shadow of the Ducal Palace, 
 and, passing between two granite pillars, 
 respectively surmounted by the Lion of 
 St. Mark and St. Theodore, the earlier 
 and later patron saints of the Republic, 
 made our way on foot to the Piazza 
 and Cathedral. The Piazzetta is, so to 
 speak, the State doorway of Venice; a 
 space reserved between the Ducal Palace, 
 
 3
 
 32 VENICE 
 
 the Library, and the sea, and presided over 
 by the guardian Lion of the Republic, 
 whence the fleets of Venice sailed, where 
 emperors, popes, and kings were received 
 with unimaginable pomp, and where, as 
 if to give it farther solemnity, the heads 
 of traitors were exposed to the view of 
 all Venice. Passing from the Piazzetta 
 into the Piazza, one reaches the heart 
 of the city, a great oblong " place " sur- 
 rounded on three sides by buildings of the 
 noblest architecture, and closed in on the 
 fourth by the Church of St. Mark itself. 
 
 In the days of Angelo Participazio, 
 already described as the first Doge of 
 confederated Venice, who established his 
 government at Rivo-Alto in the early 
 part of the ninth century, a legend ran 
 that when, centuries before his time, St. 
 Mark sailed from Alexandria to preach 
 the Christian faith to the Roman popu-
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 33 
 
 lations then inhabiting the mainland, 
 his ship took refuge among the islands 
 from a violent storm. Here an angel 
 told him that his bones would one day 
 rest, and be held in veneration, near 
 the spot where he had sheltered. That 
 this prophecy might be fulfilled was a 
 hope ever present to the religious minds 
 of the early Venetians, who, always on 
 the look-out, so to speak, for the bones 
 of the Evangelist, came by the coveted 
 treasure in the following way : 
 
 Two Venetian merchants, Bono of 
 Malamocco, and Rustico of Torcello, 
 were trafficking at Alexandria in the 
 year 828, when they heard of the depre- 
 dations committed by the Saracens on 
 all Christian edifices. Rumour also said 
 that the temple of St. Mark, rich beyond 
 most other churches in precious stones, 
 and containing, besides, the body of the
 
 34 VENICE 
 
 saint, was in danger from their cupidity. 
 Knowing the legend that foretold how St. 
 Mark's bones were to rest in Venice, and 
 well aware of the credit they would gain 
 by bringing back this coveted possession, 
 they determined to obtain it. Having 
 bribed the guardians of the church to 
 part with the holy remains, they were next 
 confronted with the difficulty of conveying 
 their prize unchallenged through the Cus- 
 toms House; but, craftily hiding their booty 
 at the bottom of a basket which they after- 
 wards filled with pork, and crying "Khau- 
 zir ! Khauzir ! " (Swine ! Swine !) as they 
 passed the Mahomedan officials, succeeded 
 in getting their prize on board ship, and so 
 brought it in triumph to the Lagoons. 
 
 The Square of St. Mark's was then a 
 green field, where Angelo Participazio had 
 already commenced building a modest 
 palace; and here his son and successor,
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 35 
 
 Giustiniani Participazio, laid the founda- 
 tion of a chapel, adjacent to the rising 
 ducal residence, where the newly acquired 
 bones of the saint might repose. Giusti- 
 niani died in 829, before his chapel was well 
 out of the ground ; but it was finished, and 
 consecrated, in the following reign, that of 
 his brother Giovanni Participazio, and con- 
 tinued to shelter the body of St. Mark until 
 the year 976, when the reigning Doge, Can- 
 diamo IV., having rendered himself hateful 
 to the people, was attacked in his palace, 
 which was fired and burned to the ground. 
 The flames spread to St. Mark^s chapel, 
 which was also destroyed, together, no 
 doubt, with the presumed body of the 
 saint ; but a pious fable maintains that this 
 was miraculously preserved and still rests 
 under the high altar of the existing church. 
 Pietro Orseolo, the instigator of the 
 revolt against Candiamo IV., and who
 
 36 VENICE 
 
 succeeded him, devoted his own fortune, 
 together with the proceeds of certain 
 special taxes, to the work of rebuilding 
 both the Ducal Palace and St. Mark's 
 Church, and sent for this purpose to 
 Constantinople for the cleverest builders 
 and workmen which the Eastern Empire 
 could supply. It is said that the Byzantine 
 architect who thus became employed in 
 designing the work was a distorted and 
 bow-legged dwarf, who undertook to raise 
 an edifice of unequalled beauty on condi- 
 tion that his statue should be placed in the 
 most conspicuous spot in the church. The 
 bargain was struck ; but one day, when 
 the Doge was watching the rising build- 
 ing, he overheard the architect say that, 
 owing to certain obstacles thrown in his 
 way, he would not execute the work in 
 the manner he had intended. " In that 
 case,"" broke in Orseolo, " we are absolved
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 37 
 
 from our promise ; " and instead of erect- 
 ing the statue where all could see, rele- 
 gated it to a corner, where the dwarfish 
 effigy of an old man on crutches, with 
 his finger on his lip, represents, the 
 story says, the Byzantine designer of St. 
 Mark's. The church was consecrated by 
 Doge Falier in 1085, but, since that 
 time, nearly every Doge has added to 
 its decorations, the main body of the 
 structure being of the eleventh, the 
 Gothic additions of the fourteenth, and 
 the mosaics, largely restored in the seven- 
 teenth, of all dates from the tenth to the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 Adequately to describe this building is 
 impossible, although Ruskin has essayed 
 the task in a passage, one of whose over- 
 loaded sentences contains more than two 
 hundred and fifty words ! Well might 
 an " Innocent Abroad " in the Piazza
 
 38 VENICE 
 
 have doubted, after reading it, whether 
 the church existed at all. Yet a humble 
 diarist is expected to say something about 
 everything, and that is the only reason 
 why the present chronicler of small beer 
 ventures to remark that St. Mark's is 
 like no other Christian church in the 
 world. Its form, indeed, is that of the 
 Greek cross, but this is surmounted by 
 a number of domes which might, suit- 
 ably, cover a Mahomedan mosque. The 
 building crouches, instead of soaring, like 
 a great Gothic church, towards heaven. 
 Its face glitters with mosaics, showing 
 no signs of age. Bronze horses, that re- 
 call a triumphal arch, crown the western 
 doorway, replacing the saints and angels 
 familiar to us in such a situation. Its 
 bulbous domes suggest the crescent, where 
 spires point, usually, to the cross, here 
 replaced by elaborate golden finials that
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 39 
 
 break like rockets in the azure sky. In- 
 stead of frowning with hoar antiquity, 
 the whole structure glows like a newly- 
 cut jewel; yet this incongruous mixture 
 of Oriental ornamentation with Christian 
 symbolism fascinates the mind like a story 
 from the " Arabian Nights." 
 
 Interiorly, and by comparison with the 
 nave and aisles of a Gothic church, it 
 seems a vaulted cavern, dyed in gold and 
 purple by the harmoniously blended tints 
 of mosaics that completely cover its domes 
 and walls. These are capriciously illu- 
 minated by pencils of sunlight, which, 
 whitened by contrast with the prevail- 
 ing purple, shoot like arrows through 
 the clerestories of its five domes. 
 
 Its floor is paved with marble mosaics 
 that vie in elaborate design and minutely 
 perfect workmanship with the classic 
 tesserae of Caracalla's Baths, though sur-
 
 40 VENICE 
 
 passing these in warmth of tone and 
 general softness of effect. Five hundred 
 marble columns, for which the East was 
 ransacked, with exuberantly various and 
 sometimes exquisitely beautiful capitals, 
 adorn the church ; and of these, four, 
 covered from head to foot with graceful 
 low reliefs, dating from the eleventh cen- 
 tury, support a canopy of verde-antique 
 over the high altar, underneath which, as 
 a marble slab at the back records, lie 
 the sacred relics of St. Mark. 
 
 These are but outlines ; to fill them ade- 
 quately with details is beyond the power 
 of pen or brush. Eight centuries of touch- 
 ing, retouching, and adding to the lavish 
 decorations of this wonderful church have 
 baffled the descriptive capabilities even of 
 Ruskin's art -patter. Let us go into the 
 Piazza, drink a cup of coffee at Florian's, 
 and watch the sunset glow fading from
 
 ST. MJRK'S CHURCH 41 
 
 the jewelled face of this Eastern magician, 
 a dwarf beside the tall campanile that, 
 geni-like, confronts him, or the square of 
 high white palaces which seem to retire 
 before him, as if awed by his mystic, 
 rather than majestic, beauty. 
 
 The eye, wandering from the church to 
 the open square, falls on the most charac- 
 teristic scene in Venice. The great "place" 
 is enclosed by imposing structures which 
 appear to form one vast marble palace, 
 though they are in reality a series of 
 palaces, once the residences of the " Pro- 
 curators " of the Republic, the highest 
 officials after the Doge. The northern 
 side of the square is of fifteenth, the 
 southern of sixteenth century age, while 
 that facing St. Mark's was built by 
 Napoleon in 1810. The ground-floors of 
 all these buildings consist of arcades, now 
 occupied by cafes and shops, where all the
 
 42 VENICE 
 
 pretty things that Venice makes, glass- 
 ware, wood - carvings, mosaic jewellery, 
 gold chains of thread-like fineness, false 
 pearls, photographs and gouache, or water- 
 colour drawings, tempt the foreign visitor. 
 The cafes are crowded within by sallow 
 habitues, who sip coffee, talk, gesticulate 
 and read the journals from afternoon till 
 far into the night. Florian's boasts that 
 its doors are never closed, night or day, 
 all the year round, and the pasty faces 
 of its clients seem to bear witness to the 
 fact. Externally, the cafes attract swarms 
 of well-dressed, gay and insouciant people, 
 who take their coffee or ice at little tables 
 which intrude upon the open square itself; 
 while, among these groups, itinerant sellers 
 of cakes, flowers and fruit drive a flourish- 
 ing trade. Great flocks of pigeons fly 
 round or strut about the Piazza, confidently 
 disputing its pavement with the humans
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 43 
 
 who feed and pet them till they become 
 perfectly fearless of man. These birds, 
 held sacred for centuries in Venice, are 
 guests of the State, which pays for their 
 maintenance, while the crannies of the 
 church and surrounding buildings give 
 them shelter at night. All Venice is " in 
 Piazza " on spring and summer evenings, 
 when both the arcades and the open 
 square are crowded with promenaders. 
 The band plays two or three times a week, 
 and when its soft harmonies float upwards 
 into the violet sky of a still, moonlit 
 night, it would not be easy to find any- 
 where in the world so gay a picture as 
 the Piazza presents, or a framework of 
 such beauty and dignity as that with which 
 the high white palaces and mosaics of 
 the great church surround it. 
 
 The campanile, standing alone in the 
 square, and isolated from the Cathedral,
 
 44 VENICE 
 
 was begun in the tenth, but not com- 
 pleted till the sixteenth century ; and the 
 simplicity of its tall obelisk-like column 
 offers a striking contrast with the ornate 
 Byzantine edifice whose bells it carries. 
 On the other hand, it is faced by the clock- 
 tower, a Lombardic structure of the 
 sixteenth century, which is as quaintly 
 decorative as its neighbour is plain. Its 
 summit is crowned by two bronze Vulcans, 
 "standing naked in the open air," who 
 hammer out the hours with their sledges 
 on a bell that hangs between them ; while, 
 immediately below the great clock-face 
 these figures surmount, a picturesque arch- 
 way leads out of the Piazza to the Merceria, 
 still the chief commercial street of the 
 city, occupied by shops that glitter with 
 jewellery and trinkets, as it was centuries 
 ago, when, on Ascension Days, the mar- 
 ried ladies of Venice visited it in order
 
 ST. MARK'S CHURCH 45 
 
 to study a certain lay figure which was 
 made to change its fashions, after those 
 of Paris, once every year. 
 
 We returned to our hotel through a 
 characteristic Venetian street, or calle, well 
 described by Ruskin as "a paved alley, 
 nowhere more than seven feet wide, full 
 of people, and resonant with the cries of 
 itinerant salesmen a shriek in their be- 
 ginning, and dying away into a kind of 
 brazen ringing, all the worse for its con- 
 finement between the high houses of the 
 passage-way. Overhead, an inextricable 
 confusion of ragged shutters, iron bal- 
 conies, and flues pushed out on brackets 
 to save room ; arched windows with pro- 
 jecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams 
 of green leaves here and there where a 
 fig-tree branch escapes over a lower wall 
 from some inner cortile, leading the eye 
 up to the narrow stream of blue sky high
 
 46 VENICE 
 
 over all. On each side, a row of shops, 
 as densely set as may be, occupying, in 
 fact, intervals between the square stone 
 shafts, about eight feet high, which carry 
 the first floors ; intervals, of which one is 
 narrow, and serves as a door ; the other, 
 in the more respectable shops, wain- 
 scotted to the height of the counter, and 
 glazed above, but, in those of the poorer 
 tradesmen, left open to the ground, and 
 the wares laid on benches and tables in 
 the open air; the light, in all cases, 
 entering at the front only, and fading 
 away, a few feet from the threshold, 
 into a gloom which the eye, from with- 
 out, cannot penetrate, but which is gen- 
 erally broken by a ray or two from a 
 feeble lamp at the back of the shop, 
 suspended before a print of the Virgin."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LAGOON, TORCELLO, BURANO 
 
 FROM St. Mark's to the Ducal Palace 
 is but a step, but, rather than crowd im- 
 pression too closely on impression, we 
 decided, before visiting the latter, to 
 spend a day in the gondola on the 
 Lagoon, and visit the islands of Burano 
 and Torcello. Murano might also have 
 attracted us but for the pall of coal- 
 smoke hanging over its glass factories. 
 We had already seen the best work 
 turned out by these in twenty shops 
 under the arcades of the Piazza, only 
 to regret that the taste, whether of 
 modern makers or buyers of Venetian 
 glass, is not more simple. So, leaving the 
 
 47
 
 48 VENICE 
 
 Grand Canal an hour before high water, 
 our gondola furnished with a sail to be 
 used if wind enough arose, we glided away 
 over the still Lagoon, in delicious weather, 
 bound for Torcello, which lies about seven 
 miles, as the crow flies, north of Venice. 
 
 A pathway in the sea, curved like the 
 course of a river, and marked out by piles, 
 connects the city with this island ; but, 
 except for the suggestion of shallow water 
 so conveyed, we might easily have imagined 
 ourselves in a dead calm, on the open sea, 
 so wide was our horizon, and so sea-green 
 the water under our keel. The day was 
 sunny, but a light, low-lying mist deprived 
 us of any glimpse, whether of the snowy 
 Alps or blue Euganean hills, which, we 
 knew, must lie respectively to north and 
 west of us ; yet our outlook, confined in 
 reality to a few miles in any direction, was 
 not consciously limited. Billowy cumulus
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 49 
 
 clouds of softest tints and texture floated 
 everywhere in the heavens, their level bases 
 slightly raised above the sea-line. Dis- 
 tant islands, towers, tall cypresses, passing 
 ships, and even the farther groups of piles 
 themselves, were lifted by a mirage, which 
 concealed their points of contact with the 
 surface of the water, so that they appeared 
 as if suspended in the air. The white 
 palaces and campaniles of the city as- 
 sumed, as we receded from them, various 
 tints of misty rose-colour, so delicate that 
 these scarcely detached themselves from 
 the tender harmonies of sea and sky. The 
 word " dreamlike," from its suggestions of 
 immateriality, seems best to characterise 
 the scene, whose colouring was as far re- 
 moved from Turner's warm as from Cana- 
 letto's chilly tones. The wide Lagoon, in- 
 deed, appeared as if steeped in a sensuous 
 atmosphere that recalled the flesh-tints
 
 50 YE NICE 
 
 of Titian ; while Giorgione's palette might 
 have furnished reds and yellows for the sails 
 of such passing boats as, now and again, 
 emphasized, by a contrasting note, the soft 
 ethereality of the picture. 
 
 As Venice faded away in the mist, island 
 after island came into view, the sea-line, 
 over which, by reason of the mirage, they 
 had seemed to hang, rising gradually and 
 imperceptibly, on our approach, until their 
 buildings, trees or towers were seen to be 
 rooted in earth instead of air, while all were 
 touched with the same magic brush that 
 has previously lent such enchanting hues 
 to the city itself. Thus we floated onward, 
 the gentle movement, caressing air, and 
 dreamily delicate view combining to de- 
 light, almost entrance, the senses, while 
 half-awakened memories of Leighton's ten- 
 derest art and Tennyson's Lotus Eaters as 
 gently stirred the mind.
 
 THE L4GOON, ETC. 51 
 
 Presently we reached Torcello, an island 
 that lifts its desolate fields of salt-morass 
 somewhat higher above the tide than do 
 the sandbanks nearer Venice. It is a waste 
 of wild sea-moor, lifeless, ashen-grey in 
 colour, and infiltrated by the sea through 
 snaky channels whose rotten edges are 
 shaggy with dead roots disinterred by the 
 lapping water. A wider canal, having 
 banks overgrown by samphire and dwarf 
 lilacs, opened to receive our boat, which 
 advanced through a solitude rarely broken 
 by a human habitation, and occasionally 
 emphasized by the ruins of old quays, 
 the foundations of marble buildings, and 
 similar evidence of a vanished population 
 and prosperity. 
 
 Here we made fast while Merlo and his 
 son, our gondoliers, spread lunch deftly on 
 a table improvised from a transverse board, 
 so placed that we could eat and drink
 
 52 VENICE 
 
 without moving from our comfortable 
 cushions. The meal was enlivened by 
 some pleasant gossip about our boatman's 
 way of life, of his " own Signorina " or chief 
 employer, of the Montalba family, and of 
 some English residents in Venice for whom 
 he had, at some time, plied an oar. All 
 with that agreeable manner so character- 
 istic of Italian servants, a charming mix- 
 ture of frankness and respect. How one 
 would appreciate something similar if it 
 could be imported into the relations be- 
 tween master and servant in England ! 
 
 A few strokes of the oars brought us, 
 after lunch, to the edge of a little meadow, 
 part of a small farm, where the figure of a 
 woman, with several barefooted children 
 clinging to her skirts, broke the other- 
 wise complete solitude of the place. This 
 group, who collectively became our guide, 
 were backed by a great church and cam-
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 53 
 
 panile, together with three other build- 
 ings of so modest a character that they 
 might easily have been mistaken for some 
 of the farm out-houses ; but these things 
 were, indeed, what we had "come out for to 
 see " the sole remains of a city that has 
 been justly called " Mother of Venice."" 
 
 The Roman Empire was dying by inches 
 when Attila's invasion, in 452 A.D., drove 
 the rich inhabitants of Padua, Vicenza, 
 Verona, Treviso, and other cities of Venetia 
 to seek safety from Hunnish sabres in 
 the islands of the Lagoons. During the 
 twenty-four following years, which wit- 
 nessed the final collapse of the Roman 
 Colossus, fresh alarms and disasters added 
 continually to the number of these first 
 refugees, until the islands became numer- 
 ously populated by Roman subjects, for- 
 gotten by their own rulers, and out of 
 reach of the barbarians who had no ships.
 
 54 VENICE 
 
 Rivo- Alto (or Rialto) was one of the first 
 islands to be thus occupied, and although 
 there is no doubt that this, together with 
 its neighbours, was at first under the rule 
 of Rome, it is equally certain that its 
 settlers had become their own masters as 
 early as 466 A.D., when they appointed 
 " maritime tribunes " for the government 
 of the commonwealth. 
 
 While time passed peacefully for these in- 
 accessible Lagoon populations, employed in 
 fishing and salt-making, wave after wave of 
 invasion submerged Italy, and the Goths, 
 under Theodoric, were supreme in the 
 Peninsula at the moment when we obtain 
 our next glimpse of the remote settlements 
 anchored in the Adriatic. Certain letters 
 of Cassiodorus, the great Chancellor of 
 Theodoric, record the habits and customs 
 of many peoples among whom he travelled, 
 and one in particular of these describes
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 55 
 
 minutely the condition and character of 
 the Venetians as they appeared to a 
 most acute observer in the early part of 
 the sixth century. This famous letter 
 mentions the long sea voyages success- 
 fully undertaken by the Venetians, their 
 skill in shipbuilding and architecture, 
 their high qualifications as seamen, and 
 the extent of their trade, particularly in 
 salt, which was practically a monopoly of 
 the Lagoons. Of the people themselves 
 Cassiodorus says they were industrious and 
 prosperous beyond all others, that their 
 lives were simple, their diet frugal, and 
 their social relations marked by perfect 
 equality, while they enjoyed a singular 
 freedom from the jealousies and envies of 
 ordinary men. In addition, they were re- 
 ligious, and passionate lovers of independ- 
 ence and self-government. 
 
 Venetia was overrun for a second time
 
 56 VENICE 
 
 in 568 A.D. by the Lombards, the wildest 
 horde that Germany had yet sent forth, 
 with the result that a new exodus took 
 place from the city of Altinum, a large 
 party of whose inhabitants fled to Istria, a 
 second to Ravenna, while a third remained . 
 for a time, uncertain in what direction to 
 seek safety. These, the more devout among 
 the fugitives, determined, by the advice of 
 their bishop, Paulus, to fast and pray for 
 three days, seeking a sign from Heaven 
 for their guidance ; and, at the end of 
 that time, legend declares that a voice 
 was heard among them saying, "Ascend 
 the city tower and look towards the 
 stars."" These, to the good bishop's eyes, 
 suggested a vision of boats, ships, and 
 islands ; so, taking this for a divine indica- 
 tion that their course should be directed 
 seaward, they removed, with their most 
 precious possessions, to the island of Tor-
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 57 
 
 cello, whence they afterwards spread to 
 Murano, Burano, and Mazzorbo. 
 
 The Lidi, or long sandbanks which pro- 
 tect the Lagoon from the sea, being, of 
 all the islands, farthest removed from the 
 mainland and consequent danger of inva- 
 sion, had formed the favourite asylum of the 
 Hunnish fugitives, and many townships, 
 of which Heraclea, Jesolo, and Malamocco 
 were the chief, were already established 
 upon them. These, together with the 
 Altinese settlements, were at first inde- 
 pendent communities, each group of immi- 
 grants creating a separate life for itself, and 
 retaining, as far as possible, the customs, 
 religion and constitution of their ruined 
 and deserted homes. Gradually all the 
 townships drew together into a federation 
 of twelve communes, each governed by 
 its own tribune, but meeting, under the 
 presidency of a Doge or Duke, in general
 
 58 VENICE 
 
 assembly for the settlement of such busi- 
 ness as affected the general interest of the 
 Lagoons. 
 
 Jealousy and internecine feuds, how- 
 ever, soon supervened, as one or other of 
 these townships came to the front and 
 endeavoured to impose its will on its 
 neighbours. Now, it was Heraclea which 
 claimed to lead, and destroyed its neigh- 
 bour Jesolo ; to be, in its turn, attacked 
 and razed to the ground by Malamocco. 
 It is, indeed, possible that had this period 
 of internal rivalry continued for long, the 
 Lagoon communities might have frittered 
 away their strength in private quarrels, 
 and the State of Venice never have emerged 
 at all. But external pressure, acting upon 
 the passion of the islanders for independ- 
 ence and autonomy, came in time to save 
 the confederation from itself, and compel 
 the townships to consolidate.
 
 THE L4GOON, ETC. 59 
 
 The Hunnish invasion had already illus- 
 trated the dangers of the mainland, when 
 a Frankish attack under Pepin, son of 
 Charlemagne, presently demonstrated the 
 peril from a too close neighbourhood 
 of the open sea. Pepin was, however, 
 successfully resisted, thanks in a great 
 measure to the difficulties of lagoon navi- 
 gation ; while, as a result of the Frankish 
 attempt, a complete fusion of the various 
 settlements took place in 813 A.D., and, 
 upon the advice of Doge Angelo Partici- 
 pazio, whom we have already seen laying 
 the foundations of the first Ducal Palace, 
 the seat of government was fixed at Rial to, 
 a spot equally removed from the danger 
 of invasion whether by land or sea. 
 
 " Here, for nearly a thousand years, 
 Venice lay, a bulwark between the East and 
 West, belonging to neither, but mistress 
 of herself, a nest of hardy islanders deter-
 
 60 VENICE 
 
 mined and ready to assert her own inde- 
 pendence. Did the Lombards claim her ? 
 she appealed to Constantinople ; did 
 the Emperor attempt to interfere? she 
 flung herself on the Western side ; and all 
 the while she drew from both alike that 
 nourishment which made her what she 
 really was a nation by herself, a peculiar 
 people, Venetians of Venice. 1 * 
 
 To return to Torcello, and our object 
 in visiting its now desolate shores. Once 
 selected as the site of government, Rialto, 
 or Venice, as it must thenceforth be called, 
 became the natural centre for the life 
 and commerce hitherto distributed over 
 the twelve communes. The Square of St. 
 Marias, in Angelo Participazio's time, was, 
 as we have already seen, nothing more than 
 a green field. Wooden houses, roofed with 
 reeds, were then few and far apart, and 
 where the city now huddles, narrow canals,
 
 THE L4GOON, ETC. 61 
 
 with unsecured banks, meandered among 
 gardens, orchards, and meadows, while 
 fishermen's sails and nets contrasted every- 
 where with cultivated fields or pasturing 
 flocks. The Doge soon changed all that. In 
 addition to founding a Ducal Palace, he ap- 
 pointed architects, engineers, and overseers 
 for the improvement and embellishment of 
 Rialto and the prevention of encroach- 
 ments by the sea. A city began to rise 
 where the scattered homesteads of farmers 
 and fishermen had been, and, as it rose, 
 the characteristic features of the early 
 lagoon settlement naturally disappeared, 
 until now, after centuries of expansion, im- 
 provement and addition, nothing remains 
 to indicate what manner of men they were 
 who, while flying for their lives before the 
 barbarian, carried with them seed which, 
 planted in mud-islands, and matured in 
 hardship and isolation, struck such deep
 
 62 VENICE 
 
 roots into the national soil, and sprang into 
 so lofty and beautiful a tree. The ques- 
 tion which cannot be answered in Venice 
 may possibly be resolved at Torcello. 
 
 Our family of guides led the way to the 
 Church, or Cathedral, as it is sometimes 
 called ; not, be it understood, the self-same 
 fabric as that raised by the Altinese fugi- 
 tives on the Torcellan shore, but a re- 
 production of the earlier building erected 
 by Bishop Orso in the beginning of the 
 eleventh century. This is a basilica of 
 moderate dimensions and perfectly plain 
 exterior, whose only striking feature con- 
 sists in the furnishing of its high square 
 windows with stone shutters turning upon 
 rude stone hinges, and suggesting a shelter, 
 whether from foes or storm, rather than a 
 Christian church. 
 
 Interiorly, the building consists of three 
 parallel naves, terminating in circular apses
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 63 
 
 and separated from each other by two rows 
 of beautiful marble columns with highly- 
 wrought capitals. The apses, together 
 with the western wall, are decorated with 
 mosaics which, although archaic in char- 
 acter, bespeak considerable skill in this 
 chai-acteristic branch of Byzanto- Vene- 
 tian art. The choir is enclosed by a beauti- 
 fully decorated marble rood-screen, while 
 the chancel is furnished with a singular 
 amphitheatrical semi-circle of stone seats 
 for the use of the officiating clergy, in the 
 centre of which, and slightly raised above 
 the others, is the bishop's chair. Flanking 
 the rood-screen, but in the body of the 
 church, stands a marble pulpit, which, 
 together with the stairway leading thereto, 
 is covered with delicate and beautiful carv- 
 ings. This "ambon" has two divisions, 
 one of which faces south and the other 
 west, exhibiting "an absurd likeness to
 
 64 VENICE 
 
 many a modern English scheme of pulpit 
 and reading-desk ; and there is certainly 
 force in the observation that such an ar- 
 rangement would never have been thought 
 of unless the Gospel was to be under- 
 stood of the people. 11 
 
 Such is the Church of Torcello, a struc- 
 ture that seems to bespeak force and sim- 
 plicity of character, considerable artistic 
 taste, and earnest religious feeling on the 
 part of its founders. The force finds ex- 
 pression in the creation of such a build- 
 ing at all under the circumstance in which 
 the Altinese fugitives found themselves, 
 demonstrating that they had the courage 
 of men, "persecuted but not forsaken, 
 cast down but not destroyed." The sim- 
 plicity is inferred equally from the ex- 
 ternal plainness and restrained internal 
 decoration which distinguishes their House 
 of God. The taste is vouched for by the
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 65 
 
 refined sculpture of its rood-screen, pulpit, 
 and columns ; while the amount of loving 
 labour bestowed on the whole pile, under 
 circumstances of peril, privation, and 
 anxiety, sufficiently prove the depth of 
 their religious feeling. Is it fanciful to 
 suppose that the curious provision for dig- 
 nifying the services of the Church which 
 seems to be implied in the am phi theatrical 
 arrangement of the choir, together with 
 the suggestion of a truly public worship 
 conveyed by the exposed pulpit and read- 
 ing-desk, may corroborate this conclusion ? 
 A fine sea-breeze filled our sail as, leav- 
 ing Torcello, we steered for the island of 
 Burano, not now over the wide waters 
 of the lagoon, but along one of the many 
 winding channels which separate its sand- 
 banks from each other at low-tide. The 
 narrow water-way was alive with the 
 craft of fishermen, who, taking advantage
 
 66 VENICE 
 
 like ourselves of the breeze, displayed 
 red, yellow, or orange-tinted sails, some- 
 times distinguished by fantastic designs, 
 such as a blooming rose, a heart pierced 
 by a sword, or a star flashing light- 
 nings from its centre. Our route led us 
 past the small and lonely island of San 
 Francisco in Deserto, wholly occupied by 
 a Franciscan monastery and its garden, 
 which boasts one of the most beautiful 
 cypress avenues in Italy. Here a score 
 of monks live in the utmost seclusion, fit 
 keepers and showmen of the stone coffin 
 wherein their founder, St. Francis, was 
 accustomed to lie for some hours daily, 
 communing with the thought of death. 
 
 Thence we pushed on to Burano, and 
 threaded its canals, crowded with fish- 
 ing-boats, from whose masts hung long 
 complicated nets drying in the sun, and 
 to whose sides were made fast numbers
 
 THE LAGOON, ETC. 67 
 
 of great pear - shaped wicker baskets 
 plunged to the neck in the water, store- 
 houses of living fish, waiting the Vene- 
 tian market. Other craft from Murano, 
 freighted with heavy boxes of variously 
 coloured beads, were being discharged, for 
 distribution among the numerous women 
 who employ themselves in bead-stringing. 
 The flagged Piazza of the little township 
 resounded loudly with the " clang of the 
 wooden shoon" (that down-at-heel foot- 
 gear of so many Italian peasants) as we 
 passed through its populous precincts on 
 our way to the Countess Marcello's lace 
 factory, where two or three hundred girls 
 are employed in making the famous "point 
 de Burano,"" and thus adding a few lire 
 weekly to the scanty earnings of the fisher 
 community. 
 
 It was a Buranese whose " old music," 
 "creaking like a cricket," set Browning
 
 68 VENICE 
 
 once a-dreaming of Venice in her decay ; 
 but no "Toccata of Galuppis" could 
 now, better than the obvious and pressing 
 poverty of Burano, suggest that Venice, 
 having "spent what Venice earned," ruined 
 also by her fall more than one island popu- 
 lation which, in the old days, profitably 
 catered for her once sumptuous house- 
 holds. The kind breeze, pungent with 
 "scents of the infinite sea,"" spared our 
 gondoliers 1 arms until we were close to 
 the city, which lay, in the evening light, 
 like a rosy-white flower upon the surface 
 of the lagoon, whose opal tints were 
 darkened by sunset shadows before we 
 reached our hotel.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 
 
 A PEDESTRIAN intending a visit to the 
 Ducal Palace enters it from thePiazzetta by 
 the Porta della Carta (Secretary's Door) ; 
 while our gondola, turning out of the 
 Grand Canal, and passing under the Schia- 
 vone Bridge, stopped a little short of the 
 Bridge of Sighs, and delivered us by a 
 water-gate to the courtyard of this strange 
 but most attractive building. A Ducal 
 Palace was commenced, as we have seen, 
 by Angelo Participazio early in the ninth 
 century, upon the consolidation of the 
 islanders, at Rivo-Alto; and this struc- 
 ture, we also know, was destroyed by fire, 
 69
 
 70 VENICE 
 
 and rebuilt by the hunchback Byzantine 
 architect, under Orseolo II., in the follow- 
 ing century. Orseolo^s palace was pro- 
 bably similar to the Fondaco dei Turchi, 
 already described, and was damaged, 
 altered, and enlarged both in the twelfth 
 and fourteenth centuries, but not to the 
 complete eradication of its early Byzan- 
 tine features. 
 
 In January 1414, Tommaso Mocenigo 
 became Doge, thirty-three years after the 
 conclusion of a war with Genoa, which, 
 though ending favourably for the Venetian 
 arms, had so exhausted the exchequer of 
 the Republic that a decree was passed for- 
 bidding any one to speak of rebuilding the 
 Ducal Palace under penalty of a fine of 
 1000 ducats. All Venice, at the time, 
 considered that such portions of the Old 
 Palace as remained contrasted ill with the 
 splendours of the later buildings, and, a
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 71 
 
 further fire having formed the occasion, 
 Mocenigo appeared before the Senate in 
 September 1422, bearing the fine in his 
 hand, and claiming to be heard on this 
 matter. His suggestions were debated 
 and agreed to, the 1000 ducats unani- 
 mously voted towards the expenses of re- 
 building, and the work commenced forth- 
 with. The Doge died in the following 
 year, but the Great Hall, built for sittings 
 of the Consilio Maggiore, was finished in 
 1423 and opened with great pomp by 
 Mocenigo's successor, Francesco Foscari, 
 the same whose sad story has already been 
 outlined. 
 
 Venice, at this moment, was nearing 
 the zenith of her greatness, and, in her 
 unbounded love of ostentation, forgot 
 what was due from the city of the present 
 to the city of the past. "A thousand 
 palaces,"" Ruskin justly remarks, " might
 
 72 VENICE 
 
 be built upon her burdened islands, but 
 none of them could take the place, or 
 recall the memory of that which first 
 rose upon her unfrequented shores. This 
 fell, and, as if it had been the talisman 
 of her fortune, Venice never flourished 
 again. 11 
 
 Externally, the pile, like the palaces of 
 the Grand Canal, exemplifies the eclectic 
 spirit in which the Venetians treated archi- 
 tecture. Dominated by the idea that every 
 great public or private building must be 
 cubicular in form, they gave it a Gothic or 
 Renaissance exterior at will, while reserv- 
 ing the rectangular chambers of the 
 interior for decoration by the painter. 
 The architect of the Ducal Palace has 
 accordingly planted upon a dwarf colon- 
 nade, having pointed arches decorated by 
 traceries of great delicacy and beauty, a 
 square mass of marble masonry, unsym-
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 73 
 
 metrically pierced by a few large pointed 
 windows, and relieved by occasional bal- 
 conies. The pure white of its walls is 
 variegated by a closely-set diaper of rosy- 
 tinted marble, while the place of a cornice 
 is taken by delicate crown-like ornaments, 
 such as those which surmount the walls of 
 an Arabian mosque. Slender supports of 
 decorated Gothic thus bear the weight 
 of a vast cubicular pile which, but for its 
 diapered surface, would seem even heavier 
 than it now appears ; and upon the brow 
 of this massive body sits a light Byzantine 
 coronet of pierced marble. It is a strange 
 medley; still it charms all the more, 
 perhaps, because it is like no other build- 
 ing in the world, being a complete inver- 
 sion of common practice, which places the 
 lighter superstructure upon the heavier 
 foundation. Meanwhile, one flank of 
 this quasi-Gothic creation leans upon the
 
 74 VENICE 
 
 southern facade of St. Mark's Saracenic 
 Church, illustrating, in the subtle way 
 peculiar to architecture, the national char- 
 acter of Venice, who herself formed a 
 connecting link between the Eastern and 
 Western worlds. 
 
 The Palace was not only the residence 
 of the Doge, but housed all the Councils 
 of State, concerning which a few words 
 must be said, if the series of great cham- 
 bers we are about to visit is to interest 
 us fully. The paintings which adorn 
 these rooms will be better reviewed when 
 we come to deal with Venetian art as a 
 whole ; but space must be found here for 
 an expression of profound regret that the 
 numerous fires which, from time to time, 
 have devastated the Palace of the Doges, 
 should have destroyed so many works of 
 the fifteenth - century Venetian masters, 
 of whom, but for these disasters, the
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 75 
 
 building would have contained a unique 
 representative collection. 
 
 The Venetian Constitution assumed a 
 definite shape in the year 1296, and re- 
 tained it, almost unchanged, down to the 
 fall of the Republic in 1797. It con- 
 sisted of the Great Council, or Lower 
 House ; the Senate, or Upper House ; the 
 College, or Cabinet ; and the Doge. The 
 famous Council of Ten, together with its 
 equally famous Commission of Three, were 
 no part of the original scheme, and are 
 therefore disregarded for the moment. 
 
 The Great Council was first established, 
 under Doge Ziani,in 1172, and was elected, 
 once a year, from and by the people. In 
 still earlier times the islanders discussed 
 all matters of public interest in open 
 meetings, which were presided over by a 
 Doge, chosen by the popular voice. The 
 Doge, after the creation of the Great
 
 76 VENICE 
 
 Council, was elected by the latter body, 
 but his appointment remained subject to 
 the approval of the people, to whom he 
 was presented, immediately after selection, 
 at the Church of St. Mark, with the for- 
 mula, "This is your Doge, an it please 
 you ! " a phrase which, as we shall see, 
 became ultimately unmeaning and was 
 lost. The Council, as a result of a revolu- 
 tion presently to be noticed, ceased to be 
 elective in 1296, and the government of 
 Venice thenceforth became centred in the 
 hands of the nobles, who were held to be 
 within, while the people were considered 
 without, the pale of this originally demo- 
 cratic body. Its functions were, at first, 
 both legislative and elective ; but, in 
 process of time, the Senate absorbed all 
 law-making faculty, the Great Council 
 retaining only its power of appointing 
 the officers of State, including the Doge.
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 77 
 
 The Senate, or Upper House, consisted 
 of sixty members, invited, or " prepared " 
 (" pregadi ") to their seats by the Lower 
 House, and a further sixty, called the 
 " Zonta," or " addition," 1 " 1 who were nomi- 
 nated by the Senate itself at the close of its 
 year of office. Besides these, the Doge, his 
 advisory Council, the Ten (in later years), 
 and certain special magistrates presiding 
 over finance, customs, and justice, were ex- 
 officio members of the Senate. Their func- 
 tions were legislative, judicial, and elective ; 
 but, just as the Great Council was pre- 
 eminently the elective body, so the Senate 
 was pre-eminently the legislative body in 
 the Constitution of Venice. 
 
 The College, or Cabinet, consisted of 
 the Doge, his six counsellors, and twenty 
 other persons, including the equivalents 
 of our Prime Minister, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, War Minister, and Minister
 
 78 VENICE 
 
 of Marine, and the chiefs of the Court of 
 Appeal. As the Great Council was the 
 elective, and the Senate the legislative, so 
 the Cabinet was the initiative and execu- 
 tive member of the State. It proposed 
 measures which became law in the Senate ; 
 but the execution of those laws was en- 
 trusted to the College, which had the 
 machinery of State at its disposal. 
 
 The position of the Doge of Venice was 
 one of almost despotic power from the 
 creation of this dignity in the seventh 
 down to the establishment of the Great 
 Council in the twelfth century. During 
 that period, the office tended to become 
 hereditary in certain powerful families, 
 whose rivalries alone prevented the Duke- 
 dom of Venice from becoming a kingdom. 
 It would lead us too far to describe 
 the means by which the Doge, once an 
 absolute ruler, was gradually reduced to
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 79 
 
 the position of a mere figure-head, repre- 
 senting the ceremonial pomp of the Re- 
 public, but otherwise powerless ; nor can 
 we trace the steps by which the democratic 
 islanders were led from the enjoyment 
 of autonomy to a similar powerlessness, 
 whether in the selection of their Duke or 
 the general government of Venice ; but a 
 few words must be said concerning the 
 forces which operated to bring about the 
 changes in question. 
 
 In the earliest years of its existence, 
 Venice lived by fishing, salt-making, and 
 other humble industries, no man being 
 very rich or very poor ; while the leaders 
 of the community, themselves members 
 of the old Roman nobility, but nurtured, 
 equally with the people, in the school of 
 adversity, came to hold their position of 
 authority among them by character and 
 capacity rather than wealth. After the
 
 8o VENICE 
 
 fusion at Rial to, the islanders profited by 
 a period of rest from internal struggles to 
 apply their energies to trading with the 
 East, but the very prosperity which fol- 
 lowed paved the way for new dissensions. 
 While the old aristocracy remained the 
 natural leaders of the populace, and 
 claimed superiority in virtue of its de- 
 scent, there arose from among the people 
 a class of men who, by commercial activ- 
 ity, had acquired a wealth far exceeding 
 theirs. " These men were drawn together 
 by the common desire to assert themselves, 
 to obtain the full value of their wealth, 
 and recognition of themselves as a distinct 
 element in the polity. It was inevitable 
 that they should seek to develop them- 
 selves into an aristocracy ; but, as inevit- 
 ably, such development brought them 
 into collision with the old hereditary 
 nobility, already firmly rooted, and also
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 81 
 
 with the people, from whom they wished 
 to differentiate themselves." 
 
 In course of time, the new plutocracy 
 emerged as a distinct party, which conso- 
 lidated itself around two primary objects, 
 viz., to crush the Doge, who was frequently 
 chosen from among the old nobility, and 
 to deprive the people of power; for so 
 long as these retained their ancient right 
 to elect the Doge, and so long as the 
 members of the older families were suc- 
 cessful candidates for the Dukedom, the 
 new party was not supreme. 
 
 Whether the plutocratic nobility origin- 
 ally desired supremacy for its own sake, or 
 to be used as a bulwark against personal 
 ambitions, which might easily, under the 
 circumstances, have converted an able 
 Doge from a constitutional sovereign into 
 a despot, is an obscure question ; it must 
 suffice to know that, after nearly three
 
 82 VENICE 
 
 centuries of persistent efforts, the new 
 men succeeded to the complete lordship 
 of Venice. At the expiration of that 
 time (1487), the Ten, as already related, 
 were able to dictate the abdication of 
 Doge Foscari ; and even before the close 
 of the thirteenth century the Dukedom 
 had become an office of no real power ; 
 the new aristocracy had displaced the old, 
 while the people had lost all voice in the 
 conduct of their own affairs and the choice 
 of their Duke. 
 
 But the new rulers of Venice, while thus 
 safeguarding themselves from the ambi- 
 tions of the older aristocracy, took the 
 utmost care to save themselves also from 
 themselves. The Council of Ten, to whom 
 we now return, were, in the first instance, 
 simply an extraordinary magistracy, called 
 into existence to save the State in a 
 dangerous crisis. The Tiepolo revolution,
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 83 
 
 already alluded to, was an attempt on the 
 part of the old nobility to restore the con- 
 dition of affairs which existed before the 
 emergence of the plutocratic party. It 
 failed ; but so narrow was the escape of the 
 new aristocracy from the pitfall prepared 
 for it, and so slow such retributive action 
 as could be expected from a cumbrous 
 organisation like the Senate, that, for its 
 own immediate safety, the new rulers of 
 Venice had recourse to the appointment 
 of a Dictator. " Following the inherent 
 bent of their own policy, however, this 
 Dictator was not an individual, but a 
 Committee. The Council of Ten was 
 originally appointed to examine into the 
 causes and trace the ramifications of the 
 Tiepolo conspiracy. Its tenure of office 
 was at first limited to a few days, then 
 extended to two months ; finally it was de- 
 clared permanent on July 20th, 1335, and
 
 84 VENICE 
 
 thenceforth became the tyrant of Venice 
 more terrible, whether to treachery or 
 ambition, than any personal despot, be- 
 cause impalpable and impervious to the 
 dagger of the assassin. It was no concrete 
 despotism, but the very essence of tyranny. 
 To seek its overthrow was vain. They 
 who strove to wrestle with it clasped the 
 empty air; they struck at it, but the 
 blow was wasted in. space. Evasive and 
 pervasive, this dark inscrutable body, 
 whose members changed perpetually, and 
 of whom to-day "s judge might be to- 
 morrow''s accused, ruled Venice with a rod 
 of iron. For good or evil, the Council of 
 Ten was the very child of the new aristo- 
 cracy, which had won its battle against 
 both the people and the old nobility. The 
 victorious party breathed, and their breath 
 became the Ten ; and it was the Ten which 
 both determined the internal aspect of
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 85 
 
 Venice for the remainder of her existence, 
 and distinguished her politically from the 
 rest of Italy." 
 
 The place of the Ten in the consti- 
 tutional structure was parallel with the 
 Senate. Below the Cabinet the adminis- 
 tration bifurcated the ordinary course 
 of business flowing through the Senate, 
 the extraordinary through the Ten. The 
 Ten possessed an authority equal to that 
 of the Senate ; but the choice of which 
 instrument should be used rested with the 
 Cabinet. The Ten therefore appear to 
 be of more importance than the Senate, 
 because they were used upon more critical 
 and dramatic occasions. Wherever the 
 machinery of the Cabinet and Senate 
 moves too slowly, we find the swifter 
 mechanism of the Ten in motion. Thus 
 they gradually absorbed more and more 
 of the functions originally belonging to
 
 86 VENICE 
 
 the Senate. In politics and foreign affairs 
 they commissioned the "Three,"" Inquisi- 
 tors of State. In the region of justice, 
 all cases of treason came before the Ten. 
 The higher officers of police and finance 
 belonged to this Council, and even in 
 the Arsenal they were supreme. 
 
 Entering the courtyard of the Palace, 
 the most casual observer must be deeply 
 impressed by the extreme beauty, dignity, 
 and variety of its decoration. Having 
 three of its sides enclosed by the Gothic 
 arcades already described, the fourth 
 abuts directly upon the southern face of 
 St. Mark's Church, with a most charm- 
 ing effect. Two beautiful bronze well- 
 heads, or "pozzi," which might have been 
 modelled from the antique, lend a singu- 
 larly attractive appearance to the open 
 courtyard, from which the Palace itself 
 is entered by the Scala dei Giganti, per-
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 87 
 
 haps the most beautiful external staircase 
 in the world, decorated with exquisite 
 bas-reliefs in marble, and crowned by 
 Sansovino's " Mars and Neptune,"" between 
 which colossal statues the coronation of 
 the Doges used to take place. 
 
 Thence we passed to the hall of the 
 Great Council, where the nobles, whose 
 names were inscribed in the " Golden 
 Book" of the Republic, sat as members 
 of the Consilio Maggiore, the self-consti- 
 tuted masters of Venice since the end of 
 the thirteenth century. Here hang the 
 portraits of seventy-six Doges, beginning 
 with Angelo Participazio, and including 
 the empty frame which once enclosed a 
 likeness of Marino Faliero, "beheaded 
 for his crimes,"" together with a num- 
 ber of pictures by Paolo Veronese and 
 Tintoretto, whose importance gives a fresh 
 stimulus to regret that all the work of
 
 88 VENICE 
 
 the great Cinquecentists, once employed 
 in embellishing the Ducal Palace, should 
 have perished in the fires which gutted it 
 during the sixteenth century. 
 
 The upper floors of the building intro- 
 duced us to a series of apartments, still in 
 their original condition, where the Senate, 
 the Cabinet, the Ten, and the Three were 
 accommodated. All contain pictures, some 
 of them world-famous by Veronese, Tin- 
 toretto, Palma, Paris Bordone, Bonifacio, 
 and other great artists ; and of these 
 chambers, that of the Three is perhaps 
 most interesting, since it contains the 
 letter-box into which opened the famous 
 " Lion^s Mouth " wherein, from without, 
 might be thrown the statements, petitions, 
 denunciations, or what not, which were 
 daily read, in camera, by the assembled 
 " Inquisitors of the Republic." Aside, how- 
 ever, from the pictures on their walls, which
 
 THE DUCAL PALACE 89 
 
 fully demonstrate the pompous pride of 
 the Venetian Republic, these State apart- 
 ments exhibit little splendour. They 
 are, for the most part, only dignified 
 and convenient rooms, handsomely but 
 not gorgeously fitted up for public uses 
 not so decorative, indeed, as the chambers 
 of the British Houses of Parliament, but 
 such as an assembly of " potent, grave, 
 and reverend Signiors" might well be 
 satisfied to occupy when in council. 
 
 In addition, we visited the Doges' modest 
 chapel ; the room where votes were cast 
 for offices of State ; the library of St. 
 Mark's, famous for some rare books, and 
 particularly for the illuminated "Grimani 
 Breviary ; "and the Archaeological Museum, 
 containing, among other things of less in- 
 terest, some very beautiful antique sculp- 
 tures and bronzes, the spoil, without doubt, 
 in many cases, of those Venetian traders to
 
 9 o VENICE 
 
 the East who dared not return from their 
 voyages without such gifts for their city. 
 The eastern flank of the Ducal Palace is 
 connected by the Bridge of Sighs with the 
 State prisons, which are without interest, 
 except for those who take a morbid plea- 
 sure in recalling the crueller features of 
 mediaeval justice, and for whom, indeed, a 
 torture chamber has been actually restored 
 in the ruined " Piombi," or prisons under 
 the leads of the Palace. It is somewhat 
 singular that so much sentiment should 
 have been wasted upon "that pathetic 
 swindle," as Mr. Howells nicknames the 
 Bridge of Sighs ; a structure of so late 
 a date that none of the greater State 
 prisoners of Venice ever passed, by its nar- 
 row way, to the dungeons on the farther 
 side of the canal which it spans.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 VENETIAN ART 
 
 .As the oldest Venetian painting is to 
 be found in the Church of St. Mark, so 
 the latest that, viz., of the followers of 
 Titian distinguishes the Ducal Palace; 
 while the churches of Venice, together 
 with its Academy of Fine Arts, make us 
 acquainted with many artists of inter- 
 mediate date and great merit. 
 
 Venetian art, which accomplished no- 
 thing in the fourteenth century, had its 
 origin in Padua, where a school of paint- 
 ing was established in the first half of the 
 fifteenth century, and attracted numerous 
 students from all parts of Italy, among 
 
 9 1
 
 92 VENICE 
 
 whom the Florentines Giotto, Donatello, 
 Lippi, and Ucello may be specially men- 
 tioned. Its founder, Squarcione, although 
 a painter, was not a professional artist, but 
 a man of considerable culture, who fitted 
 up a museum, filled with works of antique 
 art collected in his travels, as a studio for 
 his pupils. These he encouraged to make 
 copies of ancient models, thus stimulating 
 the growing admiration for Greek art, 
 while himself teaching an austere classical 
 style, which finds full expression in the 
 works of Andrea Mantegna. 
 
 Taking with him the Tuscan principles 
 he had acquired in the workshop of Gentile 
 da Fabriano, at Florence, Jacopo Bellini 
 studied in Padua about the year 1423, and 
 transmitted the influence of Squarcione's 
 school to Venice, as Mantegna, afterwards 
 his son-in-law, earned them to Mantua. 
 
 About the same time, the island of
 
 VENETIAN ART 93 
 
 Murano produced Alamannus, Antonio, 
 and Bartolommeo Vivarini, a family 
 known as "The Muranese" who, with 
 Jacopo Bellini, may be regarded as the 
 fathers of Venetian art, and originators 
 of the warm and sensuous colouring which 
 culminated in Giorgione and Titian. 
 
 Jacopo Bellini left behind him two 
 sons, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, who, 
 beginning to paint in the first half of the 
 Cinquecento, survived into the following 
 century, and died, very old men, the im- 
 mediate precursors of the glorious prime 
 of Venetian painting. Giorgione, Car- 
 paccio, and Titian were their contem- 
 poraries; while, elsewhere than in Venice, 
 Michael Angelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and 
 Andrea del Sarto, to say nothing of men 
 like Botticelli and Fra Bartolommeo, con- 
 tributed to create the artistic atmosphere 
 of their time.
 
 94 VENICE 
 
 The Bellinis were scarcely in their 
 graves when they were followed, in Venice, 
 by Paris Bordone, Tintoretto, and Paolo 
 Veronese, who, in the second half of the 
 sixteenth century, when all other schools 
 had already fallen into decay, lifted Vene- 
 tian art to its highest levels in the 
 masterpieces of the Ducal Palace and the 
 Academia. Veronese died twelve years 
 before the opening of the seventeenth 
 century, and art, already extinct for more 
 than fifty years throughout the rest of 
 Italy, perished, with him, in Venice. It 
 had lived through a glorious hundred and 
 fifty years in the City in the Sea. Vigorous 
 in its youth, with Vivarini and the Bellinis; 
 little less beautiful, and strangely inter- 
 esting, in its adolescence, with Carpaccio ; 
 sensuously magnificent, in its prime, with 
 Titian, Palma, and Bordone, if extrava- 
 gant, as that prime declined, in Tinto-
 
 VENETIAN ART 95 
 
 retto ; its last years were splendidly, yet 
 delicately, pompous in Paolo Veronese. 
 
 Venetian painting, from its earliest to 
 its latest days, is distinguished from that 
 of all the other Italian schools in various 
 ways. While the Tuscan artists of the 
 fifteenth century were individual, senti- 
 mental, and humanistic, the Venetian 
 masters of the same period were ordered, 
 materialistic, and far more concerned to 
 express the mere joy of existence than 
 their Tuscan contemporaries. In addi- 
 tion, they were possessed by the love 
 of warm and vivid colour, a peculiarity 
 due in part, perhaps, to the glories of 
 their native sea and sky, and emphasized 
 doubtless by the early introduction among 
 them, by Antonello da Messina, of the 
 use of oil colour. 
 
 Two generations of painters are dis- 
 tinguishable at Venice during the second
 
 96 VENICE 
 
 half of the fifteenth century. The first, 
 represented by the three Vivarini, already 
 mentioned, and Crivelli, derived their 
 principles from Padua, and are character- 
 ised by accuracy and hardness in their 
 central figures; while the purely decorative 
 part of their work, particularly in the 
 case of Crivelli, is rich and splendid beyond 
 description. All these artists display the 
 love of warm and vivid colouring common 
 to their successors. 
 
 The second generation of Cinquecentists 
 begins with the brothers Bellini, sons of 
 Jacopo Bellini, and their pupils, among 
 whom Giorgione, Cima, and Mansueti are 
 the most famous. Carpaccio, Basaiti, and 
 Bocacino, though not belonging to this 
 school, were in various ways affected by it, 
 and form a part of the group among whom 
 the peculiar Venetian colouring originated. 
 The grandeur of Bellini's school is so
 
 VENETIAN ART 97 
 
 generally accompanied by a certain nar- 
 rowness, as makes it evident that the 
 patron of art, rather than the artist him- 
 self, determined its course. Its works are 
 consequently inferior in ideas to those of 
 the Florentines, while surpassing them in 
 colour and realism. 
 
 Giovanni Bellini was by far the greatest 
 artist among the second generation of 
 fifteenth-century Venetians. The central 
 figures of his religious pictures are noble 
 in form and easy in action. They are 
 brought together, not for the mere sake 
 of effective contrast, but as tones of one 
 and the same chord, and are pervaded 
 by an expression of calm happiness to 
 the exclusion of supra-sensual emotional- 
 ism, such as distinguishes many of the 
 Tuscan masterpieces which fills the spec- 
 tator with inward satisfaction. His types 
 of humanity are so nearly related to our
 
 98 VENICE 
 
 own that we imagine it possible to meet his 
 characters, and live with them; whereas, 
 independently of their ideal forms, even 
 Raphael's figures seem removed from us by 
 their lofty relationships. While Bellini's 
 Madonnas serious, but without definite 
 emotions impress the mind thus, and the 
 child-Christ appears sublime and vigor- 
 ous in form and action without losing 
 the expression of childhood, the wonder- 
 ful angels whom he depicts on the steps 
 of the throne, with their violins and lutes, 
 embody the joy of simple existence like the 
 figures of a Grecian urn. The same joy, 
 which was the soul of the Renaissance, 
 finds unrestrained expression in Bellini's 
 mythological and allegorical works. There 
 are five beautiful little pictures of his 
 in the Academy which are as Greek in 
 their delicate fancifulness as his religious 
 pictures are sweet and harmonious.
 
 VENETIAN ART 99 
 
 Among the second group of Cinquecen- 
 tists, Carpaccio is unique as a story-teller ; 
 and so great is the antiquarian interest 
 which lapse of time has added to his 
 canvasses, that this quality alone might 
 easily cause us to overlook the artistic 
 merits of a very remarkable man. He is 
 best known by a series of eight large 
 works representing scenes in the life of 
 St. Ursula, and a miracle picture all 
 in the Academy, together with another 
 series, in the Church of S. Giorgio degli 
 Schiavone, portraying the deeds of the 
 three great Dalmatian saints, St. George, 
 Tryphonius, and Jerome, whose festivals 
 are here celebrated. 
 
 Carpaccio is, above all things, distin- 
 guished by a singular nai'vete, rare even 
 among the Tuscan Cinquecentists, and 
 altogether absent from the later art of 
 Venice. In addition, he displays sensi-
 
 ioo FEN ICE 
 
 bility alike to character and to beauty in 
 the human face; great dramatic force, a 
 perfect grasp of perspective, high technical 
 skill, and the love of colour common to 
 all the Venetians. From the antiquarian 
 point of view, his pictures are store-houses 
 of interest, wherein the spectator, having 
 sufficiently admired his art, may roam 
 for hours in a delighted study of details 
 which enable him to realise the aspect 
 of fifteenth-century Venice with the vrai- 
 semblance of a stage representation. 
 
 The scene, for example, in the miracle 
 picture already alluded to, lies on the 
 Grand Canal, immediately in front of the 
 Rialto Bridge. The time is sunset, and 
 the golden haze of the western sky is 
 broken by roofs, turrets, bell-towers, and 
 chimneys. The Canal is crowded with 
 gondolas without the "ferro" or "false" 
 of a later date canopied by gaily-hued
 
 VENETIAN ART 101 
 
 hangings, and propelled by gondoliers, 
 attired in rich silk doublets and slashed 
 hose, from under whose dainty red caps 
 fall showers of golden curls. On one side 
 of the Canal the white marble steps are 
 crowded with Venetian nobles, dressed in 
 varying shades of red and blue, gold and 
 purple ; while, in a gallery above them, a 
 group of clergy in white robes are gathered 
 around a demoniac from whom the evil 
 spirit has been expelled by the exhibition 
 of a fragment of the true cross. No better 
 view could be desired of the old bridge 
 and its surrounding buildings, as they 
 existed towards the close of the fifteenth 
 century, while the skilful and realistic 
 treatment of personages, accessories, and 
 dresses seems to place the spectator in the 
 midst of the scene itself. 
 
 Very little of GiorgioneWork is authen- 
 ticated, and of that little there is not
 
 102 VENICE 
 
 much to be seen in Venice ; but his name 
 cannot be omitted from any list of the 
 great Venetian Cinquecentists. Gentile 
 Bellini, brother of Giacomo, must simi- 
 larly be noticed, and is, indeed, magni- 
 ficently represented in the Academy 
 by three great miracle pictures, which, 
 while wonderfully delicate and harmoni- 
 ous in execution, are full of architectural 
 details and general antiquarian interest. 
 In one of these the Church of St. 
 Mark is represented in minute detail, 
 showing the old mosaics as they existed 
 before the alterations of the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries. A 
 procession fills the square, and over 
 its profuse and beautifully painted 
 details of dress and ceremonial an 
 antiquarian might linger lovingly for 
 hours, as with the Carpaccio already 
 described.
 
 VENETIAN ART: 103 
 
 These two schools comprised the men 
 who were employed during the fifteenth 
 century in decorating the Ducal Palace, 
 after its restoration at the instance of 
 Doge Mocenigo in 1422, and it is their 
 work which, to the unspeakable loss of 
 art, was swept out of existence by the 
 fires of the succeeding century. Let us 
 make the most of what remains, in the 
 Churches and Academy, of the Vivarini, 
 the Bellini, and Carpaccio, for their great- 
 est masterpieces have perished. 
 
 We come next to the consideration of 
 sixteenth-century Venetian painting, and 
 particularly to the art of Titian, Veronese, 
 Palma, Paris Bordone, and Tintoretto, 
 who, to the exclusion of their many able 
 followers, must stand for its exemplars. 
 This school, with a meagre supply of 
 poetical, and liberal dower of picturesque, 
 ideas, has justly attained a higher position
 
 104 VENICE 
 
 in general esteem than any other, pro- 
 bably because the office of art, as of litera- 
 ture, is, fundamentally, to please. In 
 its centre stands the gigantic figure of 
 Titian, who, during a life of nearly a 
 century, either created or adopted all of 
 which Venice was capable in painting. 
 His divine quality, the matured offspring 
 of the Renaissance spirit, lay, whether con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, in the feeling 
 that the function of art is to represent what 
 in real life is broken, scattered, or limited, 
 as complete, happy, and free. He struck 
 this key-note which the Tuscan Cinque- 
 centists had felt after, and Raphael 
 touched and the work of himself and 
 his followers together completes a chord 
 whose every note vibrates with the joy 
 of existence. The pure, ideal beauty 
 of his female figures, their delicious flesh 
 tints, white linen, golden hair, and naively
 
 VENETIAN ART 105 
 
 happy expression, form a harmonious 
 whole wherein, while everything pleases, 
 nothing obtrudes. These are no mere 
 studies of the nude, such as modern 
 France produces ; neither are they great 
 ladies posing as courtesans, but examples 
 of a not impossible existence, joyous rather 
 than gay, sensuous but not sensual. 
 
 Paolo Veronese elevated pageantry to 
 the height of serious art, and carrying the 
 latter to a point of unsurpassable excel- 
 lence, was a painter precisely suited to a 
 nation of merchant princes. Destitute 
 of poetical ideas, he idealised prosaic 
 magnificence, and celebrated all the glory 
 of the earth and life in superb ban- 
 quet halls which give upon great airy 
 spaces of blue sky and white clouds, with 
 suggestions here and there of distant and 
 unimaginable architectural glories. These 
 sumptuous apartments he decorated with
 
 io6 VENICE 
 
 silk and satin, brocades and banners, 
 crowns, sceptres, plate, fruit and flowers, 
 and peopled with a race of beings free, 
 beautiful, and magnificent, in the full en- 
 joyment of mere existence. Or he was 
 allegorical, not in a poetical or mystical, 
 but pompous and processional fashion ; 
 while, in his chef-cTceuvres, the "Myth of 
 Europa " and " Venice Enthroned," his 
 sober imagination spent itself in creating 
 splendours so transcendent as to leave 
 little room for regret that he could not 
 reach the higher plane of poetry. Mean- 
 while, his command over such subjects as 
 he painted, together with his workmanship, 
 was perfect ; and he borrowed the colour 
 that suffuses his pictures from the living 
 and liquid light of the Venetian lagoon. 
 
 Palma^s golden -haired and deep -bo- 
 somed women, saintly and sensuous at 
 the same time, might have stepped out
 
 VENETIAN ART 107 
 
 from one of Veronese's luxurious palaces ; 
 while Paris Bordone no less happy than 
 Palma in the portrayal of 
 
 ' ' Dear dead women, with such hair, too what's 
 
 become of all the gold, 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? " 
 
 surpassed even Paolo himself by his 
 "Doge receiving the ring from a fisher- 
 man,"" which now hangs in the Academy, 
 and is perhaps the greatest picture ever 
 painted in Veronese's style. 
 
 It remains to speak of Tintoretto, who 
 was in, though not, properly speaking, 
 of, the Venetian school. Inscribing on 
 his studio the boastful words, " Design of 
 Michael Angelo colouring of Titian," he 
 replaced the sublime demi-gods of Michael 
 Angelo's art by contorted figures, crowded 
 into inadequate spaces ; while Titian's 
 glowing tints give way in his pictures
 
 io8 VENICE 
 
 to cold dark blues, and even to black, 
 which he is reported to have declared, in 
 answer to a question, the " prettiest of all 
 colours." "Along with much that was 
 grand in Tintoretto there was great coarse- 
 ness and barbarism of feeling, and he often 
 descended to unconscientious daubing. In 
 his enormous works, which, in square feet 
 of painted surface, amount perhaps to ten 
 times as much as the fruits of Titian's cen- 
 tury of life, one surmises that he under- 
 took these things as a contractor, and 
 executed them as an improvisatore." 
 
 This estimate of Burckhardfs, made 
 more than twenty-five years ago, though 
 not unfair to much of Tintoretto's work, is 
 startlingly in contrast with certain modern 
 views upon the same subject, derived from, 
 and first formulated by Rusk in, who pro- 
 claims Tintoretto one of the greatest of 
 poet-artists. There are, indeed, pictures
 
 VENETIAN ART 109 
 
 by him which demonstrate that he could 
 approach Michael Angelo in feeling, and 
 Titian in colour; and of these, his best 
 example, " The Marriage of Bacchus and 
 Ariadne,'' 1 hangs in the Ducal Palace. The 
 Church and Scuola di S. Rocco, decorated 
 chiefly by Tintoretto, also contain some 
 of his finest works, extravagantly praised 
 by Ruskin, but displaying the defects of his 
 qualities. Such flashes of genius indeed as 
 we owe to the "Thunderbolt of Painting"" 
 blind, rather than delight, the eye ; and 
 one turns from his restless dramatic 
 scenes, where moods and passions are ex- 
 pressed by contorted attitudes, brusque 
 lights, and black shadows, whether to the 
 calm material splendour of Veronese, or 
 the pure ideal beauty of Titian, with the 
 conviction that here is finished art, there, 
 rather, crude improvisation. 
 
 Venetian life in the sixteenth century
 
 Ho VENICE 
 
 was almost as splendid, in fact, as Titian 
 and Veronese represent it. " The City in 
 the Sea had reached her apogee, and was 
 already beginning to flame in sinister 
 splendour down the road to corruption, 
 although she had never before made so 
 magnificent a display in the eyes of 
 Europe. Palaces were rising along the 
 Grand Canal, State ceremonies increased 
 in pomp and number, until life seemed like 
 one prolonged fete, but, meanwhile, the 
 race for distinction in wealth and splen- 
 dour was ruining all but the wealthiest 
 noble families." Their emasculated sons, 
 refusing to embark in business, spent 
 their time at 
 
 " Balls and masks, begun at midnight, burning 
 ever to mid-day." 
 
 Commerce and population were steadily 
 declining. Increasing numbers of the
 
 VENETIAN ART in 
 
 people lived on the charity or the vices 
 of the rich, while, side by side with enor- 
 mous private fortunes, there grew up a 
 desperate poverty which hated the luxury 
 it served. 
 
 Thus environed, the sixteenth-century 
 Venetian artists led, naturally, the same 
 luxurious and even sensual lives as the 
 Society of their day. Titian himself was 
 on terms of close intimacy with the in- 
 famous Aretino, whose career at Venice 
 was a complacent outrage upon all de- 
 cency, but who was, nevertheless, ad- 
 mired, courted, and accepted as a model 
 of good form by the elite of the city. 
 Yet these men drew from impure sur- 
 roundings only enough of their spirit to 
 inform painting with a certain subtle 
 flavour of sensuousness, and, neither puffed 
 up by the " pride of life," nor enervated 
 by the "lust of the eye," succeeded in
 
 ii2 VENICE 
 
 reaching, from what the moralist of to- 
 day would consider a social abyss, heights 
 never before attained, even under elevat- 
 ing conditions, by art ! 
 
 It is not easy to divine why sculpture 
 was neglected in Venice, while painting 
 rose to such supreme excellence ; but the 
 fact remains that we hear of no Venetian 
 Pisano, Donatello, Ghiberti, Verrochio, 
 or Michael Angelo. The dearth of 
 open spaces in a city where canals take 
 the place of streets might be supposed 
 the cause of this, but for the fact that 
 the Republic actually forbade the erection 
 of statues in the Piazza. The great 
 saloons, whether of the ducal or private 
 palaces, all of which were profusely de- 
 corated by the painter's brush, are 
 admirably suited to the display of plastic 
 art, yet are destitute of statues; and 
 sculpture in Venice is practically con-
 
 VENETIAN ART 113 
 
 fined to the monuments of the great, or 
 employed as ancillary to architecture. 
 
 The Churches of SS. Giovanni e 
 Paolo, and of the Frari, built in the 
 thirteenth century, for the Dominicans 
 and minor Franciscans respectively, are 
 rich in sculptured tombs. The first has 
 been called the Westminster Abbey, 
 and the second the Pantheon, of Venice, 
 and in both are to be found marbles, 
 sometimes merely ostentatious, but often 
 worthy of the highest admiration. The 
 merit or demerit of these tombs de- 
 pends very much upon their date ; 
 the fifteenth-century work being always 
 good, and sometimes exquisite, while 
 that of the seventeenth century is exe- 
 crable. Ruskin has well described both 
 types. Of the former and speaking 
 of the monument of Tommaso Mocenigo, 
 whom we have already seen coming
 
 ii4 VENICE 
 
 forward, with the fine in his hand, 
 to advocate the rebuilding of the Ducal 
 Palace after its destruction by fire 
 he says : " The tomb is wrought by a 
 Florentine, but it is of the same general 
 type and feeling with all the Venetian 
 tombs of that period, and it is one of 
 the last that retains it. The classical 
 element enters largely into its details, 
 and, like all the lovely tombs of Venice 
 and Verona, it is a sarcophagus with a 
 recumbent figure above, and this figure 
 a faithful and tender portrait, wrought 
 without painfulness, of the Doge as he 
 lay in death. He wears the ducal robe 
 and bonnet, his head is laid slightly 
 aside on his pillow, his hands are simply 
 crossed as they fall. The face is emaciated, 
 the features large, but so pure and lordly 
 in their natural chiselling that they must 
 have looked like marble even in their
 
 VENETIAN ART 115 
 
 animation."" Of the latter, dating from 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 he says : " Behold a mass of marble, 
 sixty or seventy feet in height, of mingled 
 yellow and white, the yellow carved into 
 the form of an enormous curtain, with 
 ropes, fringes, and tassels sustained by 
 cherubs; in front of which, in stage 
 attitudes, advance the statues of Doge 
 Valier, his son (also a Doge), and his son's 
 wife, Elizabeth. The statues of the 
 Doges, though mean and Polonius-like, 
 are partly redeemed by the ducal robes; 
 but that of the Dogaressa is a consumma- 
 tion of grossness, vanity, and ugliness 
 the figure of a large and wrinkled woman 
 with elaborate curls round her face, and 
 covered from shoulders to feet in ruffs, 
 furs, lace, jewels, and embroidery. Be- 
 neath and around are scattered Virtues, 
 Victories, Fauns, Genii the entire com-
 
 n6 VENICE 
 
 pany of the monumental stage, assembled 
 as before a drop-scene, executed by various 
 sculptors, and deserving attentive study, 
 as exhibiting every condition of false 
 taste and feeble conception." 
 
 In the Campo di S. Zanipolo, adjoining 
 the Church of Sts. John and Paul, stands 
 the one great sculptural work in Venice 
 an equestrian statue of Colleoni, the 
 famous Condottiere, executed, like Moce- 
 nigo's monument, by a Florentine, Andrea 
 Verrochio, who visited Venice for the 
 purpose. Of it Ruskin says : " I do 
 not believe there is a more glorious 
 work of sculpture existing in the world ; " 
 while a greater critic of Italian sculp- 
 ture remarks : " The stalwart figure of 
 Colleoni, clad in armour, with a helmet 
 on his head, is the most perfect embodi- 
 ment of the idea which history gives us 
 of an Italian Condottiere. As his horse
 
 VENETIAN ART 117 
 
 paces slowly forward, he, sitting straight 
 in the saddle, looks over his left shoulder, 
 showing a sternly marked countenance, 
 with deep-set eyes, whose intensity of ex- 
 pression reveals a character of iron which 
 never recoiled before any obstacle."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 
 
 J.HE name of Colleoni invites a mo- 
 mentary comment on the Condottieri 
 generally, and their effect upon Italy a 
 consideration incidentally throwing some 
 light on certain conditions of life in 
 Venice, which, while differentiating her 
 from all the other cities of the peninsula, 
 probably influenced the course of her 
 school of art, lately under review. 
 
 The decay of the imperial power which 
 marked the opening of the thirteenth 
 century, coinciding, as it did, with the 
 growing grandeur of the free cities, left 
 the nobles of Italy, whether Guelph or 
 
 118
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 119 
 
 Ghibelline, partisans of the Pope or the 
 Emperor, in a very ambiguous position. 
 The security of each now lay only in 
 h's own strength, and hence, as the 
 tcwns increased in wealth and import- 
 ance, the nobles demanded to be made 
 citizens, attracted sometimes by a life of 
 pleasure, sometimes by the desire of 
 obaining influence in the councils of 
 powerful republics who, standing in need 
 of good captains, often welcomed them 
 glidly. 
 
 But, being themselves always divided 
 b T hereditary feuds, the new-comers re- 
 girded it as disgraceful to submit to the 
 kw, and, accustomed in their own castles 
 J o decide every question by the sword, 
 carried the same habit into the towns, 
 rheir houses were fortresses whence 
 hundreds of armed retainers could issue 
 at a moment's notice, and their broils
 
 120 VENICE 
 
 brought disorder into every street and 
 square. Their satellites were commonly 
 mere banditti who, like their masters, 
 held all trades but that of warfare in 
 contempt, and took advantage of every 
 tumult to plunder the merchants, wlo 
 were continually on the watch to cl<Be 
 their shops, never knowing when a strast 
 fight would break out; while they wore 
 further irritated by the arrogance of tie 
 nobles themselves, who ridiculed their h- 
 capacity, and endeavoured to exclude then 
 from all public offices. The people, h 
 their anger, sometimes took up arms, anc, 
 successfully besieging the nobles in thei: 
 palaces, drove them to their castles in tht 
 hills ; but if the city militia pursued into 
 the plain the men whom they had expelled 
 from the town, they soon found them- 
 selves vastly inferior to their opponents, 
 who fought on horseback and in armour,
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 121 
 
 so that when the latter charged with 
 the lance, the ill-armed infantry of the 
 militia were overthrown, or annihilated, 
 while the mounted men sustained no 
 damage. Hence, the cities, feeling the 
 necessity of opposing cavalry to cavalry, 
 began to take into their pay a number 
 of foreign adventurers who, about this 
 time, sought to exchange their prowess for 
 hire. Such was the origin of a system 
 which, before the middle of the four- 
 teenth century, grew into the greatest 
 curse under which Italy ever suffered 
 a curse, however, which fell with com- 
 paratively little weight upon the City in 
 the Sea, where feudal conditions did not 
 exist. 
 
 While the nobles of Italy, generally, 
 had, by their turbulence, excited the 
 resentment of all classes of the people, 
 and, by their disobedience to the laws,
 
 122 VENICE 
 
 procured their exclusion from the rights 
 of citizenship, the aristocracy of Venice 
 showed itself submissive to the laws, 
 while shaping them, as we have seen, 
 for their own ends. Like the nobles in 
 the other cities of Italy, they were 
 sovereigns in their fiefs, and subjects in 
 the city ; but they had no fortresses in 
 the plains of Venetia, no vassals ever 
 ready to espouse their quarrels, nor 
 mountain retreats into which they might 
 withdraw from the power of the law. 
 They acknowledged and submitted to the 
 authority of the tribunals, and, while 
 conducting themselves as citizens, soon 
 became masters of the State. This 
 aristocracy, which Europe regarded with 
 astonishment powerful, despotic, suspi- 
 cious, and implacable was indulgent to 
 the subject, sumptuous in the public 
 service, economical in matters of finance, 
 and equitable and impartial in the ad-
 
 THE CONDOTTIER1 123 
 
 ministration of justice. It knew well 
 how to encourage the arts, agriculture, 
 and commerce, and was beloved by the 
 people, who obeyed it ; while the nobles, 
 who exercised its powers, trembled before 
 the impersonal tyrant they had them- 
 selves created for the repression of danger- 
 ous ambitions. 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine how the 
 arts, whose very sensibility makes them 
 reflect national traits so readily, were 
 influenced by the absence of feudal con- 
 ditions from Venice. While Florence, 
 for example, was encumbering her narrow 
 streets with the strongholds, rather than 
 palaces, of nobles, and her public squares 
 with fortresses that did duty as Town 
 Halls, Venice was rearing the dainty fabric 
 of the Ducal Palace in the Piazza, and 
 such fairy-like houses as the Ca 1 Doro 
 along the banks of the Grand Canal. If 
 Florence appears built for civil war, and
 
 124 VENICE 
 
 Venice for national fetes, the explanation 
 lies in the different relationship existing, 
 in the two cities respectively, between 
 the people and the nobles. 
 
 Similarly, the Venetian painter was 
 employed in depicting, on the walls of 
 her public buildings, all the pomp and 
 glory of the Republic, and the " lust of 
 the eye, the pride of life," on those of 
 her private palaces, while the Palazzo 
 Vecchio and Bargello knew no such in- 
 ternal splendours. The houses, even of 
 the art-loving Medici, though they might 
 glow with Gozzoli's frescoes, or charm by 
 refined neo-pagan decoration, remained 
 ungraced by such inspirations as the 
 Bellinis in the fifteenth, and Titian, 
 Veronese, or Paris Bordone, in the six- 
 teenth century, gave to Venice. 
 
 To return to the Condottieri. The 
 first fully developed " company of adven- 
 turers," composed entirely of foreigners,
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 125 
 
 and commanded by Werner, Duke of 
 Wislingen, was let loose upon Italy in 
 1343. Its chief, who had inscribed on 
 his armour " Enemy of God, of pity, and 
 of mercy," filled up the intervals of 
 hired warfare by systematic pillage. The 
 burghers were wealthy and timorous, the 
 peasants unarmed. The soldiers took the 
 gold of the former and harvests of the 
 latter, burnt houses, and tortured, or 
 murdered, prisoners with absolute im- 
 punity. Werner's successors the friar 
 Moriale, a knight of St. John, and the 
 German Count Lando still further de- 
 veloped the ethics of mercenary service. 
 These leaders, who taught their soldiery 
 to look upon the well-disciplined camp 
 as their city and home, granted absolute 
 liberty outside its boundaries, and thus 
 made the army a self-sustaining institution 
 for plunder. It moved from territory to 
 territory, exacting what sums of money it
 
 i 2 6 VENICE 
 
 chose from the prince, or republic, whose 
 lands it temporarily occupied, and swept 
 the country ever barer and barer from 
 Montferrat to Naples. The burden at 
 length became intolerable, and, after a 
 futile league between the Pope, Venice, 
 and Florence had been made for their sup- 
 pression, the latter republic succeeded, by 
 means of a purely Italian army, in dis- 
 persing the robber forces. This happened 
 in 1359, after twenty years of licensed 
 military pillage had punished Italian 
 sloth for having abandoned self-defence 
 in favour of self-enrichment. 
 
 The result of Italy's effort to shake the 
 foreign mercenaries from her throat was 
 that Italians took the place of strangers. 
 " T.he change in their aspect made little 
 difference in their character ; the one was 
 the lineal descendant of the other, inherit- 
 ing and continuing the same traditions of
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 127 
 
 war. Italy had hoped to free herself from 
 mercenary arms, but she failed. At the 
 time in question the leading political per- 
 sonages of the commercial cities were 
 merchants and bankers men who clung 
 to their gold, and believed that everything 
 was compassable by money. The people, 
 on the other hand, preferred taxation to 
 military service. The soldier-spirit was 
 gone. Italy turned willingly from the 
 field to the counting-house. She shrank 
 from the constant proof of her arms, and 
 in her day of need she was unable to bear 
 them." 
 
 Meanwhile, the circumstances of the 
 time rendered theCondottieri all-powerful. 
 The Signori were obliged, by the pressure 
 of their neighbours, to make use of these 
 mercenary captains ; but the weapons were 
 so costly that, in using them, the princes 
 became bankrupt. Only the wealthiest
 
 128 VENICE 
 
 States could stand the drain of war, and 
 war itself, in the hands of these men, 
 became a mere game. Campaigns, by 
 mutual agreement, were indefinitely pro- 
 longed, in order that the pay of com- 
 manders and soldiers might be similarly 
 extended. Night attacks, outpost and 
 similarly burdensome duties, were dis- 
 pensed with, quarter was always given, 
 and all the prisoners taken released after 
 every engagement. A battle, indeed, 
 became, at last, a mere sham, and the 
 art of war degenerated into a pedantry 
 which admitted of technical victories such 
 as umpires might award after military 
 manoeuvres. 
 
 Venice herself was too wealthy to suffer 
 what other States in Italy suffered, at 
 the hands of the Condottieri. Thanks to 
 their want of cohesion, a full purse could 
 always play these captains off one against
 
 THE CONDOTTIERI 129 
 
 the other, and they were always ready to 
 take the field against each other, " for a 
 consideration ."" It was, indeed, in dealing 
 with such good, but astute, paymasters 
 as the Venetian Signori, that these military 
 adventurers ran their greatest risks. They 
 did little to hurt each other in the field, 
 and could demand what material guaran- 
 tees they pleased from impecunious States 
 unable to pay their bills. Some of them 
 rose, in this way, to great wealth and 
 power ; but when it was a question of 
 dealing with solvent, hard-headed Venice, 
 an unfulfilled military contract was apt 
 to end, as in the case of Carmagnola, in 
 a specious recall from the camp, a sudden 
 and secret arrest, and the fall of a head 
 between the pillars of the Piazzetta a few 
 hours thereafter.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 
 
 .1 WO Georgian churches, Maggiore and 
 Redentore, lie on the farther side of the 
 Giudecca Canal, the present commercial 
 harbour of Venice. These well repay a 
 visit, for each forms a good example of 
 Palladio's classic style; but the real in- 
 terest of the little trip centres about a 
 group of small vessels that lie, day after 
 day, at anchor in the broad canal. They 
 are, indeed, an insignificant fleet, consist- 
 ing of twenty or thirty coasters, loaded, 
 for the most part, with wood brought 
 from the Istrian coast, and sold at retail 
 
 from the ships' decks. When all the 
 
 130
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 131 
 
 faggots are disposed of, it is time to call 
 the crew, of three or four, from the cafes 
 and wine-shops; relieve the Pomeranian 
 dog (which is left in sole charge during the 
 skipper's long absences) from watchman's 
 duty ; upstick, and creep down the eastern 
 shore of the Adriatic, to fill up again 
 with fuel, and so back to a dribbling 
 market. Here and there among these 
 boats may lie a barque under repair, or 
 a schooner caulking or painting ; and, to- 
 gether, these ships amply accommodate 
 the Venetian commerce of to-day, whose 
 exports consist of beads, glass, wood-carv- 
 ing, lace, and general bric-a-brac, a lot of 
 which goes only a little way towards load- 
 ing a modern trading steamer. 
 
 Rather more than nine hundred years 
 ago, the trade of Venice began to rise from 
 insignificance to importance. Her people, 
 as already related, turned their attention
 
 i 3 2 VENICE 
 
 to trading with the East shortly after the 
 settlement on Rialto, and Constantinople 
 was then the central trade-emporium 
 of the civilised world. All the cara- 
 van routes from Syria and Persia con- 
 verged there, and there, too, came, by 
 water, the commodities of Egypt and the 
 Black Sea. Such Eastern products as 
 Europe might require had to be sought 
 in the warehouses of Constantinople. No 
 one as yet knew how to get nearer to the 
 producers, and every one was compelled 
 to deal with that great middleman, the 
 Byzantine Empire. 
 
 Orseolo II. (991-1009) was the first 
 Doge who, fully realising the importance 
 to Venice, already a nation of sailors, of 
 a commercial connection with Constan- 
 tinople, succeeded in obtaining certain 
 important privileges for Venetian traders 
 from the Eastern Emperors. From the
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 133 
 
 Emperor of Germany, on the other hand, 
 he got permission to occupy ports, and 
 to trade on the rivers Piave and Sile ; 
 while he signed a treaty of commerce with 
 the Saracens themselves, whom, as infidels 
 and heretics, Europe considered unfit for 
 Christian men to deal with. 
 
 At this early period Venice already 
 possessed a considerable fleet, and was, in- 
 deed, the only State in Europe capable of 
 furnishing ships to other powers, whether 
 for purposes of war or transport. How 
 well she apprehended the importance to 
 herself of maritime supremacy may, pro- 
 bably, be inferred from the institution, in 
 Orseolo's reign, of the " Spozalizio del 
 Mare." From his time down to the fall 
 of the Republic, the Doge, on the eve of 
 every Ascension Day, was rowed, with all 
 the pomp that Church and State could 
 lend to the function, to the Lido mouth,
 
 134 VENICE 
 
 where, ring in hand, he first offered the 
 prayer, " Vouchsafe, O Lord ! that the sea 
 appertain to us. To those who sail over 
 its waters, give thou peace and quiet."" 
 Then, throwing the ring into the water, 
 and speaking as Doge of Venice, he added : 
 " We wed thee, O Sea ! in token of true 
 and lasting domination. 1 " A deeper than 
 merely ceremonial meaning underlay this 
 act. Venice already knew how to value 
 sea power, and would let neither her rulers 
 nor her people lose sight of its immense 
 national importance. 
 
 The eleventh century had scarcely 
 opened when Orseolo, at the invitation of 
 Constantinople, aided her Emperors (Con- 
 stantine and Basil) to defend the town of 
 Bari, attacked by a Saracenic force. After 
 achieving a triumphant success in this 
 enterprise, the Doge obtained new com- 
 mercial privileges as a recompense, and
 
 PENETI4N COMMERCE 135 
 
 further cemented the good understanding 
 between Venice and Constantinople by 
 marrying his son to the niece of the Em- 
 perors whom he had succoured. 
 
 Seventy years later (1071) the tie be- 
 tween the two cities was again strength- 
 ened by the marriage of Doge Selvo with 
 a daughter of Constantine X. ; and, if this 
 Eastern princess introduced into the city 
 of her adoption lavish habits, and a luxury 
 hitherto unknown in Venice, these, in re- 
 turn, stimulated certain trades very pro- 
 fitable to her merchants. It was, indeed, 
 during the reign of Doge Selvo that the 
 growing love of ostentation gave birth to 
 the decree, already alluded to, forbidding 
 trading vessels to return from the East 
 without marbles or precious stones des- 
 tined for the adornment of St. Mark's 
 Church. 
 
 The century did not end without wit-
 
 136 VENICE 
 
 nessing a further rapprochement between 
 Venice and Constantinople. The Normans, 
 in 1081, were harrying the Eastern Empire, 
 when the Republic came again to her aid, 
 and, although at first defeated, recoiled 
 from the contest only to make a more 
 deadly spring. Deposing Doge Selvo, she 
 replaced him by the more energetic Falier, 
 who, after making great preparations to 
 avenge the previous disaster, defeated the 
 Normans at Corfu ; while their leader, the 
 famous Robert Guiscard, by dying of the 
 plague shortly afterwards, relieved Con- 
 stantinople from a dangerous and dreaded 
 foe. 
 
 Alexius Comnenus, then Emperor of the 
 East, was not slow to reward his ally. 
 He gave her free access to most of the 
 ports in his empire, and set apart, in Con- 
 stantinople and other towns, shops and 
 warehouses for the exclusive use of Vene-
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 137 
 
 tian traders. He went so far, indeed, that 
 before many years had passed, Byzantine 
 merchants began to complain that they 
 were beaten in their own markets by the 
 Venetians, owing to the exemption of the 
 latter from import and export duties. 
 
 By the close of the eleventh century 
 Venice had become commercially supreme 
 in Europe not, be it understood, industri- 
 ally (for, unlike Florence, she manufactured 
 nothing), but solely by the exercise of the 
 merchant's calling. This was privileged, 
 almost equally, by the powers that ruled 
 both East and West, thanks, in the first 
 instance, to the enlightened selfishness of 
 her habitual policy, and, in the second, 
 to the unlimited powers of Imperial pre- 
 rogative in those days. In the course of 
 only a hundred years, or from the close of 
 the tenth to the end of the eleventh cen- 
 tury, Venice had thus not only acquired
 
 138 VENICE 
 
 the commercial headship of Europe, but 
 become its greatest ship-owning power. 
 
 The time had now come when the 
 Republic (which, although ceremonially 
 religious, had little religious enthusiasm) 
 found herself unwillingly obliged to join 
 the rest of Europe in the prosecution of 
 the first Crusade. The whole of Christen- 
 dom was in arms, and, the Pope himself 
 having called on the Venetians to aid the 
 cause of the Cross with their ships, refusal 
 was impossible, while the Signori further 
 saw that money was to be made from the 
 hire of war-galleys and transports. A 
 fleet numbering two hundred vessels was 
 accordingly fitted out for the conveyance 
 of Prankish and Flemish Crusaders to the 
 Holy Land, and sailed for the East under 
 the command of Giovanni, son of the reign- 
 ing Duke Michaeli I. 
 
 The Holy War once entered upon by
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 139 
 
 Europe, Venice found other and more im- 
 portant motives than those already noted 
 for throwing in her lot with the advanc- 
 ing Christian hosts. Since the East was 
 their goal, it was a matter of life or death 
 to her to prevent rivals from obtaining 
 a foothold in markets hitherto exploited 
 almost wholly by herself; while such op- 
 portunities as a state of war might offer 
 for establishing herself in positions which 
 rendered her more independent of the 
 great Byzantine middleman were not to 
 be neglected. Finally, since the fleet in 
 question was Venetian and commanded 
 by Venetians, while the Crusaders, if 
 religious enthusiasts, were not altogether 
 insensible to the seductions of " loot," it 
 might become possible for the Republic 
 to make use of the motley hosts crowding 
 her transports for selfish national ends. 
 Giovanni Michaeli, indeed, instead of
 
 140 VENICE 
 
 proceeding at once on his mission, delayed 
 for the winter at Rhodes, where he found 
 a number of Genoese and Pisan vessels 
 carrying other crusading contingents to 
 the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. Both 
 these States were rising into importance 
 as rivals on the sea, and were accordingly 
 hated and dreaded by the Venetians, who, 
 after persuading the Christian forces on 
 board their ships to take part in a petty 
 quarrel, of their own making, with the 
 Pisans, attacked their private foe with the 
 fleet destined for so different a purpose, 
 and, having defeated him in a bloody 
 battle, went forward, in the following 
 spring, upon their proper errand. 
 
 No commercial advantages accrued to 
 Venice from her first crusading expedition ; 
 but in 1104, Falier II. being Duke, she 
 sent a second armament to the assistance 
 of Baldwin, then King of Jerusalem,
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 141 
 
 and captured Sidon, where she established 
 a trading colony, the first of many after- 
 wards planted by her in localities which, 
 by bringing her closer to the producer, 
 rendered her, as time went on, increasingly 
 independent of Constantinople. 
 
 For the rest of Europe also, as the 
 event proved, the Crusades opened out 
 the East, and greatly enlarged its Eastern 
 trade. Thenceforth, Genoa, Pisa, and 
 Flanders shared this with Venice ; but 
 when the last of these expeditions closed, 
 there had been diffused throughout Europe 
 such increased knowledge of, and desire 
 for, the commodities in which the Re- 
 public had immemorially dealt, that the 
 latter found herself recompensed for some 
 competitive losses by a widely increased 
 clientele. Wars with her greatest rival, 
 Genoa, indeed broke out thereafter again 
 and again, and were attended by varying
 
 1 42 VENICE 
 
 success ; but these internecine struggles 
 were finally closed, after a war which 
 lasted for six years, by the Treaty of 
 Turin (1381), when both republics were 
 so utterly exhausted that Genoa never 
 recovered, while Venice only raised her 
 head again after a long and difficult effort. 
 The beginning of the fifteenth century, 
 however, found the trade of Venice rising 
 to its high-water mark. She was then 
 ruled by a Doge (Venier) of powerful char- 
 acter, whose efforts were solely directed 
 towards lifting his country from the en- 
 feebled condition in which so many years 
 of costly warfare had left her ; and he was 
 worthily seconded in the endeavour by his 
 subjects. Venice was now, thanks to the 
 Crusades, firmly established in the sea- 
 ports of Syria, and it paid her better to 
 conduct her business at Acre or Tyre than 
 on the Bosphorus. The great nobles were,
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 143 
 
 for the most part, engaged in commerce. 
 The State itself was a trader, and the 
 national wealth, recovering rapidly from 
 the drain of the Genoese wars, was well 
 administered, and largely reinforced by 
 private munificence. Eastward, as far as 
 India, and westward, as far as England, 
 Venetian merchants carried cloth, velvet, 
 serge, canvass, ropes, the precious and 
 commercial metals, glass, beads, and other 
 merchandise ; receiving in exchange drugs, 
 spices, dyes, precious stones, rugs, silks, 
 brocades, cotton, and perfumes, which 
 were sold at very high rates of profit. 
 The city now numbered a population of 
 two hundred thousand ; her exports were 
 valued at ten million ducats, of which 
 sum more than one third was estimated 
 as clear profit. She possessed 300 sea- 
 going vessels, with crews of 8000 sailors ; 
 3000 smaller craft, employing 17,000
 
 144 VENICE 
 
 men ; and a powerful navy, manned by 
 11,000 able-bodied seamen. Her pros- 
 perity may be said to have culminated 
 during the reign of Doge Mocenigo, the 
 rebuilder of the Ducal Palace, who died 
 in 1423, to be succeeded by Francesco 
 Foscari, under whom Venice took the first 
 steps on the path of national decline. 
 
 Since the opening of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury a " forward " policy began to declare 
 itself in the City in the Sea, whose people 
 became ambitious of extending their sea- 
 girt empire to the " terra firma " of neigh- 
 bouring Lombardy, the territory of Vis- 
 conti, Duke of Milan. Mocenigo, during 
 his lifetime, had strenuously opposed the 
 " Greater Venice " party, and had, indeed, 
 succeeded in dissuading the Signori from 
 entering upon schemes of annexation which, 
 however successfully conducted, would not, 
 in his opinion, bring " grist to the mill."
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 145 
 
 This Doge, whose wise counsels did much 
 towards raising his country to the zenith 
 of her glory, spent his last breath in 
 pleading against the election, as his suc- 
 cessor, of Foscari, who was known to be a 
 lover of war, and an advocate of the " for- 
 ward " movement. In the result, Foscarfs 
 influence prevailed with the electors, and 
 his reign of thirty-five years witnessed the 
 development of the " Greater Venice " 
 policy, from which the decay of the Re- 
 public may be safely dated. 
 
 Mocenigo had been dead only two years 
 when a league against Visconti was formed 
 between Venice, Florence, and several other 
 Italian States, and war declared in January 
 1426. The Venetian forces mercenaries, 
 as usual in those days were commanded 
 by the famous Condottiere Carmagnola, 
 who, after prolonging a fruitless warfare 
 for six years, was finally recalled and be-
 
 146 VENICE 
 
 headed upon grave suspicion of treachery, 
 and the certainty of unfulfilled duty to- 
 wards his employers. The war dragged on 
 for two years after his death, but effected 
 nothing beyond turning old friends into 
 new foes, and, otherwise, confirming Mo- 
 cenigo's anticipations of evil from the 
 forward policy. 
 
 The purse of the Republic was already 
 drained by payments to mercenary troops 
 and Condottieri, when the Ottoman Turks 
 succeeded in wresting Constantinople from 
 the Greeks, and in seating Mahomet II. 
 on the throne of the Eastern Empire, a 
 catastrophe for which Venice herself was 
 chiefly to blame. Just as, in the twelfth 
 century, she had made use of the Crusad- 
 ing forces to fight her battle with the 
 Pisans at Rhodes, so, in the following 
 century, and in contemptuous disregard 
 of the Pope and Christendom, she sue-
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 147 
 
 ceeded in turning the arms of certain 
 soldiers of the Cross, who disgraced the 
 fourth Crusade, to her own selfish pur- 
 poses, first, for the recapture of her 
 revolted town of Zara, and, afterwards, 
 for the siege and sack of Constantinople 
 itself. 
 
 This partition of one of the world^s 
 greatest empires was deliberately planned 
 between the French and Venetian Cru- 
 saders, and carried out in defiance of all 
 morality and the strenuous opposition of 
 the Pope, who vainly thundered against 
 such misuse of the Christian arms. The 
 men of the fourth Crusade were but little 
 influenced by the purer enthusiasms which 
 distinguished the first soldiers of the Cross, 
 and Doge Dandolo, the "expert negoti- 
 ator,"" who was in command of the great 
 fleet which Venice had furnished for 
 the conveyance of the knights and men-
 
 i 4 8 VENICE 
 
 at-arms to Syria, found the leaders of 
 the Christian hosts as wax in his skilful 
 hands. Dandolo, although a nonagena- 
 rian and blind, was a man of determined 
 character and commanding personality, 
 knowing perfectly well what he wanted, 
 and obstinately bent upon securing it. 
 The Frankish leaders were filibusters au 
 fond, and pledged, in addition, to pay 
 Venice 80,000 marks for the use of the 
 fleet, a sum which there seemed little 
 chance of raising from the waning en- 
 thusiasm of Europe. Meanwhile, the 
 richest empire in the world lay at the 
 mercy of these men, who, when the plot 
 was fully matured, could not be restrained 
 from its accomplishment even by the 
 Papal excommunication, at which, if the 
 French quailed somewhat, the Venetians 
 laughed. 
 
 The havoc wrought in the city of
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 149 
 
 Constantinople, after its capture by these 
 plunderers, was incalculable. They found 
 her the strongest and richest city of the 
 world, and left her utterly enfeebled, and 
 stripped of everything she possessed, in- 
 cluding her priceless treasures of ancient 
 artand literature, the accumulation of ages. 
 There followed the establishment of the 
 Latin Empire, but this, after a miserable 
 existence of half a century, made way for 
 a restoration, by arms, of the Byzantine 
 Empire (1260), which, however, re-arose 
 ruined, alike in trade and military power, 
 and ready to fall, when the time came, 
 an easy victim to the Turks, for whose 
 triumph Venice had, indeed, prepared the 
 way. When the moment of that triumph 
 arrived, Venice, if she could, would gladly 
 have saved Constantinople from the Maho- 
 medan ; but she was demoralised by the 
 pursuit of sterile ambitions ; her purse
 
 150 VENICE 
 
 had been emptied by Condottieri cap- 
 tains, and all she could do in defence of 
 the city against the Turk was to arm the 
 few able-bodied Venetians residing in her 
 factory at Galata. 
 
 After the Turkish conquest, Venice, in 
 the interest of her trade, tried to patch 
 up matters with the victor; only to 
 realise what a powerful foe was now 
 sitting on the quondam throne of the 
 Eastern Emperors. For a long succeed- 
 ing, but wasting, period she remained the 
 bulwark of Europe against the Turk, 
 hoping, against hope, for assistance, that 
 never came, in this arduous task, until 
 she was finally struck to the ground by 
 the discovery of a sea-route to India, 
 which, enabling goods coming from the 
 East to escape the burdensome payments 
 claimed from caravans by the cities of 
 Syria and Egypt, destroyed for ever the
 
 VENETIAN COMMERCE 15! 
 
 monopoly of the Venetian market. Since 
 that time, the mercantile marine of Venice 
 has gradually dwindled, until it is, now, 
 represented by the group of little coasters 
 already described as lying in the Giudecca 
 Canal. 
 
 The moral of the story is obvious. A 
 nation, not of producers, but of ex- 
 changers, Venice depended, in her early 
 days, upon the monopolistic privileges 
 which prerogative enabled monarchs to 
 grant to merchant adventurers ; privileges 
 which France, for example, illustrated on 
 the grand scale when, slicing the great 
 New World into strips that stretched from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, she called one 
 New France, and the other Louisiana, and 
 gave them away to adventurers. These 
 monopolies Venice had, later, to defend, 
 at an enormous cost of blood and treasure, 
 against powerful, astute, and envious rivals;
 
 152 VENICE 
 
 while, her wealth still increasing, she was 
 attacked, at one and the same time, by two 
 immaterial foes, ambition and luxury, of 
 which the first dissipated her resources 
 upon barren projects of empire; while 
 the second emasculated her sons and cor- 
 rupted her daughters. Finally, when thus 
 rendered helpless, Fortune dealt her two 
 blows one of which, the Turkish con- 
 quest of Constantinople, she might, but 
 for her sterile ambitions, have averted ; 
 while De Gama^s discovery was fatal, 
 since it placed the prize of Eastern trade 
 within the reach of able and enterprising 
 competitors who seized and hold it still. 
 
 Printtd ty BALLANTYNE, HANSON 4 CO. 
 
 Edinburgh and London
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 PRINTEDINU S A V*P 
 
 CAYLORD