The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venice--the Queen of the Adriatic, by Clara Erskine Clement

Author of "Naples, the City of Partbenope," "Constantinople,
the City of the Sultans," etc.

CHAPTER I.

TO-DAY AND LONG AGO.

The Venice which one visits to-day is so curiously a part and not a part of the ancient Venice of which we dream, that one feels, when in that sea-enveloped and fairy-like city, a strange sense of duality,—of being a veritable antique and an equally veritable modern. He has a genuine sympathy with the past, and regrets that he has not the enchanter's wand to bring it all back again,—long enough, at least, for him to revel in its magnificence.

If he believes in reincarnation, he is speedily convinced that he was once a Venetian indeed; else how could he feel so much at home, and how love Venice as he does! And yet, alas! he cannot quite lose his modern point of view.

The first emotion is all delight, and a delight that never loses its thrill; for until the time comes for reflection, we are under the charm of a perfect atmosphere, of skies of liquid blue, tinged at times with crimsons, gold, and violets, such as come only from Nature's loom; of music and soft, fascinating speech; of mysterious labyrinths and sunlit spaces,—in a word, under the spell of Venice. And if {2} Time brings to us the thought of the other side of the picture,—the decay which is stealthily doing its sad work, the grayness when it is gray, and all the pathos which ever attends a queen uncrowned,—yet through all and above all is the joy and pleasure which having once been ours, we are resolved to keep.

To sail from Trieste in an evening of the spring, and make one's first approach to Venice in the early morning, affords an experience that one should not forego. With the clear sun rising behind, surrounded by the marvellous waters blushing in every color of the rainbow beneath his rays, and the pearly tinted city lifting itself from this many-colored sea, as if in welcome, every poetic and artistic sense is filled to overflowing.

Can this coloring be described in words? Alas! no. For when the sea is likened to liquid fire, broken into scintillations and spread over a quivering background of sea-blue and sea-green waves, the half has not been said. When the eye rests on some far-away sand, dun and sombre in the distance, what vividness of flaming red and glorious orange comes out in the middle ground, while nearer the blues and greens are mingled with a shimmering silver! The atmosphere itself seems tinted by reflections from Aurora's garlands, and the strangely luminous blue sky smiles over all.

"Then lances and spangles and spars and bars
Are broken and shivered and strewn on the sea;
And around and about me tower and spire
Start from the billows like tongues of fire."

To the south stretches the long island reaching from the Porto di Lido to Malamocco, its sands now sparkling like gems. The fort of San Niccolo guards the entrance to the Lagoon; the little island of St. Elena is passed, and Murano is seen to the north. But glances only can be spared for these; for Venice itself, with its towers and domes, its {3} belfries, spires, and crosses, its palaces all lacework and arabesques, rises above, while all around, on the canal, numbers of light, curiously shaped boats and sombre gondolas are gathering,—their boatmen clamoring for news and customers.

Descending, as in a dream, we enter a gondola for the first time. The Giardini Pubblici is passed, and soon one stands on the Piazzetta and enters the Piazza of St. Mark, feeling as if he had passed through a living, moving transformation scene, and been dropped into the middle of the twelfth century. And why not? For at this early hour the Piazza seems consecrated to the Past. The few boatmen, fruit-sellers, and lazzaroni who are there might belong to the Middle Ages as well as to the nineteenth century.

Why might they not have seen that grave procession which in 1177 passed into the Chapel of San Marco to celebrate the reconciliation of a Pope and an Emperor,—that day when proud Frederick Barbarossa so nobly proved his greatness?

He had struggled against the Church on the one hand, and the spirit of independent government on the other, with a determination and bravery such as few men in all history have shown.

Threatened with excommunication by Pope Adrian IV., and actually laid under the ban by Alexander III., Frederick refused to recognize him as Pope, and set up four anti-popes, one after another, who died, as if their position brought its own fatal curse. During sixteen years he carried matters with so high a hand that he successfully defied Alexander and Italy; and the much humiliated Pope wandered from court to court, seeking the aid of one kingdom after another, always in vain.

Some States frankly acknowledged their fear of Barbarossa; others dared not meet the sure vengeance of the {4} Ghibellines which would follow the espousal of his cause; Sicily could give him a home, but could not seat him firmly on his throne; and all eyes began to turn to the Republic of the Sea.

The Barbarossa scarcely gave Italy time to rise from beneath his tread and recover herself from one of his disastrous marches through her territory, marking his route by flames and ruin, before he again appeared with his barbaric army, pillaging and destroying all that had escaped his last visitation, and returning to his Northern throne in triumph. At last he turned his face towards the Eternal City for the fifth time, only to find that the Confederacy of the Lombards had raised a barrier against which he beat himself in vain. He was repulsed in repeated engagements; and after the battle of Legnano, May, 1176, he saw the beginning of the end of the audacious policy by which he had so long dominated at home and abroad.

Soon after this first humiliation of his arch enemy, Alexander decided to appeal to the Venetians for succor; and early in 1177 he sailed from Goro, attended by five cardinals and ambassadors from the King of Sicily, who had fitted out a papal squadron of eleven galleys.

After some disasters and perils, his Holiness reached Venice at evening on March 23, and was lodged in the Abbey of San Niccolo. The Doge, the nobles, and the clergy made haste next day to welcome the Holy Father to Venice; and after a service in San Marco, where he gave his benediction to the people, the Doge Sebastiano Ziani escorted him to a palace at San Silvestro, which was his home so long as he remained at Venice.

The Venetians now sent two ambassadors to Frederick at Naples to arrange, if possible, a peace between the Pope and the Emperor. The bare mention of Alexander as the true successor of Saint Peter so enraged Frederick that he could scarcely speak his words of defiance:—

"Go and tell your Prince and his people that Frederick, King of the Romans, demands at their hands a fugitive and a foe; that if they refuse to deliver him to me, I shall deem and declare them the enemies of my empire; and that I will pursue them by land and by sea until I have planted my victorious eagles on the gates of St. Mark."

Whatever regret the Venetians may have had at being thus forced to protect their guest and punish so insulting a foe, they immediately prepared thirty-four galleys, commanded by the flower of their nobility, among whom was the son of the Doge Ziani; and Ziani himself assumed the chief command.

Barbarossa's fleet was more than double in number, and under the command of his son Otho. On the 26th of May, on the stairs of the Piazzetta, Alexander girded upon Ziani a splendid sword, and gave him his blessing. Feeling the great responsibility they had assumed,—for not only the holy cause, but the glory of Venice was in their keeping,—the Venetians fiercely contested the day. Not less desperate the army of the German prince, and not less bravely did he fight. But after six hours of dreadful slaughter, he found himself a prisoner, with forty of his ships in the hands of the enemy, and his whole following completely routed.

Otho was at once released, having solemnly sworn to persuade his father to a reconciliation with Alexander. A promise faithfully kept; for although this dreadful defeat at Salboro must have largely contributed to the repentance of Barbarossa, he never again attempted to rebel against his Holiness.

The Pontiff met Ziani at the spot on which they had parted, and all who had survived the battle followed them to San Marco in triumph and thankfulness; and there Alexander gave the Doge a ring, saying, "Take this, my son, as a token of the true and perpetual dominion of the {6} ocean, which thou and thy successors shall wed every year, on this Day of the Ascension, in order that posterity may know that the sea belongs to Venice by right of conquest, and that it is subject to her, as a bride is to her husband."

And now began the somewhat difficult arrangement of a meeting between Frederick and the Pope, which was at last appointed at Venice, where the Emperor arrived on Saturday evening, July 23. Six cardinals met him at San Niccolo Del Lido, and formally absolved him from the papal curse, that he might not enter the city while under the ban.

On Sunday morning the Pope, in his pontifical robes, sat enthroned at San Marco. (In the vestibule, by the centre portal, a lozenge of red marble in the pavement marks the historic spot.) On his right hand was the Doge, and on his left the Patriarch of Grado; while the ambassadors of England, France, and Sicily, the delegates from the free cities, and a throng of nobles and cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, all in splendid attire, gave dignity and brilliancy to the scene.

And now trumpets are heard, and the tread of the procession conducting Barbarossa across the Piazza. The doors of San Marco are wide open, and guards are at each portal to hold back the pressing crowds of citizens eager to see the grand ceremony. The procession is passing in; and from out the multitude of armed warriors, with glistening helmets and shining lances, nobles in richly flowing togas, and wealthy commoners in brilliant, graceful draperies, one figure stands out alone.

The Emperor advances with a martial step, and his whole bearing bespeaks a man great even in submission. His serious face is calm, his crowned helmet is on his head, and his red beard falls far down on his breast. His armor is not concealed by his flowing mantle, and his slashed surcoat of dark, rich velvet, bordered with gold {7} embroidery, discloses a tunic of more delicate tint and stuff. On his breast and partly hidden by his beard is embroidered a large Crusader's cross. In his splendid jewelled baldric, on the right, is a large sheathed knife, while, on the left, his heavy long sword reaches almost to the ground. Well may the historian Hazlitt say:—

"It was certainly a grand and imposing spectacle, and one which was apt to raise in the breasts of the spectators many strange and conflicting emotions; and while the greater part of those present looked on such a consummation perhaps as the triumph of a great man, the latter solemnly declared that to God alone was the glory.

"Assuming a lowly attitude, Barbarossa approached the steps of the throne on which Ranuci (Alexander) was seated, and, casting aside his purple mantle, he prostrated himself before the Pope.

"The sufferings and persecutions of eighteen years recurred at that moment to the memory of his Holiness; and a sincere and profound conviction that he was the instrument chosen of Heaven to proclaim the predestined triumph of Right might have actuated the Pontiff, as he planted his foot on the neck of the Emperor, and borrowing the words of David, cried:

"'Thou shalt go on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.'

"'It is not to thee, but to Saint Peter, that I kneel,' muttered the fallen tyrant.

"'Both to me and to Saint Peter,' insisted Ranuci, pressing his heel still more firmly on the neck of Frederick; and it was not until the latter appeared to acquiesce that the Pope relaxed his hold, and suffered his Majesty to rise.

"A Te Deum closed this remarkable ceremony; and on quitting the cathedral, the Emperor held the sacred stirrup and assisted his tormentor to mount."

How the recollection of this narrative incites the fancy, and how the Piazza, but just now so empty, is crowded to {8} overflowing with representatives from East and West and the Isles of the Sea!

From the different stories of the Ducal Palace, and extending quite around the square, from every possible projection, float the standards and banners that have been taken from the enemies of the Venetians; while the great scarlet banner, with its embroidered Lion of St. Mark, waves gently above the principal entrance to San Marco, where the bronze horses now stand. Rich stuffs in the brilliant coloring of Eastern looms, and cloths of gold and silver fall from the balconies thronged with ladies pressing eagerly forward to watch all that happens in the square below.

On the roofs are hundreds of human beings, and every corner that affords a view of San Marco and the Piazza is fully occupied. Men perch like birds on such slight and insecure footholds that they seem like colored statues made fast to the edifices themselves. Here and there a few proud chargers champ their bits and strive to free themselves from their grooms, who wait impatiently, as we do, for the sound of the trumpets to proclaim the rising of this august conclave.

Just here a soft, musical voice deprecatingly suggests: "The Signior has not chosen his lodgings, and one knows not where to take his luggage."

Pope Alexander, as indeed he ought, wished to confer all the benefits in his power upon the Venetians, and gave the papal sanction, rather unnecessarily as it would seem, to certain customs which this independent people had for some time followed without authority. They were now duly authorized to seal their letters and despatches with lead rather than with wax; to use tapers and trumpets, {9} and even to display the silken canopy and sword of state when ceremony made them fitting. This silken canopy is disagreeably contracted into an umbrella by some over-careful writers, but there is good reason to believe that long before this time the Doges had indulged in this luxury.

Before the departure of the Pontiff he celebrated a High Mass and preached a sermon in San Marco, and at the end conferred upon the Doge the highest and most flattering favor that could be bestowed upon a temporal ruler, by descending from the pulpit and presenting him with a consecrated Golden Rose, in token of friendship for Ziani and for Venice.

These seals and umbrellas and trumpets and tapers made little difference to the people; the Golden Rose gratified their pride and love of their idolized Republic; but it was with the Marriage of the Adriatic—the Andata alii Due Castelli, as it was called by the Venetians—that they were principally concerned; that characteristic Venetian fête, which soon became famous in all the world. Alexander had comprehended their love of pageants, their luxuriousness, and pride of wealth.

And now, as if by magic, the Bucentaur appears; and the dignity and splendor of this galley vastly increased the magnificence and effectiveness of state occasions. It was about twenty-one feet wide in the broadest part, and nearly five times as long. The lower deck was manned by one hundred and sixty-eight rowers, who rowed with gilded oars, while forty other mariners managed the evolutions of the ship. The outside was covered with carvings, and decorated in gold and purple. The prow bore figures emblematic of the Republic, and the beak was shaped into a Lion of St. Mark.

The upper deck, devoted to the illustrious strangers and guests of the Republic, and to the Dogaressa and other {10} patrician ladies, was finished in a grand cabin, with a splendid carved ceiling, and divided by rows of graceful pillars. On the outside this saloon was covered with the richest velvet, and furnished within with luxurious cushions. The Doge had an equally splendid cabin in the stern, encircled by a balcony from which the whole fête could be seen; and from a second balcony outside the prow he dropped the ring into the sea, proudly repeating the form of words given him by the Pontiff. Sails there were none, but from the top of a huge mast floated the scarlet banner of Saint Mark, with an image of the lion on one side, and of the Virgin Mary on the other,—as it may still be seen in the Municipal Museum,—and beside this sacred standard hung the white flag, the gift of the Pope.

The old pictures of the Bucentaur represent her as crowded with ladies in splendid attire, all intent upon the varied and curious spectacle around them. Here was a throng of boats, galleys, feluccas, gondolas, and the small, swift boats which always covered the canals and lagoons wherever there was anything of interest to be seen, as quickly as a crowd on foot now gathers in the streets of a modern city.

There were the patrician gondolas, each vying with the other in the costliness and brilliancy of its carving and decorations. The houses in the centre, with curtains drawn, revealed the lovely women in their gorgeous and picturesque costumes, and the music of fifes and lutes added to the joyousness of all; while the sound of the church bells, as they grew more and more indistinct, served to emphasize the deeper meaning of the day and ceremony, which was almost forgotten in this dazzling scene.

Then, too, the "Anti-Doge" was always there,—the representative of the poor people, chosen by them, and usually the best gondolier among them. On some half-ruined {11} boat he held a court of his fellows, all wearing masks. He had his own fifers, who fifed anything but well, and surrounded by hundreds of little boats he performed all sorts of buffoonish tricks,—now offering to tow the Bucentaur, again begging for a seat on the Ship of State, and all with most ridiculous gestures and in apparent good faith. Whatever he did was received with laughter and merriment, not only by his friends but by the patricians as well.

At length the castles of San Andrea and San Niccolo were reached; and just outside them the ring was dropped into the majestic Gulf of Venice. At this moment every sound was hushed. Each one of the vast throng desired to hear the words of the Sposalizio (marriage); and immediately following it the Patriarch of Venice returned thanks to the sea for all its blessings, and prayed for their continuance.

With the first buzz that indicated the close of these solemnities, the "Anti-Doge" cast an iron hoop into the water, and in a moment gayety reasserted itself. The return to Venice was in some sense a race for the smaller craft; the Bucentaur and the patrician boats were enlivened by songs and witty persiflage; and the whole evening was given up to merry-makings of various sorts.

Doubtless, in the earliest celebrations of this marriage there were those who shook their heads, looked solemn, and tried to be serious and even sad in the midst of the festivity, recalling and regretting the more simple celebration of Ascension Day, which had been good enough for their fathers, and was consequently fine enough for them. Such people exist everywhere and at all periods; but what was the difference?

At the end of the tenth century, and almost two hundred years before the visit of Pope Alexander, when, as the record says, "there was no custom of triumphs," {12} Pietro Orseolo returned from his victorious expedition against the pirates and corsairs of Africa, who had been the scourge of all the coasts of the Adriatic. He had cleared the sea of robbers, and greatly extended the dominion of Venice.

For the first time a triumphal entrance was involuntarily made. The grateful populace surrounded the victor and attended him to the Great Council, where the most flattering praises were addressed to him, couched in magnificent words.

Orseolo had set out on his expedition on Ascension Day, and on its first anniversary the Feast of La Sensa was inaugurated. In a large barge, quite concealed by its covering of cloth of gold, the clergy in their richest vestments, wearing all the sacred jewels and ornaments, left the olive-groves of San Pietro in Castello, and at the Lido met the still more magnificent barge of the Doge. Then, as in later days, every sort of boat that could be used in all Venice was there, filled with all conditions of people.

The ceremony began with litanies and psalms, after which the Bishop rose and prayed aloud: "Grant, O Lord, that this sea may be to us and to all who sail upon it tranquil and quiet. To this end we pray. Hear us, good Lord." Then the singers intoned, Aspergi me, O Signor (Cleanse thou me, O Lord), while the two barges approached each other, and the Bishop sprinkled the Doge and the Court with holy water, and what remained was poured into the sea.

This simple religious rite, celebrated in the enchanting atmosphere of the lovely, blooming season of the year, must have deeply moved the hearts of those who went down to the sea in ships, as who did not in Venice? It was perfectly adapted to the initial years of a Republic when aristocratic rule was in its infancy; but two centuries later all was changed, and the Sposalizio was in accord {13} with Ziani and his aims as truly as La Sensa represented Orseolo.

There are those who question all the story of the romantic incidents of Pope Alexander's visit to Venice. To them we would give the customary and most satisfactory answer of the Venetians: "Is it not depicted in the Hall of the Great Council? If it had not been true, our good Venetians would never have painted it."

Most of the craft one sees in Venice now are vastly different from those we have been thinking of. The gondolas, alas! all look as if ready for a funeral,—black, only sombre black. This seems an unnecessary extension of the time when the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children; for many more than three or four generations have perambulated these fascinating waters in these dismal boats. Why should the undue extravagance of the past, which was curbed by this monotonous gloom, forbid a bit of cheerfulness now, hundreds of years later?

It may be fortunate that the Bucentaur went up in fervent heat, for it is more than possible that it might not have realized our ideal of what it should be; and now each one can gaze in imagination at just what he would have made it if he could. But we would like to have some galleys remaining, and rowed by slaves or prisoners. It would afford an outlet for sympathy and pity, the exercise of which virtues is good for us, and which are so often, even in Venice, bestowed on those who neither merit nor need them.

But we have the felucca, the sandolo, the bissone, and innumerable little boats to add life to the canals and lagoons. If we can see numbers of these, with their variously colored sails, running the gamut from white to {14} brilliant orange and tawny red, with here and there those that are striped, and many that are deliciously patched and resemble Joseph's coat in their variety of tones,—if we can but get all these between the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore at the sunset hour, we need not regret not having lived under the Doges.

Never were colors more picturesquely mingled; and as they pass to and fro, out from and into the Giudecca, we almost forgive the gloom of the gondolas, especially if now and then one adds its effect in contrast with the brilliancy of the other boats. That marvellous Venetian sunset! It is an unending subject. One talks of it, writes about it, tries to exaggerate it and fails to do so, and can never think of Venice without recalling it. It is like a vast conflagration, and its flames seem likely to lap up the water it blazes over, together with all the boats and men who dare to row or sail into its fiery circle.

But we must not omit the steamboats that now traverse Venetian waters. What can we say of them? There are two views, each having strong supporters. Perhaps the larger number cry out, "Desecration and deterioration;" but others find them more in the spirit of Venice at its best than anything that is equally prominent in the modern city.

How eagerly did the old "makers of Venice" seize on everything that could advance her commerce and her trade! Would they have hesitated to use any power that could save their ducats and their time? Ah, no; and the glorious new impulse which this age has brought to United Italy finds expression in the revival of her industries, and her adoption of ideas evolved by others while she slept the dreamless sleep from which she now awakens.

CHAPTER II.

A SUMMER DAY.

Venice in summer with a marine artist for a companion,—could anything be better? An artist from early dawn to dark, from the top of his curly head to the soles of his feet; an artist who indeed appreciates—no, perhaps approves would be more nearly true—the pictures of Titian and Tintoretto on a rainy day, but will have none of them in any kind of weather when the sea can be studied and painted.

The summer is the only season when one can really know modern Venice; the only time when one can in any good degree separate himself from the long ago and live in the present; the time when he will, in spite of himself, turn his back on the works of man and live out in the world that God created before palaces and churches, arsenals and towers, had been invented.

The most delicious of days is that when in the cool morning we take to our gondola, with our artist and his traps, the books that we think we shall read but rarely do, the fancy work which soon loses its interest, the rugs on which to lie for the afternoon siesta, the basket with the solid luncheon, a second with fruit and sweets, and a third with wine. And when our little maid Anita, so busy in the house that she can scarcely leave it, comes with her gay handkerchief but half arranged about her shoulders, begging pardon for her tardiness and smiling at our gondolier, Giacomo, whom she calls her cousin (?), all is ready.

We pass into a side canal to do a necessary housekeeping errand; for we live not in hotels,—not we,—and sometimes, we will admit, our furniture requires repairs, and frequently we must buy some needful article which we fail to find in our "completely furnished lodgings." But the effect of the historic name of our palace is to make us feel so wealthy that we do not regret the lire that we spend with the proper amount of haggling, and our spacious quarters and carved balconies are so inexpensive to our American minds that our padrone hears no complaints.

Few gondolas are yet moving. Cooing pigeons, pert sparrows, and swiftly circling swallows are searching here and there for any stray crumbs that will afford a morning meal. We stop at a traghetto (gondola stand), and Anita darts away and disappears on her errand. We meanwhile watch a great water-barge which has just arrived with its cargo of "sweet water" from the mainland. How weary the men look, and no wonder; for to Giacomo's questions they reply that two days have passed since they set sail. The winds have held them back, but they hope that the same weather may send them home before night; and as they are safely here, why complain? The small boats are there ready to receive the water; and the wheezy little engine soon fills them, and they go off to replenish the public wells by means of their long hose.

All this time, as we watch these proceedings with interest, the artist has been sketching like mad. Theoretically he disdains anything inside the Grand Canal; but we think that "all is fish that comes to his net" in the way of novelties in Venetian life; and it is wonderful how many such despised "pot-boilers" he sells.

And now Anita comes tripping down with the coveted coffee-pot she had begged us to buy now, knowing from experience that we may be too late home to have it ready for the morning. As we move off, we ask the bargemen {17} how much they get for their cargo, and are much excited by their answer, "Cinque lire, signor." One dollar for all that! One loves Venice with a well-filled purse in his pocket, but he would not like to earn his living at Venetian prices for labor.

Now, our business ended, we are really ready to start, and we settle ourselves comfortably to enjoy the sights on either hand. As we come into the Grand Canal, some rosy sunrise colors still linger in the east and remind us of Poussin, who declared when flying from Venice, "If I stay here, I shall become a colorist!" With this reminder of the glorious canvases on which we turn our backs day after day, and, to be frank, now rarely think of, we wonder at the spell that is over us.

It is an enchanting spirit of do-nothing that possesses us; our thoughts wander lazily from one subject to another, but never rouse us to energy of action. We think complacently of the artistic treasures of every kind which are within our reach,—for which when in Boston we long with an energy of desire that would keep us going from San Marco to the Ducal Palace, on to the Frari and other churches, and so through the whole list of "sights" with zealous industry; and yet, now we are here, we will have none of them, at least not to-day. October will come, and bring another spirit to us. But now Venice is enough. Its changing aspect, its clouds, its islands, its people,—in a word, its boat life is enough.

Leaving thus behind us that great Past which at other times holds us with its wondrous power, we find full compensation in the Venice that still lives; and of this Venice the best part is the water class (if one may use this term), the robust, frank, joyous survival of the old Republic, bubbling and growing into the new Italy of our day.

A good gondolier, like our Giacomo, is a treasure,—the sort of man that helps one to respect the human race and {18} forget how many of another sort one has seen. If you allow him to feel himself to be a part of your life, he will identify himself with your interests, sympathize in your joys and sorrows, and tell you all his own. We must admit, however, that there is another kind, and that a bad gondolier is like a certain little girl whom we all know,—from bad he rapidly goes to horrid.

As Giacomo makes us his confidant,—I had almost said confessor,—we find the gondolier's life to be a happy one, in spite of its surface seeming of hardship and poverty. They see the sun whenever it shines, and breathe the fresh air; their exercise develops a fine physique; polenta, bread, and wine are delicious with the sauce of a good appetite; and being a most conservative race, they desire only to be what their ancestors were in past centuries. They go rarely to church. Custom is their religion, and at each traghetto there is an image of the Virgin ready to grant their prayers; and all their good or ill is promptly referred to "Our Blessed Madonna."

A country-flitting for a few days in the summer, with half a dozen or more companions, and their little suppers in the winter content them for amusements, while an extra treat of theatre or opera makes them supremely happy. And on festal days who sees more than the gondolier? If a rowing-match occurs, with what excitement does he defend his favorite champion! Curiously enough, each contrada, or district, has its own customs and festivals, even its own dialect to some extent; and while each one knows intimately the affairs of his own contrada, outside that quarter he knows little, and little is known of him. All this has Giacomo taught us; and we admire his honest face as he touches his cap and asks the artist where we are to go.

"Si, signor" (another touch of the cap), "an Austrian Lloyd came in last evening."

Coming to our vantage-ground, where even the extra canopy on our gondola could not have sufficiently lessened the heat of the sun, we prepare for a long stay.

The water is magnificent. The sands on the Lido have been stirred by the wind, and the opaque green sea is mottled with yellow stains. The fishing-boats are always fascinating, and claim our first attention; some are already at their anchorage near the public gardens, unloading the "catch" of the night; others, still some distance out, are tacking and crossing each other's bows in a confusing fashion, led by a procession coming nearer in; the many-hued sails with their curious designs—full-blown roses, stars or crescent moons, hearts blood-red and pierced by arrows—absorb our attention as imperatively as when we first saw them long years ago; and our artist still puts them on his canvas as eagerly as if he had not done it a hundred times before, and others of his sort a hundred thousand. "New every morning and fresh every evening" can be repeated in Venice with rare truthfulness.

The gondola is moored, and the artist hastily sets up his easel and begins his work. The rowers watch him until they see him quite absorbed, and then by signs ask permission of Giacomo to leave us awhile. A little signal-flag soon brings a row-boat alongside, and takes them off. Anita's fingers are already flying over a piece of pretty lace which is always in her hands when she has a moment of leisure. It is at such times as this that we learn from Giacomo many things that we have not read in books, and question him about the customs we observe.

To-day a steamboat passing at the moment reminded us that we had heard a reference to a strike of the gondoliers when the vaporetti first appeared at Venice. At a sign Giacomo comes near enough to talk to us in a quiet tone; and as he advances, cap in hand, Anita cannot refrain from {20} darting a glance at his handsome face, and as quickly looking down at the never-ending lace.

"Undoubtedly, signora. When first they began to run between the station and the public gardens, we made a strike."

"A strike of gondoliers in Venice? How dreadful! How did it end? Tell me all about it, Giacomo."

"Con piacere, signora. It was on the Monday before All Soul's Day that we determined on the strike; and some loose-tongued fellows told our plans, so that the Syndic heard the tale and sent for some leading gondoliers and tried to have them give it up. But we held fast, and on Tuesday morning not a man nor a gondola was found at the traghetti. But at each one the image of Our Lady was decked as for a festival, and the Italian flag was flying to show that we were true to Italy.

"The Grand Canal was deserted and quiet as the grave, except when a steamer passed loaded with passengers. There were no gondolas at the ferries; and when the Syndic had done his best, there was but one boat to each one of them. Crowds of women waited angrily to go to market, and all who wished to pass for any reason were scolding and cursing the vaporetti on every side.

"The gondoliers were walking about in slouched hats, and gathering in knots on the bridges and at the street-corners. The wine-shops were full, for the air was keen, and a warm corner was needed when one had no exercise to stir the blood. But there were no riots."

"In the little canals, madama, and so closely packed that one could walk a long way on them in some places {21} and never see the water. It was a sad, sad sight,—so many good Venetian boats idle, and those foreign 'puffers' full of people! And so Tuesday passed; and that evening no songs were heard, no stories told, and every gondolier in Venice was as sad as if his mother lay dead."

"Were there no quarrels, Giacomo? Did not the women tell the gondoliers that they were wrong?"

"The women, signora, were firmer than the men. They hated the vaporetti and cursed them. But on Wednesday, as had been thought, the trouble increased. At every traghetto the Syndic posted a mild appeal to the boatmen, and bade them remember what pride Venice had in her gondoliers. It persuaded them and flattered them as if they were naughty children, and invited them to meet the town council. They went; but only talk came of it. The gondoliers demanded the dismissal of the steamers; the council refused, and the meeting dissolved quietly.

"But what a confusion there was! You know, madama, that everybody goes on All Soul's Day to San Michele to lay a wreath on the family graves. Not to do this would make them unhappy all the year. And how to do it on this day was the question; for not one gondolier in all Venice was tempted, not even by the offer of twenty times his usual fare.

"Every boat of every sort that was not a gondola passed and repassed many times to the cemetery and back; and all were full. No doubt the boatmen made a good day's wage; but the gondoliers had never seen, not even in the carnival, anything so ridiculous; and that evening when they described to each other the boats and the rowers they had seen, and acted out all these absurdities, you would have thought them the merriest souls alive."

"No, indeed, signora: they were miserable. They could not sleep, or if they did they dreamed that they were rowing {22} over the lagoons, and only woke in wretchedness to find it was not true."

"The gondoliers then took an advocate, and sent him to the Syndic to plead their cause. But the Syndic would not listen; he would only deal with the gondoliers themselves, and he began to be severe and to talk of many steamboats running everywhere; and the gondoliers were told of 'launches' that could thread the smallest canals better than gondolas! Alas! signora, what could be done if this were true?

"Just then the military and customs officers who had loaned their boats to the ferries sent word that they must have them again; and an old gondolier whom all the others respected, took his boat out and began to serve a ferry. Instantly the strike was ended. The gondolas were untied, cleaned, and dressed as for a gala-day. The canals and lagoons were soon alive with them, and we had our Venice back again."

It was the old story. The gondoliers could not be allowed to stand in the way of progress, nor could they lay down the law to Venice. But their simple way of going on a strike, and absolute simplicity in ending it, was almost pathetic; such children did they seem in comparison with strikers and strikes that we know.

By this time midday has come, and our very early breakfast calls for an early luncheon. The artist is so absorbed in his work that it seems almost a sin to disturb him; but in his ardor to-day he has painted so rapidly as quite to satisfy us, and half to content himself,—a true artist rarely does more than this.

After luncheon we try to read; but the many changing sights and sounds are too distracting for anything that requires thought, and when we read a story on the lagoon we are never able to remember whether the lovers married {23} or were separated by a cruel fate. A sentence is well begun, when a deeper shadow puts a new color on everything, and we drop our book to look; the same sentence is half read a second time, when a fruit-boat laden with piles of green and golden melons and luscious peaches comes so near us that Anita calls out to Giacomo to buy what will be needed on the morrow, and we listen to the chattering and bargaining until that is over; the third time that particular sentence is finished, but just then drowsiness overcomes our brain, and we are asleep.

We wake to find our rowers in their places, and the day so far spent that we must decide where we will dine,—at home, at the Lido, or at our favorite trattoria. To-day we favor the Lido, although we are hungry and the dinner is not so good as on the Zattere; but the exquisite outlook at sea and sky, and the mystery of the bit of distant coast, minister to that Venetian appetite of eyes which is never satisfied, and the home coming at night sends us to sleep with such a heavenly vision in our thought.

Landing rather late at Sant' Elisabetta, we have only time for a quick stroll around our favorite promenade, while Giacomo orders our dinner. The fresh sea-breeze is delicious, and the dim blue line of hills above Trieste seems very near in the clear atmosphere; we gather a large bunch of poppies and a dainty nosegay of primroses, and then seek the little osteria.

When we turn our gondola homeward, the afterglow is fading, and the gloaming with its quiet leads the thoughts far, far away. The stars come out, and the rising moon gives just that light that changes all objects into ghostly apparitions. The schooners are phantom-ships; everything that is moving is indistinct and spirit-like, seeming as if suspended and floating in mid-air, until we come nearer to the city and the lights give a new aspect to the evening.

The pyramids of lamps on San Marco are all ablaze. Gondolas are hastening to the Piazzetta. The band is playing, and we know how gay it all is. But to-night we turn into the Grand Canal, where we catch glimpses into lighted rooms with richly ornamented ceilings, while from the overhanging balconies come gay voices and musical laughs, such as are in harmony with the pearly city the moon is now revealing; and the artist recites from Longfellow,—

"White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayest the old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden pistils with their seeds,
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry."

CHAPTER III.

THE DOGES: THEIR POWER AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS.

There is a wonderful fulness and magnificence of sound in the title of the Doge of Venice! It has only been paralleled by that of the Stadtholder of the United Provinces, and excelled by that of the President of the United States.

Why is this? Partly because it is a less generic title than emperor, king, sultan, and so on; and then it was the gift of the people, not a mere accident of birth. A man was already known for strength of character or for great deeds before he received the Beretta. He had attained an influence over other men in such a degree that they were willing to elevate him above themselves.

In the accounts of the achievements and acts of the Doges, it would seem that their power was absolute; but the truth shows this appearance to be most deceitful. For while the earliest of these dukes were autocratic, the democracy soon feared the effect of such rulers, and gradually the Doge was hedged in until, in one way and another, he who appeared to govern was more governed himself than were many who surrounded him.

But when, in 697, Luca Anafesto was elected the first Doge of Venice, and in the church of his own parish was seated in an impromptu chair of state, and invested with a crown of gold and a sceptre of ivory, he thereby acquired vast power. He was not only the head of civil and military affairs, but of the Church as well, since the purely {26} spiritual matters only were controlled by the clergy. His Serenity alone could convoke the church assemblies; and no deacon, bishop, or patriarch could be chosen or confirmed in office without his sanction.

In fact, he was a Sovereign, for the Tribunes were subordinate to the Doge; and for twenty years Anafesto reigned supreme. But in that time the public vacillated curiously as to how they would be governed. Theoretically they were a democracy, and monarchy was an experiment; and for centuries a semi-civil war existed in Venice, degenerating at times into actual anarchy.

The name of Doge was given up, and that of Magister (Master) was adopted; again Doge was in favor, and not infrequently those who bore the dignity of that office were blinded, insulted, exiled, and even murdered. To change the Doge seemed to be the only panacea which occurred to the Venetians in times of difficulty; and erelong what at the first glance seems an honor came to be, in fact, a serious danger,—a position subject to suspicions, jealousies, and conspiracies.

Like the stories of the early days of other nations, that of Venice is largely mythical, confusing, and confused; and not until Giovanni Sagornino (John of Venice, and Deacon John, as he is called) wrote a connected and trustworthy story of his own time, can we clearly trace the course of events.

From 976 on through the dogates of the Orseoli and the Michieli, the external history of Venice is told by recounting the fightings with Dalmatians and other neighbors, and even with the Normans at Naples, and the story of the earlier crusades; while its internal history is a strange mixture of plots and counterplots on the one hand, and the endeavors of those who had learned the value of law and order, on the other, to bring about some conditions on which all could rest with confidence.

The manner of electing the Doge during three centuries was very curious, but after all not unlike the methods of politics almost everywhere. There are always bold, enterprising men who seem born to be leaders, and others who, through family tradition or great wealth, appropriate to themselves prominent positions. These classes existed in Venice, and they held what we should call caucuses, and decided who suited them best for Doge. Of course there were compromises to be made before these leaders could agree; but at last a sort of mass-meeting was called in San Marco, and the people were advised as to who they should elect. Naturally, he who was thus easily exalted could be as easily destroyed; and the inspiriting cries of Provato, Provato (Approved), which arose like thunder-tones to announce the will of the people, must have had an undertone on a purely minor key, in spite of the honor and dignity they conferred.

Vitale Michieli II., who came into power in 1117, was the last Doge elected by this dubious form of universal suffrage. The people had grown in experience and intelligence, and demanded more real power for themselves.

A century had now passed since Venice had begun to replace the mud huts and primitive houses of her founders and their descendants with marble palaces; and the churches and monasteries of the tenth and eleventh centuries show full well the riches of the Republic at that period, and foreshadow the abounding magnificence which followed so rapidly. But this wealth was not distributed among the people, as the privileges of salt-gathering and fishing had been among the primeval dwellers on these islands.

The fact that San Marco, the Ducal Palace, and the first Public Hospital were all founded by one Doge, Orseolo I., from his private fortune at the close of the tenth century, and even the wills of the Patriarch Fortunate in 825, and {28} of other wealthy patricians, prove how riches were massed in certain families; and these families also absorbed the honors of the Republic.

The names of the Orseoli, Michieli, Dandolos, Contarinis, Morosinis, Tiepolos, and others occur ad infinitum, alternating in the story of the glories and riches of Mediæval Venice. They were all patricians (Maggiori), and a wide chasm now separated them from the lower classes (Mediocri and Minori). The former had sufficient means to stay at home, while the two latter were forced to follow various maritime occupations; and it soon came about that all the larger ships were owned by Patricians, were fitted out by them, and brought back to them the gold which gave them their power. In short, Venice, calling herself a Republic, was governed by an Oligarchy,—by a few families who now owned almost all the soil outside of that in possession of ecclesiastical establishments.

One custom which had greatly furthered the establishment of the aristocracy was discontinued in 1033; this was the association of the son of the Doge with his father in the power and responsibility of the office, which directly tended to making it hereditary. But in spite of reforms, only patricians held the civil, military, naval, or ecclesiastical offices; only patricians governed the provinces; the judicial and episcopal benches were filled by the same class, and to them alone had the Beretta and the Pallium been given. In five centuries, as frequently as the Doges had succeeded each other, but nineteen families had been honored with this office, which had now assumed a power as independent and a magnificence as imposing as those of the rulers of Germany or France.

After reading of the power, wealth, and influence of the Venetian Republic in 1172, we are surprised to learn that its population was but sixty-five thousand; and yet, even with this small number, the Arrengo (General Assembly), {29} consisting of all male inhabitants, had become a troublesome body, and hitherto no measure was valid that had not been passed by it.

The Patricians found themselves between two fires,—the Arrengo on the one hand, where the poorest and most ignorant of the Minori had equal rights with themselves, and on the other hand the Doge, who was elected for life, and whose power was only modified by two Councillors, who might easily be entirely in his control.

The assassination of Michieli III. in 1172 afforded an opportunity for changes, and the increasing dissatisfaction of the aristocracy now culminated in a reform of the Constitution, which ended in a division of Venice into six wards, from each of which two deputies appointed forty members of a Great Council (Consiglio Grande), which was to be the general legislature, elected annually on September 29. The Arrengo was not abolished, but would be convened only on occasions of vast importance, such as a Declaration of War, the Election of a Doge, or the making of a Treaty of Peace.

This measure seemed very harmless, as there were no limitations to the rank of a Councillor; but the Patricians well knew that the Deputies would be of their order, and each of these could appoint four members of his own family; and as almost from the first the meetings of the Council were held with closed doors, it soon became anything but a democratic body.

Having thus largely extinguished the power of the people, the Patricians proceeded to limit that of the Doge. The Council of Two was replaced by one with six members, who were to advise his Serenity on all matters, and without their approval no act of his could be legal. These Privy Councillors retained their office through the entire Dogate to which they were elected. From the four hundred and eighty members of the Grand Council, sixty {30} Senators were annually elected to attend to many matters which did not require to be brought before the whole council, and to overlook the machinery of the government.

All this being done, a new Doge was elected in an entirely novel manner. Thirty-four of the Grand Council were appointed to choose eleven from their number as an Electoral Conclave; these eleven were bound by a solemn oath to impartiality, and any candidate who received nine of their votes was declared to be the Doge.

On Jan. 11, 1173, the eleven met in San Marco with open doors, and in the presence of a vast conclave elected Orio Malipiero, one of their own number. But he diffidently declined the office, and begged permission to nominate Sebastiano Ziani, as better qualified for this exalted station.

This nomination was accepted, and from the high altar of San Marco the Procurator announced to the people, using the new formula, "This is your Doge, if it pleases you" (Questo e vostro doge, se m piacera), and the people responded with shouts and acclamations.

That all this was not as spontaneous as it appeared, was soon demonstrated; for when Ziani was carried around the Piazza in a wooden chair by some workmen from the Arsenal, he distributed liberally to the people money stamped with his own name, which had been expressly prepared for the purpose. This unusual liberality alarmed the jealous Patricians, and at once a law was made that only a newly elected doge should be permitted to distribute largesse, and he not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty ducats. This money was called Oselle, and was specially coined for the purpose.

Returning to the cathedral, Ziani was solemnly invested with the crown and sceptre. Thus began his important reign, which lasted but five years and a quarter, and ended in his voluntary abdication. The enormous wealth of {31} his family was said to have been founded by the good fortune of an ancestor who found in the ruins of Altino a golden cow which had been dedicated to the service of Juno. However it may have been, this tradition gave rise to the saying, "He has the cow of Ziani," when speaking of a wealthy man.

By the advice of Ziani, the Bank of Venice was established, and was the first institution of its kind in Europe. During his reign Venice bore her part in the siege of Ancona, which so alarmed the Greek Emperor that he, so to speak, bought back his former ally by a treaty which bound him to pay Venice one thousand and five hundred solid pounds of gold; but his most important political acts were those already recounted in the reconciliation of Alexander III. and Frederick Barbarossa.

Ziani did much for the improvement of the Piazza, and extended it by removing buildings which were falling into ruin. He embellished the whole city by the construction of elegant bridges; but tradition teaches that his greatest architectural achievement was the taking down of the Church of San Geminiano, in order to enlarge San Marco, which he did at his own cost.

Before demolishing the sanctuary, Ziani applied to the Pope for his sanction of the act. The Pope answered that he could not authorize a sacrilege, but he could be very indulgent after it had been committed. The church soon disappeared, and its destruction gave rise to a curious custom. For many succeeding years, on an appointed day, the Doge, attended by a brilliant retinue, repaired to the Piazza, where he was met by the curé of the parish with his clergy. The curé asked, "When will your Serenity be pleased to restore my church on its former site?"

From the abdication of Ziani to the election of Dandolo, in 1193, there were no incidents in the story of Venice that do not fade before the tremendous achievements of the fiery old man, eighty-six years old when elected, who for twelve years labored to exalt Venice and humble the Greeks, and, finally dying at Constantinople, which he had twice conquered, was buried in St. Sophia, far from his beloved San Marco, and the city for which he gave his life.

The oath taken by Dandolo at his institution in the Dogate is the first promissione which has been preserved. By it he was bound, by all possible pledges, faithfully to execute the laws of the Republic, to submit his private affairs to the common courts, to write no personal letters to the Pope nor any ruler, and to maintain at his own cost two ships of war. To such lengths had the jealousy of the Patricians already reached that the Doge was little more than the figure-head of the Republic.

The reign of Dandolo opened with the usual conflicts with the Pisans, Dalmatians, and any other neighbors who were troublesome to the Venetians at that time, none being of unusual importance. But when, in 1195, Innocent III. ascended the papal throne, he initiated the preaching of a Crusade destined to result in the glory of Dandolo and Venice, but not in the conquest of the Saracens nor the possession of Palestine.

Innocent, but thirty-six years old, ambitious and energetic, soon brought to his allegiance all the powers of Europe except the Republics of Pisa and Venice. Dandolo, with his bravery and inflexibility of purpose, was a formidable opponent, and when at last his concurrence was sought, he was asked to aid the Crusade for gain and not as a subject of the Pope.

In France the preaching of Foulkes of Neuilly attracted thousands to his standard. Hazlitt says:—

"The streets of Paris, the banks of the Marne, and the plains of Champagne were deserted. Doctors left their patients; lovers forsook their mistresses. The usurer crept from his hoard; the thief emerged from his hiding-place. All joined the holy phalanx. The joust and the tourney, the love of ladies, the guerdon of valor, were alike forgotten in the excitement, the tilters taking the vow and assuming the emblem of sanctity; in a short time the flower of French chivalry, from Boulogne to the Pyrenees, was assembled under the banners of Theobald, Count of Champagne, and his cousin Louis, Count of Blois and Chartres."

Remembering the terrible disasters that had attended the former Crusades in reaching the Holy Land, these leaders resolved to invite the Venetians to furnish shipping to transport soldiers and horses to Palestine.

An embassy of six French noblemen was sent to Venice, which city they reached on Feb. 15, 1201. Among them was one gratefully remembered by us for his record of events which tells us much that the Venetian writers quite ignored; in fact, some of them make no pretence of regarding the whole affair as anything but an opportunity to increase the glory of the Venetians.

The French ambassadors did not attempt to ignore the vast power of the Venetians to aid or hinder them in the prosecution of the Crusade. Men and money they had in plenty, but with prayers and tears they entreated Venice to furnish them with ships. Indeed, according to Villehardouin, the Crusaders were accomplished in weeping, and shed tears copiously on all occasions of joy, sorrow, or devotion.

There were repeated assemblies of the various councils, and after each of these Dandolo required some days for {34} reflection; but at length it was agreed that the Crusaders should assemble at Venice on the 22d of June in the following year, when they should be provided with transports for thirty-five thousand men and forty-five hundred horses; it was also promised that these men and horses should be supplied with provisions for a year, and be taken wheresoever the service of God required. Then, with true Venetian magnificence, the armament was to be increased by fifty galleys at the expense of the Republic. For all this the French promised to pay eighty-five thousand marks (£170,000) in four instalments.

These conditions being settled, a grand convocation was called in San Marco, where ten thousand of the people, after the Mass, were humbly entreated to assent to the wishes of the ambassadors,—a harmless deceit of these so-called Republicans. Villehardouin made a moving appeal, watered with tears, and declared that the ambassadors would not rise from their knees until they had obtained consent to their wishes.

"With this the six ambassadors knelt down, weeping. The Doge and the people then cried out with one voice, 'We grant it, we grant it!' And so great was the sound that nothing ever equalled it. The good Doge of Venice, who was most wise and brave, then ascended the pulpit and spoke to the people. 'Signori,' he said, 'you see the honor which God has done you, that the greatest nation on earth has left all other peoples in order to ask your company, that you should share with them this great undertaking, which is the conquest of Jerusalem.'"

Let us for a moment picture this scene, one of the most unusual in history. It was a winter afternoon, when the choir and altars alone could have light enough to relieve the gloom of the cathedral, filled by an excited crowd, each man of which felt the responsibility (we know with how little reason) of the "Yes" or "No" he was to speak. {35} There was no humility here, such as the foreign nobles were accustomed to; these sea-faring, weather-beaten men looked on them as equals.

Before the high altar, where the silvery hair and ducal robes of Dandolo were glistening in the light, knelt these splendidly attired nobles, weeping and begging for what these poor vassals believed that they could grant or withhold. We cannot imagine the varied and overpowering emotions that ascended with that shout of "Concediamo," nor the echoes of the great dome that hung so gloomily over all.

The treaty, written on parchment, and strengthened with oaths and seals, was despatched to Innocent for his approval, and all Venice began to hum with the unusual preparations for the expedition. The small coins were found insufficient to pay the necessary workmen at the arsenal; and a new silver coin, stamped with the effigy of Dandolo, was issued for their payment.

Besides the many ships to be built, there was armor to be furnished for a host; catapults and battering-rams must be made ready; the Venetian galleys were to be provided with lofty towers to be used in attacking fortresses on the seashore; while an enormous amount of grain, food, wine, swords, daggers, and battle-axes, thousands of bows and tens of thousands of arrows with metal tips, as well as supplies of cordage, oars, sails, anchors, and chains, and many other things, must be made ready to load one hundred and ten large store-ships. And for all this but sixteen months of hand labor!

The vast amount of stores always kept in Venice were insufficient, and men and ships must be spared to go in search of materials. The laborers were divided and subdivided, and employed both day and night. The whole work went on as if by magic. As soon as a transport or galley was completed, it was launched, and another rose in {36} its place; Venice bustled with labor and bristled with its results, and seemed a vast Babel for noise.

At San Niccolo and elsewhere on the Lido, barracks for troops, stables, and storehouses were built, provisions were abundantly supplied; and the skilful and generous manner in which Venice fulfilled her great contract would have made her famous, had this not been eclipsed by greater deeds.

As it became known in all Europe that Venice had undertaken the transport of the Crusaders, adventurers began to pour into the city. They came singly and in bands, until early in 1202 fifteen thousand had gathered; and this number was nearly doubled by June. These strangers added greatly to the gayety of life in Venice; for, bent upon dangerous adventures, they were determined to amuse themselves while they could. They explored the lagoons in the fascinating barchette by day, and by night told stories of love and war, and woke the echoes to the unusual sound of the national airs of many nations and tribes, all more or less martial and inspiriting as heard from one island to another.

But alas! as month followed month and the expedition did not move, when it began to be whispered that the barons could not fulfil their engagements, these harmless amusements changed to drinking and gambling and such other license of behavior as often led to fatal quarrels.

The leaders who had come at the appointed time were shocked by the absence of numbers of those who should have brought their share of men and money. There had been great discouragements; young Thibault of Champagne, their chosen leader, had died; and in the long time that had elapsed since the treaty was made, many impatient spirits had embarked from other ports and taken various routes to Palestine.

Boniface, Marquis of Monteferrato, was now the leader {37} of the Crusade; and he and the other nobles, after stripping themselves of money, jewels, and other valuables, were still unable to pay the last thirty-two thousand marks of their debt. The situation was deplorable; the crowded barracks were full of disease, and many were dying daily, and no one could see any prospect of relief. Even Dandolo was touched by the troubles and the devotion of the barons; and now came his temptation,—for it is not probable, as some authors seem to believe, that he could have seen the end from the beginning; but his patriotism, which we must allow to have been a refined sort of selfishness, suggested to him a compromise which was finally made.

Dandolo proposed that in consideration of the debt still due, the Crusaders should join with the Venetians in subduing Zara, that ever-turbulent and ever-rebelling city. The larger part of the Crusaders made no objection to this plan; a smaller number thought it wrong for soldiers of the cross to turn their arms against Christians, and feared the disapproval of the Pope. No telegraphs nor submarine cables existed; to consult his Holiness would require months, and meantime the debt could be paid by taking Zara, and they might be landed in Palestine. The condition of the idle soldiers became more and more alarming; and when the Venetians answered the objections of the Cardinal-legate, Peter of Capua, in abrupt fashion, and he left the Crusaders to their fate, the bargain was soon closed and all arrangements completed.

But one thing remained to be settled,—the choice of a commander of the fleet; and this was accomplished on a Sunday, in San Marco. The importance of the occasion drew all the inhabitants, and indeed, all strangers who could find a place, to the Cathedral and the Piazza. Patricians, barons, statesmen, soldiers, and the people, all were there, as well as ladies in rich brocades, with necklaces of pearls and precious stones and priceless jewels in their hair.

The crimson, scarlet, and purple robes of the statesmen with their diamond or gold buttons, the full armor of the barons and knights, almost as brilliant as jewels, the helmets and shields held by the pages, all served to render it a scene of dazzling brilliancy; while the splendid hangings and decorations of San Marco, the costly vessels of gold upon its altars, and the gorgeous vestments of the priests served to impress the strangers with the dignity and wealth of the Republic.

The silks ceased to rustle, and the swords and battle-axes to clink, as the acolytes took their places; and the service seemed about to begin, when suddenly the Doge arose and majestically ascended the pulpit. He was ninety-five years old, and erect as in youth; his ruddy face and large blue eyes, which did not show their dimness of sight, spoke not half his age; the furrows across his brow alone indicated the experiences and the years that he had passed through, and the ducal crown was never worn with more majestic dignity. Every sound was hushed, and in the farthest corner of San Marco could his words be heard:

"'Signori, you are associated with the greatest nation in the world in the most important matter which can be undertaken by men. I am old and weak, and need rest, having many troubles in the body; but I perceive that none can so well guide and govern you as I who am your lord. If you will consent that I should take the sign of the cross to care for you and direct you, and that my son should, in my stead, regulate the affairs of the city, I will go to live and die with you and the pilgrims.'

"When they heard this, they cried with one voice, 'Yes, we pray you, in the name of God, take it and come with us.'

"Then the people of the country and the pilgrims were greatly moved and shed many tears, because this heroic man had so many reasons for remaining at home, being old. But he was strong and of a great heart. He then descended from the pulpit, and knelt before the altar weeping; and the cross was sewn upon the front of his great cap, so that all might see it. And the Venetians that day in great numbers took the cross."

All preliminaries being settled, and Raniero Dandolo made Vice-Doge during his father's absence, the embarkation of the army was begun. This furnished one of those spectacles so frequent in mediæval Venice, and was watched for days by all the city.

As yet no restraint had been put upon the luxury of dress and display of wealth which the Venetians loved; and the guilds of the city, each in its appropriate costume, presented a brilliant and picturesque assembly whenever the pageants of which they were so fond brought them together in large numbers. And where do the conditions afford so beautiful a setting to artistic display as in this wonderful city of the sea? Where else would silks and velvets, precious stones, and gold and silver work seem so suitable as in this "Queen of the Adriatic," rising from its many-tinted waters sparkling beneath a southern sun?

The noble war-horses of the Frenchmen, led unwillingly upon the vessels, were an astonishing spectacle to the Venetians, and would be so still, since recently a single horse at San Lazaro was mentioned as one of the sights of Venice by our landlord!

To the French, German, and Flemish Crusaders the Venetian war-ships, huge in size, with deck upon deck and above all great towers, were equally marvellous. So heavy were they that in addition to sails each one required fifty oars with four men to each oar. The finest of these, called "The World," was venerated by the Venetians; for not only was it the largest ship afloat, but it had proved invincible in former battles.

As the four hundred and eighty vessels were filled, one by one they proceeded down the Grand Canal and anchored off the Castle, until the galleys, transports, and long boats extended for miles on the Venetian waters. The excitement {40} can scarcely be described. "Bound for Palestine! To deliver Jerusalem! To exterminate the Infidels!" These cries aroused the people to the greatest enthusiasm, and helped the Venetian women, though not without tears and anguish, to bid God-speed to those they held most dear.

A part of the vessels were sent off in advance; and a week later, on a brilliant October day, the remaining fleet departed. From the masts fluttered the standards of Venice and of all the chief countries of Europe, as well as the rich gonfalons and banners of the nobles; while above every mast arose the sacred cross. The ships were filled to their summits with soldiers, their armor glistening in the sun; while the sides of the principal vessels were hung with the emblazoned shields of the nobles they carried.

Early in the morning the Doge and the barons heard Mass in San Marco, and from there, in grand procession, marched to the quay to the music of silver trumpets and cymbals. Barges were waiting to convey them to the ships; and as they embarked, hundreds of barchette and other small boats filled with ladies and children surrounded them, and followed to witness the departure of the fleet, and wave their final farewells to husbands and fathers, sons and lovers.

Each noble had his own ship, and an attendant transport for horses. Dandolo's galley was vermilion-colored, as if he were an imperial potentate, and his pavilion when on shore was of the same royal hue. The signal for sailing was given by a hundred trumpets, and in the castles at the crosstrees of the ships the priests and monks chanted the "Veni Creator Spiritus."

As ship after ship left its moorings, as sail after sail swelled before the wind, and the rowers bent to their oars, it seemed as if the whole sea were covered; and the hearts {41} of those who were left behind were comforted by the feeling that no power could withstand so goodly and brave a host. The fleet was watched with straining eyes until but a few white specks could be discerned in the dim distance, and the people returned to their beloved Venezia, seeming now like a vast house of mourning upon which the silence of the tomb had fallen.

In the Ducal Palace the Marquis of Monteferrato, the commander-in-chief of the army, lay ill, or made a pretence of being so. He was attended by the Baron de Montmorency and other nobles, all strict churchmen, of whom it was more than suspected that their delay was caused by fear of the disapproval of the Pope. Two months passed before they joined the Crusade; and as they moved about the city and sailed on the lagoons, they seemed like the last link between Venice and all that had gone from her.

The lovely weather which attended the fleet brought it, in spite of some delays, before the fortress of Zara on Saint Martin's eve (November 10). No stronghold in the dominions of Venice could compare with this for strength, and a girdle of lofty watch-towers secured it against surprise. It was garrisoned by Hungarian soldiers under fine discipline, and the Zaratines were a brave people. Seventeen years had elapsed since they had expelled the last Venetian Podestà from their territory, and they had full faith in their ability to repulse an enemy.

But the Zaratines had not counted on such a force as now besieged them, and on the second day offers of surrender were made to Dandolo, on condition that the lives of the people were spared. The Doge left the emissaries in order to consult with the barons, and returning to his pavilion found the Zaratines gone, and in their stead the Pope's envoy, Abbot Guy of Vaux-Cernay, who advanced with an open letter in his hand, exclaiming, "Sir, I {42} prohibit you, in the name of the Apostle, from attacking this city; for it belongs to Christians, and you are a pilgrim!"

Dandolo was furious, and none the less so when he learned that Abbot Guy had persuaded the Zaratines not to surrender to the Venetians. But a council was called, and the barons agreed with the Doge to resume the siege at once. The abbot had led the Zaratines to believe that under no circumstances would their lives be spared, and the second siege was fiercely contested. On the sixth day the city fell, and was given up to pillage. Fierce quarrels ensued between the French and the Venetians over the division of the spoil; and this uproar was scarcely calmed before an emissary from his Holiness arrived, calling the Crusaders to account for their present occupation and commanding them to retain no booty.

The French nobles were greatly disturbed, while the old Doge and his councillors were indifferent to the curses or blessings of the Pontiff, who had directed the barons to hold no intercourse with the Venetians, "except by necessity, and then with bitterness of heart." Innocent expected the Crusaders to proceed at once to Constantinople, and suggested that if the Emperor, to whom he had already written, did not supply them generously with provisions, they might, "in the name and for the sake of the Redeemer," seize such things as they needed, wherever they could be had. He concluded by commanding them to proceed at once to Palestine, "turning neither to the right nor to the left." This in no wise affected the Venetians. They were excommunicated; but what of that? They had demanded their pound of flesh from the Crusaders, which was the taking of Zara, to which the barons had agreed; and Dandolo, by his addition to the fleet and the army, at his own cost or that of Venice, had left them little cause of complaint of their bargain, since without him they could not even start for Palestine. Whatever future {43} causes of dissatisfaction might arise against him, thus far it had been purely a business transaction between the Doge and the barons. Of the present condition Gibbon says:—

"The conquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal; the arms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, not of infidels, but of Christians; the King of Hungary and his new subjects were themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruples of the devout were magnified by the fear or lassitude of the reluctant pilgrims. The Pope had excommunicated the false Crusaders who had pillaged and massacred their brethren, and only the Marquis Boniface and Simon of Montfort escaped these spiritual thunders,—the one by his absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from the camp."

The soldiers became so turbulent as to give constant anxiety to the barons; and the Zaratines were happy at the enmities among the invaders, and encouraged by the Pope's care for their interests.

The Crusaders sent humble apologies to the Pontiff, so depicting to him the uncontrollable circumstances which had surrounded them, as in a net, that the heart of Innocent was touched, and he sent to Monteferrato his blessing and pardon for himself and the Crusaders.

But Dandolo told the Nuncio that in the affairs of Venice the Pope could scarcely be interested, since his Holiness had no concern in them, and he neither asked nor desired any communication with the Holy See.

Dandolo now displayed his remarkable power as a leader. He proposed to the Crusaders that with the Venetians they should winter at Zara. But they, just when they hoped at once to proceed to Palestine, would hear nothing of such a plan, and insisted on their duty to obey literally the commands of the Pope.

But Dandolo reminded them that in Zara they had {44} spacious barracks and stables; that they were going to a hostile land where no provision had been made for them; that the winter voyage was dangerous, and, in a word, that it would be madness to leave Zara before the spring. There was much angry altercation, but the calm determination of the Doge prevailed. Indeed, without his consent, how could they go? and the army was ordered into winter quarters. Dandolo, Monteferrato, and the barons were all sumptuously lodged; and the Doge set about measures to insure the permanency of his conquest of Zara.

The barons were dreading the tedium of an inactive winter, when a new excitement was afforded by the appearance at Zara of ambassadors from Philip, Emperor of Suabia. There is reason to believe that Dandolo and the Marquis Boniface (of Monteferrato) had already agreed with Philip that these ambassadors should be sent, and that all which follows and depends upon the proposals of the Emperor had been arranged to gratify the selfish ends of the Emperor, the Marquis, and the Doge before they left Venice at all; and was to be done at the expense of the Crusaders, and in direct opposition to the desire of Innocent and to the interests of the Church.

But since the wisest and most erudite of the historians have not discovered the whole truth about this and various other matters of this great crusade,—which certainly might with great aptness be called a war of the Venetians against their enemies and for their own aggrandizement,—we cannot be expected to do it.

The ambassadors brought letters setting forth the misfortunes of the young Alexius, brother-in-law of Philip, and legitimate heir to the Greek Empire. His father, Isaac, had been blinded and thrown into prison by his own brother, who now usurped the throne. The young prince had wandered over Europe, seeking aid; and hearing of the great number of Crusaders who had congregated {45} at Venice, he had come to entreat them for the restoration of his father. Alexius hastily followed the ambassadors; and Monteferrato, who was his near kinsman, proposed to receive him in accordance with his rank. The troops turned out, the silver trumpets of the Doge sounded a welcome; and leaders, monks, and soldiers alike waited to hear Alexius plead his own cause.

He had much to tell of his griefs and sufferings, and after rehearsing these he made such royal promises concerning the return he would make for their aid as appealed to the Venetians, the barons, the priests, and to the soldiers and sailors as well. He would pay the four hundred thousand pounds which the Greeks had long owed the Republic; he would go himself, or send ten thousand men to join the Crusade for one year, and during his life maintain five hundred knights for the defence of Jerusalem; he would pay large bounties to the rank and file of the expedition; and finally, he would renounce the Greek heresy and secure the submission of the Eastern Church to the authority of Rome. This last eased the consciences of those who heard him, and even seemed sufficient to satisfy the demands of Innocent III.

Philip had sent to the Crusaders his own stipulations, which accorded with the offers of Alexius, and it remained for the assembled forces to decide for their acceptance or rejection. The barons felt that the conquest of Constantinople was a legitimate object for the Crusaders, as she had been an insurmountable hindrance to the subjection of Palestine. Dandolo straightway perceived the enormous advantages that would accrue to Venice if her chief market-place and source of wealth could be ruled by a Western power, and we must believe that the pleas for humanity and justice found an echo in all hearts.

We cannot exaggerate the pitch of excitement to which the debates were now carried. The opposers were those {46} who feared the Pope, and were comparatively few. Weary of all these long delays, they wished only to stand at once on the holy soil they sought to conquer in the name of God and of his Son. Most of these withdrew from the camp, which was far less harmful to the expedition than to have discontents in their midst.

At length the Republic of Venice, eight barons of France, and the Counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol confirmed by oaths and seals a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was despatched to Philip for his signature. The advantage to the Venetians seemed all the greater since the Republic had long tried in vain to induce the Greeks to pay their debt; and it is more than probable that had not the Crusaders sought his aid, Dandolo would have endeavored to obtain by the sword what he had failed to get by repeated embassies and urgent solicitations.

The winter ended at last; and late in April, 1203, the expedition again set sail. The Zaratines at once revolted in celebration of the event; but the younger Dandolo had little difficulty in re-subjugating them, after which he made such a treaty as ended the rebellions of this turbulent people.

The Crusaders made their first landing at Corfu, and awaited the young Alexius, who had gone to Durazzo to receive the allegiance of the governor. The people of Corfu received him as their lawful sovereign, while the Doge and Boniface treated him with the consideration due an emperor. Serious difficulties now arose among the allies. Those who disapproved of going to Constantinople organized a parliament by themselves. Twelve powerful chiefs were openly of this party, and others had promised to join them; they were likely to control more than half of the army. The Doge and Boniface, as well as their adherents, were greatly alarmed by this sedition; {47} and they, with all the leaders who adhered to the Venetians, proceeded to the parliament, taking the young Alexius with them.

According to Villehardouin, the opposition leaders were on horseback when the Doge and his friends arrived. They dismounted and went to meet their visitors. The Barons then fell at their feet, weeping copiously, and declared, that they would not rise from their knees until the others had promised not to leave the army. Dandolo, Boniface, and all of them wept; never was there a greater flood of tears, and in the end the malcontents agreed to remain with the army until Michaelmas Day, the leaders of the other party swearing on relics, that after that day, at a fortnight's notice, they would provide a fleet for all who wished to go to Syria.

All Europe was watching the expedition with breathless interest; and as we trace its history, after nearly seven centuries have rolled beyond it, it is full of romantic fascination. Twice have I followed its course over the same waters at the same exquisite season, and no words can exaggerate the loveliness of those summer seas. How much more impressive must it have been when bearing an army with banners, who in their delight sang songs of joy and made the air resound with trumpet tones!

"The lovely islands, the tranquil waters, the golden shores, filled those Northmen with enthusiasm,—nothing so beautiful, so luxuriant, so wealthy and fair had ever been seen. Where was the coward who would not dare to strike a blow for such a land?" It was a sort of triumphant procession in advance, for all the islands received Alexius as Corfu had done. At Abydos the harvest was ripe, and the soldiers gladly laid aside their arms to wield the scythe and sickle, replenishing their ships with the new grain. After eight days they were again under way; and when, on June 24, the fleet passed close to Constantinople, all hearts were brave and confident of victory.

CHAPTER IV.

THE VENETIANS AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

Nine months had elapsed since the Crusaders left Venice, and no disaster had befallen them. The Adriatic and Ionian Seas were safely passed; threading the Islands of the Archipelago, crossing the Ægean, and through the Straits of the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora, even to the quays of the Byzantine capital, had they come, and no voice or hand had been raised to stay them.

When a nearer approach revealed to them the beauty, the strength, and the magnitude of the city they hoped to conquer, we may well believe, as Gibbon has said, "that each heart was chilled by the reflection that, since the beginning of the world, such an enterprise had never been undertaken by such a handful of warriors." Rising from seven hills, the city towered above two continents; five hundred palaces and splendidly domed churches bristling with spires, were doubled by reflection in the waters, while the ramparts were crowded with warriors and citizens.

The Emperor, Alexius the Elder, had known all their movements; but until the fleet was almost at the border of his garden on the Golden Horn, he would not allow that the Crusaders could come as his enemies. When, after some delay, the fleet was anchored off Scutari, and the army encamped within full view of Constantinople, across the Bosphorus, Alexius was filled with alarm, and sent a messenger to the leaders to demand why they had come {49} into his territory, to assure them of his readiness to supply all their wants, and of his unwillingness to injure them, at the same time declaring his power to do so.

The astonished Crusaders returned a sufficiently clear answer. They declared the Emperor to be a usurper; that the rightful ruler, the son of Isaac, was with them, and if the crown and empire were at once surrendered to him, the Crusaders would ask the young Emperor to pardon his uncle and give him enough to live upon in luxury. They then assured the messenger that unless he returned with an answer assenting to these proposals, he had better not dare to come at all.

The leaders believed that a large party existed in Constantinople who would favor the young Alexius, and deemed it expedient to give this party an opportunity to declare themselves. They manned and armed the galleys; Dandolo, Boniface, and Alexius were on one, and an army of knights and barons on the others. The walls of the city came to the water's edge for a long distance, and the deep water permitted the ships to approach very near them; the ramparts were filled with spectators, as the grand procession crossed the Bosphorus and halted under their very eyes. Some one near to Alexius proclaimed: "Here is your rightful lord. We come not to harm you, but to protect you if you do right. He whom you now obey rules you wrongfully, against the law of God and man. Here is the real heir. If you do not acknowledge him, we will do our worst against you." This proclamation was received with derision, and the people answered: "We know nothing of him. Who is he?"

The Crusaders returned to Scutari, and made their plans for attacking the city. So serious a matter as was now in hand overcame all disaffections; their task seemed hopeless, and every man realized that he must fight for the cause and not for himself. The priests urged the {50} confession on all, advised the making of wills, and held solemn services, praying to all the saints for protection, and promising generous returns for such assistance.

When all was ready for action, the French undertook an assault by land. The knights with their horses embarked on the transports, which could be opened in such a way as to permit the mounted men to ride across the gangways. The foot-soldiers followed on the larger ships. Alexius went with the barons, attended with all the state possible. The crossbowmen and archers were so placed as to clear a landing; the impatient knights leaped into the water while it was still up to the waist, and, lance in hand, reached the shore. The landing was made without opposition, and the army encamped in the Jewish quarter.

The Tower or Castle of Galata was taken next morning with little opposition; by this means the immense chain which closed the harbor, or the entrance to the Golden Horn, was loosened and the Venetians were able to enter with their ships. They surprised the Greek galleys, captured a part of them, and sunk others. Four days were now spent in preparations for the grand attack by sea and land; and on the fifth day, which was the 17th of July, the terrible struggle was begun.

The French conducted the land attack with vigor, and had the Greeks been their only opponents they would have been easily overcome. But the brave English and Danes,—the Varangians, as they were called,—although the hired soldiers of the Emperor, drove back the invaders, and bravely defeated the attack.

Meantime the Doge placed a fleet in the Golden Horn, in line along the eastern wall of the city, and began his attack in earnest. Wherever the danger was greatest there was the Doge; and his achievements are almost beyond belief, when his great age and weak sight are remembered. Gibbon was not over-fond of the Venetians; let us quote his tribute to them on this proud day:—

"On the side of the harbor the attack was more successfully conducted by the Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource that was known and practised before the invention of gunpowder. A double line, three bowshots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships; and the swift motion of the former was supported by the weight and loftiness of the latter, whose decks and poops and turrets were the platforms of military engines that discharged their shot over the heads of the first line. The soldiers who leaped from the galleys on shore immediately planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the large ships, advancing more slowly into the intervals and lowering a drawbridge, opened a way through the air from their masts to the rampart.

"In the midst of the conflict the Doge's venerable and conspicuous form stood aloft in complete armor on the prow of his galley. The great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats, promises, and exhortations urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel was the first that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on shore. The nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life and enhanced the value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand (for the standard-bearer was probably slain), the banner of the Republic was fixed on the rampart, twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied, and, by the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacent quarter."

Fearful for the fate of the French, Dandolo now hastened to their relief with his troops. The Emperor Alexius had made a sally, but the aspect of his foes terrified him more and more. At evening he withdrew his forces, and in the darkness of the night, taking £10,000 and many rich jewels with him, by the way of the Bosphorus he reached obscurity in Thrace. He deserted his throne and his people, his wife and his children, taking with him his daughter Irene alone.

The chief eunuch of the palace, Constantine, prefect of {52} the treasury, first discovered this flight, and sagely warned the most noble of the Greeks, that they might arrange for the safety of the throne at once. The old Isaac was released from his dungeon, taken to the palace of Blachernæ, dressed in royal apparel, and seated on the throne of which he had been so treacherously deprived. His nobles jostled each other in their haste to protest devotion and loyalty; and when day dawned, messengers were sent to the allies announcing his peaceful restoration, his impatience to see his son, and his desire to reward his "generous deliverers." These last did not forget their rights in their generosity. They would not release the young Alexius until his promises had been made good, and a number of ambassadors were sent to the palace, among whom was our friend, Villehardouin, the scribe.

When the gates were opened, the Varangian guards, bearing their battle-axes, lined the streets; in the presence-chamber, which sparkled with gold and jewels, the blind old Isaac was enthroned with his wife at his side, while senators, soldiers, and noble matrons filled the room. The ambassadors, without hesitation, clearly stated the recompense promised them by the young Alexius on the fulfilment of their agreement. Isaac could not understand their speech, but their tone impressed him with their determination to have their dues.

He retired to an inner room with an interpreter, the Empress, and the ambassadors, and there was made to comprehend that he was pledged to submit to the Church of Rome, to aid in the conquest of Palestine, and to pay to the Venetians the two hundred thousand marks so long overdue them. With great prudence he worded his reply: "These conditions are weighty, they are hard to accept and difficult to perform; but no conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts." He then affixed the golden seal of the Empire to the treaty; and {53} his son, whose voice he longed to hear, was restored to him.

On the 1st of August the father and the son were crowned in St. Sophia with grand solemnities. The quarter of Pera was assigned to the French and Venetians, and any regret or fear that existed on either side was concealed by apparent content and enjoyment.

But it was not possible that all the discordant elements which existed within Constantinople before the arrival of the invaders, and those which they added should live together in harmony. It soon became evident that Alexius was most unpopular; his long residence abroad had tinged his manners with a foreign air, and the familiarity in which he indulged the Frenchmen was most distasteful to the Greeks.

Beneath his gay exterior the mind of Alexius was greatly disturbed. He at once paid the allies all the money that he could possibly control; and small as the sum proved to be it was obtained by violating the sanctuary, and sequestrating not only the effects of the late Emperor's family, but also those of such individuals as had fallen under the suspicion or dislike of Alexius IV. The allies, as well as Alexius, realized that time must be allowed for future payments, and that the submission of the Greek to the Latin Church could not be made at once.

But the alarm of the young Emperor was inexpressible when he reflected that the time agreed upon for the departure of the Crusaders was at hand. The Greeks more than suspected the promises that bound the Emperors to the Latins, and were neither pleased to support their rulers in magnificent luxury nor to pay foreigners for invading their capital. Alexius well knew in what danger the departure of the fleet would leave him, and strove to find a way to detain it.

He entreated the allies not to desert him until he could {54} establish his power; he represented that his father and he had lost the good-will of the Greeks through their friendship for the Latins, and protested his belief that their departure would be the signal for a revolution which would take away his power to furnish them troops or pay them money. Again the sufferings and dangers of a winter campaign in a hostile land were represented; again he made promises,—of payment of his whole debt in the spring, of the immediate organization of ten thousand soldiers and five hundred knights for the service of God, and the supply of all necessary provisions for the allies until the Passover; while to the Doge he promised to keep the fleet afloat until the same time at his own cost. The Patriarch and clergy meanwhile abjured the Greek heresy, which mollified the opposition of the more devout, and finally the time of their departure was deferred to April, 1204.

Alexius desired to visit the cities on or near the Bosphorus in order to establish his authority and receive their submission, and for sixteen hundred gold crowns a portion of the troops was sent with him. The expedition had but a questionable success, and on his return, early in November, he found that a party of foreign soldiers, when excited by wine, had attacked a Jewish quarter and burst open a synagogue.

Naturally a fierce fight ensued; and some Flemings, in order to cover their retreat, set several houses on fire. A frightful conflagration resulted; for eight days the fire raged, and when at last it was extinguished, a third of the Byzantine capital no longer existed. Several ships in the port had burned to the water's edge; the number of churches and palaces as well as more humble dwelling-houses, the amount of merchandise and other wealth that had been destroyed, was unknown and unknowable. The district burned was the most populous of the city, and the {55} hatred of the Latins was so much increased that about fifteen thousand colonists, who had before lived quietly in the midst of the Greeks, now fled to Pera to be under the protection of the allies. The whole condition of affairs was most alarming, both for the Greeks and the Latins, and but a spark was needed to kindle another sort of fire that would destroy thousands of lives as well as the city and its wealth.

The conduct of Alexius began plainly to show his double dealing. The Latins and their reminders of his promises were treated with such indifference as excited their rage and alarm. At length they lost all patience, and in January, 1204, sent an embassy of three noble Frenchmen and as many Venetians to demand anew from the two Emperors the fulfilment of their contract, and to add that the Doge and the barons had resolved to take by force what was not peacefully given them.

This was a dangerous mission; but the six warriors, one of whom was our scribe, with few attendants alighted at the gate of the Blachernæ, and on foot, passing between two lines of Varangians, reached the palace. The two Emperors with their families were surrounded by the court; a brilliant throng of ladies, ministers, and nobles, and an army of attendants filled the hall.

Conon de Béthune delivered the message from the allies in a commanding voice; and, their duty accomplished, the ambassadors retired at once, and fortunately reached their horses in safety.

Their sudden coming and more sudden going caused an unusual excitement in the city; and when the truth was known, the Greeks were in a frenzy of rage that such an insult had been offered them and the perpetrators of it allowed to depart in safety; with one accord they turned their wrath against those who had permitted the ambassadors to escape their vengeance. They cursed the Angeli {56} as unfit to reign, and Alexius for having sold his country to the Latins; they swore that the time had come to choose a loyal sovereign who would lead them to glory and freedom.

The mob destroyed the colossal statue of Minerva in the Square of Constantine, because they believed that her right hand, pointing towards the west, had invited the invasion of the French and Venetians! A bronze figure of a Caledonian boar in the Hippodrome was accredited with power to charm away sedition, and Isaac ordered it brought within the grounds of his palace! Such were some of the preparations for the threatened attack of the allies.

Alexius was enraged, and the blind old Isaac was prostrated by fear; the whole city resounded with the din of confusion, and the Greeks resolved on a characteristic revenge,—the destruction of the fleet by fire. On a dark winter night a French sentinel was startled by the appearance of a broad sheet of flame approaching the Venetian fleet. He gave the alarm instantly, and the alert sailors saw and understood their danger; a line of fire-ships had been lighted and allowed to drift towards the fleet; the sailors hastily rowed towards them, seized them with hooks on long poles, and towed them to the mouth of the harbor, where a current swept them away, the only loss being that of a vessel belonging to the incendiaries.

A tiresome succession of proposals, made only to be modified or withdrawn, now ensued; and the Latins determined to be inactive no longer, but at once to attack Constantinople for the second time.

At this juncture a Greek of a certain sort of influence came to the front. His name was Alexius Ducas, but he was called Marzoufle on account of his shaggy eyebrows. He possessed great energy and boundless ambition, and was utterly void of moral perception or principle. As {57} grand-chamberlain he had been near the Emperors, and gradually had come to be their chief adviser. He flattered them, and incited the people against them; such faith had both father and son in Marzoufle that when the people, by his connivance, assembled in St. Sophia to elect a new emperor, they refused to believe that this was the object of the gathering.

It was with great difficulty that any one could be persuaded to assume the purple under the present conditions; but at last, overcome by intimidation, a young noble of high rank and worthy character, Nicholas Canabes, accepted the diadem. He had no fitness for such responsibilities as now rested on the Greek Emperor. In truth, there was no savior of Constantinople at hand. The strongest man was Marzoufle, and in reality he was conducting the affairs of the Empire. Hypocritically he worked his way until he gained the ear of the treasurer and could tamper with the Varangians, and then in a single night he consigned Canabes to a dungeon, and ordered the murder of the young Alexius before his eyes, and a few days later superintended his interment with great pomp. The old Isaac survived his son's death but a few days, and Marzoufle seated himself upon the vacant throne without opposition.

Immediately after the murder of Alexius, Marzoufle sent an invitation to Dandolo and the barons to sup with the young Emperor, who wished to consult with them. The barons accepted the invitation, and so long as the messenger remained, Dandolo was silent; but as soon as he had departed, the old Doge so forcibly represented the danger of such a step that the acceptance was withdrawn, and, on learning the truth about Alexius, they felt that they owed their lives to the prudence and wisdom of Dandolo.

Marzoufle was greatly vexed at his failure to entrap the {58} leaders of the allies, but watched carefully for another occasion, which soon presented itself. The Count of Flanders, with a thousand men, went to Phinea, on the Bosphorus, in search of provisions. Marzoufle followed with a large body of troops, intending to meet the French on their return and cut them off when they should be overweighted with booty and weary from their expedition. But this second scheme resulted in favor of the allies; the Greeks were totally defeated, and Marzoufle himself only saved from being made a prisoner by the fleetness of his horse.

Having boldly assumed full power, his next move was to invite the Crusaders to a conference in order to make a plan for the fulfilment of the contract made with Isaac and Alexius IV. The Crusaders were now minded to refuse to consult with an assassin and usurper; but Dandolo believed that no opportunity for a possible settlement should be neglected, and offered to go alone to meet Marzoufle. Accordingly, the Doge, in his galley, met the traitor near the Golden Horn. Dandolo stood erect in the prow of his barge, Marzoufle was on horseback, and their salutations were distant and formal. Dandolo, after expressing his horror at the crimes which Marzoufle had committed, assured him of the distrust with which the allies viewed him, and then recounted to him the terms of the treaty to which Isaac had set the seal of the Empire.

Marzoufle assented to all the conditions except that of submission to the Latin Church; sooner than consent to that, he would bury his country, and himself die beneath its ruins. In vain he was reminded that the Greek clergy had already renounced their heresy; he was immovable in this regard, and the two men parted with no result from their conference except that Dandolo could say that he had used his best endeavors to bring about a peace. A {59} second attempt was soon after made to fire the ships. It proved useless, like the first; and then Marzoufle saw that his only course was to prepare for open war.

And here one can but admire the ability of Marzoufle. He found the treasury empty, and replenished it by a strict inquiry into the abuses under the Angeli, and the confiscation of the property of those who had amassed wealth unlawfully. The people were unfriendly to the crown; but by his address, his gayety, and tact he made himself popular. The Greeks were indifferent to the welfare of their city, but under his leading they were aroused to patriotism and energy. The walls were repaired, and in some places raised to a great height; lofty stone towers alternating with those of wood were built and filled with soldiers well supplied with the means of defence; mangonels for throwing stones and darts were mounted between the towers, and all possible provision made for harassing the invaders and protecting the Greeks. And Marzoufle was everywhere, with an iron mace in his hand, and the bearing of a warrior, ordering the works, encouraging the timid, and striking terror to the hearts of the discontented.

The Crusaders were equally industrious in their preparations. The decks of their vessels were piled with enormous stores of missiles and the machines for hurling them, as well as others for belching forth combustible matter freighted with death and destruction. The 9th of April had been fixed for the beginning of the assault, and a council was called and an agreement made concerning the manner in which the booty should be divided, a new ruler chosen, and other similar affairs be settled in case they succeeded in taking the city. An instrument was drawn up, signed, and sealed by Dandolo and the barons at the camp of Galata, and little else remained to be done before the attack should begin. As we regard the position of the allies, it would seem that madness alone could {60} lead them to this assault. Their temerity is appalling. Before them was an apparently impregnable fortress, and four hundred thousand men, who now had a bold leader and were themselves filled with hatred of their foes. The allies numbered less than twenty thousand, and could neither hope for assistance from friends without, nor from treachery within the walls. They could only rely on their bravery and their good fortune. The Greeks depended on their position and their overwhelming numbers. All alike believed that Heaven would favor them, and thus sustained their courage. Gibbon thus graphically describes the siege:—

"A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled armies, which extended above half a league,—the one on the ships and galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary level by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge of darts, stones, and fire from the engines; but the water was deep, the French were bold, the Venetians were skilful. They approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and battle-axes was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled the floating to the stable batteries. In more than a hundred places the assault was urged and the defence was sustained, till the superiority of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat.

"On the ensuing days the attack was renewed with equal vigor and a similar event; and, in the night, the Doge and the barons held a council, apprehensive only for the public danger. Not a voice pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory or the assurance of a glorious death. By the experience of the former siege the Greeks were instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that Constantinople might be taken was of more avail than the local precautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence.

"In the third assault two ships were linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the 'Pilgrim' and the 'Paradise' resounded along the line. The episcopal banners were displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised to the first adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by fame.[1] Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solid ground.

"Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor's person fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas; an army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks. While the fugitives deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities in France.

"In the close of evening the barons checked their troops and fortified their stations; they were awed by the extent and populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of a month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internal strength. But in the morning a suppliant procession, with crosses and images, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors: the usurper escaped through the golden gate; the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon were occupied by the Count of Flanders and the Marquis of Montferrat; and the Empire, which still bore the name of Constantine and the title of Roman, was subverted by the arms of the Latin pilgrims."

The anxieties and cares of the conquerors were by no means ended by victory. They had overcome the strongest {62} fortress in existence, and were in possession of a city whose vast size and inconceivable wealth (as yet but half known to them) impressed them with their responsibilities, and foreshadowed difficulties which must be met with the greatest prudence. The Greeks were a degenerate and effeminate people, demoralized by bad government and pleasure-seeking. In the language of an old historian, they "cheated time and offended Nature, by rearing flowers in winter, and culling in spring the fruits of autumn." Dandolo and the barons perceived that this people must be protected; and how to do this before the whirlwind of profligacy and avarice which was sure to follow, was a grave question.

"The Marquis of Monteferrato was the model of virtue; the Count of Flanders, the mirror of chastity;" and they, as well as Dandolo, endeavored to avert the terrors of pillage and rapine. A proclamation was issued in their name, commanding that the helpless and innocent should be spared; and the Count of St. Pol hanged one of his knights, who offered abuse to a woman, with his shield and coat-of-arms about his neck, as a warning that the leaders must be obeyed. But avarice was not checked. The imperial treasury and the arsenal were guarded, and the rest of the city was given up to plunder.

Under the penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the whole body of Crusaders and Venetians were bound to deposit all their plunder, of whatever sort, in three churches selected for the purpose. In spite of all these precautions and the severe punishment of the disobedient, Gibbon says that the plunder which was secreted exceeded in value that which was exposed and divided according to the agreement previously made. This may easily have been true of the rare precious gems and small articles of inestimable value which existed in Constantinople, but that which was divided far exceeded any anticipations which had been indulged by the leaders.

Sismondi estimates that the riches of Constantinople before the siege reached twenty-four million pounds sterling. The Count of Flanders wrote to the Pope that the wealth of Constantinople exceeded that of all Europe put together; and Villehardouin declared that never in the history of the world had so great riches been collected in a single city. The property divided was valued at one million eight hundred thousand pounds; and if Gibbon is correct, the whole booty must have reached four million pounds sterling. In the division half was given to the Crusaders, and half to the Venetians; and the latter received fifty thousand silver marks additional, which was due them from the barons.

The whole story of the terrible destruction of works of art—of bronzes sent to the melting-pot, of marbles and other beautiful statues and ornaments that were ruthlessly broken—is heart-rending, but is not strictly a part of the story of Venice, since the ignominy and sacrilege of these deeds belong to other nations as well. Nothing was sacred to the plunderers. Pears tells us—

"Every insult was offered to the religion of the conquered citizens. Churches and monasteries were the richest storehouses, and were therefore the first buildings to be rifled. Monks and priests were selected for insult. The priest's robes were placed by the Crusaders on their horses. The icons were ruthlessly torn down from the screens or were broken. The sacred buildings were ransacked for relics or their beautiful caskets. The chalices were stripped of their precious stones and converted into drinking-cups. The sacred plate was heaped with ordinary plunder. The altar-cloths and the screens of cloth-of-gold, richly embroidered and bejewelled, were torn down, and either divided among the troops or destroyed for the sake of the gold and silver which were woven into them. The altars of Hagia Sophia, which had been the admiration of all men, were broken for the sake of the material of which they were made. Horses and mules were taken into the church in {64} order to carry off the loads of sacred vessels, and the gold and silver plates of the throne, the pulpits, and the doors, and the beautiful ornaments of the church. The soldiers made the chief church of Christendom the scene of their profanity. A prostitute was seated in the patriarchal chair, who danced, and sang a ribald song for the amusement of the soldiers.... The plunder of the same church in 1453 by Mahomet the Second compares favorably with that made by the Crusaders of 1204."

"Gems of the choicest water, vases of inestimable value, relics of odorous sanctity, were pilfered from the altars, the reliquaries, or from private dwellings, by rapacious soldiers, who sold them at a paltry price; and although these matchless rarities were recovered, partly by process of exchange and the ignorance of art, no inconsiderable portion was irretrievably lost. Some, however, found a worthy destination. The proud monuments of human genius, sculptures, paintings, frescos, mosaics, and minerals, which the industry and taste of ten generations of men had gradually amassed in that city of cities, were scattered by this great revolution among the palaces and churches, the castles and abbeys, of Western Europe. Many of the Venetian public buildings were decorated with the trophies which fell to the lot of the Republic herself; and Venice accounted no treasures more precious than the four antique bronzes, which were afterward known as the 'Horses of St. Mark.'"

Many beautiful objects from St. Sophia were also taken to Venice, and placed in San Marco. The high altar with its bronze gates and marble columns was a rich trophy, as well as many sculptures and pictures, vessels of gold and silver, and a great quantity of church furniture. The famous picture of the Virgin, believed to have been painted by Saint Luke when inspired by the Holy Ghost, was also obtained by the Venetians, who were accused of having taken the larger share of the spoils and of having concealed many treasures in their vessels.

It was not until the 9th of May that attention was given to the important matter of the election of a new Emperor. Six Venetians and six Frenchmen or Lombards, according to the agreement made before the siege, met in the chapel of the Boucoleon to deliberate on this momentous and difficult question. The choice lay between Baldwin, whom the French favored, Boniface, who was the choice of the Lombards, and Dandolo, whom the Venetians believed the most worthy and best to have earned the purple. "That old man," said they, "has gained the wisdom and experience of age without losing the vigor and fire of youth; his sight may be dim; but his intellect is clear and strong,—it is he who took Constantinople." The electors, too, were of this opinion, until one of the Venetians opposed it, and in a long argument showed so many good reasons against the election of Dandolo that the matter rested between Baldwin and Boniface, and at midnight the expectant thousands heard the cry, "Long live the Emperor Baldwin!"

Boniface and Dandolo hastened to congratulate the Count of Flanders, and to take their part in raising him on the buckler; according to the ancient custom, he was thus carried from the palace to St. Sophia, and placed on the golden throne of the Emperors, while the barons pressed forward to kiss his hand, and he was solemnly invested with the scarlet buskins. A few days later, he was crowned by the Legate, as no Patriarch then existed in Constantinople. The Venetians, however, soon had the satisfaction of seeing one of their nobles, Thomas Morosini, on the ecclesiastical throne, while their clergy filled the Chapter of St. Sophia. The French clergy did not regard this with favor, and a lengthy correspondence with Rome ensued.

At first Innocent declared the election of Morosini to be entirely null; but in the course of the correspondence {66} many considerations were presented to his Holiness which moderated his views. He did not love the Venetians, but he feared them, and thought it wiser to be at peace with them than to arouse their stubbornness. Indeed, Venice now had some claim to consideration at the Vatican. The restorers of the papal supremacy at the Greek capital were a different people from the conquerors of Zara, and after mature reflection Innocent approved of the elevation of Morosini to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. One can but feel a certain sympathy with Innocent at the result of the great Crusade for which he had labored and from which he hoped so much.

"His long and careful preparations had been defeated by Philip, Boniface, and Dandolo. All the efforts he had made to strike a deadly blow at Islam had come to naught. The preparations made at so much cost had resulted in an attack upon Christians, and not upon Moslems. Constantinople had been captured instead of Jerusalem. The opportunity, so favorable from many causes, had been lost, and no other presenting equal advantages was ever to occur again. The internal quarrel between the Saracen leaders, and the weakening of Egypt by the non-rising of the Nile during a succession of years, were accidental circumstances which were never repeated. The supreme moment for striking a blow at the Saracens at a time when it could have been struck with effect had passed. Innocent's energy was too great to allow him to sit idle under the failure, but all his efforts were unable to create an expedition equal in strength to that of 1202."

Preparations were now made for the second coronation of Baldwin by the Patriarch on a scale of magnificence which surprised the Crusaders. He was again seated on a shield and raised on the shoulders of the chiefs, and then descending was conducted to St. Sophia by the barons and principal officials. Boniface carried the imperial robe of cloth of gold. The Count of St. Pol {67} bore the imperial sword. At St. Sophia a solemn Mass was celebrated, the crown was placed on his head, and the words "He is worthy" pronounced and repeated by the bishops and people. After the new sovereign had communicated, he received all the imperial insignia, and headed the procession from the church to the Boucoleon, attended by the Varangians. The streets and houses on the way were decorated with all the rich carpets and hangings which had been spared by the three fires and the pillage, and a Frank Emperor was seated on the throne of Constantine with the full approbation of the Holy See.

Again a grave question, that of the division of the conquered territory, occupied the attention of the Doge and the barons. Twenty-lour commissioners, one half of whom were Venetians, were authorized to make the allotment. Venice received the Morea, the Illyric Islands, a large portion of Thessaly, the Sporades, the Cyclades, the cities of Adrianople, Trajanople, Didymotichos, and Durazzo, the province of Servia, and the coasts of the Hellespont. But with all this, the Venetians were not content. They desired possession of Candia, which had been given to Boniface. This island would be most advantageous to a maritime and mercantile nation; but of what use to a prince who had neither ships nor commerce? This reasoning so commended itself to Boniface that he gladly sold the coveted possession to the Republic for thirty pounds weight of gold, or about ten thousand eight hundred pounds sterling.

Various titles were conferred by Baldwin on the companions of his labors and honors. Some of these were most fantastic; and the one suggestion of the weakness of age recorded of Dandolo is that to his dignity of Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and Croatia, he added the epithet of "Despot and Lord of One Fourth and One Half of the Romanian Empire:" and as indicating that he was second {68} only to Baldwin, he claimed the right to tinge his buskins with the imperial purple!

Thus far all was well; but Baldwin and his friends knew that much serious work remained to be done. Other conquests must be made, and a powerful foe vanquished in Theodore Lascaris, the brave son-in-law of Alexius III., who had many adherents throughout the Empire. But before making any offensive movements it was necessary to obtain provisions and secure reinforcements, which had been promised by the Armenians. The summer was spent in foraging and exploring expeditions, and during the winter the Latins made themselves comfortable in their luxurious quarters.

Baldwin grew very impatient of the delay of the Armenian troops. They were absolutely needful to insure his success in any siege or attack. At last his impatience overcame his prudence; and in March, a small contingent having arrived, he set out for Adrianople, where in April he was joined by Dandolo and the Venetians, who doubled his numbers. The lofty ramparts of the great city could not be easily taken, nor its numerous garrison hastily overcome. The King of Bulgaria with his troops had come to the aid of Lascaris. Fourteen thousand Comans, who, mounted on their fleet steeds, used their bows and lances with unequalled dexterity, continually skirmished almost within bowshot of the army of the Latins, inspiring even these brave soldiers with doubt and hesitation. At length, however, these taunts produced their effect, and the whole Crusading army were eager to chastise the insolence of these barbarians. Even Dandolo, "the Prudent of the Prudent," was as much in favor of an attack as he was ignorant of its risks; and it was settled that he, with a few of the barons, should remain in charge of the camp and siege-works with a reserve corps, while Baldwin should lead the attack.

With the first movement of the Crusaders, the Comans retreated; and Baldwin, deceived by their tactics, pursued them fully two leagues, when suddenly he perceived that he had been led almost within the lines in which King John had disposed his troops for battle. The Comans then wheeled round and attacked their pursuers with the swiftness of lightning. Just when Baldwin thought himself on the point of victory, the whole Bulgarian army was upon him, and he must retreat or see his own army cut to pieces. He decided on retreat; and Dandolo and Villehardouin were informed by the first stragglers who reached the camp of the total rout of the army, the death of the Count of Blois, and the capture of the Emperor Baldwin.

This news fell upon Dandolo like a thunderbolt, and he immediately saw that a retreat to Constantinople must be made at once. The Bulgarians were approaching, and the Latins were too few to meet them. In the night, in spite of many obstacles, the retreat was begun; after four painful days the old Doge and the remnant of the troops reached the capital, bringing such tidings as overwhelmed the whole city with grief and dread. No news had they of Baldwin's fate; not only the Count of Blois, but the flower of the army of the Crusaders, had been cut off in the retreat; the Bulgarians might soon attack Constantinople; the neighboring cities favored Lascaris, and aided the Comans; and worst of all, they had learned that these bold horsemen had met and destroyed every man of the Armenian army which had been sent to Baldwin. The garrison of the capital was small, provisions were scarce, and it would require months for help to come from Venice, France, or the Vatican.

And now came the crudest blow of all in the death of Dandolo. He died at the Boucoleon on June 14. His disease (dysentery) might have been overcome had his mortification and anxiety been less; he could not survive {70} the thought that the great undertaking to which he had devoted all his powers, and which had been so fruitful of great results, should end ingloriously for Venice and for himself.

He was interred in St. Sophia with imperial honors; his armor was buried with him, and for nearly two centuries and a half his grave was unviolated, and Gentile Bellini had the proud satisfaction of bringing the cuirass, the sword, and the helmet which the great Doge had worn at the taking of Constantinople to Venice, and presenting them to the descendants of the grand old hero.

There is an inexpressible sadness in the death of the Doge under such a weight of sorrow and disappointment, and tortured by apprehensions of evil which were never realized. King John did not suspect the weakness of the Latins; the Comans fled to the north to avoid the summer's heat; and the Bulgarian monarch turned his back on Constantinople, and attacked the King of Thessalonica.

The result of Dandolo's achievements was of vast import and value to his beloved Republic. She acquired world-wide glory and new territory, greater scope for commerce and extended feudal domain; her standard now floated above almost every seaport, large or small, from the Lido to the Golden Horn.

"The great power of Venice over the Adriatic, the Ægean, and especially over the islands mentioned, and over a portion of the Morea, dates from the Latin conquest,—a power which was used, on the whole, well and wisely, which introduced or continued fairly good government, and which has left traces in well-constructed roads and fortresses. But, as was natural, the results of the Latin conquest were more markedly visible in Venice herself than in any of the possessions she obtained. Her marts were filled with merchandise; her ships crowded the great canals and her harbor with the spoils of Asia and the products of the Levant; her architecture reproduced and improved upon that of {71} Constantinople. The spoils of the New Rome were her proudest ornaments. Her wealth rapidly increased. The magnificence of the New Rome was transferred to Venice, which was during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the most splendid of Christian cities."

A fourth of Constantinople was assigned as a residence for the Venetians, where they were permitted to have their own magistrates and laws; throughout the Greek realm the coins, weights, and measures of Venice were recognized, and the treaty of 1198 was resumed with its privileges to Venetian merchants. The Doge of Venice was to be represented in Constantinople by an officer who should protect the commercial interests of Venice in the East. Marino Zeno, who had been a close friend of Dandolo, was at once elected to this office of Balio, or Podestà. Three Councillors of State, a Treasurer and an Advocate, a Court of Proprio and a Court of Justice of the Peace, and a commandant of the troops of the Republic in Romania were sent out to support Zeno in his lofty and arduous duties.

The Venetians cherished the memory of Dandolo. His genius had long added lustre to the Republic, and the news of his death plunged the whole city into sincere mourning. His achievements and the exploits of his army aroused the pride of the Venetians to its highest pitch, and they desired to perpetuate in some stable manner the fame of what is known as the Fourth Crusade. Fortunately the time was propitious to their wishes; the close of the thirteenth century brought a revival of art and literature which, among its many glorious results, numbers the rehearsal of the deeds of Dandolo and his allies by the historians, and the picturing of their immortal achievements upon the walls of the Ducal Palace.

CHAPTER V.

MODERN PROCESSIONS AND FESTIVALS.

Mediæval Venice was a city of imposing spectacles. Its church was a national church, and its Patriarch, the heir of Saint Mark, was, from the Venetian point of view, the peer of the heir of Saint Peter. It being a strictly Venetian or State church, the Doge was its head equally with the Patriarch, and indeed in a certain way was more important; for the chief church of Venice was not that of the Patriarch, but the Chapel of the Doge, while the Chapter of San Marco was far more powerful than the Bishop, who was officially its superior.

But it pleased the State to make its church prominent in its public ceremonies; and each great event in its history—be it the deliverance from the plague or a conspiracy, or a success in having proved a plague to any foe—was commemorated by a religious function. Some of these splendid processions corresponded to those of other Catholic countries and cities, such as those of the Corpus Domini and Palm Sunday; and Gentile Bellini's pictures of religious processions now in the Academy still impress us with the unequalled pomp and magnificence with which the Venetians loved to dazzle themselves and the strangers within their gates.

The festivals which were peculiar to Venice were important. The procession of the Doge to the smallest and perhaps the oldest church in Venice, San Vio, founded in 917, celebrated the deliverance of the city from the {73} conspiracy of Tiepolo in 1310; and as it occurred on the 15th of June, that lovely season in Venice, we can but regret its discontinuance. But the deliverance from the plague in 1576 and in 1631 is still celebrated each year. The ravages of the plague in Venice at various times were almost beyond belief. That of 1171 is curiously associated with the Giustiniani. A hundred or more members of this most noble house were cut off by this scourge, and its very name was in danger of extinction, since the young Niccolo, who now represented the family, was a novice in the convent of San Niccolo, on the Lido. The Doge Michieli, under these circumstances, thought it not wrong to send at once to the Pope, asking that Niccolo Giustiniani might be released from his vows, and married to Anna Michieli, the daughter of the Doge. Mrs. Oliphant pictures the interval between the departure of the messenger and his return:—

"The old Giustiniani fathers, in the noble houses which were not as yet the palaces we know, must have waited among their weeping women for the decision from Rome. And it is wonderful that no dramatist or modern Italian romancer should have thought of taking for his hero this young monk upon the silent shores of the Lido, amid all the wonderful dramas of light and shade that go on upon the low horizon sweeping round on every side, a true globe of level, long reflections, of breadth and space and solitude, so apt for thought.

"Had he known, perhaps, before he thought of dedication to the church, young Anna Michieli, between whose eyes and his, from her windows in the Doge's palace to the green line of the Lido, there was nothing but the dazzle of the sunshine and the ripple of the sea? Was there a simple romance of this natural kind, waiting to be turned into joyful fulfilment by the Pope's favorable answer? Or had the novice to give up his dreams of holy seclusion, or those highest, all-engrossing visions of ambition, which were to no man more open than to a bold and able priest?"

The Pope could but consent under such circumstances, and the marriage was celebrated immediately. Nine sons and three daughters were born of this union; and many men of illustrious character and some great orators afterward proceeded from the Casa Giustiniani. But his life in the world, with all its good fortune, did not make Niccolo forgetful of his early vows nor of the peace of his convent; and when his duty to the State was done, he there re-dedicated himself to God's service, and his wife Anna entered her chosen nunnery, where the holiness of her life caused her to be made a Beata after her death.

Four centuries later Venice was again decimated; and the deliverance from the plague of 1576 is celebrated to this day on the third Sunday of July, which is called

For some days previously the city is in commotion. A pontoon bridge is thrown across the Grand Canal; and the ferrymen, whose earnings are thus lessened, receive three francs a day as compensation. Pilgrims from the neighboring islands and from the mainland are constantly arriving, and a motley crowd throngs all Venice.

All Sunday morning the Piazza of San Marco is a busy place, for there the priests from every parish of Venice gather, and form the procession that marches hence to the Church of the Redentore. The variously colored stoles of the priests indicate the parishes to which they belong; and when the procession is seen from a distance, these stripes of color are very curious in effect. As the church has a commanding position on the island of La Giudecca, one may easily have a fine view of the procession on the bridge, and by quickly crossing in a gondola lose little of the pageant in the church, which has no doubt lost much of its original splendor.

But the great interest of the festa is outside the church. The quays are filled with tents and stalls, decorated gayly with flags, and displaying cheap toys, cakes, ices, and fennel, as well as hot fritelle, and more solid food for those who wish. The children are never weary of these tents, while dancing-halls have been hastily improvised for their elders. And so all day long there is tramping and chattering, a sense of confusion and unrest, which invades even the interiors of the most retired houses; and one is better off to join in the festivities and fully do his part than to attempt to be quiet.

The real festa, however, seems to begin only when the day is ended. As soon as the sun sinks to rest, the whole Giudecca Canal is covered with boats fancifully decorated with boughs, and illuminated with lanterns shaped like lilies, fuschias, and other flowers whose form lends itself to illumination. Much time and skill is lavished on these decorations, as the best device gains a handsome prize.

A little later the supper gondolas appear. These are brilliantly lighted with lamps, and so beautifully dressed with green branches and wreaths that they seem like living bowers. The tables are well filled, and the boats crowded with joyous holiday-seekers, whose laughs and jests, intermingled with the sound of mandolins and songs, are most contagious in their merriment. As soon as it is dark enough, fireworks are set off in many parts of the city, but especially on the Giudecca, and the air is full of rockets and Roman candles. The gayety of the scene can scarcely be exaggerated; and its whole appearance is so characteristic of Venice, and so unlike any other place, that it is quite impossible to draw a true picture of it in words. From the inauguration of the festa of the Redentore, it has been the custom to pass the night on the water; and about two o'clock the boats all move {76} towards the Lido, there to salute the rising sun, and many of the people rush into the water to hail the God of Day.

Thus ends the midsummer fête, so well worth seeing and so unique. But is not all a Venetian summer full of charm? To us each day is a lovely festa.

Venice is especially suited to scenic displays upon the water,—the winding Grand Canal, cutting the city like a mammoth letter S, opening into the Basin of St. Mark, the Ducal Palace on one side, and San Giorgio on the other, the curve of the Riva degli Schiavoni running into the public gardens, all lend themselves to spectacles with perfect fitness.

Of late years, too, the Town Council has generously encouraged the regatta with money and influence. The course of the race is from the stairs of the public gardens to the Station, and back to the Palazzo Foscari. The prizes are money and flags,—red, green, and blue for the first three boats, and a sucking pig and a yellow flag with a pig embroidered on it for the last boat. One would think that after falling behind so much as to surely fail of the first prizes, there would be a contention for the hindmost place.

There is no end to the varieties of the Venetian craft,—gondolas, sandolos, barche, barchette, topos, cavaline, vipere, bissoni, and many more. Before the regatta begins, the Grand Canal is covered with boats of every size. All the palaces are hung with tapestries, rugs, curtains, and any stuffs of a gay color, while flags flutter everywhere. Every balcony and window is full of people and heads, while the roofs are black with those who have no more advantageous outlooks.

By far the most interesting boats are the bissone and {77} peote, rowed by ten and twelve oars, whose duty it is to keep the race-course clear. These are decorated by the commercial houses of the city, and are symbolical in their designs, the crews being dressed in accordance with the decorations. One may resemble a Chinese junk; another represents the tropics, bearing palms and gorgeous flowers and even tropical birds; another may have a Polar bear on its bows, with its rowers imitating walruses, and sitting on cakes of ice; one is usually decorated with glass from Murano, which sparkles like precious stones in the sunlight. These have each a special color,—blue, gold, pink, silver, green, and, in truth, all the gay colors known; and as, in order to keep the course clear, they must constantly move about, they make a charming effect, and are vastly amusing to those who are waiting and watching for the race.

The gondolas of the nobility are frequently gay, with the livery of the four gondoliers they carry. Many of them are dressed in antique style, with puffed hose, long silk stockings, gay doublets, and plumed hats; and other private boats, especially the large bissone, carry gayly dressed parties, while their crews are in liveries of velvet or silk with lace and costly trimmings.

Suddenly the boom of a cannon hushes all voices. The race has begun. It is rowed in small, light gondolas, and every eye is fixed on the spot where these boats will first be seen. When they are near enough to tell who leads, there are cheers and shouts of encouragement. The race sweeps by and disappears. The excitement becomes intense, and bets are freely made, comments of all sorts are heard, and until the boats again come in sight, on their return, one might well question if Babel were as noisy as Venice at a regatta. As the victor nears the winning post, the silence is breathless. He snatches his flag; his name is shouted by thousands; the regatta is {78} finished; and already the people are talking of the amusements which are still to be enjoyed.

Coming after the regatta, the serenade is a fresh delight. The anxieties are ended, and everybody can now enjoy the lovely evening, the cool breeze, the glimpses of exquisite palace interiors, of gondolas filled with ladies in festa costumes, and of decorations and illuminations everywhere.

Eight o'clock is the hour for beginning; and a large barge decorated with many green and red lamps arranged in pyramids and other more fanciful designs carries the orchestra and the singers. It starts from above the Rialto, and is soon surrounded by numberless gondolas. Each gondolier strives for the best position, and that is thought to be at the bow of the music barge. The whole mass of boats float with the tide; and as they come to the narrower part of the canal, neither barge nor any gondola can move forward or back.

Under the arch of the bridge the scene is like a good-natured pandemonium. The police bid the rowers do this and do that, but they only make a pretence of trying to obey. The police shout, "Avanti, avanti!" the boatmen repeat the cry, but nothing moves. At last the chief official, by means of a trumpet, gives an order to "pump," and at once a fire-engine on the barge throws a stream of water which loosens the block a little, and the barge advances a few feet. A very curious effect is produced by the different sorts of lights. The cold, colorless electric, the brilliant hues of the Bengal lights, and the soft glimmering from the stars in the clear blue above, bring out the statuesque figures of the gondoliers and the fronts of the palaces,—now like startling ghosts, again like {79} blushing youths, and then as impalpable spirit-forms. They appear and disappear as the lights change and as the boats move. The gondoliers are mostly clothed in white, and seem like dream figures, as do the exquisite façades with their delicate tracery and ornament.

The serenade is apparently endless; for in spite of the pumping, its progress is very slow, and the barge will not reach the Salute until long past midnight. There the lights are put out, and the musicians released. Little attention is given to the music, which seems only to be a nucleus for this most novel and fantastic scene, from which one may easily escape by a side canal, and end the evening with one more spectacle.

This is the appropriate end of a really grand festival; and the scene in the Piazza is as beautiful, if not as exciting, as the race or the serenade. So brilliant is the light that not a detail of the architecture is lost. Every column, with all its ornament, each cornice, pillar, and curve is outlined by little jets of golden flame, and even of a deeper tint; and all these lights are flickering just enough to dazzle the eye with an effect like a rippling sea of fire. In weird contrast is the façade of San Marco, lighted by electricity. It is pale and unearthly, and its domes seem to be suspended in air. No wonder that the doves fly hither and thither in fright and amazement, and cluster in the darker Piazzetta, where they and we may thankfully rest our eyes and look out to San Giorgio, now all aflame with many-colored lamps.

Again to the Piazza, to note what we may not yet have seen. The two Procuratie and the Piazza walls are like sheets of fire, for the lamps of the square have globes of crimson glass. Surely nowhere else has one seen such {80} color, so splendid and fascinating, so blinding and confusing, that late though it be we bid our good gondolier make a giro in the quiet canals, which seem to welcome us as old friends do, and restore the equilibrium which the regatta, the serenade, and the illumination have somewhat disturbed; and in this quiet there come back to us the lines we learned so long ago, writ by another pilgrim in this same Venice,—

I can repeople with the past,—and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chastened down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice! have their colors caught.
LORD BYRON.

The plague of 1630 was the seventieth, and the last great plague of Venice. Eighty-two thousand victims had died in the city and the neighboring islands, and sixteen months of horror and suffering had passed since its outbreak. Not a sound of joy was heard in all the extent of Venice when special public prayers were made, and the Senate vowed to the Holy Virgin—"Mary, the Mother of Health"—that a church should be built in her honor if she would but stay the plague. And lo! suddenly, in November, 1631, the scourge was stayed.

Fifty-five years before, the votive church of the Redentore had been built in gratitude to a similar answer to their prayers; and now the people were determined to erect a still more splendid church, upon a piece of land on the point of the Dogana, which the Knights Templars had given to the Republic. But it would take a long time to build a church, and the people were in haste to put all their sadness behind them, and to have one festal {81} day without delay. Accordingly, the 28th of November was appointed, and a wooden structure erected hastily, in which to celebrate the jubilee.

The procession left the high altar of San Marco; and when it reached the centre of the Piazza, the health officers announced that the plague was stayed by the Virgin. This announcement was welcomed by salvos of artillery, peals of bells, and blare of trumpets. The procession then moved on, and crossing the Grand Canal by a pontoon bridge, it reached the wooden church.

A writer of that period tells us that the day was most propitious. Not a cloud obscured the deep blue sky, and the air was as mild as that of spring. Nothing was omitted that could add to the splendor of the procession. The gorgeous robes of the priests, the candlesticks of gold and silver, the flags of all the noble guilds and companies, the elder nobles with long white tapers in their hands, and the younger in all the bravery of doublets and hose, furnished a spectacle not easily excelled; and in every year of the two hundred and sixty-two that have since passed, this jubilee has been repeated with all possible splendor.

On the April following the first stone was laid in the new church, which rests on 1,200,000 piles. And there, at the entrance of the canal it stands, with its buttresses and statues and cupolas,—in a word, with all its architectural audacity,—declaring the grateful veneration of the Venetians for "Mary, the Mother of Health;" and on this festa every Venetian, be he devout or not, feels it a duty to visit her church.

From the early morning the noise of the gathering crowds is heard. All around the church are stalls with hot coffee, fish, and other food for sale, and above all gallani,—a delicacy which belongs especially to this jubilee, of which the Venetians are very fond. It consists of little cups of pastry filled with a preparation of lard, white of {82} eggs, and flour whipped to a froth. It must be an acquired taste to be enjoyed by any but a true Venetian. Other little booths are filled with "portraits" and statuettes of the Madonna and the saints; and there is a lively fair all about the church before the hour for the great function.

This begins at half-past ten. The procession is formed, and moves to the church in the same manner as that of the Redentore. Within the church the people light the candles they have brought, one taking the fire from another; and these lighted candles, in all sizes, from the largest that are on sale down to mere tapers, are handed to the priests within the altar-rails, and are placed near the statue of the Madonna, triumphing over a symbolic figure of the plague. Thousands of candles are thus massed, until the space around the altar is a sheet of flame. Those who add to the candles a small sum of money receive a picture of the Madonna, which they kiss devoutly, and then conceal in some hiding-place about their dress.

Then the solemn services begin, one Mass succeeding another, until the vespers and benediction close the day at five o'clock. Meantime the women sit and gaze at the men constantly moving under the great cupola, wherever they can thread the crowd. They are all clean, well shaven, and dressed in their best. The gondoliers, with blue sashes, present "a symphony in shirts;" for in this use of flannel they are able to show their love for color, and most of them are artists enough to know the tint that is most becoming.

The season of the year forbids the open-air festivities which accompany other fêtes; but the wine-shops and restaurants make a rich harvest through the evening and far into the night, and jests and songs are heard in all the streets. In truth, the hour when one may really sleep becomes a doubtful question; for it happens many {83} times that just when one is comfortably dreaming, perhaps for the twentieth time, he hears in musical tones, sometimes singly and again in trios or quartettes, "Viva Italia! Viva il Re!"

But perhaps the most interesting of all the Venetian feste, and certainly the most characteristic, are those distinctly of the people, and confined to the contrada, or quarter, in which the event occurs. A quarter is often thrown into the greatest excitement by a challenge to a rowing-match. The qualities of the champions are hotly discussed, bets are made, and the spirit of rivalry recalls that of the ancient Nicolotti and Castellani. Indeed, these very terms are still used on such occasions, though one is puzzled to know in what way one of these poor boatmen can represent the aristocratic Nicolotti of Heraclea. However, since these wear a black cap and sash, and the Castellani wear red, the names and their colors still serve a good purpose.

The street-fights between these parties, the Forze d'Ercole, and other trials of their strength and skill are all things of the past; and it is only on the occasion of a regatta of the people that the question is asked, "Who will win, Castello or San Niccolo?"

The day before these races the two boats are carefully cleaned, everything being scraped off the bottoms. They are then weighed at the Custom House, and tied to the posts of a ferry, where they remain, under the guard of a friend of each of the contestants, during the night. The race is rowed early in the morning; and only those who may most decidedly be called il popolo show any knowledge or interest concerning it. They gather in all sorts of crafts close by the gardens and by San Giorgio. At half-past {84} seven the report of a gun is heard, and in a few minutes the race sweeps past. The red caps are leading; and those in the boats who favor that color are proportionately gay, while the black caps are silent and downcast.

All the boats that have been waiting follow the race for a certain distance; but its speed is too great for them, and near the end of the Giudecca they await the return. The course is usually about twelve miles; and after an hour and a quarter, or perhaps a little less, two white specks are seen far away across the water. These specks grow larger and clearer, and the greatest impatience possesses the watchers until they can discover which color leads. The boats stream out in two lines to meet the racers, who are taking different courses, and are so far apart that no one can yet decide as to the end. But when the first boat reaches the façade of San Giorgio, it is still the red cap that holds the lead. "Bravo, bravo!" is heard from all sides in joyous shouts; but the boats vanish like those in a dissolving view. They have given all the time they can afford, and each must now go to his duty, except a few of the more active spirits, who haste to greet the victor, and arrange a supper in his honor.

This feast usually takes place within the week, and is a gay affair, for after the supper there is dancing, and all are in the best of spirits. The hall in which the tables are laid is always decorated with the portraits of victorious boatmen, and flags and banners won in other races. The ancient custom of having a portrait made of the winner still survives, and it is a matter of great pride to collect these each time a new victory is gained for the red caps or the black.

The supper requires a long time; for three quarters of an hour is allowed to pass in smoking, talking, and singing between the courses. Wine is there in plenty; for if {85} only men are at the supper, it is brought in a forty-litre tub, suspended on poles from the shoulders of two men, and welcomed with huzzas. The room grows warm, and jackets are thrown off, as the merriment increases, exposing the brilliant flannel shirts and sashes, until at last the final course of the orthodox boatmen's supper has been eaten, for the menu is as unalterable as the courses of the stars. And now the tables must be cleared and the dancing begin. And such dancing! Their waltz is slow and long, and they love it to madness. They abandon themselves to its rhythmic movement with delight, and often sing as they dance, as if every possible expression must be given to their perfect happiness. One cannot foretell the hour when it will end. Not so long as the musicians will play,—for when was a dancing gondolier known to be weary? And when the Marcia reale or Garibaldi's Hymn is played, with what impetuosity do the dancers respond!

Each parish in Venice has its patron saint, and on that saint's day the whole parish is devoted to its celebration. Early in the morning a procession visits every shrine within the borders of the parish to burn incense before it.

First in the procession are those who carry the crosses, banners, and candelabra, all the portable belongings of the Church, made as fresh as possible for the sagra, and a Madonna, usually seated in a somewhat shaky chair. These bearers wear a sort of priestly vestment over their work-day clothes; and these are carefully arranged in groups of different colors,—first blue, then red, and lastly white. It is most interesting to see the faces of these bronzed, weather-beaten men, more accustomed to rowing than to walking. They stagger beneath their burdens {86} from side to side of the narrow calle; but they smile as they meet the gaze of neighbors and friends, who watch from the windows and doorways the progress of their carissima Madonna.

Behind the bearers comes the sacristan,—a person of importance, clothed in scarlet, walking backward, and ringing a bell. He is the marshal of the procession; and every boy is sober and properly behaved when within sight of this important official. Following him the music comes,—usually a clarinet, fife, trombone, and drum,—playing the most cheerful themes, and followed by three little acolytes, who swing their censers with such a will as to send up perfect clouds of incense. The parish priest comes next, and is usually an old and venerable man. He is dressed in rich robes and laces, and attended by men bearing a canopy over his head. He carries the Host reverently in his hands, and is followed by all the lesser clergy and officials of the parish. Then the pious men and women, the first in black clothes and bareheaded, and the last in long black veils, make a large part of the procession; and here a most curious economical custom is observed. Each of these parishioners carries a lighted taper, and to avoid its dripping, holds it sideways across the breast; and beside each one of these walks some one with a paper bag in which to catch the drippings of the wax. And so the procession winds in and out of every possible place in all the parish. It is often forced to halt by some obstacle in the narrow way; and those below are nodding and smiling to those above, for every window and balcony is filled. The procession stops at the last bridge in the parish, which has been covered with gayly colored mats. The music ceases; the priest alone, under his canopy, climbs to the highest point on the arch of the bridge, and raises the Host in air. Every voice is hushed, every head uncovered, and every knee bent. The only {87} sound is of the water gliding on and on to the sea. All is enclosed by high walls; but if one throws the head quite back, a strip of lovely placid blue symbolizes the peace which these humble worshippers are hoping to gain at last.

Suddenly the music plays its gayest waltz, the procession returns to the church with the consciousness of duty done, and the rest of the day is devoted to festivity, and in the evening the principal open space of the contrada is illuminated with a few extra lamps and some Bengal lights. Before almost every window hangs a picture of the saint whose day it is, and these are lighted by little oil-lamps.

Here, too, as in the greater festivals, are stalls for selling fruit and pasties, or hot boiled chestnuts and fritelle; and much wit is expended in buying and selling these wares. Somewhere in the quarter there is dancing, too, usually in the middle of the square; and when the spectator is fortunate in his position, the whole scene is a delightful repetition of the fairs and feste of the people so often seen upon the theatre or operatic stage, but far more beautiful and fascinating if the night be a moonlit one of early summer.

These parish festivals are managed entirely by the people, and are more or less impressive according to the collections that the capo, or manager, is able to make. On this depend the amount of the illumination and the brilliancy of the fireworks at the end; and no triumphant general ever had more pride in his victory than has this capo, when at the close of the festa he is applauded, and bids the band play the finale, which is, of course, the ever-present "Viva Italia! viva il Re."

It is only with plenty of time, and that at the right season, that one can really come to know the Venice of to-day, and nothing so plainly shows the spirit of a people {88} as to see them at their play; and when, as in the case of these contrada feste, these working classes are quite by themselves, it is a tribute to their government and to their own natures to find them light-hearted and merry, easily amused, and contented in the quiet round of their every-day life.

This fast to the rest of the Christian world in Venice assumes the air of a feast. The people are all in holiday attire, and the children in crowds are romping and rolling, shaking their rattles to scare away Judas, turning somersaults and frolicking generally. And this day, more than any festival, affords delight to children, who have a custom of fitting up a Holy Sepulchre (Santo Sepolero), and appealing for coppers to all passers-by. They take the idea, naturally enough, from the Holy Sepulchres they see in all the churches; but the surprising thing is the readiness with which they improvise the Santo Sepolero out of nothing, and then the ease with which they obtain the little coins. A small box, a bit of green, some candle-ends, and all is done; and if the child be sweet-voiced and winning, her Good Friday success is assured.

But at evening, in the most populous quarters, and those least invaded by strangers, the most unusual Good Friday custom is seen. The people of the quarter conduct a unique service of song, quite independent of the Church and at their own cost. They agree to sing the Passion of Our Lord, for which they use a chant with twenty-four verses. The necessary means are furnished by subscriptions of money, oil, wine, or anything that may be used in the celebration.

At one end of the calle a shrine is erected representing a temple, each part of which—pillars, pediment, and so {89} on—is outlined by small lamps; while in the centre of the shrine there is a gas-jet with its paler light. A crowd gathers before the little temple waiting for the music to begin, while every window within hearing distance is open and filled with listeners, who meantime gossip with the people in the street. Somewhere in the calle there is sure to be a Madonna and Infant Jesus, who have on this day been carefully cleaned and trimmed with wreaths of flowers, long sprays of graceful vines, and bits of ribbon.

When the leader of the singers begins the chant, all other sounds are hushed. Even the children know that they must now be quiet. The key-note being thus given, other voices join in; and each verse requires about three minutes for its rendering, and between the verses there is a pause of five or six minutes, when the chatter of the men and women and the pranks of the children are resumed, until again cut short by the voice of the leader. This is repeated until the twenty-four verses of sombre chant are sung in a manner much resembling ordinary psalm-singing elsewhere.

The music over, the evening ends, as do all Venetian celebrations, with a supper at the nearest wine-shop. This singular observance of a day so sadly solemn elsewhere makes a curious impression at first on strangers who witness it, and is perhaps the most characteristic of all the public customs that one can observe in Venice.

CHAPTER VI.

GRADENIGO, TIEPOLO, AND THE COUNCIL OF TEN.

A new era was inaugurated in Venice by the fall of Constantinople. Prosperous and powerful as the Republic had previously been, it now sprang, as if by magic, into a position of which her most ambitious and far-seeing statesmen could not have dreamed.

A little more than a quarter of a century had elapsed since the visit of Pope Alexander, at which time sixty-five thousand was the highest estimate that could be made of her population; now, at the end of the Fourth Crusade, her nominal sovereignty embraced millions of souls, and the actual numbers within the borders of the Republic itself had vastly increased. The new territory and the various rights and privileges which she had acquired in the Lower Empire had largely increased her commerce and the sources of her wealth, and she hastened to make all these advantages permanent by a liberal and wise system of colonization.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century the Venetian nobility was the most powerful and opulent class in the world, as well as the most polished and enlightened, and were everywhere held in the highest consideration as men, soldiers, and diplomats. In the history of the Republic one fact stands forth prominently,—the devotion of Venetians to Venice,—devotion to the Republic, and to her elevation to the highest ideal of which they could conceive. To this end her sons directed all their powers, and were willing to sink their personality in her aggrandizement.

Not in a spirit of humility, for never a prouder race existed; but it was the pride of patriotism which moved them,—pride if by any act they could add to the stature of the Republic. Not in any spirit of sacrifice, for they felt it no hardship to spend and be spent if only the name of Venice could thereby be made more resonant wherever it was spoken. Venetians were united in one aim,—that Venice should be the most beautiful and most powerful of cities. And so it happens that in the voluminous records of her history and life, while they give a vivid realization of the thought, energy, and power which thousands of her sons must have possessed and must have dedicated to her glory; while as one reads he may almost hear the hum of her busy life and feel the throbbing of her pulses, little prominence is given to individuals. It is not of men nor of family that we read; it is of Venice, first, last, and always.

Often as the names of Contarini, Michieli, Ziani, Dandolo, and Tiepolo appear, no one family ever held absolute power, or was independent of the others. Was this the result of their jealousy of one another? Perhaps; and it answered a great end. Never was Venice at the mercy of a race like the Medici or Visconti; and when the great ambition of her sons was turned from personal exaltation and centred in the good of the State, it became an overmastering passion, and could but produce glorious results. Ten times it happened that the Republic was on the verge of ruin; and as many times did its leaders in Council, Senate, and College, together with the Doge, stake all they possessed for the preservation of Venice, and always with success.

The wisdom of its laws conduced to bring about this state of things; for every boy of the noble class knew that at twenty years of age he must appear before the proper magistrate and claim admission to the Great Council, he being the legitimate son of one whose name was in the {92} Libro d' Oro. From that day, if he had ability, he must be a servant of Venice. He could follow no personal tastes in studies or pursuits. A refusal to accept appointments was subject to so heavy a fine as to occur but rarely. At the age of twenty-five, the beginning of manhood, he must enter the Great Council, serve on laborious committees, go thence to the Senate, and be elected or appointed to one position after another that demanded all his power of service. Sometimes he must fill several offices at once, and to the last day of life he can give himself no repose if the State finds his service valuable. No matter how old he is, nor how feeble, if Venice chooses him for her Doge, he must assume the beretta, the mantle of gold and ermine, and bear them as well as he can until the end of life brings his release.

Thus, by the middle of the thirteenth century the Venetians were held in the highest consideration throughout the civilized world, and still their reputation was increasing. The voice of Venice was powerful in every cabinet; her flag was respected on every sea; and, in fact, from the Great Council of Venice magistrates were chosen to rule in other parts of Italy where the native governing class was violent in its jealousies. To Milan, Bologna, Padua, and other important cities had these Venetians been called, and wherever they ruled the influence of Venice was potent. The intimate knowledge of the affairs of other provinces and cities which these Venetian governors gained was shared with the home government, and many advantages accrued from it.

The thirteenth century was an intermediate period, so to speak; for it followed the tremendous efforts with which the twelfth century closed and preceded the period when Venice reached its greatest glory and prosperity. It was largely spent in adjusting the Republic to the new conditions consequent upon its greatly enlarged territory, {93} and in changes of matters of internal policy. There were struggles in its colonies, struggles with Genoa and with the Papal See, as well as insurrections and serious party differences at home.

A large anti-patrician party had arisen, and an effort was made to return to the old method of electing the Doge by acclamation. So bitter were the troubles with Rome that the Republic was laid under an interdict, and all the offices of religion strictly forbidden; and had not Martin IV. died suddenly in 1286, Venice must have suffered unspeakably from his severity. But the advent of a new Pope gave an opportunity for a reconciliation, and it is believed that the principal condition of the peace made with Rome in 1289 was the establishment of the Inquisition in Venice. This was the last act approved by Giovanni Dandolo. Prior to this date there had been trials of heretics from time to time, but no permanent institution had existed. Indeed, the Republic had stood out against the wishes and commands of ten Pontiffs, and even now such restrictions were placed upon the Holy Office as disarmed it of much of its power and danger.

Two months later, in November, 1289, Giovanni Dandolo died, and the time and occasion had come when the Democracy had determined to assert themselves. They congregated in large numbers in the Piazza of San Marco, and declared Giacomo Tiepolo to be elected Doge by acclamation. Two centuries before, this sort of revolution had been successful, but a different order of things now existed.

Tiepolo was a sincere democrat; he was a wise and good man, one of those whose love of Venice far exceeded his love of self. He knew that his party could not succeed, and that such an attempt to overcome established customs could only end in the gravest consequences; accordingly he hastened to withdraw from the contest, and {94} retired to Villa Marocco to await the result of the election. His party, thus abandoned, seemed to disappear from the stage; but the tumult had proved to those in power that still firmer ground must be taken to secure the ascendancy of the aristocracy. To further this end, Pietro Gradenigo (contemptuously called Perazzo) was elected Doge in the usual manner.

Gradenigo was not a popular man, as the corruption of his name shows, for Perazzo was not a complimentary title, and he was known as a firm supporter of the patrician party. Many remonstrances against his election were made by the opposition; but the democrats were not organized, they had no reliable leaders nor any settled plan, and the firm determination of the aristocrats carried things with a high hand.

The deputy who was sent to announce the election of Gradenigo to the National Assembly pronounced the formula, "Pietro Gradenigo is your Doge, if it please you," and at once withdrew. As no dissent was heard by this deputy, the election was considered legal. Gradenigo was at Capo d' Istria; and a squadron of honor, carrying twelve noblemen as his escort, was sent to announce his election and invite his return.

And now commenced a reign which continued twenty-two years (1289-1311), during which time the most important changes were made in the government of Venice; serious wars were undertaken, and great disasters encountered; the Republic was placed under the ban of the Church; grave revolutions occurred. Indeed, these years seem not to have had a day that was not heavy with important results; and yet, as we now review them after the lapse of centuries, we know that the effect of wars, insurrections, interdict, and plague combined, did not compare in importance with two great political changes which were brought about under Gradenigo's leadership,—the {95} closing of the Great Council (Serrata del Consiglio Maggiore), and the establishment of the Council of Ten.

"He was a person of infinite astuteness and sagacity. For the vigor of his understanding and the soundness of his judgment he was not more remarkable than for his constancy of purpose and firmness of will. In the prosecution of his formed designs his energy and resolution were indomitable. As an orator, his delivery was fluent, his language copious, and his manner persuasive. Toward his friends and partisans, no one was more urbane in deportment, more profuse in kindness, more apparently studious to please. Toward those who had provoked his enmity, no one could be more unforgiving and implacable. In politics he was a dexterous tactician and an habitual dissembler; and he at all times evinced a backwardness to employ force, until intrigue and artifice were exhausted."

There is little doubt that Gradenigo was pledged to fully carry out the policy of the aristocrats. By a certain management they had been essentially in power for a long time, but occasionally they were made to realize the dissatisfaction of the people and their claim to authority. The time was favorable for the politicians to perfect and initiate their schemes, almost unnoticed by the people, who were fully occupied with the Genoese war, which gave them much anxiety and distracted their thoughts from what was being quietly done in their very midst. The intent of the closing of the Great Council was to exclude from election all save the aristocrats; it is thus explained by Romanin:—

"The citizens were divided into three classes: first, those who neither in their own persons nor through their ancestors had ever formed part of the Great Council; second, those whose progenitors had been members of it; third, those who were themselves members of the Council, both they and their fathers. {96} The first were called new men, and were never admitted save by special grace; the second class were included from time to time; finally, the third were elected by full right."

This measure was not perfected without much diplomacy extending over many years,—indeed, it may he said to have been initiated in 1172,—and when it was finally accomplished Venice was ruled by an oligarchy beyond dispute, and for all time. It was confirmed in the statute-book when all Venice was occupied with the fitting out of the great fleet to be commanded by the Admiral Andrea Dandolo. The Genoese war had thus far been uncertain in its results, the advantage being sometimes on one side, and again on the other, until the Venetians were thoroughly aroused, and willing to contribute money and men, and to do everything possible to put an end to this vexatious conflict.

Dandolo's fleet numbered ninety-five vessels, and carried more than thirty thousand fighting men. One man-of-war was fitted out and commanded by Marco Polo, lately returned from travels in Tartary and other countries then rarely visited. So rich was he that he was called "Messer Marco Milioni;" and but for his engaging in this war our knowledge of him to-day might have been confined to this title.

The fleet sailed from Venice early in September, 1298, and proceeded down the Adriatic to the island of Curzola, where Dandolo learned that Lampa Doria, with the Genoese fleet, was approaching. He had but seventy-eight ships, many of them being much larger and heavier than those of the Venetians. Doria had hoped to reach Venice before Dandolo sailed, and was much chagrined to find the enemy's squadron stretched across the gulf in three lines, completely barring his passage.

Doria was so impressed by the superiority of the Venetians, and so well knew their indomitable spirit, that he {97} at once gave up the thought of a battle, and sent to Dandolo to arrange terms of submission, offering to give up all his stores. Dandolo answered that the only terms he would accept were those of the unconditional surrender of the Genoese. This acted like a tonic on the courage of Doria and his men, and they determined to fight. Ten Genoese galleys were placed in concealment behind the island, and the remaining sixty-eight were disposed in line of battle.

Dandolo, finding that he was so placed that his men must fight with both the sun and wind in their faces, began to doubt the wisdom of his haughty and insolent reply, and decided to consult the civil councillors who had been sent from Venice as his advisers. Dandolo did not hesitate from fear, but from common prudence, which recognized the disadvantages he must encounter. But the civilians in their ignorance and arrogance urged him to fight, and he at once proceeded to do all in his power to overcome his unfortunate position.

The action took place on Sunday, September 8; and in the very beginning the Venetians crashed down on the Genoese, and ten of their vessels were sunk with every soul on board. The sea was strewn with the débris of these ships, and for some hours it seemed that victory still, as ever, attended the Venetians. As the ships met, the Venetians did not hesitate to board those of the enemy, who, knowing their fate if captured by the men of the Republic, fought like wild beasts in despair. Wounded men were hurled into the sea; many were crushed between the ships; the vessels of the two admirals were in conflict for hours, and the Venetians had almost won the day, when suddenly the wind changed, and several Venetian galleys were driven on the coast and completely wrecked.

Now all was changed; vainly did Dandolo exert every power to encourage his men and restore order; vainly did Quirini, Marco Polo, and other brave men expose their {98} lives with patriotic devotion; vainly did the men of Zara and Chioggia perform feats of valor; twelve captains were seized with such fear that they took to flight, and thus led to irretrievable defeat.

Doria quickly perceived his advantage, and his order to advance flew all along his line like lightning. A struggle followed which in desperation and loss of life has rarely been equalled, never surpassed. The conflict seemed still so equal that neither side could feel the confidence of success, when suddenly the Genoese, by a skilful movement, forced the Venetian centre, their reserve came up, and the rout of the Venetians was complete. The only vessels saved were the twelve which ran away; eighty-three were foundered in action or fell into the hands of the enemy, who dismantled and burned nearly all of them.

Five thousand Venetians were prisoners to the Genoese; the number killed was not known; Dandolo and Marco Polo, who had shown the most impetuous daring and bravery, were taken alive, and all the misgivings with which the brave admiral had opened the battle were more than justified.

"The spectacle which presents itself at Curzola on that terrible 8th of September, after the action, can be pictured more easily than described. In the evening the followers of Doria are seen in a dreamy and trance-like posture, holding with tremulous hands the palm which they have so dearly won, and thinking of the reply which they must give when, on their return, mothers ask for their children, and children for their fathers, who have lost their liberty or their lives on that too eventful day. Curzola hears no shouts of victory, no songs of triumph; several thousand Genoese have felt the edge of Venetian steel; several thousand Venetians see before their dim and feverish vision the horror and ignominy of a Genoese dungeon; and as the sun goes down on the conquerors and the conquered, {99} its serene effulgence affords a striking contrast to the deep lurid hue which has been imparted to the sky for several miles around by the gradual immersion of sixty galleys in a sea of belching fire."

Even the Genoese writers speak of this victory as fortuitous; the losses of the combatants were nearly equal, and the squadrons were well matched, as the superior number of the Venetian ships was fully compensated by the size and strength of the opposing vessels; and even after the change of the wind, if the heroic conduct of Dandolo and his chiefs, of the Zaratines and Chioggians, had not been neutralized by the infamous desertion of twelve ships, the victory might yet have been with the Lion of St. Mark.

"No joy-bells or other manifestations of popular enthusiasm awaited the return of Doria to his country. Too many among the multitude which thronged the quays to witness the landing of the troops were doomed to retrace their steps to a bereaved home, and to hearths made desolate by war; and in the extremity of their affliction, the Genoese were almost tempted to forget their glory, and to check their unbecoming exultation at the abasement of Venetian insolence and purse pride.

"But there was one who was expected to be in the crowd of Venetian prisoners, and whom the Genoese displayed the greatest eagerness to see in chains. He was not there. Unable to support the galling thought that the son of a Doge of Venice was about to grace a Genoese triumph, to be paraded in fetters before a Genoese mob, and then to rot in a Genoese dungeon, the brave and unfortunate Dandolo took an opportunity of dashing his head against the gunwale of the vessel which was conveying him to his new destination, and thus miserably terminated his existence."

Marco Polo was wounded and in an alarming condition when taken to prison; but so much admired was he, and so capable of fascinating enemies as well as friends, that {100} he was cared for in such a way as to insure his recovery, and was even visited by Genoese gentlemen. All who came near him listened to his stories of travels and adventures with rapt attention and delight; and especially a fellow-prisoner, a Pisan, Rusticiano, who had been a writer in his day, and was seized with a desire to write out all the wonderful tales which Marco repeated again and again. Through the kindly offices of a Genoese noble the necessary materials were furnished, and three months were devoted to writing, in curious antique French seasoned with Italian idioms, the tales of the modern Herodotus. We can imagine the supreme felicity with which Rusticiano began: "Oh, emperors and kings, oh, dukes, princes, marquises, barons, and cavaliers, and all who delight in knowing the different races of the world and the variety of countries, take this book and read it!" The first perfect copy was presented to the Republic of Genoa. The length of Polo's imprisonment is not positively known; but he probably returned to Venice in 1299, just when the "Serrata" and the insurrections convulsed the city. But his public life was finished; and his marriage, the making of his will in 1323, and such personal matters are the only records of his remaining life.

The Venetians at once set about the building and organization of a new fleet of one hundred galleys, and rose from their defeat with an energy and spirit that astonished the world. They bought artillery in Spain, and built vessels with such rapidity that the Genoese were undoubtedly influenced to make their peace with Venice by the conviction that she would be ready again to attack much sooner than they to repel. At all events, within a few months, these rivals concluded a perpetual peace with all possible pledges of friendship and mutual respect.

The Venetians now gradually turned their attention to what the Doge and his creatures had accomplished while {101} all eyes had been directed elsewhere; and great excitement and discontent were soon manifested. The populace had seemed childish and almost worse than that in the simple and unreasoning way in which they had cherished the fallacy that they retained any political power worthy of the name; but of late, in certain directions, notably by trying to elect their own Doge, they had evinced an awakening appreciation of the facts, and a determination to re-establish themselves.

Naturally, when the closing of the Grand Council was understood and the whole drift of the government apprehended, a demonstration was made, led by Marino Bocconio, who had already made himself prominent by his emphatic opposition to the election of Gradenigo. Early in 1300 Bocconio, with some of his followers, demanded admittance to the Great Council, in order to protest against recent measures of the government. The Doge was present at the Council when this demand was made, and after some hesitation the visitors were admitted. What occurred has never been known; but the next day Bocconio and ten others were tried for sedition, condemned to death, and immediately hanged between the columns in the Piazzetta. It will be easily understood that this immediate and extreme punishment of malcontents brought peace to Venice, in seeming at least.

It is interesting to note one peculiar element in the policy of Gradenigo. By the changes in the Great Council the power of the Doge had been greatly lessened, and "The Forty," or the "Quarantia," was now the supreme power in the Republic. Gradenigo had thus strengthened the aristocrats to the prejudice of his own authority. Various reasons have been given for his course in this matter, the most reasonable one being that he thus redeemed his pledge to advance the policy of the aristocrats to the extent of his power.

During the preceding half-century the power of the Doge had been merely nominal; he was now simply the instrument of the officials about him. At the same time his pomp and circumstance had been augmented as much as his real power had declined, and the public occasions on which he appeared gradually increased in magnificence. Martino da Canale thus describes the Easter procession which could not have occurred later than 1268, as the Doge Renier Zeno died that year:—

"On Easter Day, then, the Doge descends from his palace; before him go eight men bearing eight silken banners blazoned with the image of St. Mark, and on each staff are the eagles of the Empire. After the standards come two lads who carry, one the faldstool, the other the cushion of the Doge; then six trumpeters, who blow through silver trumpets, followed by two with cymbals, also of silver. Comes next a clerk, who holds a great cross all beautiful with gold, silver, and precious stones; a second clerk carries the Gospels, and a third a silver censer; and all three are dressed in damask of gold. Then follow the twenty-two canons of St. Mark in their robes, chanting. Behind the canons walks Monsignor the Doge, under the umbrella which Monsignor the Apostle (the Pope) gave him,—the umbrella is of cloth of gold, and a lad bears it in his hands. By the Doge's side is the Primiciero of St. Mark's, who wears a bishop's mitre; on his other side, the priest who shall chant the Mass. Monsignor the Doge wears a crown of gold and precious stones, and is draped in cloth of gold. Hard by the Doge walks a gentleman who bears a sword of exquisite workmanship; then follow the gentlemen of Venice. In such order Monsignor the Doge comes into the Piazza of St. Mark, which is a stone-throw long; he walks as far as the church of San Gimignano, and returns thence in the same order. The Doge bears a white wax candle in his hands. They halt in the middle of the Piazza, and three of the ducal chaplains advance before the Doge, and chant to him the beautiful versicles and responses. Then all enter the Church of St. Mark; three chaplains move forward to the altar-rails, {103} and say in a loud voice, 'Let Christ be victorious, let Christ rule, let Christ reign; to our lord Renier Zeno, by the grace of God illustrious Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and Croatia, conqueror of a fourth part and of half a fourth part of all the Roman Empire, salvation, honor, life, and victory; let Christ be victorious, let Christ rule, let Christ reign.' Then the three chaplains say, 'Holy Mary,' and all respond, 'Help thou Him.' The Primiciero removes his mitre, and begins the Mass. Then the Doge shows himself to the people from the loggia, and afterwards enters his palace, where he finds the table spread; he dines there, and with him all the chaplains of St. Mark."

The day was a general holiday, the streets were festooned with garlands, richly emblazoned banners floated from the windows, draperies were suspended from the balconies, and all the beauty of Venice gathered in casements and verandas to see the processions as they passed.

We have a description of the Coronation of Lorenzo Tiepolo the successor of Renier Zeno, in 1268, which is a type of these ceremonies. The newly elected Doge was escorted to San Marco by a solemn deputation, and at the door was met by the Vice-Doge and the clergy of the Ducal Chapel. At the high altar he took his oath of office, and received the standard of the Republic. He was then led to the throne, and invested with the mantle and other insignia of office, the youngest senators encircling his brow with the ducal beretta. All this was witnessed by a vast concourse of people, who were enthusiastic in their reception of the new Duke.

The chaplains of San Marco then conducted the Dogaressa to the Ducal Palace, where, amid great pomp and rejoicing, she was seated on the throne beside her husband.

The coronation was followed by splendid festivities. A water fête was held; and a squadron of galleys, gayly {104} and fancifully dressed with pennants, passed close along the canal in front of the palace, while choristers on board chanted verses in praise of the Doge and Dogaressa which were written for the occasion.

The procession of trades was an imposing feature of this festival. It was led by the smiths, who, wearing crowns and chaplets of flowers, carried banners and marched to the sound of musical instruments; the furriers followed, arrayed in ermine and minnever; and then came the skinners in taffeta robes, displaying their choicest manufactures; these were succeeded by the tanners, iron-masters, barbers, hosiers, drapers, cotton-spinners, gold-cloth workers dressed in their precious products, the weavers and tailors attired in sumptuous white costumes with rich, fur-trimmed mantles. The dress of the mercers, glass-blowers, fishmongers, butchers, and victuallers was equally costly, some being red and others yellow. Each corporation wore a badge or token of their calling, and the drapers carried olive branches in their hands.

The four deputies of the barbers were disguised as knights errant, two being mounted on richly caparisoned horses, while the other two walked beside them; they were accompanied by four damsels, fantastically dressed, whom they claimed to have rescued from deadly peril. When they were near the platform of the Doge, they halted and made a speech claiming to have come from some far country seeking their fortunes, and offering to defend the maidens against any others who might claim them. The Doge made a reply of welcome, and assured them of their safety under his protection; they then shouted, "Long live our Prince, the noble Doge of Venice!" and moved on.

Then ten master-tailors changed their dresses, and donned white suits sprinkled with vermilion stars, and {105} traversed the city singing the popular songs of the day; each one carried a goblet of malmsey and occasionally sipped it. This was extremely Venetian; and we can but wonder if the tunes these tailors sung are not the same that have descended through many generations to the gondoliers of our own day.

There were also games in which buffoons played the principal parts, and men carrying cages of birds many of which were liberated when they came near the court; this was greeted with hearty approbation, and the whole scene was as merry as possible. We are sorry to add that then, as now on like occasions, there were many light-fingered ones among the crowd who filled their pockets at the expense of honest folk.

All these entertainments closed with an industrial exhibition in the palace in compliment to the Dogaressa, who, as she passed through the apartments, was presented with gifts which she graciously received; and thus auspiciously was the reign of the new Doge inaugurated.

This flattered his vanity; and when he was borne about the Piazza, scattering gold as he went, he may have been elated and imagined himself of great consequence. Every four years the citizens swore allegiance to him, his person was declared sacred, and he never left the palace without an attendant train of nobles and citizens. On the other hand, his oath now obliged him to execute the orders of the various councils implicitly. He was not permitted to exhibit his portrait, bust, or coat-of-arms outside the Ducal Palace; he could not announce his election to any court save that of Rome; no one could kiss his hand, or kneel to him, or make him gifts,—in short, no homage must be personal to the Doge; it must be rendered to the aristocracy who had made him Doge, and who were the State. No member of the Doge's family could hold government appointments in any part of the Venetian territory; {106} and his sons, who had formerly been associated with him in office, could now be elected to the Great Council and Senate only, and in the latter had no vote.

To make the power behind the throne more absolute, it was finally decreed that no one elected to the ducal office could refuse to serve, neither could he resign nor leave Venice. Thus the Ducal Palace became a prison, and the Doge the only man in Venice who absolutely could have no will of his own.

The quiet that followed the execution of Bocconio was a quiet full of storms. The discontents were not yet ready, and had no leader to inaugurate a revolution. Meantime the foreign policy of Gradenigo was making him the best-hated man imaginable. He had involved the Republic in a most disastrous war with Ferrara, in consequence of which the Pope had pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the whole Republic of Venice. It is difficult in our day to appreciate the full meaning of this.

Not only the inhabitants of the Republic, but all who aided them in any way, were placed outside the pale of the Church; their property, wherever found, was declared sequestrated; their treaties were null; it was made unlawful to trade or eat or converse with them; every one was at liberty to take them and sell them into slavery; all sacraments were refused them; even the rites of burial were denied, and the clergy left Venice. A new Crusade was published, and papal indulgence given to all attacks upon Venetians or their property. In several parts of Italy Venetians were put to death; and at Genoa many of the prisoners of Curzola were sold as slaves.

"In England, in France, in Italy, in the East, the merchants were robbed. From Southampton to Pera the Venetian counting-houses, banks, and factories were forced, sacked, and destroyed. The commerce of Venice trembled on the verge of extinction; {107} and all these evils were laid at the door of the Doge and the new aristocracy. But the party in power never wavered; their determination was the result and the proof of their youth, their confidence, their real capacity for governing. Though they were surrounded by a people suffering intensely from physical and spiritual want, as well as by a nobility who openly declared their hatred of the new policy and of its authors, yet they never deviated for a single moment from the predetermined line. Everything was done to win the regard and support of the people. The Doge instituted a yearly banquet to the poor, and the picturesque ceremony of washing and kissing twelve fishermen from the lagoons."

At the same time everything possible was done to humble and insult the opposing party. The noble Marco Quirini was refused a seat in the Privy Council, and his place given to a Dalmatian, who, according to the statute, was not eligible to this Council. It was attempted to strictly enforce the law against carrying arms in the street, which occasioned grave troubles. A watchman, called a "Signior of the Night," met Pietro Quirini in the Piazza one evening, and insisted on examining him; Quirini knocked the man down, and was heavily fined.

Meetings of the Opposition were held at the house of Marco Quirini, near the Rialto, and an organization was made. They determined to make Bajamonte Tiepolo their leader; he was a son-in-law of Quirini, and was greatly beloved by the people, who called him il gran Cavaliero. He had inherited all the popularity of his father, the Tiepolo who had been elected Doge by acclamation. Quirini had been the head of the Opposition. He was of exalted rank and personal character; and his relation to Bajamonte Tiepolo had increased his consideration by the union of two great families, so that he was now the most influential man in the Great Council. He had been sent as Podestà to Ferrara, doubtless in the hope that he would {108} never return; but he escaped pestilence and all other dangers, and was at home in time to engage in the insurrection with all his heart.

Bajamonte had been for several years at his Villa Marocco in the March of Treviso; but when, in 1310, his brother nobles invited his return, he readily assented, and his arrival in Venice was the signal for greater excitement and determination. He urged immediate action; and so many of his party agreed with him that the more cautious counsel of their elders was set aside, and on June 14, ten years after the execution of Bocconio, the fires of revolution were again kindled in Venice.

It was arranged that the conspirators should gather at night in the house of Quirini, and with the dawn rush to the Piazza, gain possession of the centre of the city, and kill Gradenigo. The night was terrific; thunder and lightning, and torrents of rain raised a tempest in which the cries "Death to the Doge!" and "Freedom to the People!" could not be heard; and under the cover of this terrible storm the insurrectionists went forth. One division, under Bajamonte, proceeded by the Calle of the Merceria; a second, under Quirini, took the nearer way by the bridge of Malpasso (now di Dai) and the Fondamenta; and all were to meet in the Piazza.

Up to this time the meetings of the revolutionists had escaped observation; but now a traitor, Marco Donato, gave such information to Gradenigo as led him to send three officers to ascertain the truth. At the Rialto they were met by drawn swords, and fled for their lives. The Doge at once apprehended the situation, and sent to the governors of the neighboring islands for a speedy supply of troops. He arranged his soldiers with great care, by the aid of the flashes of lightning; posted guards at every entrance to the Piazza; the main body being massed in the centre, awaiting the rebels in silence. No more dramatic scene is described in history.

The conspirators had believed that their marching would be the signal for a rising of the people; but they were disappointed, and each advancing step proved that they had no sympathy from the masses.

Quirini reached the Piazza first; and as he entered the square, the soldiers charged on him with the cry of "Traitors! kill them, kill them!" Quirini and his two sons were cut down at once, it is said by the hand of Giustiniani himself, and seeing their leader killed, his followers fled wildly. When Bajamonte reached the Piazza, he was received in like manner; his standard, inscribed LIBERTÀ, was struck to the ground, the bearer being killed by a heavy flower-pot thrown from a window above him by a woman. This was the signal for a panic; and Bajamonte, with his men, turned to fly. Here and there they made a stand, and a fight ensued; they burned the customs offices, and at length reached the Rialto. This wooden bridge was cut down behind them; and they shut themselves within the house of Quirini, which was a fortress and defensible.

Meantime the followers of Quirini who escaped from the Piazza were attacked by soldiers in the Campo San Luca, and cut to pieces. The only hope remaining to the insurgents was that Badoer might arrive from Padua with the aid he had been sent to ask; but he was cut off by the Chioggians, and Bajamonte had no reliance save himself, his few followers, and the strength of his position.

The Doge soon sent envoys to him, offering amnesty and even pardon, should the rebels submit; but Bajamonte steadily refused. Gradenigo knew that Tiepolo could not be taken in his present quarters without a great loss of men and property; he also reflected that if he captured the leader he must either permit a traitor to go free, or execute the most popular man in all Venice. For these reasons he determined to use all possible means to bring {110} about a satisfactory negotiation; but everything proved ineffectual until an old man, and one much respected, Filippo Belegno, after many arguments and long persuasion, prevailed on Bajamonte to relent and accept the terms of the Doge, which he had at first believed to be but a snare for him and his followers.

By these terms Bajamonte and all the insurgents who had a right to a seat in the Council were banished to Dalmatia for four years; those of lower rank were pardoned on swearing allegiance to the Doge and the Constitution, and returning all the goods that had been taken from private dwellings or government stores. The lives of any of the exiles detected in breaking their parole would be forfeited, and to harbor them or correspond with them was made treasonable. Their wives and families were expelled from the Dogado, and the houses of Bajamonte and of the Quirini were demolished; on the site of the first a Column of Infamy was raised, and the armorial bearings of both houses were changed.

One cannot avoid a feeling of sympathy for Badoer and others who, being taken fighting, were beheaded, nor a sentiment of scorn for the traitor Donato, whose treachery was rewarded by a seat in the Council without election, while his family were made noble forever. Even Giustina Rosso was not forgotten, and for dashing down that flower-pot which came so near being fatal to Bajamonte, she was permitted to hold her residence in the Merceria for fifteen ducats annually, and to unfurl a standard from the so-called "mortar casement" on every festival day, and in 1341 her bust was placed near the Sotto Portico del Capello.

The 15th of June, being the day of San Vito, was made a festival, and one of the great Venetian anniversaries, when the Doge went in grand and solemn state to the very small and ancient church of that saint to give thanks {111} for the deliverance from this most important of the Venetian insurrections.

Bajamonte Tiepolo lived a stormy and unhappy life. In 1311 he was a conspirator at Padua, and somewhat later was hunted out of Treviso; in 1322 the Ten offered a reward for his capture; in 1328 the Doge was ordered to secure him if possible: but death fortunately released him from all his tortures. He had ever longed for the lagoons, the Piazza, his old contrada, and all the ways of his beloved Venice; but he refused all the proposals made to him for his return,—he could not trust the dreaded Ten.

However, so long as Gradenigo lived, he was haunted by fear of Tiepolo, and of what he might do; indeed, one historian goes so far as to say that he died of this revolt and its consequences. For a time the Venetians were constantly suspecting an ambush in the streets, and went to their beds in dread of the night and of the morrow. It was believed that only the most stringent measures could prevent a repetition of this insurrection, and that even worse things might happen. This tendency of the public mind found expression in a petition for a Committee of Inquiry, which proved to be the origin of the famous Council of Ten.

This Council was organized for a few months only, and for the special purpose of making a searching inquiry into all the ramifications of the late conspiracy. But on the following Michaelmas Day the Doge made one of his rare visits to the Great Council, for the purpose of saying that as the day had come on which the authority of the Ten expired, he recommended its extension for two months, as the need of it still existed in order to root out sedition and treason. The amendment was passed and the time extended to November 30, and again to January 30, 1311. At that time it was thought best to establish it for five years; and at last, in 1335, it was made permanent, {112} and became the tyrant and terror of Venice. In his "Venetian Studies" Brown says:—

"More terrible than any personal despot, because impalpable, impervious to the dagger of the assassin, it was no concrete despotism, but the very essence of tyranny. To seek its overthrow was vain. Those who strove to wrestle with it clasped empty air; they struck at it, but the blow was wasted on space. Evasive and pervasive, this dark, inscrutable body ruled Venice with a rod of iron. For good or for bad, the Council of Ten was the very child of the new aristocracy, 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 is the Ten which determined the internal aspect of Venice for the remainder of her existence."

Thus had Gradenigo silently and determinedly worked a greater revolution than Bajamonte could have made, had he succeeded in his plans; and he had made himself hated in his success, while his rival was beloved to the end. The name of Pietro Gradenigo is not so frequently mentioned as those of other Doges and generals of the Republic. The man who firmly established the aristocrats in power and originated the Council of Ten is forgotten in the importance and vast results of his work; but so far as the sovereignty of Venice was concerned, no man was more remarkable than Gradenigo.

When he died, in August, 1311, he was hastily buried at Murano. Whether this was because he was so hated that a riot was feared, or on account of his excommunication, we know not. How truly of him could it be said, he brought nothing into this world; and it is certain he carried nothing out,—not even sufficient respect from those he had benefited to lead them to follow him to his grave. This was all the more noticeable from its contrast with the usual obsequies of those who held his office. Hazlitt gives the following account of a Doge's funeral:

"In the first instance the ducal remains were transported from the Palace on the shoulders of twenty of the oldest Senators to the saloon of the Signori di Notte; one of the household marched in front, carrying a sheathed sword with the point upward; and a large number of patricians followed the corpse. The Doge was splendidly attired in the costume which he wore on state occasions; and the gilded spurs, indicating his equestrian rank, were fastened at his heels. After a brief interval the procession was again set in motion; and, the members of the College having taken leave at this point, the rest proceeded to St. Mark's, where the Dogaressa and her ladies and a throng of mourning nobles had assembled. Here the burial service was performed with the accustomed solemnity; and after its celebration the bearers resumed their burden, and the body was conveyed, with every mark of pomp, to the family vault."

With Bajamonte Tiepolo died the old nobility. He and it and the people were sacrificed to the new aristocrats, who had overridden the old Constitution. From the Quirini-Tiepolo conspiracy the peculiar government which was purely Venetian, and unparalleled elsewhere, may be dated; and strangely enough, the leaders of the revolt contributed largely to the success of Gradenigo, since, but for the insurrection, it is doubtful if he could have riveted his chains and clasped them with the Council of Ten.

Time has obliterated the traces of the rebellion. The Column of Infamy was broken soon after its erection by one of Bajamonte's admirers, and after many removals from one garden to another it was carried to Como. A square of white marble in the pavement of the Campo of Sant' Agostino, inscribed "Col: Bai: The: MCCCX.," is the sole reminder of the insurrection; and this is where few strangers go, in the heart of Venice, between the Frari and the Campo San Polo.

The family of the Tiepolo were not crushed by the failure and exile of Bajamonte. Their palaces, always {114} bearing two obelisks on the roofs, are still seen on the Grand Canal, and prove that in later days this house was not disgraced by the remembrance of the Gran Cavaliero.

Until within the last half-century it would have been a matter of surprise to hear a charitable word spoken for this famous council, much more to hear it defended as the best method for the government of Venice at the time when it was the controlling spirit of the Republic. But in more recent years the historians of various nationalities, taking into account the more reliable and wider knowledge that has come from the study of the Venetian archives, are not inclined to the severe condemnation of the Ten which it formerly received, and have indeed been led to think it well suited to its era, and of great value in upholding the power and guarding the prosperity of the Republic.

Formerly the opinion which Cooper expresses in the "Bravo" found an almost universal echo. After giving an account of the establishment of the Council, he says:

"A political inquisition, which came in time to be one of the most fearful engines of police ever known, was the consequence. An authority as irresponsible as it was absolute was periodically confided to another and still smaller body, which met and exercised its despotic and secret functions under the name of the Council of Three. The choice of these temporary rulers was decided by lot, and in a manner that prevented the result from being known to any but to their own number, and to a few of the most confidential of the more permanent officers of the government. Thus there existed at all times in the heart of Venice a mysterious and despotic power that was wielded by men who moved in society unknown, and apparently surrounded by all the ordinary charities of life; but which, in truth, was influenced {115} by a set of political maxims that were perhaps as ruthless, as tyrannic, and as selfish as ever was invented by the evil ingenuity of man. It was, in short, a power that could only be intrusted, without abuse, to infallible virtue and infinite intelligence, using the terms in a sense limited by human means; and and yet it was here confided to men whose title was founded on the double accident of birth and the colors of balls, and by whom it was wielded without even the check of publicity.

"The Council of Three met in secret, ordinarily issued its decrees without communicating with any other body, and had them enforced with a fearfulness of mystery and a suddenness of execution that resembled the blows of fate. The Doge himself was not superior to its authority, nor protected from its decisions, while it has been known that one of the privileged three has been denounced by his companions.... Thus Venice prided herself on the justice of St. Mark; and few States maintained a greater show, or put forth a more lofty claim to the possession of the sacred quality, than that whose real maxims of government were veiled in a mystery that even the loose morality of the age exacted."

Since this Council is one of the most interesting and characteristic peculiarities of the Venetian government, it is worth while to quote a few authoritative and judicial opinions regarding it, and all the more that we have already cited those most severely against it. Hazlitt,—the able English historian of the Venetian Republic, and a member of the Inner Temple,—in speaking of the time (1335), when the Council of Ten was made permanent, says:—

"The Republic had now enjoyed halcyon days of peace since the return of the Zaratines to their allegiance in 1313. Twenty years of foreign war and domestic convulsion (1293-1313) were thus followed by twenty years of external and internal repose (1313-1333). Dalmatia was tranquillized; Genoa was humiliated. The Lower Empire, though not without its alarming symptoms, was quiescent. The pressure of extraordinary taxes {116} was no longer sensible. Prices were low. Provisions were abundant. Commerce had received an enormous impulse and expansion. The condition of trade was highly flourishing. The upper classes were elated by the development of fresh sources of wealth. The lower orders were exhilarated by the removal of their burdens. It was under these auspicious circumstances that the time was approaching for the dissolution of the Council of Ten.

"The original jurisdiction of this unique tribunal had been of a purely exclusive and strictly transient character. To devise measures for the safety of the State, to obtain by any expedients every new clew to the conspiracy of 1310, to unravel these clews to their source with untiring diligence, to bring to justice all who might have eluded detection, were the objects to which the labors of Decemvirs were directed, and the points to which their cognizance was confined. But the Council, even if its attributes had not been emphatically inquisitorial, showed no disposition to be perfunctory. The line of demarcation, if any such line had existed, was soon obliterated or ignored. Every branch of the Executive was submitted in its turn, under various pretexts, to the novel influence. Nor could it be denied that that influence was exercised, on the whole, to a highly beneficial end. It had been accounted a great revolution when, so recently as 1298, the Great Council succeeded in arrogating to itself the prerogatives which formerly belonged to the people. But the narrow jealousy and distrust, which were gradually growing up in the ranks of the nobility, had long made it palpably evident to the more discerning, that a still higher and still more concentric power must eventually arise to wrest these prerogatives from the hands of the Great Council itself. That power was already found to exist in the Decemvirs. Primarily elected, and constantly renewed by the legislative body on the clearest ground of expediency, the Ten had incessantly striven to popularize themselves, and to strengthen their position by propitiating the lower classes on the one hand, and by turning to account, on the other hand, with unequalled dexterity the disunion among the patricians, to rule that order with a hand of iron. By some the Dictatorship was viewed as an indispensable ingredient in the Constitution; by some it was tolerated as an odious necessity; {117} but all accepted the silent innovation in a spirit of acquiescence. The Decemvirs knew their strength, and they quickly made that strength felt. It was on the 30th of January, 1336, that their commission was about to expire; on the 20th of July, 1335, they caused themselves to be declared a permanent Assembly....

"In the Middle Ages, when an almost total ignorance reigned of civil principles, it was not unnatural that a system pretending to rise above the common level of crude simplicity should be viewed as slightly cabalistic and inscrutable. The Venetian Executive, indeed, displayed the earliest attempt to organize a bureaucratic machinery and a plan for the distribution of public functions; and Venice also led the way in founding the practice of diplomatic etiquette and official routine. The Council of Ten was, perhaps, a constitutional evil; but it was certainly a constitutional necessity. The tribunal was more or less fatal to the political liberty of the Venetians; but it left untouched their civil privileges, and it was highly conducive to the preservation of the national independence. While it was inaccessible to the whispers of treason, it was not a stranger to the softer influences of humanity. Instances were known in which a female suppliant was permitted to penetrate into the Hall of the Decemvirs, and obtained that redress which had been denied to her elsewhere. An instance might be cited in which, when a foreign tyrant had tempted and overcome the virtue even of members of the College, the Ten, alone incorruptible and without a price, provided for the safety of the imperilled State! ... It was not very long after their original institution in 1310 that the Decemvirs resorted, in cases where peculiarly delicate investigation was requisite, to the practice of delegating their powers provisionally and specially to one, two, or three of their number, according to circumstances; and these extraordinary functionaries were known as the 'Inquisitori dei Dieci,' or the Inquisitors of the Ten.... The Capi submitted resolutions to their colleagues, and signed decrees in their name; and the letters purporting to be written by the Doge himself or his secretary were generally composed under their dictation, being forwarded to his Serenity only for subscription. The Inquisitors of the Ten, who were thus nearly coeval with the Ten themselves, may {118} be recognized as the forerunners of the famous 'Inquisitors of State.' But no tribunal existed at Venice under the latter title prior to 1596, nor even then was it clothed with the revolting attributes which have been ascribed to it by ignorance or malignity."

M. Armand Baschet has written a book founded on the Archives of Venice, called "Histoire de la Chancellerie Secrète," which treats of the Senate, the Cabinet, the Council of Ten, and the Inquisitors of State, in their relations to France. It is an exhaustive and learned work; and having quoted an English authority, it is wise also to give a few sentences from this erudite French writer:—

"No institution has been more falsely represented and more misjudged than the Council of Ten. The profound secrecy of its deliberations, to secure which the extremest precautions were always permitted, offered so favorable a subject for invention and exaggeration that pamphleteers and romancers could but seize upon it without reserve. Doubtless this extraordinary tribunal had its dramas, since politics and reasons of State imposed on it the duty of scrutinizing the depths of the heart. Assuredly, also, it had its faults,—for although called supreme, it was not divine, and was therefore liable to err; but to believe that it was established for the calm commission of evil, rather than to prevent or correct it, is one of those extremely gross errors for which the active research into the truth of history—which in our day is zealously carried so far—endeavors to make reparation.

"Was its creation the arbitrary outcome of the heated imagination of a tyrant of the school of Nero? Was it an offensive or defensive weapon invented by this tyrant in order to torment his people? Good sense proves this to have been impossible. The Council of Ten was created by the votes, the discussions, and conclusions of a numerous and intelligent Assembly; strong in its united strength; full of political instincts, which did not ignore the truth that the power which by a vote it was about {119} to establish was created to prevent the dangers which men of great ambitions on the exterior, or revolutionists in the interior, might bring to the Republic.

"Was its establishment the work of a day? Would this great Council, created for two months only, have been continued by a new vote for one year, five years, ten years, and at last permanently, if the exercise of its power had not been recognized as a benefit rather than an evil? Was not this State, which in establishing this Council created a judge for itself, the best governed and most orderly which then existed in the world? What other nation then had a parliament like that of Venice? Could the sovereign exercise oppression even in his decrees? What was the Doge in the presence of the Grand Council, the lesser Council, and the Senate, other than a person with less power than the Sovereign of Great Britain to-day, who must be in accord with the will of the Parliament and the House of Lords? Moreover, it is manifest to one who seeks to know the Council of Ten from authentic sources, rather than from amusing histories without reliable knowledge, that this power was for the protection of the people against the patricians rather than against the people in favor of the patricians.

"Go to its archives, open its records, examine its parchments, penetrate into its correspondence, initiate yourself in the mysteries of its justice, understand its decrees, inform yourself as to its judgments, and you will see whether it made its power one long abuse, and whether the spirit of tyranny rather than that of justice was its inspiration and motive power. That it held a terrible power in its hands is incontestable; but that it used this power upon suspicion, and in the absence of other proof, is absolutely false. It is puerile to judge the penalties of those days by present standards. Should we not consider the manners and customs of its time? Under the best of our kings, under the most just, the most amiable and honest, were not the abettors of certain crimes furiously quartered? It is absurd to compare past history with the present, except it be to praise and admire the progress that has been made.

"Moreover, the Council of Ten had to sustain, in the course of three centuries, the most searching tests to which a political {120} institution could be subjected. Three times its institution, its existence, and its system were placed under the ban of the Parliament which had created it. Three times was it called in question by a party in the Grand Council, and submitted to examination and discussion. The tribune was free; the speeches made for and against its abolition still exist. In 1582, 1628, and 1762 the eloquence of the orators threatened its destruction. Judges were elected by vote to thoroughly inform themselves regarding it. They did not act under personal instruction to proceed against the individuals invested with full powers and accused of having used them against the welfare of the State. Quite otherwise were they instructed, since, according to the results of their investigation, a considerable Assembly would decide for or against the preservation of this institution in the Republic. Its most secret papers were submitted to them; and three times the Council of Ten triumphed over the party opposed to it, after having been subjected to the most exciting and searching discussions which could possibly engage a great and vigorous political assembly."

CHAPTER VII.

MURANO AND THE GLASS-MAKERS.

The excursion to Murano must be made on a fine day, when the wind is favorable and the sea calm, as it is frequently very rough near that island. We leave Venice at the Fondamenta Nuove, and keep to the north. It is but a half-hour's row to Murano, and the aspect of the lagoon here is quite different from that to the south of Venice. To the east lies the desolate marsh-land formerly called the Dogado, where the Doge had preserves for fishing and shooting. From these marshes came the wild duck which the Doge presented to every noble, on December 4, Saint Barbara's Day.

We soon reach San Michele, the cemetery of Venice, to which the boats with black flags, so often seen, are always going. The sight of it reminds us of Mr. Howells and his "Venetian Life:"—

"As we go by the cemetery of San Michele, Piero the gondolier and Giovanna improve us with a little solemn pleasantry.

"'It is a small place,' says Piero, 'but there is room enough for all Venice in it.'

"'It is true,' asserts Giovanna; 'and here we poor folks become landowners at last.'"

We stay here long enough to see the handsome church built by Moro Lombardo in 1466; to examine the statues by Bernini, which, to say truth, do not seem to strike the Venetian key-note; and to read the name of Fra Paolo Sarpi in the pavement, beneath which lies this brave {122} defender of Venice against Pope Paul V. From the Carmelite convent of San Michele went Placido Zurla to be made a cardinal, and that Cappelari who ascended the papal throne, in our own century, as Gregory XVI. Here also lived Frate Mauro, who made in 1457 the celebrated Mappa-Mondo for Alphonso V. of Portugal. It is now in the library of St. Mark, and is a geographical encyclopædia of all that was known about our planet at that time.

It would be folly to attempt a new description of the panorama before us when we can quote a sentence from Ruskin which thus outlines the scene between Venice and Murano:—

"The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against one another, rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each cut away at its foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear, till they sink to the horizon like a flight of marble steps, except where the mountains meet them, and are lost in them, barred across by the gray terraces of those cloud foundations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light, strewed upon them like snow. And underneath is the long dark line of the mainland, fringed with low trees; and then the wide waving surface of the burnished lagoon trembling slowly, and shaking out into forked bands of lengthening light the images of the towers of cloud above. To the north, there is first the great cemetery wall, then the long stray buildings of Murano, and the inland villages beyond, glittering in intense crystalline vermilion, like so much jewelry scattered on a mirror, their towers poised apparently in the air a little above the horizon, and their reflections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as themselves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea. And thus the villages seem standing on the air; and to the east there is a cluster of ships that seem sailing on the land; for the sandy line of the Lido stretches itself between us and them, and we can see the tall white sails moving beyond it, but not the sea; {123} only there is a sense of the great sea being indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleaming light in the sky above."

Between the cemetery and Murano there is little more than a channel, and we enter a canal with narrow quays on each side, three or four feet above the canal. The houses, now inhabited by poor people, have certain really beautiful features in doorways and windows, which indicate that Murano "has seen better days." At present there is the sort of stir that belongs to a manufacturing town the world over,—street-cries from the dealers in fruits and fish; glass-makers coming and going, stopping now and then to speak with the women who are knitting in the doorways,—and altogether an air of active, practical life that is very unlike Venice itself.

Our first visit is naturally to the Cathedral of San Donato. The origin of this church is thus given in the legends: Otho the Great, who died in 973, had a vision in which the Virgin Mary showed him a triangular meadow covered with scarlet lilies, and desired him to build there a church in her honor. Nearly two centuries later, when the Doge Michiele II. brought from Cephalonia the embalmed body of Saint Donato, and gave it to this church, that saint was joined with the Virgin as its patron, and the cathedral henceforth called by his name. It is probable that the whole church was then rebuilt. At all events, the architecture is unmistakably of the twelfth century, and is very interesting, especially the semicircular apse, with its double rows of round arches and its beautifully sculptured marbles.

The remarkable balustrade around the upper gallery is also noticeable; and the chief interest of this church, which stands in the northern angle of the triangle, is in its exterior. The campanile, a few yards away, is heavy; and the modern buildings, with their ugly square windows and blank walls, make it difficult to enjoy even the little {124} that remains from the old days. There is a ruined flag-staff foundation, with the iron hasps that held the standard still remaining, and a well with the date 1502. The interior of San Donato has been so changed in recent times that it is simply commonplace, with the exception of the pavement, which is beautifully inlaid, and dates from 1140, and a Madonna in Greek mosaic, which is a remarkable imitation of the Byzantine, though by no means beautiful. Doubtless some of the columns with delicately sculptured capitals were brought from Altinum.

The Church of the Angels must be visited for the sake of the Madonna by Gian Bellini, which was painted for the Doge Barberigo in 1488, and presented to the convent in which two of his daughters had taken the veil. The Doge, in all the pomp of his official attire, is presented to the Virgin by Saints Mark and Augustine. It is a most interesting picture, as are all those by this old painter, who loved to paint the Divine Mother and Child with their attendant saints and angels; and, as in this picture, with "beds of weeds and flowers, in which the crane, the peacock, and partridge alike elect to congregate."

But it is not for its churches, its architecture, or works of art that Murano is known to us. Neither is it of this Murano, with its few thousand inhabitants and less than a dozen manufactories, that we have been accustomed to think. It is of that Murano on which dwelt thirty thousand people, and from which ascended the smoke of three hundred furnaces, the fires of which were nearly all extinguished after the fall of the Republic. Now, however, in the new life that has come to Italy, the glass-making of Murano is reviving.

Salviati has done much to restore the art to its old-time excellence; and other countries again depend on {125} Venice for many of these products. Again the beads of Murano are very beautiful, and an important element of commerce; and though many of the objects now made are more fantastic than useful, they are also very beautiful. Salviati imitates both the old glass and the mosaics, and varies his products in a thousand forms, which are still tinted with the old and famous colors,—girasole (opal), acqua marina, rubino, lattimo, giallo d'oro, and many others.

The frieze of mosaic at the South Kensington Museum in London, and the ceiling of the vestibule which leads from the grand staircase to the foyer in the Paris Opera House are excellent specimens of the modern mosaic work of Murano, which is now in full revival, and takes the first place in the world, as it did centuries ago. The following description of some splendid pieces made for Mr. H. Furber, of Chicago, shows the present importance of this art in Venice. They are intended for the "Columbus Palace" near the grounds of the "Columbian Exposition":—

"Among the important works recently executed is a large mosaic panel representing Columbus being received by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain after his return from America. This panel, measuring about two hundred square feet, shows Columbus when kneeling before the sovereigns, presenting to them the natives of the newly discovered land, and some products of the soil. The persons represented are about thirty-eight in number, many of them of the natural size, formed in three principal groups. In the most important group is Columbus, having at his side the young crown prince and the sovereigns, surrounded by the dignitaries of the court, ladies and noblemen, and pages holding the standards. In the middle group, but more to the left, are the native Indians; and near the entrance of the hall other Spanish nobles and the companions of Columbus. The gorgeous and various attires of all the figures, their warlike implements, the splendid stuffs of all sorts and {126} tints, the rich decoration of the hall, the pageantry of the court, the strange tones and costumes of the natives in full contrast with the others, and the various attitudes of all these personages form a whole in perfect harmony with the details of the scene, owing to the excellent distribution of the figures, and the perfect fusion of tints. The work is so delicately executed that no one can believe that the panel is not painted until on touching it he discovers that it is entirely composed of small enamel cubes, put together without any aid of color or cement, and worked according to the mode of the old Venetian mosaic school. This panel will form the pendant of another representing Columbus landing in America."

No glass has been so famous as that of Venice, because no other glass-makers have ever equalled the Venetians in the beauty of their products, nor in the marvellous manner in which they varied the use of their materials. Good authorities believe that this art was known to the earliest settlers of the lagoons, although they used their knowledge in the making of the necessities of life alone; but the material of the antique glass and the Muranese glass is precisely the same.

In 1292 the Grand Council, by a decree, ordered the removal of the glass-workers to Murano, and the destruction of the furnaces at Riva Alto. From the inauguration of this industry at Murano, the Government was extremely jealous in preventing the secrets of glass-making from being discovered by any strangers. From the year 1275 the export of lump glass, or of the materials used in its composition, and even of broken glass, was forbidden, and a heavy penalty attached to such acts; and from this time more stringent laws were made, and at length the manufactories were put in charge of the Council of Ten, so determined was the Republic to profit by the skill of its workers. These anxieties were not unreasonable, since it is known that men as high in position as the {127} ambassadors from France had a sort of police in their employ, who attempted to bribe the glass-workers, and to spy out the raw materials they used, and their manner of combining them.

It appears most probable that to the original knowledge of the earliest Venetians some additions must have been made from the methods of the Oriental mosaic-workers, who were employed in San Marco as early as the tenth century, although later the productions of the Venetians were sought in the East, where the making of fine glass had come to be a lost art. That this is true is proved by an order still existing for four hundred mosque lamps, bearing verses from the Koran, in colored enamels, to be made for the Grand Vizier of the Sultan. The Arabic influence which is so clearly shown in Venetian glass is supposed to have come from the specimens of glass found in the Roman Campagna, and in many other places in Italy, such as Nola, Campania, and so on, which in all probability were used as models at Murano.

Venice gained immense sums by her trade in glass beads alone. Their place in commerce is almost incredible, especially when they began to be covered with enamels, gold, and opaline colors. The Orientals exchanged for them silks, spices, precious metals, and all sorts of exquisite tissues. They found their way all over the world, and in modern days have been seen in central Africa, where they were used for money. The shrewd Venetians valued their exquisite pieces of glass, their vases, goblets, mirror frames, and ewers; but they were most jealous in the protection of their bead trade and manufacture.

From the eleventh to the fourteenth century the preparation of enamel for mosaic work was the most important department of the glass-works at Murano, and the mosaic glass there made has never been equalled in beauty or durability elsewhere. Even pavements in San Marco, {128} made from this glass, and now five or six centuries old, are still perfect in color, joints, and setting.

Salviati gives the name of glass to the Venetian manufacture alone, and applies "crystal or crystallified glass" to all other varieties, and Yriarte says:—

"These makers have but one object, to imitate the quality of crystal. Thus, when they have perfected the properties of clearness and brilliancy, they set about increasing the attractiveness of their productions by cutting them after they have been first run in moulds; that is to say, by employing mechanical means to obtain something like the richness, the variety of form, and vigor of line which alone can insure it success in the market. But to do this is to demand from glass qualities which it ought not to yield, and to change its nature, depriving it of its two essential qualities,—lightness and ductility.

"The glory of Murano is to have preserved the special properties of the material, and to have made it yield all the beauties of which it was capable."

These workers at Murano had two great advantages,—the material they used was ductile, light, especially brilliant, and possessed of vitreous appearance quite unique; and, added to these important conditions, the workmen had natural good taste, and the immense aid of historical traditions,—and by wisely employing its own resources Murano attained its great reputation; its forms and colors have not been equalled, and that they could be excelled is past imagining.

We know the name of the man who made mosaics for San Marco in 1100. It was Pietro, and he worked for the Doge Vitale Michiele I. In 1268 the glass-workers had formed a corporation. In 1292 they settled permanently on Murano. In 1329 they were employed to furnish glass for churches in other cities; and in 1376 the Senate declared that a master glass-maker might marry the daughter of a noble, and their children be held as of noble {129} rank. It was at this time that the Venetian glass-workers decorated the fine edifices all over Italy, and made the windows for the Cathedral of Milan.

So vast had the industry now become that it was divided into specialties,—the verixelli made small objects and beads; the phioleri made bottles. In the beginning of the fifteenth century Angelo Beroviero had the most famous furnace at Murano, at the sign of the Angel. He made both vessels and windows, and being a learned chemist knew how to give the most varied and beautiful colors to his glass. Beroviero also made the discovery of a process by which to apply enamel to glass in different colors. He made exquisite goblets; and special designs were executed for marriage and birth cups, or for any important occasion. Beroviero reached perfection in his art, and his brothers and sons were never surpassed in enamelled glass. To his son Marino may be ascribed the splendid glass in San Giovanni e Paolo, made after the designs of Girolamo Mocetto in 1473.

In truth, it is to the Berovieri that the progress in glass-making is due. They invented in 1463 that transparent glass called crystal; and giving up the old simplicity of form and decoration, they became bold and even audacious in their work. They used gold and enamel, and made those occasional pieces, now so precious, on which the designs and inscriptions furnish historical scenes from the fifteenth century.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century Andrea Vidaore invented the process of making artificial pearls with the enameller's blow-pipe, and later he invented glass jet, both of which discoveries became very remunerative. In 1507 two Muranese petitioned the Council of Ten for a grant of the monopoly of mirror glass all over the Republic for twenty-five years, and for permission to keep their fires lighted during the two months and a half {130} when all the fires were bound to be extinguished. Prior to this time the method of preparing mirror glass had been known and was used elsewhere; but at Venice the metal plates had been retained. Now, however, began the growth of that enormous industry in mirror plates which has retained its importance even in recent times, and which other nations have tried to appropriate.

The art of cutting glass in facets, and imitating precious stones, as well as of coloring "crystal" glass, was discovered in 1605; and all these inventions brought great wealth to the glass-workers, some of whom purchased nobility for themselves and their descendants.

Through Colbert, France succeeded in competing with Murano. England did the same by aid of the Duke of Buckingham; and Bohemia gave itself up to glass manufacture in such a way that the Venetian industry suffered at the end of the seventeenth century. Giuseppe Briati, a passionate lover of his art, left Murano, and took service in a manufactory at Prague, and having learned the Bohemian secrets, he returned to Venice in 1736, and obtained a license, for ten years, to manufacture and sell crystals made in the Bohemian fashion. Briati established himself in Venice in the Via del Angello Raffaelo. At this period mirrors were framed with flowers and foliage of cut glass, in relief, and lustres were decorated with flowers, grapes, and leaves in brilliant colors. Filigrana (filigree), too, was much in favor; and some of Briati's vases in this style are now very precious on account of their refinement of form and taste. Briati died in 1772, but at Murano his art survived.

In 1790 a license was granted to Giorgio Barbaria to make black bottles for export to England; and soon after he manufactured jet and enamels. Barbaria was the deputy of Murano until the fall of the Republic, when the island became almost a desert, and its master workmen {131} and journeymen sought in other lands the bread they could no longer earn at Murano.

There are many interesting stories and traditions connected with the Berovieri. Angelo, who was the superior of them all, inherited a good business, and by his own discoveries became very rich. He had a large shop in Venice, besides his factory on Murano, from which he shipped immense quantities of glass to various ports in Europe and the Orient. His dwelling was in a part of Murano that was free from the smoke of the furnaces. It was of marble, and very handsome without, while within it was most luxurious and elegant. The garden stretched to the water's edge, and was laid out with much taste. Large trees afforded grateful shade at midday, and spicy odors from the flowers combined with the songs of the nightingales of the aviary in satisfying the senses. There were arbors so sheltered by vines that one could watch the gondolas on the blue waters and be quite unseen, and the lovely view was fitly crowned by the purple mountains in the distance.

Beroviero was fortunate in all the circumstances of his life. His beautiful wife was a wealthy lady of Milan. His son, Marino, was of great promise, and his two daughters were lovely girls, who had inherited their mother's beauty and their father's intellect. But one sorrow had penetrated even here. The eldest, Felicia, from a fall in childhood, had weakened her spine, and was forced to spend much of her life in a recumbent position.

When Buona, the younger, reached a marriageable age, there were many suitors for her hand among the young nobles of Venice. One day when Signor Beroviero was very busy, his wife sent him a note:—

Hasten home. I am in a great perplexity. The two young nobles, Da Canale and Mocenigo, have come separately {132} to sue for Buona. Mocenigo was first, and he is with me and Buona now; and we have put Da Canale in another room to talk to Felicia. Hasten to our rescue! Your wife.

Meanwhile the comedy was played by his wife and daughters. Signora Beroviero had heard that Buona was much admired, and her father had already received several offers for her hand, to which he had replied that his daughter should be won, not sold. Acting on this hint, these two young men had come to win her if possible. Both were members of the Great Council, and of high position. Mocenigo had been shown to the drawing-room, and received by Signora Beroviero and Buona. Before the usual compliments were exchanged, Da Canale arrived, and was taken to a charming room opening on the garden, where Felicia was busy with her embroidery. He was splendidly attired, and had evidently come on a visit of importance. He displayed some impatience, as he threw off his cloak, and saw his companion; but Felicia entertained him as best she could until her father came, and held him in conversation until Mocenigo, who had been told of the presence of his rival, could retreat,—for Signora Beroviero had set her heart on Mocenigo for her son-in-law. But Buona was of quite another opinion, and in spite of all the praises of him that she heard she refused to marry him; and when her mother appealed to the father, his only reply was, "She is free to marry as she chooses."

Just at this time Beroviero received an order from the Doge for a collection of glass to be presented to the Emperor Frederick III. on the occasion of his visit to Venice. This caused a great excitement. The father, son, and three advanced apprentices were constantly in solemn conclave. Among these last was one Giorgio, who, although the senior, had made small advance in his {133} art. When the important matter in hand was well understood, and a proper part assigned to each one, all the resources of the manufactory were devoted to making a grand display of Venetian skill in color and design.

Other glass-workers were filled with jealousy of Beroviero, when the truth about this order was known; and this feeling was not lessened by the magnificent display which was soon made in the window of his shop in Venice. Naturally many strangers came hither on account of the proposed visit of the Emperor, and all the tradesmen of the city were making their shops as attractive as possible; but no other drew such crowds of gazers as that of Beroviero, now that the gift from the Doge to the Emperor was on exhibition. A large vase glowed like a magnificent ruby; white flowers, as delicate and natural as if actually growing, twined around a vase of glorious blue; while cups and wineglasses of exquisite shape and ethereal thinness were in contrast to goblets heavy with gold and enamel. But the chief object was a lace-work goblet, such as was never made elsewhere. It was the most wonderful of all the Venetian glasses, and so fragile was it that its construction was a mystery. Marsh gives this account of the method:—

"In manufacturing it the workman first of all placed threads of opaque glass round the inside of a mould made of charcoal. Then he dipped his rod into a pot of molten glass, and blew a drop out within the mould until it touched the opaque threads, which at once adhered to the outer surface of the glass. The goblet so blown was as thin as the white film of an egg. Then a second goblet was blown, and the opaque threads were made to adhere on the inner surface of the glass, running in a reverse direction to those which adhered to the outer surface of the first goblet. Thus the workman obtained two goblets, the outside of one and the inner side of the other, bearing the opaque threads of glass. Having secured this object, he next proceeded to place {134} one glass inside the other. At the moment the threads of opaque glass touched one another they adhered, imprisoning in the centre of each diamond, formed by the threads crossing one another, a fine bubble of air. The body of the goblet was covered with these diamonds, the air bubble appearing in the centre of each. Notwithstanding the fact that the goblet was composed of two distinct casings, yet, when they were united, the two presented a body not half as thick as an ordinary wafer. This species of glass was the most exquisite that Venice ever produced."

Beroviero had been invited to be present when the Emperor received this gift on which so much thought and labor had been lavished; and at length the day arrived. The Emperor, with his young bride, Elenora of Portugal, with a great assemblage of the rank and beauty of Venice, and many noble visitors, were gathered in the great hall of the Ducal Palace, where the Doge and high officials received them. Beroviero, his wife, son, and Buona, with representatives from some rival glass-works, were also there.

First the Doge presented to the Empress a crown set with jewels, and many other costly articles of attire. He then offered to the Emperor the splendid service of glass; to which his Majesty gave but slight attention, even while the Doge was describing its beauty and value. The Emperor replied in a cold and haughty tone; and while he was thus expressing his thanks, his court-jester executed a pirouette, and hit the tray containing the glass, which fell to the ground, shivered into numberless pieces. The Emperor exclaimed, "Had they been of gold or silver, that calamity could not have happened!"

The faces of the Doge and of the whole assembly expressed their horror and anger; and the Emperor begged to be allowed to order another set. But the Doge replied, "Venice does not sell her gifts!"

His Majesty offered large sums, but no glass-maker {135} would undertake to replace what had been destroyed; and on the next day the Emperor departed, while the episode of the glass-breaking was the general topic of conversation in all Venice.

Beroviero was filled with surprise and rage, while his rivals ridiculed him beyond endurance. The apprentices and workmen took sides with their masters, and fierce encounters took place between those of Beroviero and those of other factories. From that day Angelo Beroviero was a different man. He neglected his business, involved himself in quarrels, and was morose and irritable at home.

And now the dull, inattentive Giorgio came to the front, and challenged the senior apprentices of the principal rival establishments of Riva, Marcelli, and Gritti to a gondola tournament. The latter declined; but two contests would take place, and a day was fixed. Beroviero heard of this with pleasure, and was grateful to Giorgio for this dignified method of showing himself the friend of his master.

On the appointed day hundreds of gondolas were off Murano, while crowds stood on the shore, and every balcony was filled with ladies and gentlemen, all anxious to see the contest. Each combatant was allowed an assistant to propel his gondola. This was usually the youngest apprentice; and with Giorgio was Hector, a boy of fourteen, and a very skilful oarsman. He stood in the stern, while Giorgio was on the prow, bearing a leather shield and a blunt-headed lance. On the prow was a figure of an angel, while the rival boats carried their symbols of an anchor and a dolphin. Felicia could witness the whole sport from her window; but Buona, with their maid Giannetta, was on the shore.

At last two gondolas shot out from the crowd of boats, and sped quickly towards a post moored at some distance {136} in the open water. As Giorgio, lightly clad, stood on the prow of the Angel, and approached the other gondola decorated with an anchor, the symbol of the house of the Riva, it was easily seen that the other apprentice, who was of heavy build, and handled his lance awkwardly, was no match for Giorgio. As they neared the post, there was much applause; and as Giorgio turned his eyes towards his master's garden, he saw a handkerchief waving in the hand of Buona, who, as she saw the contest about to begin, exclaimed, "Now God and Saint Mark be with him!" Hearing this, her maid, Giannetta, uttered a little scream, for her mistress had put her own thought in words, and blushing she said that she had stepped on a sharp stone and hurt her foot; but in that moment Buona knew that the maid loved Giorgio, and Giannetta feared that her mistress cherished a like sentiment.

The two gondolas were now advancing towards each other. The lances were lowered, the boats met and then separated, and it was seen that the gondola with the anchor at the prow was empty. Both the champion and his rower were gone. Giorgio had parried the opponent's lance, and putting his own lance between the legs of his enemy, had toppled him into the water, and then, as the lightened gondola passed him, a vigorous push in the breast of the rower had sent him splashing after his companion. These achievements were warmly applauded by the crowd on shore; and a number of boats, full of his friends, quickly surrounded that of Giorgio to congratulate him on his success.

By the usual rules of combat the victor was entitled to an hour for repose before meeting his next opponent; but Giorgio signified his readiness to begin again at once, and in a few minutes the gondola, with a dolphin as its symbol, and an apprentice of the Marcelli on its prow, rowed up to the starting-post. The second champion was {137} far superior to the first; but after one or two slight thrusts from the lances, Giorgio profited by a fortunate moment, and hurled the second opponent into the water. Now was he a hero indeed, and all possible honors were shown him by his friends and even by his superiors. He had established a claim to the championship of all the gondoliers of Murano, with which the Berovieri were as well pleased as he.

This day had revealed Buona to herself, and she was horrified to find that she was a rival to her own maid in the affections of a poor apprentice. She determined to stifle this unworthy sentiment; but so difficult did she find her task that physicians soon were summoned to account for her blanched cheeks, and restore her to health. Mocenigo, with her parents' consent, strove to arouse her to an interest in life; but all was useless, and when fully convinced of her utter indifference to him, he quietly ceased to visit her, and she soon entered a convent.

She confided her secret grief to her confessor alone, and never regretted the gay life she might have led at Venice as the bride of some young noble. As years went on, and the poor sought aid at her convent in their seasons of sorrow and suffering, the name of Suora Buona was that most frequently on their lips.

From the day of the tournament Giorgio became seriously attentive to his business, and before very long he presented his master with a goblet, asking him to accept his first discovery. Beroviero examined it with curious delight. The inside was perfectly smooth, while the outside was covered with a thousand irregular cracks, and the whole looked as if it had been frosted. Beroviero was filled with surprise, and declared the goblet to be beautiful and entirely new.

Giorgio explained that his discovery was an accident, as most discoveries are. He had observed the effect on a {138} drop of hot glass when it fell into the water. It became crackled and frosted, and he at once tried the same thing on his goblet. Beroviero assured Giorgio that his discovery would prove of great value, and promised to take the young man to the palace, that he might show the goblet to the Doge. But that very evening the old glassmaker was attacked by masked thieves as he was floating in his gondola, and survived his wounds but a few hours.

Marino, who succeeded his father, claimed Giorgio's invention as the property of the firm, as Giorgio was still an apprentice, and the courts decided in his favor. Thus Marino had the sole right to make crackled glass; and Giorgio, driven to desperation by this injustice, stole the book in which Angelo Beroviero had written out all his methods and discoveries, and made an exact copy of it. This he sold to another firm, and with the proceeds set up a factory of his own. He married Giannetta, and seemed to have a promising future before him; but whatever he undertook ended unfortunately. The theft by which he thought to found a fortune was heavy on his conscience, and to it he attributed all his unhappiness. But under his son the Ballerini (Giorgio was called Ballerino in derision) became celebrated, and attained great eminence as glass-makers.

When Buona entered the convent, Felicia devoted herself to making an altar-cloth, in which she used the most costly materials that she could procure. The design was that of the Crucifixion. Three years she labored on it, and at last all was completed save the crown of thorns. She had constantly grown more and more fragile; and one evening, as the sun was setting, she called her mother, saying, "See, dear mother, the end is come. I have pointed the last thorn in His earthly crown."

As she ceased speaking, her head drooped, and she was dead. She was buried beneath the altar of the convent {139} church, and her exquisite embroidery served both as a cloth for the altar and a monument to her who had wrought it in loving faith.

Marino Beroviero maintained the reputation of his family, and made still further advances in his art. His business was extensive and prosperous, and a few years after his father's death he married the sister of Mocenigo, the former suitor of Buona.

CHAPTER VIII.

MARINO FALIERO; VETTORE PISANI AND CARLO ZENO.

In the autumn of 1354, Marino Faliero of San Apostoli, Count of Valdemarino, although seventy-six years old, and having already served the Republic in several important offices, was elected Doge. At this time he was Venetian Legate at Avignon, and an envoy extraordinary was sent to inform him of his election and attend him on his return. At Verona he was met by an escort of honor, and the Bucentaur awaited him at Chioggia, that he might make his entrance into Venice as became his dignity; but as the State barge neared the city, a dense fog made it unsafe to proceed with so large a ship, and the ducal party was forced to take small boats to land. The gondola in which Faliero was seated drew up at the Molo, exactly between the Columns of Executions, which was thought by the Venetians to be a sinister augury in the beginning of a reign, and was frequently recalled in later years.

During the forty-two years in which Faliero had filled positions of honor, at home and abroad, he had become accustomed to deciding important questions on his own responsibility; his life had not prepared him to be a lay figure and enjoy it, and he soon found that a Doge was now little more than this. Faliero, too, was of a quick temper, and had not hesitated to box the ears of a bishop who had kept him waiting on a public occasion when he was Podestà at Treviso. He was vigorous in health and {141} youthful in fooling, and had married, late in life, a second wife, who was young and beautiful; and his jealousy led him to believe that she was admired and coveted by every gentleman who had the privilege of her acquaintance. Naturally, her position as Dogaressa brought her in contact with all the nobility of Venice, and the gay and dashing young cavaliers soon discovered the weakness of the old husband.

On Carnival Thursday, April 2, 1355, the old-time ceremony of immolating an ox and twelve boar-pigs, which symbolized the Patriarch of Aquileia and his canons, was celebrated in the Piazza, which was filled with a brilliant assemblage; the court looked on from the palace windows, and later the Dogaressa gave a magnificent entertainment to the rank and beauty of Venice. In the course of the festivities a knot of gay young fellows who surrounded the maids of honor grew boisterous, and indulged a freedom of conduct which aroused the wrath of the Doge. He singled Michele Steno as the victim of his displeasure, and commanded his exclusion from the scene.

Steno, full of mortification and rage, sought his revenge, and before leaving the palace, managed to write, on the chair of the Doge, a most insulting taunt, which naturally roused him to fury. Steno was brought before the Forty, and sentenced to prison for two months and to exile for a year. This lenient punishment was regarded by Faliero as a more serious cause of complaint than the insult itself had been, and he demanded that Steno should come before the Ten and receive a severe sentence,—if not death, at least perpetual banishment. But the age of the culprit, who might have been Faliero's grandson, and the consideration that his offence was a folly rather than a crime, precluded such severity; and the old Doge was reminded that before the court he was but the equal of the poorest gondolier on the canals.

Faliero cursed the patricians and the laws which had made the head of the Republic so helpless; and just then the admiral of the Arsenal complained to him of an insult which he had received, and demanded redress. Faliero replied with bitterness that he could not obtain for others the justice which was denied him. One thing led to another, until the admiral darkly hinted at a revenge which would overturn the present condition of affairs and give the Doge more power. The two men soon understood each other, and when they parted were already conspirators against the State. Immediately they made a plan for a revolution; each sought to enlist his friends in the conspiracy, and soon about twenty were pledged to its aid.

The months that had passed since Faliero had been but a figure-head to that republic in which he had hitherto been a leading spirit, had brought him continual mortification and suffering. He had returned to Venice in proud triumph, having received the highest honor that the State could confer, which should be the crown and glory of his life. He had come to rule, but he had found the palace little less than a prison, his power a myth, and his condition a sort of gilded bondage. His opinion was dominated by that of the Ten; and even the giovinastri who paraded their youth and their finery in the Broglio could laugh him to ridicule, and insult him unpunished.

The plot of the Doge and his sympathizers was badly and hastily devised. They believed that in ten days six hundred and fifty poniards would be at their service; and on the 15th of April, amid cries of "Viva il Principe Faliero," the members of the obnoxious order were to be sacrificed as they gathered in the Piazza, the tocsin having been rung, and a false report of the arrival of a Genoese fleet off the Lido occupying their minds. Not a suspicion of the insurrection existed, and even the {143} followers of the chief conspirators did not know what they were to do; they were simply to obey when commanded.

But, as usually happens, when the time drew near, one of the conspirators had his own reasons for betraying the plot. In this case it was Beltramo, the skinner, who wished to save his especial patron, Lioni, who, being of quick wit, at the first hint from Beltramo had him arrested, and hastened to the palace to disclose his fears and suspicions to the Doge. Faliero made light of them, but in so awkward and embarrassed a manner as to arouse fresh misgivings where he endeavored to allay them; and Lioni, taking two other nobles with him, returned for a second examination of Beltramo, who now exposed the whole plot, taking care, however, to conceal the part which Faliero had in it.

The news was carried to the Ten at once. They too had heard a similar report, and were suspicious that some leaders of very exalted position were involved in the conspiracy. The tribunal summoned all its members to an extra sitting, omitting only Niccolo Faliero, nephew of the Doge. Decisive measures were taken at once; the city was put under martial law, and the conspirators were arrested to the number of twenty or more. Ten of these were hanged at the casements of the palace two days before the rising was to have taken place; one of the Falieri was imprisoned, and a Calendario was banished for life. Some names were entered on the Register of the Suspected; some of the suspected were set at liberty as blameless, and others received minor punishments.

In the course of all these proceedings the truth concerning Faliero had become known, and on April 16 he was conducted to the Chamber of the Great Council, attired in his robes of state, and was there accused of treason. He made no plea of denial, but acknowledged all, and declared himself the worst of criminals. The question of his punishment {144} was put to vote, and but one suffrage was cast in favor of his life. His sentence was delivered: "Marino Faliero, being convicted of conspiring against the Constitution, should be taken to the head of the grand staircase of St. Mark's, and there, being stripped of the ducal bonnet and the other emblems of his dignity, should be decapitated." The Doge was then led back to the palace, maintaining his composure with heroic determination.

The next morning he was again led to the Great Council Chamber, where a body of councillors, decemvirs, and advocates surrounded him and attended him to the place of execution. To the vast concourse of all conditions of men who were there assembled, the Doge made an address which was received in an awful stillness. He implored the forgiveness of the Venetians, and declared his sentence to be just.

His crown and ducal robes were then removed, and replaced by a black cloak and cap. His head was severed from his body at a single stroke, and the mutilated remains were viewed by thousands, in San Marco, before the burial. This occurred at the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the "Zanipolo" which we all know so well, either through visits or books; there Faliero was secretly buried, and no inscription told those who walked above his grave that there rest had been found for the body of the fiery old Doge. The Ten simply inscribed upon their books one sentence, "LET IT NOT BE WRITTEN," and his portrait was hung in the Hall of the Great Council after his death; but twelve years later, the Ten substituted for the picture a black crape veil with the inscription, "This is the place of Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes." Perhaps no better method could have been taken to keep his name alive and cause his story to be repeated from one generation to another, ever raising the question, Was it a crime? Is not Mrs. Oliphant near the truth when she says,—

"The incident altogether points more to a sudden outbreak of the rage and disappointment of an old public servant coming back from his weary labors for the State, in triumph and satisfaction to what seemed the supreme reward; and finding himself no more than a puppet in the hands of remorseless masters, subject to the scoffs of the younger generation, supreme in no sense of the word, and with his eyes opened by his own suffering, perceiving for the first time what justice there was in the oft-repeated protest of the people, uud how they and he alike were crushed under the iron heel of that oligarchy to which the power of the people and that of the prince was equally obnoxious."

It seems like the irony of fate that the informer, Beltramo, should have been rewarded hy the Ten with a thousand ducats and the privilege of wearing arms, while but two thousand ducats were given to the Doge's family out of all his vast property. But Beltramo considered his claims so poorly satisfied that he outraged the Ten by his conduct and was thrown into prison. It is said that after his liberation he was assassinated by one of the conspirators whom he had betrayed.

On April 22, 1378, the Doge Andrea Contarini, in the Basilica of San Marco, invested Pisani with the supreme command of the Venetian fleet. As he presented the great banner to him, the Doge solemnly said: "You are destined by God to defend with your valor this Republic, and to retaliate upon those who have dared to insult her and to rob her of that security which she owes to the virtues of our progenitors. Wherefore we confide to you this victorious and dread standard, which it will be your duty to restore to us unsullied and triumphant."

Pisani was fifty-four years old, and during more than half his life had been in the active service cf the Republic, {146} sometimes in its naval battles, again as Governor of Candia, then as Captain of the Gulf, and everywhere successful. Now, in the full strength of middle life, he was adored by the common people, and by the nobles regarded with that hatred which is born of envy.

Two days after receiving his command, Pisani sailed from the Lido with fourteen galleys, in pursuit of the Genoese fleet under Admiral Fieschi. Not meeting the enemy, Pisani boldly sailed up the Tuscan sea, spreading consternation in Genoa, which was just then threatened with an attack by land. But Pisani soon sailed away, and met Fieschi on May 30, off Porto d' Anzo.

The day was most unpropitious for battle; the sky was covered with black, angry-looking clouds, while the rain poured down in torrents. The galleys carried no sails, and the oars were frequently high in air on one side while the ship rolled in the sea on the other. The men found it difficult to stand; and when the vessels met, it was dangerous and almost impossible to pass from one to another. At one moment two ships were in violent action, side by side; and then, quicker than it can be told, a mountainous wave raised one upon its crest while the other was buried in a yawning gulf.

All through this terrible day the battle raged, and at its close Pisani was victorious. He had taken or sunk four of the nine Genoese ships; he had eight hundred prisoners, among whom was Fieschi himself. Half of them were sent to Candia, and half to Venice, where noble ladies dressed their wounds, and tended them with such charitable piety that the names of eight of their number have been preserved in history.

The season was spent by Pisani in constantly cruising in search of another Genoese fleet under Luciano Doria, and in making a series of brilliant attacks on the towns of the Hungarian and Greek coasts. He was also sent to {147} escort Valentina Visconti to her husband, Peter II. of Cyprus; and in the autumn, in opposition to his most earnest wishes, he was commanded to remain at that island for the winter.

Pisani's lieutenant was Carlo Zeno, who came of a family noted for its bravery. He was ten years younger than Pisani, and had passed his life in adventures worthy of a knight of fame; indeed, he had been called "Zeno the Unconquered." He also had scoured the sea during the summer of 1378, in search of the enemies of the Republic, and had performed feats of daring and skill. Like Pisani, he often acted on an impulse which savored of recklessness, while it was but bravery. Zeno was also a scholar, and had been eminent in his college at Padua; but his besetting sin of gambling obliged him to fly, and his after life had been one long romance, until he entered the service of Venice in 1377.

Pisani's forebodings for the winter at Cyprus were more than realized; and in the spring of 1379, out of nineteen galleys six only were fit for service, and scarcely men enough to man these were still alive. But his personal friends in Venice built and equipped twelve other ships, so that his fleet numbered eighteen sail. His enemies were busy at Venice; but in spite of them and in spite of his absence, he was confirmed in his office, and Carlo Zeno and Michele Steno were made his lieutenants.

During the spring Pisani diligently prosecuted his search for the Genoese fleet without success; but on the 7th of May, 1379, when he was returning from Brindisi with a large convoy of grain, Doria, with twenty-five sail, including two brigantines, suddenly presented himself in the roads of Pola. Pisani had many good reasons for not wishing to give battle to the Genoese at this time: his ships were fewer than Doria's; there was much sickness among his men; Zeno was absent on another expedition, {148} and he thought it wiser to act on the defensive only. But the council of civilians who were with him were unanimous in favor of an engagement, and even hinted at cowardice in Pisani, whose rage at this injustice was almost uncontrollable, and it was with great difficulty that he so far governed himself as not to attack his accusers.

He bade his captains prepare for battle, and soon all was in readiness. Pisani, in full armor, standing on the stern deck addressed his men: "Remember, my brethren, that those who now face you are the same whom you have vanquished with so much glory on the Roman shore. Let not the name of Luciano Doria terrify you; it is not the names of commanders that will decide the conflict, but Venetian hearts and Venetian hands!" He then cried out, "He that loves Saint Mark, let him follow me!" and this battle-cry was echoed from ship to ship.

At first the day was propitious to the Venetians, who fought with even more than their usual intrepidity, and victory seemed to be theirs, when the Genoese vessels began a retreat and Pisani followed in pursuit. After several miles had thus been made, and the Venetian ships were separated from each other, by a skilful manoeuvre Doria turned about, and renewing the combat with great vigor and ferocity, gained a complete victory.

From seven to eight hundred Venetians perished; twenty-four hundred were made prisoners, and but six galleys remained afloat. Near the end of the conflict Doria had raised his visor, exclaiming, "The foe are already vanquished; the battle is all but ours," when Donato Zeno plunged his lance into the throat of the victorious admiral, killing him instantly.

Venice was filled with consternation and surprise when this dreadful news was known. Her only fleet was destroyed; the enemy was approaching the lagoons, and {149} Carlo Zeno was far away. A terrible cry was raised against Pisani; his enemies could now make him pay for his popularity and greatness and for some of his outbursts of temper from which they had suffered, and they demanded the extreme penally. He was brought to Venice in fetters, and was not permitted to speak a word in self-defence. In July it was moved in the Senate that he be beheaded between the Columns; but with a shudder, this motion was denied, and he was sentenced to prison for six months and to exclusion from all offices for five years.

In August the Genoese fleet appeared before Venice, under the command of Pietro Doria. Happily, some preparations had been made, and the ports of Lido and Malamocco were blocked with sunken vessels, chains, and palisades, but that of Brondolo was still open, and there the enemy entered. Genoa was now allied with Hungary, Naples, Padua, Aquileia, Austria, and Ancona against Venice. Twenty-four thousand men were landed, and siege laid to the citadel of Chioggia. The Venetians who held the place under Pietro Emo were not more than thirty-five hundred; for six days these brave men held out against such fearful odds, and even then were defeated by accident. Hazlitt gives a picturesque description of the event:—

"On the 16th an alarm was suddenly spread among the troops of the Podestà that the bridge behind them was in flames. It was a fireship, of which the combustion in the canal of Santa Caterina had diffused the erroneous impression. The Genoese caught and echoed the cry, and renewed their flagging exertions with fresh ardor. They are mowed down by the guns as they advance; the carnage is terrific. Still, like demons in whose breast the thirst for vengeance and the lust of spoil has extinguished the fear of death, they continue to come up. The Venetians begin to lose ground and to fall back upon the bridge. {150} They recede a little and a little more. It is in vain that Emo and fifty chosen men-at-arms dispute the front with desperate tenacity and transcendent heroism, foot to foot and hand to hand. The position is slowly forced. The allies are upon the bridge. The Venetians quicken their retrograde pace. In their haste they omit to destroy the communication; and they enter the gates pell-mell with their pursuers. Thus Chioggia fell."

The allies and Venetians had each lost many men, and nearly four thousand Venetians were prisoners. The town was pillaged, but the women were protected from harm. Some of the Venetians paid enormous ransoms,—Emo three thousand ducats; and others probably as much, so that the gain to the allies was large.

No words can portray the effect of the news of the fall of Chioggia at Venice. The bell of the Campanile was tolled, and at once the armed citizens filled the Piazza. The sobs and moans of women were heard; elsewhere they were seen wringing their hands and tearing their hair in mute despair. Some men, too, yielded to fear; while others in their avarice hid their treasures. But the majority were true Venetians, and declared that "the State cannot be lost while those remain who can man a galley and handle a pike;" and the aged Doge, the Council, and Senate refused to allow any reason for despair. There was a scarcity of food, and the Republic was much straitened in its resources; but Venetian fidelity would endure everything before it would submit to defeat.

Nothing had been known of Carlo Zeno since his separation from Pisani; his arrival would turn the scale, and he might come any day, since an envoy had been sent to recall him, and before taking any further warlike measures it was determined to try negotiation. But Doria, who almost felt that at Chioggia he had conquered Venice, replied: "By God's faith, my Lords of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Lord of Padua or from our {151} Commune of Genoa until I have put a bit into the mouths of the horses of your Evangelist Saint Mark. When they have been bridled, you shall then, in sooth, have a good peace; and this is our purpose, and that of our Commune." Some Genoese prisoners had been sent with the embassy, and their unconditional surrender offered as a bait to the allies; but Doria scornfully sent them back, saying that in a few days he would come to release them and the rest of his countrymen.

Then all Venice was roused; the bell which summoned the popular assembly was rung, and the people were informed of their present peril, and invited to aid the government with wisdom and advice. There was, however, but one opinion; all desired to arm and go forth with such galleys as were at the Arsenal,—they thought it better to perish in defence of Venice than to perish in her palaces and squares from want. A terrible crisis followed: all salaries were suspended; no business was done; and by a new loan, to which the citizens liberally subscribed, the finances were bettered. The city was fortified by earthworks from Lido to Santo Spirito, and towers were erected on each side the pass of San Niccolo.

A new captain-general was now to be elected, and the favorite of the government, Taddeo Giustiniani, was nominated; but the people with one accord refused to serve under any man save Vettore Pisani. After a day's debate, late in the evening some Senators were deputed to inform Pisani that the Doge and Senate were awaiting him. Naturally the hero was much moved; and he replied that he preferred to have the night for reflection, and to wait on the Seigniory the next morning.

Accordingly, at daybreak, the delegates, followed by the people, came to the gates of the prison; and when he appeared with his usual cheerful and good-humored aspect, he was lifted by some of his old sailors and borne {152} on their shoulders to the palace, amid cries of "Viva il Nostro Vettore! Viva Vettore Pisani!" but he chidingly cried, "Viva San Marco!" The Doge and senators met him on the staircase and graciously welcomed him. Mass was celebrated. Pisani was some time in conclave with the College, the people constantly shouting his name outside; and when he emerged he was borne, as he had come, to his own house in San Fantino, where he had not been for fifteen months.

As he was passing the Campanile, his old pilot, Corbaro, drew near to him and shouted out, "Now is the time, Compadre, for revenging yourself by seizing the dictatorship of this city. Behold, all are at your service; all are willing at this very instant to proclaim you prince, if you choose!" Pisani boiled with rage, and dealing Corbaro a heavy blow on the cheek, burst into indignant speech, and at last exclaimed: "Let none who wish me well say Viva Pisani! but, Viva San Marco!" and the populace then shouted, "Viva San Marco e Vettore Pisani! Viva il Pisani, ch'e nostro Padre!" and the throng was so dense from the Piazza to San Fantino that not another man could have found room to stand.

But the people soon learned that Pisani had merely been given the command of the Lido, while Giustiniani was at the head of the navy. Then a great tumult arose; and although the government alleged that Pisani was needed at the Lido, the people to the number of fifty thousand refused to embark on the galleys until Vettore Pisani was made captain-general of all the forces of the Republic by sea and land. The matter was then referred to the Ten, who were awed into compliance; and the commission was granted as desired, and this but four days after the fall of Chioggia, so hastily had all been done.

Meantime the allies had progressed less rapidly, owing to divisions in their counsels; but they had pushed {153} forward to Malamocco, and there erected a battery within three miles of the capital. Many stray shots reached Santo Spirito.

Pisani had much to do to make efficient sailors and soldiers of raw recruits, to provide for the safety of the city, to equip between twenty and thirty skeletons of galleys which were at the Arsenal and were ready for sea in three days, and to attend to the lists of the volunteers. The whole city was enthusiastically patriotic. "All classes hastened to enroll themselves. Painters quitted their studios to be initiated in the rudiments of naval discipline on the Giudecca; cutlers and apothecaries closed their workshops, and devoted themselves to drilling and exercise. Artisans brought their savings; women plucked the jewels from their dresses, and begged the Seigniory to dispose of them as they would."

Pisani found the wooden towers which Giustiniani had erected at Porto Lido to be insufficient, and demolished them in order to build others of stone. Giustiniani, full of rage, endeavored to persuade the friends of Pisani not to approve of this; and he, seeing the hesitation, seized a trowel, crying, "He that loves Saint Mark, let him follow me!" and laid the first stone with his own hands. The men returned to their duty, and the castles of San Andrea and San Niccolo were built in four days! Many other preparations were made; and when on August 24 the Genoese attempted an attack at two different points, they were repulsed in such a manner as to convince them of the futility of their efforts, and the siege of Venice was raised. After a few weeks Doria destroyed the works he had raised at Malamocco and retired to Chioggia, there to await the fall of Venice by starvation.

The situation in Venice was so desperate that some of the councillors even made a motion for emigration to Candia or Negropont; but this wild notion was met with {154} declarations that death among the ruins of Venice would be preferable to life elsewhere. Food was so scarce and dear that a large proportion of the people were famishing; even the wealthy families often ate their last loaf not knowing where to get another, and they were also as charitable as it was in their power to be to their poorer countrymen. Thus the autumn passed and winter had come, and yet Carlo Zeno had not returned. He was the only hope for Venice and her people. A letter found on a captured vessel gave information of splendid successes which he had achieved and rich booty that he had taken; his name inspired terror from the Golden Horn to the Riviera, and he was now probably off Canea, whither a messenger was sent to command his immediate return.

Just at this point Barbarigo captured three of the Genoese ships and took one hundred and fifty prisoners, and Pisani advised that this good fortune should be followed up by an endeavor to recover Chioggia. He recognized the daring and difficulty of the undertaking; but not to make this effort meant starvation, and they might reasonably count on the aid of Zeno very soon. This advice was acted upon, and a decree was published that of those families of plebeians who should most liberally meet this emergency by the offer of soldiers and money, thirty should be summoned to the Great Council; that to those not thus called five thousand ducats should be annually distributed, and continued to their heirs forever; that all foreign merchants who showed zeal for the cause should be made citizens, and all Venetians who eluded the burdens and hardships of the time should forfeit all civil rights. This measure produced immediate results. Men and money were freely offered; and the Doge Contarini, seventy-three years old, but hale and hearty still, wished to assume command, with Pisani as his admiral and vice-captain-general.

Pisani had learned, by one means and another, that Doria had thirty thousand men, fifty galleys, seven hundred or more light craft, and full supplies of every sort. The odds against the Venetians were overwhelming, but they delayed not, and December 21 was fixed for the beginning of the attack. Thirty-four galleys, sixty barks, and four hundred boats of all sorts of build and dimensions made up the Venetian fleet. Orders were issued that every man should be at his post in the ships, at noon, under pain of death. The whole force was divided into three parts,—the first under command of Pisani; the centre under the Doge, assisted by Cavalli; and the last under Cornaro, called Collo storto from his crooked neck. At the hour for vespers the Doge, Pisani, and the leaders attended a Mass in San Marco, and it was eight o'clock before Contarini mounted his barge and unfurled the same great banner which had floated above the victory over Barbarossa. All had been done rapidly and without noise.

It was a mild winter evening; the stars were bright and the sea calm, and everything seemed propitious to the undertaking. Soon after passing the Lido a fog came on, but speedily disappeared; and not far from ten o'clock the fleet was off the Pass of Chioggia, at the southern point of Pelestrina. Pisani had planned to blockade the Genoese instead of attacking them; and in the course of three days the Strait of Chioggia was choked and dammed on the shores of Pelestrina and Brondolo.

But this had been done at the cost of great hardships and loss of life. Even in this winter-time the men had worked in the water up to their waists, all the while in danger of drowning as well as of being shot by the enemy. They began to murmur; they declared that this was more than flesh and blood could bear, and they demanded leave to return to Venice. Pisani had shared all their perils, {156} but he knew that great firmness was required to put down this discontent, and he asked the Doge, in a tone which made his request a command, to swear on his sword that he would not return to Venice unless Chioggia was taken. Contarini took this oath without hesitation. This scene occurred on Christmas eve.

The Venetian engineers, now that the blockade was complete even to the canal of Lombardy, began the erection of a fort at Fassone, and mounted it with cannon of the largest caliber; one, called the "Trevisan," could throw stones weighing one hundred and ninety-five pounds, and the "Victory" was almost as powerful. Neither of these could be fired more than once in twenty-four hours! By the time that this work was accomplished, December 29, the condition of the Venetians was deplorable. They were on half rations, and every day in collision with the enemy, while the cold was piercing. The officers, oarsmen, and crossbowmen now declared that they would brave all consequences and return to Venice. Even Pisani was shaken for a little; but he summoned all his heroism and fortitude, and besought his men to hold out until Zeno could reach them. He prevailed, but at the cost of a pledge that if Zeno had not arrived on New Year's day, he would raise the blockade and return home.

Upon so slender a thread was Pisani forced to hang the existence of the Republic. Forty-eight hours might decide that the civilization of the world was to be sunk in darkness; that art, science, and letters were to be lost in a deluge of bloodshed. For if Venice were conquered, by whom would she be ruled? Such contentions must ensue as would involve all Europe, and result in consequences too disastrous to be imagined. The suspense of the last two days of the year was past any telling, and no change had come; but the first glimmer of the light of the New Year revealed fifteen sail in the offing. Can we understand {157} the anxiety of the Doge and his leaders as they asked the question, "Are these our ships under Zeno, or are they new forces for our enemies?" Light boats were despatched to learn the truth, and no imagination can apprehend the delirious joy when it was found that the Lion of St. Mark had been hoisted by the new-comers. Carlo Zeno was there, and Venice was saved!

It is needless to dwell upon the details of the continued siege of Chioggia and the various efforts made by the Genoese. They did not easily submit to their fate. They tried negotiation, and made every effort for a compromise; but the Venetians had suffered too much to make any terms save those of unconditional surrender, and this came at last on June 22, and Chioggia was given up to pillage by the Star Company of Milan and the Tard Venus of Sir John Hawkwood, the mercenary troops to which this privilege had been promised. The booty was enormous, and the Republic gained nineteen good ships, and large stores of salt, powder, and equipments of all kinds; the salt alone was valued at ninety thousand crowns.

The prisoners numbered 4,440, and were more like ghosts than men, so near starvation had they come. They were sent to Venice, where many died in their prisons while preparations were being made for the triumphal return of Contarini. This occurred on the first day of July, and was as magnificent as such a spectacle at Venice was sure to be. But rarely, even in this city, had so remarkable a trio been seen as that of the patriotic and dauntless Doge, the single-hearted Pisani, and the peerless Zeno.

But two days elapsed before Pisani again set sail and occupied himself in opposing the enemies of the Republic. In pursuit of the Genoese he reached Manfredonia on August 12. The hardships of service and imprisonment had told on the constitution of the Admiral, and he was {158} now attacked by fever which greatly alarmed his friends; but he made light of it, and on the 18th despatched Corbaro, his old companion, with eight galleys to follow the Genoese fleet, which was in sight. But his impatience overcame his resolution to remain behind, and in spite of all expostulation he left his sick-bed, armed himself, and directed his sails to be set. The enterprise failed; Corbaro was killed; Pisani was wounded slightly, and returned at evening to Manfredonia much dejected, ill, and fainting. He was removed to the house of the commandant of the port, who procured a physician for him; he requested an amanuensis, and dictated a long letter to the Senate, closing with his plans which should "make Genoa rue the day when she entered upon the War of Chioggia."

The letter finished, he asked for water, and then for bread, which he began to eat ravenously, but suddenly changed color, gasped for breath, and sank lifeless upon his pillow. He was but fifty-six years old, and his life-work would have honored fourscore years, since we live not by time, but by deeds. He was deeply mourned, and the tears on the faces of the weather-beaten sailors when they learned of the death of their "Father" proved how truly they had loved their brave commander, who had survived the redemption of the Doge's vow but seven weeks.

The most sumptuous funeral was decreed by the Senate, and he was to be buried in San Antonio di Castello, where his father and brother already rested. The whole people were so wrapped in grief, and the public mind so occupied with the obsequies, that "if the smallest Genoese fleet had made a descent at that conjuncture, the country would have stood in the utmost peril." As the procession was about to move, a popular clamor was raised, the people declaring that Pisani ought to be buried nowhere but in {159} the Ducal Chapel; and just when a tumult was threatened, a sailor put his shoulder to the bier, crying out, "We, his children, are carrying this brave captain to our Father, Saint Anthony!"

This quelled the excitement, and the procession began to move; it extended from San Fantino to San Antonio, and yet, when the pall-bearers were entering the church, hundreds had not found a place in the line!

A splendid mausoleum was erected over the family vault, upon which was placed a statue of Pisani, in the uniform of a captain-general, grasping an ensign with two streamers, and surmounted by a cross. The capture of Cattaro, in August, 1379, was later painted to his honor by Andrea Vicentino in the Sala dello Scrutinio, in the Ducal Palace.

In 1381 a peace was made at Turin between Venice and the allies, and immediately afterwards the Senate redeemed its promise and created thirty new councillors, selected from the loyal grocers, skinners, apothecaries, and other plebeian traders. A series of public festivities followed; the newly made nobles went in procession to San Marco, bearing lighted tapers in their hands; tournaments, regattas, and banquets were held with unusual rejoicings, for the sadness of many months was forgotten, and thankfulness and joy filled all hearts. We may well imagine that some patricians of ancient and honorable descent saluted the newly ennobled masons and other artisans with a poor grace; but that was of small account to these men who had earned the honors that the others had simply been born to, by sacrificing much for the Republic, and they fully enjoyed their new estate and its privileges.

Contarini lived to witness this happy conclusion of the recent war, and died in 1382, when seventy-four years old. He may be called the last of the hero-princes of {160} his time. He had been a grand central figure in the dreadful days of the Chioggian War; by his example he had imparted courage to failing hearts, and by his oath to conquer Chioggia or see Venice no more, he made it impossible for his soldiers and sailors to desert him, and thus his chivalry warded off failure and catastrophe. The generation which followed him listened to the tales of those who had fought under Pisani on the sea, or served under Contarini at Chioggia, with the same breathless interest with which our youth now listen to the stories of the veterans who were engaged in our own struggles for the preservation of our country.

When Vettore Pisani died, there was but one man thought worthy to replace him, and Carlo Zeno was made Admiral of the Fleet. Under him the Adriatic bore no enemies to Venice upon its bosom, and he suffered no defeat in any encounter, although the remaining thirty-six years of his life were largely spent in the service of the Republic.

Jacopo Zeno, Bishop of Padua, was the grandson of Carlo, and his biographer. He tells us that Carlo was "square-shouldered, broad-chested, solidly and strongly made, with large and speaking eyes, and a manly, great, and full countenance; his stature neither short nor tall. Nothing was wanting to him which strength, health, decorum, and gravity demanded."

The details of his life as given by the Bishop are not altogether assuring as regards "decorum and gravity;" for although he certainly was an admirable general or admiral, he was equally capable as a pirate, and though his patriotism was undoubted, he could make himself quite at home with any sort of men from any part of the globe. Indeed, he served Galeazzo Visconti at Milan and in Piedmont for ten years with the same zeal that he hnd served Venice. During this time he loaned four hundred {161} ducats to Francesco da Carrara, who then was at peace with Venice; some years later this money was repaid, and the entry in Carrara's book was simply this: "To Carlo Zeno, paid four hundred ducats."

After the death of the Carrarese and after Zeno's return to Venice, this register was sent to the Ten. A suspicion that Carlo Zeno had accepted a bribe was the natural result, and he was called before the secret tribunal. He told the simple truth; but it availed nothing, and he was sentenced to loss of public place and rank, and two years in prison! The Bishop vividly portrays the indignation which followed this sentence in Venice and in other cities where Zeno was known; and he does not say that his grandfather was a prisoner for two years, but he does say that when he was at liberty he went to Jerusalem, and turned his thoughts to spiritual things.

As he was returning, he aided the King of Cyprus to defeat the Genoese and save the island with the cunning and skill of his younger days, though he was now past seventy; and after reaching Venice, he married a third wife, as his grandson frankly states, "for no other reason than to secure good domestic government, and a consort and companion who would take upon herself all internal cares, and leave him free to study philosophy and the sacred writings."

He surrounded himself with learned men, and his house became a centre for the exchange of thought among scholars, statesmen, and good citizens, while he spent his days in reading, writing, and constant attendance on the services of the Church. "In the cold winter he had his bed filled with books, so that when he had slept sufficiently he could sit up in bed, and pass the rest of the night in reading, nor would he put down his book save for some great necessity."

But this serene and undisturbed life did not continue to {162} his end. His wife and his favorite son, the father of the Bishop, died; the son was but thirty, and his old father was desolate. His son Pietro was a naval commander of honorable repute, but it was on Jacopo that the old man's heart was fixed. At last, in 1418, when eighty-four years old, and honored by all Venice, the father also died.

The religious orders claimed the privilege of carrying him to his grave; but the seamen of Venice rose as one man, and hastened to the Doge to claim their right to bear the body of their beloved commander. "Their prayer was granted; and with all the ecclesiastical splendors in front of them, and all the pomp of the State behind, the seamen of Venice carried him to his grave, each relay watching jealously that every man might have his turn."

His tomb was in a church of the Cistercians, destroyed long since. Its site is now a part of the Arsenal. Let us hope that his bones rest beneath so fitting a monument as this for "Zeno the Unconquered."

CHAPTER IX.

BURANO AND TORCELLO.

The town of Burano, on the island of the same name, seven miles east of Venice, is now quite the superior of Mazzorbo, from which, in its infancy, it begged a piece of land to build itself on. Its founders were few and very poor, but at present there are about ten thousand Buranelli, who well sustain the reputation for disorderliness which they have inherited; for in the old days, even the women of Burano, who held a market in Venice, caused the magistrates much vexation by their quarrels, and now the Venetian gondoliers usually ascribe any troubles that arise on the canals to the Buranei, unless they know of the presence of those other disturbers, the Chiozzotti.

Burano is noisy and dirty. The people are rough in manner and speech, and the children bold and persistent in following strangers. The muscular development of the Buranelli and their statuesque figures are the only traits that one can admire in them. The men are occupied in fishing and towing barges, filled with lagoon mud, which goes to enrich the soil of Pordenone. They have the reputation of doing good work for reasonable pay.

The women are uproarious in their speech and behavior, and seem unfit to make the soft, lovely lace which is largely their occupation. But as one listens to their speech, it is found to be in a dialect so soft and sweet as to make one wonder how so much noise can be made with {164} vowels alone, for apparently all the consonants have been lost. H. F. Brown says: "They dwell upon the vowels, redoubling and prolonging them, so that their words seem to have no close, but die away in a kind of sigh. For instance, they call their own town Buraâ instead of Buran. The effect is not unpleasant, but is rather too sweet and gripless for our northern ears."

Mazzorbo, which at the founding of Burano was the Urbs Major (the greater city), has gradually disappeared, and is now but the kitchen garden of Venice. Burano has annexed it by a bridge built on piles, and high enough in the centre for boats to pass under. There is scarcely a house left on the island, save the little inn where the boatmen get a glass of wine. Each morning the fruit and vegetable boats go to Venice, and their cargoes are sold near the Rialto. The difference between the people of these two islands is striking. Those of Mazzorbo are gentle and kind in manner, and really beautiful in person. What can make this dissimilarity in the twelve hundred feet which separates them?

But the special interest in Burano is the lace-making, which is now in full revival, thanks to the Countess Marcello, and other benevolent patrons, whose efforts have reproduced the Point de Burano in its old patterns. The hundreds of girls in the Fabbrica di Merletti di Burano are certainly more than good-looking, and are improving in their work each year. Indeed, one may believe that the old-time skill of their ancestors is not lost.

The sacristan of San Martino exhibits some fine bits of old Point de Burano, and the robes of the priests are so exquisite that one need not be a judge of laces in order to appreciate their beauty. One who has ever visited this independent little island will recall its peculiarities, and certainly its lace-makers, in whatever distant part of the globe their handiwork may be seen.

During the sixteenth century lace-making flourished in all the principal towns of northern Italy, but to Venice belongs the fame of needle-points; and Venetian ladies were the first to wear it, in the seventeenth century, from which time the fine Venetian lace-making dates.

Before this time the ladies of Venice had worn lace, as their portraits attest, but not of this particular sort. Artists of the highest order did not disdain to make designs for Point coupé, which was made for ladies of illustrious rank, for princesses and queens; and bits of this exquisite point now bring prices that are simply fabulous, and worse, to any but a collector of laces or a connoisseur in them.

"The special character of this lace consists in high reliefs, ornamental figures either in solid or open work, artistically formed and arranged in petals, overlaid with fantastic flowers of very broad design, the open blossoms of which detach themselves from rich foliage of marvellous workmanship, and are connected by joining threads and very delicate network stitches."

The authorities in this specialty put Venice point above all other laces, on account of its high relief, its softness and suppleness, and a certain velvety quality found only in needle-made laces. For some time the secret of the stitches used in making this lace were known only to the inventors. Its fame reached other countries immediately, and the demand for it naturally caused imitations to spring up. The real Venice point was made entirely with the needle. The foliage, the flower petals, the stems, all the raised parts, and all the connecting threads were made in one stitch. The time necessary for its completion gave it an intrinsic value; and its price was such that only very wealthy persons could pay it, while if exported the duty was also heavy.

In other countries laces were made which from a {166} distance had much the same effect, but could not be compared to the true Venetian point. Louis XIV. gave much attention to this lace, and instructed his ambassadors to give him all possible information about its manufacture. He even wrote letters on this subject with his own hand, and was greatly interested in keeping Venetian lace out of France, thus compelling the use of French point. And on the other hand, the Venetian ambassador to France was able to discover just what workmen the French had induced to go to France to introduce the lace-making, and sent a list of them to the Senate. All this resulted in a decree of the Inquisitors, as follows:—

"If any workman or artist transports his art into a foreign country to the detriment of the Republic, he shall be sent an order to return; if he does not obey, his nearest relatives shall be imprisoned, so as to reduce him to obedience by his interest in them; if he returns, the past will be pardoned, and an establishment in Venice will be procured for him; if, in spite of the imprisonment of his relations, he is still determined to live abroad, an emissary will be charged to kill him, and after his death his relations will be set at liberty."

Torcello, that once populous city, now uninhabitable from malaria, is a realization of complete desolation; for the few traces of its past make its present more gloomy than if it had never been other than a desert isle. And yet in spring-time it is full of beauty, when its orchards and thorn-hedges are in bloom and fill the air with fragrance, or in the golden autumn days, when the sea-lavender, with its delicate, feather-like bloom, tinges all the meadows with its purple.

In his book on "Italian Sculptors" Mr. Perkins thus prettily tells the legend of the settlement of Torcello:—

"Two hundred years after the invasion of Attila had driven many of the inhabitants of Aquileja and Altina from their homes, the province was desolated by the Lombards. The Altinese, alarmed at their approach, anxiously deliberated whether they should remain to face this 'Australis plaga,' or seek safety in flight, when they beheld vast flocks of birds, with their fledglings in their beaks, take flight from the city walls and towers and direct their course seaward. Regarding this as a sign from heaven, some departed to Ravenna, some to Pentapolis, and others to Istria, leaving behind them a band of devout persons, who, in order to obtain a more direct manifestation of the will of Heaven, determined to fast and pray for three days, according to the advice of their bishop, Paulus. At the end of the time they heard a voice like thunder, saying, 'Ascend into the city tower and look at the stars.' They beheld a vision of boats and ships and islands, and taking this as an indication that their course should be directed seaward, they removed their most precious possessions to the island of Torcello.... Paulus, Bishop of Altina, migrated with his flock, their relics and treasure, to Torcello and the neighboring islands, A.D. 641."

The ascent of the tall, square Campanile (eleventh century) is not easy, for its ladders are rickety; but the view from its bell-chamber compensates for all the difficulty of reaching it. To the east lies a large district, which is neither sea nor land, but partly both, crossed and recrossed by broad ditches. These are the valli, in which fish are bred. Many little huts stand beside the valli, in which Venetian gentlemen live while duck-shooting in the winter. The sport is so fine that, in spite of cold and the absence of all real comfort, a shooting-party usually lasts several days.

To the south the view is over the Adriatic, and the eye follows the line of breakwaters, even to Chioggia. South-west lies Venice, her many towers and palaces cutting an irregular line across the azure sky, with the Euganean {168} Hills for a background. To the north, far away beyond the plain, with nothing to intercept the view, stand the Dolomitic Alps, seen in perfection from Torcello. Tofano, Antelao, and Pelmo stand out boldly, their clear-cut peaks white with snow, and their long, lower ridges dark and shadowy. A more heavenly sky, a lovelier sea, more striking mountain peaks, and a more fancy-stirring city,—can these be found in any one panorama to excel the view from the Campanile of Torcello?

The Cathedral of Torcello was so injured by the repairs under the Austrians that one can find little pleasure in visiting it. The one interesting feature is the arrangement of the chancel, where the semicircular seats rise one above the other, and the bishop's throne in the centre, reached by a steep staircase, towers above all. Authorities agree that the fittings of this apse give a better idea of the way in which apses were originally arranged than does any other church, either of the same period with this (seventh century), or even earlier. It is most unusual; and Ruskin throws such a charm about it that it is pure pleasure to read what he says of it:—

"There is one circumstance which we ought to remember as giving peculiar significance to the position which the episcopal throne occupies in the island church; namely, that in the minds of all early Christians the church itself was most frequently symbolized under the image of a ship, of which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men to whom the spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the midst of a destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the eight souls were saved of old,—a destruction in which the wrath of man had become as broad as the earth and as merciless as the sea,—and who saw the actual and literal edifice of the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the midst of the waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling between them and the shores of their birth, {169} from which they were separated forever, they should have looked upon each other as the disciples did when the storm came down on Tiberias Lake, and have yielded ready and loving obedience to those who ruled them in His name who had there rebuked the winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of her arsenals or numbers of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the goodly temple-ship, let him repeople its ruined deck with the shadows of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of their homesteads,—first, within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of the sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,—rose that ancient hymn, in the power of their gathered voices: 'The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands prepared the dry land.'"

A picturesque cloister connects the Baptistery or Church of St. Fosca with the cathedral. The relics of the virgin martyr are said to rest beneath the low, ancient church. The pillars of the cloisters are so short that a tall man can touch the arches they sustain; but they are of pure Greek marble, with delicately sculptured capitals. Everything seems so small,—the two churches, the tower, an ancient well, and a marble column are all that remain, save one or two old buildings that may now have disappeared, so tumble-down were they when last I saw them. The Piazza (!) around which these buildings stand is such a bit of a grass-grown place! The only street is but a {170} footpath, and yet we reverence Torcello for its age. The banner of Venice has floated here more than a thousand years,—more than six centuries before Columbus discovered our part of the globe.

There is a little museum in which a few antiquities are gathered, where one may rest and think before taking leave of this ghost-haunted island of Torcello, so well described by Helen Hunt:—

"Short sail from Venice sad Torcello lies,
Deserted island low, and still and green.
Before fair Venice was a bride and queen
Torcello's court was held in fairer guise
Than Doges knew. To day death-vapors rise
From fields where once her palaces were seen,
And in her silent towers that crumbling lean
Unterrified the brooding swallow flies."

As we row back to Venice in the lovely evening, with the orange and purple of the after-glow dissolving into paler and colder tints, and the stars peeping out one by one, Giacomo tells us a ghost-story which is familiar to the gondoliers and fishermen, a group of whom we have just met returning from Venice to their strange fishing-ground.

The story runs that once upon a time six men were fishing and living together in a small hut among the valli. One of them had a little son who stayed in the hut to cook food for the men whenever they came in. As the night was the best time for fishing, the little fellow was often alone from sunset to dawn. One morning, as it was growing light, the men stopped their work and rowed toward home; and on the way they saw the body of a drowned man, which the tide was taking out to sea.

They lifted the corpse into their boat, and laid it on the prow, the head resting on the arm. The little boy was watching for them; and when he saw the seventh man, {171} he thought he was some other fisherman who had fallen asleep after his night of work.

He cheerily called out, "Breakfast is ready; come along!" and ran to the hut to see that all was right.

When the six were seated at the table, the boy asked, "Where is the other man? Will he not have breakfast too?"

The boy ran to the canal and called out loudly, "Breakfast is ready, and there is enough for you. Why do you not come?" Getting no answer, the boy went again to the hut, saying, "What ails him? He will not speak."

"Ah," said another, "the old fool is deaf. You must shout at him and swear a little."

Again the boy went down and shouted, "The others wait for you. Come along, old fool!" But again the man moved not.

The third time back to the hut ran the boy, saying, "Come, one of you! He will not wake for me." But they only laughed and said, "Go shake his leg, and say we cannot wait till doomsday for him."

The boy did as he was bid, and clambered into the boat, and shook the man, who then sat up on the prow and said, "Go back and tell them I am coming." Then the boy hastened back, and found the men all laughing and joking, and he cried out, "It is all right now, and he is coming."

Suddenly the laughter ceased, and the six men turned ashy pale. They heard the footsteps approaching, and soon the dead man came in and sat in the boy's place. The eyes of the others were fixed on him, and they could neither eat nor speak. They could not turn their eyes from the stranger's face, and their blood was gradually chilled in their veins; and when the sun was risen, seven {172} dead men sat around the table, and the poor little boy was alone. It is from this event that the valle is called the Valle dei Sette Morti.

Ghost-stories are rare in Venice. There is another that one usually hears. It concerns a house called "haunted." It stands on the most easterly point of Venice, and is spoken of as the "Casa degli Spiriti." The old women say that "once upon a time" a fine young Venetian lived there with a charming bride, and the friend who had been their groomsman visited them frequently. He was godfather to their first child, which is a very sacred relation in Venice, and is called "Compare di San Zuan." After a time the young wife and the compare fell in love with each other. The husband knew this very well, and all three of them were most unhappy.

Just then the compare died; and so greatly did the lady suffer that she grieved herself ill, and was about to die. Her faithful maid knew all the story of her love and grief, and with her last breath her mistress begged that when she was dead no one else should be permitted to watch beside her; and although the other servants would gladly have kept the vigil, the maid was left alone beside her dead mistress.

At midnight the door opened, and the dead compare came in. The maid could neither move nor cry out, and the ghost raised his dead love up, and she began to dress. When she was ready, the ghost took her arm, and signed to the maid to light them on their way. Then the three went down, down to the very lowest vault beneath the house; and there the compare struck the torch from the hand of the maid, and she swooned on the floor.

Thus runs the story of the old women; but there are other explanations of the name of this old house, which even now bears traces of its former beauty, though the whole edifice is going to wrack and ruin. A second {173} story is quite as gruesome as the first, since it says that here dead bodies were brought by medical students, and autopsies made before they were buried in San Michele, which is very near. This is the view adopted by J. A. Symonds, who says:—

"Yonder square white house, standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, it was the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest before their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many generations of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now no fitting house for living men."

But a pleasanter explanation is, that long ago an artistic and literary society held its meetings here, and from the beaux esprits who habitually gathered beneath its roof, it came to be called the Casa degli Spiriti.

Perhaps the most amusing Venetian ghost-story is that of the parish priest of San Marcuola, who declared his disbelief in ghosts in a sermon, and exclaimed, "Where the dead are, there they stay!" This made the ghosts of those who had been buried in San Marcuola very indignant, and they revenged themselves by going at night, in a body, to the chamber of this priest, whom they dragged out of bed, tossed about, and soundly thrashed for the insult he had put on them.

Meantime, while this story-telling has gone on, it has grown quite dark, and as we come into the canals, the calls, Stalì, Premè, are very frequent. These cries of the gondoliers are curiously startling, especially at night; but the celerity with which they are obeyed, and the narrow escapes from accidents, prove their usefulness. Stalir means go to the right; Premier, go to the left; and Sciar, or Siar, means that the boat is to be stopped by turning the flat side of the oar against the current. Monckton Milnes prettily explains this in his verses:—

"When along the light ripple the far serenade
Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid,
She may open the window that looks on the stream,—
She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream;
Half in words, half in music, it pierces the gloom,
'I am coming—stalì—but you know not for whom!
Stalì—not for whom!'

"Now the tones become clearer,—you hear more and more
How the water divided returns on the oar,—
Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair?
Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare?
Oh! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view,
'I am passing—premè—but I stay not for you!
Premè—not for you!'

"Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear,—
Then awake not, fair sleeper,—believe he is here;
For the young and the loving no sorrow endures.
If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours;
May the next time you listen your fancy be true,
'I am coming—sciàr—and for you and to you!
Sciàr—and to you!'"

CHAPTER X.

THE TWO FOSCARI; CARMAGNOLA AND COLLEONI.

When the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo was about to die, he made a most remarkable statement, summing up the past and present condition of Venice, and giving much advice concerning its future, especially as to the election of his successor. One of his most pronounced judgments was against the election of Francesco Foscari. He prophesied that under his rule Venice would be perpetually at war, and that many other events would occur to lessen her prosperity. But in spite of all that he said, Foscari was made Doge at the tenth scrutiny, on April 15, 1423.

It is true that under his reign Venice was constantly at war; but since he had even less power than any of his predecessors, the responsibility of war or peace did not rest with him. He was a man of great ability, and had filled many offices of trust with honor. Abroad he had served as ambassador at several courts. At home he had once been Chief of the Forty, three times Chief of the Ten, and twice their Inquisitor. At the time of his election he was fifty-one years old, the father of a large family, and the husband of a young wife who added to the number every year.

Such festivities as satisfied even the Venetian taste for splendor followed his election; and, indeed, the tournaments and other spectacles were continued for a twelve-month. The thirty-four years of Foscari's reign was a {176} period of great importance. The Republic, by joining the Florentines against Milan, was involved in a series of conflicts, sometimes gaining, at others losing, always engaged in intrigues, sending and receiving embassies, making treaties only to be broken, as it would seem, but finally, in 1454, emerging from a struggle of thirty years indisputably the first of Italian powers. Hazlitt says:

"The Venetian Empire was the most extensive, and promised to be the most durable, which had been formed on any constitutional principles since the days of the Romans. The Venetian Senate was the most august assembly in the world. The Venetian Navy was the finest which Europe had ever seen. During war, Venice employed, even at an exorbitant stipend, the best troops to be procured and the ablest generals of the age; and among her Captains of Companies it was not unusual to find Hereditary Princes. Her patricians, so far from being purely political in their education or sordid in their tastes, prided themselves on the extent and versatility of their acquirements. They excelled in all manly exercises and in all enlightened pursuits. Not content with reading contemporary history, with mastering the intricacies of diplomacy, or with attaining the highest honors in the military profession, they studied the language which Cicero spoke, the language of the Anabasis, and the language of Holy Writ. They applied themselves to the liberal, mechanical, and occult sciences, and to the Fine Arts. They became diligent scholiasts. They searched for manuscripts with an avidity eclipsing that of De Bure. They formed libraries, some of which were far larger than the Public Collections at Oxford or Paris. Some gave gratuitous instruction in the Elements of Euclid; others lectured on Ethics or Metaphysics. A Trevisano devoted ten years to the composition of a single Treatise, which he never lived to finish. A Giorgio naturalized among his countrymen the literature of the Troubadours and the songs of Provence. To a Polo, scientific men were indebted for the first book on Travels in China, Kamtschatka, and Japan. A Pisani filled Europe with the fame of {177} her beauty and genius; and four nations competed for the privilege of doing her honor! She chose France, and France was flattered by the choice.

'D'avoir le prix en science et en doctrine,
Bien mérita de Pisan la Christine,
Durant ses jours.'"

But the deep interest we feel in Francesco Foscari is not centred in the affairs of Venice while he served as its figure-head and held but a semblance of power, the real potency being in the Seigniory and Council of Ten. In the great rush of state affairs, conducted as they had come to be, each single man was lost. The State only survived; and its methods of secret councils and its schemes of unlimited ambition made of this same State a vast and overwhelming machine, the workings of which in their completeness were only comprehended by a few patricians, each one of whom was jealously watching to prevent every other from the exercise of any distinguishing or undue power.

It is with the personal experiences of the Doge that we are concerned. Within a few years his large family was swept away by death. Of his five sons Jacopo alone remained. He was a gay young fellow, who paraded in the Broglio, and took his part in all the gayeties and pleasures of his time. He was an elegant scholar, a collector of manuscripts, and altogether a delightful companion in a ladies' salon or on a festal day.

In 1441 Jacopo Foscari was married to Lucrezia Contarini, whose family had given three Doges to Venice. The marriage was celebrated in the Ducal Chapel before the immediate families of the Foscari and Contarini; and not until the third day did the rejoicings begin, which continued for ten days, and were very magnificent, as the gentlemen of both families were members of the Compagnia della Calza (Company of the Stocking). This society of {178} young noblemen was formed for the purpose of holding jousts, serenades, regattas, and like entertainments, and took its name from its peculiar uniform, which consisted of a striped, party-colored stocking on the left leg, reaching to the hip, drawn over tight breeches, and embroidered with figures of animals and birds. With this was worn a doublet of velvet or cloth of gold, with open sleeves and facings, and a shirt-frill. A flowing mantle of some costly stuff was thrown back on the shoulder, displaying a richly embroidered stocking on the lining; and the whole was completed by long pointed shoes studded with precious stones, and a black or red bonnet, also bejewelled. Aristocratic ladies were honorary members, and wore a stocking embroidered on their sleeves on festive occasions. As the society increased, it was divided into various branches, of which the Immortelles, Royals, Ethereals, and Peacocks were the most noted; but the most exclusive part of the society is said never to have numbered more than eighteen.

Since Foscari and his bride were both members of the Calza, the festivities attending their marriage were under its care; and the presence of Francesco Sforza, Barbaro, and a hundred Brescian nobles then in Venice, added much to the elegance of the assemblies. The Doge and the College appointed a "Master of the Feast," whose duty was to regulate everything that took place. At the appointed time all the Company of the Calza, in their most gorgeous apparel, repaired to his house, where the procession formed.

Each member had two servants in his private livery, and four others in the livery of the Calza, besides other attendants, dressed in silk, and men-at-arms in full armor. Masters and men were all provided with horses caparisoned with green velvet trimmed with silver. The bridegroom had twenty mounted attendants, while others had {179} from ten to fifteen. The procession was magnificent. So many jewels flashed in the sun, so many richly colored velvets and brocades were worn with easy grace, so many horses caracoled to the sound of trumpets, that the people in windows, balconies, and on the housetops could do nothing but applaud. The houses of the streets through which the cavalcade passed were hung with tapestries, silks, and banners, or arched with flags spread on lines stretched from one side to the other.

The procession rode around the Piazza and the court of the Ducal Palace, and then over the Grand Canal, on a bridge of boats, to the Contarini Palace at San Barnaba. Here the fair young bride came out to meet the procession. She was attended by two grave and reverend procurators of St. Mark in black dresses and cloaks, which by contrast heightened the beauty of her robes of white silk. Twelve children, all dressed in white, bore her train. In her dark hair diamonds were so woven that those who would see her face were forced to shade their eyes from the flashing of the jewels, and on her neck were the rarest of pearls, besides precious stones of great value on other portions of her person. She wore a cloak of lightest fur, as the wintry air compelled her to do. Sixty maids of honor followed her, all dressed in blue with many rare jewels, and all wearing cloaks. The Company of the Calza and their attendants formed two lines. Foscari descended from his horse, and made a profound obeisance to his wife, then placed himself beside her, and they, followed by the sixty maidens, walked between the lines of the cavalcade to the Church of St. Barnaba, where they heard Mass. After this the Lady Lucrezia, her maids, and the members of the Calza, with Sforza, Barbaro, and the Brescian visitors, took their places in the square outside the church, and listened to a eulogy upon the two great families united by this marriage, pronounced from a pulpit by a richly dressed priest.

The oration ended, Foscari and his bride returned to the palace of her father, while the cavalcade rode through the city, displaying their horsemanship, and engaging in mock battles in the squares, to the great delight of the people.

In the afternoon a splendid repast was furnished at the Ducal Palace, and then the Bucentaur was rowed up to the Piazzetta, where a hundred ladies in costly dresses embarked and proceeded to the Palazzo Contarini. Here they were joined by the Lady Lucrezia and her husband, attended by another hundred ladies. Then the Bucentaur, followed by numerous gayly decorated gondolas, rowed to the Palace of Sforza, to the sound of music, and paid a visit of state to the Captain-General, who then went on board the Bucentaur, and the whole company proceeded to the Ducal Palace. The Doge and Dogaressa, with a train of fifty ladies, met the barge at the landing; and they, with their guests in procession, entered the palace, where the evening was spent in dancing.

The next day festivities were resumed. Now a tournament was given, in which the nobles of Venice and their honored guests tilted together. Again a regatta was held, with large prizes, and the gondolas were brought out which were only seen at festivals. They were richly carved and gilded, and fitted with curtains and cushions of silk and velvet. The best rowers competed for the prizes, and won them amid great applause. Each day some novel feature was introduced. Acrobats and others performed their feats of agility in the squares, the bells rang softly all day long, bands played in the squares at night, and the people danced, while the patricians were entertained at a series of balls at the palaces of the nobility. Thus ten days passed, and then, as a finale, there was a procession of illuminated boats, every seventh one carrying musicians, which passed through the canals, and around the islands near Venice.

But three years elapsed before Jacopo Foscari was suspected of having taken bribes for his services in obtaining offices per broglio, which would be called lobbying in our day. The Broglio was the lower gallery or arcade under the Ducal Palace, which was a general meeting-place for the higher classes, and where all sorts of schemes and conspiracies were broached, and consultations held; in short, an exchange which might be frequented for both good and evil purposes.

The penalties for such offences as those of which the young Foscari was accused, were very severe, and Jacopo was doomed to banishment in Naples, where each day he must present himself before the representative of the Republic in that city. Before this sentence was pronounced, Jacopo had fled to Trieste, and there fell ill. After some months he was permitted to go to Treviso; and at length, in answer to a pathetic appeal from his father, he was pardoned, and returned to Venice.

Again, three years later, one of the Council of Ten who had condemned Jacopo was assassinated as he was leaving the palace. The evidence which connected Jacopo with this murder was so slight that it is not worth recounting; but suspicion of him was strong enough to cause his arrest, and it is even said that he was tortured, with no result. He was now banished to Candia, where, separated from wife and children, from the refinements that he loved, and without congenial pursuits, he suffered a restlessness so intense that he further criminated himself for the sake of returning to Venice, even though that might mean the rack anew. He wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, the enemy of Venice, asking his aid with the Seigniory. This letter he managed to have fall into the hands of the Council, never trying to send it to Milan at all.

He was also accused of having addressed a letter to the {182} Sultan, imploring him to send a vessel to convey him away secretly. He was now brought to Venice, and before the Council made a full confession, no doubt through fear of the torture-chamber, so near at hand. Some of the Ten favored severity. Loredano even wished him to be beheaded between the Columns, but the mild sentence of a year's imprisonment at Candia was the final result. When this sentence was given, he prayed that he might see his family, all of whom had been rigidly excluded from him and from the court during his trial. His father, mother, wife, and children were permitted to visit him; and when the time for his removal came, he was with them in the Ducal Palace. Even then, after all he had suffered and caused others to suffer, he did not seem to realize that the execution of his sentence was as sure as fate itself. He seemed rather to believe that some one could reverse it all; and naturally that some one seemed to be the Doge, his father, who, alas! knew but too well his utter powerlessness.

Amid the sobs and kisses all around him, once more he cried, "Father, I beseech you, make them let me go home!" But the old Doge, in his despair, could only reply, "Jacopo, go; obey the will of the country, and try no more," in saying which no doubt he suffered more than he who heard these fatal words.

All hearts were touched by these terrible griefs of the old Foscari, and six months later a full pardon was obtained for the son. But it was too late. He no longer lived to be condemned or forgiven. When this news came, the Doge was eighty-four years old. His courage was gone. He could no longer give heed to public matters, nor could he endure to sit in that court which had tortured and exiled the last of his sons. And so he stayed away; and soon there was a murmur against him, and a complaint that he no longer made a pretence of {183} having authority and of being necessary to the State,—a lie which he was tired of acting. Foscari had more than once proposed to retire, but the Council would not hear of it. Now, however, he was asked to resign his office; and when he did not answer quickly enough to please his persecutors, he was told that if he did not leave the palace within the next eight days, his property would be confiscated. He made no resistance. The ducal ring was drawn from his finger and broken in his presence. The ducal bonnet was taken from his head, and he promised to leave the palace at once.

As the deputies left him, Foscari caught the eye of one, Jacopo Memmo, who looked at him with sympathy and compassion. He called him, took his hand, and said, "Whose son art thou?" "I am the son of Marin Memmo." And then the Doge: "He is my dear friend. Tell him from me that it would be sweet to me if he would come to pay me a visit, and go in my bark with me or a little pleasure. We might visit the monasteries."

That very day the Doge left the palace with his old brother Marco, followed by his household. Marco said, "It is better to go to the boat by the stair that is covered;" but the old Doge replied, "I will go down by the same stair that I came up when I was made Doge." And then they rowed away to the splendid palace to which Jacopo had taken Lucrezia Contarini sixteen years before,—the house that we may still see on the point of the Grand Canal, where it turns to the east, with the water on two sides, and its fine old gateway on the small canal at the back. Here, in 1574, Francis I. was lodged, it being thought more suited to his royalty than any other in all Venice.

And here, many years before, on Oct. 24, 1457, came the old Foscari to die. The new Doge was elected on the 31st; and on All Souls Day, when the new prince {184} went to San Marco to Mass, Foscari's son-in-law there announced that Foscari was no more. His funeral was magnificent. The new Doge was obliged to loan his crown to his predecessor, when he was laid in state in the palace from which he had been expelled but one short week before. Every honor was bestowed on him, dead, that the Republic could give. He was carried to the Frari, with many tapers lighting his way; and, to quote Mrs. Oliphant, "there he lies under a weight of sculptured marble, his sufferings all over for five hundred years and more; but never the story of his greatness, his wrongs, and sorrows, which last gave him such claims upon the recollection of mankind as no magnificence nor triumph can bestow."

When the bell rang
At dawn, announcing a new Doge to Venice,
It found him on his knees before the Cross,
Clasping his aged hands in earnest prayer;
And there he died. Ere half its task was done,
It rang his knell.
ROGERS.

So intense was the excitement in Venice, caused by the deposition and death of the old Doge, that the Senate forbade "the affair of Francesco Foscari to be mentioned on pain of death."

The story of Jacopo Foscari affords a striking commentary upon the changes which had come over the armies of the Republic. It would seem that the want of any serious and engrossing occupation—a sort of elegant idleness—had led Jacopo to his misfortunes; and this idleness would not have been possible during so stirring a period as that of his father's reign, if the Venetians had still done their own fighting as they did it in the reign of Enrico Dandolo.

In Foscari's day it had come to be the custom, all over Italy and in other countries of Europe, to hire men to kill and be killed for money. Mercenary troops they were fitly called; for they not only received their hire, but they robbed the peasant of his harvest, and from the wealthy land-owner they extorted gold. Venice had employed these bands when they were made up of Bretons, Hungarians, Gascons, and other men, who spoke no Italian, and thought solely of gain; but by the middle of the fifteenth century the Free Lances had come to be an organized institution, with unwritten laws, which were well understood by them and by their employers; and the general or leader of these bands who was not successful was in much danger of having his head taken off by the Seigneur or the government he served, on the charge of treason. A most famous leader of one of these bands of condottieri was Francesco Carmagnola.

The name of his father was Bussone; but the soldier took his name from the town, near Turin, in which he was born, in 1390. While he, as a boy, tended flocks upon his native hills, the clash of arms and the noise of battle which filled all Europe reached even his ears; and fired with desire for adventure, he deserted the first duty of his life, and through one chance and another entered the service of Facino Cane, a great general in the service of the Duke of Milan. Carmagnola soon proved his fitness for the profession he had chosen, but it is doubtful if the jealousy of Cane would have permitted him to come to the front. It may therefore be said to have been the making of his fortune when Facino Cane and Gian Maria Visconti died on the same day, and Filippo Maria Visconti became the head of the house; for when this young prince needed a general, he chose Carmagnola, who embraced his cause zealously, and at once took Milan for him, and subsequently, one after the other, overcame the {186} cities which had revolted. Naturally this was a work of time; and meanwhile the great captain was high in the favor of his prince, held a conspicuous position at court, and was the chief counsellor of the Duke in all important matters.

So distinguished had he become that the Duke had given him a wife from his own family, with the privilege of bearing the name of Visconti, and the arms of that reigning house were also conferred on him. To the large booty won in his service great wealth had been added, and this peasant soldier lived in Milan in a style suited to his riches and his wife's birth. He was in the midst of erecting the Broletto, a royal palace (now used for municipal purposes), when the shadows of misfortune first fell on him. This was in 1424, when Foscari had been Doge of Venice for a year, and twelve years after Duke Filippo Maria had made Carmagnola his captain-general.

This Duke suffered much from morbid timidity. His sensitiveness as to his personal appearance amounted to torture, and caused him to seek a seclusion that but increased his morbidness. He was so suspicious of all who served him that he made it the duty of one set of guards to watch over another, and so on, through several relays, and then purposed himself to watch the last. The fear of murder haunted him, and he used all his ingenuity in devising schemes of self-protection, such as constantly changing his apartments, and other methods equally futile if his fears were well grounded.

He married the widow of Facino Cane, Carmagnola's first commander, and through the conquests and efficient counsels of his great captain, the Duke was now the master of the Lombard plains and many wealthy cities, while he was respected as well as feared by his rivals. Finally Carmagnola had added Genoa to his other conquests; and this proud rival of Venice, with her commerce {187} and her splendid harbor, seemed to complete the glory of the Duke of Milan. It may be that it was all suspicion on the part of the Duke (when one has such a nature as his, who can tell?); but at all events, it would seem that the glory which this last success brought to the Captain was more than the Duke could support. He feared lest Carmagnola should become too powerful, and naturally there were enemies of the successful man who were only too ready to encourage suspicions against him; and though there had been no thought of treachery imputed to him, the Duke demanded the surrender of the troop of three hundred horse, which had been Carmagnola's special command.

He implored the Duke not to deprive him of his soldiers, without which his life would be wretched. But to his prayers no answer was made, and he began to perceive that evil influences were working against him. He was at Genoa, of which place he had been made governor, and the Duke was at a fortress on the borders of Piedmont, not far away; and his letters not being answered, he determined to face the Prince. In full assurance of regaining the confidence of the man for whom he had done so much, he set out with all the impulsiveness of a generous nature.

Imagine his surprise when, arrived at Abbiate, he was not permitted to pass the bridge into the castle. The guards had been forbidden to admit their commander-in-chief. However, he did not yet understand that he was insulted, and sent word to the Duke that he desired an audience. The answer directed him to communicate with Riccio (his deadly foe), as the Duke was too busy to see him. Carmagnola curbed his pride and anger, and again sent to say that his message was for the ear of the Duke alone; and to this no answer was vouchsafed.

As he waited with a handful of followers on the bridge, {188} his only answer being a command to speak to his well-known enemy, he thought he saw the face of the Duke at a loophole above. As he looked down on the scene around him, he found himself in the midst of his own hirelings, who were only too glad to see their peasant captain humbled. The fire of his rage flamed forth, and he called God to witness his innocence of any wrong to the Duke, in thought or deed, and then accused his enemies as perfidious traitors, and swore a solemn oath that they should soon feel the want of him to whom they would not now listen.

He turned his horse and rode towards the Ticino, the border of Savoy, his native province. This much alarmed the conspirators, who were watching from the castle, and an attempt was made to call him back; but he rushed furiously on, and stopped not until he reached the castle of the Duke of Savoy, to whom he told his story and offered his services. But Amadeo was a clear-headed, cautious man, and well knew that he could not compete with Milan; and Carmagnola, seeing that there was no hope for him here, remembered that he knew of a power greater than that of Milan, and cautiously made his way to Venice. He was received with the distinction which his fame as a soldier commanded, and possibly more, just at the time of his arrival, when there was already a question of war with Milan, in behalf of Florence.

Envoys from Milan and Florence were already at Venice when Carmagnola arrived, and the whole city was full of excitement. Indeed it was a curious thing to watch the representatives of these two Italian States, so near to each other geographically, both of one nation and tongue, and yet so different,—the Florentines grave, and occupied only in the serious affairs which had brought them hither; the Milanese, gay in dress and manner, carelessly passing here and there, as if their only object were to see the {189} sights in this Queen of the Sea, of which they had heard so much. But they could scarcely have failed to have some uneasy thoughts when they saw Carmagnola there. The man whom they had driven from their midst by unjust accusations, the man whom they had insulted and betrayed, was not likely to help their cause with the Republic, nor speak to the Senate in accord with the representations they would there make. But all must have the privilege of speech, and the interest to hear was very great with the Venetians.

The Florentine Ridolfi was the first to whom the Doge and Senate listened. He made a passionate and moving appeal, begging that the Venetians would unite with the Florentines to curb the power of Milan, and warning them that when Philip had once overcome Florence he would find the means to conquer Venice also. The Senate was greatly moved by his eloquence and the force of his arguments, but they were divided between sympathy for Florence and hesitation at the enormous cost of aiding her, between fear of Philip for themselves and doubt of his ability to overcome and dominate Florence and Venice; and they thought it best to listen to the Milanese before expressing themselves to the Florentines.

Very different from the earnest pleading of Ridolfi was the bravado of the orator from Milan. He declared that he and his companions had come on no important embassy, but simply to pay their respects to Venice and her Senate in the name of their Duke. They had no league to make, no favors to ask, since the treaties which existed between Milan and the Republic were still unbroken. He then represented the Florentines as false men, whose speech was full of lies. He declared that though the former rulers of Milan had been enemies of the Venetians, Duke Philip was their friend, as the Visconti had been for a century, and that he desired peace and repose, being "the {190} very model of liberality and courtesy." In fact, no new light was thrown on any subject by the speech of the Milanese, and the Senators were much divided in their opinions. A part were for immediate war with Philip, who only desired to speak them fair until he could overcome Florence; the others begged for greater caution, and recalled the truth that to begin a struggle was much easier than to end it.

It was now Carmagnola's turn, and a new wrong which he had suffered filled his wrath to the full. At Treviso an attempt had been made to poison him. It had failed, and the perpetrator of the act had paid for it with his life; but it had turned the feeling of injury which Carmagnola had cherished before into fierce hatred, and he appeared before the Venetian Senate with fire in his heart and on his tongue. With hot words he depicted the benefits he had conferred on Philip, and the base ingratitude with which he had been treated. He declared that he had received no rewards, but simply the just hire for what he had accomplished; and now, he said, the prince he had thus served had not only wounded and insulted him, not only turned his back on him, and driven him into exile, but he had sought to kill him,—not in a fair and open battle, such as soldiers love, but in the way of the cowardly assassin, with poison. He then congratulated himself on his preservation, and declared that although he had left his wife, his children, and his wealth in the country he had lost, he was still fortunate in that he had found a country where justice was honored and villains did not rule.

Carmagnola then represented that Philip was far less powerful than he was thought by the Florentines; that his soldiers were not paid, his citizens were not rich, and his own means were much exhausted; that the Duke's successes had depended on himself; and that without him {191} Philip was weaker than the Florentines, and much weaker than Venice. And finally he offered his services to the Republic, promising to increase its dominions and to conquer Philip, and declaring that though they might have had greater commanders, none had been more loyal than he would be to Venice, and none had ever hated her enemies as he hated the Milanese.

The speech of Ridolfi had appealed to the intellects of the Senators, but that of Carmagnola moved both their heads and hearts, and almost all pronounced for war. Foscari followed; and an old chronicler says that "the energetic speech and great influence of the Doge, which was greater than that of any prince before him," decided the Senate to make the league with the Florentines. War was at once declared against Milan, and Carmagnola was made general of the forces. He speedily led to action the soldiers who were ready, while all Italy was scoured for recruits.

The first point of attack was Brescia, and the story of its possession is indeed a sad one. Historians disagree as to the extent of blame to be fixed on Carmagnola; but at the best, as Bigli gives it, it seems a cold-blooded betrayal of the many Brescian friends of the great captain. By the aid of two men within the city, at the dead of night, Carmagnola marched his troops into the Piazza, the very centre of the city, and suddenly, with an illumination of torches and blare of trumpets, announced his sovereignty in the name of Venice, which he now served. The historian says: "Though at first dismayed by the clang of the trumpets and arms, as soon as they [the inhabitants] perceived that it was Carmagnola, they remained quiet in their houses, except those who rushed forth to welcome the besiegers, or who had private relations with the General. No movement was made from any of the fortified places in the city."

So far all had gone well, but the real work was yet to be done; and it was only after seven months of siege, of trenching and assaults, of shutting out supplies, and many tasks which demanded infinite skill and patience, that Carmagnola was master of the city with all its wealth,—a splendid conquest for Venice. Brescia being actually reduced, the villages and castles belonging to it surrendered without resistance, and as far as the Lago di Garda the sovereignty of the Republic was acknowledged.

Philip was furious, but as he was in no condition just then to make war, he employed a legate of the Pope to make peace for him; and this was accomplished at the cost of his relinquishing, not only Brescia, but a portion of the Cremonese territory, in all nearly forty miles in extent.

Meantime, in all these months, there had been some mysterious elements in the conduct of Carmagnola, which by no means escaped the all-searching eye of Venice. Very early in the siege of Brescia he had left the authority with his chief engineer, and after a plundering expedition on Lago di Garda, had retired to the Baths of Abano, pleading that an old wound in his thigh gave him so much pain as to unfit him for service. The Venetians regarded this as a hint for some benefit to be conferred on their Captain-General, and they promptly made him a noble of Venice, with the title of Count of Castelnuovo, and offered him a principality in Cremonese territory if he would rejoin his army and push his victory across the river Adda.

The Duke of Milan, on his part, was pursuing a tortuous policy, by which he set a snare for the great Free Lance. He determined to make it appear that he had some understanding with Carmagnola. His envoys were constantly seeking the General, and whenever Philip made any proposals to Venice, he named this officer as {193} his ambassador. Carmagnola was weak enough to be flattered by this. He believed that he was absolutely essential to both Venice and Milan, that everything revolved around him, and that he might decide the fate of these two powers from his retirement at the Baths of Abano.

The treaty which followed the fall of Brescia was signed in December, 1425, and in one clause of it the Duke promised to restore to Carmagnola his property in Lombardy; but Visconti broke this as well as other stipulations of the treaty, and it soon became evident that war was again inevitable. In February, 1427, Carmagnola was summoned to Venice to aid the government in its plans for a new campaign. Soon after his arrival his wife joined him, and was accorded, by the Seigniory, a splendid reception, in which neither trouble nor money was spared; and thus the Senate indicated to its Captain that his faithful service would be fully recognized by the Republic.

The second campaign more plainly revealed the sluggishness of Carmagnola. In spite of the impatience of Venice and the magnificence of the rewards she promised, there was no activity. Again the Duke was full of intrigue, and pretended intelligence with the Venetian commander. It began to be understood at Venice that Carmagnola was neither as great nor as sincere as the Senate had believed when he first addressed them; and their distrust was not lessened when again the Duke proposed terms of peace through the mediation of his sometime friend and commander.

Casal Maggiore had been retaken by the Milanese. Angry letters were sent to Carmagnola, who replied that when the proper time arrived he would recover it in three days. This he did; but as he wished to free all his prisoners, according to the then custom of war, and as the {194} Republic was a law to herself, and did not aim to follow the rules of mercenaries, there was a direct disagreement at once. The Senate ordered the captured garrisons to be detained. Carmagnola obeyed, but considered it a disgrace to his honor as a soldier. He so resented this infringement of his authority that he allowed his opportunities to slip away unimproved. The Duke was now sorely pressed by Savoy, as well as Venice, and yet Carmagnola refrained from entering his territory, and quietly remained in camp at Casalsecco and on Lago d' Iseo; and it was not until October, 1427, that by the battle of Macalo he retrieved his fame, and restored the Venetians to good-will towards him, in spite of the great dissatisfaction and grave suspicions of him which they had entertained for months.

A house in Venice at San Eustachio was given him, with Castenedolo in the Bresciano for himself and his heirs; and two nobles were sent to convey the thanks of the Republic to him, and at the same time to exhort him to follow up his victory at Macalo with a series of equally splendid triumphs, which were clearly within his reach. The government also suggested that the time had arrived for passing the Adda, and ending the war by a glorious victory which would insure an honorable peace.

But it seemed that Macalo was deemed sufficient by Carmagnola to quiet Venice for a time; and though all Italy agreed in the view of his employers, he did no more, and at the end of the year asked for permission to go again to the Baths. The disgust of the Venetians may easily be imagined; but as the Duke had already begun negotiations for peace through the friendly offices of the Pope, an ungracious consent was yielded to the request of their general; and as the envoys of the Duke came to him, even at Abano, he fancied that he could return to Milan whenever he willed. He was playing a game for himself, {195} like a true mercenary soldier, and he desired by his sluggishness to lay the Duke under obligations to him. No doubt he intended to return to the service of Visconti, whose constant wars brought him great wealth in booty; and then his half-finished palace was there, and we can readily imagine that his wife desired to return to her own country.

While he was at Abano the negotiations proceeded, and a peace which was advantageous to Venice was signed on the 19th of April, 1428. Almost immediately Carmagnola made a triumphant entry into Venice, and his old father came to see how his son was honored by the Republic. Forty years ago a peasant-herder, he was now a noble of the proudest republic of Italy. Days of festivities followed. Venice had not realized her fullest hopes; but the Peace of Ferrara gave her Brescia and Bergamo, and added much to her territory and her importance.

But no peace with Milan could be long maintained, and soon the Senate knew that a third war was inevitable. They had paid Carmagnola the customary retaining-fee, and felt themselves quite secure of their leader, when suddenly, just as hostilities seemed imminent, he sent in his resignation. When the Senate met to consider this outrageous act, Carmagnola distinctly stated his price. He must have a thousand ducats a month, in peace or war. And now the mortification of Venice was complete. Through distrust of her own sons, and by her own laws, no Venetian gentleman could command more than seventy-five men. Had their General been one of their own countrymen, with Venetian soldiers, as in the old days, how great would the difference have been! But now, with the Duke of Milan ready to attack them, they were at the mercy of the great condottiere.

The war actually began in 1430, and this third campaign seemed only to emphasize the conduct of the second. {196} Carmagnola was more inactive. The Duke sent his envoys to the General with greater frequency. The Venetians were less patient, especially as the audacity of their General became more and more surprising. In spite of offers to reward him with the lordship of Milan if he would reduce it, he refused to move. He attempted no concealment of his constant communication with Philip. He even wrote to the Senate concerning the envoys who were with him, and took no warning from the sullen replies he received. He was trifling with Venice, and did not try to hide it; and he was not intriguing with the Duke, although the latter intended to make it appear so, and succeeded in his plan.

According to Sabellico, the discussions of the Senate over the best way to treat Carmagnola went on for months. There were those who had always distrusted him. Others refused to desert his cause unless proofs of his treachery could be given. The General was in Venice during these discussions, but had no suspicions of them. This proves the perfect faith of the councillors, for his friends would not tell him any sooner than his enemies; and though there were those of them who greatly needed the rewards that the General would so generously have given for the information, not one would speak. The great court of the palace has been the scene of comedy and tragedy, many times repeated; but one act in the Carmagnola drama which occurred here is by no means the least interesting of these events.

One morning as the General went to pay his respects to Foscari, he met him passing from the Council Chamber to the Palace. The soldier cheerfully asked if he should bid his Serenity good morning or good evening, as he had not slept that night. To which the Doge smilingly replied that among the many matters spoken of in the long discussion nothing had been more frequently mentioned than {197} Carmagnola's name,—a ghastly joke when we know that the discussion involved the soldier's life.

At last the whole matter was put in the hands of the Council of Ten, who at once invited the General to come to Venice to consult on matters of importance. Utterly unsuspicious, he set out at once; and all along his way, on the plains of Lombardy, as he rode, or as he sailed down the Brenta, he was honored and welcomed as if he were a royal personage. At Mestre he was met by eight gentlemen, who blandly escorted him to his fate. We may well wonder of what they talked to him,—if they told him of his wife and daughter who were expecting his return; or were they silent and abstracted, as if preoccupied with the grave questions to be discussed with him before the Council? They conducted him directly to the palace, and there dismissed his retainers, saying that their master would be long detained by the Doge, who had much to say to him.

Not finding the Doge, Carmagnola turned to go to his own house; and then his friends, under pretext of showing him a shorter way, conducted him through intricate passages into the prisons. When he saw to what place he had been led, he exclaimed, "I am a lost man!" And when his friends endeavored to console him, he replied, "No, no! we do not cage the birds we mean to set at liberty."

It is easy to understand that the Seigniory were determined on his death. They would be free of him, and did not wish him to serve any other power. It is said that the Doge favored his imprisonment for life; but, be that as it may, he was examined and tortured, and finally led, with a gag in his mouth, to the Piazzetta, and there decapitated "between the Columns." He was buried in a church which no longer exists, and later his remains were taken to Milan. His family was banished to Treviso, {198} with a small pension, and commanded not to pass beyond certain limits under pain of death. Strangely enough, what became of them is not known.

Severe as Venice was in her treatment of her great mercenary, and stupidly as he acted his part, they were both consistent with their position and character. He was an adventurer, thinking only of himself,—not a traitor in the usual sense of the word, and yet untrue to the interests he was most generously paid to protect. Venice was unforgiving of lighter sins than those of Carmagnola; and in accordance with her views and policy, he must die. Each acted logically and consistently from the stand-point of the principle, or want of principle, by which they were governed. Carmagnola would offer a favorable subject for the dramatic dissection of character which is so popular in our day. And for one thing he must be remembered and admired,—he was not a traitor in deed, whatever he was in thought; and this can be said of none of his fellow-captains. They all, sooner or later, betrayed one master for another; and this fact entitles Carmagnola to be called THE GREAT SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

This condottiere is called Coglioni by his biographer, Spino, who tells us that he was born near Bergamo, in 1400. His father, a noble of no exalted rank, was driven from his fortress by a conspiracy in his family; and Bartolommeo and his brothers very naturally sought military service and pay, according to the custom of their time.

Having acquired a certain recognition in the service of the Queen of Naples, Colleoni, with forty horsemen, entered the service of Venice at the beginning of the first campaign under Carmagnola. Did we credit his {199} biographer with perfect truthfulness, we should esteem him to be already a great soldier. There is no doubt that he did good service at Bergamo, when, with his own horsemen and three hundred infantry, he warned the Bergaraese of the approach of the army under Piccinino, and helped them to prepare for the attack so well that the Milanese were forced to retire.

In 1448 Colleoni was made a lieutenant in the army of Sforza, as undisturbed by his change from the enemy to the friend of Milan as possible. In 1455 he was made the Captain-General of Venice, and remained in that position ten years; but even while he held so important a post, the mention of him in the Venetian records is quite unimportant, until in 1475 it was recorded that he had died at his castle of Malpaga, where he had lived in great luxury.

To the Republic he bequeathed arms, horses, and other objects of value, with 216,000 ducats in money, on condition that his statue should be placed in the Piazza of San Marco. The Seigniory were overwhelmed by this liberality, and were anxious to show their appreciation of Colleoni, but their laws forbade compliance with his ambitious request to stand forever in their Piazza. The Senate, however, considered that the condition was sufficiently fulfilled by placing the statue in the Campo in front of the Scuola di San Marco, and near San Zanipolo, where it now stands,—a horse and rider so alive, so full of force and motion, that it seems like a guardian of Venice, that would tread under foot any foe who came to harm her.

This was the second equestrian statue cast in Italy; that of Guattemalata at Padua, executed by Donatello a little more than twenty years before, being the first, and which, doubtless, inspired Colleoni with the ambition to be thus immortalized.

The statue was designed by "Andrew the keen-eyed" (Verocchio), but was completed by Alessandro Leopardi, whose name is seen on the horse's girth. The story goes that Verocchio came to Venice, and had modelled the horse when he was told that another artist was to execute the rider. In his indignation at this he broke the head and legs of the horse into fragments, and returned to Florence. The Senate sent after him a decree prohibiting his again entering Venice under pain of death. To this he replied that he would surely obey, as he knew that were his head taken off no power in Venice could replace it, while he could easily replace the head of his horse, and doubtless improve it.

After a while the Venetians realized his value to them, and rescinded the edict, at the same time asking him to return, with the promise that he should be undisturbed, and should have his pay doubled. Verocchio was thus pacified, but had not finished his horse when he was attacked by a fatal illness, and in his will begged the Senate to permit his pupil Lorenzo di Credi to complete the work. In spite of this, the Venetian Leopardi received the commission, which he executed so well as to be afterwards called Leopardi del Cavallo. The figure of the rider of this wonderful horse sits straight in the saddle, with its head turned so as to look over the left shoulder. The face shows remarkable determination, and the deep-set eyes are in accord with this expression. It is clad in armor, with a helmet on the head. The trappings of the horse are richly ornamented, and the mane is knotted. The elegance of the pedestal adds much to the effect of the whole.

Mrs. Oliphant may well say: "It is a great thing for a man when he has some slave of genius either with pen or brush or plastic clay to make his portrait. Sforza was a much greater general than Colleoni, but had no Verocchio {201} to model him. Indeed, our Bartolommeo has no pretensions to stand in the first rank of the mediæval condottieri." And as I have tried to trace his story I have thought that had he not given so generous a sum of money to Venice, and had she not made this statue, we should scarcely have heard of him. Is not this in reality a monument to Verocchio and Leopardi rather than to Colleoni?

CHAPTER XI.

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE.

The artist has gone on a tramp in the Alps, and now begins the long neglected sight-seeing,—a pure delight in the golden October days. There is no such haste in the early morning as in the summer time, and it is usually ten o'clock when I have read my papers, written my letters, and Anita is ready to go with me with her never-failing luncheon-basket; for we do not like to be bound to return at a fixed hour, and we never know quite where we shall be when we are hungry, so we take our collazione with us. As a rule we are home again at four, just in good time for a cup of tea and a rest before dinner. When the summer is over, it is delightful to feel that the gondola is not obligatory, to use it only for excursions on the lagoons, for views on the Grand Canal, for moonlit evenings, and when one is indolent. Venice is quite another place when one walks and makes the acquaintance of the curious, characteristic campi and calli, as well as of some of the people. One of the most charming walks is along the Riva degli Schiavoni, ending at the Arsenal, after various detours.

Passing through the Piazzetta, we turn to the left on the Molo. This side of the Ducal Palace is beautiful in spite of the disproportion in the height of the lower story; this is caused by the rising of the sea-level, which is said to average three inches in a century, and consequently the pavement must be raised; if this is correct, the columns {203} of the palace must be fifteen inches below the present pavement. The entire loggie on this side of the palace are the work of the Bon family; the designs on the capitals of the columns are very curious, illustrating mediæval allegories and legends which symbolize justice and good government. The windows are fine, and the balcony in the centre is richly ornamented; the bas-reliefs are wrought with great delicacy and skill.

From the Ponte della Paglia, at the end of the Molo, we have the best possible view of the Bridge of Sighs, which Howells calls a "pathetic swindle," and not without reason. It was not built until the end of the sixteenth century, since which there has been but one victim of political imprisonment. But there it hangs, high in air, "a palace and a prison on each hand." Looking up from the Paglia it is most effective, although vulgar prisoners only have passed over it to their death. No doomed Foscari or Carmagnola ever saw it; and perhaps its greatest interest is from that much-worn line of Byron's, "I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs."

Passing the Paglia, we are on the Riva degli Schiavoni, in front of the Carceri, or public prison. As the apartments of the Signori di Notte (heads of police) were on this side, it was not made to look like a prison. Below are rustic arches, above which Doric columns, on pedestals, support a fine cornice with consoles in the frieze. The upper rooms are now used for convicts and the windows are grated. One can but wonder how it would seem to be there, shut off from the world, and gaze out on the beautiful Church of San Giorgio Maggiore and the lagoon beyond, with the ever-changing aspect of the divinely colored waters; to watch the multitudes of steamers, gondolas, and other boats passing and re-passing; to listen to the sound of steps and voices on the Riva, and to all the different songs and cries from the boats. It must be {204} maddening. Was it the effect of the restless waves that Saint John watched from Patmos, in his exile, that made him say, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea"?

Passing another bridge, we turn into a curious vaulted passage at the left which leads to the beautiful Church of San Zaccaria; it is three centuries and a quarter old, and the third which has been erected on this spot. Architects lavish praises on it; Fergusson says: "One of the finest of the early façades of Italy is that of San Zaccaria at Venice."

In 854 Pope Benedict III. visited Venice, and the Abbess of San Zaccaria succeeded in obtaining from his Holiness the gift of the bodies of Santa Sabina and San Pancrazio and other sacred relics. After these treasures had been received, the Doge Tradenigo paid a visit of devotion to this favored shrine, and the abbess presented to him the splendid Ducal Beretta. It was studded with rare gems, having in the centre a large diamond surrounded by twenty-four pear-shaped pearls; above the diamond was a ruby of dazzling brilliancy, and in the front a cross was woven which contained twenty-three emeralds and other precious stones. The Doge made a solemn promise that each year he, and his successors after him, would visit San Zaccaria at Easter, in solemn procession, and wearing the precious Beretta.

The nuns of this sisterhood also gave a part of their garden to enlarge the Piazza of San Marco, and proved themselves as generous and public-spirited as they were opulent.

From the ninth to the twelfth century the Doges were buried in San Zaccaria; and the same Tradenigo who received the Beretta was assassinated in front of the church, where the column now stands. Its architecture {205} is semi-Byzantine, except in the choir, which is Gothic. The pentagonal tribune is beautiful, with its circular arches below and its pointed arches above, which are exquisite in proportion and effect.

Near the door of the sacristy is the monument of the "Michelangelo of Venice," Alessandro Vittoria. He began this funeral monument thirteen years before he died! The bust is by his own hand, and the whole work is very interesting.

But that which holds us longest in San Zaccaria is the picture of the Virgin and Child, with four saints, by the adorable Giovanni Bellini. It is not one of his best, but it is a glorious picture. In 1797 it made the sad and disgraceful journey to Paris, and the restorers have not improved it; but in spite of all, we love it, and before we go away must also see the same master's small picture of the Circumcision, in a chapel of the choir, which is very much admired.

As we return to the Riva and pass on to the Ponte del Sepolcro, a very different sort of interest is aroused by the sight of the inscription upon the house which now replaces the Casa del Petrarca. The Palazzo delle due Torri was given to the poet in 1362 by the Republic, in return for a portion of his library. This frank statement of a perfectly creditable business transaction is somewhat of a shock to those who have thought of Petrarch as a disinterested benefactor of Venice. But we must remember that he was now nearly threescore years of age; he had exhausted the romance of his life long before; he had attempted to make peace between the Italian powers in vain; he abominated the manner in which wars had come to be made, by employing the mercenaries who brought with them pestilence and death; and he longed for a peaceful home for his old age more than for anything else.

With what comfort he must have settled himself in his luxurious house on the Riva; how differently must he have felt from those prisoners in the Carceri, of whom we have spoken, when he gazed upon the broad harbor and heard the bustle of the port! That it all appealed to him is proved by the following extract from one of his letters:

"See the innumerable vessels which set forth from the Italian shore in the desolate winter, in the most variable and stormy spring, one turning its prow to the east, the other to the west; some carrying our wine to foam in British cups, our fruits to flatter the palates of the Scythians, and, still more hard of credence, the wood of our forests to the Ægean and Achaian isles; some to Syria, to Armenia, to the Arabs and Persians, carrying oil and linen and saffron, and bringing back all their diverse goods to us."

He soon gathered around him a choice circle of friends; Boccaccio came to visit him and remained three months. What a picture is presented to our imagination when Petrarch reminds the great story-teller of their "nocturnal rambles on the sea, and that conversation enlightened and sincere"! He urges him to come again in this wise: "The gentle season invites to where no other cares await you but those pleasant and joyful occupations of the Muses, to a house most healthful, which I do not describe because you know it." It is not thus that we are apt to think of Laura's lover, or of the author of the Decameron; but in Venice they seem to have been two quiet old men seeking peace and health.

An interesting occasion when Petrarch played an important part was that of the great tournament which terminated the festivities after the capture of Crete in 1364. He sat beside the Doge in a balcony behind the horses of St. Mark. The balcony was as splendid as the richest awnings and hangings could make it, and the ducal {207} robes and crown were in strange contrast to the black gown and hood of the Laureate. Did he take pleasure in the thought that his fame as a poet would be known to future millions who would not be able to call the name of a single Venetian among the thousands who were there assembled? Surely it was a pleasant episode in Petrarch's life, this time in Venice; but it was all too short, and ended most unhappily.

After four years on the Riva, in that "house most healthful," a number of the patrician giovinastri—all infidels and much puffed up with their little learning—after discussing their philosophies with Petrarch came to the grave decision that he was "a good but ignorant man"! To us it is absurd that this great poet should have given a serious thought to such folly; but the same sort of young men had driven Marino Faliero to such straits that he turned traitor. Petrarch showed his pain and indignation in a milder way, by quitting Venice to return no more. This was certainly the worse for Venice, since he imparted to the Republic the only poetical association connected with its palmy days. No poet with a name to live was born of that nation of wise statesmen, bravo soldiers, cunning merchants, and glorious artists. We can but wonder if it would have comforted him to know that the first exquisite book from the Aldine press in Venice, more than a century and a quarter after his death, would be his own poems and printed in fac-simile of his own handwriting!

Petrarch retired to Arqua del Monte, a quiet little town in a valley of the Euganean Hills, where he lived peacefully, visited by his friends and enjoying the many proofs that came to him of the appreciation which the scholars of his time had for his character and works. In 1373, again he went to Venice with Francesco Carrara Novello, who was to make submission as the proxy of his father, {208} after the treaty at the termination of the Carrarese War. Again, the Laureate addressed the Doge, the peers, and senators, as the Apostle of Peace; it was his valedictory at Venice. In July, 1374, he was found dead in his library at Arqua.

"But knock, and enter in.
This was his chamber. 'T is as when he went;
As if he now were in his orchard-grove.
And this his closet. Here he sat and read.
This was his chair; and in it, unobserved,
Reading, or thinking of his absent friends,
He passed away as in a quiet slumber."

While thinking thus of the happenings on this very Riva five centuries agone, we pass through the narrow calle which leads to the campo of San Giovanni in Bragora. The pictures in this church are very interesting, and the font by Sansovino is beautiful; but to-day the Palazzo Badoer especially appeals to me, and yet one must almost regret having seen it since the restorers—Heaven save the mark!—have spoiled it. If the ghosts of the seven Badoer Doges ever walk this way, what must they think of the squares of red and white marble in which it is now dressed?

What a family they were, descended from Tribunes of the Rialto in the time of Theodoric the Goth; and to what good purpose they swayed the Ivory Sceptre during seventy-four years. It was Badoer II. who erected the first chapel in the Ducal Palace for the body of Saint Mark, which came to Venice during his reign. A daughter of Badoer IV. was an abbess of San Zaccaria, and many of the sons of these Doges entered the Church; but theirs was a proud, brave, just, and patriotic race, better suited to governing the Republic than to the offices of Holy Church. In their day the Doges were absolute monarchs, and the Badoeri gave almost constant domestic tranquillity to Venice, and won the hearts of the Venetians.

And now we are in the broadest street of Venice, the Via Garibaldi. It leads to the Giardini Pubblici, which is a park rather than a garden, and was made by Napoleon in 1807. The space was gained by the destruction of four churches, as many monasteries, and a hundred houses, none of which are now missed. It is a pleasant place to take luncheon, with a lovely panorama before us, to which the boats and their ever-fascinating sails give life and cheerfulness. Beyond the canal of the Giudecca rises the dome of the Redentore; the square tower of the Dogana and the cupolas of the Salute make a striking effect against the cloudless sky; well round to the right we see the top of the Campanile behind the Ducal Palace, and before us, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with its picturesque church and fine clock-tower, seems very near.

Undoubtedly, all this is best at sunset with the golden west for a background; indeed, few points are so favorable for watching the glorious death of day, especially if one lingers while the fires die out and even the more delicate tints fade away. Then a mysterious indistinctness steals over all the distant objects, but now so clearly cut against the flaming sky. There was a reality and emphasis about these towers and spires, the canals, and all the moving objects that made them a part of a work-a-day, practical world, but in the dusky twilight the outlines run together; we see and do not see the true forms of the various parts of Santa Maria della Salute, but a beautiful whole remains; even the nearer San Giorgio becomes mysterious; the smaller features disappear, while the whole is profoundly impressive and grand, seeming to clothe itself with the night, as if retiring into its own world of peaceful and solemn repose.

But at whatever hour one comes, this garden seems deserted, except on the one September Monday when it is the custom to picnic here. To-day we leave it quite empty, {210} and walk along the Riva of the Rio di Sant'Anna, making our way to the calle larga and the bridge which connects Venice with the island called San Pietro, or Olivolo, or Quinta Valle. Early in the history of Venice this island became important; and the first large church of the Republic, built here among the olives, was made the patriarchal church, and so continued until Napoleon bestowed that honor on San Marco, and converted the patriarchal palace of San Pietro into a barrack. After 766 the Bishop of Olivolo was an important man; he could not have been very wealthy, since his income depended on the mortuary tax, from which he was called Vescovo de' Morti (the Bishop of the Dead), and on an annual poll-tax of three hens from the people of a certain district.

One evening in June, 836, as the Doge Badoer III. was leaving San Pietro after vespers, unattended, as was his custom, he was seized by a number of bravoes, who compelled him to submit to the tonsure and then hurried him to a neighboring convent, where he was securely lodged. To kidnap a Doge of Venice was a most high-handed and extraordinary proceeding, and it is gratifying to know that his enemy who caused it to be done, was not elected to fill the vacancy he had created.

It was also at San Pietro di Castello, as the church came to be called, that the "Brides of Venice" were wed. By ancient custom, on Saint Mary's Eve, January 31, twelve poor virgins, endowed by the Republic, came here with their lovers, parents, kinsfolk, and friends; the brides were dressed in white with their hair hanging loosely about the shoulders, and each one with her dower in a little box suspended by a ribbon around her neck. Many boats dressed with flags and flowers bore the happy company over the canals towards Olivolo.

The Doge and the chief officers of State assisted at the ceremony, and the Bishop preached a sermon and pronounced {211} a blessing on all these fortunate young people, who went away wedded and joyous. But in 939 a most unhappy interruption occurred. The pirates of Trieste, who knew all about this wholesale wedding, hid themselves near by until all the assembly had entered the church, and then, rushing in, just as the brides were to be given away, they seized them, even at the foot of the altar, and before the Venetians could comprehend the danger, the maidens were in the barks of the pirates and sailing towards Trieste!

No such outrage as this had ever been perpetrated in Venice, and the Doge Sanudo II. summoned the people to arms with the bell of the Campanile. The trunk-makers offered their boats, which were near at hand, and the Doge with the lovers and friends of the brides were soon in hot pursuit, and erelong hundreds of other boats followed. They soon overtook the Istrians, and killed almost every one of them in the conflict which ensued. The rescued brides were taken back to the usual festivities of the evening, which were greatly enhanced by their gratitude at being delivered from the unusual dangers that had threatened them.

After this episode the Festa delle Marie was established. Twelve dolls were dressed in bridal costume, and carried around the Piazza in procession; but this dumb show did not satisfy the Venetians, and was soon replaced by a solemn procession of twelve virgins attended by the Doge and the clergy. They paid a visit of ceremony to the parish of Santa Maria Formosa, where the trunk-makers who originated this festa welcomed them most hospitably. Tradition says that when these men requested the Doge to institute this Andata, he asked,—

"We will give you hats for your head; and if you are thirsty, we will give you drink," answered they.

Accordingly, each year, the Doge received two bottles of Malmsey, two oranges, and two hats, on one of which was his own coat-of-arms, and that of the reigning Pope on the other. In the thirteenth century such extravagance had crept into this ceremonial that the brides wore crowns of gold adorned with precious stones, and cloaks of cloth of gold, and all in the procession were treated to wine and sweetmeats. This was continued until 1379, when the War of Chioggia interrupted all Venetian merry-makings; and on account of its cost, and a certain license of conduct which had been indulged in its celebration, the Festa delle Marie was discontinued.

Another delightful story in Bandello relates that Elena was secretly married to Gerardo, and separated from him by the same cruel fate that presides over many secret marriages, and on the eve of an enforced marriage she fell into a death-like trance and was laid in a sarcophagus in San Pietro. On that very evening a more propitious fate brought Gerardo home from Syria. When he learned of Elena's death, he rushed to the church, snatched her from the tomb, and carried her off; in his embrace she again found life, and the sorrowing parents gladly forgave these most interesting young people.

Having all these associations with San Pietro in mind, I had long wished to go there, but I found little to detain me. The Campanile (1474) is stately and fine, but the church (1594-1621) is not interesting. There is little to notice within. Two pictures by Marco Basaiti are soft and graceful, as are all his works; and the faces of the saints seem to express enjoyment of their placid melancholy. Near one of the altars is an ancient Arabian seat or throne, said to have been used by Saint Peter at Antioch. It was given to the Doge Pietro Gradenigo by Michele Paleologo in 1310. The curious inscriptions on the back are thought to be in Arabic.

Retracing our steps to the Via Garibaldi, we turn into the corte nuova, and soon stand where one is sure to be impressed with the power and grandeur of Mediæval Venice.

The first Doge of the Falieri had the honor to found the Arsenal, than which nothing could be more important in that "City of the Sea." There is a fascination in thinking of the time when the ringing hammers were swung by brawny arms, when the pitch was always boiling, and the primitive vessels of the Middle Ages were built with a miraculous rapidity; but in the eight centuries that have rolled away since its foundation there has never been a time when the Arsenal of Venice was not of great interest, as it still is.

Formerly, more than now, it seemed to be the ever-flowing fountain of Venetian greatness; for no matter by what enemy the Republic was threatened or attacked, no matter whether the danger was to her commerce or her territory, it was to the Arsenal she turned for strength. To repulse her own enemies, whether they were Saracens from the East, Genoese from the West, or pirates from all quarters, her Arsenal must furnish her with ships and arms; and in order to increase her wealth, the sea must be an open field to traffic and enterprise. To insure this, her ships must be many and fine; and, in short, but for her Arsenal she could never have attained or preserved her empire of the waters.

And now, although the workshops are not teeming with artisans, and the forges are not blazing as of old, it is not difficult to imagine the thousands and tens of thousands of men who here forged and welded the real strength of the beloved Republic.

The Venetians, among modern nations, first built ships on a truly great scale. Their galleys were enormous in power; their transport ships could carry a thousand men {214} with their stores; their galeasses permitted sixteen hundred men to fight on board, while they carried fifty pieces of heavy artillery, and had their prows made cannon proof. Naturally the nations with whom they disputed the sea endeavored to build ships equal to those of Venice; but she always had one advantage, in that even the small vessels bore at least fifteen guns, and the Venetian gunners were good marksmen.

Even to the end of the thirteenth century, however, the Arsenal was not firmly established, and vessels were built in temporary dockyards, wherever room was found. But with the beginning of the fourteenth century the Senate determined on making the Arsenal so fine and so strong that it could not be taken by an enemy. It was constantly guarded, and many attempts were made to destroy it. At the end of the fifteenth century it was under the care of a special magistracy, and sixteen thousand ship-builders and thirty-six thousand seamen were employed in Venice.

The three magistrates or keepers of the Arsenal were appointed for a term of thirty-two months, and were obliged to inhabit three official houses, called Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. Each keeper was on duty fifteen days at a time, during which he slept within the fortification, kept the key in his room, and was answerable with his head for the safety of the place. But one passage led out of the Arsenal,—that to the iron gate which opens on the small campo. With the exception of the great lions now at the entrance,—brought from Greece in the seventeenth century,—the exterior has changed but little in three centuries and a half.

Small arms and artillery were made here, as well as ships; and in each department the superiority of the manufactures resulted from the skill of the workmen and the quality of the materials used. The ship timber, after {215} being carefully selected and brought from various countries, was floated near the Lido for ten years to season it. The different parts of the vessels were cut and fitted in the workshops with such exactness that they could be put together with marvellous rapidity. It is said that when Henry III. of France visited Venice, a galley was put together and launched in two hours, while he was at a banquet; and during the famous League, before the battle of Lepanto, for one hundred days a new galley left the Arsenal each morning.

In truth, the Arsenal was a town by itself,—a town of foundries, forges, magazines of arms, and munitions of war, timber-yards, rope-walks, model-rooms, and warehouses; a town full of smoke, toil, and uproar. Dante had been here; and when he wished to describe a lake of pitch in which corrupt statesmen are immersed, in his Inferno, he thus begins:—

"In the Venetians' arsenal as boils
Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear
Their unsound vessels; for the inclement time
Sea-faring men restrains, and in that while
His bark one builds anew, another stops
The ribs of his that hath made many a voyage,
One hammers at the prow, one at the poop,
This shapeth oars, that other cables twirls,
The mizzen one repairs, and mainsail rent."

The Arsenalotti, as the workmen were called, had their own organization and certain privileges. They well merited the confidence of the Republic, which they called their "good mother;" and she wisely gave them pledges of her trust. The treasures of San Marco, the Mint, and the Bank were guarded by them. Whenever the Great Council assembled, the Guard of Honor before the Ducal Palace was elected from their number. Each new Doge was attended by Arsenalotti, when, after his election, he went through the city to receive the congratulations of {216} the people; and, above all, the Bucentaur was in their care when the Marriage with the Adriatic was celebrated.

We can readily understand that the destruction of the Arsenal was the first aim of the enemies of Venice. It was only by "eternal vigilance" that it was preserved, and the severest punishments were thought too mild for those who attempted its ruin. In 1428 a man suspected of being a tool of the Duke of Milan and of intending to burn the Arsenal was dragged at a horse's tail and then quartered in the Piazzetta. Certainly a man who would burn the Arsenal was not needed in Venice, and we are not surprised that the Council of Ten were of this opinion; but they might have used a more humane method in his taking off.

For example, in the Museum of this very Arsenal there are many instruments of torture that one would not care to have used, even for the worst criminal imaginable; but there is one curious little death-dealer that claims to give its victim no pain whatever. It is a sort of key with a spring, by means of which a poisoned needle is shot into the victim, who dies without discomfort or the loss of a particle of blood.

Going home from the Arsenal, we take a gondola; and as we glide along, we recall the curious tableaux vivants which we have seen in this long ramble. All about the quarter of San Zaccaria we saw and heard the bead-stringers, as busy with their tongues as with their fingers. They are very skilful, and in their bright-colored handkerchiefs, with here and there a flower or gay comb or pin in their dark hair,—they know exactly how and where to put them in order to make the best effect,—they are picturesque, and some of them very handsome. They hold a tray of beads on the lap, and with a long needle, which carries the string, they dive among the beads at one end of the tray, push it quickly through the whole mass, and bring it up and out at the other end, {217} well laden with the fascinating, many-tinted little globes. They do it as if they enjoyed it, and meanwhile they talk with each other, have a few words with the passers-by, and amuse and scold the children who play around them.

From San Pietro one sees, on the opposite side the canal, a neighborhood much adorned with fishing-nets. They are spread or hung everywhere that they can be made to stay on, and at a distance the effect is curious and picturesque. Old sails, too, are being dried or mended, while new ones are cut, sewed, or painted. This last process is novel and interesting; and as Giacomo needed a new sail for the sandolo, we saw the operation. The colors used are principally red and orange, and more rarely a pale green and a heavy sort of blue. If by chance you see a distant sail with a spot of sky blue on it, you will find on nearer acquaintance that you were looking at the real sky through a rent in the sail. The colors are made by mixing a kind of earth with water and adding the coloring matter; and these colors are "set" by dipping the sail, when finished, in the sea, and drying it in the sun, repeating this several times. The colors are applied with a sponge instead of a brush; and when one sees in how rude a manner the painting is done, it seems a wonder that the results are so effective. The artist (?) simply walks around the edge of his design with his sponge full of color, and the broad, rough outline is made. A certain slap and dash puts in the details, and the background is laid on rapidly.

Our new sail had a red heart pierced by an orange arrow, on a blue field, and the outer border was in stripes of dull red and orange. It sounds uncommonly ugly on paper, but Giacomo and Anita were very proud of it; and after it was soiled and faded it was not bad, although the plain colors, or stripes and geometrical designs, are preferable, we think,—but we are not Venetian gondoliers or fishermen.

CHAPTER XII.

VENETIAN WOMEN: CATERINA CORNARO, ROSALBA CARRIERA.

In the history of Venice women play a very unimportant part. They seem, so far as the public were concerned, to have been put away with their best clothes, only to be brought out on such occasions as were suitable for the display of fine attire and splendid jewels. If they had power, it was certainly behind the throne, and so far behind that by no chance was it ever apparent.

The names of eight women who devotedly nursed the Genoese prisoners after the battle of Porto d' Anzo, have been preserved. There is a tradition about a very beautiful and learned Pisani. Now and then an abbess is mentioned, like that one of San Zaccaria, of the Morosini family, who presented the Beretta to the Republic. All we know of Caterina Cornaro seems to depend upon the fact that the Republic, by adopting her and making her Queen of Cyprus, was able to add that island to its dependencies. But for that fact we should probably not have heard of her; and, in short, of what Venetian woman do we know, of whom we may be proud, save Rosalba Carriera? and she was born after Venice was far on the way to its decline.

The historical fact that such a magnificent collection of jewels as adorned the Beretta existed in Venice in the middle of the ninth century proves that its Oriental commerce must already have been prosperous and extensive; and the earliest paintings of Venetian life represent a {219} remarkable splendor of costume and ornament. We know that the fifteenth century was the most luxurious period in Venice; but its wealth and splendor were gradually developing during five centuries at least, and happily the decline, though much more rapid than the growth, did not rob its actual life of æsthetic interest for at least a century and a half after its well-recognized beginning.

We turn to the canvases of the Bellini, Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto, and Palma Vecchio to see what the Venetian ladies were like; but we must remember, alas! that many of these were not the honorable wives and mothers of the men who made the strength and glory of Venice. Where else have the women who give their beauty and their lives for the pleasures of men been so much in evidence, so tolerated, and so luxurious in their living, as in Venice in her palmy days? They were not even excluded from the society of the Dogaressa herself on the occasions of balls and festivities in the Ducal Palace.

Their houses were marvels of luxury; and in the society that gathered about them the best wit, the most brilliant conversation, and the most delightful music in Venice were enjoyed. It was to the drawing-rooms of the women to whom he would not introduce his wife, much less his daughter, that a man must go if he would meet the best artists, scholars, and thinkers of the city. It was there and there only that women were found who were accomplished in music and poetry, and could interest superior men by their superior talk. Was the conversation of the lightest matters, and did they say nothing, they said it in a fascinating way; or were politics and the more earnest questions of life discussed, they were strong in their opinions, discriminating in their judgments, and quite as bold in their expression of them as the Ten would have permitted men to be. Their bon-mots were {220} quoted, their goings and comings were noted, and, in short, the interest of all Venetian gayety centred about these women.

Quite the opposite was true of the real gentildonne. They were rarely seen except on great public occasions, when, to the credit of the husbands, it must be acknowledged that they were careful to see that their wives were more magnificently attired than their mistresses. But so rarely were they seen that this indulgence could well be accorded them without envy. Yriarte calculates that not more than sixty or seventy of the seven hundred noble ladies of Venice were seen daily. Many of them were not in society more than two or three times in a year, and then on the most formal and ceremonious occasions.

While the more favored ones moved all about the city, clad in rich silks and velvets, the patrician wives wore a long black silk cappa; and even if they possessed beauty, nothing in their every-day dress added to its effect. They were guarded with almost Oriental jealousy. Why not? If a man cannot believe in himself, cannot trust himself, how can he trust another? The remark of the councillor when talking of the pattens that the ladies wore—sometimes two feet in height, so that to move at all they must lean on two attendants—gives the key to the whole theory of suspicion and lack of confidence.

The French ambassador spoke of the pattens as most incommodious. The Doge admitted that shoes would be more comfortable and convenient; but the councillor, shaking his head with a cynical expression, remarked, "Yes, far, far too convenient." God help the women who live in such an atmosphere!

The matrons, however, were far more fortunate than the maidens, whose dress was symbolical of retired life and domestic education. The home was all their world, and they knew nothing of any recreation outside the {221} family circle. Even down to the last century it was not allowable to introduce gentlemen to the unmarried daughters of Venetian nobles. Their dresses were most simple, of plain white or black, and when they went to church, they wore the fazzuolo, a long white veil. On other occasions this was exchanged for a silken mantle, very thin and gauzy, through which they could see, but not be seen.

The marriage day was the day that brought freedom. For the first time the maiden was introduced to society, and it was intended that on that day she should first see the bridegroom. We more than suspect that many of the faithful and trusted nurses permitted the fazzuolo to be thrown aside for a moment when they well knew that the lover was watching in concealment for a glimpse of the face of his future wife; and sometimes these nurses so sympathized with the lover as to grant him meetings, all too brief, by the church door or in some crooked calle.

With the innate love for dress and gayety entirely ungratified, without a jewel or ornament, save a simple cross or a rose from the garden, why should the Venetian maiden not dwell with longing anticipation on the thought of her wedding day, and if ever she talked with other girls, of what else could they speak? But, after all, when she saw the life of her mother and other matrons, what great pleasure did marriage offer her? Freedom in a sense,—servants, a gondola, ropes of real pearls, the formal court balls, and other ceremonies, all observed under the strictest rules of etiquette. To us there does not seem to be much brightness in the life of noble Venetian women, married or single.

The preliminaries of a marriage having been duly arranged by the parents and friends on either side, when the day arrived, the groom, bearing his gifts, went to the Ducal Palace, where he was welcomed by his own friends {222} and some of the friends of the bride. The marriage banns were published, and all present shook hands. These friends and the magistrates who were engaged in the ceremony, with the bridegroom, all went that evening to the home of the bride, where they were welcomed by her relatives and friends. And now, for the first time, the bride appeared. She was dressed in white, and still wore her veil, which at the proper moment was unfastened, and as it fell disclosed her long hair falling about her shoulders, and the marriage formula was pronounced.

The bride, followed by her maidens, with a rhythmic motion, to the music of flutes and trumpets, then passed around the salons and welcomed each guest, and afterwards retired to her own apartments. Whenever new guests arrived, the bride and her maidens repeated the dance of welcome, and at the end they all descended the staircase to the canal, where a gondola awaited them. The bride's seat was richly decorated, and raised in front of the cabin, and with her attendants she went to a convent to announce her marriage. Here other relatives and friends were waiting to congratulate her.

The next day many ladies called to pay their compliments to the bride, and after a few days some grand festivity or a series of banquets took place, as was the case when the marriage of Jacopo Foscari was celebrated. Five or six hundred guests were frequently entertained, and vast sums were expended in decorations of the house, in choice dishes and rare wines, until at last these lavish expenses were restricted by sumptuary laws.

About 1450 the wealth of the nobles was at its climax, and such extravagance was indulged in dress and entertainments that in 1514 certain Senators demanded a hearing in full Senate to denounce the ruinous manner in which money was spent by the Venetian ladies. In 1474 certain stuffs and jewels had been actually prohibited by {223} law, and pearls were most severely forbidden. In 1514 amber, chased silver, agates, ladies' cloaks, laces, diamond buttons, chains, silk capes, lace sleeves, enamelled gold, damasks of all colors, velvets of all qualities, leathers, embroideries, fans, gondolas, with their rugs and carpets, and sedan chairs lined with velvet were all put under regulations. The style and cost of entertainments were limited. The expense of the gold and silver plate, the cost and number of courses served, even the sweetmeats and smallest details of the table, were legislated upon. For some time already the Dogaressa had been under strict orders as to her costumes at home and abroad, at church, on ceremonial occasions, and even in the privacy of her own apartment.

At certain times these rules were relaxed by necessity. How could plainly dressed women support the background of the salons of the Ducal Palace? When there they must be gorgeously attired; and knowing that these opportunities must come, the ladies of Venice bought as many pearls and other jewels and as splendid garments of every sort as they could get, and waited impatiently for a festival when they might wear them. In 1574, when Henry III. visited Venice, an edict announced that, "all contrary decrees notwithstanding, it shall be permitted to every lady invited to the said feast to wear all dresses and jewels of what kind soever seems to them most favorable for the adornment of their persons."

One can imagine the result. How gladly these ladies, so long restricted to plain dressing, would vie with each other in the beauty and richness of their dress in these festal days; and from the pictures and the written accounts of their magnificent costumes we know with what success their efforts were crowned. Some of them covered their arms, chests, throats, hair, and even their robes with pearls of untold value, sometimes costing millions of ducats.

For a long time the custom of bleaching the hair prevailed. A large hat-brim with no crown was used. The hair, being wet with some preparation, was thrown out of the crown space and spread over the broad brim, which shaded the person from the sun. Thus prepared they sat on their balconies and housetops as long as a ray of sunshine could be had. Titian and Veronese painted golden and shining hair on women, goddesses, and nymphs because no other color of hair was in good form. Many of the fashions in dress of the Venetian ladies of the time of the Renaissance were artistic and elegant; others were too grotesque for expression, and none more so than the pattens, to which we have already referred. Not being tall and stately, they wished to raise themselves artificially; but when pattens were extreme in height, all elegance and dignity of carriage was out of the question.

One can but wonder how the "potent, grave, and reverend seigniors" of the Venetian Senate could have found time to attend to all the detail of the dress, and even of the eating of the Signori, their wives, and their guests; but it is plainly to be seen that the jealousy which had led them to lessen from year to year the power and dignity of the Doge, found food to feed upon in the privileges and honors which were permitted to the Dogaressa.

As early as 1084 the extravagance of the wife of Doge Selvo was much written of by the chroniclers of the time. It was said that this Theodora, the daughter of a Greek emperor, had her cheeks bathed in dew every morning to give them a glow of freshness. This would not seem to have been an expensive habit. Her ablutions were made with rose water, and her linen was scented with fine balsams; and so many aromatic perfumes pervaded her apartments that it was not unusual for her maids to faint while dressing her. She always wore gloves, and fed herself {225} with a double-pronged gold fork; and all this was so sinful in the eyes of the Venetians that the loathsome malady from which she died was regarded as a legitimate punishment of her vanity.

We have elsewhere spoken of the custom of conducting the wife of the Doge to be seated on the throne beside him soon after his own investiture with the insignia of his office; and as the luxury and pageantry of Venetian life increased, naturally the first lady of the Republic acquired more importance and greater privileges. At length, in 1595, the wife of the Doge, Marino Grimani, who was herself of the Morosini family, was conducted from her home to San Marco in a style that aroused all the jealousy of the Seigniory. She was dressed in cloth of gold, and wore a gold crown. The Bucentaur brought her to the Piazza, and strains of martial music there welcomed her, as well as salvos of artillery. In the palace she occupied a throne, and was attended by noble ladies in regal state. The festivities in which she played a prominent part were extended unusually, and the Pope sent her the golden rose, which is presented only to sovereign princes.

This was more than the jealous Senators could endure. It was also noticed that this ambitious lady wore a closed or arched crown,—a privilege denied to all but such reigning princes as acknowledged no superior. It was now thought to be high time to limit the state and assumption of these ladies; and the Senate published a decree ordering the golden rose to be taken from the Dogaressa and deposited in the treasury of St. Mark, and good care was afterwards taken that no other Dogaressa should be crowned at all.

This beautiful woman was born on St. Catherine's Day, in 1454, in one of the distinguished Venetian families. Her mother was the granddaughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, and her father of most noble descent.

James Lusignan, whom, as king of Cyprus, Caterina was afterwards to wed, had been driven from his home by the intrigues of the second wife of his father, Elena Paleologus, who, in order that her daughter might come to the throne, had secured James's appointment as Archbishop of Nicosia, where he lived a gay life, little suited to the office he held.

Many Venetian merchants frequented Nicosia; and there Andrea Cornaro, uncle of Caterina, became the intimate friend of the youthful archbishop. Happily for James, Queen Elena died before his father, who at once recalled his son to his side with the intention of securing the succession to him. But death claimed the old king before the proper steps had been taken; and Charlotte, the daughter of Elena, was proclaimed queen. James took the oath of allegiance, and was about to leave the island, when he was detained and confined in prison, and an attempt made to poison him.

But thanks to his friends and the Cypriotes, who preferred a king to a queen, he escaped and reached his bishopric, fully determined to dethrone his sister if possible. Genoa had favored Charlotte; and Andrea Cornaro was confident that on this account, if for no other reason, Venice would aid James to gain his rights,—such was the enmity between the two republics. Queen Charlotte was greatly alarmed by the escape of James. She knew not what to fear from his intrigues, and she was fully conscious of her unpopularity in Cyprus. She was {227} betrothed to Louis, son of the Duke of Savoy, who had been selected by Queen Elena on account of the feebleness of his character, for the desire to rule absolutely was so powerful with her that she wished for no energetic son-in-law; and little as she could rely on him, Charlotte begged him to hasten to her assistance. Louis passed through Venice, and reached Cyprus before James had time to perfect a plan of action.

At Nicosia James felt himself to be in danger, and determined to fly; and as the Sultan was the titular ruler of Cyprus, James put himself under his superior at Alexandria. The beauty and charming manner of the young king of Cyprus, together with his sex,—a strong argument in his favor to the Oriental mind,—so influenced the Sultan that in the midst of his Mamelukes, in the great hall of the palace, he adopted James as his son, ordered him to be robed and crowned, and declared him King of Cyprus. It has been said, and repeated by a few chroniclers, that James signed a recantation of the Christian faith, and thus succeeded in his plans. Indeed, a document of this nature was sent to Pius II.; but it is believed by good authorities that this paper was a forgery perpetrated by the knights of Rhodes, who were greatly in favor of Queen Charlotte.

Be this as it may, James was twenty-two years old when the Sultan gave him ships and Mamelukes with which to conquer Cyprus. Very shortly he was master of the kingdom. Little resistance was made, and that was of a feeble sort. Louis returned to his father's court; and Charlotte went first to Rhodes, and then to Rome, to implore the aid of the Pontiff against her infidel brother and his allies. James now saw that his enemies—the Genoese, the Duke of Savoy, and the Pope—were far too powerful for him to struggle against them without aid, and the only bribe with which he could repay an ally was {228} his kingdom. Marriage was his one means of salvation, and Cyprus was a dowry that could not fail to be acceptable. Several powers hinted at their readiness to form such an alliance with him; but Andrea Cornaro boldly asserted that Venice only could maintain his power, and proposed his niece, Caterina, as his wife.

It is said that by chance James had seen a miniature of Caterina, and had fallen in love with the sweet girl it represented; but the uncle skilfully pretended that the original of the picture was quite out of the reach of the king, and aroused him to a frenzy of passion. Then he told the truth,—that Caterina was his niece, and could only be won as Queen of Cyprus. At once James sent an embassy to demand her hand in marriage.

The Senate accepted in the name of Venice; and that Caterina might be the equal of her husband, they promised a dowry of a hundred thousand ducats, and to adopt her as a daughter of the Republic. The contract was signed by the Doge and by the ambassador of James, in 1468; and the Hall of the Great Council was the scene of the betrothal. The bride was conducted from the Palazzo Cornaro to the Ducal Palace by forty ladies of quality. She was received by the Doge and Senate and other officials. Mastachelli, as the representative of his master, placed a consecrated ring on her finger. The Doge gave her away to James Lusignan, and then with royal ceremony she was re-conducted to her father's house.

Thus far all was well; but, alas! some difficulties arose in the negotiations between her parent, Venice, and her husband, Cyprus. Four weary years rolled on, and still Caterina remained in Venice. She was treated as a queen, but she must many times have doubted if this pretence would become a reality.

Ferdinand of Naples was using every means in his power to persuade James to refuse Caterina and marry {229} his daughter. James quarrelled with Andrea Cornaro; and finally Venice sent an ambassador to Cyprus to declare plainly that a rupture of the marriage contract would be revenged by the guardian of the queen, but that its fulfilment would assure the protection of Cyprus by the Republic. In 1471 James sent his representatives to bring Caterina to him.

A most impressive ceremony now took place in San Marco, where, before the high altar, she was made a child of Venice. No longer was she a Cornaro, but Caterina Veneta Lusignan. The whole city rejoiced greatly; and one chronicler says: "It seemed to each and all that the Seigniory had won a kingdom, as by God's good grace did actually happen."

Early in 1472 the Bucentaur lay before the Palazzo Cornaro, in waiting for the Queen of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia. In cloth of gold, and all regal attire, she stood in the doorway of her father's house. The Doge himself led her into the galley, and seated himself at her side. Slowly and majestically the splendid barge moved through the Grand Canal, followed by the prayers and good wishes of thousands of her countrymen, and, it cannot be doubted, by the envy of many of her own sex. At the Lido the admiral of the Cypriote fleet waited with his ships to take his young and beautiful queen to his sovereign.

She was now eighteen years old; and Titian's portrait of her shows a slight, graceful, beautiful girl with a happy face. Her robe is of purple velvet. She wears a crown and veil, and holds a flower in her hand. Why should she not have been happy? Fortunately she had no prophetic vision. She was protected as few young queens had ever been, being the daughter of Venice. The splendor and pomp which had replaced the dead level of monotony in her home must have been intoxicating to {230} her. She had listened with joy and pride to the accounts of her husband's bravery and beauty. She knew that he had preferred her before others, and she did not pay herself so poor a compliment as to doubt her ability to retain and strengthen his love. How beautiful her dreams as she sailed to Cyprus! and we have reason to believe that they were realized for one brief year. And then James died, leaving Caterina about to be a mother, with enemies on every hand.

By his will James bequeathed the kingdom to her and to her child. Her advisers were named by him, and her uncle was of the number; but there were six others, little likely to favor her, since that meant to favor Venice, of which the Cypriotes were jealous. Again Ferdinand of Naples aspired to the throne, and Caterina was by no means ignorant that her parent, the Republic, would not hesitate to take her kingdom from her; but just at that time the Turk was demanding the attention of the Seigniory, and while Venice was not ready to occupy Cyprus, no other power would be permitted to molest the young queen. Meantime Charlotte was enforcing her claim to the throne, but had no support powerful enough to contend with the Venetians.

Things were in this condition when Caterina gave birth to a son, in August, 1473. The Admiral, Mocenigo, and two provveditori of the fleet stood sponsors at the baptism of this grandson of Venice; and by the will of his father his birth should have settled the succession, and brought peace to Cyprus. But Ferdinand had laid deep plots, and had induced the Archbishop of Nicosia to act as his tool; and no sooner had the Venetian fleet left Cyprus than a revolt occurred, and the city of Famagosta, where Caterina was lying ill, was seized by the archbishop, and three of the commissioners, who had been named by James in his will as the protectors of his wife.

There was a terrible scene in the chamber of the queen, whither her physician had fled for safety. He was pursued, and absolutely slain in Caterina's arms. Her uncle, who had done so much for her, and her cousin, Marco Bembo, were killed, and their bodies thrown into the castle moat, within sight of the windows of Caterina's chamber; and so terrified was she that she dared not have them removed until they had been half devoured by dogs. The baby James was taken away, and Caterina was held a close prisoner. Alfonso of Naples had been married to Zaila, an illegitimate daughter of James Lusignan, and had been proclaimed King of Cyprus. A letter was sent to the Venetian Senate attributing the murder of Cornaro and Bembo to a private quarrel with soldiers whom they had not paid; but the Venetian consul sent a true statement of all that had been done to the Seigniory, and Mocenigo was at once despatched to Cyprus with orders to secure the safety of Caterina and her child at any cost.

Mocenigo had already been alarmed, and before receiving these orders had sent his provveditor, Soranzo, to do what he could, promising to follow speedily. Soranzo found the conspirators quarrelling with each other, while the Cypriotes of Nicosia and Famagosta were in revolt, and demanding the liberation of the queen. When Mocenigo arrived, the chief conspirators fled. He took possession of the forts in the name of Venice, and left them in the keeping of men devoted to the Republic. Many of the revolutionists were executed, and everything possible was done to impress upon the inhabitants the fact that Caterina and her kingdom would be protected by the strong arm of Venice, against which Cyprus was powerless in its present unsettled condition.

Caterina presented to Mocenigo a golden shield emblazoned with the arms of Lusignan. Apparent quiet reigned, and the admiral sailed away. Venice had now {232} obtained a right to a share in the government of Cyprus, which she carefully followed up by appointing a provveditor and two councillors to reside permanently at Cyprus to aid the queen in her government.

A few months of comparative peace came at last to the young mother, and we can picture her joy at the restoration of her baby and her delight in watching his budding affection for her. But it would seem that evil fortune had selected Caterina for its victim, and that she was fated to drain the cup of sorrow and bitterness. When a year old, the little James died. The queen wrote to the Senate of her sorrow; and her father, Marco Cornaro, was sent out to comfort his daughter, and bear to her the sympathy and condolences of the Republic. He was also empowered to act with Soranzo, as the agent of Venice, should any fresh revolution occur.

Charlotte Lusignan was a determined woman, full of resources, brave to a fault, and as ambitious as brave. When the infant king died, Charlotte was at the court of the Sultan. Many nobles of Cyprus declared themselves in her favor, she being the last true Lusignan. Caterina had allowed the annual tribute to the Sultan to fall into arrears. This Charlotte promised to pay if the Sultan would help to establish her as Queen of Cyprus. But by the advice and aid of Venice Caterina paid the full tribute, and explained that her tardiness had been due to the ravages of the locusts. By reason of this and other diplomatic acts, all arranged at Venice, the Sultan preferred Caterina to Charlotte, and the latter was dismissed from his court. She then turned to Milan, Genoa, Savoy, and Rome for assistance; and a plan for a descent on Cyprus was far advanced when a letter of Charlotte's was intercepted and sent to Venice.

The Republic immediately ordered their admiral, Antonio Loredano, to garrison Cyprus completely; to {233} arrest Maria Patras, the mother of the late king, and three illegitimate children of the same sovereign, and send them to Venice. One of these was that Zarla whose marriage with Alfonso had not been completed. By this means Venice held in her hand all possible claimants to the throne of Cyprus, save Charlotte. But Alfonso would not abandon his betrothed wife, and with his father's assistance he very nearly succeeded in carrying her away from Venice, whereupon she was sent to Padua, where she soon after died from the plague, as it was said. Ferdinand was still determined to acquire Cyprus, and in spite of all discouragements sent Alfonso to the court of the Sultan to claim the crown of the much disputed island. Again Caterina paid her tribute, but demanded in return a formal deed of investiture. This was sent her, and Alfonso relinquished his pursuit of a kingdom, and was more than content with the pleasures of life in Alexandria.

Caterina seemed now to be free from all her rivals; but she owed everything to Venice, and her adopted parent did not forget to watch over her constantly. Her income was limited, and so carefully was she guarded that the Doge himself wrote that she ought to move about more freely, and ordered that her table should be generously provided. But this sort of care was necessary to keep her alive until the Republic was ready to assume full possession of Cyprus, and even now she had but a semblance of peace. Speaking of this time in her life, Brown says:—

"The citizens, the people of Cerines, Famagosta, Nicosia, were faithful to her; they loved their queen. But all through the island the great nobles were her enemies, and drew with them their peasants. They were profoundly jealous of Venetian rule; they saw the weakness of the queen; some of them coveted the throne for themselves. Caterina was compelled to live in {234} constant dread of revolution, murder, or dethronement, shut within the walls of one or other of her faithful towns. Conspiracy after conspiracy was discovered,—some directed against her life, others against her liberty. At each new outbreak she could see the frown gathering upon her parent's brow. The dread of Venice was always before her eyes. Yet she was absolutely helpless; never was queen more so, caught between rebellious subjects whom she could not rule, and a cold, uncompromising guardian who desired her kingdom."

For ten years this life went on; Venice constantly sending officials, whom the Cypriotes hated and regarded as spies. Caterina's personal dangers were increased with each new move on the part of Venice, and in no account that I can find is there mention of any friendly woman who was beside her to lighten her burdens or cheer these sad, disastrous years. At length the time arrived when Venice, having freed itself from more pressing engagements, only awaited a pretext to assume full authority over Cyprus; and this pretext was given by the last man in the world who would willingly have aided the Republic,—Alfonso of Naples.

In 1488 Alfonso encountered an old conspirator, Marin Rizzo, who persuaded Alfonso to sue for the hand of Caterina, and obtaining that to rely on his father to seat him on the throne. Rizzo sailed for Cyprus in a French boat, taking with him Tristan Giblet, whose sister was a maid of Caterina. These two landed at Fountain Amorous, and ordered the captain of their boat to cruise off the coast until he should see a fire-signal on the head-land at night. But when Rizzo thought to outwit the Venetians, he made a grave mistake. His whole plan was known to the admiral, Priuli, who seized the French captain, manned the galley with his own men, answered the signal, took Rizzo and Giblet on board, and sent them to Venice. Giblet poisoned himself, and Rizzo was kept a {235} prisoner for a time because he claimed to be an agent of the Sultan; but at last he was strangled by order of the Ten.

Venice now instructed Priuli to bring Caterina to her old home,—willingly, if possible, but unwillingly if he must. "We fully authorize you to bow her to our will, with or without her consent." So ran his order, but he was also recommended to be gentle as well as firm. The queen's brother, Giorgio Cornaro, was sent with Priuli to assist in persuading Caterina to resign; and however her resignation might be obtained, Priuli was instructed to declare everywhere that she left Cyprus of her own choice. Theirs was no easy task. Caterina clung to her make-believe royalty, and answered every argument with the question, "Is it not enough that Venice shall inherit when I am gone?" But no entreaties, arguments, or tears availed; and at last, worn out by contention, she yielded. She was promised a queenly reception at Venice, a large income, and the state of a royal personage during her life. Again we quote from Brown:—

"In the piazza of Famagosta and of Nicosia solemn Te Deums were sung, and the banner of St. Mark was blessed and unfurled, while the queen looked on from a baldachino. She saw her cities taken from her one by one, the cities that had always been her own. No point in all the long ceremony of unrobing was spared her; in every town and village the same cruel pageant was performed. She entered each one as a queen and left it discrowned. Venice was determined that all the world should see how willing had been her abdication. But the people flocked about her on her mournful progress with tears and blessings,—tears for their liberty lost with their queen. At last, early In 1489, it was finished. Caterina and her brother sailed for Venice, and Cyprus became a part of the Venetian kingdom."

It was on a lovely day in early June when Caterina reached the Lido, and landed under a gold and crimson {236} awning, whence she was conducted to San Niccolo to await the ceremonies of the next day. The Doge, with a train of noble ladies, came to conduct her in state to the then Palazzo Ferrara (later Fondaco dei Turchi, and now Municipal Museum), a residence which the city had prepared for its daughter. As the Bucentaur, bearing his Serenity and the ladies, neared the Lido, a great wind became so alarming that the queen's embarking was delayed. At length, the sea having subsided, Caterina was brought on board in the costume which Bellini painted in "The Miracle of the Cross," where she kneels, dressed in black velvet, with a veil and jewels in the fashion of Cyprus. The Bucentaur, with a procession of boats following, moved up the Grand Canal. When opposite the Cornaro Palace, the Doge knighted Giorgio Cornaro, in recognition of his services in persuading Caterina to resign her crown.

The three days following were devoted to banquets and ceremonials in the Palazzo Ferrara, when all possible honor was showered on Caterina, and her pride and vanity satisfied to the full. But one more sacrifice was needed to content her tender parent, Venice. In San Marco, before the same altar where nineteen years earlier she had been made the child of the Republic, she was obliged to go through a long and solemn office of abdication. She was then given the castle of Asolo for life; and until it could be made ready to receive her she was lodged in the palace on the Grand Canal, which was afterwards called the Palazzo Corner del la Regina, in her honor. It is now the Montè di Pietà.

It was at the most favored season when Caterina made the journey to Asolo. She was met by olive-crowned peasants, who came to welcome their lady, bearing garlands and flowers in their hands. They held a gorgeous canopy above her, as they led her to the Piazza, where an orator showered compliments, apostrophies, and hyperbole upon her in this fashion:—

"Oh, happy land of Asolo! and oh, most happy flock that now hast found so just and sweet a shepherdess! Oh, ship thrice fortunate, whose tiller lies in such a skilful hand! Ye then, ye laurel boughs, the victor's meed, endure the sharp tooth of our knife that carves on you the name of Caterina. Sing, birds, unwonted strains to grace the name, the glorious name, Cornelia!"

One can scarcely imagine a more charming spot than the site of the castle of Asolo. Encircled by the Alps, the plains of the Brenta and the Piave spread out before it. The group of Euganean Hills rises proudly in the distance. Under a clear moon the silver threads of the rivers may be followed to the sea; and in the rich, distant, level country Vicenza and Padua lift their towers, while far away to the sun-rising lies Venice, its many spires clear cut against the blue sky and the blue Adriatic; and to the north the snow-capped Rhœtian Alps stand forth as if to guard all the land they overlook.

In contrast to all this expanse and grandeur is the little town of Asolo, just beneath the castle at the foot of the hill on which it stands. It is a walled town, with genuine mediæval turrets and some quaint house-façades, and in Caterina's day was inhabited by a people glad to be protected with gentleness and ruled by one who cared for their gratitude and love. To them Caterina gave good laws. She brought grain from Cyprus, and gave it to them. She appointed a judge to hear their causes, and established a pawnbroker's bank for those who needed it. Her little court included but twelve maids of honor. She had eighty serving-men besides her dwarf jester, and a favorite negress who cared for her parrots. She had her hounds, apes, and peacocks, and, we are glad to know, she had a generous income.

Here she lived during twenty years, and we doubt not that her title of Lady of Asolo came to be very sweet to {238} her. Certainly she bore it with more peace than ever she had known as a queen. Here the outside pleasures were rambles in gardens and woods, the harvest festa, and the May Day gayety with her people; and within her castle she had the lutes and songs at eventide, and at all hours the never-ending speculations on platonic love and other sleep-begetting subjects.

Pietro Bembo, when twenty-eight years old, as full of life and keen of intellect as handsome in person, came one fine September day to Asolo. He had been at the court of Lucrezia Borgia, at Ferrara. Imagine the contrast between these two beautiful women, and their lives. It was the wedding of Floriano di Floriano da Montagnana with one of Caterina's ladies that drew Bembo away from the golden-haired Lucrezia, and many other guests had come from Venice, and from all the neighboring land, glad to escape from the plains to the heights of Asolo.

Bembo describes a day, beginning with the breakfast at noon, in a large hall with a loggia on either side, breezy and cool in spite of the heat without. Between the pillars of the loggia the spires of the cypress come up from the gardens below, and by their deep, dark green remind one of coolness and shadow as contrasted with the sunny lawns outside. The meal is done; but Caterina gives no signal for rising, and two of her maids move down the hall, and courtesy low before her. One of them strikes her lute and sings a song decrying love; the second answers in the opposite strain; and a third, the favorite of Caterina, to the accompaniment of her viol, sums up the argument on both sides.

Then Caterina and most of her guests retire, to be seen no more until evening, when supper will call them together, and be followed by music and dancing until dawn. But three Venetian couples go to the gardens, the pride of Asolo, the young men in short black cloaks {239} and close-fitting hose of many-colored silks, the ladies in velvet and brocades, with masses of golden hair rolled tightly around cushions. How sorry we are that on this warm day they had no more comfortable apparel! Bembo gives a minute description of the walks, the stream from the living rock that flowed into a basin of stone, and similar objects, and ends by saying that they talked of platonic love through all the afternoon.

The wedding proves that all love was not platonic here, and every fortnight there came the lord of Rimini, Pandolfo Malatesta, a man not well inclined to platonism. Whether he paid his suit to Caterina or to her maid Fiammeta, we know not, but in either case it gave a spice of something human and real to both their lives. Then Caterina's family were always coming and going. They thought to shine by the reflected light of her position, and she was called upon to arrange a marriage for her niece with a prince of Naples. All this was displeasing to Venice. The Cornari had a knight and a cardinal in their family, which seemed quite sufficient to the Senate, and Caterina was warned to make no attempts to confer greater benefits. It was also surmised that she did not forget Cyprus, and she was curtly advised to be content with Asolo, and send not her thoughts over sea.

These suspicions were unjust. Caterina loved her home; her castle, her gardens, her court, and her subjects were all dear to her, and she left them but three times during her life there. Once, when the severity of the winter made it possible for men to walk on the ice from Mestre to Venice, she fled to her palace on the Grand Canal. A second time she visited her brother Giorgio at Brescia, where he was podestà. Here she was received as a queen, and entered the city in a chariot drawn by four white horses, escorted by a splendid procession. Pageants of one sort and another were kept up for twelve days. It {240} was her last royal reception. Venice was jealous; and for this honor to his sister, Giorgio was recalled and deprived of his position.

The wars of the League of Cambray drove Caterina to Venice to return no more. She died on July 10, 1510, when fifty-six years old. Venice was very poor, but her funeral was as splendid as could be afforded. The Patriarch, the Senate, the Doge, the Archbishop of Spalato, and an immense procession of citizens followed her coffin to the Cornaro chapel in the Church of the Sant' Apostoli on a stormy night when the wind howled and the rain fell in torrents. The queen was dressed in the habit of Saint Francis, with cord and cowl, but on her coffin lay the crown of Cyprus.

The next day a full funeral service was celebrated, and an oration pronounced by Andrea Navagero, a poet and scholar, who had known all her life, and whose writings make one of our authorities concerning this unhappy and gentle queen. Doubtless now that she was dead, and no longer to be feared by those suspicious Senators, he was allowed to speak of all the beauty of person and character of Caterina Cornaro, and to give full expression to the love which she had inspired in Venetians, Cypriotes, and Asolini. In 1660 her coffin was removed to San Salvadore, and placed in a tomb in the right transept of this church.

Few episodes in the history of Venice more clearly show her astuteness, her prescience, and her patient determination than does the story of Caterina Cornaro, by which we see that from the beginning the object of the Senate was to obtain possession of Cyprus. For this cause the little maid of fourteen was made the child of the Republic. Venice had not the faintest claim to Cyprus. If James justly bore the title and authority which Venice recognized as his, his will should have been regarded. The simple truth is that Venice coveted Cyprus, and {241} Caterina was the cat's paw with which she could work her will. Ninety-two years later the Turks robbed her of it, and during this short rule there were endless costs and constant difficulties to be overcome. Historians believe Cyprus to have been an incalculable injury to the Republic. The unbridled luxury and license in the life of the island had its evil effect on Venice, and the early part of the sixteenth century developed there such expensive living as threatened financial ruin,—such license, even in the religious houses, as brought her world-wide disgrace, and such growth in vice, decay of health, and increase of infectious diseases as threatened the extermination of the noble and wealthy classes.

Born in 1675, this artist belongs to modern Venice. Her father, Andrea Carriera de Costantino, was chancellor of the little village of Gambarare, on the Brenta; and as his salary was insufficient for the support of his wife and three daughters, Rosalba, the eldest, worked with her mother at making Point de Venise lace. Fortunately for Rosalba's fame, this lace went out of fashion, and she then attempted the painting of miniatures on tobacco boxes, in which art she was instructed by a French painter, Jean Stève, having before had lessons in drawing from a Hungarian, Bencowich. The boxes she painted are now much prized.

Later she studied under Antonio Lazzari, Diamantini, Balestra, and others. She practised painting in oils, but preferred miniature and crayons. Her taste for crayons was cultivated by an English artist, Cole, who excelled in that art. When twenty-four years old, Rosalba had become famous for her miniatures and portraits in crayon. Carlo Maratti and Crespi compared her {242} to Guido Reni, and she was made an Academician at St. Luke in Rome and at the Clementina at Bologna.

We know how, in her time, the royal personages of the whole world loved to visit Venice; and it came to be a part of their pleasure there to have miniatures from Rosalba's hand. In 1709 the King of Denmark sat for his own portrait, and gave her an order for twelve miniatures, to be portraits of some of the loveliest young girls in the city. The Elector Palatine soon after sat for a portrait, and sent her afterwards a golden medallion on a chain, weighing two hundred ounces; and the enamel box containing it was of great value. Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, after he became King of Poland, was one of her benefactors; and her portrait of him in a scarlet dress, with a cross on the breast and a peruke on his head, was much prized by him. The list of her friends and admirers at this period includes many well-known names. John Law, the Scotch financier, Vleughels, who became the director of the French Academy at Rome, and the distinguished author Zanetti were among them; and Pierre Crozat urged her going to Paris, offering her the use of his own hotel.

She was so celebrated at home and abroad that she could not fill her orders, and was aided in her crayon pictures by her sisters, who also painted somewhat. In all the courts of Europe the miniatures of Rosalba were preferred before those of the Florentine Giovanna Fratellini, and she was most happy in her life and in her art, when the death of her father prostrated her with grief. Her sister Angela had married Antonio Pellegrini, and by his persuasion Rosalba consented to go to Paris. Her mother and sister Giovanna were with her; and the three were received into the Hôtel Crozat, on the Rue de Richelieu, where all possible comforts and a carriage were at their disposal. Pellegrini and Angela lodged near by, {243} and for a year Rosalba was in constant association with the best society in Paris. Crozat admired her to enthusiasm. He thought her as fine a musician as painter. He gave concerts, at which she played the violin accompanied by other instruments played by well-known musicians. The guests at these musicales were celebrated artists, authors, and prominent persons, among whom the Regent himself was glad to be numbered. Watteau painted a picture of the principal virtuosos at these concerts. Mariette wrote their names on it in Latin, and with his collection it went to the Louvre. Rosalba's journal, kept while in Paris, is very interesting, and has been published both in Italian and French.

During her stay in Paris, Rosalba painted numerous small pictures, made many drawings, and executed two pictures of Venus for M. Crozat, and an Apollo and Daphne for Claude Audran, besides nearly fifty portraits. Among her subjects were men and women of the highest character and position. Her artistic skill was recognized by the greatest compliment that could be paid her in France. She was elected a member of the Academy of Painting, "no one wishing to cast a black ball," as she wrote in her journal. She was invited there, and presented a portrait of Louis XV. in pastel, which was praised by the director, Antoine Coypel. Her "picture of reception," which was sent from Venice later, is now at the Louvre.

She returned to her little house in Venice a widely celebrated woman, whose praises were sounded in prose and verse. She dwelt in the Quarter Dorsoduro, near the Church of San Vito. Here she received many distinguished visitors. She was invited to various courts of Europe; and until she reached the age of seventy her life was fruitful in work and in triumphs such as could not have failed to make her native city proud of her. Eleven {244} years before her death she became blind, and from that time she received no strangers, though many desired to see her. To her sister Angela she sent letters, written from her dictation, which spoke all too plainly of the loneliness she would fain have concealed from those who loved her.

By her will she remembered all her relatives, her servants and attendants, and some of her pupils. She gave the bulk of her property to her sister Angela, who was but two years younger than herself. She died when eighty-two years old, and was buried in the little church of her parish beside her sister Giovannina, whose death she had mourned for twenty years.

Pictures by Rosalba Carriera are seen in the Louvre, and in the Academy of Venice and the Church of San Gervasio e Protasio, but the largest collection is at Dresden; and to be perfectly candid, it does seem that the eighteenth-century critics have been more than kind in their praises of her works. If we were writing strictly of art, we could not give her a very exalted rank; but as a Venetian woman who made herself of note in the world in her day and generation, she is most important, and stands quite alone.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ARCHIVES OF VENICE.

Probably no other collection of state papers exists that can compare in interest with the archives of Venice, now preserved in the Convent of the Frari, and most courteously at the disposal of all who seriously wish to study them. It is said that the two hundred and ninety-five rooms in which these archives are disposed contain more than fourteen million documents, the earliest dating from 883. Even so, many Venetian records were doubtless lost in the conflagrations between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, of which we have accounts, for there are some important periods quite blank; and as late as 1797 a mob invaded the Hall of the Council of Ten, and dispersed the papers found there, which would no doubt have been of great value. The knowledge that has been gained from these records and given to the world within a half-century is most important and entertaining, and we are greatly indebted to the numerous scholarly writers who have given us the results of their researches; but there remains much more to be done before the stores of information and entertainment in the archives of the Frari will be exhausted.

It is from them that the true stories of Faliero, Pisani, Carmagnola, Caterina Cornaro, and others have been taken. They tell of all the great ceremonials, even to the minutest details. The letters of royal personages are there preserved. Civil and criminal trials, reports, {246} despatches, and, in short, every imaginable thing that could have happened, been suspected, or whispered in all Venice, seems to be there writ down. To the casual observer, perhaps the most striking feature of these papers is the attention given to matters of minor importance by the government of the Republic. We know that each department was concerned with its special subject, but concerned in such a way that we can almost learn what was eaten in a particular palace on a certain day centuries ago; and the manner in which matters that are regulated by custom or individual fancy in other countries were the subjects of special decrees in Venice, is most surprising.

The papers of the secret chancellery, established in 1402, exceed all others in general interest. The direction of this department pertained to the Council of Ten; and here the story of the growth, splendor, and decline of the Republic can be read with all its complications. In the study of these papers, as they have been given us by patient writers, we are impressed anew with the utter disregard of individual interests and schemes, and the persistent devotion to the good of the Republic, first, last, and always. Venetians formed no syndicates, and profited by no monopolies. Venice was the syndicate, and the monopoly was hers.

Private owners of vessels were not allowed to send cargoes to ports to which Venice sent fleets. Vessels were built and fitted out by the State, and put up at auction to be bidden for by the merchants, the voyages all being made according to regulations, and a good share of the profits paid to the State. Private owners were licensed before freighting a ship, and no ship not commanded by a Venetian was permitted to sail from the lagoons. Ships of war guarded the mouths of the rivers, and all foreign vessels were liable to inspection. All kinds of goods {247} carried in Venetian ships were obliged to be taken to Venice before they could be sent to any other port. Thus it became a great mart for the merchandise of all countries, and we can scarcely imagine the enormous supplies of costly and magnificent Oriental products which filled her storehouses, and were thence distributed all over the western and northern world in exchange for other goods as well as for gold. Her commerce with Nuremberg was important, and there was a weekly post between the two cities in 1505, when Albert Dürer made the journey to Venice.

Her unique position made Venice the chief market for all the East, and her supremacy in the Levant forbade all rivals to attempt competing with her; but if she thus deprived other nations of the privileges of commerce, she protected them from the Turk. She was a bulwark that could neither be ignored nor overthrown. Every branch of commerce was made tributary to her, and her coffers were always full. She expended her wealth at home, encouraging her workers in metals, glass, and mosaics, and the manufactures of silk and wool, as well as in cherishing the fine arts and improving the city.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century so great a number of merchants periodically visited Venice that no sufficient provision could be made for them in the public houses, and the question as to how and where they could live was solved by the establishment of the Fondachi, where they were lodged, free of cost, after reporting to the proper magistrate, and showing their purpose in coming to Venice. Warehouses were attached to the Fondachi, supplied with weighers and keepers to attend to the storing and care of merchandise.

The Germans, Armenians, Moors, and Turks, all had these Fondachi, as well as the Tuscans and other Italians. A superb palace on the Grand Canal, which has been {248} restored, and is now the Museo Civico, was given to the Turks. It is nearly as old as the Ducal Palace, and very remarkable. But as the Turks were infidels, the windows were walled up, the rooms thus being lighted only from the court. A Catholic warder closed the doors at sunset. No women or children were allowed to enter, and no Ottoman was permitted to lodge elsewhere. Greeks and Syrians were allowed the utmost freedom in all parts of the city.

The Jews were not liked, and many regulations were made for them. At times they were excluded from Venice, but their aptitude in all matters of trade made them almost a necessity. Indeed, they had the monopoly of money changing, and the Senate found that they must be at hand. Many regulations were made as to where they should live, concerning certain badges they must wear, forbidding them to own houses or lands, to enter any profession save that of medicine, to open their doors between sunset and sunrise, or to go out at all on holidays. They were not permitted to have a synagogue, and a burial-place was given them grudgingly.

So fully did the rulers of Venice appreciate the importance and dignity of her commerce that they permitted the Fondachi to be splendidly decorated, and by the best artists. Nothing can give a better idea of the wealth and luxury of the Venetian merchants than the following extract from Mutinelli:—

"When the news of the victory of Lepanto reached Venice, the Germans were the first who wished to celebrate it by a splendid illumination in their Fondaco on the Rialto. All the other merchants followed this example; and those who most distinguished themselves were the jewellers, the Tuscans, and the mercers. The well-known portico of the Rialto, where the drapers' shops are, was hung with turquoise-blue fabrics, spangled with gold and lined with scarlet. Each shop had its {249} decoration; there were panoplies of Oriental arms taken from the Turks, and in the midst of these trophies were to be seen pictures by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Sebastian del Piombo, Titian, and Pordenone. At the entrance of the bridge an arch was raised on which the arms of the allied powers were represented quartered on the same scutcheon. Banners and festoons hung from every arch and every window; torches and silver candelabra placed on every projection illuminated the streets, and turned the night into a bright and splendid day."

"Thursday was the festival of the Doge, Thomas Mocenigo; great stands were raised in tiers on St. Mark's Place for the women. The goldsmiths placed two silver helmets in the midst, with their enamelled plumes, which cost a hundred ducats apiece. Then came a procession of three hundred and fifty goldsmiths, dressed in scarlet and mounted on richly caparisoned horses (each harness costing three ducats) preceded by trumpeters and musicians, who marched round the Piazza in regular order. Then followed the companies of the Marquis of Ferrara and of the Lord of Mantua, the first composed of two hundred and sixty horsemen; it was a great consolation to behold so many coursers, so many devices and ornaments and flags and streamers. The tournament lasted from seventeen o'clock [four] till twenty-two o'clock [nine], and it was a marvel to see so many gentle deeds. One of the silver caskets was presented by the goldsmiths to a knight of the Marquis of Ferrara, and the other to the Lord of Mantua; and it was a great triumph to behold. On the Sunday following, the 28th of March, 1415, there was a joust,—a noble sight to see, with all these lords and their companions and devices."

Gradually the trading-galleys of the Venetians, which sailed in small fleets, left Venice at fixed seasons, and made regular voyages all over the known seas; and at the mouths of the rivers of Europe they met boats bringing {250} inland cargoes to be sold to the Venetian captains, or exchanged for their goods. Venetian manufacturers were thus supplied with raw materials, as well as with specimens of the products of all other countries, to be imitated or excelled in Venice. As a rule, Venetian manufactures were in demand. The armor and weapons of Venice were equal to any that could be found at the same period. Her cloths of gold and silver, velvets, jewelry, and splendid adornments were unequalled, while many of the commoner articles of trade were made there in the best manner. Their immense commerce in beads and glass has already been described. In order to increase their business in the different ports which the galleys visited, Venice purchased warehouses called "factories," and put them in charge of such agents as would wisely conduct them.

When we read how slowly the unwieldy trading-galleys moved,—not more than twenty miles a day, and were a year in reaching England,—we can but admire, almost with reverence, the men who could "make haste slowly" with such perseverance as did these Venetians. In 1488 the Senate offered a reward of £650 to any ship-builder who could build a galley of one thousand tons burden.

Each galley required one hundred and sixty rowers, and altogether carried about three hundred men. They suffered great inconvenience, and encountered many dangers. The Senate made the most exact rules concerning their wages, food, the parts of the vessel to which they should have access, when and where they should go on shore, and many other details. The ship of the chief captain carried a master, a nautical adviser, eight pilots, a mate, two scribes, two doctors, a priest, a lawyer, an oarmaker, carpenter, calker and weigher, a cook, a cellarman, three servants, two fifers, and two trumpeters, besides thirty bowmen in charge of four young noblemen. The duties and salaries of each and all these men were fixed {251} by the Senate, as well as the method of loading and unloading the ships. As we think of all this tediousness for everybody concerned in Venetian commerce in the Middle Ages, from the Doge down to the humblest servitor of them all, the commerce of the present day, with our labor-saving machinery, our swift sailing-vessels, and space-annihilating steam-engines, seems insignificant in a way.

John B. Marsh, in his "Stories of Venice and the Venetians," gives an account of the experiences of a merchant fleet, which has a special interest, as Christopher Columbus acted a prominent part in the story, which Mr. Marsh claims is authenticated in the state papers. It is essentially as follows:—

On April 12, 1485, Bartolommeo Minio was appointed captain of four galleys to make the Flanders voyage. They had been bidden in by some merchants who had goods suited to the northern markets at £220 per galley. The great galleys were loaded. The prows were fenced to afford footing to the crossbowmen. All the different officers and men were selected and bound to complete the voyage. The cargo of glass, jewels, gold, silver, furs, silks, and damasks, bales of spices, dried fruits, and Malmsey wine was all on board, and an official from the Arsenal approved of all the preparations.

Then Minio, the commander, in presence of the whole Senate and the captains who were to sail with him, took an oath upon the Bible that he would obey the regulations of the Senate regarding the galleys and the people on board, and would care for them all in good faith. The preparations being thus completed, to the sound of trumpets the rowers began their labor, and the galleys moved from the canal into the Gulf of Venice.

Between Pola and Zara it was Minio's duty to pipe all hands for action. The decks were cleared, hatches {252} fastened down, and the four brass cannon on each galley were made ready to meet an enemy. The bowmen took advantageous positions, and went through evolutions as if in battle. This being done, the fleet was anchored for the night. Supper was served to Minio and his chief officers in the principal cabin. The bowmen and archers were in another cabin, but the rowers ate as they sat at work. Each man received eighteen ounces of biscuit, and an allowance of common wine daily, and in front of each bench of rowers was a locker for food. Having passed the Adriatic, the galleys were allowed to remain a few hours at Otranto, and reaching Messina they anchored for four days. The merchants went on shore, and exchanged some goods for oil and wine, while the oarsmen enjoyed a much needed rest. At Palermo the same stay was made, and thence they crossed to the coast of Tunis and Algiers, and passing through the Straits of Gibraltar reached Cadiz. Here a stay of six days was made, and then, having taken two pilots for each galley, they prepared to pass along the coast of Portugal and cross the Bay of Biscay. Ten hides were purchased for each galley and stretched across the holds to protect the cargo; and all having thus far been prosperous, they started upon the most dangerous part of their voyage.

Near Cape St. Vincent, on an August afternoon, Minio saw a fleet of seven armed ships bearing the French flag. They were corsairs under the command of Niccolo Griego, and one of his chief captains was Christopher Columbus. The two fleets anchored within sight of each other, and during the night the Venetians made the best preparation possible for a contest with the pirates; and at daybreak the attack was made. The Venetians fought so bravely that the battle was prolonged during the entire day, and only at sunset were they finally conquered, and that at a large loss in killed and wounded to the corsairs, and {253} serious injury to their vessels, which they were compelled to run into the nearest port, in order to save them from shipwreck. This port was Lisbon; and as the King of Portugal was friendly to Venice, the pirates hastened to mend their ships, transfer the cargoes from the three Venetian galleys, which were worthless, to their own, and with the one that was seaworthy to sail for Honfleur.

When the news reached the King of Portugal, he hastened to assist the surviving Venetians, and sent them home as soon as possible. Two captains and many noble youths had been slain. The pirates had thrown one hundred and thirty dead men into the sea, and three hundred others were seriously wounded, many of whom soon died.

When the Senate heard what had happened, they sent a swift fleet to seize a French galeas then at Alexandria. They sent ambassadors to the courts of France, England, and Burgundy, soliciting aid in recovering their vessels and cargoes. In the following spring two galleys, freighted with the cargoes saved from the four vessels captured by Columbus, were sent to Southampton, and there were sold by the Venetian Consul. The Venetians owed thanks for this to the French, who would not permit Columbus to leave Honfleur until he had given up his plunder. When the sum received at Southampton, and the value of the damaged ships which were brought back to Venice was deducted from the whole, the Senate announced the total loss which the Republic had sustained to be £32,200. When we remember that such disasters were not uncommon, we do not wonder at the Venetian proverb, "If you want to learn to pray, go to sea."

This particular misfortune caused much distress to the wool-workers, and the Senate removed all restrictions on the importation of wool for several months, in order to relieve the pressure in that particular trade.

This story of Columbus is in exact accord with the opinion of Charles Kendall Adams, in his most excellent life of Columbus. He says:—

"In point of character,—considering the term in the largest and broadest possible sense,—we shall probably not find much to admire. The moral atmosphere which he created about him was not much better or much worse than the general atmosphere of the age in which he lived. He entered no protest against any of the abuses of his time. On the contrary, he was ever ready to avail himself of those abuses whenever he could do so to his own advantage."

To resume our study of the mercantile policy of Venice, so quick was she to see her advantage in all directions and to take up new industries whenever it was possible, that no sooner was the question raised as to the introduction of the art of printing than it was generously encouraged. Venetian printing dates from 1469, and the honor of its introduction rests between John of Spires and Nicholas Jenson. The latter was a Frenchman, sent by Louis XI. to Mayence to learn printing. He never returned to France, and the only question as to his career in Venice is the actual date of his first book.

Venice soon became a city of printers. Between 1472 and 1500 one hundred and fifty-five printers established themselves there, some of them being the most celebrated printers of that age. In other cities of the Republic the printing of books rapidly grew into an enormous industry. We can scarcely realize what the demand for books became so soon as it could be satisfied. The slow processes of caligraphy had only created a desire it could never content. At the same time the exquisite ornamentation of the manuscripts had fostered a taste for dainty books which a plain-printed page could not satisfy; and then, too, those who could afford the silky vellum, with {255} its lovely miniatures, decorative initial letters, and graceful borders, did not relish books so cheaply made that any one could buy them, and no distinction was attached to their ownership. Thus it resulted that the early printers made a few vellum copies of their works, and employed the miniaturists to ornament them in the style of the manuscripts. Among these books those of Jenson, made at Venice, are the most remarkable, and bring fabulous prices when sold in the present day.

After 1480 the printers employed engravers, and from that time the Venetian books were very notable. For two centuries Venice was the centre for printing, and besides her strictly literary publications she furnished school-books to all Italy; books of exquisite designs to lace-makers and embroiderers; missals, breviaries and books of hours to the devout; and to the general reader, books of romantic adventures, poems, and numberless accounts of festivals and important events. These, now literally worth their weight in gold, were made in little shops where the industrious artisans actually made the designs and executed the engravings of the books they printed. The amount of printing and bookmaking done at Venice up to the end of the seventeenth century, as compared with all the rest of Italy and Lyons, is simply amazing. Of the great printer, Aldus, I shall speak more at length elsewhere.

In 1498 the Senate granted to Ottaviano Petrucci the privilege of printing music for twenty years, for which time Venice may be said to have monopolized that very important art. Petrucci ceased to publish in 1525; and it is believed that he worked alone, as later music printers were greatly his inferiors. His books are now very rare, and proportionately valuable.

In all these important affairs the wisdom of the Venetians is most apparent, and the results of their system are {256} its justification in many directions. But in the midst of great matters the smaller ones were by no means forgotten, and jealousy of individualism was the motive that induced the Senate gravely to make and severely to execute laws which seem to us most puerile and unworthy.

In wealthy families, on the occasion of a baptism, it was not allowable to invite patricians or high officials as witnesses, because it was feared that these families would become too powerful if too closely allied, and the position of godfather was one of very intimate relations and sacred trusts. So in marriages, in families of importance, as has already been shown, certain ceremonies must be held in the Ducal Palace, thus assuring a publicity which enabled the State to have its part in the affair, and have full knowledge of it, the religious ceremony being apparently quite a secondary matter.

With death only did jealousy cease, and at funerals the noble and wealthy Venetians were permitted to freely indulge their love of pageantry. The funeral procession of a patrician was usually at night. About two in the morning all the clergy of the quarter in which the dead had resided, with relatives and friends, attended the body to the church. Here it was placed on a bier, the nave being lighted by torch-bearers, and sentinels placed on guard until the morning hour, when the burial took place. At this ceremony a large number of clergy, and all persons named in the will of the deceased, preceded the body to its final resting-place.

If the dead had been eminent for services to the State, all the clergy of the chapter of St. Mark, the prebendaries of the Archbishop's cathedral, and the chapter of the Congregation led the procession. Two canons of St. Mark acted as precentors in singing dirges. Then came men bearing the ornamented and embroidered banners of all the guilds and societies to which the deceased had {257} belonged. Next followed the brethren of the "Scuola" with which he had been associated. These frequently numbered two hundred, all in white robes, and by night bearing torches. Behind them the body, on a bier, was borne by eight men. It was most richly dressed, and covered with a trellis of golden wire. Lastly followed the relatives, friends, servants, and behind all others, the orphan children of the dead man.

Next day the friends, in funeral attire, went to the Ducal Palace, whither the bereaved family were expected to come, and there receive condolences.

The Venetian archives throw a very favorable light on the hospitality, benevolence, and wisdom in sanitary regulations shown by the rulers of Venice in the Middle Ages. From the time of Michieli II. (1117-28) the streets were lighted at night, and watchmen had been employed earlier than that,—at least a century before they were instituted in London, under Henry III.

From a very ancient date Venice was "a place of universal resort, the Goshen of Italy." Strangers were constantly arriving and departing, and as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century the new-comer, as he landed at the Piazza of St. Mark, was met by one of the messeti or sensali, who were always there, and served the stranger as the commissionaires now do wherever travellers are found, but with one great difference: in Venice these men were in the care of the messetaria,—a department of the public service,—and they dared not practise deceit or cheating, being sure of paying the penalty if they did. It was also the duty of the messetaria to see that no imposition was practised by the keepers of hostelries, or any advantage taken of unsuspicious strangers.

The ancient hotels of Venice were celebrated. In the fourteenth century the Moon, the White Lion, and the Wild Savage took the lead; and the latter was the {258} favorite of those who could pay well in 1368. Other hotels are mentioned in the books of the Procuratie of St. Mark; and ever after 1280, perhaps earlier, it was the duty of the police to see that clean beds, sheets, and coverlets were provided in hotels, and all necessary comforts furnished to travellers.

The government was constantly adopting measures against epidemics, and in 1423 the first lazaretto was established. A Board of Health existed very early; and during epidemics in neighboring cities no meat, fish, or wine was admitted into Venice until it had been disinfected. The greatest care was taken to supply wholesome water. All impurities were removed from the streets and canals, which last were dredged of mud periodically; and even smoking chimneys were prohibited.

The first hospital was established by the will of Orseolo the Holy, in 977; the first infant asylum, by the Doge Marino Giorgio, in 1312. A surgeon named Gualtieri established a Refuge for the Indigent, and a Home for Aged or Disabled Seamen. The Misericordia was endowed by Giacomo Moro for poor women; and a Magdalen Asylum by Bartolommeo Verde at St. Christopher-the-Martyr. In 1342 the Foundling, or Pietà, was established, and in 1349 there was an Orphan Asylum on the Giudecca. Moreover, both the State and individuals made periodical distributions of alms to the poor; while street-begging was forbidden, and the Signori di Notte conveyed all mendicants to the hospitals.

We must also remember that while the Venetians took and held many prisoners of war, they made constant efforts to relieve the sufferings of these men. In short, the archives of Venice bear unquestionable testimony to much in the domestic policy of the Republic that merits the praise and is worthy the emulation of all nations in all ages.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TREASURES OF THE PIAZZA.

There is a world of interest in the bronzes, mosaics, and marbles of Venice, many of which are in and about the Piazza of San Marco. Perhaps something should first be said about this spot, already so frequently mentioned, and in which the whole history of Venice seems to centre; but when I think of writing it the words of the double of the Rev. Frederic Ingham occur to me with great force: "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time."

To quote some of these "well-said" things seems far the wisest course. Mr. Howells says:—

"The Place of St. Mark is the heart of Venice, and from this beats new life in every direction, through an intricate system of streets and canals, that bring it back again to the same centre.... Of all the open spaces in the city, that before the Church of St. Mark alone bears the name of Piazza, and the rest are called merely campi, or fields. But if the company of the noblest architecture can give honor, the Piazza S. Marco merits its distinction, not in Venice only, but in the whole world. I never, during three years, passed through it in my daily walks, without feeling as freshly as at first the greatness of its beauty.

"The church, which the mighty bell-tower and the lofty height of the palace lines make to look low, is in no wise humbled by the contrast, but is like a queen enthroned amid upright reverence. The religious sentiment is deeply appealed to, I think, in the interior of St. Mark's; but if its interior is heaven's, its exterior, like a good man's daily life, is earth's; and it is this {260} winning loveliness of earth that first attracts you to it, and when you emerge from its portals, you emerge upon spaces of such sunny length and breadth, set round with such exquisite architecture, that it makes you glad to be living in this world.

"Whatever could please, the Venetian seems to have brought within and made a part of his Piazza, that it might remain forever the city's supreme grace; and so, though there are public gardens and several pleasant walks in the city, the great resort in summer and winter, by day and by night, is the Piazza S. Marco."

In his delightful "Italy," Taine, after declaring Venice to be the pearl of that country, not equalled by anything he has seen, says:—

"The admirable Piazza, bordered with porticos and palaces, extends rectangularly its forests of columns, its Corinthian capitals, its statues, its noble and varied arrangement of classic forms. At its extremity, half Gothic, half Byzantine, rises the Basilica, under bulbous domes and tapering belfries, its arcades festooned with figures, its porches laced with light columns, its arches wainscoted with mosaics, its pavements incrusted with colored marbles, and its cupolas scintillating with gold; a strange mysterious sanctuary, a sort of Christian mosque in which cascades of light vacillate in ruddy shadows like the wings of genii within the purple, metallic walls of subterranean abodes. All this teems with sparks and radiance. A few paces off, bare and erect like a ship's mast, the gigantic Campanile towers in the air, and announces to distant mariners the time-honored royalty of Venice. At its base, closely pressed to it, the delicate loggetta of Sansovino seems like a flower, so many statues, bas-reliefs, bronzes, and marbles, whatever is rich and imaginative of living and elegant art, crowd around it to adorn it...

"Like a magnificent diamond in a brilliant setting, the Ducal Palace effaces the rest.... Never has the like architecture been seen; all here is novel. You feel yourself drawn out of the conventional: you realize that outside of classic or Gothic {261} forms, which we repeat and impose on ourselves, there is an entire world; that human invention is illimitable; that, like Nature, it may break all the rules, and produce a perfect work after a model opposed to that to which we are told to conform."

Ruskin's words rush out, and seem to tumble one over the other in their haste to express his seething thought:—

"A multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into fine great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,—sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm-leaves and lilies and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago.

"And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, 'their bluest veins to kiss,'—the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language and of life,—angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth ... until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue {262} sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst."

In comparison with the above, how curiously commonplace was Goethe, with his very practical queries, when first he saw the Horses of St. Mark: "A glorious team of horses,—I should like to hear the opinion of a good judge of horse flesh. What seemed strange to me was that, closely viewed, they appear heavy, while from the piazza below they look light as deer." To me the mystery in which they are veiled is their chief attraction. We know that the brave old Dandolo sent them from Constantinople to be one of his most striking monuments.

In this temple porch,
Old as he was, so near his hundredth year,
And blind,—his eyes put out,—did Dandolo
Stand forth, displaying on his crown the cross.
There did he stand, erect, invincible,
Though wan his cheeks, and wet with many tears,
For in his prayers he had been weeping much;
And now the pilgrim and the people wept
With admiration, saying in their hearts,
"Surely those aged limbs have need of rest!"
There did he stand, with his old armor on,
Ere, gonfalon in hand, that streamed aloft,
As conscious of its glorious destiny,
So soon to float o'er mosque and minaret,
He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships,
Their lofty sides hung with emblazoned shields,
Following his track to fame. He went to die;
But of his trophies four arrived erelong,
Snatched from destruction,—the four steeds divine,
That strike the ground, resounding with their feet,
And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame
Over that very porch,
SAMUEL ROGERS.

We know that one of these horses was transported on the galley of Domenico Morosini, and that by some accident a piece was broken off of one of its hind legs, which {263} fragment the Senate allowed the valiant admiral to keep as a souvenir of his experiences. He placed it on a console of the façade of his house at St. Augustine, where Sanuto saw it, as he tells us in his chronicles. We know of their journey to Paris in 1797, and of their return in 1815. We know that they weigh but a few pounds less than a ton each; but who made them, and where and when? We know that it is said that they were treasures of Alexandria, and were carried to Rome by Augustus after he defeated Mark Antony, 30 B.C. But who can tell what Cleopatra thought of them? We know that it is said that five Roman emperors placed them on as many triumphal arches in the Eternal City, and then Constantino took them off to the New Rome to grace his Hippodrome. But when all these sayings are said, who knows?

Above them is the winged Lion of St Mark, that had such a curiously opposite effect on the minds of the Venetians and those of their enemies, imparting his traditional boldness to the former, and dissipating whatever of that quality existed in the latter. This lion is ubiquitous in Venice, and can be found of almost any age required; but this one is very modern. He is brave in his coat of gold, and the field of azure sown with golden stars which makes his background is very becoming. He rests one paw on the open book to emphasize the words "Pax tibi Marce Evagelista meus." Above him towers the statue of that saint whose symbol he is, the lion-hearted Mark,—the saint whose crumbling bones below, in the great Basilica, seem by some subtle spell to have made invincible the hearts and arms of those who look to him as their protecting guardian.

Rising from the pavement below, and towering far above the Bronze Horses, are the three cedar pili (flag-staffs), from which in the old days floated the banners of Cyprus, Candia, and the Morea, ever recalling to the {264} Venetians the glorious victories they had gained. On Sundays and festivals the Italian colors are now seen on these masts, rising from the same magnificent bronze pedestals which have held them almost four hundred years, and which, according to ancient pictures, must have replaced still older ones. These were given by Paolo Barbo in 1501 and by the Doge Leonardo Loredano in 1505, and were all the work of Alessandro Leopardo. If the graceful tritons and sirens chiselled there could speak, how many questions we should like to ask them!

But alas! the only bronzes of the Piazza that give any sign of life are the two Moors on the top of the Torre dell' Orologio, and they only to strike the bell which each time reminds us that we have one hour less in Venice. There is a story that one of these Moors is a murderer, but not with malice aforethought. A poor workman, unconscious of the hour, was within the swing of the Moor's hammer, and so was thrown to his death below.

The azure and gold dial on this tower gives much information. The Italian hours, one to twenty-four, the quarters of the moon, and the twelve signs of the zodiac are there. On the upper story, above the dial, is a gigantic lion, with the starry background which he seems to affect, and beneath him is a gilded statue of the Virgin Mary. During the month of May, at certain hours, a door near her opens, and the Magi appear, pass before her, salute her with their crowns, and disappear by another door.

When all this happens at a quiet midnight hour, when the weird moonlight leaves much in shadow, bringing out only the most prominent objects, as the Moors and the Magi come to life, one involuntarily looks around, expecting to see the lion between the Clock Tower and the church shake his mane and come down from his block, to hear the horses neigh, and to behold a long line of saints {265} and angels who have left their dizzy heights to walk around the square in grand procession.

There are few objects in all Venice which have a greater variety of interesting associations than the Campanile, which so dominates the city and the surrounding sea that from its summit the fleets that have sailed away for war and for the pursuits of peace have been watched for many centuries, and followed by prayers and blessings until lost in the dim distance.

From this same height, what anxious eyes have been strained to catch the first glimpse of victorious, home-coming galleys! Or, in times of need, as during the Chioggian War, it was from the Campanile that the welcome aid-bearing vessels were first seen; and in all times of great events, for joy or sorrow, it was the tocsin of the Campanile that called the people to the Piazza to hear the news and take counsel for action. Nine hundred and ninety-two years has it performed these offices; and could a diary have been written of all its experiences, what book would be more wonderful?

Until 1518 there hung, from a projecting beam half-way up the tower, a wooden cage, grated with iron bars, in which some criminals were placed to endure the changes of the weather, as well as hunger and thirst, so long as life should last; for but meagre supplies of bread and water were let down to the cage from the top of the tower. Perhaps it was the influence of the golden angel which crowns the Campanile, and is kind enough to turn with every wind that blows, that wrought the merciful reform; for the cage was banished within a few months after he assumed the most commanding position in the Republic.

We are told that in the old days there were four bells rung from the tower for different purposes. La marangola sounded at dawn to call the laboring-classes to their {266} work; la sestamezzana announced the opening of the official bureaux; la trottera called the councillors to their duties; and the bell del malefizio was the knell that tolled during executions. About 1670 a fifth great bell was brought from Candia, which was heard only on Ascension Day, when the Doge espoused the Adriatic.

All lovers of Venice can sympathize with Arthur Hugh Clough, and will remember with delight the view from the Campanile, when for the first time the intricacies of this charming labyrinth can be unravelled,—

"My mind is in her rest; my heart at home
In all around; my soul secure in place,
And the vext needle perfect to her poles.
Aimless and hopeless in my life, I seemed
To thread the winding byways of the town
Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence,
All at cross purpose ever with myself,
Unknowing whence or whither. Then, at once,
At a step, I crown the Campanile's top,
And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon,
An hundred steeples, and a myriad roofs,
The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps,
And the broad Adriatic."

During the Crusades, in the cities of the East where the Christians were in power, it was customary to assign to each nation that had aided in the conquest a quarter in which they could live and worship in their own church. But at St. Jean d'Acre it happened that the Venetians and Genoese, enemies as they were, used the Church of St. Sabbas in common. As might have been foreseen, quarrels arose, and both claimed the building as exclusively their own. So fierce did the troubles become that at length the Genoese burned the church, with other buildings of the Venetian quarter. Such an insult could not be borne, and under Lorenzo Tiepolo the Venetians completely defeated the Genoese. In proof of the complete triumph of the Republic, two richly sculptured pillars, a {267} part of the gateway of St. Sabbas, and a low column of red porphyry were sent to Venice. Naturally these were placed in the beloved Piazza; and the Senate decreed that the pillars should stand between the church and the Ducal Palace, at the inner entrance to the Piazzetta. The short column near by, at the southwest corner of San Marco, was put to good use, and called the "Pietra del Bando." From it the laws of the Republic, the sentences of banishment, and other important decrees were promulgated.

But the most interesting columns stand at the opposite end of the Piazzetta, at the entrance from the lagoon. So typical were they of the spirit of Venice that they were duplicated in other cities under her sway. On one is a statue of that young Syrian warrior who stood the early Venetians in good stead as their patron saint, and still stands there upon the crocodile, at the chief entrance to the city, crowned by a nimbus, holding a shield on his right arm, and a sword in his left hand.

Opposite St Theodore, on the second column, is one of the many lions of St. Mark, with the open book. This one, alas! was desecrated by the French, and the gospel words replaced by the legend "Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen," which caused a witty gondolier to say that "Saint Mark had turned over a new leaf." This lion made a part of the brazen menagerie that went to Paris in 1797, and returned to Venice in 1815. During his stay there he was appropriately lodged in the Invalides, no doubt suffering keenly the pains of dislocation. We must not forget that the Columns themselves have an interesting history. They form a sort of open door to the Piazzetta from the Molo, and are the first objects to attract the attention of the stranger who enters Venice from the sea. These two and another were brought from the islands of the Archipelago in 1127. One sank entirely out of sight, {268} and has never been found, and these two lay on the shore a half-century before any one succeeded in raising them. But when the Doge Sebastiano Ziani promised any grazia onesta that might be asked by any man who could erect them on the Piazzetta, Niccolò il Barattiere (Nick the Blackleg) placed them on their pedestals, and demanded that gambling, which was forbidden elsewhere in Venice, might be carried on between the pillars. For some time this privilege brought wealth to the family Barattiere, and ruin to so many others that the Senate resorted to a cunning device to render the promise of the Doge of no effect. It was decreed that all public executions should occur "between the Columns," which made the place of such ill omen that no one could be enticed to come there for any "chance" that could be offered.

As the criminals mounted the scaffold, they were accustomed to turn and look at a Byzantine Madonna, high on the wall of San Marco, and repeat the Salve Regina. A lamp burns before this Madonna at night to commemorate the remorse of the Ten for having unjustly executed Giovanni Grassi in 1611. Ten years later the truth was known; a pardon was published, and this Madonna set up in remembrance of Grassi, and as a warning against hasty and unjust judgments.

The Piazzetta has well been called the antechamber of the Piazza. It is the chief resort of the gondoliers; and at all hours of the day there is a procession of men, women, and children, carrying water from the Ducal Palace,—the best water in all Venice. The two splendid bronze cisterns from which the water is taken are more than three centuries old; and besides the debt due them for good water, an almost equal one is owing them as the centre of the picturesqueness by which they are daily surrounded.

Entering by the splendid Porta della Carta, one sees {269} these cisterns in the midst of the great inner court, the four façades of which are covered with reliefs and figures that symbolize Christianity and mythology with apparently equal approbation. Mars and Neptune seem quite at ease in the society of Adam and Eve; and such a wilderness of boughs and plants, of blossoms and vines, and such numbers of griffins, fawns, and goats as can rarely be seen with a coup d'œil make a bewildering whole which may well be studied in detail. But great powers of concentration are needed if much of this is not forgotten while observing the moving, living actors in the scene around these wells.

The water-bearers come and go, carrying vessels of all sizes, forms, and colors. Some who are strong and seem to be in haste quickly fill their cans and jars, and go away. Others, more at leisure, put down their burdens and stay to tell and hear the gossip of the day. The variety of faces, young and old, of dress and manners, and especially of gestures, is most remarkable. The two distinctive charms of this court, the artistic past and the picturesque present, make it always fascinating, no matter how often seen; and if one would here study Rizzo and Sansovino, it is sometimes necessary to shut the eyes and think of what is to be done, or the human nature of to-day will prove itself far more absorbing than the sculpture of the past.

But the treasure-house of rare and precious antiques in Venice is the Basilica of San Marco. On the exterior, besides the Bronze Horses, there are numerous fragments from more ancient edifices which bear witness to the good taste and the acquisitiveness of the old Venetians. Within and without are more than five hundred pillars of rare marbles, mostly Oriental. During the building of the Basilica all Venetian vessels that sailed to the East were obliged to bring back a contribution to San Marco. Many {270} of the pillars in the façade have Armenian and Syriac inscriptions, having once adorned older edifices; and tablets with ancient sculptures, of which no history can be given, are inserted in the walls. Of the three doors which open from the vestibule into the church, that on the right is believed to have been taken from St. Sophia, in 1203; and the eight marble columns on each side this entrance came from the same temple. An ancient Greek altar, with bas-reliefs of dolphins and children, supports the basin for holy water; and within the baptistery the mass of granite which forms the altar is said to be the stone on which Christ stood when he preached to the people of Tyre, or, as another tradition says, upon which he rested by the gate of Tyre, whence it was brought to Venice in 1126 by the Doge Domenico Michieli.

The Pala d' Oro is a remarkable specimen of Byzantine art. It is only seen on high festival days, when the candles are lighted in front of the high altar, in the splendid candelabra given by the Doge Cristoforo Moro in the middle of the fifteenth century.

This altar screen was originally intended to decorate the front of the altar. It was ordered to be made in Constantinople by the Doge Pietro Orseolo in 976, and was not brought to Venice until 1105, when it was enlarged and enriched by Venetian artists, and this process repeated in 1209 and 1345. Naturally the splendor it has gained detracts from its original value. It was Byzantine; it is now also Gothic and Venetian. The inscriptions are both in Greek and Latin; and, on the whole, it is inferior in workmanship to other specimens of European gold and enamel work of the Middle Ages. That portion which was made in Constantinople consists of a picture in enamel or gold, enriched with chasing, pearls, cameos, and precious stones. This Pala is a fitting symbol of the Basilica, which is as composite in its architecture {271} and as incongruous in its detail as it is splendid and imposing as a whole.

The canopy above the altar of the Holy Sacrament is supported by four spiral fluted pillars, said to have been brought from the Temple of Solomon. The bronzes by the Italian masters, here and there all over the Basilica, are of great interest. They date from the twelfth century, two of the doors from the vestibule into the church having been executed between 1100 and 1112. The five outer doors, made by the Venetian goldsmith Bertuccio, were finished in 1300. The bronze tomb of Cardinal Zeno is a magnificent specimen of the art of Lombardo and Leopardo (1505-15). It was decreed by the Republic to be placed in the chapel which the Cardinal had built. The statue of the Cardinal, surrounded by figures symbolic of his virtues, the lovely Madonna della Scarpa (golden shoe), with Saints Peter and John the Baptist, the two lions in colored marbles, and the mosaics of the twelfth century, make this chapel a wonderful treasure-house, and a worthy tribute to one who loved his Venice with supreme affection.

The Treasury of St. Mark once contained the finest collection of Byzantine jewelry in the world; and despite the demands made on it by the Republic in its emergencies, and the ravages of the robbers of 1797, it is still rich. It contains interesting reliquaries, chalices, cups, and similar objects in crystal, Oriental agate, gold, and silver, ornamented with enamels and precious stones. The reliquary containing a portion of the True Cross was given to St. Sophia, in 1120, by the Empress Irene. Among the other remarkable relics, all of which are in rich and costly reliquaries, are said to be a morsel of the skull of Saint John the Baptist and a bone from the arm of Saint George.

The altar of the Virgin Mary is continually surrounded {272} by worshippers. A picture of the Virgin, believed to have been painted by Saint Luke, is there. It is usually veiled; but on certain festival days it is taken into the Piazza, also on occasions of plagues or other public afflictions, and there the people flock to make their prayers and vows.

But the most distinctive and interesting study in this Basilica is that of its mosaics. So numerous are they that much devoted attention must be given by one who would fully comprehend their order and meaning. Nothing less than Mr. Ruskin's exhaustive treatise on them is worthy to be offered to an intelligent student of symbolism in art; and although one derives great pleasure from the more superficial knowledge of these works, Mr. Ruskin speaks truly when he says that an understanding of the mosaics changes the whole impression and atmosphere of the Basilica. Having shown that the mosaics give an historical epitome of Christ's teaching, he says:—

"And this thought may dispose the reader to look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of that shrine of S. Mark's. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once a type of the Redeemed Church of God and a scroll for the written word of God. It was to them both an image of the Bride, all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold, and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honored as the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper, and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones; and that, as the channel of the Word, the triumphant utterance of the Psalmist should be true of it, 'I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches'?"

In spite of the lavishness of gold, of red, and all the varied tones of marbles, bronzes, and mosaics with which San Marco abounds, there are few churches so severe and profoundly impressive. The mystical half-light which pervades it converts what might be a tawdry blaze into harmonious poesy of color, full of the sentiment of impassioned religion. All of spiritual emotion and aspiration is here expressed. One forgets the detail and remembers the whole, loses the actual in the ideal, and thanks God that in this modern, bustling, materialistic nineteenth century there still exist "an assemblage of saints, an infinite history, an entire legendary Paradise," like those of San Marco.

Again in the Piazza, and in the midst of its present life. If it be early morning, it is almost deserted, save for the softly cooing and carefully stepping pigeons. At ten or eleven o'clock it is full of practical life. The shops are brilliant with jewels, glassware, beads, laces, and innumerable objects of use and uselessness. There are many sellers and buyers of all sorts of ambulating merchandise,—from turtles and other shell fish, vegetables and fruits, hardware and matches, to the lovely nosegays and toothsome caramel. Gentlemen are persecuted by persistent shoeblacks and men who mysteriously whisper of Havana cigars, while the tourists, with red guide-books in hand, impatiently wave off both these intruders, and the guides who offer their services, and rush on to the Basilica or Palace, as if they feared that these wonders would disappear before their eyes. Oh, this wearisome hurry! At noon the energy of the venders is somewhat subdued, and they are glad to seek the shade of the arcades; and in the early afternoon, when all the world is taking its luncheon or its siesta, when the pavement is burning beneath the sun, the Piazza is again almost deserted.

But with the evening, from all parts of the city, come those who wish to see the world, to hear the music of the military bands, to dine at the cafés, and meet the friends they are likely to find there. And soon the Piazza is like an immense salon, brilliantly lighted, full of guests of many sorts, from the elegantly dressed ladies with their attendant cavaliers, to the plainly dressed traveller and the unobtrusive Venetians, who come to gaze at all who throng their dear Piazza. The flower-girls, in pretty costumes, offer their nosegays with a deprecating air, which is irresistible. When the band stops playing, strolling musicians sing, or play the violin and harp. The brilliant cafés are thronged, and hundreds of men and women, who surround the little tables in the square, leisurely enjoy their sorbets, sip the delicious coffee, and smoke the Oriental tobacco. It will be midnight, perhaps some hours after that, when the Piazza is again silent, "when a bright sleep is on each storied pile," when the only sounds are the soft lapping of the water at the end of the Piazzetta and the distant music of some belated gondolier who sings, as ever,—

CHAPTER XV.

GLORY, HUMILIATION, FREEDOM.

All historians agree that the fifteenth century was the period of the greatest luxury and magnificence of Venice. In 1457 it seemed that the Republic would march on to greater power over a larger territory than had yet been held by any one of the North Italian States. Brescia, Bergamo, and Ravenna were securely hers. She was attempting to cross the Adda to the west, and to encroach upon the Romagna on the south. Could there have been peace anywhere,—at home or abroad,—could she have had a respite in which to think and plan her policy, she might have succeeded in becoming a powerful territorial State; but no such breathing-spell was possible. All Italy was in a ferment. Each power sought to lessen the strength of its neighbor. Political combinations were made, apparently only to be broken. Everything was in dire confusion, and Venice would have had more than she could do to carry herself advantageously in her own nation, when the Turks, by their conquest of Constantinople, threatened her with the death of her commerce, which was essentially her death as a Republic, since on that she depended for her revenue to enable her to maintain herself against all enemies at home and abroad.

For sixteen years Venice was continually at war in the East. While, in fact, all Europe was vitally interested in the outcome of this struggle, yet all Europe failed to offer any aid to Venice. It was assumed that since the {276} Republic had so largely profited by her relations in the Levant, she alone must bear the burden of the struggle. In the beginning she had promises of support, but all these failed her at the outset. She spent men and money, and fought with her accustomed bravery until she had no more to give. Then, in 1479, she made the best terms for peace that were possible, only to be cursed for perfidy to Christianity, and to be accused of cowardly submission to the Turks, in order to use all her strength to increase her territory on the mainland of Italy.

Unfortunately this accusation seemed to be well founded, when, in 1481, the Republic declared war against Ferrara, whose territory separated Venice from her own dependency of Ravenna. The Venetians were most patriotic in the support of this war. They wished to reinstate themselves in their own good opinion after all their humiliation in the East, and with the support of the Pope all went to their advantage in the beginning. But soon Sixtus IV. not only abandoned them, but placed them under an interdict because they did not lay down their arms at his request; and in the end the peace of Bagnolo was made in 1484, the Republic having gained very little in return for the vast expense of 1,200,000 ducats, great losses of men and ships, and a mortification of her pride which vastly increased the bitterness of the result. All these misfortunes occurred at the time when travellers and chroniclers who wrote of Venice failed to find words rich enough in their meaning to convey the just impression of the magnificence of the "Queen of the Adriatic,"—the time of which Brown says:—

"And yet, while the Republic was really hurling headlong to its ruin, the outward pomp, the glory, the splendor of Venice were just beginning to attract the eyes of Europe, blinding many Venetians and all foreigners to the real aspect of the situation. Venice was acquiring her reputation as the city of {277} magnificent private life, the city of 'masks and balls begun at midnight, burning ever to midday;' the city, too, of sfrenata lasciva, the 'Gehenna of the Waters.' This is the period when her great palaces arose, in all their pomp of balcony and pillared windows and frescoed façades, along the Grand Canal; when Vivarini, Carpaccio, and Bellini were preluding to Titian, Giorgione, Tintoret; when Bessarion presented his priceless codices to the Marician Library; when the colony of Greek Scribes was endeavoring to hold its own against the new invention of printing, against John of Speyer's 'Epistolæ Familiares' and Jenson's 'Ad Atticum;' when Aldus, by his brilliant, earnest, passionate scholarship, and his practical acumen in the conduct of his press, began to render the Greek classics the common property of mankind.

"It would seem that just as the rapid extension of Venice on the mainland under Francesco Foscari was the blossom of all her long centuries of physical and constitutional growth, so the sudden artistic expansion of the later fifteenth century was the flowering of Venice in the intellectual and emotional region. The bloom presaged decay. Death was already at the roots before the flower had opened to its fullest splendor."

Before the end of this century another event—unfortunate for Venice, but a blessing to all the world besides—was added to the misfortunes which had followed her in the Levant and on the mainland. In 1486 Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope; and two years later, when the news of Vasco di Gama's voyage was received, all intelligent Venetians knew that a fatal blow had fallen on their commerce. Its death might be a lingering one, but it was sure. Of this Brown says:—

"A new commercial route was opened to the world. Instead of passing up the Red Sea and across the Isthmus of Suez, or up the Persian Gulf and through Asia Minor, breaking bulk at Ormuz or at Suez, and being shipped again for European destinations at Alexandria or Aleppo, all the wealth of the Indies could now be carried in unbroken cargoes round the Cape of {278} Good Hope, to be discharged in the harbors of Holland, of the Hanseatic towns, of England. The Mediterranean instantly ceased to be the sole highway of communication between the East and West; the great commercial thoroughfare was now thrown outside the Straits of Gibraltar; and Venice, in whose hands Mediterranean traffic had become almost a monopoly, suffered a blow such as all her struggles with Genoa and all the victories of the Turks had hitherto failed to inflict."

In the Diaries of Priuli we read that on the receipt of the news of Di Gama's voyage the whole city was astounded; and the wisest Venetians agreed that never before had any information been so deplorable, nor could any other ever excel it in importance. Priuli continues:

"For it is well known that Venice reached her height of reputation and riches through her commerce alone, which brought foreigners to the city in great numbers; and now by this new route the spice cargoes will be taken straight to Lisbon, where the Hungarians, Germans, Flemish, and French will flock to buy them; they will find the goods cheaper in Lisbon than they can be in Venice, for before the freights can reach Venice by the old route, they have to pay exorbitant dues for transit through Syria and the lands of the Soldan of Egypt."

Lisbon was soon the mart to which all the northern merchants resorted; and the Florentines profited by this change to the exclusion of the Venetians, who suffered from three causes. They did not dare at once to break their commercial relations with the Sultan, who was, in a way, interested to defend Venice from the Turk; and, moreover, he had in his power the warehouses of the Venetians at Cairo and Alexandria, filled with a wealth of Eastern products. Again, they could not pass the Straits of Gibraltar without paying levies on their ships to Spain; and even if they did this, the northern men would soon forsake the dangers and toils of crossing the {279} Alps for the less perilous and more comfortable voyage to Lisbon.

This overwhelming commercial misfortune was soon followed by the culmination of events which had been threatening political perils to Venice ever since she had indulged her desire for possessions on Terra Firma, as it was expressed. The many leagues and combinations, made apparently but to be broken, the sending and receiving of ambassadors, the vague replies and diplomatic avoidance of yea and nay, all resulted in the League concluded at Cambray in 1508. Here France, Spain, the Emperor Maximilian, the Pope, the Dukes of Ferrara and Savoy, and the King of Hungary were all combined against the Republic, or against what the preamble to the treaty called "the insatiable cupidity of the Venetians and their thirst for dominion." This is not the place to trace the steps, through a quarter of a century and more, by which all these powers and others had gradually crushed the prestige of Venice, in Italy, outside her own lagoons, as essentially as the Turks had destroyed her Levantine precedence.

Meantime, in all these years of slow poison and decline, few Venetians had recognized their danger, few had foreseen the end. Men of courage and devoted patriotism were not wanting. There was still great individual wealth, and it would have been given to the ever-beloved Venice with cheerful alacrity; but the complications were so many, and followed each other so rapidly, that the government was unable to hold itself clearly above these circumstances, and organize a policy which should reinstate the Republic, even in part. When in 1499 the Grand Vizier said to the agent of the Republic, "You can tell the Doge that he has done wedding the sea; it is our turn now," he but told the brutal truth, as did Malipiero when, speaking of the Italian wars, he said, "We shall have to beg for peace and restore all we have acquired."

It would seem, too, that a sort of madness blinded the Venetians to their true condition. They acted as if the mines of Golconda were beneath their Piazza, and they had but to go in by their private entrance and draw upon inexhaustible wealth. After sixteen years of a losing war with the Turks, when the Ducal Palace was destroyed, the proposal to build a much larger and more magnificent palace found much favor; and at this very time Venice was impoverished.

The League of Cambray, to put it in a word, simply divided among its members all the possessions of the Republic outside the city of Venice and its lagoon islands. France proceeded to carry out the treaty at once, and was so successful that by the first of June Sanudo wrote in his chronicles that, except the towns of Asola, Crema, and Pizzighettone not a town in Lombardy remained to Venice. "All the rest is lost,—yielded to the French without drawing sword."

Venice prepared for a blockade. The French had nearly fulfilled all the provisions of the League, and the Venetians might well fear the next steps. But the remarkable activity of the French did not altogether please the Pope, Julius II. He had by their aid recovered the territory of the Church, and so felt no further need of their presence in Italy; and before long he deserted the League and allied himself with Venice, and afterward they were joined by Spain in an alliance which the Pope called "Holy." This was in 1511; and after various battles, which resulted in no good to the Republic, she in turn deserted the "Holy League," and became the ally of France by the treaty of Blois, in 1513. Again fierce battles were fought; again the French retired, leaving the Venetians alone. Cardona, the leader of the army of the Holy League, pushed down to the shores of the lagoon, burning the Venetian towns in his progress, and even {281} pointing his cannon against Venice, and firing a few shots.

But the same lagoons that had defeated all her enemies from the time of the Huns still protected her. She was impregnable; and Cardona was forced to retire, as the Genoese had done long years before. During 1514 the Venetian territory was the scene of marching and counter-marching, with little or no result; when in 1515 Louis XII. died, and Francis I. at once declared himself Duke of Milan, and so conducted his affairs in Italy that the Peace of Brussels, in which Venice was included, was signed in 1516. This virtually ended the effects of the League of Cambray, and Venice again resumed her former territory on the mainland.

The struggles between Francis and Charles V. made little difference to the Republic, except that Charles demanded 80,000 ducats, which were paid; and in his settlement of Italy in 1529 he left Venice with her frontier where Carmagnola had fixed it, on the Adda; there it remained so long as the Republic endured. She was able to congratulate herself that she was still an independent power, although enfeebled beyond recovery.

And now her former strength was replaced by the only weapon left to her, diplomacy. The Council of Ten and the Three Inquisitors became all-powerful; while the slightest alarm raised a panic of fear and excitement, and secrecy, vigilance, silence, and mystery were relied on to preserve her existence, which actually depended on two circumstances,—first, her impregnable position; and second, the jealousy between other powers, which would not permit any one of them to appropriate her possessions on Terra Firma.

The Venetian characteristic which proved to be "the ruling passion, strong in death," her love of ceremonies and pleasure, was in no wise modified through all these {282} troublous years. It would seem like dancing on its own grave, when at the wedding of Jacopo Foscari the ambassadors of the members of the League of Cambray were entertained with magnificent spectacles, while Brescia and Bergamo, Verona and Vicenza were in the hands of these very enemies. The gayety of the life and the safety of her position made Venice a desirable asylum to those who hated war. She was the only Italian city that had never been at the mercy of a brutal enemy; and many came to her for safety, as Petrarch had done. Art flourished; every comfort and luxury of living could be had. Great license of conduct was allowed; indeed, save committing a political fault, a man of wealth could do almost anything he chose, as private crimes seemed to be matters of indifference. In fact, Venice spared no pains to stand before the world as an attractive resort, a city of pageants and pleasure, to which all were made welcome.

From the Peace of Brussels in 1516 to the peace with the Turks in 1573 there is little to record to the glory of the Republic. In the war of the Valtelline and in that of the Spanish succession she simply strove to preserve her neutrality, and succeeded, but at the expense of having her territory overrun by both armies and submitting to humiliation in silence.

In 1537 a third war broke out with the Turks, and was concluded by a peace in 1540, which was ruinous to Venice in the further loss of territory in the Levant. This treaty was made with Suleiman the Magnificent; and when at his death, in 1566, Selim the Drunkard became Sultan, he at once determined to seize on Cyprus, and demanded its surrender on the plea that it was a dependency of Mecca. In its weakness the Republic appealed for help to the Pope, who promised that all Europe should give its support. But the usual disappointment was repeated,—the assistance was meagre, {283} and the delay in sending it was such that although the cities of Nicosia and Famagosta made a stout resistance, and the Venetian commandants did all that brave men could do, hoping for relief from day to day, yet Cyprus was conquered by the Turks without a Venetian fleet coming within sight of the island. The details of the defence, and of the sufferings of the Italians at the hands of the barbarous Turks, are too heart-sickening for repetition.

At length the allied fleet of the Venetians, Spaniards, and Papal forces, when all too late to save Cyprus, encountered the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto, and a desperate battle for five hours resulted in a splendid victory for the allies. The Turks lost thirty thousand men and one hundred and seventeen galleys, while the Christians lost eight thousand. Sebastian Venier won great renown for himself and the Republic; and Venice had the supreme joy of once again celebrating a victory and hearing a Te Deum in San Marco. The Venetians desired to press on at once to Constantinople, having a reasonable hope, after such a defeat, of crushing the power of the infidel; but the allies would not consent, and Don John of Austria took his ships into winter quarters. By spring the Turks were ready with a fleet of two hundred and ten sail. Venice could not contend with them alone, and in the end made a peace which, together with Cyprus, contented the Turk for a time.

In 1574 Henry III. arrived in Venice, on his way from Poland to France, and afforded the Venetians an excuse for one of their dearly loved pageants. Everything was done to make the occasion impressive and magnificent His attendants were young nobles of high rank. He was received under a triumphal arch designed by Palladio and painted by Veronese and Tintoretto. He was lodged in the Foscari Palace, with the two adjoining palaces of {284} the Giustiniani also at his service. A large platform floated on the canal before the palace, to accommodate the comedians by day and the musicians at night. A regatta, a banquet and ball, and other spectacles afforded him entertainment; and he left Venice as he might have left an enchanted island, intoxicated with its pleasures and beauties.

It may readily be seen that after the peace with the Turks, so different in spirit from what the Venetians had been accustomed to, there were constant difficulties arising between the vessels of the two powers, and it was impossible for the Republic to prevent such acts on the part of her seamen as might give any Ottoman prince an excuse for a declaration of war. But by the payment of indemnities and other pacific measures peace was maintained during more than seventy years, when the Sultan Ibrahim determined to take Candia, the last important stronghold of the Venetians in the Levant.

The Sultan alleged that the Knights of Malta had seized a Turkish vessel that was carrying pilgrims, and had then touched at Candia; and although the Governor of Candia had warned the Maltese off, it served the Sultan as the excuse that he desired for attacking the island. Well understanding this, Venice at once did all in her power to garrison and provision Candia, although the preparations were quite inadequate.

In 1645 the Turks began a war which endured nearly twenty-five years, in which time many brave deeds were done, and the true old Venetian spirit maintained itself in spite of the greatest discouragements, losses, and sufferings. Their determined defence of Candia interested all the world; and more than once succor was sent from France, and the solid ranks of the Mussulmans were impetuously assaulted to no purpose. Other nations were fired with admiration of the splendid resistance these {285} Christians were making, and determined to send them aid, but all too late. "The Republic was dying; but dying gloriously here in the Levant,—the earliest, as it was the latest, scene of all her solid triumphs."

Lazzaro Mocenigo, the brave commander of the fleet, after many splendid deeds, was killed by the explosion of his magazine. After an interval the great Francesco Morosini was made admiral. He was the last of the Venetian seamen to uphold the ancient fame of his country upon the seas, but it was his sad fate to end this struggle by negotiation instead of victory. The terms were honorable. Candia was surrendered; but the guns, the people, the sacred vessels, and the ammunition were removed to the Venetian fleet, and the roadstead of Suda remained to Venice. Morosini also made a peace between the Republic and the Sultan. This was in 1669, and Venice was on the brink of financial ruin.

Sixteen years later Morosini was again in command against the Turks, who had threatened attacks on Albania. The Admiral now conceived the idea of reconquering the Morea, in which he succeeded. He bombarded Athens in 1688, when one of his bombs set fire to a powder magazine within the Parthenon, and ruined the temple. He was recalled to Venice by the news that he had been elected Doge in recognition of his services; but he soon returned to the Morea, where matters were not progressing to his satisfaction. His embarkation in 1693 afforded almost the last of the great solemnities of the Republic, which proved to be also the last honor to Morosini, for he died at Nauplia very soon after his arrival, worn out with age ami long service of Venice.

The results of his conquests were of small account to the Republic. She had lost her power to maintain distant provinces; and finally, in 1718, all her long struggles in the Levant were ended by the final resignation of her {286} claims to the Morea. But she did not forget to emblazon the name of Francesco Morosini, the hero of her last conflicts on that sea of which she was so long the proud mistress, on the walls of the Sala dello Scrutinio.

We have already considered the Council of Ten, and defended it against some of the accusations which have been too frequently made against it. During the first two centuries of its existence it became enormously important. The State retained the management of the navy and army, of finance, and, in a certain sense, of diplomacy; but all urgent or unusual business was left to the Ten, who could call any case before its court, could make special expenditures, and could privately instruct ambassadors,—extensive powers, which made it the essential ruler of Venice,—and the last two centuries and a half of the constitutional history of the Republic is simply the story of a growing opposition to the power of the Ten.

In the early days of its existence, when a difficult question was before the Ten, that body was accustomed to appeal to the Senate for assistance from some of its number, appointed to the duty. These men formed what came to be known as the Giunta, or Zonta; and having but a temporary connection with the Ten, they were as likely to disapprove their course as to be content with it. But in 1529 this Zonta became a permanent body, and was composed of the most prominent members of each of the other councils of the State. Thus, if the action of the Ten was questioned, it was defended by the most powerful men of the Republic, and more and more was able to enlarge its office and increase its absolutism.

The first serious outbreak against the Ten occurred when that body clearly overstepped its province, and asked the Doge Foscari to resign. Legally such a request must come from the vote of the Great Council, with the advice {287} of the Ducal Council. These councils resented the action of the Ten; and its authority was declared to be limited to delicate and secret matters, which might be submitted to its consideration. These limitations were made in 1468, but were of little effect. We find in 1483 that it was the Ten who decided on the conduct of the Ferrarese war, and in 1508 it was the same power that took up and decided the questions which resulted from the League of Cambray.

A few years later a new departure was made by the Ten. In 1537 they delegated a part of their duties, the care of the public morals, to Esecutori contra la Bestemmia. This having been allowed, two years later the Three Inquisitors of State were created. The special duty of the Three was to deal with treason, which seemed to abound, as the state secrets were constantly communicated to the ambassadors of various countries. After the League of Cambray took effect, the Venetians relied solely on their diplomacy. If this could not be conducted with secrecy, their ship of state was without a rudder; and the repeated violation of this secrecy led to the belief that even Ten was too large a body to be trusted. The Three Inquisitors had all the powers of the Ten, except that they were obliged to report their sentences to the Great Council. They soon became very objectionable to the corrupt nobility, into whose morals they had the right to inquire; and the hatred for the Ten, and even more for the Three, constantly increased. The first real difficulty, however, did not occur until 1582, when the feeling developed into hostility between the Great Council and the Ten, and was never allayed during the existence of the Republic.

The dread of Spain, of Spanish plots and Spanish gold, had almost paralyzed the government ever after Cambray; and when, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, {288} Venice was involved in a quarrel with Paul V., the Ten and the Inquisitors fully believed that the Pope would employ the army of Spain to reduce Venice to obedience to him. In 1612 one of the Inquisitors wrote in his memoranda: "Right piteous is our condition. Alone we cannot resist. Allies we have not, neither ready enough nor warm enough. Treaties we cannot construct upon any terms which are not ruinous to us."

Six years later all the fears inspired by the Spaniards were justified when the Spanish conspiracy was discovered. The Viceroy of Naples, Duke of Ossuna, and the Spanish ambassador at Venice, Marquis of Bedmar, were suspected of being the chiefs in the plot. Giacomo Pierre was at the head of the disreputable company of questionable characters, who were their agents, consisting of bravi, mercenaries, and other broken-down men who went frequently to the house of the ambassador. Pierre, however, betrayed enough of the plot to the Venetian Resident at Naples, Spinelli, to cause him to send Pierre, with his friends Regnault and Langlade, to Venice. They were there left free, but constantly watched. Pierre had alleged the plot to be the seizure of Venice. The boats of Ossuna were to enter the lagoon at Malamocco, steal up to the Piazzetta by night, and with the aid of confederates already there secure command of the city. Ossuna's fleet was certainly in the Adriatic, but it did not approach Venice.

At length, by a counterplot, a full knowledge of all Pierre's plans was brought to the Doge. Three of the conspirators were strangled, and hanged by one leg to the gibbet between the Columns. The effect was magical. At the sight of these three bodies, the inns and lodging-houses, which had been full of curious and unaccountable strangers, were immediately deserted. Thus the Spanish conspiracy came to naught; but it was soon suspected that {289} some of the Venetian nobles were selling information to the Spaniards, and the discovery of the treason of Giambattista Bragadin proved these suspicions to be correct.

Bragadin secured his election to the Senate by a fraud, and by an ingenious method was selling to the Spanish ambassador the secrets of the Council Chamber. He went to the Frari for his devotions, and in a particular faldstool which he used, he left in writing his communication for the ambassador, which was taken away by a secretary of the embassy. A monk, who was somewhat surprised by the frequent devotions of Bragadin, observed that the secretary always came to the church on the same day with the Senator. This so aroused the curiosity of the monk that he watched the two worshippers until he discovered the secret, took one of these letters out of the faldstool himself, and carried it to the Doge. Bragadin was hanged between the Columns, and the ambassador hurriedly returned to Spain. In these two cases the conduct of the Ten commended itself to all parties; but unfortunately a sad case of another sort excited a furious hatred of them and of their methods.

In 1609 Antonio Foscarini, who had been a wise and faithful servant of Venice, was sent as ambassador to England. He had been there but a short time when it was found that the contents of his despatches to Venice were being given to other foreign ambassadors in England. His secretary was suspected and discharged, his place being supplied by Giulio Muscorno. After a time Muscorno and Foscarini disagreed seriously; and Muscorno took every means to make it appear that Foscarini was dishonest, and finally, at Venice, declared that the ambassador had himself sold the secrets of the State. The Inquisitors made a long and careful inquiry, which resulted in the acquittal of Foscarini and the imprisonment of Muscorno, in 1618.

But Foscarini, having been once suspected, was carefully watched; and when Lady Arundel of Wardour, who had been his friend in England, came to Venice for the education of her children, his visits to her house, where the ambassadors of different countries were also frequently received, attracted much attention. Girolamo Vano, a professional spy, now accused Foscarini to the Ten. He was arrested and tried for selling state secrets by the Three Inquisitors, who reported him to the Ten as guilty, in April, 1622. He was condemned, as a traitor, to be strangled in prison that night, and to be hanged by one leg between the Columns the next morning. Foscarini calmly dictated his will to his jailer, and died with fortitude.

But it would have been wiser in the Ten to have buried him privately. The public exposure of his strangled corpse angered the nobility, while it also terrified them; and when, four months later, it was proved that Foscarini had been an innocent man, the rage against the Ten and the Three was fully justified. Everything possible was done to repair the ghastly error. Girolamo Vano was strangled in his turn. An order was published at home and sent abroad, acknowledging the fatal mistake. The body of Foscarini was exhumed and reburied with all the pomp due a senator; but such an exposure of the Ten absolutely forbade confidence in them or their methods. They never recovered from its effect, and their opponents took every advantage of their grave and even criminal blunder.

The jealousy of the Great Council and the Senate brought about a feeling of opposition to the Ten, which was shared by a large party of the people; and at length, in 1627, a commission was appointed to revise the laws by which the Ten were governed. From time to time the hostility to the Ten and the Inquisitors was fanned to a brighter flame, and in the eighteenth century the opposition {291} to them became more active. In 1761 the Great Council refused to elect new members of the Ten; and it is both sad and amusing that so grave an act should result from a quarrel over a lady's caps!

A modiste had made caps for a lady, and failed to please her. A second lady was a friend of a Senator, Angelo Querini, who, in order to please the friend of his friend, procured an order for the expulsion of the cap-maker. The modiste appealed to the Three, and they cancelled the order for expulsion, and declared it unjust. Querini then began to complain of the tyranny of the Inquisitors, and found much sympathy among the nobles. All this so incensed the Three that they resolved to arrest Querini and exile him at Verona; and this folly gave the Great Council its opportunity to declare its hostility to the Ten and the Three, and to refuse to perpetuate these offices.

An examination into the affairs of the Ten and the Inquisitors resulted in their triumph; but there was a revolutionary spirit in Venice which was rapidly growing. An order was issued closing cafés and wine-shops at dark, and forbidding political discussions. The following reply to this was posted up: "The company of night thieves thanks the Ten for giving them the opportunity of winning their supper at a reasonable hour." The chief mouthpiece of the liberal party was Giorgio Pisani, and he was bold in the declaration of his opinions; but the Three were too powerful as yet to permit the theories of the Republicans to be thus freely expressed, and Pisani was deported to Verona in 1780. In that year the Doge Paolo Renier said: "If there be any State in the world which absolutely requires concord at home, it is ours. We have no forces, either on land or on sea. We have no alliances. We live by luck, by accident, and solely dependent upon the conception of Venetian prudence which others entertain about us."

"How are the mighty fallen!" What would Sebastiano Ziani, Enrico Dandolo, Pietro Gradenigo, and many another Doge have thought of such a fate as this for the Venice of their love and pride?

The time was soon to come when another Doge, deposed by a resolution of the Great Council, should give the beretta to his servant,—we may believe with a sense of relief,—and say, "Take it away; we shall not use it any more." Napoleon had come to relieve him of his cares; and we cannot doubt that he was half welcome to those who were so weary of the rule of the Ten and the Three, the party who believed in revolution. The efforts made to keep the Republic alive were so feeble as to seem ridiculous. But what could be done without an army, without a navy, and without money? A deputation was sent to Napoleon, and his reply was sufficiently clear and comprehensive: "I have eighty thousand men and twenty gunboats. I will have no more Inquisitors, no more Senate. I will be an Attila for Venice."

On May 3, 1797, Bonaparte issued his proclamation: "The Commander-in-Chief requires the French minister to leave Venice; orders the several agents of the Republic of Venice to leave Lombardy and the Venetian Terra Firma within twenty-four hours! He orders the different generals of divisions to treat the Venetian troops as enemies, and to destroy the Lion of Saint Mark in all the towns of the Terra Firma."

The whole government—Doge, Senate, the Ten, and the Three—seemed to vanish into oblivion. The great Venetian Republic fell without a sound. Eight days after the manifesto the tricolor waved above the Piazza, a popular constitution was declared, and a provisional government established. The Venetian fleet was manned and sent to Toulon. The French took possession of Corfu; and Venice was wholly in the power of France, to be {293} disposed of as might suit the will or the need of that nation. And the need soon came; for when, after a summer of fruitless negotiation with the Emperor of Austria, the snow appeared on the mountains, Napoleon decided to make peace. He would not risk a winter campaign, and said to Bourrienne, "Venice shall be exchanged for the boundary of the Rhine, and thus be made to pay for the war."

The treaty was signed at Campo Formio on the 17th of October. The ex-Doge, Lodovico Manin, when taking the oath of allegiance to Austria, sank insensible on the ground, and lived but a few days afterward. Thus he was spared the second humiliation of Venice, when, in January, 1798, the tricolor was replaced by the double-headed eagle, and the days of its captivity and oppression began.

Venice seemed now to be a make-weight to be used in Napoleonic treaties; and in 1805, at Presburg, the kingdom of Italy was ceded to its first conqueror, and Venice came within the government of the French Viceroy, Eugene Beauharnais. During ten years northern Italy, while not independent, was awake. New and broader ideas replaced the older theories; and the hearts of the people were filled with aspirations and hopes that were all blasted by the so-called Restoration of 1815, which confirmed a reign of tyranny in Venice. An Austrian Archduke, under Metternich, acted as Viceroy; and a system of secret courts, police spies, barbarous punishments, and oppressive taxation was inaugurated.

Under the French rule Italian soldiers remained at home, or won honors in the wars. Under the Austrians they were sent beyond the Alps, and the white-coated foreign troops held the Venetians as in a prison. The civil offices were filled by Germans, whose harsh gutturals conveyed no meaning, and inspired dislike in the {294} soft-speaking Venetians, who were in turn incomprehensible to these officials. The simplest matters were laboriously referred to the Aulic Council at Vienna. Letters were not safe, since the spies opened them. No redress could be had through the press, which was gagged. The pillory, flogging, and other equally barbarous customs were revived; and, in short, no method was spared that could impress on the Venetians the thought that they were living and breathing by the permission and according to the will of a cruel tyrant. To quote from "The Dawn of Italian Independence," by W. R. Thayer:—

"The Italian must obey laws imposed upon him by a foreigner,—laws which had been framed without his voice, for the benefit of a master who dwelt at Vienna. Were a law good, he hated it because it was a cog in the great wheel of tyranny; were it bad, he hated it because it threatened directly his property, his freedom, or his life. Napoleon's rule had been despotic, but it had been despotic on a grand scale; he had conquered by force; he had opened avenues to glory; he had awakened a virile spirit, and shed round him large and stirring ideas: but these Austrians had sneaked into their supremacy; they were arrogant and conceited; their emperor was bigoted, petty, and unyielding; a man who depended on eavesdroppers and tricksters for his information; a man who had not a single heroic attribute, nor uttered, during the course of a long life, a single thought whereby mankind was made stronger or wiser; a martinet, only fitted to be the superintendent of a small reformatory school for juvenile criminals. So to the Italians the contrast between the recent French rule and the present Austrian was typified by the contrast between Napoleon and Francis; but the incompatibility between the two peoples had the deepest source,—it sprang from racial antipathy."

When, in 1848, Metternich was driven from Vienna, and the Austrians from Milan, the Venetians also were ready to demand and to conquer their liberty. Manin, who had been imprisoned a few weeks before, was released, {295} upon an order from the governor, who dared not refuse it. A few days later he agreed to withdraw with all foreign soldiers, leaving the munitions and public treasure behind. The Venetian Republic, with Manin as President, was at once declared in the Piazza; the Italian tricolor again streamed from the three masts before the cathedral, and without fighting or bloodshed Venice was free. Her oppressors departed; her flag waved over her borders on the south and west. Her independence was recognized by the Consul of the United States; and all the people, with one accord, assembled in San Marco to thank God and their glorious saint that again Venice was a Republic.

The Republic was declared on the 22d of March, 1848, and on the 18th of June the Austrians began to draw trenches round Mestre, thus cutting off communication between the mainland and Venice. The National Assembly did not meet until July 3, when, after attending Mass in the cathedral, one hundred and thirty-three deputies ascended the Giants' Staircase, and entered the Hall of the Great Council. It was a remarkable gathering, and momentous consequences hung upon its decisions. Thayer says:—

"If ever the monuments of a splendid Past might inspire men of a later generation with a sense, a hallowing sense, of the glory and dignity of which those monuments were the products and witnesses, it would be in that Hall of the Great Council, when those representatives of free Venice met there to determine her fate. Let a deputy look where he would, he saw reminders of the strength and beauty of the State which his ancestors had raised to a unique position among the nations of the world. Venice, though built on the shifting mud where sea-gulls made their nests, yet had, through the indomitable courage of her sons, a foundation more permanent than that of rock-born cities; she counted her life, not by decades nor by {296} generations, but by ages, she had been strong when her neighbors were weak; she had been civilized when Paris and London were but half-barbarous settlements, and the site of Berlin was a morass; in her great days she had bowed neither to pope nor to emperor; and she had ever been so surpassingly beautiful, floating there on the Adriatic for fourteen hundred years, as delicate and wonderful as a nautilus, yet firm as marble and stancher than the stanchest ship. And now, after fifty years of servitude, she was again free, robed in the glory of her incomparable Past, and resolutely facing the strange world and perils upon which she had reawakened. No son of hers on that 3d of July could sit in the Great Hall and not feel that his action, must not only match the solemn exigencies of the Present, but also be worthy of the city to which forty generations of his ancestors had consecrated their lives, and to which Dandolo and Morosini, and many another as just and brave as these, had brought the offering of their individual fame."

The Assembly, after listening to all the arguments for and against the measure, voted to unite with Piedmont, and a deputation was sent to announce this decision to Charles Albert. We will not here recount the unhappy failure of this king, nor the armistice by which Piedmont was again placed under the Austrian yoke. It is enough to say that Venice was left alone, that no help came from France or England; and when, on March 27, 1849, news of the fatal defeat of Charles Albert at Novara was brought to the Venetians, with a summons to surrender, they knew that they must rely on themselves alone. The Assembly voted to resist Austria at any cost, and to give unlimited power to Manin. A red flag was unfurled from the Campanile, as a sign that Venice would resist to the death; and a copy of the vote was sent to the Austrians without a word of comment.

Then began the preparations for defence. The condition of the troops was discouraging. There were less {297} than thirty thousand men, and but two hundred and fifty in the engineer corps. The soldiers had suffered for want of proper food, clothing, and shelter all through the winter, and there was much sickness at the forts in the low, malarial places. But her position gave the inhabitants of Venice great courage. At one point alone, the newly completed railway bridge, could she be reached from the land. Much, too, depended on the defence of the fortifications of Brondolo, which overlooked the passage of the Brenta. To prevent a successful attack at these two points, and a blockade by sea, would make Venice impregnable, protected as she was by sand-bars, marshes, pools, and canals.

The Austrians seemed in no haste; and throughout April the Venetians were busy in fortifying Marghera and in various defensive preparations. They also tried by every argument and offer in their power to persuade England and France to come to their aid. But on May 4 the attack on Venice began in earnest. As earnest was its defence; and the experience of the next three months and more is one that merits a far more detailed and careful history than can be given here,—such an one as may be found in "The Dawn of Italian Independence." During those months the heroism, the patriotism, and the devotion of the Venetians were such as has not been surpassed. They knew that without aid from some outside power they must at last succumb, not to the Austrians, but to famine and disease. The aid never came. Both French and English men-of-war lay in sight of Venice, beyond the line of danger, watching the bombardment as they might watch a harmless parade. They saw the corpse-laden boats passing and repassing to San Michele. In one week fifteen hundred died of cholera; but when the Venetian director of hospitals asked the French naval commander for medicine, he replied, "That would be {298} contrary to the Law of Nations, since it is natural that the besieger seeks to do as much injury as possible to the besieged "!

Through all that summer Manin was the soul of Venice. On him devolved all responsibility, and he bore his trust with absolute fidelity. At length, when food was exhausted, the wells dried, and the city was being rapidly depopulated by famine, he capitulated. On the 30th of August Radetzky found that he had triumphed over a pest-ridden, starving, dying city. Forty Venetians had been condemned to banishment. Manin was of the number; and early on the 28th, followed by the prayers and blessings of the people, he sailed away, never to see Venice again. But as he looked back upon her beloved towers, as she faded from his sight forever, no foreign flag floated above her. The kindly exile saved him from the actual sight of her dismemberment by the Hapsburg bird of prey.

The enemies of Italy now believed that the last hope of Italian liberty was destroyed. Save in Piedmont, that little kingdom, no remnant of freedom could be discovered. The various princes who ruled, from the Alps to the Sicilies, ruled by Austrian permission, and maintained themselves by Austrian support. But there were those who still hoped, still prayed, still labored for the full liberty of all Italy; and among these Manin was with the foremost. Garibaldi never despaired, and even the defeated and dying Charles Albert wrote:—

"If Divine Providence has not permitted that the regeneration of Italy should be accomplished, I have confidence that at least it is only deferred; that so many examples of virtue, so many acts of courage and generosity, emanating from the nation, will not remain sterile, and that past adversities will only engage the peoples of Italy to be another time more united to be more invincible."

This prophecy was fulfilled. Venice was not the scene of the great struggle. It was on the mainland that the battles were fought, and in other parts of Italy that the diplomatic tournaments were held. It requires little imagination to see with what interest every action was watched, how eagerly all news was heard by the Venetians, ground as they were beneath the Austrian heel; and when, after the battle of Solferino, in 1859, from the Campanile the fleets were visible off the lagoons, the heart of Venice throbbed with that of all Italy in the feeling of a national life which was every day growing stronger and stronger.

But the end was not yet. The Peace of Villafranca brought the Venetians no release, and the fresh disappointment was hard to bear. They had rejoiced with each success of the allied Piedmontese and French. They had even dreamed dreams, and anticipated choosing their own ruler and being again an independent people. They longed to bring home their dead Manin, and by their respect to his remains testify their love for him. Every house in Venice in an hour became a house of mourning; and a feeling of utter desolation, of being deserted, forgotten, was like a black pall over all. Even Milan, which had so long shared the fate of Venice, was now free.

The truth was better than this. All Italy was rebellious at the fate of Venice; and at Milan, least of all, was she forgotten. No settlement was desired that did not give freedom to Venice. Every Italian in reality wished but one thing,—a united, a single Italy. In the new Parliament, in October, 1860, Cavour spoke of the union of Venice to the rest of Italy as a fact that must soon be accomplished; and we have trustworthy proof that neither the successful Garibaldi in the quiet of Caprera, nor the king amid his cares at Turin, was forgetful of Venice and Rome. In the midst of the exacting duties of these {300} days, when a new government was to be organized and established, and that government was weighed down with debt, with brigandage, and with many other evils of a more subtle nature, which taxed the wisdom and forbearance of the king and his ministers, their thoughts were often fixed upon the injustice to Venice; and the only methods by which she could be freed—war or negotiation—were discussed with untiring interest, and there was constantly growing a determination to force a solution of the Venetian and Roman questions.

However, it was not until 1866 that the real struggle came. To the call for soldiers the most satisfactory responses were made. They came from all classes, from the most aristocratic families, as well as the middle and lower classes; and the Italian army soon numbered about two hundred thousand men. The Venetians had contributed fourteen thousand men before this; and when the call for volunteers was made, many more succeeded in passing the frontier and joining the army.

On the 24th of June the Austrians were triumphant at Custoza; but the Prussian allies of Italy, on the 5th of July, so defeated the Austrians at Sadowa, that through the French emperor an offer was made to restore Venetia to Italy. The final treaty was not concluded between Austria and Italy until Oct. 3, 1866; and meantime, in a naval battle off Lissa, the Italians had suffered a most mortifying defeat, under such circumstances as deprived Admiral Persano of his rank, and dismissed him from the service.

Three days after the treaty was signed, the troops of Italy were received in Venice with an enthusiasm which was only exceeded by that of the reception of Victor Emmanuel himself a month later. Now acknowledged as King of Italy by all other governments, with the iron crown of Lombardy and the famous quadrilateral {301} peacefully in his possession, he had but one thing more to gain,—the submission of Rome,—before he could proclaim the unification of Italy; and this was sure to come, as it did but four years later.

In 1873 the Emperor of Austria invited the King of Italy to Vienna on the occasion of the Great Exhibition. The invitation was most courteously given and as courteously accepted; and two years later the Emperor Francis Joseph proposed to return the visit of Victor Emmanuel, and suggested Venice as the city in which they should meet.

One must reflect for a moment on the meaning of such a visit to Venice. It was the fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniele Manin: "The day will come in which Italy, reconstituted as a nation, will be the first friend of Austria." This great patriot believed that freedom and right must triumph over despotism and wrong. But one month before the visit of the Austrian Emperor the statue of Manin had been inaugurated with splendid ceremonies, and the most heartfelt tributes to his honor paid by the Venetians whom he had served so faithfully. His remains had been brought from Paris, in 1868, and deposited in a temporary tomb in the Cathedral of San Marco, the only interment there for more than three centuries. The church of S. Paterniano was taken down, and the statue of Manin erected on the site near the red house in which he had lived; and the campo is now called by the name of the patriot instead of that of the saint.

It was on the 5th of April, 1875, that a procession of gondolas, all in gala dress, passed up the Grand Canal. The most magnificent of all these hundreds of boats bore the King of Italy and his guest, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The whole city demonstrated its good will in every possible way; and when the two sovereigns landed at the Piazzetta, there was a great demonstration {302} of welcome. The bands played alternately the national airs of the two countries, and in every possible way the people strove to express the fact that the hostility against Austria which had so long reigned at Venice, was absolutely a thing of the past. Victor Emmanuel was so much gratified by the conduct of the Venetians on this occasion that he frequently referred to it as a proof of the nobility of a people who could so soon forget and forgive all that Venice had suffered in the long years of her bondage under the Austrian rule.

From these beginnings, which we have so cursorily considered, in little more than a quarter of a century, the Italy we now know has arisen.

CHAPTER XVI.

SAINTS AND OTHERS.

In the earliest days of the Venetian Republic a church was built on the Rialto, and dedicated to Saint James; and when in 452 the decree was issued at Padua which ordered the gathering together of the straggling inhabitants who had fled from Attila and his Huns, and the formation of a town under the rule of consuls, it was to this notable warrior saint that these people looked for protection. Tradition teaches that this earliest church in Venice stood on a portion of the land now covered by the Cathedral of San Marco.

About a century later, when already the Republic of Venice was rising in importance and esteem, Narses, coming from his victory over the Ostrogoths, visited the Venetians, and built them a new chapel, which he dedicated to Saint Theodore,—a young Syrian soldier saint, much honored in the Oriental church. He was apparently a satisfactory protector, for all went well with the Venetians under his tutelage. Their numbers and wealth increased so that one island was quite insufficient for their habitations, and no one church could suffice for the growing state or city.

During these important years images of Saint Theodore, whom we have seen standing on a column in the Piazzetta, opposite the lion of his more fortunate successor, were cherished and worshipped by the people, who looked to him as their efficient patron and guardian; and with {304} reason,—for if his symbols were rightly understood, his saintship taught the Republic the wise policy of exerting its strength for protection and defence rather than for invasion and assault. But the time came when Saint Theodore was superseded, in spite of the good services he had rendered Venice during nearly three centuries,—centuries, too, when the struggle to live and grow and build up the Republic taxed the heads and hands of all, and required an able defender to watch over them.

There is a legend that during the first Crusade, in 1099, when Vitale Michieli was Doge, a flotilla of two hundred and seven vessels sailed from Venice in command of the son of the Doge, Giovanni Michieli, and Arrigo Contarini, Bishop of Castello, whose father had been Doge about twenty years before.

Their alleged object was to succor Godfrey de Bouillon; but they seem to have been far more successful as relic-hunters than as Knights of the Cross, and brought back rich treasures to the churches of Venice, among which was the body of Saint Theodore, which they found at a small town near the city of Myra. It was received with joy at Venice, and deposited in the Church of San Salvatore; but as this saint had already been superseded by the great Evangelist, he seems to have been left principally to the Confraternity of San Teodoro, whose scuola is close to San Salvatore.

In 829 two Venetian merchants, Buono of Malamocco and Rustico of Torcello, with ten galleys, were trading clandestinely in the port of Alexandria, just at the time when the Caliph of Egypt was building a splendid palace, and for its decoration was contemplating denuding all the Christian temples of their treasures and ornaments. Hearing this, these merchants feared that the Church of St. Mark, where that Evangelist was honorably reposing, would be desecrated; and they determined if possible to {305} rescue the sacred body and bear it to Venice. When they proposed to the Greek priest of the temple to aid them in their designs, he naturally refused, and represented to them the sin and danger of such an act; but their promises of riches and prosperity at Venice overcame his scruples, and he yielded to their wishes. The body of Saint Mark was wrapped in the linen shroud of Saint Claudia, and laid in a deep basket. It was then covered with a thick layer of herbs, on which joints of pork were laid. The Venetian seamen who carried the basket to the ship walked leisurely, taking the precaution to cry out Khanzir! Khanzir! (pork, pork), which effectually prevented any examination by Mussulmans. When safely on the vessel, the basket was hoisted into the shrouds, and was thus safely borne away.

A tradition adds that during a tempest on the voyage the saint appeared to a priest, who was one of the passengers, and commanded the sails to be furled. This being done, the ship next morning reached the port of Olivolo, while the remainder of the fleet were scattered by the furious storm.

The saint was welcomed with immense satisfaction, and his arrival was of great importance to the State. It increased the courage and the commerce of the Republic. Pilgrims of all ranks, from crowned heads to the poorest sailors, came to worship at his shrine. A commercial fair was instituted in his honor; and although Saint Theodore was not discarded, Saint Mark was by common consent placed above him, his image and name being stamped on the coins of Venice, and woven in her banners, while the battle-cry from this time was viva San Marco!

Very soon the Doge Badoer II. died, and in his will provided for the erection of a mausoleum for the sacred bones of the new patron saint, which was the beginning of the Basilica of San Marco. Meantime the relics {306} of Saint Mark were deposited in the Chapel of St. Theodore, and there worshipped; and as if that were not sufficiently humiliating to the superseded warrior, the chapel itself was demolished to make room for the more imposing edifice of the newly arrived saint. More fortunate than his predecessors, Saint Mark has retained his honored place in the hearts of the Venetians, through all the days of their glory, and alas! through those of their decline.

The people treasure many legends of their saint, and their love and reverence for him survive their knowledge of their former state. San Marco the Saint, San Marco the Cathedral, and San Marco the Piazza remain to them,—facts of which they may well be proud,—but the Doges, the Bucentaur, the coronations, the tournaments, the pomp, luxury, and wealth,—where are they?

If one doubted the miraculous benefits which Saint Mark has conferred on Venice, he need but to listen to some pious Venetian while he recounts in his soft and fascinating dialect the saving of the city in 1340.

He would hear that on the 25th of February in that year a terrific storm prevailed. The sounds that came from the sea were as if some frightful enemy were approaching with shrieks and curses, which rent the air as no storm was ever known to do. For three days the floods had been swelling, and the water was three cubits higher than ever it had been, and threatened the destruction of the city.

Affrighted and helpless before an enemy whom they could neither attack nor repulse, the people sought the Basilica, and prayed to San Marco for succor. Masses were constantly repeated, and the vast throngs prayed and watched by turns for an answer to their prayers.

An old fisherman made his way from one of the islands with great difficulty, having vowed to San Marco that if {307} he would but guide him home in safety, his earnings for the rest of his days should be devoted to the saint. More dead than alive, he reached the Riva di San Marco; for, more than the storm, and more than all his exertion in rowing, the unearthly shrieks and yells he had heard had unfitted him for further exertion,—he was paralyzed with fear.

But scarcely had he reached the Riva when a man suddenly stood beside him, and asked to be taken to San Giorgio Maggiore. He would listen to no refusals, and so entreated the fisherman that he believed it must be the will of God that he should go. Strangely enough, though going against the waves, a path seemed to open before them, and the rowing was far lighter than it had been when he was alone in the boat. At San Giorgio the stranger landed, and bade the boatman await his return.

When he came he brought with him a much younger man, and now bade the fisherman row to San Niccolo del Lido. Aghast at such a distance in such a sea, the poor man begged for mercy and release; but he was encouraged to row boldly, and promised strength for all his task. And so it was: the boat seemed to leap over the waves; and when they reached San Niccolo, the two men landed, and soon returned with a third, and bade the boatman row out beyond the two castles.

When they came to the sea, they saw a bark full of demons coming to overwhelm the city with water. The three men in the boat made the sign of the cross, and bade the demons depart. Instantly the bark vanished, the sea was calm, and the waters began to subside. Then the men commanded the boatman to land them at the places from which he had brought them; this he did, and of the third demanded payment for what he had done.

"Thou art right," replied the man; "go now to the {308} Doge and to the Procuratori of St. Mark. Tell them what thou hast seen, for Venice had been overwhelmed but for us three. I am Saint Mark the Evangelist, the protector of Venice. The other is the brave knight Saint George, and he whom thou didst take up at the Lido is the holy bishop St. Nicholas. Say that you are to be paid, and tell them likewise that this tempest arose because a certain schoolmaster of San Felice did sell his soul to the Devil and then hanged himself."

The fisherman replied that his story would not be believed. Then Saint Mark gave him a ring from his finger, saying, "Show them this, and say that when they look in the sanctuary they will not find it;" and as he spoke he disappeared. The next morning, when the boatman went to the Doge and the Procuratori, it all happened as had been said. The man was paid, and a solemn procession was ordained to give thanks to the three saints. The boatman received a pension, and the ring was replaced in the sanctuary. If any one doubts this, let him go to the Accademia, and look at the pictures which commemorate this story. Would Giorgione have taken all the trouble to represent the scene if it had never occurred; or would Paris Bordone have repeated it, as may be seen in the same gallery?

Another legend of the benefits which Saint Mark loved to confer on his people is perpetuated by a wonderful picture of Jacopo Tintoretto's in the same collection. A poor slave who persisted in worshipping at the shrine of Saint Mark had for this reason been condemned to torture by his cruel master. Just when the brutal executioners were about to begin their fiendish cruelties, the saint descends like a whirlwind; the executioners are confounded, their instruments are broken, and the slave is free!

Another miracle of Saint Mark's is connected with the {309} preservation of his own relics. In 976 a fire destroyed a large portion of San Marco; and when the repairs were completed, the place in which the body of the saint had rested was forgotten. This was a true sorrow to the Doge and the people, and at last they determined to keep a fast and pray God to show them what no man could tell. The 25th of June was appointed for this fast, and a solemn procession was made; and while in the cathedral all were fervently imploring the manifestation of their treasure, with great joy they beheld a pillar shake, and then fall to the ground, disclosing the bronze chest in which the body of the Evangelist was preserved. These sacred relics are now beneath the high altar in San Marco, as is recorded on a marble slab at the back of the altar.

Sanudo gives a curious account of the acquisition of another saint. He says that in 992 Pietro Barbolano, together with Pietro Giustiniani, was sent to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission. There the future Doge saw the remains of Saint Saba, and was seized with the desire to obtain them for his beloved Venice. At length Barbolano, by one argument and another, prevailed on the guardians of the saint to sell her to him; but when the night came on which he was leaving the Golden Horn, these men showed signs of breaking their bargain. The rain was falling in torrents, and the Greeks construed this as an omen that they ought not to permit the saint to undertake the voyage.

But Barbolano had with him his two sons and several servants, and he quickly ended the matter by ordering the chest which contained the sacred relics to be taken to his ship, which was soon under way, and made a prosperous voyage to Venice, where Barbolano ordered the chest to be put in a gondola and taken to his house, next the Church of San Antonino at Castello. But when this was attempted, the chest had become so heavy that it could {310} not be lifted; and at the same moment the bell of the Campanile began to toll, with no visible agency, and with such violence as threatened destruction to the tower itself.

This caused many people to gather in the Piazza; and in their midst Barbolano threw himself on his knees and exclaimed, "We will carry it to the church, for the Saviour of Men has declared his will that this body shall be placed in the shrine dedicated to Saint Antonino." It is not easy to understand how the devout Barbolano knew all this; but apparently he was right, for the chest was now as light as before, and was placed in a gondola, taken to the church, and deposited on the altar. Then the bell ceased ringing, and a dove with miraculously white plumage hovered over the relics while a Te Deum and other services were celebrated, and then vanished.

A new altar was erected for Saint Saba, near that of San Antonino, and the bones were placed in the reliquary of the church; and on the evening of that day, as the curé of San Antonino walked in his garden, he "marvelled not a little to observe among the flowers a rose of surpassing beauty; and the good man hesitated not to associate the fair vision with the miracle of which he had just been a witness, looking upon it as a symbol of that yet fairer flower which had been so recently transplanted from the soil of Constantinople to that of Venice."

It would seem strange that such a wonder-working saint should not frequently have proved her power in the midst of the great events of the Republic, and at times when miracles in behalf of the Venetians were sorely needed; but doubtless she soon felt that those of her sex did not assume power publicly in this City of the Sea, and whatever she did was done sub rosa.

The same Michieli and Contarini who had brought to Venice the relics of Saint Theodore were extremely {311} fortunate in their relic-hunting; for they also brought home the due corpi di San Niccolo, the greater and the less, and deposited them in the Church of San Niccolo del Lido. Saint Nicholas of Myra is a protector against robbers and violence, and is a favorite saint with sailors, travellers, and merchants. He is also a patron of poor maidens, of children, and especially of school-boys, and the legends of his goodness and kindly acts are innumerable; in fact, he is so celebrated and so important a saint that it is all the more grievous to recount that the majority of the people who have lived since the ninth century who have understood these matters and known all about saints do not allow that the relics of this sainted Lycian are, or ever were, in Venice, and Bari is the happy place wherein he is said to repose. Thus it happens that he is often called San Niccolo di Bari; but I should not like to speak of him thus to any of my devout Venetian friends, least of all to my good gondolier.

Another Venetian fleet which had been to the aid of Baldwin in the Holy Land, when returning, about 1125, obtained the body of Saint Isidore at Chios, and that of Saint Donato at Cephalonia. These were brought to Venice at the same time with the "great stone which had stood near one of the gates of Tyre since the time when Our Lord, weary after a journey, sat down to rest upon it," as well as vast treasures of jewels, gold and silver, embroideries and carpets, and all the splendid fabrics of the Orient. But to the reverent Christian all else paled before the bodies of the saints. Saint Isidore is believed now to rest in his own chapel in San Marco. San Donato, the once saintly Bishop of Evorea, was given by Domenico Michieli to Murano, and the Church of Santa Maria soon assumed his name. To Torcello was brought Saint Fosca, a noble virgin who had been martyred under the persecution of Decius at Ravenna; and her church was second {312} only to the Cathedral of Torcello. When to this list of saints we add the bodies of San Pancrazio and Santa Sabina, which were given to the Abbess of San Zaccaria by Pope Benedict III., and Saint Christina, the patron of the Venetian States, and likewise Saint Justina of Padua,—another patron of Venice who is represented in Venetian costume, with the city or the cathedral of San Marco in the distance,—we may call Venice the City of Saints as justly as the City of the Sea.

One saint still remains to whom we must pay our respects; and since his island lies some miles away to the southeast, we must devote to him at least half of a precious Venetian day. The gondola glides like a spirit through the narrow canals, out on the sea, where the motion is but enough to rock one into forgetfulness of all care, even that of self; and the mood which follows is just that in which one should come to the old Armenian convent, with its garden of figs and orange-trees, pomegranates and flowering shrubs.

The welcome from the monks adds still another element of peace; and one roams quietly through the restful old place, with its church and convent, and wonders if a less gifted mortal than he who here dwelt and wrote,—

"Around me are the stars and waters,—
Worlds mirrored in the ocean, goodlier sight
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass,"

At each window a pause is made; and the fascination of the views leads to a feeling of sympathy with that good Mechitar, who founded his convent here one hundred and seventy-six years ago. From the courteous monk who {313} is our guide, we learn that this same Mechitar, who at nine years of age desired to be a priest, and entered a convent at fifteen, was a wonderful scholar, a writer and poet. Some of his hymns are used in the churches of Armenia.

Mechitar, having exhausted the learning at his command in the institutions to which he could obtain admittance, and having learned from missionaries whom he met of the far greater advantages in Europe, conceived the idea of establishing a literary institution for the Armenian nation, and after many struggles founded a Mechitaristican Society at Constantinople in 1700. Here he began to print books in the Armenian language, and sent out some preachers to various cities of Armenia; but soon he became the object of such persecution that he barely escaped the galleys by putting himself under the protection of the French ambassador.

Again, in spite of immense hindrances, he gathered his disciples at Modon, in the Morea, and anew began the erection of a convent and church. For twelve years he labored, when war broke out between the Turks and the Venetians, and his property fell into the hands of the former. Meantime Mechitar had commended himself greatly to the Governor Emo, and to the General of the Marine, Sebastiano Mocenigo, both of whom had given him money for his building, and the aid of their friendship; and now he naturally turned to Venice, where he landed in 1715. After much consultation and at the recommendation of Emo and Mocenigo, in 1717 the Senate decreed to him the island of San Lazzaro, which had been used as a hospital for lepers until it was no longer needed.

Mechitar found little to help him in the old church, deserted dormitory, two wells, and a garden, which were the only remnants of the former buildings which existed. {314} He obtained from Rome, where he presented his cause in person, permission to send missionaries to the East. Rich Armenians, of whom there are many, came to his aid; and in the remaining thirty-two years of his life he established his convent on such a basis, and made it of such manifest benefit to the world, that in 1810, when the monasteries of Venice were suppressed, the Mechitaristican Society was granted its independence.

Mechitar received only Armenians into his schools. The advance of his own nation was the object for which he lived, labored, and prayed. His courses of study were comprehensive, his discipline not severe, and his whole attitude towards pupils and monks that of a father. Seven hours a day for study, and seven for repose; in summer one hour in the day for sleep; after dinner two hours for conversation, and one hour at evening for walking in the garden and for games; forty days in the summer at the country residence on the Brenta; fifteen days in the Carnival devoted to instructive dramatic representations; attendance on the public festivals in Venice, with occasional outings on adjacent islands and in the neighborhood on the mainland,—such is the outline of the rule of Mechitar. On the other hand, his novitiate was long and exacting, and no members were admitted unless proved to be virtuous, talented, of strong health, and desirous, of their own choice, of joining the Society. If found to be of indifferent abilities, they were sent back to Armenia. He had prayers three times a day, according to Armenian custom, but excused the younger pupils from morning prayer in church. He made no rules of abstinence, and provided plenty of food. He allowed no monk to leave the island without permission, and gave as few rules of conduct as possible, his object being to strengthen them in virtue for virtue's sake.

It is difficult to leave the windows and fix one's {315} attention within, even to see the treasures of the library, with its Oriental manuscripts, illuminated missals, rare books, and goodly collection of prints. One can readily admit its claim to be the centre of Armenian literature in all the world, but why not a great Polyglot centre, since books are printed here in thirty-two different languages? Hare says that this convent "obtained a fictitious celebrity through Byron, who studied here for six months." However one may view this, it is most interesting to read Byron's letter to Moore (December, 1816), in which, among other things, he says:—

"By way of divertissement, I am studying daily at an Armenian monastery the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon; and this—as the most difficult thing I could discover here for an amusement—I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. I try, and shall go on; but I answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success.... Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardor, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday, when fifteen of the twenty succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an alphabet,—that must be said for them."

After Byron's death, a Preface to the Armenian Grammar was found among his papers. It was probably intended for the Armenian and English Grammar which Byron helped Dr. Aucher to prepare. The following is an extract from this "Preface":—

"The society of the convent of S. Lazarus appears to unite all the advantages of the monastic institution, without any of its vices. The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the {316} brethren of the order, are well fitted to strike a man of the world with the conviction that 'there is another and a better, even in this life.'

"These men are the priesthood of an oppressed and noble nation, which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the Jews and of the Greeks, without the sullenness of the former or the servility of the latter. This people has attained riches without usury, and all the honors that can be awarded to slavery without intrigue. But they have long occupied, nevertheless, a part of the 'House of Bondage,' who has lately multiplied her many mansions. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes than those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. But whatever may have been their destiny,—and it has been bitter,—whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe; and perhaps their language only requires to be more studied to become more attractive. If the Scriptures are rightly understood, it was in Armenia that Paradise was placed,—Armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of Adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. It was in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappearance of Paradise itself may be almost dated the unhappiness of the country; for, though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an independent one, and the satraps of Persia and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where God created man in his own image."

The hours pass imperceptibly away. In hearing what the monk tells, and in reading what he gives us concerning the Society,—like the above and kindred facts,—the day declines, until the sensation of the lessening light reminds us that there is still something to be done, delightful as this reading and musing is. Within twilight has come; but without, although the east is dusky, it is so by contrast with the west. The setting sun has sunk {317} so far that it illumines the sky alone, where golden minarets are reaching toward mid-heaven, and low, sleeping clouds of purplish hue sink with the sun beyond the horizon. At the last there are flashes of brilliant flame, and then sea and sky are blended. The twilight grows less and less. How silent the world seems! The gentle dip of the oars alone is heard, until, as we come nearer the city, a snatch of song falls on our ear, a gondola overtakes us, and Giacomo cheerfully greets a comrade. As we near the Piazzetta, all light is gone from the sea. We leave an inky darkness behind, which makes the blinking lamps on the Molo seem brilliant by contrast.

Now comes a new pleasure,—for even in dreamy Venice mortals are still doomed to eat,—and to-night we leave our better-loved Zattere to meet friends at the Café Florian, with its frescos and mirrors and cosey cabinets, from which, while being served, we catch glimpses of the fast-filling square. The lights are multiplying; the concerts of violins and harps, and the songs of the singers are beginning. The flower-girls are tying their nosegays or weaving garlands, and gazing wistfully at the windows of the brilliant little shops; and hundreds of figures pass and repass, now in the shadow and now in the light.

But even this dinner will end. The delicious sorbet and the fragrant coffee are, all too soon, things of the past. However, we do not stay to regret them, since this evening affords one of the rare opportunities to see La Fenice open in summer. It is always entertaining to watch the coming and going of the gondolas to and from this theatre; but at this season, when most of the wealthy Venetians are away on the mainland, the audience is not brilliant, the play not very good, and we are glad to be back in the Piazza for an hour beneath the summer moon, and then to walk home through the crooked calli, that seem more like the make-believe of the stage than like {318} real life. There are corners so dark that they might well be used for an ambush. But we have no enemies in Venice, and so by aid of Giacomo's lanthorn may safely explore these narrow ways at any hour we choose, and hang the pictures of them in our mental gallery to look at and think about when thousands of miles away. For who that loves Venice ever forgets her? and that which in her midst seems dreamlike and unreal, with time and distance crystallizes into the sharpest and clearest of memories.

On such a night as this impassionedly
The old Venetian sung these verses rare,
"That Venice must of needs eternal be,
For Heaven had looked through the pellucid air,
And cast its reflex in the crystal sea,
And Venice was the image pictured there."
I hear them now, and tremble, for I seem
As treading on an unsubstantial dream.
Who talks of vanished glory, of dead power,
Of things that were, and are not? Is he here?
Can he take in the glory of this hour,
And call it all the decking of a bier?
No, surely as on that Titanic tower
The Guardian Angel stands in æther clear,
With the moon's silver tempering his gold wing,
So Venice lives, as lives no other thing.
LORD HOUGHTON.

CHAPTER XVII.

HISTORIANS AND SCHOLARS.

When we consider the literature of Venice, we are amazed to find how few names are in its list of authors, and how narrow the field they occupied. Of poets there were none; and, indeed, the only writers of importance were the early annalists and the later historians. That peculiarly self-centred trait of which we have spoken as belonging to the Venetians in various directions, was eminently characteristic of their writers. It was Venice, and only Venice, that interested them; and from its earliest days there were those, nameless now, who were so impressed with the growth, the strength, and the splendor of the city that they saw growing and spreading around them, that they wrote it all down, and thus furnished invaluable material to those who came after them and wrote in a more elegant and systematic style. Some of these early annals still exist. They are read by the learned, and are said to be a strange medley of history and fable, all expressed in language of such vigor as to emphasize the earnestness of the writers, and frequently with such realism as would eclipse the authors of our day who cultivate that quality. His Serenity Marco Foscarini, in his work on Venetian literature, gives the names of such a host of these imperceptible writers, who are more than half lost in the ancient fogs in which they existed, that one must be brave even to read these names, much more so to attempt their works.

Sagornino, of the eleventh century, is more real; and no aspect in which Venice could be viewed was neglected by him and his followers. Its ceremonials, treaties, ecclesiastical and other important matters, are treated with no more attention and respect than are the merest details and most common events. They were all lovers of this mistress, Venezia, to whom the slightest variation in her pulse was almost a matter of life and death.

But not until the fourteenth century were these chronicles put into a form which could be called history. Andrea Dandolo, Petrarch's friend, the first scholarly Doge, may also be called the first Venetian historian. His family had already given three Doges to the Republic, and he had not only the early annals, but the state papers and those of his ancestors, on which to rely for the facts which he wove into a formal, dignified, and conscientious narration of the lives and deeds of the rulers of Venice who had preceded him.

After him, for a half-century, again there were but the chronicles of monks who wrote of their orders, soldiers who fought their battles over on parchment, or idle patricians who amused themselves by keeping diaries. A history of Venice was talked of, was ardently desired; but no one undertook it, until Marco Antonio Sabellico, a native of Vicovaro, was seized with the desire to write such a book, which was published in 1487. It seems almost impossible to believe what we are told,—that he had seen no authoritative book on Venice, that he knew neither Dandolo's history, nor that best account of the Chioggian War, written by the nephew of the great Zeno. But be this as it may, in fifteen months he completed a work which, though not without its errors, stands as an authority, and is without doubt the most eloquent of Venetian annals. It was at once accepted with enthusiasm; and the Senate graciously gave to Sabellico two {321} hundred ducats a year. The translation from the Latin by Dolce retains the telling eloquence of the original. It is a wonderful account of the internal and external affairs of the Republic, given with a pen so graphic as to make its word pictures full of the charm that we find in the work of the artist who places before the eye the color and the details of what he represents.

Again an interval of dilettantish essays transpired, until, in 1515, Andrea Navagero, whom Foscarini calls the most elegant Latin writer in Italy, was made the Historian of the Republic. But in spite of this great honor, which came to him early in his life, we have no history by him; and his own story is tragical. Fifteen years passed after his appointment to office, and the work done by Sabellico in as many months was not yet forthcoming, when, in 1530, he was sent on an embassy to France. Soon after reaching Paris he sickened and died, and on his last day burned all his papers,—ten books, it is said, of the history of Venice. It is believed that this was done in a delirium; but the sensitive nature of Navagero, and his morbid dissatisfaction with his work, leave a doubt as to his condition when he committed this deplorable act.

Then, too, another writer, older than he, of infinite research,—Mrs. Oliphant calls him "one of the most astonishing and gifted of historical moles,"—Marino Sanudo, was collecting and putting together that work of his for which we all thank him and his Maker,—an endless procession of facts with all possible details,—an omnium gatherum from which all seekers can select that which suits their needs.

Here we must note a curious coincidence. We have a chronicle written by another Andrea Navagero, sometimes quoted, but finished while the historian was a child. And likewise was there a second Marino Sanudo, called {322} Torsello, again the elder of the two, who wrote more than a century before the oft-quoted historian. This Sanudo Torsello wrote of the Crusades and of other matters more distinctly Venetian, and although sometimes quoted, is of little importance beside the younger man. In fact, the two elders, Navagero and Sanudo, serve principally to create a confusion by their names, and are of no special value in any direction.

The younger Sanudo is very important among Venetian historians, and really began his researches when but nine years old. He was of a noble house, had all possible advantages of education and travel, was keen in his observations, and in a very sober manner makes many a humorous remark, like that one so often quoted: "If the story had not been true, our brave Venetians would not have painted it." When Marino was seventeen years old, his cousin Marco Sanudo was appointed one of the Syndics of Terra Firma, and took the young author with him to Padua. From this time he noted in his diaries all that came under his observation, and all he heard. He left, besides his voluminous published works, fifty-six volumes of these journals, many, if not all, of which are now published, and afford an almost momentary account of the life in Venice for a half-century before 1533. He collected a great library, and was active in his public life. He records his speeches in the Senate, and they were almost numberless. He held many important offices, and was extremely active in the discussions of all public matters in the Great Council as well as the Senate. He was usually in the minority; but that never discouraged him, and he more than once records his determination to "let no day pass without writing the news that comes from day to day, so that I may the better, accustoming myself to the strict truth, go on with my true history, which was begun several years ago. Seeking no eloquence of {323} composition, I will thus note down everything as it happens." He also records his determination "to do something in this age in honor of the eternal majesty and exaltation of the Venetian State, to which I can never fail, being born in that allegiance, for which I would die a thousand times if that could advantage my country, notwithstanding that I have been beaten, worn out, and evil entreated in her councils." And thus it resulted that his diaries became an unequalled storehouse of minute and general information, and it is largely to them that we owe that fascinating and curious information which admits us, so to speak, into the houses and palaces, the social gatherings, the august assemblies, even into the Council of Ten, and the innermost recesses of life in mediæval Venice.

When one reviews a life like that of Marino Sanudo, and is impressed with the fact that he lived and breathed in exactly the atmosphere that suited him,—that from his earliest years he was inexpressibly busy in doing just that for which he was best fitted by nature, that which of all the world he would have chosen,—it naturally seems that he must have been a very happy man. But he had his trials,—some of them very heavy to him. Again and again he is excluded from public office. At first he congratulates himself on having more time, but later it becomes evident that he feels his unpopularity keenly, as one may see when he says:—

"In the past year [1522] I have been dismissed from the Giunta [Zonta], of which two years ago I was made a member; but while I sat in that Senate I always in my speeches did my best for my country, with full honor from the senators for my opinions and judgment, even when against those of my colleagues. And this is the thing that has injured me; for had I been mute, applauding individuals as is the present fashion, letting things pass that are against the interest of my dearest country, acting contrary to the law, as those who have the {324} guidance of the city permit to be done, even had I not been made Avvogadore, I should have been otherwise treated.... I confess that this repulse has caused me no small grief, and has been the occasion of my illness; and if again I was rejected in the ballot for the past year, it was little wonder seeing that many thought me dead, or so infirm that I was no longer good for anything, not having stirred from my house for many months before. But the Divine bounty has still preserved me, and, as I have said, enabled me to complete the diary for this year; for however suffering I was I never failed to record the news of every day which was brought to me by my friends, so that another volume is finished."

But the signal grief of his life must have come from the appointment of the young and inexperienced Navagero as the historian of the Republic. He speaks of this Messer Andrea Navagero, who was paid for writing history, with gentle contempt; but the speedy death of Andrea, and the fact that he left nothing behind to be placed in comparison with the work of Sanudo, disposes of this matter with comparatively few words.

But when Pietro Bembo was appointed to succeed Navagero, what must have been Sanudo's indignation,—a man who had lived out of Venice, who did not even remove to that city to write its history, who had done nothing to prove his fitness for the office, and who hesitated not to ask Sanudo to lend him the precious diaries from which to extract materials for his own writing!

Well did Sanudo answer that he would "give the sweat of his brow to no one." And then Bembo wrote from Padua, asking the Doge to compel Sanudo to open his collections to him. But at last the poor, slighted man did give his "sweat" to his unconscionable rival; and the result is much to his credit, for beside his animated and entertaining narrative Bembo's writing is as dry as desert sands.

Very late in his life the Ten gave him one hundred and fifty ducats a year as a recognition of his books,—"which I vow to God is nothing to the great labor they have cost me," as he remarks. Until within two and a half years of his death he continued his diaries; and as soon as he ceased to write them he made a will, in which he gave them bound and enclosed in a book-case to the Signoria, to be placed where they should think best. And now comes the most astounding fact. These treasures, which we should naturally think would have been placed with care and pride where they could be seen and consulted, were put no one knows where, and in 1805 were found in the Royal Library at Vienna, having got there nobody knows how!

Sanudo's library and his collections of pictures and curiosities, from the celebrated mappamondo to matters of slight importance and value, had become famous; and we are told that "the illustrious strangers who visited Venice in these days went away dissatisfied unless they had seen the Arsenal, the jewels of S. Marco, and the library of Sanudo." Sometimes they were forced to be "dissatisfied;" for the old historian grew weary of "illustrious persons," and said them nay with a will, when asked to display his collections.

To him personally, while he had been greatly interested in all his roba, the books were the most precious, and at one time he had intended to make a gift of them to the library of S. Marco; but although long promised, this library was not begun. Sanudo was poor. He could not even reward Anna of Padua, who had served him faithfully for twenty years, and had not been paid. He also felt himself compelled to relinquish the marble sarcophagus in San Zaccaria, for which a previous will had provided; and so at last, he directed his executors to sell his collections, to pay the worthy Anna, to bury him "where {326} he falls," preserving only the epitaph which he had written to his great comfort. No one knows where he was laid; and not a word to his honor and remembrance existed in Venice until Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has rescued the name and works of Sanudo from oblivion, placed an inscription on his house, still standing, with the Sanudo arms upon it, behind the Fondaco dei Turchi (Museo Civico), in the parish of S. Giacomo dell' Orio. Mrs. Oliphant says:—

"Would it have damped his zeal, we wonder, could he have foreseen that his unexampled work should drop into oblivion, after historians, such as the best informed of Doges, Marco Foscarini, knowing next to nothing of him—till suddenly a lucky and delighted student fell upon those volumes in the Austrian Library; and all at once, after three centuries and more, old Venice sprang to light under the hand of her old chronicler, and Marino Sanudo with all his pictures, his knick-knacks, his brown rolls of manuscript and dusty volumes round him, regained, as was his right, the first place among Venetian historians,—one of the most notable figures of the mediæval world."

To be held in everlasting remembrance was the reward that Marino Sanudo ardently coveted; and though never appreciated by his contemporaries, and utterly forgotten by the whole world for hundreds of years, he is now respected and valued, and that eterna memoria, to earn which he valued no toil, at last is his.

It remains to speak of Theobaldo Mannucci, or Manutio, familiarly called Messer or Ser Aldo, best known to us as Aldus, the great printer of Venice, whose house may still be seen, in the Campo San Agostino, near the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista, near by the spot on which stood the house of the gran cavaliere, Bajamonte Tiepolo. Aldus was not a Venetian, having first seen the light in Bassiano, near Rome. The history of {327} his earlier years is indistinct; but this much seems to be true, that, being a great scholar and student, he had also been a tutor in the family of the Pii, princes of Carpi. He was also the friend of Count Giovanni Pico at Mirandola, one of the most scholarly men of his age.

At length, for one reason and another, too many and too involved to be given here, he decided to go to Venice, and begin that making of books which in his hands became such an honor and advantage to that city; and in this he was much encouraged, and probably substantially aided, by Count Pico. Thus a Florentine and a Roman brought to this Mistress of the Sea a kind of prestige which no son of hers had given. Aldus probably knew that foreign printers, of whom we have spoken, had been encouraged to do their work at Venice; but he was no mere printer, and although it is by that name that he is most frequently spoken of, he was a scholar before he was a printer, and became a printer because of his scholarship. He had found how meagre and incorrect were the text-books of his time; and to supply these defects and give to the world books free from blemishes in substance and form, was his untradesmanlike motive.

It is believed that he went to Venice about 1488, and his first publication appeared six years later. Meantime he had prepared the manuscripts he wished to print, and had drawn around him a large number of men, old and young, from senators and priests to the youths who sought learning, to listen to his reading and exposition of the Greek and Latin authors. The Neacademia of Aldo became a most important factor in Venetian life. To quote Mrs. Oliphant:—

"Sabellico, the learned and eloquent historian, with whose work Venice was ringing; Sanudo, our beloved chronicler, then beginning his life-long work; Bembo, the future cardinal, already one of the fashionable semi-priests of society, holding a {328} canonicate; the future historian who wrote no history, Andrea Navagero, but he in his very earliest youth; another cardinal, Leandro, then a barefooted friar,—all crowded about the new classical teacher. The enthusiasm with which he was received seems to have exceeded even the ordinary welcome accorded in that age of literary freemasonry to every man who had any new light to throw upon the problems of knowledge. And while he expounded and instructed, the work of preparation for still more important labors went on. It is evident that he made himself fully known, and even became an object of general curiosity, one of the personages to be visited by all that were on the surface of Venetian society, and that the whole of Venice was interested and entertained by the idea of the new undertaking.... It was a labor of love, an enterprise of the highest public importance, and as such commended itself to all who cared for education or the humanities, or who had any desire to be considered as members or disciples of that highest and most cultured class of men of letters, who were the pride and glory of the age."

His house, though "far from the busy haunts," was soon a gathering-place and centre for such men as were seriously interested in what was there transpiring; and Aldus skilfully employed all who could and would aid him in the preparation of the almost indecipherable manuscripts, in proof-reading, and in many matters which demanded keen intelligence and infinite patience.

The picture of his busy shops, to which these men turned and where they labored, leaving the fascinations of the Piazza and the exciting life of Venice at her best, makes one of the most interesting of the many remarkable scenes of that unique and marvellous city. And it is curious to note how in the lives of men like Aldus in the present day his vexations are repeated, reminding us that there is nothing new under the sun. He complains that if he attempted to answer the letters he receives, both night and day would be too little for the task; and {329} troublesome visitors were as numerous then as now, wherever great men live. He humorously wrote of these:—

"Some from friendship, some from interest, the greater part because they have nothing to do,—for then 'Let us go,' they say, 'to Aldo's.' They come in crowds and sit gaping,—

I do not speak of those who come to read me either poems or prose, generally rough and unpolished, for publication, for I defend myself from these by no answer or else a very brief one, which I hope nobody will take in ill part, since it is done, not from pride or scorn, but because all my leisure is taken up in publishing books of established fame. As for those who come for no reason, we make bold to admonish them in classical words in a sort of edict placed over our door, 'WHOEVER YOU ARE, Aldo requests you, if you want anything, ask it in few words and depart, unless, like Hercules, you come to lend the aid of your shoulders to the weary Atlas. Here will always be found in that case something for you to do, however many you may be.'"

We can well understand that the publication of the Greek Grammar, Aristotle, and kindred authors must have been a work of time. But five books were produced in two years, and that with the aid of two scholarly editors, besides the zealous help of friends, to which we have referred above. In addition to the costly methods that Aldus was forced to pursue, he could find no type that suited him, and set himself to invent one; that known at first as Aldino, and later Italic, was the result. There is a tradition that he aimed to reproduce the even and clear chirography of Petrarch, and himself described the result as a type "of the greatest beauty, such as was never done before." Aldus hastened to ask of the Signoria the sole right to use this type for ten years, which privilege was granted him upon the following appeal:—

"I supplicate that for ten years no other should be allowed to print in cursive letters of any sort in the dominion of your Serenity, nor to sell books printed in any other countries in any part of the said dominion, under pain to whoever breaks this law of forfeiting the books and paying a fine of two hundred ducats for each offence, which fine shall be divided into three parts,—one for the officer who shall convict, another for the Pietà, the third for the informer, etc."

Query, was this not putting a strong temptation before the informer and the convicting officer?

The type we now use in italics is the descendant of the Aldino, but not so delicate and graceful as the ancestor. The first book printed in this manner appeared in 1501, and, as seems most fitting, was the poems of Petrarch, printed directly from his own manuscript. The Aldine mark on the titlepages of this great printer's books was the anchor and dolphin; and Lorenzo of Pavia said of this volume to the Duchess Isabella Gonzaga, it is "a rare thing, which, like your Ladyship, has no paragon."

After a time Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote to Aldus concerning the publication of his "Adages," and finally came to Venice, and became one of the assistants of the printer,—this man of great fame, greater than those Italians who called him "that Dutchman" and laughed at his moderation and large appetite. Jealousy and envy invaded the Stamperia, where the sounds of the gayety of fashionable Venice never were heard, and where little interest was felt in the struggles, the feuds, and the betrayals which were rampant there, from the Great Council and that of the Ten down through the many "sets" of maggiori and minori in that busy, overflowing city. What a contrast to all this was that conclave of the Neacademia on the days when the obscure passages of Aristotle, Virgil, and other ancient authors were discussed! How gravely did they give their reasons why an {331} adverb would better express the meaning than an adjective, and what lengthy arguments were needed to decide for or against a relative pronoun!

Sadly we record the total changes that came with the wars of the first decade of the sixteenth century. Aldus, his Stamperia, his precious manuscripts collected with such pain and care, all disappeared; and though he returned to his labors with characteristic zeal, he gained fame only, and died poor. He did not work for profit. His copyright in type, if we may use the word, was of little use, and his thoughts were bent on other things than money-making. He never swerved from his decision, in the preface to the Greek Grammar, to devote his life to the good of mankind. Renouard, the French critic, tells us how his devotion to his chosen calling became a passion. If he heard of a manuscript that could explain an existing text, he rested not until he got it. He valued no labor, expense, travel, or study that could further his ends, and it was wonderful to see with what readiness he was assisted. Some for money, some without reward, and others for the same reasons which influenced him, gave all the aid possible to further his success; and from distant places, without solicitation from him, precious manuscripts were sent for his advantage.

He was succeeded by his son called Aldo il Giovane, and his grandson; but even with the advances made in processes, no imitator nor rival excelled the scholarly bookmaker, Aldo il Vecchio, whose books are now among the very choicest treasures of the richest libraries in the world. Quoting again from the "Makers of Venice,"—

"Let us leave Aldo with all his aids about him,—the senators, the schoolmasters, the poor scholars, the learned men who were to live to be cardinals, and those who were to die as poor as they were famous; and his learned Greek Musurus, and his poor student from Rotterdam,—a better scholar perhaps than any {332} of them,—and all his idle visitors coming to gape and admire, while our Sanudo swept round the corner from S. Giacomo dell' Orio, with his vigorous step and his toga over his shoulders, and the young men who were of the younger faction came in, a little contemptuous of their elders and strong in their own learning, to the meeting of the Aldine academy and the consultation on new readings. The Stamperia was as distinct a centre of life as the Piazza, though not so apparent before the eyes of men."

It is a singular fact that the Senate of Venice, in 1362, should have thought it worth while to present Petrarch with a palace, that he might in return, "with the good will of our Saviour, and of the Evangelist himself," make Saint Mark the heir of his library, and yet should have postponed the beginning of the building in which the books should be kept nearly two centuries; for it was not until 1536 that Sansovino commenced the Libreria Vecchia, which Aretino considered superlatively beautiful. Meantime the gift of Petrarch, stored in a small chamber of San Marco, was quite forgotten. No one lived who knew its whereabouts; and the legacies of Cardinal Bessarion, of Cardinal Grimani, Contarini, and Nani, were the glory of the library which Petrarch wished to found. Not until 1634 were his precious manuscripts discovered. But a meagre number could be saved from the mass of corruption they had become; and for all time the neglect and destruction of these precious parchments will remain a disgrace to Venice.

In 1812 the splendid collection of one hundred and twenty thousand volumes and ten thousand manuscripts was transferred to the more spacious halls of the Ducal Palace, leaving the Great Hall of the Libreria with its paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto, and the row of Greek philosophers which look down from between the windows. Ruskin calls these last the finest paintings of {333} the kind in existence. One of these is the Diogenes, which Tintoretto painted with the greatest care, because Titian had told the Procurators of St. Mark that Tintoretto was not worthy to be employed in the decoration of this hall. But these officials thought this a little severe, and gave Tintoretto his opportunity.

Diogenes is nude and seated, with his legs crossed. One elbow rests on the thigh, and the raised hand supports the chin. It is the impersonation of profound meditation. There is such power in the modelling of this figure, and the light is so managed, that it stands out as if it did not intend to remain in the niche where it is placed. Two other works of Tintoretto's are also here, in spite of the efforts to deprive him of the honor. They represent the removal of the relics of Saint Mark from Alexandria, and Saint Mark rescuing a sailor.

When, under Eugene Beauharnais, the Procuratie Nuove were converted into the Palazzo Imperiale, the Libreria Vecchia was made a part of the Palace, and united to the buildings of the Piazza.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PALACES AND PICTURES.

Venice has no plan. The canals are bordered with edifices that appear to rest upon the water; and many of its palaces are so beautiful that they seem as worthy to have risen from the white sea-foam as was Venus Anadyomene herself. Behind these palaces, winding in and out like serpents, are the calli, which appear to begin nowhere and to lead to the same place, twining now and then about the little campi, which afford breathing-spaces on land, as the canals do on the water. It would seem that one must be Venetian born, or, forsaking all others, must cleave to Venice itself for better or worse, if he would learn to thread these mazy ways with confidence.

It appears, too, that this want of plan permeates the life of Venice. Everybody and everything seem to be guided by the fancy of the moment. It is charming and so easily acquired,—this dolce far niente. One feels it, and acts upon it without realizing it; it is inhaled with the air itself.

The stranger, when in the privacy of his own apartment, makes his plan for the morrow. He resolves to throw off this idleness; he will rise betimes and visit the Academy, and later go to several churches. He awakes to find it already late, and by the time he steps into his gondola he has forgotten what he was to do, and straightway decides to go once more up the Grand Canal {335} and gaze at those lovely palaces, which can only be seen to advantage in this way.

Emerging from the water as they do, their reflections in it add vastly to their attractiveness, much of which, I fancy, would be lost did they rise from the usual city sidewalk or even from green turf. Doubtless the lofty horseshoe arches of the lower arcades, the lightness of the open loggie or pergoli, and the style of their decorations were all considered in regard to the effect of their reflections, as much as to that of the edifices themselves. Then, too, their space is so prescribed that grandeur and breadth of design were not possible, and must be replaced by picturesque effects of decoration and fancy.

The plan of the old palaces of Venice is much the same in all. They rest on a very solid basis of oaken piles driven down until they meet the hard, Caranto stratum which underlies the silt. Larch timbers are then laid on the piles, and marble slabs in cement are built up above the water-level. The ground floor is principally devoted to storerooms intended for heavy goods, and has a broad entrance leading to them. The next floor, the mezzana, is the place of business, the mercantile portion of the establishment.

From the court the ascent is made to the third floor, where the family apartments begin. Many of the staircases are stately, and very beautiful in their ornamentation. They lead to the principal saloon or drawing-room of the house. Frequently these palaces are built with a central portion, with wings on each side. The great saloon occupies the whole of the central part, having on its front the loggia, overlooking the canal. On each side are smaller rooms. The next floor is less lofty, and has a spacious kitchen, besides several sleeping-apartments. Still above these are garrets and store-closets, close under the roof.

The principal pleasure to be derived from the palaces of Venice in these days is found by gazing at them while floating up and down the Canalezzo at various hours of the day, noting the exquisite effects of light and shade at morning, midday, and evening, especially the latter when there is a brilliant moonlight. Few of them now contain much that one cares to see, and few, indeed, have been kept up in such a way as to be anything but depressing. Those that are open to strangers are filled with the atmosphere of "the banquet-hall deserted." But all must agree with Ruskin in what he says of their exteriors:—

"The charm which Venice still possesses, and which for the last fifty years has made it the favorite haunt of all the painters of picturesque subjects, is owing to the effect of the Gothic palaces, mingled with those of the Renaissance.

"The effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance palaces are not more picturesque in themselves than the club-houses of Pall Mall; but they become delightful by the contrast of their severity and refinement with the rich and rude confusion of the sea life beneath them, and of their white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing-boats, the black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. But the Gothic palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wield over us an independent power. Sea and sky and every other accessory might be taken away from them, and still they would be beautiful and strange."

Perhaps the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi is the most interesting of the Renaissance palaces, because it is well kept up, and its garden, with white statues and gilded railings, which are reflected in the water, adds much to the cheerfulness of its whole effect. It is more than four centuries old, and was built by Santi Lombardo for {337} Andrea Loredan. A century later it was bought by the Duke of Brunswick, and then by the Duke of Mantua; but some legal quibbles made it necessary to sell it again, and since 1589 it has been in the families Calerghi and Grimani, has been owned by the Duchesse de Berri and the Comte de Chambord, as well as the Duca della Grazia.

If some imitator of Sanudo could have kept the annals of these four hundred years in this house, their interest and variety would have been fascinating. Palma Giovane painted a frieze there, representing the Triumph of Cæsar; and the furnishing and pictures have been very attractive, perhaps all the more so for the reason that there have usually been some paintings and artistic objects for sale.

The Palazzi Farsetti and Loredan, separated by the Traghetto di San Luca, are very interesting. The Loredan dates from the twelfth century, while the Farsetti is in the Byzantine-Lombard style of that period, its front having been made from the pillars and columns of an older edifice. These palaces are now used for municipal offices. In the Farsetti, Canova first studied his art, and on the staircase are some of his earlier works.

The Palazzo Loredan is one of the few really old edifices in the Byzantine-Gothic style. It is this architecture that gives the unusual, fairy-like, and mysterious impressions which all artists get from Venetian exteriors; and the central arcade of the Loredan is a precious example of it. Ruskin says: "Though not conspicuous, and often passed with neglect, it will be felt at last, by all who examine it carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the Grand Canal." The arms of Peter V. Lusignan are above the entrance and windows. This king of Cyprus lived here early in the fourteenth century as the guest of Federigo Corner Piscopia; and here Elena Cornaro Piscopia was born.

If one really lives in Venice, and has leisure to seek {338} for them, there are enchanting bits of architecture, sculpture, and painting which are quite unknown to the usual tourist. In Palazzo Contarini and Palazzo Bembo alla Celestia there are admirable staircases in the courtyards, and other details from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Palazzo Sina (formerly Grassi), a modern edifice, there is a noble staircase, its walls being decorated with a representation of the Carnival of 1745. The portraits of the family are looking over the balustrades.

Behind the Church of San Gian Crisostomo, in the Corte del Millone, is the remnant of the Palazzo del Poli, the house in which Marco Polo first saw the light, in 1259, and where he died in 1323. It dates from the twelfth century, and in the little that remains of it one sees enough to admire to make it a matter of regret that so much is lost.

The little Marco was but a year old when his father, Niccolo, and his uncle Matteo started on their first great journey, which extended to the city of the powerful Kublai Khan. They returned, having seen many marvellous things, and again left Venice to repeat their travels, taking Marco with them when he was fifteen years old. All knowledge of them was lost for many years. The Casa Poli was filled with kinsmen who knew little of those who had gone away more than twenty years before, when suddenly, one evening in 1295, three strange figures appeared at the gate.

They were in Tartar garb, their hair and beards were long, and their skins dark from exposure, while their curious speech was most un-Venetian. We are told that the doorway through which we pass to-day in the Corte della Sabbionera, with its Byzantine arch, and the cross above it, is the very same at which the travellers knocked. At first they were not believed to be the Poli; and a great excitement was aroused, not only in Palazzo Poli, {339} but through all the neighboring quarter as well, and it seemed for a while very doubtful if they could ever come to their own again.

But at last they hit upon a plan by which they could prove themselves to be the Poli by their peculiar conduct. They invited all their relatives to a magnificent banquet, and when the time arrived,—

"the three came out of their chamber dressed in long robes of crimson satin, according to the fashion of the time, which touched the ground. And when water had been offered for their hands, they placed their guests at table, and then taking off their satin robes put on rich damask of the same color, ordering in the mean while that the first should be divided among the servants. Then after eating something [no doubt, a first course], they rose from table and again changed their dress, putting on crimson velvet, and giving as before the damask robes to the servants; and at the end of the repast they did the same with the velvet, putting on garments of ordinary cloth such as their guests wore. The persons invited were struck dumb with astonishment at these proceedings. And when the servants had left the hall, Messer Marco, the youngest, rising from the table, went into his chamber and brought out the three coarse cloth surcoats in which they had come home. And immediately the three began with sharp knives to cut open the seams and tear off the lining, upon which there poured forth a great quantity of precious stones, rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, which had been sewed into each coat with great care, so that nobody could have suspected that anything was there. For on parting with the Great Khan they had changed all the wealth he bestowed upon them into precious stones, knowing certainly that if they had done otherwise they never could by so long and difficult a road have brought their property home in safety. The exhibition of such an extraordinary and infinite treasure of jewels and precious stones, which covered the table, once more filled all present with such astonishment that they were dumb and almost beside themselves with surprise; {340} and they at once recognized these honored and venerated gentlemen of the Ca' Polo, whom at first they had doubted, and received them with the greatest honor and reverence."

The news soon spread all over Venice, and the Poli were besieged with visitors. The eldest, Matteo, was created a magistrate, and Marco was put forward to tell the story of their wanderings in answer to the many questions which were asked of them; and as he constantly told of millions as the revenue of the Great Khan, and of millions on millions as the wealth of Cathay, he came to be called Marco Milione. This sounds like a derisive title, and doubtless was so at first; but it was a most reputable one later, especially after Marco Polo had contributed large sums towards fitting out a fleet to oppose the Genoese, and himself went to the war, the results of which, as concerned him, have already been related. There is a puzzle to me in the foregoing tale: Why did the possession of their treasures prove the three men to be the Poli?

It goes without saying that in historic interest all other Venetian palaces fade away when compared with the Palazzo Ducale, which, as we have seen, played its part in all affairs of importance in Venice, since it was not only the residence of the Doge, but the place in which the councils were held, and all momentous matters of the State decided. It was the scene alike of the gayest festivities and of the most heart-rending tragedies. The splendid ball might be at its merriest in one grand saloon at the moment when the Ten in their Sala were decreeing the death of one of the dancers, and another of their sentences was being executed at the prison near by, where "most nights arrived the prison boat, that boat with many oars, and bore away as to the Lower World."

This palace is to-day a great library and picture-gallery, in which the pictures that reproduce the great events {341} in the history of the Republic are of a value that cannot be over-estimated. The masters here represented by religious and mythological subjects can be studied in other Italian and European galleries; but here, in the very halls where the wars, the embassies, and the pageants of Venice were decreed, they have been pictured upon the walls most fittingly, by the great masters of the flowering period of Venetian Art.

In the Sala della Bussola, where was the inner opening of the Lion's Mouth, into which the cowardly, secret denunciations to the Ten were dropped, are pictures of the "Surrender of Bergamo" and of Brescia to the Venetians. They are the work of Aliense (or Antonio) Vassilacchi, and like other pictures by him, in various portions of the palace, are affected, bizarre, and sometimes extravagant in their characteristics, but most interesting by reason of their subjects.

The Sala delle Quattro Porte is adorned by paintings of the "Capture of Verona," in 1439, by Giovanni Contarini, who may be described in a word as an expert imitator of Titian.

"The Arrival of Henry III. at Venice" is also of interest, although its painter, Andrea Vicentino, is an artist who merits attention and adverse criticism at the same time. This is his masterpiece. The Doge Mocenigo receives the King of France and Poland on a bridge which leads to Palladio's famous Triumphal Arch, erected in honor of this royal visitor. There are many portraits of famous men. Near the king on the right are the Cardinal San Sisto, Paolo Tiepolo, and Jacopo Foscarini, procurators of St. Mark, and other gentlemen, besides the pilot of the royal galley, Antonio Canale, whom the King of France embraced and knighted on this occasion.

"The Reception of the Persian Ambassadors by the Doge" is noteworthy, because it is the work of Carl (or {342} Carletto) Cagliari, the son of Paul Veronese. His father, not wishing the son to be merely his own imitator, had placed him in the studio of Jacopo Bassano; and at one time the young man spent some months on his father's Trevisan estate, sketching from Nature, and introducing animals and shepherds into his landscapes.

He was but sixteen when his father died, and he lived but eight years after, having overworked, and dying from the consequent exhaustion. His pictures display a feeling for the picturesque, and some of his heads are admirable; but the inimitable grace, brilliancy, and gayety of his father are not his, while his composition is much colder.

This is impressed on us when in the next Sala, the Anticollegio, we come upon the "Rape of Europa," which Gautier calls "the marvel of this sanctuary of Art" And finally he exclaims: "What beautiful white shoulders, what round and charming arms! What a smile of eternal youth is in this marvellous canvas where Paul Veronese seems to have said his last word! The heavens, clouds, trees, flowers, the earth, the sea, the carnations, draperies, all seem to be steeped in the light of an unknown Elysium."

In the Sala del Collegio, Veronese appears in a far different manner. Above the throne where sat the Doge and the Privy Councillors when receiving foreign ambassadors, is a representation of Venice triumphant after the Victory of Lepanto in 1571. The portraits of the hero of the battle, the Doge Sebastiano Venier, and of Agostino Barbarigo, who perished there, are introduced. It is a grand picture, but confused; for besides the figures we have mentioned are those of the Saviour in glory, Faith, Saints Mark and Justine, and other subordinate personages, and these are massed in the centre of the canvas. He certainly was an astounding painter. We must not think of his curious mingling of people who would {343} seemingly never be associated either on earth or in heaven; we must not note his improprieties of chronology, costume, and place; we must but feast on his dignified and splendid crowds,—his light, his color, and, on the whole, in its general effect, now so mellowed and harmonized by time. Who can resist his charm?

The Sala del Senate is also called dei Pregardi, because in the early times, before Wednesday and Saturday were fixed upon as the days for the meeting of the Senate, messengers were sent to pray the Senators to attend at the palace. It is principally decorated with religious subjects, and the centre of the ceiling is occupied by Tintoretto's conception of "Venice as Queen of the Sea;" but the historical pictures of the "Election of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani as Patriarch of Venice," by Marco Vecelli, and the "League of Cambray," by Palma Giovane, are attractive, although one can scarcely understand why "Venice seated on a lion and daring all Europe" should be chosen to represent the Republic just at that epoch, when she was at the mercy of other powers, and for a time quite helpless. To Art in Venice this league was almost fatal, since the patrons of artists were forced to give their attention and money to the affairs of the State, and the painters were forced to seek other cities where peace permitted them to gain a livelihood. Even Titian left his beloved Venezia, and went to Padua, where he was fully occupied.

Passing through the Ante-Chapel and the Chapel, in which there is little of interest, we reach a staircase leading to the private apartments of the Doge, at the foot of which is the only fresco known to have been painted by Titian, which remains in Venice, and is only shown by special permission of the Conservatorio. It is most carefully painted, and represents Saint Christopher, who is of a splendid Venetian type. The head of the saint is noble; {344} while the child is like an inferior earthly baby, and appears to be in great fear of falling. Tradition teaches that this was painted in honor of the arrival of the French at San Cristoforo, near Milan, in 1523. Titian's patron, the Doge Andrea Gritti, was very fond of the French, and at his election the French ambassador at Venice made great feasts in his honor. Had a patron saint of France been represented, it would have caused comment, perhaps suspicion of the Doge; therefore Saint Christopher was chosen.

In the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci is the "Meeting of Alexander III. and the Doge Ziani on his Return from his Victory over Barbarossa," by Leandro Bassano. This remarkable portrait-painter had here a great opportunity to show his skill, and he improved it. The figures are evidently painted from life, and well present the patricians of his time, the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Doge Marino Grimani figures as Ziani in this canvas, and in the suite of the Pope Leandro has given us his own portrait. He is ordinary in type. His thick black hair rises above a receding forehead, and his commonplace head and whole bearing suggest the peasant in a borrowed garb. He carries the umbrella behind the Pope.

On the opposite wall is the "Congress at Bologna, in 1529, which concurred in the Peace between Clement VII. and Charles V.," by Marco Vecelli. It represents the whole assemblage; and while one of the secretaries of the Emperor reads the treaty, a Dominican is making an address, drums are beaten and trumpets sounded, and in the distance two cavaliers are riding a tournament, lances in hand. Charles Blanc happily suggests that it is fortunate that painting is dumb, when so many noises are represented. Curious and incoherent as this picture is, it is full of life and movement, and is interesting in {345} its costumes of cardinals, bishops, pontifical guards, ambassadors, and pages.

Naturally the immense Sala del Maggior Consiglio is of the greatest interest. It is now the Bibliotheca di San Marco or Marciana, the books having been brought here in 1812. The decorations are unchanged since the days of the Republic, and the same magnificent works of art which surrounded the meetings of the Great Council make a fitting setting for the treasures of the Library. This hall was burned out in 1577, three years after the great banquet to Henry III. had been given here; and thus the present paintings are by the later Venetian masters. The ceiling is very important, having been painted by Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, and Paul Veronese, whose "Triumph of Venice" far surpasses the works of the other two masters. I know of no description of this picture which can be compared with that of Taine, who says:—

"This work is not merely food for the eye, but a feast. Amidst grand architectural forms of balconies and spiral columns sits Venice, the blonde, on a throne, radiant with beauty, with that fresh and rosy carnation peculiar to the daughters of humid climates, her silken skirt spread out beneath a silken mantle. Around her a circle of young women bend over with a voluptuous and yet haughty smile, possessing that Venetian charm peculiar to a goddess who has a courtesan's blood in her veins, but who rests on a cloud and attracts men to her instead of descending to them. Thrown into relief against pale violet draperies and mantles of azure and gold, their living flesh, their backs and shoulders, are impregnated with light or swim in the penumbra, the soft roundness of their nudity harmonizing with the tranquil gayety of their attitudes and features. Venice in their midst, ostentatious and yet gentle, seems like a queen whose mere rank gives the right to be happy, and whose only desire is to render those who see her happy also. On her serene head, which is thrown slightly backwards, two angels place {346} a crown. What a miserable instrumentality is language! A tone of satiny flesh, a luminous shadow on a bare shoulder, a flickering light on floating silk, attract, recall, and retain the eye for a long time, and yet there is but a vague phrase with which to express the charm.... Beneath the ideal sky and behind a balustrade are Venetian ladies in the costume of the time, in low-neck dresses cut square and closely fitting the body. It is actual society, and is as seductive as the goddess. They are gazing, leaning over and smiling; the light which illuminates portions of their clothes and faces falls on them or diffuses itself in such exquisite contrasts that one is moved with transports of delight. At one time a brow, at another a delicate ear or a necklace or a pearl, issues from the warm shadow. One, in the flower of youth, has the archest of looks; another, about forty and amply developed, glances upward and smiles in the best possible humor. This one—a superb creature, with red sleeves striped with gold—stoops, and her swelling breasts expand the chemise of her bodice. A little blond, curly-headed girl in the arms of an old woman raises her charming little hand with the most mutinous air, and her fresh little visage is a rose. There is not one who is not happy in living, and who is not merely cheerful, but joyous. And how well these rumpled, changeable silks, these white, diaphanous pearls accord with these transparent tints, as delicate as the petals of flowers! Away below, finally, is the restless activity of the sturdy, noisy crowd; warriors, prancing horses, grand flowing togas, a trumpeter bedizened with drapery, a man's naked back near a cuirass, and in the intervals, a dense throng of vigorous and animated heads, and in one corner a young mother and her infant; all these objects being disposed with the facility of opulent genius, and all illuminated like the sea in summer, with superabundant sunshine. All this is what one should bear away with him in order to retain an idea of Venice.... I got some one to show me the way to the public garden; after such a picture one can only contemplate natural objects."

The only unbroken wall in this Great Hall is occupied by the "Paradiso" of Tintoretto, in some respects the {347} greatest of modern pictures; while the remaining wall-spaces are filled with twelve pictures illustrating the story of Pope Alexander and Barbarossa, and nine others of scenes connected with the Fourth Crusade. These splendid paintings are among the earliest which were executed on large canvases, and for that reason are important in the History of Art, while they bear witness to the wealth and generosity of the Republic at the time when they were painted. Much blackened by age as they are, and often villanously repainted, they are still a worthy study for the art student for many reasons.

Carlo and Gabriele Cagliari represented two scenes in the earliest period of the association of the Pope and the Doge Ziani. In the first the Doge and the Senators have found the Pope in the Convent of La Carità, where Alexander took refuge from Barbarossa in 1177. This convent, now the Academy of Fine Arts, is on the Grand Canal; and not only are the Senators and a crowd of people represented as surrounding the two principal personages, but there are fishermen in their boats, with baskets full of fish, a group of people in a gondola, and other figures which add much to the life and movement of the scene. The Pope is habited like a poor priest, in order that he may the better conceal his personality.

The second is a much smaller composition, divided by columns. On one side there is light; on the other, shadow. The subject is the "Embassy from the Pope and the Republic to Frederick II. at Pavia." The groups are animated, and the costumes varied, as senators, soldiers, and priests are all represented.

Above a window Leandro Bassano has painted a picture of "the Doge receiving a lighted taper from the Pope," commemorating this act which conferred on all future Doges the privilege of having a taper borne before them.

The fourth, by Jacopo Tintoretto, presents the scene at {348} Pavia, when Barbarossa declares that if the Pope is not surrendered to him, he will "plant his eagles above the portal of San Marco." Both the good and the bad in Tintoretto's manner are displayed in this work, but the figures of the two ambassadors are admirable. The more his pictures are studied, the better is the saying of the Venetians understood, "There are three Tintorettos,—one of bronze, a second of silver, and a third of gold."

The fifth painting, by Francesco Bassano, represents "the Pope presenting a consecrated sword to the Doge." It is a most interesting study, it being a representation of the Piazza as it appeared at the end of the sixteenth century. The scene is actually in the Piazzetta, between the landing and the column of the Lion. In perspective, on one side the Ducal Palace appears, and on the other the Campanile and the angle of the Procuratorie, while in the distance is the Clock-Tower. The Piazza is full of people. Priests in fine vestments, Senators in their robes, soldiers with nodding plumes in their hats, trumpeters and drummers, all witness the ceremony. The Doge, wearing the ducal crown, in his crimson velvet dress, beneath the mantle of the cloth of gold, is most impressive, as he slightly bends his knee when receiving the sword.

Francesco Bassano excelled in giving an air of reality to his paintings, and in his aptness in invention; and while this scene actually occurred in 1172, he has surrounded it with the Piazza of four centuries later, which greatly adds to its value for us,—he wrought better than he knew.

Above a window Fiammingo painted "The Doge receiving the Parting Benediction of the Pope;" and next that is the "Battle of Salboro," in which Otho, the son of Barbarossa, was taken prisoner. This is the work of Domenico Tintoretto, who showed himself at his best, {349} and seemed a worthy son of his father, in his pictures of naval battles. When we are told that the battle of Salboro was never fought, and that the whole story is but a piece of Venetian boasting, it is impossible to feel the same interest in the work that a representation of a well attested fact would arouse; but this does not prevent the study of the details of costume, armor, and naval equipments, which are very curious.

Above a door Andrea Vicentino painted a picture of "The Doge presenting Prince Otho to the Pope;" and in the next scene Palina Giovane represented the "Release of Otho by the Pope." After Veronese and Tintoretto, and among the secondary artists who were honored by commissions in the decoration of the Ducal Palace, Palma Giovane may well claim attention. Domenico Tintoretto alone rivals him in their class. He was skilful in design, but lacked sentiment and intensity of spirit. He knew all the optical effects in painting. He used his brush dexterously. He had studied and copied from Michael Angelo until he had mastered foreshortening. He handled his colors after Titian's manner. In short, he only lacked soul, in order to have been a great painter. But through the friendship and influence of Alexander Vittoria he became the fashion, and his pictures are seen in all the churches, and other edifices of honor in Venice, as well as in many galleries of the chief cities of Italy, and other European countries. His drawings and engravings were much valued, and were sold for nearly as large sums as were paid for his pictures in oil.

"The Emperor submitting to the Pope" affords one of the most interesting scenes and best artistic opportunities in the series. It is by Federigo Zucchero, who was by no means a great artist; yet this work is very attractive.

Above another door Girolamo Gamberato painted "The Doge landing at Ancona with the Pope and the Emperor {350} after the Reconciliation." Tradition teaches that on this occasion the people of Ancona came out to meet their visitors bringing umbrellas or canopies for the Pope and the Emperor only, and Alexander ordered a third to be brought for Ziani, who, under God, had been the means of establishing this peace.

The series ends with the scene in St. John Lateran in Rome, when "Pope Alexander III. presents consecrated banners to the Doge Ziani." It is the work of Giulio dal Moro, and so badly done that it merits no attention here nor when one stands beneath it. We need not be surprised when we remember that this "Jack at all trades" signed himself "painter, sculptor, and architect."

Of the pictures of the Fourth Crusade, the first is by Le Clerc, and represents the scene in San Marco, in 1201, when the alliance was concluded between the Venetians and the Crusaders,—a most interesting subject, which should have been treated by a greater master. The second, by Andrea Vicentino, is the "Siege of Zara;" and next, above a window, the "Surrender of Zara," by Domenico Tintoretto, which is followed by "Alexius Comnenus imploring the Help of the Venetians for his Father," by Andrea Vicentino.

Domenico Tintoretto represents the "Second Taking of Constantinople, in 1204." "The Election and Coronation of Baldwin" follow, by Andrea Vicentino and Aliense, and close the story of this Crusade, the final space being filled by Paul Veronese's representation of "The Return of Doge Contarini after the Defeat of the Genoese at Chioggia."

The frieze of this Hall of the Great Council is composed of the portraits of seventy-two Doges. The reign of the earliest dates from 809; and many of them must, of course, have been painted from fancy. A large number are from the hand of Tintoretto. The space where the {351} portrait of Marino Faliero should have hung is covered with a black veil, and has the inscription, "Hic est locus Marini Falethri decapitati pro criminibus" (This is the place of Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes).

What a world of associations must rush through the mind as one traverses the halls of this magnificent palace! What scenes of splendid gayety are called up by the pictures of the luxurious and splendor-loving men and women of the Republic! And then, when reading this inscription, we recall that other scene, the tragic extreme; and between these two types of association there are hundreds of others, which fill the distance between them with every shade of sentiment from "grave to gay." But just here we can only remember that "the Council of Ten was hastily summoned. The minor conspirators were first executed. Then the Doge, stripped of his insignia of office, was beheaded in the closed palace; and one of the Council, taking the bloody sword to the space between the Columns, brandished it, saying, 'The terrible doom hath fallen on the traitor.'" We are glad that the steps on which Faliero fell no longer exist, and that no such scene has been enacted on the splendid Staircase of the Giants, over which Mars and Neptune now preside, and where, since 1485, the Doges have been crowned with the formula, "Accipe coronam ducalem ducatus Venetorum." The author of the "Story of Italy" says: "It was a serious matter to be Doge of Venice. Five of the first fifty Doges abdicated; five were banished with their eyes put out; nine were deposed; five were massacred, and two fell in battle."

We remember that in the Sala dello Scrutinio is a picture of the Triumphal Arch erected in 1694, in honor of Francesco Morosini, called Il Peloponnesiaco from his conquest of the Morea, and whose name, alas! is now oftenest recalled in connection with the destruction of the Parthenon.

One of the best works of Palma Giovane is also here,—"The Last Judgment," in one part of which he represents his mistress in heaven, and in another she is consigned to hell. "The Taking of Zara" is one of the wonderful pictures by Tintoretto. Charles Blanc says that he was possessed by the genius of battles, and in depicting such scenes seemed to be himself engaged in the assault. This work is full of fire. It is confused; but here and there a single picturesque figure stands out from the heroic disorder of this tumultuous story.

Blanc relates that an abbé who acted as his guide in the Ducal Palace called his attention to the fact that the portrait of Marino Faliero did not appear in "The Taking of Zara," which should have made his name immortal as much as his tragic death has done; but the Senate forbade Tintoretto to place him on his canvas, since his head had fallen by the hand of the executioner. Blanc asks: "If the Doge had betrayed the Republic, was that a reason why the Republic in its turn should betray the truth?"

The frieze of the portraits of the Doges is concluded in this hall, where the forty-one nobles were chosen who afterwards elected these rulers. It is now the repository of the manuscripts, the early printed books, and the Aldine editions of the Library.

The Sala dello Scudo is rich in a very different sort of decoration from that of the halls we have described. It is hung with maps, many of which represent the discoveries made by Venetian navigators. Here is the famous Mappamondo of Fra Mauro, dating from 1457 to 1459, which is of great value in connection with mediæval history, showing as it does the geographical knowledge or ignorance of that era.

There is a class of pictures in the Ducal Palace so numerous that we have not space to speak justly of them. They are those of which Rio says:—

"It was no doubt the passage of the Psalmist—Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam—which was so often repeated by the Venetians in the Crusades, which suggested to the Doges and naval commanders the idea of being represented in a kneeling attitude before the infant Christ or the Holy Virgin, in the pictures destined to transmit their names or the recollection of their exploits to future generations. This mode of pious commemoration, which offers the touching contrast of an humble attitude with great dignity or glory, continued in use during the whole of the sixteenth century, in spite of the paganism so universally triumphant elsewhere. After Giovanni Bellini and Catena, came the celebrated artists who adorned the second period of the Venetian school, and who also paid the tribute of their pencils to this interesting subject. It is on this account that pictures representing the Madonna seated, with a doge or a general kneeling before her, are so frequently to be met with in private collections, in the churches, and above all in the Ducal Palace, in which these allegorical compositions, intended to express the close alliance between Religion and the State, seem to have been purposely multiplied."

In no other place in all Venice does the atmosphere of the Middle Ages linger as it does in the Palazzo Ducale. The atmosphere of the days when the scroll in the hand of Venice enthroned bore this inscription, "Fortis, justa, trono furias, mare sub pede, pono" (Strong and just, I put the furies beneath my throne, and the sea beneath my foot). Emerging from this palace, with one's brain full of more thoughts than it can hold, it is restful to find a part of them so happily expressed as in these words of Taine:—

"We see here with surprise and delight oriental fancy grafting the full on the empty instead of the empty on the full. A colonnade of robust shafts bears a second and a lighter one decorated with ogives and with trefoils; while above this support, so frail, expands a massive wall of red and white marble, whose courses {354} interlace each other in designs and reflect the light. Above, a cornice of open pyramids, pinnacles, spiracles, and festoons intersect the sky with its border, forming a marble vegetation bristling and blooming above the vermilion and pearly tones of the façade, reminding one of the luxuriant Asiatic or African cactus which on its native soil mingles its leafy poniards and purple petals.

"You enter, and immediately the eyes are filled with forms. Around two cisterns covered with sculptured bronze, four façades develop their statues and architectural details glowing with the freshness of the early Renaissance. There is nothing bare or cold; everything is decked with reliefs and figures, the pedantry of erudites and critics not having intervened, under the pretext of purity and correctness, to restrain a lively imagination and the craving for that which pleases the eye. People are not austere in Venice; they do not restrict themselves to the prescriptions of books; they do not make up their minds to go and yawn admiringly at a façade sanctioned by Vitruvius; they want an architectural work to absorb and delight the whole sentient being; they deck it with ornaments, columns, and statues; they render it luxurious and joyous. They place colossal pagans like Mars and Neptune on it, and biblical figures like Adam and Eve; the sculptors of the fifteenth century enliven it with their somewhat realistic and lank bodies, and those of the sixteenth with their animated and muscular forms. Rizzo and Sansovino here rear the precious marbles of their stairways, the delicate stuccoes and elegant caprices of their arabesques: armor and boughs, griffins and fawns; fantastic flowers and capering goats, a profusion of poetic plants and joyous, bounding animals. You mount these princely steps with a sort of timidity and respect, ashamed of the dull black coat you wear, reminding one by contrast of the embroidered silk gowns, the sweeping, pompous dalmatics, the Byzantine tiaras and brodekins, all that seigneurial magnificence for which these marble staircases were designed; and, at the top, to greet you, are two superb women, Power and Justice, and a doge receiving from them the sword of command and of battle.

"At the top of the staircase open the two halls, the government {355} and state saloons, and both are lined with paintings; here Tintoretto, Veronese, Pordenone, Palma the younger, Titian, Bonifazio, and twenty others have covered with masterpieces the walls of which Palladia, Aspetti, Scamozzi, and Sansovino made the designs and ornaments. All the genius of the city at its brightest period assembled here to glorify the Republic in the erection of a memorial of its victories and an apotheosis of its grandeur. There is no similar trophy in the world: naval combats, ships with curved prows like swan's necks, galleys with crowded banks of oars, battlements discharging showers of arrows, floating standards amidst masts, a tumultuous strife of struggling and engulfed combatants, crowds of Illyrians, Saracens, and Greeks, naked bodies bronzed by the sun and deformed by contests, stuffs of gold, damascene armor, silks starred with pearls, all the strange medley of that heroic, luxurious display which transpires in Venetian history from Zara to Damietta, and from Padua to the Dardanelles; here and there, grand nudities of allegorical goddesses; in the triangles the 'Virtues' of Pordenone, a species of colossal virago with herculean, sanguine, and choleric body; throughout, a display of virile strength, active energy, sensual gayety, and, preparing the way for this bewildering procession, the grandest of modern paintings, a 'Paradise' by Tintoretto, eighty feet long by twenty wide, with six hundred figures whirling about in a ruddy illumination, as if from the glowing flames of a vast conflagration."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ACCADEMIA; CHURCHES AND SCUOLE.

The Accademia delle Belle Arti, although on the Grand Canal, may be reached by a short walk from the Piazza, passing San Moisè and Santa Maria Zobenigo, and through the Campo San Stefano to the ugly bridge which leads directly to the Campo della Carità. The Convent of Charity was one of the edifices upon which Palladio lavished the greatest care and study. Much, of it was burned in 1630, and the pride of the old architect no longer remains. After the suppression of the convent it was used as a barrack; but in 1807 Napoleon decreed the establishment of an Academy of Art, and the spacious buildings of La Carità were devoted to its use.

Here are pictures from the very earliest days in which even the glimmerings of a Venetian Art could be discerned; and this was as late as the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Vivarini of Murano painted their dry, meagre Virgins and other figures in colors so rich as even then to foreshadow the glorious blooming time which followed.

As we are not writing of Art with any special method, we will speak only of a few works of interest to all,—to the picture-lover as well as to the connoisseur and student,—merely saying, en passant, that one who has time will do well to spend a good share of it here.

It is to be expected that, as in other portions of Italy, the early pictures should almost without exception be {357} devoted to religious subjects; and none could be more sweet and attractive in sentiment than are those of Giovanni Bellini, whose Madonnas are good and simple, self-effacing mothers, anxious only to show the sacred Child to all beholders, and offer him for the world to worship. How many of these pure, grave, reverential mothers the good Zuan painted! and we can never see them too often. We are sure that he who represented this Divine Mother, with the "splendid column of her throat, holding her head high in a noble and simple abstraction," and the Infant King, with his lovely angelic children in attendance, tenderly respected women, and idolized children. We are almost sure that he reproduced on his canvas the inmates of his own home. One of these Madonnas, in the Contarini collection of the Academy, is an exquisite example of this younger and most excellent Bellini.

Two unusually interesting works by Gentile Bellini are "Miracles of the Holy Cross," and were painted in 1466 and 1500 for the School of St. John the Evangelist. The first represents a scene in the Piazza when a miraculous cure is made by a fragment of the True Cross there displayed. This Bellini could not confine himself to an endless repetition of Madonnas and Saints; his interest in the humanity about him was far too strong for him to turn from it to paint the ideal, and we rejoice in his realistic picturing of the Venice of his day. He shows us San Marco with but a single mosaic that still remains; the bell-turrets of the façade; the Corinthian (?) horses; the statues, less numerous than now; and the foliage-like decorations, all brilliant with gold and color. The loggietta was not yet built; but the Campanile was there, not, however, unattached as now. The Clock-Tower was not in existence, and the Procuratie were so different from those of to-day as to be scarcely recognizable.

The procession has entered the Piazza through a gateway between San Marco and the Ducal Palace. Groups of idlers here and there are watching the ceremony, and are composed of Oriental merchants, Venetian gallants, and an occasional magistrate in his toga, or perhaps some women and children. Mrs. Oliphant says:—

"The picture is like a book, more absolutely true than any chronicle, representing not only the looks and customs of the occasion, but the very scene. How eagerly the people must have traced it out when it first was made public, finding out in every group some known faces, some image all the more interesting because it was met in the flesh every day! Is that perhaps Zuan Bellini himself, with his hair standing out round his face, talking to his companions about the passing procession, pointing out the curious effects of light and shade upon the crimson capes and berettas, and watching while the line defiles with its glimmer of candles and sound of psalms against the majestic shadow of the houses?"

The fragment of the True Cross which performs, in this first painting, the miracle of a great cure, was presented to the Brotherhood of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista by the Grand Chancellor of Cyprus, who had in turn received it from the Patriarch of Constantinople. This relic had performed so many wonders that the Confraternity felt the importance of recording them, so to speak, on these enormous canvases, that all the world might see and believe.

A second picture commemorates an occasion when the sacred relic was carried in procession to the Church of San Lorenzo, and when on the bridge near the church it was dropped into the canal. Many persons among the profane crowd which followed the procession leaped into the water, and are seen in the picture swimming about in search of the relic. Some boats also have come near for the same purpose; but not until Andrea Vendramini, the {359} chief warden of the Scuola, descended into the canal in his full habit, could the precious object be found. For him it floated upright, because, as the tradition teaches, of his being granted this great privilege by miraculous favor.

This scene is even more characteristic of Venetian life than the first. The houses near the bridge are ornamented with draperies; and heads of women in coifs and hoods are seen in the windows. The bridge is crowded densely by the procession arrested to watch the search for the relic, and the light is thrown on the faces of the priests and monks who chiefly compose it. All along the Fondamenta is a concourse of richly dressed ladies in magnificent costumes and gorgeous jewels, whose shoulders and faces are increased in beauty by the thin veils that soften but do not conceal their features or their rich necklaces and coronets. They kneel closely together, and no doubt will follow the procession when it moves. They are not young, but in the height of womanly dignity and grace; and it is said that she who wears a crown is Caterina Cornaro, who has come from Asolo to see this ceremony at San Lorenzo. In one of the boats stands the priest of San Lorenzo, his hands clasped in prayer; and Ridolli declares that Gentile introduced his own portrait in the crowd at the side of the canal. Charles Blanc places great value on this picture on account of its accurate representation of the costumes and manners of the time, the ceremonials, buildings, bridges, and quays of Venice; but as a work of art he finds it inferior to the "Procession in the Piazza of St. Mark."

We have not space to speak with any justice of that marvellous series of nine pictures by Carpaccio, which tell the story of Saint Ursula with such power as to strike all beholders with astonishment. We can mention but one work by this master,—a work in the same vein as {360} the two by Gentile Bellini of which we have spoken. It is called the "Patriarch of Grado;" and the bridge of the Rialto, then built of wood, is seen, as well as the gondolas, which were open, decked with garlands, and painted in colors, as if ready for a fête.

I can scarcely equal Mr. Ruskin in enthusiasm for Carpaccio; but it is certain that this man, whose origin is unknown and the date of whose death cannot be given, whose whole history, in fact, is enveloped in impenetrable shadows, was a great poetic artist; and Blanc well says: "His works are not precious to Venetians only; they have an infinite charm for all the world, because they reveal the imagination of an artist. In them one admires the ingenuousness of a precursor, and feels the soul of a poet; and nothing is more true than the saying of Zanetti, 'Carpaccio bears the truth in his heart.'"

The "Assumption" and "The Presentation of the Virgin" by Titian are among the invaluable treasures of the Accademia. As we gaze on the magnificent Assumption, we can but wonder, and even feel indignant, at the dense stupidity of those monks of the Frari for whom it was painted. They were like buzzing, stinging gnats about him while the work was going on, and only accepted it at last because a minister of Charles V. offered a goodly sum for it, and wished to take it away from Venice. Its only worth in their eyes depended on the fact that others wished to have it.

It is really in three parts. At the top is the Eternal Father, in resplendent glory, with arms open to receive the Holy Virgin, who ascends to him surrounded by an aureole of cherubim. Below the grand, colossal figures of the Apostles are grouped. The Virgin is modest, and yet triumphant. She has no mystic expression, but is of the same healthy, vigorous race which Titian saw all about him. She might be a sister or daughter of one of {361} the bronzed apostles below. Her double mantle of red and blue, in its many folds, does not disguise the athletic grace of her superb form, in which there is neither languor nor effeminacy.

In this picture, in which the climax of Venetian painting was reached,—which is by its position and arrangement in the Academy the acknowledged Queen of Pictures,—a wonderful power of invention is displayed, and a boldness of execution is shown which Titian had not before employed, and which was much criticised at the time of its completion; but it has endured the chances and changes of almost four centuries only to be placed in the first rank of existing paintings.

In the "Presentation of the Virgin" we have a truly Venetian treatment of a subject which has been made of small effect in the hands of other masters. The nice little girl, with her plump face and blue gown, can have no possible conception of the meaning of her pale aureole. She is childishly innocent of what is to be done, and, in fact, has simply been used by Titian as an excuse for bringing together fifty people, an obelisk, a portico, the façade of a temple, a long flight of gray stone steps; and not content with these, he has added hillsides, mountains, and trees, with banks of clouds above all.

The Pontiff and a group of priests are above the child at the top of the steps. She raises her hand towards them. Below are her father and mother, and near the steps the famous old countrywoman, with her basket of eggs. There are also men and women of quite another class, dressed in long garments, who make a sort of passing procession. It is as if one were in the midst of a city where people of various classes are occupied with their personal affairs,—a city in the midst of a noble landscape, which is glowing with sunlight,—a city, too, on which its people have bestowed the riches of art, and {362} everything that money can produce to make life luxurious and attractive. It is no wonder that Titian lived without a rival; that his works were sought by emperors and kings, and that in his power of portraiture he has not been surpassed.

"The Supper in the House of Levi" was painted by Paul Veronese for the Refectory of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, in 1572; and a year later the artist was summoned before the Sacred Tribunal to answer to the charge of irreverence, based upon his having painted "dwarfs, buffoons, drunkards, Germans, and similar indecencies" at supper with Our Lord. Veronese defended himself on the ground that Michael Angelo, "in the Papal Chapel at Rome, painted Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Mother, Saint John, and Saint Peter, and all the court of heaven, from the Virgin Mary downwards, naked, and in various attitudes, with little reverence." Veronese was dismissed with a command to correct his picture within three months; but more than three hundred years have passed, and it remains untouched.

The suppers of Christ and his disciples and friends were so often painted by Veronese, that he could scarcely vary them very much. That in the house of Levi is subject to criticism on account of the prominence given to the architecture, which is of too florid a type to please a severe taste, although it may correspond with the disorder and movement of the peculiar figures of the composition to which the Sacred Tribunal objected.

Rich in masterpieces as the Ducal Palace and the Academy are, one must still go elsewhere for some of the grandest works of the Venetian school. For example, the Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio is in the Church of S. Maria Formosa, which I always remember was built in 1492, that important year in which our part of the world may be said to have been born. This church is very near {363} the Piazza; and the walk from the Academy, where one so often is, after crossing the bridge, leads through a maze of calli in the very heart of the city.

Santa Barbara was the patroness of soldiers, and this picture was painted for the Bombardieri. She makes the centre of an altarpiece, having two male saints on each side, and a Pietà above. The whole work is excellent, and were the central figure not seen, the Virgin above would attract much attention; but the Saint Barbara fills the place.

She stands there in full majesty, a beautiful young girl, proud in her bearing, but full of human attraction. She is not saint-like, and wears her crown with no humility, and holds her palm as it might be a sceptre. Her rich brown robe, carelessly held about her waist by a knotted ribbon, is in exquisite contrast with her crimson mantle. A white veil is twisted in her golden crown, falls on one side, and crosses her breast; while her magnificent hair falls in wavy tresses on each side her throat, and rests on her bosom. Cannon are at her feet, and her tower is seen behind her. It is a splendid, lovable woman who is here portrayed in a marvellous manner.

Charles Blanc tells us that when he first entered this church with his friend, Mass was being said before the altar of Santa Barbara; but in spite of the ceremony and the place they were both surprised into cries of admiration as they saw the picture. Naturally the priests and worshippers were scandalized, and our author was publicly reproved.

Tradition teaches us that this Barbara was a portrait of Palma's daughter, Violante, who was passionately loved by Titian. So good an authority as Blanc tells us that "it is certain" that Palma's daughter was the mistress of Titian late in his life. Both these masters made several portraits of her, introducing her into a variety of scenes. {364} One knows her by her limpid, wide-open eyes, her voluptuous mouth and peculiar nose. She is often represented in dishabille, with her large shoulders and beautiful bosom half bare. When attired, she is much decorated, with puffs and slashes in her gowns, with bows of ribbon, and numerous chains and other ornaments.

Just at the left of the western front of Santa Maria Formosa is the entrance to the Ponte del Paradiso, with its exquisite Gothic archway.—one of the most charming bits of old architecture in Venice.

A very short walk takes one to the Campo of SS. Giovanni and Paola, on which are situated the grand Dominican church of the same name; the Scuola of San Marco, now a hospital; and the chapel of Santa Maria della Pace, in which the Falieri were buried, and where, in 1815, the skeleton of the unhappy Doge was found with the head between the knees.

Here too is the splendid statue of Verrochio's, of which Ruskin says, "I do not believe that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than the equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni,"—which to me seems rather extreme praise.

The church, best known as San Zanipolo, is in the cheerful Italian Gothic, and with its broad arches and white windows does not at all suggest its grand sepulchral character. But it is crowded with monuments and tombs. Here many Doges were laid in state, and here their funeral services were held. While living they also came here on the 7th of October, in all their bravery and dignity, to celebrate the anniversary of the victory over the Turks in the Dardanelles. But now, these pageants being over, it is essentially a great tomb; and taken together with Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, we have the double Mausoleum of Venice.

San Zanipolo was founded because of a dream which {365} the Doge Giacomo Tiepolo dreamed in 1226. Were dreams of more consequence in those days, or are we less attentive to them? The Doge saw in his sleep the little chapel of the Dominicans surrounded with the most lovely red roses, so fragrant that all the air was sweet with their perfume; and in the midst of the roses white doves with gold crosses on their heads were flying all about. Then angels descended, bearing smoking golden censers, and they passed through the chapel, and out among the flowers, and the incense was like clouds, and a voice said, "This is the place I have chosen for my preachers."

Instantly the Doge awoke and went to the Senate to tell his dream; and at once a large plot of ground was added to the domain of the Dominicans, and after eight years the foundation of the church was laid under the supervision of the Doge and the Senators.

The two great pictures of this church—the "Death of Saint Peter Martyr" by Titian, and a beautiful work by Giovanni Bellini—were burned, and the remaining paintings are scarcely as interesting as are the monuments, some of which are very curious, and many of which perpetuate the names and deeds of the greatest men of the Republic. The most absurd, perhaps, is the monument to the two Doges Valier, and to the Dogaressa, the wife of the younger. The effect of the enormous curtain, perhaps seventy feet high, with ropes, fringes, and tassels galore, and sustained by cherubs, thus making a background for the effigies of the three figures, is something indescribable. Victory, Fame, the Virtues, Genii, a lion, and a dragon have all been made to contribute to the glory of this family; and the inscription tells us that this ugly Dogaressa, with her jewels, laces, furs, ruffs, and embroidery, was "Distinguished by Roman virtue, Venetian piety, and the Ducal Crown." One wonders what she could have asked for in her prayers. Having all this, {366} what could be added unto her? Would beauty have been worth while?

The two Bellini and Palma Giovane are entombed at San Zanipolo, while the tombs of Titian and Canova are at the Frari, all of them being in most masterful company; but in the last-named church there exists a beautiful Madonna and Saints by Giovanni Bellini, and the splendid altarpiece by Titian called "La Pala dei Pesari." It is a Madonna with Saints and some of the Pesari family. It is the finest ex-voto picture in the world. It was ordered in 1519, and Titian was paid ninety-six ducats for it.

We have barely mentioned Tintoretto, his "Paradiso" and his "Miracle of Saint Mark." He is to many the most unusual man among the Venetian painters of his time, and to others an artist who was not surpassed. He seized and still holds his own domain in the Church of Santa Maria dell' Orto and the Scuola di San Rocco. "Boiling with thoughts," having means to live without earning, he but desired space and opportunity to paint; and these he secured when he offered to work without price for the fathers of the Orto.

The two enormous pictures of the "Last Judgment" and "The Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf" still remain to prove that he was no vain boaster when he proposed to satisfy himself and win a glorious fame; and these two great pictures finished, he proceeded, so to speak, to decorate the whole church.

It was not alone in the palaces and churches of Venice that the artists found opportunities for the indulgence of their imagination in depicting historical and ideal religious subjects. The Scuole, of which there were five, were associations of private individuals for benevolent purposes. They are remarkable monuments to the people, not to the government, and are all the more interesting {367} because in this regard they are unique. They were largely endowed; and their edifices, built by voluntary gifts, are among the chief ornaments of Mediæval Venice. Among their objects were the provision of occupation for boys, and the gift of dowries to maidens, fifteen hundred of these being annually married by the aid of these confraternities.

Perhaps the Scuola di San Marco on the Campo of the same name, was as remarkable as any one of these institutions. For this brotherhood Tintoretto painted the "Miracle of Saint Mark," now in the Academy. No words can describe this picture, of which Taine says: "No painting, in my judgment, surpasses or perhaps equals his Saint Mark in the Academy; at all events, no painting has made an equal impression on my mind." And Blanc says: "Tintoretto has here employed all his knowledge, all his love. It is the work of a colorist, who could be made to pale by no other, even in Venice.... By this resplendent painting Tintoretto attained to the highest rank, and he could no longer be ignored in the decoration of the Ducal Palace."

Vasari and Ridolfi concur in the account of the bold manner in which Tintoretto bore off the prize in a contest at the Scuola di San Rocco. This was the most interesting and the richest of the Scuole; and the Brotherhood, having obtained the relics of the saint, albeit in a manner not to be commended, had built their fine church and Scuola in his honor. From Antonio Grimani to the fall of the Republic, the Doges were enrolled in this order, and the Confraternity of San Rocco was a liberal patron of art. Mrs. Jameson gives this account of the acquisition of the relics:—

"In the year 1485 the Venetians, who from their commerce with the Levant were continually exposed to the visitation of the plague, determined to possess themselves of the relics of {368} S. Roch. The conspirators sailed to Montpellier, under pretence of performing a holy pilgrimage, and carried off the body of the saint, with which they returned to Venice, and were received by the Doge, the Senate, the clergy, and all the people with inexpressible joy."

When on one occasion the Brotherhood of San Rocco demanded cartoons for a picture they wished to have painted from five celebrated artists, Tintoretto secretly measured the space, and painted the scene in a few days. When the day of competition arrived, he managed to fasten his canvas in the place for the intended decoration and covered it; and when the other designs had been displayed, he snatched the covering from his picture, and electrified all present. The judges were as angry as the competitors, and told the painter that they had met to judge of cartoons, and not to have a picture forced on them. Tintoretto replied that this was his only method of design; that designs and models should always be so executed that the full effect of the completed work could be seen; and, finally, he said that he set no price on his picture, which he wished to present to them. As they were not permitted to refuse a gift to their saint, they were forced to keep it.

At length, the excitement having passed, the larger number of votes was cast in favor of Tintoretto, and he was formally appointed to do all that was necessary for the decoration of the Scuola, receiving a hundred ducats a year during his life, and promising to paint for it one picture annually. The picture which he nailed to the roof while his rivals made their drawings may still be seen there. It was executed in 1560, and represents "The Apotheosis of Saint Roch."

Thus it happened that the Lower and Upper Halls, the Staircase and the Albergo of the Scuola became galleries of the works of Tintoretto, while still others are in the {369} Church of San Rocco. When the Scuola was finished, it became, in a sense, a school of painting. Ridolfi says it was—

"the resort of the studious in painting, and in particular of all the foreigners from the other side of the Alps who came to Venice at that time: Tintoretto's works serving as examples of composition, of grace, and harmony of design, of the management of light and shade, and force and freedom of color; and, in short, of all that can be called most accurate, and can best exhibit the gifts of the ingenious painter."

All over Venice his works exist,—in the humblest chapels and sacristies, as well as in the Hall of the Great Council; and yet many have been burned, have perished by neglect, or have become indistinguishable with time.

It is a curious fact that of all the Venetian school of painters there were but two born in Venice,—Giovanni Bellini and Tintoretto; and yet, so perfectly have the others suited themselves to her atmosphere that we feel their art to be hers individually, in perfect accord with her spirit and her needs.

So, in architecture, Scamozzi, Palladio, Sansovino, and San Micheli were all born on the mainland; not one of them first saw the light in Venice. But who that stands in the Piazza, or passes up and down the Grand Canal, feels for a moment that any other architecture would have suited Venice, or that this would please us were it reproduced elsewhere? Assuredly Mediæval Venice possessed a charm which worked its spell on all who dwelt within her borders, which enabled her to impress them with her own signet, and draw out in her service the best that was in them. Venice was of old an enchantress; and in spite of years and the many maladies from which she has suffered, she has not yet lost her spell. The charm is still there. It is over you while within her borders, and fills you with delight. It surges around you from time to {370} time when you are far, far away, and you long to be with her again as you long for the beloved faces into which you cannot look, and which distance and time make no less dear.

You shut your eyes on what is near you, and you think of the shimmer of her lagoons, the pearly tints of the cool hours of day, and the rosy, golden atmosphere of the warmer time. Her domes and palaces rise before you. You almost feel the motion of the gondola as you sweep around a curve, and a new and fascinating vista reveals itself. You hear a soft, musical language, or listen to the well-known cries of the gondoliers and the distant song or serenade, and you echo the words of Saint Victor: "Other cities have admirers; Venice alone has lovers."

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