Chapter IX: Part 9

In the church of Saint Mark’s he was presented to the people, and received the usual threefold laudation and salutation. It is worth noticing that Faliero was the last doge who was saluted by the pompous title of ‘Lord of a quarter and an eighth of the Roman Empire.’ Then, according to the regular ceremonial, he was carried round the square amid the acclamations of the multitude, to whom he threw money, and at last he was crowned upon the landing of the staircase that descended into the courtyard of the palace. This staircase was of stone, and led down from the hall of the Great Council to the story where was the covered loggia, and thence continued downwards in the open air, entering the courtyard, and following the same direction as the modern ‘Giants’ Staircase,’ but at the opposite extremity. It was demolished in the fifteenth century. Upon the same landing of the staircase the Doge took the oath of allegiance, with the amendments of which we have already spoken, and we may well believe that the new restrictions contained in the ‘Ducal Promise’ were unwelcome to his despotic nature.

During the reign of Marino Faliero, Venice continued the struggle with Genoa, and remained on the side of the Lombard League against the Visconti. The defeat of the Venetian fleet at Porto Longo, November 4, 1354, almost caused a panic in Venice, where it was expected that at any moment the Genoese would appear again before the Lido. The Doge and the government, however, met the danger with energetic measures, obtained help from the neighbouring principalities, and vigilantly watched the more exposed outlying districts, such as Cape d’Istria and Zara; but the agitation in Venice was not wholly allayed, and the need of peace was felt more than ever. Charles IV., king of Bohemia and king of the Romans, who had recently descended into Italy in order to assume the imperial title, found it no easy matter to make terms between the parties. From Avignon also Pope Innocent VI. was using every means to pacify the divers Italian states; but neither the Emperor nor the Pope were

wholly successful, and in the winter of 1355 the condition of affairs in Venice was such as to favour a conspiracy. It was not long, in fact, before the plot of Marino Faliero was discovered, and it turned out to be the most important of those which darken the history of the fourteenth century.

Almost every one is acquainted with the legend of this conspiracy, and may compare it with the truth so far as a recent examination of the facts has made it known.

A grudge of long standing existed at that time between the houses of Faliero and Steno. In the summer of 1343 a certain Paolo Steno approached the house of Piero Faliero at San Maurizio late in the evening, and calling out a German serving-woman, called Elizabeth or Beta, with whom he seems to have been acquainted, he persuaded her with specious arguments, or with the promise of reward, to let him enter the room of Saray, who some say was the beautiful daughter of the master of the house, but who Romanin says was a slave, as her name would seem to indicate. A recent authority, Lazzarini, says that Romanin was mistaken; but however this may have been, Saray, who was taken by surprise, defended herself desperately, but could not escape the embraces of Paolo Steno. A regular action was brought against the latter, and a number of documents in the criminal archives of the Forty, dated in August and September 1343, prove that the culprit was condemned to be imprisoned a year in the lower dungeons called pozzi, and to pay a fine of three hundred lire. The German serving-woman, who had escaped beyond the frontier, was condemned in default to have her nose and her lips cut off, and was perpetually banished; an accomplice, a servant in the house of Faliero, was imprisoned six months in the lower dungeons, and then banished. Three years later the mother of Saray, on her death, named ‘Saray Steno’ among her children in her will, and it would appear from this that Steno had satisfied justice and repaired his fault by marrying the girl; but in this case it is certain that he did not long survive the date of the deed, for before the conditions of the will could be fulfilled we find that Saray was already the wife of a certain Niccoletto Callencerio of Oderzo. It is impossible to say how far this incident was the cause of the hatred between the families of Faliero and Steno, but we may be sure that when Michel Steno insulted the Doge eleven years later he was already influenced by the existence of the family grudge.

On the tenth of November 1354 a request came before the Council of Forty to proceed against the authors of certain words written in the Hall of the Hearth in the ducal palace against the Doge’s nephew. There is no mention of the Dogess. Amongst those cited to appear before the tribunal within eight days we find the name of a Steno called Micheletto, the diminutive of Michel, and son of the late Giovanni, coupled with that of Piero Bollani, as the principal authors of the insulting lines, and a certain Rizzardo Marioni is accused of having scrawled obscene symbols beside what his companions had written. Besides these, certain other noble youths were cited to appear, but were acquitted for lack of proof that they had taken part in the deed. It must be taken for granted that Romanin was not acquainted with the document cited by Lazzarini, since he says that no proofs exist that Steno was either accused or punished.

Micheletto Steno was condemned to be imprisoned during a few days in the lower dungeon; Piero Bollani and Rizzardo Marioni got off with less than a week’s confinement.

Tradition, as corroborated by the Doge’s own words afterwards, justifies us in believing that Faliero complained of the lenity shown to the culprits; but though he might have been displeased, it would have been impossible that he should be astonished. Since the insult was directed against the Doge or his nephew as private individuals, and not against the head of the Republic, a discriminating tribunal of Venice could only treat the affair as if it had happened between any other members of the nobility. Venice never incarnated any ‘divine right’ in the person of her Doge, and Faliero must have known that though a single word of slight against the honour of the ‘Lord Duke’ might cost him who uttered it both his eyes and his tongue, as happened in the same year to a certain Niccolò Cestello and to another Micheletto of Murano, even a grave insult against the person of the Doge was never legally punished by more than two months’ imprisonment, and generally by a shorter term and a small fine. The legend built up upon the later accounts says that Micheletto Steno was the head of the Forty, _i.e._ President of the Senate, when he wrote the insult of which he was convicted; but we have clear proof that at the time he was hardly more than twenty years of age, so that he had not even the right to vote at the meetings of the Great Council; and no one could belong to the Senate who was under thirty, much less be the head of that formidable body. So far as the Dogess is concerned, chroniclers and novelists have described her as taking part in a dance at the time, whereas she was a woman already of middle age, and her name is never mentioned in any of the numerous documents regarding the famous trial. There is one more argument against the fable that the insult was directed against her. The Venetian tribunals were extremely severe in all cases where the honour of a woman was touched. The mere fact of laying a hand on the shoulder of a woman not the man’s own wife or relative might be punished with a very heavy fine and many months of imprisonment, and a libellous writing against a noble lady was punished with two months in the pozzi and a fine of one hundred ducats. It would seem to follow that if Steno’s offence had been committed against the first matron in Venice, the tribunal would not have treated the matter with that indulgence of which the Doge complained on his own account. Moreover, it should be noted that Marino Faliero was elected on the eleventh of September 1354, and that the date of the trial was the tenth of November of the same year; but the legendary account says it was on the Thursday before Lent, which cannot come earlier than February and may be as late as March, that the insulting words were written. The scandal must have taken place very early in November, and probably happened during the festival held in the ducal palace on the occasion of the marriage of Santino Faliero and Regina Dandolo, a nephew and niece of the Doge, a marriage, consequently, for which the papal dispensation would have been necessary. This hypothesis would in some measure explain the fact that the writing was directed against the Doge and one of his nephews.

Whatever the true facts were in the Steno-Faliero trials, it is certain that the Doge entertained feelings of the strongest resentment against the aristocracy, against the judges, and, on the whole, against all the decrees of the government. There is no doubt but that the young nobles of that day deserved the indignation they excited in the minds of sensible people, for during several years past their insolence had become boundless, and they went to all lengths of violence, and worse, sometimes even making use of false keys to get into houses that were closed against them, and sparing neither matron nor maid. The lower classes especially suffered by their outrageous conduct in word and deed, and when the Doge conceived the idea of breaking down the power of the aristocrats, he fully believed he might count upon the sympathy and help of the people.

Now when the war with the Genoese was still raging, a certain Bertuccio Isarello, a sea-captain, and Giovanni Dandolo, a patrician, who was one of the superintendents charged with getting war-vessels ready for sea, got into a violent discussion. To be a sea-captain in those days not only indicated great energy and personal courage, but also implied a certain amount of consideration. Isarello had reached his present position after a life of many labours and adventures. He had been a merchant in the Rialto for a year; he had then been the navigating officer of a vessel trading to the East, belonging to a certain Jacopello Lombardo, and after that he had been promoted to be captain, or ‘patrono,’ of a galley, the property of Marin Michiel, with a salary of five lire of grossi monthly (about twenty-five shillings), and permission to take with him on his voyages three families as passengers. Like most other sea-captains of whom we have any account in the archives, Isarello owned several houses in Venice, and possessed considerable prestige among the seafaring class. The account of the incident here given is taken from the contemporary chronicle of de’ Monaci. It happened that in the course of manning a number of ships of war Dandolo had business with this Captain Isarello, and, finding him unexpectedly obstinate upon some point of which we have no account, proceeded to enforce his arguments with a box on the ear. The offended captain left the office where this took place, and told his friends what had happened. They promised at once to support him if he wished to be avenged. Accompanied by them, Isarello thereupon went at once to the square before the ducal palace, and walked up and down nursing his wrath until Dandolo himself should pass. The Doge and his counsellors, being apprised of the matter, sent for the captain and had from his own lips an account of the injury he had

suffered; but while they promised him every satisfaction which the law would allow, they severely reproved him for having dared to think of taking vengeance in person.

The Doge, however, on hearing Isarello’s story, recognised in him an instrument that might be useful against the aristocracy; and sending for him privately on the following night, received him in his own apartment, and laid before him the plan which he had been maturing for some time.

The most reliable accounts say that within a few hours Isarello gathered twenty conspirators, each of whom promised to furnish forty armed men; but of these twenty heads, only Isarello himself, Filippo Calendario, his father-in-law, erroneously stated to have been the architect who restored the ducal palace, but who was in reality only a master stone-cutter in the work, and two or three other trusty friends, were aware that the Doge himself was the prime mover in the conspiracy, the others supposing that the only object of the movement was to punish the nobles for their overbearing conduct, and to force the government to the better administration of justice. During a few days the principal conspirators came by night to the ducal palace, in order to prepare their plan of action. Meanwhile, in order to increase the unpopularity of the aristocracy, they practised a singular deceit. Two or three of them wandered about the city in the evening, apparently disguised as nobles, insulting the plebeians whom they met, and singing low songs under the windows of honest artisans’ wives; then separating, they loudly bade each other good-night, calling each other by the names of the most illustrious Venetian houses, so that the offended persons supposed they had been annoyed by the fashionable young good-for-nothings of the highest nobility. Meanwhile the conspirators discussed various means for getting possession of the city, and it was finally agreed that they should all meet, fully armed, on the night of the fifteenth of April 1355 in the Square of Saint Mark, before the ducal palace, when the Doge would cause the great bell to ring the alarm, and news would be bruited abroad among the people that the Genoese were at the mouth of the harbour with fifty galleys. Thereupon it was expected that the nobles would flock to the palace, as they always did in cases of danger, to meet in council, and the conspirators would be able to kill them without difficulty as they arrived. After the massacre, they intended to proclaim the absolute sovereignty of the Doge, who bound himself to confer all the important offices of the State upon men belonging to the working-classes. The plan failed, apparently for two reasons.

In the first place, it appears that among those whom the Doge invited to take part in the conspiracy was a certain Niccolò Zucuol, a close friend of the house of Faliero, a rich citizen of burgher origin, who was allied by marriage with the most noble families in Venice. The Doge, knowing that he could trust this man, revealed to him the whole plan, but Zucuol was opposed to it, and by prayers and arguments caused Marino Faliero to waver in his intention. Some chroniclers say that this honest Niccolò Zucuol obtained authority from the Doge to dissolve the conspiracy, and to induce the conspirators, if he could, to give up all idea of vengeance; others say that his arguments only frightened the Doge for the time, without really shaking his resolution.

Secondly, we find that a certain Vendramin, who was in the fur trade, made revelations to a sponsor of his, Niccolò Lion, a noble, in order to save him from the general massacre of the nobles, which was a part of the conspiracy. This Lion, who was a senator, heard the story late at night in his own house, and lost no time in acting on the information. He dressed in haste, and with no companion save the fur-merchant, boldly entered the Doge’s apartment, told him that he knew the truth, and threatened to bring him to account before his counsellors.

Marino Faliero did not lose his self-possession in this sudden turn of affairs, but coolly pretended to pity the credulity of the old senator. He even had the audacity to say that this was not the first he had heard of what he called an egregious calumny; that he himself had made most careful inquiry into the conspiracy, and had assured himself that there was not a word of truth in the story. Lion, however, placed no faith in the Doge’s statements, and insisted so forcibly that the ducal counsellors should be called in that the Doge was obliged to yield.

The chronicler Matteo Villani observes that it was here that the Doge lost his head, because he might easily have locked up Lion and Vendramin, or might

even have murdered them, and thus gained the time necessary for putting his plans into execution. It soon became known that the Privy Council had been summoned at that unusual hour, and this alone spread alarm through Venice. A number of nobles accompanied the six counsellors to the palace, and groups of curious and inquisitive persons gathered in the neighbourhood of Saint Mark’s. It was known that during the last few days, and under various pretexts, there had been frequent gatherings of seafaring men, and many of the nobles had noticed the threatening attitude of the working-men they passed in the street, and had even heard menacing speeches indistinctly spoken when they had gone by, though they had paid little attention to such matters at the time. But now, while the Privy Council was sitting within the palace, the whole population felt a sort of premonition of a terrible mystery, and of some great event that was not far off. Meanwhile two gentlemen of the house of Contarini requested to be immediately admitted to the presence of the Council. They said that a friend of theirs had been asked only a few hours previously by a friend of Filippo Calendario to take part in a conspiracy which was about to break out. The person they referred to was immediately called, and turned out to be a seafaring man named Marco Negro, who was able to give chapter and verse for all he stated. His story at once exhibited the conduct of the Doge in the strongest light. Following the example of the two Contarini, many more persons presented to the ducal counsellors very grave accusations against the Doge. Without losing time, and before daybreak, officers were sent out to arrest all persons suspected of having joined in the conspiracy. Amongst the first that were brought to the palace was Calendario himself and one of his accomplices, named Zuan da Corso. The latter, having been put to the torture, confessed everything, and Calendario, without waiting until similar pressure had been brought upon him, disclosed everything he knew, without the least attempt to hide the responsibility of the Doge. As soon as the Doge’s guilt was clear, the Council decided to proceed with its deliberations without regard to him, and immediately called in the Council of Ten in order to divide with the latter the responsibilities of government and justice. Niccolò Faliero, who was a near relative of the Doge’s, was not allowed to take part in the deliberations, that being the rule in such cases.

Word was immediately sent to all the nobles then in Venice to arm themselves, and to bring their servants and retainers armed to the squares near their habitations. During the whole day and the following night these armed men remained constantly on the watch, ready to act under the orders of the Privy Council at a moment’s notice. Eighty or ninety nobles and trusty citizens continually rode through the city from post to post to preserve order and unity.

After the first hours of agitation, arrangements were made for a regular succession of watches at all the principal points. Meanwhile some of the conspirators sought safety in flight, while some were arrested in their houses. Isarello was taken in a garden, immediately after the first revelations of the conspiracy. Some of the other chiefs were chased as far as Chioggia, and brought back. On the same day Filippo Calendario and Isarello were hanged between the red columns of the loggia of the old palace, from which the Doge usually assisted at the Carnival festivities. Others suffered the same sentence, and as their bodies were not taken down directly after they were dead, there was soon a row of eleven corpses hanging from the balcony, beginning with those of the chief conspirators, who had been hanged with gags in their mouths, lest they should cry out to the people. The minor conspirators were spared this indignity.

The Doge during this time was under guard in his own apartments, until at last one counsellor, Giovanni Mocenigo, one inquisitor, Luca da Lezze, and one avogador, Orio Pasqualigo, entered together to examine him. As the Council was not willing to accept the sole responsibility of the trial, a committee was chosen, consisting of twenty nobles of the most ancient and illustrious families of Venice; these, however, were only to have a vote in consultation, but not upon the final sentence. It was in this way that the ‘Zonta,’ or supplementary committee of the Council of Ten, was constituted, and its usefulness was so readily recognised that from that time on it was always called to assist in cases of unusual importance. It followed that the court, before which the Doge was to be tried, consisted of thirty-seven persons, _i.e._ nine of the Council of Ten, since Niccolò Faliero could not sit, six ducal counsellors, twenty of the committee of nobles, and two avogadori of the Commonwealth. The High Chancellor, I presume, however, must also have been present; in which case the court consisted of thirty-eight. Contemporary documents give us the names of all these judges except the last.

On the seventeenth the three individuals who had been with Marino Faliero by night opened the case. The accusations having been heard, examined, and discussed by the court, the following proposal was made:--‘Does it seem to you that from what has been said and read, proceedings should be taken against Marino Faliero, the Doge, for attempting to betray the State and Commonwealth of Venice?’ Following the so-called Rite of the Council of Ten, the heads and the avogadori of the Commune proposed the sentence, and this was discussed until evening. It was finally decided that Marino Faliero should be beheaded on the landing of the stone staircase, where he had sworn the ducal oath of allegiance. It was further decreed by the sentence that all his goods should be confiscated, with the exception of two thousand lire of grossi, equal to five hundred pounds, which he was to be allowed to leave as he would by will. All that now remained was to announce to the Doge the sentence of death, and to strip him of the ducal insignia. Giovanni Gradenigo was charged with this duty, the same man who was presently to take his place upon the ducal throne. He was of the family of the Dogess; and it is possible, though I think extremely improbable, that the Council intended to send to the condemned man a person who might in some measure show him sympathy in his last moments. If the tribunal really had any such intention, it must be admitted that the manner in which it was carried out left much to be desired. A chronicler of a later time says that he heard the story told as follows:--‘Messer Zuan Gradenigo was the person who received the orders of the chiefs of the Ten to go to the Doge; and he found him walking up and down in the hall of his house (the palace). At once he said to him, “Give me that cap.” And he, the Doge, with his hands, gave it up, not suspecting a sentence of death. And he (Gradenigo) said to him, “You are condemned to have your head cut off within the hour.” Having heard which he (the Doge) was in great anguish, and could not answer anything.’

It is certain that Marino Faliero immediately made his will by the hand of a notary. This document is still wholly preserved, and is the best argument that could be produced of the honour of the Dogess. By it the Doge, who was about to die, leaves his wife sole executrix of his last will; leaving it also to her to do for his soul what she could with what he left her, in the way of pious services and charities.

About sunset the condemned man, deprived of all his ducal insignia, came down from his apartment to the landing of the staircase, and on the same spot where he had sworn, _bona fide, sine fraude_, to uphold the constitution of the State, his head was cut off.

The bloody sword with which the execution was performed was shown to the people from the loggia of the palace.

The following quotation is taken from an anonymous chronicler of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, quoted by Lazzarini, and gives some further details of the end of Marino Faliero, though it is impossible to guarantee them as wholly trustworthy:--

‘You must know that when this Marino Faliero was condemned to death, the tocsin was sounded; and that bell which rang for him was never rung again. It was put away by the Council of Ten, who ordained that if any one should propose that it should ever be rung again hereafter, his head should be cut off. And wit ye that the said bell was not at that time in the bell-tower of Saint Mark, but was in the palace; and its use was to give a signal to the “pregadi”; and afterwards it was put out of use, and taken away and hidden. However, not very long after that, it was hung in the bell-tower of Saint Mark’s, and it is the bell which has no tongue, no rope, and no lever; and the said bell is in the shape of a hat, as may be seen to the present day; and is reserved for some like princely occasion.’

The body of the unfortunate man was laid upon a matting, with the head at the feet, in one of the halls of the ducal palace, and remained there during twenty-four hours, during which time the people were freely admitted to gaze on the mournful spectacle. On the evening of the eighteenth, without honours and without any procession, it was laid in a coffin, and taken by boat as far as San Giovanni e Paolo, to be laid in the tomb of the Faliero family. This was an enormous sarcophagus of Istria stone, of truly huge dimensions, upon which were carved the arms of the Falieri.

In 1812 Giovanni Casoni, a student who was collecting all possible information regarding the Arsenal and other principal points in Venice, was in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo when this sarcophagus was opened. It was quite full of human skeletons, placed in layers, which were very carefully taken out and laid upon the pavement of the court, in order to be transported elsewhere. When almost at the end of the operation, a decapitated skeleton was found, with the skull between the legs. Casoni says that he felt instantly, with intimate certainty, that the remains were those of the Doge, Marino Faliero. ‘At that moment,’ he says, ‘I was far from recalling memories of the Doge, and did not in the least suspect that I should ever have found his ashes, or held his skull in my hands.’ With admirable simplicity the writer remarks that it was only his regard for the regulations of the Health Office, and his reluctance to get into trouble with the representatives of the city government, which prevented him from immediately taking possession of the skull, and carrying it off.

Lord Byron, in 1819, knew nothing of this discovery, and making inquiries about the tomb of the beheaded Doge in San Giovanni e Paolo, a priest showed him a small tomb built into the wall, and tried to persuade

him that this was Marino Faliero’s last resting-place; a matter concerning which the poet expressed considerable doubt.

The great stone sarcophagus spoken of by Giovanni Casoni was used afterwards during many years as a reservoir by the apothecary of the Civil Hospital, and is to-day in the outer loggia of the Correr Museum, bearing no trace of inscription or arms. The latter were probably shipped off.

With regard to the absence from the archives of the Council of Ten of all documents relating to the trial of Marino Faliero, many historians, among whom are Romanin and Rawdon Brown, are inclined to suppose that it was not entered in the acts of the Council, owing to what they call a certain praiseworthy shame on the part of the judges, which hindered them from inserting the name of the head of the Republic among those of other condemned persons. There are sufficient reasons and sufficient proofs, however, for supposing that the whole account of the trial was set down in a special book, which had no place in the regular series of the archives of the Council; and that this volume was either lost, or was burned in one of the fires which have at different times done damage in the ducal palace. The official report was evidently known to the old chroniclers, who translated long passages from it, from the original Latin into the vulgar tongue. This volume is referred to in a marginal note found in a document of 1355, referring to the conspiracy--‘Ponatur in libro processum.’

The Council of Ten was never subject to such praiseworthy crises of shame; and the secretary of the Council, as Lazzarini observes, would have been very much astonished if he could have had cognisance of the conjectures which our modern sentimentalism would form regarding the facts. A number of other documents are missing from the archives of the Council of Ten, of which the absence does not suggest either a poetical interpretation, or any explanation of a political character; the papers were simply lost.

The unfortunate Dogess, who perhaps quitted the ducal palace with the body of her beheaded husband, was obliged soon afterwards to leave his own house, where she had taken refuge to hide her grief. The municipality took possession of all property which had belonged to Marino Faliero, but restored to his widow the whole amount of her dowry, and two thousand lire left her by the will of the deceased. The wretched widow was obliged to swear that she did not keep any object of value that had belonged to her husband; but the Council restored to her a little brooch of gold, with a silver pendant, which had been improperly confiscated, since it had come to her from her own family. Furthermore, certain objects were returned to her which she and her sister Engoldisia had inherited from Fiordalise Gradenigo, their mother. The poor woman at first retired to the convent of Saint Lawrence, in the district of San Severo; soon afterwards she went to Verona, where she had some lands, but at last she established herself in a house of her own in Venice.

During many years she occupied herself altogether in charities. Little by little her intelligence began to give way, as is amply proved by the great number of wills she made, which are still extant. These all prove that she was not only deeply attached to the relatives of her husband, but that it was her intention to be more generous to them than to her own, especially to Federigo Giustiniani, son of Marino Faliero’s daughter by his first wife. In one of her wills, probably executed at the instigation of some nephew, she says that she may change her mind, and says that the only will of hers which is to be considered valid is the one which begins ‘Libera animam meam, Domine’; which, as Lazzarini says, sounds like a cry from the heart of the unhappy woman, tormented throughout her long and sad old age by relations who gave her no peace, and expected to profit largely by her wealth.

XII

THE SUCCESSORS OF MARINO FALIERO

[Sidenote: _1335. Rom. iii. 194._]

Giovanni Gradenigo, who succeeded Marino Faliero, was fortunate enough to conclude a treaty of peace with the Genoese; and Giovanni Dolfin, the next Doge after him, showed some skill in obtaining from the Emperor the recognition of Venice’s suzerainty over the territory of Treviso. It was on this occasion that the lord of Sench arbitrarily threw into prison two Venetian ambassadors, as I

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 209._]

have told in speaking of the treatment of strangers. The immediate effect of the outrage was to rouse in the highest degree the resentment of Venice against the Duke of Austria and his vassal, and matters were at a critical pitch when the Doge died.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 211._]

The electors quickly agreed upon a Gradenigo, a Dandolo, a Cornaro, and a Contarini as candidates for the ducal dignity; but before they had come to a choice between these news was brought that Lorenzo Celsi, the ‘Captain of the Gulf,’ had taken a number of Genoese vessels with contraband cargoes. By one of those sudden caprices which have always affected the minds of electors, the hero of the hour at once became the only candidate on whom every one could agree. Celsi was not of the highest nobility and was barely fifty years of age, but these objections were insignificant compared with the prestige he now enjoyed. The choice fell upon him by unanimous consent, and his election was announced to the people almost at the moment when the report of his victories was discovered to be a fabrication. Yet, almost incredible as it must seem, his election to the throne caused no discontent in spite of this chilling disillusionment.

At that time he was cruising in the waters of Candia, and a deputation of twelve nobles departed to inform him of his election, while a special council assumed the management of affairs until his coming.

An incident marked his arrival which, if not important, is memorable as having caused a modification in the adornment of the ducal bonnet. Lorenzo Gelsi landed at the Ponte della Paglia on the twenty-first of August 1361, and proceeded to the palace through the midst of a dense crowd, in which every man uncovered his head as the Doge passed, except one. Celsi’s aged father could not admit that an old man should take off his hat to his own son, and entirely refused to do so. But the Doge, who was a diplomatist, found means to reconcile his father’s prejudice with the rules of Venetian ceremonial. He fastened a small golden cross upon the front of his cap, and explained to his stiff-necked parent that it was no derogation of dignity for an old man to salute the sacred symbol.

Celsi also introduced the custom by which the Doge wore a dress of pure white when he appeared in public at any of the festivals kept by the Church in honour of the Virgin Mary, and this innovation found favour with most of his successors.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 217._]

His reign, though short, was brilliant. He received the friendly visit of the Duke of Austria, of which mention has been made, and which brought about excellent results. The King of Cyprus also spent a short time in Venice during the reign, when he made his journey through Europe to preach a crusade against the Turks. The most important event which occurred under Lorenzo Celsi, however, was the Cretan war.

The turbulent spirit of the natives of the island, and the excessive love of independence exhibited by the Venetian nobles, to whom the Republic had granted fiefs in Candia, had brought matters to the verge of a revolution. The people flatly declined to pay tribute to the mother city, and strongly resented the remonstrances made by the Venetian government through Donato Dandolo, the governor of Crete.

At last, when he demanded the payment of a tax which had been voted in order to strengthen the fortifications of the harbour, the Cretans replied that they would not pay a farthing until they had sent a deputation of twenty intelligent men to Venice, who should lay before the Senate a statement of the so-called rights of the colony. With more readiness than prudence, one of the governor’s Council answered that there were not twenty intelligent men in the island.

The observation may not have been altogether unjust, judging from the total lack of sense afterwards shown by the Cretans, but it had the immediate and not surprising effect of irritating them, and the standard of revolt was raised within the hour. The flag of Saint Mark was torn down and replaced by one bearing the image of Saint Titus, the protector of the island, and before long the two parties were fighting under the war-cries of ‘Saint Titus!’ and ‘Saint Mark!’ the noble colonists and the natives on the one side, and the governor and his soldiers on the other.

Venice at first attempted to recall the island to its allegiance by pacific embassies, but these were repulsed with indignity and insult, and a fleet of thirty-three galleys, carrying six thousand men, was despatched under Luchino dal Verme, a noble of Verona. The Candiotes had appealed in vain to the Genoese for help, the arch-enemies of their mother-country, and being left to their own resources they exhibited neither courage nor skill. In three days six thousand men reduced the hundred cities of the island to submission, and, after executing the ringleaders and taking due precautions against a fresh revolt, the victor set sail for Venice.

Petrarch was in the city at the time, and in one of his letters he has left a brilliant and poetic account of the triumph that followed.

[Sidenote: _Lettere senili di Petrarca (Basle) i. 782, quoted by G. R. Michiel._]

It chanced that I was leaning at my window towards the hour of
sixte, and mine eyes were turned toward the open sea; and I talked
with the Archbishop of Patras, whom I did once love as a brother,
and whom now I venerate as it were a well-beloved father. Then I
saw entering the harbour a great ship, a galley, all decked with
green branches, and it came rowed by many rowers. Now when we saw
this, we ceased from talking; for the crew of the ship were of
joyous mien, and they swung the oars with such right goodwill that
we guessed them to be bearers of glad tidings. The sailors all wore
crowns of leaves on their heads, and in their hands they waved
banners, and they that stood in the bows shouted joyfully. Then the
sentinel who watched on the top of the first tower forthwith made
signal to give warning that a ship from abroad was in sight, and
all the people together, full of curiosity, went over to Lido. As
the ship came nearer we saw also trophies of war set up on her
forward part; for surely this was the news of a victory which they
were bringing in, but in what war it had been won, or in what
battle, or at what stormed city, we knew not.

When the messengers had landed they went before the Great Council,
and there we learned that which we had not dared to believe nor
even to hope; for our enemies were all dead or taken prisoners or
put to flight, and the honest citizens were freed out of slavery,
the cities also were won back, and all the island of Candia had
submitted to the Republic. So the war was over without striking a
blow, and peace had been got with glory.

Petrarch’s logic here evidently went to pieces in the storm of his satisfaction, for he speaks of a bloodless victory immediately after telling his correspondent that all the enemies of the Republic were slain or prisoners.

The Doge Lorenzo Celsi [here the poet indulges in a pun connecting
‘Celsi’ with ‘excelsus’], unless my love for him has deceived me
altogether, is a man of most noble heart, of purest life, one who
follows all the virtues, most wonderfully pious and devoted to his
country; and when he learned the good news he openly gave thanks to
God, thereby showing the people that in every happy event man must
acknowledge the divine hand, and dispose his own happiness under
the protecting shield of faith. And prayers were offered throughout
the city, but were especially in the basilica dedicated to the
Evangelist Saint Mark....

Now the whole feast ended with two pageants; but I confess that I
know not by what name to call them, and so I shall describe them in
such manner that thou mayest easily understand them. The one was,
as it were, a race and the other a combat; and both were on
horseback, the first without reins and only with staves and
banners, that it seemed to be some military exercise; but in the
second game arms were needed, and it was like unto a real battle.
Both in the one and in the other we marvelled at the gifts of the
Venetians, who are not only wonderful sailers of ships, but are
also very skilled in all those exercises which belong to the art of
war.

For they showed such experience of riding and such deep knowledge
of the handling of arms, and such endurance of fatigue, that one
might set them up for examples to other warlike nations. The two
games were held in that square of which I deem there is not the
like in the world, that is over against the marble and gold front
of the temple of Saint Mark.

No stranger had a share in the first of the games, but four and
twenty nobles, the goodliest and most richly clad, kept for
themselves this part of the pageants....

It was a good sight to see so many young men, in clothes of purple
and gold, curbing and spurring their well-shod steeds, all
shiningly caparisoned, that seemed hardly to touch earth in their
swift course. These young men obeyed the gesture of their chief
with such precision that as the first reached the goal and left the
field, a second took his place on the track, and then a third, and
so on till the first began again, so well that they kept up the
racing all day long, and that at evening one might have believed
that there had been but one cavalier who rode; and while they ran
thou wouldest have seen now the gilded tips of their staves flying
through the air, and now thou couldest have heard their red flags
stiffening in the breeze with a sound as of wings.

One might scarce believe what multitudes thronged in the square of
Saint Mark’s on that day. There were both sexes and all ages and
every class. The Doge himself was on the terrace which is built on
the front of the church, with many nobles; from its height he saw
almost at his feet all that moved in the square below. Thus he was
in the midst of those four gilt horses, the work of an ancient and
unknown craftsman, that look ready to measure themselves against
living coursers, and seem to paw the air. Lest the summer sun
should dazzle the eyes, curtains of many colours had been hung here
and there. I myself was bidden, as often the Doge deigns that I
should be, and he made me sit at his right.... The great square,
the church, the towers, the roofs, the porticoes, the windows, were
all crowded with lookers-on. At the right a high platform had been
raised whereon sat four hundred matrons, of the noblest, and
fairest, and most richly-dressed in the city; and they continually
ate the sweetmeats which were offered to them; and in the morning,
and at noon, and at evening, it was as if they were a company come
down from heaven. There were also bidden to the pageant several
English noblemen, kinsmen to the king, who had come to Venice by
sea, to exercise themselves in the art of navigation; and these
gentles very freely shared our joy over the victory.

This racing lasted several days, and there was no prize but the
honour, for in this first game there were no victors and no
vanquished.

But for the second game prizes were made ready, for there were
dangers to be faced, and the result could not be alike for all.
There was a crown of gold adorned with precious stones for the
first winner, and a richly-chiselled silver belt for the second. An
edict had been sent forth, written in the military and vulgar
tongue, under the Doge’s seal, to invite the people of the
neighbouring provinces to take part in this contest on horseback;
and indeed there came a good number of contestants, not Italians
only, but also strangers who spoke other languages, hoping to win
the prize and to cover themselves with glory.

The jousting lasted four days, and since Venice was, there never
was seen a fairer sight. On the last day the Doge, the nobles, and
the strangers who had been present, and also he who ordered the
combat, to whom, after God, was due all the joy of the tournament,
gave the first prize to a gentleman of Venice, and the second to a
stranger from Ferrara.

Here ends the feast, but not the rejoicing. Here ends also this
letter, by which I have endeavoured to show unto thine eyes and to
make heard in thine ears that of which sickness has deprived them,
that thou mayest know what is doing amongst us, and understand that
even among navigators there are found excellent warriors, and souls
of choice, and contempt of gold and thirst for honour.

[Sidenote: _Smedley, Sketches of Ven. History, I. chap. vii._]

Unhappily the triumph so vividly described by Petrarch was not final, and two years later, before Lorenzo Celsi had closed his eyes for ever, another revolt broke out in Candia. This time Venice took such radical measures that, in the words of one of the ‘provveditori,’ ‘another rebellion was impossible, terrible examples had swept away the ringleaders, fortresses which gave them asylums, the cities of Lasitha and Anapolis, every building which might afford a stronghold, were razed to the ground; those of the inhabitants who were not put to the sword were transported to other districts, the surrounding neighbourhood was converted into a desert, and thenceforward no one, on pain of death, was permitted to cultivate, or even to approach it.’

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 202._]

This was in 1366, but Celsi had died at the fresh outbreak of the revolution, most opportunely, some historians say, for his reputation and honour. It was even thought that if he had lived a few years longer he would have ended like Marino Faliero. Grave accusations were made against him during the last months of his life, but the Council of Ten declared them to be false, and his successor was instructed to declare, when presiding the first time at the meeting of the Grand Council, that the memory of the deceased Doge was untarnished.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 229._]

This successor was the aged Marco Corner, whose election was warmly contested. The accounts left us of what happened in the ducal palace during the interregnum which followed the death of Lorenzo Celsi enlighten us as to the objections which might be raised by the electors against a candidate to the throne. Marco Corner was too old; he was too poor; he was on good terms with several foreign princes, whom he had known when he had been abroad as ambassador; but the gravest charge, or objection, was that he had married a burgher’s daughter, whose family would not know how to behave towards the head of the Republic.

Marco Corner, who was present amongst the electors, at first said nothing to the other objections; but when slighting mention was made of his wife, the thin old man with snow-white hair stood up in his place suddenly, and cried out that he honoured and esteemed his aged wife, who was ‘so good and virtuous that she had always been respected by all the women of the Venetian state as much as if she came of one of the greatest families.’

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Dogaressa, 154._]

He added bluntly that as for his acquaintance with foreign princes, his friendships had profited the Republic more than himself; since, if he had sought his own advantage, he would not have deserved to be reproached with his poverty, nor would his wife be obliged ‘to turn her dresses again and again, lest they should be seen to be worn out.’

The brave old patrician’s heartfelt words made a deep impression on his hearers; the objections that had been raised fell away in an instant, and he was elected, I believe, unanimously. He took his place on the ducal throne, and his wife Caterina, the companion of his life-long poverty, left their poor little house for the splendours of the palace. The chronicles speak no more of her; we do not even know whether she died during her husband’s three years’ reign, or survived that quiet interval of tranquillity for the Republic.

Marco Corner died in the belief, no doubt, that his country would long enjoy the peace which his prudence and skill had brought about. Yet a day was at hand which came near to being fatal to the Republic. One might almost conclude that when Andrea Contarini had buried himself in the country on the mainland after having twice refused the ducal honours, and very shortly before Corner’s death, he had prescience of the storm that was brewing.

The time had come when he could refuse no longer; for modest though he was, he knew his own strength, and knew also, as men of genius sometimes do, that he alone could save his country from destruction in the greatest crisis of her existence. The memorable war of Chioggia was at hand.

XIII

CARLO ZENO

At this period a man appears upon the scene who deserves to be taken as the highest type of a Venetian noble and of a dauntless soldier, in that remarkable age. He played such a part throughout his own time, the effect of his sudden appearance at the most critical moment in all Venetian history was so incalculably great, and the generalship he exhibited was of such a superior order, that it is worth while to give him a place apart in this work. I shall condense the account of his earlier years as far as possible.

[Sidenote: _Muratori, Script. xix. 295._]

His history, written with great detail by his grandson Jacopo Zeno, Bishop of Feltre and Belluna, has been preserved by Muratori in the nineteenth volume of the _Scriptores_. Other histories confirm most of the facts therein related, and there is no reason to doubt the rest; yet taken altogether, as the life of a possible human being, the story must appear to most readers less probable than the wildest fictions of the elder Dumas or Victor Hugo, and there is certainly no tale in the English language, short of Malory’s _Morte d’Arthur_, at once so fascinating and so incredible. Fortunately it is supported by the evidence of contemporaries, by the acts of the Venetian government, and, lastly, as to the dangers he survived, by the testimony of those who prepared his body for burial when he died of extreme old age, and who found upon him the scars of five-and-thirty wounds, a great number of which would have been fatal to an ordinary man.

Carlo Zeno was the son of Pietro Zeno and of Agnese Dandolo, and therefore came of the best blood in Venice. Pietro had been for some time governor of Padua under the Carrara, and had subsequently won the favour of Pope Clement VI. by his zeal against the Turks when in command of a Venetian squadron in the East. The Emperor Charles IV. was also well disposed towards him, and Carlo was named after that sovereign, who sent a representative to appear for him at the child’s baptism.

Pietro died seven years later, leaving ten other children and a very exiguous fortune, for he had always sought glory rather than wealth, and his search had been rewarded.