Part 1164

On every available occasion the Venetians spread their power all round about them. In the struggle between Charles and Ferrantino [or Ferdinand, of Naples] they acquired five fine cities in Apulia, excellently situated for their requirements, which they peopled by the reception of fugitive Jews from Spain. Moreover, in the kingdom of Naples, one party had declared for them. … Tarento raised their standard. During the Florentine disorders they were within an ace of becoming masters of Pisa. In the Milanese feuds they acquired Cremona and Ghiara d'Adda. Their power was all the more terrible, as they had never been known to lose again anything which they had once gotten. No one doubted that their aim was the complete sovereignty over the whole of Italy. {3610} Their historians always talked as if Venice was the ancient Rome once more. … The Turkish war, which had kept them a while employed, now at an end, they next tried their fortune in Romagna, and endeavoured, availing themselves of the quarrels between the returning nobles and Cesar [Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.], to become, if not the sole, at all events the most powerful, vassals of the papal chair. … The Venetians prepared to espouse the cause of those whom Cesar had suppressed. The cities reflected how genuine and substantial that peace was that the lion of Venice spread over all its dependencies. Having appeared in this country at the end of October, 1503, and having first promised the Malatesti other possessions in their own country, they took Rimini, with the concurrence of the prince and citizens. Without ado they attacked Faenza. … They continued their conquests, and, in the territories of Imola, Cesena, and Forli, took stronghold after stronghold. … Then it was that the first minister of France stated his belief that, 'had they only Romagna, they would forthwith attack Florence, on account of a debt of 180,000 guilders owing them.' If they were to make an inroad into Tuscany, Pisa would fall immediately on their arrival. Their object in calling the French into the Milanese territory was, that they considered them more fitted to make a conquest than to keep it; and, in the year 1504, they were negotiating how it were possible to wrest Milan again from them. Could they only succeed in this, nothing in Italy would be able longer to withstand them. 'They wanted,' as Macchiavelli said, 'to make the Pope their chaplain.' But they met with the staunchest resistance in Julius [the Pope, Julius II.], as in him they could discover no weak point to attack. As pointedly as he could express himself, he declared to them, on the 9th November, 1503, that, 'though hitherto their friend, he would now do his utmost against them, and would besides incite all the princes of Christendom against them.'"

_L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, book 2, chapter 3._

VENICE: A. D. 1498-1502. War with the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1498-1502.

VENICE: A. D. 1499-1500. Alliance with France against the Duke of Milan. French conquest of the duchy. Acquisition of Cremona.

See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.

VENICE: 15-17th Centuries. The decline of Venetian commerce and its causes.

"Commerce was for a long time free at Venice; and the republic only began to decline when its government had caused the source of its prosperity to be exhausted by monopoly. At first all the young patricians were subjected to the most severe ordeals of a commercial training. They were often sent as novices on board state-vessels to try fortune with a light venture, so much did it enter into the views of the administration to direct all citizens toward industrial occupations! The only reproach that can be brought against the Venetians, is the effort to exclude foreigners from all competition with them. Although commercial jealousy had not yet erected prohibitions into a system, and the ports of the republic were open to all the merchandise of the world, yet the Venetians only permitted its transportation in their own ships; and they reigned as absolute masters over all the Mediterranean. War had given them security from the Pisans, the Sicilians and the Genoese. Spain, long occupied by the Moors, gave them little occasion of offence. France disdained commerce; England had not yet begun to think of it; the republic of Holland was not in existence. Under cover of the right of sovereignty on the gulf, which she had arrogated to herself, Venice reserved the almost exclusive right to navigate. Armed flotillas guarded the mouths of all her rivers, and allowed no barque to enter or depart without being vigorously examined. But what profited that jealous solicitude for the interests of her navigation? A day came when the Portuguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and all that structure of precautions and mistrust suddenly fell to pieces. Here begin the first wars of customs-duties, and political economy receives from history valuable instruction. The Venetians had levelled all obstacles, but for themselves alone, and to the exclusion of other nations. Their legislation was very strict in respect to foreigners, in the matter of commerce. The laws forbade a merchant who was not a subject of the republic to be even received on board a vessel of the state. Foreigners paid customs-duties twice as high as natives. They could neither build nor buy vessels in Venetian ports. The ships, the captains, the owners, must all be Venetian. Every alliance between natives and strangers was interdicted; there was no protection, no privileges and no benefits save for Venetians: the latter, however, all had the same rights. In Venice itself, and there alone, was it permitted to negotiate with the Germans, Bohemians and Hungarians. As national manufactures acquired importance, the government departed from the liberal policy it had hitherto pursued, and the manufacturers obtained an absolute prohibition of such foreign merchandise as they produced. In vain, in the 17th century, did declining commerce urge the reestablishment of former liberties and the freedom of the port: the attempt was made for a brief moment, but the spirit of restriction won the day, and the prohibitory regime early prepared the way for the death of the republic. The people of Ita]y, however, pardoned the Venetians for their commercial intolerance, because of the moderate price at which they delivered all commodities. The Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Germans flocked to Venice and engaged with safety in speculations, which were always advantageous, because of the security which the credit institutions gave and the recognized probity of the merchants. But soon Venice saw numerous manufactures spring up in Europe rivaling her own, and her commerce encountered most formidable competition in that of the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and English. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope took away from her the monopoly of the spices of the Indies.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498.

The taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet II, had already deprived her of the magnificent privileges which her subjects enjoyed in that rich capital of the Orient. But the discovery of America and the vigorous reprisals of Charles V, who, at the commencement of his reign, in 1517, doubled the customs-duties which the Venetians paid in his states, completed the ruin of that fortunate monopoly which had made all Europe tributary. Charles V raised the import and export duties on all Venetian merchandise to twenty per cent; and this tariff, which would to-day appear moderate, sufficed then to prevent the Venetians from entering Spanish ports. {3611} Such was the origin of the exclusive system, the fatal invention which the republic of Venice was so cruelly to expiate. So long as she sought fortune only in the free competition of the talent and capital of her own citizens, she increased from age to age and became for a moment the arbiter of Europe; but as soon as she wished to rule the markets by the tyranny of monopoly, she saw a league formed against her commerce, formidable for a very different reason from that of Cambray."

_J. A. Blanqui, History of Political Economy in Europe, chapter 20._

See, also (in Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.

VENICE: A. D. 1501. Hostile schemes of the Emperor and the King of France.

See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.

VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509. The League of Cambrai. The republic despoiled of her continental provinces.

"The craving appetite of Louis XII., … sharpened by the loss of Naples, sought to indemnify itself by more ample acquisitions in the north. As far back as 1504, he had arranged a plan with the emperor for the partition of the continental possessions of Venice. …

See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.

The scheme is said to have been communicated to Ferdinand [of Aragon] in the royal interview at Savona [1507]. No immediate action followed, and it seems probable that the latter monarch, with his usual circumspection, reserved his decision until he should be more clearly satisfied of the advantages to himself. At length the projected partition was definitely settled by the celebrated treaty of Cambray, December 10th, 1508, between Louis XII. and the emperor Maximilian, in which the Pope, King Ferdinand, and all princes who had any claims for spoliations by the Venetians, were invited to take part. The share of the spoil assigned to the Catholic monarch [Ferdinand] was the five Neapolitan cities, Trani, Brindisi, Gallipoli, Pulignano, and Otranto, pledged to Venice for considerable sums advanced by her during the late war. The Spanish court, and, not long after, Julius II., ratified the treaty, although it was in direct contravention of the avowed purpose of the pontiff, to chase the 'barbarians' from Italy. It was his bold policy, however, to make use of them first for the aggrandisement of the church, and then to trust to his augmented strength and more favorable opportunities for eradicating them altogether. Never was there a project more destitute of principle or sound policy. There was not one of the contracting parties who was not at that very time in close alliance with the state, the dismemberment of which he was plotting. As a matter of policy, it went to break down the principal barrier on which each of these powers could rely for keeping in check the overweening ambition of its neighbors, and maintaining the balance of Italy. The alarm of Venice was quieted for a time by assurances from the courts of France and Spain that the league was directed solely against the Turks, accompanied by the most hypocritical professions of good will, and amicable offers to the republic. The preamble of the treaty declares that, it being the intention of the allies to support the pope in a crusade against the infidel, they first proposed to recover from Venice the territories of which she had despoiled the church and other powers, to the manifest hindrance of these pious designs. … The true reasons for the confederacy are to be found in a speech delivered at the German diet, some time after, by the French minister Hélian. 'We,' he remarks, after enumerating various enormities of the republic, 'wear no fine purple; feast from no sumptuous services of plate; have no coffers overflowing with gold. We are barbarians. Surely,' he continues in another place, 'if it is derogatory to princes to act the part of merchants, it is unbecoming in merchants to assume the state of princes.' This, then, was the true key to the conspiracy against Venice; envy of her superior wealth and magnificence, hatred engendered by her too arrogant bearing, and lastly the evil eye with which kings naturally regard the movements of an active, aspiring republic. To secure the co-operation of Florence, the kings of France and Spain agreed to withdraw their protection from Pisa, for a stipulated sum of money.

See PISA: A. D. 1494-1509.

There is nothing in the whole history of the merchant princes of Venice so mercenary and base as this bartering away for gold the independence for which this little republic had been so nobly contending for more than 14 years. Early in April, 1509, Louis XII. crossed the Alps at the head of a force which bore down all opposition. City and castle fell before him, and his demeanor to the vanquished, over whom he had no rights beyond the ordinary ones of war, was that of an incensed master taking vengeance on his rebellious vassals. In revenge for his detention before Peschiera, he hung the Venetian governor and his son from the battlements. This was an outrage on the laws of chivalry, which, however hard they bore on the peasant, respected those of high degree. … On the 14th of May, 1509, was fought the bloody battle of Agnadel, which broke the power of Venice and at once decided the fate of the war. Ferdinand had contributed nothing to these operations, except by his diversion on the side of Naples, where he possessed himself without difficulty of the cities allotted to his share. They were the cheapest, and, if not the most valuable, were the most permanent acquisitions of the war, being reincorporated in the monarchy of Naples. Then followed the memorable decree by which Venice released her continental provinces from their allegiance, authorizing them to provide in any way they could for their safety; a measure which, whether originating in panic or policy, was perfectly consonant with the latter. The confederates, who had remained united during the chase, soon quarrelled over the division of the spoil. Ancient jealousies revived. The republic, with cool and consummate policy, availed herself of this state of feeling. Pope Julius, who had gained all that he had proposed, and was satisfied with the humiliation of Venice, now felt all his former antipathies and distrust of the French return in full force. The rising flame was diligently fanned by the artful emissaries of the republic, who at length effected a reconciliation on her behalf with the haughty pontiff. The latter … planned a new coalition for the expulsion of the French, calling on the other allies to take part in it."

_W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, part 2, chapter 22 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 9, chapter 10 (volume 4)._

_The City in the Sea, chapter 21._

_M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 5, chapter 14._

_L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, book 2, chapter 3._

_H. F. Brown, Venice, chapters 17-18._

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VENICE: A. D. 1510-1513. The breaking of the League of Cambrai. The" Holy League" of Pope Julius with Venice, Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry VIII. against France. The French expelled from Italy. The Republic recovers its domain.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

VENICE: A. D. 1517. Peace with the Emperor Maximilian. Recovery of Verona.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.

VENICE: A. D. 1526. The Holy League against the Emperor, Charles V.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.

VENICE: A. D. 1527. Fresh alliance with France and England against the Emperor.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

VENICE: A. D. 1570-1571. Holy League with Spain and the Pope against the Turks. Great battle and victory of Lepanto.

See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.

VENICE: A. D. 1572. Withdrawal from the Holy League. Separate peace with the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1572-1573.

VENICE: 16th Century. The Art of the Renaissance.

"It was a fact of the greatest importance for the development of the fine arts in Italy that painting in Venice reached maturity later than in Florence. Owing to this circumstance one chief aspect of the Renaissance, its material magnificence and freedom, received consummate treatment at the hands of Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. To idealise the sensualities of the external universe, to achieve for colour what the Florentines had done for form, to invest the worldly grandeur of human life at one of its most gorgeous epochs with the dignity of the highest art, was what these great artists were called on to accomplish. Their task could not have been so worthily performed in the fifteenth century as in the sixteenth, if the development of the æsthetic sense had been more premature among the Venetians. Venice was precisely fitted for the part her painters had to play. Free, isolated, wealthy, powerful; famous throughout Europe for the pomp of her state equipage, and for the immorality of her private manners; ruled by a prudent aristocracy, who spent vast wealth on public shows and on the maintenance of a more than imperial civic majesty: Venice with her pavement of liquid chrysoprase, with her palaces of porphyry and marble, her frescoed façades, her quays and squares aglow with the costumes of the Levant, her lagoons afloat with the galleys of all nations, her churches floored with mosaics, her silvery domes and ceilings glittering with sculpture bathed in molten gold: Venice luxurious in the light and colour of a vaporous atmosphere, where sea-mists rose into the mounded summer clouds; arched over by the broad expanse of sky, bounded only by the horizon of waves and plain and distant mountain ranges, and reflected in all its many hues of sunrise and sunset upon the glassy surface of smooth waters: Venice asleep like a miracle of opal or of pearl upon the bosom of an undulating lake:—here and here only on the face of the whole globe was the unique city wherein the pride of life might combine with the lustre of the physical universe to create and stimulate in the artist a sense of all that was most sumptuous in the pageant of the world of sense. … The Venetians had no green fields and trees, no garden borders, no blossoming orchards, to teach them the tender suggestiveness, the quaint poetry of isolated or contrasted tints. Their meadows were the fruitless furrows of the Adriatic, hued like a peacock's neck; they called the pearl-shells of their Lido flowers, fior di mare. Nothing distracted their attention from the glories of morning and of evening presented to them by their sea and sky. It was in consequence of this that the Venetians conceived colour heroically, not as a matter of missal-margins or of subordinate decoration, but as a motive worthy in itself of sublime treatment. In like manner, hedged in by no limitary hills, contracted by no city walls, stifled by no narrow streets, but open to the liberal airs of heaven and ocean, the Venetians understood space and imagined pictures almost boundless in their immensity. Light, colour, air, space: those are the elemental conditions of Venetian art; of those the painters weaved their ideal world for beautiful and proud humanity. … In order to understand the destiny of Venice in art, it is not enough to concentrate attention on the peculiarities of her physical environment. Potent as these were in the creation of her style, the political and social conditions of the Republic require also to be taken into account. Among Italian cities Venice was unique. She alone was tranquil in her empire, unimpeded in her constitutional development, independent of Church interference, undisturbed by the cross purposes and intrigues of the despots, inhabited by merchants who were princes, and by a free-born people who had never seen war at their gates. The serenity of undisturbed security, the luxury of wealth amassed abroad and liberally spent at home, gave a physiognomy of ease and proud self-confidence to all her edifices. The grim and anxious struggles of the Middle Ages left no mark on Venice. How different was this town from Florence, every inch of whose domain could tell of civic warfare. … It is not an insignificant, though a slight, detail, that the predominant colour of Florence is brown, while the predominant colour of Venice is that of mother-of-pearl, concealing within its general whiteness every tint that can be placed upon the palette of a painter. The conditions of Florence stimulated mental energy and turned the forces of the soul inwards. Those of Venice inclined the individual to accept life as he found it. Instead of exciting him to think, they disposed him to enjoy, or to acquire by industry the means of manifold enjoyment. To represent in art the intellectual strivings of the Renaissance was the task of Florence and her sons; to create a monument of Renaissance magnificence was the task of Venice."

_J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Fine Arts, chapter 7._

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VENICE: A. D. 1606-1607. The Republic under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi. Conflict with the Pope. The Interdict which had no terrors.