Part 18

At last Cane della Scala made a sort of alliance with his rivals, and having got the mastery in several other cities, installed Marsilio Carrara in Padua as his lieutenant and representative. Had Cane della Scala lived this might have worked well enough; on his unexpected death, his sons began to contrive how they should get rid of Marsilio; but they lacked skill and decision, and could neither conceal their intentions nor agree upon definite action. To make matters worse, one of them, Alberto della Scala, became madly enamoured of the wife of Albertino Carrara, and when every means failed to seduce her, took her to himself by brutal violence. After this outrage, the thirst for vengeance drove the Carrara further than mere ambition could have done.

The crimes of the Scala, no less than their miserable weakness in all political matters, had excited the profound resentment of Venice, of Florence, of Lucca, and of the Gonzaga and Este families; war was declared, and it was not long before the lords of Padua were reduced to extremities. Though they had always maintained a haughty bearing towards Venice, they now attempted a reconciliation, and chose as their intermediary Marsilio di Carrara, whom they believed to be a traitor to his own family and devoted to their interests, and for whom the Republic had always shown a certain partiality, appreciating him, no doubt, at his true value, and anticipating the time when he might be useful.

But Marsilio, like every other Carrara, dreamt only of revenge upon the Scala. At a great public spectacle he was seated by the Doge. ‘What will you give,’ he asked in a quick whisper, ‘to him who places Padua in your hands?’ ‘The city itself,’ answered Francesco Dandolo without the slightest hesitation. The unsigned treaty of betrayal was agreed upon in those few whispered words, and was executed to the letter and at once. Padua was taken by the Venetians and handed over to the Carrara under a sort of agreement from which each of the allies derived some advantage, and there was an exchange of high-flown speeches, amongst which that of the Venetian Loredano recommended the most serene Republic’s new favourites to behave with great goodness to her subjects, and to exhibit much gratitude towards her. On his side Marsilio begged that her ‘kind offices’ might be continued to him and his.

The consequences of this treaty were soon clear. Venice nominally gave Padua over to the Carrara in order to obtain the annexation of Treviso, which was much more important to her, and Alberto della Scala was not set at liberty till he had ceded the latter city to the Republic.

At the death of Francesco Dandolo, one naval battle lost to the Genoese represented Venice’s loss during the reign; her gain was an extension of territory of immense value; the whole result was to involve the Republic in intrigues which very nearly led to her destruction.

[Sidenote: _Muratori Scrip. xvii. 32._]

At the very end of Dandolo’s reign, according to a strange story told by Gabaro., a half-comic, half-dramatic incident occurred which showed well enough that the ‘kind offices’ of the Republic and the ‘goodness’ of the Carrara were not destined to last for ever. Marsilio was dead and Ubertino Carrara held Padua as his successor. Before long he was denounced by certain Venetian senators as a traitor and a secret enemy to the Republic. The words were reported to him, and he resolved to make sure, at any hazard, that they should not be repeated. Incredible as it may seem, he caused the senators who had accused him to be seized by night in Venice itself, gagged and bound, and at once brought before him in Padua.

He threatened them at first with instant death, then allowed himself to be mollified by their entreaties, and finally dismissed them with a warning. If they ever raised their voices against him in the Senate again, or if they breathed one word of their nocturnal adventure, he would have them stabbed without mercy. They promised, and they kept their word; from that time forward no attack was made upon Ubertino Carrara in the Senate, the story of their forcible abduction remained a profound secret, which was not revealed until many years afterwards, when one of the Carrara’s henchmen, who had helped to carry off the senators, lay dying and confessed his share in the bold deed.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 142._]

Dandolo was succeeded by Bartolommeo Gradenigo, during whose reign there were constant relations between the Republic and England, the latter continually soliciting the aid of Venice against Philip VI. of France, who was helped by the Genoese. Gradenigo did not fail to express gratitude to King Edward III. for the thankful anticipation of an assistance which was never forthcoming, and took no steps to induce the Senate to listen to England’s tempting proposals. The king hoped to obtain from Venice forty ships of war, fully manned and equipped; but Venice either doubted his ability to pay, or was scared by the triumphant progress of the Turks in the Levant, which required her to act sentinel to Europe against the Mohammedan advance, and therefore to keep all her naval resources well in hand and ready for war; and, moreover, she was engaged in continual fighting in Candia (Crete), which was an unceasing drain upon her resources.

[Sidenote: _1346. Zara taken back from the Hungarians, Tintoretto; Sala dello Scrutinio._]

At this critical time, when the position of Venice was by slow and sure degrees becoming one of great danger, the Doge died, and the great Andrea Dandolo was elected in his stead. Under the leadership of a less gifted and brave man, the ship of the Republic might well have foundered in the storm that broke over her. The King of Hungary disputed with Venice for Zara and the territory that belonged to it; the Genoese were exasperated in the highest degree by the commercial success of the Venetians in the East; the

Pope was angry with the Republic because its government would not make obligatory the payment of tithes to the bishops. These were but a few of the half-grown troubles that were rapidly growing to maturity when the plague broke out in 1348 and devastated Italy from Genoa in the north, where forty thousand persons died, to Sicilian Trapani, where not one soul survived the universal death. In six months Venice lost more than half her population.

Boccaccio has left a description of the pest in Florence which is the greatest masterpiece of the kind ever produced by a great writer’s pen; for his story fills us with horrow, with pity, with sadness, but never arouses our disgust. The sufferings of Venice in those same six months have found neither poet nor novelist to describe them, but her careful chroniclers have left us the details of the defence she made against the ravages of the sickness, and of the medicines used in the attempt to save life.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 156._]

As soon as the first cases of the plague had proved beyond doubt that it had crossed the lagoons and reached the city, the Council appointed three nobles, designated as ‘Wise Men of the Plague,’ with power to take all possible measures to stop the spreading of the contagion. Their first decree forbade the poor to expose the bodies of their dead in the street in order to obtain alms. A separate burial-place was marked out and consecrated for the free burial of the victims of the disease. The port was closed, and sentinels were placed all along the outer shore of the islands to hinder all outsiders from landing or from introducing suspicious merchandise.

[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Medicina._]

[Sidenote: _A. Baschet, souvenirs._]

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Less._]

The physicians were at that time already organised in a guild of their own, and received from the State a modest yearly stipend of three hundred lire of ‘piccoli,’ about £50. They were now ordered to visit diligently both the hospitals and private houses, and a formal inquiry was made into the resources of the public apothecary, whose place was near the Rialto at the sign of the Golden Head. It was most important to ascertain whether there was a sufficient supply of ‘Teriaca,’ a medicine which, in the opinion of all Venetians, could not fail to cure the plague or any other sickness. The recipe for it, they believed, had come down from a Greek called Andromachos, and required a mixture of aromatic herbs, amber, and other ingredients, which were imported at great expense from distant Eastern countries. The State itself superintended the concoction of this universal panacea, lest its quality should in the least deteriorate, and lest the great reputation acquired for it throughout Europe should suffer. No stranger who could afford to buy it left Venice without taking at least a small supply, and so great were, or are, its virtues that it is made to this day, and sold at the same sign.

But, to the stupefaction of the three ‘Wise Men of the Plague,’ Teriaca would not cure the malady, and even the sensible precautions of quarantine which they had taken came too late to be of any use. The malady was raging, and ran its fearful course to the terrible end. Fifty noble families were completely destroyed, not leaving one of the name. It was only with difficulty that a meeting of the Great Council could be got together, and the Council of Forty was reduced to twenty members. In a few weeks Venice presented the aspect of a pestilent desert; and when at last the pest wore itself out, it was necessary to bring in from neighbouring provinces a great number of families, upon whom all those privileges were bestowed at once which were generally accorded only in consideration of some service to the Republic, or after a prolonged residence in Venetian territory.

The selection of the immigrants was conducted with the greatest prudence, and it may easily be believed that the great influx of new and energetic blood, of the same descent, was of vast benefit to the city and the Republic. It may even be asked whether, without this wholesome sifting and renewing of her people, Venice could have performed the prodigies of courage and endurance which not long afterwards turned the tide of the Chioggia war.

Andrea Dandolo did not long survive these events. Worn out with facing the storm, with fighting enemies by land and sea abroad, and pestilence at home, he died when barely fifty years of age, leaving to posterity the precious manuscript of his history, which has even now not been entirely published. His Chronicle is one of the richest sources of information for the history of the fourteenth century.

Dandolo was succeeded by Marino Faliero.

XI

CONSPIRACY OF MARINO FALIERO

The conspiracy of Bocconio has no very distinct character; it was neither an attempt at popular revolution, nor an effort on the part of the burghers against the people on the one hand and the aristocracy on the other. The outbreak under the leadership of Tiepolo and the Quirini, although they succeeded in giving it the appearance of a democratic movement, was in reality an attempt on the part of an ambitious noble to seize the power wielded by the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, a man perhaps as ambitious as Tiepolo himself, but who at all events had been regularly elected to be the head of the Republic. The third conspiracy of which we find an account during the fourteenth century was undoubtedly meant to overthrow the government, and to gather into one hand the whole of that authority which belonged equally to all members of the same class. The conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero has been related in many ways--as a romance, as a poem, as an instance of political passion, but very generally without a careful consideration of the facts. Most writers represent the old Doge as driven to betray his country by outrageous calumnies against his wife, invented by some youths of the aristocracy. Others, like Byron, believe that he wished to free his country from the petty tyranny and real oppression it suffered under the complicated system of councils:--

We will renew the times of truth and justice, Condensing in a fair, free commonwealth, Not rash equality, but equal rights.

In his dramatic upholding of what he believed the truth, Byron was so far carried away as to cause the Doge to be decapitated in 1355 on the steps of the ‘Giants’ Staircase,’ which was not constructed until 1485, between the two colossal statues set up there by Jacopo Sansovino in 1554. A careful examination of historical documents would seem to destroy almost altogether the common version of the tragedy.

[Sidenote: _Lazzarini, Marin Falier in Arch. Veneto._]

Marino Faliero was born between 1280 and 1285, the son of Marco Faliero and Beriola Loredan. He belonged to the Falieri of the Santi Apostoli, so called from the name of the district in which they lived, to distinguish them from the Falieri who lived in other parts of the city, some of whom did not belong to the same family, and were not even nobles. He was called Marino Junior, in order not to confuse him with an uncle of the same name, who was known as Marino Senior.

Very little is recorded concerning his youth, but Lazzarini finds that his education was not very different from that of his peers, and was probably conducted by the sort of tutor then called a Master of Grammar; and that the young man must have become familiar from his earliest years with navigation, commerce, and the public affairs of the Republic.

At twenty years of age, by the privilege of the Barbarella, he was present at the assemblies of the Great Council; and when little more than thirty we find him one of the heads of the Ten, and he constantly appears in that capacity, and by alternation in the office of ‘Inquisitor.’ When exercising the functions of the latter, which may seem strange for one who in later time was to betray his country, he was charged, with another of the Ten, Andrea Michiel, to bring about, ‘rapidly and diligently,’ the ruin and death of Bajamonte Tiepolo and Pietro Quirini, who had already been in exile ten years; and he was authorised to spend ten thousand lire of the ‘piccoli,’ or about £1600 sterling, in order to kill the first, and two thousand for killing the second.

Marino Faliero was a man of uncommon intelligence and resistless energy, as may be seen from the fact that the Republic, which certainly had a considerable choice of such men, constantly made use of him, sometimes giving him important posts at home, and sometimes as ambassador to the Pope or to foreign sovereigns; sometimes, again, as military governor or podestà of cities under the Venetian dominion, once at least commissioning him as commander-in-chief of the fleet. He was the first podestà of Treviso after that city became subject to Venice in 1339. A podestà was a sort of foreign governor, whom the independent commonwealths chose for themselves in order to assure the peaceable execution of their own laws without party prejudice; but conquered towns were required by their conquerors to submit to this officer. He was generally named for two years; he was not allowed to bring his wife or children with him; he could not absent himself for one day without special permission from the Senate; he was never to form any close friendship among the citizens, lest his impartial authority should be compromised by his surroundings. There was a podestà in almost every city of central and northern Italy, and Venice imposed one on each city she conquered. But he had no power to change the statutes of the city in his charge; his office was to see that those statutes were approved by the Most Serene Republic and were properly enforced.

When it seemed likely that an understanding might be brought about between the Venetians and the Genoese,

the former sent Marino Faliero, being well aware that the result of the mission would depend largely upon the character and gifts of the ambassador; but, owing to quarrels which broke out in the East between merchants of the rival Republics, the embassy was abandoned in 1350, and Faliero turned back before reaching the end of his journey. At the siege of Zara he distinguished himself so much that a contemporary chronicler attached to his name the epithet Audax, the Brave; and when in 1352 the fleet commanded by Niccolò Pisani left Venice to sail against the Genoese, Marino Faliero was designated beforehand to succeed the admiral in case the latter should fall ill. He was in no less esteem abroad than in the Republic itself. The Carrara, who were lords of Padua, chose him twice, in 1338 and 1350, as podestà of their city.

A chronicler of Treviso in the fifteenth century accuses Faliero of having been exceedingly overbearing and violent, and most historians have followed this writer. The latter narrates that when Faliero was podestà of Treviso in 1346, it was his duty on one occasion to assist at a procession of the ‘Corpus Domini.’ The Bishop came to the ceremony, carrying the sacrament and accompanied by the clergy, but kept the procession waiting so long that Faliero, losing his temper, gave the astonished prelate a resounding box on the ear, which was heard to the end of the church. No contemporary documents can be found to prove or disprove this tale, which may be historical or legendary; yet the chroniclers of the fourteenth century constantly reported such anecdotes, although the Venetians were ardent in their faith and generous in the endowment of churches and convents. There is much evidence to prove that Faliero ruled his own family with despotic authority, as may be seen from many documents. He made marriages and distributed inheritances as he pleased, though it does not necessarily follow that he did so in an unlawful manner. On the contrary, in spite of his overbearing character, he seems to have enjoyed the esteem and affection of all the members of his house.

Petrarch, who, if not his friend, was at least an intimate acquaintance of his, wrote not long after his death that he had enjoyed during many years the reputation of a wise man, and Matteo Villani says that he was a man of high character, wise and magnanimous. The Giustiniani chronicle, which judged his conspiracy very harshly, admits that as a man he was generous, wise, and brave. The chronicler Caresini regrets that a man so virtuous by nature should have so far departed from virtue.

From evidence recently discovered, it appears that Marino Faliero had two wives, and some have even said that he had three. Of the two whose names we know, the first was Tommasina Contarini, and the other, who was afterwards the Dogess, was Ludovica Gradenigo. He had a daughter, Lucia, by the first wife, and no children by the second. Some of the later chroniclers, who may be said to have constructed the fable of Marino Faliero, say that the Dogess belonged to the house of Contarini, and it is not hard to understand how a superficial examination of the papers of that time should either have confused the first wife with the second, or have confused the Doge Marino with Marino Ordelafo, who was his nephew, and dear to him as his own son. This confusion resulted in mistaking Cristina Contarini, who at the time of the conspiracy must have been young and beautiful, with the Dogess, who was then undoubtedly nearly forty-five years of age.

Andrea Dandolo died on the night of the seventh of September 1354; and on the day following steps were taken to begin the election of his successor, and to introduce as usual a number of corrections and improvements in the ducal oath of allegiance. The five correctors elected for the latter purpose, in a meeting of the Great Council from which all members under the age of thirty were excluded, presented on the next day the list of their proposed amendments. These were numerous, and were all intended to restrict the authority of the Doge, which was already sufficiently reduced. The yet unchosen successor of Dandolo was to be forbidden to receive an ambassador, or any foreign emissary, or to give any answer to such an one, except in the presence and with the approval of his counsellors and the heads of the Forty. On the same day, the ninth of September, at the ninth hour, the ‘Arengo’ was summoned, which was the general assembly of the people, and which still gave the lower classes the illusion of participating in the affairs of State. This assembly was now called upon to ratify the proposed changes in the ducal oath of allegiance.

Even before the commencement of the election there was talk of Marino Faliero for the office; and he was at that time Venetian ambassador to Pope Innocent VI. in Avignon, being there to treat for peace with Genoa and the Visconti, lords of Milan. On the eleventh of September his name was pronounced before another assembly of the people, and contemporary historians say that his election was extremely well received by all classes of Venetians. Until the Doge-elect should reach the capital, it was decreed that the government should remain in the hands of the ducal counsellors and the heads of the Forty; two counsellors and one of the heads of the Forty remaining by turn constantly in the ducal palace. Faliero had left Avignon before he received notice of his election, so that he was in the neighbourhood sooner than was expected. On the twenty-eighth of September twelve ambassadors, chosen for each of the offices of the city, went out to meet him. Each one of these was accompanied by a noble and three young gentlemen, who altogether received daily a salary of forty ducats of gold. The actual value in gold of a Venetian ducat is now usually estimated at about fifteen shillings English money, rather less than the equivalent of the French twenty-franc piece. The purchasing power of the coin was, however, very much larger than at the present day.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 181._]

The delegates met the Doge at Verona, and accompanied him thence to Padua, where the Carrara received them all with great honour. Taddeo Giustiniani, son of the podestà of Chioggia, met the whole company there with fifteen of the small barges called ‘ganzaruoli,’ splendidly decorated, in which the Doge embarked with all his company. On the fifth of October, at a small distance from Venice itself, he was met by the famous Bucentaur, which bore the ducal counsellors and a great number of nobles. A remarkable circumstance which accompanied this journey is narrated by Lorenzo dei Monaci, whom Lazzarini calls a grave and contemporary historian. The Doge, on reaching Venice, landed at the pier of Saint Mark’s, instead of going to the other side, to the Riva della Paglia, according to former custom; and in order to reach the ducal palace he passed between the two columns where malefactors were often executed. At the time no one paid any attention to this, but after his tragic death the incident was reputed to have been a presage of the evil future; so that Petrarch, writing from Milan on the twenty-fourth of April 1355, a few days after the Doge had been decapitated, alludes to the fact in these words: ‘Sinistro pede palatium ingressus,’ _i.e._ ‘Having entered the palace with ill-omened step.’