Part 25

But his departure did not improve matters, and his son was soon obliged to surrender Padua to the allies, on condition of receiving a safe conduct for himself and his retinue to visit Pavia and return. This was given, and oath was taken on the Blessed Sacrament that it should be respected. He went to Milan, and was well received, and it appears that he acted the part of a man delighted with his treatment, and only anxious to be pleased and amused. It is almost needless to say that before long he was plotting against Visconti’s life, and that Visconti discovered the plan, and gave orders for his assassination. He fled to France with his young wife Taddea, but was pursued by Visconti’s emissaries, and embarked only just in time to save himself and her. She was soon to become a mother, and she suffered terribly from the rough sea. Carrara and she landed; she was placed upon an ass and he walked by her side, while the small vessel kept in sight of the shore. And so they proceeded, embarking again, and once more going ashore as a fresh gale began to blow. They came along the Riviera, well knowing that they were tracked by Visconti; once, at Torbio, they were warned by a friendly person not to enter the town, and they slept in a half-ruined church by the sea-shore. At Ventimiglia the little party excited the suspicions of the Podestà and Carrara was arrested, after having succeeded in placing his wife in safety on board the vessel, but was released again, because by good fortune the officer who arrested him had once served his father. So they went on, through countless adventures, sometimes disguised as German pilgrims, sometimes barely eluding Visconti’s search by hiding in bushes by the roadside; they even slept in a stable. They sought refuge in Florence and stayed there a while, went on to Bologna and were refused all assistance; and at last the fallen prince received offers to join the fighting band of John Hawkwood, the English condottiero. He almost reached Venice, and was within a stone’s throw of Padua, then went back to Florence, and was suddenly elevated to the dignity of Ambassador from the Florentines to the Duke of Bavaria, whose sister had been the wife of the murdered Bernabò Visconti, and the mother of the rightful but imprisoned heir to the dukedom of Milan.

It is not within the province of this work to narrate these wild adventures in detail. It is enough to say that the struggle between the several parties was carried on for years, with no scruple and little humanity. The policy of the different governments shifted continually; after allying herself with Visconti, Venice soon began to plot against him, judging that a ruined neighbour like Carrara would be safer than one too powerful, as Giovanni Galeazzo was growing to be; and so the fugitive couple was taken into favour again by the Republic. Although Visconti’s military governor in Padua, when Carrara came to take his own again, sent him word that a man must be a fool who, having left the house by the door, expected to return by the window, yet Carrara soon got the better of him by the help of Venice and the Duke of Bavaria.

What is most amazing in the history of the Italian principalities and republics is that any one of them should ever, under any circumstances, have believed in the promises made by any other. An open treaty was almost always supplemented by a secret one of a precisely contrary nature; oaths ratified upon the faith of the Blessed Sacrament were broken as lightly as lovers’ vows; the safe conduct given by a prince or a republic was generally the prelude to an assassination; and governments had not even that temporary regard for their obligations which is vulgarly described as honour among thieves. Writers of history have accustomed us too long to consider that these vices of mediæval Italian diplomacy were manifestations of the deepest craft and of the most profound subtlety, and we have been taught to look upon Macchiavelli as a master in the art of political dissimulation. Men of northern extraction who, by the accidents of birth, education, and long acquaintance, are thoroughly acquainted with the Latin character, cannot but smile at such a judgment. In all ages, Latins, and especially Italians, have deceived each other, but have rarely succeeded in deceiving us. The wiles of Cæsar Borgia would not have imposed upon an average English schoolboy. In her diplomatic relations with northern Europe, Italy has almost invariably been the victim of that profound duplicity which rests upon a carefully cultivated reputation for respecting the truth. It is the man whose word can generally be trusted who possesses the greatest power of deception when he chooses to perjure himself. It was not the complication of the Italian nature which produced the complicated state of Italian politics in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but its extreme simplicity, which made Italian princes the easy victims of the most transparent deceptions.

[Sidenote: _1405. Padua taken from Carrara by the Venetians, Francesco Bassano; Ceiling of Sala dello Scrutinio._]

[Sidenote: _1406. Rom. iv. 40._]

On the other hand, after a long lapse of time, and in the presence of documents proceeding from opposite sources, it is now so hard to ascertain the simple truth, that the story of the younger Carrara is told in two quite opposite ways. The version I have given seems to be the more reasonable one; the other tells us that it was not Visconti, but Venice, that persecuted the young couple, and that it was not Venice, but Visconti, who in the end recalled them to Padua. Be that as it may, Carrara was once more in possession of his principality in 1392. It seems to me thoroughly in accordance with the policy of Venice to have thus installed him again at her very gates and under her protection, in order to crush him and his family the more effectually, as she soon afterwards did. Fourteen years later Venice had literally forced him to declare war against her, and had sent the invincible Carlo Zeno to command her armies; the inevitable result had followed, and Carrara himself with two of his sons were prisoners in the ducal palace. The three were condemned to death, and were strangled in prison.

The private execution of the noble prisoners of war was not acknowledged by the government, and the city was gravely informed that they had, all three, died of colds or coughs, vaguely described as catarrh. But the people were not deceived, and were certainly not displeased; and within twenty-four hours a triumphant song was bawled through the streets of Venice, of which the burden was ‘A dead man makes no war.’ The words have remained a proverb in Italy.

The elder Carrara, long a state prisoner in Milan, had been duly poisoned with ‘magical liquors’ by the five court physicians of Visconti in 1393. One of the younger Carrara’s younger sons died in Florence very soon after his father, but the fourth survived to be murdered in his turn nearly thirty years later.

I find in Smedley’s _Sketches from Venetian History_ a very curious and interesting note with regard to him and to the disappearance of his race.

[Sidenote: _Smedley, I. chap. x. note._]

The family name of Carrara, like that of the Scottish Macgregors, was proscribed. A branch of the House which still (1831) exists, or did exist not long ago, at Padua, was compelled to adopt the name of Pappa-fava, a _sobriquet_ the origin of which has been traced as follows by Gataro. Marsilietto da Carrara, Signor of Padua for one short month before his assassination, in 1345, when a boy, was lodged, during a Pestilence which raged in the Capital, in a Monastery at Brondolo. ‘Now in all the great religious houses it is an ancient custom to have vegetable broth at dinner every day of the week. On Monday it is made of beans (_fave_), on Tuesday of haricots, on Wednesday of chick-peas, and so on. Marsilietto was so fond of beans that it always appeared a thousand years to him till the Monday came round, and, when it did, he devoured the beans with such delight as was a pleasure to behold. He was, therefore, nicknamed _Pappa-fava_ (Bean-glutton) by the rest, and his descendants have retained the name.’

The threefold murder of the Carrara, for it was nothing else, must be regarded as the first result of the continental development of Venice after the war of Chioggia, a development which brought her into closer contact with a number of thoroughly unscrupulous princes and governments. If her misdeeds can be condoned at all, it must be upon that ground; but I find it impossible to agree with Mr. Hazlitt, the author of a recent valuable history entitled _The Venetian Republic_, in considering that, on the whole, Carrara had something like a fair trial, and deserved his fate. The whole body of evidence goes to show that, for his times, he was an exceptionally frank and courageous prince, and much of the so-called proof that was used against him in the end was obtained by the merciless application of torture. Mr. Hazlitt’s real love of Venice has, I think, prejudiced him too much in her favour in this instance, and his affectionate industry has discovered everything that can be said in her defence, without bestowing the same care on a fair statement of the other side. In a similar way, a little farther on, he speaks of the outrageous condemnation of Carlo Zeno to a year’s imprisonment as an act not unjustifiable, because it was proved that Zeno had actually received a small sum of money from Carrara; but Mr. Hazlitt passes over Zeno’s defence in silence. The invincible warrior admitted, indeed, that he had received the money, but his explanation was perfectly simple and honourable. He had lent the little sum to the prince when the latter had been an outcast, wandering through Italy with his young wife, and Carrara had repaid the money when he had regained Padua. Zeno was over seventy years of age at the time when he was condemned to a year’s imprisonment in a dungeon for this act of charity and its consequences; he was the bravest and truest Venetian of his times; he had saved his country from destruction, and had served her with the most perfect integrity under the most trying circumstances, and more than once in the face of her basest ingratitude; he reaped the reward which fell to the share of almost every distinguished Venetian, for he was feared by the government, hated by the fellow-nobles whom he had outstripped in honour, and condemned by men who were not worthy to loose the latchet of his shoes. And he was convicted on account of a paltry sum of three hundred ducats, lent to a wanderer in distress and duly returned--he, who had given thousands from his own resources to satisfy the demands of the sordid mercenaries whom Venice had employed in the war of Chioggia! In trying to make out that he was treated with justice, Mr. Hazlitt attempts to prove too much. Before quitting a point to which I shall not return, let me, however, testify to the value of Mr. Hazlitt’s work, and to the great and useful industry with which he has consulted and accurately quoted a number of authorities not only inaccessible to the ordinary reader, but rarely mentioned, and in some cases not at all, by such historians as Daru, Romanin, and even Sismondi.

The stern justice of former days degenerated into cold cruelty in the fifteenth century. When the Republic set a price on the heads of Carrara’s two youngest sons, after vainly attempting to get possession of their persons by diplomatic means, they were mere boys.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 42._]

When Zeno was called before the Council of Ten on the night of the twentieth of January 1406, the warrant for his examination authorised the use of torture, if it should seem necessary. But even the Ten hesitated at that. He admitted and explained the matter of the money lent and repaid; his explanations of his reasons for having received and talked with an envoy from Padua were as honourable as they were clear, and the Ten being mercifully inclined that night, did not proceed to stretch Venice’s greatest hero on the rack, but only condemned him to the Pozzi for a year, and to the perpetual loss of all offices he held.

He accepted the sentence without a murmur, and his frame of steel did not permanently suffer from the confinement, for he lived twelve years longer in perfect

health, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was once more in command of the troops of the Republic, defeated the Cypriotes, and died at last in the full possession of his faculties, leaving his name to undying glory, and the memory of his judges to eternal shame.

The Venetians had buried the elder and the younger Carrara with great magnificence, dressed in rich velvet, with their golden spurs on their heels and their swords by their sides. When Zeno died at last, it was necessary that his funeral should outshine at least the obsequies accorded to the murdered foes of the Republic. The Doge and the Senate attended, and the citizens followed him to his grave in their thousands; but it is good to read that what was left of him was borne to its last rest on the shoulders of brave seamen who had served with him, fought under him, and shed their blood with him. He lies in the church of Santa Maria della Celestia, where you may see his tomb to this day.

An age of transition is sure to be an age of contrasts. One may compare, for instance, the Doge Michel Steno with his successor, Tomaso Mocenigo, the extreme of extravagance with the extreme of economy, the increasing indebtedness of each department of the State with the excessive severity of the magistrates whose duty it was to watch suspected persons; and from the officials who ‘defended the faith’ one may turn to the wild band of noble youths who called themselves the ‘Compagnia della Calza,’ the ‘Hose Club,’ and whose chief occupation was to amuse and be amused.

The laws were full of contrasts, too. The Doge Michel Steno, the first of the fifteenth century, kept

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Commercio._]

four hundred horses in his stables, and by way of adding absurdity to extravagance he dyed their coats yellow, according to the ridiculous custom of the times. Yet he was forbidden by law to blazon his coat-of-arms on the ducal palace, or, in fact, anywhere else, and he was not allowed to have himself addressed as ‘My Lord.’ The law required him to wear a mantle of royal ermine, and to provide his servants with two new liveries each year; yet he could be treated like a boy, and told to be silent and sit down in Council, as actually happened to him a few years after his election.

[Sidenote: _Armand Baschet, Archives._]

The story is worth telling. I have spoken of the ‘Avogadori del Commun,’ who were officers of considerable importance and power, and not at first noble. They stood, in a manner, between private individuals and the State in matters of law, civil and criminal; partly in the position of a modern attorney-general, partly as representing the exchequer, but they had a right of interference in many other matters. Two of them were bound to be present at every Council, including that of the Ten, arrayed in long red robes, and they had power to suspend all judgments during three days in cases which, if not positively criminal, concerned the execution of laws and edicts. Though at first not nobles, and perhaps for that very reason, it had always been their business to act as a Heralds’ Office for the purpose of examining into all titles of nobility and claims for seats in the Grand Council.

Now it happened on the second of June in 1410 that a certain noble called Donato Michiel proposed the repeal of a law which had been approved six years earlier by the Great Council; the Avogadori opposed the motion, and accused the patrician of encroaching on their rights. But the Doge Steno, agreeing with the noble, lost his temper, and spoke sharply to the Avogadori. Now the ducal oath forbade the Doge to speak in defence of any one unless he could obtain permission to do so from four out of six of his counsellors. Three of the latter now tried to call him to order, but he would not listen to them. ‘Messer Doge,’ they then said bluntly, ‘let your Serenity sit down and be silent, and leave the Avogadori quite free to do their duty!’

Two other counsellors now took the Doge’s side, and he went on talking; whereupon the Avogadori imposed on him a fine and threatened to bring an action against him. Both parties grew more and more obstinate, and the quarrel lasted several days, until some intelligent persons discovered that the Doge had not broken his ducal oath, because the Avogadori had not yet formally made accusation against Donato Michiel, so that what the Doge had said had not been said in defence of any one, there being no legally accused person, but as a general statement of opinion; and in this way the affair was patched up without scandal.

Under the rule of Tomaso Mocenigo, Steno’s successor, the Republic seems to have recovered something of its pristine vigour, and the germs of internal corruption were retarded in their growth for a time. Mocenigo was as austere, as prudent, and as active as

Steno had been extravagant, hot-tempered, and careless. Venice now finally obtained possession of Friuli and Dalmatia, which made her mistress of the Adriatic as far as Corfu.

Mocenigo was a man of iron will and inflexible principle. Nothing gives a clearer idea of his character than his own recapitulation of his nine years’ reign, when he lay dying of old age.

On his deathbed he assembled about him the principal officers of the Republic, and drew a clear picture of the condition of the country at the end of his administration, giving his hearers at the same time valuable advice as to the election of his successor, which they unfortunately did not follow. I quote the speech in full:--

My Lords, by the weakness in which I find myself, I know that I am near the end of my life; wherefore, since I owe great obligation to this my country, which has not only nourished and brought me up, but has also

[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 93._]

granted me as much pre-eminence and as many honours as can be conferred upon one of her citizens, and although I have always been devoted to my country with my life and with such poor means as fortune gave me, yet I know that by this I have not repaid even a small part of all the good which I have received; and being brought to a limit where I can do no more for my country, it is for my own satisfaction that I desired to assemble all of you here, that I might commend to you this Christian city and exhort you to love your neighbours, and to do justice, and to choose peace and preserve it, as I have endeavoured to do. In my time four millions of debts have been paid off, and there are other six millions owing, which debt was incurred for the wars of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona; we have paid every six months two instalments of the debts, and have paid all my officers and regiments. This our city now sends out in the way of business to different parts of the world ten millions of ducats’ worth yearly by ships and galleys, and the profit is not less than two million ducats a year. In this city there are three thousand vessels of one to two hundred ‘anfore’ (Venetian register of capacity) with seventeen thousand seamen; there are three hundred larger ships with eight thousand sailors. Every year there go to sea forty-five galleys with eleven thousand sailors, and there are three thousand ship’s carpenters and three thousand caulkers. There are three thousand weavers of silk and sixteen thousand weavers of cotton cloth; the houses are estimated to be worth seven millions and fifty thousand ducats. The rents are five hundred thousand ducats. There are one thousand noblemen whose income is from seven hundred to four thousand ducats. If you go on in this manner, you will increase from good to better, and you will be the masters of wealth and Christendom; every one will fear you. But beware, as you would be of fire, of taking what belongs to others and of waging unjust war, for God cannot endure those errors in princes. Every one knows that the war with the Turks has made you brave, and experienced of the sea; you have six generals fit to fight any great army, and for each of these you have sea-captains, slingers, officers, boatswains, mates, and rowers enough to man one hundred galleys; and in these years you have shown distinctly that the world considers you the leaders of Christianity. You have many men experienced in embassies and in the government of cities, who are accomplished orators. You have many doctors of divers sciences, and especially many lawyers, wherefore numerous foreigners come here for judgment of their differences, and abide by your verdicts. Your mint coins every year a million ducats of gold and two hundred thousand of silver; it also coins yearly eight hundred thousand ducats’ worth between ‘grossetti, mezzanini, and soldoni.’ Fifty thousand ducats of ‘grossetti’ go every year to Soria, and to the mainland, and other parts; of ‘mezzanini’ and ‘soldoni’ one hundred thousand ducats; the rest remains in the country (Venice). You know that the Florentines send us each year sixteen thousand pieces of cloth, which we make use of (in commerce) in Barbary, in Egypt, in Soria, in Cyprus, in Rhodes, in Roumania, in Candia, in the Morea, and in Istria, and every month the Florentines bring into this city seventy thousand ducats’ worth of all sorts of merchandise, which amounts to eight hundred and forty thousand ducats yearly and more; and they take back French woollens, Catalans, and crimson, and fine corded wool and silk, gold and silver thread and jewellery, with great advantage to the city. Therefore, be wise in governing such a State, and be careful to watch it and to see that it is not diminished by negligence. You must be very careful as to who is to succeed in my place, for by him the Republic may have much good and much evil. Many of you are inclined to Messer Marino Caravello, who is a worthy man, and deserves that honour for his worthy qualities. Messer Francesco Bembo is a good man, and the same is Messer Giacomo Trevisan; Messer Antonio Contarini, Messer Faustin Michiel, and Messer Alban Badoer, all these are wise and deserving. Many are inclined to Messer Francesco Foscari, and do not know that he is proud and untruthful; he has no principle in his affairs, he has an exaggerated disposition, he grasps at much and holds but little. If he be Doge you will always be at war; he who has ten thousand ducats will not be master of one thousand, he who has two houses will not be the master of one; you will spend gold and silver, reputation and honour, and where you are now the chiefs, you will be the slaves of your soldiers and men-at-arms and of their captains. I could not resist the desire to tell you this opinion of mine. God grant that you may elect the best man, and direct you, and preserve you in peace.

Mocenigo died on the fourth of April 1423.