Part 13

His second secretary of embassy, Muscorno, obtained leave to return to Venice on pretence of visiting his father who was ill, and when Foscarini was suddenly recalled he found the ground prepared for an abominable action against him. He himself, his valet, and his chaplain were all imprisoned, and his trial for high treason began. It proceeded very slowly, but he was acquitted after having been in prison three years, for Robazza confessed his treachery without being tortured. Having been declared innocent of high treason, Foscarini had little difficulty in disproving some minor accusations that were brought against him; and a few weeks after his release he appeared before the Senate to give an official account of his embassy in England. Muscorno, who had accused him falsely, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment in a fortress; Robazza, the valet who had been bribed, had his right hand struck off and was exiled for twenty years.

James I. of England sent Foscarini especial congratulations, and he was again employed in important affairs. Unhappily, however, Muscorno had a successor worthy of him in the person of Girolamo Vano, a professional spy in the service of the Republic. If by any chance the smallest State secret was known abroad, it was always insinuated by Foscarini’s enemies that he was responsible for divulging it, and it was quite in keeping with the ordinary practice of the Venetian government to employ spies to watch a man who had been once suspected, even though he had been declared innocent and was again in high office.

The spy Vano took advantage of Foscarini’s friendship, or affection, for the English Countess of Arundel, as a means of making out a strong case

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 183._]

against him. Foscarini had known her in London, and she had afterwards made long visits to Venice, in order to be near her sons, who were making their studies at the university of Padua. At her house Foscarini often met the Envoy of Florence and the secretaries of the Spanish and Austrian embassies.

She did not spend all her time in Venice, however, but was often many months in England. It was when she was returning to Venice after one of these absences that she was stopped at some distance from the city by a messenger from the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, who entreated her to turn back. The unfortunate Foscarini had been convicted of high treason and strangled, and his corpse was that very morning hanging between the two red columns of the fatal window in the ducal palace. Lady Arundel’s name had been connected during the trial with that of the condemned man, and the ambassador was anxious to save her any possible trouble.

But she was not of the sort that turns back from danger at such times, and that very evening she reached

the English Embassy and demanded an audience of the Doge; it was with the greatest difficulty that she could be made to understand the impossibility of being admitted until the next morning, and she reluctantly retired for the night to her hired house, that Mocenigo palace which was afterwards successively inhabited by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and by Lord Byron.

On the morrow the ambassador went with her to the ducal palace, and she must have passed below the window from which the body of her friend had hung all the previous day. She was admitted to the presence of the Signory, and the Doge made her sit on his right hand. She now learned that she was believed to have allowed Foscarini to use her house as a place from which to carry on intrigues with foreign courts. Sir Henry Wotton spoke in the Countess’s defence, and proved that her relations with Foscarini had always been of the most honourable character, and that the two had not met for many months. England’s star was in the ascendant, Elizabeth had reigned, and it was not good to contradict an English ambassador nor to speak lightly of an English lady. The Doge made the Countess his most humble excuses and promised to send them to her husband, the Earl Marshal, through the Venetian ambassador in London.

The Senate took cognisance of the affair also, and voted a small sum of money to be expended in a present of comfits and wax to the Countess, this being the custom for all persons of quality who appeared before the Signory. But that was all. Lady Arundel had exculpated herself, but so far Foscarini’s guilt seemed to be so incontrovertibly proved, that Fra Paolo Sarpi refused to accept a legacy which the unhappy patrician had left him in his last will.

But as time went on the whole of Vano’s fabricated evidence began to go to pieces. The Inquisitors of State themselves seem to have been the first to suspect that they had made a mistake, and before long the dreadful truth was only too clear. Foscarini

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 196; Armand Baschet, Arch. 631._]

had been perfectly innocent and had been murdered by justice. It was not a case that could be hushed and put out of the way, either, for too many people knew what had happened.

The Council of Ten made amends: let us give them such credit as we can for their public repentance, without inquiring too closely what pressure was brought to bear upon them by the public, and not improbably by England. Monsieur Baschet becomes lyric in his praise of their magnanimity. For my part, I do not think it would have been safe for the Council to try and hide its mistake. The Ten apologised amply before the world: that is the important matter. Monsieur Baschet gives the original text of the apology, of which I translate a part from the Italian:--

‘Since the Providence of our Lord God has disposed, by means truly miraculous and incomprehensible to human intelligence, that the authors and promoters of the lies and impostures machinated against our late beloved and noble Antonio Foscarini should be discovered ..., it behoves the justice and mercy of this Council, whose especial business it is, for the general quiet and safety to protect the immunity of the honour and reputation of families, to rehabilitate as far as possible those who lie under the imputation of an infamous crime ...,’ and so on.

The Ten also decreed that an inscription should be set up in the church of Sant’ Eustachio, recording the error of the court, a unique example of such a public and enduring retractation.

Other circumstances occurred to prove that organisation of the Venetian tribunals was beginning to wear out. Too many conflicting regulations had been introduced, and there were too many magistracies. Venice was ‘over-administered,’ as generally happens to old countries, and sometimes to new ones that are too anxious to be scientifically governed. The jurisdictions of the different officials often encroached upon one another. The three Inquisitors of State were frequently at odds with the other seven members of the Council of Ten, and in the confusion which this caused it was impossible that the laws should be as well administered as formerly.

About this time a grave case enlightened the public as to certain abuses of which the existence had not

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 210, 215, 223, 229._]

been previously suspected. The Council of Ten was always charged with the duty of seeing that the Doge performed to the letter the promises of the ‘Promission ducale.’ These solemn engagements were several times violated by the Doge Corner for the advantage of his sons. He allowed one of them to accept the dignity of the Cardinalate while two others were made senators, but as the Council of Ten did not like to interfere, one of its heads, Renier Zeno, took upon himself to impeach the Doge. The latter was accused of illegal acts in contradiction with the ‘Promission,’ and the question was taken up by the whole aristocracy and discussed before all the different Councils. The opposite parties were fast reaching a state of exasperation, when one of the Doge’s sons attempted the life of Renier Zeno. He and his accomplices were merely exiled to Ferrara, and the lenity of the sentence sufficiently shows the weakness of the government.

At the same time Renier Zeno was arbitrarily forbidden, contrary to all law, to call into question the conduct of the courts in general, but he was too proud and energetic to submit to such despotism, and what it pleased the Council of Ten to call his ‘pride’ served his adversaries as a pretext for accusing him. The Council had the imprudence to condemn him to ten years’ imprisonment in the fortress of Cattaro; but this was too much, and the Ten were soon forced to revoke the sentence as completely as they had annulled that of the unfortunate Foscarini. But the world saw, and the prestige of the Council was gone; the government cast about in vain for some means of restoring it, and could find nothing to do except to make a few reforms and changes in its old system of spying and repression.

Ever since the fourteenth century there had been a locked box with a slit in it, placed in a public part of the ducal palace, into which any one might drop an anonymous written accusation against any one else, from the Doge down. Little by little the use of this means of ‘informing’ developed, until it had now become common to try cases on the mere strength of such unsupported accusations. The boxes were called the Lions’ Mouths on account of the shape they had taken, and there was much talk about them when it was attempted to reform the Code of Laws in the seventeenth century. A decree of the year 1635 restored the old regulations as to the nature of the misdeeds which might be thus denounced.

It was decided that if the accusation was signed, four-fifths of the judges must agree before the case could be brought to trial; if the information was anonymous there could be no trial without the consent of the Doge, his counsellors, and the chiefs of the Ten to bring the case before the Great Council, and the trial could not be opened unless it were voted necessary by five-sixths of the assembly. These measures were no doubt prudent, but it was the system itself that was at fault; any Venetian was authorised by it to take upon himself the duties of a detective, and was encouraged to spy on his neighbours, because the courts generally rewarded the informer after a conviction.

It is always a fault in a government to make laws unchangeable like those of the Medes and Persians, and some authors have said that the Venetian Republic never looked upon any of its decrees as immutable. This is true as regards the form, for no government ever remodelled its laws more often in their text. Sometimes the same decree appears in more than one hundred shapes, but neither the spirit nor the point of view is modified. A law passed against the freemasons in the eighteenth century is conceived in precisely the same spirit as the decrees against the conspirators in the days of Baiamonte Tiepolo and Marin Faliero; the last Missier Grande of the police was very like the sbirri of the Middle Ages in character and in methods. The Republic was growing old; the tree might still bear fruit, but the fruit it bore had no longer within it the seeds of future life.

It cannot be denied that Venetian diplomacy was better of its kind than Venetian magistracies. During the thirty years’ war, for instance,

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 275._]

Venice never once lost sight of the great object it had in view, which was to abase the closely related powers of Spain and Austria, while skilfully avoiding any action which might bring about reprisals.

On the other hand, it was impossible to remain neutral in the war of succession to the Duchy of Mantua, in which Carlo Gonzaga, Duke

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 276._]

of Nevers, was supported by France, and Ferrante Gonzaga by the Emperor. As Austria’s

enemy, Venice naturally backed the former. Venice furnished him abundantly with money and soldiers, and between the month of November 1629 and the month of March following, spent six hundred and thirty-eight thousand ducats to support the party which was defending the cause of Italian independence against the Empire. Austria nevertheless succeeded, and got the better of the formidable coalition; but though the Imperials took possession of Mantua at the time, they were obliged to give it up to Carlo Gonzaga soon afterwards, in April 1631, by the treaty of Cherasco.

About the same time Venice suffered another terrible visitation of the plague, and more than thirty-six thousand persons perished in the city

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 302._]

alone. On a similar occasion in 1575 the Venetians had vowed a church to the Redeemer if the plague was stayed, and the church they built is that of the Redentore; in 1630 a church was vowed to the Blessed Virgin, under the name of the Madonna della Salute. This was at first only a wooden

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 306._]

building, in which a great thanksgiving took place on the first of November. The present church was not finished until 1687.

Amongst the many circumstances which hastened the decadence of the Republic during the seventeenth century was the terrible war in Crete. In

that memorable struggle with the Turks for the possession of the island the Venetians displayed much of their old heroism and good generalship, but the Republic was no longer young, and could not make such gigantic efforts with impunity; Venice was permanently weakened by that last great war. It originated in a piece of rash imprudence on the part of the Knights of Malta, who seized a number of Turkish vessels; it lasted twenty-five years, and it cost the Republic her best generals and her bravest soldiers, besides vast sums of money. Yet the enthusiasm was boundless; mindful of Enrico Dandolo and Andrea Contarini, the aged Doge Francesco Erizzo determined to take command himself, but death overtook him on the eve of his departure.

Prodigies of valour were performed. Tommaso Morosini, with a single ship, victoriously resisted the attack of forty-five Turkish galleys, but lost his life in the engagement. Lorenzo Marcello took eighty-four Turkish vessels and their crews with a far inferior force, but like Morosini he was killed in the fight. Ten thousand Turks were slain and five thousand were taken prisoners.

Europe looked on in amazement and admiration, and many brave captains and soldiers thought it an honour to serve under the standard of Saint Mark. There were more Germans and Frenchmen among these volunteers than soldiers of other nations, and Louis XIV. himself hoped to associate his name with the campaign. He sent the Duc de Beaufort with a considerable fleet, twelve of his best regiments, and a detachment of the Guards, besides a great number of volunteers under the command of the Duc de Noailles. Yet all was in vain, and after a quarter of a century of fighting Venice was obliged to yield Crete to the Turks.

The peace was of no long duration, for the Turks attacked Austria next, and, though the brave Sobieski drove them away from Vienna, they allied themselves with the Hungarians, and became so dangerous to the Empire that the Pope himself was in anxiety for the safety of Christianity in general. Exhausted by her long war in Crete, the Republic attempted to decline all requests that she should join a league against the Turks, but was at last obliged to yield, and war was renewed in the Archipelago and the Peloponnesus.

Francesco Morosini, the same general who a few years earlier had been obliged to evacuate Crete after the most heroic efforts, was placed in

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 490._]

command of the Venetian forces and commissioned to drive the Turks from the islands of Santa Maura and other strong places in the Ionian Sea. On the eleventh of August 1687 a swift felucca brought to Venice news that Morosini had taken Patras and Corinth, besides Santa Maura. In joyful

[Sidenote: _Bust of Francesco Morosini, Hall of the Council of Ten._]

enthusiasm the Senate forthwith voted the victor a bronze bust, which was placed in hall of the Council of Ten, with the standard taken from the Turks. It bears the inscription:--

FRANCISCO MAUROCENO Peloponnesiaco adhuc viventi Senatus.

Another monument in Venice recalls the glorious war of the Peloponnesus. After having taken Athens, Morosini hastened to the Parthenon, for he

[Sidenote: _Quadri, 302; Rom. vii. 491._]

appears to have been a man of highly cultivated tastes. To his inexpressible disappointment he found the temple half ruined, for the Turks had used it as a powder magazine, and a Venetian bomb had blown it up. Morosini was so much overcome that he broke out into lamentations over a loss which nothing could replace. But there amidst piles of ruins he saw two splendid lions of marble from Pentelicus, which he at once caused to be placed on board his vessel, rather to save them, perhaps, than to exhibit them as trophies. In Venice they were set up on each side of the gate of the Arsenal.

Morosini was one of the few Venetian generals who was not made to suffer for his success. When

[Sidenote: _1688. Rom. vii. 504._]

at the very height of his triumph he learnt that he was elected Doge, and though he had little success in the campaign after that, and was even dangerously ill, he was magnificently received when he returned to Venice. Pope Alexander VIII., Ottoboni, sent him the staff and military hat which it was customary to give to generals who had distinguished themselves in war against infidels. But it was clear that in his absence nothing could be accomplished, and he soon obtained permission of the government to take command of the Venetian forces once more. His departure on the twenty-fourth of May 1693 was a sort of national festivity. The Senate went to fetch him in his own apartment, and a long procession accompanied him to Saint Mark’s. Preceded by halberdiers, singers, files of servants in liveries of scarlet velvet and gold, many priests, canons, and the Patriarch himself, besides the traditional silver trumpets, the Doge walked between the Pope’s nuncio and the French ambassador. He wore the full dress of a Venetian commander-in-chief, which was of gold brocade with a long train. But even in his glory the Venetians noticed with displeasure and suspicion that he carried in his hand the staff of the General, which he evidently preferred to the sceptre of the Doge, and which suggested to the crowd the thought that he might seize the supreme power.

On the following day he embarked upon the Bucentaur, which took him on board his flagship amidst the applause of the crowd, the pealing of the church bells, and a salute of artillery from the fort of Saint Nicholas on the Lido, as his vessel got under way.

The expedition proved of little advantage to the Republic, and cost Morosini his life, for his health was undermined by the fatigues of his previous campaigns, and he died in the Greek province of Romania, where he had hoped to rest for a few weeks. His body was brought back to Venice, and buried with great pomp in the church of Santo Stefano.

The war went on under his successor, Silvestro Valier, but it now entered upon a new phase, for the Czar Peter the Great threatened the Turks on their northern frontier, while the Venetian fleet held them in check in the south. A treaty of peace was signed at Carlowitz in 1699, by which the Republic kept her conquests in the Morea as far as the isthmus of Corinth, including the islands of Egina, Santa Maura, and other less important places. Dalmatia was also left to her, but she was obliged to withdraw her troops from Lepanto and Romania on the north side of the Gulf of Corinth.

From all this it is clear that the military spirit was still alive in Venice, when the administration had almost

[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 370, 371, 487; Quadri, 293._]

completely broken down. Nothing gives the measure of the situation better than the fact that in order to meet the expenses of the war in Crete any Venetian who would engage to support a thousand soldiers for one year, or any foreigner who would support twelve hundred for the same period, was allowed thereby to have and hold all the privileges of nobility. This speculation was never sanctioned by law, and was even rejected by the Great Council when proposed, but it was nevertheless actually practised, and a number of seats in the Great Council were sold to the highest bidder. The government went one step farther, and sold the office of procurator of Saint Mark. The decadence had reached the point of decay.

X

THE LAST HOMES--THE LAST GREAT LADIES

Two men, a painter and a dramatist, have left us the means of knowing exactly what the eighteenth century

[Sidenote: _Pictures of Venetian life by Longhi; Accademia, Room XIV., and Museo Correr, Rooms II. and IX._]

was in Venice. It is not a paradox to say that Longhi painted comedies, and that Goldoni wrote portraits. Both were Venetians, and they had the courage to depict and describe respectively the glaring faults of their own people, not realising, perhaps, that the general corruption was beyond remedy, and that the end was at hand.

Look at Longhi’s ‘Fortune-Teller’ or ‘Dancing-Master,’ at his ‘Tailor,’ his ‘Music-Master,’ or his ‘Toilet,’ and you may see precisely what the Republic was when it died of old age; there are all the successions of light colours, as in a pastel-painter’s box; you can hear the high running laughter that rings from rosy lips, you can guess what dreams of pleasure fill those pretty heads, and yet there is something sad about it all; unless one belongs to that little band of human beings who love the eighteenth century, it sets one’s teeth on edge--like the dance music in the ‘Ballo in Maschera,’ danced while Riccardo is dying. Something rings false; I think there is too much discrepancy between what we see or read and what we really know about that time. About other centuries, even the nineteenth and twentieth, we can still have illusions, but the eighteenth was all a sham that went to pieces with the French Revolution.

As for the position of women at that time, it was never lower. They were dolls, and nothing more. They were perhaps more neglected in the sixteenth century, but, at least in theory, there was still some respect for them. In the eighteenth they existed only to adorn places of amusement, theatres, and gambling houses. The biographer of that remarkable woman, Giustina Renier Michiel, says they were so little esteemed that it seemed useless to teach them anything, and he adds that the Signory looked upon an educated woman as a being dangerous to society and the State.

Most young girls of noble family were brought up in convents, where the most crass ignorance accompanied the loosest ideas of morality. The greater number of these convents were only nominally connected with the ecclesiastical authorities. In practice

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 351._]

they were controlled by lay inspectors, ‘Provveditori sopra Monasteri,’ who were commissioned by the government to superintend the morals of convents in general, but found it much more diverting to help in undermining them.