Part 6

Any one who examines a number of these documents will soon see that they all begin with a portrait of the sovereign to whom the envoy was accredited, and there is often a great deal about the royal family, its surroundings, tastes, and habits. Almost invariably also the account ends with a list of the presents and titles or decorations bestowed upon the ambassador at the close of his mission, and all these he was required to hand over intact to the Signory. Not uncommonly, however, the presents were returned to him; but as no foreign titles could be borne by Venetians, the recipient of them was usually created a Knight of the Golden Stole, the only heraldic order recognised by the Republic and in the gift of the government.

It would be curious to examine into the first causes

of the relations between Venice and the other European states. It was the exchange of raisins for wool which obliged England and Venice to send each other permanent diplomatic missions. Up to that time only occasional special envoys had been necessary. The first time that England addressed a letter to the Signory she employed as her official agent a Neapolitan monk, the Bishop of Bisaccia, chaplain to King Robert, and this was in 1340. The envoy came to say that King Edward the Third of England had the honour to inform the Doge Gradenigo that he had defied Philippe de Valois to say that he was the anointed of the Lord. The envoy further stated that the two rivals were about to invoke the judgment of God, either by going unarmed into a den of wild beasts, who would of course respect the Lord’s anointed and promptly devour the pretender, or else by ‘touching for King’s Evil.’ Beginning in the

[Sidenote: _Rawdon Brown, Archives._]

fifteenth century there is a long list of English ambassadors and ministers resident in Venice. The last English diplomatic representative in Venice was Sir Richard Worsley, of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

All the foreign diplomatists in Venice were constantly on the look-out for the arrival of the special mounted messengers attached to each foreign embassy. These were celebrated throughout Europe for their speed and discretion. In the fifteenth century they were thirty-two in number, and formed a small guild which was under the protection of Saint Catharine; and they were almost all natives of Bergamo, a city which is still singularly noted for the honesty and faithfulness of its inhabitants, and which even now furnishes Venice with trusty house-porters and other servants of whom responsibility is required.

In the _Souvenirs_ of M. Armand Baschet, I find that the courier who brought the news of the signing of the treaty of Cambrai from Blois to Venice covered the distance in eight days, the best previous record to Paris, which is about the same distance, having been nine, and the usual time employed being fifteen. The employment of State courier could be bought and could be left by will.

Each ambassador of the Republic seemed to possess a part of the marvellously universal vision that belonged to the Council of Ten. Mr. Rawdon Brown made a special study of the weekly letters of the Venetian ambassadors in England, and found, for instance, that one of the Republic’s representatives succeeded in regularly copying the letters which Queen Elizabeth wrote to her lovers, which were therefore read aloud to the Senate with the greatest regularity, together with many other curious details of English court life.

I shall give two specimens, translated from the weekly letters in the Albèri collection. In 1531 the patrician Ludovico Falier came to render an account of his mission to the Court of Henry VIII. He expresses himself as follows, concerning that King and the English:--

In order that my discourse may be better understood I shall divide it into two chief parts, of which the one concerns my journey, and the other the most puissant King Henry VIII., and the manners and customs of his country from the year 1528 to 1531.... On the tenth of December I reached Calais [he had left Venice in the middle of October, but had travelled by short stages with a numerous suite]; it is a city of the French coast which belongs to the most serene King of England, as I shall have occasion to repeat hereafter. There I went on board a vessel to cross the ocean, which after behaving furiously during the passage at last threw me upon the English shore. I therefore arrived at Dover much more tired by these few hours of navigation than by a journey of ninety days on dry land. Having rested a little at Dover I got on horseback to go to London. At St. George’s I met my most illustrious predecessor Venier with several personages of the Court, including the most reverend the Cardinal (Thomas Wolsey), and we all entered the city together, and they accompanied me to my house. I was ordered almost at once to go to the Cardinal, in order to kiss his hand, for this ceremony always preceded that of an audience with the King; such is the power of this prince [of the Church]. On leaving his apartment I was conducted to his most serene Majesty, with whom I then had the interview which I described in detail in my letter to your Signory and to this glorious Senate.

The ambassador goes on to speak in the past tense of Cardinal Wolsey, who had fallen into disgrace in the interval. He goes on to speak of the Queen, who was then Catharine of Aragon.

My lady the Queen is small of stature, and plump, and has an honest face; she is good and just, affable and pious. She speaks fluently Spanish, Flemish, French, and English. Her subjects love her more than they ever loved any Queen; she is five and forty years old, and she has already lived thirty-five years in England.

The ambassador speaks of the King next.

God has united in King Henry VIII. beauty of soul with beauty of body, so that every one is astonished by such wonders ... he has the face of an angel, for it would not be enough to say that he is handsome; he resembles Cæsar, his look is calm, and contrary to English fashion, he wears his beard; who would not admire so much beauty accompanied with so much strength and grace? He rides very well, jousts and handles a lance with great skill; he is a very good shot and an excellent tennis player. He has always cultivated the extraordinary qualities with which nature has adorned him from his birth, for he thinks that nothing is more unnatural than a sovereign who cannot dominate his people by his moral and physical qualities.

And here the ambassador seems to have thought that he had gone rather far, for he finds something to say about Henry’s less admirable characteristics.

Unhappily this prince, so intelligent and reasonable, is given up to idleness, has allowed himself to be led away by his passions, and has left the government of the State in the hands of a few favourites, the most powerful of whom was the Cardinal, until he fell into total disgrace. Since then, from having been generous, he has become miserly, and whereas formerly all those who treated of affairs with him went away satisfied and covered with gifts, he now allows all to leave the Court with discontent. He makes a show of great piety, hears two low masses every day, and high mass also, on feast days. He gives to the poor, to orphans, widows, young girls, and infirm persons, and for these charities he gives his almoner ten thousand ducats yearly. He is beloved by all. He is forty years of age and has reigned twenty-two.

Falier speaks next of the climate of Great Britain and the products of the country, and gives a long description of a brewery. He briefly but sufficiently describes the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and gives some account of the British Constitution. He gives also a statement of the King’s sources of income with their amount, and the accuracy of the figures suggests that he must have got access to papers not intended for his perusal.

His Majesty may count upon over five hundred thousand ducats [£375,000] a year, divided as follows:--

Ducats. From the Crown (Lands) 190,000 Customs 150,000 Vacant Benefices 40,000 Privy Seal 10,000 Rebels (Confiscations, etc.) 50,000 Lands on the Continent 10,000 Fines for Crimes 25,000 Royal Guards 50,000 _______ Total 525,000 =======

I cannot tell exactly what he gets from taxes, but from information which I have endeavoured to obtain from grave and experienced persons, His Majesty exacts from his subjects about a million of ducats; for the six millions of ducats which he had inherited from his father were all spent in the wars with France, Flanders, and Scotland. His Majesty usually spends 425,000 ducats for his Court, which consists of five hundred men; namely, twenty-six chamberlains, of whom one is Treasurer of the Chamber [keeper of the privy purse?], one is a Majorduomo called a ‘Steward,’ his assistant, who carries a little white stick as a sign of his dignity; the Treasurer General, who pays all accounts; the accountant who distributes [the payments]; the ‘cofferers’ in charge of the said accounts; the Master of the Horse who has the management of the royal stables. There are three hundred horses, between Arabs, Turkish horses and racers, hackneys and others. His Majesty has also eight chaplains, of whom one distributes his charities, and there are many persons for his service of whom I do not speak in detail lest I should fatigue Your Serenity. His Majesty has always in his pay three hundred halberdiers who are on guard by tens at a time for the King’s person, and pass the night in the private antechamber.

His Majesty spends as follows:--

Ducats. For the Maintenance of his Court 100,000 Presents 120,000 Horses 20,000 Parks, and Packs of Hounds 50,000 Soldiers who guard the Fortresses 30,000 His Majesty’s Chamber (Privy Purse) 30,000 Buildings 10,000 Charities 10,000 Embassies and King’s Messengers 40,000 Expenses of the Queen (Catharine of Aragon), and the Princess (Mary) 30,000 ------- Total 440,000 =======

In case of war his Majesty could arm four thousand light horse and sixty thousand infantry. The latter would fight in the old-fashioned way, with bow, sword, shield, helmet, and with pikes of one or two points which are excellent against charges of cavalry. They are now beginning to use guns and artillery. The English do not fear death. As soon as the battle commences, they provoke the enemy and charge furiously; in very quick engagements they are generally victorious, but they often yield if the war drags on. They have not the slightest fear of Frenchmen, but they are much afraid of the Scotch.

During forty days they are obliged to serve in the army without receiving pay; after that time they receive three crowns and a half for a period of service determined beforehand. The fleet consists of one hundred and fifty vessels.

It now only remains for me to tell you who are the friends of the King, and what consequences his divorce might have, and I shall then add a few words on the most Reverend the Cardinal York.

Since the affair of the divorce has come up [Falier is writing in 1531, and Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn the next year] the Pope [Clement VII.] is not in his Majesty’s good graces. If the Holy Father will not grant the King permission to divorce, the result will be a very great advantage for the English crown, and a great danger to the Roman Church, for the King will detach himself from the latter, and will seize all the revenues of the ecclesiastical benefices; this will yield the Crown more than six million ducats [£4,500,000].

Falier was not mistaken, unless, perhaps, in his figures. He proceeds to speak of the relations between England and all the other European states, after which he returns to the question of the divorce, expressing himself in a very singular way for a Catholic. It must be remembered, however, that he was a Venetian, and therefore a man of business first, and a baptized Christian afterward.

The Englishman [Henry VIII.] must necessarily divorce, for he wishes to have a legitimate son, and he has lost all hope of one being born to him by the Lady Catharine [of Aragon]. He will therefore marry his favourite [Anne Boleyn] the daughter of the Earl of Vuilcer (_sic_) [Wiltshire--note the Venetian’s phonetic spelling!] as soon as possible. He will have trouble, for the faction that is for the Queen will rise.

It is quite clear that Venetian diplomatists did not indulge themselves in sentiment, and the information they presented to the Senate was as brutally frank and coldly precise as a medical diagnosis. They sought for facts and did not philosophise about them. Here is Falier’s opinion of Cardinal Wolsey:--

The King and the kingdom were in his hands, and he disposed of everything as the King himself might have done, or the Pope. All the princes were obliged to bow down to him. He received one hundred and fifty thousand ducats yearly over and above the gifts which he had from the English and the foreign princes. He counted much on France, with which kingdom he kept up extremely affectionate relations. His court was magnificent, more magnificent than the King’s. He spent all his income, he was very proud, and he wished to be adored like a god rather than respected as a prince.

In connection with the great Cardinal, I shall translate a passage of the letter in which Falier had informed the Senate of his disgrace. The fragment has some value also, from the light it throws on the comparative values of coins at that time. It must be remembered that the value of the gold ducat never changed to the last, while that of all other European coins varied greatly.

The King of England has had the Cardinal put in prison, has deprived him of the government, and has confiscated all his property. His fortune is valued at forty thousand pounds English, equal to twenty thousand of our grossi [the silver mark], or two hundred thousand [silver] ducats; in these forty thousand pounds must be included thirty thousand pounds English in cash, that is, fifteen thousand of ours or one hundred and fifty thousand [silver] ducats. His real estate has also been confiscated, consisting of his Archbishopric, which brought him a very large sum.

At the risk of wearying my readers I give a short extract from the report of another ambassador to England, Jacopo Soranzo, which was read before the Senate on the ninth of August 1554 (Queen Mary then reigning). The Venetian expresses his surprise at the way in which trials by jury were conducted in England.

Crimes are tried before twelve judges who may not leave the court, nor eat, nor drink, until they all agree, without one exception, on the sentence to be passed.... When sentence has been passed, the judges execute it immediately, but without ever resorting to the mutilation of a member or exile. If the accused is innocent, he is acquitted; if he is guilty, he is condemned to death.

I need not lay stress on the defective form of such trials; your Lordships see for yourselves how reprehensible such a mode of procedure is, for it often happens that eleven persons who wish to acquit the accused decide to condemn him to death in order to be of the opinion of the twelfth, who is determined to bear starvation till this verdict is given.

Before closing this chapter it is worth while to note that if the Venetian ambassadors abroad succeeded in knowing almost everything that was happening, the

[Sidenote: _A. Bashet, Archives._]

government took good care that foreign representatives residing in Venice should not follow their example. They were never told anything in the way of news, and though honours and privileges were heaped upon them, they were kept at arm’s length. As far back as the fourteenth century there was a law forbidding all patricians to have any acquaintance or social intercourse with any foreign representative except under the most exceptional circumstances, and M. Baschet has found material in the Archives sufficient to prove that the foreign ambassadors lived in something very like the seclusion of exile, and were altogether banished from all intercourse with the upper classes. The same writer adds that the diplomatists resented this rude exclusion, and that the practice of it made the Republic not a few enemies.

To such a criticism Venice would have answered, as usual, by the argument of success on the whole during many centuries. Those who care to examine the point more closely may read M. Baschet’s interesting work on the Secret Chancery.

IV

THE ARSENAL, THE GLASS-WORKS, AND THE LACE-MAKERS

The old Arsenal is such a museum of shadows nowadays that it is hard to realise what it once meant to the Venetians. Six hundred years ago, the sight of it inspired one of Dante’s most vivid descriptions of activity, and I have sometimes wondered whether in his day the three dwelling-houses of the Provveditors were already nick-named Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, as they were always called at a later date.

The Arsenal was founded in the twelfth century, and from the very first was one of the institutions most jealously watched over by the government. In the sixteenth century it had grown to be a vast enclosure of docks and basins, protected by a crenellated wall, and having but one entrance, which was guarded by sentinels. In the interior, the houses of the Provveditors had grown to be three great palaces, built round a courtyard, each officer occupying one of them during the thirty-two months of his term of office.

The Provveditors were nobles, of course, but they must necessarily have been men who thoroughly understood nautical matters, for it was their duty to oversee all work done in the place, to the minutest details, and they had absolute control of all the vast stores accumulated for building and fitting the fleet of the Republic. Every manufactured article was stamped with the arms of the Republic as soon as it was made or purchased, and not a nail, not a fathom of rope, not a yard of canvas could be brought out of the storehouses without the consent of one of the Provveditors. If anything was found outside the walls of the Arsenal with the public mark on it, the object was considered by law to be stolen, an inquiry was made, and if the culprit who had committed the misdemeanour could be caught, he was condemned to the galleys.

In order to enforce the rigid regulations the government not only required all three Provveditors to inhabit constantly the palaces assigned to them, but insisted that one of them should remain day and night within the

boundaries of the yard, during a fortnight, without going out at all. This service was taken in turn, and the official who was on duty was called the ‘Patron di Guardia.’ Into his hands all the keys were given every evening when work was over.

The artisans of the government ship-yard were the finest set of men in Venice, and their traditions of workmanship and art were handed down in their families from father to son for generations, as certain occupations still are in Italy. I know of a man-servant, for instance, whose direct ancestors have served those of the family in which he is still a servant for more than two hundred years without a break. In the Venetian Arsenal, it sometimes happened that an old man was foreman of a department in which his son was a master smith or carpenter, and his grandson an apprentice.

There was something military in the organisation, which bound the artisans very close together, for they trained themselves in fencing and gymnastics, and also in everything connected with extinguishing fires and saving wrecks or shipwrecked crews, for in any case of public danger it was always the ‘Arsenalotti’ who were called in. They were sober and courageous and excessively proud of their trade, and the government could always count on them. Twice, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the ducal palace took fire, and would have burnt down but for the prodigious energy of the workmen from the government docks. On the first occasion they proudly refused the present of five hundred ducats which the Doge offered them, but gratefully accepted an invitation to dine with him in a body; and as they numbered over fifteen thousand the Doge did not save money by the arrangement. Three years later, all their efforts could not hinder the hall of the Great Council from burning, and priceless works of art by such men as the two Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, and Pordenone were destroyed in a few moments. But the Arsenalotti saved the rest of the building, and again refused any recompense for their services.

When Henry III. of France came to Venice, the Arsenal employed about sixteen thousand men, and could count on a budget of two hundred and twenty-four thousand gold ducats, of which one hundred and twenty-four went to pay the wages of the workmen, and the rest was expended for materials. Those were large sums in the sixteenth century, but Venice looked upon the Arsenal as the mainspring of her power, and spared nothing to keep it in a state as near perfection as possible. In the long struggle with Genoa, the enemy used every art to bring about its destruction, but always in vain. The men who guarded the docks were absolutely incorruptible. In the sixteenth century it seemed as if the pure blood of the old Venetians ran only in their veins, and as if they alone still upheld the noble traditions of loyalty and simplicity which the founders of the Republic had handed down from braver days.

Next to the construction of her war-ships and merchant fleets, one of the most important matters to the commerce of Venice was the manufacture of glass, which brought enormous profits to the State and to

individuals, as is usually the case when a valuable product is made out of cheap materials by processes which are secret, and therefore have the effect of a monopoly.

As early as the fourteenth century the government had understood the immense importance of the art, and the glass-blowers of Murano were protected and favoured in a most especial way. As in one part of France, a sort of nobility was inherent in the occupation, and an early law sanctioned the marriage of a master

glass-blower’s daughter with a patrician by allowing their children to be entered in the Golden Book.