The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 54

Byron was the first to perceive that the story of Marino Faliero was a drama "ready to hand;" but he has had many followers, if not imitators or rivals.

"_Marino Faliero_, tragedie en cinq actes," by Casimir Jean Francois Delavigne, was played for the first time at the Theatre of Porte Saint Martin, May 31, 1829.

In Germany tragedies based on the same theme have been published by Otto Ludwig, Leipzig, 1874; Martin Grief, Vienna, 1879; Murad Effendi (Franz von Werner), 1881, and others (_Englische Studien_, vol. xxvii. pp. 146, 147).

_Marino Faliero_, a Tragedy, by A. C. Swinburne, was published in 1885.

_Marino Faliero_ was reviewed by Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_, July 21, 1821, vol. 35, pp. 271-285; by Heber, in the _Quarterly Review_, July, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 476-492; and by John Wilson, in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April, 1821, vol. 9, pp. 93-103. For other notices, _vide ante_ ("Introduction to _The Prophecy of Dante_"), p. 240.

PREFACE.

The conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero is one of the most remarkable events in the annals of the most singular government, city, and people of modern history. It occurred in the year 1355. Every thing about Venice is, or was, extraordinary--her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance. The story of this Doge is to be found in all her Chronicles, and particularly detailed in the "Lives of the Doges,"

by Marin Sanuto, which is given in the Appendix. It is simply and clearly related, and is perhaps more dramatic in itself than any scenes which can be founded upon the subject.

Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of talents and of courage. I find him commander-in-chief of the land forces at the siege of Zara,[359] where he beat the King of Hungary and his army of eighty thousand men, killing eight thousand men, and keeping the besieged at the same time in check; an exploit to which I know none similar in history, except that of Caesar at Alesia,[360] and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. He was afterwards commander of the fleet in the same war. He took Capo d'Istria. He was amba.s.sador at Genoa and Rome,--at which last he received the news of his election to the dukedom; his absence being a proof that he sought it by no intrigue, since he was apprised of his predecessor's death and his own succession at the same moment. But he appears to have been of an ungovernable temper. A story is told by Sanuto, of his having, many years before, when podesta and captain at Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who was somewhat tardy in bringing the Host.[361] For this, honest Sanuto "saddles him with a judgment," as Thwack.u.m did Square;[362] but he does not tell us whether he was punished or rebuked by the Senate for this outrage at the time of its commission. He seems, indeed, to have been afterwards at peace with the church, for we find him amba.s.sador at Rome, and invested with the fief of Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, and with the t.i.tle of count, by Lorenzo, Count-bishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities are Sanuto, Vettor Sandi,[363] Andrea Navagero,[364] and the account of the siege of Zara, first published by the indefatigable Abate Morelli, in his _Monumenti Veneziani di varia Letteratura_, printed in 1796,[365] all of which I have looked over in the original language. The moderns, Daru, Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attributes the conspiracy to his _jealousy_; but I find this nowhere a.s.serted by the national historians. Vettor Sandi, indeed, says that "Altri scrissero che....dalla gelosa suspizion di esso Doge siasi fatto (Michel Steno) staccar con violenza," etc., etc.; but this appears to have been by no means the general opinion, nor is it alluded to by Sanuto, or by Navagero; and Sandi himself adds, a moment after, that "per altre Veneziane memorie traspiri, che non il _solo_ desiderio di vendetta lo dispose alla congiura ma anche la innata abituale ambizion sua, per cui aneleva a farsi principe independente."

The first motive appears to have been excited by the gross affront of the words written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on the offender, who was one of their "tre Capi."[366] The attentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed towards one of her damsels, and not to the "Dogaressa"[367] herself, against whose fame not the slightest insinuation appears, while she is praised for her beauty, and remarked for her youth. Neither do I find it a.s.serted (unless the hint of Sandi be an a.s.sertion) that the Doge was actuated by jealousy of his wife; but rather by respect for her, and for his own honour, warranted by his past services and present dignity.

I know not that the historical facts are alluded to in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his View of Italy[368]. His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests about old men and young wives, and wondering at so great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute and severe an observer of mankind as the author of Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He knew that a basin of water spilt on Mrs.

Masham's gown deprived the Duke of Marlborough of his command, and led to the inglorious peace of Utrecht--that Louis XIV. was plunged into the most desolating wars, because his minister was nettled at his finding fault with a window, and wished to give him another occupation--that Helen lost Troy--that Lucretia expelled the Tarquins from Rome--and that Cava brought the Moors to Spain--that an insulted husband led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome--that a single verse of Frederick II.[369] of Prussia on the Abbe de Bernis, and a jest on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of Rosbach--that the elopement of Dearbhorgil[370] with Mac Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbons--and, not to multiply instances of the _teterrima causa,_ that Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims not to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance--and that an order to make Cromwell disembark from the ship in which he would have sailed to America destroyed both King and Commonwealth. After these instances, on the least reflection it is indeed extraordinary in Dr. Moore to seem surprised that a man used to command, who had served and swayed in the most important offices, should fiercely resent, in a fierce age, an unpunished affront, the grossest that can be offered to a man, be he prince or peasant. The age of Faliero is little to the purpose, unless to favour it--

"The young man's wrath is like [light] straw on fire, _But like red hot steel is the old man's ire._"

[Davie Gellatley's song in _Waverley_, chap. xiv.]

"Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, Old age is slow at both."

Laugier's reflections are more philosophical:--"Tale fu il fine ignominioso di un' uomo, che la sua nascita, la sua eta, il suo carattere dovevano tener lontano dalle pa.s.sioni produttrici di grandi delitti. I suoi _talenti_ per lungo tempo esercitati ne' maggiori impieghi, la sua capacita sperimentata ne' governi e nelle ambasciate, gli avevano acquistato la stima e la fiducia de' cittadini, ed avevano uniti i suffragj per collocarlo alla testa della repubblica. Innalzato ad un grado che terminava gloriosamente la sua vita, il risentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinu nel suo cuore tal veleno che bast a corrompere le antiche sue qualita, e a condurlo al termine dei scellerati; serio esempio, che prova _non esservi eta, in cui la prudenza umana sia sicura, e che nell' uomo restano sempre pa.s.sioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra se stesso_."[371]

Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero begged his life? I have searched the chroniclers, and find nothing of the kind: it is true that he avowed all. He was conducted to the place of torture, but there is no mention made of any application for mercy on his part; and the very circ.u.mstance of their having taken him to the rack seems to argue any thing but his having shown a want of firmness, which would doubtless have been also mentioned by those minute historians, who by no means favour him: such, indeed, would be contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and _at_ which he died, as it is to the truth of history. I know no justification, at any distance of time, for calumniating an historical character: surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortunate: and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them that which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death renders, of all others, the most improbable. The black veil which is painted over the place of Marino Faliero amongst the Doges, and the Giants' Staircase[372], where he was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, struck forcibly upon my imagination; as did his fiery character and strange story. I went, in 1819, in search of his tomb more than once to the church San Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I was standing before the monument of another family, a priest came up to me and said, "I can show you finer monuments than that." I told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. "Oh," said he, "I will show it you;" and, conducting me to the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall with an illegible inscription[373]. He said that it had been in a convent adjoining, but was removed after the French came, and placed in its present situation; that he had seen the tomb opened at its removal; there were still some bones remaining, but no positive vestige of the decapitation. The equestrian statue[374] of which I have made mention in the third act as before that church is not, however, of a Faliero, but of some other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date. There were two other Doges of this family prior to Marino; Ordelafo, who fell in battle at Zara, in 1117 (where his descendant afterwards conquered the Huns), and Vital Faliero, who reigned in 1082. The family, originally from Fano, was of the most ill.u.s.trious in blood and wealth in the city of once the most wealthy and still the most ancient families in Europe. The length I have gone into on this subject will show the interest I have taken in it.

Whether I have succeeded or not in the tragedy, I have at least transferred into our language an historical fact worthy of commemoration.

It is now four years that I have meditated this work; and before I had sufficiently examined the records, I was rather disposed to have made it turn on a jealousy in Faliero. But, perceiving no foundation for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy is an exhausted pa.s.sion in the drama, I have given it a more historical form. I was, besides, well advised by the late Matthew Lewis[375] on that point, in talking with him of my intention at Venice in 1817. "If you make him jealous," said he, "recollect that you have to contend with established writers, to say nothing of Shakespeare, and an exhausted subject:--stick to the old fiery Doge's natural character, which will bear you out, if properly drawn; and make your plot as regular as you can." Sir William Drummond[376] gave me nearly the same counsel. How far I have followed these instructions, or whether they have availed me, is not for me to decide. I have had no view to the stage; in its present state it is, perhaps, not a very exalted object of ambition; besides, I have been too much behind the scenes to have thought it so at any time.[ct] And I cannot conceive any man of irritable feeling[cu] putting himself at the mercies of an audience. The sneering reader, and the loud critic, and the tart review, are scattered and distant calamities; but the trampling of an intelligent or of an ignorant audience on a production which, be it good or bad, has been a mental labour to the writer, is a palpable and immediate grievance, heightened by a man's doubt of their competency to judge, and his certainty of his own imprudence in electing them his judges. Were I capable of writing a play which could be deemed stage-worthy, success would give me no pleasure, and failure great pain.

It is for this reason that, even during the time of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, I never made the attempt, and never will[377]. But I wish that others would, for surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The _City of the Plague_[1816] and the _Fall of Jerusalem_ [1820]

are full of the best "_materiel_" for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except pa.s.sages of _Ethwald_[1802] and _De Montfort_[1798]. It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole; firstly, because he was a n.o.bleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters, and of the _Castle of Otranto_[1765], he is the "Ultimus Romanorum," the author of the _Mysterious Mother_[1768], a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may.[378]

In speaking of the drama of _Marino Faliero_, I forgot to mention that the desire of preserving, though still too remote, a nearer approach to unity than the irregularity, which is the reproach of the English theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to represent the conspiracy as already formed, and the Doge acceding to it; whereas, in fact, it was of his own preparation and that of Israel Bertuccio. The other characters (except that of the d.u.c.h.ess), incidents, and almost the time, which was wonderfully short for such a design in real life, are strictly historical, except that all the consultations took place in the palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have been better preserved; but I wished to produce the Doge in the full a.s.sembly of the conspirators, instead of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to the Appendix.[379]

DRAMATIS PERSONae.

MEN.

Marino Faliero, _Doge of Venice_.

Bertuccio Faliero, _Nephew of the Doge_.

Lioni, _a Patrician and Senator_.

Benintende, _Chief of the Council of Ten_.

Michel Steno, _One of the three Capi of the Forty_.

Israel Bertuccio, _Chief of the a.r.s.enal_, } Philip Calendaro, } _Conspirators_.

Dagolino, } Bertram, }

_Signor of the Night_, "_Signore di Notte," one of the Officers belonging to the Republic_.

_First Citizen_.

_Second Citizen_.

_Third Citizen_.

Vincenzo, } Pietro, } _Officers belonging to the Ducal Palace_.

Battista, }

_Secretary of the Council of Ten_.

_Guards_, _Conspirators_, _Citizens_, _The Council of Ten_, _the Giunta_, etc., etc.

WOMEN.

Angiolina, _Wife to the Doge_.

Marianna, _her Friend_.

_Female Attendants, etc_.

Scene Venice--in the year 1355.

MARINO FALIERO, DOGE OF VENICE.

(AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.)

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_An Antechamber in the Ducal Palace_.

PIETRO _speaks, in entering, to_ BATTISTA.

_Pie_. Is not the messenger returned?[cv]

_Bat_. Not yet; I have sent frequently, as you commanded, But still the Signory[380] is deep in council, And long debate on Steno's accusation.

_Pie_. Too long--at least so thinks the Doge.

_Bat_. How bears he These moments of suspense?