Venice and its Story Part 1

Venice and its Story.

by Thomas Okey.

PREFACE

The History of Venice is the history of a State unparalleled in Europe for permanence and stability. For centuries Venice occupied that position of maritime supremacy now held by Great Britain, and time was when an English king was fain to crave the loan of a few warships to vindicate his rights in France. The autonomy of the Venetian Republic so imposed on men's minds that it was regarded as in the very nature of things, and even so acute an observer as Voltaire wrote in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, less than three decades before her fall: "Venice has preserved her independence during eleven centuries, and I flatter myself will preserve it for ever."

In the course of our story we have freely drawn from the old chronicles, while not neglecting modern historians, chiefest of whom is the Triestine Hebrew scholar, Samuele Romanin. Indeed, all that has been written on Venetian history during the past forty years does but increase our admiration for the imperturbable industry and sagacious judgment of the author of the _Storia Doc.u.mentata di Venezia_, to whom our heaviest debt is due.

The history, criticism and appreciation of Venetian architecture and Venetian painting are indissolubly a.s.sociated with the genius of Ruskin, and notwithstanding some waywardness of judgment and spoilt-child philosophy, his writings are, and ever will be, the cla.s.sic works on the subject. Among more recent authorities we are indebted to the publications of Berenson, Bode, Burckhardt, Ludwig, Morelli, and Saccardo.

For purposes of description we have divided the city and outlying islands of the Venetian lagoon into twenty sections, arranged rather with regard to their relative historical and artistic importance than to strict topographical considerations, although these have not been lost sight of. In our quality of _cicerone_ we have drawn from an acquaintance of the city at various times extending over a period of twenty years: more detailed and practical information may be sought in the admirable guide-books of Baedeker, Grant Allen, Gsellfels and Murray.

A pleasant duty is that of expressing our grat.i.tude for personal help and counsel to, among others, Mr Horatio F. Brown, Signor Cantalamessa the courteous Director of the Accademia, Mr Bolton King, Signor Alfredo Melani, and Mr Rene Spiers.

In order not to burden our pages with many notes we have limited references to such pa.s.sages as seemed specially to call for them, exigencies of s.p.a.ce having straitened a wide subject within close bounds. If, however, the perusal of this slight and imperfect sketch may lead intending travellers to turn to richer springs--and in that hope we have appended a list of the main sources[1] from which we have drawn--our pleasant labours will be amply rewarded. It is with travel as with other modes of observation. The eye will see what the mind takes with it, for as the Spanish proverb quoted by Dr Johnson runs: "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him."

PART I.--THE STORY

CHAPTER I

_The Foundation at Rialto_

"Venice seems a type Of life--'twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe, As life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought."

--_Browning._

Of the original home of the earliest settlers in that province of North Italy known to the Latins as Venetia, little can be told with certainty.

Historians and antiquarians are pleased to bring them, under the name of Heneti or Eneti, from Paphlagonia, and explain some characteristic traits they subsequently developed--the love of colour and of display, the softness of their dialect--by their eastern origin. They were an independent, thriving and organised community when the Roman Empire first accepted their aid in the fierce struggle against the invading Gauls, and so they continued to be until they were absorbed as a province of the Empire. The land they cultivated, "mervailous in corne, wine, oyle, and all manner of fruites," was one of the richest in Europe. Its soil was formed by ages of alluvial deposit brought by the rapid streams that drain the southern slopes of the Alps.

The traveller who enters Italy by any of the Alpine pa.s.ses will not fail to note the contrast between the northern streams and the more torrential water-ways of the south, which, however, being soon checked by the deposit they bring, grow slack and fray out into many and varying channels, through which the waters find their way with small, at times almost imperceptible, flow into the sea. So lazily do the rivers discharge that the north-east sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic are formed of sandbanks, shoals and islets, which for nigh a hundred miles from Cavarzere to Grado const.i.tuted the _dogado_ of Venice. The famous Venetian lagoon is confined to some thirty miles north of Chioggia, and is divided into the _Laguna morta_, where the tide is scarcely felt, and the _Laguna viva_, where the sea is studded with numerous islands and islets protected by the _lidi_, a long line of remarkable breakwaters formed by the prevailing set of the current to the west, with narrow openings or _Porti_ through which the shallow tide ebbs and flows. This natural barrier has made the existence of Venice possible, for the islands on which the city is built afforded a refuge safe alike from attack by sea or land. The colonisation, development and defence of these lagoons and islands by settlers from the mainland make up the early history of Venice. Some misapprehension exists as to the nature of these settlements. The picture of terror-stricken and despoiled fugitives from the cities of Venetia escaping from hordes of pursuing Huns or Lombards to seek a refuge in the barren and uncertain soil of mud-banks and storm-swept islands is true in part only. In many cases the movement was a deliberately organised migration of urban communities, with their officers, their craftsmen, their tools, their sacred vessels, even the very stones of their churches, to towns and villages already known to them. Among the settlers were men of all cla.s.ses--patrician and plebeian, rich and poor. "But they would receive no man of servile condition, or a murderer, or of wicked life."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE LAGOONS]

Some islands were already inhabited by a hardy race of pilots and fishermen: others by prosperous Roman patricians, with their villas, farms, gardens and orchards. Grado was a busy commercial settlement with rich vineyards and meadows, and joined to the mainland by a causeway that led to Aquileia. Heraclea was rather a mainland than a lagoon city; Torcello is said to have been a fashionable Roman watering-place, and Roman remains have been found at S. Giorgio Maggiore. Much of the ground was covered with pine forests, the haunts of game and other wild creatures. For a long time the islands were not regarded by the settlers as abiding places. Again and again many of them returned to their old homes on the mainland when the invaders' force was spent. It was only in 568 that the Lombards, more cruel, or perhaps more systematic in their oppression than Marcoman or Hun, finally determined the Venetians to make the lagoons their permanent home.

Who of us northmen that has reached the descending slope of an Alpine pa.s.s, it may be through mist and sleet and snow, to gaze upon the rich and luscious plains of Lombardy or Venetia smiling with vine and fruit and corn; who that has felt the warm breath of sun-steeped Italy caressing his face as he emerges from northern gloom, but will feel a twinge of envy which is akin to covetousness, and which in strong and masterful races quickly develops into l.u.s.t of conquest?

In the fifth century of our era the Roman Empire decaying, like most giants, at the extremities, lay defenceless before the inroads of those forceful, elemental peoples who from north and east swept down the pa.s.ses to ravage the garden of Italy and to enslave her inhabitants. In 452 Venetia became the prey of G.o.d's scourge--Attila. Aquileia, now a poor village just within the Austrian frontier, but then a Roman city of the first rank, was plundered. Altinum, a city famous for its strength and wealth, resisted for a time but soon its inhabitants and those of Padua, Asolo, Belluno and other mainland cities forsook their homes and migrated to the lagoons.

The earliest settlements were twelve: Grado, Bibbione, Caorle, Jesolo (now Cavallino), Eraclea, Torcello, Burano, Rivoalto (now Venice), Malamocco, Poveglia, Cluges Minor (actual site now unknown, but not Sotto Marina, as sometimes stated), Cluges Major (now Chioggia). Of these, Grado was occupied by the Aquileians; Rivoalto and Malamocco by the Paduans; Eraclea by the Bellonsese; Torcello and Burano by the Altinese. To the pious imagination of chroniclers these migrations were not without divine admonition. In 568 the terrible Lombards were threatening Altinum, whose inhabitants entreated the help of heaven with tears and prayers and fastings; and, lo! they saw the doves and many other birds bearing their young in their beaks flying from their nests in the walls of the city. This was interpreted as a sign from G.o.d that they also were to expatriate themselves and seek safety in flight. They divided into three bodies, one of which turned to Istria, another to Ravenna. The third remained behind, uncertain whither to direct their steps. Three days they fasted, and at length a voice was heard saying: "_Salite alla torre e guardate agli astri._" (Ascend the tower and look at the stars.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. FOSCA AND THE DUOMO, TORCELLO]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PONTE S. GIUSTINA]

Their good Bishop Paul climbed the tower, and to his gaze the very stars of the firmament seemed to set themselves in a constellation that figured forth the fateful group of islands in the lagoon before him. His flock, following this warning from heaven, went forth, headed by their bishop and clergy bearing the sacred vessels and relics, and pa.s.sed to an island high and fertile, which they called Torcello, from one of the twelve towers of their old city. The very hierarchy of heaven, from Our Lord and His Blessed Mother to St Peter and the Baptist, even to Giustina, the martyred little maid of Padua, appeared to Mauro, the priest, in a vision, as he paced the sea sh.o.r.e, and in sweet voices bade him build here a church and there a church in their honour. The immigrants therefore had come to make the lagoons their permanent home.

Their new city was organised. In process of time churches were built; trade guilds were formed; painters and mosaicists enriched the buildings. The marble seat on the gra.s.s-grown piazza of Torcello, to this day called Attila's chair, was probably the official seat of the tribune when he administered justice to the people.

It will be seen that no definite date can be a.s.signed to the foundation of Venice, though Sanudo is very sure it was in "the year ccccxxi., on the xxv. of March, which was a Friday, that day on which our father Adam was created, when about the hour of nones the first stone of St Giacomo di Rivoalto was laid by the Paduans." The great diarist gives a charming picture of the earliest Venetians trading in fish and salt with their little barks to the neighbouring sh.o.r.es: "They were a lowly people, who esteemed mercy and innocency, and, above all, religion rather than riches. They affected not to clothe them with ornaments, nor to seek honours, but when need was they answered to the call."

There is little doubt that originally the settlers were subject to the Consuls at Padua, but in 466 they were strong enough to meet at Grado and to elect their own tribunes, one for each of the twelve communities.

A pa.s.sage in a famous letter of Ca.s.siodorus to these _Tribuni Maritimi_ in 523 affords the first glimpse in history of the lagoon folk. The secretary of Theodoric the Great writes urging them not to fail to transport the tribute of oil, honey and wine from Istria to Ravenna, and expatiates on their great security and the wonderful habitations that he has seen, like sea-birds' nests, half on land, half on sea, or like the cyclades spread over the broad bosom of the waters. Their land is made not by nature but by man, for the soil is strengthened by flexible withy bands, and they oppose frail d.y.k.es to the waves of the sea. Their boats are tied to posts before their doors like horses are on the mainland. Rich and poor live in equality. They flee from the vice of envy, to which the whole world is enslaved. Instead of plough and scythe they handle cylinders. In their salt they produce a merchandise more desired than gold, so all the fruits of the earth are at their command.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CUSTOMS HOUSE.]

About 530, when Na.r.s.es the Eunuch began the great campaign which wrested the Italian dominions of the Emperors from the Goths, the Venetians gave him effective aid by transporting an army of Lombard mercenaries from Aquileia to Ravenna. As a reward Na.r.s.es sent some Byzantine masters, who from the spoils of the enemy built the Church of St Theodore at Rivoalto on a plot of ground known as the _Broglio_ or garden where now stands the Basilica of St Mark.

Scarcely, however, were the Goths defeated, when in 568 Alboin and his Lombards menaced the land. Longinus, who succeeded Na.r.s.es in the exarchate of Ravenna, came to Venice and asked her aid as subject to the Emperor. He was given an honourable and festive welcome, but the Venetians had bought their freedom at a great price and stoutly refused to admit his claim. They declared that the second Venice which they had made in the waters was a mighty habitation and their very own by right of creation; that they feared no power of Prince or Emperor, for it could not reach them. They, however, furnished a ship and sent an emba.s.sy with Longinus to Constantinople, and in return for valuable trading rights, agreed to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Emperor if no formal oath were exacted.

In 584 the lagoon folk had so expanded that an additional tribune was chosen for each community. Of these _Tribuni majores_ was formed a federal council, the original tribunes now serving as heads of local administrations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _a._ EARLY DUCAL CAP FROM AN OLD MOSAIC IN ST MARK

_b._ DUCAL CAP OF DOGE MORO, 1462-1471, FROM THE PORTRAIT IN S. GIOBBE]

The golden age so lovingly dwelt upon by the early chroniclers was of short duration. Already, before the inst.i.tution of the new tribunes, family and local feuds, the ambition of the tribunes and jealousy of the people, led to b.l.o.o.d.y affrays in the _Pinete_ (pine forests) with which the _lidi_ were clothed. Anarchy threatened the state; bands of Lombards under the Duke of Friuli plundered the churches of Heraclea and Grado.

The crisis was met by the public spirit and wisdom of the Church. A general meeting (_Arengo_) was called by the Patriarch of Grado at Heraclea. Two vital problems came to the front--the organisation of self-defence and the maintenance of public order. The whole a.s.sembly having invoked the name of Christ, the great churchman stood forth, and after reviewing the political situation, proposed that all the tribunes should be relegated to purely local offices, and a _Capo_ or chief elected for life. His new polity was approved and in 697 Pauluccio Anafesto was chosen first Doge and invested with sovereign powers. Thus was const.i.tuted the Dogeship of Venice which, save for a short interruption of six years, endured for eleven centuries. The Doge could nominate, degrade or dismiss all public officers, convoke or dissolve the _Arengo_ and the synod. The appointment of Patriarchs and Bishops was subject to his veto. The military authority, entrusted to a Master of the soldiers, was subordinate to him; foreign affairs were in his hands, though the approval of the people was required to declare war or conclude peace. He could impose taxes; his feudal dues and rights of _corvee_ were extensive. His state was regal. When he went abroad, girt with a sword and surrounded by his guards, a state umbrella was held over him, lighted tapers were borne by his side, trumpets blared and banners waved. He sat enthroned in an ivory chair, holding a sceptre, and arrayed in a silk mantle with a fringe of gold fastened by a gold clasp over a tightly fitting tunic trimmed with ermine; he wore red hose and a high biretta richly jewelled, which was subsequently shortened by constricting the middle so as to form two lobes, one of which soon disappeared, and the familiar horned cap of the later Doges was evolved.

A close cap of fine linen was worn beneath, so that when the biretta was raised his head should be covered as a mark of dignity. The Doge was no _faineant_. He rose before the dawn, and having heard ma.s.s went forth to judge the people and transact the business of the day. On solemn occasions he gave his benediction. The blessing of G.o.d was invoked upon him in the litany. The election, more or less democratic until the abolition of the _Arengo_ in 1423, was made by the whole people, who were summoned from Grado to Cavarzere. Their chosen one was acclaimed and carried shoulder high to the church, which he entered barefoot, and there swore to govern according to the laws and to work for the good of the people. The result of the election was communicated to the Pope and the Emperor; to the latter usually by the Doge's son in person.

Anafesto had a difficult task. The young state lay between two mighty powers: Lombards or Franks and Pope in the west, the Byzantine Emperor in the east. Only by vigilance and prudence could she escape subjection.

And these rival interests were active within her borders--aristocratic Heraclea leaning towards the Eastern Empire; democratic Malamocco and Jesolo towards the Western kingdoms and the Pope. One of the first acts of the new Doge, after securing internal peace, was to conclude a treaty with Luitprand, King of the Lombards, by which the boundaries of the Republic were defined, and in return for an annual payment, valuable rights of wood-cutting and horse-breeding and trading were conceded. But political jealousy dies hard. Two powerful families revolted in 717, and the Doge perished in a civil broil in the Pineta of Jesolo.

During the reign of the third Doge, Orso of Heraclea, the Venetians were called to meet a new danger. The rise of the Iconoclasts in the early eighth century, and the zeal of their protagonist, the Emperor Leo III., had set east and west aflame. Leo's attempt to enforce the decree against the use of images in the western Church was met by an invitation to the Lombards from the Pope to attack the seat of the eastern power in Italy. War was the very breath of their nostrils, and they were not slow to respond. Ravenna was besieged and captured and the Pentapolis occupied.[2] The Exarch Paul fled to the lagoons and appealed to Orso for help. The fugitive enlarged on the danger to Venice of the advancing Lombards, now at their very door. The Doge agreed to furnish a fleet, and by successful strategy Ravenna was surprised and recaptured and the Exarchate restored. The gratified Emperor rewarded the Venetians by conferring the t.i.tle of Hypatos (knight) on their Doge, who adopted it as a family name.

This imperial policy was, however, bitterly resented by the popular party. A civil war ensued which lasted two years, and ended in the defeat of the Heracleans, the murder of the Doge, and the banishment of his son. Another experiment in statecraft was now made. The Dogeship was abolished, and the Master of the soldiers appointed head of the State for a term of one year. This new departure proved disastrous. After six years of civil discord, the last of the Masters, a Heraclean, was captured and blinded by the opposite party. An _Arengo_ was called, this time at Malamocco, and a compromise effected. Deodato, son of Orso, a Heraclean, was made Doge at Malamocco, whither the capital was now transferred. But Heraclea and Jesolo were rivals, fierce as ever, for the ducal chair. The internecine strife went on with its savage incidents. a.s.sa.s.sination, blinding,[3] or banishment were the price of defeat. At length, by the election of Maurizio Galbaio in 764, "n.o.ble by race, n.o.bler in deeds," the distracted state was ruled with wisdom and firmness, and faction for a time was silenced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BASIN OF S. MARCO.]

The epoch-making victory of Charles of the Hammer over the Arabs at Tours had drawn the eyes of all men to France, and to a mighty race of princes destined to change the face of Europe. The restless Lombards in 752 had reoccupied Ravenna and the Pentapolis, and the Pope turned to the new Carlovingian dynasty for help against them. Pepin answered to the call, wrested the cities from their hands, and gave them to the Pope, who thus became a temporal sovereign. Twenty years later the papacy was again constrained to summon help. Charlemagne, Pepin's son, crossed the Alps by the Great St Bernard pa.s.s, fell like a thunderbolt of war on the Lombards, and in 774 their dominion was finally crushed by the capture of Desiderio, their King, and Pavia, their royal city.

Romanin argues from the silence of the chroniclers that the Venetians took no active part in the siege of Pavia, but from an old inscription in Venetian, on a thin plate of hammered lead,[4] preserved in the British Museum, we learn that on the invitation of Charlemagne, the Venetians sent a fleet of twenty-four galleys, with four n.o.bles who knew the art of war (_saveva far la guara_) up the Po to the siege, and had the honour of guarding the captive King. Venice had indeed watched every phase of the struggle, seizing, as was her wont, any opportunity that offered for extending the trading privileges so vital to her existence.

By secret information to the Church from her merchants at Constantinople, she had nipped a plot to recover the Exarchate, now for ever lost to the Greek Emperors. But in 781 Pepin, son of Charlemagne, had been crowned King of Italy by the Pope; the power of the Franks was growing apace, and their alliance with a territorial Pope alarmed the Heraclean party. They believed a wiser policy was to form an alliance with the weaker Empire far in the east against the Franks. In 778 Doge Maurizio Galbaio was permitted, on the plea of infirmity, to a.s.sociate his son Giovanni with him, and on the death of Maurizio, the son stepped into his father's office, thus effecting a subtle change in the nature of the Dogeship, by no means pleasing to the democratic party. The Franks were not long in making their power felt. Venetian merchants had acquired some territory near Ravenna, and many trading centres in the neighbouring cities. They were incorrigible slave traders. Pope Zacharias, a generation before, had been moved to compa.s.sion on seeing in Rome groups of Christian slaves,[5] men and women, belonging to Venetian merchants, destined to be sold to the pagans in Africa. He paid their price and set them at liberty. Charlemagne had recently published an edict against the traffic in slaves, and now called on Pope Hadrian to take action. The Venetians were expelled from Ravenna and the Pentapolis. In 797 the new see of Olivolo which had been created a few years before to meet the growing needs of the population, became vacant, and the new Doge preferred Christophorus Damiatus, a young Greek to the bishopric. The Patriarch of Grado, around whom the Frankish party centred, refused to consecrate one whom he regarded as a nominee of the Byzantine Emperor, and excommunicated Bishop and Doge. The Doge's answer was swift and terrible. He despatched his son Maurizio with a fleet to Grado; the city was attacked; the Patriarch captured, thrown from the tower of his palace, and dashed to pieces. To allay popular indignation, Fortunatus, a nephew of the murdered Patriarch was appointed in his stead. The new prelate soon showed of what stuff he was made. With infinite resource and indomitable purpose he set himself to avenge the insult to the Church, and, but for the premature discovery of the plot, would have wrought the destruction of the Doge and his party. Fortunatus fled to the court of Charlemagne, who was now created Holy Roman Emperor, and harbouring no tender feelings towards the rebellious children of the lagoons. Obelerio, tribune of Malamocco, and the other heads of the conspiracy found safety at Treviso, whence they stirred their partizans to action with decisive effect. The Doge and his son were exiled to Mantua; Obelerio was proclaimed Doge in 804; the triumph of the Frankish party was complete. The Heracleans, however, soon rallied. In their civil fury they fell upon Jesolo, and almost wiped it out. The Doge immediately led a punitive expedition to Heraclea, and wreaked a similar vengeance on that hot-bed of Byzantine faction. The situation was now felt to be unbearable. By general consent a meeting of the whole _dogado_ was called, and it was decided that in order to make peace, the remaining populations of Heraclea and of Jesolo should be transported to Malamocco.

Fortunatus meanwhile was watching events at Istria. Under the sun of Charlemagne's favours he had waxed rich and powerful. He possessed four ships, and traded under royal patronage wherever the new western Emperor's power reached. By skilful diplomacy he effected his recall to Grado, and placed a Frankish partizan in the see of Olivolo. But the Heracleans had lost their home, not their ideals and policy. They appealed to the Byzantine Emperor, and a Greek fleet sailed up the Adriatic. Fortunatus once again was a fugitive. The Doge and his party protested a loyalty to their suzerain, which in 809 was translated into acts by the despatch of a fleet to aid him to recover the exarchate for the Greeks. It was unsuccessful, but none the less irritating to the Pope and Emperor, who now determined to subdue the Venetians and incorporate them into the Holy Roman Empire of the West. The immediate cause of the rupture is not known, but when the princes of the earth are bent on war a pretext is seldom hard to find. A great empire, aiming at universal dominion, is ill at ease with a st.u.r.dy freedom-loving state on its borders, and the far-reaching arm of the invincible Carlovingians was stretched forth to grasp, as they thought, an easy prey.

In the stress of a common danger, faction was silenced. Obelerio and his brother Beato, whom he had a.s.sociated with him a year after he was proclaimed Doge, advised that the Venetians should agree with their adversary before it was too late, but a wave of popular indignation swept them from power, and Angelo Partic.i.p.azio, a Heraclean by birth, and one of the tribunes of Rivoalto, was made head of a provisional government of national defence. The churches were filled with earnest, determined men, entreating with fasting and prayer the divine aid in their hour of need; a call was made on every citizen at home and abroad to hasten to the defence of the fatherland. Provisions were acc.u.mulated, ships built, fortifications raised, channels blocked by chains and sunken hulks, guide posts drawn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLOISTERS OF S. GREGORIO]