Venice and its Story Part 8

In November 1499, despatches from Constantinople warned the Signory that the Sultan was preparing to attack. Strenuous efforts were made to raise money. Antonio Grimani was sent with a large fleet to the East, and came upon the enemy off Sapienza, a name of ill-omen in Venetian naval history. The Turks had made amazing progress in naval construction; one of their ships is said to have been manned by one thousand Janissaries and sailors. The first encounter, after four hours' fighting, ended on August 12, 1499, in a Turkish success. On August 20, a small French fleet joined the Venetians, and on the 25th the final engagement was fought. The Venetians suffered a disastrous defeat. Malipiero, who was present as civil commissioner, roundly accused Grimani of want of patriotism and faint-heartedness, and declared if he had done his duty, the whole Turkish fleet would have fallen into their hands surely as G.o.d was G.o.d, and that, owing to want of discipline among the Venetian sailors, the French had retired disgusted from the operations. "We have lost eight hundred men, and the reputation of Venice." Grimani was sent home in irons. As he landed, his son, Cardinal Domenico, fought his way through the crowd, and lifted his father's chains to lighten his burden as he was led to prison. At the trial Grimani defended himself eloquently, and was banished to Dalmatia. The operations on land were not less humiliating. Such was the paralysing terror inspired by the Turk, that the native militia in Friuli refused to take the field, and the commander of the Stradiote mercenaries struck not a blow. Venice sued for peace. She weakly tried to inculpate Sforza for the outbreak of hostilities, but was told that the Duke of Milan had no power to move the Sultan; the depredations of her own subjects were the cause of her chastis.e.m.e.nt. On trying to soften the hard conditions exacted, her envoy was advised to bid the Signory hasten to accept the Sultan's terms: "Tell your Doge," said the Pacha, "that up to the present he has wedded the sea; it will be our turn in future, for we own more of the sea than he does." The Signory rejected the terms offered by the Porte.

Allies were sought, and a league was made with the King of Hungary and the Pope. The King of Portugal promised help; Spain sent a fleet; France a small contingent of men. Some small successes failed to compensate for the loss of Lepanto, Modone, Corone and Navarino. Practically Venice was left, as usual, to fight single-handed, and ultimately peace was made with the Sultan, at the price of further territory in the Morea. Before the treaty was concluded, Agostino Barbarigo, who had succeeded his brother Marco in 1486, died. In October 1501, Leonardo Loredano, whose shrewd, clear-cut and ascetic features in Giovanni Bellini's portrait, are so familiar to visitors to the National Gallery of London, was preferred to the Dogeship. Owing to poor health, says Sanudo, he lived abstemiously. He was kindly, though of uneven temper, wise in counsel, very skilful in the conduct of public business, and his opinion generally prevailed with the Council.

In August 1503 the death of Pope Alexander VI. had foiled the plans of his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, Cesare Borgia, to recover Romagna for the Papacy.

Venice had been closely watching events, and on the advent of the feeble Pius III., determined to slice up the Papal States. Instructions were sent to the _podesta_ of Ravenna, informing him of certain negotiations between the Signory and some cities of Romagna. He was to confer with the military commanders, in order to bring the negotiations quickly to a successful issue; but he was to act cautiously and secretly. The chief cities, by promise of remission of taxation, placed themselves under Venetian protection. The Duke of Urbino followed their lead, and was promised an annual subsidy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CURIOSITY SHOP NEAR PIAZZA.]

During the short twenty-six days of Pius III.'s reign, and the interval between his death and the election of a successor, Venice had occupied Bertinoro, Fano and Montefiore, and was hastening to seize Rimini and Imola. Julius II., at first favourably inclined to Venice, was in a few weeks made her enemy by the occupation of Rimini and the capture of Faenza. To Julius' angry protests and his threat of winning back Romagna, cost what it might, Venice urged her devotion to holy Church and the benevolence of her motives in trying to free Italy of the tyranny of Cesare Borgia. "_Signor Oratore_," cried the Pope, "your words are good, but your Signory's deeds are evil. We have neither men nor money to make war, but we will complain to the Christian princes, and invoke divine aid."[52] To Julius' demand for rest.i.tution, the Signory answered, "We will never restore the territory, even though we have to sell the very foundations of our houses."

"I tell you," wrote De Comines, after his return from Venice in 1495, "that I have found Venetian statesmen so wise and so bent upon increasing their Signory that if it be not soon provided against, all their neighbours will curse the hour." The provisions made by the most Christian princes were characteristic. "By an unprincipled treaty of spoliation," says Rawdon Brown, "the Great Powers of the Continent bound themselves together to fall upon Venice by surprise in a time of profound peace, and, in despite of the most solemn obligations, to despoil her of her territories." After much treatying and protocolling there met on a November day in 1508 in a secret chamber at Cambrai, the Cardinal d'Amboise acting for the King of France, and Margaret of Austria for the Holy Roman Emperor. The papal nuncio and the King of Spain's envoy were near, but their views were known, and for greater safety they were not allowed to enter. After many difficulties, says Romanin, and such altercations that they wellnigh tore out each other's hair (_s'acciuffa.s.sero pei capegli_) the plenipotentiaries decided "that it was not only useful and honourable but necessary to call upon all the Powers of Europe to take a just vengeance, and quench, as they would a general conflagration, the insatiable greed of the Venetians and their thirst of dominion." The modest reward which the Powers proposed to themselves for "making an end of the rapine and injury wrought by the Venetians and their tyrannical usurpation of the possessions of others,"

was as follows. His Holiness the Pope was to have Ravenna, Cervia, Faenza, Rimini and all the territory held by the Venetians in Romagna; the Emperor, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Roveredo, the Trevisano, the Friuli and Istria; the King of France, Brescia, Bergamo, Crema, Cremona, the Ghiaradadda and all the dependencies of the Duke of Milan; the King of Spain and of Naples, Trani, Brindisi, Otranto, Gallipoli and other cities held in pledge by Venice for an unpaid loan to his cousin whom he had deprived of the kingdom of Naples. The King of Hungary, if he joined, was to have Dalmatia; the Duke of Savoy, Cyprus. Some offal was reserved for the jackals of the minor states, if they ran at the heels of the royal beasts of prey. Florence later on informed the Sultan of Turkey and invited him to seize the oriental possessions of Venice when she was down. The Pope was to reinforce the temporal weapons of the confederates by the use of the spiritual arm.

But the Lion of St Mark, though his claws were a little blunted and his joints stiffened, had not lost his cunning. Moreover, he was forewarned.

A dramatic story of the premature disclosure of the plot is told in the Venetian State papers. Spinola, an emissary of Gonsalvo of Cordova, came secretly to Cornaro, the Venetian amba.s.sador, at Valladolid, in February 1509, and asked him to meet the great captain at ma.s.s in an unfrequented church at the far end of the town. He went and the secret was revealed to him. He refused to believe it, but later Spinola showed him a copy of a letter from Gonsalvo's wife at Genoa in which the details of the proposed part.i.tion were given, and offered his master's services to the Signory. Cornaro informed the Ten. They, too, hesitated to believe in any cause for attack, advised caution, and asked for further proof.

Secret information from England soon brought confirmation and the Ten sat day and night to prepare for the coming storm. The weakness of the league lay in the fact that each spoiler was to seize his own share of the prey. Self-interest was its motive power. Self-interest would lead individual members to abandon the hunt if their portion were thrown to them. This the Ten quickly saw and acted upon with consummate art and patience while pushing on with all speed defensive military operations.

The aged and infirm Doge Loredano, so overwrought by emotion that it was piteous to see, addressed the Great Council begging them to turn to righteousness and offer their lives and substance in defence of the fatherland. Himself would give an example by sending his silver plate to the mint. On April 27, 1509, Julius flung a bull of excommunication couched in almost savage terms against the Republic. The Ten forbade its publication and sent officers to take down any copies posted on churches or on the walls. They consulted learned canonists; drew up an appeal to a future council of the Church and sent emissaries to Rome who nailed a copy on the doors of St Peter's. The secular arm swiftly followed.

Sanudo tells us that while he and two other Senators were examining a map of Italy painted on the walls of the Senate hall, a courier arrived with the news that the French had crossed the Adda, fallen on the fine army of the Republic at Agnadello and utterly routed it with a loss of four thousand in killed alone. Faces gathered gloom and despair. "Give me my cloak, wife," said Paolo Barbo, one of the most experienced of the fathers, "that I may go to the Senate, speak a couple of words and die."

One disaster trod on the heels of another. Bergamo and Brescia fell and before the month was ended nearly the whole of Lombardy was lost.

Preparations were even made to defend and victual Venice. Envoys were sent to treat with the Kings of France and Spain. The Pope was tempted by an offer of partial rest.i.tution and help towards a crusade against the Turks. Meanwhile the Imperial Eagle swooped down from Trent. The Signory, by ceding Verona and Vicenza, hoped to conciliate the Emperor and save Padua. In vain were the civil commissioners with the army entreated to make a stand, "lest the whole of our cities surrender in an hour." Padua fell and Treviso alone stood by the Republic. At bay she now turned to the Sultan of Turkey and begged for money and men, especially men. If his Highness would advance them one hundred thousand ducats and would agree to buy no more cloth of the Genoese and Florentines, who only used his money to help a League that sought his hurt, the Signory would send him fifty thousand ducats' worth of cloth, and jewels worth fifty thousand more, as security. The Venetian consul at Alexandria was instructed to incite the Sultan of Egypt to ruin Genoese and Florentine commerce in his dominions. The good offices of the Kings of England and Scotland were sought.

But the gloom was wearing away. One day in July two tall, mysterious, armed men were observed leaving Fusina in the gondola of the Ten.

Arrived at Venice they remained closeted with the Ten and the Doge far into the night, then were rowed back whence they came. On the night of the 16th there was a hurrying to and fro of transports and armed vessels between the islands. The Doge's two sons and two hundred n.o.ble youths, fully armed, left for the mainland. The police boats of the Ten allowed no one to go out of Venice without permission. Next day Padua, disgusted by the insolence and exactions of the Imperialists, was won back for Venice before the laggard Emperor could reach the city. Sanudo remembered the 17th of July, for did he not buy a Hebrew Bible worth twenty ducats for a few pence as he was going home? Two attacks by the Emperor were successfully resisted, and the foiled Caesar retired to Vicenza in October with anger in his heart against the French. In February 1510, after long and tough negotiations, the Pope was given his prey and detached from the league, but at the price of a bitter abas.e.m.e.nt of Venice. Time had avenged the Empire. It was now the Queen of the Adriatic who, in the person of her amba.s.sadors, bowed the neck before the enthroned Pope in the atrium of St Peter's, surrendered her ecclesiastical privileges, admitted the justice of the excommunication, craved pardon for having provoked it, and was at length absolved and bidden to do the penance of the seven churches. The Ten, however, entered in their register a protest of nullity, declaring that the conditions had been extracted from the Republic by violence. The Pope who, as he told Venice, had no pleasure in seeing the ruin of her State to the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of the barbarians, now became her ally. Soon other cities, sickened by the atrocities of the invaders, returned to their allegiance, and by skilful playing of King against Emperor, and Pope against both, Venice was able to regain the bulk of her territory.

CHAPTER XI

_Loss of Cyprus--Lepanto--Paolo Sarpi--Attack on the Ten--Loss of Crete--Temporary Reconquest of the Morea--Decadence--The End_

"Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!... Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness."--_The Revelation of St John the Divine._

We may not here attempt to tread the maze of chicanery and violence which ended in the peace of Cambrai.[53] We are permitted to see a fighting Pope exhorting his soldiers and directing siege operations against an Italian city, and climbing by a scaling-ladder through the breach to take possession. In 1514 the Spaniards desolated the land up to the lagoons and levelled their cannon at Venice. In 1515 the encampments of four armies were exhausting and polluting Lombardy. King, Popes, and Emperor died and their successors took up the unholy heritage of war and duplicity. Gaston de Foix, Bayard and other renowned chevaliers perished. In 1521 the Emperor Charles V. came upon the scene, and in alliance with the great Medicean Pope, Leo X., swept the French and their Venetian allies out of Lombardy. In July 1523, when the power of France was waning, the Venetians made terms with the Emperor. They were suffered to retain their territory up to the Adda in return for an annual tribute of 250,000 ducats. Venice excused herself to Francis I.

by professing solicitude for the peace of Christendom in view of the threatening att.i.tude of the Sultan. Before the year was ended King and Emperor were competing for Venetian help in a renewed struggle for mastery. While the Republic was temporising, the Imperialists had descended on Lombardy, routed the French before Pavia and captured their King. "Nothing is left to me," wrote Francis, "but honour, and life which is safe,"[54] and proceeded to send his ring secretly to the Sultan and to grovel before Charles. The victorious Emperor brushed aside the subtleties of the Venetian amba.s.sadors. "If you were to send all your lawyers," he cried, "you would not convince me. You must pay 80,000 ducats for the troops you failed to send to Pavia. You are rich: my expenses are heavy: you must help me."

After perjuring himself at the peace of Madrid, January 1526, the _Cristianissimo_ returned to France. In less than six weeks a "holy league" of France, Venice and the Papacy had been signed at Cognac for the "liberation" of Italy from the Imperialists. But Francis, whose moral fibre had been rotted by lechery, was no match for the virile genius of Charles, strong with the united resources of the Empire and of Spain in her greatness. The Emperor was soon again master of Italy. Rome was captured and sacked; Pope Clement VII. imprisoned. But the miserable condition of Italy and the news that the Turks were threatening Vienna disposed Charles to treat, and in July 1529 Margaret of Austria was once more at Cambrai negotiating on behalf of the Emperor with Louise of Savoy, who represented Francis.[55] Two adjacent houses were chosen and the party-wall pierced that the ladies might confer with absolute secrecy. In two months, while the Venetians were finessing, the "_paix des dames_" was concluded and Venice left to make the best terms she might with the Emperor. Francis had given way all along the line. "The peace of Cambrai," says Michelet, "was the moral annihilation of France in Europe." During the coronation festivities at Bologna the Emperor and the Pope found time to deal with the Venetians, who agreed to pay the balance of the annual tribute of 250,000 ducats due on the treaty of 1523; to restore the cities of Naples and Apulia to the Emperor; and to the Papacy Ravenna and Cervia, which they had seized during the Pope's imprisonment at Rome. Thanks to the impa.s.sable lagoons Venice preserved her capital inviolate, but her prestige and her military power were gone.

After the League of Cambrai a change comes over the Venetian temper.

Patricians, instead of using their talent in commerce and discovery, chose to live on their invested capital and on the revenues of their mainland estates. The power of initiative was gone. In 1522, before Sebastian Cabot sailed for the New World, he contrived to meet Contarini, an emissary of the Ten, secretly at Valladolid, and told him he had no joy in selling his knowledge to the foreigner; that he had refused tempting offers from Cardinal Wolsey and was prepared to absolve himself from the King of Spain's service and spend his genius in the advancement of his fatherland. But Contarini talked of things possible and impossible, and success is to those who will achieve the impossible.

The supreme opportunity of retrieving her mercantile position was lost to Venice for ever. Sadder still, when Loredano had called on the Senate for volunteers and patriotic gifts for Padua and Treviso, not a man stirred. Venice had lost faith in herself.

In 1521 Leonardo Loredano died and was buried with more than usual pomp at S. Zanipolo. Antonio Grimani, the disgraced of Sapienza, who had redeemed himself by faithful service, reigned for two years and gave place to Andrea Gritti, a distinguished civil commissioner with the army during the wars. Between Gritti's death in 1539 and the election of Sebastian Venier, the hero of Lepanto, in 1577, there follows a line of Doges, Pietro Lando, Francesco Donato, Marc' Antonio Trevisano, Francesco Venier, Lorenzo and Girolamo Priuli, Pietro Loredano, Luigi Mocenigo, worthy magistrates all, but without distinction.

The wars had exhausted the State treasury. Her Indian trade was withered, and the wealth of Venice was no more commensurate to the demands of a long naval war. Her military pride had been chastened by the rod of the Emperor, and a dread of Spanish arms and Spanish gold hung like a pall over men's minds. An era of subtle diplomacy begins, and the Council of the Ten, with its new instrument of the Inquisitors of State, tightens its grip upon the executive. Wave after wave of Ottoman fury surges against her Eastern possessions; one by one they are engulfed. In 1535 she lost Egina, Paros and Syra; in 1540, Malvasia and Nauplia. In 1570 Cyprus was marked out for conquest and the usual appeal to the Christian Powers was made. Spain and the Pope promised help.

Zane, the Venetian commander, wasted his force waiting at Zara, then learned that the allies were at Corfu. He reached the island only to find the Spanish admiral without orders. Meanwhile the season had worn along and operations were judged inopportune. The whole island by this time was occupied by the Turks, Nicosia and Famagosta alone holding out.

While the futile admirals were squabbling about plans the magnificent heroism of the garrisons and of the inhabitants was spent in vain, and the cities fell to the horrors of a Turkish pillage, and Marc' Antonio Brigadin, the Venetian governor of Famagosta, was treacherously flayed alive in the Piazza after having surrendered on terms to the enemy. Zane was recalled to Venice, and Sebastian Venier given command. A new alliance of Spain, the Papacy and Venice being concluded, at length on October 7, 1571, the allied fleets came upon the Turkish armament off Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth. The Spanish admiral, Don John of Austria, was in supreme command. Venier led the Venetians; Marc' Antonio Colonna the Papalists.

It was a calm sunny morning. The line of the allied fleets was four miles in extent, the two armaments were a ma.s.s of glittering steel as the rays of the sun smote on the helmets, breastplates and shields, bright as polished mirrors. The banners of gold and tall galley lamps were resplendent in many colours. A beautiful, yet an awful spectacle.

The Venetian flagship was fiercely a.s.sailed. Venier, spite of his seventy-five years, was seen, sword in hand, pressing to the thick of the fight, heartening his men and with invincible courage striking down his enemies, so that he wrought deeds beyond the belief of man. We cannot here linger on the vicissitudes of the struggle. Scenes of comic relief were not absent from the tragedy. Some Turks, their arms of offence failing, seized upon a quant.i.ty of oranges and lemons and threw them at their enemies, who with mocking laughter cast them back. At length after five hours of savage fighting, the Turks were scoured off the seas. The allied and victorious admirals met, embraced each other speechless from emotion; and as the venerable Venier and the youthful Don John of Austria stood clasped in each other's arms shedding tears of joy, the eyes of even the most hardened of sea-dogs were moist with tears. Some 30,000 Turks are said to have perished; 3486 prisoners were divided among the victors as slaves; 94 ships were burned; 130 ships and 356 guns captured; 15,000 Christian slaves set at liberty. The allies lost heavily: 8000 men were slain including 25 Venetian n.o.bles.[56]

Among the Spanish was Cervantes, who lost an arm in the engagement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WINE SHOP.]

As day broke on October 18th, a galley was seen sailing up to Lido trailing the Turkish colours at her stern, a pile of turbans on her deck. Amid the booming of the guns could be heard cries of "Victory!

victory!" The reaction from the gloom of Cyprian news was tremendous. A frenzy of joy possessed the people. Shops were shut _per la morte de' Turchi_. The streets from the Rialto bridge to the Merceria were covered with a firmament of blue cloth spangled with stars of gold; a pyramid of Turkish spoils stood on the Piazza, which was gay with scarlet cloth, tapestry and pictures. Four days' rejoicings celebrated the triumph of the Cross. But to Venice the battle of Lepanto (or _alle Curzolari_) was a sterile victory. Dynastic jealousy in Spain and the old suspicion of Venice, which still clung to the allies, permitted the Turks to recover from the blow, and in March 1573 Venice agreed to purchase a separate peace at the cost of an indemnity of 300,000 ducats and a threefold increase of the tribute for Zante. The fair island of Cyprus was lost for ever. "Was it the Turks who were the victors at Lepanto?" asks Romanin.

On Doge Venier was conferred the consecrated golden rose, a supreme token of papal favour, but during the seventy years' peace from Lepanto to the outbreak of the fifth Turkish war, the indictment at Rome against the refractory children of the lagoons increased in gravity, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century the Papacy determined to force them to yield to discipline. The Venetians were a stubborn folk when their national dignity was threatened by Rome. "These _Signori_ of the Senate," said Paul IV. to the Venetian amba.s.sador, "are tough fellows and take a lot of cooking" (_non sono molto buoni da cuocer_). In 1527, when the Papacy was under the heel of Charles V., the Republic had rea.s.serted her rights to nominate to ecclesiastical offices. Disputes as to the taxation of Church property, the right of the Pope to inspect the monasteries, the right of the Republic to try criminous clerics, exacerbated the situation until at length Gregory XIII. declared in 1581 that he would no longer consent to be Pope everywhere but in Venice, and sent his nuncio to make a visitation of the Venetian monasteries. The Republic refused permission, and the conflict called of the _Interdetto_ began. But the fight between Italian Popes and Italian sovereigns, even in our own times, has generally been a comedy played for the mystification of Transalpine Powers and all ended in compromise. The Signory appointed the Bishop of Verona as the nuncio's colleague, and persuaded itself that the nuncio went with the Bishop; the Pope satisfied his dignity by claiming that the Bishop went with the nuncio.

In 1605 the Spanish party, ever the evil genius of the Sacred College, re-opened the quarrel. The Republic had refused to send their nominee to the Patriarchate of Venice for examination to Rome, and had tried and convicted two clerics on the mainland for criminal offences. On Christmas Day a brief from Pope Paul V. was delivered to the Signory threatening excommunication if they did not submit in the matter of the taxation of ecclesiastical estates. The Republic engaged the learned Augustinian friar Paolo Sarpi as their adviser at a salary of two hundred ducats and prepared for the struggle. In February 1606, a second brief followed on the matter of the convicted clerics. The Republic expressed her devotion to the Catholic Faith, but firmly though respectfully declined to surrender her ancient rights and privileges. On April 16th, the Republic was given twenty-four days to submit under pain of interdict. Venice calmly waited. In due time the bull of excommunication[57] and interdict was delivered. The Signory forbade its publication and ordered the clergy to continue their functions as usual.

Some of the regular clergy who disobeyed were expelled. Sarpi advised the Republic with excellent prudence and wisdom, and became in the eyes of Europe one of the greatest protagonists of national liberty against papal aggression. A Spanish army having been mobilised on the Milanese frontier, Sir Henry Wotton, the English amba.s.sador, suggested an alliance of Venice with England, France, the Grisons, and the German Protestant princes, but the Republic was deaf on that side. She declared to the Pope that the Venetians were as good Catholics as he himself, but that as Church property enjoyed the protection of the State, it must share its burdens, and that criminals, whether lay or cleric, must be equally subject to the laws of the land. Time wore on.

Spain, humbled by the defeat of her Armada and the revolt of the Netherlands, was afraid to strike; the obsolete ghostly artillery of Rome failed to act; and the secular clergy stood loyally by the Republic. The Papacy reverted to her habitual policy of compromise. The services of Henry IV. of France as mediator were accepted and a solemn comedy was played. The Republic agreed to surrender the incriminated clerics, without prejudice, to the French amba.s.sador; the Pope agreed to withdraw _informally_ the bull of excommunication and interdict. The Republic continued to nominate for Church offices and try clerical delinquents as before. But the Spanish fanatics at the Vatican never forgave the Venetian friar for his share in their discomfiture. On October 25, 1607, three ruffians fell upon him as he was crossing the S.

Fosca Bridge,[58] stabbed him, then left him for dead, and escaped to Papal territory. Sarpi, however, recovered. The surgeon who was dressing his wounds remarked on their jagged, inartistic nature. "Ah!" replied the witty friar, "_agnosco stylum curiae romanae_." On his recovery the Republic gave him a pension of six hundred ducats and a house near the Piazza, where the great patriot-scholar devoted the remainder of his life to literature and science.[59] Two further attempts were made to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, in 1609 and 1610. He spent his last breath in the service of the Republic, advising the Senate in three important questions in 1623 as he lay on his death-bed. His mind soon began to wander. "It is growing late," he murmured, "I must hasten to St Mark's for I have much to do." His last words were a prayer for his country.

"_Esto perpetua_."

The university of "Fair Padua, nursery of the Arts," became under Venetian auspices the most famous and most honoured centre of learning in Europe. Liberal salaries and an atmosphere of intellectual freedom drew an array of the most eminent teachers in Christendom. Fallopius, in physiology and medicine; Galileo, in astronomy and mathematics, were names that crowded its halls with eager students. As many as eighteen thousand of all nations were gathered there daily in the sixteenth century. During his professorship of twenty years, Galileo invented the thermometer and the telescope. Ta.s.so studied, and our own Harvey (Italians claim) learned the secret of the circulation of the blood there. The Earl of Arundel sent his two sons in 1622 to drink of its springs. The Admirable Crichton having called on one of the Aldi in 1580, was introduced to the Signory, and improvised before the Senate a Latin oration of "most rare and singular power." The Fathers voted the impecunious youth one hundred crowns as a courteous recognition of his marvellous powers, and sent him to Padua with a warm introduction.

To Sebastian Venier succeeded Doge Nicolo da Ponte in 1577, a worthy scholar and student of theology, who had represented the Republic at the Council of Trent. At his death, in 1585, Pasquale Cigogna, descended from an apothecary enn.o.bled after the war of Chioggia, was preferred to the ducal office. Cigogna saw the erection of the new stone Rialto bridge, and, after ten years' peaceful reign, was followed by a popular and lavish prince, Marino Grimani, whose consort was exceptionally honoured by a gorgeous coronation ceremony.

Grimani died on Christmas Day 1605, the very evening of the delivery of the first papal brief, and Leonardo Donato was chosen to open the doc.u.ment, and to preside over the conflict with the Spanish papalists at Rome. When he died in 1612, weird stories were whispered by fanatics of shrieks and cries heard from his chamber as the Evil One bore him away.

During the short reigns of Marc' Antonio Memmo, Giov. Bembo, Nicolo Donato, and Antonio Priuli, the Ten had been acc.u.mulating evidence of a vast conspiracy to seize the city, concerted by the Spanish Viceroy of Naples and the Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish amba.s.sador at Venice. On May 12, 1618, three Frenchmen in Venetian pay were arrested, strangled, and hung head downwards between the red columns, and orders were sent to the fleet to despatch three others. The plot had been divulged by two of the conspirators, and in all some three hundred persons of various nationalities, including many poor Venetian patricians, were implicated, and paid the penalty with their lives. The Spanish amba.s.sador was for a time in danger, and under guard. He protested his innocence of the plot, as did his colleague of France. Both, however, soon sought a change of air. Two years were spent in tracing the ramifications of the plot, and in 1620 a senator, Giambattista Bragadin, was found to be in Spanish pay, and hanged between the columns.

In 1622 the atmosphere of dread and suspicion which encompa.s.sed the State, so dulled the perceptions of the Ten that a grave miscarriage of justice was laid to their charge. In 1618 Antonio Foscarini, a n.o.ble of high family and Venetian amba.s.sador at London, was accused by Mascorno, a disaffected member of his staff, of licentiousness, blasphemy and treason. Foscarini was recalled, arrested by the Ten, and, after a long trial, acquitted, but kept under surveillance. In 1622, as he was leaving the Senate, a cloak was flung over him, and he was hurried off to prison. His accuser, who had been sentenced to two years' detention in a fortress, had, on his release, fabricated some doc.u.ments which the tribunal deemed conclusive. Foscarini was declared guilty of corresponding secretly with Spain and the Emperor, strangled in prison, and his dead body hung by the leg between the red columns. As he had been an occasional visitor at Casa Mocenigo, where Lady Arundel resided, she was suspected also; but Sir Henry Wotton prompted her to clear herself by asking an audience of the Doge. This she did, and was allowed to make a statement in the Senate, the only woman who ever addressed that a.s.sembly. She was exonerated, and a present of sweetmeats and wax offered to conciliate her. Four months later poor Foscarini's innocence was entirely proved, and two of his accusers were put to death. The family was restored to honour, and his remains were dug up and buried in the Frari with great splendour and pomp. His bust may still be seen in the church of S. Eustacchio (S. Stae) near the old Foscarini Palace.

Doge Priuli died shortly after the Foscarini tragedy. The brief reign of Francesco Contarini followed, and Giovanni Cornaro was chosen to fill the ducal office in 1624. The shock of Foscarini's judicial murder had given a rallying cry to the poorer n.o.bles in the Great Council, jealous of the power of the Ten and the monopoly of office by the more influential patricians; and Renier Zeno, a patrician, fearless and incorruptible--himself an ex-_capo_ of the Ten--led an attack on the tribunal. Banished for a year, he did but return with added popularity, and forced himself again on the Ten as one of the _Capi_. He used his power to accuse the Doge of nepotism, and his Serenity was forced to cancel certain family appointments. Zeno, driving his advantage further, came into conflict with his colleagues of the Ten, and, leaning on the majority of the Great Council, emerged triumphant. Shortly after, while standing at the Porta della Carta, he was attacked by five persons and stabbed. The Doge's son and certain alleged accomplices were denounced to the Ten, whose laggard justice, however, made flight easy. Again appointed one of the Ten, Zeno, on his recovery, renewed the struggle with increased vigour; and, after a stormy scene in the Great Council, during which he came to high words with the Doge, the stout reformer was ordered to keep his house, and report himself to the Ten within three days. Ignoring the summons, he was fined two thousand ducats and banished. The Great Council quashed the sentence, and ordered it to be blotted out of the records of the Ten. At length Zeno's party succeeded in carrying a motion for a committee of inquiry into the const.i.tution of the Ten, but the four years' bitter conflict ended in a virtual triumph for the tribunal, whose powers of criminal jurisdiction over the n.o.bles were reaffirmed, though it had to submit to a modified capitulary.

During the latter half of the seventeenth century the power of Venice was declining to its setting in an aureole of glory. In 1644, Crete, the oldest and last remaining of her great possessions in the East, was marked for conquest, and, like an old warrior who takes down his armour and girds himself to make a last stand against his hereditary foes, Venice prepared to resist the Turk to the uttermost. The old heroic times seem to return as we watch the quarter of a century's struggle, but our admiration is touched with pathos, for we know that the dice are loaded against Venice. A Turkish pilgrim fleet for Mecca had been pillaged by the Knights of Malta, and the pious buccaneers had landed at Crete for provisions. This was pretext enough for hostilities. In 1645 a huge armament left the Bosphorus, ostensibly for Malta, actually for the conquest of Crete. Canea quickly fell, and the Turks promised themselves an easy occupation. But twenty-four years of fierce and exhausting fighting ensued before the Crescent floated over the island.

Seven million ducats were quickly raised in Venice by the sale of patents of n.o.bility. By a marvellous re-birth of naval energy and capacity, her fleet was reorganised and spread terror along the Dardanelles. The Venetian Captain-General, Lazzaro Mocenigo, determined to force the pa.s.sage and attack Constantinople, but a well-aimed sh.e.l.l fired his ship, and he was killed. Francesco Morosini, appointed his successor, won the admiration of Europe by his twenty-two years' defence of Candia. Inspired by his heroism, companies of Flemish and French volunteers, eager and impetuous, joined him, but their enthusiasm was soon spent, and, impatient of the long vigils and toils of the war, they left the Venetians to fight alone. Morosini did not save Crete, but he extorted an honourable peace. No indemnity was paid, and the Venetian garrison marched proudly out of Candia unsubdued.[60] Four thousand Candiots who opted for Venice were settled in Istria, where traces of their language and customs are said still to survive. Suda and other fortresses remained in the hands of the Venetians. To the Pope the result seemed almost incredible.

In 1684 Venice was invited to join the Emperor and the King of Poland in a league against the Turks. The Cretan war had cost her one hundred and twenty-six million ducats, and she felt too exhausted to run with the hors.e.m.e.n again. But bolder counsels prevailed. Morosini was despatched with an army, and ably seconded by Koningsmark, the great Swedish mercenary, overran the Morea, captured Coron, Sparta and Athens, which last was won at the price of the ruin of the Parthenon, the Turkish powder magazine there having been exploded by a Venetian sh.e.l.l. Morosini returned in triumph, bringing the Greek lions, which still stand in front of the a.r.s.enal. He was made Doge in 1688, the coronation being deferred that he might return to Greece. Vast designs of the recapture of Negropont, even of Crete, lured him on, but ill-health soon necessitated his return, only, however, to be again entreated to take up the command and retrieve the blunders of an incompetent Captain-General. The veteran Doge and captain for the last time sailed from Venice amid scenes that recalled the great crusading times of old. After some successes at Corinth he went to winter at Nauplia, where he died on January 9, 1694. He was the greatest of the modern Doges. A tomb in S. Stefano and a triumphal arch in the Sala dello Scrutinio still witness to his fame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PONTE DI RIALTO.]

But Venice was too poor and too feeble to retain her conquests. During a short campaign in 1715 she lost the whole of the Morea, and by the treaty of Pa.s.sarovitch in 1717 all that was left of her vast empire in the East were a few fortresses in Dalmatia, Albania and Herzegovina. The treaty of 1717 bore her last signature as a European Power.

The procession of Doges that stretches from Giov. Cornaro, the opponent of Renier Zeno, to the fall of the Republic contains but one name of historic significance--Francesco Morosini. Marco Foscarini, elected in 1762, a descendant of the ill-fated Antonio Foscarini, is known to students as the author of a "History of Venetian Literature," and Ludovico Manin has the unhappy distinction of closing the line for ever.

Through all the vicissitudes of foreign affairs, the decadence of trade, the fear corroding at her statesmen's hearts, the social and ceremonial life of Venice waxed rather than waned in pomp and splendour. The recurring ravages of plague periodically purged her pride and luxury. Of all the great cities of Europe, Venice bears the deepest traces of the pa.s.sages of the destroying angel. In her annals no less than seventy visitations are recorded. Two great churches, the Redentore founded in 1575 and the Salute in 1630, are votive offerings to Heaven for salvation from the scourge. Her greatest _scuola_ is dedicated to the chief plague saint, St Roch. Indeed in all her churches the figures of the plague saints, St Roch, St Job, St Sebastian, have a sad pre-eminence. But the danger past, the lesson faded from her memory, and the traditional magnificence shone forth. She became again--

"The pleasant place of all festivity; The Revel of the earth; the Masque of Italy."

Sanudo gives a list of nineteen great annual pageants, and after his time others were added. Besides these official festivals great patrician weddings or the visits of foreign potentates were the occasions of stately pomp and joyous revels. At the anniversaries of the greater _scuole_, each guild vied with the other to excel in splendour. Never before nor since was such magnificence. The greatest artists of the day were commissioned to execute the decorations. The Bucintoro was carved by the best sculptors. Palladio, t.i.tian and Tintoretto designed and decorated triumphal arches.

The loan of the Bucintoro and a subsidy of five hundred ducats were voted to the Calza to entertain the Duke of Milan in 1530. On this occasion a _bellissima colazion_ (luncheon) was prepared, says Sanudo, but so ill-arranged that the Milanese n.o.bles got nothing, while some Venetian Senators filled the sleeves of their robes with sweetmeats to the shame of those who saw it.

Venice surpa.s.sed herself in the reception given to Henry III. of France in 1574. The young king was met at Malghera--the modern traveller will pa.s.s a fort erected there as he nears the railway bridge--by sixty Senators in gondolas covered with velvet, oriental carpets and cloth of gold, and was ferried to Murano, where he pa.s.sed the night in one of the rich palaces with delicious gardens for which the island was then noted.

Sixty halberdiers clothed in silk of azure and gold were his bodyguard: forty n.o.ble youths of the Calza were his attendants. On the morrow amid salvos of artillery he embarked for Venice in a great galley manned by four hundred Sclavonians clothed in yellow and turquoise taffety, followed by an immense train of galleys and gondolas decorated with carpets and tapestry, with banners and flags waving in the breeze. The procession of the trade guilds, formed of a hundred and seventy boats resplendent with crimson and silver and gold, was a dazzling pageant.

The gla.s.s-workers excelled in splendour and invention. A marine monster, in whose body could be seen a furnace, and craftsmen making most beautiful crystal vases, led their section, breathing flames from his mouth. Then followed a boat in the shape of a great dolphin bestridden by Neptune; on the p.o.o.p stood two winged angels to waft it along. Four river G.o.ds personifying the Brenta, the Adige, the Po and the Piove plied the oars. At S. Nicolo del Lido, Palladio had constructed a triumphal arch adorned with statues of Victory, Peace, Faith and Justice, and with ten paintings by t.i.tian and Tintoretto portraying events in the King's life. His Majesty lodged in the Palazzo Foscari from which an opening was made into the Palazzo Giustiniani to accommodate his suite, the whole being furnished with oriental magnificence. At a State ball given in the hall of the Great Council, two hundred gorgeously attired ladies were present glittering with jewels and precious stones. The Sala dello Scrutinio was made into a supper-room where twelve hundred and sixty plates of sweetmeats in the forms of griffins, ships, nymphs, deities, etc., tempted the palates of the guests. Regattas, serenades and jousts made the whole visit seem a dream of enchantment to the King. As trade languished and the population diminished, public shows increased in splendour. The sum expended at the election and coronation of the last Doge--forty-seven thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight ducats, was beyond all precedent. Venice was still the temple of pleasure. All the arts subservient to the luxury and vices of the rich flourished in rankest exuberance despite the efforts of the Ten to cleanse public morals and to enforce sumptuary laws. The excessive importance too of the stage and of its tinselled heroes and tawdry queens, was an infallible symptom of a decadent nation. The time came in the eighteenth century when the State was torn by the petty jealousies and vanities of a playwright and an actress, and when public appointments were controlled by the subtle influence of the boudoir and the drawing-room, and an ambitious and beautiful society lady was the central figure of Venetian life. It was the time of the fatuous masquerades and futile pomposities portrayed for us by Longhi, when the card table, the coffee house and the play were the absorbing interest of Venetian minds. But before she sinks into the deep night of subjection to Austria to rise again as a province of a free and united Italy,[61] a faint hue of naval splendour lights up the horizon. Soon after Goethe's arrival in Venice in 1786 he ascended St Mark's tower and under the bright noon-day sun saw a fleet of galleys and frigates lying off Lido.