XII THE SUCCESSORS OF MARINO FALIERO

1335. Rom. iii. 194.

Giovanni Gradenigo, who succeeded Marino Faliero, was fortunate enough to conclude a treaty of peace with the Genoese; and Giovanni Dolfin, the next Doge after him, showed some skill in obtaining from the Emperor the recognition of Venice’s suzerainty over the territory of Treviso. It was on this occasion that the lord of Sench arbitrarily threw into prison two Venetian ambassadors, as I

Rom. iii. 209.

have told in speaking of the treatment of strangers. The immediate effect of the outrage was to rouse in the highest degree the resentment of Venice against the Duke of Austria and his vassal, and matters were at a critical pitch when the Doge died.

Rom. iii. 211.

The electors quickly agreed upon a Gradenigo, a Dandolo, a Cornaro, and a Contarini as candidates for the ducal dignity; but before they had come to a choice between these news was brought that Lorenzo Celsi, the ‘Captain of the Gulf,’ had taken a number of Genoese vessels with contraband cargoes. By one of those sudden caprices which have always affected the minds of electors, the hero of the hour at once became the only candidate on whom every one could agree. Celsi was not of the highest nobility and was barely fifty years of age, but these objections were insignificant compared with the prestige he now enjoyed. The choice fell upon him by unanimous consent, and his election was announced to the people almost at the moment when the report of his victories was discovered to be a fabrication. Yet, almost incredible as it must seem, his election to the throne caused no discontent in spite of this chilling disillusionment.

At that time he was cruising in the waters of Candia, and a deputation of twelve nobles departed to inform him of his election, while a special council assumed the management of affairs until his coming.

An incident marked his arrival which, if not important, is memorable as having caused a modification in the adornment of the ducal bonnet. Lorenzo Gelsi landed at the Ponte della Paglia on the twenty-first of August 1361, and proceeded to the palace through the midst of a dense crowd, in which every man uncovered his head as the Doge passed, except one. Celsi’s aged father could not admit that an old man should take off his hat to his own son, and entirely refused to do so. But the Doge, who was a diplomatist, found means to reconcile his father’s prejudice with the rules of Venetian ceremonial. He fastened a small golden cross upon the front of his cap, and explained to his stiff-necked parent that it was no derogation of dignity for an old man to salute the sacred symbol.

Celsi also introduced the custom by which the Doge wore a dress of pure white when he appeared in public at any of the festivals kept by the Church in honour of the Virgin Mary, and this innovation found favour with most of his successors.

Rom. iii. 217.

His reign, though short, was brilliant. He received the friendly visit of the Duke of Austria, of which mention has been made, and which brought about excellent results. The King of Cyprus also spent a short time in Venice during the reign, when he made his journey through Europe to preach a crusade against the Turks. The most important event which occurred under Lorenzo Celsi, however, was the Cretan war.

The turbulent spirit of the natives of the island, and the excessive love of independence exhibited by the Venetian nobles, to whom the Republic had granted fiefs in Candia, had brought matters to the verge of a revolution. The people flatly declined to pay tribute to the mother city, and strongly resented the remonstrances made by the Venetian government through Donato Dandolo, the governor of Crete.

At last, when he demanded the payment of a tax which had been voted in order to strengthen the fortifications of the harbour, the Cretans replied that they would not pay a farthing until they had sent a deputation of twenty intelligent men to Venice, who should lay before the Senate a statement of the so-called rights of the colony. With more readiness than prudence, one of the governor’s Council answered that there were not twenty intelligent men in the island.

The observation may not have been altogether unjust, judging from the total lack of sense afterwards shown by the Cretans, but it had the immediate and not surprising effect of irritating them, and the standard of revolt was raised within the hour. The flag of Saint Mark was torn down and replaced by one bearing the image of Saint Titus, the protector of the island, and before long the two parties were fighting under the war-cries of ‘Saint Titus!’ and ‘Saint Mark!’ the noble colonists and the natives on the one side, and the governor and his soldiers on the other.

Venice at first attempted to recall the island to its allegiance by pacific embassies, but these were repulsed with indignity and insult, and a fleet of thirty-three galleys, carrying six thousand men, was despatched under Luchino dal Verme, a noble of Verona. The Candiotes had appealed in vain to the Genoese for help, the arch-enemies of their mother-country, and being left to their own resources they exhibited neither courage nor skill. In three days six thousand men reduced the hundred cities of the island to submission, and, after executing the ringleaders and taking due precautions against a fresh revolt, the victor set sail for Venice.

Petrarch was in the city at the time, and in one of his letters he has left a brilliant and poetic account of the triumph that followed.

Lettere senili di Petrarca (Basle) i. 782, quoted by G. R. Michiel.

It chanced that I was leaning at my window towards the hour of sixte, and mine eyes were turned toward the open sea; and I talked with the Archbishop of Patras, whom I did once love as a brother, and whom now I venerate as it were a well-beloved father. Then I saw entering the harbour a great ship, a galley, all decked with green branches, and it came rowed by many rowers. Now when we saw this, we ceased from talking; for the crew of the ship were of joyous mien, and they swung the oars with such right goodwill that we guessed them to be bearers of glad tidings. The sailors all wore crowns of leaves on their heads, and in their hands they waved banners, and they that stood in the bows shouted joyfully. Then the sentinel who watched on the top of the first tower forthwith made signal to give warning that a ship from abroad was in sight, and all the people together, full of curiosity, went over to Lido. As the ship came nearer we saw also trophies of war set up on her forward part; for surely this was the news of a victory which they were bringing in, but in what war it had been won, or in what battle, or at what stormed city, we knew not.

When the messengers had landed they went before the Great Council, and there we learned that which we had not dared to believe nor even to hope; for our enemies were all dead or taken prisoners or put to flight, and the honest citizens were freed out of slavery, the cities also were won back, and all the island of Candia had submitted to the Republic. So the war was over without striking a blow, and peace had been got with glory.

Petrarch’s logic here evidently went to pieces in the storm of his satisfaction, for he speaks of a bloodless victory immediately after telling his correspondent that all the enemies of the Republic were slain or prisoners.

The Doge Lorenzo Celsi [here the poet indulges in a pun connecting ‘Celsi’ with ‘excelsus’], unless my love for him has deceived me altogether, is a man of most noble heart, of purest life, one who follows all the virtues, most wonderfully pious and devoted to his country; and when he learned the good news he openly gave thanks to God, thereby showing the people that in every happy event man must acknowledge the divine hand, and dispose his own happiness under the protecting shield of faith. And prayers were offered throughout the city, but were especially in the basilica dedicated to the Evangelist Saint Mark....

Now the whole feast ended with two pageants; but I confess that I know not by what name to call them, and so I shall describe them in such manner that thou mayest easily understand them. The one was, as it were, a race and the other a combat; and both were on horseback, the first without reins and only with staves and banners, that it seemed to be some military exercise; but in the second game arms were needed, and it was like unto a real battle. Both in the one and in the other we marvelled at the gifts of the Venetians, who are not only wonderful sailers of ships, but are also very skilled in all those exercises which belong to the art of war.

For they showed such experience of riding and such deep knowledge of the handling of arms, and such endurance of fatigue, that one might set them up for examples to other warlike nations. The two games were held in that square of which I deem there is not the like in the world, that is over against the marble and gold front of the temple of Saint Mark.

No stranger had a share in the first of the games, but four and twenty nobles, the goodliest and most richly clad, kept for themselves this part of the pageants....

It was a good sight to see so many young men, in clothes of purple and gold, curbing and spurring their well-shod steeds, all shiningly caparisoned, that seemed hardly to touch earth in their swift course. These young men obeyed the gesture of their chief with such precision that as the first reached the goal and left the field, a second took his place on the track, and then a third, and so on till the first began again, so well that they kept up the racing all day long, and that at evening one might have believed that there had been but one cavalier who rode; and while they ran thou wouldest have seen now the gilded tips of their staves flying through the air, and now thou couldest have heard their red flags stiffening in the breeze with a sound as of wings.

One might scarce believe what multitudes thronged in the square of Saint Mark’s on that day. There were both sexes and all ages and every class. The Doge himself was on the terrace which is built on the front of the church, with many nobles; from its height he saw almost at his feet all that moved in the square below. Thus he was in the midst of those four gilt horses, the work of an ancient and unknown craftsman, that look ready to measure themselves against living coursers, and seem to paw the air. Lest the summer sun should dazzle the eyes, curtains of many colours had been hung here and there. I myself was bidden, as often the Doge deigns that I should be, and he made me sit at his right.... The great square, the church, the towers, the roofs, the porticoes, the windows, were all crowded with lookers-on. At the right a high platform had been raised whereon sat four hundred matrons, of the noblest, and fairest, and most richly-dressed in the city; and they continually ate the sweetmeats which were offered to them; and in the morning, and at noon, and at evening, it was as if they were a company come down from heaven. There were also bidden to the pageant several English noblemen, kinsmen to the king, who had come to Venice by sea, to exercise themselves in the art of navigation; and these gentles very freely shared our joy over the victory.

This racing lasted several days, and there was no prize but the honour, for in this first game there were no victors and no vanquished.

But for the second game prizes were made ready, for there were dangers to be faced, and the result could not be alike for all. There was a crown of gold adorned with precious stones for the first winner, and a richly-chiselled silver belt for the second. An edict had been sent forth, written in the military and vulgar tongue, under the Doge’s seal, to invite the people of the neighbouring provinces to take part in this contest on horseback; and indeed there came a good number of contestants, not Italians only, but also strangers who spoke other languages, hoping to win the prize and to cover themselves with glory.

The jousting lasted four days, and since Venice was, there never was seen a fairer sight. On the last day the Doge, the nobles, and the strangers who had been present, and also he who ordered the combat, to whom, after God, was due all the joy of the tournament, gave the first prize to a gentleman of Venice, and the second to a stranger from Ferrara.

Here ends the feast, but not the rejoicing. Here ends also this letter, by which I have endeavoured to show unto thine eyes and to make heard in thine ears that of which sickness has deprived them, that thou mayest know what is doing amongst us, and understand that even among navigators there are found excellent warriors, and souls of choice, and contempt of gold and thirst for honour.

Smedley, Sketches of Ven. History, I. chap. vii.

Unhappily the triumph so vividly described by Petrarch was not final, and two years later, before Lorenzo Celsi had closed his eyes for ever, another revolt broke out in Candia. This time Venice took such radical measures that, in the words of one of the ‘provveditori,’ ‘another rebellion was impossible, terrible examples had swept away the ringleaders, fortresses which gave them asylums, the cities of Lasitha and Anapolis, every building which might afford a stronghold, were razed to the ground; those of the inhabitants who were not put to the sword were transported to other districts, the surrounding neighbourhood was converted into a desert, and thenceforward no one, on pain of death, was permitted to cultivate, or even to approach it.’

Rom. iii. 202.

This was in 1366, but Celsi had died at the fresh outbreak of the revolution, most opportunely, some historians say, for his reputation and honour. It was even thought that if he had lived a few years longer he would have ended like Marino Faliero. Grave accusations were made against him during the last months of his life, but the Council of Ten declared them to be false, and his successor was instructed to declare, when presiding the first time at the meeting of the Grand Council, that the memory of the deceased Doge was untarnished.

Rom. iii. 229.

This successor was the aged Marco Corner, whose election was warmly contested. The accounts left us of what happened in the ducal palace during the interregnum which followed the death of Lorenzo Celsi enlighten us as to the objections which might be raised by the electors against a candidate to the throne. Marco Corner was too old; he was too poor; he was on good terms with several foreign princes, whom he had known when he had been abroad as ambassador; but the gravest charge, or objection, was that he had married a burgher’s daughter, whose family would not know how to behave towards the head of the Republic.

Marco Corner, who was present amongst the electors, at first said nothing to the other objections; but when slighting mention was made of his wife, the thin old man with snow-white hair stood up in his place suddenly, and cried out that he honoured and esteemed his aged wife, who was ‘so good and virtuous that she had always been respected by all the women of the Venetian state as much as if she came of one of the greatest families.’

Molmenti, Dogaressa, 154.

He added bluntly that as for his acquaintance with foreign princes, his friendships had profited the Republic more than himself; since, if he had sought his own advantage, he would not have deserved to be reproached with his poverty, nor would his wife be obliged ‘to turn her dresses again and again, lest they should be seen to be worn out.’

The brave old patrician’s heartfelt words made a deep impression on his hearers; the objections that had been raised fell away in an instant, and he was elected, I believe, unanimously. He took his place on the ducal throne, and his wife Caterina, the companion of his life-long poverty, left their poor little house for the splendours of the palace. The chronicles speak no more of her; we do not even know whether she died during her husband’s three years’ reign, or survived that quiet interval of tranquillity for the Republic.

Marco Corner died in the belief, no doubt, that his country would long enjoy the peace which his prudence and skill had brought about. Yet a day was at hand which came near to being fatal to the Republic. One might almost conclude that when Andrea Contarini had buried himself in the country on the mainland after having twice refused the ducal honours, and very shortly before Corner’s death, he had prescience of the storm that was brewing.

The time had come when he could refuse no longer; for modest though he was, he knew his own strength, and knew also, as men of genius sometimes do, that he alone could save his country from destruction in the greatest crisis of her existence. The memorable war of Chioggia was at hand.

THE THREE BRIDGES