Chapter X: Part 10

It was decided to make a clerk of Carlo, and to send him at once to the court of the Pope at Avignon. His Venetian schoolmaster wrote out for him a Latin eulogium of his father and taught it to him, and when the small boy was brought before the pontiff and the cardinals he knelt down and recited this production without a fault. His august hearers were moved by his beauty, his spirit, his memory, and his bodily grace, and the performance seemed to them little short of miraculous for a child of seven years. The Pope received him into his household, the future man of war was dressed like a little priest, and before his education was half finished he was designated to be a canon of the cathedral of Patras with a rich benefice. After a time he was sent back to his uncle in Venice, and his relations decided that he should be sent to the University of Padua to make his studies.

Before he was thirteen he had his first taste of wounds and his first narrow escape. When returning to Venice from the country he was robbed by a shabbily dressed individual who imposed on him in order to be allowed to make the trip in his boat. The robber left him for dead, but he revived, and reached Mestre, where his hurts were dressed; and it was characteristic of the future man that although a mere boy he succeeded in tracking his aggressor with blood-hounds and handed him over to the justice of Padua, where the man was executed.

After a considerable time he regained his strength, and returned to his studies at the University, but his taste for excitement and adventure led him into bad company; he gambled away his ready money, and even sold his books in order to play, until at last, being quite penniless and ashamed to go home, he disappeared from Padua, not yet a grown man, and joined one of those many fighting bands of mercenaries which were employed by the Italian princes of the time. During the following five years he was not heard of in Venice, his relatives gave him up for dead, and when he suddenly appeared at last he was greeted with no small delight by his brothers and sisters.

He stayed a while with his family and then went to Greece, thinking that it was high time to take possession of his canonry of Patras. The governor received him with open arms, having no doubt heard that Zeno was fond of fighting, for the Turks were just then very troublesome; and the young man at once rendered good service, and would no doubt have done much more, had he not been severely wounded--‘mortally,’ says the good bishop of Feltre. During the night he fell into a syncope which those who attended him took for death; they accordingly proceeded to prepare him for interment, and only waited for the morning in order to bury him; but he revived, a little before daybreak, and escaped being buried alive. He was in such a condition of weakness that he had to be taken to Venice to recover.

While he was there, Peter, King of Cyprus, came to the city and soon took a strong fancy to Zeno, who seems to have made himself useful to this new patron in various ways; but soon the Emperor Charles IV., who was Carlo’s godfather, appeared in Italy, and finding his godson to his liking carried him off and kept him with him for some time, employed him on business which gave him a chance of seeing France, Germany and England, and at last allowed him to return to Patras and to his somewhat neglected ecclesiastical career.

But he was destined to be a soldier. Scarcely had he reached his destination when Patras was threatened by an army of ten or twelve thousand Cypriotes and Frenchmen, horse and foot; so, at least, says Carlo’s grandson the bishop, in not very good Latin. The bishop of Patras turned at once to Zeno and placed under his command the small force of which he could dispose, being about seven hundred riders. With this handful of men, against odds of fifteen to one, Carlo kept the enemy at bay during no less than six months, without losing one man, and so harassed his adversaries that they abandoned the enterprise, made peace, and retired. Yet, as if whatever he did must lead always to more fighting, his success made him an object of envy to many, and especially to a certain Greek knight, named Simon, who had the audacity to accuse him of treachery. Thereupon Zeno challenged his calumniator to single combat, and the day and place of meeting were named. The duel was to be fought in Naples, under the auspices of Queen Johanna, of evil fame. It was in vain that Carlo’s friends besought him to forgive Simon, and his friend the bishop exhausted his eloquence in trying to reconcile the two. The hot-blooded young Venetian preferred to throw up his ecclesiastical benefice; and seeing himself thus free to marry, since he had not yet actually taken orders, he forthwith espoused a noble and rich lady of Clarentia, who was very much in love with him, and whose fortune at once supplied the place of the large income he had forfeited.

He was obliged to leave his bride almost immediately in order to meet his antagonist in Naples, and as the Neapolitan kingdom was distracted by wars he had some difficulty in reaching the city. To his surprise, and probably not much to his satisfaction, the Queen chose to treat the quarrel as something more like a question of law than a point of honour; a regular inquiry took place, Simon was declared to have been wholly in the wrong, and was ordered to pay all the expenses to which Zeno had been put on his account, and Queen Johanna forbade the duel.

His honour being now cleared beyond all possible calumny, he returned to Greece and was at once named governor of a province, though he was not yet twenty-three years of age, and his subsequent career might have been more peaceful than it turned out but for the sudden death of his wife. Her relations, or the Duke of Achaia, promptly cheated him of her dowry, and he once more turned his face towards Venice, a good deal saddened and nearly penniless.

And now, during the term of his mourning, he seriously thought of bettering his fortunes in some permanent way, by following the example of so many of his countrymen and engaging in trade. As a first step, he made a good marriage with a daughter of the Giustiniani family; soon afterwards he left his native city to establish himself in the East as a merchant, and he spent seven years away from home, partly in the ‘city’ of Tanais, which I take to be the modern Rostov, at the mouth of the Don, and partly in Constantinople.

Now at that time the rightful Emperor Calojohannes, who had been friendly to the Venetians, was kept a close prisoner by his son Andronicus, who had dethroned him, and favoured the Genoese. Calojohannes was shut up in a certain fortress which overhung the sea, and was guarded by a captain who was responsible for him. Andronicus probably did not know, however, that this captain’s wife had in former times yielded to the seductions of Calojohannes, and was still devoted to him. It now occurred to the captive Emperor that she could safely convey letters between him and Zeno, whose father had received many favours at his hands in former years, and who would certainly be willing to help him now.

The ‘little woman,’ as the bishop calls her, succeeded in her dangerous errand, and it is needless to say that the mere suggestion of a perilous enterprise instantly fired Zeno’s imagination. With incredible speed and with absolutely marvellous skill, he won over no less than eight hundred Greek soldiers who promised to obey him implicitly when called upon, and to be secret. The latter obligation was not hard to perform, as they would certainly have lost their heads if they had not observed it.

All being ready for the bold stroke, it only remained to bring the Emperor safely out of prison before attempting a revolution, of the success of which the sanguine Zeno had not the slightest doubt. This was not exactly an easy matter, and Carlo undertook it himself. The Emperor’s bedroom had one window high above the water, from which escape must have been considered impossible since it was not protected by any grating. Beneath this window Zeno came on a dark night by agreement with the captain’s wife, and a rope was let down from the Emperor’s chamber. The rest was child’s play to the athletic young Venetian, and in a few moments he was in the presence of Calojohannes. But he had not counted upon the hesitating character and the soft heart of the man he wished to set free. With many tears the unhappy captive expressed his gratitude to Zeno for risking his life in such an adventure; but two of his sons were in the power of his third son, Andronicus, who would not hesitate to murder them on learning that the Emperor had escaped, and Calojohannes was not willing to sacrifice the children he loved for the sake of a few short years of life on the throne.

Carlo answered that there was no time for weeping and hesitating, and that Calojohannes should have considered these matters sooner; that if he would climb down the rope at once Zeno was ready to do all he had promised, and more also, but if not, Zeno would refuse to have anything to do with the matter again. The Emperor continued to hesitate and to shed tears, and Zeno left him at once.

Nevertheless, no long time passed before the captain’s wife was again the bearer of an entreating letter from the captive, who once more implored his friend’s assistance; and by way of an inducement he added that he had made a will leaving the island of Tenedos to the Venetian Republic. The will itself accompanied the letter, to prove the writer’s good faith. Zeno answered, accepting the proposal on behalf of his country, and the little woman hid the letter in her shoe. Unhappily for her and for the prisoner it dropped out just before she entered the Emperor’s room, and was instantly picked up by a sentinel and sent to Andronicus. The poor messenger was seized, tortured, and made to confess the whole plot, including of course the part played by Zeno.

His life was now in imminent danger; he could neither remain in Constantinople nor leave without great risk of being taken and executed for high treason. Venice at that time sent a Bailo, or military ambassador, to the capital of the East, who had jurisdiction over all Venetians residing there; in due course, and with the proper formalities, Andronicus applied to this high official to have Zeno arrested as having conspired against the throne, and the ambassador’s position would manifestly have been extremely delicate if Zeno had not opportunely made his escape by the aid of a soldier who was grateful to him, and who helped him to get on board one of the Venetian men-of-war which periodically visited the city in order to protect the interests of the Republic.

Zeno now showed the Emperor’s will to the officer

in command, and the latter considered that, in view of a possible attempt on the part of the Genoese, it would be justifiable to try to seize Tenedos. On reaching the island it was found to be in the keeping of a Greek officer, who still held it in the name of the dethroned Emperor. The fortress was ascertained to be fully provisioned and provided with an abundance of arms, and by no means to be taken by assault. But Carlo obtained an interview with the governor, and soon persuaded him that his best course, in the interests of Calojohannes, would be to place the island under the protection of Venice. Thereupon the squadron left a strong garrison in the town and returned to Venice with Zeno.

The Senate did not altogether approve the high-handed annexation; nevertheless, fearing lest the Genoese should help Andronicus to recover the island, they determined to send a fleet of fifteen ships to guard it, under Pietro Mocenigo, and not long afterwards two more vessels were sent to join the squadron, the one commanded by Zeno himself and the other by Michel Steno, who was afterwards Doge. Thereupon the Genoese immediately sent a large fleet to the East, Venice sent more reinforcements, and a conflict became imminent. Vittor Pisani now took charge of the whole Venetian force, with orders to make a naval demonstration before Constantinople; but though Zeno actually landed with some of his men by means of ladders, nothing worth mentioning was accomplished beyond the recovery of a Venetian man-of-war, which the Greeks had seized on hearing of the occupation of Tenedos. Thither the fleet now returned, and three galleys were left under Zeno to protect the island.

Before long the Genoese, having heard of the departure of the main body of the Venetian fleet, sent twenty-two galleys to capture the object of contention. Zeno had only three hundred regular soldiers and a fair body of archers, and the Genoese proceeded to land their troops in great numbers, which was an easy matter, as the sea was absolutely calm and motionless although the month was November. Zeno occupied the suburbs of the town, and the castle was in charge of Antonio Venier.

The fight that followed was perhaps the first of those heroic deeds of arms which shed undying lustre on Carlo Zeno’s name. The enemy had scarcely expected that the little force he had would oppose them; but instead, they encountered the most determined resistance as soon as they approached the outlying buildings of the town; they fought some time, were repulsed, and retired to their ships at dusk.

On the following morning they proceeded to land engines of war with the evident intention of laying regular siege to the town, and their movements soon showed that they meant to attack it on the side farthest from the castle. Zeno hastened to dispose a detachment of his men in ambush in a number of half-ruined and empty houses that stood in that quarter. With his remaining force he retired farther in, waited until the enemy were close to him, and then charged them furiously. They were but half prepared, and at the same instant the soldiers he had placed in hiding attacked them suddenly in the rear, and a large force found itself completely surrounded by a small one of which it naturally exaggerated the numbers.

The Genoese were at first slaughtered like sheep, for while the Venetian regular soldiers hewed down the outer ranks, the bowmen shot their arrows into the central press with deadly effect; but rallying, I suppose, they broke through the thin line of their assailants, and again retired to their ships.

Zeno was badly wounded in the calf of the leg by an infected arrow, no uncommon thing in those days, when arrows were drawn from the bodies of the dead after battle and were used again and again. A ‘poisoned arrow’ in the warfare of the Middle Ages by no means implied that the enemy had dipped the barb in venom. As usual, Zeno paid no attention to such a trifle as a wound, and when the enemy returned on the morrow they were greeted by terrific discharges of artillery from the cannon which he had moved into place during their absence, and they were driven off with such slaughter that they gave up the enterprise, and sailed away on the next day. But in this last affair Zeno had been twice wounded again, in the hand and knee, and was so exhausted that he fell into spasms followed by syncope, like a man dying. His grandson tells us, obscurely enough, that he must have died indeed but for the assistance of a Gallo-Greek surgeon, whose novel mode of treatment consisted in burning the sound knee in order to draw health into the injured one. It is slightly more probable that Zeno’s iron constitution had something to do with the cure. The weather became cold, and winter set in soon afterwards, and he returned to Venice covered with glory.

He deserved the praise that was freely given to him, for he had beaten a fleet and an army by sheer genius and courage with a handful of men and three ships, and had preserved to Venice the valuable island which guards the entrance to the Dardanelles. The hatred and rivalry between the two republics were of too long standing to be much embittered by his victory; but his success certainly helped in some degree to precipitate the final struggle.

I have sometimes thought that the behaviour of Venice to her most distinguished generals and statesmen may be compared with that of sea-captains who have a brave but unruly crew to deal with, and who alternately ‘keep the men busy’ and clap the roughest hands in irons in order to impose respect upon the rest; and at times, it may be said without levity, that the conduct of the government was like that of an unpopular and cowardly schoolmaster, who is a little nervous about his personal safety, and loses his nerve in matters of reward and punishment.

On the whole, Venice would have preferred that her battles should be won for her by paid condottieri; but when one of her own sons insisted on being a hero, something had to be done at once lest he should get into mischief. If there was no reasonable ground for imprisoning him, as Vittor Pisani was imprisoned, and as Carlo Zeno was himself imprisoned at a later date, he must be ‘kept busy.’ On this occasion Carlo had hardly reached Venice when he was appointed to the important post of military governor in Negroponte, being at that time little more than thirty years of age.

The time which intervened between the date of this appointment and the siege of Chioggia was spent by him chiefly in fighting the Genoese at sea, with almost unvarying success, and some of his exploits will be referred to hereafter in their proper places. It would be impossible to narrate them all in any space less than a volume, and I have here told enough, it is to be hoped, to give the reader an idea of what his youth had been before the fortunes of war offered larger opportunities to his genius and patriotism.

XIV

THE WAR OF CHIOGGIA

The long rivalry of Venice and Genoa has been sufficiently explained, and frequently alluded to in the previous pages. To give a connected account of the almost constant warfare waged between the two republics in Eastern and Mediterranean waters, from the Sea of Azov to Cape Corso, is beyond the scope and limits of the present work; for in order to understand the nature of the last tremendous struggle that took place at Chioggia, almost within sight of Venice, it is only necessary to recapitulate briefly those events which, during the latter half of the fourteenth century, led directly to the crisis--a crisis after which the vanquished aggressor retreated, definitely beaten and for ever humiliated.

At the outset I shall inform my readers that I have preferred the account given by Romanin to that of the more romantic Daru; for the latter evidently followed the older historian Sabellico, even into the regions of the fabulous, whereas Romanin writes largely upon the authority of Caroldo and of Stella, the latter a Genoese whose account of his countrymen’s disaster is above suspicion.

[Sidenote: _1345. Rom. iii. 152._]

In the year 1345, a powerful Tartar chief named Zani Beg barbarously murdered certain Venetian and Genoese merchants established in the Crimea. For a short time this outrage united the two republics in a common desire for revenge, and they signed a treaty by which they mutually agreed to suspend all commercial relations with the Crimea--to ‘boycott’ the peninsula, as we should say. This was perhaps their only possible means of punishing Zani Beg for his wanton cruelty, since it is idle to suppose that two maritime nations could or would have carried war against a barbarian horde into the interior of such a country as the Crimea.

But the agreement had not been made with any sincere purpose, and before long the merchants of the two countries secretly resumed the trade, each trying to outwit the other. The result could not be doubtful; in 1350 the Genoese seized several Venetian ships with rich cargoes on the coast of Syria, and war broke out between the republics.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 169._]

The first two engagements, off Negroponte and on the Bosphorus, were disastrous to the Venetians, but the third, which took place off Lojera on the coast of Sardinia, resulted in an important victory for them; and the honour of the standard of Saint Mark would have been redeemed if Niccolò Pisani, the Venetian admiral, had not caused nearly five thousand prisoners of war to be drowned, a barbarity which accords ill with the man’s real courage, and would be incredible if it were not proved beyond the possibility of contradiction.

It was after this defeat that the Genoese Republic placed itself in the hands of Giovanni Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, the strongest of the Lombard princes. This extraordinary act was prompted solely by the desire of immediate revenge upon the Venetians, and Visconti was not slow to lend the required means for continuing the war, though he was cautious with regard to actual hostilities, and attempted a reconciliation by sending Petrarch as ambassador to Venice. The negotiations failed, however, and each republic sent out a new fleet; with extraordinary daring, Doria, the Genoese admiral, sailed up the Adriatic and ravaged Istria and Parenzo, threatening Venice itself, but retiring after inspiring something very like a panic. It was at this moment that the Doge Andrea Dandolo died, and that Marino Faliero was elected to succeed him.

On his side, Pisani, the Venetian commander, attempted no such undertaking. Deceived, doubtless, by Doria’s clever manœuvres, he sought him in the Archipelago, and thither Doria sailed, after his exploits in the Adriatic. The hostile fleets met off Modon, opposite Sapienza, and the engagement resulted in the

total defeat of the Venetians. Niccolò Pisani himself, six thousand other prisoners, and thirty galleys of war were carried off by Doria to Genoa; and it has been justly said that had he placed his prisoners in safety, manned his prizes, and sailed with them to Venice, the city must have fallen an easy prey to his attack.

By this disaster Venice was reduced to great straits, and while private citizens equipped men-of-war at their own cost, to help the country, the Republic appealed to Giovanni Visconti and obtained a four months’ truce.

The battle of Modon, or Sapienza, was fought on the third of November 1354; the truce was obtained soon afterwards, and on the sixteenth of April 1355 Marino Faliero was beheaded for treason.

More than twenty years had elapsed and another and younger Pisani had reached maturity and eminence before the two republics again resumed the contest for the mastery of the sea. It would not, I think, be possible to accuse either of having been at any time more aggressive than the other had been, or was, without unfairness. There was an element of fate in the struggle; it was the inevitable contest for final superiority which takes place whenever two individuals, or two bodies of men, or two nations, are pitted against each other in the same pursuit under the same circumstances. The disastrous wars with Lewis of Hungary for the possession of Dalmatia, in which Venice became involved after the death of Faliero, the repeated revolts in Candia, and above all, the ravages of the plague, reduced the population and the wealth of Venice until, at last, she seemed an easy prey. Most assuredly the neutral powers that calmly watched the approach of the war which broke out in 1378 did not believe that Venice could come out of the trial still keeping her independence.

[Sidenote: _1378._]

On the morning of the twenty-second of April in that year, a vast multitude thronged the square and the basilica of Saint Mark’s. Vittor Pisani was to receive his commission as commander-in-chief of the fleet at the steps of the high altar, to hear the solemn high mass, and then, kneeling before Andrea Contarini, he was to take from the Doge’s hands the great standard of the Republic.

The chief of the Republic spoke to him briefly in tones that rang through the hushed cathedral. ‘You are chosen by God,’ he said, ‘to defend the honour and the possessions of your country, and avenge the offences of those who would destroy the freedom which our fathers gave us. Into your hand we commend the flag that has ever been the terror of our enemies; see that you bring it back victorious and unstained.’

Vittor Pisani sailed out of the harbour with only

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 263._]

fourteen vessels, intending to thwart any attempt on the part of Fieschi, the Genoese admiral, to enter the Adriatic. But the Genoese were still far away, delayed by contrary winds, and Pisani sailed round Italy to the Roman shore before he sighted the enemy’s fleet. The battle that followed was fought within sight of Anzio on the thirtieth of May 1378.

In a heavy south-westerly gale, which, as often happens in the Mediterranean, was accompanied by terrific thunderstorms, the Venetians bore down upon their opponents. They evidently had the advantage of being before the wind, while the Genoese must have been obliged to heave to in order to hold their own, a matter of no small difficulty for a war vessel of the fourteenth century. Yet in spite of their superior position at the time of the attack, four out of the fourteen Venetian galleys were so hopelessly separated from the rest as to be unable to join in the fight. Any seaman will at once understand that they must have run past the Genoese to the northward, and that they were then unable to beat back to the scene of action before night. On the other hand, one of the Genoese ships got aground on the dangerous lee shore and went to pieces.

The result of long and fierce fighting was a complete victory for the Venetians. They captured five of the enemy’s galleys and took Fieschi himself prisoner. He must have had gloomy forebodings when he was taken, remembering how Pisani’s terrible namesake had drowned five thousand prisoners of war after the battle of Lojera, or Cagliari. And the Venetian admiral doubtless remembered and hoped to atone

for that barbarous deed, for he treated his captives with every kindness; and even after they had reached Venice they were not confined in the prisons, but were merely shut up and guarded in vast warehouses, where they had plenty of air and were abundantly provided with necessaries. A committee of noblemen was deputed to take care of them, and to see that they lacked nothing. The ladies of Venice also organised themselves in a sort of sisterhood, for the purpose of ministering to the not over-great sufferings of the vanquished, and the noblest names of the Republic stand on the list of those charitable women. Anna Falier, Francesca Bragadin, Margherita Michiel, Marchesina Bembo, and several others are especially mentioned by the historians as ‘angels of goodness and devotion.’ All Venice sought to be forgiven by Europe for the horrors of Lojera.

Pisani had been far too prudent to push on to Genoa with a fleet which only counted nineteen sail, including his five prizes, and he deemed it wiser to return to the Adriatic and to harass the Genoese on the coast of Greece and Dalmatia, whence, under the protection of the King of Hungary, they constantly made piratical excursions against the Venetian merchantmen.

[Sidenote: _Storming of Cattaro, A. Vicentino; Sala dello Scrutinio. Rom. iii. 265._]

After taking possession of several strong places, Pisani asked permission to return to Venice in order to rest his men and refit while waiting for the spring, but the Senate ordered him to continue cruising off Istria in case the Genoese should unexpectedly enter the Adriatic. There is no doubt but that this measure was prudent in itself, but, on the other hand, Pisani’s fleet was altogether in too bad a state to keep at sea through the winter, and in a more or less hostile neighbourhood. A sickness of some kind, not explained by the chroniclers, decimated the crews of his galleys, and he seems to have lacked suitable and sufficient provisions, as well as stores for repairing his rigging and sails. He obeyed the Senate’s orders, however, and he made his headquarters at Pola.

In February he was informed that he was confirmed in his charge of admiral of the fleet, but at the same time the Senate appointed him two advisers, or counsellors, following the true Venetian method of watching, and often hampering, the commander in the prosecution of the war. These ‘provveditori,’ as they were called, were the famous Carlo Zeno and a certain Michel Steno--whether the one who had precipitated the conspiracy of Marino Faliero twenty-four years earlier or not does not appear certain. At all events, he reached his post and remained with Pisani, but Zeno did not.

Later in the spring Pisani received a reinforcement of eleven galleys, sent him in order that he might be able to protect the Venetian vessels that regularly plied between Venice and Apulia to supply the Republic with corn.

While he was convoying a number of these vessels, a storm forced two of his galleys to take shelter in Ancona, where they were seized by the Genoese; but a few days later Pisani encountered the latter, beat them in a short engagement, and recaptured his ships. Scarcely had he got to anchor in the harbour of Pola, however, when twenty-five Genoese men-of-war hove in sight, under the command of Luciano Doria. Pisani could not reasonably hope to fight such a fleet with any chance of victory, and would have preferred to await the arrival of his reinforcements under Carlo Zeno, who was expected in a few days; but his officers clamoured for battle, and Michel Steno, the provveditor, even went so far as to hint that Pisani was a coward to stay in port. This was more than the admiral could bear, though he was the mildest and most long-suffering of brave men; and in the shortest possible time he got his fleet under way, calling upon all who loved Saint Mark to follow him.

I know not whether the wind gave him any advantage at first, as at Anzio, or whether the brilliant little victory he won was due to the fury of his attack. Be that as it may, he slew, or helped to slay, Luciano Doria with his own hands, and put the imposing Genoese fleet to flight.

But the enemy, in the absence of pursuit, soon rallied, and in a few hours inflicted upon Pisani a most disastrous defeat. He himself barely escaped with six galleys out of the nineteen or twenty that had composed his force. Poor in ships, as Venice was at that time, this was a blow that threatened her existence; for the Genoese now had nearly forty vessels, including the prizes recently taken, some of which were perhaps the very galleys they had lost to Pisani at Anzio.

How far Pisani’s misfortune was the result of the unwise advice he was obliged to submit to from Michel

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 268._]

Steno, it is not easy to say; but he was certainly badly handicapped by the non-arrival of his other appointed counsellor, Carlo Zeno, with the promised reinforcements. The Senate took neither the one question nor the other into consideration, any more than it showed the slightest grateful recollection of his many former services to the Republic. He was hastily tried, convicted of having failed to do his duty, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, with the loss, during five years, of all emoluments he received from the State and of all public office for the same period. Venice always acted on the principle that no amount of success could condone one failure, and that defeat was next door to treason. Michel Steno fared somewhat better, for he was not actually imprisoned, but he and all the officers of the fleet were suspended from all public functions for a year.

These drastic measures did not improve the position of the Republic in that time of immediate danger. It was easy to consign Vittor Pisani to the pozzi, but it was quite another matter to replace him, especially in the absence of Carlo Zeno, the only other man of the same calibre upon whom Venice could count.

Pietro Doria had taken the place of Luciano, whom Pisani had killed in battle, and he worked his way steadily up the eastern coast, retaking one by one all the fortified places which Pisani had recently seized, until at last his fleet appeared off the Lido, literally within sight of Venice.

The consternation was indescribable, and it is more than likely that if Pietro Doria had boldly forced the entrance to the lagoons, the city would have fallen an easy prey. Indeed, the situation of the Republic seemed even then almost desperate, for while she was beaten at sea and assailed by the Genoese fleet, the Carrara had leagued themselves against her with the King of Hungary, and threatened her land boundaries on the north and west.

But it always happens in the history of nations, as it generally does in the private lives of individual men, that the last extremity of danger calls forth the true character of peoples, as of persons. It is then that the hero is a hero; it is then that the coward performs miracles of speed in flight.

Venice called out every man able to bear arms. A patrician, Leonardo Dandolo, was entrusted with the defence of the Lido; two others were charged with the protection of the basilica of Saint Mark’s and the adjoining square; another was made responsible for the quarter of the Rialto; and others again were told off to defend the outlying islands, Torcello, Murano, and Mazzorbo. Finally, Jacopo Cavalli, a foreign captain, was promised a very large recompense if he could perform the almost impossible feat of defending the Venetian territory on the mainland with four thousand horse, two thousand footmen, and a not inconsiderable number of bowmen.

The monastery of Saint Nicholas on the Lido was converted into a regular fortress. Three huge hulks, which I conjecture to have been old transports from

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 268._]

the days of the crusades, were lashed together with triple chains, and sunk at the entrance to the lagoons. As far as possible all the male inhabitants of the city were armed, and were so organised as to be ready to fight whenever the great bell of Saint Mark’s should give the signal.

Meanwhile ambassadors were sent one after the other, and in haste, to the court of Hungary in the hope of detaching the King from his alliance with the lords of Padua, but they utterly failed to bring about the desired result; for both the Carrara and the Genoese spread abroad in Buda the report, by no means exaggerated, that Venice was at the last extremity, and must soon yield to her allied enemies; and the King, trusting to this welcome news, answered the Venetian ambassadors with such arrogance that they had no choice but to take their leave.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 273._]

The Genoese fleet lay at anchor off the Lido, and the only chance of safety seemed to lie in attacking it boldly, for as yet it consisted of no very large number of vessels. Six good Venetian ships of war, manned by picked men, would no doubt suffice, and these could still be produced. They were placed under the command of Taddeo Giustiniani, and they sailed out through the narrow channel that had been left navigable.

Now it chanced that on board of one of the Genoese galleys there was a certain man, a Venetian sailor, who had been taken prisoner with the galley commanded by Giovanni Soranzo when Vittor Pisani was defeated; and he was brave and loved his country, but his name has not come down to us. When he saw the Venetian ships making ready, inside the Lido, he managed to drop himself overboard, and he swam for his life towards the entrance; and as Giustiniani sailed out he

saw this man ahead swimming, and making desperate signals to the Venetians to bring to.

The commander recognised him as a Venetian either by his appearance or by his language, laid his topsail to the mast and took him aboard, to learn that the Genoese vessels before him were but the vanguard of a huge fleet which was itself at hand, and would soon be in sight. To engage was now out of the question, and could only end in the total loss of the six Venetian vessels; Giustiniani put about and re-entered the lagoons, to take the bad news to Venice.

The first fault committed by the Genoese was that, having surprised the city, they did not profit by their advantage and storm it at once, at a moment when at least half the population must have been paralysed with fear. Instead, they seem to have followed a consistent but mistaken plan; for they pillaged and laid waste the outlying islands one by one with the evident intention of destroying the city’s supplies, and of ultimately cutting off all communication between it and the mainland.

In the course of this more or less systematic operation they came before Malamocco on the sixth of August 1379; but here they met with a first check, for they perceived that the place was too strongly fortified to be rashly attacked, and they therefore sailed past it towards Chioggia, which was, and is, the most important strategic point of the lagoons.

Chioggia is close to the mainland, at the western extremity of the Venetian archipelago. The name belongs vaguely, in old maps, to the long island properly called Brondolo, on the western end of which is built the town of Brondolo; more particularly to the Port, or entrance between this island and the one called Palestrina, between which two the ‘Lupa,’ the Tower of the She-Wolf, rises out of the water; and especially to the small city of Chioggia. The latter is divided into two parts--the greater Chioggia, built on a

number of very small islets, and the lesser, which stands on the inside shore of the main island. There was a bridge between the two parts.

The entrance to the port of Chioggia being deep and safe, the Venetians had deepened also a natural channel, twenty-five miles long, which led thence through the shallow lagoons to Venice, and this was one of the best and safest approaches to the city from the outer sea, a fact which was well known to the Genoese, who looked upon Chioggia as the real key to the capital, and the name of the place has been given by all historians to the war that followed. It is almost needless to say that the extreme shallowness of the lagoons was a real defence against an enemy not well acquainted with the channels, which, as every one knows, are marked by tall timbers that project from six to fifteen feet above the water. To remove these was a first measure of defence.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 274._]

The most tremendous exertions were made by the Venetians to prepare themselves for an attack, which would almost certainly have been fatal to them if the Genoese had not put it off too long. Reinforcements were at once sent down to Pietro Emo, the Podestà of Chioggia, who anchored a large armed hulk in the channel, manning it with soldiers and supplying it with provisions to last some time.

The lesser Chioggia, on the shore of the island, was abandoned as not defensible, but the main town was very effectually fortified, and each little islet became a separate stronghold. On the side of the allies Carrara succeeded with great difficulty in conveying a considerable force of men from Padua down the old branch of the Brenta, which the Venetians had obstructed by sinking a hulk across it. Carrara is said to have dug a channel round this point in a single night. The allies had now about twenty-four thousand fighting men.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 275._]

Pisani had been beaten at Pola in May; it was on the sixth of August that the Genoese reconnoitred Malamocco and anchored off Chioggia harbour, and their attack upon Chioggia itself began on the eleventh. On that day the armed hulk which Emo had moored in the channel was captured and burned, and the Genoese fleet was able to enter the port and lie before the besieged town, while Carrara and the Paduans assailed it from the side of the lagoons in their light boats. Every day the united forces renewed their attack, and hour by hour they won their way into the strong little place, taking the bridges and fortifications one after another. By the fifteenth of the month, the bridge to Brondolo having been taken, it was clear to the Venetians that Chioggia was lost, and Dandolo considered how he might withdraw his force to Venice. It seemed only too certain that every man who could be saved alive would be needed for the defence of the capital, and it was still possible to escape across the shallows, where the Genoese could not follow in their ships and the Paduans did not know their way. The carnage had already been frightful. It is said that six thousand Venetians were slain, and that three thousand and five hundred were taken prisoners. Dandolo saved a large number in his retreat; but the heroic Pietro Emo refused to leave the town, and remained with fifty devoted men to fight to the very death within his own palace walls. The town was sacked forthwith, and much of it was burned; over what was left the standards of Genoa, of Carrara, and of Hungary were displayed where the banners of Saint Mark had floated for centuries, until that bloody day.

Chioggia fell as the sun went down, and the news reached Venice late that night. The city was all awake and in desperate anxiety, and when the truth was known, fear turned almost to panic. Women rushed frantically to the churches to confess and receive the sacraments, as if the Last Judgment of God were upon them. The men were at first silent, paralysed in absolute consternation; since Chioggia was gone, the Genoese might be upon Venice by morning.

But again they let the opportunity pass, and the Venetians were vouchsafed a breathing space, which might seem but enough to show them how desperate their situation really was. For Treviso was already besieged by Carrara’s troops when Chioggia fell, and the allies were closing in upon the city like a wall of iron.

The Doge Contarini displayed a coolness and a courage altogether heroic. The Republic had oppressed its chief by an intolerable system of spying and petty limitations that reduced his personality to a nonentity in ordinary times. It had forbidden him almost everything; but it had not forbidden him to die for his country. The example of one man could still revive the courage and sustain the calm of thousands. Venice was not lost, so long as that one true citizen remained alive.

The Doge and the Senators gave all their own treasure to the public fund, and imposed regular taxes on the citizens; they distributed the supplies of arms with great good judgment, and sent out scouts upon the lagoons in the lightest and swiftest skiffs, in order that no movement of the enemy should escape observation.

But the people murmured against the government, even in their constant terror; for Vittor Pisani was their idol, and he was still in prison.

It may have been the intention of the Genoese and their allies to starve Venice to a surrender; but I think it more likely that Doria’s procrastination was in accordance with his own character, and that it was in part due to the almost inevitable complications which arise where military command is not vested in one person, but is shared almost equally by a number of allied captains.

The very first and most pressing danger was past when Contarini called a general assembly of the people, on the thirteenth of September, by causing the great bell of Saint Mark’s to be rung. It was long since the summons had been heard, and the population answered it eagerly. The cathedral was soon thronged to suffocation by men of all ages and conditions, who listened in profound silence to the eloquent words of the senator Pietro Mocenigo. He spoke from a high balcony or pulpit, and his ringing voice was heard in the farthest corners of the great building.

He told his hearers that the time had come when they must think of the honour of their women, the lives of their young children, and the safety of their worldly goods; he said that whosoever lacked necessary food for himself and his family need only ask for what he needed at any patrician house--he should be treated as a friend, as a brother, the last crust of bread should be shared with him. That was all, save that he called upon all sensible men to speak, if they had any advice to give which would be for the public good and safety.

The impression made by this simple speech was profound, for the people owed the aristocracy no long-standing grudge as in other Italian cities. The nobles had neither ground them down, nor tormented them, nor dishonoured them, but had only taken the political power and, with it, the responsibilities of government. In the wars of Venice the nobles had shed their blood for their country much more abundantly, in proportion to their numbers, than the people themselves; and in peace, their suspicions, their spyings, and their eternal repression had been directed against each other, and never against the poor man. And now they reaped their reward; they stooped to call the poor man brother, and the mere words flattered him, and cheered him, and made a hero of him. Happy Venice, even in that dire extremity!

Then many rose up in the church and cried out that every ship in the arsenal that would float must be manned to attack the enemy rather than yield to starvation.

Mocenigo, the orator, being satisfied with this answer of the people, went on to the question of choosing a leader, and proposed Taddeo Giustiniani; but the multitude would none of him, and shouted for Vittor Pisani. Under him they would win or die, they cried as one man, and they would have no other.

To resist such a demand would have been madness, and for once the lordly Signory bowed before the plebeian will. The captain was forthwith led out of prison, and the crowd, frantic with joy at his release, carried him in triumph on their shoulders round the square of Saint Mark’s.

‘Long live Vittor Pisani!’ they shouted.

‘No,’ he cried, answering them in commanding tones. ‘Long live Saint Mark!’

Some obeyed him, and some would not, and the two cries mingled together, ‘Pisani, Saint Mark, Saint Mark, Vittor Pisani.’

[Sidenote: _Daru, ii. 217._]

The historian Daru, whose passion for romance sometimes led him far, says that Pisani asked to be allowed to spend one more night in confinement, in order that he might prepare himself by prayer for performing his devotions the next morning, and that it was from the window of his prison that he rebuked the crowd for cheering him. Yet Daru himself, a few pages earlier, had just described the prisons of Venice in the fourteenth century as horrible dens which had neither light nor air except from a narrow corridor, adding that the most piercing screams could never be heard outside.

Men like Pisani have little need of acting or posing in order to increase their prestige, for it is enough that they should show themselves and brave men will follow them. The captain was taken from prison at once and, after saying a prayer in the basilica, went before the Doge.

The mutual position of the two men was a strange one. Contarini must have been well aware that Pisani’s condemnation had been utterly unjust; Pisani had suffered that condemnation without complaint, and well knew that the Doge had voted for it; both were brave and patriotic men, who believed devoutly in the system by which their own aristocracy repressed among its members any attempt at individualism, spied upon itself, and treated failure as a crime. Pisani, if the situation had been reversed, would have condemned Contarini as unhesitatingly as Contarini had condemned him. It was certainly against the theory of the Republic that he should be taken out of prison before he had expiated his defeat; but it was inevitable, and he was free.

Yet both men found something to say in these almost absurd circumstances, which was neither commonplace, nor undignified, nor merely complimentary.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 278._]

‘Your prudent and wise conduct,’ said the Doge, ‘will efface your misfortunes, and avenge not only any offence which you may have received yourself’--Pisani had been called a coward by the provveditor of the Republic--‘but also the injuries which our country has suffered at the hands of our enemies; you will therefore consider rather the favour done you now than the past disgrace in which you have been, and you will gladly seize this occasion of proving how unfounded those accusations were which were made against you, and how much you desire to earn in future the gratitude of our country.’

To this cleverly-worded and not wholly inane speech Pisani replied that he had altogether forgotten the past, and that he should find means, by the grace of God, to deserve the confidence placed in him.

Before he was allowed to depart he was informed that he was not to have sole command of the Venetian troops, since Taddeo Giustiniani had been entrusted with the defence on the side towards the Lido. Pisani bent his head and answered that he had at all times obeyed the orders of the Signory.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 279._]

But the people were less submissive to this schoolmaster justice; they would have Pisani, and no one but Pisani. Even the soldiers who came from the little island of Torcello protested. ‘Command us what you will,’ they said to him, ‘we will do whatever you order us, but it must be under your own eyes.’

So a deputation of the younger ones among them went to the ducal palace, carrying the banner of Torcello before them, and addressed the counsellors. ‘For the love of God,’ they said, ‘give us three galleys, which we will equip at our own cost, on condition that we be always, and everywhere, under the orders of Vittor Pisani.’

By way of answer they were ordered to go to the Lido and fight under Taddeo Giustiniani. ‘We will be cut into small pieces rather than fight under him,’ cried the men of Torcello, who were assembled in the square when the deputation brought them the answer of the Signory.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 280._]

The Venetians took up the cry, and again the government was obliged to yield. To paralyse the people’s enthusiasm at such a moment, to shake their confidence, to trample upon their wholesale sympathies, was to lose Venice herself. When it was known that Pisani was appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces, the enthusiasm of the city broke out in wild cheering for Saint Mark, for the Doge, for the government; all the men hastened to enroll themselves under his standard, and all the women brought whatever they possessed of value to the palace, both jewels and other objects; they even ripped the silver trimmings and embroideries from their clothes. Forty galleys which lay in the arsenal were fitted out in three days, and in the same time two-thirds of the crews necessary had been found.

The government promised great rewards to all who should distinguish themselves in the struggle. It was announced that thirty citizen families, whichever should contribute the most directly to the salvation of the Republic, should be inscribed in the Golden Book of the nobles; that all strangers who would take arms to defend Venice should be adopted as children by the State, and should enjoy all the privileges accorded to the original burghers; finally, the government promised to distribute five thousand ducats, or over thirty-seven hundred pounds sterling, to the poorer families of the city not belonging to the nobility. Having made these promises, the State, by its decree, proceeded to threaten vengeance against all who should desert the posts assigned to them, or attempt to leave Venice so long as it was menaced by the enemy.