Chapter VI: Part 6

of ancient Josaphat, a fisherman of Padua who adopted them long ago; and that the monster grasshopper-donkey is really a horse, and belongs to another family of fishers, the Cavallarin; and so on, through as many as you can point out. It is the heraldry of the fisher people, begun long ago by the Niccolotti and preserved religiously by their descendants to this present time; and though heraldry is ancient in Venice, there may be stone coats of arms on walls of time-worn palaces that look down upon the Grand Canal, less old than some of these rude ancestral bearings of the sea, that have been handed down from generation to generation through uncounted centuries.

Possibly, though no one would be bold enough to call it certain, the fishermen who were the Niccolotti formed the first and oldest guild in Venice; at all events the others bear a strong resemblance to theirs when we first hear of them.

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Vita Privata._]

[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Corte._]

[Sidenote: _Sagredo._]

They grew up in Venice, as they did in Florence and other cities of Italy, close corporations of arts and trades, which were protected by the State, and assured many privileges to those who belonged to them, chief of which was a sort of monopoly of each branch of industry, which enriched the workmen without injuring the State. Under laws by which no new object could be sold except in properly authorised shops, there was no fear of foreign competition nor of home depression. Each guild was a little republic in itself, thriving in the heart of the great maritime Republic, occupied in administering its own affairs, and never making itself a source of anxiety to the government by meddling in politics.

It thus appears that on the whole the people not only entertained a sort of natural devotion and a feeling of gratitude towards the nobility, and lived a life of tranquillity and contentment, with plenty of holidays and public feasts, with ample means of earning a livelihood, and under such provisions of public charity as made anything like pauperism next to impossible; but also that their true strength consisted in the institution of the arts and guilds, which were recognised and protected by the laws. I have already said, in respect of the eleventh century, that each art existed like a small republic in the midst of the great one; and in the fourteenth century more than one hundred of these so-called arts had their individual constitutions. One of these constitutions contained a statute which forbade the members of the arts and guilds from doing anything which might interfere with or oppose the ordinances of the government, and most expressly forbade anything which could be looked upon as conspiracy. Each art had its own ‘gastaldo,’ or judge, and a certain number of elders, who ruled it according to its constitution, and as connecting links between their own tribunal, which might be called a family court, and the central government of the State. There were also three judges called ‘justiciaries,’ who were elected by the Great Council. It was morally impossible for any one to exercise even the simplest and humblest of these arts until he had been admitted by the council of the one in which he wished to work. It would have been as dangerous as to introduce into Venice any sort of merchandise that was already manufactured there, and by that means bring about competition between Venetian and foreign products. So far as the higher arts and trades were concerned, such as, for instance, glass-making, it was strictly forbidden to allow any workman to leave Venice who was in a position to take abroad the secrets of an industry of which it was intended to keep the monopoly at home.

Every sort of guild comprised many degrees and a number of officers, so that the liveliest competition went on between the members, the apprentice constantly striving to become a craftsman, while the craftsman thought of nothing but the moment at which he should be able to stand the test, which was a real examination, by which he might obtain a right to the title of ‘master,’ not only because the latter represented the highest degree to which he could aspire, but because it conferred upon the sons of whoever obtained it the right to become masters without being required to stand the test. The test examination for the ‘degree’ of master consisted in executing a difficult piece of work within a certain number of hours or days. For instance, a man became a master of mosaic paving when he could lay out and finish the pavement of a large room, so that not the smallest crack or crevice or flaw could be detected in it, and so that the level of the whole surface should nowhere vary by more than the thickness of a ducat.

In some of the arts apprentices were not admitted under the age of twelve; in others, such as shipbuilding, where the work was done in the open air, they could begin from the time when they were eight years old. Glass-workers were forbidden to make use of children’s labour in such work as grinding glass, or in any kind of occupation that could injure their health, such as tending the furnaces during the hot season.

The workmen of the arsenal also formed several guilds of a superior order, and had special rules, which I shall notice in another place, for the arsenal did not reach the height of its importance and activity till the sixteenth century.

Each corporation or guild elected its ‘gastaldo’ by a majority of votes, and his authority may be described as partaking of the paternal, and of that of a justice of the peace. When any conflict arose between two or more members of the guild he was appealed to, and his verdict was perfectly legal. In grave cases, where it became absolutely necessary to appeal to the public tribunals, the latter were bound to take into consideration the rules of the charter of that guild to which the parties belonged; those rules were called the mariegole,’ and no sentence was lawful which was in contradiction with them.

Within the guilds brotherhoods were formed, the aims of which were both religious and co-operative; and these took the name of ‘schools,’ which vied with each other in building churches and hospitals and in making pompous appearances in public during the religious or civil festivals. The number of artisans inscribed in a guild was not determined, but the number of brethren in each school was limited by its statutes. Each school was directed by a ‘gastaldo’ and a number of elders, who were generally the senior members of the guild from which it was derived. This council of management was to admonish with grave words any brother who led an immoral life, to punish blasphemers, and to be vigilant lest any of the brethren should play at games of chance, even dice being prohibited. The ‘gastaldo’ himself might be admonished by the elders, and required to perform ‘great and good’ penance, according to the terms of some of the charters. The brethren paid a tax of admission, and in many schools bound themselves to flagellation at Lent. A certain number of priests were admitted without any obligations, and from four to six physicians; both ‘doctors of physic,’ as they were then called, and ‘doctors of wounds,’ as surgeons were designated. No brethren were admitted under the age of sixteen years.

The brethren had a right to receive assistance from the schools in the form of money and of medicine, if they were ill, either at home or in the hospitals which were annexed to the abodes of some brotherhoods. We find it stated that in some cases the schools assisted a brother with a sum as large as three hundred of the ‘small lire,’ which was a very considerable sum for that time, being equal to about fifty pounds sterling. Among the advantages enjoyed by those who belonged to a school was that even when absent from the city they could claim succour from the brethren. The following words, translated from the statutes of the School of the Holy Apostles, framed in Venetian dialect of the thirteenth century, well express the general purpose of these institutions: ‘Let the brethren be twelve good and honest men, who for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ are to live holily, in peace and charity, without fraud, pride, or murmuring, having ever before their eyes the example of the apostles and the command of Christ, to wit, Love peace and charity, and love your neighbour as yourself.’

The worst of the misdeeds for which one of the brethren could be subjected to the dishonour of being expelled from the school was openly leading a bad life. The head of the brotherhood, upon the information of other brethren and by his own knowledge, then warned the culprit to correct his ways. ‘Let him be told to amend his life openly, for charity’s sake; and if it be amended within fifteen days, then praise be to God, and let him go in peace.’

It sometimes happened that a brother, of his own accord, rather than be expelled, wished to quit a school, in entering which he had perhaps experienced some difficulty. To this end the statutes of some schools laid down that he should pay a considerable fine, that in the presence of his companions he should be placed upon a bier, and that while the bells tolled as for a dead man he should be carried round the church. After the passage of this law such cases grew much less frequent.

In the end the schools became very rich institutions, for the members not only contributed money, but they and their families, and doubtless many members of the guilds, worked for nothing on their churches, their hospitals, and their asylums for the old. The competition between different schools was keen, and led to their beautifying their oratories and their places of meeting with magnificent works of art, so that almost all the great painters of Venice first acquired fame under their protection.

In the fourteenth century such men as Carpaccio and Bellini, and later, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, were all humble brethren of the Guild of Painters and Varnishers, and they all, without exception, submitted in their schools to the authority of men who were very likely nothing better than house-painters by profession, though they were undoubtedly men of high morality and probably of considerable cultivation.

As for the treasure that accumulated in the name of the Guild, it was not only used for the sick and in aiding young artists, but it was also not unusual to give dowries to the daughters of poor brethren, and sometimes considerable sums were sent to members of the Guild whom some urgent matter detained abroad without sufficient means of livelihood.

[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Corte._]

It is a singular fact, mentioned only by Cecchetti, that a number of nobles, possibly in the hope of obtaining; influence over the guilds, but pretexting religious devotion, requested and were permitted to be inscribed as brethren. It appears that some of the brotherhoods attempted at the very first to defend themselves from this invasion, but were afterwards obliged to yield to the will of the Great Council, though they limited the number of nobles to be admitted so as to make it very small compared with that of the citizens. Later, however, in 1407, the Great Council, considering that this was a slight upon the aristocracy, required that all nobles should be admitted to the schools who wished it, provided that they were of good repute. But the nobility were not satisfied with this; they wished to join the schools and yet be exempt from the usual dues. A few of the guilds yielded, but we find among the papers of the school of Santa Maria della Val Verde, of the year 1320, that all nobles who joined it must submit to all the requirements of the statute, and that for them the admission fees should be even larger than for ordinary citizens--‘and let him be what he pleases,’ concludes the article of the statute with some disdain. In other statutes we find that nobles could be admitted for nothing, but that if they chose to pay something as conscience-money, of their own free will, their offering would not be refused. Another right that the nobles arrogated to themselves was that of refusing to submit to flagellation in Lent, and the only schools where this custom was kept up decided that the nobles, by way of compensation, should pay a considerable increase of dues, and that the same immunity should be accorded for nothing to all brethren over sixty years.

On the whole, the effect of the guilds was to keep alive in the people a sense of their own dignity, and to distract them from hankering after the offices of state, for which quite another education, different studies, and an altogether different point of view would have been required. For the equilibrium of a permanent state one prime condition is that people should soberly, consistently, and, if possible, intelligently, mind their own business.

In the fourteenth century Venice was unlike all other cities, both as regards her external and internal administration, and the singularly divers elements of which her strength was made up. In order to gain a clear idea of the city’s condition at that time, a word must be said concerning the numerous strangers who, though not taking up their abode permanently in the city, passed through it or came to it on their way to the East, and during the great fairs. I have spoken already of those who established themselves in Venice and who sometimes became citizens ‘de intus et de extra’; I speak now only of that constant stream of travellers, merchants, and men of business--Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and Orientals--who came and stayed a few weeks, or even months, where people would now stay as many days, who transacted their business, bartered their merchandise, and made acquaintance with the city, visiting its monuments, its churches, and even its war-galleys in times of peace. Venice showed them the most unbounded courtesy, and frequently offered them the most magnificent hospitality. Their presence never created the least disorder, and the manner in which the government provided for their welfare is one of the most surprising things in the internal economy of the city.

[Sidenote: _Mut. Costumi._]

When a stranger arrived in Venice and took up his lodging in one of the many inns, some of which, like the ‘Luna,’ the ‘Selvatico,’ and the ‘Leon Bianco,’ are still nourishing in our own time, and were famous in the fourteenth century, he found provided for him a tariff of prices, which protected him against any possible imposition on the part of the landlord; and he could hire a licensed guide to serve him lest he should lose his way in the streets, or be cheated in the shops. The authorities exercised a direct supervision over the rooms of the inns, requiring the most perfect cleanliness of beds and linen and blankets, and they forbade the crowding of strangers beyond a reasonable limit. For the sum of fourteen soldi horses were provided with sufficient oats, hay, and straw.

At times, when many strangers visited Venice, the population of the city was almost doubled; and as the inns could not suffice to receive such a number, the municipality placed at the disposal of visitors such empty houses as it owned, and allowed private citizens to let rooms to strangers; but severe penalties were imposed upon any who should venture to let lodgings without a proper licence, or who should in any way impose upon lodgers.

Pilgrims were received in hospices built for the purpose, and were there served with reverence by the most distinguished persons in Venice; and if they chanced to arrive at the time of any solemn festival they were invited to join in the procession, walking on the right of the patricians with wax torches.

[Sidenote: _Mut. Commercio._]

There was a special court for deciding questions between strangers, or between strangers and Venetians; and it was the duty of this tribunal to punish citizens who wronged any foreigner, or, if the latter was proved to be the offender, to expel him from the city. Moreover, an express law of 1317 required that the judges should ‘gently instruct’ persons who did not present their passports in order, instead of sending them away roughly or imposing a fine for an irregularity arising from ignorance of the Venetian law.

When any very noble guest was in Venice, the State spared nothing that could make his visit memorable to him as a time of wonder and delight. The Duke of Austria never forgot the reception he met with, at a time when he had little expectation of being so hospitably treated, for the relations between the Duke and the Republic had been strained during some time past. One of the Duke’s great vassals, the lord of Sench, who was devoted to the king of Hungary, had stopped and imprisoned three Venetian senators when they were on their way to the Court of the Emperor Charles IV. to request, in the name of the Republic, the investiture of certain lands to which the king of Hungary laid claim. The Duke of Austria had at first tolerated this high-handed act, but had at last yielded to the reiterated instances of the Republic, delivered the prisoners, and sent word that he would bring them to Venice himself.

Though surprised, and a little uneasy at this proposal, the Council determined to receive him with lavish hospitality, and several senators were sent to Treviso with richly-adorned vessels to meet him. He embarked, accordingly, with the restored captives, thirty knights, and a train of two hundred young nobles and squires. Not far from Venice he was met by the Doge with the famous barge, the Bucentaur, and the two sovereigns met with every demonstration of friendship. The noble Austrians were lodged at the charge of the State in the Dandolo and Ziani palaces on the Grand Canal, and so magnificent were the entertainments offered them that the expenses of their visit--for Venice always knew precisely what she was spending--amounted to ten thousand ducats--say, seven or eight thousand pounds sterling, when money was worth three times what it is now.

My chronicler remarks that the money was well

invested, as the Duke was made a firm friend of the Republic, and himself proposed a treaty by which he abandoned his claims to Trieste for seventy-five thousand ducats--about fifty-six thousand pounds.

In the latter part of the fourteenth century Petrarch was received with a hospitality as open-handed, and much less interested. The great poet and famous ambassador was treated like a king; the palace of the Quattro Torri on the Grand Canal was fitted up for him and placed at his disposal for as long a time as he would stay in Venice, and at every public function or festivity he appeared on the right hand of the Doge.

Touched by such consideration, Petrarch bequeathed a part of his priceless library to the Republic, and Venice, on her side, refusing to be outdone in generosity, presented him as a gift with the palace in which he had been living.

The palace had originally belonged to the Molina family, and ultimately became a religious house under the Sisters of the Holy Sepulchre. As for the poet’s books, they came to a melancholy end. They are sometimes said to have been the beginning of the library of Saint Mark. The authority from which I quote says that amongst them were a manuscript of Homer, given to Petrarch by Nicolas Sigeros, ambassador of the Emperor of the East, a beautiful copy of Sophocles, a translation of the whole of the _Iliad_ and of a part of the _Odyssey_, copied by Boccaccio himself, he having learned Greek from the translator, Leontio Pilato, an imperfect Quinctilian, and most of the works of Cicero transcribed by Petrarch himself. Such treasures would make even a modern millionaire look grave; yet it is said that when the celebrated Tomasini asked to be allowed to see the books towards the end of the seventeenth century, he found them stowed away in an attic under the roof of Saint Mark’s, ‘partly reduced to dust, partly petrified’--‘in saxa mutatos’--a phenomenon of which I never heard, and which I am at a loss to explain.

The tendency of Anglo-Saxons to extol and help conspiracy against every government but their own has led Englishmen to waste sympathy on Bocconio and Tiepolo, of whom it is now time to speak. The system of laws and government which became defined after the closure of the Great Council, though it already existed in great part so far as practice was concerned, was designed to check every impulse of personal political ambition in all classes of Venetians, beginning with the Doge himself. Indeed his life, both public and private, was so hampered and hedged in that his position at ordinary times seems to us far from enviable. Yet in spite of this, and it is a singular reflection, it was quite possible for a great man like Enrico Dandolo or Andrea Contarini to exercise tremendous personal influence at decisive moments and to perform acts of the highest heroism. Is there anything more heroic in all romantic history than the aged Dandolo kneeling to receive the cross of the crusader, and then leading a great allied host to one of the most astounding conquests ever recorded? Was ever a man more of a hero than old Contarini, swearing on his sword, when all seemed lost at Chioggia, that he would never go back to Venice till the enemy was beaten--and gloriously keeping his word? It seems to me that the heroism of both those men grows when one considers that if either of them had been even suspected of any personal interest or ambitious design he would have been ruthlessly put out of the way by the men who had elected him.

The whole system was created to make anything like self-aggrandisement impossible, and it worked so infallibly that during something near six hundred years not one attempt to break it down was successful; and when at last it fell, in its extreme old age, of weakness and corruption, it was not finally destroyed by any inherent defect except old age, when it was attacked by the greatest conqueror since Charlemagne.

It may not be possible to bring it under any philosophical theory, and it bore but a small resemblance to Plato’s ideal State; but it had the merit of being the most practical plan ever tested for maintaining the balance between public and private forces, public welfare and private wealth, national dignity and individual social importance. Of the three great conspiracies only one was the work of an ambitious aristocrat; another was a disappointed rich burgher’s ineffectual effort at revenge; the third was headed by the Doge himself, partly out of private resentment. None of them had any great chance of success, yet so great was the apprehension they created that they were the source and origin of all that terrible machinery of secret tribunals, spies, anonymous accusations, and private executions which darken the later history of Venice; a machinery which was almost always at work against the very nobles who had constructed it, who feared it, but who never even thought of doing away with it, though they could have voted it out of existence at any meeting of their council; a machinery which hardly affected the masses of the people at all, and which powerfully protected the merchant burghers, but at the mere mention of which the greatest noble became silent and looked grave.

Elsewhere in Italy the nobles of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, iron-clad, hard-riding, and hard-hitting, were the natural enemies of the people, whom they could kill like flies when they liked. In sea-girt Venice they wore no armour, the people mostly loved them, and the burghers needed their protection and shared in all the sources of their wealth. The nobles’ only possible enemies at home were among themselves.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 5._]

History has not left a very clear account of the conspiracy of Marin Bocconio against the aristocratic Republic in 1300. We know that he was a man who had a great following, chiefly on account of his immense wealth, and Romanin remarks that his intelligence was not equal to the arduous undertaking he had planned. We know that on the discovery of the plot he was taken, that he was first confined in the prison of the ducal palace, and afterwards hanged with ten of his principal accomplices between the two columns, probably those of the Piazzetta, and we have a list of those executed, showing that none of them were noble; but a few noble names appear among those of persons exiled as having been favourable to a revolution. Bocconio was certainly one of those malcontents who were not satisfied with the position and privileges of a

Venetian burgher, and he was desirous of opening himself a way into the Great Council by means of his fortune. The story that he knocked at the door of the council chamber with the hilt of his sword, and armed to the teeth, is an empty fable. He plotted, like the other conspirators, in the dark, and he was betrayed by an accomplice.

[Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 323._]

The facts as well as the details of the conspiracy of the Tiepolo and the Quirini are better known, and it was this attempt at revolution which first gave the government of the Republic that suspicious and inquisitorial character which it never afterwards wholly lost. Mention has already been made of that popular movement in 1296, which attempted to seat upon the ducal throne Jacopo Tiepolo, son of the former Doge Lorenzo, a man distinguished in the career of arms, and who was therefore thought fit to take charge of affairs at the beginning of the great struggle with Genoa. It will be remembered that the government opposed the popular choice, partly in order not to yield an inch to the popular demand, but also, on the other hand, because it was already suspected that the Tiepolo family, which had previously given Venice two doges, was desirous of making that dignity hereditary.

The doge chosen by the government was Gradenigo, and against him the Tiepolo family and their friends, such as the Quirini, the Badoer, and the Doro, continued afterwards to nourish resentment, and showed themselves sternly opposed to the law of the closure of the Great Council, which they looked upon as the triumph of Gradenigo’s policy. The Tiepolo were very numerous, and so also were the Quirini. They possessed many houses, were provided with vast stores of arms, and had many servants and slaves. The two families were not united by friendship only, for Bajamonte Tiepolo had married a daughter of the Quirini. Her father, Marco, was of that branch which inhabited the palace situated on the island of Rialto, in a little square beyond the Ruga degli Speziali.

Both families belonged by right to the Great Council, and during its meetings they took advantage of the smallest incidents to give vent to their wrath against the Doge and his policy. Sometimes they raised such tumults during the sittings that the meetings had to be adjourned, and on the following days they fanned the embers of disturbance into flame in the public streets. The government showed its anxiety by renewing the prohibition to wear arms abroad, and the greatest vigilance was exercised by the ‘Lords of the Night,’ who were six magistrates, generally nobles, charged with the duty of superintendents of police in the city after dark, and were in command of the armed watch. Orders were issued that no one was to keep fire burning, except in barbers’ shops, after the ringing of the third hour of the night, _i.e._ three and a half hours after sunset. At that time the streets were only lighted by means of lamps that burned here and there before shrines set up by pious persons, but the government now greatly increased this illumination. In a word, every precaution was taken lest the discontent fostered by the great families should suddenly break out into open revolt.

One evening the brother of Marco Quirini, Pietro surnamed ‘Pizzagallo,’ was met in the street by Marco Morosini, one of the Lords of the Night, who was going his rounds. The magistrate’s suspicions were at once aroused; he stopped Quirini, and insisted upon searching him to see whether he were armed or not. Pietro Quirini, by way of showing his displeasure at what he considered an offence, promptly kicked Morosini off his feet, and left him lying on the ground. An action was of course brought against the offender, who was condemned to pay a heavy fine for his irascibility in thus gravely insulting an officer of the State. Nevertheless a number of similar incidents took place, for prudence was not among the virtues of the Quirini and Tiepolo families, and they appear to have given themselves infinite trouble in seeking occasions for disturbing the public peace. Nor was it difficult at that time to stir up the elements of discord, for Venice was involved in a disastrous war with the lords of Ferrara, a conflict which we must now briefly explain.

In the eleventh century, during the War of the Investitures, the Church under Gregory VII., Hildebrand, made common cause with the party of Italian independence against the German Empire, and was vigorously sustained by Matilda, Countess of Tuscany. She, on her side, naturally found allies among those powers which desired to obtain the goodwill of the Holy See. When the Countess wished to get back Ferrara, which she had lost some years previously, the Venetians lent their help, both with vessels and with armed forces; and in return they obtained many privileges for their commerce in the city of Ferrara, and, among others, that of placing there a ‘Visdomino,’ a sort of consul-general, to watch their interests.

[Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 19._]

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 12._]

It will be remembered that the Countess Matilda left all her vast estates to the Church. Ferrara, therefore, remained under the supremacy of the Holy See, and when the city was seized by the Ghibelline Salinguerra the Venetians drove him out, and the city came under the domination of the family of Este, with the consent of the Pope. By the end of the thirteenth century this family had already reached such a high position that the Marquis Azzo had married the daughter of Charles II., king of Naples. Venice remained on excellent terms with this Marquis Azzo, and constantly lent him assistance in his struggles with his neighbours who threatened his liberty. He, however, fell dangerously ill in the year 1307, and Venice, being well aware of the discord which was brewing between his sons, seized the opportunity of furthering her own interests. During his illness three Venetian envoys remained constantly at Ferrara on pretence of sending information regarding the health of the sick man, but in reality to watch the condition of affairs and the disposition of the people. The old prince died, and left a will so worded that one of his illegitimate sons, named Fresco, attempted to have his own son, Folco, proclaimed lord of Ferrara, and to this end asked help of Venice. Azzo’s two legitimate sons, Francesco and Aldobrandino, however, turned to the Pope and obtained his support, renewing their oaths of allegiance as feudatories of the Church.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 20._]

A hot contest now ensued, and Fresco, realising the weakness of his own cause, made over his rights, such as they were, to Venice. The troops of the Pope and of the Marquis Francesco now entered Ferrara, and the city was declared under the dominion of the Pope in 1308. But Venice protested, and refused to surrender the fortresses she had taken over from Fresco. It was in vain that the Pope attempted every means of conciliation. The Republic had long coveted Ferrara as a possession, and now refused to give up the part of the principality which she held, or her claim to the rest. The negotiations therefore came to grief, and ended in a solemn Bull of Excommunication against the Doge, his counsellors, all the citizens of Venice, and all persons whatsoever who had helped them; declaring, further, that Venice was dispossessed of all she held in the principality of Ferrara and elsewhere; all men were forbidden to engage in commerce with her; all men were permitted thenceforth to make slaves of Venetians--if they could; the wills of all Venetians were declared null and void; and all clergy were ordered to quit the Venetian territories ten days after the expiration of the thirty days which were allowed the Republic to consider whether she would repent or not.

Venice, however, obstinately resisted; and in this place it should be noted that the Venetians, though very devout, and always ready to decree new festivities in honour of their saints, besides being extremely generous in building churches and endowing religious institutions, continuously showed themselves averse to all intervention of the Church, where their political or material interests were concerned. Though they respected the clergy, the latter never had any privileges in Venice beyond those of ordinary citizens, and both priests and monks were constrained to mount guard at night, and to appear before civil tribunals in civil suits, like ordinary citizens.

Venice was still under the papal excommunication when the quarrel between the Quirini and the followers of the Doge Gradenigo had reached its climax, and when the anti-papal party, which we may fairly call the Ghibellines, and which had the support of the Doge, overcame the resistance of its opponents. Marco Quirini determined to take advantage of the discontent of the greater part of the citizens in order to set on foot an immense conspiracy. He was indeed the soul of this attempt, but his son-in-law, Bajamonte Tiepolo, was the visible mover in it, for he was beloved by the people, who called him the ‘Great Cavalier’; and he was inspired by a profound hatred of the person of the Doge, who, according to him, had usurped the dignity which had been conferred upon the Tiepolo by the will of the people.

Friends of the two great families began to meet in the Cà Grande, which was the palace of the Quirini. Marco made a speech, which to modern democrats might seem a model of justice and patriotism, in which he did not fail to prove that he was not impelled to take arms against the head of the Republic by any motive of personal grudge or private ambition, but that he was driven to extremities by the unwise policy of the government and the extremely unjust laws which were being promulgated to the destruction of the public liberties. A sort of report of this speech is still preserved in the library of Saint Mark.

Tiepolo, at once more frank and more persuasive, replied to the words of his father-in-law, explaining clearly that it was their joint design to give the Republic a doge acceptable to the people and capable of restoring to the latter their original and ancient rights. It is possible that the meeting might have determined to take arms openly at once, if old Jacopo, another of the Quirini, a man of wise counsel and of little personal ambition, had not replied to these first two speeches by attempting to persuade his hearers that they ought to desist from what was a criminal attempt, and from bringing about the calamities of bloodshed. This Jacopo was about to leave Venice as ambassador to Constantinople. The conspirators, who respected him, but had not the slightest intention of accepting his advice, pretended to yield, putting off the moment for action until after his departure. When he had left the city, they made every arrangement for carrying out their revolutionary plans at dawn on Sunday, June 14, 1310.

During the night the conspirators were to meet in the Cà Grande in small detachments. In the palace arms sufficient for all were hidden, with a flag upon which was inscribed the word ‘Liberty.’ Marco Quirini and his sons, Niccolò and Benedetto, were to go to Saint Mark’s by the Calle dei Fabbri and the Bridge dei Dai, with a number of armed men; the other conspirators were to enter the Piazza from the Merceria, under the leadership of Bajamonte. For some time past Badoero Badoer had been in Padua and its neighbourhood gathering a desperate band, and on the appointed day he and his men were to be ready at the palace of the Quirini. The plan was boldly conceived, and there was no small likelihood of its success. But one of the conspirators, a burgher named Marco Donà, lost courage at the last, or suffered himself to be seduced by promises of rich reward from the Doge, including his admission to the nobility. Early in the night he entered Gradenigo’s apartment, and revealed everything to him. The Doge did not lose his presence of mind for an instant, but gathered round him his counsellors, the Lords of the Night, the heads of the Forty, and all his friends; every man then quietly armed his servants, thereby gathering together a large number of defenders. At no great distance from the palace was the Arsenal, where there were a great number of artisans of every kind employed in the construction of ships, and these men, both from their intelligence and honesty, represented the pick of the Venetian lower class. They composed the bodyguard of the Doge, and had the right to assist at all public ceremonies, their chiefs having the privilege of entering the palace freely. These men slept in the shipyard by turns, and were always ready at the call of their ‘provveditori,’ who were three nobles elected at intervals of thirty-two months for the direction and administration of the

Arsenal. With such forces at his command, it is perhaps not surprising that the Doge was not intimidated by the conspiracy. As soon as he was assured of being defended by his servants and the workmen, he sent messages to the Mayors of Chioggia, Torcello, and Murano, with orders to arrest the conspirators who were to enter Venice under the guidance of Badoer. At the same time the members of the School of Charity and many of the guild of painters took arms to watch the entrance to the Piazza.

Meanwhile the conspirators made their way through a tempest of rain and wind to the Quirini palace, and arms were distributed to them; Badoer, however, did not come, and his absence was attributed by his friends to the storm. Without waiting for him they went out at dawn, during a terrific thunderstorm, crying ‘Death to the Doge Gradenigo!’ The Quirini, following the direction agreed upon, came out at Saint Mark’s by the Bridge dei Dai, which thereafter received the name of ‘Ponte del Malpasso’ (the Bridge of Evil Crossing). But instead of finding the Square deserted, as they had expected, they were assailed by a strong contingent of armed men. Marco and his son Benedetto were soon killed; the other son, Niccolò, was wounded, and he probably obtained on that day the surname of ‘the Lame,’ which he ever afterwards bore. The remaining conspirators now scattered, to meet again soon afterwards in the Square of Saint Luke, where they were again defeated by the guild of painters. Meanwhile Bajamonte was coming down towards Saint Mark’s from the Merceria, and in order to gather his followers together he halted at the knot of elder-trees, where it was the custom to tie up the horses of the councillors on the days of assembling. Here, by chance or by intention, a woman of the people, who lived in a little house overlooking the trees, dropped from her window a stone mortar, or the stone of a hand-mill, which killed Bajamonte’s standard-bearer. The banner inscribed with the word ‘Liberty’ was dashed to the ground, and Tiepolo’s men fell into such confusion that he had great difficulty in taking them back to the island of Rialto, burning behind him the bridge which connected the island with the rest of the city. A regular siege now followed, the insurgents defending themselves with the courage of despair; and they might even then have been victorious if Badoer had been able to reach Venice and to take the Doge’s forces in the flank, but Badoer, with a great number of his rebellious companions, had been taken and thrown into prison early in the morning, having been caught on his way to Venice by the Mayor of Chioggia, who was a Giustiniani. Tiepolo now held his own upon the island of Rialto, where he had entrenched himself; but the Doge, in order not to prolong the bloodshed of a conflict between citizens, wished to prevail by some gentler means, and promised all the rebels their lives, provided they would submit, throw down their arms, and quit the territory of the Republic. The negotiations were first attempted by some Milanese merchants, and then by Giovanni Soranzo, who, as the father-in-law of Niccolò Quirini, the latter having married his daughter Soranza, seemed to have a better chance of being heard; but it was in vain. Tiepolo continued to resist with mad obstinacy, and preferred anything rather than submission; until at last one of the counsellors of the Doge, a certain Filippo Belegno, succeeded in bringing about an understanding. Tiepolo consented to retire from the island of Rialto, and to go into an exile which was to last four years ‘in the Slavonic countries beyond the island of Zara,’ but not in any country that was hostile to Venice; his noble followers were also to be exiled during four years, and might reside in any part of Italy that was outside the Venetian territories, but not within the territories of Padua, Treviso, or Vicenza. They were informed that if they were found beyond the limits to which they were assigned they should pay for the indiscretion with their lives. By a decree of the Great Council their wives were ordered to follow them into exile, and were instructed to leave Venice within eight days. The other conspirators, _i.e._ the servants of the nobles, and those who were considered less responsible, were pardoned on condition that they would submit and lead quiet lives. Thus of all those who had taken part in the revolutionary movement, only Badoer and his friends were in the hands of justice on the evening of the fatal day. When, according to the custom of the times, they had confessed their crime under torture, Badoer was beheaded, and the rest were all hanged between the columns. One-third of the Quirini family property having been claimed by Giovanni, who had taken no part in the conspiracy, the remaining two-thirds of the Quirini palace on the Rialto were demolished, the share in the Cà Grande being allowed to stand which had been Giovanni’s; but lest it should remind posterity of the greatness of the family, the Republic bought out his third part and turned it into a place for raising and killing poultry.

It is a singular circumstance, but quite authentically recorded, that the government was just then without sufficient funds to pay Giovanni for his share in the house, and it was actually proposed to pawn the city’s silver trumpets, which were used in all public solemnities. The government, however, succeeded in raising the sum in a more dignified way.

[Sidenote: _Lazzari Guida, 171._]

The house of Bajamonte Tiepolo, at Sant’ Agostino, was levelled to the ground, and on the spot a column recorded the traitor’s infamy. This space is still open and desolate in our own time, after a lapse of six hundred years.

The column was set up in 1314, and it bore the following inscription, which is one of the most ancient specimens of Venetian dialect. It is in the form of a rhymed quatrain: ‘This ground belonged to Bajamonte, and now for his infamous treachery it has been turned common, that all may look upon it now and ever, and be afraid.’

[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Dubbii._]

It is not long since writers of democratic tendency still attempted to make Tiepolo seem a martyr to liberty. The Provisional Government of Venice, on July 13, 1797, invited the citizens to restore to honour the memory of those heroes, born in times of tyranny, who had fallen victims to their own generous efforts, and much more in the same manner. It was proposed to set

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 39, note 2._]

up a statue to Tiepolo, as well as to the proto-martyr, Marin Bocconio; but in the end, even the democratic government was obliged to concede that its hero had been nothing but a seditious egotist, and the name of Bajamonte has not lost the odium it deserves even to our own time; for in spite of his standard blazoned with the word ‘Liberty,’ he had really meant to seize the government of his country and to make the dogeship hereditary in his family. After the conspiracy the public feeling against the Tiepolo and Quirini families was so strong that those branches of the Tiepolo which had remained faithful to the republic changed their coats-of-arms. The innocent branches of the Quirini, however, resorted to an expedient which is quite unique in heraldry, so far as I know. In Italian ‘bono’ means ‘good’; the Quirini simply charged their coat with a capital B, to show how good they had been!

Marco Donà, the man who had revealed the plot, was rewarded by being admitted to the Great Council, and his name was inscribed in the ‘Golden Book,’ making the honour hereditary. The woman who had killed Bajamonte’s standard-bearer, and whose name was Rossi, on being asked what reward she would prefer, requested to be allowed to fly the standard of Saint Mark from her window on the day of Saint Vitus (June 15), and on the other solemn festivals of the year; and that neither she nor her descendants should ever be required to pay a higher rent for the house in which she lived, and which belonged to the patrimony

[Sidenote: _Fulin, Arch. Ven. (1876), and Soranza Soranzo._]

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Dogaressa._]

of the Basilica of Saint Mark. There exists under date of the year 1468 the protest of a certain Rossi, her descendant, whose rent had been raised from fifteen ducats to twenty-eight. He won his case. The house is called in our own time the ‘House of the Miracle of the Mortar.’ It is in the Merceria, at the corner of the Calle del Cappello. The standard which Lucia Rossi used to display at her window is preserved in the Correr Museum.

The Rector of the guild of painters also received special honours, as well as the brethren of the Carità, who had lent armed assistance.

One might be surprised at the lenity with which the Republic judged the ringleaders of the Tiepolo-Quirini conspiracy; but it must not be forgotten that the conspirators, entrenched on the Rialto, were beyond the Doge’s power, and still threatened the safety of the city and of the Republic, which was no doubt glad to be rid of them at any price. Moreover, we have record of a pitiful episode, which shows that the Venetian government could be severe to cruelty without necessarily employing the executioner.

Among the nobles who went into exile beyond Zara after the affair at Rialto was Niccolò Quirini, Marco’s son, surnamed ‘the Lame.’ His wife, who was, as we have said, the daughter of Giovanni Soranzo, joined him in his exile. At the end of four years, says Molmenti, she felt an irresistible longing to see her family again, and asked permission to return home, but it was not granted to her. Her father, however, had been made Doge in 1311, and she began the journey, trusting to his influence. No sooner had she reached Venice than she was arrested and condemned to perpetual confinement in the convent of Sta. Maria delle Vergini, in one of the most distant districts of the city.

[Sidenote: _Galliccioli, vi. 58._]

[Sidenote: _Giustina Renier Michiel, Origini ii. 73._]

In connection with this story it should be noted that the convent in which she was imprisoned was not one of cloistered nuns. Until the end of the fifteenth century they bore the title of ‘canonesses’; they were under the government of an abbess, but took no solemn vows, wore no veils, and could even leave the convent and marry. The convent itself was under a sort of tutelage of the Doge. It had been founded and endowed at the beginning of the thirteenth century by the Doge Pietro Ziani, together with a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and became the common residence of many noble ladies, and of many noble girls who were educated there. The Doge conferred the investiture upon the abbess, according to the custom of those times, by means of a golden ring, and once a year he went to visit the convent. This was in the month of May; and after hearing mass the Doge went into the parlour, where the abbess received him, being dressed in a magnificent white mantle, with two veils upon her head, one white and the other black. She presented the Doge with a small bunch of flowers, set in a golden handle, for which the Doge expressed his thanks in a set form. The Doge Soranzo must have gone through this function many times while his own daughter was a prisoner in the nunnery, and not allowed to assist in the ceremony. The old building of the Vergini was destroyed by fire in 1375, but was restored with greater splendour than before as a place for educating noble Venetian girls.

It must not be supposed that the convent had barred windows, nor that there were gratings at the parlour door, from behind which the novice never returned again to the outer world. Gratings and bars and the strict cloister were not introduced into the rules of Italian nuns until much later, when the Church was obliged to check the grave abuses which had gradually crept into convent life. In the time of Soranza, and particularly in the convent of the Vergini, there was much freedom, and any reasonable excuse was admitted for allowing the canonesses to go out into the city; they not infrequently visited their relations, and even stopped with them in the country.

Soranza had been placed in custody in a little house that was built against the wall of the convent; its door had two different keys, one of which was given to the abbess, and the other to the housekeeper sister, so that the two were obliged to enter together, and while guarding their prisoner they watched each other. Soranza was allowed one woman servant, who was allowed to go out in order to wash linen, but she was warned that she would be condemned to a heavy fine if the smallest bit of writing were ever found upon her.

Four years Soranza languished uncomplaining in her narrow dwelling. Then she appealed to the Council of Ten for permission to walk in the convent garden. The Council allowed her this liberty for only four months. Fearing that it would not be continued to her she wrote again before the term expired, to beg that it might be extended, representing that she could not live without a little air; and the Council made the permission permanent.

At last it was known that Niccolò was dead, stabbed by an unknown hand, and Soranza was a widow; nevertheless, for the sake of the name she yet bore, the Republic still treated her as a prisoner. Amongst the archives of the Council of Ten are found more than sixty documents concerning her, and there are letters from her entreating to be allowed to visit her father, the Doge, at the ducal palace, or to go and take care of a sick friend. Sometimes she obtained what she asked, sometimes the most innocent indulgences were refused her, and it is clear that the Republic did not mean her to think that she could have anything otherwise than as a special favour.

When Soranza breathed her last in the little house that had been her prison, she had occupied it for twenty-five years. During the last ten years, however, the wife of Andreolo Quirini was confined with her.

She was not the last of those unhappy ladies who had been exiled with their husbands. In 1320 a man called Riccio arrived in Venice, bringing the head of Pietro Quirini who had been treacherously assassinated by an ‘unknown’ hand--possibly the hand of Riccio himself, who brought the victim’s head in order to claim his fee. Pietro left a widow, still young, who at once asked permission to come home to Venice. She was told plainly that if she had no children and expected none she might return, but that otherwise she must remain in exile ‘at the disposal of the Ten.’