Chapter VII: Part 7

In the following year another Niccolò Quirini died abroad, and his widow was allowed to return on condition of living in a convent, never to go out without permission of the Council of Ten. She had in Venice a devoted admirer, one Angelo Bembo, who obtained permission to have her placed in the convent of Santa Maria di Valverde, on the island of Mazzorbo, a lovely and retired spot, where seclusion would be more bearable than in the city. The young widow seems to have made good use of her stay there, for the papers in the archives of the Ten which concern her contain the information that she soon afterwards married her friend, and was allowed to return to the world. She had recovered all her liberty by the mere change of name.

As some justification for this excessive rigour on the part of the government, it should be remembered that the exiled Tiepolo and Quirini families had never ceased to plot against the Republic after their defeat, both in the countries where they were allowed to live and in Venice itself, by means of agents. A letter of the Council of Ten confers upon Federigo Dandolo and Marin Falier full powers to get rid of the obnoxious Bajamonte, in any way they might, for the good of the country. The note is dated in 1328. From that time forward his name was never pronounced in council, nor mentioned in any document; and it may be supposed that he, like Niccolò Quirini, came to his end, murdered by some emissary of the Republic. The fact that we find no allusion in the subsequent history of Marin Falier to the part he possibly played in that side tragedy is not evidence that he failed to carry out his instructions.

[Sidenote: _Armand Baschet, Archives, 514._]

A careful examination of early documents seems to show that the Council of Ten existed before the Tiepolo-Quirini conspiracy, which is generally held to be the circumstance which called it into existence. It is certain, however,

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 39 sqq., 52._]

that in earlier times the Council had not such great importance, and it was always more or less a temporary affair until the year 1335. Ten magistrates, who were called together, on the occasion of the conspiracy, to form a sort of court-martial, gave their judgments, but by no means in an arbitrary manner. They were elected for a period not much longer than three months, which was to expire on Saint Michael’s Day, September 29, a day always kept as a great festival in Venice. But when that date was reached, it appeared necessary to prolong the time of their power, as their task was not yet finished; for it consisted not only in punishing the guilty, but also in closely watching the immediate consequences of the conspiracy. The same extension was granted again and again, until the following year, when it was determined to establish the tribunal for a term of five years, appointing its members anew, however, on every successive Saint Michael’s Day. These five years being passed, a further decree prolonged the tribunal’s existence ten years more, and so on. Finally, in 1335, it was decreed to be permanent, under an extremely strict code of rules called the ‘Rite,’ well devised for a body which was to treat of the very important affairs that came before it. On election, every member of the Ten took an oath, which included the

[Sidenote: _A. Baschet, Archives, 531._]

following clauses: ‘I, as one of the Council of Ten, do swear upon the holy Gospels of God to act for the advantage and honour of Venice; and in good faith and conscience to advise our Lord the Doge and his

counsellors such things as I shall believe useful to the honour and preservation of our country; and I swear to obey our Lord the Doge and to do what the heads of the Ten shall command me.... I bind myself to keep secret whatever is said or commanded to me, concerning all matters which may be proposed by the said Council, communicated or discussed in the sittings, and concerning any letters or reports which may be communicated to us, etc., etc.’

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 35 sqq._]

The ordinary meetings of the Ten were held by day in the ducal palace; not in a room hung with black and feebly lighted, as some have written and believed, but in a hall appointed for that purpose by the Doge, until one should be properly furnished and decorated for the tribunal. Under extraordinary circumstances the Council also met by night. All sittings began with an invocation to the Holy Spirit. These sittings were never attended by the Ten only; from the time of the institution of the tribunal, the Doge and his counsellors, one avogador of the commonwealth and the High Chancellor, who, it should be remembered, was not a noble, were also obliged to be present. The imagination of posterity, amused by fantastic tales which have no historic basis, has lent this tribunal a character of mystery and arbitrary authority which it never possessed, as is proved by documents still in existence. In all trials, after the accusation had been read, the defence was heard immediately, and when the defendant was not able to conduct his own case, a law of 1443 allowed him to be represented by a

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 66, 68._]

lawyer. The avogador put the following question to the Ten: ‘According to what has been read and said, is it your opinion that the accused should be condemned?’ Sometimes the following question was asked: ‘Is it your opinion that the accused, in consequence of what has been already heard, should be put to the torture, in order to obtain from him the whole truth, and further details; or that the court should proceed, as having already sufficient proof of his guilt?’ The Council of Ten could not impose fines; their sentences necessarily affected the body of the condemned person. When a vote had decided that the accused was convicted, each member of the Council could propose the punishment which he thought fit, but it was not usual to propose any more severe penalty than that asked for by the avogador. He was the first to make the proposition, then came the heads of the Ten, then the Doge’s counsellors, and last of all the Doge himself. Each proposal was balloted for, every member of the Council retaining the right to propose a diminution or commutation of the sentence, or to ask for a new trial.

We know that the Council of Ten had a fund for secret service, ever since the fourteenth century. It also possessed a small armoury.

It cannot be denied that on more than one occasion the execution of the verdicts of the Ten was performed quickly and in a secret manner; yet it does not appear that this was done because the sentence had been passed from any motive of private hatred or vengeance, but only because prudence required that the public should not be allowed to express an opinion on the matter. It may be remarked that in European countries the procedure nowadays is often similar in court-martials. If we take away the right of torture, the violet cloaks and hoods of the seven, and the red hoods of the three chiefs--in a word, if we erase from the picture the mediæval setting of the Council of Ten which looks theatrical to us, we may find that after all there is not such grave cause for accusing the famous Venetian tribunal of arbitrary cruelty. The proceedings of a military court-martial in our own times are often quite as secret and expeditious, and much more summary.

The manner in which the members of the Council were elected shows clearly enough that the abuse of authority was always feared on their part. In the year 1310 it was decreed that no two persons who were relatives might sit together in the Council, and that when a relative of any member was to be tried, that member should be excluded from the sitting. The members soon ceased to be elected on Saint Michael’s Day; and in order that greater prudence might be exercised in choosing them, they were elected one at a time at the meetings of the Great Council as each one’s term expired. Until 1356, when a place was to be filled, two candidates were proposed, and sometimes there were even three nominations. No member of the Council of Ten might receive gifts under pain of immediate death, nor was any salary attached to the office. At the end of their term they went back into private life, and were not protected in any way from such accusations as might be brought against them for their actions during their administration.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 57._]

Nearly fifty years after the date of the Tiepolo-Quirini conspiracy, August 9, 1356, a number of rules were introduced, to increase the severity with which the powers of the Council of Ten might be exercised, and at the same time to ensure justice in their dealings with criminal cases. It is amply proved by documents of the fourteenth century that in the majority of cases, though possibly in those which were considered of minor importance, there was neither mystery nor secrecy about the meetings of the Ten, and that, on the contrary, the door of their place of meeting was sometimes open to the public. No other meaning can be attached to the law of 1575, which was passed in order to limit the too great facility of ingress to the hall of their meetings, on the ground that the proceedings might be prejudiced by too much publicity, as they were constantly interrupted by the persons present, so that practically any one might watch the trials, as Romanin says, even in cases of the highest importance. There was never at any time the least tendency to diminish the legal character of the tribunal in order to confer upon it an arbitrary power, since it disposed of weapons so powerful as to place it above the need of intrigue. As has been said, although the Ten were all chosen from the nobility, the High Chancellor was present at the sittings, albeit he had no right of voting, and his presence alone sufficed to remind the councillors that the citizens, whose chief representative he was, were all witnesses of whatsoever the Ten accomplished. On the whole, M. Baschet is right in saying that the Council’s activity was chiefly exercised against the nobles themselves for the protection of the people.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 54, note 3._]

It undoubtedly disposed of great powers, and no one could expect a tribunal to be infallible in those times, or perhaps in any other; but though the Ten were no doubt sometimes guilty of grave mistakes, they were never at any time the instrument of a tyrannical government for oppressing the poor and innocent.

[Sidenote: _A. Baschet, Archives, 536. Rom. ii. 359._]

They elected three heads every month, whose duty it was to conduct the affairs of the Council, to study the cases it was to try, and to see to the execution of its judgments. The Council had under its immediate control the executives of its justice, which consisted of a large force of police, controlled by six principal officers, and by the so-called ‘Missier Grande,’ who was the head of the whole body.

[Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 359._]

The criminal and political prisons were under the special supervision of the Doge himself during the first half of the fourteenth century, and it was the duty or two or his counsellors to visit them once every month, and to make inquiry of the prisoners confined there concerning their wants and wishes. During the second half of the century this supervision and the duty of visiting became a part of the office of the heads of the Ten. I shall attempt to describe in passing the state of the prisons in which criminals and persons accused of grave crimes were confined in the fourteenth century, these only having been under the supervision of the Ten.

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 74._]

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Less._]

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 77._]

In the first place, there were certain narrow but not unhealthy prisons in the tower which formerly existed at the east end of the ducal palace, and these were on the same floor as the hall where the Council of Ten met, and were called the ‘upper’ prisons. Accused persons were generally kept here during their trial. In 1321 an order was issued for the construction of the so-called ‘Lower’ prisons, which the common people afterwards called ‘pozzi,’ wells; and these were undoubtedly hideous and narrow cells, though probably not worse than those in use at that time in other countries. They are not below the level of the ground, or rather of the water, as novelists have described them; but the fact that criminals descended to them from the hall of the tribunal by means of a little staircase less than a yard wide, which soon became quite dark, and the sound of the lapping water outside, helped to give the prisoner the impression that he was being taken down alive into a tomb dug deep in the earth, although he was actually on the level of the courtyard. A small door in the wall of the courtyard was opened in 1407, in order that the family of Vittor Pisani might enter the prison when he was lying there ill, and it was afterwards closed at his expense. On the side of the canal was a

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 75._]

corridor, little more than a yard wide, and faced with marble, through which escape was impossible. Upon this opened the doors of certain very small cells, marked with Roman numerals, in which, for some reason now impossible to explain, the ‘V’ was always turned upside down. The cells were completely lined with deal, but received air only from the dark corridor through an aperture in the door about eight inches square. The prisons on the other side, towards the harbour, had various names, among which we may mention that of ‘Mosina’ and ‘Liona’; then such names as ‘The Refreshing Joy,’ ‘The Vulcan,’ ‘The Strong,’ ‘The Lightless,’ and other similar epithets, probably suggested by the grim humour of the gaolers. Until 1357 the counsellors of the Doge went down into these places every month; and at that time the heads of the Ten inquired into the state of each individual prisoner, and gave an account thereof to the Doge and to the Council. There also the prisoner was allowed to speak, probably through the little aperture in the door, with his attorney, if he feared lest he should be unable to defend himself when called to justice. To this place came also at night the monk whose duty it was to comfort the last hours of such unfortunates as had received sentence of death, either by hanging between the columns of the Piazzetta, or, as frequently happened, at the place where the crime was committed, or in the cell, if the tribunal had decreed that the prisoner should be strangled. Sometimes, though more rarely, the sentence was this, ‘that to-night So-and-so be conducted to the Orfano Canal, with his hands tied behind his back and weights fastened to his body, and let him be drowned, and let him die.’

I shall have occasion to speak further of the prisons as they were in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

VIII

ON MANNERS AND CERTAIN CUSTOMS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

In the natural order of things it is now time to say a few words about the manners and customs of the Venetians in the fourteenth century. Owing to lack of documents the subject is by no means an easy one. An ideal history would be a careful account of the daily doings and habits of a nation, concisely told and not out of proportion with the greater events of which an account is due. Such a history would be a fascinating tale, though it might be an almost interminable one. As in an endless gallery, the writer would show his readers an unbroken series of pictures, and the mind would be led without surprise, but without a moment’s dulness or boredom, from the beginning to the end of a people’s career.

Unhappily no such method can ever be even attempted where the remote past is concerned. The men and women of those times lived their own daily lives, found them not always interesting, and passed away without leaving us a single true record of twenty-four hours in the life of a man or a woman. Yet how intensely interesting even one such record would be! How the weary historian, seeking for the simple details of some simple life six hundred years ago, longs to discover a Horace Walpole, a Madame de Sévigné, or most of all a Paston family, amongst the yellow and dusty archives! Something, however, may still be got together to give an idea of what the non-political, non-historical Venice was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

To begin with, though the Republic never showed much inclination to submit to any dictation from the popes, the Venetians were a practically religious people and extremely charitable. With the possible exceptions of Rome and Florence, no city of Italy possessed at that time so many hospices for the poor and hospitals for the sick; and considering the necessary limitations of all philanthropy at that early period, those institutions were managed and kept up with astonishing intelligence and care. I have no intention of compiling a catalogue of the buildings in which old people, invalids, widows, and pilgrims found a temporary or a permanent refuge, as the case might be; but it is worth while to notice here and there the sensitive delicacy with which charity was often exercised, and which seems so little in harmony with the nature of the more important historical events of the period.

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Calli e Canali._]

There is something very touching, for instance, in the origin of the Ca’ di Dio--literally, ‘The House of God,’ as the old building is called to this day. In the year 1272, one of those pious souls that feel the true and natural intuitions of charity came across that saddest sort of misery which exists here and there in the world, hiding itself as far as possible from every eye, and preferring actual starvation and death to the humiliation of asking alms. These poor people were ladies of good birth, reduced to a condition in which they positively had neither a crust to eat nor a place to lay their heads. The charitable person who found them here and there gathered them at first into a refuge with other poor women where they could at least live and die in peace, but, even in the simplicity of those days, he soon understood that it was moral torture for a starving patrician woman, or the widow of some high magistrate of the Republic, to share bed and board with the poor widows of sailors, fishermen, and artisans, and he created for them, out of sheer delicacy and kindness of heart, a separate refuge in the Ca’ di Dio, where they could enjoy something more than the illusion of a home, and where they were at least blessed with that privacy which is almost the first and last necessity of the well-born.

One is reminded of the rules of that Florentine Confraternity for the relief of the ‘poor who felt shame,’ a body to which Dante belonged. By those rules the brethren were bound to give assistance without lifting the hood that covered their faces, or giving their names, or in any way betraying their individuality, lest the poor person whom they helped should be in some degree humiliated. This really exquisite delicacy of feeling showed itself in the very midst of the worst and fiercest quarrels of Guelph and Ghibelline, and the rule of the Confraternity expressly commanded the brothers to help their foes as freely as their friends, and to be especially careful never to do anything which could humiliate an enemy in distress.

The chronicles of Florence say nothing of that, and if the Venetian historians mention the Ca’ di Dio at all, it is only in the most passing way. But the historical writers of both cities carefully record the murders, poisonings, and stabbings which brought disaster on their citizens. Should not a true history of civilisation sometimes count also the tears that charity has dried and the anguish she has helped to soothe? The chroniclers abound in accounts of the trials, the sentences, and the executions of the fourteenth century; they can scarcely spare a line to tell us how the Doge and many other devout persons heard mass daily at dawn and recited the Office for the Dead in Saint Mark’s. We

[Sidenote: _Galliccioli, vi. 150._]

know with the utmost exactness the precise number of light ladies who were living in Venice just then: there were eleven thousand six hundred and fifty--a respectable, or rather a disreputable, number for a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants. The quarter of the Castelletto, which had originally been given over to them, no longer sufficed for their needs, and they lived very much where they pleased.

[Sidenote: _Bembo, Beneficenza._]

We know these things, but few remember that at that very time a gentle beseeching voice was heard every evening in the streets and squares of Venice, crying out ‘Pity, pity!’ It was the voice of a poor monk slowly pursuing his way under the balconies of the great palaces, and through the narrower ways where the rich middle class had chosen its abode, for ever asking alms for the poor little children whom he found nightly thrust out, new-born, to die in the streets before morning, even as is done to this day in China. And though it was Venice that cast her children out to perish thus, yet Venice poured alms into the poor monk’s hands so abundantly that his labours prospered beyond his highest hopes. A lady of the Delfini family gave him no less than seventeen houses for his foundlings, and yet these were not enough; he appealed to the government for more room; and this same government, which seems in our view of its history to be for ever deep in politics, in commerce, and above all in spying upon its own citizens, answered Fra Pieruzzo della Pietà, as the monk was called, with a decree that has a very human and tender note in it. It was declared therein that the little foundlings should bring blessings and fortune to all honest people who would offer them a home; and whosoever adopted one of the children was thereby freely licensed to open a shop or to exchange a mean and vulgar occupation for one of the nobler arts. Besides this, the State settled upon

the Hospice of the Pietà one-half of the fines imposed upon blasphemers, which amounted to a very large sum.

The religious spirit of Venice in the thirteenth century is reflected not only in the public charities of the times, but also in the legends that have come down to us, founded on some small original basis of truth, concrete or abstract. There is one in particular which it is impossible to overlook, though it has been told by many writers of all nations during many hundred years. I mean the story of the little Countess Tagliapietra.

[Sidenote: _Vita della Contessa Tagliapietra, Anonymous._]

In the year 1288 a noble couple dwelt in their palace, not far from the home of Bajamonte Tiepolo, the great conspirator, in the central parish of Saint Agostino, which is one of those most cut up by the numberless lanes and canals which cross it in all directions. It pleased heaven to send a little girl child to Count Pier Nicola Tagliapietra and his wife Elena, one only, but she was of such exquisite beauty and rare loveliness of character that her parents esteemed themselves more blessed than those who could boast often stalwart sons. From her earliest years the child seemed destined to saintliness, and her chiefest pleasure was to follow her mother to church, for in the thirteenth century it had not yet become the custom to keep girls closely shut up at home from year’s end to year’s end.

The title of Countess was unheard of in Venice at that time, and yet every account of the legend assigns it to the little saint. Her favourite church was that of San Maurizio, and the little Countess seized every possible occasion for going there; sometimes she even went alone, for every one knew her, and she was perfectly safe in the streets; but in order to get there she was obliged to cross the canal in a boat--gondolas did not exist in that day. Now her father entertained ambitious projects for the marriage of his only daughter; and from having been at first merely surprised by her extreme devoutness, he now became seriously anxious for her future, and forbade the child to go to church except on feast-days and with her mother. She replied with quiet decision that he had no right to impose such a sacrifice upon her, and she continued going to San Maurizio every day. Her father did not wish to seem harsh or unkind, and he imagined that he could gain his end by simply forbidding the boatmen to take her across the canal. Having done so, and having doubtless enforced his wishes by giving the men money, Pier Nicola felt perfectly at ease, for he could not see that the girl had any chance of getting to San Maurizio without a boat.

On the following morning she went down to the ‘traghetto’ as usual, and called to one of the boatmen. One after the other they all refused to take her over, explaining that they were acting under her father’s orders. The little girl looked at them all sweetly with deep and innocent eyes; then, without the least hesitation, she took off her little apron, spread it upon the smooth water of the canal, and stepped upon it securely as if it had been the largest of the boats.

It not only carried her weight, but began to move of its own accord, and bore her swiftly across to the opposite bank; and when the boatmen and those who passed by saw what was done they raised a loud cry and praised God for the miracle they had seen, and it was noised abroad throughout all the city.

The first consequence seems to have been that a vast number of very eligible noble youths asked for the young saint in marriage, and her father had only to choose amongst so many brilliant matches the one best suited to his taste; but the child steadfastly refused matrimony, and declared that she would never live in the world. As she grew older it became harder and harder to sustain the struggle, and at the age of twenty she daily implored God to deliver her from this wicked world. And so, indeed, it pleased heaven, for she departed this life on the Feast of All Saints, in the year 1308. The whole city followed her to the grave, numberless wax candles were lit before her tomb, and no man dared to extinguish them. Is not the voice of the people the voice of God? The clergy would not interfere, and from the day of her death the little Countess received the title of Beata, and the church of San Vito, where she was buried, became the goal of constant pilgrimages. It was not until the sixteenth century that the Church interfered to put limits to a veneration which had degenerated to a superstition. It was no longer enough to invoke the prayers and aid of the blessed little Countess; it had become the custom to open her coffin at stated intervals, and mothers laid their infant children upon her bones to preserve them from the danger of drowning.

But now the sepulchre was sealed, the little Countess was officially admitted to be a saint, and those who should dare to profane her relics with any superstitious practice were threatened with immediate excommunication.

Another legend, of a slightly later date, has been gloriously handed down to us by the genius of Paris

[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 143._]

Bordone. On the fifteenth of February 1340 a terrific storm burst upon the lagoons, lashing the shallow water into foam and howling through the narrow canals and dark byways of the city. It was late at night when a poor fisherman, who had narrowly escaped destruction, ran in and began to moor his boat. He had not finished when three venerable old men, of majestic countenance, suddenly appeared out of the darkness and earnestly begged him to take them across the lagoon in the teeth of the gale. The fisherman hesitated, and was on the point of refusing a request which seemed most unreasonable; but there was something in the faces, in the manner, gestures, and tone of the three which imposed itself upon him in spite of himself. They entered the stern of the fishing boat, and he shoved off into the rough water, which was close at hand. The wind howled, the frail skiff rocked as if she would capsize, the salt spray blinded the poor man as he stood up and bent to his oars in the Italian fashion, but the presence of the three venerable strangers gave him superhuman strength to go on.

They were already far out upon the seething water when an appalling vision burst upon his sight. In the heart of a black squall a great barge full of fire came flying towards the city, and the fire was full of demons, and fiery fiends swung red-hot oars that hissed each time they dipped into the water. The poor fisherman gave himself up for lost and fell upon his knees, but behind him in the stern of the boat the three majestic passengers stood upright and made the sign of the cross with wide and potent gestures; and suddenly the fiery barge stood still as if she had struck a rock and was thrown into the air, and turning upside down fell with all her fiery crew hissing into the raging sea, and all was dark, and suddenly the storm subsided and the moon shone out between the clouds as on a summer’s night.

[Sidenote: _About 1340._]

[Sidenote: _The fisherman gives the ring to the Doge Gradenigo, Paris Bordone; Accademia._]

Then said the oldest of the three old men to the fisherman, ‘Take me to the island of Saint George, for there I dwell.’ And the fisherman put him ashore there. The second of the old men then said, ‘I am Saint Nicholas, take me over to the Lido.’ The fisherman set him ashore there, wondering at his own strength, for it is far. Then said the last, ‘I am Saint Mark, set me ashore at the Piazza.’ When they were there the fisherman fell upon his face before the saint, who raised him up and gave him his blessing, and, moreover, bade him go at once to the Doge, though it was late, and tell him what he had seen, and to prove that it was truth and not a dream the saint drew from his finger a ring and gave it to the fisherman as a token.

The legend has been too often told for me to dwell upon what followed, but it contrasts characteristically with the tale of the little Countess Tagliapietra, which is only forty years older, but which still retains that subtle perfume, that air of peace and light, which belong to the earlier Venetian legends. The story of the fisherman belongs already to those nightmare tales of terror which became so very common in Venice that in the sixteenth century all the popular tales represent devils and fiends struggling against the supernatural powers of saints. Last of all, even the saints and demons disappeared, and the degenerate eighteenth century expressed its love of fiction in a set of ghost stories as terrifying as any that the human imagination has ever evolved out of darkness.

Next to all that is connected with religion, that which would do the most to give a clear idea of the fourteenth century would be the study of women and their position at that time, but an almost total lack of documents makes this absolutely impossible. We can learn from old family papers and carefully preserved accounts what women were, and we may even to some extent reconstruct the frame of their outward existence; but the soul of it all escapes us. The story I have told of the little patrician girl alone stands out to give us some idea of what a spotless child’s thoughts could be in a city which was even then one of the most perverse in Europe. But of the many other Venetian ladies whom history mentions by name we know absolutely nothing, so far as their private lives are concerned. One dogess after another appears in magnificent garments; but we feel no more interest in them than if they were so many gorgeous wax figures, for no one has taken the trouble to tell us whether this one was beloved or that one hated; whether one was a woman of heart, or another proud, ambitious, and vain. In most cases we do not even know their ages. Why should any one care? Each one was ‘the dogess of her day,’ and that was enough; she was the companion and consort of the doge, but beyond that, in a state in which the supreme dignity was not hereditary, her value was purely decorative.

The fourteenth century was not remarkable for much luxury or feminine display. Among the most characteristic objects used in those times were the extraordinary clogs, with double heels and enormously high, on which women went about in order to keep their skirts out of the mud. For the streets and lanes were not even paved, and there seems to have been no great effort made to clean them. The principal scavengers seem to have been the little pigs of the monastery of Saint Anthony of Padua, which had an official right-of-way about the city, and devoured greedily whatever the good wives of Venice chose to throw into the streets when they cleaned out their kitchens. It will easily be understood that clogs might be useful in such a town. As another illustration of the times, here is a list of the exiguous outfit provided for a young lady of great family on her marriage in the year 1300: One bed, two down quilts, two pillows, four sheets, one coverlet, six silver spoons, one copper pail; one piece of scarlet stuff long enough to make a bodice, one skirt of the same material; one skirt of striped stuff, and one trimming for the said skirt of the price of nine soldi grossi; one skin of a fox; seven amber beads, one ornament made of pearls, an ornament of gold, a silver belt and some silver beads.

The display of jewellery on that occasion was certainly not magnificent, but the list of clothes leaves even more to be desired. The document explains further and determines precisely how the wedding is to be conducted, and what it is to cost the family of the bride. The bride, when she reaches Padua, is to receive twelve soldi grossi for her pocket money, a like sum to pay for the drums, and the same again for the cook; but only half as much for the duenna who is to accompany her, and who rejoices in the high-sounding name of Richadonor, ‘rich in honour’! Furthermore, forty soldi grossi were to be spent on beef, pork, poultry, biscuits, apples, birds, eggs, bread, torches, wax candles, and the hire of boats.

Living was certainly not dear in those days, and we have no means of calculating the value of the coins used, about which learned men have fruitlessly quarrelled for generations; we cannot by any means establish the value of such an outfit, but we can affirm most positively that the outfit itself bore no resemblance whatever to those provided two centuries later for brides of the very same family.

[Sidenote: _Galliccioli. vi. 18._]

In this connection it is as well to say that the marriage customs of Venice had changed considerably during the thirteenth century. It had become altogether impossible to celebrate all marriages on the same day of the year in the same church, as was formerly done, and weddings now took place throughout the year in the different parishes.

An edict of the year 1255 recommends the publication of marriage bans in Venice, but very little attention was paid to this regulation, and clandestine

marriages became one of the great evils of the day. If, for instance, an unmarried woman of any condition found herself hopelessly in debt, she had only to marry in order to be safe from any legal action on the part of her creditors. It was so easy to get the ceremony performed, if one wished to keep the affair quiet, that it was not even necessary to go to church. A priest could be sent for to a private house, or even to an inn, the witnesses heard the necessary words pronounced, the priest blessed the couple, and the union was irrevocable.

The government took cognisance of the innumerable abuses which resulted from this manner of proceeding, and a law was passed which would have introduced a real reform if it had been rigorously enforced. But instead it was so completely overlooked and forgotten that the archives of the law-courts a century later teem with amusing anecdotes of such marriages. The following is a specimen taken from the case of a certain Dame Caterina of the parish of Saint Gervasio.

One evening, as this good lady was lingering on the threshold of her own door, a certain Pierin da Trento came by, selling brooms. Having greeted Dame Caterina, who appears to have been an acquaintance, the man said, ‘Good madam, I pray you find me out some handsome girl.’ Thereupon the good lady was immediately very angry, and loaded Pierin with the choicest epithets in the Venetian language, all of which are scrupulously quoted in the report of the case. Pierin, however, protested, ‘No, no, Dame Caterina, I did not mean what you think! I am asking you to find me a nice little wife to whom I will be a model husband.’ She answered, ‘Well, well, on my faith I will try and find one for you. Come back to-morrow.’ She immediately thought of a young girl called Maria who waited upon herself and her daughter. On the morrow the parties met in the house of Dame Caterina, and one Menego Moisè, who was there, asked, ‘Maria, does Pietro suit you as a husband according to the commandments of God and Holy Church?’ She answered, ‘Yes.’ So they took each other by the hand, and all the company sat down to table with great joy.

This was apparently all that was necessary to make a marriage binding. It is not even explicitly stated that the man Menego who asked the ritual question was a priest; but unless we suppose that something like common-law marriage was legal in Venice, we may take it for granted that he was.

Of course, in the absence of a divorce law, the chief object of such summary marriages was that they might be denied, and such cases led to some lively fencing between the civil and religious authorities.

In spite of these abuses, however, and in spite of the numerous regular and proper marriages that took place in the parish churches, the old custom of marrying wholesale on the thirty-first of January had not fallen wholly into disuse. I shall describe in another place the Feast of the Maries, instituted to recall the one which had been disturbed long ago by the Dalmatian pirates, and which was celebrated every year with the same mixture of simplicity, display, and jollity.

One might get married quietly, with closed doors and without sound of drum or trumpet, but it was quite impossible to be buried with the same simplicity and privacy. All the chroniclers of those times have left accounts of funerals, which remind one very strongly of the East, and even of ancient Egyptian and Assyrian rites. It was absolutely indispensable that a husband on the death of his wife, or a wife on the death of her husband, should exhibit in public the most extravagant grief. The bereaved widow or widower was expected to scream, to roll upon the ground, to tear out his or her hair by the handful, to howl and moan with scarcely a moment’s intermission.

When at last the friends of the dead came to carry away the body, the frenzied relict was always found stretched upon the threshold of the house, to prevent the funeral from passing, and had to be dragged out of the way by main force. The body having been carried out of the house at last, the whole family followed it to the parish church with screams and howls, and kept up the same terrific noise during the chanting of the whole funeral service. This insane custom was so deeply rooted amongst the people that centuries elapsed before the Church could put it down, and only threats of excommunication sufficed to prevent the unseemly interruption of the Office for the Dead. Those who have lived in the far East, and especially in India, are familiar with such sights. No one who has heard the lamentations of hired mourners at an Asiatic funeral is likely to forget the impression he received; but it is hard to understand such doings amongst the Venetians of the fourteenth century, and that the poor sometimes even went so far as to expose their dead in the streets during several days, in order to excite the compassion and solicit the alms of those who passed by.

[Sidenote: _Schupper, Manuale della Storia del Diritto._]

It is quite certain that slavery was not only common but almost universal in Venice until the fifteenth century at least. The custom of keeping household slaves was indeed general throughout Italy in the Middle Ages, but it was nowhere so deep-rooted as in Venice. Church and State laboured in vain to put down the traffic and to discourage the purchase of slaves. In the year 960 the Doge Pier Candiano IV. threatened with very severe punishments all those who should either engage in or encourage the slave trade. And at the same time the patriarch declared himself as follows: ‘Moreover, we and our brother bishops will excommunicate all those who shall be proved guilty before the tribunals of the state; they shall be deprived of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist; they shall not be allowed to enter any church; and if they do not repent, they shall burn everlastingly with Judas, who sold our Lord Jesus Christ.’

The civil and ecclesiastic authorities could not have expressed themselves in stronger language, but it is clear that their edicts could not be enforced, for slavery continued to flourish during four centuries after that time. We have not even the satisfaction of telling ourselves that it was at last put down by a noble impulse of humanity, since the most superficial examination proves to us that slavery did not begin to diminish in Venice until the general depravity of women had brought them down to the moral level of slaves. That very depravity was itself in great part produced by the presence of an immense number of Eastern female slaves, absolutely without any moral sense, and having no object whatever in life except to extract favours from their masters by making themselves the willing instruments of every passion and of every vice. They possessed many means of accomplishing this end, and in particular a great many of them claimed the secret knowledge of philtres, which would not only heal every malady, but which could instantly satisfy their masters’ thirst for love or revenge. They pretended, by means of incantations, to destroy by degrees the life of an enemy who could not be safely stabbed or otherwise violently put to death; and in a vast number of cases the victim actually died, if not by supernatural means, by subtle poisons administered to him by some slave of his own in collusion with the witch. Often, too, men and women went suddenly raving mad from poison thus secretly administered, and remained permanently insane. This crime was so common that it had a name of its own, and was called ‘Erbaria.’

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Costumi._]

The whole of Venice was undermined by these slave intrigues. The Eastern woman possesses beyond all others the secret of secrecy. The thousands of them who lived in Venice were in communication with each other, helped each other, and could accomplish for their respective masters almost anything they desired. There was a certain number of male slaves also, who, though far less astute than the women, often rendered their owners great services, sometimes to their own destruction; for there are records of their having been imprisoned, tortured, and hanged instead of their masters, and sometimes with the latter, for having committed crimes of which their owners did not wish to take the responsibility.

IX

THE FEAST OF THE MARIES

The reader will not have forgotten how the Venetian brides were carried off by pirates of Narenta towards the middle of the tenth century, in the reign of Pier Candiano III. When, at a later date, the custom of celebrating all marriages on the same day of the year and in the same church was abandoned, the ceremony called ‘the Maries’ was continued each year in memory of the romantic event.

The brides were replaced by twelve young girls, who were chosen among the most well-behaved in the city, so that the choice became a sort of prize of virtue--a ‘Prix Montyon’--and the selection was made with the utmost care. At that time the city was divided into six wards, each of which contained thirty ‘contrade,’ or districts. Two of the latter were named each year to furnish the ‘twelve Maries.’ The headmen of the districts, who were like police magistrates, called together the people in the principal open place of the district, and the election began. The chroniclers do not agree upon the qualities which were required in candidates; some say that they were all to be noble, some that they were to be poor, another says that they were the most beautiful. There is only one point upon which all agree: their behaviour was required to be perfect.

The twelve Maries having been chosen, the meeting proceeded to elect the twelve nobles at whose houses the young girls were to be entertained. These personages were to be of the same district, or were at least to live in the immediate vicinity; and it was no sinecure to fulfil this office of hospitality. The district spent from eight hundred to a thousand ducats in decorating the streets and houses, and the boats that conveyed the Maries; and the patrician whose ill-luck had designated him as one of the patrons was obliged to make such a display and to furnish such a magnificent banquet in honour of the girl he was supposed to protect, and such a reception for the inhabitants of the whole district, that his pocket suffered severely, and he was obliged to economise for some time afterwards. It often happened that there were not so many as twelve rich nobles living in the district, and in that case matters were arranged by giving two Maries to one, who was thus condemned to a double expenditure, if not to actual ruin, for the greater glory of patriotic institutions. However, as time went on, the State was moved by such misfortunes, which were not really justified by any serious necessity, and the Great Council voted that the Doge should exercise a certain control over the election of the Maries and their official protectors. By this means it became possible for a noble in poor circumstances to pass on the burden of the feast to some richer man. It was further decided that the procurators of Saint Mark should be authorised to lend on security, to the districts and to the patrons chosen, all the jewels from the treasure of the basilica, with which to adorn the attire of the twelve young girls. These jewels consisted of numerous necklaces and diadems of immense value, and the fact that they were lent for such an occasion proves the great importance which the Venetians attached to the festivity. For the time being the Republic behaved as if it had fallen in love with the maidens whose part was to recall to memory the stolen brides of old. On one occasion it is recorded that no less than 72,000 ducats were expended on the feast.

By far the most interesting and charmingly simple account of the feast is that left by a certain Martin da

[Sidenote: _Arch. Stor. Ital. Series I., vol. viii._]

Canal, written in a dialect half French and half Provençal. It describes the Feast of the Maries in the second half of the twelfth century, when Ranier Zeno was Doge; and though a few modifications were afterwards introduced in the ceremonial, this account continues to be quite the most accurate that has come down to us. The only way of accounting for its having been written in the Provençal tongue is that the latter was the language of polished society in that age. Here is an attempt to translate it as simply and accurately as possible:--

I shall now tell you about the festival which the Venetians hold on
the last day of January, to wit, in remembrance of how our Lord St.
Mark came to Venice; and of the beautiful festival which the
Venetians hold in reverence of our Lady St. Mary. You must know
that the Lord Doge has divided the districts of Venice into thirty
parts, two districts to each part. Now on the eve of our Lord St.
Mark a company of young gentles come by water, and when they have
reached the palace they land and hand their banners to little boys,
and go two by two before the church of our Lord St. Mark; and after
them come trumpeters, and after them again young gentles who carry
silver dishes loaded with confectionery, and with them are brought
vessels of silver, full of wine, and cups of gold and silver
carried by more young nobles, and last of all come clerks singing,
dressed in their copes of velvet and gold, and they all together go
as far as the church of St. Mary, which is called Formosa; and they
find women and maidens in great numbers, and present them with the
confectionery and with wine to drink....

So far I have told you of the eve, and now I shall tell you of the
day of our Lord St. Mark.