Chapter VIII: Part 8

Ludovicus Manin, by the grace of God Doge of Venice,

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._]

to the noble and wise man, Federicus Bembo, by his commission
Podestà and Captain of Mestre, Fid. Dil. Sal. et Dil. Aff. [_Fideli
dilecto salutem et dilectionis affectum._]

Seeing that the Austrian troops now coming down from Friuli are
about to enter the Trevisan province, to which some of the French
troops may also move, and it being according to the zealous
forethought of the government to remove all inducements which give
individuals of the troops the desire to come still nearer to these
lagoons, the Council of Ten, considering that one inducement might
be the reopening of the theatre, orders you to put it off as long
as may seem best to the prudence of the Heads of the said Council.

Given in our Ducal Palace on the twenty-seventh of September in the
fifteenth year of the Indiction, 1796. [I find that the year of the
Indiction does not correspond with the date.]

There was another magistracy which also had to do with the theatres. The ‘Provveditori di Commun’

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Lessico, ‘Teatro.’_]

fixed the price of the libretto of the play. It was Council of Ten, however, that named the hour at which the performance was to begin and end.

The lighting of the theatres was wretched and the boxes were completely dark, which appears to have

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi._]

given the ladies a considerable sense of security, for I find that in 1756 the noble dame Pisani Grimani, who owned the theatre of San Benedetto, was forbidden by the Inquisitors of State to stand at the door of her box in a costume which might ‘produce grave disorder.’

In 1776 the government made an effort to limit such extreme views of comfort in warm weather, and an edict was issued commanding ladies to wear modest dresses, with domino and hood, at the theatre. The noble ladies Maria Bon Toderini and Elisabetta Labia Priuli were put under arrest in their own houses in the following year for having, in their boxes, thrown back their hoods and allowed them to slip down upon their shoulders.

The musicians’ desks were lighted with candles of Spanish wax, from Segovia in Castile. The stage was illuminated by lamps fed with olive oil. In the dim house there seems to have been a good deal of rough play, and the patricians in the boxes occasionally threw ‘projectiles’--possibly hard sweet-meats are meant--at the people in the pit. The lights were put out as soon as the curtain fell on the last act, and the spectators groped their way out in the dark as they could, helped by the big brass lanterns which the gondoliers brought to the door when they came to wait for their masters.

Plays were not advertised at all. A small bill giving the name of the play and the names of the authors was pasted up in the Piazzetta, and another was to be seen at the Rialto, but that was all. It was the business of the State to provide foreign ambassadors and ministers with boxes, and a vast deal of care was bestowed on this matter, which was full of difficulties; for the boxes were generally the property of private families that did not at all like to give them up. But the government always reserved the right to take any boxes it chose for the use of the Diplomatic Corps. In Venice, the smallest affairs were always conducted according to a prescribed method, and there was a regular rule by which the boxes were distributed. The document has been found by Signor Molmenti in the Archives of the Inquisitors of State, docketed and labelled: ‘Theatres. Foreign Ambassadors. Boxes.’ Here it is:--

The Ambassadors present themselves with a formal request
(memoriale) to the Most Excellent Council. By the latter, through a
Secretary of the Senate, His Serenity is requested to draw the lots
for the boxes of each. He puts into the ballotbox the numbers of
all the boxes on that row which corresponds to the rank of the
Minister who applies, and he draws one number. The proscenium boxes
are excepted, and the balcony, the boxes occupied by other
Ministers, and the one that belonged to the Minister who last went
away. Afterwards, by the method explained hereinafter, notice (of
the number drawn) is sent to the Minister, the owner (of the box),
and the Council.

When the Minister does not like the box drawn for him, he lays
before the Council his request that it may be changed, and by the
same method His Serenity is requested to draw again. In that case
he only puts in the numbers of the boxes opposite which are free,
he draws again and sends the notices to that effect, informing the
owner of the second box that he may use the one first drawn.

When the box was at last drawn and had been accepted by the Minister, the owner of it received a notice in the following form:--

This day ... (date). By order of the Most Excellent Savi
(literally, ‘Wise Men’) notice is given to Your Excellency the
Noble Sir, etc., etc.... (or Noble Dame, or Your Illustrious
Worship, or other proper title), that His Serenity has drawn Box
No.... Row ... in the ... theatre belonging to Your Excellency (or
other title) for His Excellency the Ambassador (or Minister) of
..., and this notice is sent you for your guidance.

The feelings of the box-owner, dispossessed by this formal nonsense, may be guessed, for the indemnity paid by the ambassadors was very small.

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Lessico._]

It seems that even the Council anticipated that he would use bad language, for the underling who took him the notice was a Comandator-Portier, and was made to wear a red cap with the arms of the Republic as a badge ‘to protect him against abuse’!

In 1791, when a company formed of nobles undertook to build the Fenice Theatre, using part of the ruins of the old theatre of San Benedetto, they presented to the Doge a memorandum concerning the boxes for the Diplomatic Corps, of which I give an extract for the sake of its monumental absurdity, translating the terms quite literally:--

The reverend Company of the New Theatre is disposed to meet the
public commands with submissive obedience, and will therefore at
all times venerate whatsoever Your Serenity may be pleased to
prescribe....

In order to continue the building begun, it is necessary to sell
the new boxes which have been added to those which formed the last
theatre, and the greatest profit that may be hoped for lies in
those situated in the first and second rows; but, as those places
are subject to the dispositions above alluded to, which take from
the owners the use of their own boxes, without fixing the measure
of the corresponding indemnity, the sale of those boxes would be
rendered impossible in the present state of things, to the
incalculable damage of the sinking company, which would thus see
removed the hope of soon finishing the building begun, or else
would be put to new and enormous expense which would cause to
vanish those expectations of profit which the Sovereign Clemency
of the Most Excellent Council of Ten had benignly permitted the
Company to entertain.

The memorandum ends with the rather startling statement that the pretensions of the ambassadors, if admitted, would cause the Company to lose eleven thousand ducats.

The Doge, who afterwards showed small alacrity to act when the country was in mortal danger, was apparently much moved on receiving the Company’s petition, and forthwith summoned the Senate to consider the weighty matter; it is true that if he had done anything for the petitioners without appealing to that body, he would have been naturally suspected of being a shareholder.

The Senate decided that, without making any change in the method of drawing boxes, and without prejudice to the existing system in any other theatre, ambassadors should pay owners one hundred and sixty’ ducats for boxes in the first row, and that ministers should pay eighty ducats for those in the second; whereby, said the Senate, which still preserved traditions of business, the owners of the said boxes would be getting four per cent on the money they had invested.

The construction of the famous Fenice lasted twenty months, and the new theatre opened with an opera by Paisiello on a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.

XII

THE LAST MAGISTRATES

The philosophical reader will naturally ask what elements composed the Great Council of the Venetian Republic at a time when France was on the brink of the Revolution, and all Europe was about to be shaken by the explosion of the first new idea that had dawned on mankind since Christianity. I shall try to answer the question.

There were three classes of men in the Council: first, the ancient aristo-plutocracy which, though with a few

[Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 7._]

additions to its numbers, and though itself divided into two parties, had on the whole steered the Republic through eleven hundred years of history; secondly, a number of families, mostly of ‘new men,’ though they had sat in the Council four hundred years and more, but who had all been more or less occupied with the legal profession since they had existed; thirdly and lastly, the poor nobles called the ‘Barnabotti,’ from the quarter of San Barnabò, where most of them were lodged at the public expense.

The first category generally held the posts of highest dignity, many of which implied a salary by no means small, but never sufficient to pay for the display which the position required, according to accepted customs. The traditional splendour which the Venetian ambassadors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had inaugurated was dear to the Senate, and had come to be officially required, if not actually prescribed in so many words. These great families had long been accustomed to play the leading parts, and as the business spirit which had made Venice the richest power in Europe died out, their pride was often greater than their sense of responsibility. These and many other causes lowered the standard according to which young Venetians had been brought up during centuries to understand the administration of their country; and the result was that they were not fit to fill the offices to which they were called, and therefore handed over their work to private secretaries, who were generally ambitious and intriguing men. To be a member of the Great Council had now only a social value, like those hereditary coats of arms in which there had once been such deep meaning. Throughout ages the aristocracy of Venice had differed altogether from the nobility of other countries, but as decadence advanced to decay, and decay threatened destruction, the Venetian senator grew more and more like the French marquis of the same period.

In an access of greatness Louis XIV. is reported to have said, ‘L’état c’est moi!’ but the State continued to exist without him. The Venetian nobles might have said with much more truth, and perhaps with more reasonable pride, ‘We nobles are the Republic!’ For when they degenerated into dolls, the Republic soon ceased to exist.

The second category of nobles comprised by far the sanest and most intelligent part of the aristocracy, and it was generally from their ranks that the Quarantie were chosen, as well as the ‘Savi,’ and those magistrates from whom special industry and intelligence were required, or at least hoped.

The Barnabotti had nothing in common with the two other classes, except their vanity of caste, which was so infinitely far removed from pride. As I have said, they owed their name to the parish

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Nuovi Studi, 308._]

which most of them inhabited. Their nobility was more or less recent and doubtful, and almost all had ruined themselves in trying to rival the richer families. The majority of them had nothing but a small pension, paid them by the government, and barely sufficient to lift them out of actual misery. It was especially for them

[Sidenote: _Horatio Brown, Venice, 109; Rom. ix. 7._]

that the College of Nobles had been founded, in which their sons were educated for nothing, with all the usual imperfections of gratuitous education. Like the ‘New Men’ of the fourteenth century, they felt that an insurmountable barrier separated them from the older and richer classes, and the humiliations to which they were often exposed by the latter kept alive in them the sort of hatred which was felt in other parts of Europe by the agricultural population for the owners of the land. Their poverty and rancorous disposition made them especially the objects of bribery when any party in the Great Council needed the assistance of their votes against another.

The better sort of Venetians were well aware of the evils that were destroying the governing body. In 1774 a member of the Council made a speech on the subject, in which he said that the greatest damage the Republic had suffered had been caused by the action of time; it lay in the already very sensible diminution in the numbers of the Great Council, which was, in fact, the government itself. He pointed out that within one century a large number of patrician families had become

[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, quoting Arch. Ven. iii. 435._]

extinct, and that the condition of the aristocracy must clearly continue to go from bad to worse. It could not be otherwise, since marriages were yearly becoming less numerous. A family was looked upon as a calamity, because it meant a division of fortune, and therefore interfered with those ancient traditions of almost royal

magnificence which appealed to the vanity of younger men.

The speech to which I have alluded was delivered not very many years after the time when a number of seats in the Grand Council had been sold in order to meet the expenses of the Turkish war. In 1775, in order to increase the numbers of the Council, it was proposed to admit to it forty noble families from the provinces, provided they could prove that they had a yearly income of ten thousand ducats. The proposal was energetically opposed by a Contarini. If the sons of ancient families showed so little zeal for the public welfare, he argued, what could be expected of strangers? Was it wise to display to all Europe the evils from which the Republic was suffering? Moreover, even if the bill were passed, would it be easy to find forty families willing to leave their homes and establish themselves in the capital to the great damage of their fortunes? And if they were found, would their admission not result in impoverishing the provinces by the amount of their incomes which would be spent in Venice? It was luxury and extravagance that were ruining the country, he said.

A lively discussion followed. ‘Beloved sons,’ cried one old noble, ‘for us who are old there may be a little of the Republic left, but for you children it is completely finished!’ The bill passed, but Contarini had been right; only about ten families asked to be inscribed in the Golden Book.

Satirists and lampooners made merry with the proceedings of the Great Council. After the stormy sittings just referred to, the caricatures of the five patricians entrusted with framing measures of reform were to be seen everywhere in the city, and a copy of the cut is still in the Archives. It

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 211._]

represents the most eloquent and zealous of the committee, Alvise Emo, urging his horse against an enormous marble column; two of his colleagues follow him in a post-chaise and observe his movements with a spy-glass; a fourth, who is lame, is trying to follow the carriage on foot, and the fifth comes after him, beating him to make him mend his pace.

On the twenty-second of May 1779 the secretary of the Inquisitors of State wrote to his brother Giuseppe Gradenigo, then in France: ‘If these gentlemen do not seriously think of taking measures to meet the events which are brewing, if they do not introduce some order into the affairs of the army and navy, the Republic will be lost as soon as an enemy appears on land or by sea.’

This letter was prophetic. The idleness and indolence of the nobility were such that it was hard to obtain an attendance at meetings of the Great Council or the Senate. The members were accustomed to spend their nights in gambling-dens and cafés, and it was a hard matter for them to get up in the morning. Their physicians recommended rest, which they indeed needed; and as they could not take any at night, they devoted a large part of the day to following the doctor’s advice. Yet as it was necessary that the government should go on in some way, it became habitual to leave everything to the Savi of the Council, who on their part fell into the habit of not always rendering an account of what they did. By obligingly saving their colleagues the trouble of getting out of bed, they made themselves the arbiters of the Republic’s final destiny.

With regard to the other magistracies, a few anecdotes will give a good idea of what they had become. My readers know that the Avogadori enjoyed very great consideration, and that it was their business to see that all the tribunals did their work smoothly and regularly. One of these important officers, Angelo Quirini, who was at the same time one of the most distinguished members of the Senate, exhibited his power and courage by banishing from Venice a little milliner who had made a mistake in trimming certain caps for a great lady in whom he was interested. From her exile the woman wrote a protest to the Inquisitors of State, who did her justice and recalled her. Quirini now lost his temper with these gentlemen and swore that they were encroaching upon his rights, just at this time a

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 104._]

rich member of the parish of San Vitale departed this life, and the sacristans prepared to bury his body; but the deceased belonged to a confraternity called La Scuola Grande della Carità, and his brethren claimed the right of burying him to the exclusion of the parish sacristans. The Inquisitors of State and the Council of Ten took the matter up; the Provveditori alla Sanità, who were the health officers, declared that the matter concerned them only; the elders and judges of the guilds and corporations took part in the discussion, and a general quarrel ensued, which was only brought to a close by the authority of the Council of Ten. But this did not please Angelo Quirini, who violently attacked the Council and began to give himself the airs of a popular tribune, though not possessing the popularity which is essential for the position. The people, in fact, would have none of him. One night the Council of Ten caused him to be quietly taken from his palace and carried off under a good escort to the fortress of Verona. The matter now had to be brought before the Great Council, and a regular trial was held to ascertain how the Council of Ten and the Inquisitors were in the habit of performing their duties.

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 108._]

During several days the Corregitori received all the complaints that were handed in, and examined the archives of the two tribunals. Those of the Ten were found to be in perfect order, but those of the Inquisitors were in the utmost confusion.

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 114._]

The whole city discussed the affair excitedly, and nothing else was spoken of in the streets, in the cafés, and in drawing-rooms. It was the first time in history that the tribunal of the Inquisitors of State had been put under an inquiry, and this tremendous result had been produced because a little milliner had made a cap that did not fit.

Endless discussions followed. A number of patricians declared that if the Council of Ten and the Inquisitors of State were abolished, they themselves would not stay another day in Venice, as there would no longer be any check on the violence and the intrigues of men of their own class: a confession which suddenly exhibits the whole aristocracy in its true light.

Others proved beyond all question that a tribunal which was particularly charged with the preservation of the State from danger could not always

[Sidenote: _1762._]

do its work with the miserable tardiness of the other magistracies, and they recalled the many cases in which the Ten had saved Venice.

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 136-137._]

One of the debates was prolonged for five consecutive hours. At last the Conservative party carried the day.

The wild enthusiasm of the population, on learning that the Ten and the Inquisitors were to remain in existence, shows well enough what the people thought; their only protection against the nobles lay in the two tribunals. Six thousand persons waited in the Square of Saint Mark’s to learn the result of the contest, and when it was known proceeded to burn fireworks before the palaces of the nobles who had been the chief speakers in defence of the Ten--Foscarini, Marcello, and Grimani. The populace then declared that it would set fire to the houses of the nobles who had tried to do away with the only institution they still feared, and the palaces of the Zen and the Renier were only saved from fire and pillage by the energetic intervention of the Inquisitors of State, whose office those aristocrats had attempted to abolish.

I know of no more convincing answer to the numerous dilettante historians who have accused the Council of Ten of oppressing the people.

If the Council and the Inquisitors were in need of an excuse for occasionally overstepping their powers in order to act quickly, they had a good one in the absurdly cumbrous system of the magistracies, as they existed in the eighteenth century. As a curiosity,

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 399._]

I give a list or the principal magistracies, taken by Romanin from an almanack of 1796, the last year of the Republic:--

The Doge’s Counsellors 6 Savi of the Council 16 Procurators of Saint Mark 9 ‘Criminal’ Quarantia 40 ‘Old’ Civil Quarantia 40 ‘New’ Civil Quarantia 40 Colleges of the XXV. and the XV. 40 Senate 60 ‘Zonta,’ supplementary to Senate 60 Council of Ten 10 Inquisitors (of Ten) 3 Avogadori of the Commonwealth 3 --- Total 327

besides the whole of the Great Council, which consisted of all nobles over twenty-five years of age, and of the younger men chosen by lot to sit without a vote.

And these are only the principal magistracies. The secondary ones comprised over five hundred officials, divided between something like one hundred and thirty offices, such as Provveditors, or inspectors of some forty different matters, from artillery to butchers’ shops, from ‘Ancient and Modern Justice’ to oats: Savi, Inquisitors of all matters except religion, Auditors, Executors, Correctors, Reformers, Deputies, and Syndics; a perfect ant-hill of officials who were perpetually in one another’s way.

Here is an instance of the manner in which ordinary justice was administered, even by the Council of Ten.

On the sixth of March 1776 a patrician called Semitecolo, who was a member of one of the Quarantie, and therefore a magistrate, was walking in the Fondamenta Nuove when he saw a big butcher named Milani unmercifully beating a wretched peddler of old books. He stopped and expostulated; the butcher took his interference ill, and delivered a blow with his fist which caused the blood to gush abundantly from the magistrate’s nose. Semitecolo was taken into a neighbouring house, and the butcher walked off.

Still covered with blood, Semitecolo hastened to lay the matter before the Council of Ten, demanding the

arrest of Milani. But Pier Barbarigo, who was one of the Capi for the week, while sympathising deeply, excused himself from arresting the culprit, on the ground that a detailed account of the affair signed by witnesses must be laid before the Council; and, moreover, the Council was busy just then, he said, owing to the arrival of the Pope’s Nuncio, and there would be no meeting on the next day. Semitecolo could not even get an order to have the butcher watched by the police, and the culprit had full time and liberty to leave Venice before anything was done. Note that he himself did not expect impunity, but only a very long delay before his arrest was ordered.

The public followed the affair and was indignant, and freely criticised the Ten in public places; whereupon the Inquisitors ordered all the cafés to be closed two hours after dark. This was especially galling to the Venetians, who were fond of sitting up late, and loved the bright lights of the cafés.

One morning a notice appeared on the walls, drawn up in the following terms:--

‘The Guild of the Night-Thieves wishes to thank his Excellency the “Capo” Barbarigo for having provided them with much more sufficient and convenient

[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 399._]

means of earning their bread during the present hard times.’

The Inquisitors’ ordinance was soon modified so as to allow the cafés to remain open till midnight.

As for the minor courts, Goldoni, who was brought up to be a lawyer, says that there were nearly as many different ones as there were different kinds of suits possible. They paralysed each other, and could not have worked well even if they had been honest.

But they were not. An Avogador acquitted a man accused of theft. The Signors of the

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 143._]

Night--the chiefs of police--who had committed the accused for trial believed him guilty and determined to examine the papers relating to the trial.

With this intention they made a search in the house of the Avogador and confiscated the private accounts in which he set down the profit and loss of his judicial industry; for he was a very careful man. Surely enough, the Signors found an entry of one hundred and fifty sequins (£112. 10s.) received for acquitting the thief.

About the same time there was a very beautiful dancer called the Cellini at the theatre of San Cassian.

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 144._]

A magistrate who exercised the righteous functions of an ‘Executor against Blasphemy’ became anxious to get into her good graces, but as she would have nothing to do with him, he brought an accusation against her in his own court, tried her, and condemned her to a severe penalty. But she appealed to the Council of Ten, proved her innocence, and was acquitted. Thereupon the Venetians began to swear ‘by the holy Virgin Cellini.’

With such a state of things in Venice, it was only to be expected that the condition of justice in the provinces should be still worse. When

[Sidenote: _Mut. Ult._]

Goldoni was Secretary to the Chancery of Feltre, in the Venetian territory, there was a huge scandal about a whole forest cut down and sold without any order or authority from the government. An inquiry was attempted and begun; it was found that more than two hundred persons were implicated, and as it soon became apparent that the same thing had been done before them, within the century, it was judged better to draw a veil over the whole affair.

This naturally encouraged others. In 1782 the Provveditor Michiel informed the Senate that the Podestà of the city of Usmago had calmly pocketed the price of an oak forest, which he had asked leave to cut down on pretence of using the funds for repairing his official residence.

Finally, a number of posts, especially in the ducal household, were openly sold; in the last years of the Republic even the office of a procurator of Saint Mark could be bought.

In close connection with the magistracies and the legal profession generally, I give the following amusing extract from Goldoni’s memoirs.

He begins by telling us that although he had been entered at a lawyer’s office for two years, he left it fitted for the profession in eight months,

[Sidenote: _Goldoni, i. 23._]

because the administration interpreted the two years to mean the dates of two consecutive years, without any regard to the months. Young Goldoni then took a lodging in the lawyers’ quarter near San Paterniano, and his mother and aunt lived with him.

I put on the toga belonging to my new station (he continues), and
it is the same as that of the Patricians; I smothered my head in an
enormous wig and impatiently awaited the day of my presentation in
the Palace. The novice must have two assistants who are called in
Venice Compari di Palazzo [‘Palace godfathers’]. The young man
chooses them amongst those of the old lawyers who are most friendly
to him....

So I went between my two sponsors to the foot of the grand
staircase in the great courtyard of the Palace, and for an hour
and a half I made so many bows and contortions that my back was
broken and my wig was like a lion’s mane. Every one who passed
before me gave his opinion of me; some said, Here is a youth of
good character; others said, Here is another Palace sweeper; some
embraced me, some laughed in my face. To be short, I went up the
stairs and sent the servant to find a gondola, so as not to show
myself in the street in such a dishevelled state, naming as a place
of meeting the Hall of the Great Council, where I sat down on a
bench whence I could see every one pass without being seen by any
one. During this time, I reflected on the career I was about to
embrace. In Venice there are generally two hundred and forty
lawyers entered on the register; there are ten or twelve of the
first rank, about twenty who occupy the second; all the others are
hunting for clients; and the poorer Procurators gladly act as their
dogs on condition of sharing the prey....

While I was thus alone, building castles in the air, I saw a woman
of about thirty approaching me, not disagreeable in face, white,
round, and plump, with a turned-up nose and wicked eyes, a great
deal of gold on her neck, her ears, her arms, her fingers, and in a
dress which proclaimed that she was a woman of the common class,
but pretty well off. She came over and saluted me.

‘Sir, good day!’

‘Good day, Signora!’

‘Will you allow me to offer you my congratulations?’

‘For what?’

‘On your entrance into the Forum; I saw you in the courtyard when
you were making your salaams. Per Bacco! Sir, your hair is nicely
done.’

‘Isn’t it? Am I not a handsome young fellow?’

‘But it makes no difference how your hair is done; Signor Goldoni
always cuts a good figure.’

‘So you know me, Signora?’

‘Did I not see you four years ago in the land of the lawyers, in a
long wig and cloak?’

‘True; you are right, for I was then in the house of the
Procurator.’

‘Just so; in the house of Signor Indrie’ [Goldoni’s uncle].

‘So you know my uncle too?’

‘In this part of the world I know every one, from the Doge to the
last copyist of the Courts.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘Are you a widow?’

‘No.’

‘Oh--I do not dare ask more!’

‘All the better.’

‘Have you any business?’

‘No.’

‘From your appearance I took you for a well-to-do person.’

‘I really am.’

‘Then you have investments?’

‘None at all.’

‘But you are very well fitted out; how do you manage to do it?’

‘I am a daughter of the Palace, and the Palace supports me.’

‘That is very strange! You say you are a daughter of the Palace?’

‘Yes, sir; my father had a position in it.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He listened at the doors and then went to take good news to those
who were expecting pardons, or verdicts, or favourable judgments;
he had capital legs and always got there first. As for my mother,
she was always here, as I am. She was not proud, she took her fee,
and undertook some commissions. I was born and brought up in these
gilded halls, and, as you see, I also have gold on me.’

‘Yours is a most singular story. Then you follow in your mother’s
footsteps?’

‘No, sir. I do something else.’

‘That is to say?’

‘I push lawsuits.’

‘Push lawsuits? I do not understand.’

I am as well known as Barabbas. It is very well understood that all
the lawyers and all the Procurators are my friends, and a number of
people apply to me to obtain advice for them and counsel for
defence. Those who come to me are generally not rich, and I look
about amongst the novices and the unemployed [lawyers] who want
nothing but work in order to make themselves known. Do you know,
sir, that though you see me as I am, I have made the fortunes of a
round dozen of the most famous lawyers in the profession. Come,
sir, courage, and if you are willing, I shall make yours too.’

It amused me to listen to her, and as my servant did not come, I
continued the conversation.

‘Well, Signorina, have you any good affairs on hand now?’

‘Yes, sir, I have several, indeed I have some excellent ones. I
have a widow who is suspected of having occultated her monkey;
another who wishes to prove a marriage contract got up after the
fact; I have girls who are petitioning for a dowry; I have women
who wish to bring suits for annulment of marriage; I have sons of
good families who are persecuted by their creditors; as you see,
you need only choose.’

‘My good woman,’ I said, ‘so far I have let you talk; now it is my
turn. I am young, I am about to begin my career, and I desire
occasions for showing myself and obtaining occupation; but no love
of work nor fancy for litigation could make me begin with the
disgraceful suits you offer me.’

‘Ha, ha!’ she laughed, ‘you despise my clients because I warned you
that there was nothing to earn; but listen! My two widows are
rich, you will be well paid, and shall be even paid in advance, if
you wish.’

I saw my servant coming in the distance; I rose and answered the
chattering woman in a fearless and resolute tone.

‘No, you do not know me, I am a man of honour....’

Then she took my hand and spoke gravely.

‘Well done! Continue always in the same mind.’

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed, ‘you change your tone now?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and the tone I take now is much better than
the one I have been using. Our conversation has been somewhat
mysterious; remember it and see that you speak to no one about it.
Good-bye, sir. Always be wise, be always honourable, and you will
be satisfied with the result.’

She went away, and I was left in the greatest astonishment. I did
not know what all this meant; but I learned later that she was a
spy and had come to sound me; yet I never knew, nor wished to know,
who sent her to me.

XIII

THE LAST SBIRRI

It is worth while to glance at the agents of the police, of the Council of Ten, and of the Inquisitors of State

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Lessico._]

at the end of the Republic. The two Councils had six in their service, called the Fanti de’ Cai, the footmen of the Heads, and one of them was at the beck and call of the Inquisitors. This particular one was the famous Cristofolo de’ Cristofoli, whose name is connected alike with all the tragedies and the comic adventures of the last days.

He was a sort of general inspector of freemasons, rope-dancers, circus-riders, antiquaries, bravi, and gondoliers, and he exercised in his manifold functions all the civility of which a detective can dispose. He was a giant in body, a jester and a wit by nature, a combination certainly intended for the stage rather than the police.

His especial bugbear was freemasonry, together with all the secret societies which were then largely in the pay of France, employed by her to promote general revolution. A manuscript preserved in the Museo Correr gives an account of the first discovery of a Lodge.

A patrician named Girolamo Zulian, says this document, when returning one night from a meeting of the Lodge left upon the seat of his gondola a piece of paper on which were drawn certain incomprehensible signs. The gondoliers found the paper, and supposed that the symbols were those of some kind of witchcraft. One of the men took the scrap to a monk he knew and begged him to decipher the signs, or at least to give his advice as to what should be done with the thing, as it might be fatal even to destroy a spell of black magic. The monk told the gondolier to take it to the Inquisitors of State. The man did so, and one of them kept him in a garret of his house, to protect him against any possible vengeance on the part of the secret society, and Cristofolo de’ Cristofoli was commissioned to clear up the mystery. On the following night he raided the house indicated by the gondolier with thirty Sbirri, and found there assembled a large meeting of the brethren, one of whom had the presence of mind to throw into the canal the heavy register containing a complete list of their names. Cristofoli took a quantity of papers, however, together with the paraphernalia of the Lodge, and he afterwards, says the manuscript, dictated from memory the names of the persons he had seen at the meeting. But he must have made mistakes, since several of the persons he designated are known to have been absent from Venice on foreign missions at the date of the raid, May sixth, 1785.

Another manuscript, published by Dandolo, gives a different account of the affair, under the same date. It was copied by the famous Cicogna, and is amusing for its language:--

It was the anniversary of the feast of the principal Protector of
this most serene dominion, Saint Mark the Evangelist, April the
twenty-fifth, 1785, when it was discovered that the public Arsenal
of Venice had been treacherously set on fire; the fire was
eventually discovered by a certain woman, who was rewarded for life
[_i.e._ with a pension] by the public munificence; and by the
discovery of it, a fire was prevented which might have been fatal
to a large part of the city, and which was not to have broken out
till the night following the twenty-fifth, but which showed itself
after noon on account of an extraordinary wind which had
temporarily arisen from the east and which blew with fury all day.

Such an accident, as fatal as its prevention by the Evangelist

Saint Mark was miraculous, not only moved the public vigilance to
guard that public edifice under more jealous custody, but also [to
watch] all the quarters of the city; to this end multiplying
watchmen and spies, in order to discover, if that

might be possible, the perpetrators of such an horrible and
terrifying felony.

In the inquiries, it was observed by trustworthy spies on the night
of the [date omitted in the original] May, that a certain palace
situated in Riomarin, in the parish of San Simon Grande, was
entered from time to time after midnight by respectable-looking
persons, for whom the door was opened at the simple signal of a
little tap. Information of this being given to the Supreme
Tribunal, the latter ordered the most circumspect inquiries; when,
on the same morning, information was given to the Secretary of the
said Supreme Magistracy by a certain ship’s carpenter that having,
on commission of N. N., finished making a large wardrobe, he
inquired of that cavalier where he was to bring it in order to set
it up properly; and that he had been told to bring it to a certain
palace in Riomarin and to leave it in the entrance (gateway) of the
same, and that he would be sent for later to place it where it was
to go; that seeing several days go by without receiving that
notice, and yielding to curiosity, he stole near in the night to
see if the wardrobe were still in the entrance of the palace, where
he had placed it, and he convinced himself that it had been taken
elsewhere; and being displeased with this, because some other
workman might have handled his work, and guessing from a hint of
the gentleman’s that the wardrobe had been intended to be placed
against the windows of a balcony, and observing in this palace a
balcony of just about the length of the wardrobe made by him, he
tried to get into the apartment above the one where the balcony was
[let to some one], explaining to the people who lived in that house
that his suspicion induced him to ask their permission to make a
hole with a gimlet, in order to see whether his wardrobe had been
put up where he guessed it must be; and that he had obtained
consent to this request, because the lodgers in that second
apartment had conceived some curiosity to know who the persons
might be who met there only at night time; that therefore he betook
himself to that dwelling on the night of the fourth of May, having
previously made a hole, and stopped there till the first-floor
apartment was opened, and he saw that after midnight a hall was
lighted up which was hung with mourning and furnished with a
throne covered with blue cloth and with other symbols of death, and
here and there were disposed small lanterns, and persons also
sitting here and there, dressed in black robes; so that at this
horrid sight he was terrified, and he heard him who sat on the
throne say these very words: ‘Brethren, let us suspend our meeting,
for we are watched’; and in that room he saw indeed his wardrobe
placed against a balcony.

And that he left the lodgers in that second apartment in
consternation, and he himself, full of amazement and terror, and
still surprised by the novelty of the things, and supposing, in his
simplicity, that witchcraft was practised there and the works of
the devil, he was scandalised, and went to the parish priest of San
Simon Grande, his confessor, and that having told him all he had
seen, heard, and observed, he (the priest) advised him to quickly
lay before the government all that he had chanced to see and hear.

The good man did so, and told all to the Secretary of the
Inquisitors of State. A warrant was therefore issued on that same
morning of the sixth of May by the Supreme Tribunal to its own
officer Cristofoli, to go thither (to Riomarin), accompanied by the
Capitan Grande and twenty-four men. Having entered that apartment,
where he surprised a nobleman who guarded the place, he
(Cristofoli) discovered a lodge of freemasons.

Emanuele Cicogna [the distinguished historian] copied this on the
twenty-fourth of August 1855, from two codices existing in his
collection.

On the following day, the Inquisitors publicly burned the black garments, the utensils, the ‘conjuring books,’ as they are described, and

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult._]

all the booty Cristofoli had confiscated, while the populace, believing that it was all a case of witchcraft, danced round the fire and cheered for Saint Mark.

The persons implicated were treated with the greatest indulgence, and Malamani observes that in the whole affair it was the furniture that got the worst of it.

About the same time Cristofoli made a vain attempt to arrest the notorious Cagliostro.

This man, whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, was born in Palermo on the eighth of June 1743. His youth was wild and disreputable. He tried being a monk, but soon tired of it, and threw his frock to the nettles, as the French say, in Caltagirone, in Sicily; after that he lived by theft, by coining false money, and by every sort of imposture. In Rome he married a girl of singular beauty, Lorenza Feliciani, who became his tool in all his intrigues.

The French freemasons made use of the singularly intelligent couple to propagate the doctrines of the revolution. Pretending to change hemp into silk, and every metal into gold, and selling marvellous waters for restoring the aged to youth and beauty, the two got into many excellent houses, changing their names and their disguises whenever they were compromised.

Balsamo arrived in Venice in 1787 or 1788, under the name of Count Cagliostro, and began an active revolutionary campaign, to the great annoyance

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 31._]

of the Inquisitors, who fancied they had suppressed the whole movement when Cristofoli had discovered the famous Lodge. He was less fortunate this time. He tracked the Count everywhere, but could get no substantial evidence against him, till he suddenly came upon positive proof that the impostor had stolen a thousand sequins from a rich merchant of the Giudecca. And then, at the very moment when the great policeman was sure of his game, the man disappeared as into thin air and was next heard of beyond the Austrian frontier.

The chief of the Sbirri had better luck when he raided the Café Ancilotto, which was a favourite place of meeting for the revolutionaries. They

[Sidenote: _Tassini, under ‘Ancilotto.’_]

tried to open a reading-room there, furnished with all the latest revolutionary literature, but Cristofoli got wind of the plan, called on the man who kept the café, and informed him that the first person who entered the ‘reading-room’ would be invited to pay a visit to the Inquisitors of State. After that, no one showed any inclination to read the French papers. In connection with Cristofoli, we also come upon the curious fact that he arrested, at the Café

[Sidenote: _Tassini, under ‘Caffetero.’_]

of the Ponte dell’ Angelo, a number of Barnabotti, who were preaching suspicious doctrines. As usual, the poor nobles were the class most easily bribed and most ready to betray their country.

Cristofoli was occasionally entrusted with missions more diplomatic than the arrest of revolutionaries. He was sometimes sent to present his respects to great nobles who did not guess that they had attracted the eyes of the police.

It was the business of the Inquisitors to watch over the artistic treasures of the capital. During the last year of the Republic a number of nobles sold precious

objects to strangers, such as paintings and statues, of which the government much regretted the loss to the city. A few measures were passed for preventing this dispersion of private collections, but it happened only too often that priceless things were suddenly gone, leaving no trace of their destination, except in the pockets of the former owners.

The Grimani family possessed some magnificent statues and a wonderful library of rare books, inherited from Cardinal Domenico Grimani, who died in 1523. Shortly before the fall of

[Sidenote: _Statue of M. Agrippa; Museo Correr._]

the Republic a foreigner bought the statue of Marcus Agrippa; the boat which was to take it on board an outward bound ship was at the door of the palace, and the men who were to take it down from its pedestal and box it were ready, when Cristofolo Cristofoli appeared at the entrance, gigantic and playful.

He walked straight to the statue, took off his cap to it and bowed gravely before he delivered his message to the marble: ‘The Supreme Tribunal of the Inquisitors, having heard that you wish to leave this city, sends me to wish a pleasant journey, both to you and his Excellency Grimani.’

‘His Excellency Grimani’ did not relish the idea of exile; the workmen disappeared, the boat was sent away, and the statue remained. It was destined to be left as a gift to the city by another Grimani, less avaricious than ‘His Excellency.’

In spite of his good-humour, Cristofoli inspired terror, and his mere name was often

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Studi e Ricerche._]

used to lend weight to practical jokes. It is related, for instance, of the famous Montesquieu, the author of the _Esprit des Lois_ and the friend of King Stanislaus Leczinski, that when he was making notes in Venice his friend Lord Chesterfield managed to cause a mysterious message to be conveyed to him, warning him to be on his guard, as the Chief of the Ten employed spies to watch him, and Cristofoli was on his track. And thereupon, says the story, the excellent Montesquieu burned all his most compromising notes, and fled straight to Holland with the remainder of his manuscripts.

The Council of Ten and their Sbirri had not yet done with the Bravi. They were numerous in the provinces, and when they were caught they were tried and hanged in Venice. The ‘Signorotti’--the rich landowners, who were not Venetian nobles, but called themselves ‘knights’--were many and prosperous, and were the professional murderers’ best clients. Indeed, the Venetian mainland provinces and much of Lombardy presented a case of arrested development; at the end of the eighteenth century they had not emerged from the barbarism of the early fifteenth.

The lordlings entertained Bravi, and when there was no more serious business on hand, they laid wagers with each other as to the courage of their hired assassins. A bet of this kind was made and settled in 1724 between an Avogadro and a Masperoni, two country ‘knights’ who lived on their estates in the province of Brescia. One evening the two were discussing the character of a ruffian whom Masperoni had just taken into his service. His new master maintained that the fellow was the bravest man in the ‘profession.’ Avogadro, on the other hand, wagered that he would not be able to traverse the road between his master’s castle and Lumezzane, which belonged to Avogadro. Masperoni took the bet, and explained the situation to the man. The latter, feeling that his reputation was at stake, started at once, carrying on his shoulder a basket of fine fruit as a present from Masperoni to his friend, and he took his way across the hills of Valtrompia. When he was a few miles from Lumezzane he was met by two well-armed fellows, who ordered him to turn back, but he was not so easily stopped. He set down his basket, and in the twinkling of an eye killed both his adversaries, after which he quietly pursued his journey.

Avogadro was very much surprised to see him, and asked with curiosity what sort of trip he had made.

‘Excellent,’ he answered. ‘I met a couple of good-for-nothings who wanted to stop me, but I killed them, and here I am.’

Avogadro, filled with admiration, gave him a purse of gold and sent him back to Masperoni with a letter of congratulation.

[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Banditi, 289._]

Incidents of this kind occurred long afterwards, even after the fall of the Republic. The name of Cristofoli is associated with that of Count Alemanno Gambara in a story which could not be believed if the documents that prove it were not all preserved in the various archives, and principally in those of the Inquisitors.

The Gambara family was of Lombard origin, and had always been very influential in the neighbourhood of Brescia. The race had produced fine specimens of all varieties--soldiers, bishops, cardinals, murderers, and one woman poet, besides several bandits, traitors, and highwaymen. In the late sixteenth century two brothers of the family, Niccolò and Lucrezio, had a near relative, Theodora, an orphan girl of fourteen years and an heiress, who was in charge of a guardian. On the twenty-second of January 1569 the two brothers went to the guardian and ordered him to give up the girl. On his refusal they threw him down his own stairs, wounded his people who tried to defend him, broke down the door of the girl’s room, and carried her off.

I only quote this as an instance of the family’s manners. The last scion of the race who lived under the Republic, and who outlived it, was Count Alemanno, a young monster of perversity. He was born after his father’s death at the castle of Pralboino, on a feudal holding belonging to his house. His mother was soon married again to Count Martinengo Cesaresco, and she took the boy with her to her new home. He was naturally violent and unruly; at fifteen he was an accomplished swordsman, and was involved in every quarrel and evil adventure on the country side. When still a mere boy his conduct was such as to give the government real trouble, and the authorities imposed a guardian upon him in the person of a priest of his family, who was instructed to teach him the ordinary precepts of right and wrong; but the clergyman soon announced that he was not able to cope with his young relative, and the Council of Ten learned that the boy’s violent character showed no signs of improvement.