Chapter IX: The Maritime Republics in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth (3)

“Yes, yes, it is perfectly so,” was the answer given.

At this moment, guards appeared, surrounded Carmagnola, and pushed him into the corridor. The last words which he was heard to utter were: “I am lost!” and, as he spoke, a deep-drawn sigh escaped from him. During two days, he refused to take any kind of nourishment. The trial began on the 9th of April with all the forms recognised and required in criminal procedure by the constitution; the examination was conducted by a special committee of nine persons--Luca Mocenigo, privy councillor; Antonio Barbarigo, Bartolommeo Morisini, and Marino Lando, chiefs of the Ten; Daniele Vetturi, Marco Barbarigo, and Luigi Veniero, inquisitors of the Ten; and Faustino Viaro and Francesco Loredano, avogadors of the commune.

On the 11th, the accused, having declined to make any answers, was put to the question. It happened that one of his arms had been fractured in the service of the republic; and the committee consequently objected to the use of the estrapade. But a confession was wrung from him by the application of the brazier. During Lent, the process was suspended. At its recommencement a mass of documents was submitted for investigation, and numerous witnesses were summoned. Independently of the confession, which was possibly of indifferent value, damning evidences of treasonable connivance with Visconti were adduced. On the propriety of conviction there was perfect unanimity; but in regard to the nature of the sentence opinions were divided. The doge himself and three of the privy council proposed perpetual imprisonment. The three chiefs of the Ten, and the avogadors of the commune were, under all the circumstances of aggravated guilt, in favour of capital punishment. A resort was had to the ballot, and, of seven and twenty persons entitled to vote, nineteen voted for death.

[Sidenote: [1432-1441 A.D.]]

On the 5th of May, 1432, Francesco di Carmagnola was led as a public traitor to the common place of execution. He wore a scarlet vest with sleeves, a crimson mantle, scarlet stockings, and a velvet cap _alla Carmagnola_; a gag was in his mouth; his hands were pinioned behind him according to usage; and there between the “red columns,” in the sight of all Venice, his head was severed from his body at the third stroke of the axe.

Thus fell, in the prime of life, the victim of his own blind and perverse folly, a man of the first order of talents, and within whose reach the most splendid opportunities had so recently been. The government of Venice had tolerated his errors [says Hazlitt] until his criminality was beyond a doubt. When his death was decreed, his corruption and treason were already sufficiently glaring. Yet there were subsequent discoveries, which made his case infinitely worse, and which procured an instant mitigation of the penalty against Niccolo Trevisano and the other officers concerned in the loss of the battle of the Po; and some justice, however tardy and inadequate, was rendered to the sufferers by the open declaration of a member of the seigniory in the great council, “that, if the government had at the time been in possession of that exact information which was now in its hands, its treatment of Trevisano and his comrades would have been very different.” It has been said by a modern writer, that “Carmagnola seems to have acted in so equivocal a manner as would have made him amenable to any court-martial with little chance of absolution.”[k]

There are other writers, however, who have regarded the guilt of Carmagnola as by no means so clearly proved, and there are many who would be disposed to approve the judgment of Pignotti,[o] who says, “Probably he was guilty, but the public have always the right to term injustice any act which decides the life and honour of a celebrated man without seeing proofs of his guilt, or at least must consider them very doubtful, as no person who possesses understanding can discover any reasonable motive for concealing them. The proof of this,” Pignotti continues, “may be found in the criminal system of the most polite nations, in particular in that which has formed the glory and personal security of the English people.”

This perhaps is a slight over-statement; there may be reasons of state that make it desirable to give publicity to all the facts where treason is involved. And certainly it would seem as if the Venetian authorities must have felt very sure of their ground before they decided to do away with their captain-general, when no man of similar capacity was at hand to take his place. Nevertheless, the question of the justice of the execution of Carmagnola remains one of the unsolved problems of history.

Deprived of their great general, the Venetians were crippled, while the cause of the Visconti was proportionately strengthened. Nevertheless, the war was brought to a close not long after. Sigismund, who had been crowned king of the Romans at Milan, was attacked by the Florentines and shut up in Siena. Partly through his influence the duke of Milan was led to sign a peace with the allies in 1433. The Venetians remained in possession of Brescia and Bergamo.[a]

_Venice and the Turks_

[Sidenote: [1441-1465 A.D.]]

A little later, by the ruin and exile of the last of the noble family of Polenta, the Venetians grasped the state of Ravenna (1441). In addition to these possessions in Italy, Venice continued to enjoy extensive territories in the East, besides Dalmatia and Durazzo; with other places in Arbani, she was mistress of the chief cities in Morea and many of the Ionian Islands. But the taking of Constantinople by the Turks and the captivity of the Venetians settled in Pera, threatened her power in the East, and she felt no repugnance to enter into a treaty with the enemies of her religion. After the usual negotiations, terms were concluded between Sigismund and Venice; by which her possessions were secured to her and her trade guaranteed to her throughout the empire. In virtue of this treaty, she continued to occupy Modon, Coron, Napoli di Romania (Nauplia), Argos, and other cities on the borders of the peninsula, together with Eubœa (Negropont), and some of the smaller islands. But this good understanding was interrupted in 1463, when the Turks contrived an excuse for attacking the Venetian territory. Under pretence of resenting the asylum afforded to a Turkish refugee, the pasha of the Morea besieged and captured Argos; and the republic felt itself compelled immediately to resent the aggression.

A reinforcement was sent from Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly recaptured. Corinth was next besieged, and the project of fortifying the isthmus was once more renewed. The promontory which unites the Peloponnesus to the continent measures scarcely six miles across between the gulfs of Ægina and Lepanto. In the early ages of Greece the narrowness of this pass had suggested the possibility and expediency of fortifying it by a rampart; under the emperor Justinian, the ancient fortifications were renewed; and in 1413 a strong wall, named Hexamilion from its length, was erected by the emperor Manuel. Upon the present occasion, the labour of thirty thousand workmen accomplished the work in fifteen days: a stone wall of more than twelve feet high, defended by a ditch and flanked by 136 towers, was drawn across the isthmus; in the midst the standard of St. Mark was displayed; and the performance of the holy service completed the new fortification. But the approach of the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated by report, threw the Venetians into distrust and consternation; and unwilling to confide in the strength of their rampart they abandoned the siege of Corinth, and retreated to Napoli, from which the infidels were repulsed with the loss of five thousand men.

The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory retaliations of the Turks and Venetians; and the Christians appeared anxious to rival or surpass the Mohammedans in the refinement of their barbarous inflictions. The names of Sparta and Athens may create a momentary interest; the former, denoted by the modern town of Mistra erected near its ruins; the latter, the poor remains of the ancient city, but still one of the richest and most populous of Greek possessions. In the year 1465 Sigismondo Malatesta landed in the Morea, with a reinforcement of a thousand men; and, without effecting the reduction of the citadel, captured and burned Mistra. In the following year, Vittore Capello, with the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits of Euripus, and landing at Aulis marched into Attica. After making himself master of the Piræus, he laid siege to Athens; her walls were overthrown; her inhabitants plundered; and the Venetians retreated with the spoil to the opposite shores of Eubœa.

[Sidenote: [1465-1478 A.D.]]

The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, for a time diverted the sultan from the war in the Morea; but when Matthias was induced to change his antagonists, and, instead of warring against the Turks, to turn upon his Christian brethren of Bohemia, Muhammed II solemnly bound himself by oath to abolish the idolatrous religion of Christ, and invited the disciples of the prophet to join him in his pious design. In the beginning of the year 1470, a fleet of 108 galleys, besides a number of smaller vessels, manned by a force 70,000 strong, issued from the harbour of Constantinople, and sailed for the straits of Euripus. Never since the days of Xerxes had those seas been cumbered by so vast a multitude; and in the same place, whither the Great King had once despatched his countless fleet, the vessels of the sultan were anchored. The army landed without molestation on the island, which they united to the mainland by a bridge of boats, and immediately proceeded to lay siege to the city of Negropont. Muhammed caused his tent to be pitched on a promontory of the Attic coast, and thence surveyed the operations of his soldiery.

The hopes of the besieged were now centred in the Venetian fleet, which, under the command of Niccolo Canale, lay at anchor in the Soronic Gulf. But that admiral, whilst he awaited a reinforcement, let slip the favourable opportunity of preventing the debarkation of the enemy, or of shutting up the Turks in the island by the destruction of their half-deserted fleet and bridge of boats. By an unaccountable inactivity, he suffered the city to be attacked, which, after a vigorous resistance of nearly a month, was carried by assault; and all the inhabitants who did not escape into the citadel were put to the sword. At length that fortress was also taken; and the barbarous conqueror, who had promised to respect the head of the intrepid governor, deemed it no violation of his word to saw his victim in halves. After this decisive blow, which reduced the whole island, Muhammed led back his conquering army to Constantinople. The Venetian admiral was forthwith superseded by a new commander, and sent loaded with irons to Venice, where his countrymen, by an unaccustomed exercise of moderation, were content to spare his life, and punished his delinquency by perpetual exile.

This success encouraged the Turks to attack the Venetians in their Italian territory; and the pasha of Bosnia invaded Istria and Friuli, and carried fire and sword almost to the gates of Udine. In the following year, however, the Turks were baffled in their attempt to reduce Scutari in Albania, which had been delivered by the gallant Scanderbeg to the guardian care of Venice. Some abortive negotiations for peace suspended hostilities until 1477, when the troops of Muhammed laid siege to Croia in Albania, which they reduced to the severest distress. But a new incursion into Friuli struck a panic into the inhabitants of Venice, who beheld, from the tops of their churches and towers, the raging flames which devoured the neighbouring villages. A hasty muster of all their available forces was made to defend the capital; but the Turks, distrustful of their strength, or satiated with plunder, once more withdrew into Albania. The siege of Croia was soon after terminated by its surrender and the massacre of its inhabitants; and the sultan, in person, undertook the reduction of the stubborn city of Scutari.

But not even the presence of the sultan could accomplish the capture of that redoubted garrison. In vain did the janissaries scale the walls; in vain did the Turkish artillery thunder against the shivered barriers; whilst new assailants replaced those who fell overwhelmed by the javelins and stones launched on them by the besieged. For two days and a night the grand assault was kept up without intermission, until, weary of the useless sacrifice of his men, Muhammed resolved to convert the siege into a blockade. The surrounding country was harassed by the ravages of the Turks; but a new attempt upon Friuli was successfully resisted; and the infidels were compelled to confine their incursions to the frontiers of Germany.

These repeated aggressions on her territories made Venice every day more anxious to conclude a peace with the sultan; and a fresh negotiation was opened, wherein the republic submitted to conditions she had, on a former occasion, rejected. It was agreed that the islands of Negropont and Mytilene, with the cities of Croia and Scutari in Albania, and of Tenaro in the Morea, should be consigned to the Turk; whilst other conquests were to be reciprocally restored to their former owners. A tribute of 10,000 ducats was imposed upon Venice, and the inhabitants of Scutari were to be permitted to evacuate the city without molestation. Upon this footing a peace was concluded, which delivered Venice from a ruinous war of fifteen years. The poor remnant of the defenders of Scutari, now reduced to 500 men and 150 women, were suffered to depart from their homes; and being conducted to Venice were munificently provided for at the expense of the republic (1479).[g]

[Sidenote: [1454-1489 A.D.]]

While Venice was thus contending with difficulty against Ottoman power for the preservation of her colonies, Genoa, with less vigour and fortune, had lost the whole of her possessions and influence in the Black Sea. With the sceptre of Constantinople, the Turks had acquired the key of the Euxine; the Genoese could no longer communicate by sea with their great colony at Kaffa, except at the pleasure of the sultan: and it was easy to foresee that Muhammed II would not permit them long to retain so valuable a dependency. Upon the occasion of some petty quarrel with the colonists of Kaffa, the Tatar governor of the Crimea besieged the place, and invited the co-operation of the sultan. The Turkish fleet appeared before the port, and easily effected a breach in the walls; the colonists were reduced to capitulate; and the last vestige of the Genoese power in the Euxine was destroyed (1475). The misfortunes of the Genoese were without a counterpoise; but the reverses of Venice in the late war were balanced by the acquisition of the large and beautiful island of Cyprus.

Ever since the conquest of Cyprus by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and his gift of its crown to Guy of Lusignan, the descendants of that chieftain had preserved his inheritance with the kingly title. But a disputed succession and a civil war in 1459 entailed ruin on the dynasty of Lusignan. After a contest between the legitimate daughter, and James, the natural son of the late king, in which the latter prevailed, the Venetians bestowed on him their protection and the hand of Catherine Cornaro, a young lady of noble family, who was solemnly declared the adopted daughter of the republic. The new king of Cyprus, who had thus contracted the singular relation of son-in-law to the Venetian state, fulfilled its duties with fidelity and deference. But he died after only a short reign; and the republic immediately acted as the natural guardian of his widow and posthumous child. The Cypriotes, however, were not disposed to accept of the insidious protection of a foreign state; and, during the absence of the Venetian fleet, they rebelled against the queen, and deprived her of the charge of her infant son. On his return, Mocenigo, the Venetian admiral, saw the importance of the crisis. He collected a strong body of land-forces from the republican colonies; he awed the islanders into submission, and occupied their fortresses with his troops; and from this epoch Cyprus may be numbered among the possessions of Venice. The infant son of James of Lusignan and Catherine Cornaro died; the republic faithlessly removed to Venice some natural children on whom, in default of legitimate issue, James had settled the succession; and, in 1489, the Venetian government at length wholly threw off the mask and completed their perfidious usurpation, by obliging the adopted daughter of their state to abdicate her kingdom. Catherine Cornaro had enjoyed no more than the shadow of royalty under the authority of the delegated counsellors of the Venetian senate: but that body were still fearful of her attempting to render herself independent by a second marriage; and after obtaining her solemn act of resignation in favour of the republic, they withdrew her from the island, and assigned her for life a castle and a revenue in their Lombard states.[p]

_The Government of Venice._

The government of Venice had now assumed that perfection of oligarchical despotism which subsisted, with very little variation, from the year 1454 until the inglorious dissolution of the republic in 1797. The sovereign authority was vested in the great council; the government in the senate; the administration in the seigniory; the judicial authority in the quarantia; and the police in the Council of Ten. To these august assemblies the nobles were alone admissible; so that every member of the subordinate councils had a seat in the great council.

The doge was, in name at least, the head of the government, and as such presided over every council. The external marks of respect were conceded to his station, and the splendour of the ducal trappings was well contrived to dazzle the multitude. But from an absolute sovereign the duke of Venice had gradually dwindled down to a powerless pageant; and the aristocracy seem to have delighted in shackling their prince with irksome, though generally wise restrictions. No person if chosen was permitted to decline the dignity; and the dignity when once accepted could never be resigned unless by the consent of the great council. On the other hand, the doge was liable to deposition; and the history of the unfortunate Foscari evinces the rigorous treatment to which the sovereign was open. The doge was forbidden to quit the limits of Venice without special permission; to possess property out of the city; to exercise commerce; or to receive any gratuity from a foreign prince. His revenue was limited to 12,000 ducats, and his expenditure was matter of the severest scrutiny. In his public capacity he could make neither war nor peace; he could open no despatches save in the presence of the seigniory; nor could he return an answer to a foreign potentate without their approbation. His wife and family were also precluded from accepting presents. His brothers, his sons, and even his servants, were ineligible to public office; and his children were prohibited from contracting foreign marriages. After his death, his heirs were liable to be visited for the errors of his reign; and compellable to make good any malversation reported by the censors appointed to inquire into his administration.

The great council included all the nobles who had attained the age of twenty-five. We have already seen the artifices by which this noble body shut the door of the assembly against all whose names were not registered in the Golden Book. But during the famous war of Chioggia the door was again unbarred; and faithful to her promise Venice admitted into her nobility those thirty citizens who were adjudged to have exerted themselves most strenuously in defence of their country. In this illustrious assembly the real sovereignty of Venice existed; from the great council emanated the senate and other councils; and it absorbed all other assemblies, since only its own members were eligible to the important departments of government. Its peculiar office was to make or repeal laws; to ballot for magistrates; and to approve of, or annul, the taxes proposed by the senate. The residue of the sovereign functions it was content to leave to the senate; and as the senators were themselves members of the council no great risk was incurred of any violent collision.

The chief restrictions imposed upon the nobles related to their intercourse with foreign powers. They were forbidden to acquire foreign property; to accept foreign presents; to hold communication with any foreign ambassador. All intermarriages of themselves and their children with foreigners were prohibited; but as too strict an adherence to this prohibition might have deprived the state of advantageous alliances, an ingenious evasion was contrived; and when the daughter of a Venetian noble was sought by a foreign potentate, the state adopted her as its own, and gave her in marriage as the daughter of St. Mark. Attempts were made from time to time to prohibit the nobles from trading; but the impolicy of such a restriction in a commercial state was too strongly felt to render the interdiction available.

The senate, which originally consisted of sixty members, elected annually by the great council from their own body, was afterwards increased by the addition of sixty extraordinary members: and the admission of various public functionaries, in virtue of their office, at length swelled this body to three hundred. To the senate the immediate functions of government were entrusted; and they deliberated and decided upon many important points without any reference to the great council. They made war or peace; entered into treaties; appointed ambassadors and commanders; coined money; raised loans; and regulated the distribution of the finances. But they had no authority to make laws or impose taxes, unless these were afterwards approved and confirmed by the great council.

The executive power was vested in the seigniory which consisted of the doge and the six red counsellors nominated by the great council, one for every quarter of the city. To these were associated the three chiefs of the criminal quarantia, and sixteen sages; and this assembly of twenty-six was styled “the college.” They gave audiences to ambassadors of foreign princes; received memorials and manifestoes; and opened all public despatches, which they were bound to transmit for the perusal of the senate. To them also belonged the convoking of the senate; and by them the resolutions of the senate were to be effectuated.

The supreme judicial authority was lodged in a criminal tribunal of forty judges, and two civil tribunals, each also consisting of forty. These judges were all nominated from among the patricians by the great council; those of the criminal quarantia were _ex-officio_ members of the senate; and as the judges of the civil courts passed on to the criminal, all became senators in rotation. These tribunals formed courts of appeal from others of inferior jurisdiction; and administered justice according to the civil law, modified by statutes and local customs. Their proceedings were encumbered by formalities, and were consequently tardy; but their decisions (which were given by ballot) are admitted to have evinced sagacity and integrity. In criminal matters, indeed, the friends of the accused were permitted to use private influence with the judges; but such culpable attempts at the perversion of justice were strictly forbidden in civil proceedings.

[Sidenote: [1454 A.D.]]

The terrible Council of Ten had already overawed Venice for more than a century, when a new engine of tyranny was introduced still more terrific. The Council of Ten being deemed too numerous a body for securing the desired promptness and mystery of their proceedings, it was resolved by the great council in 1454 to erect another tribunal, consisting of three members with the most unlimited authority over the lives and liberty of the community. The Council of Ten were empowered to nominate two of their black counsellors, and one member of the doge’s council; and were directed to prepare a body of statutes for the guidance of this new “Inquisition of State.” Three days after the passing of this decree the council were ready with these statutes; but the elaborate minuteness of their provisions clearly proves that much time and deliberation had been previously expended upon them. That this frightful tribunal existed too soon became manifest; yet such was the mystery which enveloped its origin that no one presumed to fix the time of its establishment, until the modern historian of Venice in his laborious researches discovered a copy of this diabolical code. Such a tissue of refined cruelty and perfidy was surely never before given to the world; and the framers of the “Statutes of the Inquisition” appear to have been gifted with a subtle and relentless spirit of wickedness which might challenge the malignity of assembled fiends.

An attentive perusal of this manual of assassination can alone give an adequate notion of the precision and acuteness with which the depositaries of this unbounded power are enjoined to draw the unwary into their snares; or of the cold-blooded and uncompromising villainy recommended for the preservation of Venetian policy. Subject to these instructions, the three inquisitors were abandoned to their own discretion in selecting the time and place of seizure and investigation, the tortures to be employed, and the manner of destroying their victims. The nobles and citizens might thus be publicly exposed on a gibbet, or silently consigned to the adjacent canal. Innumerable spies pervaded the city; the recesses of domestic privacy and the inmost apartments of the ducal palace were alike laid open to the penetrating gaze of the Inquisition. Such was the mystery which surrounded the inquisitors that it was never known, except by the council, to which of their members this terrible office was entrusted; and an unguarded whisper in an inquisitor’s presence might in a moment be followed by incarceration and death.

A system, if possible more monstrous, was also encouraged at Venice. A number of iron mouths in different parts of the city gaped for accusations; and an anonymous charge deposited by a secret enemy was sufficient to drag the unconscious accused before his judges. No human being could enjoy security for an instant; the daggers and the poison of the Inquisition were always at hand; and the innocent might suddenly be torn from the midst of his friends and consigned to the burning heat of the leaden roofs, or forever immured in the wells, those dismal dungeons sunk lower than the surface of the canals, where they might sicken and perhaps die from the foul air.

Amidst these institutions, where the functions of the state were exclusively vested in the nobles, and the legislative, executive, and judicial powers united in one body, we may be at a loss to discover what security existed for the welfare of the subordinate classes. The three avogadors, one of whom was necessarily a member of the great council and senate, might, indeed, call upon the legislature to pause when any measure was proposed injurious to the public; but in this anxiety for the general good no safety was to be found for private life or liberty; and we have no means of ascertaining the quantity of individual misery inflicted by this odious government. But amidst the distraction of shows and pageants, the people might at least console themselves with the impartiality of their despotic rulers; since the nobles, and even the doge himself, were liable to feel the rigour of this unsparing oligarchy.

The annals of Venice present many glaring instances of her noblest sons perishing under the malice of an enemy, or sacrificed to the detestable policy of the state; and every page of her history is deformed by examples of perfidy and injustice. Without adverting to these, we will here briefly repeat the characteristic story of Foscari; and it is remarkable that the Inquisition of State originated at the close of this doge’s reign.

_The Two Foscari_

[Sidenote: [1423-1455 A.D.]]

On the death of Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, Francesco Foscari was raised to the ducal throne. A vigorous understanding, a bold and enterprising spirit, were the conspicuous qualities of the new doge; and during his long and warlike reign Venice attained a pitch of glory and power she had never before enjoyed. But whilst Foscari was thus increasing the prosperity of his country he was struggling with severe domestic affliction. Three of his sons were successively swept away to the grave; and the survivor was reserved but to augment the misery of his afflicted father. Jacopo, the youngest Foscari, was secretly accused before the Council of Ten of having received from Filippo, duke of Milan, presents of money and jewels, and immediately summoned to answer the accusation. The unhappy Francesco, who presided as doge, beheld his only son stretched upon the rack, heard his confession of guilt, and acquiesced in the sentence of perpetual banishment to Napoli di Romania. This sentence was, however, in some degree mitigated; and Trieste was fixed on as the place of his exile, whither he was allowed the consolation of being accompanied by his young wife. After residing there above five years a new calamity awaited him. On the 5th of November, 1450, Almoro Donato, one of the chiefs of the council, was assassinated; and the circumstance of a servant of Jacopo’s having been seen in Venice on that day was deemed sufficient to fasten suspicion on his master. The severities of the rack having extorted nothing from the servant, Jacopo was conducted to Venice, and in his father’s presence once more put to the torture. Far from admitting his participation in the murder, the unfortunate culprit vehemently asserted his innocence; but his protestations availed him nothing; and the inexorable council pronounced a sentence of perpetual banishment to the island of Candia.

The doge Francesco had already on two occasions expressed his desire of abdicating his dignity; but on each occasion the great council refused to permit his resignation. The cruel persecution of his son now redoubled his anxiety to descend from that eminence which exposed him more conspicuously to the malice of his enemies. But the council not only reiterated their refusal, but compelled him to bind himself by oath to retain the duchy until relieved by death.

During a five years’ residence at Canea in Candia, Jacopo Foscari had exerted every means in his power to obtain the reversal of his unmerited sentence. Wearied of the hopeless attempt to soften his obdurate countrymen, he at length addressed a letter to Sforza, duke of Milan, entreating him to use his influence with the Venetian senate. To solicit foreign protection was an offence at Venice; and the letter, by design or accident, being intercepted, Jacopo was conveyed from Canea, and for the third time put to the rack before the Council of Ten. He immediately admitted the offensive letter, and rejoiced in the step he had taken, which once more restored him to his beloved country, and to the presence of his wife, his father, and all that was dearest to him upon earth. This touching avowal weighed little with the heartless tribunal, and he was sentenced to be imprisoned in a dungeon for a year, and then again carried back into Candia. After the expiration of his imprisonment, he was sent into exile and soon afterwards died. Meanwhile his innocence of the imputed murder was completely established: the real assassin of Donato confessed on his death-bed that his, not Jacopo’s, was the guilty hand.

[Sidenote: [1455-1457 A.D.]]

The wretched father now sank under this accumulation of misery: he fled from public business; abstained from attendance in the councils; and at the age of eighty-four buried himself in retirement so suitable to his years and misfortunes. But the malice of his enemies was still unsatiated; it was resolved that he should be precipitated from a throne he had already thrice attempted to vacate. By an enormous stretch of power, the Council of Ten intimated to the doge in the name of the great council, that the state called for his resignation and absolved him from his oath. They condescended to offer him a pension of 1500 ducats, and peremptorily insisted on his quitting the ducal palace within eight days under pain of confiscation of his property. After a momentary struggle with his pride the old man bowed to the decree, and descended the Giants’ Staircase, which thirty-four years before he had mounted as the sovereign of Venice. The assembled populace beheld with pity and indignation the aged father of the republic pass slowly towards his private dwelling; but the murmurs of compassion were in a moment silenced by a menacing proclamation of the Ten. The electors proceeded to the choice of a new doge, and on the 30th of October, 1457, seven days after the deposition of Foscari, Pasquale Malipiero was declared duly elected. The tolling of the bell of St. Mark’s tower, which announced the election, awakened in the soul of Foscari a conflict of passions too furious for exhausted nature, and he survived the shock only a few hours. Notwithstanding the resistance of his widow, the council, who had thus hurried him to his grave, resolved upon the mockery of a magnificent funeral; and he was interred with all the splendour usual at a doge’s obsequies, the newly elected duke assisting in the habit of a senator.

One of the chief instruments of the ruin of Foscari was Giacomo Loredano, a noble, whose long-cherished rancour was thus formally entered on his commercial accounts: “Francesco Foscari, for the death of my father and uncle.” But the debt was now liquidated, and on the opposite page the cold-blooded Loredano wrote the discharge, “he has paid it.”[g]

FOOTNOTES

[17] Murat. Annali.--Without burdening the text with a barren enumeration of names, we here subjoin a list of these doges, by which the insecurity of their dignity will sufficiently appear. 1339. Simone Boccanera, abdicated 1344; Giovanni da Murta, died 1350; Giovanni de’ Valenti. — 1356. Boccanera restored, died 1363; Gabriello Adorno, deposed and imprisoned 1370; Niccolo di Guarco, dep. 1383; Leonardo di Montaldo, died 1384; Antonio Adorno, dep. 1390; Jacopo Campo Fregoso, dep. 1392; Antonio restored and again dep. 1392; Antoniotto di Montaldo, dep. 1394; Niccolo Zoaglio, dep. 1394; Antonio di Guarco, dep. 1394; Antonio Adorno again restored, resigned 1396. — 1413. Georgio Adorno, dep. 1415; Barnabò Goano, dep. 1415; Tommaso Fregoso, dep. 1442; Raffaello Adorno, resigned 1447; Barnabò Adorno, dep. 1447; Giano Fregoso, died 1448; Lodovico Fregoso, dep. 1450; Piero Fregoso, dep. 1458. — 1461. Prospero Adorno, dep. 1461; Lodovico Fregoso, dep. 1463; Paolo Fregoso, dep. 1464. — 1478. Battista Fregoso, dep. 1483; Paolo Fregoso, restored, dep. 1487.

[18] DOGES OF VENICE, 1289-1501.--1289, Pietro Gradenigo, the 49th doge; 1311, Marino Giorgi; 1312, Giovanni Soranzo; 1328, Francesco Dandolo; 1339, Bartolommeo Gradenigo; 1343, Andrea Dandolo; 1354, Marino Falieri; 1355, Giovanni Gradenigo; 1356, Giovanni Delfino; 1361, Lorenzo Celsi; 1365, Marco Cornaro; 1367, Andrea Contarini; 1382, Michele Morosini; 1382, Antonio Venier; 1400, Michele Steno; 1414, Tommaso Mocenigo; 1423, Francesco Foscari; 1457, Pasqual Malipier; 1462, Cristoforo Moro; 1471, Niccolo Tron; 1473, Niccolo Marcello; 1474, Pietro Mocenigo; 1476, Andrea Vendramin; 1478, Giovanni Mocenigo; 1485, Marco Barbarigo; 1486, Agostino Barbarigo; 1501, Leonardo Loredano, the 75th doge.