Chapter XIV: Act THE THIRD (8)

[85] _Tarocchi_ is the name for the cards, seventy-eight in number, used in a now well-nigh forgotten game. Fifty-six cards of the whole series consist of the four Italian suits: Coppe, Spade, Bastoni, and Danari. The remaining twenty-two are properly called _Tarocchi_, and in the game of Taroc take precedence of any cards of the four ordinary suits.

[86]

"I too have charms,
Sweet flatteries, dulcet wiles; and to my side
He shall be faithful ever. Yet I would not
That, loving him, my kindness should arouse
In hearts of others jealousy."

[87]

"Fair, yea, most fair thou art in sooth; yet still more fair wouldst be Didst thou an apple hold which sings, plucked from the magic tree.

* * * * *

Daughter, I trow that thou art fair; yet still more fair wouldst be Didst thou that water hold which plays and dances merrily."

[88]

"So! this is my philosopher, who went Yesterday picking sticks, and now! ... But patience!... I wished to stay with her, for I adore her; And stay with her I shall. We must contrive To hold our tongue; and yet this may not be. I vow I scarcely knew her! What grand airs! Some devil must have daubed her o'er with gold. 'Twould vex me sorely if the little hussy ... Some rich milord perhaps.... Well, I'll know all."

{_Exit._

[89] There are five of these old statues, painted, in Moorish costumes. One of them has the name Rioba carved above his head. Everybody in Venice, of course, knew them; and their appearance on the stage must have been mirth-promoting.

[90] _Mémoires_, part ii. cap. 45.

[91] Letters from Italy, dated October 4, October 6, and October 10, 1786.

[92] See Masi's Essay, p. cxxxii.

[93] _Carlo Gozzi, Théâtre Fiabesque, Alphonse Royer._ Paris, Michel Lévy, 1865.

[94] London, W. Satchell & Co. 1880.

[95] Through the courtesy of Mr. John P. Anderson of the British Museum I am able to state that, besides a short article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, he can only discover an essay in _Lippincott's Magazine_ (vol. xx. p. 347, &c.), entitled "A Venetian of the Eighteenth Century," which deals with Carlo Gozzi.

[96] The Gozzi family were thus _Cittadini Originari_ of Venice. These _Cittadini_ had to prove legitimate birth in the city; three generations during which the family had exercised no mechanical arts; freedom from any criminal stain, debts to the state, or factious behaviour. Citizenship, as in the case of the Gozzi, was also granted by privilege. The _Cittadini_ formed a class of burgher aristocracy, ranking below the patricians and taking no part in the actual government of the State, since they did not vote in the Consiglio Grande. Their names, pedigrees, and arms were enrolled in a book, of which many copies exist, and which was commonly called the _Libro d'Argento_, to distinguish it from the _Libro d'Oro_ of the patricians. In a MS. of the seventeenth century, which belonged to Cicogna, now at the Museo Civico, entitled _Le Due Corone della Nobiltà Veneziana, Corona Seconda_, the Gozzi arms are blazoned thus: "Or, on the topmost branches of an olive-tree vert a dove ppr., and round the stem of the tree a scroll argent inscribed Signum Pacis." The family is described as wealthy; but no pedigree is given: _Non vi è albero_. Carlo Gozzi, in his _Lettera Confutatoria, Memorie_, vol. iii. p. 31, asserts that the privilege of citizenship was given to his ancestors by the Doge Cicogna (1585-95). It is neither impossible nor improbable that the Gozzi of Bergamo were derived from the same stock as the Gozze or Gozzi of Ragusa. These latter drew their pedigree from Herzegovina, and were therefore Slavs. We know that the patrician families of Polo and Sagredo came originally from Sebenico.

[97] Their palace is still inhabited by a Conte Gozzi. The _arca_, or family sepulture, can no longer be traced in the church. It was at the foot of the altar in the Chapel of the Madonna. Here Carlo Gozzi was buried.

[98] In a voluminous MS. written by Cicogna, embodying all he could collect about the _Famiglie Cittadine_ (now at the Museo Civico), we find that _Alberto Gozi detto delle Sede_ was inscribed among the patricians in 1646. I may mention that Cicogna tricks the arms of Gozzi without the dove.

[99] The Grand Chancellor, the Ducal Notaries, and the Secretaries of many Magistracies, were chosen from the _Cittadini_, who were also sent, after holding such posts, as ambassadors of the second class, or Residents, to foreign Courts.

[100] The word, which I have translated acre, is _campo_. Now the _campo_ differed in different provinces of Lombardy. But the _Campo Padovano_ corresponded pretty nearly to an English acre; and from another passage in Gozzi (_Memorie_, vol. iii. p. 226) it appears that he was in the habit of using the Paduan standard.

[101] The Gozzi were what are called in Venice _Conti di Terra Ferma_, and their title seems to have been dependent upon these feudal tenures.

[102] At the time when Gozzi wrote, this was the eldest branch, called Di San Fantin. Two remote branches, of S. Apollinare and San Polo, survived. They descended from a collateral ancestor, Girolamo Tiepolo, who died in 1516. The branch of S. Polo expired in 1820. See Litta, _Famiglie Celebri_. The Tiepolo family was one of the oldest and most illustrious among the patrician houses. It ranked with the _Case vecchie_, as distinguished from the _Case nuove_. These _Case vecchie_ were also called tribunizie, from having exercised the highest offices of State at the time when Venice was still governed by tribunes, and before the foundation of the Dogeship. Of these oldest and purest noble houses there were twenty-four. The closing of the Grand Council in 1297, which determined the oligarchical character of the Venetian government, led to an attempted revolution in the State by Baiamonte Tiepolo. Tiepolo's conspiracy was really an effort in the interests of the old aristocracy to throw off the yoke which _novi homines_ were fixing on the commonwealth. An excellent essay on Baiamonte Tiepolo will be found in H. F. Brown's _Venetian Studies_. I may add to this note that the Gozzi had previously intermarried with the Corner, Zuccato, Donà, and Morosini, patrician houses of high respectability.

[103] Carlo Gozzi was born December 13, 1720. He probably knew that he was in his sixtieth year; and this passage enables us to measure the exact amount of duplicity which he thought venial in composing his Memoirs. It was Gozzi's object to extenuate the fact that his _liaison_ with Teodora Ricci had been carried on when he was past the age of fifty. When he asserts that he had "not yet reached the age of sixty," he was just within the bounds of veracity; for he wanted more than seven months to complete his sixtieth year.

[104] _Collegi._ Gasparo was educated in the Somaschan establishment at S. Cipriano on the island of Murano.

[105] Casanova, in the first chapter of his Memoirs, says that he suffered during his boyhood from the same violent hæmorrhages.

[106] _Gozzi_ might have cited Galileo, whose style, formed by the study of the "divine" Ariosto, is a model of exquisite and urbane Italian diction.

[107] Compare what Goldoni says about the marionette theatre at his grandfather's country-seat. In some of the great villas of the Venetian nobility these private stages were built on an enormous scale. The account of Marco Contarini's theatre at Piazzola near Padua, and of the sumptuous dramatic performances which took place there, reads like a passage from the _Arabian Nights_. See Romanin's _Storia di Venezia_, vol. vii. p. 550.

[108] I may here say that the title of cavaliere, or knight, was commonly given to members of patrician families at Venice, irrespective of their being laymen or in orders.

[109] Gaspara Stampa was born at Padua, but was a gentlewoman of Milan by descent. She died about 1554, at the age of thirty. If this edition of Gaspara Stampa's _Rime_ is the one prepared for publication by Luisa Bergalli (Gozzi's sister-in-law), there is the same confusion of dates here as I have noticed above. It was published when Gozzi had reached his seventeenth year.

[110] A tablet over the entrance to the restaurant at the Calcina on the Zattere, records that Apostolo Zeno dwelt there. It was, perhaps, to this house that young Gozzi paid his visit. Zeno (b. 1668, d. 1750) exercised considerable influence over the Italian drama. He wrote plays for music and oratorios. For some years he held the post of Cesarean poet at Vienna, which he resigned to the more celebrated Metastasio.

[111] Luisa Pisana Bergalli was born at Venice in 1703, of humble parentage, being descended from a Piedmontese shoemaker. Luigi Mocenigo and Pisana Cornaro held her at the font, and gave her their two Christian names. She showed distinguished talents in early youth, and was educated by the painter Rosalba Carriera, afterwards by Caterino and Apostolo Zeno. At twenty-three she published a tragedy and an anthology of Italian poems by female writers; at twenty-five another tragedy; at thirty a translation of Terence, and a comedy dedicated to Count Jacopo Antonio Gozzi. It appears from this dedication to _Le avventure del poeta_ that she was the protegée of both Count Gozzi and his wife, and on the best of terms with their children. She was thirty-five and Gasparo was twenty-five when they married. See Tommasei, _Storia Civile nella Letteraria_, pp. 185-188.

[112] The title _Provveditore Generale di Mare_ was given to the supreme head of the Venetian naval and military forces in the Levant. He resided at Corfu, where he maintained a princely court, and ruled like a sovereign, being only responsible for his actions to the Senate. Next in importance to this functionary was the _Provveditore Generale di Dalmazia_, of whose Court we shall hear much in Gozzi's Memoirs. Casanova, who went to Corfu in the train of the Prov. Gen. Dolfino, called Il Bucentoro because of his grand manner, and the father of the famous Caterina Dolfin Tron, gives an excellent account of the Court there, its military, naval, and civil establishment. Chapters xiii.-xvi. of the first volume of his Memoirs deserve to be compared with the corresponding part of Gozzi's.

[113] Not at seventeen, but at twenty. Gozzi was born in 1720, and Quirini took the government of Dalmatia in 1740.

[114] _Togato._ The State dignitaries of Venice wore robes of various colours and forms, according to their office. A simple nobleman was bound to go abroad in a flowing robe of silk, or toga, ample enough to conceal whatever costume he may have worn beneath it.

[115] _Armata_, composed of naval and military forces, to act equally on sea and shore.

[116] It seems from the names of these larger galleys that they were the official ships of the Provveditore, his own flag-ship and her attendant convoy. Romanin (vol. viii. p. 372) says that at this epoch Venice kept fifteen heavy galleys, ten lighter, nine sailing ships of the frigate build, and twenty-four armed craft of other descriptions. The galleys and sailing ships were commanded only by patricians. This was her peace establishment.

[117] Gozzi says _adjutante_ alone. _Adjutante di campo_ is aide-de-camp.

[118] This word is in the Italian _armata_. The _armata_, to which Gozzi belonged, was properly an armament of mixed naval and military forces, and _armata_ would naturally be translated "navy." He was attached to it, however, in the quality of soldier, and was eligible (as we shall afterwards see) for transfer into the land forces of the State in Lombardy. Thus he belonged to the Venetian army.

[119] This was the highest office in the State to which a _cittadino_ could aspire. It conferred the rank of cavaliere. The Grand Chancellor could open public despatches; he attended the sittings of the Grand Council and the Senate, but without a vote, and was the official chief of all the civil servants.

[120] Probably Freschot, the author of several works on Venice, a Frenchman by birth.

[121] The native Dalmatians of Slav origin, inhabiting the inland villages and country districts, were called by this name.

[122] _Scogli._ A long low island opposite the harbour of Zara is so called.

[123] This and other French terms show to what extent the military system of Venice had been modernised.

[124] Razionato.

[125] This chapter will be read with interest by students of the _Commedia dell' Arte_. It throws light upon the way in which an actor of originality could adapt one of the fixed characters of that comedy, in this case the _servetta_, to his own talents and to local circumstances.

[126] _Pallone_ is a game played with a large leather ball, filled with air, and something like our football. In Italy it is struck with the hand, which is armed for the purpose with gloves or a flat short bat fixed on the palm. Sides are chosen, and the game roughly resembles tennis on a large scale. Pallone is the original of our balloon.

[127] The sequin at this time was worth twenty-two _lire Venete_. The worth of the _lira_ was about half a franc, says Romanin (vol. viii. p. 302). Romanin in the same place fixes the ducat at eight _lire_. Gozzi's debt amounted to 1248 _lire_. This would make only 156 ducats at the above rate. But the relation of the ducat to the sequin and the _lira_ is very obscure, and seems to have varied according to the kind of ducat.

[128] _Decime._ Taxes annually raised upon the whole property of a Venetian.

[129] Opere, vol. vii. p. 393. This is the stanza--

Gli antichi di provincia tuoi fedeli
Son quasi tutti fuggiti alle ville,
In castellacci discoperti a' cieli,
Con figli e figlie e nipoti e pupille,
Ripieni di pensieri acri e crudeli,
Allor che suonan mezzodì le squille.
Educazion non han, mangiar, nè bere;
Pensa se daran nerbo alle tue schiere!

This is said to the burlesque Carlo Magno of the poem. The passage in the text confirms the theory that Gozzi intended his Carlo Magno to represent the decrepit majesty of Venice.

[130] Almorò is the Venetian form of the name Ermolao.

[131] Gozzi's description of the Venetian _Cortesan_ may serve as illustration to a popular play of Goldoni's, _Momolo Cortesan_. This was the first comedy of character Goldoni composed. Its title-rôle was written for a celebrated Pantalone, Golinetti (see Goldoni's _Memoirs_, part i. ch. 40). When he printed it, he translated the title into _L'Uomo di Mondo_, finding no exact equivalent for the Venetian phrase _Cortesan_. Goldoni's account of the character tallies with Gozzi's.

[132] In these and several passages which follow, Gozzi ascribes the pecuniary embarrassments of his family to the maladministration of his mother, aided by his sister-in-law. It it only fair to say, that Gasparo Gozzi's correspondence confirms his veracity. That favourite and favoured eldest son complains bitterly that, even to the last days of her life, his mother insisted on managing the property, and that she made underhand contracts to the prejudice of himself and his children. It was, in fact, a misfortune for the Gozzi that their father, Jacopo Antonio, married into a patrician family of higher rank and pretensions than his own. Angela Tiepolo, knowing herself to be one of the last representatives of a very noble house, with considerable expectations from her childless brother, drove her easy-going husband into ruinous expenditure, and domineered over her kindred by right of a marriage which savoured of a mésalliance. See the article upon her in Litta's _Famiglie Celebri_, sub tit. "Tiepolo."

[133] The _bautta_ and the mask were permitted at Venice from the first Sunday in October until Ash Wednesday.

[134] This was a very long scarf of black silk, which, draped above the head, and fulling over the shoulders, was tied in a knot, and allowed to hang on both sides of the wearer's skirts. The mask or _bautta_ was only permitted during the prolonged Venetian Carnival.

[135] The Italian is _democraziano_. Perhaps Gozzi wrote _democriziano_, from Democritus, the sage who laughed at all things. In either case the adjective is wrongly formed. It ought to be either _democratico_ or _democritico_. But _democrazia_ may have led him to _democraziano_. He not infrequently employs this phrase, which always puzzles me, because nobody was really less democratic than Carlo Gozzi, and as yet, in 1780, he had no reason, under the pressure of the Revolution, to dissemble.

[136] The theatres of Venice were called by the names of the parishes in which they stood, or of non-parochial churches to which they were contiguous. S. Angelo was one of the smaller.

[137] I have condensed in this sentence the details of a long and tiresome chapter (chap. xxix.). It is worth adding here that the law of Venice with regard to entail was very strict; time gave no title to a purchaser who had obtained possession of an estate subject to _fidei commissa_. One of Goethe's most interesting letters from Venice (October 5, 1786) contains the full description of a cause he heard pleaded in the Ducal palace for the recovery of illegally alienated real property. Goethe remarks upon the extraordinary permanence of trusts in Venice.

[138] The author of an unfinished work on Venetian literature.

[139] It seems probable that Gozzi was really at one time on the point of marrying this lady.

[140] The Avvogadori del Comune, or _Advocatores Comunis_, corresponded in a certain sense to the modern Procuratori di Stato, and had some resemblance to the Roman tribunes. They formed a High Court of Justice for the guardianship of property accruing to the Exchequer, for the protection of private rights in property, rights of minors and widows, the superintendence of registers of births and marriages, &c. Three patricians formed the board.

[141] The Somascan Order was founded about 1540 by Girolamo Miani, a Venetian senator, upon the model of the Theatines. Its object was education, principally of the poor. With regard to the school at S. Cipriano, it is worth mentioning that the famous adventurer, Casanova, was placed there by his guardian the Abbé Grimani in the year 1740 or thereabouts. He gives a full account of the institution in his Memoirs (vol. i. ch. vi.), from which it appears that at this epoch about 150 youths were educated by the Somascan monks. Readers of Casanova need hardly be reminded that he was expelled from the seminary after a few weeks' residence. Gasparo Gozzi was also educated here.

[142] This scene has actually been preserved and printed in Gasparo Gozzi's works. Opere, Minerva, Padova, vol. vii. It forms the 6th scene of the 3rd act of _Esopo in Città_, and is very much as Carlo Gozzi describes it. The ancient lady throws the principal blame for her domestic sufferings upon a certain "Sicofante, Dottor legista di questa città," whom I take to be Carlo's lawyer, Testa.

[143] Gozzi can hardly not have been thinking of poor Gratarol, when he penned these lines. Mentally he contrasts his own conduct under the inconvenience of a stage-satire with Gratarol's.

[144] See above, p. 319.

[145] On the Fondamenta Nuove, looking across Murano to the mountains of the Dolomites. See Tommasei, _op. cit._, p. 258.

[146] This was written in 1780, but when it was printed in 1797, Louis XVI. had little reason to be proud of his titles.

[147] He was made secretary to the Riformatori dello Studio.

[148] Gozzi here resumes a portion of the 29th chapter of his Memoirs, which I have condensed in Chapter XXIV. above (see note to p. 336). It seemed unnecessary to burden the translation of his autobiography with more of legal details than was absolutely necessary for understanding the tenor of his life-experience.