Chapter XVII: Historians and Scholars

When we consider the literature of Venice, we are amazed to find how few names are in its list of authors, and how narrow the field they occupied. Of poets there were none; and, indeed, the only writers of importance were the early annalists and the later historians. That peculiarly self-centred trait of which we have spoken as belonging to the Venetians in various directions, was eminently characteristic of their writers. It was Venice, and only Venice, that interested them; and from its earliest days there were those, nameless now, who were so impressed with the growth, the strength, and the splendor of the city that they saw growing and spreading around them, that they wrote it all down, and thus furnished invaluable material to those who came after them and wrote in a more elegant and systematic style. Some of these early annals still exist. They are read by the learned, and are said to be a strange medley of history and fable, all expressed in language of such vigor as to emphasize the earnestness of the writers, and frequently with such realism as would eclipse the authors of our day who cultivate that quality. His Serenity Marco Foscarini, in his work on Venetian literature, gives the names of such a host of these imperceptible writers, who are more than half lost in the ancient fogs in which they existed, that one must be brave even to read these names, much more so to attempt their works.

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Sagornino, of the eleventh century, is more real; and no aspect in which Venice could be viewed was neglected by him and his followers. Its ceremonials, treaties, ecclesiastical and other important matters, are treated with no more attention and respect than are the merest details and most common events. They were all lovers of this mistress, Venezia, to whom the slightest variation in her pulse was almost a matter of life and death.

But not until the fourteenth century were these chronicles put into a form which could be called history. Andrea Dandolo, Petrarch's friend, the first scholarly Doge, may also be called the first Venetian historian. His family had already given three Doges to the Republic, and he had not only the early annals, but the state papers and those of his ancestors, on which to rely for the facts which he wove into a formal, dignified, and conscientious narration of the lives and deeds of the rulers of Venice who had preceded him.

After him, for a half-century, again there were but the chronicles of monks who wrote of their orders, soldiers who fought their battles over on parchment, or idle patricians who amused themselves by keeping diaries. A history of Venice was talked of, was ardently desired; but no one undertook it, until Marco Antonio Sabellico, a native of Vicovaro, was seized with the desire to write such a book, which was published in 1487. It seems almost impossible to believe what we are told,--that he had seen no authoritative book on Venice, that he knew neither Dandolo's history, nor that best account of the Chioggian War, written by the nephew of the great Zeno. But be this as it may, in fifteen months he completed a work which, though not without its errors, stands as an authority, and is without doubt the most eloquent of Venetian annals. It was at once accepted with enthusiasm; and the Senate graciously gave to Sabellico two {321} hundred ducats a year. The translation from the Latin by Dolce retains the telling eloquence of the original. It is a wonderful account of the internal and external affairs of the Republic, given with a pen so graphic as to make its word pictures full of the charm that we find in the work of the artist who places before the eye the color and the details of what he represents.

Again an interval of dilettantish essays transpired, until, in 1515, Andrea Navagero, whom Foscarini calls the most elegant Latin writer in Italy, was made the Historian of the Republic. But in spite of this great honor, which came to him early in his life, we have no history by him; and his own story is tragical. Fifteen years passed after his appointment to office, and the work done by Sabellico in as many months was not yet forthcoming, when, in 1530, he was sent on an embassy to France. Soon after reaching Paris he sickened and died, and on his last day burned all his papers,--ten books, it is said, of the history of Venice. It is believed that this was done in a delirium; but the sensitive nature of Navagero, and his morbid dissatisfaction with his work, leave a doubt as to his condition when he committed this deplorable act.

Then, too, another writer, older than he, of infinite research,--Mrs. Oliphant calls him "one of the most astonishing and gifted of historical moles,"--Marino Sanudo, was collecting and putting together that work of his for which we all thank him and his Maker,--an endless procession of facts with all possible details,--an _omnium gatherum_ from which all seekers can select that which suits their needs.

Here we must note a curious coincidence. We have a chronicle written by another Andrea Navagero, sometimes quoted, but finished while the historian was a child. And likewise was there a second Marino Sanudo, called {322} Torsello, again the elder of the two, who wrote more than a century before the oft-quoted historian. This Sanudo Torsello wrote of the Crusades and of other matters more distinctly Venetian, and although sometimes quoted, is of little importance beside the younger man. In fact, the two elders, Navagero and Sanudo, serve principally to create a confusion by their names, and are of no special value in any direction.

The younger Sanudo is very important among Venetian historians, and really began his researches when but nine years old. He was of a noble house, had all possible advantages of education and travel, was keen in his observations, and in a very sober manner makes many a humorous remark, like that one so often quoted: "If the story had not been true, our brave Venetians would not have painted it." When Marino was seventeen years old, his cousin Marco Sanudo was appointed one of the Syndics of Terra Firma, and took the young author with him to Padua. From this time he noted in his diaries all that came under his observation, and all he heard. He left, besides his voluminous published works, fifty-six volumes of these journals, many, if not all, of which are now published, and afford an almost momentary account of the life in Venice for a half-century before 1533. He collected a great library, and was active in his public life. He records his speeches in the Senate, and they were almost numberless. He held many important offices, and was extremely active in the discussions of all public matters in the Great Council as well as the Senate. He was usually in the minority; but that never discouraged him, and he more than once records his determination to "let no day pass without writing the news that comes from day to day, so that I may the better, accustoming myself to the strict truth, go on with my true history, which was begun several years ago. Seeking no eloquence of {323} composition, I will thus note down everything as it happens." He also records his determination "to do something in this age in honor of the eternal majesty and exaltation of the Venetian State, to which I can never fail, being born in that allegiance, for which I would die a thousand times if that could advantage my country, notwithstanding that I have been beaten, worn out, and evil entreated in her councils." And thus it resulted that his diaries became an unequalled storehouse of minute and general information, and it is largely to them that we owe that fascinating and curious information which admits us, so to speak, into the houses and palaces, the social gatherings, the august assemblies, even into the Council of Ten, and the innermost recesses of life in mediæval Venice.

When one reviews a life like that of Marino Sanudo, and is impressed with the fact that he lived and breathed in exactly the atmosphere that suited him,--that from his earliest years he was inexpressibly busy in doing just that for which he was best fitted by nature, that which of all the world he would have chosen,--it naturally seems that he must have been a very happy man. But he had his trials,--some of them very heavy to him. Again and again he is excluded from public office. At first he congratulates himself on having more time, but later it becomes evident that he feels his unpopularity keenly, as one may see when he says:--

"In the past year [1522] I have been dismissed from the Giunta [Zonta], of which two years ago I was made a member; but while I sat in that Senate I always in my speeches did my best for my country, with full honor from the senators for my opinions and judgment, even when against those of my colleagues. And this is the thing that has injured me; for had I been mute, applauding individuals as is the present fashion, letting things pass that are against the interest of my dearest country, acting contrary to the law, as those who have the {324} guidance of the city permit to be done, even had I not been made Avvogadore, I should have been otherwise treated.... I confess that this repulse has caused me no small grief, and has been the occasion of my illness; and if again I was rejected in the ballot for the past year, it was little wonder seeing that many thought me dead, or so infirm that I was no longer good for anything, not having stirred from my house for many months before. But the Divine bounty has still preserved me, and, as I have said, enabled me to complete the diary for this year; for however suffering I was I never failed to record the news of every day which was brought to me by my friends, so that another volume is finished."

But the signal grief of his life must have come from the appointment of the young and inexperienced Navagero as the historian of the Republic. He speaks of this Messer Andrea Navagero, who was paid for writing history, with gentle contempt; but the speedy death of Andrea, and the fact that he left nothing behind to be placed in comparison with the work of Sanudo, disposes of this matter with comparatively few words.

But when Pietro Bembo was appointed to succeed Navagero, what must have been Sanudo's indignation,--a man who had lived out of Venice, who did not even remove to that city to write its history, who had done nothing to prove his fitness for the office, and who hesitated not to ask Sanudo to lend him the precious diaries from which to extract materials for his own writing!

Well did Sanudo answer that he would "give the sweat of his brow to no one." And then Bembo wrote from Padua, asking the Doge to compel Sanudo to open his collections to him. But at last the poor, slighted man did give his "sweat" to his unconscionable rival; and the result is much to his credit, for beside his animated and entertaining narrative Bembo's writing is as dry as desert sands.

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Very late in his life the Ten gave him one hundred and fifty ducats a year as a recognition of his books,--"which I vow to God is nothing to the great labor they have cost me," as he remarks. Until within two and a half years of his death he continued his diaries; and as soon as he ceased to write them he made a will, in which he gave them bound and enclosed in a book-case to the Signoria, to be placed where they should think best. And now comes the most astounding fact. These treasures, which we should naturally think would have been placed with care and pride where they could be seen and consulted, were put no one knows where, and in 1805 were found in the Royal Library at Vienna, having got there nobody knows how!

Sanudo's library and his collections of pictures and curiosities, from the celebrated _mappamondo_ to matters of slight importance and value, had become famous; and we are told that "the illustrious strangers who visited Venice in these days went away dissatisfied unless they had seen the Arsenal, the jewels of S. Marco, and the library of Sanudo." Sometimes they were forced to be "dissatisfied;" for the old historian grew weary of "illustrious persons," and said them nay with a will, when asked to display his collections.

To him personally, while he had been greatly interested in all his _roba_, the books were the most precious, and at one time he had intended to make a gift of them to the library of S. Marco; but although long promised, this library was not begun. Sanudo was poor. He could not even reward Anna of Padua, who had served him faithfully for twenty years, and had not been paid. He also felt himself compelled to relinquish the marble sarcophagus in San Zaccaria, for which a previous will had provided; and so at last, he directed his executors to sell his collections, to pay the worthy Anna, to bury him "where {326} he falls," preserving only the epitaph which he had written to his great comfort. No one knows where he was laid; and not a word to his honor and remembrance existed in Venice until Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has rescued the name and works of Sanudo from oblivion, placed an inscription on his house, still standing, with the Sanudo arms upon it, behind the Fondaco dei Turchi (Museo Civico), in the parish of S. Giacomo dell' Orio. Mrs. Oliphant says:--

"Would it have damped his zeal, we wonder, could he have foreseen that his unexampled work should drop into oblivion, after historians, such as the best informed of Doges, Marco Foscarini, knowing next to nothing of him--till suddenly a lucky and delighted student fell upon those volumes in the Austrian Library; and all at once, after three centuries and more, old Venice sprang to light under the hand of her old chronicler, and Marino Sanudo with all his pictures, his knick-knacks, his brown rolls of manuscript and dusty volumes round him, regained, as was his right, the first place among Venetian historians,--one of the most notable figures of the mediæval world."

To be held in everlasting remembrance was the reward that Marino Sanudo ardently coveted; and though never appreciated by his contemporaries, and utterly forgotten by the whole world for hundreds of years, he is now respected and valued, and that _eterna memoria_, to earn which he valued no toil, at last is his.

It remains to speak of Theobaldo Mannucci, or Manutio, familiarly called Messer or Ser Aldo, best known to us as Aldus, the great printer of Venice, whose house may still be seen, in the Campo San Agostino, near the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista, near by the spot on which stood the house of the _gran cavaliere_, Bajamonte Tiepolo. Aldus was not a Venetian, having first seen the light in Bassiano, near Rome. The history of {327} his earlier years is indistinct; but this much seems to be true, that, being a great scholar and student, he had also been a tutor in the family of the Pii, princes of Carpi. He was also the friend of Count Giovanni Pico at Mirandola, one of the most scholarly men of his age.

At length, for one reason and another, too many and too involved to be given here, he decided to go to Venice, and begin that making of books which in his hands became such an honor and advantage to that city; and in this he was much encouraged, and probably substantially aided, by Count Pico. Thus a Florentine and a Roman brought to this Mistress of the Sea a kind of prestige which no son of hers had given. Aldus probably knew that foreign printers, of whom we have spoken, had been encouraged to do their work at Venice; but he was no mere printer, and although it is by that name that he is most frequently spoken of, he was a scholar before he was a printer, and became a printer because of his scholarship. He had found how meagre and incorrect were the text-books of his time; and to supply these defects and give to the world books free from blemishes in substance and form, was his untradesmanlike motive.

It is believed that he went to Venice about 1488, and his first publication appeared six years later. Meantime he had prepared the manuscripts he wished to print, and had drawn around him a large number of men, old and young, from senators and priests to the youths who sought learning, to listen to his reading and exposition of the Greek and Latin authors. The Neacademia of Aldo became a most important factor in Venetian life. To quote Mrs. Oliphant:--

"Sabellico, the learned and eloquent historian, with whose work Venice was ringing; Sanudo, our beloved chronicler, then beginning his life-long work; Bembo, the future cardinal, already one of the fashionable semi-priests of society, holding a {328} canonicate; the future historian who wrote no history, Andrea Navagero, but he in his very earliest youth; another cardinal, Leandro, then a barefooted friar,--all crowded about the new classical teacher. The enthusiasm with which he was received seems to have exceeded even the ordinary welcome accorded in that age of literary freemasonry to every man who had any new light to throw upon the problems of knowledge. And while he expounded and instructed, the work of preparation for still more important labors went on. It is evident that he made himself fully known, and even became an object of general curiosity, one of the personages to be visited by all that were on the surface of Venetian society, and that the whole of Venice was interested and entertained by the idea of the new undertaking.... It was a labor of love, an enterprise of the highest public importance, and as such commended itself to all who cared for education or the humanities, or who had any desire to be considered as members or disciples of that highest and most cultured class of men of letters, who were the pride and glory of the age."

His house, though "far from the busy haunts," was soon a gathering-place and centre for such men as were seriously interested in what was there transpiring; and Aldus skilfully employed all who could and would aid him in the preparation of the almost indecipherable manuscripts, in proof-reading, and in many matters which demanded keen intelligence and infinite patience.

The picture of his busy shops, to which these men turned and where they labored, leaving the fascinations of the Piazza and the exciting life of Venice at her best, makes one of the most interesting of the many remarkable scenes of that unique and marvellous city. And it is curious to note how in the lives of men like Aldus in the present day his vexations are repeated, reminding us that there is nothing new under the sun. He complains that if he attempted to answer the letters he receives, both night and day would be too little for the task; and {329} troublesome visitors were as numerous then as now, wherever great men live. He humorously wrote of these:--

"Some from friendship, some from interest, the greater part because they have nothing to do,--for then 'Let us go,' they say, 'to Aldo's.' They come in crowds and sit gaping,--

'Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoria hirudo.'

I do not speak of those who come to read me either poems or prose, generally rough and unpolished, for publication, for I defend myself from these by no answer or else a very brief one, which I hope nobody will take in ill part, since it is done, not from pride or scorn, but because all my leisure is taken up in publishing books of established fame. As for those who come for no reason, we make bold to admonish them in classical words in a sort of edict placed over our door, 'WHOEVER YOU ARE, Aldo requests you, if you want anything, ask it in few words and depart, unless, like Hercules, you come to lend the aid of your shoulders to the weary Atlas. Here will always be found in that case something for you to do, however many you may be.'"

We can well understand that the publication of the Greek Grammar, Aristotle, and kindred authors must have been a work of time. But five books were produced in two years, and that with the aid of two scholarly editors, besides the zealous help of friends, to which we have referred above. In addition to the costly methods that Aldus was forced to pursue, he could find no type that suited him, and set himself to invent one; that known at first as Aldino, and later Italic, was the result. There is a tradition that he aimed to reproduce the even and clear chirography of Petrarch, and himself described the result as a type "of the greatest beauty, such as was never done before." Aldus hastened to ask of the Signoria the sole right to use this type for ten years, which privilege was granted him upon the following appeal:--

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"I supplicate that for ten years no other should be allowed to print in cursive letters of any sort in the dominion of your Serenity, nor to sell books printed in any other countries in any part of the said dominion, under pain to whoever breaks this law of forfeiting the books and paying a fine of two hundred ducats for each offence, which fine shall be divided into three parts,--one for the officer who shall convict, another for the _Pietà_, the third for the informer, etc."

Query, was this not putting a strong temptation before the informer and the convicting officer?

The type we now use in italics is the descendant of the Aldino, but not so delicate and graceful as the ancestor. The first book printed in this manner appeared in 1501, and, as seems most fitting, was the poems of Petrarch, printed directly from his own manuscript. The Aldine mark on the titlepages of this great printer's books was the anchor and dolphin; and Lorenzo of Pavia said of this volume to the Duchess Isabella Gonzaga, it is "a rare thing, which, like your Ladyship, has no paragon."

After a time Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote to Aldus concerning the publication of his "Adages," and finally came to Venice, and became one of the assistants of the printer,--this man of great fame, greater than those Italians who called him "that Dutchman" and laughed at his moderation and large appetite. Jealousy and envy invaded the Stamperia, where the sounds of the gayety of fashionable Venice never were heard, and where little interest was felt in the struggles, the feuds, and the betrayals which were rampant there, from the Great Council and that of the Ten down through the many "sets" of _maggiori_ and _minori_ in that busy, overflowing city. What a contrast to all this was that conclave of the Neacademia on the days when the obscure passages of Aristotle, Virgil, and other ancient authors were discussed! How gravely did they give their reasons why an {331} adverb would better express the meaning than an adjective, and what lengthy arguments were needed to decide for or against a relative pronoun!

Sadly we record the total changes that came with the wars of the first decade of the sixteenth century. Aldus, his Stamperia, his precious manuscripts collected with such pain and care, all disappeared; and though he returned to his labors with characteristic zeal, he gained fame only, and died poor. He did not work for profit. His copyright in type, if we may use the word, was of little use, and his thoughts were bent on other things than money-making. He never swerved from his decision, in the preface to the Greek Grammar, to devote his life to the good of mankind. Renouard, the French critic, tells us how his devotion to his chosen calling became a passion. If he heard of a manuscript that could explain an existing text, he rested not until he got it. He valued no labor, expense, travel, or study that could further his ends, and it was wonderful to see with what readiness he was assisted. Some for money, some without reward, and others for the same reasons which influenced him, gave all the aid possible to further his success; and from distant places, without solicitation from him, precious manuscripts were sent for his advantage.

He was succeeded by his son called Aldo _il Giovane_, and his grandson; but even with the advances made in processes, no imitator nor rival excelled the scholarly bookmaker, _Aldo il Vecchio_, whose books are now among the very choicest treasures of the richest libraries in the world. Quoting again from the "Makers of Venice,"--

"Let us leave Aldo with all his aids about him,--the senators, the schoolmasters, the poor scholars, the learned men who were to live to be cardinals, and those who were to die as poor as they were famous; and his learned Greek Musurus, and his poor student from Rotterdam,--a better scholar perhaps than any {332} of them,--and all his idle visitors coming to gape and admire, while our Sanudo swept round the corner from S. Giacomo dell' Orio, with his vigorous step and his toga over his shoulders, and the young men who were of the younger faction came in, a little contemptuous of their elders and strong in their own learning, to the meeting of the Aldine academy and the consultation on new readings. The Stamperia was as distinct a centre of life as the Piazza, though not so apparent before the eyes of men."

It is a singular fact that the Senate of Venice, in 1362, should have thought it worth while to present Petrarch with a palace, that he might in return, "with the good will of our Saviour, and of the Evangelist himself," make Saint Mark the heir of his library, and yet should have postponed the beginning of the building in which the books should be kept nearly two centuries; for it was not until 1536 that Sansovino commenced the Libreria Vecchia, which Aretino considered superlatively beautiful. Meantime the gift of Petrarch, stored in a small chamber of San Marco, was quite forgotten. No one lived who knew its whereabouts; and the legacies of Cardinal Bessarion, of Cardinal Grimani, Contarini, and Nani, were the glory of the library which Petrarch wished to found. Not until 1634 were his precious manuscripts discovered. But a meagre number could be saved from the mass of corruption they had become; and for all time the neglect and destruction of these precious parchments will remain a disgrace to Venice.

In 1812 the splendid collection of one hundred and twenty thousand volumes and ten thousand manuscripts was transferred to the more spacious halls of the Ducal Palace, leaving the Great Hall of the Libreria with its paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto, and the row of Greek philosophers which look down from between the windows. Ruskin calls these last the finest paintings of {333} the kind in existence. One of these is the Diogenes, which Tintoretto painted with the greatest care, because Titian had told the Procurators of St. Mark that Tintoretto was not worthy to be employed in the decoration of this hall. But these officials thought this a little severe, and gave Tintoretto his opportunity.

Diogenes is nude and seated, with his legs crossed. One elbow rests on the thigh, and the raised hand supports the chin. It is the impersonation of profound meditation. There is such power in the modelling of this figure, and the light is so managed, that it stands out as if it did not intend to remain in the niche where it is placed. Two other works of Tintoretto's are also here, in spite of the efforts to deprive him of the honor. They represent the removal of the relics of Saint Mark from Alexandria, and Saint Mark rescuing a sailor.

When, under Eugene Beauharnais, the Procuratie Nuove were converted into the Palazzo Imperiale, the Libreria Vecchia was made a part of the Palace, and united to the buildings of the Piazza.

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