Horatio Forbes Brown

“ Florence took alarm at Visconti's attitude and asked Venice to join her in a league against Milan. The position was a difficult one for the Republic; Filippo Maria was undeniably menacing and he had a claim in virtue of his father's conquest to both Verona and Vicenza, now Venetian territory; on the other hand Venice was extremely unwilling to embark upon the troubled waters of Italian mainland politics, and to find herself, in all probability, committed to costly mainland campaigns which would consume the wealth she was sweeping in from the sea. ”

“ Land wars continued to drain the treasury; the Turkish wars, conducted by Venice single-handed, curtailed' her Levant trade and entailed a continual outlay; worst of all, in 1486 came the news that Diaz had discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1497 that Vasco da Gama had rounded it, thereby cutting the tap-root of Venetian wealth, its Mediterranean carrying-trade, and drawing the great trade-lines of the world out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. Venice could alter neither her geographical position nor her policy. ”

“ The vicious nobles became poor, the poor corrupt, and political and social life both suffered in consequence. The Council of Ten was frequently called upon to punish the betrayal of State secrets and the unbridled license of the nobility.
On the other hand, if the people were excluded from the direction of State affairs they found abundant scope for their energies in trade and industries and the guild-life which these created and fostered. Every art and craft and trade in Venice, down to the very sausage-makers, was erected into a guild. ”

“ Venice had by that time become the Venice of modern European history; a great trading city; a mart for the exchange of goods between East and West; committed to a policy destined to make her one of the five Italian Powers and eventually to raise up against her a coalition of all Italy and Europe. Her constitution was fixed; her colonial system developed; her position towards the Church defined; her aggrandisement on the Italian mainland initiated; her wealth, her splendour, her art were beginning to attract the attention of the civilised world. ”

“ The obscure case of Jacopo Foscari, the Doge's son, showed to what lengths intrigue might be carried; and the dramatic end of the Doge's reign, his deposition after so long and so brilliant an occupation of the throne, demonstrated the absolute authority of the Council of Ten as sovereign in Venice.
The epoch was one of great outward splendour. Commines, who came to Venice some years later, describes it as "the most triumphant city I have ever seen; the city that bestows the greatest honour on ambassadors and on strangers; the city that is most carefully governed ”

“ The expansion of Venetian maritime empire as the outcome of the Fourth Crusade roused the jealousy of her great rival Genoa. It was inevitable that the Genoese and the Venetians, both occupying neighbouring quarters in the Levantine cities, each competing for a monopoly of Eastern commerce, should come to blows. ”

“ The Emperors had always viewed with suspicion the whole movement of the Crusades and more especially the professedly commercial attitude assumed by Venice, who was obviously bent upon acquiring territory and rights inside the Empire. They were aware that they could chastise her by favouring her rivals Pisa and Genoa. The growing wealth and importance of Venetian colonists in Constantinople, where they are said to have numbered two hundred thousand, increased the imperial jealousy. ”

“ The tendency displayed in the reforms of 1172 continued to make itself felt during the next hundred years, until we come to the epoch of the Closing of the Great Council, whereby Venice established her constitution as a close oligarchy.
The growing wealth of the State, especially after the Fourth Crusade, served to increase the influence of those families into whose hands the larger share of Venetian commerce had already fallen. ”

“ No other Italian Power had any motive for interfering in the combat. But now that Venice had acquired a mainland territory she became possessed of something that her mainland neighbours coveted, and of which they were ready to despoil her if occasion offered. Thus during the final phases of her war with Genoa we find the Republic called upon to face Carrara and Hungary, banded together with Genoa to destroy the mighty city of the Lagoons (1369) . Louis I, King of Hungary, was ready to attack Venetian mainland territory with a view to wringing from the Republic a renunciation of Dalmatia. ”

“ Venice knew that the Lords of Padua were permanently hostile. The action of Francesco Carrara soon proved that the Republic could not, even if it would, leave him alone. In 1384 Carrara bought from the Duke of Austria, Treviso, Ceneda, and Feltre, commanding the great northern road into the Pusterthal by Cortina d'Ampezzo; he was now master of all the mainland between the Alps and the Lagoons; nothing remained for him to seize in that direction. But westward, between him and the Visconti of Milan, lay the territories of Vicenza and Verona, feebly held by Antonio, the last of the Scala family. ”

“ On the sea the Turk was already in sight; on the mainland the Visconti of Milan, with their claim to Verona and Vicenza, had to be faced. But before proceeding to narrate the history of the full-grown Republic during the period of her greatest brilliancy, we must consider for a moment two important points, her relations to the Church, and the nature of the Venetian constitution which played so striking a part in the creation and preservation of her glory. ”

“ The Venetian constitution, which, on account of its stability and efficiency, compelled the envy and admiration of all Italian and numerous foreign statesmen, was a product of the growth of Venice, slowly evolved to meet the growing needs of the growing State. ”

“ It is true that in the War of Perrara she had made an attempt to establish herself on the mainland; but in attacking the Lord of Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Treviso, Feltre, Belluno, and Padua she was embarking on a far more serious enterprise. Failure meant peril to her very existence; success would compel her to occupy the nearer mainland and therefore to sacrifice one of her great advantages, the absence of a mainland frontier to protect. The party of the Doge, the party opposed to the War, was met and overcome by the argument that war was the only alternative to starvation ”

“ When Sixtus IV placed the Republic under an interdict during the Ferrarese war in 1483, Diedo* the Venetian Ambassador in Rome, refused to send the bull to Venice. The Patriarch was instructed to present it to the government; he feigned to be ill, and secretly informed the Doge and the Ten that the bull was in Venice. The Ten ordered all clerics to continue their functions, and announced their intention to appeal to a future Council. Five experts in Canon Law were appointed to advise the government, and the formula of appeal was actually fixed on the doors of San Celso in Home. ”

“ Cassiodorus, Theodoric's secretary, when describing the growing State, points to salt as the real riches of the young Republic; "for men may live without gold," he says, "but no one ever heard of their being able to do without salt." Venice however required an outlet for her commodities; and this led at first to the establishment of factories in the districts of Belluno and Treviso, along the banks of the Piave and on one of the highroads into the heart of Europe (991) , and subsequently at Ferrara (1100) , and again at Fano (1130) . ”

“ Famine came to close the long list of their disasters, and on June 24t, 1380, the Genoese fleet surrendered to Venice.
The successful issue of the war of Chioggia left the Republic of Venice the supreme naval Power in the Mediterranean. Genoa never recovered from the blow. She fell a prey to internal feuds, and in 1396 she renounced her independence, receiving from Charles VI of France a governor who ruled the State in French interests. Venetian predominance in the Mediterranean was confirmed by the recovery of Corfu in 1386, and by the purchase of Argos and Nauplia in the Peloponnese. ”

“ An Inquisitor was appointed by the Pope, but he required the Doge's exequatur before he could act, and a board was created of three Venetian nobles, to sit as assessors to the Holy Office. Their duty was to guard the rights of Venetian citizens against ecclesiastical encroachment; without their presence and their sanction no act of the Holy Office was valid in Venice. The archive of the Sant' Uffizio is now open to inspection. Heresy was not the sole crime submitted to the jurisdiction of this Court; witchcraft and scandalous living furnished a large number of cases ”

“ In Ferrara, as we have seen, Venice had established a commercial colony protected by treaty rights. These were swept away when Salinguerra held the city for the Emperor Frederick II, who was hostile to Venice on account of the part she was playing in the Lombard League, for which she acted as banker. Pope Gregory IX, while endeavouring to recover the city, which he claimed as part of Countess Matilda's legacy to the Church, applied to Venice for help. The Republic was largely instrumental in expelling the Imperial troops and recovered all her privileges and interests in the mainland city. ”

“ Antonio Michiel, a Venetian merchant resident in Constantinople, had warned his government, in 1466, that the Sultan was mustering large forces. "I take it the fleet will number two hundred sail," he says, "and every one here thinks Negroponte its object." He continues in a note of serious warning that matters must not be treated lightly to the deceiving of themselves. The Turk has a way of exaggerating the enemy's strength and arming regardless of expense. Venice had better do the same. ”

“ On the other hand, as the State developed and pushed out beyond the Lagoon boundaries, across to the Dalmatian coast, down the Adriatic, and away eastward, the more able and enterprising citizens began to accumulate wealth, and a division of classes made itself apparent, more especially after such periods of expansion as the reign of Pietro II, Orseolo, the capture of Tyre, and the Fourth Crusade. This wealthier class gradually drew together and formed the nucleus of a plutocracy. ”

“ At his coronation each new Doge was expected to entertain the guilds, who displayed specimens of their handiwork in the ducal palace; on great State occasions, when Venice entertained distinguished guests, the guilds were called upon to furnish part of the pageant; but they never acquired, as in Florence, or other Italian cities, a voice in the government of the State. The guilds of most Italian towns represented and protected the people against a nobility of arms and of territory. In Venice such a nobility never existed ”

“ The Republic was now committed to a struggle with her western rival for supremacy in the Levant-a deplorable conflict fraught with disaster for both parties.
A long period of naval campaigning ensued, the fortune of war leaning now to one side, now to the other. The breathing-space between each campaign and the next was devoted by the Republic to the development of her commerce. Treaties were stipulated with Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Como. Trade with England and Flanders by means of the Flanders galleys was developed. ”

“ Such a powerful prince as Gian Galeazzo was not likely to prove a less dangerous neighbour to Venice than Carrara had been. But his rapid advance in power, and his obvious intention to create a North-Italian kingdom, immediately produced a coalition against him of all the threatened Princes. Venice joined the league but she had no intention of challenging Visconti on the mainland herself; she adopted a less costly plan and invited the Carraresi to return to Padua promising to support their enterprise; Sir John Hawkwood, the Florentine General, was pressing Visconti on the Adda ”

“ Every year six fleets were organised and despatched: (1) to the Black Sea, (2) to Greece and Constantinople, (3) to the Syrian ports, (4) to Egypt, (5) to Barbary and the north coast of Africa, (6) to England and Flanders. The route and general instructions for each fleet (muda) were carefully discussed in the Senate. Every officer was bound by oath to observe these instructions and to maintain on all occasions the honour of the Republic. The government prescribed the number of the crew for each ship, the size of the anchors, quality of rope, etc. ”

“ The accumulated difficulties and dangers brought about by the War of Ferrara, the Interdict, and the Tiepoline Conspiracy taught the Republic that the existing machinery of the State was too cumbersome, too slow, too public, to meet and deal successfully with extraordinary crises. ”

“ Venetian citizens were tempted to settle in the island by the gift of certain villages with their districts. These they were expected to hold for the Republic in the case of a revolution. The Governor of the island, who bore the title of Duke of Candia, was a Venetian noble elected in the Great Council at Venice ”

“ The glass manufacture of Murano received an impetus. The population of the city numbered 200,000; the males fit for arms, that is between the ages of twenty and sixty, were reckoned at 40,000.
There is proof that, in spite of defeats by Genoa at Ayas and at Curzola, Venice had achieved a high position in the eyes of European Princes. Edward III asked for Venetian aid in his wars with Philip of France; he offered extensive privileges, and invited the Doge to send his sons to the English court. Alfonso of Sicily apologised for insults offered to Venetian merchants. ”