Chioggia

“ The children assail you for coppers, and, in their desire to be satisfied, pursue your gondola into the sea. Chioggia is a larger Burano, and you carry away from either place a half-sad, half-cynical, but altogether pictorial impression; the impression of bright-coloured hovels, of bathing in stagnant canals, of young girls with faces of a delicate shape and a susceptible expression, with splendid heads of hair and complexions smeared with powder, faded yellow shawls that hang like old Greek draperies, and little wooden shoes that click as they go up and down the steps of the convex bridges ”

“ The barrier here approaches close to the mainland, and the position facilitated the co-operation of the Genoese with the Carrarese and Hungarians, but Chioggia is distant from Venice, which could only be reached along the canals across the lagoon. The Venetians had taken up the buoys which marked the fairway, and had placed a light squadron on the lagoon. The allies, after occupying the island of Brondolo, attacked, and on the 13th of August took the town of Chioggia with its garrison of 3000 men. ”

“ I have never seen so many good-looking fellows. At Burano and Chioggia they sit mending their nets, or lounge at the street corners, where conversation is always high-pitched, or clamour to you to take a boat; and everywhere they decorate the scene with their splendid colour—cheeks and throats as richly brown as the sails of their fishing-smacks—their sea-faded tatters which are always a "costume"—their soft Venetian jargon, and the gallantry with which they wear their hats—an article that nowhere sits so well as on a mass of dense Venetian curls. ”

“ They sped on with a few swift, silent strokes—then, "Brondolo!" he cried brightly; but a sudden desperate steadying of resolution was felt in the fierce stroke which sent the gondola forward with a jerk.
The fishing-skiffs of Chioggia fluttered like gaudy butterflies before them, dipping their wings of orange and crimson and every conceivable sunset tint to catch the breeze; and the air was suddenly vibrant with sounds of traffic and busy life. Men called to each other with song and jest from heavily laden barks, while they waited the hour of sailing ”

“ The main canal is lined with substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders of the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter. Wandering about its wide deserted courts and calli, we feel the spirit of the decadent Venetian nobility. Passages from Goldoni's and Casanova's Memoirs occur to our memory. ”

“ We arrived at Cafaggiolo and did not find Nasi there.
"Your star is waning, fortune is abandoning you," I said to the girl from Chioggia.
She bit her lips and replied at once, with a smile:
"There is always a mist on the lagoons before sunrise. In any event we must keep up our strength and so be prepared for the blows of destiny." ”

“ If overnight, one would spend some very delightful hours in drifting about Chioggia itself, which is a kind of foretaste of Venice, although not like enough to her to impair the surprise. (But nothing can do that. Not all the books or photographs in the world, not Turner, nor Whistler, nor Clara Montalba, can so familiarize the stranger with the idea of Venice that the reality of Venice fails to be sudden and arresting. Venice is so peculiarly herself, so exotic and unbelievable, that so far from ever being ready for her, even her residents, returning, can never be fully prepared.) ”

“ It was a reflection as serious as she could make it; but Love is very apt to take such sayings amiss. Olimpia out of love might make men miserable; in it, what might she not do? I am about to tell you.
At Chioggia they were to await a shipload of merchants and pack-mules expected from Ancona; but the wind proved counter when their barge had weathered Malamocco, and that which dis-served them befriended the northering freight. They found the train of beasts awaiting them, saddled and loaded, restless to be off. Chioggia to Ferrara, by the road they would go, is a handsome fifty miles. ”

“ After this the eels are cooked on a great open-fire spit and finally packed in boiling oil, like the little fishes of the Breton coast, and ultimately sold and served as hors d’œuvres in{251} Italian restaurants the world over. North of Comacchio on the shore of a Venetian lagoon is Chioggia.
Chioggia has no great architectural or historical monuments, but is as paintable as Venice itself; indeed, it is a little brother to Venice, but lacking its splendour and great palaces. Its quay-side Madonna is venerated by all the fishing folk round about. ”

“ Carlo Zeno had under his command, endeavouring to make a diversion in the favour of the Venetians at the Eastern capital. Pending the return of this fleet, the Venetians made an attack on Chioggia. And an additional gleam of hope raised the spirits of Pisani's men in the disaffection of the King of Hungary from the Genoese cause; and gradually, as if by the magic hand of a fickle fortune, Pietro D'Oria found himself and his troops besieged in Chioggia, instead of going on his way to Venice as he had himself prophesied. ”

“ Angry and vindictive, the Genoese bore down upon the Venetian coast in numerous lumbering galleys, determined—this time—to reach Venice itself, and to sack this rich and populous city. With little difficulty they captured Chioggia, a seaport, a populous city and the key to the lagoons which led to the heart of the capital. They advanced to the very outskirts of Venice, and their cries of joyous vindictiveness sounded strangely near to the now terrified inhabitants, who, rallying around their old generals and city fathers, were determined to fight to the last ditch. ”

“ Chioggia, Lido and Tre Porti, with the force and swiftness of an impetuous river, and these four water-systems, in their meetings and retreats, fill the lagoon with incessant movement, with clashing, swirling, and sweeping currents. Then, the tide does not always keep at this low level. When the attractions of the sun and moon combine, it rises higher and floods and washes out the canals, and when the angry south, blowing fiercely up Adria, has piled up the waters at the head of the gulf, they block in the falling tide. ”

“ The defenders having thus perished in the flames, and Chioggia being taken [August, 1379] , the triumph of the Genoese was at its height. It now seemed as if Pietro D'Oria had but the word of command to give, and Venice would have met with the same fate as Pisa had but a century before. But with this the fortune of the Ligurians began to wane. One small cannon of leather, with a wooden car, brought from Chioggia as a trophy to Genoa, is all that exists to-day to testify to their victory. ”

“ The abbé answered him with a sigh, Beppa pressed his hand, and after a few moments of melancholy silence, Lelio, being urged to fulfil his promise, began his narrative in these words:
I am, as you know, the son of a fisherman of Chioggia. Almost all the people along that shore have a well developed thorax and a powerful voice. Their voices would be beautiful if they did not ruin them early in life on their boats by trying to drown the roar of the sea and the wind, and by drinking and smoking beyond all reason, to avoid drowsiness and fatigue. We Chioggiotes are a fine race. ”

“ It is my custom every morning ... to spend a few moments at the window ... to see the sun rise over the Adriatic.... I recommend exactly this station, the most eligible one, perhaps, in all Venice, to enjoy so splendid a prospect in perfection. A purple twilight hangs over the deep, and a golden mist on the lagoon announces the sun’s approach. The heavens and the sea are wrapped in expectant silence. In two seconds the orb of day appears, casting a flood of fiery light upon the waves. It is a sight of enchantment!
SCHILLER.
Chioggia, like Venice, is built upon a foundation of wooden piles.... ”

“ One afternoon I watched a match there between those ancient enemies Venice and Genoa: ancient, that is, on the sea, as Chioggia can tell. Owing to the heat the match was not to begin until half-past four; but even then the sun blazed. No sooner was I on the ground than I found that some of the Genoese team were old friends, for in the morning I had seen them in the water and on the sand at the Lido, and wondered who so solid a band of brothers could be. ”

“ The allies are upon the bridge. The Venetians quicken their retrograde pace. In their haste they omit to destroy the communication; and they enter the gates pell-mell with their pursuers. Thus Chioggia fell."
The allies and Venetians had each lost many men, and nearly four thousand Venetians were prisoners. The town was pillaged, but the women were protected from harm. Some of the Venetians paid enormous ransoms,—Emo three thousand ducats; and others probably as much, so that the gain to the allies was large.
No words can portray the effect of the news of the fall of Chioggia at Venice. ”

“ The Genoese have no idea that you are going to put to sea. Their ships and galleys are, as usual, moored off the quays of Chioggia. The entrance to the Canal of Lombardy, and the Brondolo passage, are both quite open, and there appear to be no troops anywhere near; but between Pelestrina and Brondolo they have rowboats watching the entrance, but no craft of any size. ”

“ Hobhouse's version (see Hist. Notes, No. vi.) of the war of Chioggia is not borne out by modern research. For example, the long speech which Chinazzo attributes to the Genoese admiral, Pietro Doria, is probably mythical. The actual menace of the "bitting and bridling the horses of St. Mark" is assigned by other historians to Francesco Carrara. Doria was not killed by a stone bullet from the cannon named The Trevisara, but by the fall of the Campanile in Chioggia, which had been struck by the bullet. (Venice, an Historical Sketch of the Republic, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. 225-234.) ”

“ Within a cable length of where our gondola is now resting a black, tarry fishing-bark tugs at anchor. If it were day and her sails were set, one could not help being delighted over the oranges and reds and blues of her patched and weathered canvas, the curve of the elaborately painted bow, and the spirited air of the curious figurehead. Unchanged survivors of the fading Past are these sturdy old bragozzi of Chioggia, and one could not ask for a braver show than they present when they hoist their painted sails to dry in one long line from the Public Gardens to the Doge’s Palace. ”

“ The besiegers of Chioggia were at the end of their powers of endurance, and Pisani had been compelled to give a promise that the siege would be raised, when Zeno’s fleet reached the anchorage off Brondolo on the 1st of January 1380. The attack on Chioggia was now pressed with vigour. The Genoese held out resolutely in the hope of relief from home. But the resources of Genoa had been taxed to fit out the squadrons she had already sent to sea. It was not until the 12th of May 1380 that her admiral, Matteo Maruffo, was able to reach the neighbourhood of Brondolo with a relieving force. ”

“ All the men fish; all the women and children sit in the little side streets, making lace, knitting, and stringing beads. Beside this canal the dirt is abnormal, but it carries with it the usual alleviation of extreme picturesqueness, so that Chioggia is always artist-ridden.
The steamer gives you an hour in which to drift about in the sunshine and meditate upon the inferiority of any material other than water for the macadamizing of roads. There are sights too: Carpaccio's very last picture, painted in 1520, in S. Domenico; a Corso Vittorio Emmanuele; a cathedral ”

“ The Lido is at best but a sand-bank. But the sea—it is a grand sight! I will try and get a sail upon it some day in a fishing-boat: the gondolas never venture out so far....
A delicious day from morning to night! I have been towards Chioggia, as far as Pelestrina, where are the great structures, called murazzi, which the Republic has caused to be raised against the sea. They are hewn of stone, and properly are intended to protect from the fury of the wild element the Lido, which separates the lagoons from the sea. ”

“ Notwithstanding the apparent difficulties of such an enterprise, Pietro Doria, the Genoese admiral, determined to reduce the city. His first successes gave him reason to hope. He forced the passage, and stormed the little town of Chioggia, built upon the inside of the isle bearing that name, about twenty-five miles south of Venice. ”

“ Chioggia had fallen to the Genoese on the 6th of August, but on the 21st of December, Pisani, who had only been released from the prison, where he was incarcerated after Pola, because the people flatly refused to follow or serve under any one else, had succeeded in bottling up the Genoese fleet, much as the Japanese bottled up the Russians at Port Arthur, with the difference that his [347] operation was successful and theirs was not. To bottle up a strong enemy is sensible ”

“ Chinsura, a Dutch-built town on the right bank of the Hoogly, 20 m. N. of Calcutta, with a college; is famous for cheroots.
Chinz, a calico printed with flowers and other devices in different colours; originally of Eastern manufacture.
Chioggia (25) , a seaport of Venetia, built on piles, on a lagoon island at the mouth of the Brenta, connected with the mainland by a bridge with 43 arches.
Chios, or Scio (25) , a small island belonging to Turkey, in the Grecian Archipelago; subject to earthquakes; yields oranges and lemons in great quantities; claims to have been the birthplace of Homer. ”