Doge of Venice

“ Monsignor the Doge wears a crown of gold and precious stones, and is draped in cloth of gold. Hard by the Doge walks a gentleman who bears a sword of exquisite workmanship; then follow the gentlemen of Venice. In such order Monsignor the Doge comes into the Piazza of St. Mark, which is a stone-throw long; he walks as far as the church of San Gimignano, and returns thence in the same order. The Doge bears a white wax candle in his hands. They halt in the middle of the Piazza, and three of the ducal chaplains advance before the Doge, and chant to him the beautiful versicles and responses. ”

“ In January, Signor Molino was chosen Doge of Venice, but the extreme snow that fell, and the cold, hindered my going to see the solemnity, so as I stirred not from Padua till Shrovetide, when all the world repair to Venice, to see the folly and madness of the Carnival; the women, men, and persons of all conditions disguising themselves in antique dresses, with extravagant music and a thousand gambols, traversing the streets from house to house, all places being then accessible and free to enter. Abroad, they fling eggs filled with sweet water, but sometimes not over-sweet. ”

“ The history of no nation presents a greater variety of singular events than that of Venice. We have seen a conspiracy against this State, originating among the citizens, and carried on by people of that rank only. We saw another, soon after, which took its origin among the body of the nobles; but the year 1355 presents us with one of a still more extraordinary nature, begun, and carried on, by the Doge himself. If ambition, or the augmentation of his own power, had been the object, it would not have been so surprising ”

“ Modesty can never have been a Venetian characteristic; nor is it now, when Venice is only a museum and show place. All the Venetians—the men, that is,—whom one sees in the Piazza have an air of profound self-satisfaction. And this palace of the Doges is no training-place for humility; for if its walls do not bear witness, glorious and chromatic, to the greatness of a Doge, it is merely because the greatness of the Republic requires the space. In this room, for example, we find Tiepolo allegorizing Venice as the conqueror of the sea. ”

“ Marino Falliero, Doge of Venice, was, at this time, eighty years of age; a time of life when the violence of the passions is generally pretty much abated. He had, even then, however, given a strong instance of the rashness of his disposition, by marrying a very young woman. This lady imagined she had been affronted by a young Venetian nobleman at a public ball, and she complained bitterly of the insult to her husband. The old Doge, who had all the desire imaginable to please his wife, determined, in this matter at least, to give her ample satisfaction. ”

“ The young patrician slowly ascended the steps of the dais, and closed his appeal with an obeisance to the Doge, full of dignity.
The Councillors who sat beside the Doge were holding grave discussion, for the few words of the young noble had touched upon weighty points; they had been presented with a simplicity which veiled their diplomatic force; he was a man of growing power who must be bound to the service of Venice, even were he not the last of a princely line which the Republic would fain see continued to her own latest generation. ”

“ Two of them were a rival goldsmith and the jailer who had fed him when he was a prisoner in the piombi. But the third and most hideous of all was the Doge himself, such a miracle of ugliness and horror that to look on it would make a man shudder. But because he wished to hear what Giovanni had to say, the Doge spoke Giovanni fair, and declared himself delighted with his ingenuity. For they say (though, as I have written before, neither have I seen the clock nor have I known any that have) that at every hour a door opened, and some story out of the history of Venice was acted. ”

“ On Carnival Thursday, April 2, 1355, the old-time ceremony of immolating an ox and twelve boar-pigs, which symbolized the Patriarch of Aquileia and his canons, was celebrated in the Piazza, which was filled with a brilliant assemblage; the court looked on from the palace windows, and later the Dogaressa gave a magnificent entertainment to the rank and beauty of Venice. In the course of the festivities a knot of gay young fellows who surrounded the maids of honor grew boisterous, and indulged a freedom of conduct which aroused the wrath of the Doge. ”

“ The Doge made a reply of welcome, and assured them of their safety under his protection; they then shouted, "Long live our Prince, the noble Doge of Venice!" and moved on.
Then ten master-tailors changed their dresses, and donned white suits sprinkled with vermilion stars, and {105} traversed the city singing the popular songs of the day; each one carried a goblet of malmsey and occasionally sipped it. This was extremely Venetian; and we can but wonder if the tunes these tailors sung are not the same that have descended through many generations to the gondoliers of our own day. ”

“ The tomb of that doge is, as I said, wrought by a Florentine; but it is of the same general type and feeling as all the Venetian tombs of the period, and it is one of the last which retains it. The classical element enters largely into its details, but the feeling of the whole is as yet unaffected. Like all the lovely tombs of Venice and Verona, it is a sarcophagus with a recumbent figure above, and this figure is a faithful but tender portrait, wrought as far as it can be without painfulness, of the doge as he lay in death. ”

“ A flood of crimson suffused the pallor of her pearly diadem, and her maidens, sleeping grey among the waters round her, unfolded rosy petals upon the surface of the lagoon.
It is this power of living communion with the daily pageant in which sun and moon are doge and emperor, and the stars and the clouds their retinue—this it is which, finding expression once at Venice in a temporal glory that has passed away, is the abiding assurance of her immortality. This is the spirit which, if once it helped to make her great, still makes her great to-day, the spirit that endures. ”

“ The scourge of the plague and sorrow for his son’s impiety embittered the last days of the old Doge, and in 959 he died a broken-hearted man. But scarce was he laid to rest when a splendid fleet, gay with banners, bore a deputation of nobles and clergy to Ravenna to invite the proscribed pirate to become lord of Venice: the pressure of a powerful family and the fear of civil discord had led to the recall of the only prince who seemed strong enough to rule the troubled state. ”

“ 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 ”

“ What the kind entreaties and remonstrances of Contarini could not induce you to abandon, you are ready to annihilate on the very first symptom of danger. Oh, Venice!" exclaimed the Proveditore, his fine countenance assuming an expression of extreme bitterness, as he gazed mournfully at the portraits of his ancestors, including more than one Doge, which were suspended round the walls of the apartment—"Venice! thou art indeed degenerate, when peril so remote can blanch the cheek of thy patrician youth." ”

“ Every thing about Venice is, or was, extraordinary—her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance. The story of this Doge is to be found in all her Chronicles, and particularly detailed in the "Lives of the Doges," by Marin Sanuto, which is given in the Appendix. It is simply and clearly related, and is perhaps more dramatic in itself than any scenes which can be founded upon the subject.
Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of talents and of courage. ”

“ Tintoretto gives us Doge Andrea Gritti praying to the Virgin, Doge Francesco Donato witnessing as an honoured guest the nuptials of S. Catherine, Doge Niccolô da Ponte surveying the Virgin in glory, and Doge Alvise Mocenigo condescending to adore his Saviour. Paul Veronese depicts an allegory of the battle of Lepanto in 1571, at which Venice temporarily overcame the Turks. The kneeling white-bearded warrior beside S. Giustina is the victor, afterwards Doge Sebastiano Venier, and Christ looks on in approval. ”

“ At Zara and elsewhere the Venetians were magnificently received: the last stronghold of the pirates, impregnable Lagosta, yielded to the splendid courage of the Venetian seamen. Slavs and Croats were cowed and hostages given for future good behaviour. The woods of Curzola now made Venice independent of Italy for timber. It was the first stage in her development as a European power. The title of Doge of Dalmatia was added to that of Doge of Venice and a ceremony instituted which a hundred and eighty years later became the famous Sposalazio del Mare or Wedding of the Adriatic. ”

“ VETTORE PISANI AND CARLO ZENO.
On April 22, 1378, the Doge Andrea Contarini, in the Basilica of San Marco, invested Pisani with the supreme command of the Venetian fleet. As he presented the great banner to him, the Doge solemnly said: "You are destined by God to defend with your valor this Republic, and to retaliate upon those who have dared to insult her and to rob her of that security which she owes to the virtues of our progenitors. Wherefore we confide to you this victorious and dread standard, which it will be your duty to restore to us unsullied and triumphant." ”

“ Beneath the cornice whence springs the vaulting of the apse is a stern minatory inscription in Latin that met the eye of the Doge, as he entered from the Ducal Palace through an ante-room opening on this chapel. It is now but dimly seen, and runs thus: Love justice, give all men their rights: let the poor and the widow, the ward and the orphan, O Doge, hope for a guardian in thee. Be compassionate to all: let not fear nor hate nor love nor gold betray thee. Thou shalt perish as a flower: dust shalt thou become, and, as thy deeds have been, so after death thy reward shall be. ”

“ What would happen when she was the wife of Jacopo Contarini, shut up in a splendid Venetian palace where there were no glass furnaces to amuse her? At first she would grow pale, thought Nella, but by and by would weave spells in her chamber which would bring all Venice to her will, and turn it all to gold and precious stones and red glass, and the people to fairies subject to her will, her husband, the Council of Ten, even the Doge himself. ”

“ In a large barge, quite concealed by its covering of cloth of gold, the clergy in their richest vestments, wearing all the sacred jewels and ornaments, left the olive-groves of San Pietro in Castello, and at the Lido met the still more magnificent barge of the Doge. Then, as in later days, every sort of boat that could be used in all Venice was there, filled with all conditions of people. ”

“ The name of Marino Faliero is familiar to English ears; but the reader who borrows his conception of the Doge of Venice from the modern drama in our language which purports to relate his story, will wander as far from historic truth as from nature and probability. The Chronicle of Sanuto, which the poet has avowed to be his basis, presents no trace of that false, overwrought, and unintelligible passion which, in the tragedy, is palmed upon us for nice sensitiveness to injured honour. ”

“ Beatrice, who wore some of our gems when she went into that cathedral over there, is dust these four hundred years and more. The line of the D’Estes and Sforzas is extinct. There is not a man or woman in Venice or Italy who may boast that a drop of the Doge’s blood runs in their veins. ”

“ Great was the rejoicing in Venice when the triumphant Doge returned bringing the bodies of St Isidore from Chios and of S. Donato from Cephalonia, and such spoil of Eastern magnificence as had never yet been seen there since she rose from the sea. But before we follow him to his retreat and death in the Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore, where to this day may be seen a partially obliterated epitaph to the “Terror of the Greeks and the Glory of Venice,” we may record one domestic innovation worthy of grateful remembrance. ”

“ By what means should our designs have been made known to him? The thing is impossible.
Memmo.—Impossible? What, when there’s scarce a cutpurse, housebreaker, or vagabond in Venice who has not been enlisted in our service, would it be so strange if the Doge discovered a little of the business? A secret which is known to so many, how should it escape his penetration?
Contarino.—Simpleton! the same thing happens to him which happens to betrayed husbands. Everyone can see the horns except the man who carries them. ”

“ The Doge unconsciously furthers his plans by his intense fear lest the fact that he possesses the jewels be made known. Only da Sestos, his son, and the Doge, indeed, knew the gems were in Venice. He has been told the very room in which the Doge is to receive from him the wonderful casket. He has thoroughly reconnoitered the ground. He knows that this bed-chamber of the Doge looks out on a court, which, in the dead of night, will surely be quite deserted. And so, with a coil of rope about his waist and a dagger beneath his blouse, he keeps the appointment. ”