Venetian ambassador

“ 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. ”

“ There was no time to be lost, and I could see that the girl was not a vestal virgin, so I went up to her and told her that the Venetian ambassador was amorous of her, and that I would take her to him if she would receive his visits. The aunt said that a nobleman of such an exalted rank could only bring honour to her niece. I took their address, and on my way back to the ambassador I met a friend of mine who is learned in such commodities, and after I had shewed him the address he told me it was the Charpillon. ”

“ The earliest extant report of a Venetian ambassador on the state of this country was written in the reign of Henry VII., and in this we find some very strong comments on the subject, showing that the cold-heartedness of parents towards their children, the want of tenderness in husbands towards their wives, the mercenary way in which marriages were contracted by parents or guardians for the young people under their charge, was such as to shock the sensibility of strangers from the warmer lands of the South. To the Italian mind it seemed as if there was no real human nature in Englishmen at all. ”

“ He told me that, as he was passing, he heard that an abbe, secretary to the Venetian ambassador at Rome, was lying ill at the inn, after having been robbed in Valcimara. “I came to see you,” he added, “and as I find you recovered from your illness, we can start again together; I agree to walk six miles every day to please you. Come, let us forget the past, and let us be at once on our way.”
“I cannot go; I have lost my purse, and I owe twenty paoli.”
“I will go and find the amount in the name of Saint-Francis.” ”

“ The Venetian ambassador then complained that the Florentines had allowed Alessandro, the duke's brother, to pass into Lombardy with his forces; and besides this, had assisted and advised in the treaty made between the duke and the marquis of Mantua, matters which he declared to be injurious to the Venetians, and inconsistent with the friendship hitherto subsisting between the two governments; amicably reminding them, that one who inflicts unmerited injury, gives others just ground of hostility, and that those who break a peace may expect war. ”

“ These are but a few examples of a long series of regulations, many others also dating to the 13th century, by which the Venetian government sought to systematize its diplomatic service. That permanent diplomatic agencies were not established by it earlier than was the case is probably due to the distrust of its agents by which most of this legislation of the republic is inspired. In the 13th century two or three months was considered over-long a period for an ambassador to reside at a foreign court ”

“ Another valuable authority is the Italian ‘Historia delle cose occorse nel regno d'Inghilterra in materia del Duca di Nortomberlan dopo la morte di Odoardo VI,’ first issued ‘Nell' Academia Venetiana, MDLVIII.’ This was a surreptitious compilation by a Ferrarese named Giulio Raviglio Rosso from the despatches of Giovanni Michele, Venetian ambassador in England 1554–7, and Federigo Badoaro, Venetian ambassador to Charles V. It is dedicated to Margaret of Austria by Luca Contile, Academico Venetiano. ”

“ The traditional splendour which the Venetian ambassadors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had inaugurated was dear to the Senate, and had come to be officially required, if not actually prescribed in so many words. These great families had long been accustomed to play the leading parts, and as the business spirit which had made Venice the richest power in Europe died out, their pride was often greater than their sense of responsibility. ”

“ One of the guests, who was addressed as effendi, because he had been secretary for foreign affairs, said that the ambassador from Venice to Rome was a friend of his, and he spoke of him in the highest manner. I told him that I shared his admiration for that ambassador, who had given me a letter of introduction for a Turkish nobleman, whom he had represented as an intimate friend. ”

“ Her dealings with her neighbours were regulated by strictly business principles; and ‘business’ is, I believe, the art of becoming legally possessed of that which is not our own.
The marvellous accuracy with which the Venetian ambassadors related to their government the details of what they observed abroad is proverbial, and has been a godsend to students of history, such as M. Yriarte, to whom the world is so much indebted for his study of Marcantonio Barbaro. ”

“ The French Ambassador, who had quitted Venice, had left in charge of the Embassy a certain Monsieur Henin, who had taken as his private secretary a priest called Alessandri. On the twenty-ninth of December 1792 this priest was sent for in haste by the Superior of the bare-footed Carmelites of the monastery of San Geremia, close to the palace occupied by the French Embassy. He was introduced with some mystery, but with no loss of time, and was conducted to the Superior’s room, where he was warned that unless he{369} left Venice by the sixth of January, he would be assassinated. ”

“ It is easy to understand the impression made by such a report, in the course of which the Ambassador narrated the scenes that took place in Versailles and at the Tuileries after the night of October sixth, 1789. The aristocratic Venetian Republic sympathised profoundly with the dying French monarchy; but it was impossible to believe that such a state of things would last long, and the government was painfully surprised by the letter in which Louis XVI. announced that he accepted the situation. That letter is in existence. ”

“ Once very popular, it is now practically obsolete. It is said to be of Venetian origin and to have been introduced into France by Justiniani, the ambassador of Venice in the second half of the 17th century. ”

“ Those who saw my gondola arrive with the livery of the ambassador, were lost in astonishment. Venice had never seen such a thing. I entered, and caused myself to be announced by the name of Una Siora Masehera. As soon as I was introduced I took off my mask and told my name. The senator turned pale and appeared stupefied with surprise. "Sir;" said I to him in Venetian, "it is with much regret I importune your excellency with this visit ”

“ He gave his fortune without stint, but the idea of giving anything else did not occur to him. Before the tremendous storm of change that broke with the French revolution and raged throughout Europe for years, he bowed his head, and Venice went down. No man is to be blamed for not being born a hero; nor is the mother of heroes in fault when she is old and can bear them no more.{348}
FROM THE PUBLIC GARDEN AT SUNSET
XV
THE LAST SOLDIERS During the eighteenth century Venetian diplomacy succeeded in preserving the Republic’s neutral position in spite of the great wars that agitated Europe. ”

“ Venice attempted to recover by diplomacy what she had lost by arms. She possessed in Pietro Zeno, the baron of Andros, a diplomatist of unrivalled experience in the tortuous politics of the Levant. Both he and Antonio were well aware that the fate of Athens depended upon the Sultan; and to his Court they both repaired, armed with those pecuniary arguments which have usually proved convincing to Turkish ministers. [143] The diplomatic duel was lengthy; but at last the Venetian gained one of those paper victories so dear to ambassadors and so worthless to practical men. ”

“ During the American war of independence, there were constant diplomatic relations between the Republic and the American deputies who came to France for the congress of Versailles. The Venetian archives contain a letter signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, by which the Americans hoped to lay the foundations of a commercial treaty; but owing to the excessive caution of Venice the attempt had no result. The Republic of the Adriatic had almost always looked eastward for her trade, and distrusted the new world which she had declined to help to discover. ”

“ The German quarter was so crammed with beautiful objects that it seemed one great enchanted palace. To increase the general gaiety, the government made a special exception and allowed masks in the streets.
When it is remembered that Venice really obtained little or no immediate advantage from the battle of Lepanto, her frenzy of triumph may seem exaggerated; yet it was moderate compared with the reception Rome gave to the commander of the Papal fleet, Marcantonio Colonna. The Venetian captain, Sebastian Venier, was not present, and there was not the least personal note in the rejoicings ”

“ The Venetians were successful in a naval battle at Saboro, against Otho, the son of Frederick Barbarossa. In return, the Pope presented the Doge Liani with a ring, with which he told him to wed the Adriatic, that posterity might know that the sea was subject to Venice, "as a bride is to her husband."
In September 1796, nearly six years before this sonnet was written, the fate of the old Venetian Republic was sealed by the treaty of Campo Formio. The French army under Napoleon had subdued Italy, and, having crossed the Alps, threatened Vienna. ”

“ But even the most benevolent and most efficient government by foreigners—and a modern Greek historian has attributed both good intentions and efficiency to the Venetians—is bound to fail when national consciousness begins to awaken. After the Venetians went, the Greeks prepared to fight, not to substitute the rule of one foreign power for that of another but for independence, not for Venice, or Turkey, or Russia, but for Greece. The younger generations, which had grown up under Venetian auspices, were manlier and better than those which had only known Turkish rule. ”

“ Venice was restored to Italy by the Emperor of France, with the approval of Prussia. There was a sting in the thought that it was not wrung from the talons of the Austrian eagle by the valour of Italian arms, but by the force of diplomacy; still it was a delightful fact that Venice was free, with the tricolour waving on St. Mark's. The Italian soil was delivered from foreign occupation. ... As soon as the treaty was signed at Vienna, October 2, the Venetian Assemblies unanimously elected Victor Emmanuel with acclamations, and begged for immediate annexation to the Kingdom of Italy. ”

“ In the government of a despot it is founded on luxury, its only object being to procure the nation all that can minister to its pride, its luxuries, its fancies; in the government of many it is generally founded on economy. Standing between the voluptuous peoples of the East and the uncultivated European nations, the Venetians imitated the industry of the one and preserved the simplicity of the other.
During the first centuries of the Venetian Republic, all Europe was in an uncultured condition. Art had left ancient Italy to pass over to the empire and ornament the new capital of the world. ”

“ The foreign policy of Venice was likewise mainly dictated by commercial motives, the chief objectives being commercial privilege in the Byzantine empire and in the Frankish states in the East, domination of the Adriatic, occupation of a sufficient hinterland on the terra firma, non-sufferance of the rivalry of Genoa, and, finally, maintenance of trade-supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean through a series of alternating wars and treaties with Turkey, the lasting monument of which was the destruction of the Parthenon in 1685 by a Venetian bomb. ”

“ One may say indeed that Venice is emphatically the city of conversation; people talk all over the place because there is nothing to interfere with its being caught by the ear. Among the populace it is a general family party. The still water carries the voice, and good Venetians exchange confidences at a distance of half a mile. It saves a world of trouble, and they don’t like trouble. Their delightful garrulous language helps them to make Venetian life a long conversazione. ”

“ Prudence required the strictest neutrality as to the affairs of other nations; but the mere fact that every one recognised this as Venice’s only possible position exposed her to perfidious and secret attacks of all sorts. France maintained a vast number of secret agents to propagate revolutionary doctrines in the Venetian territory, and at the same time lost no opportunity of trying to pick a quarrel with the Republic, by insulting her flag. ”

“ To be a member of the Great Council had now only a social value, like those hereditary coats of arms in which there had once been such deep meaning. Throughout ages the aristocracy of Venice had differed altogether from the nobility of other countries, but as decadence advanced to decay, and decay threatened destruction, the Venetian senator grew more and more like the French marquis of the same period. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, when an almost total ignorance reigned of civil principles, it was not unnatural that a system pretending to rise above the common level of crude simplicity should be viewed as slightly cabalistic and inscrutable. The Venetian Executive, indeed, displayed the earliest attempt to organize a bureaucratic machinery and a plan for the distribution of public functions; and Venice also led the way in founding the practice of diplomatic etiquette and official routine. The Council of Ten was, perhaps, a constitutional evil ”