[ [389] {356}[According to the much earlier, and, presumably, more historical narrative of Lorenzo de Monaci, Bertuccio Isarello was not chief of the Arsenalotti, but simply the patron, that is the owner, of a vessel (paron di nave), and consequently a person of importance amongst sailors and naval artisans; and the noble who strikes the fatal blow is not Barbaro, but a certain Giovanni Dandolo, who is known, at that time, to have been "sopracomito and consigliere del capitano da mar." If the Admiral of the Arsenal had been engaged in the conspiracy, the fact could hardly have escaped the notice of contemporary chroniclers. Signor Lazzarino suggests that the name Gisello, or Girello, which has been substituted for that of Israel Bertuccio, is a corruption of Isarello.—La Congiura, p. 74.]
[ [390] [The island of Sapienza lies about nine miles to the north-west of Capo Gallo, in the Morea. The battle in which the Venetians under Nicolò Pisani were defeated by the Genoese under Paganino Doria was fought November 4, 1354. (See Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, p. 201.)]
[ [391]{357} An historical fact. See Marin Sanuto's Lives of the Doges. ["Sanuto says that Heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and induced him to conspire:—'Però fu permesso che il Faliero perdesse l'intelletto.'"—B. Letters (Works, etc., 1832, xii. 82. note 1).
[ [392] {358}["The number of their constant Workmen is 1200; and all these Artificers have a Superior Officer called Amiraglio, who commands the Bucentaure on Ascension Day, when the Duke goes in state to marry the sea. And here we cannot but notice, that by a ridiculous custom this Admiral makes himself Responsible to the Senat for the inconstancy of the Sea, and engages his Life there shall be no Tempest that day. 'Tis this Admiral who has the Guard of the Palais, St. Mark, with his Arsenalotti, during the interregnum. He carries the Red Standard before the Prince when he makes his Entry, by virtue of which office he has his Cloak, and the two Basons (out of which the Duke throws the money to the People) for his fee."—The History of the Government of Venice, written in the year 1675, by the Sieur Amelott de la Houssaie, London, 1677, p. 63.]
[ [393] [Vide ante, [p. 356, note 1].]
[ [394] {360}[The famous measure known as the closing of the Great Council was carried into force during the Dogeship (1289-1311) of Pietro Gradenigo. On the last day of February, 1297, a law was proposed and passed, "That the Council of Forty are to ballot, one by one, the names of all those who during the last four years have had a seat in the Great Council.... Three electors shall be chosen to submit names of fresh candidates for the Great Council, on the ... approval of the Doge." But strict as these provisions were, they did not suffice to restrict the government to the aristocracy. It was soon decreed "that only those who could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat on the Great Council, after its creation in 1176, should now be eligible as members.... It is in this provision that we find the essence of the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio.... The work was not completed at one stroke.... In 1315 a list of all those who were eligible ... was compiled. The scrutiny ... was entrusted to the Avogadori di Comun, and became ... more and more severe. To ensure the purity of blood, they opened a register of marriages and births.... Thus the aristocracy proceeded to construct itself more and more upon a purely oligarchical basis."—Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. 162-164.]
[ [395] {362}[To "partake" this or that is an obsolete construction, but rests on the authority of Dryden and other writers of the period. Byron's "have partook" cannot come under the head of "good, sterling, genuine English"! (See letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 89.)]
[ [396] {363}[The bells of San Marco were never rung but by order of the Doge. One of the pretexts for ringing this alarm was to have been an announcement of the appearance of a Genoese fleet off the Lagune. According to Sanudo, "on the appointed day they [the followers of the sixteen leaders of the conspiracy] were to make affrays amongst themselves, here and there, in order that the Duke might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco." (See, too, Sketches from Venetian History, 1831, i. 266, note.)]
[ [397] ["Le Conseil des Dix avail ses prisons speciales dites camerotti; celles non officiellement appelées les pozzi et les piombi, les puits et les plombs, étaient de son redoubtable domaine. Les Camerotti di sotto (les puits) étaient obscurs mais non accessibles à l'eau du canal, comme on l'a fait croire en des récits dignes d'Anne Radcliffe; les camerotti di soprà (les plombs) étaient des cellules fortement doublées de bois mais non privées de lumière."—Les Archives de Venise, par Armand Baschet, 1870, p. 535. For the pozzi and the "Bridge of Sighs" see note by Hobhouse, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 465; and compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza i. line 1 (and The Two Foscari, act iv. sc. 1), Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 327, note 2.]
[ [398] {365}[For "Sapienza," vide ante, [p. 356]. According to the genealogies, Marin Falier, by his first wife, had a daughter Lucia, who was married to Franceschino Giustiniani; but there is no record of a son. (See La Congiura, p. 21.)]