[94] London, W. Satchell & Co. 1880.
[95] Through the courtesy of Mr. John P. Anderson of the British Museum I am able to state that, besides a short article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, he can only discover an essay in Lippincott's Magazine (vol. xx. p. 347, &c.), entitled "A Venetian of the Eighteenth Century," which deals with Carlo Gozzi.
[96] The Gozzi family were thus Cittadini Originari of Venice. These Cittadini had to prove legitimate birth in the city; three generations during which the family had exercised no mechanical arts; freedom from any criminal stain, debts to the state, or factious behaviour. Citizenship, as in the case of the Gozzi, was also granted by privilege. The Cittadini formed a class of burgher aristocracy, ranking below the patricians and taking no part in the actual government of the State, since they did not vote in the Consiglio Grande. Their names, pedigrees, and arms were enrolled in a book, of which many copies exist, and which was commonly called the Libro d'Argento, to distinguish it from the Libro d'Oro of the patricians. In a MS. of the seventeenth century, which belonged to Cicogna, now at the Museo Civico, entitled Le Due Corone della Nobiltà Veneziana, Corona Seconda, the Gozzi arms are blazoned thus: "Or, on the topmost branches of an olive-tree vert a dove ppr., and round the stem of the tree a scroll argent inscribed Signum Pacis." The family is described as wealthy; but no pedigree is given: Non vi è albero. Carlo Gozzi, in his Lettera Confutatoria, Memorie, vol. iii. p. 31, asserts that the privilege of citizenship was given to his ancestors by the Doge Cicogna (1585-95). It is neither impossible nor improbable that the Gozzi of Bergamo were derived from the same stock as the Gozze or Gozzi of Ragusa. These latter drew their pedigree from Herzegovina, and were therefore Slavs. We know that the patrician families of Polo and Sagredo came originally from Sebenico.
[97] Their palace is still inhabited by a Conte Gozzi. The arca, or family sepulture, can no longer be traced in the church. It was at the foot of the altar in the Chapel of the Madonna. Here Carlo Gozzi was buried.
[98] In a voluminous MS. written by Cicogna, embodying all he could collect about the Famiglie Cittadine (now at the Museo Civico), we find that Alberto Gozi detto delle Sede was inscribed among the patricians in 1646. I may mention that Cicogna tricks the arms of Gozzi without the dove.
[99] The Grand Chancellor, the Ducal Notaries, and the Secretaries of many Magistracies, were chosen from the Cittadini, who were also sent, after holding such posts, as ambassadors of the second class, or Residents, to foreign Courts.
[100] The word, which I have translated acre, is campo. Now the campo differed in different provinces of Lombardy. But the Campo Padovano corresponded pretty nearly to an English acre; and from another passage in Gozzi (Memorie, vol. iii. p. 226) it appears that he was in the habit of using the Paduan standard.
[101] The Gozzi were what are called in Venice Conti di Terra Ferma, and their title seems to have been dependent upon these feudal tenures.
[102] At the time when Gozzi wrote, this was the eldest branch, called Di San Fantin. Two remote branches, of S. Apollinare and San Polo, survived. They descended from a collateral ancestor, Girolamo Tiepolo, who died in 1516. The branch of S. Polo expired in 1820. See Litta, Famiglie Celebri. The Tiepolo family was one of the oldest and most illustrious among the patrician houses. It ranked with the Case vecchie, as distinguished from the Case nuove. These Case vecchie were also called tribunizie, from having exercised the highest offices of State at the time when Venice was still governed by tribunes, and before the foundation of the Dogeship. Of these oldest and purest noble houses there were twenty-four. The closing of the Grand Council in 1297, which determined the oligarchical character of the Venetian government, led to an attempted revolution in the State by Baiamonte Tiepolo. Tiepolo's conspiracy was really an effort in the interests of the old aristocracy to throw off the yoke which novi homines were fixing on the commonwealth. An excellent essay on Baiamonte Tiepolo will be found in H. F. Brown's Venetian Studies. I may add to this note that the Gozzi had previously intermarried with the Corner, Zuccato, Donà, and Morosini, patrician houses of high respectability.
[103] Carlo Gozzi was born December 13, 1720. He probably knew that he was in his sixtieth year; and this passage enables us to measure the exact amount of duplicity which he thought venial in composing his Memoirs. It was Gozzi's object to extenuate the fact that his liaison with Teodora Ricci had been carried on when he was past the age of fifty. When he asserts that he had "not yet reached the age of sixty," he was just within the bounds of veracity; for he wanted more than seven months to complete his sixtieth year.