Venice

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

"A new commercial route was opened to the world. Instead of passing up the Red Sea and across the Isthmus of Suez, or up the Persian Gulf and through Asia Minor, breaking bulk at Ormuz or at Suez, and being shipped again for European destinations at Alexandria or Aleppo, all the wealth of the Indies could now be carried in unbroken cargoes round the Cape of Good Hope, to be discharged in the harbors of Holland, of the Hanseatic towns, of England. The Mediterranean instantly ceased to be the sole highway of communication between the East and West; the great commercial thoroughfare was now thrown outside the Straits of Gibraltar; and Venice, in whose hands Mediterranean traffic had become almost a monopoly, suffered a blow such as all her struggles with Genoa and all the victories of the Turks had hitherto failed to inflict."

In the Diaries of Priuli we read that on the receipt of the news of Di Gama's voyage the whole city was astounded; and the wisest Venetians agreed that never before had any information been so deplorable, nor could any other ever excel it in importance. Priuli continues:

"For it is well known that Venice reached her height of reputation and riches through her commerce alone, which brought foreigners to the city in great numbers; and now by this new route the spice cargoes will be taken straight to Lisbon, where the Hungarians, Germans, Flemish, and French will flock to buy them; they will find the goods cheaper in Lisbon than they can be in Venice, for before the freights can reach Venice by the old route, they have to pay exorbitant dues for transit through Syria and the lands of the Soldan of Egypt."

Lisbon was soon the mart to which all the northern merchants resorted; and the Florentines profited by this change to the exclusion of the Venetians, who suffered from three causes. They did not dare at once to break their commercial relations with the Sultan, who was, in a way, interested to defend Venice from the Turk; and, moreover, he had in his power the warehouses of the Venetians at Cairo and Alexandria, filled with a wealth of Eastern products. Again, they could not pass the Straits of Gibraltar without paying levies on their ships to Spain; and even if they did this, the northern men would soon forsake the dangers and toils of crossing the Alps for the less perilous and more comfortable voyage to Lisbon.

This overwhelming commercial misfortune was soon followed by the culmination of events which had been threatening political perils to Venice ever since she had indulged her desire for possessions on Terra Firma, as it was expressed. The many leagues and combinations, made apparently but to be broken, the sending and receiving of ambassadors, the vague replies and diplomatic avoidance of yea and nay, all resulted in the League concluded at Cambray in 1508. Here France, Spain, the Emperor Maximilian, the Pope, the Dukes of Ferrara and Savoy, and the King of Hungary were all combined against the Republic, or against what the preamble to the treaty called "the insatiable cupidity of the Venetians and their thirst for dominion." This is not the place to trace the steps, through a quarter of a century and more, by which all these powers and others had gradually crushed the prestige of Venice, in Italy, outside her own lagoons, as essentially as the Turks had destroyed her Levantine precedence.

Meantime, in all these years of slow poison and decline, few Venetians had recognized their danger, few had foreseen the end. Men of courage and devoted patriotism were not wanting. There was still great individual wealth, and it would have been given to the ever-beloved Venice with cheerful alacrity; but the complications were so many, and followed each other so rapidly, that the government was unable to hold itself clearly above these circumstances, and organize a policy which should reinstate the Republic, even in part. When in 1499 the Grand Vizier said to the agent of the Republic, "You can tell the Doge that he has done wedding the sea; it is our turn now," he but told the brutal truth, as did Malipiero when, speaking of the Italian wars, he said, "We shall have to beg for peace and restore all we have acquired."

It would seem, too, that a sort of madness blinded the Venetians to their true condition. They acted as if the mines of Golconda were beneath their Piazza, and they had but to go in by their private entrance and draw upon inexhaustible wealth. After sixteen years of a losing war with the Turks, when the Ducal Palace was destroyed, the proposal to build a much larger and more magnificent palace found much favor; and at this very time Venice was impoverished.

The League of Cambray, to put it in a word, simply divided among its members all the possessions of the Republic outside the city of Venice and its lagoon islands. France proceeded to carry out the treaty at once, and was so successful that by the first of June Sanudo wrote in his chronicles that, except the towns of Asola, Crema, and Pizzighettone not a town in Lombardy remained to Venice. "All the rest is lost,—yielded to the French without drawing sword."

Venice prepared for a blockade. The French had nearly fulfilled all the provisions of the League, and the Venetians might well fear the next steps. But the remarkable activity of the French did not altogether please the Pope, Julius II. He had by their aid recovered the territory of the Church, and so felt no further need of their presence in Italy; and before long he deserted the League and allied himself with Venice, and afterward they were joined by Spain in an alliance which the Pope called "Holy." This was in 1511; and after various battles, which resulted in no good to the Republic, she in turn deserted the "Holy League," and became the ally of France by the treaty of Blois, in 1513. Again fierce battles were fought; again the French retired, leaving the Venetians alone. Cardona, the leader of the army of the Holy League, pushed down to the shores of the lagoon, burning the Venetian towns in his progress, and even pointing his cannon against Venice, and firing a few shots.