Venice

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

CHAPTER XVII.
HISTORIANS AND SCHOLARS.

When we consider the literature of Venice, we are amazed to find how few names are in its list of authors, and how narrow the field they occupied. Of poets there were none; and, indeed, the only writers of importance were the early annalists and the later historians. That peculiarly self-centred trait of which we have spoken as belonging to the Venetians in various directions, was eminently characteristic of their writers. It was Venice, and only Venice, that interested them; and from its earliest days there were those, nameless now, who were so impressed with the growth, the strength, and the splendor of the city that they saw growing and spreading around them, that they wrote it all down, and thus furnished invaluable material to those who came after them and wrote in a more elegant and systematic style. Some of these early annals still exist. They are read by the learned, and are said to be a strange medley of history and fable, all expressed in language of such vigor as to emphasize the earnestness of the writers, and frequently with such realism as would eclipse the authors of our day who cultivate that quality. His Serenity Marco Foscarini, in his work on Venetian literature, gives the names of such a host of these imperceptible writers, who are more than half lost in the ancient fogs in which they existed, that one must be brave even to read these names, much more so to attempt their works.

Sagornino, of the eleventh century, is more real; and no aspect in which Venice could be viewed was neglected by him and his followers. Its ceremonials, treaties, ecclesiastical and other important matters, are treated with no more attention and respect than are the merest details and most common events. They were all lovers of this mistress, Venezia, to whom the slightest variation in her pulse was almost a matter of life and death.

But not until the fourteenth century were these chronicles put into a form which could be called history. Andrea Dandolo, Petrarch's friend, the first scholarly Doge, may also be called the first Venetian historian. His family had already given three Doges to the Republic, and he had not only the early annals, but the state papers and those of his ancestors, on which to rely for the facts which he wove into a formal, dignified, and conscientious narration of the lives and deeds of the rulers of Venice who had preceded him.

After him, for a half-century, again there were but the chronicles of monks who wrote of their orders, soldiers who fought their battles over on parchment, or idle patricians who amused themselves by keeping diaries. A history of Venice was talked of, was ardently desired; but no one undertook it, until Marco Antonio Sabellico, a native of Vicovaro, was seized with the desire to write such a book, which was published in 1487. It seems almost impossible to believe what we are told,—that he had seen no authoritative book on Venice, that he knew neither Dandolo's history, nor that best account of the Chioggian War, written by the nephew of the great Zeno. But be this as it may, in fifteen months he completed a work which, though not without its errors, stands as an authority, and is without doubt the most eloquent of Venetian annals. It was at once accepted with enthusiasm; and the Senate graciously gave to Sabellico two hundred ducats a year. The translation from the Latin by Dolce retains the telling eloquence of the original. It is a wonderful account of the internal and external affairs of the Republic, given with a pen so graphic as to make its word pictures full of the charm that we find in the work of the artist who places before the eye the color and the details of what he represents.

Again an interval of dilettantish essays transpired, until, in 1515, Andrea Navagero, whom Foscarini calls the most elegant Latin writer in Italy, was made the Historian of the Republic. But in spite of this great honor, which came to him early in his life, we have no history by him; and his own story is tragical. Fifteen years passed after his appointment to office, and the work done by Sabellico in as many months was not yet forthcoming, when, in 1530, he was sent on an embassy to France. Soon after reaching Paris he sickened and died, and on his last day burned all his papers,—ten books, it is said, of the history of Venice. It is believed that this was done in a delirium; but the sensitive nature of Navagero, and his morbid dissatisfaction with his work, leave a doubt as to his condition when he committed this deplorable act.

Then, too, another writer, older than he, of infinite research,—Mrs. Oliphant calls him "one of the most astonishing and gifted of historical moles,"—Marino Sanudo, was collecting and putting together that work of his for which we all thank him and his Maker,—an endless procession of facts with all possible details,—an omnium gatherum from which all seekers can select that which suits their needs.

Here we must note a curious coincidence. We have a chronicle written by another Andrea Navagero, sometimes quoted, but finished while the historian was a child. And likewise was there a second Marino Sanudo, called Torsello, again the elder of the two, who wrote more than a century before the oft-quoted historian. This Sanudo Torsello wrote of the Crusades and of other matters more distinctly Venetian, and although sometimes quoted, is of little importance beside the younger man. In fact, the two elders, Navagero and Sanudo, serve principally to create a confusion by their names, and are of no special value in any direction.

The younger Sanudo is very important among Venetian historians, and really began his researches when but nine years old. He was of a noble house, had all possible advantages of education and travel, was keen in his observations, and in a very sober manner makes many a humorous remark, like that one so often quoted: "If the story had not been true, our brave Venetians would not have painted it." When Marino was seventeen years old, his cousin Marco Sanudo was appointed one of the Syndics of Terra Firma, and took the young author with him to Padua. From this time he noted in his diaries all that came under his observation, and all he heard. He left, besides his voluminous published works, fifty-six volumes of these journals, many, if not all, of which are now published, and afford an almost momentary account of the life in Venice for a half-century before 1533. He collected a great library, and was active in his public life. He records his speeches in the Senate, and they were almost numberless. He held many important offices, and was extremely active in the discussions of all public matters in the Great Council as well as the Senate. He was usually in the minority; but that never discouraged him, and he more than once records his determination to "let no day pass without writing the news that comes from day to day, so that I may the better, accustoming myself to the strict truth, go on with my true history, which was begun several years ago. Seeking no eloquence of composition, I will thus note down everything as it happens." He also records his determination "to do something in this age in honor of the eternal majesty and exaltation of the Venetian State, to which I can never fail, being born in that allegiance, for which I would die a thousand times if that could advantage my country, notwithstanding that I have been beaten, worn out, and evil entreated in her councils." And thus it resulted that his diaries became an unequalled storehouse of minute and general information, and it is largely to them that we owe that fascinating and curious information which admits us, so to speak, into the houses and palaces, the social gatherings, the august assemblies, even into the Council of Ten, and the innermost recesses of life in mediæval Venice.