The Piazzetta; Ducal Palace; San Marco
But three years elapsed before Jacopo Foscari was suspected of having taken bribes for his services in obtaining offices per broglio, which would be called lobbying in our day. The Broglio was the lower gallery or arcade under the Ducal Palace, which was a general meeting-place for the higher classes, and where all sorts of schemes and conspiracies were broached, and consultations held; in short, an exchange which might be frequented for both good and evil purposes.
The penalties for such offences as those of which the young Foscari was accused, were very severe, and Jacopo was doomed to banishment in Naples, where each day he must present himself before the representative of the Republic in that city. Before this sentence was pronounced, Jacopo had fled to Trieste, and there fell ill. After some months he was permitted to go to Treviso; and at length, in answer to a pathetic appeal from his father, he was pardoned, and returned to Venice.
Again, three years later, one of the Council of Ten who had condemned Jacopo was assassinated as he was leaving the palace. The evidence which connected Jacopo with this murder was so slight that it is not worth recounting; but suspicion of him was strong enough to cause his arrest, and it is even said that he was tortured, with no result. He was now banished to Candia, where, separated from wife and children, from the refinements that he loved, and without congenial pursuits, he suffered a restlessness so intense that he further criminated himself for the sake of returning to Venice, even though that might mean the rack anew. He wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, the enemy of Venice, asking his aid with the Seigniory. This letter he managed to have fall into the hands of the Council, never trying to send it to Milan at all.
He was also accused of having addressed a letter to the Sultan, imploring him to send a vessel to convey him away secretly. He was now brought to Venice, and before the Council made a full confession, no doubt through fear of the torture-chamber, so near at hand. Some of the Ten favored severity. Loredano even wished him to be beheaded between the Columns, but the mild sentence of a year's imprisonment at Candia was the final result. When this sentence was given, he prayed that he might see his family, all of whom had been rigidly excluded from him and from the court during his trial. His father, mother, wife, and children were permitted to visit him; and when the time for his removal came, he was with them in the Ducal Palace. Even then, after all he had suffered and caused others to suffer, he did not seem to realize that the execution of his sentence was as sure as fate itself. He seemed rather to believe that some one could reverse it all; and naturally that some one seemed to be the Doge, his father, who, alas! knew but too well his utter powerlessness.
Amid the sobs and kisses all around him, once more he cried, "Father, I beseech you, make them let me go home!" But the old Doge, in his despair, could only reply, "Jacopo, go; obey the will of the country, and try no more," in saying which no doubt he suffered more than he who heard these fatal words.
All hearts were touched by these terrible griefs of the old Foscari, and six months later a full pardon was obtained for the son. But it was too late. He no longer lived to be condemned or forgiven. When this news came, the Doge was eighty-four years old. His courage was gone. He could no longer give heed to public matters, nor could he endure to sit in that court which had tortured and exiled the last of his sons. And so he stayed away; and soon there was a murmur against him, and a complaint that he no longer made a pretence of having authority and of being necessary to the State,—a lie which he was tired of acting. Foscari had more than once proposed to retire, but the Council would not hear of it. Now, however, he was asked to resign his office; and when he did not answer quickly enough to please his persecutors, he was told that if he did not leave the palace within the next eight days, his property would be confiscated. He made no resistance. The ducal ring was drawn from his finger and broken in his presence. The ducal bonnet was taken from his head, and he promised to leave the palace at once.