Why might they not have seen that grave procession which in 1177 passed into the Chapel of San Marco to celebrate the reconciliation of a Pope and an Emperor,—that day when proud Frederick Barbarossa so nobly proved his greatness?
He had struggled against the Church on the one hand, and the spirit of independent government on the other, with a determination and bravery such as few men in all history have shown.
Threatened with excommunication by Pope Adrian IV., and actually laid under the ban by Alexander III., Frederick refused to recognize him as Pope, and set up four anti-popes, one after another, who died, as if their position brought its own fatal curse. During sixteen years he carried matters with so high a hand that he successfully defied Alexander and Italy; and the much humiliated Pope wandered from court to court, seeking the aid of one kingdom after another, always in vain.
Some States frankly acknowledged their fear of Barbarossa; others dared not meet the sure vengeance of the Ghibellines which would follow the espousal of his cause; Sicily could give him a home, but could not seat him firmly on his throne; and all eyes began to turn to the Republic of the Sea.
The Barbarossa scarcely gave Italy time to rise from beneath his tread and recover herself from one of his disastrous marches through her territory, marking his route by flames and ruin, before he again appeared with his barbaric army, pillaging and destroying all that had escaped his last visitation, and returning to his Northern throne in triumph. At last he turned his face towards the Eternal City for the fifth time, only to find that the Confederacy of the Lombards had raised a barrier against which he beat himself in vain. He was repulsed in repeated engagements; and after the battle of Legnano, May, 1176, he saw the beginning of the end of the audacious policy by which he had so long dominated at home and abroad.
Soon after this first humiliation of his arch enemy, Alexander decided to appeal to the Venetians for succor; and early in 1177 he sailed from Goro, attended by five cardinals and ambassadors from the King of Sicily, who had fitted out a papal squadron of eleven galleys.
After some disasters and perils, his Holiness reached Venice at evening on March 23, and was lodged in the Abbey of San Niccolo. The Doge, the nobles, and the clergy made haste next day to welcome the Holy Father to Venice; and after a service in San Marco, where he gave his benediction to the people, the Doge Sebastiano Ziani escorted him to a palace at San Silvestro, which was his home so long as he remained at Venice.
The Venetians now sent two ambassadors to Frederick at Naples to arrange, if possible, a peace between the Pope and the Emperor. The bare mention of Alexander as the true successor of Saint Peter so enraged Frederick that he could scarcely speak his words of defiance:—
"Go and tell your Prince and his people that Frederick, King of the Romans, demands at their hands a fugitive and a foe; that if they refuse to deliver him to me, I shall deem and declare them the enemies of my empire; and that I will pursue them by land and by sea until I have planted my victorious eagles on the gates of St. Mark."