This successor was the aged Marco Corner, whose election was warmly contested. The accounts left us of what happened in the ducal palace during the interregnum which followed the death of Lorenzo Celsi enlighten us as to the objections which might be raised by the electors against a candidate to the throne. Marco Corner was too old; he was too poor; he was on good terms with several foreign princes, whom he had known when he had been abroad as ambassador; but the gravest charge, or objection, was that he had married a burgher’s daughter, whose family would not know how to behave towards the head of the Republic.
Marco Corner, who was present amongst the electors, at first said nothing to the other objections; but when slighting mention was made of his wife, the thin old man with snow-white hair stood up in his place suddenly, and cried out that he honoured and esteemed his aged wife, who was ‘so good and virtuous that she had always been respected by all the women of the Venetian state as much as if she came of one of the greatest families.’
Molmenti, Dogaressa, 154.
He added bluntly that as for his acquaintance with foreign princes, his friendships had profited the Republic more than himself; since, if he had sought his own advantage, he would not have deserved to be reproached with his poverty, nor would his wife be obliged ‘to turn her dresses again and again, lest they should be seen to be worn out.’
The brave old patrician’s heartfelt words made a deep impression on his hearers; the objections that had been raised fell away in an instant, and he was elected, I believe, unanimously. He took his place on the ducal throne, and his wife Caterina, the companion of his life-long poverty, left their poor little house for the splendours of the palace. The chronicles speak no more of her; we do not even know whether she died during her husband’s three years’ reign, or survived that quiet interval of tranquillity for the Republic.
Marco Corner died in the belief, no doubt, that his country would long enjoy the peace which his prudence and skill had brought about. Yet a day was at hand which came near to being fatal to the Republic. One might almost conclude that when Andrea Contarini had buried himself in the country on the mainland after having twice refused the ducal honours, and very shortly before Corner’s death, he had prescience of the storm that was brewing.
The time had come when he could refuse no longer; for modest though he was, he knew his own strength, and knew also, as men of genius sometimes do, that he alone could save his country from destruction in the greatest crisis of her existence. The memorable war of Chioggia was at hand.
THE THREE BRIDGES