total defeat of the Venetians. Niccolò Pisani himself, six thousand other prisoners, and thirty galleys of war were carried off by Doria to Genoa; and it has been justly said that had he placed his prisoners in safety, manned his prizes, and sailed with them to Venice, the city must have fallen an easy prey to his attack.
By this disaster Venice was reduced to great straits, and while private citizens equipped men-of-war at their own cost, to help the country, the Republic appealed to Giovanni Visconti and obtained a four months’ truce.
The battle of Modon, or Sapienza, was fought on the third of November 1354; the truce was obtained soon afterwards, and on the sixteenth of April 1355 Marino Faliero was beheaded for treason.
THE SHRINE AT CHIOGGIA
More than twenty years had elapsed and another and younger Pisani had reached maturity and eminence before the two republics again resumed the contest for the mastery of the sea. It would not, I think, be possible to accuse either of having been at any time more aggressive than the other had been, or was, without unfairness. There was an element of fate in the struggle; it was the inevitable contest for final superiority which takes place whenever two individuals, or two bodies of men, or two nations, are pitted against each other in the same pursuit under the same circumstances. The disastrous wars with Lewis of Hungary for the possession of Dalmatia, in which Venice became involved after the death of Faliero, the repeated revolts in Candia, and above all, the ravages of the plague, reduced the population and the wealth of Venice until, at last, she seemed an easy prey. Most assuredly the neutral powers that calmly watched the approach of the war which broke out in 1378 did not believe that Venice could come out of the trial still keeping her independence.
1378.
On the morning of the twenty-second of April in that year, a vast multitude thronged the square and the basilica of Saint Mark’s. Vittor Pisani was to receive his commission as commander-in-chief of the fleet at the steps of the high altar, to hear the solemn high mass, and then, kneeling before Andrea Contarini, he was to take from the Doge’s hands the great standard of the Republic.
The chief of the Republic spoke to him briefly in tones that rang through the hushed cathedral. ‘You are chosen by God,’ he said, ‘to defend the honour and the possessions of your country, and avenge the offences of those who would destroy the freedom which our fathers gave us. Into your hand we commend the flag that has ever been the terror of our enemies; see that you bring it back victorious and unstained.’