Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. I

by F. Marion Crawford

The entrance to the port of Chioggia being deep and safe, the Venetians had deepened also a natural channel, twenty-five miles long, which led thence through the shallow lagoons to Venice, and this was one of the best and safest approaches to the city from the outer sea, a fact which was well known to the Genoese, who looked upon Chioggia as the real key to the capital, and the name of the place has been given by all historians to the war that followed. It is almost needless to say that the extreme shallowness of the lagoons was a real defence against an enemy not well acquainted with the channels, which, as every one knows, are marked by tall timbers that project from six to fifteen feet above the water. To remove these was a first measure of defence.

Rom. iii. 274.

The most tremendous exertions were made by the Venetians to prepare themselves for an attack, which would almost certainly have been fatal to them if the Genoese had not put it off too long. Reinforcements were at once sent down to Pietro Emo, the Podestà of Chioggia, who anchored a large armed hulk in the channel, manning it with soldiers and supplying it with provisions to last some time.

The lesser Chioggia, on the shore of the island, was abandoned as not defensible, but the main town was very effectually fortified, and each little islet became a separate stronghold. On the side of the allies Carrara succeeded with great difficulty in conveying a considerable force of men from Padua down the old branch of the Brenta, which the Venetians had obstructed by sinking a hulk across it. Carrara is said to have dug a channel round this point in a single night. The allies had now about twenty-four thousand fighting men.

Rom. iii. 275.

Pisani had been beaten at Pola in May; it was on the sixth of August that the Genoese reconnoitred Malamocco and anchored off Chioggia harbour, and their attack upon Chioggia itself began on the eleventh. On that day the armed hulk which Emo had moored in the channel was captured and burned, and the Genoese fleet was able to enter the port and lie before the besieged town, while Carrara and the Paduans assailed it from the side of the lagoons in their light boats. Every day the united forces renewed their attack, and hour by hour they won their way into the strong little place, taking the bridges and fortifications one after another. By the fifteenth of the month, the bridge to Brondolo having been taken, it was clear to the Venetians that Chioggia was lost, and Dandolo considered how he might withdraw his force to Venice. It seemed only too certain that every man who could be saved alive would be needed for the defence of the capital, and it was still possible to escape across the shallows, where the Genoese could not follow in their ships and the Paduans did not know their way. The carnage had already been frightful. It is said that six thousand Venetians were slain, and that three thousand and five hundred were taken prisoners. Dandolo saved a large number in his retreat; but the heroic Pietro Emo refused to leave the town, and remained with fifty devoted men to fight to the very death within his own palace walls. The town was sacked forthwith, and much of it was burned; over what was left the standards of Genoa, of Carrara, and of Hungary were displayed where the banners of Saint Mark had floated for centuries, until that bloody day.

Chioggia fell as the sun went down, and the news reached Venice late that night. The city was all awake and in desperate anxiety, and when the truth was known, fear turned almost to panic. Women rushed frantically to the churches to confess and receive the sacraments, as if the Last Judgment of God were upon them. The men were at first silent, paralysed in absolute consternation; since Chioggia was gone, the Genoese might be upon Venice by morning.

But again they let the opportunity pass, and the Venetians were vouchsafed a breathing space, which might seem but enough to show them how desperate their situation really was. For Treviso was already besieged by Carrara’s troops when Chioggia fell, and the allies were closing in upon the city like a wall of iron.

The Doge Contarini displayed a coolness and a courage altogether heroic. The Republic had oppressed its chief by an intolerable system of spying and petty limitations that reduced his personality to a nonentity in ordinary times. It had forbidden him almost everything; but it had not forbidden him to die for his country. The example of one man could still revive the courage and sustain the calm of thousands. Venice was not lost, so long as that one true citizen remained alive.